from the real-consequences dept

Early last year, when America’s measles outbreaks were still being counted in three-digit numbers, we talked about how RFK Jr. and his misinformation campaign were making things worse. A lot of focus has been on Kennedy’s anti-vaxxer views, and for good reason. If people would just get the MMR vaccine, and had done so in the last couple of decades while Kennedy has been on his anti-vaxxer crusade, none of this would have happened. We eliminated this disease more than two decades ago. It’s back because of vaccine skepticism and Kennedy, now Secretary of HHS, is perhaps more responsible for that skepticism than any other human being on the planet.

But his misinformation campaign didn’t focus solely on attempts at discrediting a good, effective vaccine against measles. He also spouted bullshit when it came to treatments for the disease. One such example was him touting, in March of last year, a combination of Vitamin A and cod liver oil as treatments for measles. It’s not the first time Kennedy advocated for this, either. He’s been at it since the beginning of the outbreak, and even before. In the wake of his public advocacy for those treatments, others picked up the story and ran with it, notably podcast-bruh Joe Rogan.

The result? According to one study, a massive uptick in Vitamin A poisoning.

The researchers detected two fascinating (albeit alarming) surges in interest. The first occurred in the wake of a March 4, 2025, Fox News interview with Trump’s Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. During the interview, the infamous anti-vaxxer touted cod liver oil supplements and vitamin A as viable treatments for measles. A second series of spikes surrounded two late March podcast appearances by certified physician and noted vaccine skeptic Suzanne Humphries, who promoted the same two questionable remedies. Neither of Humphries’ interviews involved a government official, but one did occur on the chart-topping podcast of Joe Rogan.

“Between January [1] and March [31,] 2025, America’s Poison Centers reported a 38.7% increase in vitamin A exposures,” the new study noted, citing data published by the poison center about 12 days after Humphries’ appearance on Rogan.

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Now, the Harvard study focused strongly on the correlation between media mentions of Vitamin A, online searches from the public indicating interest in such treatments, and the uptick in those diagnoses of Vitamin A poisoning. But, frankly, that misses much of the point. It’s been the public advocates like Kennedy who have fueled this fire, leading other charlatans to get spots on media outlets such as Rogan’s, where they get to further disseminate all of this terrible advice. The fish stinks from the head down and, right now, the head of American health is Kennedy.

The study’s authors did at least make mention of how this is all made worse by having untrustworthy clowns in charge of American healthcare, though not by name.

“Our findings underscore media’s influence on health-seeking behavior during public health emergencies like the measles outbreak,” the researchers noted, “which is particularly concerning when guidance from trusted sources is unclear and may encourage detrimental behaviors.”

We’re on pace to break last year’s measles case count by a long shot and it’s exactly because of misinformation peddlers like Kennedy and cavalier media like Rogan’s podcast being willing to signal boost it all that we’re in this mess.

As of this writing, America has had about 86% of the number of confirmed cases of measles this year as we had last year… and we’re only at the midway point of the year. Infectious diseases don’t spread linearly. They typically spread exponentially, which is exactly what happened last year. The public being actively misinformed, on purpose, is why.

Ad blockers have traditionally lived inside web browsers, quietly cleaning up websites while leaving the rest of your apps untouched. A new tool called Filtr now wants to change that by bringing system-wide ad and tracker blocking to Apple devices, potentially reshaping how users experience apps across iPhones, iPads, and Macs.

Filtr is being positioned as a privacy-focused utility capable of blocking advertising and tracking requests in almost every app installed on Apple devices. Built by the developer behind the Wipr ad blocker, the tool reportedly uses Apple’s newer URL Filtering framework introduced in recent operating system updates. Instead of relying on a traditional VPN tunnel to inspect traffic, Filtr works directly through Apple’s native filtering systems to identify and stop unwanted network requests before they load.

Apple’s ecosystem may be entering a new phase of ad blocking

What makes Filtr particularly interesting is that it goes beyond Safari. Most existing ad blockers mainly clean up websites inside browsers, but mobile advertising has increasingly shifted into standalone apps where users spend most of their time. Social media apps, free games, shopping platforms, and even productivity tools now rely heavily on embedded advertising and data-tracking systems.

