Last summer, we here at Ars made the argument that the company’s next Xbox console should give up the walled garden approach and just run Windows already. Now, newly named...
RFK Jr.’s anti-vaccine policies are “unreviewable,” DOJ lawyer tells judge
US Department of Justice lawyer Isaac Belfer argued that Kennedy has the broad authority to make all of the changes he has already made and more. He claimed that the...
Amazon appears to be down, with over 20,000 reported problems
Based on over 20,000 reports, Amazon appears to be experiencing an outage. According to Downdetector, reports of problems started increasing at 1: 41 pm ET today. By 2: 26 pm,...
OpenAI introduces GPT-5.4 with more knowledge-work capability
Additionally, there are improvements to visual understanding; it can now more carefully analyze images up to 10.24 million pixels, or up to a 6,000-pixel maximum dimension. OpenAI also claims responses...
The Boys S5 trailer tees up a bloody final season
In the fifth and final season, it’s Homelander’s world, completely subject to his erratic, egomaniacal whims. Hughie, Mother’s Milk, and Frenchie are imprisoned in a “Freedom Camp.” Annie struggles to...
Trump gets data center companies to pledge to pay for power generation
On Wednesday, the Trump administration announced that a large collection of tech companies had signed on to what it’s calling the Ratepayer Protection Pledge. By agreeing, the initial signatories—Amazon, Google,...
Nerve damage, energy management, and Apple TV: F1 in 2026 starts today
Drivers aren’t happy about energy management, and one team won’t finish the race. Credit: Rudy Carezzevoli/Getty Images Later this evening—Friday morning local time—the new 1.6 L V6 engines that power...
Lanterns teaser swaps superhero hijinks for gritty realism
James Gunn and Peter Safran injected a much-needed shot of levity into the DC Universe when they took over the franchise and launched their “Gods and Monsters” chapter. But they’re...
Congress extends ISS and tells NASA to get moving on private space stations
Nominally, NASA plans to have one or more of these companies operating a commercial space station in low-Earth orbit by 2030. This is the date at which the US space...
Musk testifies tweet that led to $44 billion lawsuit “may not have been my wisest”
“This could present you with an opportunity to revisit price,” the banker wrote. “It may not be a costless ask, as you will have to be perceived as being willing...
AI #158: The Department of War
This was the worst week I have had in quite a while, maybe ever. The situation between Anthropic and the Department of War (DoW) spun completely out of control. Trump...
Gemini 3.1 Pro Aces Benchmarks, I Suppose
I’ve been trying to find a slot for this one for a while. I am thrilled that today had sufficiently little news that I am comfortable posting this. Gemini 3.1...
TerraPower gets OK to start construction of its first nuclear plant
On Wednesday, the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission announced that it had issued its first construction approval in nearly a decade. The approval will allow work to begin on a site...
Space Command chief throws cold water on the question of UAPs in space
Judging from recent comments from Gen. Stephen Whiting, head of US Space Command, we shouldn’t expect anything like that in whatever the government might release in response to Trump’s pending...
Large genome model: Open source AI trained on trillions of bases
System can identify genes, regulatory sequences, splice sites, and more. Late in 2025, we covered the development of an AI system called Evo that was trained on massive numbers of...
Google and Epic announce settlement to end app store antitrust case
Google is in the midst of rewriting the rules for mobile applications, spurred by ongoing legal cases and an apparent desire to clamp down on perceived security weaknesses. Late last...
Lawsuit: Google Gemini sent man on violent missions, set suicide “countdown”
Google sued by grieving father Gemini allegedly called man its “husband,” said they could be together in death. Jonathan Gavalas. Credit: Edelson law firm A man killed himself after the...
After a rocky six years, Sony cancels future single-player PC game releases
Finally, Bloomberg’s sources cautioned that Sony’s strategy for single-player releases could change again at some point in the future. Historically, Sony did not release its first-party games on PCs. That...
Re-creating the complex cuisine of prehistoric Europeans
The results: The team found traces of wild grasses and legumes, fruits or berries, green vegetables, and roots and tubers native to the broader region. Shards recovered from sites in...
The US Senate empowers NASA to fully engage in lunar space race
During a brief hearing on Wednesday morning, the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation spent only a few minutes “marking up” new legislation that provides guidance to NASA for...
