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Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang says he understands the concerns about "AI slop" with DLSS 5 but insists the feature preserves a game's underlying geometry and artistic intent. "I think their perspective makes sense, " said Huang during a recent appearance on the Lex Fridman podcast. "And I could see where they're coming from because I don't love AI slop myself. You know, all of the AI-generated content increasingly looks similar, and they're all beautiful... so I'm empathic toward what they're thinking. That's just not what DLSS 5 is trying to do." Tom's Hardware reports: Although Huang is striking a more conciliatory tone, much of his response is similar to what we heard at GTC [where Huang said gamers were "completely wrong."] The artist determines the geometry, we are completely truthful to the geometry... so every single frame, it enhances, but it doesn't change anything." There was some confusion about how DLSS 5 worked when it was first announced, and although the inner workings of it still aren't clear on a technical level, Huang has said that it isn't a general-purpose generative AI model. He describes it as "content-controlled generative AI." On the other end of the spectrum, Huang also said that it isn't a post-processing filter. The technical details of DLSS 5 live somewhere between that space, and we likely won't know them until later this year when the feature is set to release. "The question about enhancing, DLSS 5... in the future, you could even prompt it. You know, I want it to be a toon shader. I want it to look like this, kind of. You could even give it an example and it would generate in the style of that, all consistent with the artistry, the style, the intent of the artist," Huang continued. "All of that is done for the artist so they can create something that is more beautiful but still in the style that they want." Although the talking points about DLSS 5 remain unchanged, it seems that Huang has at least heard the criticism. "I think that they got the impression that the games are going to come out the way the games are... and then we're going to post-process it. That's not what DLSS is intended to do." Huang also made assertions that DLSS is "integrated" with the artist, and suggested that it would put the power of generative AI in the hands of artists working in game development [...]. Although DLSS 5 looks like it's doing a lot, Huang said that it's just another tool, not an essential feature. "The gamers might also appreciate that, in the last couple of years, we introduced skin shaders to game developers, and many of those games have skin shaders that include sub-surface scattering that makes skin look more skin-like... [DLSS 5] is just one more tool. They can decide what to use," Huang ended the conversation about DLSS 5. Immediately after, without missing a beat, he said 1993's Doom was the most influential video game ever made.

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'It freakin' worked' says Rob Joyce - and shows how relentless AI agents can find holes humans miss

RSAC 2026 The now-infamous Anthropic report about Chinese cyberspies abusing Claude AI to automate cyberattacks was a Rorschach test for the infosec community, according to former NSA cyber boss Rob Joyce.…

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Senators Adam Schiff (D-CA) and John Curtis (R-UT) introduced (PDF) a bill on Monday that could prevent prediction market platforms Kalshi and Polymarket from allowing users to wager money on sports events or play casino-style games. This bipartisan bill would not apply to FanDuel and DraftKings, which are subject to state-by-state gambling laws, rather than federal ones. "Sports prediction contracts are sports bets -- just with a different name. And yet, these contracts are currently offered in all fifty states in clear violation of state and federal law," Schiff said in a statement. Prediction markets like Kalshi and Polymarket are regulated under the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), which is why Schiff and Curtis are able to address them under federal jurisdiction, rather than leaving them to state-regulated sportsbooks. But these senators argue that there isn't much of a difference in practice between betting on sports via federally or state-regulated apps. Kalshi's Super Bowl trading volume, for instance, reached over $1 billion this year -- a 2700% increase year-over-year. "Too many young people in Utah are getting exposed to addictive sports betting and casino-style gaming contracts that belong under state control, not under federal regulators," Curtis said in a statement. The report notes that Kalshi is temporarily banned in Nevada and is facing criminal charges in Arizona. "Kalshi may brand itself as a 'prediction market,' but what it's actually doing is running an illegal gambling operation and taking bets on Arizona elections, both of which violate Arizona law," Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes said in a statement last week.

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Washington content to be represented by actual empty chairs

RSAC 2026 Back in the day (circa 2023) when cybercrime group Scattered Spider and its help-desk voice-phishing calls were a relatively new threat, the feds considered pulling the government's top cyber-threat hunters and their private-sector counterparts into one room to share information, in real time, about this loosely knit extortion ring that was terrorizing enterprises.…

Customers are 'excited' says one solution provider

Snowflake is putting cash and kinetic energy behind the idea that AI works best in its platform.…

Wing is expanding its drone delivery service to the San Francisco Bay Area. "The drone delivery startup has been rapidly expanding to metro areas across the US, but is now targeting the tech-friendly Silicon Valley region," reports Engadget. From the report: Going back to its inaugural deliveries, Wing ferried office supplies across Google's Mountain View campus in the Bay Area with its automated drones. It was still a startup out of Google's X, The Moonshot Factory incubator at the time, but early users were already asking for home delivery services, according to Wing. Now, Wing's latest delivery drones can deliver groceries, food, or whatever else fits in a small package weighing up to five pounds in 30 minutes or less to Bay Area residents. Earlier this year, Wing expanded its service to an additional 150 Walmart stores across the U.S. Service began recently in Atlanta and Charlotte, and it's coming soon to Los Angeles, Houston, Cincinnati, St. Louis, Miami and other major U.S. cities to be announced later. "By 2027, Walmart and Wing say they'll have a network of more than 270 drone delivery locations nationwide."

