We pass business cards around as a way to help people remember us when they need to contact us, but most business cards are really just pieces of board paper with information printed on them. Theyre not big enough to list all your noteworthy achievements, let alone showcase your talents. In other words, many of them are forgettable, unless you yourself left quite an impression when you left your card with people.Some people do craft stylish and elaborate business cards, but their novelty fades easily, and so do the memories. Its quite a design challenge to make such a small object represent you in the best way possible, which is what makes this rather creative solution even more impressive by showing off electrical engineering prowess with a tiny keyboard the size of a business card.Designer: Ricardo Daniel de PaulaWeve all seen tiny keyboards for smartphones and other devices, but those are still big enough to accommodate an average thumb size. This Keyboard Business Card, in contrast, is literally the size of a business card, so theres not much in the way of comfortable typing. Of course, thats not the point of this design anyway, which is to present the designers skills and the use of certain technologies.Since theres pretty much nothing like this in the market or previous DIY projects, it had to be designed from scratch with very little in the way of reference. At first glance, it looks simply like an elaborate business card that just happens to have a PCB (printed circuit board) and geeky theme, except for the text that clearly states that its a fully functional keyboard. Well, a fully functional 40% keyboard, at least.The card springs to life thanks to a USB-C connector in the upper right corner of the card. It doesnt go into detail, but it will likely plug into a USB-C cable thats connected to a device like a computer. It would probably be more convenient if you could plug the card directly into something like a Phones USB-C port, but the design of the plug doesnt exactly allow for that.Will it be a useful keyboard that you can take with you and use anywhere? Hardly, but it does get the message across. It will definitely leave a bigger impact, even if just for its design. At the very least, it also serves as a very short 8.5cm ruler, so still serves a purpose even if you will never use it for typing.The post Ingenious business card is a circuit board that is also a working keyboard first appeared on Yanko Design.

Almost all of us keep tabs on the weather, one way or another. The most invested among us would have an app or service they subscribe to that shows the forecast for today or maybe even the next few days. While the information is indeed useful, monitoring the weather sometimes also makes us more acutely aware that the forces of nature are beyond our control. On a gloomy day, it might even lead to a bout of sadness.Since theres not much we can do about the weather, other than preparing and mitigating, we might as well accept the fact and try to smile about it. It would definitely be easier if that weather news was delivered in a more human-friendly manner, like through some form of humor that only humans can understand. And who better to deliver that than this AI-powered robot with a penchant for making robot jokes about the weather?Designer: MakestremeThose who have been around the mobile app scene for a while now might be familiar with Carrot Weather, a service that is notorious for being sarcastic about the weather information it conveys. Its still around, of course, but its only accessible on smartphones, so you cant really enjoy that experience on your desk unless you reach for your device and potentially get distracted. Plus, you have very little creative freedom on how you want the news to be given to you.Inspired by a blocky robot from the film Interstellar, this miniature TARS project tries to inject some form of humor into a device that can sit on your desk, bedside table, shelf, or anywhere you can plug its USB power cable. In addition to its unusual form, at least to anyone unfamiliar with the movie, this TARS tries to convey what the weather is like in a way that would probably make sense more to fellow robots.Since theres no service available that already does that, part of this DIY endeavor involves hooking up weather data from OpenWeatherMap into Google Gemini and crafting the perfect prompt to make it spit out its report in text not more than 60 characters. Why the limit? Because the screen being used for this tiny robot can only fit that much.Another interesting aspect of this TARS weather reporter is that it uses the bare minimum to build the design. While its certainly more elegant to have it 3D printed, this particular iteration only uses poster paper with the patterns printed on it. The paper is cut and carefully folded to form the rectangular boxes that make up the robots body. Small magnets are glued inside to keep the parts together, offering very little stability but plenty of flexibility. Its definitely a poor mans DIY project that proves you dont have to go overboard to produce a design thats functional, interesting, and fun.The post Witty AI weather reporter tries to bring a smile even on a cloudy day first appeared on Yanko Design.

Flash Forward 2025 will showcase new Flash games and interactive movies.

With hand-drawn cel animation, this game looks superb.

President Trump's threat of 25 percent tariffs on EU car imports could spark an automotive trade warone that will result in higher prices for all and never end in European consumers buying more American autos.

Shes seen enough. Shes had enough. She cant book a one-way ticket to the stars (yet), but these gifts will help her transcend this world.

