Thomas’ first gadget memory was typing 7734 into his father’s inverted, HP-35 scientific calculator. Clearly fated to tech blogging, he would have to wait another 20 years before the rise of the medium. A degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering led Thomas to Silicon Valley just prior to the dot-com boom. In June of 2011, Thomas wrote his 1,362,258th word for Engadget, leaving to help launch The Verge.
We knew this day was coming. Starting this week, Plex says it’ll require a Remote Watch Pass or Plex Pass in order to stream remotely to its Roku app. In 2026, enforcement will come to “all other Plex TV apps (Fire TV, Apple TV, Android TV, etc) and any third party clients using the API.”
[Plex Forum]
Lacking a skilled labor pool, Trump officials and sycophants say that industrial robots are key to a US return to manufacturing might. But China’s already well on its way to automating production lines that make products faster and for less, in order to respond to tariffs and to supplant the labor gap created by a society that won’t work long factory hours anymore. According to data compiled by the International Federation of Robotics:
China installed 295,000 industrial robots last year, nearly nine times as many as the U.S. and more than the rest of the world combined.
[The Wall Street Journal]
When everyone who’s gonna subscribe is already subscribed there’s one easy way to keep earnings going up and to the right: raise prices. It’s already happened in Europe, and now it’s coming to the US. What cost $9.99/mth at launch 14 years ago is now $11.99, and soon will cost… we’ll find out before March is done.
[Financial Times]
Alongside the unveiling of the very impressive self-walking Olaf character coming to Disney’s Frozen world attractions in Paris and Hong Kong next year, Disney takes us on a behind the scenes look at its research and development efforts, showing how reinforcement learning combined with simulation is dramatically accelerating robot development.
The company’s drones and cameras will be banned by default unless a national security audit is completed by December 23rd, which is highly unlikely. Sure Trump has extended the TikTok ban several times, but Don Jr’s monetary stake in miniature drones made by competitors suggests the end is nigh.
Cameo, the service that gives purpose to has-beens, has secured a temporary restraining order that prohibits Altman and Co from using “Cameo” to name a Sora feature that lets people insert themselves and characters into AI-generated videos. The TRO expires shortly after a trademark hearing scheduled for December 19th.
After communications between Larry Summers — who formerly held positions as Treasury Secretary and president of Harvard University — and the sex offender were made public, the current OpenAI board member now says he’ll resign from the position.
Gemini and ChatGPT are so good that I’m now an accomplice to Google Zero.