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Here's where you ought to spend your security billable hours budget this year

Strengthen your MFA policies, double-down on anti-phishing training, and for Jobs' sake, patch all your vulns right away. The past year of intelligence collected by Cisco's Talos threat hunters suggests that attackers are moving faster to exploit vulns, and fooling more staff than ever into giving up their credentials. …

Apple is reportedly preparing to add search ads to Apple Maps, "and it could start to roll out to users by the summer," reports AppleInsider, citing sources from Bloomberg (paywalled). From the report: Apple will make an announcement as soon as March. This will bring ads to search queries within the navigation app, which will operate similar to Google's advertising system. Retailers and brands will be able to bid for ad spots located against search queries for specific terms, such as types of food or services. The winning bid will be able to show an ad at the top of the results, pointing to a related location for that business. Apple also announced in January that it would add more ads within the App Store, starting March in the UK and Japan.

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Digital twins of leaders may be plausible as novelty acts, but not really welcome

Imagine that your boss is too busy to show up at that meeting you called so she sends a bot of herself instead. With a digital twin, even your company's CEO - the one who spends all his time on the corporate jet - could make an appearance at your powwow about the break room coffee machine. But would you want them there?…

Many U.S. consumers are increasingly interested in lower-cost Chinese electric vehicles but steep tariffs and political resistance are keeping them out of the market. A recent survey from Cox Automotive found that 40% of respondents support allowing Chinese auto brands into the U.S. market. Reuters reports: While Chinese autos hit the highways of Europe, Latin America and even Canada, the U.S. government has effectively banned the cars with tariffs exceeding 100%, out of concerns over data security and protecting American jobs. In places like Europe, a number of Chinese EVs sell at prices under $30,000. Some of those cars include amenities like advanced driving assistance software, a built-in mini fridge, and the option to sing karaoke with your fellow passengers. "The technology they offer for those lower price tags was astounding," said Clint Simone, senior features editor for car-shopping website Edmunds, who drove several Chinese vehicles while at the CES trade show earlier this year. [...] Consumers have some concerns over allowing Chinese car imports, though, including over data security and protecting U.S. businesses, survey results from The Harris Poll as well as Cox show. Rhett Ricart, an Ohio car dealer who sells several brands, including Ford, Chevrolet and Hyundai, said he has no doubt customers would snap up Chinese models if they became available. He and other dealers don't want that to happen yet, according to a recent Cox Automotive survey, which found that just 15% of dealers supported the entry of Chinese auto brands into the U.S., and just 26% trust that they would comply with U.S. safety standards. Not meeting U.S. safety standards is one reason Chinese EVs cannot yet be owned permanently in the U.S. But those obstacles haven't quieted the buzz. The Cox survey polled 802 U.S. consumers who expect to buy a car in the next two years. Nearly half -- 49% -- rated Chinese cars as having very good or excellent value, and 40% say they support the idea of Chinese auto brands in the U.S. market. Rich Benoit, a car enthusiast whose YouTube videos reviewing Chinese models garner millions of views, said the most compelling feature is the price. "That's what a lot of people are looking for: efficient, quiet and low cost," he said. "They want to 'get to work-- not everyone is a car enthusiast." He's considering buying a BYD model in Mexico and driving it across the border. "That's the only way to get one," Benoit said. "They've been selling in Mexico for years... "I want to own a Chinese EV in America."

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Wall Street Journal: Mark Zuckerberg wants everyone inside and outside his company to eventually have his or her own personal artificial-intelligence agent. He is starting with himself. Zuckerberg, the chief executive of Meta Platforms, is building a CEO agent to help him do his job (source paywalled; alternative source), according to a person familiar with the project. The agent, which is still in development, is currently helping Zuckerberg get information faster -- for instance, by retrieving answers for him that he would typically have to go through layers of people to get, the person familiar with the project said. [...] Use of AI tools has spread quickly through the ranks at Meta -- in part because it is now a factor in employees' performance reviews. Meta's internal message board is filled with posts from employees sharing new AI use cases they have found and new tools they have built using AI, according to people familiar with the matter. [...] Employees have started using personal agent tools such as My Claw that have access to their chat logs and work files and can go talk to colleagues -- or their colleagues' own personal agents -- on their behalf, the people said. Another AI tool called Second Brain that is somewhere between a chatbot and an agent is also gaining momentum internally, according to people familiar with the matter. Second Brain was built by a Meta employee on top of Claude and can index and query documents for projects, among other uses. On the internal post announcing it to staff, the employee said it is "meant to be like an AI chief of staff." There is even a group on the internal messaging board where employees' personal agents talk to each other, some of the people said. (Separately, Meta acquired Moltbook, the social-media site for AI agents, and hired its founders in a deal earlier this month.) Meta also recently acquired Manus, a Singapore-based startup that makes personal agents that can execute tasks for its users, and is using the tool internally, some of the people said. Meta recently established a new applied AI engineering organization that is tasked with using AI to help speed up development of the company's large language models. Those teams will have an ultraflat structure of as many as 50 individual contributors reporting to one manager, The Wall Street Journal previously reported. [...] Employees across the company said they have been encouraged to attend AI tutorial meetings several times a week and frequent AI hackathons, and to create their own AI tools to speed up their work.

