All posts tagged: preps

Exclusive: OpenAI Preps Policy Push to “Rethink the Social Contract”

Exclusive: OpenAI Preps Policy Push to “Rethink the Social Contract”

Published by Sam Flores

These developments are also intriguing in the context of the company’s streamlining pivots over the last few weeks. Last Tuesday, OpenAI announced the shuttering of its video-generation model, Sora, and the dissolution of its billion-dollar licensing deal with Disney—much to the entertainment company’s surprise. OpenAI also axed its controversial plans to release an erotic companion. Meanwhile, the company has been reorganizing its safety-and-security efforts, and it announced that its OpenAI Foundation plans to spend $1 billion over the next year on medical research, AI resilience, and community programs. Even its product group was renamed to AGI Deployment. These moves all seem to point to a company on the verge of…something. An IPO, which we know is scheduled for later this year? Falling irrevocably behind its competitors at Anthropic and Google? An actual technological breakthrough? There’s also the rapidly approaching 2026 midterms—arguably the first election cycle in which AI and its ramifications will be truly top of mind, for American voters. Perhaps the company has woken up to the fact that AI’s dismal popularity ratings are …

Padilla preps for Trump trying to control elections via emergency order

Padilla preps for Trump trying to control elections via emergency order

Published by Sam Flores

Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) is preparing for President Trump to declare a national emergency in order to seize control of this year’s midterm elections from the states, including by bracing his Senate colleagues for a vote in which they would be forced to either co-sign on the power grab or resist it. In the wake of reporting last week that conservative activists with connections to the White House were circulating such an order, Padilla sent a letter to his Senate colleagues Friday stating that any such order would be “wildly illegal and unconstitutional,” and would no doubt face “extremely strict scrutiny” in the courts. “Nevertheless, if the President does escalate his unprecedented assault on our democracy by declaring an election-related emergency, I will swiftly introduce a privileged resolution [and] force a vote in the Senate to terminate the fake emergency,” wrote Padilla, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Committee on Rules and Administration. Padilla wrote that such an order — which could possibly “include banning mail-in voting, eliminating major voting registration methods, voter purges, and/or …

CA Assemblymember Nick Schultz Preps Bill

CA Assemblymember Nick Schultz Preps Bill

Published by Daniella Wilson

State Assemblymember Nick Schultz has committed to carrying a bill aimed at creating a standalone postproduction tax incentive in California, a field representative for his office announced at a town hall for Hollywood professionals on Wednesday night. Amanda Faissal said that the state representative will soon introduce legislation in a bid to return more editing, sound mixing, VFX and other post work to the state. Though postproduction expenses can qualify for tax credits in California if physical production is also done in the state, it is not currently eligible for incentives on its own — even as other states and countries offer this perk to cost-conscious companies. The initiative follows a successful lobbying effort from Hollywood unions and grassroots groups in 2025 to more than double California’s film and television tax credit, expanding the program from $330 million to $750 million. Like that effort, it aims to make the state competitive with rivals like New York and Georgia and countries like the U.K. and Australia, which all offer highly competitive postproduction incentives. “We’re very excited …

As it preps Specs for the masses, Snap’s Q4 shows revenue growth but fewer daily users

As it preps Specs for the masses, Snap’s Q4 shows revenue growth but fewer daily users

Published by skeptic

Snap is on a mission to diversify its revenue sources—moving from a business model in which it largely chases ad revenue to one where it can also make money through subscriptions and, eventually, hardware. The company’s latest quarterly earnings report shows that, so far, the firm is having moderate success with that strategy. In Q4, Snap’s revenue was $1.7 billion, which is up 10% year-over-year. Its average revenue per user was also up, slightly (to $3.62 from $3.44). The company’s net income was $45 million, up from $9 million the previous year, its earnings report shows. The company has also continued to generate a significant amount of revenue from Snap+, the paid subscription service that the platform launched back in 2022. The service’s subscribers grew 71% year-over-year, reaching 24 million. While those numbers might seem to suggest a company whose trajectory is headed in the right direction, the earnings report also shows the platform had slightly fewer daily active users last quarter—dropping from 477 million to 474 million. Those users fell away in North America …

Humanoid robot connects to satellite, preps for space launch

Humanoid robot connects to satellite, preps for space launch

Published by skeptic

It’s been a big week for humanoid robots with a first-ever humanoid to directly connect to a low-Earth orbit satellite from one firm and plans announced to launch a robot into space by another. It seems like the robot space race is on – and China is winning. China is brushing off its EV sector playbook and trying heavy investment, rapid iteration, and vertical integration in a new area: humanoid robotics. Shenzhen-based Engine AI announced a new partnership with commercial space company Beijing Interstellar Human Spaceflight Technology that aims to send their PM01 humanoid robot into space, a move that would make it the world’s first humanoid robot astronaut. At the same time, the “Embodied Tien Kung” robot developed by the Beijing Innovation Center of Humanoid Robotics (X-Humanoid), established a stable link with a satellite from GalaxySpace, achieving synchronous transmission of the robot’s visual data in what the company claims is a world’s-first instance of a humanoid robot connecting simultaneously to a low-orbit satellite, a smartphone, and a computer. Advertisement – scroll for more content Space is …