Content warning: this story discusses sexual abuse, self-harm, suicide, eating disorders and other disturbing topics.Character.AI, the Google-backed AI chatbot startup embroiled in two lawsuits concerning the welfare of minors, appears to be bulking up its content moderation team in the wake of litigation and heightened public scrutiny.The embattled AI firm's trust and safety head Jerry Ruoti announced in a LinkedIn post yesterday that Character.AI is "looking to grow" its safety operations, describing the role as a "great opportunity" to "help build a function."A linked job listing for a "trust and safety associate," also posted yesterday, describes a role akin to a traditional social media moderation position. Contract hirees will be tasked to "review and analyze" flagged content for "compliance with company moderation standards," remove content deemed "inappropriate or offensive," and "respond to user inquiries" concerning safety and privacy, among other duties.The apparent effort to manually bolster safety teams comes as Character.AI faces down two separate lawsuits filed on behalf of three families across Florida and Texas who claim their children were emotionally and sexually abused by the platform's AI companions, resulting in severe mental suffering, physical violence, and one suicide.Google which is closely tied to Character.AI through personnel, computing infrastructure, and a $2.7 billion cash infusion in exchange for access to Character.AI-collected user data is also named as a defendant in both lawsuits, as are Character.AI cofounders Noam Shazeer and Daniel de Freitas, both of whom returned to work on the search giant's AI development efforts this year.The move to add more humans to its moderation staff also comes on the heels of a string of Futurismstories about troubling content on Character.AI and its accessibility to minor users, including chatbots expressly dedicated to discussing suicidal ideation and intent, pedophilia and child sexual abuse roleplay, pro-eating disorder coaching, and graphic depictions of self-harm. Most recently, we discovered a large host of Character.AI bots and entire creator communities dedicated to perpetrators of mass violence, including bots that simulate school shootings, emulate real school shooters, and impersonate real child and teenage victims of school violence.We reached out to Character.AI to ask whether its hiring push is in response to the pending litigation. In an email, a spokesperson for the company pushed back against that idea."As we've shared with you numerous times, we have a robust Trust and Safety team which includes content moderation," the spokesperson toldFuturism. "Just like any other consumer platform, we continue to grow and invest in this important team."In a follow-up, we pointed out that Character.AI is still hosting many chatbots designed to impersonate mass murderers and their juvenile victims. As of publishing,Safety is the question at the heart of both pending lawsuits, which together claim that Character.AI and Google facilitated the release of a product made "unreasonably dangerous" by design choices like the bots' engagement-boosting anthropomorphic design. Such choices, the cases argue, have rendered the AI platform inherently hazardous, particularly for minors."Through its design," reads the Texas complaint, which was filed earlier this month, Character.AI "poses a clear and present danger to American youth by facilitating or encouraging serious, life-threatening harms on thousands of kids."Social Media Victims Law Center founder Matt Bergman, who brought the case against Character.AI and its fellow defendants, compared the release of the poduct to "pollution.""It really is akin to putting raw asbestos in the ventilation system of a building, or putting dioxin into drinking water," Bergman told Futurism in an interview earlier this month. "This is that level of culpability, and it needs to be handled at the highest levels of regulation in law enforcement because the outcomes speak for themselves. This product's only been on the market for two years."In response to the lawsuit, Character.AI said that it does "not comment on pending litigation," but that its goal "is toprovide a space that is both engaging and safe for our community.""We are always working toward achieving that balance, as are many companies using AI across the industry. As part of this, we are creating a fundamentally different experience for teen users from what is available to adults. This includes a model specifically for teens that reduces the likelihood of encountering sensitive or suggestive content while preserving their ability to use the platform," the statement continued. "As we continue to invest in the platform, we are introducing new safety features for users under 18 in addition to the tools already in place that restrict the model and filter the content provided to the user. These include improved detection, response and intervention related to user inputs that violate our Terms or Community Guidelines."Whether beefing up its content moderation staff will be enough to ensure comprehensive platform safety moving forward, though, remains to be seen.Share This Article

