Europe is done with American Big Tech. Well, sort of. Since the start of President Donald Trump’s chaotic second administration last year, concerned governments and companies across the continent have accelerated plans to end their near-total reliance on technology from US firms. Alongside political declarations, home-grown European tech development, and millions in additional funding, a … Read more
Meta has been quietly stashing dormant face recognition code on more than 50 million phones, WIRED reported this week, tucked inside the companion app that pairs with its Ray-Ban and Oakley smart glasses. If activated, the feature—known internally as NameTag—would let wearers identify people in front of them by matching captured faces against a biometric … Read more
On a sunny Friday afternoon in a park overlooking the Silver Lake Reservoir in Los Angeles, about 30 people—including three in costume as Uncle Sam, Darth Vader, and Elsa from Frozen—gathered to hear the first official stump speech of Dan Greaney, candidate for the 2028 US presidential election. “My fellow Americans,” Greaney began, standing at … Read more
Former members of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) have launched a startup to, they say, bring “DOGE for the private sector.” Their holding company, called Special, has backing from billionaire Marc Andreessen’s venture capital firm a16z and several other former DOGE members. In a post on a16z’s Substack, Nate Cavanaugh and Justin Fox, … Read more
On Saturday morning, as hundreds of far-right activists and lawmakers from across Europe gathered outside a conference center in the central Portuguese town of Figueira da Foz, a group of half a dozen men dressed in identical uniforms of khaki chinos, dark blue shirts, and sunglasses marched into the parking lot. On the lapels of … Read more
President Donald Trump has signed a scaled-back version of an executive order governing AI that he had shelved less than two weeks ago, after senior aides persuaded him that the administration could not indefinitely delay establishing a framework for the technology, according to two officials familiar with the matter. The revised order gives the federal … Read more
Zoë Schiffer: Deviance and freaks, the new name of our podcast. And this is, I mean, just going back to red teaming, that’s work that a trust and safety team typically does. And those teams— Leah Feiger: We don’t have those anymore. Zoë Schiffer: They’re not as big as they used to be. There’s just … Read more