Instagram to alert parents of teens who search for suicide | Mashable

March 4, 2026March 3, 2026 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Instagram will soon notify parents of teens who search for suicide or self-harm content on its platform, company officials announced Thursday.

Repeated searches for terms linked to suicide or self-harm over a short duration will trigger the parental alert. The feature is only available through Instagram’s parental supervision tool. That is separate from, but can be combined with, a Teen Account, which is designated for youth between the ages of 13 and 17.

Though Instagram attempts to block such search results and direct teens to helplines, it has never notified parents about their children’s activity. Parents will receive the alert via an app notification and a separate email, text, or WhatsApp message, depending on the contact information they provided.

Tesla sues Calif. DMV after agency said the ‘self-driving’ cars don’t actually drive themselves | Mashable

March 4, 2026March 3, 2026 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Elon Musk’s Tesla is taking the California Department of Motor Vehicles to court, an attempt to win back the right to use the term “autopilot” when advertising its line of cars.

In a case filed Feb. 13, the electric vehicle giant claims that the department “wrongfully and baselessly” labeled Tesla a “false advertiser,” and argues that the department did not effectively prove that customers had been led to believe the vehicles could be operated without human oversight.

Last year, a judge for California’s Office of Administrative Hearings ruled that the company had engaged in deceptive marketing by describing its fleet’s driver assistance systems as “Autopilot” modes. The court argued that Tesla’s Autopilot and “Full Self-Driving Capability” (FSD) did not meet the necessary autonomous driving criteria under NHTSA’s Levels of Automation system — the features are rated by the NHTSA as Level 2 automation, where Level 5 is a fully autonomous vehicle. The decision claims features need to be at least Level 3 to be described as “self-driving.”

Egg prices have plummeted. That’s great news for consumers — and a crisis for farmers. | CNN Business

March 3, 2026March 2, 2026 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Egg prices have been plummeting.

That’s great news for American shoppers, but bad news for American farmers.The average price of a dozen eggs at the grocery store is $2.58, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That’s about half of what many consumers were paying a year ago.

Bird flocks have been on the rebound after last year’s avian flu outbreak, but that has farmers suddenly selling at a loss.

Did the Vikings reach Maine? | Live Science

March 2, 2026 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

In 1957, an amateur archaeologist working at a Native American site in Maine discovered a perplexing treasure: a 900-year-old silver Norse coin that dated to the late Viking Age (A.D. 793 to 1066).

The artifact, sometimes called the “Maine Penny,” is now in the Maine State Museum. Its discovery has raised a number of questions — mainly, how did it get there, and does its presence in Maine mean the Viking reached the Pine Tree State?

The Vikings were expert seafarers with outposts from Ukraine to Canada, so it’s conceivable that they could have reached Maine. The Vikings and their descendants had colonies in Greenland that existed from the late 10th century to the 15th century. They also had an outpost at L’Anse aux Meadows on the northern tip of Newfoundland, Canada, that was in use during the 11th century.

Google Gemini Enhances Music Creation with New Audio Verification Tools | Small Biz Trends

February 24, 2026February 23, 2026 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Google’s Gemini app is stepping into the spotlight with its latest feature: enhanced audio verification capabilities that could significantly benefit small business owners. With a focus on responsible AI use, Gemini aims to streamline content creation while ensuring copyright compliance—a crucial balance in today’s digital landscape.

At the heart of this innovation is the integration of SynthID, Google’s imperceptible watermark that identifies AI-generated content across various media formats, including audio. For small business owners who rely on original content to promote their brands, this is an important tool. By uploading audio files into the Gemini app, users can now quickly verify whether the content was generated using Google AI, helping to prevent the unintentional use of copyrighted materials.

“This new verification feature helps creators know if their content is safe to use,” said a Google representative. “It broadens the capacities of the Gemini app and reinforces our commitment to responsible AI development.”

Nonprofits are lacking the resources to fully utilize AI | Fast Company

February 23, 2026 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Uncertainty is the defining condition of our time. The pandemic reminded us how quickly our systems can fracture. Today, with political shifts, economic instability, and technological disruption intersecting, leaders are preparing for more turbulence ahead.

From where I sit, however, there are nearly 2 million reasons to be optimistic. America’s 1.9 million nonprofits make up a fiercely resilient force for scaling impact to our toughest challenges. They deliver food and housing, safeguard youth wellbeing, respond to natural disasters, and fight for fairness and opportunity. They are trusted by millions of people across many topic areas—and they are built to move fast, adapt, and deliver under pressure.

The Senate budget bill would essentially kill wind and solar development | Fast Company

February 23, 2026 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

From the outset, President Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act was always going to be bad for renewables (and U.S. energy consumers), because it rolled back clean energy tax credits that have spurred billions of dollars of investments into technology like wind, solar, batteries, and electric vehicles.

But recent changes to the bill’s text go even further, more aggressively phasing out the current clean energy tax incentives, and also adding a new tax on solar and wind projects. These changes will effectively kill many clean energy projects, cut millions of jobs, and raise the average American’s electricity bills in every state, experts say.

Trump revokes landmark ruling that greenhouse gases endanger public health | BBC News

February 12, 2026 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

US President Donald Trump has reversed a key Obama-era scientific ruling that underpins all federal actions on curbing planet-warming gases.

The so-called 2009 “endangerment finding” concluded that a range of greenhouse gases was a threat to public health. It’s become the legal bedrock of federal efforts to rein in emissions, especially in vehicles.

The White House called the reversal the “largest deregulation in American history”, saying it would make cars cheaper, bringing down costs for automakers by $2,400 per vehicle.

Environmental groups say the move is by far the most significant rollback on climate change yet attempted and are set to challenge it in the courts.

Discord will soon require age verification for adult content | Mashable

February 10, 2026February 9, 2026 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

The messaging platform Discord announced Monday that all user accounts will default to teen safety settings beginning in March.

Discord, which has more than 200 million global monthly active users, will restrict adult content and spaces. In order to access those parts of Discord or change related settings, an individual must verify their age. If the platform has independently assessed an account as having a high likelihood of belonging to an adult, the user will not need to go through an age assurance process.

Discord will use the third-party verification service k-ID for age and identification checks and rely on an inference model with hundreds of signals, like account tenure and activity data, to detect the accurate age of an account holder.

What parents need to know about Trump Accounts: An FAQ | CNN Business

February 9, 2026 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

There has been a lot of attention paid to the new Trump Accounts – especially the promised $1,000 federal government contributions for eligible newborns and the public declarations by companies and philanthropists that they will be making contributions, too.

But the fine print on exactly how the accounts will work is still emerging and there is a lot of information and press releases to sort through from the Treasury, the IRS, the White House and the official site trumpaccounts.gov.