Technology

Ars Technica reports: The Thermonator, what Throwflame bills as “the first-ever flamethrower-wielding robot dog” is now available for purchase. The price? $9,420. It features a one-hour battery, a 30-foot flame-throwing range, and Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity for remote control through a smartphone. It also includes a LIDAR sensor for mapping and obstacle avoidance, laser sighting, and first-person view (FPV) navigation …

Ars Technica reports: SpaceX is reportedly working with at least one major US defense contractor, Northrop Grumman, on a constellation of spy satellites for the National Reconnaissance Office. According to Reuters, development of the network of hundreds of spy satellites by SpaceX is being coordinated with multiple contractors to avoid putting too much control of a highly sensitive intelligence program …

NBC News reports: Boston Dynamics unveiled Wednesday a new version of its humanoid robot, “Atlas,” that the company says is “designed for real-world applications.” Like many of its previous announcements, the company released a video of its robot in action. “In the months and years ahead, we’re excited to show what the world’s most dynamic humanoid robot can really do …

The New York Times reports: Tesla has agreed to recall nearly 4,000 of its Cybertruck pickups to fix an accelerator pedal that can get stuck, raising the risk of crashes, a federal safety agency said on Friday. The defect could cause the vehicle to accelerate unintentionally, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said in a notice posted on its website. …

Bloomberg News reports: Apple Inc. has teams investigating a push into personal robotics, a field with the potential to become one of the company’s ever-shifting “next big things,” according to people familiar with the situation. Engineers at Apple have been exploring a mobile robot that can follow users around their homes, said the people, who asked not to be identified …

Ars Technica reports: Amazon is giving up on the cashier-less “Just Walk Out” technology at its Amazon Fresh grocery stores. The Information reports that new stores will be built without computer-vision-powered surveillance technology, and “the majority” of existing stores will have the tech removed. In the early days, Amazon’s ambitions included selling Just Walk Out to other brick-and-mortar stores. The …

Ars Technica reports: Meet ANYmal, a four-legged dog-like robot designed by researchers at ETH Zürich in Switzerland, in hopes of using such robots for search-and-rescue on building sites or disaster areas, among other applications. Now ANYmal has been upgraded to perform rudimentary parkour moves, aka “free running.” Human parkour enthusiasts are known for their remarkably agile, acrobatic feats, and while …

The Associated Press reports: Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin loved pulling pranks, so much so they began rolling outlandish ideas every April Fool’s Day not long after starting their company more than a quarter century ago. The jokes were so consistently over-the-top that people learned to laugh them off as another example of Google mischief. And that’s why …

TechCrunch reports: Phone giant AT&T has reset millions of customer account passcodes after a huge cache of data containing AT&T customer records was dumped online earlier this month, TechCrunch has exclusively learned. The U.S. telco giant initiated the passcode mass-reset after TechCrunch informed AT&T on Monday that the leaked data contained encrypted passcodes that could be used to access AT&T …

The Insider reports: Monday’s Latam Airlines incident might have been caused by a flight attendant accidentally hitting a switch in the cockpit, The Wall Street Journal reported. The Boeing 787 Dreamliner was flying from Sydney to Auckland when it suddenly dropped. 50 people were treated by paramedics, of whom 12 were sent to the hospital, the New Zealand Herald reported. …

The New York Times reports: The third try was closer to the charm for Elon Musk and SpaceX, as the company’s flight test of the mammoth Starship rocket launched on Thursday and traveled almost halfway around the Earth before it was lost as it re-entered the atmosphere. The flight achieved some key milestones in the development of the vehicle, which …

CBC News reports: SpaceX’s huge Super Heavy-Starship rocket, by far the most powerful ever built, blasted off on its third test flight Thursday morning. The test aimed to boost the unpiloted upper stage into space on a sub-orbital hop to a controlled re-entry and splashdown in the Indian Ocean. The giant rocket’s 33 Raptor engines, gulping 40,000 pounds of liquid …

The New York Times reports: Unlike Bill Gates, who has deployed his fortune in an effort to improve health care across Africa, or Walmart’s Walton family, which has spurred change in the American education system, Mr. Musk’s philanthropy has been haphazard and largely self-serving — making him eligible for enormous tax breaks and helping his businesses. Since 2020, he has …

Mint reports: Elon Musk has revealed that long-form videos will soon be accessible on smart television sets through the social network X. The announcement comes in the wake of reports by Fortune magazine stating that the platform is gearing up to launch a TV app next week for Amazon and Samsung users. Responding to a user’s inquiry on X, Musk …

The Washington Post reports: Vast swaths of the United States are at risk of running short of power as electricity-hungry data centers and clean-technology factories proliferate around the country, leaving utilities and regulators grasping for credible plans to expand the nation’s creaking power grid. A major factor behind the skyrocketing demand is the rapid innovation in artificial intelligence, which is …

The Daily Mail reports: Meta’s Facebook, Threads, Messenger and Instagram are down worldwide, leaving thousands of users unable to access the social media platforms. The issues appeared around 10:20am ET and are impacting both social media sites’ apps and website. Rather than showing a skeleton version of the site, Facebook will automatically kick you out. An error message saying that …

Bloomberg News reports: Apple Inc. is canceling a decadelong effort to build an electric car, according to people with knowledge of the matter, abandoning one of the most ambitious projects in the history of the company. Apple made the disclosure internally Tuesday, surprising the nearly 2,000 employees working on the project. The decision was shared by Chief Operating Officer Jeff …

The Associated Press reports: Wendy’s is looking to test having the prices of its menu items fluctuate throughout the day based on demand, implementing a strategy that has already taken hold with ride-sharing companies and ticket sellers. During a conference call earlier this month, Wendy’s CEO Kirk Tanner said that the Dublin, Ohio-based burger chain will start testing dynamic pricing, …

Bloomberg News reports: “Based on our initial review, we believe that the outage was caused by the application and execution of an incorrect process used as we were expanding our network, not a cyber attack,” an AT&T spokesman said in a statement. AT&T said all wireless service was restored Thursday afternoon, capping a day of frustration that began in the …

Gizmodo reports: Have you seen a claim on social media that Google is “sunsetting” Gmail this coming August? What appears to be a screenshot from an official Google announcement has gone viral on X, but it’s completely fake. “We are reaching out to share an important update about Gmail. After years of connecting millions worldwide, enabling seamless communication, and fostering …