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Intuitive Machines' Odysseus has started making its way to the moon and could make history as the first privately built lander to touch down on the lunar surface. The lander was ferried to space by a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket using a booster that already had 17 flights under its belt before this one and could even fly again in the future, seeing as it had safely returned to Earth on the company's Landing Zone 1. Both SpaceX and Intuitive Machines have confirmed that Odysseus has successfully been deployed and has started its multi-day journey to the moon. 

To be exact, Intuitive Machines has set its sights on the Malapert A crater near the moon's south pole as Odysseus' landing site. The spacecraft can operate for around 14 Earth days when powered by sunlight, but the company is hoping for touchdown to take place by February 22. Odysseus, the first of the Nova-C type landers Intuitive Machines is planning to launch this year, is carrying five NASA payloads in addition to commercial cargo. 

The mission's objectives include demonstrating precision landing and testing certain communication and navigation node capabilities. It will also observe how rocket plumes and space weather interact with the lunar surface. IM-1 was one of the missions NASA had chosen to take its scientific instruments to the moon over the next few years as part of its Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative. The first of the CLPS missions to take off was Astrobotic's Peregrine Mission 1, which unfortunately experienced an anomaly that prevented the lander from pointing its solar panels at the sun and caused it to leak propellant. Peregrine never made it to the moon and ended its journey by burning up in the Earth's atmosphere upon reentry. 

While Apple's MacBook Pro is a clear choice for most creatives over its MacBook Air counterpart, the higher cost is prohibitive. If that's been stopping you from picking one up, then you're in luck: Apple's 2023 MacBook Pro with a M3 Pro chip is currently on sale for $1,799, down from $1,999. The 10 percent discount still leaves the 14-inch laptop with a few hundred dollars between it and even the most expensive 2023 MacBook Air, but it's worth it if you want the M3 Pro's extra power.

Apple released the new 2023 MacBook Pro last November with three different M3 chips: the standard, M3 Pro, and M3 Max. The mid-range model is what's currently on sale and offers a 14.2-inch screen, a Liquid Retina XDR display and a magic keyboard with touch ID. It has up to 18GB of RAM 11-core CPU, 14-core GPU and 512GB of SSD storage. Plus, it has 18 hours of battery life when starting out.

This MacBook Pro also has a 1080p HD camera and a Spatial Audio-equipped sound system with six speakers. It's also very connection-friendly, with an HDMI port, a headphone jack, MagSafe charging port, three Thunderbolt 4 points and an SDXC card slot. 

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GM has announced a significant expansion of its Super Cruise operating area by around 750,000 miles to rural roads and minor highways in the US and Canada, TechCrunch reported. The upgrade is set to be completed by 2025 and will nearly double the automaker's current 400,000 mile network.

First launched in 2017, Super Cruise allows fully hands-free operation under the supervision of a driver, who must be ready to take control at any time. It uses highly accurate GPS, cameras, radar sensors and a driver attention system to ensure the operator is paying attention. 

However, it can only be operated on designated roads that have been LiDAR scanned for GM by a third-party contractor. That generates maps maps showing lane level data, topography, the radius of road curves and more, allowing Super Cruise to adjust speeds when necessary. That's particularly important on rural roads and highways that are more likely to have tight curves, steep hills and other potentially dangerous sections.

The automaker has taken a slow approach to its driver assistance system, especially compared to rival Tesla, which offers a $12,000 Full Self Driving system that can operate on city streets. GM recently unveiled the Ultra Cruise system that could also work in cities, saying it could be used "95 percent" of the time hands-free. However, that program was reportedly cancelled, with GM now fully focusing on Super Cruise.

GM offers 15 vehicles with Super Cruise, including pickups, SUVs, the Bolt EUV and all Cadillac models. Up until now, it's largest Super Cruise expansion took place in 2022, growing from 200,000 to 400,000 miles. 

After designating social media as a "public health hazard" in late January, New York City is now suing Meta, Google, Snap and TikTok for "fueling nationwide youth mental health crisis." Specifically, these companies face three counts in the lawsuit: public nuisance, negligence and gross negligence. The Mayor Eric Adams administration accuses TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat and YouTube of "endangering our children's mental health, promoting addiction, and encouraging unsafe behavior."

These are allegedly achieved by way of harmful algorithms, gambling-like mechanisms and manipulation through reciprocity — making the user "feel compelled to respond to one positive action with another positive action." The city believes that there is a correlation between the increase in social media usage and the decline in local youth mental health over "more than a decade."

In response, Google and Meta told CNBC that they have always worked with youth safety experts and provided parental control tools. ByteDance's TikTok also highlighted some of its specific tools to Axios, namely age-restricted features, parental controls and an automatic 60-minute time limit for users under 18. However, none of the tech companies acknowledged the problematic features listed by the Adams administration.

This lawsuit follows a recent Senate hearing on online child safety, in which the CEOs of all the aforementioned tech companies (except Google) were present. In his opening remarks, Senator Lindsey Graham told the tech execs that "you have blood on your hands" — a reference to online child exploitations and cyberbullying that unfortunately led to deaths. 

