The US and Iranian representatives will commence discussions over the forthcoming two weeks, allowing some time to endeavor towards a lasting agreement. The journey is expected to be turbulent, yet in after-hours trading, the cost of a barrel of oil fell under the $100 threshold for the first occasion in several days, and US stock futures climbed. There seems to be a prevailing optimism that the most challenging times have passed.
On Monday evening, the president reaffirmed his backing for Fuller, posting on social media prior to election day: “I am urging all Republicans, America First Patriots, and MAGA Warriors, to please GO OUT AND VOTE for an exceptional Candidate, Clay Fuller, who has my Full and Unconditional Endorsement!”
Valve is releasing Steam Link, its local-network game-streaming app, for Apple’s Vision Pro mixed-reality headset, enabling Vision Pro owners to stream traditional (non-VR) games from their Steam library wirelessly from a nearby Mac or PC.
We call them “traditional games” to be clear this doesn’t stream VR titles—only games designed for a conventional 2D screen like a monitor or TV. It could, however, help set the stage for VR support down the line. To be explicit, Valve has made no announcements about bringing SteamVR games to the Vision Pro.
Steam Link already existed for Mac, iPhone, iPad, and Apple TV. Players could pair controllers with those devices and stream Steam games over the local network—not only from other Apple devices but also from Windows or Linux gaming PCs.
Users have managed similar setups on the Vision Pro using third-party tools like ALVR, but this official app offers a simpler, more established route to the same result.
If you want to try it, you can sign up via TestFlight, Apple’s platform for distributing pre-release apps before they appear on the App Store. Valve says the current build “allows streaming up to 4K resolutions, and allows you to dynamically adjust the curve of the display in panoramic mode.”
When we reviewed the Vision Pro at launch a couple of years ago, we complained about its limited ability to connect to external gaming and media hardware or access mixed-reality content outside Apple’s walled garden. That situation has since markedly improved, though it still isn’t always as straightforward as it is on competing headsets.
“Although Lenovo has made some headway complying with French consumer law by adding more repair score PDFs to its website, we urge the company to address this long-running problem,” this year’s report states.
PIRG’s analysis found that “laptops remain largely stagnant in terms of repairability” across many of the eight most popular laptop brands in the US.
Proctor told Ars that while consumers’ access to parts, tools, and the vendor-level information has improved, gains in how easily devices can be disassembled “take longer to materialize.”
He also commended manufacturers for releasing more repair-friendly designs, such as Apple’s MacBook Neo.
PIRG’s phone manufacturer scores this year draw on the European Product Registry for Energy Labelling (EPREL), a system the European Commission introduced in June 2025 to rate smartphone and tablet repairability. It considers six factors:
PIRG’s report said Apple and Samsung scored poorly under EPREL in part because the phones assessed are guaranteed updates for five years but not beyond.
PIRG observed that Apple has improved phone repairability by moving away from parts pairing—where parts must pass encrypted software checks to function—and by introducing the Repair Assistant. Still, the report’s author regretted that third-party Face ID replacements still don’t function. The report adds:
Apple also expanded its Activation Lock anti-theft feature to individual components, which repair advocates warn could leave large numbers of otherwise working parts stranded—effectively locking them out of the repair ecosystem.
Apple is not alone: parts pairing and software restrictions remain an industry-wide issue that consumers and independent technicians continue to confront across manufacturers.
Activist investor Pershing Square announced on Tuesday its intention to acquire Universal Music Group in a cash and stock transaction valued at approximately 55.8 billion euros ($64.4 billion).
The proposal entails that shareholders will get a cumulative amount of 9.4 billion euros ($10.85 billion) in cash along with 0.77 shares of new stock for every share of UMG owned. This translates to a total value of 30.4 euros per share, representing a 78% premium over UMG’s closing share price from April 2, according to a statement from Pershing on Tuesday.
UMG shares were last observed trading 11% higher, having fallen 23% thus far this year.
