Author: InfoForTech

As it marks its 10-year anniversary, MIT Reads is being reimagined for the age of artificial intelligence. Recognizing the need to foster social connection and a sense of our shared humanity, the popular MIT Libraries’ program will turn its focus to fiction and memoir, and to the particular power of stories to help us understand ourselves and our place in the world. “At MIT, we spend a great deal of time on imagining and building for the future. Reading fiction prompts us to think about how what we build might change us,” says MIT Libraries Director Chris Bourg. “Reading together also gives us…

Singapore marks Waymo’s first expansion into Southeast Asia & outside of the US Autonomous ride-hailing operator Waymo will roll out its fully self-driving ride-hailing service in Singapore by 2028, marking its first foray into Southeast Asia. The Alphabet-owned company announced on Friday (Sep 18) that it is partnering with the Ministry of Transport and Land Transport Authority to lay the groundwork for an all-electric commercial ride-hailing service in Singapore, which commuters will be able to book through the Waymo app. Waymo said its first vehicles are expected to arrive in Singapore in the coming months. The initial fleet will consist…

Flock Safety announced a voluntary employee separation program on Friday, offering a “generous” severance package to those who want to leave amid growing backlash against the surveillance technology company, according to an internal email shared with WIRED.Applications for Flock’s voluntary severance program opened Friday, and employees have until October 2 to decide whether to leave the company. Flock expects to grant buyouts to the majority of workers who apply, according to the email. People familiar with the program but not authorized to discuss it publicly say they believe that a significant number of the startup’s roughly 1,500 employees may try…

A security researcher has released working exploit code for four Linux kernel flaws that each let a local user gain root, the highest level of access on a machine. Kernel maintainers have fixed all four over the past few weeks, so a system running an up-to-date kernel is not affected. But the exploit code is now public, and any machine still running an older kernel should be updated. The flaws are called DirtyAH6, TUNderflow, PPPoEject, and DiagSpill. Researcher Asim Manizada found them and reported them to the Linux kernel security team in mid-July. He published a technical write-up with working exploits on…

Nate Bek, left, with Ascend founding general partner Kirby Winfield at the firm’s Founders Bash event Thursday night. (GeekWire Photo / John Cook) — Seattle-based venture capital firm Ascend promoted Nate Bek to principal. Bek joined the firm as an associate in January 2024 and was most recently senior associate and head of research. Kirby Winfield, Ascend’s founding general partner, credited Bek with helping the firm’s companies launch with national press coverage, researching and communicating its investment theses, and sourcing deals including Neuramill and Endurance Energy. “Nate has been a force multiplier for Ascend. It’s rare for a micro VC…

Three cybersecurity researchers used Claude to breach OpenAI Group PBC’s GitHub repository. Sources told the Wall Street Journal today that the repository contains “OpenAI’s algorithmic secrets.” The files were accessible until June 24, the day the researchers reported their findings to the company. OpenAI released a patch within 14 hours of receiving the tip. The exploit’s discoverers work at a venture-backed cybersecurity startup called Hacktron AI Inc. The company detailed in a blog post that the issue stemmed from two vulnerabilities in OpenAI’s infrastructure. One affected the company’s user forum while the other was found in the single single-on, or…

Generative AI models are remarkably good at producing answers that are “pretty close” to correct. But in high-stakes settings – a robot navigating a crowded factory floor, an industrial control system, or another physical system – “pretty close” isn’t good enough. A near-miss path planned for a robot can still result in a collision – a risk vividly illustrated just weeks earlier at China’s 2026 World Humanoid Robot Games, where androids repeatedly failed to decelerate safely, crashing into barriers.  Researchers at MIT have introduced a new algorithm, called “HardFlow”, that tackles this problem directly. It gives generative models greater freedom to…

This week’s technology news underscored how quickly artificial intelligence is moving from chatbots into advertising, enterprise infrastructure, robotics, scientific research, and even space. At the same time, critical vulnerabilities, credential theft, privacy concerns, and AI-assisted attacks exposed the widening security risks accompanying that expansion. Top news AI platforms expand their reach Anthropic is combining Claude Chat and Cowork within a single interface capable of choosing between quick answers and longer, agentic workflows. The company is also introducing Claude Docs and Slides, which can produce editable office files, while expanding Claude’s ability to complete scheduled and extended tasks. OpenAI is testing…

Multichannel advertising is only as strong as the systems behind it. Explore 10 integrations that connect intent, CRM, ecommerce, social, search, and attribution data. Multichannel advertising is everywhere. There’s the social ad that introduces the brand. The search ad that catches the buyer when they’re finally ready. The retargeting campaign that follows them online. The CRM alert that tells sales there’s something worth pursuing. That’s the dream, anyway. In reality, these channels rarely move as one. Meta knows who engaged. Google knows what someone searched for. Your CRM knows whether an account is already in a sales conversation. Shopify knows…

Even before the latest batch of alarming AI news, a lot of Americans were souring on AI. That may be for big, existential reasons — concerns about widening inequality, mass job loss, and the still-unclear environmental impact of data centers — or for very specific, personal, everyday ones, like being forced to use a worse version of Google search.None of this is to say that AI cannot be a useful tool for some people some of the time. It’s just that the untested technology was thrust upon millions of people who didn’t necessarily ask for it and really seem to…