In brief: Mission control specialists at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory are taking additional energy-conserving measures to ensure their Voyager probes can continue operating in interstellar space for as long as possible. Engineers shut down the cosmic ray subsystem instrument on Voyager 1 on February 25. This tool, which consists of three telescopes that study cosmic rays, helped NASA determine when Voyager 1 left the heliosphere.The space agency plans to turn off the low-energy charged particle experiment on Voyager 2 on March 24. The LECP instrument features two subsystems and is used to measure electrons, ions, and cosmic rays in space. Once it goes dark, just three scientific instruments will remain operational on each craft.NASA launched its twin Voyager probes in 1977 to study planets in the outskirts of our solar system including gas giants Jupiter and Saturn. Voyager 1 completed its planetary objectives and entered into an extended mission phase in 1980, eventually becoming the first human-made object to reach interstellar space in 2012. Voyager 2 crossed into interstellar territory in 2018. To date, they are the only two spacecraft to have achieved this milestone.Both probes leverage a radioisotope power system which generates electricity from decaying plutonium. After more than 47 years, however, the fuel source is starting to dry up. According to NASA, the systems lose about four watts of power each year.Instruments that specialized in collecting data during the early-day planetary flybys were turned off shortly after those missions wrapped up. Others were shut off in succession in order to conserve energy and extend the missions. Each probe launched with a nearly identical set of 10 science instruments. // Related StoriesOn Voyager 1, only the low-energy charged particles, magnetometer, and plasma wave subsystem remain operational. Voyager 2 also still has its magnetometer and plasma wave subsystem, as well as its cosmic ray subsystem; the low-energy charged particles instrument will be shut off later this month.NASA believes the latest shutdowns should buy them another year or so before they have to turn another instrument off.

TV manufacturers continue to produce thinner and sleeker 4K LED-LCDs and OLED sets, and Samsungs The Frame 4K QLED lineup tops our list of slim TVs! Available in numerous sizes, we were surprised to learn that the 85-inch version of this boutique art display is actually on sale today: For a limited time, youll be able to purchase the Samsung 85-inch The Frame 4K QLED at Best Buy and Samsung for only $3,000.Far more than a conventional LED-LCD, Samsungs The Frame is a lifestyle TV with a high-matte display. This allows the LCD panel to fight glare in brightly lit rooms, but its also meant to annunciate this TVs main feature: art showmanship. When not used to watch movies or play video games, The Frame can be used as a digital canvas for displaying high-quality, Samsung-curated art prints, as well as your personal photos and videos. Samsung even provides a Slim-Fit Wall Mount, so this 85-inch canvas sits as snug to the wall as possible!The Frame is also a fantastic TV for everyday use. Solid SDR brightness levels and a wide color gamut result in a picture loaded with life and detail, and Samsungs picture processing and 4K upscaling ensure that even lower-res sources get a boost in picture quality! The TV also has a native 120Hz refresh rate and VRR support, making it an excellent choice for PS5, Xbox, and PC gamers.RelatedWhen it comes time to stream some Netflix or cast content via AirPlay 2, Tizen OS provides access to hundreds of movie and TV show apps, as well as services like Xbox Game Pass. Were not sure how long this TV is going to be on sale, so today might be the best and last day to save.Take $1,300 off the Samsung 85-inch The Frame 4K QLED when you purchase today, and maybe take a quick peek at our roundups of the best Samsung The Frame deals and best Samsung TV deals before you head out, too!Editors Recommendations

Table of ContentsTable of Contents7. Dr. Wily6. Bowser5. Ganon/Ganondorf4. Vaas3. Albert Wesker2. Sephiroth1. Senator ArmstrongWe always establish some level of connection with our player character in games, but it is usually the villain who gets the most time in the spotlight. In many series, it is the villain who remains the constant while the hero changes, building up a rivalry that extends beyond the game itself. What makes a good villain can be a lot of things. They can be especially hard boss fights, have sympathetic goals and motivations, or are just so comically evil that we just love to see them on screen. Weve been thwarting some villains since the NES generation, while others are more modern. No doubt we will find even more fantastic villains in upcoming video games, but for now, this is our ranking of the best video game villains