All posts tagged: cracks

Faceless Creators Take a Hit As YouTube Cracks Down on AI Slop

Faceless Creators Take a Hit As YouTube Cracks Down on AI Slop

Published by Daniella Wilson

They’re getting way more views than I am on YouTube, and they’re contacting me asking for help,” reveals Craig Billings, who is better known as Doctor NOS to his 1.7 million subscribers. What’s at the heart of their angst? It has something to do with what appears on Billings’ science-focused channel: his face. Those dialing Billings make content without revealing their mug. And for these creators, once-large checks from YouTube have dwindled. “The people who do the same content as me without their face in it, most of them are getting demonetized,” he says. As new video-making tools have led to an surge in AI slop, YouTube has hardened its content policies. It’s led some faceless creators — as these channel operators are known — to show face. It just might not be their own. Noah Morris, who currently operates six faceless YouTube channels, says some creators are now hiring cheap hosts to front their videos. “Because these platforms are cracking down, instead of doing everything faceless, you would just instead hire a host, similar …

Pacifica pier cracks, another coastal casualty as seas continue to rise

Pacifica pier cracks, another coastal casualty as seas continue to rise

Published by Sam Flores

The Pacifica Municipal Pier was shut down and taped off Thursday after city workers noticed cracks running through the landmark structure and concrete chunks falling into the ocean. It’s just one of many coastal California structures that have recently crumbled under pressure from a rising and relentless ocean. Officials from the small beach city south of San Francisco said the pier was closed due to “cracking, separation, and displacement of the concrete walkway and structural elements.” It will stay closed while structural engineers assess its safety. Photos taken by city employees show a wide crack that runs from top to bottom and across the structure as well. Other photos show a large horizontal crack under the foundation of a small restaurant on the pier, the Chit Chat Cafe. The cafe was also shut down. This is not the first time the 53-year-old pier has shown signs of stress. In 2021, part of it was shut down after handrails along the edge collapsed. And in 2023, after a series of storms pummeled the Central California coast, …

Cohere cracks lossless quantization and native citations with first full Apache 2.0 licensed open model Command A+

Cohere cracks lossless quantization and native citations with first full Apache 2.0 licensed open model Command A+

Published by skeptic

Canadian AI lab Cohere made waves recently by announcing a merger with German AI startup Aleph Alpha, but now it has even more in store for enterprise builders around the globe: today, the firm co-founded by former Googler and “Attention Is All You Need” co-author Aidan Gomez unveiled Command A+, a highly optimized, 218-billion-parameter language model engineered specifically for complex reasoning, multimodal document processing, and agentic workflows. The most significant aspect of the release is not just the model’s capabilities; it is its accessibility. By releasing the model weights free on the popular AI code sharing repository Hugging Face under a highly permissive Apache 2.0 open-source license — a first for the company, according to a post by Gomez, now Cohere’s CEO, on X — Cohere is making a calculated bet on “sovereign AI”—the thesis that enterprises, governments, and developers should have the ability to run, control, and adapt frontier-grade AI entirely within their own secure environments, without sacrificing performance. Sparse architecture with extreme quantization At the architectural level, Command A+ represents a major evolution …

After a year of Reform UK in local government, the cracks are starting to show

After a year of Reform UK in local government, the cracks are starting to show

Published by Sam Flores

Reform UK is expected to expand its foothold in local government in England this week. More than 5,000 seats across 136 councils are being contested, making this one of the largest electoral tests in recent years. It builds on Reform’s breakthrough in 2025, when the party took control of ten local authorities – its first real experience of power. For scholars of populism, this moment could be revealing. Years of research have focused heavily on the rhetoric of populism, its voter base, and the interaction between the two. But far less attention has been paid to what populists actually do once in office. Where such research exists, it tends to focus on national governments, with only a small body examining local politics. Local government, however, is where political promises get a quick reality check. The gap between Reform’s “pro-workers” rhetoric and its party elite’s relatively privileged and pro-business backgrounds has been noted. But the party’s first year in local government provides an opportunity to see whether the social groups it claims to represent also tend …

Trump’s reason for not wearing a bullet-proof vest cracks up Oval Office guests

Trump’s reason for not wearing a bullet-proof vest cracks up Oval Office guests

Published by Sam Flores

Despite being targeted by a trio of assassination attempts in less than two years, President Donald Trump is shrugging off calls for him to wear body armor during public appearances — and his reasoning for it caused a crowd of officials and reporters alike to break out in laughter. The president had journalists and members of Congress who’d joined him for an Oval Office signing ceremony laughing out loud on Thursday after a reporter from NewsNation pressed him on whether there have been discussions about adding a bulletproof vest to his usual suit-and-tie in the wake of last weekend’s attempted assassination at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner in Washington. His deadpan response to the dead-serious query? “I don’t know if I can handle looking 20 pounds heavier.” After the room erupted in laughter, the president quipped that some of the guests around him who were laughing the loudest were “physical specimens.” “If you want to gain 20 to 25 pounds, you can get a vest,” he cracked. Trump joked he won’t wear a bullet-proof vest …

