Stabi extends its arm from the shadows with a large barrel mounted to its wrist, and what is inside that barrel is not subtle. A kilowatt class laser capable of cutting through wood at a distance or turning stone into a glowing, molten mess sits at the heart of the setup, mounted in the back of a truck and pointed at a series of test targets. The whole rig was built by Prop Department to explore how high energy laser systems might be put to work in future productions.

They started by using an ancient six-axis industrial robot arm that had been working in factories for years. They next installed some special steel mounts and protective windows, which they had laser-cut from a batch of precision parts ordered online. The actual problem was getting the programming just right so the arm could travel smoothly over a target without any abrupt jerks that could scatter the beam.

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Four tiny targeting lasers sit at the corners of the main barrel, creating a visual outline of where the invisible main beam will hit once the system is turned on. There’s a regular camera on top and an infrared camera down below, which detects heat signatures that the human eye cannot see. To be extra safe, the team installed three safety interlocks to prevent accidental firing, and the operator is required to remove the power plug from the barrel at any stage of setup to ensure that nothing fires until everything is in the proper position.

Power comes from a source hidden in the truck bed. The beam itself delivers a continuous punch equivalent to a thousand watts focused down to a small area. Dark materials absorb energy quickly and heat up, whereas reflective surfaces bounce it back, explaining why certain objects endure longer than others. Every test takes place at night, when no one is around, and the operator is wearing two layers of eye protection.

Early tests started with everyday objects to get a feel for how the laser behaved. An old iPhone held up for a few seconds before the beam carved deep grooves into it, leaving the device looking like it had been through something much worse than a bad drop. A metal can was gone in a second, a clean hole punched straight through. Glass proved more interesting, with a tomato inside a jar heating and steaming before the beam eventually broke through, though the jar itself refused to shatter cleanly.

Coconuts caught fire almost on contact, the outer shell blackening and bursting into flame as the laser continued driving energy into the center. Eggs were a different story entirely. After 15 seconds of direct exposure the shell remained intact and the contents barely warm, a reminder that smooth, light colored surfaces can reflect a surprising amount of incoming energy.

As the tests scaled up, so did the results. Chunks of imported lava rock glowed brilliant orange and began to melt under sustained exposure, while a small piece of sterling silver softened and pooled slightly without ever reaching a full melt, highlighting the difference between an intense focused burst and the steady high temperatures needed to break down denser metals. One particularly interesting result came from a solar panel positioned at a distance across the test area, which registered a slight voltage increase when the beam struck it, suggesting that the same energy can still be harvested as usable power even after traveling through open air.

The final test brought everything together. A small tree stood at the far end of the test area looking completely unassuming right up until the robot arm swung into position and locked onto the trunk. Smoke came first, then a clean line began to form in the wood as the beam burned steadily through. Within seconds the top half toppled and hit the ground with a thud. For all the raw power involved, the cut it left behind looked almost surgical.

The court has granted Anthropic’s request for a preliminary injunction, preventing the government from banning its products for federal use and from formally labeling it as a “supply chain risk,” at least for now. If you’ll recall, things turned sour between the company and the Trump administration when Anthropic refused to change the terms of its contract that would allow the government to use its technology for mass surveillance and the development of autonomous weapons.

In response to Anthropic’s refusal, the president ordered federal agencies to stop using Claude and the company’s other services. The Defense Department also officially labeled it as a supply chain risk, which is typically reserved for entities typically based in US adversaries like China that threaten national security. In addition, department secretary Pete Hegseth warned companies that if they want to work with the government, they must sever ties with Anthropic. The AI company challenged the designation in court, calling it unlawful and in violation of free speech and its rights to due process. It asked the court to put a pause on the ban while the lawsuit is ongoing, as well.

In a court filing, the Defense Department said giving Anthropic continued access to its warfighting infrastructure would “introduce unacceptable risk” to its supply chains. But Judge Rita F. Lin of the District Court for the Northern District of California said the measures the government took “appear designed to punish Anthropic.”