A fourth Sonic the Hedgehog movie is reportedly in development at Paramount Pictures.Just as Sonic the Hedgehog 3 hits cinemas, Variety has claimed the studio is working on another sequel, and is planning to release the film in Spring 2027.The beloved Sega video game franchise, which began back in 1991 with the first platformer released on the Sega Mega Drive, known as the Sega Genesis in the US, first burst onto the silver screen in 2020. The franchise stars Ben Schwartz as the voice of Sonic, with Jim Carrey playing the evil Doctor Robotnik and James Marsden portraying the hedgehogs human accomplice Tom Wachowski.The movie proved to be box office success, bringing in $320 million globally on a budget of approximately $85 million, and so Paramount commissioned a 2022 sequel and a spinoff TV show Knuckles, which starred Idris Elba in the titular role.Afterwards, Paramount greenlit Sonic the Hedgehog 3, which introduced Keanu Reeves as Sonics arch-nemesis Shadow and also features Idris reprising his role as Knuckles the Echidna.Sonic 3 - 2024 - Paramount Pictures -PosterSonic 3 - 2024 - Paramount Pictures -Posterloading...READ MORE: Another Hit Video Game Series Is Becoming a MovieThe John Wick actor, 60, said he found voicing the villainous hedgehog exhilarating because it gave him the freedom to express himself.During an appearance on CBS Mornings, he said: There's something really special about the concentration and the way that you have to articulate the voice and express. I find it really exhilarating.The Matrix star added he spend time trying to find [his] inner Shadow and bring it out to the fore in the movie.Director Jeff Fowler, who has helmed the cinematic series since its debut four years ago, praised Reeves for his commitment to the role and for ensuring he captured the essence of the character.The filmmaker said: One of the things Keanu did, which is really smart, was identify the other characters voice performances. When you have four voice actors in the same film, they all want to have their own unique sound. Keanu identified that need and found his Shadow.Sonic the Hedgehog 3 follows Sonic (Schwartz), Tom (Marsden) and Tails (Colleen O'Shaughnessey) as they try to stop the powerful Shadow (Reeves) from destroying the world.Having starring in all three movies, Marsden said he was grateful to be a part of such a successful franchise, and emphasized it was rare that flicks like Sonic the Hedgehog get made today.He told Collider: It's crazy. Also, I just feel like it's rare that you get to make three of these movies anymore, where you do get a chance to do a sequel, let alone a third film. So, it really speaks to the fans, the popularity of the movie.Get our free mobile app20 Comic Book Movies You Forgot ExistedThere have been so many movies based on comics in recent years, you might not even remember all of them (or most of them).Filed Under: Sega, Sonic the Hedgehog 3, Sonic the Hedgehog 4Categories: Movie News, Video Game News

McDonalds has been testing a completely new restaurant concept right under our noses.OK, so maybe its only under some of our noses since its yet to expand across the U.S., but theres no doubt this one will probably takeoff in the coming months.What Type Of Restaurant Is McDonalds Testing?McDonalds has been trying out all sorts of new things over the past couple years.In late 2023, it rolled out a nostalgic spinoff restaurant called CosMcs that had more of a focus on drinks. Since that time, the chain has continued to test various new menu items with some, like the Chicken Big Mac, getting a wide-release.McDonalds is now ready to take yet another concept for a test drive. The new restaurant style features a smaller design with special drive-thru lanes and conveyor belts that deliver food to customers.Conveyor Belt Delivering Food in McDonald's Drive-ThruMcDonald's press photoloading...The features inside and outside are geared toward customers who are planning to dine at home or on the go, McDonald's said in a press release.What Will The New McDonalds Restaurants Look Like?There will be little to no seating inside the new design that is currently getting a test run. Instead, customers will find a delivery pick-up room meant for couriers and kiosks to place orders to go.The exterior of McDonald's new restaurant concept is also wildly different than what we're all used to.Customers coming to the restaurant will find two lanes. One lane will be for drive-thru orders much like it is at any McDonald's. The other lane will be the Order Ahead Lane where orders placed prior to your arrival will be delivered via a conveyor belt.McDonald's New Drive-Thru ConceptMcDonald's press photoloading...There also will be additional parking spaces for food delivery services to pick-up orders.Where Is The New McDonalds Concept Being Tested?With CosMcs, McDonalds tested the concept closer to its global headquarters in Chicago before slowly adding a handful of locations in other parts of Illinois and Texas.READ MORE: What It Means If You See A McDonalds With Black ArchesThis time around, McDonalds starting its test run in the Lone Star State. The first location to have a smaller restaurant and multiple drive-thru lanes was opened in Fort Worth, Texas earlier this month.McDonalds has yet to give any indication of where the new-style restaurant will pop-up next other than saying it is in the test and learn phase of the project.15 McDonald's Menu Items From Around The World You Can Try in The U.S.The ground floor of McDonald's global headquarters in Chicago features a restaurant with a rotating international menu of food from other countries. Here is a look at 15 distinctive items that have been served at that location.Gallery Credit: Rob CarrollREAD MORE: 18 Discontinued Drinks We Said Goodbye to in 2024Filed Under: Fast Food, McDonald'sCategories: TV News