of all time.CapcomDr. Wily deserves a spot on this list for being one of the first recurring villains on the NES. Each Mega Mangame featured a unique cast of robot masters to fight, but the same mad scientist was always behind them going rogue. In the end, we always bested his robots, stormed his castle, and captured him (except for that one time when Mega Man was fed up with it all and tried to murder him). It was always world domination with Wily, and only because his partner got all the glory for their work in robotics. Neither his motivation or goals changed much from game to game, but fighting him at the end was always a treat with all the powers youd coallected.Recommended VideosNintendoOkay, calm down everyone. Yes, Bowser is only number 6 on the list, but we have to be honest with ourselves here. How good of a villain is Bowser, really? Hes iconic, no doubt, but hes just a cartoon villain at the end of the day. He either wants to kidnap Peach, take over the Kingdom, or just get rid of Mario with rare exceptions. The only game to give him some depth was Super Mario RPG,but he wasnt even the villain in that game. Bowser is fun to fight and is so well-established that we dont want to see him go away forever, but at this point, hes basically Marios friend most of the time.RelatedNintendoMeanwhile, Ganon is never friendly or funny even in the slightest. This is arguably Nintendos strongest long-running villain who only seems to get better with every game hes in. Ganon began as just a weird pig-monster not all that different from Bowser in the grand scheme of things, but has evolved in amazing ways across the Zeldagames. Ganondorf was a menacing figure who succeeded in turning Hyrule into a wasteland, but there are plenty of other instances where Ganon has essentially won and all you can do is try and save whats left. Ganon still gets just slivers of screentime, but theyre used to convey his power and instill fear and intimidation. Mechanically, facing off with Ganon in his various forms is always the highlight of the game.UbisoftAll it took was one trailer for fans to become fully invested in Vaas. That single line that bookended the trailer of did I ever tell you what the definition of insanity is? showcased just how dangerous and unstable this guy is. But a villain being fully insane isnt good. Like the Joker, Vaas is insane but has his own moral code. The problem is that code is impossible to decipher so we can never be sure how he will react to anything. We just wish Vaas was the real villain of Far Cry 3and the game hadnt dragged on after his final confrontation.CapcomEven before we knew he was a traitor, there was something about Weskers face that made us want to punch it. Those sunglasses, slicked-back hair, and smug attitude almost gave away his evil side. As the main antagonist of the Resident Evilseries up until 5, Wesker was a physical and intellectual force that no one character could overcome. He had grand plans to pull the strings on a global scale with various viruses and weaved a massive web of conspiracy that was satisfying to untangle. It isnt often that you get to actually fight Wesker, and there is the rediculous boulder punching moment right at the end, but shooting him with RPGs in a volcano was very cathartic.Square EnixThere are some differences between the OG Final Fantasy 7and the new remakes in terms of how Sephiroth is portrayed, but that gets kind of complicated with those technically being sequels, so were just going to bundle it all together. Competition was still high for picking aFinal Fantasyvillain, but theres a reason Sephiroth is the one everyone remembers. What made him so terrifying in the first game was how long it took to actually seehim. For the first several hours you only hear his name and see his path of destruction. His figure is just as imposing as the buildup lead you to believe, and you get to see what pushed him over the edge into villainy. Like the best villains, Sephiroth believes he is doing the right thing.KonamiMetal Gear and Kojima games have been predicting the future for decades, but it might never be more on the nose than Metal Gear RisingsSenator Armstrong. This corrupt politician speaks exactly like one in the real world, spouting about how the strong should be free to do as they please and that theyll make America great again. He fights for a philosophy of might makes right and is a fierce nationalist who wants to spark a new revolution. Thats scary enough, but it only becomes more terrifying in hindsight as this video game villains evil plan seems to be coming to life right before our eyes. At least in the game you get an awesome fight with a sick soundtrack.Editors Recommendations

His designs promoting rock bands and Broadway showsthe Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix, the Who and Godspell, among othersinvented the visual identity of an era.