Filtr’s approach could allow users to block many of those systems at the operating-system level. That means fewer banner ads, fewer autoplay videos, and potentially less user tracking happening behind the scenes while apps communicate with ad networks and analytics services.

For users, the benefits could extend beyond simply making apps look cleaner. Blocking trackers can reduce background data collection, improve page and app loading times, and even lower battery and mobile data consumption. It could also simplify privacy management by removing the need for separate browser extensions or app-specific blockers.

The launch also reflects a growing shift in consumer expectations around digital privacy. Apple has spent years positioning privacy as a major selling point for its devices, introducing features like App Tracking Transparency and stricter controls around data access. Filtr appears to build on that momentum by giving users more direct control over how apps interact with advertising systems.

Developers, advertisers, and Apple may all feel the impact

The bigger implications, however, could create tension across the app ecosystem. Many free apps depend heavily on advertising revenue to survive. If system-wide ad blocking becomes widely adopted, developers may be forced to rethink how they monetize their apps, potentially pushing more services toward subscriptions, premium tiers, or paywalls.

Advertisers and analytics companies may also look for ways to bypass Apple’s filtering tools if apps begin losing visibility into user behavior. Similar battles played out during the rise of browser-based ad blockers over the last decade, and a new wave of platform-level blocking could reignite that fight inside mobile ecosystems.

What happens next will likely depend on how effective Filtr proves to be once users begin testing it at scale. Apple’s willingness to continue supporting these filtering capabilities will also play a major role in determining whether system-wide ad blocking becomes mainstream on iPhones and Macs.

If Filtr succeeds, it could mark one of the most important changes to app privacy on Apple devices in years – one that gives users more control over their digital experience while challenging the business models powering much of the modern internet.

Private investors have been falling over themselves to get a piece of Anthropic, given the AI model maker is growing at a dizzying pace. Multiple investors told TechCrunch that the company’s $65 billion fundraise at a $965 billion valuation, announced last week, was greatly oversubscribed. Now, with that private demand still strong, Anthropic has revealed that it’s taking steps toward a public listing by filing confidentially for an IPO.

Co-founder Daniela Amodei, speaking at the Bloomberg Tech conference on Thursday, said the decision comes down to capital. “It’s a really big upfront cost to train the models and to serve inference on them,” she said. “My guess is that over time, the sort of core set of companies that are working to advance the frontier are just going to need access to capital, and I think the public market is very well suited to that.”

Anthropic has been growing at a breakneck pace. The company announced that annualized revenue crossed $47 billion in May, up dramatically from roughly $9 billion at the end of 2025. That trajectory faces a real test, though. Companies such as Uber have said that while AI can deliver returns, not all of their AI spending has proven productive, raising the prospect that corporations could begin to rein in those budgets and slow growth across the sector.

That isn’t fazing Amodei, who believes businesses are still early in figuring out how to deploy AI effectively.

“The use cases today, I expect will continue to be the primary driver of efficiency or creativity, whether that’s coding, financial services, legal, [or] health care,” she said. “But as the business community gets more familiar with the tools, we’re all going to learn together. My hope is that over time it’ll be more incorporated into the day-to-day of how humans do our work, and there will actually be a lot more value realized.”  

Amodei also addressed why, unlike rivals OpenAI and Elon Musk’s xAI, Anthropic isn’t building its own data centers to meet the company’s growing compute needs.

“Anthropic’s view has always been wanting to plan for the best outcome but not overextend ourselves such that we’re buying more compute than we could productively use,” she said. “It’s really hard to predict that perfectly. We would much prefer to be on the side of having a little bit more demand for the product than we’re able to serve than the inverse.”

Last month, the company surprised the AI industry by partnering with xAI for compute capacity, a deal later disclosed in SpaceX’s S-1 filing to cost Anthropic $1.25 billion per month.

A case of New World screwworm has been confirmed in South Texas, the US Department of Agriculture announced Wednesday night. It marks the first detected breach of the US-Mexico border by the ravenous flesh-eating flies, which have been making their way up through Central America for the past several years.

In a social media post on Wednesday afternoon, the USDA revealed that a sample from Texas had been sent to the National Veterinary Services Laboratories (NVSL) in Ames, Iowa, for confirmatory testing of a screwworm infection. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins later posted that the testing had confirmed the infection, which was found in a three-week-old calf in Zavala County, Texas.

