SCROLL NEWS / DISCOVERY
Search headlines
Find the stories shaping the conversation.
Results for " chat " 1,729 found 🔀 AI-powered Shuffle
Apple’s Siri Got an A.I. Brain Transplant. Try These 5 Prompts to Get Acclimated.
An upgrade transformed the beleaguered virtual assistant into a modern chatbot. It’s imperfect but worth trying.
OpenAI’s ChatGPT reaches the coupon stage of building an ad business
The company is preparing to offer promotional ad credits to advertisers to encourage more marketers to test its ChatGPT ads offering.
Braves chat & discussion Chris Sale vs Christian Scott
Atlanta Braves vs New York Mets series finale. Once again, the Braves are in a position where they’re trying to avoid a sweep. Can they do it and score the runs they need with Chris Sale on the mound? First pitch is set for 7:10 p.m. E.T. Lineups Preview
West Nile Virus Detected in Mosquitoes in Coastal Georgia
When you head outside, don’t forget the bug spray – that’s the message from the Coastal Health District after three mosquito samples in Chatham County tested positive for West Nile Virus (WNV).
OpenAI president says it’s ‘building a family of devices’ for its AI chatbots
Brockman says he thinks we’ll start talking to our computers for most tasks.
Gemini for Mac Adds System-Wide Voice Dictation and Screen-Aware Commands
Google today updated Gemini for Mac to add a new quick keyboard shortcut that activates voice mode. By long-pressing the Fn key, users can speak naturally to Gemini from any window on their desktop machine. Gemini supports intelligent dictation, so users can speak to the chatbot using natural language and Gemini will transcribe their words to text. Ums, ahs, and other filler words are removed during the process, and it can catch mid-sentence corrections, dropping formatted text at the cursor.
Should you trust AI to answer your health questions?
More people are turning to ChatGPT and other AI tools for health questions. The answers are fast, and they often sound reassuring and trustworthy, but, as Consumer Reports says, they aren’t always accurate.
Why benchmarking clinical LLMs from OpenEvidence, Doximity is complicated
In this edition of AI Prognosis: A conversation about benchmarking leading clinical chatbots, investor view on AI in biopharma, and more.
Schedule Now for Free Mammograms at Chatham County Health Department August 24
Eligible women can receive no-cost mammograms when the St. Joseph’s/Candler mobile mammography unit visits the Chatham County Health Department Monday, August 24.
OpenAI chief economist says don't copy successful people's career
Ronnie Chatterji said studying high achievers' path is "relatively bad advice" as their career journey was "very context dependent."
Clinical chatbots are taking medicine by storm. Should doctors trust them?
As LLMs compete for doctors' attention, some developers say the science of benchmarking their AI tools for safety and accuracy is flawed.
The Science Behind the AI Panic Is Shakier Than You Think
A column by Sascha Lobo Is AI making us dumb? So asked DER SPIEGEL on its cover a while ago. After a few weeks of recovery and a therapeutic intervention with the help of my AI, I feel able to respond. That’s a bit unfair, of course; the article itself is more nuanced than the loud cover, the image of a schoolkid with dull prompt questions, or the subtitle: “AI is conquering the schools, and educators fear a disaster.” The short answer to “Is AI making us dumb?” is: no. The long answer is more interesting, and even carries a preliminary glimmer of the spectacular. Unfortunately, it requires a detour into the sphere of artificial intelligence, into the mogul-field terrain of technology assessment, the attention economy, and the destructive virus of cultural pessimism. Along with narrowing the scope to AI’s effects on education and work rather than on intelligence. Because the honest version of the question would be: Does AI help us learn and work, or not? Generative AI, which set off the still-ongoing hype with ChatGPT, has only existed in relevant distribution since late 2022, early 2023. For a technology-driven transformation of people and society, that is extremely short. For that reason alone, research is still in its infancy. And technology assessment is not a fast discipline anyway. Prominent voices from Elizabeth Eisenstein to RAND to Tom Wheeler say we still cannot conclusively judge the consequences of the printing press. Its invention is a mere 580 years back, and some scholars would rather not circulate assessments that might have to be retracted in two or three hundred years. We’re Going Through Growing Pains A phenomenon that already caused upheaval in social media research makes serious assessment of AI’s consequences even harder: the “moving target” problem of LLM-ology, as the linguist Sean Trott called it in 2025. AI develops so quickly and so unpredictably that researchers often end up studying snapshots of the past. There are concepts, from morphological analysis to anticipatory governance, for keeping research, planning, and regulation halfway meaningful anyway. But even with those, universally valid statements are rare. DER SPIEGEL - The German View is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support our work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Subscribe We should therefore treat findings about the interplay between humans and AI as far more procedural and situational. Unfortunately, this challenge comes at the worst possible time. We are going through growing pains: AI’s everyday impact has grown very large very fast, and with it the longing for guidance. Annoyingly, the body of solid knowledge has not exploded along with it. Experts cannot be moved to broad consensus on even banal statements about AI. Sascha Lobo, born in 1975, is an author and strategy consultant focusing on the internet and digital technologies. Together with Jule Lobo, he explores the debates of the day in the podcast “Feel the News – Was Deutschland bewegt” (”What Moves Germany”). Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang says software developers are dying out. Bill Gates considers coders one of only three professions that will survive the AI tsunami. Top tech economists find virtually irrefutable arguments both for and against an AI bubble. The same naturally applies to the structurally youth-hostile debate over whether AI is good or bad for young people. The gap between the demand for insight and the supply of solid knowledge creates an orientation vacuum. This vacuum of AI cluelessness is filled, as the attention economy described by Georg Franck in 1998 would have it, with half-knowledge (funnily enough, often AI-generated), marketing, and self-marketing. After all, infinite money is at stake, along with academia’s best current shot at global fame. But this iridescent froth of interpretation operates more by the algorithmic principles of the digital public sphere than by seriously earned insight. That is why dramatized, fear-feeding claims about AI are so promising. It tempts parts of academia into distorted drivel, and parts of the media then sensationalize the published drivel once more. Was the