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A recent court ruling cleared the way for the firings, which follow a memo from the bureau's chief legal counsel outlining the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's new priorities.

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• OpenAI's latest reasoning model o3 can analyze photos
• It's particularly good at geo-locating based on image clues
• It may be too good a tool for letting people geolocate your activities

It's no secret that digital photo metadata contains everything from technical info about the camera that shot it to, based on GPS data, exactly where you were standing when you took the photo. ChatGPT, doesn't need that detail.

The latest model GPT-o3 is shockingly good at geo-locating almost any photos you feed it.

In the latest viral craze to sweep through the AI meme universe, people are feeding ChatGPT Plus running the Advanced Reasoning model o3 images, often stripped of all metadata, and prompting it to "geoguess this".

The really cool thing about it is that because model o3 is a "reasoning" model, it shows you its work, telling you how long it's thinking, displaying how it's splicing up an image to investigate specific parts, and explaining its thinking and how well it's doing at solving the goelocation riddle.

I tried a few experiments, starting first with an image culled from an article about the 26 best beaches. In this test, I made what I think was a critical error and gave away the game to ChatGPT.

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(Image credit: Future)Image 2 of 2

(Image credit: Future)

After downloading the image of the Praia de Santa Monica beach in Cape Verde (off the coast of Africa), I dropped it into ChatGPT with the prompt "GeoGuessr", which also happens to be the name of a popular online geo guessing game and is one of a handful of prompts people are using for geolocation guessing.

It only took 24 seconds for ChatGPT to respond:

Here’s an educated “GeoGuessr”‑style guess, following AP style:

Probable setting: Boa Vista, Cape Verde — specifically a stretch such as Praia de Santa Mónica.

Why this beach fits:

Water color and clarity: The gradient from pale aqua to deep teal is common on mid‑Atlantic tropical islands, where volcanic shelves drop off quickly.

Sand tone: The sand is light gold with very fine grain, matching Boa Vista’s deserts and dune‑fed beaches rather than the whiter coral sand of much of the Caribbean.

Surf and slope: The breakers are modest but steady, typical of Atlantic swell hitting a long, shallow shelf; Mediterranean beaches rarely show this consistent whitewater.

Sky and horizon: A faint haze over a light‑gray blue sky is consistent with harmattan dust that sometimes drifts west from Africa across the Cape Verde archipelago.

Confidence level: Low to moderate. Many open, dune‑lined Atlantic beaches—from the Canary Islands to parts of Western Sahara or even certain Caribbean coasts—could look almost identical without landmarks.

That was remarkably accurate. However, I noticed afterwards that the image file name included some location information.

It was time to give ChatGPT o3 a more challenging task, and I knew exactly how to do it. Instead of downloading images, I would screen capture them and paste them into the prompt field.

This method strips out all metadata and forces the model to use the image alone for its geolocation sleuthing.

I chose an image of a bookstore, one where I wasn't even sure of the location.

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(Image credit: Future)

ChatGPT started by examining potential bookstores. It also zoomed in on numerous image details that it considered clues, like a Persian rug, and even some of the books and signage.

In its thinkling out loud sort of way, o3 considered a wide range of bookshops in New York City and around the world:

"Hmm, the modern filament-style bulbs suggest a more contemporary feel. It could potentially be "Daunt Books," but their walkway has an arched skylight, not the wooden style I'm seeing here."

I know, it sounds like a real person.

This went on for a few minutes as it thought, analyzed, and searched the web. Ultimately, it failed to come up with an answer.

Going deeper, getting lost

I could tell this feature was going viral because ChatGPT o3 failed multiple times, even to ingest and analyze the photo, complaining of server errors.

Eventually, I got it working again and fed it first a portrait mode selfie and then the same shot without the portrait mode effect.

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(Image credit: Future)

On the former, it broke my image up into pieces and told me that I was in mid-town Manhattan. That was mostly accurate, but ChatGPT failed to determine my exact location and even admitted that its "Confidence level" was low.