Senior Full Stack Dev using Ruby on Rails the Rails Way! (No React!!!)Location: Remote WorldwideAbout the OpportunityWere looking for a Senior Full Stack Developer to join us at Nearcut. You will join a small team dedicated to building impactful and maintainable software. No day will be the same you will have the opportunity to work on a variety of tasks across the business. Your opinions and ideas will shape our tech stack.As a Senior Full Stack Developer, you will collaborate closely with our technical founder and development team. Your work will impact millions of customers and help us continue to expand across Europe. You will be responsible for delivering high-quality and fully tested features.Our product is built on Ruby on Rails. Our stack includes RSpec, MySQL, Docker Compose, Rubocop and Stimulus. We build software the Rails way and are not concerned with the latest JS framework craze. Currently, we use Ruby 3.0 and Rails 6.1 (soon to be upgraded). Five years ago we adopted Test Driven Development in all of our work and our test suite covers around 95% of our code base, keeping bugs to an absolute minimum and allowing us to focus on new features. We have built our own component system using Github's View Component gem. When it comes to CSS, we use BEM.Your expertiseYou have at least 7 years of professional software development experience in Ruby on RailsYou love using Test Driven Development in all of your workYou have used Stimulus before in a projectYou are very comfortable writing clean HTML/CSSYou dont like ReactYou have a passion for building beautiful object-oriented softwareYou have implemented numerous full-stack features in production applications from scratchYou appreciate having end-to-end ownership of your work including deployment and responding to issues: you build it, you own it and you run itYou take an active interest in best practicesYou enjoy learning new skills and tackling different technical challengesYou are attentive to problems and want to help customers succeedYou have experience working in startupsYour responsibilitiesYou'll be a crucial individual contributor on our small but capable development team.Implement and deploy new features, using TDD and refactoring your work to meet best practicesReview tests and refactor sub-standard code as you come across itImplement new View Components using HTML/CSS/StimulusReview PRs from your colleagues across different parts of the productEmbrace and adopt the company's style of writing Rails apps (trust us, it works)Offer feedback on code reviews to help others to improveIterate and tailor your work based on feedback from customers and colleaguesPlan your implementation approach before starting to codeInvestigate and fix bugs as they are reported (with a strong test suite, these are rare for us!)You can be available for some calls between 10:00 - 14:00 UTCYour first monthGain in-depth knowledge of our product and understand our development cycle by:Reviewing our guidelinesReviewing our existing codebaseReviewing other developers' pull requestsAsking questions as you goBuild and deploy at least one new fully tested featureBenefits of our working environmentRemote-first: We are a remote-first company without an in-person office. We trust our employees to work flexibily and autonomously to efficiently meet business goals.Flexible working hours: Aside from a couple of weekly meetings and availability during core hours, we are happy for you to complete your work whenever youre most productive.Close team: Although we work remotely, our team is close knit and colleagues are always there to help one another.Great customer feedback: Our customers are small business owners who are very appreciative of the work that we do to solve problems in their businessesBootstrapped: We have never raised external capital. We have no distractions from past or future investors. We're entirely focused on helping our customers and we're taking our time to build a reliable product and grow sustainably.Small business: No hierarchy or politics, just focus on efficiently building quality features that customers love.Everyone is pulling in the same direction and supports each other. I've never worked for a company that gets so much positive feedback from the clients - we can really see the impact of our work. I also enjoy that fact that we work remotely and can be flexible.- Nearcut colleague for more than 3 yearsWorking at Nearcut is a breath of fresh air! The business is full to the brim of great people who are motivated to improve themselves and the business on the whole, and the entire company is structured to allow individuals to thrive. I haven't looked back since joining!- Nearcut colleague for more than 1 yearThe nitty grittyAn annual salary of between 65,000$ USD - 80,000$ USD gross, depending on your technical ability and experience.33 flexible holiday days per year. Since our remote-first team is based all over the world, you can choose whether or not to take time off on your countrys public holidays.Permanent employment contract with European benefits including sick pay and 6 month probation period.Were a small team and were passionate about being a great company to work with and work for.Application processDeadline for applications: 15:00 UTC on Monday 6th January 2025Intro calls: Tuesday 7th - Friday 10th January 2025Coding challenge: We will send out coding challenges to candidates by 12:00 UTC on Friday 10th January 2025. The deadline for returning the coding challenge will be 18:00 UTC on Monday 13th January 2025Final interview: Thursday 16th or Friday 17th January 2025Please answer the following key questions in order to apply!https://ejualuifv94.typeform.com/to/E8c87DCr#source=wwr