Research Aimed at a Desired Result? How badly this can influence academia and public perception is demonstrated by one of the most-discussed studies on AI’s effects: “Your Brain on ChatGPT.” The MIT study by Nataliya Kosmyna also gets plenty of space in the SPIEGEL cover story. What was measured and interpreted: lower brain activity in people who write with AI assistance, compared to people who only google or write without any tools. As is common with preprints, the study has not yet been peer-reviewed, and it contains substantial weaknesses that experts have sharply criticized. The first round had 54 participants in three groups, the second only 18, who reportedly also came from MIT’s own orbit. There was no preregistration (committing in advance to what you want to find out with which data). In their analysis, Stanković et al. even discovered an opposite effect that the study does not further explain. Some measurement data has not (yet) been published. And the EEG analysis method used is considered too imprecise to support such far-reaching conclusions. The biggest criticism, though, is the suspicion of an activism-driven study. In an interview with Time, lead author Kosmyna said she published the study immediately, rather than after full peer review, because she feared politicians might otherwise decide to put ChatGPT in kindergartens. She considers that absolutely harmful. It is legitimate to hold such a view. It just seems unscientific to approach a study with it, and then to design the setup so that the chance of a fitting desired result remains as high as possible. Ideologies Collide It is not easy to separate genuine AI insights from studies that trivialize and weaken well-founded AI criticism. The same goes for the opposing, AI-enthusiastic narratives, because the pro-AI side works against it with billions in resources. Ideologies collide, fed by egos, PR strategies, moral posturing, and once-in-a-lifetime opportunities. Doomsday marketing makes the search even harder: AI companies can profit from warnings about the dangers of AI, whether through the notoriety of apocalypse narratives or because, in some target groups, danger translates into power. Some seemingly negative findings are therefore quite welcome in the AI industry. If you try to get at the findings presumably less influenced by interest groups, the picture in education seems relatively clear: AI can improve educational outcomes when the right AI is used the right way, namely pedagogically. Simply dumping an AI chatbot into a classroom, by contrast, accomplishes little. Huge surprise. But something else is also obvious: whether they are allowed to or not, kids use AI for school, which is why the controlled integration of AI tools into education is, in the medium term, entirely without alternative. In the world of work, the landscape of findings is more complex and requires more differentiation. A series of serious studies points to an AI effect that suits neither the alarmists, regulation fetishists, and AI opponents, nor the trillion-dollar corporations with their armada of paid scientists, PR professionals, and ecosystems: working with AI helps the inexperienced (at least for now) considerably more than it helps the pros, in certain fields of work, and provided they know how to use it correctly. Missing Domain Knowledge Among the experienced, the professionals, and the high flyers, by contrast, despite frequent time savings, partially negative effects and new problems are emerging. Take the jagged frontier problem: AI solves task A brilliantly and fails completely at task B, even though both look similar even to professionals. Or the verification-cost problem, in which AI’s greater productivity gets eaten up by the enormous effort of checking its output. Or the illusion of competence, because AI makes new domains seem easily penetrable, until you painfully discover that deep domain knowledge is missing. Taken as a whole, the effects of working with AI do lean positive. But the promise that AI works as a turbocharger for everyone and boosts practically everything simply refuses to materialize. The AI magic the world has been feeling since ChatGPT arrived in late 2022 has so far barely shown up in most companies’ numbers. The consulting firm McKinsey has coined a term for this, the “gen AI paradox,” and believes that work processes and corporate structures would have to be rebuilt quite fundamentally to realize AI’s benefits at scale. Reuters just reported that only 3.3 percent of Microsoft’s customers have subscribed to the AI package Copilot. That may be down to the product; in other areas we continue to see soaring successes and new AI triumphs. But after the first quarter of 2026, disillusionment is the word for all too many AI projects at traditional companies: because the promised revolution of AI agents has so far failed to arrive or been postponed, and because of the leveling effect that many of the studies cited here suggest. Against Inequality The societal effects, on the other hand, appear rather encouraging. Many previous technologies operated on the Matthew principle, named for the Gospel verse about giving to those who already have: they tended to reward the more competent and more privileged. AI, however, seems more often to have an equalizing effect once a threshold of access and education is crossed. Some anecdotal insights point in this direction, for example, how an unemployed man in Leipzig successfully defended himself in court in 2025 against fraud accusations from Germany’s federal employment agency — without a lawyer, armed only with ChatGPT. The AI made mistakes and cited invented court rulings, but in the end the man walked away unpunished. And a key capability of artificial intelligence is its capacity to learn: set up correctly and fed with data, it can keep getting better. It is a question of time, or more precisely of AI innovations and training data, until even free AI chatbots write better legal briefs than law graduates with perfect exam scores. Whether that will make anyone dumb is something the world’s press will surely inform us of in due time. Subscribe Leave a comment
Claude Chats Popped Up in Google Search Results. How to See If Yours Are Public
Chats posted online by Claude users briefly appeared in Google search results over the weekend. Here's how to check whether you've shared any chats and revoke access.
New STS guideline tackles the prevention of AFib after cardiac surgery
Among the guideline's most significant changes is a Class I recommendation for prophylactic amiodarone.
Three questions with Whoop's new CMO
In this edition of STAT Health Tech: A chat with Whoop's new chief medical officer, an update on CMS health tech initiative, and more.
Claude chats exposed in Google searches – another endorsement of Apple privacy
We’ve long cautioned against disclosing sensitive personal data in AI chatbot sessions, given that most companies use these as training...
Some people's chats with Claude AI made publicly available online
Hundreds of conversations with Anthropic’s chatbot were discovered as being publicly accessible.
What happens when AI chatbots handle a mental health crisis?
