News
Bodycam Shows Moment Cops Arrested a Man for Speaking Too Long at Data Center Meeting
We spoke to Darren Blanchard, the man arrested while speaking out against data centers at a community meeting. He's sharing the bodycam footage of his arrest for the first time with 404 Media.
Announcements
Introducing the First 404 Media Fellow: Jules Roscoe
Jules will be covering labor and automation and helping our stories show up on all platforms as our first 404 Media fellow.
News
Hatsune Miku Fans Furious Live Show Was Just a Flatscreen On Stage
The virtual pop idol did not appear in her full hologram form in two shows on her North American tour and fans are pissed.
virtual reality
How Amateur Performers Are Making Porn in the Apple Vision Pro
Damien and Diana Soft are making porn using Apple's new VR device—and the headset stays on during sex.
layoffs
Best Buy Geek Squad Agents ‘Going Sleeper’ After Mass Layoffs
Laid-off employees say they weren't given notice, and were instead given notice via email about a "work from home" event.
Behind The Blog
Behind the Blog: Posting, and Pissed Off About Art
This is Behind the Blog, where we share our behind-the-scenes thoughts about how a few of our top stories of the week came together. This week, we discuss posting through it, art that pisses people off, and convos with the FBI.
News
This Camera Turns Every Photo Into a Nude
NUCA, a 3D printed prototype camera and art project, uses AI to instantly generate a nude of any subject.
AI
A ‘Law Firm’ of AI Generated Lawyers Is Sending Fake Threats as an SEO Scam
Backlink scams are now leveraging fake, AI-generated 'lawyers' and DMCA trolling to try to pressure site owners to link to their 'clients.'
News
Google Books Is Indexing AI-Generated Garbage
Google said it will continue to evaluate its approach “as the world of book publishing evolves.”
open source
Bullying in Open Source Software Is a Massive Security Vulnerability
The Xz backdoor and a near miss on the F-Droid app store show how the entitled attitude of some people in the open source community can be used to push malicious or insecure code.
Zodiac Killer
Cryptographers Who Solved Zodiac Killer Cipher Publish Paper About How They Did It
The paper details the "authors’ many years of failed experiments and dead-end ideas."
Kagi
Friendship Ended With GOOGLE Now KAGI Is My Best Friend
I replaced Google with Kagi, a search engine that has no ads and costs $10 per month.
Podcast
Podcast: The Xz Backdoor and the AI Peer-Review Crisis
The fascinating Xz backdoor; a looming AI crisis in peer-review; and news around the infamous Lena image. That's all on this week's episode.