In 2006, The BBC reviewed predictions about robotics and AI made in the 1980s. Now, another 20 years later, we can reappraise its appraisal. When Will Intelligent Machines Take Over?

The segment features Sir Clive Sinclair, icon of early home computing, who plainly claims that the endgame of computing technology is AI. — Read the rest

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TL;DR: Give your PC a software upgrade with this $50 Microsoft Office 2024 Professional Plus lifetime license for Windows.

For some reason, software expenses always come up at the worst time. But this Boing Boing-exclusive Flash Sale is an easy way to get ahead of those unexpected costs. — Read the rest

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In yet another moment of "this guy is not competent to be President of the United States" moment, Donald Trump demonstrated how pilots used to use "little steering-wheels" to control airplanes. The plane he was discussing, the Boeing 737 MAX, certainly still has yokes. — Read the rest

The post Grandpa Pudding Brains demonstrates the little "steering-wheels" airplanes "used to have" appeared first on Boing Boing.

America's most boring sycophant, JD Vance, was mercilessly heckled at a rally for Byron Donalds and Sen. Ashley Moody (R-FL), and he created some interesting backstories for them.

While good ol' Just Dance, Vance didn't know the protesters' names, where they were from, or what brought them to a place where heckling a credibilityless, self-professed liar seemed like a good use of time—he was willing to imagine political positions and opinions for them. — Read the rest

The post Fox cuts away while JD Vance argues with hecklers and the positions he assigned them appeared first on Boing Boing.

Kurt Andersen, co-founder of the late great Spy magazine, announced that the 40th anniversary of the magazine will be celebrated on Substack, where "we'll start publishing starting next Monday the 5th, a limited series of daily excerpts and links from the magazine's archive, with bits of new commentary and context. — Read the rest

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The Merrimack Valley Collection is a legendary comic book collection in which someone bought comics off the rack and stored them in a cardboard box for almost 80 years. Heritage Auctions sold many of these comics in a couple of auctions in Dallas last week. — Read the rest

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Following his meeting with top AI executives yesterday, President Donald Trump signed an executive order declaring that artificial intelligence will henceforth be known as "super intelligence." The order, which applies to federal government, follows a call he made last week during his speech to the United Nations General Assembly. — Read the rest

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In the latest issue of Why Is This Interesting, Mark Slavonia writes about the annual parallel parking championship in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where people compete to see who can parallel park.

The rules are that the clock starts ticking when the referee sees your reverse lights go on. — Read the rest

The post In Pittsburgh, people compete to see who can parallel park fastest and closest to the curb appeared first on Boing Boing.

A REACH medical evacuation helicopter crashed into the Pacific while departing Catalina Island. Of the five people aboard, two have died; two were taken to hospitals, and the patient is missing.

Catalina Island is a beautiful and remote place to live. — Read the rest

The post Catalina medevac crashes into the sea after picking up a patient for a flight to the mainland appeared first on Boing Boing.

A young rabbit was having a terrible time attempting a flyout at the local skatepark. Stuck in the bowl and unable to escape, the cottontail made a new friend.

This kind, patient skater pulled off an amazing tailgrab and eventually helped his new bunny buddy escape. — Read the rest

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"I wish it was AI. It's in my backyard, and it's scary," said a man who used AI to create an image of a venomous Gaboon viper and had teams of police and reptile hunters searching for the dangerous creature.

Santa Ana Police called in experts to help them find a four- to five-foot-long Gaboon viper after a gentleman shared photos of one in his neighbor's yard. — Read the rest

The post Officers search Santa Ana for a deadly but AI-generated African viper appeared first on Boing Boing.

France's Académie Goncourt has withdrawn Canadian-Haitian author Thélyson Orélien's novel C'était ça ou mourir (It Was That or Die) from consideration for its top literary prize. The book shows signs of being written by AI, reports The Guardian.

A lyrical first-person account of how a history and geography teacher flees a home country mired in gang violence… Published in France by Grasset in August, it has sold about 35,000 copies and won the Prix du roman Fnac, with translation rights sold to more than 20 countries.

— Read the rest

The post Novel withdrawn from running for France's top literary prize after AI claims appeared first on Boing Boing.

TL;DR: Get unlimited website hosting, unlimited NVMe SSD storage, unlimited bandwidth, and 54 free lifetime domains with this Hostdeal Unlimited Plan lifetime subscription for just $149.99 (reg. $1,800).

If you're already hosting multiple websites for clients, small businesses, or your side projects, you'll know how costly things can get. — Read the rest

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Newly-installed traffic lights at a busy corner in Stretford, England, keep failing and leaving motorists fightened and confused. Part of a £17.6m (about $24m) redevelopment of the town center, the new lights have gone out three times, reports the Manchester Evening News, a pattern one local councillor described as "very odd." — Read the rest

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A school principal is on leave after voicemail caught her making ill-considered remarks about the parents of a 5-year-old girl who reported that she was inappropriately touched by a classmate. The parents of the girl, attending Grand Oaks Elementary school in Harris County, Texas, called to report the incident on September 25. — Read the rest

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Freckle is a small, square smartphone aimed at youngsters aged 7-13, designed to give them "independence" without providing features that encourage prolonged or repetetive use.