Through this case, the Adams administration wants these tech companies to pay up for the city's youth mental health services, which apparently cost more than $100 million each year. But ultimately, it's about forcing these tech giants to stop manipulating young users into addictive behavior, as well as getting policymakers to place new federal laws that safeguard youth mental health on social platforms.

Before this New York City lawsuit, Meta already faces a similar case from 41 states back in October 2023, in which it was accused of misleading the public about the safety of its platform's "addictive" features. Meta, Snap, TikTok and Google were also sued in a multi-district litigation in 2022 for their addictive features that allegedly cause "emotional and physical harms, including death" to adolescents.

Elon Musk has started moving his businesses away from Delaware, following a judge's decision in the state to invalidate his $56 billion Tesla pay package. In a post on X, Musk has announced that SpaceX has moved its corporate home from Delaware to Texas, along with a copy of the certificate of conversion it received from the Texas Secretary of State. "If your company is still incorporated in Delaware, I recommend moving to another state as soon as possible," the executive added. 

As Bloomberg notes, he also moved Neuralink's business from Delaware to Nevada on February 8, shortly after he revealed that the company implanted its brain chip into a human patient for the first time. With that change in location, Neuralink joined another company Musk controls in the state: X, which he also moved from Delaware, when he changed its name from Twitter in 2023. 

Back when the court's decision to toss out his Tesla compensation package came out, Musk posted a series of tweets airing his grievances against the state. In one post, he polled people on whether Tesla should change its legal corporate home to Texas. "Never incorporate your company in the state of Delaware," he wrote in another post. "I recommend incorporating in Nevada or Texas if you prefer shareholders to decide matters," Musk added. 

Unlike SpaceX and Neuralink, though, it will likely take a while for Tesla to move its incorporation. Musk still has to take a vote from shareholders on whether the company should move its legal home. It's worth noting that both Tesla and SpaceX already have a massive presence in The Lone Star State. Tesla moved its physical headquarters to Texas from California due to the latter's COVID-19 safety measures. It also has a Gigafactory in the state, which produces the company's vehicles, including the Cybertruck. Meanwhile, SpaceX's Starbase, a production and launch facility for its Starship vehicles, is located in Boca Chica, Texas. 

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The parents of a teenager who was killed in Florida’s Parkland school shooting in 2018 have started a bold new project called The Shotline to lobby for stricter gun laws in the country. The Shotline uses AI to recreate the voices of children killed by gun violence and send recordings through automated calls to lawmakers, The Wall Street Journal reported. 

The project launched on Wednesday, six years after a gunman killed 17 people and injured more than a dozen at a high school in Parkland, Florida. It features the voice of six children, some as young as ten, and young adults, who have lost their lives in incidents of gun violence across the US. Once you type in your zip code, The Shotline finds your local representative and lets you place an automated call from one of the six dead people in their own voice, urging for stronger gun control laws. “I’m back today because my parents used AI to recreate my voice to call you,” says the AI-generated voice of Joaquin Oliver, one of the teenagers killed in the Parkland shooting. “Other victims like me will be calling too.” At the time of publishing, more than 8,000 AI calls had been submitted to lawmakers through the website.

“This is a United States problem and we have not been able to fix it,” Oliver’s father Manuel, who started the project along with his wife Patricia, told the Journal. “If we need to use creepy stuff to fix it, welcome to the creepy.”

To recreate the voices, the Olivers used a voice cloning service from ElevenLabs, a two-year-old startup that recently raised $80 million in a round of funding led by Andreessen Horowitz. Using just a few minutes of vocal samples, the software is able to recreate voices in more than two dozen languages. The Olivers reportedly used their son’s social media posts for his voice samples. Parents and legal guardians of gun violence victims can fill up a form to submit their voices to The Shotline to be added its repository of AI-generated voices.

The project raises ethical questions about using AI to generate deepfakes of voices belonging to dead people. Last week, the Federal Communications Commission declared that robocalls made using AI-generated voices were illegal, a decision that came weeks after voters in New Hampshire received calls impersonating President Joe Biden telling them to not vote in their state’s primary. An analysis by security company called Pindrop revealed that Biden’s audio deepfake was created using software from ElevenLabs.

The company’s co-founder Mati Staniszewski told the Journal that ElevenLabs allows people to recreate the voices of dead relatives if they have the rights and permissions. But so far, it's not clear whether parents of minors had the rights to their children's likenesses.

Sony may shrink the gap between the launches of its PlayStation exclusives and PC ports. Company president Hiroki Totoki suggested in a post-earnings call Q&A session Wednesday (via VGC) that he wants PlayStation to go “aggressive on improving our margin performance,” with “multi-platform” games playing a significant role. He clarified in the talk that, by multi-platform, he meant on PlayStation and PC — not Xbox or Switch.

When asked about Sony’s profits not keeping up with increasing gross income, he said hardware and first-party games were two areas of focus. He noted that hardware cost reduction this console cycle was “difficult to come by,” suggesting we won’t see any permanent console price drops.