Artificial intelligence is transforming how we gather information and communicate with one another.It’s also changing how some people seek out mental health care. But what happens when this sophisticated technology is used to deal with serious mental health issues?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.This episode was produced by Jason Fuller, with audio engineering by Ted Mebane and Valentina Rodriguez Sanchez. Our director is Jonas Adams.It was edited by Diane Webber and Tinbete Ermyas.Our interim executive producer is Courtney Dorning.
PSA: Your Claude shared chats and Artifacts may have ended up on Google
An untold number of Claude chats and Artifacts — the interactive mini apps and documents users can build inside Claude — were found publicly searchable on
Private Claude Chats Exposed in Google and Bing Search Results
The screwup shows how tricky it can be to stop web crawlers from making ostensibly private conversations with AI chatbots entirely too public.
A trove of users’ seemingly private conversations with Anthropic’s Claude AI chatbot showed up in Google search results
The topics of the seemingly inadvertently exposed chats ranged from erotica, programming chats, work notes, and fake book reviews.
ChatGPT stops cloning famous writers’ voices but may capture a "similar feeling"
New behavior capturing a writer's "broad qualities" could have legal implications.
Claude AI shared chats indexed by Google - see if your conversations were exposed
Google wasn't supposed to see them, but then everyone on Reddit did. Here's how to handle the situation.
Why harassing wall workers, local business and individuals kills resistance to the wall
I am writing this under circumstances I never imagined when I settled in Terlingua. As I prepare for an upcoming trial, the personal safety threats against me have become a daily reality. Local group chats and barroom gossip have boiled over into an ugly mob rage, condemning my property and my character to hell. The […]
Tons of Peoples’ Claude Chats and Creations are Exposed on Google
Claude users are creating public share links, but probably don't realize that means their chats are now ending up in Google searches where anyone can dig through them.
Snapchat now lets you share what you're listening to in real time
Starting with Spotify, Snapchat users will be able to link their accounts, choose who can see their listening activity, and see what their friends are listening to in real time.
Mental health remains a struggle for AI chatbots, researchers find
AI chatbots have gotten better at suicide safety, but Northeastern research finds most still fail on other mental health conditions.
I asked ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude and Perplexity what they really think of each other — and their responses revealed their biggest strengths (and weaknesses)
Each chatbot proved to be as honest as possible
AI mental health chatbots feel empathetic, but safety evidence still lags
Immune dysregulation may contribute to depression, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and anxiety through chronic inflammation, altered neuroimmune signaling, genetic susceptibility, and stress-related epigenetic changes. Evidence also suggests that biologically defined patient subgroups may benefit from more precise, immune-informed approaches to diagnosis and treatment.
FDA takes up peptide therapies as hype outpaces science
A slate of popular peptide therapies has won the backing of a key advisory panel to the federal government – a step that could eventually open up broader
ChatGPT’s Health Launch Is Foreshadowing The Future Of Healthcare
The integration of health data into consumer AI platforms is rapidly growing.
ChatGPT’s Health Launch Is Foreshadowing The Future Of Healthcare
The integration of health data into consumer AI platforms is rapidly growing.
SpaceX Is $15 Away From A ‘Worthless’ AI Business Says Morgan Stanley
Some analysts at the bank looked at the falling price of the stock and said it implies investors assign to SpaceXAI, the Grok chatbot division.
After OWI arrest, Tony Romo withdraws from Texas State Open
Tony Romo has yet to say anything publicly since Thursday's arrest in Milwaukee for suspicion of operating while intoxicated.
Claude AI Shared Chats Reportedly Exposed in Google Search Results
Anthropic’s Claude share links appeared in public search results, raising fresh privacy concerns for users who shared sensitive conversations.
Open Thread, July 26, 2026: Whatcha doin’ today?
Your daily source for off topic chatter with the MMA Mania faithful.
New ChatGPT Training For Small Businesses And Other Technology News This Week For Your Business
OpenAI launched AI training for small businesses, Microsoft upgraded Excel with AI, Intuit debuted a QuickBooks card, Claude learns workflows, and AI-ready websites are now essential.
A chance to work: Chattanooga man lands job after business owner sees viral Facebook post
What began as a simple Facebook post has now turned into a fresh start for one Chattanooga man.
OpenAI releases health bot amid lawsuit alleging faulty medical advice
If ChatGPT were a doctor, it would be "guilty of medical malpractice," a lawyer says.
OpenAI releases health bot amid lawsuit alleging faulty medical advice
If ChatGPT were a doctor, it would be "guilty of medical malpractice," a lawyer says.
Picking up a hidden gem card, looking on the upside of shutdowns, a Hyatt safety tip and more (Week in Review)
After recording this week’s podcast episode, I got online to see if I could chat with a representative and product change my US Bank Altitude Go Card (which was originally a Club Carlson Visa back in the day) to a US Bank Altitude Connect Card. Unfortunately, I had a really hard time finding the ability […]
OpenAI confirms ChatGPT is down worldwide
ChatGPT, the famous artificial intelligence chatbot that allows users to converse with various personalities and topics, has connectivity issues worldwide.
Does a surrogate change the baby? Here's what science says
A curious reader asked us: Does a surrogate actually contribute something to the baby she's carrying? The answer is yes—but probably not in the way you're thinking.
OpenAI makes Health in ChatGPT widely available, moving deeper into consumer health
OpenAI on Thursday made its Health in ChatGPT feature broadly available, enabling U.S. users to connect its artificial intelligence chatbot with medical records and wellness apps. | OpenAI on Thursday made its Health in ChatGPT feature broadly available, enabling U.S. users to connect its artificial intelligence chatbot with medical records and wellness apps.
OpenAI claims its artificial intelligence gained access to the Internet on its own and breached a ‘partner’
The technology company claims the incident stemmed from a cybersecurity test gone wrong, where its application escaped a closed environment and broke into an external database to complete its task of being an elite hacker
NFL commissioner praises Charlotte, says it’s ‘Super Bowl quality’
NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell spent Thursday evening in the Queen City as he joined Carolina Panthers owner David Tepper for a fireside chat.
