Amazon is planning a Super Amazon-mart store near Chicago
Amazon could be taking another, even bigger swing at physical stores, this time with a Walmart-like supercenter. On Tuesday, the Orland Park Plan Commission in the Chicago suburb Orland Park, Illinois voted 6-1 to approve Amazon's proposal to develop 35 acres of land for a 229,000-square foot retail center, as reported by The Information.
The development would include a brick-and-mortar supercenter selling groceries, general merchandise, and prepared foods. It would also double as an Amazon fulfillment center, like a department store with an Amazon warehouse in back. Customers would be able to pick up Amazon orders there, as well.
The pr …
X accuses music publishers of ‘weaponizing’ DMCA takedowns
X is suing music publishers and their trade group, the National Music Publishers' Association (NMPA), accusing them of attempted coercion in their ongoing battle over licensing, as reported earlier by The Hollywood Reporter. The Elon Musk-owned platform accuses music publishers of colluding with the NMPA to "coerce X into taking licenses to musical works from the industry as a whole, denying X the benefit of competition between music publishers."
In the antitrust lawsuit filed on Friday, X claims that the NMPA and music publishers "weaponized" the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) with requests to take down allegedly infringing conte …
This company could help bring Auracast to an iPhone near you
One of the issues holding Auracast back from wider mainstream use is some companies' lack of support for the Bluetooth technology - Apple being a prime example. With iOS having 58 percent of the market share in North America and nearly 28 percent worldwide, a decision by Apple to enable native Auracast support would potentially put millions of Auracast devices into the world with a firmware update. As of yet, Apple has made no comment on Auracast, and I'm not hopeful that we'll get one anytime soon.
But the audio technology company Atitan thinks it has the solution. It's developing a small disc-shaped transceiver - the splitR - that can att …
AI is coming for collectibles next
AI toys, companions, and robots have been everywhere at CES this year, but among the horde of waddling plushies and light-up emoji eyes, two stood out to me. HeyMates and Buddyo are each betting that the collectible figurine boom is going to come back with an AI-powered vengeance, letting us chat to sports stars and superheroes from our desks.
The core concept to both is this: Take a cutesy figurine and stick it onto a smart base with a speaker, microphone, and maybe a flashing ring of light or two. Then use an accompanying app to power a basic LLM chatbot based on the figurine, so you can talk to Albert Einstein about relativity, or Darth …
Tim Cook and Sundar Pichai are cowards
Since X's users started using Grok to undress women and children using deepfake images, I have been waiting for what I assumed would be inevitable: X getting booted from Apple's and Google's app stores. The fact that it hasn't happened yet tells me something serious about Silicon Valley's leadership: Tim Cook and Sundar Pichai are spineless cowards who are terrified of Elon Musk.
Here's the relevant Apple App Store developer guideline: "Apps should not include content that is offensive, insensitive, upsetting, intended to disgust, in exceptionally poor taste, or just plain creepy." Huh! How about that.
They sold their principles for power …
This semi-secret Lego Smart Brick feature gives it even more potential
We just gave the Lego Smart Brick our Best In Show award at CES 2026, and I wanted to stop by The Lego Group's suite to get a last glimpse before I left Las Vegas.
To my surprise, the company showed off one more feature I didn't see during my first demo, perhaps the most impressive one should these bricks make their way to adult builders: precise distance measurement.
Lego Group design manager Maarten Simons whipped out a "Lego ruler" made of standard Lego bricks divided into segments that were each 10 Lego studs, or roughly 8cm (3.15 inches) long. He attached a Smart Brick to one end of the ruler, and dragged a second Smart Brick along it …
Did you know that Gmail has emoji reactions?
Google rolled out emoji reactions to personal Gmail accounts a little over two years ago, and I completely forgot about it until now - probably because the option is hidden within a small, smiley face icon beside the Forward button. But now, Google is bringing emoji reactions to all Workspace users by default on February 9th, reminding me of their existence (and all the times I could've replied with a "thumbs-up" instead of a full-blown message).
Selecting the inconspicuous smiley face button displays a range of emoji you can use in place of a written response. If your recipient is another Gmail user, they'll see your reaction at the bottom …
Scenes from the anti-ICE march in New York City
On Thursday evening in Manhattan's Financial District, hundreds of protesters braved the cold to protest US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), after an agent fatally shot a woman at close range on Wednesday.
Earlier that day, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem's visit to One World Trade Center in Lower Manhattan sparked protests outside the building. The day before, Noem had described Good's actions as an "act of domestic terrorism." The public video footage, in which Good appears to wave agents past her car and then begin to drive away, paints a starkly different picture.
The moment when an ICE agent shot 37-yea …
The latest on Grok’s gross AI deepfakes problem
The launch of an AI image editing feature on xAI’s Grok has caused chaos on X after it was used to generate a flood of nonconsensual sexualized deepfakes. As Hayden Field wrote, “screenshots show Grok complying with requests to put real women in lingerie and make them spread their legs, and to put small children in bikinis.”
UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer called the deepfakes “disgusting,” saying, “X need[s] to get their act together and get this material down. And we will take action on this because it’s simply not tolerable.” X has slightly restricted the feature by requiring a paid subscription to generate images by tagging Grok on X, but the AI image editor remains freely available otherwise.
- No, Grok hasn’t paywalled its deepfake image feature
- UK Prime Minister says ‘we will take action’ on Grok’s disgusting deepfakes
- Europe demands X retain documents amid Grok’s undressing spree.
- X’s deepfake machine is infuriating policymakers around the globe
- Grok is undressing children — can the law stop it?
- Grok is undressing anyone, including minors
Meta expands nuclear power ambitions to include Bill Gates’ startup
Meta has forged agreements with three nuclear power providers in an effort to secure the vast amount of electricity it needs to power AI data centers. The agreements with TerraPower (which is backed by Bill Gates), Oklo (backed by Sam Altman), and Vistra are expected to deliver 6.6 gigawatts of energy for Meta's projects by 2035 - which is enough energy to power Ireland.
These AI projects include Prometheus, the first of several supercluster computing systems, which is expected to come online in New Albany, Ohio, sometime this year. Meta is funding the construction of new nuclear reactors as part of the agreements, the first of which may co …