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What’s causing the issues or how widespread they are is unclear. We’ve been unable to reproduce the issue here, but DownDetector has seen a spike in reports over the past few hours. Users report that Gemini displays error messages or hangs after a prompt. We’ve reached out to Google for comment.
During the company’s Q4 earnings call, Gustav Söderström revealed that Spotify had fully embraced vibe coding. AI is coming for a lot of jobs, and software developer is high on the list of those in danger. Still, it’s shocking that the top devs at Spotify haven’t written any code in 2026. Per Business Insider:
“When I speak to my most senior engineers — the best developers we have — they actually say that they haven’t written a single line of code since December… They actually only generate code and supervise it.” - Spotify CEO Gustav Söderström
In a cease and desist letter, Disney includes examples of the new Seedance 2.0 model making videos featuring characters like Spider-Man and Darth Vader, according to Axios. “ByteDance is hijacking Disney’s characters by reproducing, distributing, and creating derivative works featuring those characters,” Disney’s attorney said.
Google, Reddit, Discord, and Meta have received “hundreds” of subpoenas from the DHS in recent months, according to a report from The New York Times. The agency is reportedly asking the platforms for the names, email addresses, phone numbers, and other information associated with accounts that “track or criticize” ICE.
[The New York Times]
Curbed described the scene as “bleak” and noted that many waiting in line for the promised free Tide Pods and milk (which was apparently purchased at an Aldi before being stocked on the popups’ oddly orderly shelves) had never heard of Polymarket and didn’t intend to place bets there. When Curbed asked why:
Because of the word market within Polymarket, per Josh Tucker, a company executive. Get it? Daf Orlovsky, a creative director, said it could work — “these ideas that don’t seem possible could be brought to life at tech-market speed,” he said.
Flow Tuner lets users pick which genres are included in a Flow session, rather than just disliking individual songs. It’s a hamfisted way to customize your algorithm, but the specificity of Deezer’s options are impressive: Metalcore, Balkan Folk, Schlager. This is well beyond your basic buckets like rock and pop.
Forty years after Optimus Prime’s death in Transformers: The Movie traumatized a generation of kids, Hasbro is releasing a Matrix of Leadership replica giving anyone the fallen leader’s power. Available for preorder starting on February 16th through Hasbro Pulse and Amazon, the collectible features interactive lights and plays Stan Bush’s The Touch when it’s pulled open.
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While we still lack reliable deepfake detection tech, Jeremy Carrasco (@showtoolsai) has been using his social platforms to help people visually identify red flags for AI in videos. Now, Carrasco is expanding his AI literacy efforts with Riddance — a dedicated text publication for AI media news, investigations, and analysis.
[Riddance]
Turns out, if you leave a Waymo door open, someone gets paid to close it, opening up some novel opportunities for improving the economy.
tsmuse:
So you’re saying we can create jobs if we call a bunch of waymos, open their doors, and then walk away?
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Gemini-powered Audio Summaries give you a condensed overview of lengthy documents instead of reading the entire thing. The feature is starting to roll out to select business and Google AI users now, and can be found in the Tools menu in Google Docs.
After Ring announced that it had canceled integration with Flock Safety, the law enforcement technology company criticized for connections to ICE (a claim it denies) has released it’s own statement and blog post:
Over the past several months, Flock and Ring explored whether their respective platforms could responsibly complement one another in support of public safety. Throughout those discussions, Flock engaged extensively with customers, public officials, and community stakeholders to understand expectations around accountability, transparency, and lawful use.
Based on that engagement, Flock and Ring have chosen to cancel the planned integration.
In addition to another remaster, the Legacy of Kain series is getting a new 2D action game called Ascendance. This is the first installment since 2003’s Defiance.
The trailer was published alongside other State of Play announcements but seemingly left out of livestream. It’s launching March 31st.
Big Walk by developer House House has another trailer showing off its immaculate “friendslop” vibes. The game is due out “later this year” on both PlayStation 5 and PC, with full crossplay support between them. On PS5, it will be included in the PlayStation Plus Essential tier.
Metal Gear Solid Master Collection is getting a second volume that includes Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots and Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker. MGS4 has been locked away on the PlayStation 3 since 2008, but come August 27th it’ll finally be playable on modern systems.
Krafton’s Project Windless has a new trailer, showing more of its world and vibes based on the The Bird That Drinks Tears novel series . There’s no launch details, but there’s a whole lot of big chicken man cutting down armies of baddies.
I don’t know how many Nosgoth enjoyers there are these days, but the peak of the series is coming back for us. Legacy of Kain: Defiance Remastered, also known as the one where you get to play as both Kain and Raziel, launches March 3rd.
Death Stranding 2: On the Beach is coming to PC on March 19th, after previously being a PlayStation 5 exclusive. It’ll feature unlocked framerates, ultrawide support, upscaling, and frame generation.
PlayStation, like other big publishers, has been leaning more into games that follow proven formulas, but I’m hoping we’ll see a few announcements that come out of left field.
The show starts at 2PM ET and is set to last for more than an hour. We’ll be covering it live.
Remember when EssilorLuxottica said it sold 2 million and would hit 10 million a year by 2027? 10M seems well within reach. “In 2025, we sold more than 7 million units of AI glasses, posting exponential growth,” said CEO Francesco Milleri. Prices may stay high in the short term, though, they hinted on the earnings call.
The Tech Transparency Project identified several Iranian government agencies and officials enjoying the perks of X Premium accounts. Normally, Premium requires a paid subscription, which could violate US sanctions. Suspiciously, when Wired flagged some of those accounts to X, they were stripped of their blue checkmarks:
X did not respond to a request for comment, but within hours of WIRED flagging several X accounts belonging to Iranian officials, their blue checkmarks were removed. The rest of the accounts identified by TTP but not shared with X continue to display a blue checkmark.
Starting on Thursday, GeForce Now users can stream games directly on Amazon Fire TV devices, including a few new arrivals coming this week like Reanimal and Kingdom Come: Deliverance. Fire TVs join a growing list of platforms with support for Nvidia GeForce Now, which even includes Linux.
If rumors and leaks are accurate, DJI will release a follow-up to the Osmo Pocket 3 soon, but it will be facing some new competition. During the company’s annual meeting, Insta360’s CEO Liu Jingkang announced a handheld stabilized dual lens camera called the Luna. It will debut in the first half of 2026, but no other details were revealed.