MacworldAt a glanceExpert's RatingProsMore than 50 tools and utilitiesAvailable for Mac and WindowsSlick, easy-to-use interfaceConsRequires annual subscriptionFew users will need all toolsWould like to see a backup utility includedOur Verdict Among the collection of 50+ tools there are some real gems, like the Clipboard History and video download tools. Theres also a lot of tools you probably dont need, but someone somewhere does. Its a shame that a Toolbox now requires an annual subscription (unless you get it as part of Parallels Desktop) but you can take advantage of the 7-day trial to see how useful Toolbox will be for you.Price When ReviewedThis value will show the geolocated pricing text for product undefinedBest Pricing TodayFor several years throughout the 1990s and early 2000s, there was the sheer joy of buying a new computer magazine from the rack or getting the new issue in the mail and seeing that a free CD-ROM had come with it. The CD-ROM generally contained various demos, updates, and free utilities to try out, and as you loaded it onto your Mac and copied everything over to try out later, your geeky heart thrilled to the idea of being able to play with some cool new applications and utilities you otherwise might not have come across. Parallels, makers of the Parallels desktop virtualization software, has kept this alive with Parallels Toolbox, which stands at version 7.0.0 as of this writing (version 7 launched in September 2024). Whats present in Parallels Toolbox is a giant grab bag of small, cool apps that function somewhat as system widgets, but are still unique in their own right. Parallels Toolbox is included in our review of the best cleaner apps for Macs, and for good reason, as it includes a number of tools and features that can help you to fully uninstall apps, and clear out old or duplicate files that are taking up unnecessary disk space. However, theres a lot more to Toolbox than that simple handful of features.Parallels Toolbox applications number more than 50 tools available in the Files, Audio, Images, Photography, Internet, Screen Capture, System, Time, Utilities, and Video categories. The applications arrive as small downloads and are easy to dive into, with pre-loaded utilities like Uninstall, Download Video, Free Memory, and Clean Drive clamoring for your attention while the Library hints at other nifty apps that can be downloaded and explored. Each tool works like a kind of mini-app that performs one specific task such as the Free Memory tool, which shows how much memory your Mac currently has free, and which apps that youre running are using the most memory.Since it first launched as a small collection of utilities that wereand still areincluded free of charge along with Parallels Desktop. The app has continued to grow and is now available as a standalone product for both Mac and Windows, with an annual subscription fee of $24.99/20.99 a year. Theres also a 7-day free trial available so that you can try it out before deciding if you want to buy the full version.Parallels Toolbox toolsYou can set Parallels Toolbox to run automatically when you start your Mac, and the Toolbox icon will then be displayed on the Macs main Menu baralongside Time, Volume and other standard Mac controls. This allows you to open a pull-down menu that has two tabs for displaying tools. The Dashboard tab shows some of the most popular tools to help you get started, as well as the tools that youve used most recently.Theres also a Library tab that displays the entire list of tools that are available, with additional sub-tabs that sort tools into related groups, such as Video Tools or System Tools. You can tag your favourite tools so that they are added to the Dashboard view for quick access, but many tools can also be placed with their own icons in the Menu bar as well, and theres also an option to create your own keyboard shortcuts to launch individual tools as well.Find the tool you need for the job in Parallels Toolbox.FoundryA collection of more than 50 tools means that theres a lot to take in when first getting started but, as mentioned, Toolbox can sort tools into groups to help you find the tools you need. If youre looking for cleaner tools that can help you to reclaim disk space or fine-tune your Macs performance then the Clean Drive tool can locate unnecessary files that are taking up space on your Mac, and also find duplicate files that you may no longer need. Another tool can fully uninstall Mac apps, along with any related files that may be scattered around your Macs drive. It can also highlight large files that are taking up a lot of space, such as games that you may not need anymore.Other groups of tools include Video Tools, with options such as Download Video, which can help you to download videos from YouTube and other websites, while Convert Video can convert your video files into different formats for use on an iPhone or iPad, or even into the AVI or WMV formats for Windows devices. The video tools also include options for creating screen recordings and animated GIFs, and theres a useful Download Audio tool, which lets you just grab the audio track from video files that you find online.Heres an overview of some of the most useful tools we found:The Uninstall app works as well as can be expected, and while this definitely isnt completely original on the Mac in this day and age, it allows you to go through a list of installed applications on your Mac, pick and choose what to remove, and reliably strip out both the app and its support files, which comes in handy.Where Download Video is concerned, this actually functions more as a web browser extension than a standalone app, but its simple, to the point, and allows you to easily save Internet-based video as well as offers an option for whether or not to save a videos subtitles. Yes, 4K Video Download offers more options, such as isolating