The $199 device has a 3.1", 720 × 720 touchscreen and runs a proprietary operating system, ClayOS, with no app store, web browser or social media apps—and definitely no YouTube. — Read the rest

The post Freckle is a kid's phone that sends them on real-world quests appeared first on Boing Boing.

Back in the day, when writing on the Internet was new and cool, I wanted a keyboard that had specialized keys for useful tasks such as multiple copy/paste, blockquote wrapping, and the all-important Curators' Code symbols. In essence, a Bloomberg Terminal for blogging. — Read the rest

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Last month's flooding in Carmel, Indiana, saw the White River burst its banks and destroy a number of homes—and caused a highway overpass to collapse. Eleven inches of rain fell in two days, raising the river to a record 24.6 feet crest. — Read the rest

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A movie featuring the SCP Foundation mythos proved controversial after the studio paying for the production, A24, implied in marketing that it would own the material. The problem is that the SCP Foundation is a sprawling collaborate project of unclear origins. — Read the rest

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Contractors working for the city of Sheffield, England, have repainted the street sign for Pool Square at least eight times since being awarded a highway maintenance contract there, reports The Star. It's more likely than not they will do so on any given year. — Read the rest

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TL;DR: Design and analyze 3D building models with a one-year Autodesk Revit subscription for $399 (reg. $3,005).

Designing a building usually means managing separate files for the architecture, the structure, and the mechanical, electrical, and plumbing systems. Autodesk Revit is a 3D building design tool that keeps all of those models on one platform, and a one-year subscription is on sale for $399 right now (reg. — Read the rest

The post One 3D design tool can model your whole building, and it's on sale for $399 (reg. $3,005) appeared first on Boing Boing.

The $500 Dyson CameraJet toothbrush (previously at Boing Boing) takes 28 images of your mouth per second to better direct its flossing jet at your dirty choppers. The tiny, low-resolution sensor is fit for that purpose, but All The Gear, No Skill on Instagram decided to put it to use on the street: "I never would have thought a vacuum cleaner would create the most fun camera of 2026." — Read the rest

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Chat Pile definitely isn't easy listening. The Oklahoma City sludge and noise rock band tackles lyrical topics as heavy as they get: families falling apart, homelessness, and, on their latest album, the climate crisis. This year Chat Pile released their third full-length album, Who Loves the Sun, to wide acclaim from fans (myself included) and critics like Anthony Fantano, who gave it a rare 9/10. — Read the rest

The post Chat Pile's songs are bleak, but their live show is a blast appeared first on Boing Boing.

Michael Spicer mocks a distinctive formula of television out of the United Kingdom, one fans of The Great British Bake Off will immediately recognize.

"For as long as I can remember," he says, kicking off Most TV is Just This Now, "I've loved nature." — Read the rest

The post Every British TV show appeared first on Boing Boing.

There's no reason to make a USB-C cable that looks like an orange or green extension cable, which is all the more reason to want it.

The creator, Matty Benedetto, emailed me to let me know about his latest creation. — Read the rest

The post These USB-C cables look like orange and green extension cords appeared first on Boing Boing.

An Italian entrepreneur by the name of Vittorio Martire has designed an ultra-high-end luxury fire extinguisher for superyacht owners who bristle at the sight of a red fire extinguisher.

Called the Incroyable, it debuted at the Monaco Yacht Show in 2026. — Read the rest

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Pavel Gurov created this cool theremin that you can control by waving your hands in front of your webcam. You spread your hands apart to increase the volume, raise them for the pitch, move your hands back to soften the tone, and put your palms together for silence. — Read the rest

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Noctua, known for making the fans inside computers, has an interesting new design to show off: a camera, made with Prusa, itself better-known for 3D Printers. The CAIM1 is an E-Mount interchangeable-lens with a Micro Four-Thirds sensor and a compact if chunky look. — Read the rest

The post PC cooling company Noctua now a fan of cameras too appeared first on Boing Boing.

Gen Alpha's slang makes it clear what kids think of so-called artificial intelligence. As reported by the Guardian, the most savage burn a young person can hurl at you is "That's AI" or "That's so AI."

The kids – gen Alpha – have noticed that certain qualities of AI-generated slop, such as the way it's superficially convincing but ultimately cheap and of dubious value, can be found in lots of other things: knock-off merchandise, exaggerated claims, excuses your parents make.

— Read the rest

The post "That's so AI" is the new insult, and it means bullshit appeared first on Boing Boing.

PacBench is an unusual benchmark for AI models: "Create a Pac-Man game in a single html page." Each entry shows the platform, the model, how long it took, how many tokens it used, and the cost. And unlike the pelican, we can play the results. — Read the rest

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