Instagram Cracks Down on Accounts That Mostly Post Unoriginal Content

Instagram Cracks Down on Accounts That Mostly Post Unoriginal Content

Published by skeptic

Instagram is clamping down on aggregator accounts that flood your feed with content they didn’t uniquely create or meaningfully alter. The company’s originality guidelines, which previously applied to Reels, will now extend to photo and carousel posts, rendering more accounts that mainly post unoriginal content ineligible for recommendations. Instagram aims to give more credit to original content creators with this change. Per a Thursday blog post, accounts won’t appear in places where Instagram recommends content if they primarily upload others’ work without “adding meaningful creative input.” Just adding a border or crediting the original creator in the caption isn’t enough. Content aggregators who become ineligible can check their account status for an update on their standing and can become eligible again if most of their recent posts are considered original in a 30-day period. The way Instagram shows you content from accounts you follow isn’t changing. Photos or videos you took and content you designed or materially edited fall under original content, according to the company. Instagrammers can review the content guidelines to see what qualifies as …

Industry Grosses Fall Amid Openings, Daniel Radcliffe Cracks Top Five

Industry Grosses Fall Amid Openings, Daniel Radcliffe Cracks Top Five

Published by Daniella Wilson

A number of shows saw their attendance fall last week, as spring break crowds dissipated, and as several productions comped tickets in the lead up to openings. Harry Potter and the Cursed Child was the highest grossing show last week, bringing in $2.4 million at the Lyric Theatre, followed by Hamilton with $1.9 million and The Lion King with $1.8 million. Moulin Rouge! brought in $1.6 million, on the continued strength of Megan Thee Stallion’s run in the musical. Every Brilliant Thing, starring Daniel Radcliffe, also cracked the top five for the first time with $1.5 million and the top average ticket price last week of $198. Last week saw the openings of The Fear of 13, starring Adrien Brody and Tessa Thompson, which opened to mixed reviews, Proof, starring Ayo Edebiri and Don Cheadle, which opened to mixed to positive reviews and Fallen Angels, starring Rose Byrne and Kelli O’Hara, which opened to largely positive reviews. Six more shows were in previews last week, with all set to open before April 27, the Tony …

Cracks are starting to form on fusion energy’s funding boom

Cracks are starting to form on fusion energy’s funding boom

Published by skeptic

It happens in every emerging industry: founders and investors push toward a common goal, until the money starts to roll in and that shared vision begins to diverge. Cracks are emerging in the fusion power world, which I saw firsthand at The Economist’s Fusion Fest in London last week. It didn’t dampen the overall buoyant mood, lifted by fusion startups’ fundraising haul of $1.6 billion in the last 12 months. But people had differing opinions on two key questions: When should fusion startups go public? And are side businesses a distraction? Going public was at the top of everyone’s minds. In the last four months, TAE Technologies and General Fusion have announced plans to merge with publicly traded companies. Both stand to receive hundreds of millions of dollars to keep their R&D efforts alive, and investors, some of whom have kept the faith for 20 years, finally see an opportunity to cash out. Not everyone is in agreement. Most of those who I spoke to were worried these companies were going public far too early …

India cracks down on satirists for turning its prime minister into a punch line : NPR

India cracks down on satirists for turning its prime minister into a punch line : NPR

Published by Sam Flores

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi (center) takes a group photo with AI company leaders, including OpenAI CEO Sam Altman (third from right), Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei (second from right), Google CEO Sundar Pichai (third from left) and Meta Chief AI Officer Alexandr Wang (second from left), at the AI Impact Summit in New Delhi on Feb. 19. Ludovic Marin/AFP via Getty Images hide caption toggle caption Ludovic Marin/AFP via Getty Images MUMBAI, India — For years, supporters of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi carefully cultivated his public image as a strongman and hard taskmaster — a leader who puts in 18‑hour days to propel India toward superpower status. To illustrate India’s rise, they tout Modi’s rapport with other world leaders — like when he met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in late February. Modi was generous with his signature hugs and laughs, and Netanyahu effusive with praise for his “great friend.” Yet three days after their meeting, Israel and the U.S. launched their war on Iran, sending India’s currency and stock market tumbling. Iran …

The cracks in Trump’s coalition keep growing — but when does it break?

The cracks in Trump’s coalition keep growing — but when does it break?

Published by Sam Flores

“Make it stop,” said the voice on the other end of the phone in the tone of someone weary from emotional pain, or maybe under the influence of opioids. Could be both. I’d asked him about President Trump’s Truth Social post that began by declaring “A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again.”  “I haven’t had my morning coffee,” he continued, “my wife has a doctor’s appointment and I haven’t had a day off from this mess in two weeks.”  Those symptoms describe many who live in the United States, but then he said, “The fact that I voted for this dumb**s makes it hurt more.” The fact that the person on the other end of the phone is a ranking Republican member of Congress made that statement even more poignant. This has been the M.O. of Republicans since Trump first walked down the escalator, attacked Mexicans and made fun of a handicapped reporter. Privately, they say he is rude, crude and socially unacceptable while defending him publicly. Some no longer …