Author: Frank Salvato

Apple is raising prices across another portion of its services business, increasing Apple TV from $12.99 to $14.99 per month and its annual subscription from $99 to $119, while the individual Apple One bundle rises from $19.95 to $21.95 monthly. The increases continue a remarkable escalation since Apple TV launched in 2019 at just $4.99 per month and follow a separate July increase in Apple Music pricing. Apple is hardly alone: major streaming competitors have repeatedly increased subscription prices, particularly for ad-free service. The broader trend illustrates how the streaming revolution that once promised consumers a cheaper alternative to traditional…

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is exploring the purchase of robotic “dogs” as part of a broader technological expansion supporting the Trump administration’s stepped-up immigration enforcement operations. An August 28 market-research notice seeks information on quadruped unmanned ground vehicles capable of inspection, surveillance, situational awareness, and hazard assessment in dangerous environments, with a potential acquisition estimated at $1 million to $2 million. The robots under consideration include Boston Dynamics’ Spot, a remotely operated platform already used by law enforcement and protective agencies for hazardous situations. The proposal remains preliminary rather than a completed purchase, but it illustrates ICE’s growing interest…

Sam Altman says artificial intelligence leaders have failed to adequately explain AI’s benefits or reassure Americans that its economic and social risks can be managed, an admission coming as opposition to data centers and anxiety over job displacement grow nationwide. Altman acknowledged that public skepticism toward rapid technological change is understandable, particularly after years of industry figures warning about catastrophic AI risks and massive employment disruption. He argues that the industry should instead demonstrate how AI can expand personal freedom, individual autonomy, entrepreneurship, and economic opportunity. The challenge is increasingly political as well as technological: Pennsylvania has imposed stringent requirements…

A man dressed as Darth Vader used a San Diego public-safety meeting to deliver a biting satirical protest against the city’s use of Flock Safety surveillance cameras, sarcastically praising automated license-plate readers as tools useful for tracking “rebel scum,” children, and even an ex-girlfriend. Behind the humor is a growing national debate over government surveillance: Flock’s cameras can capture identifying information about vehicles passing through their field of view, giving police a potentially powerful investigative tool while raising concerns about privacy, warrantless tracking, data sharing, inaccurate matches, and abuse. San Diego has defended its deployment as an effective crime-fighting measure…

X says it uncovered a massive network of roughly 200,000 suspected Chinese inauthentic accounts, including approximately 200 accounts posting material capable of manipulating America’s debate over artificial-intelligence data centers and energy policy. The accounts pushed claims that AI facilities are driving up household electricity prices, straining the power grid, and enriching technology companies at consumers’ expense, sometimes using AI-generated cartoons and American-sounding identities. The discovery follows a separate June investigation that identified a likely China-origin influence operation dubbed “Data Center Bandwagon,” whose operators used AI to produce English-language content while posing as Americans. The evidence points to a serious foreign-influence…

New research indicates that older adults may be considerably better at recognizing day-to-day changes in their own cognitive abilities than previously assumed. In a study of 162 older adults who expressed concerns about cognitive changes despite performing normally on conventional screening, participants used smartwatches four times daily for one week to rate their mental sharpness and mood before completing short cognitive tests. When individuals rated themselves as less mentally sharp than their personal average, their objective test performance also declined, an association that persisted after researchers accounted for mood, age and other factors. The findings raise the possibility that smartwatches…

A free artificial intelligence boot camp is coming to Chicago this fall, offering high school students hands-on instruction in generative AI, machine learning and the practical use of emerging technologies. The three-day program, organized through the Mark Cuban Foundation and Youth Advocate Programs, will be held on consecutive Saturdays—Oct. 31, Nov. 7 and Nov. 14—and is open to students in grades 9 through 12. Participants will explore AI applications across healthcare, business, sports, science, computer science and the arts while learning about bias, privacy, transparency and other ethical considerations. Students will also complete a capstone project using AI to address…

Artificial intelligence has entered political campaigning with remarkable speed. Campaigns can now use AI to draft advertisements, generate images, translate messages, analyze voter concerns, create voiceovers, edit video, and produce material that once required teams of consultants and production professionals. None of these applications is inherently unethical. The ethical problem begins when artificial intelligence stops helping campaigns communicate and starts helping them deceive. That distinction should be central to the debate over AI-generated political advertising. Political advertising has never been an exercise in pure objectivity. Candidates naturally present themselves favorably, emphasize an opponent’s failures, select statistics supporting their arguments, and…

A Georgia aerospace startup is preparing to put a new form of American-made satellite protection into orbit, with Atomic-6’s lightweight Space Armor scheduled for its first operational deployment aboard Portal Space Systems’ Starburst-1 satellite on SpaceX’s Transporter-18 mission in October. The composite tile, less than an inch thick and roughly the weight of a smartphone, is designed to withstand impacts from tiny pieces of orbital debris traveling around 17,000 miles per hour while producing far less secondary debris than traditional metallic shielding. The technology addresses an increasingly serious problem as commercial, civilian and military activity expands in low Earth orbit:…

A security researcher’s discovery that dozens of Flock Safety cameras were reportedly accessible online without usernames, passwords, or encrypted footage is intensifying concerns about the rapidly expanding network of automated license-plate readers used by law enforcement. Researcher Benn Jordan says the exposed cameras allowed him to monitor locations and potentially connect license-plate information with people’s daily routines, while Flock maintains that its network has never been “hacked.” Separate security research identified 67 live camera feeds and debug interfaces allegedly exposed without authentication, while federal vulnerability records have documented security weaknesses affecting Flock license-plate-reader firmware. The revelations add a cybersecurity dimension…