Your pocket scientist is smarter than you think
🤓 OpenAI cracks world’s hardest math test: Its new model solved 5 out of 6 problems on the International Mathematical Olympiad, earning a gold-level score. That’s huge. It takes sustained creative thinking (paywall link), something AI has struggled with until now. The bot could go public in a few months. PSA: Not all math jokes are bad. Just sum.
14 minutes and 8 seconds
That’s how long the average dog watches TV per day. Sure, they’ll perk up for a barking scene, but unless it’s a nature doc with squirrels, consider them emotionally unavailable. After that, they’re back to their real passion: licking themselves and judging your life choices.
🧬 Three-parent baby drop: UK scientists have pulled off a medical hat trick: eight babies born using DNA from three people — mom, dad and a donor — to dodge deadly mitochondrial diseases. The donor’s part is just 0.1% but makes all the difference. The science is wild, but the result is healthy kids.
Hacked, packed and resold: A startup called Farnsworth Intelligence is taking hacked data (yep, from infostealer malware) and selling it to divorce lawyers, debt collectors and your competitor’s sales team. Over 50 million computers’ worth of stolen info. Passwords, browsing habits, embarrassing accounts and more up for grabs for about $50 each. How is this legal?
🏝️ Tropic like it’s hot: Mark Zuckerberg just expanded his Kauai compound to over 2,300 acres, making him one of Hawaii’s biggest landowners. The property includes known Native Hawaiian burial sites, which are being preserved, but locals worry about what might stay hidden under NDA-heavy construction. His $300M+ Hawaiian fortress also includes macadamia-fed cattle that moo in cursive.
AI faked her daughter: A Florida woman lost $15K after scammers used AI to mimic her daughter’s voice in a fake car crash call. They even called back asking for $30K more, claiming her daughter lost a baby in the accident. Her real daughter was at work the whole time. Have a secret family code word to thwart these crimes. Next up, AI is doing method acting on Broadway.
1 billion
That’s how many people watch podcasts on YouTube each month. Yes, watching. Turns out we didn’t kill our attention spans, we just moved them to couches, desks and smart TVs. If you’re multitasking with video in the background, congrats: You’re in excellent company. Might I suggest adding my podcast to the rotation? It’s cheaper than therapy.
🧨 Microsoft’s China copilot: Microsoft’s finally getting rid of communist China-based engineers on U.S. military cloud projects after a ProPublica report triggered a Pentagon freak-out. Turns out so-called “digital escorts,” security-cleared U.S. babysitters, didn’t understand the tech they were supposed to be safeguarding. Now the defense secretary’s ordered a full supply chain scrub. Microsoft swears it disclosed everything. The military is now triple-checking everything for leaks and spies.
🤖 Roblox adds AI selfie check: Kids can now chat more freely with friends, but only after proving they’re over 13. That starts with a video selfie, so AI can estimate their age (yes, really). If that doesn’t work, they’ll need to upload a government ID, finally.