Lin wrote in her decision that it seems Anthropic is being punished for criticizing the government in the press. “Punishing Anthropic for bringing public scrutiny to the government’s contracting position is classic illegal First Amendment retaliation,” she continued. The judge also said that the supply chain risk designation is contrary to law, arbitrary and capricious. She added that the government argued that Anthropic showed its subversive tendencies by “questioning” the use of its technology. “Nothing in the governing statute supports the Orwellian notion that an American company may be branded a potential adversary and saboteur of the US for expressing disagreement with the government,” she wrote.

Anthropic told The New York Times that it’s “grateful to the court for moving swiftly” and that it’s now focused on “working productively with the government to ensure all Americans benefit from safe, reliable AI.” The company’s lawsuit is still ongoing, and the court has yet to issue its final decision. Judge Lin said, however, that Anthropic “has shown a likelihood of success on its First Amendment claim.”

The Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE) announced the shutdown of AnimePlay, a major anime streaming platform with over 5 million users.

Backed by more than 50 major television networks and film studios, including Disney, Paramount, Sony Pictures, Warner Bros, Netflix, and Universal Pictures, ACE focuses on taking down illegal streaming services through civil litigation, criminal referrals, and cease-and-desist operations.

In recent years, ACE targeted and dismantled a long string of other large-scale illegal streaming networks in joint operations with law enforcement. Most recently, in November 2025, it shut down Photocall, a massive TV piracy streaming platform with over 26 million users annually.

In its latest action, the anti-piracy coalition shut down the AnimePlay anime streaming platform, which hosted more than 60 terabytes of anime TV shows and movies and had amassed over 5 million registered users, most of them from Indonesia.

ACE took control of the AnimePlay app and dismantled the operation by taking all infrastructure offline, including hosting servers and web domains.

“ACE secured control of not just the application, but also its underlying infrastructure, including 15 associated domains, source code, hosting environment, and related digital assets, all of which have now been taken offline,” the anti-piracy organization said in a Thursday statement. “In so doing, ACE has effectively dismantled the operation and restricted the operator’s ability to rebuild or relaunch the service.”

The developer and admin of the piracy service also surrendered control of the backend ecosystem powering AnimePlay to ACE, including backend servers, associated databases, advertising tools, and 29 GitHub repositories containing full source code.

“We will continue working with our partners across the Asia Pacific region and globally to dismantle criminal operations like this and safeguard the integrity of the creative economy,” added Larissa Knapp, Chief Content Protection Officer and Executive Vice President for the Motion Picture Association (MPA).

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from the benched-by-the-bench dept

This judge ain’t fucking around. Earlier this month, we covered New Jersey federal judge Zahid Qurashi’s response to the actions of Trump’s DOJ, which begins with lots of illegal appointments of prosecutors and runs right through these prosecutors’ inability to defend the administration’s actions.

To wit:

The Government’s handling of Petitioner’s detention is emblematic of its approach to immigration enforcement in this state. On the merits, its detentions are illegal. The Government knows this. Its reliance on Section 1225 has been roundly rejected.

And:

Sadly, the well-deserved credibility once attached to that distinguished Office is now a presumption that “has been sadly eroded.” The Government’s continued actions after being called to task can now only be deemed intentional.

Courts have been flooded with immigration cases and vindictive prosecutions targeting Trump’s enemies. They’re fighting back, but even a massive consensus seems incapable of slowing Trump’s roll.

This case — brought to our attention by Owen Barcala — involves the sort of serious crimes the administration has put on the back burner so it can flood the immigration enforcement zone. While the administration focuses on ejecting all non-white foreigners from this country while claiming they’re simply seeking out the “worst of worst,” the (alleged) worst of the worst are pretty much being ignored.

Thanks to the massive amount of turnover at the DOJ, there are not a whole lot of qualified prosecutors left to do the government’s (increasingly) dirty work. In New Jersey, (illegal) appointee Alina Habba (a former Trump PAC spokesperson/advisor) has already voluntarily stepped down, proving she’s more capable of reading the writing on the wall than her former employer.

In her place, Mark Coyne (in a made-up position meant to shield him from being booted for being illegally appointed) has stepped up to wrap up a child pornography prosecution. It’s not going well for Coyne, as the New York Times reports:

A federal judge threw a top prosecutor from the New Jersey U.S. attorney’s office out of his courtroom during a sentencing hearing this week and demanded that the office’s leadership testify about who had authority over their actions, according to court documents.