Chatter of a screwworm detection had already been building this week, rattling the US cattle industry.

Although many animals, including humans, can be victims of the parasite, the screwworm is especially dangerous to livestock. Female screwworms lay hundreds of eggs in the wounds and openings of warm-blooded creatures, allowing their larvae to feast on the living animals, causing deep, festering, life-threatening wounds. Although the screwworm was once endemic to the US, it was eradicated amid a yearslong control effort in the 1960s. The USDA estimates that keeping screwworms out of the US has saved the livestock industry $900 million each year.

But the fly has broken through control efforts in Central America and has been inching closer. On May 28, a case was found 25 miles from the border in a five-year-old goat in Coahuila, Mexico, according to the USDA. The case was one of many detected in recent days, including a case in a calf just 39 miles from the border, also in Coahuila.

Disputed Detections

In a media call on Tuesday, Agriculture secretary Brooke Rollins said, “There is no doubt that this is a very, very serious threat to our livestock.” But she also disputed claims that the fly is closer or even already in the US.

On Monday, state representative Don McLaughlin claimed on social media that a screwworm case was found just one mile from the Texas border, which Rollins and the USDA denied.

“When that false information gets out, it causes significant panic,” Rollins said Tuesday, according to the Texas Tribune. “And rightly so, especially if it’s coming from elected officials and the media.”

On Wednesday, Reuters reported that McLaughlin suspected the fly was now here. He said samples taken Tuesday from two calves on a ranch in La Pryor, Texas—which is in Zavala County, where the screwworm infection was confirmed—were being tested as possible screwworm infections. One infection was said to be in an umbilical cord wound of one of the calves. McLaughlin said he had seen images and videos of the animals and that the larvae seen in them looked like screwworm larvae.

Reuters was shown one of the photos, which it reported as showing “multiple larvae resembling the screwworm inside a bloody circular wound on an animal” but said it “could not immediately verify the photo.”

“At this point, it’s unconfirmed that it’s the New World screwworm,” McLaughlin told the outlet earlier Wednesday. “It ​looks like it, but it’s unconfirmed.”

With the finding now confirmed, the USDA said in a press release Wednesday night that it is setting up a “unified Incident Command Team” with the Texas Animal Health Commission and sending response personnel to the area. It is also setting up a 20-kilometer (12.4-mile) zone around the detected infection for quarantine, movement restrictions, and increased surveillance and fly trapping.

Screwworm Comeback

Screwworms were eradicated in the US in the 1960s amid a concerted effort to annihilate their population. This is done with aerial bombings of sterile male flies, which is the most effective weapon against the parasites. The mass release of dud studs elbows out fertile males, preventing them from mating with females, which generally mate only once.

With this method, called Sterile Insect Technique, the flies were eradicated not just from the US but from all of Central America. They were declared eradicated from Panama in 2006.

Dublin-born co-founder Robbie Falkenthal previously worked at KPMG, Flutter Entertainment and RSM Ireland.

Irish co-founded legal-tech start-up Wordsmith AI has plans to expand and hire in Ireland after a $70m Series B funding round backed by Highland Europe and Index Ventures.

The Series B – which takes the company’s total funding to $100m – will help Wordsmith expand its workforce to 300 across the US, the UK, and Europe, Middle East and Africa by the end of this year, while supporting a stronger push into its base in the US, the company said.

The New York-headquartered company employs 130 people with offices also in London, Amsterdam, Barcelona and Edinburgh.

Wordsmith intends to open an Irish office this year to meet demand in the domestic market, it said, with hopes to build out a “multidisciplinary team of sales professionals and lawyers” in the country.

The company is yet to decide on an EU headquarters, but said that Ireland is a strong contender for the role.

Wordsmith was co-founded in 2023 by Dublin-born chief operating officer Robbie Falkenthal, who spent six years at KPMG in Dublin before occupying senior roles at Flutter Entertainment, RSM Ireland and TravelPerk.

“Ireland is where I’m from, and as a country with so many major companies basing their European headquarters here, it’s a place where we see great potential,” said Falkenthal, a Wexford native.

“We are going to be expanding in Ireland this year and building out a presence which will support our growing Irish customer base.”

