Astroport Space Technologies and Vermeer Corporation have announced a collaboration to adapt industrial surface mining equipment for autonomous lunar construction, a partnership that both companies frame as delivering the heavy machinery, or âLunar Iron,â needed to build a permanent human presence on the Moon. The announcement, made at the 20th International Conference on Engineering, Science, […]
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In short: OpenAI is releasing GPT-5.4-Cyber, a model fine-tuned for defensive cybersecurity with lowered refusal boundaries and binary reverse engineering capabilities, and scaling its Trusted Access for Cyber programme to thousands of verified defenders. The move comes a week after Anthropic restricted its more powerful Mythos model to just 11 organisations, setting up a philosophical […]
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In short: Spotify has launched physical book sales in the US and UK through a partnership with Bookshop.org, letting users buy print copies via affiliate links on audiobook pages within the app. The feature sits alongside Page Match, which now works in 30+ languages and lets readers scan a book page to sync with the […]
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Snap is cutting roughly 1,000 jobs, or 16% of its full-time workforce, as CEO Evan Spiegel cites AI-driven efficiency gains and pursues more than $500 million in annualised cost savings. The layoffs follow a public campaign by activist investor Irenic Capital Management, which had explicitly recommended eliminating about 1,000 roles. SNAP shares jumped roughly 8% […]
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In a February ruling described as the first of its kind in the US, Judge Jed Rakoff found that Bradley Heppnerâs conversations with Anthropicâs Claude about his legal exposure stripped away both attorney-client privilege and work-product protection, because an AI is not a lawyer and public AI platforms have no confidentiality obligation. More than a […]
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HBO Max has launched in India through an exclusive partnership with JioHotstar, the streaming platform born from Reliance Industriesâ $8.5 billion merger with Walt Disneyâs Indian operations. The deal brings a dedicated HBO Max-branded hub to JioHotstarâs 100 million-plus paid subscribers, available as an add-on starting at â¹49 per month, Â roughly 50 US cents, making […]
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Adobe launched the Firefly AI Assistant, a conversational agent that orchestrates tasks across Photoshop, Premiere, Lightroom, Illustrator, Express, and Frame.io using natural language. Previously codenamed Project Moonlight, it enters public beta in coming weeks, integrates with third-party models including Anthropicâs Claude, and maintains context across sessions. Adobe also announced Firefly Image Model 5, Custom Models, […]
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Huawei has a teaser video for its upcoming wide foldable phone, the Huawei Pura X Max.
Joseph Zada stars as Haymitch Abernathy in this “Hunger Games” prequel, in theaters November 20.
The Wayback Machine from the Internet Archive serves as an essential tool for maintaining the web’s history, enabling users to view earlier iterations of websites and pages. This resource is vital for protecting information that could otherwise vanish when sites go offline, assisting in monitoring alterations made to web content over the years.
Lately, the Internet Archive has encountered significant obstacles as many media organizations have started to restrict access to its web crawler, which is fundamental for updating the Wayback Machine. Reports indicate that 23 prominent news websites, including USA Today, have enacted prohibitions against the web crawler, even though these same entities frequently depend on the Wayback Machine for their own journalism.
For example, USA Today released an important article outlining how U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) postponed disseminating crucial details regarding its detention practices. The creators of this article relied on the Wayback Machine to compile and scrutinize ICE’s detention figures and monitor changes during the Trump era. Ironically, despite deriving benefits from the archive’s offerings, USA Today has opted to prevent the Wayback Machine from storing its materials. Mark Graham, the Wayback Machine’s director, pointed out this inconsistency, noting that the outlet is availing itself of the tool for research while simultaneously limiting its access.
The restriction of the Internet Archive’s web crawler carries wider ramifications for journalism. A group of journalists has voiced alarm over this trend, amassing over 100 endorsements in favor of the Wayback Machine. Noteworthy supporters include influential personalities such as Rachel Maddow and independent journalists like Kat Tenbarge and Taylor Lorenz. They contend that the Wayback Machine is crucial for maintaining the historical narrative of journalism, particularly as numerous local newspapers shut down and community libraries grapple with managing digital archives.
In correspondence with the Internet Archive, the coalition underscored the significance of the Wayback Machine in granting access to historical journalism, which is becoming increasingly necessary in a digital era where conventional archival resources are fading. They highlighted that the task of preserving journalism’s legacy is increasingly being assumed by the Internet Archive.
While USA Today asserts that its measures are intended to block scraping bots in general rather than specifically singling out the Internet Archive, the consequences of such limitations could obstruct journalists and researchers’ access to essential historical information.
This scenario illustrates the necessity for a balance between content protection and the preservation of historical access, as the Wayback Machine remains a vital resource for the future of journalism and the conservation of digital heritage.
