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 Apple has been developing a more affordable version of the MacBook, and it's rumored to be launching in under two weeks. This is going to be one of Apple's most unique Macs, because there hasn't really been anything quite like it before.
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 OpenAI is working on several AI hardware devices in partnership with former Apple designer Jony Ive, and the first product that comes out could be a smart speaker. The company is developing a smart speaker, a smart lamp, and considering AI glasses, according to The Information, with the speaker set to come out in early 2027.
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House Democrats demand answers from Elon Musk over Grok's alleged role in nonconsensual sexual deepfakes, as EU regulators open probes.
The post Lawmakers Press Elon Musk Over Grok's Sexualized AI Deepfakes appeared first on eWEEK.
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 Apple tested color options for the 2022 MacBook Air redesign that are said to be similar to the finishes planned for its forthcoming low-cost MacBook, according to a Chinese leaker.
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After the US Supreme Court struck down President Donald Trump's tariff regime, investment firms are in line for a whopping return on a niche trade.
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A recent Amazon Web Services (AWS) outage that lasted 13 hours was reportedly caused by one of its own AI tools, according to reporting by Financial Times. This happened in December after engineers deployed the Kiro AI coding tool to make certain changes, say four people familiar with the matter.
Kiro is an agentic tool, meaning it can take autonomous actions on behalf of users. In this case, the bot reportedly determined that it needed to "delete and recreate the environment." This is what allegedly led to the lengthy outage that primarily impacted China.
Amazon says it was merely a "coincidence that AI tools were involved" and that "the same issue could occur with any developer tool or manual action." The company blamed the outage on "user error, not AI error." It said that by default the Kiro tool "requests authorization before taking any action" but that the staffer involved in the December incident had "broader permissions than expected — a user access control issue, not an AI autonomy issue."
Multiple Amazon employees spoke to Financial Times and noted that this was "at least" the second occasion in recent months in which the company's AI tools were at the center of a service disruption. "The outages were small but entirely foreseeable," said one senior AWS employee.
Instead of jumping straight to code, the IDE pushed them to start with specs.
?? Clear requirements.
?? Acceptance criteria.
?? Traceable tasks.
Their takeaway:
Think first. Code later.
Get the full breakdown here ??… pic.twitter.com/eD7ZrEdEn5
— Kiro (@kirodotdev)
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Los Angeles County has sued Roblox for "unfair and deceptive business practices," claiming the platform's moderation and age-verification systems are inadequate. "Roblox portrays its platform as a safe and appropriate place for children to play," the complaint states. "In reality, and as Roblox well knows, the design of its platform makes children easy prey for pedophiles."
Representatives accused Roblox of failing to implement adequate platform safety features to prevent child endangerment. "Specifically, Roblox has not effectively moderated game content or enforced age-appropriate restrictions and warnings established by the creators, allowing the predatory and inappropriate language and interactions between users to persist," the County stated. It also said the platform failed to disclose any danger to children, including sexual content and the risk of predators.
Roblox rejected the allegations, saying the platform was built around safety. "We have advanced safeguards that monitor our platform for harmful content and communications, and users cannot send or receive images via chat, avoiding one of the most prevalent opportunities for misuse seen elsewhere online," the company told the AFP.
The LA county complaint is the latest in a string of lawsuits from US regions including Florida, Texas and Kentucky. The Attorney General in Louisiana also accused the company of having a "lack of safety protocols" that endanger the safety of children in favor of "gr
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Meta is formally sectioning off Horizon Worlds, the closest thing it has to a metaverse, from its Quest VR platform, according to a new blog post from Samantha Ryan, Meta's VP of Content, Reality Labs. While the decision runs counter to Meta's original plan to own an immersive virtual world that could serve as the future home for all online interaction, it fits with the recent cuts it made to its costly Reality Labs division, and Mark Zuckerberg's public commitment to focus the company on AI hardware like smart glasses going forward.
"We're explicitly separating our Quest VR platform from our Worlds platform in order to create more space for both products to grow," Ryan writes in the blog post. "We're doubling down on the VR developer ecosystem while shifting the focus of Worlds to be almost exclusively mobile. By breaking things down into two distinct platforms, we'll be better able to clearly focus on each."
Meta has been developing mobile and web versions of Horizon Worlds in parallel with its VR app since at least 2023. Switching Worlds to being a mobile-first software platform isn't good for VR diehards, but it does make it a more natural competitor to something like Roblox or Fortnite, which also offer user-created and monetizable worlds and games.
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 Amazon this week has a pair of discounts on a few AirPods models, including the AirPods 4 and AirPods Max. You can get the AirPods 4 for $99.00, down from $129.00.
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