Alongside Falkenthal as co-founders are CEO Ross McNairn, a former lawyer who helped scale Perk and held senior roles at Skyscanner, and chief technical officer Volodymyr Giginiak, who held senior engineering roles at Facebook and Instagram.

“Wordsmith is the front door that does the work,” said McNairn. “Requests come in, the routine gets handled, lawyers approve what needs judgement, and every step is recorded as it happens.”

Wordsmith is used by more than 500 in-house legal teams worldwide, the company said, with clients including the Financial Times, Revolut, BT and Irish fintech Wayflyer. Its AI platform cuts cost by helping businesses reduce reliance on outside legal counsel, according to the company.

The platform receives and routes requests and aims to handle routine work, thereby leaving matters to legal experts only when “real risk or judgement” is associated with an action.

Don’t miss out on the knowledge you need to succeed. Sign up for the Daily Brief, Silicon Republic’s digest of need-to-know sci-tech news.

Yamaha has announced the launch of the NX-70A active speaker, its first foray into the wireless speaker market for over a decade.

Yamaha has envisioned the NX-70A as a speaker that would bring an “immersive sound experience” into everyday space, freeing listeners from the “constraints and limitations” of more traditional hi-fi equipment.

The ‘active’ element of the speaker’s make-up means it carries amplification inside the speaker, minimising the need for multiple boxes and reducing the footprint of the system. There’s no cable between the speakers which allows the speakers to be placed where you want in a room.

The speaker units feature what Yamaha refers to as Harmonious Diaphragm, which is comprised of a blend of ZYLON that’s used in Yamaha’s flagship speakers and spruce wood (used in grand piano soundboards). The combination is said to ensure a “consistent tone” from lows to highs, reproducing instruments and vocals both naturally and with musicality.

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Also tucked in the NX-70A’s innards is the newly developed Synergistic Drive technology, a unified circuit design that Yamaha says allows the amplifier and speaker unit “to operate in perfect unity”. It works by connecting the speaker unit directly to the amplifier circuit, precisely managing the flow of electric current and minimising distortion that could alter the sound.

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The YPAO (Yamaha Parametric room Acoustic Optimizer) adjusts playback for the room environment, with YPAO using a microphone to correct the “sonic characteristics for the particular space”, to produce a natural, balanced sound.

Wireless connectivity includes Spotify Connect, Tidal Connect, Google Cast and AirPlay 2. There’s support for Roon that allows users to integrate their music files from a PC or NAS into a single library; while the MusicCast Controller app that allows users to select their source, multiroom audio, view album art, create custom playlists and, of course, select the songs you want to hear.

The NX-70A doesn’t negate physical connections with HDMI eARC/ARC and CEC to connect to a TV.

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Available in black and white, the Yamaha NX-70A has a price of £2587 and goes on sale from July in the UK. The speakers will be demonstrated at High End Vienna this week.

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Valve is still determined to release its living room PC game console, called the Steam Machine, despite skyrocketing prices for gaming hardware across the board, including the company’s own Steam Deck. June was considered one of the most likely times for Valve to release its home console, but while there is no specific release date yet, Valve did offer an update on when it will launch the Steam Machine. 

The Steam Machine is set to release sometime this summer, according to a blog post by Valve on Thursday. It will come out alongside the Steam Frame, Valve’s VR headset, which was revealed along with the Steam Machine and new Steam Controller last November. 

The Steam Machine is Valve’s gaming PC, built into a roughly 6-inch cube that’s designed to connect to a living room TV. The aim is to deliver a simplified PC gaming experience for a broad audience and for game developers to optimize for a single spec as they’ve done with the Steam Deck. While the Steam Machine’s hardware is expected to be slightly more powerful than the standard PS5 or Xbox Series X, the company doesn’t see the Steam Machine as a direct competitor to those consoles. Pricing has yet to be confirmed, but with the ongoing shortage of PC memory, the price will not be easy on gamers’ wallets. 

Here’s everything we know about the Steam Machine.

When does the Steam Machine come out? 

Valve said Thursday that the Steam Machine will have a summer release date. When the hardware was first revealed, the company said it would be coming in early 2026. On Feb. 4, Valve confirmed the PC would be delayed in its first major update about the Steam Machine since it was unveiled.

