Technology

Phonemaker Nothing used professional stock photos to demonstrate its Phone 3's camera capabilities on retail demo units, according to The Verge. Five images the company presented as community-captured samples were licensed photographs from the Stills marketplace, taken with other cameras in 2023. The Verge verified EXIF data confirming one image predated the Phone 3's release. Co-founder Akis Evangelidis acknowledged the photos were placeholders intended for pre-production testing that weren't replaced before deployment to stores.

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South Korea has passed a bill banning the use of mobile phones and smart devices during class hours in schools -- becoming the latest country to restrict phone use among children and teens. From a report: The law, which comes into effect from the next school year in March 2026, is the result of a bi-partisan effort to curb smartphone addiction, as more research points to its harmful effects. Lawmakers, parents and teachers argue that smartphone use is affecting students' academic performance and takes away time they could have spent studying.

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Wikipedia's volunteer editors have rejected founder Jimmy Wales' proposal to use ChatGPT for article review guidance after the AI tool produced error-filled feedback when Wales tested it on a draft submission. The ChatGPT response misidentified Wikipedia policies, suggested citing non-existent sources and recommended using press releases despite explicit policy prohibitions. Editors argued automated systems producing incorrect advice would undermine Wikipedia's human-centered model. The conflict follows earlier tensions over the Wikimedia Foundation's AI experiments, including a paused AI summary feature and new policies targeting AI-generated content.

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Digital resurrections of deceased individuals are emerging as the next commercial frontier in AI, with the digital afterlife industry projected to reach $80 billion within a decade. Companies developing these AI avatars are exploring revenue models ranging from interstitial advertising during conversations to data collection about users' preferences. StoryFile CEO Alex Quinn confirmed his company is exploring methods to monetize interactions between users and deceased relatives' digital replicas, including probing for consumer information during conversations. The technology has already demonstrated persuasive capabilities in legal proceedings, where an AI recreation of road rage victim Chris Pelkey delivered testimony that contributed to a maximum sentence. Current implementations operate through subscription models, though no federal regulations govern commercial applications of posthumous AI representations despite state-level protections for deceased individuals' likeness rights.

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