Comment on Summer Reading: Let's Get Happy

Enlarge / Screen capture of a Runway Gen-3 Alpha video generated with the prompt "A giant humanoid, made of fluffy blue cotton candy, stomping on the ground, and roaring to the sky, clear blue sky behind them." (credit: Runway) On Sunday, Runway announced a new AI video synthesis model called Gen-3 Alpha that's still under development, but it appears to create video of similar quality to OpenAI's Sora, which debuted earlier this year (and has also not yet been released).

New York — Ever get your McDonald’s order mixed up at an AI-powered drive-through? The experiment behind the fast food giant’s current automated order taker will soon be coming to a close. McDonald’s confirmed Monday that it decided to end a global partnership with IBM, which has been testing this artificial intelligence technology at select McDonald’s drive-throughs since 2021. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] That doesn’t mean you’ll never encounter some sort of chatbot while picking up fries on your car ride home again.

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images | Ronald Martinez) AT&T is imposing $10 and $20 monthly price hikes on users of older unlimited wireless plans starting in August 2024, the company announced. The single-line price of these 10 "retired" plans will increase by $10 per month, while customers with multiple lines on a plan will be hit with a total monthly increase of $20. "If you have a single line of service on your plan, your monthly plan charge will increase by $10.

Enlarge / Car designer Henrik Fisker poses with a Fisker Ocean at the Salvation Army California South Division's annual Sally Awards in June 2022. (credit: Michael Tullberg/Getty Images) Fisker, the second EV firm started by legendary BMW and Aston Martin designer Henrik Fisker, has filed for bankruptcy and intends to sell its assets and restructure its debt.

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images) Two men have pleaded guilty to charges of computer intrusion and aggravated identity theft tied to their theft of records from a law enforcement database for use in doxxing and extorting multiple individuals. Sagar Steven Singh, 20, and Nicholas Ceraolo, 26, admitted to being members of ViLE, a group that specializes in obtaining personal information of individuals and using it to extort or harass them.

Enlarge (credit: eldadcarin | iStock / Getty Images Plus) Elon Musk is still frantically pushing to launch X payment services in the US by the end of 2024, Bloomberg reported Tuesday. Launching payment services is arguably one of the reasons why Musk paid so much to acquire Twitter in 2022. His rebranding of the social platform into X revives a former dream he had as a PayPal co-founder who fought and failed to name the now-ubiquitous payments app X.