Technology
California State Assembly passes sweeping AI safety bill
The California State Assembly has passed the Safe and Secure Innovation for Frontier Artificial Intelligence Models Act (SB 1047), Reuters reports. The bill is one of the first significant regulations of artificial intelligence in the US.
The bill, which has been a flashpoint for debate in Silicon Valley and beyond, would obligate AI companies operating in California to implement a number of precautions before they train a sophisticated foundation model. Those include making it possible to quickly and fully shut the model down, ensuring the model is protected against “unsafe post-training modifications,” and maintaining a testing procedure to evaluate whether a model or its derivatives is especially at risk of “causing or enabling a critical harm.”
Senator Scott Wiener, the bill’s main author, said SB 1047 is a highly reasonable bill that asks large AI labs to do what they’ve already committed to doing: test their large models for catastrophic safety risk. “We’ve worked hard all year, with open source advocates, Anthropic, and others, to refine and improve the bill. SB 1047 is well calibrated to what we know about forseeable AI risks, and it deserves to be enacted.”
Critics of SB 1047 — including OpenAI and Anthropic, politicians Zoe Lofgren and Nancy Pelosi, and California’s Chamber of Commerce — have argued that it’s overly focused on catastrophic harms and could unduly harm small, open-source AI developers. The bill was amended in response, replacing potential criminal penalties with civil ones, narrowing enforcement powers granted to California’s attorney general, and adjusting requirements to join a “Board of Frontier Models” created by the bill.
After the State Senate votes on the amended bill — a vote that’s expected to pass — the AI safety bill will head to Governor Gavin Newsom, who will have until the end of September to decide its fate, according to The New York Times.
Anthropic declined to comment beyond pointing to a letter sent by Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei to Governor Newsom last week. OpenAI didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Technology
Meta’s glasses will turn off the camera if you tamper with the privacy light
Amid public backlash over its smart glasses, Meta announced that it will be updating its glasses with a new feature that will disable the camera when it detects that someone has tampered with or destroyed the glasses’ privacy LED light. The update is meant to address modders who have taken actions such as physically drilling into the LED light.
Meta has previously tried to discourage tampering with the LED light. For example, starting with its second generation glasses, blocking the light with tape or other objects will trigger a prompt asking users to uncover the recording light. However, many modders have found various workarounds for that particular measure.
Meta’s VP of wearables Alex Himel told The Verge that the privacy-focused update was on the way a few weeks ago after launching cheaper Meta Glasses without Ray-Ban branding. At the time, Himel acknowledged that the company was aware of increasing misuse alongside wider adoption of the devices.
Technology
Discord accidentally banned over 8,000 people for posting grids and other ‘benign’ images
Stanislav Vishnevskiy, Discord co-founder and chief technology officer, writes that the bug impacted around 200 users who posted “grid-like” pictures, in addition to about 8,000 people who posted “other benign images” since May 2026. “Everyone affected has now been unbanned,” Vishnevskiy says.
In a thread on X, Discord writes that its safety system is designed to flag content by “matching it against known harmful material.” This system can produce “false positives,” Discord explains, which is when an employee would step in to review the flagged content. But instead of just temporarily preventing the account from uploading content during the review, a glitch led its system to ban users entirely.
“When our staff reviewed and cleared those accounts, the same bug prevented the ban from being lifted automatically, so it just stayed in place,” Discord says.
Technology
Hoto’s PixelDrive screwdriver is down to $60, matching its best price
If your Prime Day purchases included a new desk, TV stand, bookshelf, or other furniture you still haven’t assembled, Hoto’s PixelDrive cordless screwdriver can help speed up the process. It’s currently on sale for $59.99 ($20 off) at Amazon, matching its best price to date.
From tightening loose screws on furniture to repairing electronics, the PixelDrive is designed to handle a wide range of household projects. Hoto includes 30 screwdriver bits that cover many of the most common screw types, all neatly organized in a small cylindrical case. It also offers six adjustable torque settings, allowing you to use less power when working with fragile electronics or increase it when putting together a desk, bookshelf, TV stand, or other furniture. You can also switch between a slower 80RPM mode for more precise work and a faster 200RPM mode with the press of a button.
Hoto also added several features that make assembling projects a little easier. A built-in display lets you quickly check your current torque setting and remaining battery life, while an integrated LED light helps illuminate dim spaces, whether you’re working under a desk or inside a cabinet. The rechargeable 2,000mAh battery also charges over USB-C, so you won’t need to keep buying disposable batteries.
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