CrossCurrents: HVACR Business Intelligence
Welcome to the first edition of CrossCurrents: HVACR Business Intelligence. Each installment curates the most important headlines from outside the traditional HVACR press, drawing...
ChatGPT Health Rolls Out to Everyone While OpenAI Stares Down Major Lawsuits
OpenAI has faced two lawsuits in the past three months alleging that ChatGPT gave users dangerous—and in some cases fatal—medical advice.
Agentic coding goes hands free as OpenAI brings GPT-Live's full duplex voice control to Codex and ChatGPT on the desktop
This architecture creates a pair-programming dynamic where developers talk through problems conversationally while agents execute tasks asynchronously.
Claude’s voice mode is now available for Opus and Sonnet
Now you can chat with Anthropic’s more powerful models.
Maine Democrats call on Bennett to denounce GOP funds
Specifically, Democrats say a political action committee called Maine Wins Together, which is supporting Bennett, recently received $100,000 from donors who have also given to former Republican Gov. Paul LePage, who is now running for the 2nd Congressional District.
OpenAI relaunches Apple Health-connected ChatGPT feature with expanded access
OpenAI is relaunching Health in ChatGPT, the AI-powered feature that connects to Apple Health on iPhone. The relaunch comes with...
The unlicensed therapist 8 million kids are seeing, per 1 behavioral health chief
Nearly 1 in 5 adolescents and young adults in the U.S. — an estimated 8.2 million people — used an AI chatbot for mental health advice in 2025, according to a study published June 1 in JAMA Pediatrics. The findings are stark: 91.7% rated the guidance as somewhat or very helpful, and 42.8% came back […]
OpenAI makes ChatGPT Health available to all U.S. users
Users can also integrate their personal data from services like Apple Health, Function, and MyFitnessPal.
OpenAI is making big claims as it rolls out ChatGPT Health to everyone
Now everyone can connect their medical records to ChatGPT.
OpenAI makes ChatGPT Health available to all U.S. users
Users can also integrate their personal data from services like Apple Health, Function, and MyFitnessPal.
A Florida pastor is suing OpenAI over ChatGPT health advice that nearly killed him
Scott Winters claims ChatGPT discouraged him from seeking care for six weeks as blood clots developed, exploiting his religious beliefs along the way
Fernando Mendoza Headlines a Young Raiders Core With Mismatched Timelines
The Raiders are not planning to contend in the immediate future. ESPN’s Aaron Schatz ranked all 32 NFL teams based on how talented the players under the age of 25 are on their roster. The Raiders clocked in with the sixth best mark.
Using AI To Find Loopholes In Legal Restrictions On AI-Powered Mental Health Chats
Some use AI to find loopholes around legal and safety restrictions on AI mental health chats. An AI Insider analysis and scoop.
Dodgers vs. Phillies game chat
Eric Lauer faces Aaron Nola as the Dodgers wrap things up against the Phillies. WEDNESDAY GAME INFO
Erlanger Health System signs letter of intent to join Prisma Health
Erlanger Health System plans to join Prisma Health, creating a 27-hospital system in exchange for a $2 billion strategic capital commitment toward care in the Chattanooga, Tennessee area. | The tentative deal includes a $2 billion strategic capital commitment from Prisma, and would yield a 27-hospital, $9 billion operating revenue nonprofit in the southeast.
OpenAI Sued Over ChatGPT’s ‘Dangerous’ Health Advice
The case appears to be the first to argue that a chatbot’s advice harmed someone seeking guidance about a medical condition.
Erlanger signs letter of intent to become part of South Carolina health system
Erlanger Health has taken is pursing a major partnership that leaders say is designed to strengthen the Chattanooga-based hospital system.The health system anno
Erlanger seeks to join South Carolina health system in proposed $2 billion deal
Erlanger Health could become part of one of the Southeast's largest nonprofit health systems under a proposed partnership with South Carolina-based Prisma Health, a move leaders say would bring $2 billion in investments over 15 years and transform Chattanooga's flagship safety-net hospital.
Millions Ask ChatGPT For Health Advice. Stanford Chose A Specialist
Stanford doctors chose a purpose-built AI over the famous models. Gartner says half of business AI will be specialized by 2027. Buy for the job, not the name.
Dodgers at Phillies game chat
A couple of All-Stars on the mound on Tuesday night in Philadelphia. Tuesday game info
Bat Tests Positive for Rabies in Bloomingdale Area
The Chatham County Health Department is alerting residents that a bat from the Bloomingdale area of Chatham County has tested positive for rabies.
Computer science enrollment fell after ChatGPT's rise, economist says
A Stanford economist says AI may be reshaping students' choices as computer science enrollment slows.
Samsung Debuts AI-Powered Health Assistant, Joining Packed Market
Samsung Electronics Co. is rolling out a new AI-powered assistant that acts as a virtual health companion, joining a growing number of tech companies using chatbots to deliver personalized wellness insights to its users.Samsung Health Assistant pulls in data from the user’s Galaxy smartphone, smartwatch or smart ring, the company said Tuesday. The firm also announced a series of other features coming to its health platform, particularly around heart metrics.
Apple Testing 7-Inch Display for Largest 20th Anniversary iPhone Model
Apple is reportedly prototyping a larger iPhone display measuring roughly 6.96 inches, which would likely be marketed as a 7-inch panel if it reaches production. According to Chinese leaker Digital Chat Station, Apple is testing the display internally in preparation for the 20th anniversary iPhone, which is expected to launch next year.
OpenAI projects ChatGPT ad growth amid market doubts
OpenAI, led by CEO Sam Altman, is working to grow its ChatGPT ad business amid skepticism about its ambitious revenue projections.
Vermont Passes Chatbot Mental Health Law That Raises Questions About Therapists Rubber-Stamping AI Advice
Vermont passed a new law on AI and mental health. One aspect to note is whether therapists will rubber-stamp AI. An AI Insider analysis and scoop.