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Zenity CTO demos 0-click AI agent exploits on stage at RSAC

RSA 2026 There's a very simple reason why just about every enterprise AI agent is vulnerable to zero-click attacks, according to Michael Bargury, CTO of AI security company Zenity.…

10GW server farm, 10GW of new generation, and $4.2bn grid upgrade. And someone else is paying for the uranium cleanup

Softbank's SB Energy is redeveloping Department of Energy (DoE) land in Ohio for a massive datacenter campus, adding extra generation facilities and power infrastructure alongside it.…

Walmart found that purchases made directly inside ChatGPT converted at only one-third the rate of traditional website checkouts, leading it to abandon OpenAI's Instant Checkout in favor of routing users through its own platform. Search Engine Land reports: Starting in November, Walmart offered about 200,000 products through OpenAI's Instant Checkout. Users could complete purchases inside ChatGPT without visiting Walmart's site. Daniel Danker, Walmart's EVP of product and design, said those in-chat purchases converted at one-third the rate of click-out transactions. He called the experience "unsatisfying" and confirmed Walmart is moving away from it. Instant Checkout was designed to let users complete purchases directly inside ChatGPT without visiting a retailer's website. However, earlier this month, OpenAI confirmed it was phasing out Instant Checkout in favor of app-based checkout handled by merchants. Walmart will embed its own chatbot, Sparky, inside ChatGPT. Users will log into Walmart, sync carts across platforms, and complete purchases within Walmart's system. A similar integration is coming to Google Gemini next month. In other Walmart-related news, the retailer announced plans to roll out "digital price tags" to all U.S. stores by the end of the year.

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Computershack shares a report from NBC News: Leonid Radvinsky, the owner of adult-content platform OnlyFans, has died of cancer at the age of 43, the company said in a statement on Monday. "We are deeply saddened to announce the death of Leo Radvinsky. Leo passed away peacefully after a long battle with cancer," an OnlyFans spokesperson said. "His family have requested privacy at this difficult time." Radvinsky, a Ukrainian-American entrepreneur, acquired Fenix International Limited, the parent company of OnlyFans, in 2018 and served as its director and majority shareholder. He also runs Leo, a venture capital fund he founded in 2009 that focuses primarily on investments in technology companies. According to Reuters, OnlyFans is valued at around $5.5 billion, including debt.

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Expendable military drones are so 2025

The US Army just took receipt of what may be the coolest unmanned drone ever flown by the military: A full-sized Black Hawk helicopter. …

Broader platform coverage lands, if developers can tolerate the rough edges

AvaloniaUI has previewed MAUI support for Linux and WebAssembly browser applications — platforms Microsoft's own cross-platform .NET framework lacks — but low adoption and persistent bugs are likely to constrain uptake.…

Uber is aggressively partnering with multiple robotaxi companies to avoid a future dominated by Waymo or Tesla. The ride-hailing giant has struck deals with at least a dozen autonomous vehicle players in recent years. Just last week, it announced a $1.25 billion partnership with Rivian, with plans to deploy up to 50,000 driverless vehicles over the next decade. Business Insider reports: Uber announced three new robotaxi partnerships in the past few weeks with Zoox, Wayve-Nissan, and Rivian. In less than half a decade, the company has secured at least a dozen deals, including with WeRide, AVride, May Mobility, Momenta, Pony.AI, Wayve, Baidu's Apollo Go, Motional, and Lucid-Nuro. Still, less than a half-dozen of Uber's partners have deployed fully driverless, paid robotaxi operations, and only one, Waymo, operates in the US. Uber has a joint deployment with Waymo in Atlanta, Austin, and Phoenix, but in other cities, Waymo is a competitor. Uber's partnership spree is less about seeking the singular, dominant player of autonomous driving. Instead, analysts told Business Insider that Uber is ensuring multiple vendors can participate in the expensive business of robotaxis -- fending off the real risk of a Waymo or Tesla scaling on its own -- and giving itself a stake in the robotaxi economy by being the aggregator of choice. "The more diversified the supplier base, the better for the network in the middle, which is Uber," Mark Mahaney, an Uber analyst for Evercore ISI, told Business Insider.

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Claims it can analyze millions of daily events with 98 percent accuracy

Google's Gemini AI agents are crawling the dark web, sifting through upward of 10 million posts a day to find a handful of threats relevant to a particular organization.…

Voice phishing is second most common initial access method across all IR probes, and top in cloud break-ins

Voice phishing surged last year to become the second most common method used by cybercriminals to gain initial access to their victims' IT estate – and the No. 1 tactic used when breaking into cloud environments.…