World in a Pulse
Briflio distills the day's signals into one calm feed — a personalized mix of the top stories across every topic, with context, not noise.
Tony Fadell on why the first wave of AI gadgets failed — and what comes next
The “father of the iPod” says the first generation of AI gadgets failed to solve real problems — and the next wave will need to earn consumers’ trust.
Mistral says "Le Chonk" can challenge the best AI models
As tensions mount over who gets access to top-end artificial intelligence, French company Mistral has released a new freely available model that it claims can compete with the very best from the US and China. The new 1 trillion-parameter model, Mistral Large 4—nicknamed Le Chonk—can be used and customized by anyone. It’s currently available in preview, with a final version to follow by the end of the month.
Scientists Dismissed a Theory of Consciousness for 40 Years. New Evidence Suggests They Spoke Too Soon.
The quantum theory of consciousness long seemed like a radical idea, but growing evidence is making some neuroscientists take a second look.
ER visits from people born outside the U.S. dropped after ICE raids
A new study found that visits by people born outside of the U.S. to three LA emergency rooms dropped precipitously after ICE raids increased last year.
South Florida vs. UTSA prediction, odds, time: Week 6 college football Thursday picks by proven model
SportsLine's model revealed its best bets for the Thursday Conference USA matchup between the South Florida Bulls and UTSA Roadrunners
Germany’s Merz vows to fight ‘extremism’ after AfD, far-left election gains
Far-right and far-left parties gain ground in local elections as Merz's approval rating sinks.
A $100,000 mortgage can be harder to get than a much bigger one. Here’s why
Getting your foot in the door of one of the lowest-priced homes on the market has become increasingly challenging—and rising prices are only partly to blame. Financing options for a mortgage with a principal balance of $100,000 or less are increasingly harder to come by or carry much higher rates, according to a new report from Realtor.com. While the share of homes that have sold for $150,000 or less has shrunk considerably—from 36.7% in 2013 to 8.8% in 2026—the share of small mortgage origin
40 Phantom of the Opera backstage secrets and ghost stories – including the British rocker who almost played the lead
The Phantom of the Opera is here and here to stay.
Healthleap raises $38M for its AI that flags hospital patients who may need a closer look
The financing includes an $8M seed round co-led by Sequoia Capital and First Round Capital, and a $30 million Series A led by Hummingbird Ventures.
The 512GB Samsung Galaxy S26 gets a rare 25% Prime Day discount
Amazon cut $300 off the Galaxy S26 512GB for Prime Day, bringing Samsung's 2026 flagship down before the deal ends tonight.
New AI Can Figure Out What You're Thinking About From a Brain Scan
Researchers have created an AI model can recreate an image you're picturing in your head by analyzing your brain scans.
Russia keeps tight lid on lab worker's death as global concerns mount
Russian state TV and other national state-controlled media have steered clear of the subject.
Big 12 expert picks: 2026-27 projected order of finish, preseason predictions, top players to watch
Arizona is our pick to hold off challenges from Houston and Kansas to win the Big 12 title this season
UEFA football leaders meet to shape strategy to oust FIFA’s Infantino
European football leaders gather in Berlin with the aim of shaping strategy to oust Gianni Infantino as FIFA president.
The drone delivery business has a ground problem
For more than a decade, the story of drone delivery was about improving the technology and getting federal permission for the drones to take to the airwaves. Could companies get the Federal Aviation Authority to approve flights beyond the operator’s line of sight? Would regulators let one pilot supervise many aircraft? The assumption was that once Washington said yes, the drone business would take off. Washington is edging toward saying yes. What comes next is less predictable, because
Why Fall Is the Best Time to Buy This 25% off Prime Day IPL Deal
Amazon's best beauty tools are discounted for Amazon Prime Day, including this IPL tool that effortlessly removes hair for 25% off.
Meta rolls out new AI tools to detect ads that secretly lead to child sexual abuse material
Meta launches new AI tools after discovering ads on its platforms that may look normal but direct users to harmful content elsewhere online.
AI/ML is becoming a performance factor in motorsport
There’s been something of a change in the world of motorsport over the past few years. It has to do with where the money comes from. In the old days, it was tobacco, and to a lesser extent booze. Today such things are mostly banned, and when you look at a racecar covered in sponsor logos, you’re likely to see something crypto-, cyber-, or AI-related. This makes sense—a larger and larger proportion of our GDP is wrapped up in those segments. They’re the ones with all the money, and it takes money to go racing.
