Love Is Blind gives “not here for the right reasons” a new meaning
It’s now a given for any major dating show that people aren’t really on there to find love. That pattern has become so prevalent that The Bachelor has coined a damning catchphrase for it. If a contestant is on the show just for fame and clout — or at least unable to conceal that mindset […]
Security expert Chris Krebs on TikTok, AI and the key to survival
Join leaders in Boston on March 27 for an exclusive night of networking, insights, and conversation. Request an invite here. This is part one of a two-part series. VentureBeat recently sat down (virtually) with Chris Krebs, formerly, the inaugural director of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and, […]
Pornhub says adios! to Texas
Pornhub has decided to pack up and host its popular pornographic offerings away from the Lone Star State. The move comes from the sex-work site after being forced to restrict users residing in Texas unless they can prove their age via a range of documents. Pornhub decided not to enforce this and rather block access […]
ASCII art elicits harmful responses from 5 major AI chatbots
Enlarge / Some ASCII art of our favorite visual cliche for a hacker. Getty Images Researchers have discovered a new way to hack AI assistants that uses a surprisingly old-school method: ASCII art. It turns out that chat-based large language models such as GPT-4 get so distracted trying to process these representations that they forget […]
Brazil is fighting dengue with bacteria-infected mosquitos
The World Mosquito Program is about to start construction on a mass rearing facility—the biggest in the world—in Curitiba. “And we believe that will allow us to essentially cover most of urban Brazil within the next 10 years,” Callahan says. There are also other mosquito-based approaches in the works. The UK company Oxitec has been […]
Gumroad no longer allows most NSFW art, leaving its adult creators panicked
Gumroad, an e-commerce company for creators, updated its rules to more strictly limit NSFW content, citing restrictions from payment processors like Stripe and PayPal. For creators who sell adult art, like explicit comic books or lewd cosplay photos, these sudden policy changes can be detrimental, resulting in an unforeseen loss of income. “I’m concerned on […]
Old gadgets aren’t just nostalgic. Sometimes they’re just better for you.
After a lot of deliberating, a new laptop landed on my doorstep last week. Okay, “new” might be a stretch. It’s a svelte Chromebook called the Pixelbook, and it’s nearly seven years old. I ordered it for a few reasons: It’s one of the best-looking computers I’ve seen in my career, and I found a […]