Technology

Does insurance cover flooding and mudslides?
This week’s rain is turning streets into creeks and hillsides into mudslides. Homeowners across Southern California are facing major damage to their homes as a result — and in...
A floor that feels like magic? Just another marvel from this legendary Disney inventor
Many of Lanny Smoot’s best-known inventions are, at least to nonengineers, more like magic tricks. Floating disembodied heads, a lightsaber that actually expands, retracts and glows and, in his...
Which entertainment jobs are most likely to be disrupted by AI? New study has answers
An estimated 62,000 entertainment jobs in California spanning film, TV, music and gaming will be disrupted by the rise of artificial intelligence within the next three years, a new...
Taylor Swift searches return to X after temporary block: ‘We will continue to be vigilant’
Taylor Swift is finally out of the woods, at least when it comes to being searched on social media platform X.X (formerly Twitter) lifted its temporary block on search...
To protect kids, California might require chronological feeds on social media
Social media companies design their feeds to be as gripping as possible, with complicated algorithms shuffling posts and ads into a never-ending stream of entertainment.A new California law would...
Those explicit Taylor Swift deepfakes are ‘sexual exploitation,’ lawmakers say
Multiple lawmakers have bad blood with the creators behind those sexually explicit AI images of Taylor Swift that circulated on social media Thursday. New York Reps. Joe Morelle and...
Oprah’s ‘spiritual guru,’ a longtime Californian, tests whether new age can win votes in New Hampshire
PORTSMOUTH, N.H. —  Presidential long shot Marianne Williamson flitted down the aisle of a two-century-old granite church, pausing to gracefully bow to dozens of supporters as they chanted her name.The...
How plagiarism-detection programs became an unlikely political weapon
The plagiarism accusations first struck Claudine Gay when a right-wing activist published several examples of unattributed text from the Harvard president’s academic writings. Though insufficient attribution wasn’t the only...
Brian Eno on AI (he’s a fan) and the Sundance documentary that bears his name
Part practical problem-solver and part esoteric theoretician, Brian Eno has been involved as a musician and producer on some of the most influential music of the past 50 years,...
Brian Eno on AI (he’s a fan) and the Sundance documentary that bears his name
Part practical problem-solver and part esoteric theoretician, Brian Eno has been involved as a musician and producer on some of the most influential music of the past 50 years,...