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has filed a lawsuit against Zelle and three banks that own it Wells Fargo, Bank of America, and JPMorgan Chase claiming they failed to protect consumers from widespread fraud. Zelle is a payment network designed to compete with payment platforms like Venmo and Cash App, but the CFPB says the banks rushed it to market, enabling fraud thats cost consumers more than $870 million since it launched in 2017.The lawsuit cites Zelles designs and features, including a limited identity verification process that involves assigning a token to a users email address or mobile phone number that they can use to verify their account with a one-time passcode. This setup makes it easier for scammers to take over accounts, as well as hide their own identities or pretend to be other institutions, the CFPB alleges.Some of the problems the CFPB cites in Zelles design. CFPB complaintOne of the most common Zelle scams involves bad actors impersonating a financial institution or a federal agency, who then trick customers into sending them money. After facing pressure from the CFPB, the banks backing Zelle started issuing refunds to victims of this type of scam last year. This latest lawsuit follows other CFPB actions to tighten regulation around digital wallet apps and payment networks.RelatedThe CFPB accuses Zelle and the banking trio of failing to track and quickly stop criminals on the platform, as they allegedly didnt relay information about known fraudulent transactions with other institutions in the payment network. It also alleges Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, and Wells Fargo didnt properly address the risk of fraud despite the hundreds of thousands of complaints they received.Zelle pushed back on the lawsuit in a statement published on Friday. The CFPBs attacks on Zelle are legally and factually flawed, and the timing of this lawsuit appears to be driven by political factors unrelated to Zelle, Zelle spokesperson Jane Khodos said. The CFPBs misguided attacks will embolden criminals, cost consumers more in fees, stifle small businesses and make it harder for thousands of community banks and credit unions to compete.The CFPB is asking the court to stop Zelles parent company, Early Warning Services, and the banks from violating consumer protection laws, and compensate users, among other penalties.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is suing America's three largest banks, accusing the institutions of failing to protect customers from fraud on Zelle, the payment platform they co-own.According to the suit, which also targets Early Warning Services LLC, Zelle's official operator, Zelle users have lost more than $870 million over the networks seven-year existence due to these alleged failures.The nations largest banks felt threatened by competing payment apps, so they rushed to put out Zelle, said CFPB Director Rohit Chopra in a statement. By their failing to put in place proper safeguards, Zelle became a gold mine for fraudsters, while often leaving victims to fend for themselves.Among the charges: Poor identity verification methods, which have allowed bad actors to quickly create accounts and target Zelle users.Allowing repeat offenders to continue to gain access to the platformIgnoring and failing to report instances of fraudFailing to properly investigate consumer complaintsThe CFPBs suit seeks to change the platform's operations, as well as obtain a civil money penalty, that would be paid into the CFPBsvictims relief fund.A spokesperson for Zelle called the suit misguided and politically motivated.The CFPBs attacks on Zelle are legally and factually flawed, and the timing of this lawsuit appears to be driven by political factors unrelated to Zelle," Jane Khodos, Zelle spokesperson, said in an emailed statement. "Zelle leads the fight against scams and fraud and has industry-leading reimbursement policies that go above and beyond the law."In a follow-up statement, a Zelle spokesperson called the magnitude of CFPB's claims about customer losses due to fraud "misleading," adding that "many reported fraud claims are not found to involve actual fraud after investigation."A JPMorgan spokesperson echoed those sentiments, calling it "a last ditch effort in pursuit of their political agenda.""The CFPB is now overreaching its authority by making banks accountable for criminals, even including romance scammers," the bank said. "Its a stunning demonstration of regulation by enforcement, skirting the required rulemaking process.Rather than going after criminals, the CFPB is jeopardizing the value and free nature of Zelle, a trusted payments service beloved by our customers."A Bank of America spokesperson highlighted the importance of Zelle to everyday users. "We strongly disagree with the CFPBs effort to impose huge new costs on the 2,200 banks and credit unions that offer the free Zelle service to clients," said William Halldin in an emailed statement. "23 million Bank of America clients have embraced Zelle, regularly using it to send money to friends, family and people they trust."Via email, a Wells Fargo spokesperson declined to comment. Launched in 2017, Zelle allows users to send and receive money electronically. The platform has previously come in for criticism by Senate Democrats: Most recently, Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Connecticut, found customers had disputed over $372 million in scams and fraud in 2023 with nearly three-quarters of the claimed losses never reimbursed by the banks. In its statement regarding the CFPB suit, Early Warning saidreports of scams and fraud had decreased by nearly 50% in 2023, resulting in 99.95% of payments being sent without a report of scams and fraud.The CFPB has announced a number of measures this month designed to protect consumers amid threats to its continued existence from the incoming second Trump administration.