dem bones Prehistoric bone tool cache suggests advanced reasoning in early hominins Tools "show evidence that their creators carefully worked the bones, chipping off flakes to create useful shapes." Jennifer Ouellette Mar 6, 2025 1:14 pm | 1 An elephant humerus that has been knapped into a tool. Credit: CSIC An elephant humerus that has been knapped into a tool. Credit: CSIC Story textSizeSmallStandardLargeWidth *StandardWideLinksStandardOrange* Subscribers only Learn moreOlduvai Gorge in northern Tanzania boasts sediment layers dating back to about 1.8 million years ago. Those layers contain simple stone tools that marked one of the earliest recorded technological transitions. Now, researchers have uncovered a substantial cache of prehistoric bone tools in the same region dating back 1.5 million years. It's the oldest collection of mass-produced bone tools yet known, according to a new paper published in the journal Nature. And while it's still unclear which hominin species crafted the tools, the discovery suggests that our early human ancestors had some advanced reasoning skills a good million years earlier than previously thought.The tools show evidence that their creators carefully worked the bones, chipping off flakes to create useful shapes," said co-author Renata F. Peters, an archaeologist at University College London. "We were excited to find these bone tools from such an early timeframe. It means that human ancestors were capable of transferring skills from stone to bone, a level of complex cognition that we havent seen elsewhere for another million years.As previously reported, species on the hominin family tree have made and used stone tools for about 2.6 million years. For instance, Homo habilis was an early member of our genus who walked upright and had a mixture of human and ape-like features. Starting around 1.2 million years ago, a later hominin species called Homo erectus made more complex stone tools, like hand axes.Olduwan tools are mostly sharp flakes and very basic tools for chopping, scraping, and pounding. Theyre much less complex and precise than the tools made by later hominins, like Neanderthals, who chipped small flakes off carefully prepared stone cores. Geochemical analysis of the tools at Ewass Oldupa suggests that hominins there gathered some of their quartzite locally and ventured up to 12 kilometers (7.5 miles) away for the rest. They seemed to choose different materialsin some cases, as specific as choosing slightly different types of quartzite from different outcropsfor particular tools.A 2020 study also suggested that the earliest toolmakers in our family tree knew enough to choose their materials wisely. Granted,H. habilis didnt carefully measure how much force it took to cut a limb off a freshly killed antelope and then draft plans for a more efficient blade. But it seems that they noticed which materials made sharper blades and which ones offered a trade-off between sharpness and durability and then applied that knowledge to making tools. That's no small cognitive feat.A prehistoric bone tool factory Credit: CSIC Bone tools shaped by knapping, however, were much rarer until about 500,000 years ago, according to Peters and her fellow authors, making it challenging to identify consistent behaviors in the making and use of such tools. That is now changing with the discovery of a bone tool collection at the T69 Complex at Olduvai Gorge, specifically seven trenches excavated between 2015 and 2022. In addition to over 10,000 stone tools, there were abundant fish, crocodile, and hippopotamus remains, as well as those of elephants and rhinoceroses.Among all the fossils and bone fragments, the authors identified 27 specimens that were clearly bone tools, evidenced by signs of intentional flake removal, shaping, and modification of bone edges to produce an elongated shape. The authors acknowledge that other non-intentional factors can cause such flaking, particularly the gnawing of carnivores. But carnivores made up less than 1 percent of the identified animal remains at the site and the 27 specimens did not show clear signs of such gnawing.It seems the hominins who made the bone tools carefully selected the bones of large mammals, most commonly elephant and hippopotamus. "Precise anatomical knowledge and understanding of bone morphology are suggested by preference given to thick limb bones and the application of recurrent flaking procedures," the authors wrote. These large, heavy bone tools may have been later replaced by larger stone tools, which might explain why they became so rare after the emergence of systemically produced lithic hand axes.This discovery leads us to assume that early humans significantly expanded their technological options, which until then were limited to the production of stone tools and now allowed new raw materials to be incorporated into the repertoire of potential artifacts," said co-author Ignacio de la Torre of the CSIC-Spanish National Research Council. At the same time, this expansion of technological potential indicates advances in the cognitive abilities and mental structures of these hominins, who knew how to incorporate technical innovations by adapting their knowledge of stone work to the manipulation of bone remains.Nature, 2025. DOI: 10.1038/s41586-025-08652-5 (About DOIs).Jennifer OuelletteSenior WriterJennifer OuelletteSenior Writer Jennifer is a senior writer at Ars Technica with a particular focus on where science meets culture, covering everything from physics and related interdisciplinary topics to her favorite films and TV series. Jennifer lives in Baltimore with her spouse, physicist Sean M. Carroll, and their two cats, Ariel and Caliban. 1 Comments