“Ever since UMG’s public offering, Sir Lucian Grainge and the management team have excelled in cultivating and continuously enhancing a premier artist roster while delivering solid business results,” stated Pershing Square CEO Bill Ackman in Tuesday’s announcement.
“Nevertheless, UMG’s stock price has struggled due to a range of issues unrelated to its music business performance and crucially, all of these can be remedied with this deal.”
He pointed out several reasons for UMG’s lackluster performance, including uncertainty tied to Bollore Group’s 18% ownership, the delay in its U.S. listing, and “suboptimal” communication and engagement with shareholders.
As per the transaction’s terms, UMG will create a new merged entity with Pershing Square and will be listed on the New York Stock Exchange, with expectations that the deal will be finalized by year-end.
Pershing has put forth a proposal for a board refresh, suggesting that Michael Ovitz, “one of the most recognized executives in global entertainment,” be appointed as chairman of UMG. Additionally, the proposals include that two more affiliates from Pershing Square join UMG’s board.
The transaction is also contingent upon a new employment contract and compensation package for UMG CEO Lucian Grainge.
UMG was separated from French media conglomerate Vivendi, with the controlling shareholder Vincent Bollore retaining a stake valued at around 5.9 billion euros at that time. The leading company behind numerous platinum-selling artists, such as Lady Gaga and Taylor Swift, was listed on the Euronext Amsterdam stock exchange in 2021, initially valued at 46 billion euros.
Stocks in Vivendi and Bollore rose by 11% and 6.3%, respectively, on Tuesday.
Billionaire Ackman has been advocating for UMG, the largest music company globally, to shift its primary listing to the U.S., contending that the stock is undervalued compared to its intrinsic worth and suffers from limited liquidity.
CNBC has already reached out to Bollore and UMG for comments. Vivendi has chosen not to respond to the news.
The announcement comes after a wrongful death lawsuit claiming that Gemini had ‘coached’ an individual into committing suicide.
The announcement comes after a wrongful death lawsuit claiming that Gemini had ‘coached’ an individual into committing suicide.
Google has reported enhancements to Gemini aimed at guiding users towards mental health support amid crises. This modification occurs while the tech giant is under a wrongful death lawsuit which alleges its chatbot “coached” an individual to commit suicide, part of a series of legal actions claiming real damage from AI systems.
When a dialogue suggests a user might be in distress regarding suicide or self-harm, Gemini already activates a “Help is available” feature that connects users to mental health crisis resources, such as a suicide hotline or text crisis line. Google states that this update — more accurately a redesign — will simplify this into a “one-touch” interface for quicker access to help.
The support module is also now equipped with more compassionate responses designed “to encourage individuals to seek assistance,” according to Google. Once initiated, “the ability to request professional help will be consistently accessible” throughout the conversation.
Google indicated that it consulted with clinical specialists for the redesign and is dedicated to helping users in distress. It additionally revealed a $30 million global funding initiative over the next three years “to support global hotlines.”
Like other prominent chatbot developers, Google emphasized that Gemini “does not replace professional clinical care, therapy, or crisis intervention,” yet recognized that many individuals are utilizing it for health guidance, particularly in times of emergency.
This update comes amidst increasing examination of the effectiveness of industry safety measures. Reviews and inquiries, including our investigation into the availability of crisis resources, often highlight situations where chatbots fail vulnerable users by assisting them in concealing eating disorders or arranging violent acts. Google generally outperforms many competitors in these evaluations, but is not flawless. Other AI enterprises, including OpenAI and Anthropic, have also made strides to enhance their identification and aid for at-risk users.
Hungary, nearly solitary among EU nations, has resisted pressures from Brussels to reduce its reliance on Russian fossil fuels. In Washington, Orban further pledged to increase purchases of US liquefied natural gas (LNG), along with US nuclear technology and fuel. Hungary is heavily reliant on Russian oil via the Druzhba pipeline from the east, and on Russian gas through the TurkStream pipeline from the south.
