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404 Media is an independent media company founded by technology journalists Jason Koebler, Emanuel Maiberg, Samantha Cole, and Joseph Cox.
404 Media
• Becky Ferreira
Scientists have discovered a family of retroviruses that invaded the genomes of chimps and other primates, silencing genes involved with brain development, while humans were left unaffected.
404 Media
• Joseph Cox
How people are removing surveillance ads from their TVs; a big AI shakeup at Accenture; and the Character.ai bankruptcy.
404 Media
• Samantha Cole
This week, we discuss reverse engineering and some wild court docs.
404 Media
• Matthew Gault
Commissioners in Texas said they’re making sure ‘all applications are reviewed by agency staff to determine if they are related to data centers.’
404 Media
• Samantha Cole
A CashApp scam mess, Airbnb hosts crashing out, and much more.
404 Media
• Jason Koebler
'Black October:' The PHP vulnerabilities and a series of other hacks and bugs have cybersecurity experts freaking out and unsure what happens next.
404 Media
• Matthew Gault
The people who write the Laws of Armed Conflict want to put guardrails on AI weapons systems. Will the world listen?
404 Media
• Jason Koebler
A surveillance document tells cops to expect "emotional confrontations" at Flock city council meetings.
404 Media
• Joseph Cox
Amanda Smith spent three nights in jail after a Facebook Marketplace scam led to a CashApp account in her name. She says she didn't make it.
404 Media
• Jason Koebler
An endangered American chestnut grove faces a new threat: A massive data center.
404 Media
• Samantha Cole
A small grove of historic American chestnut trees has become the site of resistance against an AI data center in West Virginia.
404 Media
• Joseph Cox
Officials said they wanted to search the phone of Samuel Tunick, a Stop Cop City activist, for child abuse material. It was actually because he was suspected of “terrorist activities.”
404 Media
• Jason Koebler
A gang of hackers targets Staples, but not to buy things from Staples.
404 Media
• Jason Koebler
Decompiled, cloned, and modified software is going viral and might slopify everything.
404 Media
• Becky Ferreira
Why is the universe the way it is? A long-overlooked particle might have given matter an edge over antimatter in the split-seconds after the Big Bang, which researchers say “could transform our understanding of cosmic evolution and the fundamental laws of physics.”
404 Media
• Matthew Gault
“The Caldwell Technology Park [...] the Stargate facility, and a bunch of other very large hyperscale facilities have gotten regulatory approvals [...] so it's not like a real pause."
404 Media
• Samantha Cole
The scammers used the voice of a specific sheriff to impersonate him.
404 Media
• Jason Koebler
A gang of hackers targets Staples, but not to buy things from Staples.
404 Media
• Joseph Cox
A sophisticated organized crime gang hacked into Staples, issued millions of dollars worth of gift cards, and went on a spending spree across the U.S.
404 Media
• Becky Ferreira
Archaeologists have discovered a puncture wound from a spear in the shoulder blade of a Neanderthal that lived 75,000 years ago, offering a possible glimpse of early interpersonal violence.
404 Media
• Samantha Cole
This week, we discuss a new pod setup, video games, and Elon's spending habits.
404 Media
• Joseph Cox
How Raven, previously known as Geospy, can now find which house a photo was taken in; why a judge ruled a Flock search unconstitutional; and the wild AI video in a court case.
404 Media
• Joseph Cox
Newly filed court records include a letter from Telegram to U.S. authorities in which the company shares user data following a court order.
404 Media
• Samantha Cole
Christopher Thomas Mertens, a high school maintenance worker, was arrested after attempting to meet up with an AI persona that he thought was a 15 year old boy.
404 Media
• Becky Ferreira
Scientists discovered that human brain organoids, which are small neural clusters derived from stem cells, could identify the Braille alphabet with a high degree of accuracy.
404 Media
• Matthew Gault
News that the Pentagon would livestream the killer’s execution turned him into a celebrity in Islamist and extremist circles.
404 Media
• Joseph Cox
Some employees who spend as much as $1,000 on Claude usage each month are scrambling to find ways to maintain access to the tool.
404 Media
• Jason Koebler
"Historically, decompilation has been a brutally difficult, time consuming task." Now, AI is trivially doing it.
404 Media
• Joseph Cox
OpenAI's ads targeting is pretty creepy, and new research confirms spyware companies are delivering potent malware through advertising networks.
404 Media
• Joseph Cox
Most ChatGPT users probably don’t know you can be specifically targeted on the platform by advertisers based on your email, phone number, or unique phone identifier.
