Elon Musk’s Grok floods the web with deepfakes, Huawei announces second blood pressure watch
Elon Musk’s Grok AI chatbot is flooding the web with “deepfake” images of everyone from Donald Trump to Musk himself – and the results range from totally wacky to downright disturbing. Since its launch last week, Grok users have been churning out fake images of Trump — robbing a convenience store or flying a plane toward the Twin Towers. Others have depicted Harris pregnant with Trump’s baby, Musk as an overweight couch potato and former President George W. Bush snorting coke off his desk in the Oval Office. New York Post
Researchers have found a soft and squidgy water-rich gel is not only able to play the video game Pong, but gets better at it over time. The findings come almost two years after brain cells in a dish were taught how to play the 1970s classic, a result the researchers involved said showed “something that resembles intelligence”. The team behind the latest study said that while they were inspired by that work, they were not claiming their hydrogel was sentient. Guardian
Tesla’s clearing of trees at Gigafactory Berlin in Germany was necessary for the construction of an electric vehicle factory that helps produce vehicles for the European market. However, the project, which has seen the removal of mass amounts of low-grade trees used for cardboard manufacturing, has also drawn media attention for the wrong reasons. Some publications see it as a “trade-off involved in developing a green economy.” The problem is much of this coverage is misleading because Tesla has replaced these trees threefold since it started building out the Gigafactory Berlin property. Teslarati
Huawei is reportedly on the cusp of launching its second blood pressure watch, and it’s likely to be the most advanced and useful of its kind to date. The Huawei Watch D2 is lined-up for an announcement this September, according to Huawei Central, and September 24 is seen as the most likely date. This follows a Huawei wearable device passing through medical certification in China earlier in August. There are currently no concrete details on what the Huawei Watch D2 will offer over the original, the Huawei Watch D from 2022. Forbes
If you use Philips Hue security cameras to monitor your home, there’s good news – you can expect a hefty package of new features and bug fixes to arrive very soon, which should make it easier to keep tabs on what’s happening indoors and out. One of the biggest changes is improved package detection if you have a Hue Secure subscription plan. This feature lets you set a zone for detailed alerts that will tell you if a package has been left outside, so you can collect it before a porch pirate beats you to it. Tech Radar
A planned £15bn merger between Vodafone and Three UK, which is aimed at creating the UK’s largest mobile phone operator, could leave up to 1 million Three customers unable to choose a cheaper alternative operator, a trade union has claimed. Unite is calling for the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) watchdog to block a planned tie-up between two of the four mobile network operators in the UK that would bring 27 million customers under a single provider. The Guardian
