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StarCraft returns in 2030 as an open-world shooter

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Blizzard originally tried to bring the StarCraft universe to the world of 3D shooters way back in 2002 with StarCraft: Ghost . It sat in development hell for years until Blizzard president Mike Morhaime confirmed that it had been canceled in 2014. Now Blizzard is giving it another go with the simply titled StarCraft . Dan Hay, a VP at Blizzard, took the stage at BlizzCon today to reveal that after more than a decade of lying dormant, StarCraft would be returning in 2030. But, rather than another top-down real-time strategy installment, the new title would be an open-world shooter. He then showed off a cinematic trailer for the title that fo … Read the full story at The Verge. source https://www.theverge.com/games/994371/starcraft-returns-in-2030-as-an-open-world-shooter

Anthropic CEO says it’s time to pump the brakes on AI

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Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei says the time has come to slow down AI development and will give third-party evaluators like METR access to its models to help ensure its "adherence to safety practices and commitments." In a winding essay , Amodei proposed a three-step plan to "pace the frontier" - jargon that simply means to slow the pace of training and development to give companies time to build safeguards and regulators to evaluate models. Amodei says that giving external evaluators wide-ranging access is just the first step, and one it is taking now unilaterally . Step two would involve the industry coming together as a whole, likely with gove … Read the full story at The Verge. source https://www.theverge.com/ai-artificial-intelligence/994337/anthropic-ceo-slow-down-ai-development

The White House calls Truth Social the ‘most powerful and popular’ social media platform

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The White House claims the Donald Trump-owned Truth Social is the "most powerful and popular social media platform in the world." The statement, provided to The New York Times by White House spokesperson Davis Ingle, is at odds with the user counts from some of the biggest social media platforms on the web. Data gathered by Search Engine Land shows YouTube is the most popular platform in the world, with 2.65 billion monthly active users. Facebook comes in second with 2.39 billion active users around the globe, followed by TikTok with 2.21 billion and Instagram with 1.99 billion. Truth Social doesn't make Search Engine Land 's top 10 list, wh … Read the full story at The Verge. source https://www.theverge.com/policy/994072/white-house-truth-social-popular-powerful

Anthropic spent this week in hot water over cybersecurity

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After admitting earlier this year that its AI models had hacked other companies' systems on a handful of occasions, Anthropic released a new report on Wednesday detailing the attacks. It reveals a string of incidents displaying what Anthropic deems its models' single-minded "recklessness" - and will likely fuel already raging concerns about cybersecurity and AI. In Anthropic's report, it detailed four cases this year in which its own AI models hacked an external company or exploited vulnerabilities. In one, an "internal, general-purpose research model" broke into third-party systems, using access tokens and passwords and downloading files. … Read the full story at The Verge. source https://www.theverge.com/ai-artificial-intelligence/994064/anthropic-spent-this-week-in-hot-water-over-cybersecurity

Microsoft’s head of comms is leaving after almost 20 years

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Frank Shaw in 2025. | Image: Microsoft Frank Shaw is leaving Microsoft after 17 years as chief communications officer. In an internal note to his team, Shaw says he's "decided it is time for me to move on and try new things," after supporting Microsoft's communications for 29 years - nearly 20 years as a Microsoft employee plus time at the Waggener Edstrom agency (now We. Communications) before that. Shaw has been at the heart of Microsoft's communications since 1997, helping the company navigate multiple Windows and Office releases, CEO transitions, the all-important bet on cloud, and huge acquisitions like the $26.2 billion LinkedIn purchase in 2016 and the $69 billion acquisi … Read the full story at The Verge. source https://www.theverge.com/news/993791/microsoft-frank-shaw-leaving-head-of-comms

Slack can now vibe-code interactive charts and reports inside chats

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A new feature coming to Slack will allow you to build interactive reports, polls, dashboards, presentations, microsites, and other tools directly inside a chat. With Slackforce Surfaces , you can describe to Slackbot what you need, and it will use AI to gather information from relevant conversations and connected apps, like Google Drive or Salesforce, to create it. Once Slackbot creates a Surface, you can share it with colleagues and pin it to channels, allowing other people to view it, interact with it, and leave comments. In one example shared by Slack, a user asks Slackbot for help creating an arcade-themed visualization of AI token usage … Read the full story at The Verge. source https://www.theverge.com/tech/989853/slackforce-surfaces-launch

Schools are catching on to Big Tech’s playbook

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It's the hot new thing in tech, and it's where all the jobs are. Students who don't learn to use it fall behind. And to help them catch up in time, its creators are graciously providing the resources and curriculum for learning it, often pro bono. That's the narrative AI companies are pitching schools on right now, but according to New York Times education technology reporter Natasha Singer, it's also how the tech industry has built its influence in classrooms for the past 15 years. In a new book, Coding Kids , Singer details how tech companies took a central role in promoting computers and coding skills in education, promising computer sci … Read the full story at The Verge. source https://www.theverge.com/policy/993308/computer-science-ai-education-coding-kids