Friday, 27 February 2026
Anthropic refuses to bow to Pentagon despite Hegseth's threats
Despite an ultimatum from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Anthropic said that it can't "in good conscience" comply with a Pentagon edict to remove guardrails on its AI, CEO Dario Amodei wrote in a blog post. The Department of Defense had threatened to cancel a $200 million contract and label Anthropic a "supply chain risk" if it didn't agree to remove safeguards over mass surveillance and autonomous weapons.
"Our strong preference is to continue to serve the Department and our warfighters — with our two requested safeguards in place," Amodei said. "We remain ready to continue our work to support the national security of the United States."
In response, US Under Secretary of Defense Emil Michael accused Amodei in a post on X of wanting "nothing more than to try to personally control the US military and is OK putting our nation's safety at risk."
The standoff began when the Pentagon demanded that Anthropic its Claude AI product available for "all lawful purposes" — including mass surveillance and the development of fully autonomous weapons that can kill without human supervision. Anthropic refused to offer its tech for those things, even with a "safety stack" built into that model.
Yesterday, Axios reported that Hegseth gave Anthropic a deadline of 5:01 PM on Friday to agree to the Pentagon's terms. At the same time, the DoD requested an assessment of its reliance on Claude, an initial step toward potentially labelling Anthropic as a "supply chain risk" — a designation usually reserved for firms from adversaries like China and "never before applied to an American company," Anthropic wrote.
Amodei declined to change his stance and stated that if the Pentagon chose to offboard Anthropic, "we will work to enable a smooth transition to another provider, avoiding any disruption to ongoing military planning, operations or other critical missions." Grok is one of the other providers the DoD is reportedly considering, along with Google's Gemini and OpenAI.
It may not be that simple for the military to disentangle itself from Claude, however. Up until now, Anthropic's model has been the only one allowed for the military's most sensitive tasks in intelligence, weapons development and battlefield operations. Claude was reportedly used in the Venezuelan raid in which the US military exfiltrated the country's president, Nicolás Maduro, and his wife.
AI companies have been widely criticized for potential harm to users, but mass surveillance and weapons development would clearly take that to a new level. Anthropic's potential reply to the Pentagon was seen as a test of its claim to be the most safety-forward AI company, particularly after dropping its flagship safety pledge a few days ago. Now that Amodei has responded, the focus will shift to the Pentagon to see if it follows through on its threats, which could seriously harm Anthropic.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://ift.tt/d3ShEFAfrom Engadget is a web magazine with obsessive daily coverage of everything new in gadgets and consumer electronics https://ift.tt/d3ShEFA
Thursday, 26 February 2026
Pokémon Red And Blue: The Kotaku Retro Review
The original Pokémon games may be clunky by modern standards, but their timelessness has been proven by everything that followed
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Beloved PS4 Action Shooter Shutting Down After a Decade
A beloved Crytek PS4 multiplayer shooter is shutting down on all platforms after 13 years of service. Warface: Clutch, formerly known as just Warface, will take servers offline first for PC in Summer 2026 and later for consoles.
Crytek PS4 shooter Warface: Clutch will shut down in August 2026
Warface launched on PC in 2013, but it wasn’t until 2018 that the game was ported to the PS4. The free-to-play shooter was originally developed by Crytek and was later handed over to Blackwood Games. Its current developer and publisher is My.Games.
Warface PC servers will shut down on May 27, 2026, and its console servers will shut down on August 25. Besides PS4 and PC, the game is available on Xbox 360, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch.
Starting today, players will no longer be able to make in-game purchases, and payments have been disabled. However, the game, as well as all previously purchased content, will remain accessible until servers go dark.
“This decision was made after careful internal discussions and an evaluation of the project’s long-term prospects,” My.Games explained. “As part of a broader internal process, the company chose to reallocate its resources toward other products and new initiatives and focus on future developments.”
This is your last chance to earn Warface’s trophies.
The post Beloved PS4 Action Shooter Shutting Down After a Decade appeared first on PlayStation LifeStyle.
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Gaming accessory maker and publisher Nacon files for insolvency
French AA gaming developer and accessory manufacturer Nacon has filed for insolvency after its majority shareholder Bigben failed to make a loan repayment, the company said in a press release. "To date, the company reports available assets do not allow it to meet its liabilities," Nacon wrote. The objective with insolvency, it said, was to allow "continued operation, protect employees and maintain jobs while renegotiating with its creditors."
Nacon is behind the games Styx: Blades of Greed and was set to publish Terminator: Survivors before that title was delayed. It published Hell is Us last year to some praise, but Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown was buggy on release and failed to find much of an audience. The company will stream its next Nacon Connect presentation on March 4, and will supposedly show off some new games and footage for previously revealed games like Endurance Motorsport Series and Cthulhu: The Cosmic Abyss.
The company also makes hardware like controllers and headsets and racing sim accessories via its Revosim brand. Those products never really caught on with mainstream gamers but did have some success with the pro gaming crowd.
With Nacon's insolvency, the future of those games and accessories is now in question. A court will decide on the company's insolvency request at a hearing in early March, but in the meantime, trading of its shares is suspended.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://ift.tt/SnJsvFUfrom Engadget is a web magazine with obsessive daily coverage of everything new in gadgets and consumer electronics https://ift.tt/SnJsvFU
Wednesday, 25 February 2026
Incoming PS5 Pro PSSR Update Will Prevent Frame Rate Drops
The highly anticipated PS5 Pro PSSR 2.0 update is expected to launch in early 2026, and although Sony has yet to detail what it’ll entail, a newly discovered company patent explains what players can expect. Patents don’t always come to fruition, but this one specifically pertains to Sony’s AI upscaler and how it’ll prevent frame rate drops in graphically intensive in-game sequences, strongly suggesting that this is one of the incoming improvements.
How PS5 Pro PSSR 2.0 update aims to prevent frame rate drops
As spotted by Tech4Gamers, the patent was filed in July 2025, around the same time we started hearing about the evolution of PSSR. In its filing, Sony argues that complex in-game sequences can result in frame rate drops and reduced image quality — something its new multi-frame super resolution (MFSR) will address.
As for how, Sony says that a trained artificial neural network (ANN) will actively monitor the processing unit within a PS5 Pro. During high loads, its new system will reduce the precision of the AI upscaler in a way that doesn’t compromise frame rate and resolution. As a result, there won’t be noticeable dips in performance during such sequences.
“When an application or game has a high load point, then the framerate of the MFSR graphics output can suffer, leading to a reduced quality experience for the user. This is particularly problematic in fast-paced games,” the patent reads. “The present invention advantageously optimizes memory access and computation times for generating the MFSR graphics output in dependence on the monitored usage of the processing unit during gameplay.”
This is not only good news for the PS5 Pro but also for the upcoming PS6.
Although Sony has confirmed PSSR 2.0, a release date for the update has not been announced.
The post Incoming PS5 Pro PSSR Update Will Prevent Frame Rate Drops appeared first on PlayStation LifeStyle.
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