"CFPB RIP" Trump claims CFPB destroys people. Senators say killing it is a gift to Musk. Trumps efforts to shutter the CFPB sparks demand for Elon Musk ethics probe. Ashley Belanger Mar 6, 2025 12:59 pm | 36 The US Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) headquarters in Washington, DC, US, on Sunday, Feb. 2, 2025. Credit: Bloomberg / Contributor | Bloomberg The US Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) headquarters in Washington, DC, US, on Sunday, Feb. 2, 2025. Credit: Bloomberg / Contributor | Bloomberg Story textSizeSmallStandardLargeWidth *StandardWideLinksStandardOrange* Subscribers only Learn moreOn Wednesday, the Senate voted to block the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) from monitoring digital payments companies for fraud and privacy concernswhich Democratic lawmakers Elizabeth Warren and Adam Schiff said gave Elon Muska "get out of jail free card."The vote advanced a proposed joint resolution to the House of Representatives that "disapproves" of a final rule Republicans introduced last year that was supposed to bring consumer protection regulation of digital payments companies in line with traditional financial institutions.At that time, lawmakers were concerned about tech companies spying on consumers' transactions, preventing valid transaction disputes over incorrect or fraudulent money transfers, and other potential harms to consumers "when they lose access to their app without notice or when their ability to make or receive payments is disrupted."But now, Republicans claim the rule "unnecessarily expands the CFPBs authority" and creates "barriers to innovation" in the digital payments world. Additionally, Trump has claimed that the CFPB has been "politicized," Reuters reported.Warren and Schiff alleged in a letter to the Office of Government Ethics (OGE) Secretary Doug Collins that Musk has "clear conflicts of interest" that seemingly no one has investigated despite federal ethics laws.As a "special government employee" serving as a senior advisor to Donald Trump, Musk stands to "directly benefit" financially from Trump's efforts to dismantle the CFPB using the Musk-steered Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), the senators wrote. The CFPB supervises the auto loan industry, impacting Musk's car company Tesla, and seemingly more concerningly, would have monitored fraud on X Money, the digital payments service Musk intends to launch this year on X."A vote in favor of this resolution is a vote to strip federal oversight of Elon Musks payments company," Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.) tried to warn lawmakers in a losing argument ahead of the Senate vote, The Verge reported."If Mr. Musk has taken actions in his federal role that will benefit his financial interests without receiving appropriate waivers and approvals, he may have violated the criminal conflict of interest statute," the senators alleged. That ethics law, they said, "prohibits special government employees from participating "personally and substantially" in any particular matter that would have a "direct and predictable effect" on his or her financial interest, they said.So far, the senators said, the Trump administration has only given vague assurances of Musk's and DOGE's compliance with ethics laws. It also remains unclear how much of DOGE remains under Musk's control, they alleged.Their attempts to request this information from Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Acting CFPB Director Russ Vought have been ignored, and now they're calling on the OGE to fill its "critical role" as an "independent arbiter and enforcer of the federal criminal conflict of interest statute and other ethics rules," they said.They've asked Collins for a "robust response" by March 12 to questions probing Musk's compliance with ethics laws, his involvement at DOGE, and DOGE's overall regulatory compliance. For transparency, the senators also want all communications between OGE, the White House, the Executive Office of the President, and Musk, as well as details on any contact the CFPB and the Treasury Department have had with OGE about Musk's and DOGE's compliance.Whether Collins will respond robustly seems up in the air. The senators expressed concerns that the OGE's independence may be compromised since Collins is an apparent