audio and video for download, but this offers something simple and handy and worth trying out.FoundryClean Drive: Once again, this feels a bit typical/in line with similar utilities being developed by other companies these days, but it offers easy notifications and access as to whats eating drive space (i.e., log files, cache files, trash, browser data, mail cache, mobile apps, iTunes temp files, iOS device backups, and old updates) and offers a nice level of control as to clearing them out. Clean Drive also offers quick access to the macOS Storage pane, which tends to be overlooked, and allows you to adjust your storage preferences on the fly.Free Memory: Similar to other memory cleaners on the market, this notifies you as to where your Macs RAM/Unified Memory is going, which applications are munching up the majority of it, and allows you to mark the amount of free memory in macOS Menu Bar, which can be useful.Parallels Toolbox will free up memory on your Mac.FoundryRecord Screen: This turned out to be both cool and handy, and after assigning it permission in the Screen & System Audio pane, it allows you to record whats on screen as a QuickTime movie file and save it to the desktop. Youll need to tinker with its options to get it exactly how you want it, but its impressive nonetheless.Break Time: The Break Time tool tracks time reminds you to get away from your computer every now and then. It is fairly customizable to boot. Its easy to add your work calendar, customize notification sounds, and tell it to block your screen during breaks, thereby forcing you to actually relax and yank yourself away from a device for once in your life, and thats appreciated. Yes, it could be a bit more customizable and offer an option to enter more specific numerical times for work and break cycles, but this is off to a good start and succeeds in reminding you to pull yourself away from your Mac throughout the day.Unit Converter: Just a nifty widget that can take just about any numerical unit and convert it into distances, monetary units, or about anything you can imagine on the fly. Yes, other widgets do this as well, but this is easy to pull up and work with and fun to boot.Transform Text: This got me truly into Parallels Toolbox and made me a fan, offering a quick and easy set of text settings that can be readily copied over to other apps and pasted in as desired. Yes, being able to create backwards and upside-down text to send along to friends may seem a bit silly, but this is a fun tool that makes you want to see what else you can come up with.ScreenshotFoundryEncrypt: The cool on-the-fly encryption application Hollywood promised but no one ever actually delivered. This allows you to drag and drop files and folders in, and quickly encrypts everything to the .pboxz format, which can be locked to the password of your choice. Its quick, its speedy in both its encryption and decryption functions, and you can designate where the file is saved to as well as save your passwords to the macOS keychain for easy retrieval.Eject Volumes: This ejects all the external volumes mounted on your Mac at once, which can be incredibly convenient, or at least easier than telling a friend or family member to remember to drag a volume to the trash or tell them to click an icon and use Command-E to eject it, which is a conversation Ive had dozens of times over the years that never got less frustrating.Clipboard History: One of the biggest groups of tools is time-saving Productivity Tools. My personal favouritewhich has earned its own spot on my iMacs Menu baris Clipboard History, which can store multiple text and graphics items that you have copied into the clipboard, going back as far as the last 30 days. This is really useful for me when writing and editing articles as it allows me to quickly look back and retrieve text or graphics that I may need to use again.FoundryFocus On: I also like the ability to quickly launch an entire group of apps or files with one clicksuch as Pages and Photoshop Elements when Im working on screenshots for reviewsand the Focus On Window tool that reduces distractions by dimming the entire screen apart from the window or app that Im currently using.FoundryTheres also a useful set of time-management tools, including a countdown timer, and a calendar countdown that counts the days until a specific date. A stop-watch, and the ability to create multiple alarms (which I find much simpler than Apples own Reminders app).Not all of these tools will seem essential. The tools for reading and creating barcodes will probably only appeal to a rather niche audience, while the tools for creating screenshots and screen recordings largely seem to reproduce the features that are already built into the macOS itself. In spite of a few things that could be added to the apps in order to improve them, I see this as a playground of interesting utilities thats easy to play with, enjoy, and dive into. Yes, you can find Apple widgets within macOS and Web-based applications across the Internet that perform similar functions, but this is a well-consolidated library, and its fun to watch this grow and evolve over time.VerdictIts a shame that a relatively modest piece of software such as Toolbox now requires an annual subscription, as that will probably deter quite a few potential users. I do find Toolbox usefulbut I get it included with my copy of Parallels Desktop, so I dont need to pay an additional subscription fee for it. And, incidentally, Parallels Desktop still provides an option to buy that as a one-time purchase without an annual subscription, so its disappointing that Toolbox itself is now subscription-only. And, of course, there are many utilities available from other developers that provide similar features. But at least you can download the free trial and see how useful Toolbox is for your own personal work set-up before buying.

