Category: 404 Media

Mark Zuckerberg, whose superyacht apparently spent the weekend ignoring or missing the distress signal from a boat that ran out of fuel near Alaska, has posted a deranged, 6,500 word essay detailing his vision for AI superintelligence, a future that is “for everyone” but which sounds less social than ever. ...

Welcome back to another special edition of the Abstract! As I mentioned in last week’s newsletter, I have saved up some of the most mind-boggling studies from 2026 so far to share while I’m out on vacation.   With that said, here are the studies this year that hit the bottle, ...

The small town that arrested a person who clapped during a city council meeting about a hyperscale data center held its meeting on Wednesday virtually and had no public comment period in the name of “public safety.” It says it will do the same for another meeting later this month. ...

This is Behind the Blog, where we share our behind-the-scenes thoughts about how a few of our top stories of the week came together. This week, we discuss Flock blogging, “rare” books, and Jesus Christ. EMANUEL: I was out last Friday so I want to talk about the story I ...

Flock planned to use dashcams installed in hundreds of thousands Uber, Lyft, and delivery drivers’ vehicles to scan license plates those drivers travelled passed, essentially turning Uber and Lyft drivers into roaming surveillance vehicles, according to a Flock presentation shared with 404 Media. The document provides more details on Flock’s ...

SAP, one of the world’s biggest software companies, suspended most travel and hiring last month because of AI’s soaring cost, with exceptions only being made for AI-related travel or hires, according to an internal SAP email obtained by 404 Media.  Bloomberg reported on the email and the freezes in July, ...

A handful of cities across the U.S. have ditched Flock’s automatic license plate reader (ALPR) cameras and immediately replaced them with equivalent systems from law enforcement contracting giant Axon, according to local media reports and government documents from around the country. Axon, for example, advertises AI-powered cameras that attach to ...

🌘 Subscribe to 404 Media to get The Abstract, our newsletter about the most exciting and mind-boggling science news and studies of the week. Scientists have designed a virtual model of an alien cell and dropped it onto a hypothetical exoplanet to see how it behaves, an approach that could ...

A series of issues in Apple’s web browser engine — the tech underlying all browsers on iOS — means that Apple’s iCloud Private Relay tool, which is supposed to hide a user’s IP address, in many cases doesn’t actually work. Instead, the issues mean a malicious attacker can set up ...

We start this week with Joseph’s article about Samuel Tunick, the man charged with allegedly wiping his phone before DHS officials could search it. It’s a wild case with a lot to unpack. After the break, Jason tells us all about a TikTok Shop scheme powered by AI. In the ...