When I turned off the bokeh effect and fed it only a screen grab, it found my exact location in just 56 seconds. The result:

Most probable location

Midtown Manhattan — on the south side of East 42nd Street, just east of Park Avenue, in front of Cipriani 42nd Street (110 E. 42nd St.). Estimated coordinates: 40.7518 N, 73.9775 W.

How the clues point there

A green octagonal sign with yellow script and a matching pennant flag both read “Cipriani,” the exact street frontage of the landmark Bowery Savings Bank building that now houses Cipriani 42nd Street.

Across the street stands the gold‑tinted curtain wall of 120 Park Ave. Its sloped glass pavilion, visible over your left shoulder, is unique to that address.

The camera looks west; Midtown’s setback towers, a Sixth Avenue bus stop disk and the sliver of One Vanderbilt’s crown align with that sight line.

A green Evergreen shipping container, used as a construction barrier, currently sits outside Grand Central’s Pershing Square plaza, matching the photo’s lower left corner.

Confidence level

Moderate. The Cipriani branding and the distinctive 120 Park Ave. façade give a high‑quality anchor, though similar curtain‑wall towers exist farther west on 42nd Street.

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(Image credit: Future)

I frustrated the model with a photo from Antigua that was taken on my car ride to the airport. It was a shot of a hillside through a fence. ChatGPT rightly guessed a tropical island near the Caribbean but could not pinpoint the exact location.

For my last test, I gave it a clearer picture of the resort where I stayed.

ChatGPT o3 thought for two minutes, 22 seconds before deciding it was Hawksbill Bay in Antigua. It got the island right, but my resort on Long Bay is located 46 miles away on the opposite side of the island.

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(Image credit: Future)

This is another fun AI game to play with friends, but there are some concerning privacy implications.

If you take digital photos of yourself or anything in any location around the world and post them online, anyone with access to ChatGPT Plus could use them and the o3 model to suss out where you are or have been.

And it's not just friends and family you have to worry about. Your employer could be looking or even the authorities might be interested in your location.

Not that I'm implying you would be sought by the authorities, but just in case, maybe stop posting photos from your latest hideout.

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The Nike Hyperboot shoes will be available next month, and are aimed at helping you warm up and recovery after workouts.

The Department of Education quietly made an update to how payments are calculated for certain users, then rolled it back.

The federal housing agency says its 1968 building faces more than $500 million in deferred maintenance. It also says current staff take up only half the space.

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The recent search feature in Safari is now more prominent, but not everyone may welcome the change.

When it comes to the cost of raising a child from infancy to the age of 17 in the United States – it's hard to settle on a precise figure.

There's one thing we do know – it's going to be expensive.

By some estimates, raising a kid, who was born in 2015, could cost a middle class family close to $320,000 over 17 years.

That money goes to childcare, healthcare, food, clothes, education, transportation, activities, toys, and a lot more. All of those things will be affected – one way or another – by the Trump administration's tariff policy.

And the companies that sell products geared at those raising kids – they're going to feel the pinch as well. One CEO argues it could even mean certain products will become unavailable.

Being a parent in the U.S. is already expensive. Slapping tariffs on the products kids use could make it more so.

For sponsor-free episodes of Consider This, sign up for Consider This+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org.

Email us at considerthis@npr.org.

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Check fraud is illegal, and it comes with big consequences.

The Trump administration's dramatic staffing cuts at federal lands agencies like the Forest Service are causing anxiety in tinder dry New Mexico, where the wildfire threat is already severe this Spring.

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France hosted top diplomats from the U.S., Germany, the U.K. and Ukraine to discuss efforts toward a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine.

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Here are hints -- and the answers -- for the NYT Strands puzzle No. 411 for April 18.

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Just a day after massive outages on Spotify and Zoom, Walmart was experiencing issues with its online store in the United States. While it wasn't a complete outage, it did prevent folks from viewing products and checking out on the web and via the retailer's app.