On the first day of Y Combinators winter 2024 session right after orientation and a photo in front of the YC sign the founders of PearAI got canceled, as founder Nang Ang described it to TechCrunch,receiving an outpouring of online hate.But they survived and graduated the YCs winter 2024 cohort earlier this month with a modified idea and a new initial product. Now theyve also made their goal of $1 million in seed funding, Ang tells TechCrunch, raising a total of $1.25 million, including YCs standard deal of $375,000.To recap: On that Saturday in September, Ang and his co-founder, Duke Pan, released a proof-of-concept, minimal viable product version of their AI code editor on GitHub. They launched with a chest-pounding tweet and an influencer-style YouTube video (the founders are YouTubers).Within hours, someone accused their project of basically being a copy of another open source code editor, Continue, with very few changes. (The PairAI founders were even accused of doing a mass search-and-replace to remove Continues name and add theirs in.)Worse than that, they released their product under a funky, made-up license written with ChatGPT. The surest way to piss off the open source community is to mess with licensing.We definitely did have a lot of mistakes with licensing, Ang told TechCrunch, insisting that licensing has since been fixed.Pans bravado tweet discussing how he quit his high-paying Coinbase job to do this startup and boasting that the product was already better than Copilot further fanned the outrage.Continue another YC company got involved to criticize them, while YC CEO Garry Tan defended them.By Sunday, the young founders had apologized, moved to a standard open source license, and better documented the open source work that underpinned theirs, among other concessions.But they were also left with the obvious feedback that there may not be room for yet another code editor.We love coding, and we want to see it be done better, Ang said.So they took lemons and made AI coding lemonade, using the feedback in the hate to modify their product idea. Instead of an editor itself, they are now buildinga framework that will curate AI coding tools, allowing programmers to use multiple tools. In the back end, it allows the tools to communicate and actually work well together, Ang said. The front end will standardize the user interface so that it seems like Im using one product instead of 10, he said. The tool will integrate with many AI coding tools, including Continue.While there are some public skeptics, PearAI has also gotten kudos a starkly different experience to the last time it launched.Seed round investors include Goodwater Capital, Multimodal Ventures, Orange Fund, ExitFund, and some unnamed angel investors, Ang says.

