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As the Trump administration phases out the use of animal experimentation across the federal government, a biotech startup has a bold idea for an alternative to animal testing: nonsentient “organ sacks.”Bay Area-based R3 Bio has been quietly pitching the idea to investors and in industry publications as a way to replace lab animals without the ethical issues that come with living organisms. That’s because these structures would contain all of the typical organs—except a brain, rendering them unable to think or feel pain. The company’s long-term goal, cofounder Alice Gilman says, is to make human versions that could be used…
For the first time, Vizio and Walmart are giving a joint pitch to advertisers, laying out what the retail giant’s acquisition of the TV company means for brands.During a NewFronts presentation, Walmart and Vizio execs will talk up up a new login process that will help advertisers more accurately measure streaming TV ads. Walmart is also rolling out a new product placement format that appears within Vizio’s operating system.The event, titled “Content to Commerce,” will include a fireside chat with Shaquille O’Neal, as well as execs from Walmart, Vizio, NBCUniversal, Universal Pictures, and L’Oréal. Retail moves to streamingWalmart and Vizio…
Paywall bypass website Archive.today and several of its associated domains (including .is and .ph) have been blocked by Russian authorities, according to error pages that appeared when loading its websites. The pages appear blocked as of Monday when TechCrunch visited the websites from the U.S. East Coast. A page in Russian said: “Access to the Internet resource Blocked by decision of the public authorities,” citing the Russian government agency responsible for internet censorship, Roskomnadzor. According to Roskomnadzor’s listing for Archive.is, authorities confirmed that “access is limited to the page,” but did not give a reason at the time of publication.…
“Tavajoh! Tavajoh! Tavajoh!” a man’s voice announces, before going on to narrate a string of numbers in no apparent order, slowly and rhythmically. After nearly two hours, the calls of “Attention!” in Persian stop, only to resume again hours later.The broadcast has been playing twice a day on a shortwave frequency since the start of the US-Israel attack on Iran on February 28.According to Priyom, an organization which tracks and analyses global military and intelligence use of shortwave radio, using established radio-location techniques, the broadcast was first heard as the US bombing of Iran began. It has since played on…
The main takeaway:The E.W. Scripps Company will launch a new 24/7 streaming network in its latest upfront pitch to advertisers. Premiering Tuesday, March 24, the Scripps Sports Network, a free, ad-supported streaming television (FAST) channel, will start with 100 live events across the year.The offering allows advertisers to secure premium positions in women’s sports broadcasts, including those from new and emerging leagues.The biggest announcements:According to Scripps Chief Revenue Officer Brian Norris, as live sports—and, specifically, women’s live sports—continue to grow and bring impact for advertisers, Scripps Sports Network was a way to bring viewers free live sports without the barriers…
Senators Adam Schiff (D-CA) and John Curtis (R-UT) introduced a bill on Monday that could prevent prediction market platforms Kalshi and Polymarket from allowing users to wager money on sports events or play casino-style games. This bipartisan bill would not apply to FanDuel and DraftKings, which are subject to state-by-state gambling laws, rather than federal ones. “Sports prediction contracts are sports bets — just with a different name. And yet, these contracts are currently offered in all fifty states in clear violation of state and federal law,” Schiff said in a statement. Gambling has become more prominent in American culture…
Looking for an inexpensive pair of earbuds to toss in your gym bag? You can snag our favorite budget wireless earbuds, the JLab Go Pop ANC, for a shockingly low $19 on Amazon, an $11 markdown from their usual price. Don’t let the cost fool you, these earbuds have surprised multiple WIRED writers with their clear sound, water resistance, and ANC performance.These earbuds have all the features you’d expect from a pair five times the price. They sport IP55 water and dust resistance, perfect for a sweaty trip to the gym or a long run on the beach, and multipoint…
The Atlantic is giving new meaning to the word sponsorship.The 168-year-old magazine announced a first-of-its-kind, three-year partnership with the luxury cruise line Seabourn on Monday, which will bring its writers, editorial programming, and subscription access aboard Seabourn voyages starting this fall. The company declined to offer further financial specifics of the deal.The partnership spans advertising, sponsorship, and subscription enablement, according to Alice McKown, publisher and chief revenue officer of The Atlantic. It will culminate in fall 2028 with a full 12-day route takeover from Montreal to Boston, the city where The Atlantic was founded in 1857.“We realized we could do…
