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3 One-Hit Wonders From Some of the Funniest People to Ever Live
An American Songwriter feature rounds up three chart hits written or performed by well-known comedians, highlighting how some of the era’s funniest performers briefly crossed over into pop music success. The piece celebrates the versatility of comic talents who parlayed their fame into standalone musical moments, even if none built on it with further hits.…
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John Glacier Thrills On Slick New Single ‘Bond Girl’
Hackney-born artist John Glacier has released her first single of 2026, ‘Bond Girl’, marking a new chapter following her acclaimed 2025 debut album. The track sees her adopt the persona of a renegade, “license to kill” figure, paired with a video in which she plays a secret agent outwitting adversaries in explosive fashion. Produced by…
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Lisa Nandy Stays in Post as U.K. Culture Secretary, Kanishka Narayan Appointed First AI Minister
New UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham has reshuffled his cabinet but kept Lisa Nandy in place as Culture Secretary, making her one of the longest-serving holders of the role in a post that has seen frequent turnover. The decision brings continuity to a department currently handling several major issues affecting the country’s media and screen…
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Social Darwinists to tech bros: tracing the long fight against equality in US
Historian Kim Phillips-Fein’s new book, Country of Lords, traces a long lineage of American thinkers and figures who have resisted the ideal of equality, from founding father John Adams to modern tech figures such as Peter Thiel and Elon Musk. Published amid celebrations of the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, the book arrives…
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Who’s afraid of the big, bad GPU?
A feature from The Verge examines the environmental and ethical costs of GPUs, the chips powering the current AI boom, arguing that scrutiny should extend beyond AI data centres to the broader history and use of graphics processors. The piece notes that hundreds of thousands of GPUs are being installed in data centres worldwide, but…
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Scalding hot AI accelerators have put datacenters in hot water. Two-phase cooling could chill them out
US startup Accelsius has commissioned research suggesting datacentres could cut cooling costs significantly by switching to two-phase cooling fluids for AI accelerators, which run far hotter than traditional server chips. The approach matters because the ongoing AI datacentre building boom, combined with rising electricity costs and supply constraints, has made cooling efficiency an increasingly important…
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A Device Hidden in Cars Across the US Leaves Them Vulnerable to Hacking and Paralysis. Patch It Now
Security researchers at UC San Diego have discovered a serious vulnerability in the KARR Security System, an aftermarket car alarm fitted to more than two million vehicles across the United States. The flaw allows anyone within Bluetooth range to remotely unlock a vehicle, disable its alarm, sound the horn, flash the lights, or even cut…
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Gritt exits stealth with $34 million for robots to build solar plants—then, everything else
Gritt, a robotics start-up founded by two Carnegie Mellon-trained roboticists, has exited stealth mode with $34 million in total funding to build AI-controlled robotic systems that install solar panels, aiming to address a labour shortage slowing the global solar build-out. Rather than developing bespoke robots, the company adapts off-the-shelf hardware, such as rented skidders and…
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Stop Saying Kids Can’t Read
At Jefferson County Middle School in one of Mississippi’s poorest counties, an eighth-grade English teacher’s first year has been dominated by preparation for the state’s standardised reading test, the Mississippi Academic Assessment Program (MAAP). Literacy instruction has become heavily reliant on adaptive software programmes rather than teacher-led lessons, reflecting the intense pressure schools face to…
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What sense can we make of the madness at id Software?
Id Software, the studio behind Doom and Quake, cut 136 staff — more than half its workforce — as part of Microsoft’s wider layoffs, which saw 1,600 Xbox jobs lost with another 1,600 at risk. The scale of the cuts sparked fears that id’s proprietary id-tech engine could be abandoned in favour of Unreal Engine,…