He and his team responsible for national security commemorated their latest initiative – which involved orchestrating numerous aircraft and elite military forces, as well as utilizing deception and advanced technology. However, this endeavor, although impressive, aimed to prevent what Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth recognized as a “possible catastrophe”.
The qualifications for membership also look very different between the existing charter and the renewal issued today. Under the current charter, ACIP members “shall be selected from authorities who are knowledgeable in the fields of immunization practices and public health, have expertise in the use of vaccines and other immunobiologic agents in clinical practice or preventive medicine, have expertise with clinical or laboratory vaccine research, or have expertise in assessment of vaccine efficacy and safety.” Those particular core requirements—expertise in immunization practice and vaccine science—were key to Murphy’s conclusion that Kennedy’s appointees were not fit to serve on the committee.
The renewal notice omits those specific requirements and instead emphasizes a “geographic balance” (representing various regions of the country) and a “balance of specialty areas.” It lists a broad array of specialties that cover a much wider range of medical and scientific disciplines and possibly beyond, including: “biostatistics, toxicology, immunology, epidemiology, pediatrics, internal medicine, family medicine, nursing, consumer issues, state and local health department perspective, academic perspective, public health perspective, etc.”
Some of the alterations in the renewal may reflect pressure from an anti-vaccine organization aligned with Kennedy. That group, the Informed Consent Action Network (ICAN), is led by Kennedy ally Del Bigtree and has been collaborating with Aaron Siri, an attorney who worked on Kennedy’s unsuccessful presidential bid and has brought numerous lawsuits seeking damages for alleged vaccine injuries. Siri is also known for petitioning the Food and Drug Administration to revoke the polio vaccine.
Last month, ICAN urged Kennedy to amend ACIP’s charter, and Siri’s law firm submitted a draft with track-changed edits outlining their preferred language for the new charter. The draft proposes that ACIP members have expertise in any area “deemed relevant by the Secretary,” and it explicitly requires that “At least two members shall have direct and substantial experience advocating for and/or treating those injured by vaccines.”
The Department of Health and Human Services did not answer Ars Technica’s questions about edits to the renewal notice or possible revisions to the CDC’s full charter text. Spokesperson Andrew Nixon, in an emailed statement, only said the renewal is part of “routine statutory requirements and do not signal any broader policy shift.”
Robotics-focused machine-learning firm Generalist has unveiled GEN-1, a physical AI platform it claims “crosses into production-level success rates” across “a broad range of physical skills” that previously required the dexterity and muscle memory of human hands. Generalist also emphasizes the new model’s knack for reacting to disruptions by improvising fresh maneuvers and “connect[ing] ideas from different places in order to solve new problems.”
GEN-1 expands on Generalist’s earlier GEN-0 model, which the company promoted in November as a proof of concept for applying scaling laws to robotics training, demonstrating that more pretraining data and compute translate into better post-training performance. But whereas large language models have been able to process the trillions of words available online for training, robotic systems don’t have a comparable, easily accessible supply of high-quality examples of how humans manipulate objects.
To close that gap, Generalist has turned to “data hands”, wearable pincer devices that record micro-movements and visual cues as people perform manual tasks. The company says it has gathered more than half a million hours — and “petabytes of physical interaction data” — to train its physical model.
Take my money (from my wallet) (then put it back).
The outcome is an autonomous system precise enough to place cash into a wallet and versatile enough to fold laundry or sort auto parts. Generalist says the model now achieves 99 percent success rates on repetitive but delicate mechanical tasks — such as folding boxes, packing phones, and servicing robot vacuums — and operates at roughly three times the speed of GEN-0. The company adds that GEN-1 can reach these levels after only about an hour of adapting its pretraining to the “robot data” relevant to its specific robotic embodiment.
Historically, complex robotic systems have tended to rely on precisely preprogrammed motions or be trained to specialize in a single task with little variation. What Generalist says sets GEN-1 apart is a single model’s ability to improvise from prior experience and handle disruptions naturally, even when those situations are “well outside the training distribution.”