The meteoric rise of DeepSeekthe Chinese AI startup now challenging global giantshas stunned observers and put the spotlight on Chinas AI sector. Since ChatGPTs debut in 2022, the countrys tech ecosystem has been in relentless pursuit of homegrown alternatives, giving rise to a wave of startups and billion-dollar bets.Today, the race is dominated by tech titans like Alibaba and ByteDance, alongside well-funded rivals backed by heavyweight investors. But two years into Chinas generative AI boom we are seeing a shift: Smaller innovators have to carve out their own niches or risk missing out. What began as a sprint has become a high-stakes marathonChinas AI ambitions have never been higher.An elite group of companies known as the Six TigersStepfun, Zhipu, Minimax, Moonshot, 01.AI, and Baichuanare generally considered to be at the forefront of Chinas AI sector. But alongside them, research-focused firms like DeepSeek and ModelBest continue to grow in influence. Some, such as Minimax and Moonshot, are giving up on costly foundational model training to hone in on building consumer-facing applications on top of others models. Others, like Stepfun and Infinigence AI, are doubling down on research, driven in part by US semiconductor restrictions.We have identified these four Chinese AI companies as the ones to watch.StepfunFounded in April 2023 by former Microsoft senior vice president Jiang Daxin, Stepfun emerged relatively late onto the AI startup scene, but it has quickly become a contender thanks to its portfolio of foundational models. It is also committed to building artificial general intelligence (AGI), a mission a lot of Chinese startups have given up on.With backing from investors like Tencent and funding from Shanghais government, the firm released 11 foundational AI models last yearspanning language, visual, video, audio, and multimodal systems. Its biggest language model so far, Step-2, has over 1 trillion parameters (GPT-4 has about 1.8 trillion). It is currently ranked behind only ChatGPT, DeepSeek, Claude, and Geminis models on LiveBench, a third-party benchmark site that evaluates the capabilities of large language models.Stepfuns multimodal model, Step-1V, is also highly ranked for its ability to understand visual inputs on Chatbot Arena, a crowdsource platform where users can compare and rank AI models performance.This company is now working with AI application developers, who are building on top of its models. According to Chinese media outlet 36Kr, demand from external developers to use Stepfuns multimodal API surged over 45-fold in the second half of 2024.ModelBestResearchers at the prestigious Tsinghua University founded ModelBest in 2022 in Beijings Haidian district. Since then, the company has distinguished itself by leaning into efficiency and embracing the trend of small language models. Its MiniCPM seriesoften dubbed Little Powerhouses in Chineseis engineered for on-device, real-time processing on smartphones, PCs, automotive systems, smart home devices, and even robots. Its pitch to customers is that this combination of smaller models and local data processing cuts costs and enhances privacy.ModelBests newest model, MiniCPM 3.0, has only 4 billion parameters but matches the performance of GPT-3.5 on various benchmarks. On GitHub and Hugging Face, the companys models can be found under the profile of OpenBMB (Open Lab for Big Model Base), its open-source research lab.Investors have taken note: In December 2024, the company announced a new, third round of funding worth tens of millions of dollars.ZhipuAlso originating at Tsinghua University, Zhipu AI has grown into a company with strong ties to government and academia. The firm is developing foundational models as well as AI products based on them, including ChatGLM, a conversational model, and a video generator called Ying, which is akin to OpenAIs Sora system.GLM-4-Plus, the companys most advanced large language model to date, is trained on high-quality synthetic data, which reduces training costs, but has still matched the performance of GPT-4. The company has also developed GLM-4V-Plus, a vision model capable of interpreting web pages and videos, which represents a step toward AI with more agentic capabilities.Among the cohort of new Chinese AI startups, Zhipu is the first to get on the US governments radar. On January 15, the Biden administration revised its export control regulations, adding over 20 Chinese entitiesincluding 10 subsidiaries of Zhipu AIto its restricted trade list, restricting them from receiving US goods or technology for national interest reasons. The US claims Zhipus technology is helping Chinas military, which the company denies.Valued at over $2 billion, Zhipu is currently one of the biggest AI startups in China and is reportedly soon planning an IPO. The companys investors include Beijing city government-affiliated funds and various prestigious VCs.Infinigence AIFounded in 2023, Infinigence AI is smaller than other companies on this list, though it