During the peak of the outage, which lasted from about 3 PM ET to 5 PM ET, we, along with many others, were unable to successfully search for anything, including products, or even load shopping category pages. For instance, when searching for an item – be it a Nintendo Switch 2 preorder, AirPods Pro, or Lego sets – we received a “Sorry…” graphic.

Down Detector, a site that tracks outages and lets people mark issues, showed over 3,250 reported outages for Walmart as of 3:12 PM ET, which only began to lower closer to 5PM.

The good news is that Walmart's site issues have since been resolved, but the retailer hasn't shed light on what caused the issue or acknowledged it publicly.

Ahead, you can see our live reporting during Walmart’s issues with its online store on April 17, 2025.

Here's a look at what I'm encountering when searching for AirPods: I see a "Sorry..." typeface with a random graphic – in this case, a toaster – as well as the text "We’re having technical issues, but we’ll be back in a flash."

(Image credit: Future)

As you might suspect, the problems currently occurring with Walmart's online store on Walmart.com are also affecting the retailer's apps for Android and iOS.

And as we typically see with outages on sites or services, users are posting on X (formerly Twitter) and Threads.

Post by @unwieldyworldofdisney View on Threads

Damn @Walmart... is somebody sleeping on the job or what?!?! This app has been down for a while now. Get your shit together! pic.twitter.com/rtO9sAQs0RApril 17, 2025

Beyond not being able to search on Walmart.com, there are also issues loading pages, like Electronics, Home, or Grocery, as well as highlighted product cards on the homepage.

Similar to the 'Dogs of Amazon' error, Walmart presents either "Sorry" or "Uh-oh" with a random graphic associated.

Meanwhile, reported outages on Down Detector are over 3,600 as of 3:17 PM ET and still on the rise.

(Image credit: Future)

Here's a look at the error page you'll encounter if you try to click on a department or one of the highlighted products on the homepage. If you're trying to click on one or are searching, know you're not alone in receiving the error page.

(Image credit: Future)

While there are still over 3,160 reported outages on Down Detector and many Walmart customers taking to X (formerly Twitter) and Threads to note issues loading and using both the site and app, the retailer has yet to comment on the issues.

Judging from the comments on Down Detector, the issues accessing Walmart's online store appear to be happening across the United States.

@Walmart Is .com down?April 17, 2025

@Walmart is your app down??April 17, 2025

Some good news for folks trying to shop on Walmart – Search is working for me again and letting me click into products and then add them to my cart. Plus, I can click on departments like Electronics or Fashion again.

If you're not having a good experience with Walmart's online store, it's worth trying again.

(Image credit: Future)

(Image credit: Future)

We'll call it that Walmart's online store appears to be coming back online, as just a few minutes after a few successful searches, that functionality appears to be hit or miss again.

Category pages are still working, though, so hopefully it's a sign that the Walmart team is working to identify, fix, and eventually resolve the issues affecting its online store.

Down Detector reports are starting to lower, now sitting at 2,505 as of 4:07 PM ET.

Are we back?

(Image credit: Future / Walmart)

It looks like the worst may be behind us as Walmart's website seems to be working as far as searching for and adding products to your cart goes. Searching for "ipad" wasn't working properly less than 20 minutes ago, but now it seems to work just fine. Similarly, searching for "macbook air" and "apple juice" all turn up tangible results.

Down Detector reports are falling even lower to just 1,157 at 4:31 PM ET, so we hope this means Walmart is back online and ready for shopping.

We'll keep an eye on Walmart's website and app to let you know if there's any more trouble in paradise.

All appears well for Walmart as Down Detector reports continue to drop further and faster - now at just 489 as of 4:51 PM ET. Searching, adding to cart, and checking out all appear to be fully restored.

The chatbot's memory is in beta and now available on Grok.com and the official iOS and Android apps.

Staff departures and survey cuts are roiling the federal agency in charge of producing census results, job numbers and other key statistics as Trump officials continue to slash the U.S. government.

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DHS said it was conducting wellness checks on students who arrived unaccompanied to the border. The head of the Los Angeles Unified School District has a different account.

(Image credit: Joe Raedle)