Trump ally."The Presidents decision to place a political ally at the head of OGE raises significant concerns about OGEs independence and undermines trust in the OGE as an impartial, apolitical ethics arbiter," the senators wrote.Trump accused the CFPB of destroying people"CFPB RIP," Musk posted on X after DOGE secured a stop-work order at the CFPB, the senators noted in their letter, urging the OGE to recognize Musk's social media posts as evidence of alleged conflicts of interest.Warren and Schiff warned the OGE that "more than three-quarters of Americans have used" digital payments platforms, "with fraud rapidly increasing." The CFPB could be the only defense that consumers have to claw back money lost to scams targeting digital payment platforms, they suggested, with the agency helping "millions of consumers" reclaim $21 billion from bad actors."Efforts to shut down the CFPB are dangerous and are particularly costly for people whose claims of illegal foreclosures, car repossessions, or debanking are currently under investigation by the agency," the senators alleged.The CFPB has already begun closing cases, Reuters reported last month. One major case was probing if Capital One cheated customers out of $2 billion in interest payments. Others alleged consumer harms from illegal student loan or mortgage schemes.Potentially, the CFPB could have interfered with Musk's proclaimed plan to turn X into a bank where a user could live their "entire financial life," including supposedly one day getting loans and access to high interest savings accounts."If it involves money, itll be on our platform," Musk said last year. "Money or securities or whatever. So its not just like 'send $20 to my friend.' Im talking about, like, you wont need a bank account."So far, Musk has run into regulatory hurdles that are seemingly delaying X Money's launchwhile potentially eyeing cryptocurrency as a non-traditional bank path to enable digital payments. It's easy to see how digital payment companies running like a bank under looser regulations than regular banks might be more competitive or take more risks to innovate the payments landscape. What's harder for the senators to see is how consumers will be protected in such a seemingly lawless realm.But while some believe that Musk is behind Trump's push to kill the CFPB, Trump has claimed that he wants the CFPB gone because it "was set up to destroy people," American Banker reported. It's hard to say what Trump means by this, but he claimed that "before I ever heard" of the CFPB, "people would come up to me in the Midwest and areas and say, 'Sir, I'm being destroyed by them.'"It could be that Trump is referring to the CFPB's public database of complaints, which Republicans and industry groups criticized in 2017 as being "potentially misleading and incomplete," an AP News report said.Companies' reputations were damaged without proof, critics claimed, since the CFPB doesn't verify complaints. On the other hand, the Consumers Union argued that the database increased transparency and allowed consumers to "reach their own conclusions" about financial institutions, AP News reported.Currently, the database logs a little more than 8 million complaints, with the number of complaints gradually rising in 2024 to around 360,000 before a sharp dip in February 2025.Trump also appears to be attacking the CFPBwhich Warren createdas part of his ongoing feud with the senator, ranting about Warren while delivering his remarks, American Banker reported. Officially, Trump has claimed that the CFPB must go as part of DOGE's efforts to reduce government "waste, fraud and abuse," while downplaying Musk's leadership role at DOGE. Speaking of the CFPB in the past tense, he seems to think it's a foregone conclusion that the agency will shutter, American Banker reported."We did the right thing," Trump said. "That was a very important thing to get rid of, and it was also a waste. I mean, number one, it was a bad group of people running it, but it was also a waste."However, it's up to Congress to abolish the CFPB, and currently, CFPB Acting Director Vought and DOGE are litigating two lawsuits from the National Treasury Employees Union trying to unfreeze the CFPB. Republicans control Congress, though, so Schiff and Warren don't seem to be relying on pushback in the House, instead hoping an ethics probe might spare the bureau from DOGE's chopping block.Ashley BelangerSenior Policy ReporterAshley BelangerSenior Policy Reporter Ashley is a senior policy reporter for Ars Technica, dedicated to tracking social impacts of emerging policies and new technologies. She is a Chicago-based journalist with 20 years of experience. 36 Comments

A coots nest filled with plastic rubbish in AmsterdamAUKE-FLORIAN HIEMSTRACovid-19 face masks, a chocolate wrapper from 1994 and a 30-year-old polystyrene burger box the nests of Amsterdams Eurasian coots chart changes to consumer society through plastic waste.Usually, Eurasian coots (Fulica atra) build their waterside nests from scratch each year using natural, biodegradable materials like rushes, reeds and leaves. But in Amsterdams busy city centre, such materials are in short supply along the riverbanks. Instead, these coots rely on plastic litter to build their nests, says Auke-Florian Hiemstra at the Naturalis Biodiversity Center in Leiden,