has still attracted $140 million in funding so far. The company focuses on infrastructure instead of model development. Its main selling point is its ability to combine chips from lots of different brands successfully to execute AI tasks, forming whats dubbed a heterogeneous computing cluster. This is a unique challenge Chinese AI companies face due to US chip sanctions.Infinigence AI claims its system could increase the effectiveness of AI training by streamlining how different chip architecturesincluding various models from AMD, Huawei, and Nvidiawork in synchronization.In addition, Infinigence AI has launched its Infini-AI cloud platform, which combines multiple vendors products to develop and deploy models. The company says it wants to build an effective compute utilization solution with Chinese characteristics, and native to AI training. It claims that its training system HetHub could reduce AI models training time by 30% by optimizing the heterogeneous computing clusters Chinese companies often have.Honorable mentionsBaichuanWhile many of its competitors chase scale and expansive application ranges, Baichuan AI, founded by industry veteran Wang Xiaochuan (the founder of Sogou) in April 2023, is focused on the domestic Chinese market, targeting sectors like medical assistance and health care.With a valuation over $2 billion after its newest round of fundraising, Baichuan is currently among the biggest AI startups in China.MinimaxFounded by AI veteran Yan Junjie, Minimax is best known for its product Talkie, a companion chatbot available around the world. The platform provides various characters users can chat with for emotional support or entertainment, and it had even more downloads last year than leading competitor chatbot platform Character.ai.Chinese media outlet 36Kr reported that Minimaxs revenue in 2024 was around $70 million, making it one of the most successful consumer-facing Chinese AI startups in the global market.MoonshotMoonshot is best known for building Kimi, the second-most-popular AI chatbot in China, just after ByteDances Doubao, with over 13 million users. Released in 2023, Kimi supports input lengths of over 200,000 characters, making it a popular choice among students, white-collar workers, and others who routinely have to work with long chunks of text.Founded by Yang Zhilin, a renowned AI researcher who studied at Tsinghua University and Carnegie Mellon University, Moonshot is backed by big tech companies, including Alibaba, and top venture capital firms. The company is valued at around $3 billion but is reportedly scaling back on its foundational model research as well as overseas product development plans, as key people leave the company.

This is todays edition ofThe Download,our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of whats going on in the world of technology.How the Rubin Observatory will help us understand dark matter and dark energyWe can put a good figure on how much we know about the universe: 5%. Thats how much of whats floating about in the cosmos is ordinary matterplanets and stars and galaxies and the dust and gas between them. The other 95% is dark matter and dark energy, two mysterious entities aptly named for our inability to shed light on their true nature.Previous work has begun pulling apart these dueling forces, but dark matter and dark energy remain shrouded in a blanket of questionscritically, what exactly are they?Enter the Vera C. Rubin Observatory, one of our 10 breakthrough technologies for 2025. Boasting the largest digital camera ever created, Rubin is expected to study the cosmos in the highest resolution yet once it begins observations later this year. And with a better window on the cosmic battle between dark matter and dark energy, Rubin might narrow down existing theories on what they are made of. Heres a look at how.Jenna AhartThis story is part of MIT Technology Review Explains, our series untangling the complex, messy world of technology to help you understand whats coming next. You can read more from the series here.Anthropic has a new way to protect large language models against jailbreaksWhats new? AI firm Anthropic has developed a new line of defense against a common kind of attack called a jailbreak. A jailbreak tricks large language models (LLMs) into doing something they have been trained not to, such as help somebody create a weapon. And Anthropics new approach could be the strongest shield against the attacks yet.How they did it: Jailbreaks are a kind of adversarial attack: input passed to a model that makes it produce an unexpected output. Despite a decade of research there is still no way to build a model that isnt vulnerable. But, instead of trying to fix its models, Anthropic has developed a barrier that stops attempted jailbreaks from getting through and unwanted responses from the model getting out. Read the full story.Will Douglas HeavenThree things to know as the dust settles from DeepSeekThe launch of a single new AI model does not normally cause much