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xAI has added 19 natural gas turbines to its second data center campus in Southhaven, Mississippi, over the past two months, according to internal emails seen by WIRED.The additions come as xAI is fighting a lawsuit from the NAACP and several environmental groups, alleging that the company is violating the Clean Air Act by operating more than two dozen natural gas turbines at the site without appropriate air permits.Emails between an official in the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality and a representative from Trinity Consultants, obtained via a public records request by the Southern Environmental Law Center and shared with…
The quick summaryTelevisaUnivision is going to the Super Bowl.Heading into its May 12 upfront event in New York, TelevisaUnivision had three areas of focus for its pitch to advertisers: sports, streaming, and culture through music and live events. Among the highlights from its offerings, the company announced that it will broadcast Super Bowl 61 in Spanish, it has locked down several new soccer deals, and it will even expand into Formula 1 with Apple.Beyond sports, the company is leaning into streaming with new microdramas coming to ViX. Meanwhile, TelevisaUnivision is expanding its live music events and announcing partnerships with major…
Neil Batlivala has spent seven years building a healthcare company that most of the tech industry has never heard of and that serves a patient population most of Silicon Valley ignores. But last month, that work put him at the center of something much bigger. His company, Pair Team, announced on April 30 it had been accepted into ACCESS, a Medicare program — as one of 150 participants chosen by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services to test what AI-driven medical care could look like at federal scale. The program goes live July 5. “The government is creating swim…
Sam Altman took to the witness stand to defend his reputation in the Musk v. Altman trial on Tuesday, as Elon Musk’s lawyers peppered the OpenAI CEO with hours of questions regarding his alleged history of deceptive behavior.The cross examination was a much needed win for Musk, who has so far struggled to make a convincing case. Tuesday’s testimony included several heated exchanges in which the OpenAI CEO had to respond to allegations from former colleagues suggesting he’s untrustworthy.Highlighting this evidence is not only important for Musk winning over a jury, but also for beating OpenAI in the court of…
Heading into YouTube’s Brandcast on Wednesday, Sean Downey, president of the Americas for Google, wants ad buyers to walk out with one idea cemented: YouTube is the future of media, and creators are the front door.“What I hope you find is that brands want to be attached to culture and community in a really authentic way,” Downey told ADWEEK. “There was a trend for a long time that held that the future of branding is social. I think the future of brand is trust.”That thesis is showing up in the platform’s pitch through an expanded slate of creator-buying tools. Over the…
Google and SpaceX are in talks to launch orbital data centers in space, reports The Wall Street Journal, citing sources familiar with the matter. The potential deal comes as SpaceX gears up for its $1.75 trillion IPO later this year, selling investors on the idea that data centers in space will be the cheapest place to put AI compute within the next few years. It also follows Anthropic’s deal with SpaceX last week to use computing resources from xAI’s data center in Memphis, Tennessee, with the potential to work together on orbital ones in the future. (SpaceX acquired xAI in…
Unitree is a Chinese company known for making adorable, relatively affordable robots that dance and shuffle and such. Last night, it revealed its latest creation, which is something of a departure: a giant, walking, crawling, transforming, wall-smashing “mecha” called the GD01.An introductory video for the GD01—set to a thundering rock guitar soundtrack—shows the company’s founder and CEO, Xingxing Wang, holding hands with the robot before climbing into its prodigious, open-air belly. A disclaimer added to Unitree’s social media post reads: “Please everyone be sure to use the robot in a Friendly and Safe manner.”The video cuts to a view in…
The quick summary:The Super Bowl may be months away, but Disney already has its head in the game.Heading into its upfront presentation from the Javits Center in New York on Tuesday, the company has Super Bowl LXI, the College Football Championship, the Grammys, and the Oscars, all within six weeks of each other in 2027. To showcase the advertising gravity of those live events, Disney tailored its upfront pitch around those tentpoles, while also promoting its other brands, including ESPN, Hulu, Disney+, ABC, and FX.The company rolled out the red carpet for its stars, with Anne Hathaway introducing Disney CEO…
