The article discusses the rise of counterfeit Casio scientific calculators, particularly the fx-991EX model, which are often poorly made and unreliable, leading to issues for students and teachers. Casio's recent model changes and the market for cheaper knockoffs have caused confusion and quality concerns, prompting calls for Casio to revert to its previous design and improve counterfeit prevention.
Multiple clones of OpenAI's Sora app are flooding the App Store worldwide, with some apps mimicking the official app and using OpenAI's logo, potentially misleading users into subscribing to fake versions since the official app is only available in the US and Canada.
Bong Joon-ho's upcoming sci-fi film "Mickey 17," starring Robert Pattinson, follows a man who discovers his job is to die and be cloned repeatedly until a clone becomes self-aware. The trailer, revealed at CinemaCon 2024, showcases a wild and humorous storyline with action scenes and existential themes. The film is set for release on January 31, 2025.
Activision is using clones of real players, called "hallucinations," to combat cheaters in Call of Duty. These hallucinations are deployed when a cheater is detected or suspected and are designed to disorient them. Each hallucination is a clone of a real player, moving and interacting with the world like a human player, making it difficult for cheaters to distinguish them from genuine opponents. If a cheater interacts with a hallucination, they reveal themselves as a hacker. Additionally, efforts to clamp down on the use of cheating devices have resulted in a significant drop in their usage.
OpenAI has released a smartphone app version of its popular artificial intelligence chatbot, ChatGPT, which is now available on iPhones and iPads in the US and will later be coming to Android devices. The mobile version on Apple's iOS operating system also enables users to speak to it using their voice. The app will remain ad-free but "syncs your history across devices." The delay in getting the product on phones helped fuel a rise of clones built on similar technology, some of which the security firm Sophos described as "fleeceware" in a report this week because they push unsuspecting users toward enrolling in a free trial that converts into a recurring subscription, or use intrusive advertising techniques.
The Season 3 finale of The Mandalorian revealed that Moff Gideon needed Grogu's blood to create Force-sensitive clones of himself, which he would equip with beskar Dark Trooper armor to rule the reborn Empire under Thrawn. However, Din Djarin and Bo-Katan destroyed all the clones, and Gideon himself was incinerated. But the absence of Gideon's mustache and the amount of time invested in his storyline suggest that he may not be dead and could be replaced by Thrawn as the main villain of this era of Star Wars.
