The Verge – Tech News

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

OpenAI hit the brakes. Now what?

With a looming IPO, intense competition from Anthropic, and Chinese and open-weight rivals nipping at its heels, OpenAI has plenty of reasons to move fast. Instead, it hit the brakes. On Tuesday, the company said it had slowed the pace of some AI development while it tightened security and safeguards. That included a two-week pause in reinforcement learning training on its “latest models intended for deployment,” and an ongoing delay to its “largest planned frontier RL run.”
https://www.theverge.com/ai-artificial-intelligence/982323/openai-hit-brakes-voluntary-pacing-ai

These reusable digital Polaroids are a clever way to cover a fridge in memories

I’m infatuated with these magnetic digital Polaroids from a small company called VidaBay. They look like instant photos, but use NFC tech and color E Ink screens so you can change the image as often as you want without ever having to charge a battery.
https://www.theverge.com/tech/917067/vidabay-snap-nfc-e-ink-paper-fridge-magnet-photo-hands-on

Canva apologizes after its AI tool replaces ‘Palestine’ in designs

One of Canva’s new AI features has been caught replacing the word “Palestine” in designs. The Magic Layers feature — which is designed to break flat images out into separate editable components — isn’t supposed to make visible alterations to user designs, but it was found by X user @ros_ie9 to automatically switch the phrase “cats for Palestine” to “cats for Ukraine.”
https://www.theverge.com/ai-artificial-intelligence/919028/canva-magic-layers-ai-replacing-palestine

First vacuums – then the world

Dreame — pronounced dreamy — used its half-minute of exposure to promise a dizzying product evolution: from robot vacuums and lawnmowers to hypercars, humanoids, and even into outer space. Transformers-style robots took each product to the next level, hinting at a far bigger future than sweeping floors. “This commercial isn’t just about visibility; it’s a statement of commitment,” said Dreame’s North American CEO, Ana Wang.
https://www.theverge.com/report/914244/dreame-china-vacuums-hypercars-elon-musk

Microsoft’s new Xbox Gamepad Cursor adds a virtual mouse to handhelds

Microsoft has started testing its own virtual mouse cursor inside its Xbox mode for Windows-based handhelds. The new Gamepad Cursor option provides a quick way to turn the left stick of a handheld like the Xbox Ally X into a virtual mouse.
https://www.theverge.com/news/910901/microsoft-xbox-gamepad-cursor-windows-handhelds