Tech News – by Arlin Schaffel

MapQuest’s app surges to No. 1 in Navigation after refusing to rename Lake Ontario

The “OG of online mapping,” as the company calls itself, announced on Thursday that it would not change the name of Lake Ontario on its maps to Lake America, despite Trump’s executive order directing the U.S. Department of the Interior to update the lake’s name in the U.S. geographic naming service. As a result, MapQuest’s mobile app downloads soared, sending the iOS app to the No. 4 position on the U.S. App Store’s Top Charts for apps (not including games) as of Monday morning on the U.S. east coast.
https://techcrunch.com/2026/08/31/mapquests-app-surges-to-no-1-in-navigation-after-refusing-to-rename-lake-ontario/

Instagram cracks down on AI accounts pretending to be human

image via theverge.com

Instagram is finally taking steps to address the rise of fake AI-influencer accounts that have gotten harder to spot. It’s also renaming the “AI creator” label to “AI-generated profile” to make it clear when a profile features an AI-generated person that’s not a real human being. “We’ve heard that people don’t like seeing a profile that seems human, only to find out later that the person featured is AI-generated,” said Instagram in a blog post. “They want to know when a profile features an AI-generated person.”
https://www.theverge.com/tech/986593/instagram-addresses-fake-ai-profile-slop

Humanoid robots smash Usain Bolt’s 100-meter record

The 9.58-second 100-meter dash record set by Usain Bolt in 2009 has been outpaced by Chinese robots participating at the World Humanoid Robot Games in Beijing. In a preliminary heat on Saturday, Tiangong Ultra, made by the Beijing Humanoid Robot Innovation Center, ran the distance in 9.39 seconds, followed by the Honor-developed Lightning at 9.47 seconds.
https://www.theverge.com/tech/983688/world-humanoid-robot-games-sprint-record-2026

Not an AI Optimist? You’re With the Majority of Americans

New polls from Pew Research, CNBC, and YouGov show that the majority of Americans think AI development is moving too fast and are concerned about its future. As TechCrunch reports, this is an increase over last year, suggesting that even as AI becomes more integrated into our day-to-day lives, many are increasingly worried.
https://ca.pcmag.com/ai/17544/not-an-ai-optimist-youre-with-the-majority-of-americans

Oura faces lawsuit accusing it of misleading consumers about sleep-tracking accuracy

The lawsuit, filed on Thursday by Clarkson Law Firm in San Francisco, alleges that Oura rings are unable to measure any of the physiological signals needed to assess sleep quality or determine sleep stages, and that they instead rely on AI-generated estimates that have “a coin flip’s chance of being correct,” according to the complaint.
https://techcrunch.com/2026/08/21/oura-faces-lawsuit-accusing-it-of-misleading-consumers-about-sleep-tracking-accuracy/

Valve Steam Frame Tutorial Videos Leak Showing Accessories, Controllers, More

A number of videos showcasing the Steam Frame's accessories, controllers, fits, and setup process have appeared on the Arm Steam Client. Unsurprisingly, Valve pulled them shortly after they were spotted, but the internet had already grabbed them for safekeeping.
https://ca.pcmag.com/vr/17538/valve-steam-frame-tutorial-videos-leak-showing-accessories-controllers-more

Anthropic’s Text Watermarking Proves AI Companies Do Not Care at All About Writing

Earlier this month, Anthropic announced that future versions of Claude will generate text that includes watermarks showing it was AI-generated. At the time, Anthropic did not explain how this would work, leaving us to speculate on the podcast: Would it somehow encode this into the text? Include invisible characters? Do something with the metadata? We now know, thanks to a blog post over the weekend, that Anthropic will do this by changing how its AI writes altogether.
https://www.404media.co/anthropics-text-watermarking-proves-ai-companies-do-not-care-at-all-about-writing/