Humanoid robot competes in the optional boxing routine event during the 2nd World Humanoid Robot Games at National Speed Skating Oval on August 26, 2026 in Beijing, China.…
| Image: Getty Images This is The Stepback, a weekly newsletter breaki…
For more on falling robots and the US-China AI race, follow Robert Hart.
The Stepback arrives in our subscribers' inboxes on Sunday at 8AM ET.
Sony Music and Warner Chappell are suing Anthropic
Sony Music and Warner Chappell have filed suit against Anthropic in the US District Court for the Northern District of California seeking damages for "tens of thousands" copyrighted works.…
The companies are asking for up to $150,000 per work, plus up to $25,0…
In total, the damages could amount to several billion dollars if a cou…
This is just the latest high-profile suit against Anthropic, which rec…
The Galaxy Z Flip 8 is at its best when there’s friction
The Z Flip 8 is designed to be used shut more than ever before.| Photo: Dominic Preston / The Verge What do you want from a flip phone when it's closed?…
A simple interface, perhaps notifications and a widget or two, for han…
Or a fully fledged Android experience shrunk down for the Flip form fa…
For years, Samsung has insisted on the former, even as some fans - and…
Musicians-turned-detectives are hunting for AI grifters
As audio-focused generative tools and platforms have gotten more sophisticated, the internet has become increasingly filled with AI-generated music whose melodies and vocals are algorithmically derived from the work of human artists.…
While some of the people pumping out this kind of content immediately …
For musicians - especially those creating art in technologically-focus…
Anthropic was illegally blacklisted by the Trump administration, court rules
On Thursday, a judge ruled that the Pentagon's blacklisting of Anthropic earlier this year was unconstitutional, delivering the AI lab a win in a monthslong rollercoaster of a battle with the Trump administration.…
The lawsuit, filed in March in a California district court, accused th…
"The empty invocation of national security is not a blank check to pun…
Lin, a district judge in the northern district of California, wrote in…
The biggest video game of all time looks like a movie
I think I know why Rockstar Games debuted its "extended look" of Grand Theft Auto VI on Netflix instead of immediately dropping it for free on YouTube.…
Unlike most video game trailers, the almost 27-minute preview of GTA V…
To make a new game that lasts another decade or more and potentially r…
The line between games and movies has been getting consistently fuzzier.
Jensen Huang says Nvidia achieved AGI, again — not that it matters
On Nvidia's earnings call Wednesday, CEO Jensen Huang casually announced the company had "achieved AGI," one of the tech industry's ultimate goals some of its biggest players have spent years chasing.…
Almost immediately, Huang dismissed the coveted milestone as "senseless.
" He's right.
For the supposed finish line of the AI race, there is no consensus on …