If the 20th century was the age of atomics, then the 21st is the age of the internetDKosig/Getty ImagesIf you cast your mind back over the past two and a half decades, a bizarre fact emerges: everyone from business investors to teachers has been planning for a future ruled by communications technology. If the 20th century was the age of atomics, then the 21st is the age of the internet.Combining the power of radio, video and telephones, the internet is like a super-communication machine that completely upended our notion of what tomorrow would bring. Now, it seems

2025-03-06T18:16:15Z Read in app Bodybuilder Samsom Dauda (shown here at a 2022 competition) won the Mr. Olympia, and said he builds muscle by eating lots of home-cooked meals and high-rep workouts. Chris Bernacchi/Diamond Images via Getty Images This story is available exclusively to Business Insider subscribers. Become an Insider and start reading now.Have an account? 2024 Mr. Olympia winner Samson Dauda said he once struggled to gain weight and build muscle.Eating more home-cooked meals and whole foods helped him gain size and strength to compete.His workouts aim to maximize muscle with a mix of high reps and heavy weight in time-saving supersets.Looking at Samson Dauda, you'd never guess he used to be a skinny kid.But the winner of the 2024 Mr. Olympia the most prestigious award in bodybuilding said he once had a hard time gaining muscle."When I was young, I struggled to put on weight. I was one of those guys that could get away with eating everything and I didn't put on a pound," he told Business Insider in an interview on his partnership with energy drink brand Celsius.Now Dauda weighs in at as much as 330 pounds in the off season as he packs on muscle for competition.Born in Nigeria, Dauda moved to the UK as a teenager, and started his athletic career in rugby, where a teammate introduced him to bodybuilding. He started competing in 2014.In 2020, at age 34, he quit his job as a construction worker to focus on bodybuilding full time.He said two changes to his diet and workout routine have helped him break through muscle-building plateaus: eating heaps of nutritious food, and hitting high-rep, time-saving workouts.High-rep supersets can boost muscle growthDauda said that, as someone who struggled to make gains, his workouts involve as much time under tension as possible to prompt muscle growth.To do that, his typical routine involves back-to-back sets of exercise that start with a high number of reps at light weight, and then decrease the reps while increasing the weight over time.The strategy allows him to get the benefits of lifting heavier weights, while also maximizing the time his muscles are working."You're putting a lot of strain in the muscle over a long period," Dauda said.Supersets performing two exercises one after another without rest can also be useful for muscle building because it saves time. Switching up the exercise allows you to let one muscle group rest while the other is working, so you don't have to wait between sets.You need extra calories and nutrients to build muscleAll that work in the gym needs fuel, and Dauda said eating nutrient-dense whole foods instead of processed food improved his gains."You have to give your body the building blocks for you to be able to use to build muscle," he said.For a pro bodybuilder, eating becomes a full-time job.Dauda said his off-season diet, when he's trying to build muscle, involves 7,500 calories a day, the vast majority of which is whole foods."We cook all my meals at home, so we control everything. We know that the quality of food is there and are able to put on quality size with it," he said.Typical meals include protein sources like eggs, chicken breast, steak, ground beef research suggests the ideal amount of protein for muscle gains is about 0.7 grams of protein per pound of your body weight daily. Dauda also eats plenty of carbs for energy from foods like oatmeal, sweet potatoes, and pasta.He supplements with whey protein shakes to make sure he's getting enough protein to build muscle. He also relies on caffeine, including Celsius, to keep his energy up in the weeks before a competition, when intense prep can be exhausting and makes it difficult to sleep.Dauda still gives himself a break, especially right after competition. His favorite post-show meal is pizza, ideally washed down with a big bottle of Coke. But after a few days of indulgence, Dauda is typically happy to go back to his routine of home-cooked healthy meals."You are so deprived for weeks and months on end that you have all these things you want to eat," he said. "And after one week you're kind of like, I've had enough, I want to go back to diet food."