of a stir outside tech circles, nor does it typically spook investors enough to wipe out $1 trillion in the stock market. Now, a couple of weeks since DeepSeeks big moment, the dust has settled a bit.Within AI, though, what impact is DeepSeek likely to have in the longer term? Here are three seeds DeepSeek has planted that will grow even as the initial hype fades.James ODonnellThis story originally appeared in The Algorithm, our weekly newsletter on AI. To get stories like this in your inbox first, sign up here.If youre interested in learning more about what DeepSeeks breakout success means for the future of AI, watch this conversation between our news editor Charlotte Jee, senior AI editor Will Douglas Heaven, and China reporter Caiwei Chen. It was held at noon ET yesterday as part of our subscriber-only Roundtables seriescheck it out!The must-readsIve combed the internet to find you todays most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.1 Elon Musks government allies are weighing up using AI to cut costsAs part of Musks plans to gut federal contracts across the board. (NYT $)+ A 25-year old engineer now has access to the USs top secret systems. (Wired $)+ Staffers for the US agency that sends aid to the worlds neediest have been locked out of their email accounts. (NY Mag $)+ Such measures would have been unthinkable just a few short years ago. (Vox)+ Palantir CEO Alex Karp is a fan of DOGE. (Insider $)2 China has announced its own tariffs on US importsSparking new fears of a full-blown trade war. (FT $)+ The days of cheap Chinese shopping in the US could be coming to an end. (NY Mag $)+ Heres what Trumps tariffs mean for the likes of Temu and Shein. (The Information $)3 US senators blame Silicon Valley for DeepSeeks runaway successBig Techs lobbying for softer export controls created corporate loopholes, they claim. (WP $)+ The rise of DeepSeek doesnt mean the controls have failed, according to ASML. (WSJ $)+ How a top Chinese AI model overcame US sanctions. (MIT Technology Review)4 Meta says it wont release AI systems it deems too riskyBut how that risk is measured is up to Meta. (TechCrunch)+ A new public database lists all the ways AI could go wrong. (MIT Technology Review)5 Gender affirming care is under major threat in the USAdvocates fear Trumps executive order will prevent many people from accessing lifesaving treatments. (Undark)+ Many hospitals are continuing to offer their services, though. (Axios)+ New Yorks Attorney General says pausing such care could violate state law. (The Hill)6 The App Store is now hosting its first porn appAnd Apple is not happy about it. (Reuters)+ The company has an EU antitrust law to thank. (WP $)7 The Doomsday Clock has been given a makeover We are now 89 seconds away from the end of the world. (Fast Company $)8 Meet the UKs AI grandmother wasting scammers timeFraudsters have been left frustrated by the bots dithering. (The Guardian)+ The people using humour to troll their spam texts. (MIT Technology Review)9 We still dont know much about Mars moonsBut a new mission could change that. (New Scientist $)10 Mark Zuckerbergs famous hoodie is up for auctionIf youre so inclined to want to own a piece of nerd history. (Insider $)Quote of the dayItll scare people, itll make people think that the industry is a scam.Anthony Scaramucci, Donald Trumps former communications director, doesnt think much of his former bosss memecoin, he tells the Financial Times.The big storyThe open-source AI boom is built on Big Techs handouts. How long will it last?May 2023In May 2023 a leaked memo reported to have been written by Luke Sernau, a senior engineer at Google, said out loud what many in Silicon Valley must have been whispering for weeks: an open-source free-for-all is threatening Big Techs grip on AI.New open-source large language modelsalternatives to Googles Bard or OpenAIs ChatGPT that researchers and app developers can study, build on, and modifyare dropping like candy from a piata. These are smaller, cheaper versions of the best-in-class AI models created by the big firms that (almost) match them in performanceand theyre shared for free.In many ways, thats a good thing. AI wont thrive if just a few mega-rich companies get to gatekeep this technology or decide how it is used. But this open-source boom is precarious, and if Big Tech decides to shut up shop, a boomtown could become a backwater. Read the full story.Will Douglas HeavenWe can still have nice thingsA place for comfort, fun and distraction to brighten up your day. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line or skeet em at me.)+ Today would have been the 112th birthday of Rosa Parks, the civil activist who changed the course of history.+ If youre planning a spring break, consider this well-timed inspiration.+ A Buffy the Vampire Slayer reboot is reportedly in the works.+ Rise up, daughters of grunge!

Apple today introduced Apple Invites, a new app for iPhone that allows users to create custom invitations to gather friends and family.