There has been a lot of talk around building context for AI systems. In consumer software, we have seen startups being built around search, documents, and meetings. All of them want to capture context from your digital life, provide connections to other tools, and let you query all that data. Some tools went further. For instance, Rewind (which became Limitless and sold to Meta) and Microsoft Recall aim to capture everything happening on your screen and help you remember it all. A new startup called Littlebird is trying a similar thing with a slightly different approach. While apps like Rewind…
Over the last 24 hours, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents have invaded airports across the United States.At Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson, the world’s busiest airport, videos and photographs show ICE agents standing next to security screening lines. At Chicago’s O’Hare airport, ICE agents are scattered around check-in counters, according to videos shared online. At Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey, ICE officers were seen walking through the main United Airlines terminal, wearing vests that said “ICE.” And at San Francisco International Airport, multiple videos show what appear to be plainclothes law enforcement officers forcibly detaining a young woman as dozens…
YouTube isn’t satisfied with serving one or two slices of brands’ creator marketing demands. It wants the whole pie. On Monday, ahead of YouTube’s NewFronts presentation this week, the Google-owned video site announced that it is repackaging BrandConnect, its tool for connecting YouTube creators with brands for sponsorship deals, into what will now be known as Creator Partnerships—and giving it an AI makeover. The platform will be backed by Gemini, Google’s suite of frontier AI models, to intelligently pair advertisers with creators that suit their needs. “It’s historically been challenging for advertisers to find the right creator to work with and then…
Leonid Radvinsky, the billionaire owner of the adult creator network OnlyFans, has passed away at the age of 43 after a battle with cancer. OnlyFans confirmed Radvinsky’s death on Monday. The company said it was “deeply saddened” by his passing, according to a spokesperson, adding that his family has requested privacy. Reuters first reported the news. Originally from Odesa, Ukraine, Radvinsky moved to Chicago as a child and began running adult streaming websites in his teenage years, launching MyFreeCams in 2004. Radvinsky bought a 75% stake in Fenix International Limited, the parent company of OnlyFans, in 2018 and served as…
In the early morning dark, Abeer Skaik turned to her husband, Ali Al-Qatta, and said that today would be the day they would find their son. Ali nodded in silence, and she handed him the stack of flyers. Each bore a photograph of 16-year-old Hassan smiling widely, his shoulders loose, wearing a plain red T-shirt. He is looking directly at the camera, unguarded. On top of the page, in large letters, Abeer had written a single word in bold red ink: Munashada!—an appeal.Abeer watched as Ali stepped into a car with a few close friends and drove away. They started…
Google is turning its demand-side platform for advertisers, Display & Video 360 (DV360), into an AI-powered media buyer backed by Gemini, the tech company’s flagship family of AI models. While Gemini tools have been baked into DV360 since at least last spring, they were primarily used to aid marketers in audience discovery, surface reporting insights, and offer tweaks to help optimize campaigns here and there. Now, Gemini will become the true operating layer of the DSP, moving upstream and taking on a larger role in media planning, the company explained at its NewFronts presentation in Manhattan on Monday. “Marketers can upload their…
Anthropic is attracting an increasing number of supporters in its fight against the U.S. Department of Defense, which last month designated the AI lab as a supply-chain risk after it refused to make concessions on how its AI could be used by the military. In a letter to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) equated the DoD’s decision with “retaliation,” arguing that the Pentagon could simply have terminated its contract with the AI lab, CNBC reports. “I am particularly concerned that the DoD is trying to strong-arm American companies into providing the Department with the tools to…
Nearly a year later, on a hot day in the high summer of 2025, I stepped into NGA’s headquarters at the Fort Belvoir Army Base in northern Virginia. It was my second visit to the spy agency HQ, and I wanted to find out why Whitworth had changed his mind, how much Maven had spread, and how Maven’s new backers saw the risks and rewards of mainstreaming AI into military workflows.By then, Whitworth had become so ardent a fan of AI that his agency was pumping out machine-produced intelligence reports for US decisionmakers that “no human hands” had touched. And…