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More Than 90% of Stablecoin Transactions Aren't From Real Users, Visa Study Finds

More than 90% of stablecoin transaction volumes aren't coming from genuine users, according to a new metric co-developed by Visa, suggesting such crypto tokens may be far away from becoming a commonly used means of payment. Bloomberg: The dashboard from Visa and Allium Labs is designed to strip out transactions initiated by bots and large-scale traders...

Mon May 6, 2024 17:07
How 'Star Wars' was Influenced by San Francisco - and Architecture

"Without San Francisco, Star Wars wouldn't exist," says David Reat, the culture studies director of the architecture department at Glasgow's University of Strathclyde. SFGate reports: Lucas was born and raised in Modesto, where his father expected him to run the family stationery store once he turned 18, but Lucas instead left for Los Angeles,...

Mon May 6, 2024 06:46
Microsoft's 'Responsible AI' Chief Worries About the Open Web

From the Washington Post's "Technology 202" newsletter: As tech giants move toward a world in which chatbots supplement, and perhaps supplant, search engines, the Microsoft executive assigned to make sure AI is used responsibly said the industry has to be careful not to break the business model of the wider web. Search engines citing and linking...

Mon May 6, 2024 02:22
Can Technology Help Reduce Drunk-Driving Deaths?

An anonymous reader shared this report from the Wall Street Journal: Drunken-driving deaths in the U.S. have risen to levels not seen in nearly two decades, federal data show, a major setback to long-running road-safety efforts. At the same time, arrests for driving under the influence have plummeted, as police grapple with challenges like hiring...

Mon May 6, 2024 01:18
Some San Francisco Tech Workers are Renting Cheap 'Bed Pods'

An anonymous reader shared this report from SFGate: Late last year, tales of tech workers paying $700 a month for tiny "bed pods" in downtown San Francisco went viral. The story provided a perfect distillation of SF's wild (and wildly expensive) housing market — and inspired schadenfreude when the city deemed the situation illegal. But the provocative...

Sun May 5, 2024 23:20
AI-Operated F-16 Jet Carries Air Force Official Into 550-MPH Aerial Combat Test

The Associated Press reports that an F-16 performing aerial combat tests at 550 miles per hour was "controlled by artificial intelligence, not a human pilot." And riding in the front seat was the U.S. Secretary of the Air Force... AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s,...

Sun May 5, 2024 20:46

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