The rapid sequence of events on Monday in the courtroom of Judge Zahid N. Quraishi was the latest indication of growing tensions between the Justice Department and the federal judiciary in New Jersey. It came during the scheduled sentencing of a man who last year agreed to plead guilty to possession of child pornography.

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The hearing did not go as prosecutors had planned. Judge Quraishi grew frustrated with the office’s head of appeals, Mark Coyne, who had not formally disclosed that he would appear, and fiercely interrogated a more junior prosecutor about whether the former interim U.S. attorney, Alina Habba, still had some role in operating the office.

Judge Qurashi referenced an order issued by federal judge Matthew Brann earlier this month, which declared the three-prosecutor hydra cobbled together by Pam Bondi to be a trio of unlawfully elevated prosecutors. That decision made the court’s displeasure explicit, using emphasis in the ruling to point out that the Trump administration cared more about who was running the New Jersey prosecutors’ office, rather than whether it was legally capable of running at all.

There are plenty of wonderfully quotable moments in the transcript of the hearing that ended with the government’s prosecutor being removed from the proceedings by the court.

It starts like this:

THE COURT: Mr. Coyne, did you file a notice of appearance in this case?
MR. COYNE: I did not.
THE COURT: Are you here for moral support? Because you’re not going to speak.
MR. COYNE: I would ask —
THE COURT: No.
MR. COYNE: — that the Court allow me to speak.
THE COURT: Nope. That’s not the representation made by the Government.

And then the court continues to riddle his body with bullets:

THE COURT: I’m not going to hear from you, Mr. Coyne. If you want to sit there for moral support or hand Mr. Rosenblum Post-its or whisper in his ear, I’ll let you do that as supervisor.

You’d think a corpse would keep its mouth shut. But Mr. Coyne apparently didn’t realize he was already dead.

The judge asked whether or not the three people Judge Brann had ruled were appointed unlawfully were still running the NJ US Attorney’s office. Mr. Rosenblum claimed he only knew what he’d been told by Mark Coyne, which apparently was nothing more than to shut up and claim ignorance. Unsatisfied with these non-answers and dodgy quasi-denials, Judge Quraishi pressed Rosenblum hard enough that Coyne — who had been directly ordered to sit this one out — felt compelled to respond:

THE COURT: What role does Alina Habba have currently in operating your office?
MR. ROSENBLUM: None that I’m aware of.
THE COURT: None that you’re aware of.
MR. ROSENBLUM: None.
THE COURT: All right. So she could be operating the office.
MR. COYNE: She is not.
MR. ROSENBLUM: She’s not.
MR. COYNE: She is not.
THE COURT: Sit down, Mr. Coyne. If you speak again, I’m going to have you removed. I already told you not to speak.
MR. COYNE: Your Honor —
THE COURT: You didn’t file a notice of appearance. You don’t get to blindside the Court and do whatever it is you guys want to do. So if you continue to speak, you can leave.
MR. COYNE: Your Honor —
THE COURT: Sit down.
MR. COYNE: — if —
THE COURT: Sit down.
MR. COYNE: If a notice of appeal–
THE COURT: Sit down.
MR. COYNE: -is entered–
THE COURT: I’m directing the court security officers to remove Mr. Coyne.

And with that, Mr. Coyne exits the court. Voluntarily, according to the transcript, but only voluntarily in the sense that court officers didn’t have to physically restrain him and remove him from the court.

But it’s not like the DOJ prosecutor left in the court room gets to skate by just by being less of an ass that Mark Coyne. Judge Quraishi refers to the order from Judge Brann from earlier in the month — one that specifically warned that if the DOJ kept the same “triumvirate” of illegally appointed US attorneys in that office, that it did so at its own peril.

The closing of the transcript says what so many federal judges think, but have also said in hearings and on the record in rulings and orders: the Trump DOJ has managed to completely destroy the reputation of the Department of Justice, despite having controlled it fully for barely over a year.

THE COURT: Here is your risk. This is your risk.

So your authority to operate is while [Judge Brann] has stayed the opinion, when he says literally on the last page, you don’t even have to go through all of this. All you have to do is turn to the back and it says “If the government chooses to leave the triumvirate in place, it does so at its own risk.”

