Viral ChatGPT-powered sentry gun gets shut down by OpenAI

But actual autonomous AI weapons systems are much more terrifying.

OpenAI says it has cut off API access to an engineer whose video of a motorized sentry gun controlled by ChatGPT-powered commands has set off a viral firestorm of concerns about AI-powered weapons.

An engineer going by the handle sts_3d started posting videos of a motorized, auto-rotating swivel chair project back in August. By November, that same assembly appeared to seamlessly morph into the basis for a sentry gun that could quickly rotate to arbitrary angles and activate a servo to fire precisely aimed projectiles (though only blanks and simulated lasers are shown being fired in his videos).

Earlier this week, though, sts_3d started getting wider attention for a new video showing the sentry gun's integration with OpenAI's real-time API. In the video, the gun uses that ChatGPT integration to aim and fire based on spoken commands from sts_3d and even responds in a chirpy voice afterward.

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Tesla’s Model Y crossover finally gets a facelift—just in China for now

The crossover has new lights, wheels, and some interior upgrades.

Yesterday, Tesla revealed a facelift for its bestselling Model Y crossover. Or at least it did if you live in China—customers in the US and Europe will need to continue to wait for the revamped electric vehicle.

Better efficiency was a goal—in the past, Tesla simply ignored complaints over its exaggerated range claims, but now it says the Model Y, codenamed "Juniper," has updated suspension, wheels, and tires that "make the driving experience smoother and quieter."

Tesla says that range has increased from 427 miles (688 km) to 446 miles (719 km), albeit under the Chinese efficiency testing regime, which produces very different numbers from the more realistic tests used by the US Environmental Protection Agency.

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Zotac Zone handheld gaming PC gets and AMD Strix Point upgrade

Zotac introduced its first handheld gaming PC in 2024, and now the company is showing off a prototype for a new model that looks… nearly identical. But the new version should bring a significant boost in CPU and graphics performance. While the or…

Zotac introduced its first handheld gaming PC in 2024, and now the company is showing off a prototype for a new model that looks… nearly identical. But the new version should bring a significant boost in CPU and graphics performance. While the original Zotac Gaming Zone handheld was powered by an AMD Ryzen 7 8840U […]

The post Zotac Zone handheld gaming PC gets and AMD Strix Point upgrade appeared first on Liliputing.

A glowing ring of metal fell to Earth, and no one has any idea what it is

The large ring weighs nearly half a ton and does not match a returning rocket.

It has been more than a week since reports first emerged about a "glowing ring of metal" that fell from the sky and crashed near a remote village in Kenya.

According to the Kenya Space Agency, the object weighed 1,100 pounds (500 kg) and had a diameter of more than 8 feet (2.4 meters) when measured after it landed on December 30. A couple of days later, the space agency confidently reported that the object was a piece of space debris, saying it was a ring that separated from a rocket. "Such objects are usually designed to burn up as they re-enter the Earth’s atmosphere or to fall over unoccupied areas, such as the oceans," the space agency told The New York Times.

Since those initial reports were published in Western media, a small band of dedicated space trackers have been using open source data to try to identify precisely which space object fell into Kenya. So far, they have not been able to identify the rocket launch to which the large ring can be attributed.

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Only 5 percent of US car buyers want an EV, according to survey

Almost two-thirds of US consumers want internal combustion for their next vehicle.

Only 5 percent of US consumers want their next vehicle to be a battery electric vehicle, according to a new survey by Deloitte. The consulting company gathered data from more than 31,000 people across 30 countries as part of its 2025 Global Automotive Consumer Study, and some of the results are rather interesting, as they pertain to technologies like new powertrains, connectivity, and artificial intelligence.

Among US consumers, internal combustion engines (ICE) remain number one, with 62 percent indicating that their next car will not be electrified. Another 1 in 5 would like a hybrid for their next vehicle, with a further 6 percent desiring a plug-in hybrid. (The remaining survey respondents either did not know or wanted some other powertrain option.)

By contrast, only 38 percent of Chinese consumers want to stick with ICE; meanwhile, 27 percent of them want a BEV next. That's a far higher percentage than in other large nations—in Germany, only 14 percent want a BEV; in the UK and Canada, only 8 percent are BEV-bound; and in Japan, the number is a mere 3 percent.

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