This year is turning out to be quite a tumultuous time for gaming. It’s been almost six years since the release of the PS5 and Xbox Series consoles, which is usually the time when those companies would begin teasing their new hardware. However, due to the memory shortage, those companies have instead been forced to increase the prices of their respective consoles and will likely hold off big news about their next-generation hardware until memory prices come down. Game developers are also petrified of releasing anything in November or else get caught up in the whirlwind of hype that is Grand Theft Auto 6, set to release on Nov. 19. If there’s an ideal time for Valve to release its new console, it will be mid-August as a buffer from September, which is getting flooded with game releases. 

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Can I preorder the Steam Machine?

There are no preorders available for the Steam Machine yet. When preorders become available, they will likely be available on the Steam Machine hardware page. 

If Valve does do preorders, the company may have a system in place to roll out consoles in a timely manner, as it did with the Steam Deck. With the Steam Deck, you could preorder the device, and based on when an order was submitted, you would get a designated timeframe for its release and when you’d receive it. 

Valve also required anyone who wanted to preorder the Steam Deck to have a Steam account. This would prevent scalpers from ordering numerous devices at once, which will likely be the case with the Steam Machine. 

Watch this: Valve’s Steam Controller Gets Some Major Design Changes

08:07

How much will the Steam Machine cost? 

This is arguably the biggest question about the Steam Machine, and for good reason. Valve said the console would be priced in the same range as a gaming PC with the same kind of power. There has been speculation that this would put the price at around $600 to $800. 

However, the global RAM shortage continues to raise the price of memory. This could mean the Steam Machine may cost $1,000 or more, which would be a hard sell for many and make it less competitive against the PlayStation 5 or a regular gaming PC. 

Valve said on Feb. 4 that it’s still trying to figure out the price of the Steam Machine.

“The limited availability and growing prices of these critical components mean we must revisit our exact shipping schedule and pricing (especially around Steam Machine and Steam Frame),” the company said.

What are the Steam Machine specs? 

Valve has released the specs for the Steam Machine, but on the hardware page, there is a note at the bottom stating, “some specifications subject to change ahead of availability.” It’s not common to see that kind of disclaimer, which hints that if tariffs or  RAM shortages make the console too expensive, Valve may make adjustments to keep the price attractive. 

What else is unique to the Steam Machine? 

Valve is doing a bit more than just making a tiny gaming PC. The company is offering some features that aren’t found on the PS5, Switch 2 or Xbox Series consoles. 

To start, there are removable face plates for the Steam Machine. This is similar to the faceplates for the Xbox 360, which offer a bit of customization for the console. 

Steam Machines are upgradable. You can increase storage by adding a microSD card to the console’s microSD card slot or by replacing the solid-state drive. There is also the possibility to upgrade the RAM, but that will take a few more steps versus the storage swapping. 

The Steam Machine will also be just a computer when needed. Connect it to a monitor with a mouse and keyboard, and the console will act just like a Linux desktop. There’s also the option to install Windows in lieu of SteamOS, which would make it still play PC games, although the experience won’t be as smooth as SteamOS.

The Steam Controller for the Steam Machine will connect seamlessly to the console. And, for multiplayer games, four controllers can connect with a console very easily.

Wait, didn’t Valve already have Steam Machines?

Kind of. Back in 2013, Valve revealed a new operating system called SteamOS. It’s what powers the Steam Deck and creates the Big Picture Mode, which allows gamers to play their PC games in a mostly console-like experience instead of the typical desktop experience of using a mouse to double-click a game to start. 

Along with the operating system, Valve also released its Steam Machine platform. This allowed computer hardware makers to develop computers shaped more like a home console instead of a desktop. Alienware and Dell were some of the notable companies that developed their own Steam Machines, but none of them really caught on, partly due to many games not being compatible with the Linux-based SteamOS. 

The Steam Machines fizzled out in the mid-2010s as making games compatible with SteamOS was not a priority for game developers at the time. It wasn’t until 2018 that Valve developed Proton, a compatibility layer for SteamOS to make it easier to run most Windows games. Proton currently supports more than 20,000 Windows games. 

Valve also ended up offering an alternative to getting a whole new piece of hardware. In 2015, the company released Steam Link, a device that allowed PC games to be streamed directly to a TV.