What you’ve told me today, what your representation is, which I don’t believe by the way. I won’t believe it until you testify. That is what happened to the credibility of your office.Generations of U.S. Attorneys had built the goodwill of that office for your generation to destroy within a year.

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This damnation isn’t unique. The DOJ is painting itself into a corner all over the nation. Hundreds of judges are no longer willing to take the government at its word. And that gives the government a handful of choices, none of which could be considered “wins.” The DOJ is going to have to dump prosecutions. Or it’s going to have to send its top prosecutors to testify under oath in court (which is way different than simply submitting sworn declarations). Or it’s going to have to go back to respecting the law, starting with the ousting of every illegally appointed US attorney.

The final option, however, isn’t generally considered viable, but it’s the one the administration is most likely to put in motion: ignoring every entity that opposes it while simultaneously telling Americans whose rights it’s trampling that this is the only way to make America great again.

Filed Under: alina habba, doj, mark coyne, new jersey, pam bondi, trump administration, zahid quraishi

Manufacturing is at an inflection point. The industry’s workforce is ageing, and it has not yet cracked the code on attracting the next generation of workers.

At the same time, AI tools present a host of opportunities, including those that may help address the workforce challenge.

Looking for the most recent regular Connections answers? Click here for today’s Connections hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle and Strands puzzles.

You’re not s-s-s-seeing things. Every word in today’s Connections: Sports Edition begins with the letter S. If you’re struggling with today’s puzzle but still want to solve it, read on for hints and the answers.

Connections: Sports Edition is published by The Athletic, the subscription-based sports journalism site owned by The Times. It doesn’t appear in the NYT Games app, but it does in The Athletic’s own app. Or you can play it for free online.

Read more: NYT Connections: Sports Edition Puzzle Comes Out of Beta

Hints for today’s Connections: Sports Edition groups

Here are four hints for the groupings in today’s Connections: Sports Edition puzzle, ranked from the easiest yellow group to the tough (and sometimes bizarre) purple group.

Yellow group hint: Teams with the same first letter.

Green group hint: Relating to a sport played in gym, or on the beach.

Blue group hint: Carry the torch and light the cauldron.

Purple group hint: Simpsons reference.

Answers for today’s Connections: Sports Edition groups

Yellow group: Pro teams whose names start with S.

Green group: Volleyball terms.

Blue group: Olympic home cities.

Purple group: MLB players in “Homer at the Bat.”

Read more: Wordle Cheat Sheet: Here Are the Most Popular Letters Used in English Words

What are today’s Connections: Sports Edition answers?

The yellow words in today’s Connections

The theme is pro teams whose names start with S. The four answers are Seahawks, Senators, Sharks and Spurs.

The green words in today’s Connections

The theme is volleyball terms. The four answers are serve, setter, side out and spike.

The blue words in today’s Connections

The theme is Olympic home cities. The four answers are Sapporo, Sarajevo, Stockholm and Sydney.

The purple words in today’s Connections

The theme is MLB players in “Homer at the Bat.” The four answers are Sax, Scioscia, Smith and Strawberry.

Toughest Connections: Sports Edition categories

The Connections: Sports Edition puzzle can be tough, but it really depends on which sports you know the most about. My husband aces anything having to do with Formula 1, my best friend is a hockey buff, and I can answer any question about Minnesota teams.

That said, it’s hard to pick the toughest Connections categories, but here are some I found exceptionally mind-blowing.

#1: Serie A Clubs. Answers: Atalanta, Juventus, Lazio, Roma.

#2: WNBA MVPs. Answers: Catchings, Delle Donne, Fowles and Stewart.

#3: Premier League team nicknames. Answers: Bees, Cherries, Foxes and Hammers.

#4: Homophones of NBA player names. Answers: Barns, Connect, Heart and Hero.

from the ctrl-alt-speech dept

Ctrl-Alt-Speech is a weekly podcast about the latest news in online speech, from Mike Masnick and Everything in Moderation‘s Ben Whitelaw.

Subscribe now on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify, Pocket Casts, YouTube, or your podcast app of choice — or go straight to the RSS feed.

