Tech

Machine learning scientist Jochem Gietema found that the Image Playground app struggled to consistently identify his skin tone and hair texture, and exhibited racial biases when following prompt directions. This isn’t uncommon for AI image generation models, but it’s a blunder that Apple missed despite limiting Image Playground to only faces in illustrated styles, in part to avoid such behavior.

Honor has announced its keynote event at the MWC trade show, where it will launch a “new corporate vision.” It doesn’t look like it’s going to be a subtle one, with a statement claiming that the name represents “exceptional performance” that goes beyond the “steady market-following returns” of lowly beta companies.

The Chinese AI app is no longer available on local app stores after acknowledging it had failed to meet Korea’s data protection laws. The web version is still accessible, and the app will return if and when it complies with the rules.

It’s called Ink Console. It sports an analog stick and potentiometer, but it’s not for fast-paced games. Instead, it’s designed with classic text-based adventures like Zork in mind, writes Creative Bloq.

9to5Mac spotted a Hackintosh Reddit community post in which user OceanDepth95028 showed off what they say is a near-total replacement of the 2013 Windows phone with the guts of a 3rd-gen iPhone SE.

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) issued a memo freezing its election security efforts to review all work and positions “related to election security and countering mis- and- disinformation” at the state and local level since 2017, reports Wired. The review is reportedly set to conclude on March 6th.

Following the Gulf’s name change in Google Maps last week, Developer Bryce Bostwick created the Restore the Gulf of Mexico extension to revert it back, which he says in a YouTube video is “the world’s smallest form of protest.”

Following reports that TSMC is considering buying Intel’s chip manufacturing business at the Trump administration’s encouragement, The Wall Street Journal writes that Broadcom is separately kicking Intel’s tires, but a bid is only likely “if it finds a partner for Intel’s manufacturing business.”

Apple told employees in a recent meeting that it’s considering the change, according to Mark Gurman in today’s issue of Power On for Bloomberg. The ads would be similar to those in Google Maps, with businesses paying to show up higher in search results or stand out on the map itself.

I’m not talking about using something like Kagi, although that’s one way to do it. Last year, I directed Verge readers to a Tedium blog post explaining how to add “udm=14” to your browser’s default search URL to get rid of Google Search AI Overviews.

Nintendo’s motion-sensing (and Doom-playing, with some unsanctioned modification) alarm clock is now available for anyone in the US to buy from its online store “while supplies last,” the company announced yesterday.

Yesterday, President Trump accused TSMC: “Taiwan took our chip business away.”

Apple is still working on some big AI-powered upgrades to Siri, but instead of launching with iOS 18.4, they may be limited or delayed until iOS 18.5, Bloomberg reports.

We just got the first glimpse of the TM7, the next generation of my favorite robotic sous chef, the Thermomix TM6. The smart multi-cooker debuted in an Instagram story and sports an all-new streamlined design, possibly some RGB lighting, and definitely a much bigger screen. And is that a drawer handle I see?

Marcin Wichary, the author of Shift Happens — an exhaustively researched, beautifully designed and photographed history of the keyboard — is back with a deep dive into Gorton, a font found on keyboards, intercoms, camera lenses, and engraved signs across the world, with a special focus on Manhattan. The article is classic Wichary: it goes very deep and is full of beautiful photographs and interactive elements. It’s a real delight after the week we’ve had.

A federal judge in the District of Columbia has granted a temporary restraining order that enjoins the Trump administration from laying off or terminating without cause any more employees of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, as well as from deleting agency data or transferring agency funds “other than to satisfy the ordinary operating obligations of the CFPB.”

It is not normal for the government to get sued so hard over something that it has to appear in federal court three times in three different lawsuits in a single day. In the Southern District of New York, which is currently also dealing with an entirely different Trump-related mess, Judge Jeannette Vargas has extended a temporary restraining order barring DOGE from accessing Treasury Department systems.