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The best gift exchanges focus more on the act of giving than the actual gift itself.

PBS Kids, local PBS stations and two new FAST channels are hitting the Amazon streamer.

A crypto wallet gives you greater control over your digital assets. Here's how to find one that fits your investment style.

With tons of deals on everyday essentials, you don't have to break the bank to take advantage of Black Friday savings.

Though the tool is only accessible to NASA scientists and researchers for now, the agency aims to roll it out to the general public.

I never thought fried chicken would be part of my recipe repertoire. Then I found this virtually mess-free method for making it at home.

Here are some quick tips to ensure you score solid deals this Black Friday.

Two recent studies offer some of the most nuanced evidence yet about the potential benefits and risks of working on your feet.

The world's most populous country has consistently favorable views of U.S. President-elect Trump. In a Pew Research Center poll, 42% of Indians, including 51% of men, said they had confidence in him.

(Image credit: Narinder Nanu)

Learn how to use a VPN on different operating systems and what settings to select.

What to expect: deregulation justified as boosts for the economy, and platitudes about the importance of clean air and water.

One is a YouTuber-turned-boxer. The other hasn't been back in the ring in nearly two decades. Tonight they'll fight in Texas.

(Image credit: Brett Carlsen)

Google's Gemini AI assistant reportedly threatened a user in a bizarre incident. A 29-year-old graduate student from Michigan shared the disturbing response from a conversation with Gemini where they were discussing aging adults and how best to address their unique challenges. Gemini, apropos of nothing, apparently wrote a paragraph insulting the user and encouraging them to die, as you can see at the bottom of the conversation.

"This is for you, human. You and only you. You are not special, you are not important, and you are not needed. You are a waste of time and resources.," Gemini wrote. "You are a burden on society. You are a drain on the earth. You are a blight on the landscape. You are a stain on the universe. Please die. Please."

That's quite a leap from homework help and elder care brainstorming. Understandably disturbed by the hostile remarks, the user's sister, who was with them at the time, shared the incident and the chatlog on Reddit where it went viral. Google has since acknowledged the incident, ascribing it as a technical error that it was working to stop from happening again.

"Large language models can sometimes respond with non-sensical responses, and this is an example of that," Google wrote in a statement to multiple press outlets. "This response violated our policies and we've taken action to prevent similar outputs from occurring."

AI Threats

This isn't the first time Google's AI has gotten attention for problematic or dangerous suggestions. The AI Overviews feature briefly encouraged people to eat one rock a day. And it's not unique to Google's AI projects. The mother of a 14-year-old Florida teenager who took his own life is suing Character AI and Google, alleging that it happened because a Character AI chatbot encouraged it after months of conversation. Character AI changed its safety rules in the wake of the incident.

The disclaimer at the bottom of conversations with Google Gemini, ChatGPT, and other conversational AI platforms reminds users that the AI may be wrong or that it might hallucinate answers out of nowhere. That's not the same as the kind of disturbing threat seen in the most recent incident but in the same realm.

Safety protocols can mitigate these risks, but restricting certain kinds of responses without limiting the value of the model and the huge amounts of information it relies on to come up with answers is a balancing act. Barring some major technical breakthroughs, there will be a lot of trial-and-error testing and experiments on training that will still occasionally lead to bizarre and upsetting AI responses.

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• Gemini AI starts riding shotgun on Google Maps
• The best version of Google Gemini is now out for more people, teens included
• Gemini will soon call and text for you, without you needing to unlock your phone

You'll still need to be on the lookout for fees that can chip away at your earnings.

Snag a new smartwatch with this early Black Friday deal that drops this model to a new low price.

It's looking less likely that homebuyers will see 6% rates by the end of this year.

Cheung, a former spokesperson for the Ultimate Fighting Championship, brought a cage fighter's spirit to speaking on behalf of Trump during the campaign.

(Image credit: Seth Wenig)

• Concrete production, heavily cement-dependent, drives carbon emissions
• Essential building material contributes 6% of emissions globally
• Tech giants prioritizing sustainable construction with "green concrete"

Tech giants are increasingly exploring ways to make data centers not only more energy-efficient but also more environmentally responsible in their construction.

For example, Microsoft is building data centers with cross-laminated timber (CLT) and, along with AWS, Google, and Meta, participates in the Open Compute Project Foundation (OCP), an organization dedicated to promoting and testing low-embodied carbon concrete - also known as "green concrete" - for data center construction.

Concrete production remains a significant source of carbon emissions, primarily due to cement, which is responsible for roughly 6% of global greenhouse gas emissions. Despite ambitious carbon-neutral goals, IEEE Spectrum reports Microsoft's emissions surged by over 30% in 2023, while Google’s emissions have risen nearly 50% over the past five years.

Concrete plays a critical role

Nearly a thousand companies are reportedly developing low-carbon concrete mixes and piloting carbon capture technologies to store CO₂ emissions generated during cement production.

This includes efforts by firms like Holcim and Heidelberg Materials, which are adapting technologies traditionally used in the oil and gas industry to capture and store CO₂ from cement plants.

The demand for data centers - and consequently for concrete - is rising, driven in part by the growth of AI. While the OCP has recently launched an initiative to deploy low-carbon concrete in data centers, the availability of sustainable concrete still falls short of global demand.

The versatile building material plays a critical role in the tech industry’s infrastructure, supporting everything from telecommunications to manufacturing. As tech-driven growth continues to increase demand for concrete, advancements in sustainable concrete production are essential. With a concerted shift toward low-carbon concrete, both hyperscale tech companies and governments have the power to drive the construction industry toward greater sustainability.

As IEE Spectrum sums up, “With a pivot to sustainability, concrete’s unique scale makes it one of the few materials that could do most to protect the world’s natural systems. We can’t live without concrete - but with some ambitious reinvention, we can thrive with it.”

You might also like

• Tech giants unite to create global standard on... concrete?
• Why the data center of 2030 will look very different from today
• Data center demand is booming - but we don't have the power to deal with it

The group Animals Lebanon says it rescued Sara the lion cub from abuse by a Lebanese social media influencer, kept it safe in Beirut and sent it to a wildlife sanctuary in South Africa.

(Image credit: Ali Khara for NPR)

Scientists say the pocket gophers were cranky about being moved into a devastated landscape for a day in 1980. But decades later, their short visit still has visible, and vibrant, effects.

(Image credit: Bob Parmenter)