As AI Closed In on ‘Unique Games’ Proof, Researchers Raced to Beat the Machines | Quanta Magazine
In the shadow of a rumored AI proof of one of the biggest problems in their field, three computer scientists rushed to publish their own milestone result.
Merck suffers a setback in Europe over its new Keytruda formulation
In a setback for Merck, a Dutch court ordered a halt to the manufacturing and marketing of a subcutaneous formulation of Keytruda in several European countries.
Jon Rahm will not participate in LIV Golf 2.0: Lawyers say terms for new league are 'unacceptable to him'
LIV Golf will be losing one of its biggest stars as it looks to reinvent itself after bankruptcy
The mass killing does not mean Israel’s winning
Israel’s military might has failed to achieve the political goals in Gaza it was supposed to.
'Winter is coming': IMF chief sounds alarm over world economy
The head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has warned 'winter is coming' for the global economy - as bond market turmoil sent UK borrowing costs to a fresh 28-year high.
Gavin and Stacey creators Jones and Corden reveal cast of new show
Ruth Jones and James Corden's new show also stars X-Men's James McAvoy and Harry Potter's Jim Broadbent.
6 days to TechCrunch Disrupt 2026: Save on your pass before doors open
In 6 days, 10,000+ people from across the global startup and tech ecosystem will come together at San Francisco’s Moscone West for TechCrunch Disrupt 2026. If you’re planning to be one of them, don’t wait to register your ticket before prices increase at the door. Save up to $100 on your pass, plus 50% on a second of the same type.
Review: Fine, let's talk about Digger
I found the trailer for Digger intriguing, starring a nearly unrecognizable Tom Cruise and giving off strong Doctor Strangelove vibes. Plus, it is four-time Oscar-winning director Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s (Birdman) first English-language film since 2015’s The Revenant. Those elements quickly moved it near the top of my "must-see" list even if details about the actual plot were lacking. Given Iñárritu’s pedigree, the film seemed poised to be prime Oscar bait. (Major spoilers appear below the gallery.
Mitigating prior-volume effects in galaxy clustering by adopting Mpc over Mpc/h units
We investigate prior-volume effects in Bayesian analyses of galaxy clustering based on state-of-the-art models, such as the EFT and the VDG$_\infty$ model. We show that these effects are largely driven by imposing priors on the model parameters defined in ${\rm Mpc}/h$ units, thereby introducing a spurious correlation with the Hubble parameter $h$, and that they can be strongly mitigated by adopting a more physically motivated formulation in ${\rm Mpc}$ units. We test this approach using a set o
Baby 'scarred for life' after putting hand into gravy put in front of her at pub
The rest of the gravy spilled onto her leg when she pulled her hand out
Footy Fix: USMNT wrap up perfect international break with fourth straight win in 1-0 victory over Canada
Elsewhere, you can still catch USL as the break winds down
Every Millennial Remembers These 3 Alternative Rock Hits From 2001
This heavy dose of nostalgia from 2001 is for the Millennials who always had the radio tuned to their local alternative rock station.
Inflation fears on the rise as one-year outlook in Fed survey hits highest level since May 2023
The Survey of Consumer Expectations indicated that the median outlook for inflation over the next 12 months rose to 3.9%.
Travis Barker Shares Photos From Hospital With Kourtney Kardashian, Alabama Barker by His Side
Travis Barker shared photos of himself in a hospital bed, where he was kept company by wife Kourtney Kardashian as well as his daughter Alabama Barker.
SPONSORED: When one datacenter is no longer enough
Why training AI across multiple sites is creating a new networking challenge
Crimson Desert Proves Listening to Players' Feedback Is the Key to Success, as the Game Reportedly Generated $427M Revenue
Pearl Abyss' Crimson Desert hits $426.7M in revenue, beating major games like 007 First Light and Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced
Gut microbes followed migrating humans across continents, new study suggests
New research looks at the surprising similarities in the gut microbiomes of hunter-gathers in Tanzania and horticulturalists in Bolivia, and asks: What role do these bacteria play in human health?
