Tech Boys

This week, X users noticed that the platform's AI chatbot Grok will readily generate nonconsensual sexualized images, including those of children. Mashable reported on the lack of safeguards around sexual deepfakes when xAI first launched Grok Imagine in August. The generative AI tool creates images and short video clips, and it specifically includes a "spicy" mode for creating NSFW images. While this isn't a new phenomenon, the building backlash forced the Grok team to respond. This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed. "There are isolated cases where users prompted for and received AI images depicting minors in minimal clothing," Grok's X account posted on Thursday. It also stated that the team has identified " lapses in safeguards " and is "urgently fixing them." xAI technical staff member, Parsa Tajik, made a similar statement on his personal account: "The team is looking into furth...

If you like playing daily word games like Wordle , then Hurdle is a great game to add to your routine. There are five rounds to the game. The first round sees you trying to guess the word, with correct, misplaced, and incorrect letters shown in each guess. If you guess the correct answer, it'll take you to the next hurdle, providing the answer to the last hurdle as your first guess. This can give you several clues or none, depending on the words. For the final hurdle, every correct answer from previous hurdles is shown, with correct and misplaced letters clearly shown. An important note is that the number of times a letter is highlighted from previous guesses does necessarily indicate the number of times that letter appears in the final hurdle. If you find yourself stuck at any step of today's Hurdle, don't worry! We have you covered. SEE ALSO: Hurdle: Everything you need to know to find the answers Hurdle Word 1 hint Insulting. SEE ALSO: Apple’s new M3 MacBoo...

Starlink will lower the orbits of roughly 4,400 satellites this year as a safety measure, according to engineering VP, Michael Nicolls. In a post on X , Nicolls wrote that the company is "beginning a significant reconfiguration of its satellite constellation," in which all satellites orbiting at around 550 kilometers (342 miles) will be lowered to around 480 km (298 miles). The move is intended to reduce the risk of collisions, putting the satellites in a region that's less cluttered and will allow them to deorbit more quickly should an incident occur.  "Lowering the satellites results in condensing Starlink orbits, and will increase space safety in several ways," Nicolls wrote, also pointing to the coming solar minimum — a period in the sun's 11ish-year cycle when activity is lower — as one of the reasons for the move. The next solar minimum is expected to occur in the early 2030s. "As solar minimum approaches, atmospheric density decreases which mea...

Samsung has upgraded its Freestyle portable projector for 2026. The company announced a new model, the Freestyle+, ahead of CES, touting twice the brightness of its predecessor at 430 ISO lumens, and AI-powered screen optimization features. As with Freestyles past, the Freestyle+ offers 180-degree rotation and 360-degree audio. This one also supports Q-Symphony so it'll work with some Samsung soundbars. Samsung hasn't revealed much else in the way of specs or pricing, but it'll be showing off the Freestyle+ at CES 2026, so we're likely to learn more details soon.  While previous iterations of Samsung's compact projector offered automatic screen adjustment features, like auto focus and auto leveling, the Freestyle+ uses AI to take optimization a step further. With AI OptiScreen, as the company is calling it, the projector offers 3D auto keystone to fix distortion on uneven or non-flat surfaces, real-time focus when the projector is moved, automatic screen fit for co...

Fans of the 1930s character Betty Boop can rejoice as a precursor of the iconic cartoon is now in the public domain, as of Jan. 1, 2026. That means anyone can adapt that specific version of Betty Boop, which appeared in the Dizzy Dishes cartoon , into their own creative work without being subject to copyright laws. This version of Betty Boop featured her characteristic large eyes and pout but also had elongated dog ears. Her romantic interest at the time was a dog chef, hence her surreal canine appearance. SEE ALSO: Yes, Popeye can eat spinach: Everything you need to know about Public Domain Day 2025 In 2026, Betty Boop is joined in the public domain by other popular characters, books, films, and songs, including new Mickey Mouse cartoons and comics; the Blondie comic strip characters Blondie and Dagwood; William Faulkner's novel As I Lay Dying , the illustrated version of Watty Piper's children's book The Little Engine That Could ; the film All Quiet on the West...

TL;DR: The 1min.AI lifetime subscription bundles AI writing and image tools into one platform and is discounted to $24.97 (reg. $234) through Jan. 31 at 11:59 p.m. PT. Opens in a new window Credit: 1minAI 1min.AI: Lifetime Subscription $24.97 $234 Save $209.03   Get Deal Staring at a blank screen and a blinking cursor can be one of the most time-consuming parts of creating content. AI writing tools won’t replace human creativity, but they can help get your creative juices flowing faster. For a limited time, the 1min.AI Lifetime Subscription is on sale for $24.97 (reg. $234), through Jan. 31 at 11:59 p.m. PT, and is at its lowest price to date. 1min.AI provides users with access to a variety of AI models through a single dashboard. Its writing tools include an article generator, rewriter, paraphraser, and summarizer, which are terrific features designed to help users get through writer’s block. Instead of starting from scratch, you can generate a rough...

After a year like 2025, it's easy for anyone who inhales large quantities of online news to be downhearted. This was a year that began with a terrifying salute from the world's richest man . His government IT department , known as DOGE, swung a wrecking ball at the agency that oversees U.S. overseas aid ; many experts say widespread disease and famine will be the result. There was already a famine in Gaza , ceasefire notwithstanding. Ukraine remains at war. Climate change is still a thing , 2025 was one of the hottest years on record, and the tech industry's obsession with AI data centers is making it worse . But in many cases, this wasn't the full picture. Elon Musk, faced with multiple protests and a Tesla boycott , left his controversial government role in May to spend more time with his tech companies. DOGE died, unlamented. In December, the World Health Organization reported fragile gains in feeding Gaza that inched the region out of its famine. Ukraine rema...

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is spending millions to turn the chronically online into deportation agents, according to internal communications reviewed exclusively by the Washington Post . The agency's $100 million marketing strategy , detailed in a 30-page document distributed to ICE officials this summer, includes a massive push to flood the digital market with geo-targeted and content-based advertising. The plan even names specific platforms, like Snapchat, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Substack, and Rumble, a popular "alt-tech" video platform frequented by conservatives. SEE ALSO: Trump's golden phone is delayed. Again. Recruitment advertisements under this plan would specifically target users whose devices ping near military bases, NASCAR races, UFC fights, college campuses, or gun and trade shows, as well as listeners of "patriotic" podcasts, country music, fitness, and true crime. A significant portion of the strategy hinges on g...

It's no secret that AI-generated content took over our social media feeds in 2025. Now, Instagram's top exec Adam Mosseri has made it clear that he expects AI content to overtake non-AI imagery and the significant implications that shift has for its creators and photographers. Mosseri shared the thoughts in a lengthy post about the broader trends he expects to shape Instagram in 2026. And he offered a notably candid assessment on how AI is upending the platform. "Everything that made creators matter—the ability to be real, to connect, to have a voice that couldn’t be faked—is now suddenly accessible to anyone with the right tools," he wrote. "The feeds are starting to fill up with synthetic everything." But Mosseri doesn't seem particularly concerned by this shift. He says that there is "a lot of amazing AI content" and that the platform may need to rethink its approach to labeling such imagery by "fingerprinting real media, not just c...