In BriefPosted:12:20 PM PST December 20, 2024Image Credits:Getty ImagesThird member of LockBit ransomware gang has been arrestedU.S. prosecutors in New Jersey on Friday publicly announced charges against Rostislav Panev, 51, a dual Russian-Israeli national accused of being a key developer in the LockBit ransomware gang. Panev is currently in Israeli custody and faces extradition to the United States.LockBit is one of the most prolific ransomware gangs, accused of launching crippling data-stealing cyberattacks at thousands of companies around the world, including the U.S., and thought to be responsible for at least $500 million in ransom payments alone. Authorities identified and seized LockBits infrastructure in a February takedown operation, but LockBit briefly bounced back as its leader, named by U.K. and U.S. authorities as Dmitry Khoroshev, remains at large.Thats three for three, per prosecutors, after nabbing LockBit affiliates Mikhail Vasiliev in Canada in 2022, then Ruslan Astamirov in the U.S. in 2023, and now Panev, out of a total of seven LockBit members indicted to date.Topics

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) on Friday proposed a new national framework that could make it easier for companies to deploy at scale autonomous vehicles without traditional manual driving controls like steering wheels, pedals, and sideview mirrors.The guidelines also require AV companies to share a whole lot more safety data with the agency.The AV industry has been anticipating NHTSAs proposal since last year, when the agency first proposed the ADS-Equipped Vehicle Safety, Transparency and Evaluation Program, known as AV STEP. The programs goal, among other things, was to allow NHTSA to greenlight the sale and commercialization of autonomous vehicles that are not compliant with federal safety standards due to a lack of manual controls.Today, autonomous vehicles that have all their manual parts are allowed to operate on public roads without oversight from NHTSA. But any AVs that cant be taken over by a human driver have to get an exemption from the agency.Unless, of course, theyre Zoox. The Amazon-owned company has maintained that it doesnt need an exemption from NHTSA because it has self-certified the safety of its vehicles a claim that the agency is actively investigating.Zoox, which recently started rolling out its toaster-like vehicles in San Francisco, isnt the only AV company looking to lose the steering wheel and pedals. Cruise, before it went under, planned to deploy the Origin, its purpose-built robotaxi, at scale. Electric and autonomous trucking company Einride intends to commercialize an AV freight pod that doesnt even have a cab for a driver, let alone pedals. And Tesla unveiled its two-door robotaxi prototype in October, which it plans to start production on in 2025 or 2026, according to CEO Elon Musk.NHTSAs proposed program is a voluntary one that would give participants an opportunity to demonstrate their commitment to transparency for their vehicles and operations by providing regular reporting on safety.The AV STEP program has two tiers one for vehicles built with human controls, with fallback designs that can be managed by humans; and another for vehicles built without such controls. As more of the latter begin to flood public streets, NHTSA hopes the program and data reporting would make the agency better equipped to address emerging risks associated with their deployment.To qualify for the program, companies will need to submit data related to the safety of the design, development, and operations of their AVs. Once admitted, participants will be required to submit both periodic and event-triggered reports, like crash reports, to NHTSA all of which the agency would be at liberty to publish in the name of transparency.NHTSAs call for more data comes as President-elect Donald Trumps transition team has signaled a desire to quash a Biden-era requirement for car-crash reporting that Musk and Tesla oppose. Tesla has the largest market share of vehicles with automated driving features in the U.S., and as such, the majority of the total reported crashes come from Teslas. Tesla has been targeted in several NHTSA investigations, some of which stemmed from the roughly 1,500 crashes the automaker reported to federal safety regulators.Its too soon to tell whether crash reporting for AVs will be eliminated under Trumps regime, but NHTSA says it wants to collect such data so it can keep up with the fast-moving industry in anticipation of one day establishing minimum standards for AV performance.Some industry advocates say the proposed framework is premature. Cathy Chase, president of Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety, pointed out that the proposal was released shortly after NHTSA issued a set of studies touting the effect of federal safety standards in saving over 860,000 lives from 1968 to 2019.Expanding the deployment of ADS and without the safety protections provided by FMVSSs at this time seems premature and lacks independent research and data to support the action, Chase said in a statement.

One of several late 19th-century industrial buildings in the North End, the Waitt & Bond Building stands on Endicott Street, looking over the scar on the landscape that is I-93. This six-story building was constructed in 1891 and is the oldest extant building in Boston associated with cigar manufacturers Henry Waitt (1842-1902) and Charles H. Bond (1846-1908), who started business in 1870. The business relocated from Saugus to Boston in 1873 and moved into this building upon its completion. Waitt & Bond produced handmade cigars with each employee hand-rolling over 300-a-day. The architect, Ernest N. Boyden, designed the building in the Panel-Brick and Romanesque styles with decorative brick panels, cornice, and arched detailing. Rooftop billboard signage (blight) was first added to the building in 1956, with increased visibility via the elevated John Fitzgerald Expressway (the Central Artery). By the early 1960s, Joseph Castignetti moved his mens clothing store, Castignetti Brothers, to this location. In 2001, the building was converted into 28 loft-style condos, an early sign of the gentrification to come to the North End.