2025-03-06T18:04:53Z Read in app Doji, a virtual try-on app, launched out of stealth in January. Doji This story is available exclusively to Business Insider subscribers. Become an Insider and start reading now.Have an account? A new virtual try-on startup powered by AI is stirring up buzz in the tech world.Doji raised capital late last year in a round led by Alexis Ohanian's Seven Seven Six fund.Its fundraising comes as some in tech are betting AI can reinvigorate the consumer startup space.The tech industry is drooling over a new AI startup. This time, it's in the fashion space.Doji, a new app that allows users to create AI avatars with their own likeness and virtually try on clothing, launched from stealth in January and has been rolling out access to its private beta.Techies are loving it.Early beta testers, including some who work for other hot AI companies like Anthropic, Cursor, and Humane, have been taking to X (formerly Twitter) and LinkedIn to share screenshots of the AI-generated model versions of themselves wearing designer clothes.One of Doji's biggest fans: Reddit cofounder Alexis Ohanian."Consumer is fun again thanks to AI," Ohanian said in January about Doji in a post to X, where he's been posting AI-generated fit pics from the beta.Ohanian is also putting money behind it.His venture capital firm, Seven Seven Six, invested in Doji, Business Insider has learned. Doji confirmed to BI that it raised an early-stage investment in 2024 from Seven Seven Six and Origins Fund. Doji did not disclose the size of the fundraise."Over the years, a lot of folks have tried to nail virtual try-on the ultimate holy grail for recreating the dressing room experience online," Chris Vanzetta, a partner at Seven Seven Six who led the deal, told BI in a statement. "Powered by their cutting-edge AI technology and incredible taste, Doji has finally brought that experience to consumers with its lifelike virtual avatars."Building AI for everyday consumersDoji was cofounded by Dorian Dargan (previously at Meta and Apple) and Jim Winkens (previously at Google DeepMind) in 2024 after the two first met on Twitter in 2022.The pair are self-professed fashion lovers who, in building Doji, are bringing together their AI and consumer expertise."We started it with ourselves as users in mind," Dargan said. "And I think that's one of the reasons why it's being well received, because it's actually designed for people versus just to be technology."Here's how it works: Users upload several selfies from different angles and two full-body images, then wait about 20 minutes for the app's AI to generate a virtual model.In the app, users can try on products that the Doji team has curated, as well as import products with shoppable links, Dargan said. Then, if someone wants to buy a product they were virtually trying on, there is a button that brings the user to wherever that product is hosted online.Consumer has been a sleepy segment of the startup market for years, but AI is pumping energy into the industry and getting some investors excited about opportunities."I think the smarter investors are seeing now that most of the value in AI is getting accrued at the application layer," Winkens said. "We are seeing, also outside of us, money flowing into the application layer more and more."Doji isn't the only virtual try-on startup to raise venture capital recently. Vybe, a browser extension for Safari that lets people virtually try on clothing while online shopping, announced a $4.75 million seed funding round led by Stellation Capital last summer.Tech workers are driving hype for the appJane Manchun Wong, an engineer and tech blogger with access to Doji's beta, told BI that she first learned about the app after seeing people she knew post about it on X.One feature that made an impression on Wong was the option for Doji to generate potential outfits."I don't really like to try out different choices of clothes, so having it be able to pick the clothes for me is really inspiring," Wong told BI. Jane Manchun Wong used Doji to try on several outfits virtually. Jane Manchun Wong; Doji Karine Hsu, founder and CEO of startup creative agency Slope, who also uses Doji's beta, said she was impressed by the tool's accuracy. There have been a few instances where an item was transposed, or the fit was off, but it has been minor, she said.Right now, Doji's app includes a curated selection of designer items from brands like Maison Margiela, Diesel, and Rick Owens. Even though Hsu doesn't purchase luxury goods, she said it's been fun to try on things she wouldn't buy herself and explore her personal style with shoes and accessories. She's also used the feature where Doji users can input their own products from across the internet to try on."I did find myself inputting athleisure from Alo Yoga and more everyday items so I could see myself in them before purchasing," she said. "I actually ended up going to the store to try on the product again, but it was cool that I had a reference photo that I could compare to."