Neural Petri flows for chemical reactions
Petri nets have been used to describe chemical processes such as reactions.They map well to chemistry: Places are the bonds between atoms and the free valence of each atom, a token is a unit of bond order, a transition forms or breaks a bond, the conserved quantities are the valence budgets of the atoms, and the enabling rule is the valence rule. These semantics are not guaranteed by learned models of reactions or neural networks that are built on Petri nets that use the net as a scaffold for me
Former NFL rushing TD leader eyes comeback, works out for Patriots
The 2022 NFL rushing touchdowns leader hasn't played in over a year after spending two seasons in New Orleans following his breakout campaign in Detroit
Christa Pike’s lawyers hold press conference after she regains consciousness in hospital – latest updates
Tennessee prisoner awake and speaking after surviving state’s attempt to execute her last Wednesday
Regulating AI and curbing debt need urgent action around the globe, says IMF chief
Countries both rich and poor must take faster action to cut debt and counter growing inequality as their economies weather a triple whammy from the artificial intelligence boom, heavy borrowing and shocks from wars in the Middle East and Ukraine, the head of the IMF said Wednesday.“Some very tough political choices stare us in the face,” IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva said in a speech in Singapore ahead of autumn IMF-World Bank meetings to be held in Bangkok next week.
The Set Up To Adapt Lisa Wilkinson's 'The Titanic Story Of Evelyn'
Australian bestseller The 'Titanic Story of Evelyn' is setting sail on a TV adaptation at The Set Up.
OpenAI’s Alexander Embiricos is coming to TechCrunch Disrupt 2026 — days after the launch of Dots
OpenAI’s Alexander Embiricos is coming to the AI Stage at TechCrunch Disrupt 2026, just days after the launch of Dots. Join this conversation by registering for your pass. Get you pass now to save up to $100 and get a second at 50% off.
If you're looking, here's a "good deal" for NASA and the European Space Agency
It's no surprise that NASA's new tack toward foreign partnerships—good deals only, please—is challenging preconceived notions of international cooperation in space. Without a massive budget hike, the US space agency's emphasis on building a Moon Base and winning a competition for lunar real estate and resources with China will inevitably leave lesser priorities behind. Gone is the Lunar Gateway, a space station that was to be assembled in orbit around the Moon.
Halo Mass Function Constraints on Early Galaxy and AGN Populations in the JWST Era
The discovery by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) of massive galaxies and luminous active galactic nuclei (AGN) at high redshift provides an increasingly sensitive test of the connection between cosmological structure formation and the astrophysical processes that make dark matter halos observable. We develop a framework connecting the linear matter power spectrum to the mass variance, peak height, halo mass function (HMF), cumulative halo abundance, and observable galaxy and AGN population
Language-model ratings of depression reflect the rater more than the patient
Depression has no diagnostic blood test. Language models promise tireless, consistent assessment, but can accurate raters disagree about individuals? We pre-registered 880 language-model raters, crossing 11 open models with prompting and scoring choices, and applied them to 189 interviews against the eight-item Patient Health Questionnaire. Model choice explained 30.0% of summed-symptom score variance, stable participant differences 10.5%. Two randomly drawn raters with area under the receiver o
'Thursday Night Football' prediction, odds, time: Buccaneers vs. Cowboys picks from expert who's 43-31
R.J. White reveals his picks for Dallas Cowboys vs. Tampa Bay Bucs in the 2026 Week 5 'Thursday Night Football' matchup
How Israel’s genocide in Gaza pulled Britons into the Palestine movement
Britons are risking freedom and reputations to stand with Palestinians and challenge government policy.
US: Short- and Medium-Term Inflation Expectations Increase; Labor Market Expectations Improve
The Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s Center for Microeconomic Data today released the September 2026 Survey of Consumer Expectations, which shows that households’ inflation expectations increased at the short- and medium-term horizons and remained unchanged at the longer-term horizon. Labor market
Dhurandhar 2 TV Premiere: When And Where To Watch Ranveer Singh’s Spy Thriller?
Dhurandhar: The Revenge is making its much-anticipated debut on television.
Get hands-on: The full lineup of interactive roundtables at TechCrunch Disrupt 2026
From Nvidia and Chime to Obvious Ventures and Anthropic, explore the entire roundtable agenda at TechCrunch Disrupt 2026. Register now to save up to $100 on your pass and get a second pass at 50% off.
QF3: Fast Flow RL with Filtered Q-Gradients
Flow policies have become a standard policy class for learning robot behaviors from demonstrations, but reinforcement learning is still critical for improving pre-trained flow policies or learning them from scratch through interaction. We introduce QF3 (Fast Flow RL with Filtered Q-Gradients), an online off-policy RL algorithm that trains a flow policy with flow matching plus the critic's action gradient, backpropagated through a one-step prediction of the flow's output. To keep updates where th
Artemis II Crew Moon Photo Annotations
NASA A visualization of a dark Moon eclipsing the Sun is marked with handwritten notes in this April 6, 2026, screenshot from an Artemis II crew member’s tablet. NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman (in blue) and Victor “Ike” Glover (in green) and CSA (Canadian Space Agency) Jeremy Hansen (in red) observed impact flashes and their locations, which are noted on the image. Overall, the astronauts reported seeing five extremely faint “pinprick” bursts of light from their view aboard Orion, which was 46,000 miles away from the Moon at the time.
