Author: Shivendra Singh

Daniel Moreno-Gama is facing federal charges for attacking Sam Altman’s home and OpenAI’s HQ

Daniel Moreno-Gama is now facing federal charges after allegedly traveling from Texas to California with the intent to kill OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. On April 10th, he was arrested after throwing a Molotov cocktail at OpenAI CEO Sam Altman’s home and attempting to break into OpenAI’s headquarters. According to prosecutors, at the HQ, “Moreno-Gama attempted to break the glass doors of the building with a chair and stated that he had come to burn down the location and kill anyone inside.”

His charges include “attempted damage and destruction of property by means of explosives and possession of an unregistered firearm,” according to the Departmen …

Read the full story at The Verge.

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The Mercedes EQS returns with massive range and charging gains

Mercedes EQS sedan

A year ago, Mercedes-Benz did the prudent thing and paused its EQ lineup of electric vehicles in the US. With customer demand drying up for luxury EVs, and federal incentives getting axed by vengeful Republicans, Mercedes put its first-generation EVs on ice.

But then, in January, Mercedes quietly reintroduced the EQS brand in the US, with The Drive declaring that the “blobs are back” – a reference to the sedan’s much-maligned jelly-bean shape that prioritized aerodynamics over a more traditional profile. But we didn’t yet realize how back the EQS truly was.

Today, Mercedes is reintroducing its electric sedan to a wary, cash-strapped market …

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Justin Bieber’s YouTube Coachella set had nothing to do with who owns his music

This past Saturday at the Coachella music festival, Justin Bieber played the first of two headlining sets in a deal reportedly worth $10 million. It was his most significant solo performance in years. But Bieber spent some of his time on stage the way many of us do on Saturday nights: on YouTube. For some of the set, Bieber played parts of his older songs right off YouTube from a Mac laptop. Behind him, on the stage’s screen, you could see YouTube’s website as he searched for songs in real time and then put the videos on full-screen while he sang along on stage.

“I’m sorry to cut it, but these are little snippets. I just want to see how fa …

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RAMageddon has come for Microsoft’s Surface Pro and Surface Laptop

Microsoft just raised the prices across its line of Surface devices amid the global RAM shortage. Now, the 13-inch Surface Pro 11 and the 13.8-inch Surface Laptop 7 cost $500 more than their original starting price, going from $999 to $1,499, as reported earlier by Windows Central.

Last year, Microsoft stopped selling the $999 versions of the Surface Pro 11 and the 13.8-inch Surface Laptop 7 in favor of the $1,199 models with more storage. At the time, it seemed like Microsoft was trying to make room for the cheaper 12-inch Surface Pro and 13-inch Surface Laptop that launched last May. However, these newer devices aren’t safe from the pric …

Read the full story at The Verge.

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NZXT to pay $3.45 million settlement over Flex PC rentals

An image showing an NZXT PC case
The Flex PC rental service didn’t make it clear to customers that it wasn’t a “rent-to-own” program. | Image: NZXT

NZXT and its business partner Fragile have agreed to pay $3.45 million to settle a class-action lawsuit that accused the companies of attempting to “scam” consumers through their Flex PC rental service. The preliminary settlement was filed in a California District Court on April 7th to close a civil RICO case against the Flex program over allegations that it defrauded 19,322 customers through deceptive marketing practices and aggressive debt collection.

The settlement was shared on YouTube by Gamers Nexus, with host Steve Burke noting that NZXT and Fragile are still offering PC rental programs under the new agreement. This follows Gamers Ne …

Read the full story at The Verge.

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Xbox CEO called Game Pass ‘too expensive for players’ in a leaked memo

Xbox CEO called Game Pass ‘too expensive for players’ in a leaked memo

Xbox’s new chief exec, Asha Sharma, has only been in charge for a few months but things already seem like they might be changing for the better. Or at the very least, they might be getting cheaper. The Verge reported that the new Xbox CEO wrote a memo to employees addressing the current pricing of the Game Pass subscription service. 

“Game Pass is central to gaming value on Xbox. It’s also clear that the current model isn’t the final one,” Sharma allegedly said. “Short term, Game Pass has become too expensive for players, so we need a better value equation. Long term, we will evolve Game Pass into a more flexible system which will take time to test and learn around.”

After Microsoft upped the price for Game Pass twice within 15 months, many of us certainly felt that the service had gotten too costly to keep. Xbox is still offering a wide range of titles on Game Pass; the April update is adding indies like Hades 2 and new Double Fine project Kiln alongside AAA hits like the remake of Call …read more

Games Workshop brings seven classic Warhammer games to Steam for the first time

Games Workshop brings seven classic Warhammer games to Steam for the first time

Fans of miniature plastic soldiers, rejoice. Games Workshop has brought a host of older Warhammer and Warhammer 40K video games to Steam for the first time, alongside a dozen games that haven’t been available on Valve’s storefront for a few years. The new to Steam releases consist of three games from the Warhammer fantasy range — Shadow of the Horned Rat, Mark of Chaos – Gold Edition and Dark Omen — and four from its sci-fi 40K universe — Chaos Gate, Fire Warrior, Final Liberation and Rites of War.  

If you’re a Warhammer fan of a certain age, some of these may be formative experiences for you. I know they are for me. I can’t count how many hours I spent playing Chaos Gate when I first discovered 40K at the age of 10. Yes, it was an XCOM clone, but by that point I didn’t know about the MicroProse original, and Space Marines were cool. 

Years later and as a Tau collector …read more

Meta warned by dozens of organizations that facial recognition on its smart glasses would empower predators

Meta warned by dozens of organizations that facial recognition on its smart glasses would empower predators

Dozens of civil rights organizations have written a letter to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg to warn of the dangers in bringing facial recognition technology to the company’s smart glasses. More than 70 groups have banded together to form a coalition to urge Zuckerberg to abandon plans to incorporate the tech, on the grounds that it would empower stalkers, sexual predators and other bad actors.

This coalition includes organizations like the ACLU, the Electronic Privacy Information Center, Fight for the Future, Access Now and many others. The letter isn’t asking for safeguards. These groups want the feature to be completely eliminated, stating the idea behind facial recognition of this type is so dangerous that it “cannot be resolved through product design changes, opt-out mechanisms or incremental safeguards.” This tracks, as there would be no real way for bystanders to know or consent to being identified.

“People should be able to move through their daily lives without fear that stalkers, scammers, abusers, federal agents and activists across the political spectrum are silently and invisibly verifying their identities and potentially matching their names to a wealth of …read more

‘No longer an accused’: Arvind Kejriwal tells Delhi HC in case linked with Delhi Excise Policy 2021-22; Here’s what we know so far

Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) national convenor and former Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal told the Delhi High Court on Monday that he is “no longer an accused” in the alleged corruption case linked to the now-scrapped Delhi Excise Policy 2021-22, asserting that the trial court had already discharged him after finding no material to frame charges. …read more