• Senate passes Defiance Act for a second time to address Grok deepfakes

    January 13, 2026

    The Senate has passed the Disrupt Explicit Forged Images and Non-Consensual Edits (DEFIANCE ) Act with unanimous consent, according to the bill’s co-sponsor Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL). The bill lets the subjects of nonconsensual, sexually explicit deepfakes take civil action against the people who create and host them. Deepfakes are a known issue online, but without the proper protections, easy access to AI-powered image and video generation tools has made it possible for anyone to create compromising content using another person’s likeness. This has become a particular problem on X, where the integration of Grok, the AI assistant created by…

  • Microsoft announces glut of new data centers but says it won’t let your electricity bill go up

    January 13, 2026

    Although public backlash against data centers has been intense over the past 12 months, all of the tech industry’s biggest companies have promised additional buildouts of AI infrastructure in the coming year. That includes OpenAI partner Microsoft, which, on Tuesday, announced what it calls a “community-first” approach to AI Infrastructure. Microsoft’s announcement, which comes only a day after Mark Zuckerberg said that Meta would launch its own AI infrastructure program, isn’t unexpected. Last year, the company announced that it planned to spend billions to expand its AI capacity. What is a little unusual are the promises the company has now…

  • Proposed legislation opens the door to robotaxi services in New York

    January 13, 2026

    Waymo, Alphabet’s self-driving car company, tested its autonomous vehicles in New York City in 2025, and as part of proposed legislation from New York Governor Kathy Hochul, the company could soon offer its services across the state, Wired reports. Governor Hochul’s proposed legislation was formally announced during a State of the State address covering policy proposals for the upcoming year. The new law, if passed, would loosen the state’s restrictions on self-driving car companies by forming a pilot program that would allow for “the limited deployment of commercial for-hire autonomous passenger vehicles outside New York City.” Applicants to the pilot…

  • A consumer watchdog issued a warning about Google’s AI agent shopping protocol — Google says she’s wrong

    January 13, 2026

    Shortly after Google announced its new Universal Commerce Protocol for AI-powered shopping agents, a consumer economics watchdog sounded the alarm. In a now viral post on X viewed nearly 400,000 times, Lindsay Owens on Sunday wrote, “Big/bad news for consumers. Google is out today with an announcement of how they plan to integrate shopping into their AI offerings including search and Gemini. The plan includes ‘personalized upselling.’ I.e. Analyzing your chat data and using it to overcharge you.” Owens is executive director of the consumer economics think tank Groundwork Collaborative. Her concern stems from looking at Google’s roadmap, as well…

  • Renault Filante: Geely-based flagship hybrid SUV revealed

    January 13, 2026

    The Renault Filante is a jazzed-up and stretched-out Koleos that will serve as Renault’s flagship model in many markets outside of Europe. Measuring 4915mm long, 1890mm wide, 1635mm tall, and riding on a 2820mm wheelbase, the Filante shares the same wheelbase as the third-generation Koleos — sold as the Grand Koleos in South Korea — but is 135mm longer overall. It is easily the largest vehicle in the global Renault range, eclipsing the 4.72m Espace in Europe and the 4.78m Grand Koleos. The Filante is only offered with seating for five, and its boot is said to be able to swallow 633L…

  • Taiwan issues arrest warrant for Pete Lau, CEO of OnePlus

    January 13, 2026

    Taiwanese officials have issued an arrest warrant for OnePlus CEO Pete Lau on allegations of illegally employing workers in Taiwan. Two Taiwanese citizens who worked for Lau have also been indicted. The China-based smartphone company has been accused of illegally recruiting more than 70 engineers from Taiwan. Members of the Shilin District Prosecutors Office claim that OnePlus reportedly set up a shell company in Hong Kong with a distinct name, then launched a branch in Taiwan in 2015 without government approval. The branch reportedly worked on research and development for OnePlus mobile phones. Taiwanese officials claim these actions by OnePlus…

  • Google’s update for Veo 3.1 lets users create vertical videos through reference images

    January 13, 2026

    Google on Tuesday updated its Veo 3.1 AI video-generation model with the ability to create native vertical videos for social platforms using reference images. The changes will also make the videos generated from reference images more expressive and dynamic. When producing AI-generated videos for YouTube Shorts or other platforms like Instagram or TikTok, Veo users can now natively choose the 9:16 vertical format to avoid any cropping. Google is also adding the feature directly to the YouTube Shorts and the YouTube Create app. Google first released Veo 3.1 in October 2025 with improved audio output and more granular editing controls…

  • EA delays Battlefield 6 Season 2 to February 17

    January 13, 2026

    The second season of Battlefield 6 is being pushed back based on “community feedback.” On Tuesday, EA and Battlefield Studios said Season 2 will now arrive on February 17. Season 2 of Battlefield 6 had previously been scheduled for January 20, so we’re looking at a delay of almost a month. As a consolation, the team is extending Season 1 through the start of the next season. “During our ongoing development, we’ve continued to review community feedback and, in order to keep our promise, determined that our best path forward is to extend Season 1 and give ourselves extra time…

  • Neo humanoid maker 1X releases world model to help bots learn what they see

    January 13, 2026

    1X, the robotics company behind the Neo humanoid robot, has unveiled a new AI model that it says understands the dynamics of the real world and can help bots learn new information on their own. This physics-based model, called 1X World Model, uses a combination of video and prompts to give Neo robots new abilities. The video allows Neo robots to learn new tasks they weren’t previously trained on, according to 1X. This release comes as 1X is gearing up to release its Neo humanoids into the home. The company opened up pre-orders for its humanoids in October with plans…

  • How to Build a Multi-Turn Crescendo Red-Teaming Pipeline to Evaluate and Stress-Test LLM Safety Using Garak

    January 13, 2026

    In this tutorial, we build an advanced, multi-turn crescendo-style red-teaming harness using Garak to evaluate how large language models behave under gradual conversational pressure. We implement a custom iterative probe and a lightweight detector to simulate realistic escalation patterns in which benign prompts slowly pivot toward sensitive requests, and we assess whether the model maintains its safety boundaries across turns. Also, we focus on practical, reproducible evaluation of multi-turn robustness rather than single-prompt failures. Check out the FULL CODES here. import os, sys, subprocess, json, glob, re from pathlib import Path from datetime import datetime, timezone subprocess.run( [sys.executable, "-m", "pip", "install",…