“I personally think there are opportunities out there for improvement of margin, so I would like to go aggressive on improving our margin performance,” he continued. Totoki hinted one way to get there is to cash in more on its (often critically acclaimed and commercially successful) PlayStation Studios titles, like Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 and God of War: Ragnarok.

“In the past, we wanted to popularize consoles, and a first-party title’s main purpose was to make the console popular,” Totoki said in the Q&A. “This is true, but there’s a synergy to it, so if you have strong first-party content — not only on our console but also other platforms, like computers — a first-party [game] can be grown with multi-platform, and that can help operating profit to improve, so that’s another one we want to proactively work on.”

Naughty Dog / Sony

That’s a clear shift from PlayStation Studios head Herman Hulst’s thoughts in 2022. He said then that PC gamers would have to wait “at least a year” before seeing first-party PlayStation games (minus live service titles) on their computers. God of War (2018) and the first Marvel’s Spider-Man had about a four-year gap between their PS4 and PC launches. The latter’s Miles Morales spin-off saw about a two-year turnaround.

On February 8, Sony launched Helldivers 2 on PS5 and Windows simultaneously. VGC notes the game led to PlayStation Studios’ highest concurrent Steam player count — beating God of War (2018), The Last of Us Part I and Horizon Zero Dawn. Helldivers 2 was developed by Arrowhead Games with Sony Interactive Entertainment publishing.

It isn’t clear if Totoki meant we can expect future PlayStation tentpoles like the upcoming Wolverine game or the ever-popular Spider-Man, God of War or various Naughty Dog franchises to appear on PC on the same day as console. But a strategy shift is underway regardless, and Totoki will have the leverage to put the plan into action: He takes over for Jim Ryan as interim CEO of Sony Interactive Entertainment in April.

Baseball fans who've had to stay glued to their computer to watch several MLB games simultaneously will soon be able to kick back in front of their TV and do the same thing. The league has announced several updates for MLB.TV for this upcoming season. For one thing, the MLB apps on supported Apple TV, Fire TV and Google TV devices will let you watch up to four games simultaneously in Multiview.

Until now, Apple TV users, for instance, were restricted to watching a maximum of two games at once through picture-in-picture. The upgrade should become especially useful later in the season as the race for playoff spots comes down to the wire and fans can watch multiple teams play for a post-season slot simultaneously with more ease. You'll also be able to stream more than 7,000 Minor League Baseball games, featuring affiliates from all 30 MLB teams.

In addition, MLB.TV is bringing Catchup Mode to certain streaming platforms this season, but did not specify which. This mode will feature in-game highlights for key moments and plays you might have missed, so if you missed the first few innings of a game that's in progress, you can quickly get up to speed.

Fans can expect new episodes of original shows such as Carded and Inside Stitch, along with more documentaries and live programming. Select teams will provide local pregame and postgame coverage, while MLB Big Inning will deliver the top action from around the league with highlights and live look-ins. Those who authenticate subscriptions through TV providers will be able to stream every post-season game, as well as the 2024 All-Star Game.

The MLB All Teams Yearly subscription is the same price as last year at $150. It includes access to every out-of-market regular season game and some Spring Training games with no blackout restrictions, both live and on-demand. A monthly subscription is also available for $30.

X has allowed dozens of sanctioned individuals and groups to pay for its premium service, according to a new report from the Tech Transparency Project (TTP). The report raises questions about whether X is running afoul of US sanctions.

The report found 28 verified accounts belonging to people and groups the US government considers to be a national security threat. The group includes two leaders of Hezbollah, accounts associated with Houthis in Yemen and state-run media accounts from Iran and Russia. Of those, 18 of the accounts were verified after X began charging for verification last spring.

“The fact that X requires users to pay a monthly or annual fee for premium service suggests that X is engaging in financial transactions with these accounts, a potential violation of U.S. sanctions,” the report says. As the TTP points out, X’s own policies state that sanctioned individuals are prohibited from paying for premium services. Some of the accounts identified by the TTP also had ads in their replies, according to the group, “raising the possibility that they could be profiting from X’s revenue-sharing program.”

Changing up Twitter’s verification policy was one of the most significant changes implemented by Elon Musk after he took over the company. Under the new rules, anyone can pay for a blue checkmark if they subscribe to X Premium. X doesn’t require users to submit identification, and the company has at times scrambled to shut down impersonators.

X also offers gold checkmarks to advertisers as part of its “verified organizations” tier, which starts at $200 a month. The TTP report found that accounts belonging to Iran’s Press TV and Russia’s Tinkoff Bank — both sanctioned entities — had gold checks. X has also given away gold checks to at least 10,000 companies. As the report points out, even giving away the gold badge to sanctioned groups could violate US government policies.

X didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment, but it appears that the company has removed verification from some of the accounts named in the TTP’s report. “X, formerly known as Twitter, has removed the blue check and suspended the paid subscriptions of several Iranian outlets,” Press TV tweeted from its account, which still has a gold check. The Hezbollah leaders’ accounts are also no longer verified.