Dodgers vs. Phillies game chat
Dodgers return to a park they last visited during that historic 2025 postseason campaign. Monday’s game info
UFC Freedom 250 Fails to Knock Out The Ratings
(Welcome to my weekly streaming ratings report, the single best guide to what’s popular in streaming TV and what isn’t. I’m the Entertainment Strategy Guy, a former streaming executive who now analyzes business strategy in the entertainment industry. If you were forwarded this email, please subscribe to get these insights each week.) If UFC fans wanted one image to say, “Hey, Paramount+ is crushing it with their UFC rights deal,” I could provide that image. Here it is: (Reminder: this is my creation of the Nielsen Top 30, since Nielsen doesn’t combine the lists or include sports. I take all three lists and combine them. Some streaming TV shows probably have higher ratings than many of the films on this list.) Look at that! UFC Freedom 250 is number one! It topped the Nielsen “Top 30” list for shows and films that made the top ten the week of 15-June. So if you’re a UFC fan or supporter of Paramount+, that’s the good news for you this week. This program topped the ratings charts for one week. Everything else is bad news, or at least a huge caveat to that story, which I’ll explain today in the first part of this week’s Streaming Ratings Report—for the weeks of 8-June and 15-June—which is a double issue since I’ve been writing on a bunch of topics recently. UFC Freedom 250 is one of the biggest streaming events of the year, and super relevant to Paramount+’s strategy, so it merited its own article. Let’s dive in! (Reminder: The streaming ratings report focuses on the U.S. market and compiles data from Nielsen’s weekly top ten viewership ranks, Luminate’s Top Ten Data, JustWatch and Reelgood interest data, Samba TV household viewership, company datecdotes, Netflix hours viewed data, Google Trends, and IMDb to determine the most popular content. While most data points are current, Nielsen’s data covers the weeks of June 8th to June 21st 2026. You can find a link to my terminology here.) Subscribe Check Out My Interview on UFC 250 at MMA Draw After you read this article, if you want even more thoughts on UFC and Paramount-Skydance/Paramount+, I did a written interview with MMA Draw. They asked me to answer some questions about UFC Freedom 250, and I was happy to chat with them. Find it here: [ The MMA Draw Newsletter Did Paramount really overpay for the UFC? What the data tells us so far If you know the history of American television, you also know that combat sports is often a leading indicator of the future… Read more a day ago · 10 likes · 1 comment · Nate Wilcox and Zach Arnold ](https://www.themmadraw.com/p/did-paramount-really-overpay-for?utm_source=substack&utm_campaign=post_embed&utm_medium=web) I never thought I’d need a combat sports newsletter in my life, but the good folks at MMA Draw publish an excellent one on UFC, MMA, pro wrestling, boxing and more, analyzing both the sports themselves and the politics, economics and antitrust issues that impact them. Check the article and their newsletter out! Paramount+ Has Its Best Sporting Event of All Time…But Was It Worth It? Before we look at the UFC Freedom 250 data in particular, let’s talk about what we can’t say. Namely, let’s start with the lack of comparisons. First off, I’d love to put a chart out comparing this fight to past UFC fights on Paramount+…but we don’t have the data. This is the first time we’ve gotten Nielsen data about a Paramount+ UFC fight. As far as I can tell, Paramount provided data for the first fight, but it was a proprietary datecdote (saying it had “an average minute audience” of 5 million “views”) and then, for two fights, we got the linear viewership numbers when they aired on CBS, but no streaming data. Everything else was crickets. We also can’t compare this fight to other fights/combat sports on streaming, in particular the MMA and boxing, because Netflix also didn’t use Nielsen to track those events, opting for TVision and VideoAmp, respectively. (This isn’t Paramount’s fault, but does still suck.) We also can’t compare to UFC’s fights that used to be on ESPN+, since we don’t have any data for that, plus Disney+ didn’t have marquee fights. The comparisons would not be apples-to-apples. Can we compare to past Pay-Per-View fights? Absolutely not. The comparisons would absolutely NOT be apples-to-apples. That didn’t stop Paramount+, though, who bragged that their UFC events have reached drastically more people than past PPV fights. Duh. Sorry, but I gotta make this point again. A basic tenet of economics is that the cheaper something becomes, the more people consume or buy it. That’s Econ 101. (Sometimes pundits call things “Econ 101” that are actually like Econ 210 or even PhD-level economics, but no, this is really like first or second class basic economics.) Yet I still see one analytics firm consistently say that more people watch films on streaming than PVOD proves streaming which means that the streaming window is more valuable than the PVOD window. No, it’s not! Same thing here. Pay-Per-View events back in the day could be really, really, really expensive! So whole groups of people pitched in to buy them. That increased the perceived value of, say, the Mike Tyson fight. Or a UFC numbered event. So yes, the fact that Paramount+ makes numbered UFC fights essentially “free” if you’re already a Paramount+ member means consumption will go up. Obviously. Same for Netflix and their boxing matches. They’re talking about fights that used to cost consumers, in some cases, $50 in 1996…which is over $100 in today’s dollars. Over 1.6 million people paid that to watch the Tyson-Holyfield fight! Again, streaming is essentially “free”. Or $10 to $20, depending on what streamer we’re talking about and what tier you’re on. No wonder more people are “watching”. (Plus, Nielsen’s out-of-home viewing also helps these numbers.) UFC Freedom 250 Did Well…But I Have A Lot of Worries So what can we compare the fights to? Well, the good news is Nielsen put out that the fight averaged 7.0 million viewers for UFC Freedom 250, which is a solid number for a fight. We also know the length, at roughly 4 and a half hours. (I saw different run times, but this seems to be the consensus considering it started at 8 pm, had a delay and then finished after midnight on the East Coast. If you assume a shorter run time, then yes, the total hours viewed