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View More NewsIn brief Microsoft’s MAI-Image-2 is a new state-of-the-art AI image generation model The model puts Microsoft in as the third-best AI lab on the Image Arena leaderboard thanks to its strong realism and text rendering. Strict filters, usage caps, and missing features currently limit real-world usefulness, however. Microsoft has been quietly building its own image generator. Announced Thursday by the company’s AI Superintelligence team, MAI-Image-2 has already landed at #3 on the Arena.ai leaderboard—behind only the models from Google and OpenAI—making Microsoft a legitimate player in a space it had previously outsourced to its partners.That last part is worth sitting…
Bitcoin BTC$70,426.40 drifted toward $69,000 on Thursday as the deepening conflict in Iran is spiraling across the Middle East, hitting energy infrastructure and spilling into global markets.Oil remained at the center of the action, as investors pulled back from risk amid fresh headlines around attacks on energy infrastructure. Prices swung back toward $100 a barrel after a Politico report said the U.S. is not considering a crude export ban, reversing earlier declines and keeping inflation worries alive.That backdrop weighed on traditional markets, especially as investors began to consider that central banks might delay rate cuts or even mull rate hikes,…
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In 2022, James Cameron brought audiences the sequel to his 2009 sci-fi epic Avatar. In Avatar: The Way of Water, Cameron continues the story of protagonist Jake Sully (Sam Worthington). In the first film, Sully is a crippled marine living on a dying future Earth. He travels to the alien world of Pandora to help the militaristic Colonel Miles Quaritch (Stephen Lang) and corporate overseer Parker Selfridge (Giovanni Ribisi) move the natives, the Na’vi, off their land so the humans can mine it. But then he falls in love with a native woman, her people, and their world, helps them…
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The U.S. federal regulator of prediction markets has secured a formal information-sharing arrangement with Major League Baseball in the Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s first…
Security researchers have raised concerns about a Coinbase-associated Commerce page that appeared to prompt users to enter wallet recovery phrases, warning that such a…
Morning Minute is a daily newsletter written by Tyler Warner. The analysis and opinions expressed are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of…
CoinDesk Indices presents its daily market update, highlighting the performance of leaders and laggards in the CoinDesk 20 Index.The CoinDesk 20 is currently trading…
Berlin, March 16, 2026—The Committee to Protect Journalists calls on Hungarian authorities to swiftly investigate the forcible removal of reporters Judit Presinszky and Nóra Siteri with…
Shares of stablecoin issuer Circle (CRCL) have surged more than 100% over the past month, turning what many investors once viewed as one of…
The US Secret Service, UK National Crime Agency, and Canadian authorities have partnered to disrupt fraudulent schemes related to crypto, raise awareness of scams,…
In brief The U.S. Secret Service is working with authorities in the United Kingdom and Canada to stop crypto fraud. Dubbed “Operation Atlantic,” the…
Brendan Carr’s authoritarian warning — that networks risk their broadcasting licenses for Iran war reporting that the government doesn’t like — is outrageous. When…
from the merit-based-hiring? dept Much of last week I had been working on a different article than the one this became. The American Historical…
President Donald Trump believes that journalists “should be brought up on Charges for TREASON for the dissemination of false information.” In a social media…
Istanbul, March 16, 2026—The Committee to Protect Journalists urged the Turkish authorities on Monday not to fight the appeals of veteran journalists Ahmet Altan and Nazlı Ilıcak.…