Front Page

The Danish minister feared by Big Tech and who Donald Trump called the EU’s “tax lady,” will not be reappointed for a third term, the FT reports. 

“She is astonishing in terms of stamina,” said one EU official who regularly worked with Vestager. “It’s absolutely crazy. She read all the stuff . . . round the clock and had hundreds of meetings and she is still alive.”

US tech CEOs shouldn’t celebrate too quickly, though, as the attention-seeking Musk-baiting French commissioner Thierry Breton is said to be in contention for the role

You can pay to see if your partner will respond to a stranger’s flirty DM — and TikTok has turned this into a thriving subculture.

“On one hand, it’s like, fuck yeah, we got this guy,” Monzon told me. “But on the other hand, it’s like, ‘Fuck.’ This girl’s life is…she’s heartbroken now.”

APU, audio, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth drivers are now available, according to Valve. Just note that the audio driver is only for audio over headphones or Bluetooth — speaker drivers are coming later.

Personally, I’m still waiting for Valve to release the long-promised ability to dual-boot Windows.

Or I mean, he will play the role of John Madden in an upcoming biopic about the famed NFL coach, which, according to THR, will also double as an origin story for the videogame. Hopefully the movie will be faithful to the real Madden and they’ll release a new version every year with no meaningful updates for their aggrieved fans.

I don’t need a lot in a folding Bluetooth keyboard. It just needs to support multiple wireless devices, plus USB-C direct connect, and not get all floppy on my lap! Would you believe there aren’t a lot of keyboards like that? 

Tesla is selling a cooler sized to fit perfectly in the weirdly-shallow Cybertruck frunk. And yes, it’s made of stainless steel. And yes, you can fill it full of Cyberbeer that I initially mistook for an IPA made by the Zodiac Killer because I forgot that Tesla makes its own beer now. But the real kick in the crotch is the price. Because why is god’s name would anyone shell out $700 for a cooler? Of course the answer is the same people who would pay $100,000 for an electric truck made by the guy who thinks people are being too mean to oil and gas executives. Now that’s cool.

Wired has a cool interactive piece highlighting some of the content creators on the right and left who drive political discourse and change. The size of the bubbles corresponds to the number of followers the individual has on their social media platform of choice. Check out the full story for details on each person.

Originally released earlier this year, Bull Airs is opening up preorders again on August 16th for its heavily customized Nike Air Jordan 1 sneakers that draw inspiration from the original Game Boy and the Game Boy Color.

You can get either ShoeBoys design or a mixed pair for $350, or save $100 by dropping $600 on a bundle that includes a pair of each.

But it’s not Elder Scrolls VI. Instead, Bethesda’s sword and board series is getting its own version of Fallout Shelter called The Elder Scrolls: Castles. You’ll be tasked with building the perfect medieval domicile with all the amenities to keep your subjects happy, healthy, and therefore, less likely to stab you.

The Elder Scrolls: Castles launches on iOS and Android on September 10th.

Trombone Champ: Unflattened, which is launching this fall, looks just as silly as the flatscreen game.

Colombian singer-songwriter Karol G will be the star of Fortnite Festival’s fifth season, which launches tomorrow. Like with other Festival seasons, there will be themed items based on the artist that you can acquire.

Epic Games also will be hosting a playable Karol G concert inside Fortnite (made by Magnopus, the team behind the recent Metallica show) that debuts on August 23rd.

Opting out of Google’s generative AI overviews means you become invisible in search — a no-go for most publishers. But keeping content in search means it can be scraped for AI Overviews. As one publisher puts it:

You drop out and you die immediately, or you partner with them and you probably just die slowly, because eventually they’re not going to need you either.”

The Alphabet-owned company is taking its robotaxis to snowier climes, namely “Truckee, CA; Upstate New York; and across Michigan–from the Upper Peninsula to the metro Detroit area,” according to a post on X. So far, most driverless companies have avoided locations with messy weather, as rain and snow can really mess with the vehicle’s perception systems. But you can’t operate in dry, desert conditions forever and have a successful business.

Of course, this isn’t the first time that Waymo has ventured onto snowy roads.

It’s seemingly easy to make the chatbot’s new image generator spit out the few things it supposedly can’t generate — including gore and even “child pornography if given the proper prompts,” says X user Christian Montessori.

While all AI models have loopholes, Elon Musk seems unfazed by the abuse, calling it a “step for people to have some fun.”

Roughly half of customers lost power yesterday. As of this morning, more than 30 percent of customers are still without service, according to power utility Luma Energy.

It shows how vulnerable the US territory’s grid is after Hurricane Maria hit in 2017 and left residents without electricity for up to 11 months. In July, Puerto Rico filed a $1 billion suit against fossil fuel companies.

The internet service provider filed a petition with the highest court in its case with Sony Music and other labels, framing it as a fight for internet access. A jury sided with the labels in 2019, finding Cox liable for piracy infringement for failing to remove bad actors from its services, but an appeals court denied the $1 billion damages award.