In this week’s round-up of the latest news in online speech, content moderation and internet regulation, Mike and Ben cover:

Don’t forget to listen along with Ctrl-Alt-Speech’s 2026 Bingo Card and drop us a line if you win or have ideas for new squares.

Filed Under: content moderation, social media, trust and safety

Companies: cox, google, meta, sony

You’ll undoubtedly have heard of Google Gemini, as it’s found within many of the best Android phones. 

Essentially, Gemini is Google’s AI-powered virtual assistant that can do everything from answer questions, search the web and even create music. And it’s free to use too.

But what really is Google Gemini and how does it actually work? Which devices can you use Gemini on?

We explain everything you need to know about Gemini AI below. If you’re keen to see how Google’s assistant compares to some of the top dogs, then visit our Apple Intelligence vs Google Gemini and Claude vs Gemini comparisons too. 

What is Gemini AI?

Gemini was officially announced back in February 2024, as Google revealed it would replace its previous AI system, Bard.

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Although you might only know it as a chatbot, Gemini is actually the collective name for multiple AI models that fall under the same umbrella. However, the name “Gemini” refers to both the models and the public-facing chatbot.

Essentially, Gemini is described as being the interface to a multiple modal LLM (Large Language Model) which can handle text, audio and image-based prompts. It’s based on Google’s research into LLMs which started back in 2013.

What can you do with Gemini?

Gemini can understand and answer user’s questions or their provided prompts with relevant results. For example, you can ask Gemini to create an email draft, summarise long-bodies of text and even write code.

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Gemini can also be used to generate images, create videos and even music with just a simple prompt. In addition, with the use of Gemini Live which is found within the Gemini smartphone app, you can have in-depth conversations with the AI system in real-time too.

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How does Gemini work?

Google breaks down the technicalities of how Gemini actually works into four stages:

• Pre-training
• Post-training
• Responses to user prompts
• Human feedback and evaluation

Google explains that its AI models are pre-trained on a “variety of data from publicly available sources”, although Google does disclaim that it applies “quality” and “safety filtering” to remove content that may violate policy. 

After initial training, Google explains the LLMs are then put through additional steps to refine responses. Then there’s Reinforcement Learning from Human Feedback, where the model learns to generate better responses based on “scores or feedback from a special Reward model” that’s trained on human preference data.

Once Gemini is then given a prompt by a user, it will call on its training and use external sources like Google Search to generate relevant responses.

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In the instance where Gemini gets something wrong or needs tweaking, then this is where the fourth stage kicks in. Basically, it relies on humans to flag any mistakes and identify areas for improvement too.

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How to access Google Gemini

There are a few ways you can access Gemini, with the main being via its free-to-download iOS or Android app. That’s probably the easiest way to access the chatbot, and you’ll benefit from access to Gemini Live too.

Otherwise, you can access the chatbot via its website instead. 

Does Google Gemini cost money?

While Gemini is free to use, you can unlock more features and up-to-date models by paying a subscription. At the time of writing, while the free version of Gemini runs on Gemini 3, you can upgrade to Google AI Plus to access Google’s most capable 3.1 Pro model. Not only that, but you’ll have access to Nano Banana Pro, alongside limited access to Google’s new video generator Veo 3.1, Gemini within Google apps and 200GB storage too. That’s the cheapest of the available plans, at £6.99/$7.99 a month.

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The next available plan is Google AI Pro, which includes everything found in Plus, alongside Google Home Premium (Standard), Fitbit Premium and access to Google Antigravity and Google Developer Programme Premium. This is slightly pricier at £18.99/$19.99 a month, but you will also see 2TB of storage too. 

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Finally, the top-tier plan is Google AI Ultra, which will set you back a whopping £234.99 a month. However, you’ll get everything from the Pro plan, plus the highest limits for all Gemini features and models, YouTube Premium, Google Home (Premium Advanced) and 30TB of storage too.

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Now that the first teaser trailer for the upcoming HBO Max Harry Potter TV series is out in the world, everyone is talking about Paapa Essiedu taking on the role of Dark Arts professor, Severus Snape.

However, we’re looking in the completely wrong direction. Sure, there were always going to be many contradicting opinions about the adaptation of the Harry Potter movies from the jump, but let’s wait until it releases this Christmas before we make any judgments.