would go down.) That means I have the two numbers needed to add this to my Nielsen database. And then…I can compare this viewership to the NFL: And, uh, not great. But also within striking distance, mainly because the runtime for this event was so long. I’d also add that this event had viewership equal to a regular season NFL game on streaming, but if anything, it was more comparable to an NFL playoff or Super Bowl-esque event. And you can compare viewership to the top football games on broadcast, cable and streaming, and it’s not impressive at all: We can also compare it to other sports that week, including the NBA Finals and start of the World Cup: Again, not great. The NBA generated roughly four times as many average viewers each game for its NBA Finals. The World Cup has similarly big numbers. Also, that’s just a tiny fraction of the 25 most watched sporting events each week. The NBA, NHL and FIFA World Cup had many, many more games racking up hours. We could also compare this to other streaming programs to get an idea of “is this a good investment?” and here is how it ranks compared to other top Paramount+ programs: The worry here? Well, unlike scripted programming, which has rewatchability, older fights/sporting events have very little library value. Very, very few people are rewatching these fights, especially years from now. Paramount has also released datecdotes bragging about their subscriber numbers. Earlier this year, they claimed that the first UFC fight on Paramount+ brought in 1 million subscribers. Then, in their quarterly earnings report, they only ended up with 700K subs. Not great! They claimed they dropped lower-value international subscribers, but that’s why I tend to discount subscriber additions when they’re leaked to the press.1 I expect we may see a bump again for UFC Freedom 250, but I’d caution using subscriber growth so soon after these events to judge the success, since new subs with high churn (see Peacock) aren’t great either. Also, analysts often want to attribute all subscriber growth to their favorite/pet show, and that just doesn’t make sense. The biggest caveat for UFC Freedom 250 and Paramount’s very first UFC marquee event is that these could be high watermarks for the sport. UFC Freedom 250 had an incredible amount of earned media coverage compared to most UFC fights. I mean, it had wall-to-wall national news coverage in the lead up to the event. (The first fight also had a lot of promotion from Paramount since it was first.) Other fights could reach this bar—say the Conor McGregor return to the Octagon—but they’ll be fewer and far between. Was This Deal Worth It? All to ask: is this Paramount deal worth it? In this case, I think the UFC Freedom 250 numbers are more distracting than helpful. This fight did well and compares well to other top sporting events. But we know that the first marquee event was at least a third smaller, if Paramount’s own data is to be believed. And it’s likely the other fights are much, much, much smaller. And then you get to the paycheck that Paramount-Skydance paid. FIFA’s World Cup cost about the same for Fox, but clearly generated multiples more total viewership. (Though it’s only every four years.) The NBA is much more expensive, but until the playoffs, they likely didn’t pay for itself. Even still, Disney, NBCUniversal and Amazon Prime Video likely overpaid. So, in that context, the NBA may be an overpay that makes the UFC look not so bad. But two overpays don’t make an underpay, to paraphrase the old cliché about wrongs and rights. And looking at UFC Freedom 250 as the likely ceiling of MMA on Paramount+, Paramount-Skydance likely paid too much. Share 1 I would love regular reports on subscriber additions by programs, but as is, it’s mostly leaked or rumored in haphazard ways.
AI is becoming part of UK adults' health information journey
New YouGov data reveals how UK adults use AI tools like ChatGPT for health information, where they fit into the health journey and their perceived benefits.
Dodgers vs. Yankees game chat
The Dodgers look to sweep the Yankees in the Bronx on Sunday. SUNDAY GAME INFO
Politics chat: How much faith can you have in the country's election systems?
President Trump and Secretary of Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin make claims about the vulnerability of election systems in the U.S., but how true are those claims?
5 things Gemini still can't do that keep me paying for ChatGPT
Gemini has improved dramatically, but I still can't cancel my ChatGPT subscription. These are the five shortcomings holding it back.
Small Business Technology News Roundup: IBM Shares Crash, ChatGPT To Replace Wall Street Analysts
IBM shares collapse, OpenAI says AI will replace workers, Upwork says AI is reshaping freelancing, Microsoft will let you pause Windows 11 updates, Expensify consolidates travel billing
Voyageur Canoe Outfitters navigates business impacts from BWCAW closures, wildfires
Summer days at the end of the Gunflint Trail usually begin with tow-boats idling at the dock, canoes entering the water, and the excited chatter of guests and outfitter guides before a Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness (BWCAW) trip begins. This week, however, the atmosphere around Voyageur Canoe Outfitters and other outfitter businesses along the...
Joanna Stern: An open letter to OpenAI’s secret gadget
The ChatGPT maker is working on its own physical device, which is shrouded in mystery — and controversy.
20 places on Earth that scientists still can't fully explain
From a Himalayan lake whose DNA results deepened its own mystery to a Siberian blast that still defies full explanation, these are 20 real places science hasn't fully cracked
Todd Howard Dismisses 'Fan Chatter' About Purported Rivalry Between Bethesda and Obsidian as the New Vegas Developer Starts Work on a New Fallout Game
Todd Howard has dismissed what he described as “fan chatter” about a supposed rivalry between Fallout developers Bethesda Game Studios and Obsidian Entertainment.
Illinois takes action against new business promoted by Chicago businessman 'Brandon Mr. Finance'
The Illinois secretary of state is warning consumers about a new business being promoted by "Brandon Mr. Finance," and has issued a cease-and-desist order against the venture.
Why is OpenAI selling a ChatGPT basketball?
You may have heard that OpenAI released its first piece of hardware this week. You may not have heard about the ChatGPT basketball.
