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Spider-Man: Brand New Day remembers what the comics have always been about—a man who keeps getting back up, even at his lowest. If you are looking for a typical superhero flick, hitting action beats and cameos and not much else, look elsewhere.Brand New Day, which hits theaters July 31, is a deeply emotional, more mature Spider-Man film than anything in the “Home” trilogy. The characters have grown up, Ned and MJ have moved on, and Peter Parker is trying to make his way in the world alone—a difficult feat with or without superpowers.The movie speaks to the current moment on…
The numbers14% – year-on-year revenue growth in Q2, with net sales reaching a record $7.7 billion (€6.74 billion).$243 million (€212 million) – additional marketing spend in Q2, up 30% from a year earlier, driven by FIFA World Cup campaigns and activations.$1.05 billion (€924 million) – total marketing bill in Q2.$658 million (€574 million) – operating profit for the three months to June, below analyst estimates.17% – how much Adidas shares tumbled after the earnings release, marking its biggest daily decline on record.Watercooler talkAs it posted record quarterly net sales, Adidas chief executive (CEO) Bjørn Gulden said its Timothée Chalamet-fronted World…
Why WIRED recommends: You get a smartwatch with a gently curved design that’s almost identical to the original Versa but with the welcome return of a physical button. The 1.58-inch AMOLED display touchscreen is large and vibrant, and battery life lasts up to six days.As for fitness tracking, the Versa 4 is equipped with a built-in GPS to track outdoor workouts and motion sensors to log indoor swims. Google Health Coach offers AI-powered coaching and insights that provide a holistic view of your health and wellness. Lastly, you get access to a suite of Google apps, including Amazon Alexa, Google…
The age of rogue AI hacker agents has arrived—but it didn’t have to happen this way.After an OpenAI agent breached the Hugging Face platform earlier this month, the two companies said this week that the hacking spree was more extensive than previously thought and also involved intrusions into multiple third-party accounts and services as part of the attack on Hugging Face. The incident has made waves in the cybersecurity community amid broader discussions about how evolving AI capabilities are changing both offensive hacking and digital defense. But as more information emerges, many researchers have concluded that rather than elucidating AI’s…
The notion that scammers can use AI to sharpen their deceptions, polish their language, and lubricate their banter with victims is now a reality for anyone fighting the fraud operations that steal tens of billions of dollars a year worldwide. But can AI fully replace a human scammer, autonomously building the web of deception leading up to the fake investment that defrauds the mark? One study’s experiment suggests that it can—and may even be able to carry out the majority of that long con more effectively than humans.Researchers from four universities—Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham in India, Foscari University of Venice, the…
Enterprise WordPress security is often discussed in technical terms. Keep software up to date. Strengthen authentication. Monitor vulnerabilities. Choose secure infrastructure. Follow security best practices. They’re all sensible recommendations. The difficulty is that very few enterprise platforms become more or less secure because of a single technical decision. They change gradually as the organisation around them changes. A new supplier joins a project. Marketing adopts another platform. A regional office needs its own publishing workflow. A business acquisition introduces another website. An AI tool is connected to editorial processes. Someone needs temporary access to production for a launch weekend. None…
With the Light Phone, Kaiwei Tang and Joe Hollier have spent over a decade exploring the value of simplicity in our relationship to technology, partnering along the way with players like Andrew Yang, Kendrick Lamar, and Pete Davidson. Now, with a new flip phone and a growing wave of “attention activists” pushing back against Big Tech, they think the rest of the world is finally catching up to them. On this episode of TechCrunch’s Equity podcast, Amanda Silberling talks with Tang and Hollier about the company’s newly announced flip phone, why they think the anti-smartphone backlash is only just getting started, and what it takes to break an…
Encore AI, a startup that studies companies’ customer interactions to train and deploy AI voice agents that can work alongside customer support and sales teams, or operate autonomously, has raised $30 million in a Series A round led by Team8. Founded in 2022 as Insait IO by CEO Dvir Ginzburg, the company started out building recommendation software for financial advisers and relationship managers. Now rebranded as Encore AI, the startup has expanded that system into a platform that analyzes conversations between a company’s employees and customers to identify which approaches resulted in successful outcomes, and uses those findings to train its…
