Author: InfoForTech

It’s February 2020 again.An exponential process is in motion — one that will inevitably shake the world to its core — and upend our economy, politics, and social lives. Yet most people are still going about their business, oblivious as dinosaurs in the shadow of a descending asteroid.This is what many in and around the AI industry believe, anyway.Except, in this telling, the invisible force that’s about to change our world isn’t a virus that will rip through the population and then ebb. Rather, it is an information technology that will irreversibly transform (if not extinguish) white-collar labor, accelerate scientific…

If you’ve ever considered practicing meditation, you might believe you should relax, breathe, and empty your mind of distracting thoughts. Novices tend to think of meditation as the brain at rest, but a new international study concludes that this ancient practice is quite the opposite: Meditation is a state of heightened cerebral activity that profoundly alters brain dynamics.Researchers from the University of Montreal and Italy’s National Research Council recruited 12 monks of the Thai Forest Tradition at Santacittārāma, a Buddhist monastery outside Rome. In a laboratory in Chieti-Pescara, scientists analyzed the brain activity of these meditation practitioners using magnetoencephalography (MEG),…

You sign up (free tier available), build your companion by customizing traits and looks, then jump into chat.The Ourdream AI chat flows based on your selections and memory history. If you subscribe, you unlock media generation-creating images and short videos of your companion based on chat context or manual prompts.The interface is straightforward: pick, chat, generate. Just keep in mind premium features require DreamCoins or subscription upgrade.How to Create AI Girlfriend with Ourdream AI?Here’s a practical, step-by-step guide to creating an AI girlfriend in 6-steps shown in the screenshots. I’ll walk you through every control you can see, plus tips…

Cybersecurity researchers have discovered what they said is the first known malicious Microsoft Outlook add-in detected in the wild. In this unusual supply chain attack detailed by Koi Security, an unknown attacker claimed the domain associated with a now-abandoned legitimate add-in to serve a fake Microsoft login page, stealing over 4,000 credentials in the process. The activity has been codenamed AgreeToSteal by the cybersecurity company. The Outlook add-in in question is AgreeTo, which is advertised by its developer as a way for users to connect different calendars in a single place and share their availability through email. The add-in was…

Less than a week after Valve admitted that the current shortage (and growing prices) of RAM were affecting its hardware plans, the Steam Deck is completely sold out. The Steam Deck has gone in and out of stock in the past, but as Kotaku notes, the timing does raise the question whether Valve’s RAM issues could also be impacting its Linux handheld.The 256GB Steam Deck LCD, and both the 512GB and 1TB models of the Steam Deck OLED, are completely sold out on Steam. Valve announced that it was discontinuing the LCD versions of its handheld and selling through its…

Olix Computing Ltd., a startup developing an artificial intelligence chip with integrated optical components, has raised $220 million in funding. The Financial Times reported today that the investment was led by Belgian venture capital firm Hummingbird Ventures. The deal values U.K.-based Olix Computing at over $1 billion. The company previously raised an undisclosed amount of funding from Plural, Vertex Ventures, LocalGlobe and Entrepreneurs First. Olix’s chip is optimized for inference, the task of running AI models in production after training is complete. It’s unclear what optical components are included in the processor or how they’re used. However, a blog post…

TL;DR AI can preserve your memories, personality, and voice, allowing future generations to interact with a digital version of you long after you are gone. Immortality has always sounded like mythology, but AI is quietly turning it into a technical possibility. Every message we send, every photo we take, every recording we make becomes raw material for a digital version of ourselves. And for the first time, the tools exist to turn those scattered memories into something that can live on, learn, and even speak to future generations. We all leave traces behind: emails, text messages, photos, voice notes. But…

If your marketing team were eliminated, would your customers care? A guide to SaaS social media that trades vanity metrics for radical, technical truth. The current state of SaaS social media marketing is essentially a sea of sameness. If you scroll through LinkedIn or X right now, you’ll find a graveyard of “thrilled to announce” posts, generic stock photos of people in glass-walled offices, and “top 5” listicles that feel like they were written by someone who has never actually logged into a dashboard. Most brands are treating social media like a digital billboard, i.e., a place to shout about…

James J. Collins, the Termeer Professor of Medical Engineering and Science at MIT and faculty co-lead of the Abdul Latif Jameel Clinic for Machine Learning in Health, is embarking on a multidisciplinary research project that applies synthetic biology and generative artificial intelligence to the growing global threat of antimicrobial resistance (AMR).The research project is sponsored by Jameel Research, part of the Abdul Latif Jameel International network. The initial three-year, $3 million research project in MIT’s Department of Biological Engineering and Institute of Medical Engineering and Science focuses on developing and validating programmable antibacterials against key pathogens.AMR — driven by the…

It’s been estimated that humans consume between 39,000 and 52,000 microplastic particles each year, and a 2024 scoping review determined that they’ve been found in eight out of 12 human organ systems. You might find them in the air, your water, the items you use to prepare your food and even in the food you eat. All of these sources can contribute to microplastics entering your body. To find out which foods are more likely to contain microplastics and what we can do to reduce the amount of them that we consume, we consulted a doctor. Don’t miss any of…