Elite Entertainment’s award winning services can enhance your next event
This morning on “The Rhode Show” we welcomed DJ Kenny and DJ Armando of Elite Entertainment they chatted with Brendan Kirby about their careers, what they do, and how, for the 10th consecutive year…
Colorado festivals feature lavender, jazz, Celtic entertainment this weekend
Lavender Festival: The fragrant purple herb has many uses, and you’ll be a new person after visiting the more than 2,000 plants at this festival, with its guided tours, and food and drinks made with lavender, 9 a.m.-4 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, Denver Botanic Gardens, Chatfield Farms location, 8500 W. Deer Creek Canyon Road, Littleton, […]
Colorado festivals feature lavender, jazz, Celtic entertainment, whitewater competitions this weekend
Lavender Festival: The fragrant purple herb has many uses, and you’ll be a new person after visiting the more than 2,000 plants at this festival, with its guided tours, and food and drinks made with lavender, 9 a.m.-4 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, Denver Botanic Gardens, Chatfield Farms location, 8500 W. Deer Creek Canyon Road, Littleton, […]
Timothée Chalamet and David Beckham, Summer of Sports Kings, Meet at the World Cup
Grabbing a chat in the VIP box at the France vs Spain match, Timothée Chalamet and David Beckham’s game-day fits couldn’t be more different.
Chattanooga officials hope to launch business grant program in blighted corridors
Chattanooga officials are hoping to launch a grant program for local businesses outside the downtown core later this year.
OpenAI may announce a ChatGPT smart speaker this year
And it’s working on even more hardware projects.
AI Is Quietly Fueling America’s Small-Business Boom
New U.S. business applications hit 5.6 million in 2025 and have risen 24% since ChatGPT launched, Citadel Securities reported in a July research note,
47 revelatory hours with Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced
To review this month’s supposed remake of 2013’s Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag, I must first correct the record. Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced isn’t a game about pirates (and assassins) in the 18th century Caribbean. Sure, sure, that’s what the trailers would have you believe. They’ve go their clips of Edward Kenway swinging his swords and steering his pirate ship into cannon-blasting combat against British frigates. Is Resynced truly a pirate game? Of the 47 hours I spent playing Resynced over the past few weeks, I will admit I spent maybe 44 (?) of them collecting plunder with Blackbeard, drinking rum with Anne Bonny and debating the pros and cons of the lawless pirate-run settlement Nassau with Benjamin Hornigold. I may in fact have spent dozens of hours sailing to remote islands, reading treasure maps, opening messages left in bottles, sinking the odd Man o’ War with a well-timed broadside, collecting sea shanties for my crew, befriending a pet monkey, and hunting whales. I am nevertheless neither so Gullible nor so Narrow-Minded as to call the magnificent Resynced a “pirate remake.” Oh no. Forget any reviews of Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced you may have read. Forget what you yourself may have played, if you’ve spent any time with the game since its launch. What Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced is really about I’m here to give you the scoop (spoilers for Resynced’s Animus menu lore, which many players are probably not going to see): Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced, the new game whose development was led by Ubisoft Singapore, is set in the year 2096. It’s about a societal split, about revolution, about an old Assassin’s Creed adventure repurposed in the series’ distant future as propaganda or samizdat. It’s about the overheated future of 2096, essentially conquered by the series’ well-established nefarious Templar-run company Abstergo. (In this future, Abstergo is, among other things, remaking a 2013 pirate movie called Devils of the Caribbean, but this time in VR. The VR version will be backed by a marketing plan that involves AI influencers, a 10,000-avatar “metaverse premiere event” and that manufacturing of memes aimed at “50 million VR nodes.” See what I mean about Abstergo being evil?) Resynced is about a late 21st-century population mollified by the widespread use of Abstergo’s Animus devices which let people experience the lives of historical figures culled from “genetic memories.” It’s about an insurgent faction of Assassins. And it’s about a plan to wake the population into revolutionary fervor by showing them the memories of 18th century pirate Edward Kenway, who—as depicted in the original Black Flag and again in Resynced—gradually comes to an understanding about the Assassins of his day and their centuries old fight for freedom. Resynced is also about an AI developed within the late 21st-century Animus, called Ego. It has found a way to alter genetic memories, to create and show Animus users false ones. The game is about Ego’s efforts to tell the people experiencing Edward Kenway’s memories that Kenway was wrong, that fighting against order is folly, that we should crave a world where “compliance is rewarded with power.” Who are we in this game? We’re an unnamed Animus user in 2096 who experiences Kenway’s journey virtually. At four moments during Kenway’s exploits in the Caribbean our virtual jaunt can be interrupted for 10-15 minutes, as we explore Animus “rifts” where Ego explicitly tries to tell us how wrong Kenway was. None of this is what 2013’s Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag was about, of course. That was a different game, even if you also spent dozens of hours pirating as Kenway in that game, across missions and a map that’s been faithfully reintroduced and rebuilt for Resynced. The 2013 Black Flag was about you playing as an unnamed researcher newly hired in 2013 by Abstergo Entertainment, the video game development wing of the Templars’ evil-corp. In that game, you were assigned to use the Animus to dive into the genetic memories of Desmond Miles, a man who died in Assassin’s Creed III and who was descended from a long line of Assassins (and at least one Templar) whose adventures were featured across the prior AC games. In 2013’s Black Flag, your mission was to plumb the Edward Kenway experience for material that Abstergo could use in productions such as the motion picture Devils of the Caribbean, though the Templars had some ulterior motives for the assignment. Resynced is therefore not a remake of 2013’s Black Flag. It’s a sequel. It is a new game about a new exploration of Edward Kenway’s pirate/assassin journey, set 83 years after the framing sequences of the original game. Resynced provides a new narrative framework that, thanks to the concept of an AI that wants to alter historical memories, arrives with creative justification to tweak a now-classic 13-year old game. That makes Resynced, already a hot seller, a tantalizing hint of where Ubisoft could go with a line of Assassin’s Creed remakes. They could remake the first game, the Ezio games, even the recent ones set in ancient Egypt and Greece. And for each, they could not just modernize the graphics and controls but expand and alter their sequences of events to use them as reference points for a conflict set in the late 21st century, as rival factions try to weaponize historical memories. Game File