The United Arab Emirates announced Tuesday that it would exit the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (source paywalled; alternative source), or OPEC, along with the wider group of partners known as OPEC+, effective May 1, in what could be a blow to control over prices by the group, long led in practice by Saudi Arabia.… Read More »
Bay Area homeowner and investment banker Storm Duncan is trying to swap a 13-acre Mill Valley property for Anthropic equity instead of cash. He created a LinkedIn page for the home, describing the move as a "diversification play" because he is "under-concentrated in AI investments relative to the importance of AI in the future, and… Read More »
An anonymous reader quotes a report from NPR: A divided U.S. Supreme Court on Monday heard a dispute over labels on the popular Roundup weed killer, which thousands of people blame for their cancers. How the Supreme Court rules could have implications for tens of thousands of lawsuits against Roundup maker Monsanto, which is now owned by Bayer.… Read More »
Researchers say infrasound -- low-frequency vibrations from things like pipes, HVAC systems, and traffic that humans can't consciously hear -- may help explain why some old buildings feel unsettling or "haunted." Rodney Schmaltz, senior author and professor at MacEwan, says: "Consider visiting a supposedly haunted building. Your mood shifts, you… Read More »
The Trump administration says it will reimburse energy companies $885 million to cancel two planned offshore wind farms, with the firms in turn agreeing to put money into oil and gas projects instead. "The deals are modeled after a similar agreement last month with the French energy giant TotalEnergies," notes the New York Times. "TotalEnergies… Read More »
An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Associated Press: Technology tycoons Elon Musk and Sam Altman are poised to face off in a high-stakes trial revolving around the alleged betrayal, deceit and unbridled ambition that blurred the bickering billionaires' once-shared vision for the development of artificial intelligence. The trial, which… Read More »
Alternative_right shares a report from 404 Media: Researchers working with data from the Internet Archive have discovered that a third of websites created since 2022 are AI-generated. The team of researchers -- which includes people from Stanford, the Imperial College London, and the Internet Archive -- published their findings online in a paper… Read More »