Aarian Marshall / Wired:
Waymo says it is continuing to “refine” its system preventing kids under 18 from riding alone, after adult riders reported new age-verification checks  —  As adult riders report new age-verification checks, the self-driving car company says it's continuing to “refine” …

Carl Franzen / VentureBeat:
xAI launches Grok 4.3, featuring “always-on reasoning”, 1M token context window, and low API pricing, and releases a voice cloning suite called Custom Voices  —  While Elon Musk faces off against his former colleague and OpenAI co-founder Sam Altman in court, Musk's rival firm xAI …

Dan Goodin / Ars Technica:
Servers operated by Ubuntu and its parent company Canonical have been down for more than a day, following a “sustained, cross-border attack”  —  Servers operated by Ubuntu and its parent company Canonical were knocked offline on Thursday morning and have remained down ever since …

Joe Rossignol / MacRumors:
Apple has stopped offering a 256GB storage option for the Mac mini globally; Mac mini now starts at 512GB for $799 in the US  —  Apple this week stopped offering a 256GB storage option for the Mac mini worldwide.  As a result, the desktop computer now has a higher starting price.

Lisa Richwine / Reuters:
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences issues new rules saying acting and writing must be performed by humans and not AI to be eligible for Oscars  —  Academy Awards organizers issued new rules on Friday to clarify that acting and writing must be performed by humans …