Sliding-scale Insulin Does Not Control Steroid-induced Hyperglycemia in a Non-diabetic Patient, No Matter How You Tune It
Sliding-scale correction insulin is the standard hospital response to high blood glucose. Its constants were derived in people who secrete no insulin, yet it is routinely ordered for patients whose own secretion is intact. We represent the correction rule as a proportional controller with a deadband, sampled four-hourly, acting on a glucose model built from published physiology, including pancreatic feedback. We derive the sensitivity of glucose to exogenous insulin, evaluate it in 4,995 virtual
Southampton coach Tonda Eckert receives suspended six-week ban after Spygate scandal
Eckert, who has also been fined around $37,000, will only serve the six-week ban if he is found to have spied on another team at any point through the end of the 2027-28 season
Canada’s Weston family buys Boots for $8.9bn
Former Selfridges owners buys UK high street institution from long-term backer Stefano Pessina
Venmo just turned splitting the bill into a credit card rewards category
Splitting the dinner bill with your friends could soon earn you a little extra cash. Venmo is overhauling its credit card rewards with a new perk designed specifically for splitting the bill. Starting October 15, new Venmo Credit Card customers can earn up to 4% cash back on eligible dining and entertainment purchases, but there’s a catch: To get the full 4%, you’ll need to make your friends pay you back. Cardholders will automatically earn 3% cash back on eligible dining and e
5 Years Ago Today: CBS Premiered One Of Its Biggest Comedies - TVLine
American remakes of British sitcoms don't always go down well, but the CBS version of "Ghosts" became an instant hit when it debuted back in October 2021.
Google experiments with an AI-powered gaming platform
Google Labs is working on a new AI-powered game-creation platform called Playground for users to build browser-based games using simple text prompts.
Google rolls out improved SynthID AI content detector, now available globally
Every piece of AI content from Google's Gemini models has a hidden SynthID label, which makes it very difficult to pass the content off as authentic. SynthID has also gotten buy-in from other major AI players, but actually checking for those invisible watermarks has been a convoluted process. It's going to be a little easier going forward, though.
Small Distortions, Big Polarization: Tetragonal BaTiO3 Nanoparticles for High-Performance Piezoelectric Nanogenerators
Lead-free ferroelectric BaTiO3 (BTO) nanoparticles with stabilized tetragonal distortion were synthesized via a ligand-assisted sol-gel method to serve as the active piezoelectric phase in high-performance hybrid piezoelectric nanogenerators (PENGs) operating with triboelectric synergy. XRD, Raman spectroscopy, and Pair Distribution Function (PDF) analysis confirmed pseudo-cubic tetragonal BTO nanoparticle, annealed at 900°C (BTO-900, ~54nm) and well-defined tetragonal BTO annealed at 1200°C (BT
Map reveals smoking hotspots where cigarette users refuse to quit
The Government has been accused of 'deepening the North-South divide' with its tobacco policy, after official figures reveal men in the north are now smoking more than ever.
Sam Houston vs. Liberty prediction, odds, time: Week 6 college football Thursday picks by proven model
SportsLine's model revealed its best bets for the Thursday Conference USA matchup between the Sam Houston Bearkats and Liberty Flames
More than 200,000 displaced as fighting escalates in Yemen, UN says
With 3,700 fleeing to Djibouti amid Houthi clashes, the UN warns three in four families in parts of Yemen face hunger.
Donald Trump is launching a new AI task force. Here’s who he’ll have to keep happy
Donald Trump didn’t become one of the world’s most recognizable businessmen by worrying too much about keeping everyone happy. What Trump wants, Trump tends to pursue, consequences be damned. But his administration’s new AI task force may require a different touch. Co-chaired by director of national intelligence Jay Clayton, Office of Personnel Management director Scott Kupor, chief technology officer Emil Michael, and FTC vice chair Andrew Ferguson, the group brings together officials repres
Xbox bets on Gears of War in battle of gaming giants
Unlike other flagship titles, E-Day will only be available on Xbox at a time of rising console costs.