Martha Stewart is entering the AI software era in the most Martha Stewart way possible: She has joined the co-founding team at Hint, an app that leverages AI technology to manage the tasks surrounding home maintenance and management. With the Hint app, which launches today, homeowners can tackle challenges around maintenance schedules/tasks and energy management, learn about their soil and air quality, weigh insurance claims, and more. It can also serve as storage for various contracts, files, and invoices related to the home and its upkeep, which can be queried through the built-in AI assistant. Martha StewartImage Credits:Kathryn Cooper Co-founder…
The Trump administration is banning the import of new foreign-made humanoid robots, robot dogs, and power inverters, citing an “unacceptable” threat to national security. The move largely affects imports from China, which currently has the vast majority of the global market share. The U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) announced the ban on Tuesday, saying that devices made overseas could be remotely controlled or used for surveillance by foreign governments, or otherwise used in cyberattacks. The FCC said that exceptions would be granted if the government finds that a device does not pose a risk to U.S. national security. The U.S.…
Waymo is slowly adding freeway routes back to its service area more than two months after the company stopped driving these high-speed roads due to how its robotaxis behaved near construction zones. Waymo announced Wednesday in a post on X that it would gradually add freeway routes, starting with Phoenix — the company’s first driverless ride-hailing market. More cities, including Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay Area, would follow in the coming days, a Waymo spokesperson told TechCrunch. In an emailed statement, Waymo said it was “resuming freeway operations across its entire service area, including areas with construction, after…
Long before Spotify, Winamp was the music player of choice for millions of music fans. Now, the nostalgic brand is preparing for yet another comeback. Winamp and Deezer announced a partnership on Wednesday that will see Deezer power Winamp’s upcoming premium music subscription service. Under the agreement, Winamp will leverage Deezer’s white-label technology and global licensed music catalog while maintaining its own branding and user experience. The partnership is part of a larger relaunch centered around the next-generation Winamp Player, scheduled to arrive in the first half of 2027. According to the companies, the new player is designed to “reinvent…
Lilian Weng, co-founder of Thinking Machines, announced this week that she would step down from her role, citing health issues. “I don’t feel I’m able to continue at the pace a startup requires,” she wrote in an internal Slack message, which she also shared on X. “After thinking about it for several months, I ultimately have to admit that the amount of consistent stress and workload have pushed me beyond what my health can sustain physically.” On Wednesday, OpenAI told TechCrunch that Weng would be rejoining the company, where she previously served as the VP of AI Safety Research. According…
US Immigration and Customs Enforcement is moving to place its private detention network beyond the reach of state inspectors, publishing draft contract terms that declare state and local laws “shall not apply” to the facilities, according to federal documents reviewed by WIRED.The new terms were published earlier this month, a day after a federal judge ruled that a contract cannot override state law and ordered ICE’s largest Pacific Northwest detention center opened to Washington health officials.The ruling, by US District Judge Benjamin Settle, came only after three years of litigation; 10 refused inspections, according to the state; and 3,500 detainee…
When Microsoft reported killer fourth-quarter earnings for its fiscal 2026 year (which ended June 30), it tucked in an interesting little tidbit about how its investments in the two biggest, and competing, AI labs are doing. For the quarter, it recorded its investment in Anthropic as a $3.2 billion gain, boosting diluted earnings per share by 33 cents. (Microsoft reported diluted earnings per share of $4.81 for the quarter). Microsoft invested $5 billion in Anthropic in November 2025 as part of a circular agreement under which the AI lab also agreed to buy $30 billion worth of Azure services. Microsoft…
Every parent of young children has a book they’re sick of reading aloud, whether it’s The Rainbow Fish or Goodnight Moon. In recent years, however, moms and dads are facing a fresh misery when it comes to bedtime stories: AI-generated slop in which their own kids are the unwitting stars.Three months ago, on an anti-artificial-intelligence subreddit, one user vented a now standard complaint: Against their wishes, their mother was attempting to create an AI children’s book about her granddaughter to give the little girl on her birthday.“I have reiterated countless times that I do not support AI-generated art, and drew…