Potholes are a pesky problem — just ask scooter company Lime, which listed them as an official risk to its business in its IPO filing last week. History is littered with claims that technology can help solve or blunt the problem of potholes, and still they persist. But as cars become increasingly laden with advanced sensors, they are becoming a tool that can quickly alert cities to potholes and other municipal problems. Last month, Waymo and Waze announced a pilot program to share pothole data with local governments. Now, fleet management company Samsara says it’s one-upping that idea with its…
A ransomware group is attempting to extort the electronics manufacturing giant Foxconn, claiming that it stole 8 TB of data from the company, including schematics and project details from customers including Dell, Google, Apple, and Nvidia. Foxconn did not immediately respond to WIRED’s request for comment about the validity of the claims, but the company did acknowledge that some of its North American factories “suffered a cyberattack” in recent days, and that “affected factories are currently resuming normal production” after outages.Foxconn is the type of target that is particularly appealing to ransomware and data extortion actors, because it is a…
The nonprofit organization Gold House, dedicated to supporting Asian American Pacific Islander creatives, entrepreneurs, and leaders, hosted its fifth annual Gold Gala at the Music Center in Los Angeles on Saturday.The event recognized the nonprofit’s Gold100 list, which “celebrates the 100 leaders most responsible for shaping culture over the past year.”Onstage honors went to actors Charles Melton, Jet Li, Priyanka Chopra Jonas, and Simu Liu, as well as Olympian Eileen Gu and Flex CEO Revathi Advaithi.Beyond the awards and celebrity, the event also featured activations and experiences from brands that share Gold House’s mission. Gold House CEO and founder Bing…
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman finally took the stand this morning to defend himself against his former co-founder Elon Musk’s lawsuit challenging OpenAI’s corporate structure. Altman was immediately asked what he thought of Musk’s allegation that OpenAI’s other founders “stole a charity” when they launched a for-profit subsidiary to market products based on the company’s AI models. “It feels difficult to even wrap my head around that framing,” Altman said after several seconds of silence. “We created one of the largest charities in the world. This foundation is doing incredible work and will do much more.” Musk’s attorneys have been at…
The home page for Moms.gov, the Trump administration’s recently launched website for “new and expecting mothers,” is a trad wife’s dream.Featuring soft pastel graphics and a photo of a young, white, blond woman in a field clutching her pregnant belly, the website offers resources for women of reproductive age such as anti-abortion “pregnancy centers,” as well as a CDC website listing potential workplace hazards for expecting mothers without noting accompanying legal protections for pregnant women.If you were conspiratorially minded, you might conclude from the website alone that the Trump administration is champing at the bit for young (white and blond)…
Music festival season kicked off last month with festival promoter Goldenvoice’s two biggest events: Coachella and Stagecoach.Coachella attracted a much larger crowd of 250,000 attendees across its two weekends, while only 80,000 people went to Stagecoach. Still, each festival brought in an array of partners, some different and some crossing over, including Alaska Airlines, Coca-Cola, and American Express. While Coachella is often seen as a better opportunity for brands given its scale both on- and off-site, Stagecoach brings an opportunity to make a bigger impact with a niche but growing community while standing out among less brand clutter.
Former Tesla executive Drew Baglino has quietly founded a heat pump startup, TechCrunch has learned. This is the second company founded by Baglino in the two years since he left Tesla. Sources confirmed the existence of the startup, called Sadi Thermal Machines, and TechCrunch has reviewed company filings in Delaware and California. Sadi was formed in June 2025 and shares its Scotts Valley, California, headquarters with Heron Power, a startup also founded by Baglino, that sells solid-state transformers, according to company filings. The name of the company is an apparent reference to Nicolas Léonard Sadi Carnot, a pioneering French physicist…
In the Strait of Hormuz, Iran has developed an asymmetrical naval strategy that is crippling the passage of container ships. This “hemostat” uses guerrilla tactics, after Iran’s “traditional” fleet was almost entirely destroyed by US and Israeli attacks. No longer able to rely on specialized military ships, Tehran is using an unconventional force made up of dozens of small military vessels armed with missiles, machine guns, and drones. Quick and nimble, this “mosquito fleet” is capable of assaulting ships carrying tons of cargo.In mid-April, US president Donald Trump had reassured the public in a post on Truth Social that Iran’s…