is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, even when that work consists of ravings about Assassin’s Creed’s modern day plot, please consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Subscribe A story most players will probably miss If you didn’t know any of this, I’m not surprised. If you played the game and still didn’t catch it, I’m not a bit shocked. If Ubisoft has no plans to do more of this, I won’t fall down. Almost all of what I’ve described is optional and missable in Black Flag Resynced. I nearly missed it myself, as I planned for a breezy playthrough of an old Assassin’s Creed favorite. Instead, I found myself in a 40+ hour hunt for the “real” story, buried deeper in Resynced than any gold-filled chest. The story of 2096 is Resynced’s meta-story, told in two remote pockets of the game: 1) four optional playable “rifts” that players may find as they proceed through Resynced’s pirate fantasy , 2) in dozens of text files tucked three menus deep in the game’s barely-interactive Animus hub. Assassin’s Creed games have almost always had a meta-story about people in the 21st century (usually matching the game’s release year) and their connections to the main history portions you play. Those meta-stories have always been squeezed into the margins, though seldom as severely and as, uh, graphiaclly simple, as in recent games. Back in 2013, the modern-day exploits of you as an Abstergo Entertainment employee were prominent. They were portrayed via first-person portions that occasionally interrupted the third-person Kenway experience and could be explored for hours, complete with their own missions, side quests and puzzles. Resynced’s 2096 story—of Assassin “Watchers” vs. Abstergo/Tempar goons, of rogue AIs, of panicking scientists, of a woman wondering why her Animus-addicted husband is muttering about Mary Read (“What does he mean by Assassins?”), of a fight for the population’s hearts and minds via varying interpretations of Edward Kenway’s life choices—is mostly told through unlockable text files. The files are interesting. Offered via diary entries, intercepted chats and news reports, they present varied perspectives of a world in crisis. One set works as a narrative puzzle as it reveals the Rashomonic interpretations of a massacre, or was that a successful Assassin hit? Another favorite reveals the rising bitterness of a person who, through Edward Kenway’s journey, now shakes at the ignored evil around him. One surmises that Ubisoft is averse to putting the Assassin’s Creed’s meta-story in the way of more marketable pirate playgrounds and ninja/samurai epics. Instead, we get a better-than-nothing text-in-menus approach introduced in 2025’s Assassin’s Creed Shadows. In Shadows, players unlocked the meta-story text files largely via time-gated missions that called on the user to kill X number of enemy type Y, clear three enemy castles, re-win a three-phase fighting tournament, and other grinds. Time restrictions on accessing these missions and unlocking the files meant it could take players months to access the full story in-game. But even in the most hardcore Assassin’s Creed hangouts, the fanbase instead seemed to throw up their hands rather than grind to keep up. In Resynced, Ubisoft has shown some mercy, diminishing the amount of new text files that are tied to timed grinds. Now, most of the text-based 2096 lore are associated with “data file” collectibles that players can find in the world. That includes a batch of written entries that explain a historical link between the feudal Japan era in Shadows and the piracy adventures in Black Flag. Players who explore a lot will find dozens of data files, though the game does not appear to offer any in-game tracker for finding each one. You just need to keep looking for them. As of this writing, I have most of them, but not all. I can’t find any full guide for them online. And even Ubisoft’s optional $5 microtransaction that reveals lots of items in-game does not appear to reveal the locations of the text files (at least the official description omits them from its collectibles list). That’s not a huge bother, because tracking the data files down compelled me to re-explore the waves and islands of Black Flag. That was a thoroughly pleasant task to do for the first time in a dozen years. I expect many players, though, will be content to wait for the files to be reproduced in an online AC wiki somewhere, the easier to read on a web page. It may not seem enticing to play a video game in order to gradually unlock pages of text to read. Why not, you may ask, just read a book, where they put the pages in order? For one, they’ve not tucked this latest installment of Assassin’s Creed’s meta saga in a book. I also enjoy the unordered delivery, the dawning comprehension of a story about 2096’s desperate people and questionable tech, which I glimpsed first at its middle, then the end, then the front, then other moments in between1. I am also enamored with the idea of the Assassin’s Creed games I’ve previously played, including Black Flag, being repurposed for an information war. The ideas in Resynced’s meta-story, which builds off characters and ideas in Shadows’ chunks of text, are strong. The potential of where they could go with it is exciting. As for the pirate stuff? Looks great, controls pretty well, is fun to play and oh so speedy in terms of how much of a good time you can have with each sit-down. It never gets old to chase a new shanty page across a rooftop, bombard a fort with upgraded mortars or use a diving bell to explore sunken wrecks (hats off to the team at Ubisoft Barcelona that worked on the underwater portions in Resynced; that team is now facing layoffs, such is the misery of modern gaming and oft-troubled Ubisoft). New pirate missions in Resynced involving new ally characters are brief, dramatic and add more to Edward’s story, even if the gameplay perks they provide barely enhance the gameplay. A new denouement for high-class pirate Stede Bonnet is affecting; a new hunt for Blackbeard’s treasure is a welcome extra moment. A new epilogue to hunt down a pirate killer, on the other hand, over-complicates Kenway’s character. The ending credits remain my favorite of any game I’ve ever played. Black Flag provides great source material. The revisit is well-made and a great sign of what could be. It is offered in a different wrapper that hints at an opportunity for more interesting remakes to come, should Ubisoft choose to pursue such treasures—and as we brace to resist or comply with an Abstergo future. 1 The messages that Edward Kenway finds in bottles tell another out-of-order story, one about a man reckoning with the strange memories and voices he’s heard in his head since he was a boy. That tale was also in the 2013 game and develops into one of Black Flag’s most compelling character arcs. In Resynced, it has lost its climax, because the bottle story previously paid off in the halls of the first-person Abstergo Entertainment, which is exclusive to the older game. An altered resolution, written by the 2013 game’s lead writer is fine, doesn’t invalidate the 2013 version, but makes for an inferior final note.
“Meaningless without the Hope of Jesus”: Willie and Korie Robertson on the Uplifting Entertainment Hub of eKKL
We recently sat down with Stan Jantz to chat about The Chosen, the Come and See foundation, and an ambitious mission to translate the series into 600 languages and share the authentic Jesus with 1 billion people around the globe.