Curio

Image: Maurice NORBERT (Shutterstock)What happened with AI this week? Well, the passage of the European Union’s AI Act—a landmark piece of regulation that seeks tackle the potential harms of the AI industry—is a pretty big deal. It could totally reshape how European nations’ relationship to the technology. But a lot of less consequential if no less weird and entertaining stuff happened this week. The French AI startup Mistral released a new large language model and it’s apparently pretty good. Elon Musk’s baby momma…

Grimes, the futuristic pop singer and mother of Elon Musk’s children, is working on a plush AI toy named “Grok” with the Silicon Valley startup Curio. The toy reportedly has no relationship or affiliation with Musk’s AI chatbot from xAI, the “woke” chatbot that’s also named Grok, according to The Washington Post.Google’s AI Isn’t a Gimmick, It’s the Future | AI Unlocked“Greetings! I’m Grok, Gabbo’s spirited rocket,” says Curio’s listing for a $99 limited beta edition of the toy. “With boundless energy, I’m always zooming…

Flying cars and don’t ask question This week’s Arcade Archives entry comes from the first-draft-name developer Video System, and sees us once again returning to the bottomless well of late-’80s/early-’90s shmups — Now available on PS4 and Nintendo Switch, its vertically scrolling blaster Turbo Force! Released to the arcade market in 1991, Turbo Force is the predecessor of smash release Sonic Wings, (better known in the west as Aero Fighters), and was a standout release for the shmup market, due to its support for up to…

Lars Von Tier’s entire career has been largely built upon provocation and controversy, but even by his standards, 2009’s Antichrist was brought the constantly polarizing filmmaker in for a wave of criticism and backlash. Of course, nobody was expecting a run-of-the-mill story when it was first revealed that Willem Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg would be starring as a married couple who head off to a remote cabin following the traumatic death of their son to try and mend their relationship, where things devolve into a…

Ed McGinnis, CEO of Curio.Photo courtesy Curio.Ed McGinnis knows a lot about the nuclear waste problem in the United States. He worked in U.S. Department of Energy from 1991 to 2021 and dealt directly with the U.S. government's failed effort to build a nuclear waste repository in Yucca Mountain, Nevada."I certainly have the tire tracks on my back" from trying to lead the United States to develop and execute a long-term storage plan for nuclear waste, McGinnis told CNBC in a phone conversation in June."Essentially, both…