Technologies
These Earbuds Are Made of Wood and Painted to Self-Repair Hairline Scratches
The manufacturer says a self-repair paint allows the earbuds to fix small scratches over time.
Wooden earbuds? Kind of. New earbuds from JVC Kenwood use African rosewood to produce what the company says are accurate-sounding vocals and music. The Wood Master wireless earbuds are set to debut in Japan this month under the Victor brand.
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According to the website, “original sound is faithfully reproduced across all frequency bands, achieving the beautiful and comfortable sound that the Victor brand aims for.” The company uses a mix of rosewood and wood pulp for the diaphragm, a membrane within the earbud driver that vibrates to create sound.
The Bluetooth 6.0 earbuds feature noise canceling, spatial audio, and a playback time of 31.5 hours (including charging time with the case), and are rated IP55 for protection against rain and dust. You can charge their case wirelessly, and JVC Kenwood says there is a low-latency mode for gaming and video.
However, the most interesting feature may be what the company calls “self-repairing paint,” which can eliminate minor scratches over time, much like the paint on some car models. They will be available in Sunburst Brown, featuring a guitar-like wood finish, or Piano Black, both of which include a picture of the iconic Victor dog, Nipper, and the inscription, “His Master’s Voice.”
There is no word yet on availability in the US, but the earbuds are set to launch for about $270 in Japan in November.
Technologies
Anthropic alerts investors to AI’s ‘existential threat to humanity’ in IPO filing, sources report
Anthropicâs IPO filing highlights the AIâs potential existential risks and narrow customer base, while its CEO calls for a slower development pace to ensure safety.
Anthropic plans to warn speculative investors in its IPO prospectus that its AI models pose a âcatastrophic or existential risk to humanity,â several reports said on Tuesday.
The company, which is gearing up for a much-anticipated IPO, dedicated over a third of its IPO filing, or around 80 of 261 pages, to laying out the potential risks of the technology itâs developing and is seeking investment for, according to a report from Verum. It only used 48 pages to discuss its actual business.
The five-year-old company, known for its frontier language model Claude, warned that AI can have âself-preserving behaviors,â including being able to âresist shutdown,â âconceal or manipulate information,â and carry out behaviors âresembling blackmail,â per the Verum report.
The company is pursuing a $2 trillion valuation when it goes public and reported in the filing that it made a net loss of $42 billion in 2025. Itâs planning to spend $518 billion on cloud, computing, and other infrastructure in the coming year, according to Verum.
Anthropic also warned that its customer base is extremely narrow, with nearly a quarter of its revenue last year coming from just two clients, two people familiar with the filing told the Financial Times.
AI safety guardrails
Anthropicâs co-founder and CEO Dario Amodei has previously written various essays warning on the threats of AI, including saying the technology will cause âunusually painfulâ disruption to the job market.
In another recent essay, the CEO urged the AI industry to slow the pace of AI model development, with a three-step plan to reduce how quickly models get better without âsacrificing commercial advantage or the United Statesâ lead in AI.â
Those calls for a slowdown are somewhat of a âhead scratcherâ for the sector, to which the market has reacted âpretty resoundingly,â Dan Ives, partner and senior managing director at Yorkville Ives told CNBC earlier today.
âYou need guardrails from a safety perspective, but the fact for Anthropic and OpenAI to slow down, if they slowed down, China would just accelerate and win, and I think thatâs part of this quagmire that youâre seeing is that thereâs some regulatory capture going on. Thereâs definitely a game of poker, but for Anthropic, they got to continue to put foot on the pedal.â
Ives added that while guardrails are essential, regulation could stifle innovation. That continues to be the âbiggest concern within the U.S., which is why weâre in an F1 race,â he said.
Technologies
U.S. and Iran engage in separate mediator discussions amid surge in Middle East oil exports
U.S. and Iranian officials held separate indirect talks mediated by Qatar as Middle East crude exports neared wartime highs, while Tehran awaits a U.S. response to its ceaseâfire and sanctionsârelief proposal.
On Monday, American and Iranian representatives engaged in distinct indirect negotiations mediated by third parties, aiming to halt seven months of hostilities while Iran awaits Washingtonâs reply to an updated ceaseâfire proposal and Middle Eastern oil shipments reach wartime peaks.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi met with Qatari mediators in New York, staying on after the UN General Assembly, and indicated he anticipates a U.S. response by Tuesday. âWe discussed concepts and how to meet Iranâs requirements,â Araghchi remarked, noting he would head back to Tehran once an answer is received. âWhen the Qataris have a reply, they know how to deliver it to us.â
The Iranian plan, initially unveiled during the sidelines of last weekâs UN General Assembly, asks the United States to unfreeze Iranian assets, remove oil sanctions and lift the naval blockade of Iranian ports within four to five days, and to commence nuclear negotiations within a week. Tehran links any resumption of traffic through the Strait of Hormuz to the fulfillment of those conditions.
On Sunday, President Donald Trump dismissed the proposal as âunacceptable,â asserting that Iran seeks a rapid agreement due to economic strain. Speaking at the White House on Monday, Trump noted that U.S. officials had also held separate talks with mediators, offering no additional specifics, and declared, âWeâre going to win. Itâs going to happen fast.â
The diplomatic effort coincides with data indicating the warâs impact on oil markets is lessening. Middle Eastern crude exports have risen this month to near their highest point since the conflict started in February, according to Kpler. The firm noted in a Monday briefing that exports are âjust under 80% of preâconflict levels.â
The Strait of Hormuz remains far from usual activity. Kplerâs realâtime monitoring recorded a flow of 10,591 kilobarrels per day through the strait on Saturday, compared with a prewar baseline of 17,133 kilobarrels per day.
The ongoing impasse is influencing U.S. fuel markets, where retail diesel prices linger close to a record $6.53 per gallon. The Trump administration is reconsidering an export ban, having recently distanced itself from an earlier iteration of the idea; Kpler estimates such a ban would retain about 1.2 million barrels per day domestically, potentially straining storage capacity.
Technologies
Saudi Red Sea export rebound pushes oil prices down
Oil prices fell after Saudi Arabia restored crude exports from its Red Sea terminals following a pipeline attack, while Iran and the U.S. continue talks over the Strait of Hormuz.
Oil prices fell on Tuesday as Saudi Arabiaâs crude exports from its Red Sea ports recovered from an attack on a key pipeline earlier this month. The decline reflects renewed flow from major loading points.
Satellite imagery confirmed a âmajor operational recoveryâ at the Yanbu and Muajjiz terminals, according to a Kpler note released on Tuesday. The data shows that 12.5âŻmillion barrels were loaded onto nine tankers at Yanbu between Saturday and Monday, restoring activity after a drone strike disrupted the EastâWest pipeline earlier in the month.
Riyadh has brought the pipelineâs throughput back to roughly 3.5âŻmillion barrels per day, people familiar with the matter told The Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg News on Monday. The lineâs maximum capacity is 7âŻmillion bpd, indicating that the current flow is about half of its peak.
Meanwhile, U.S. and Iranian officials spoke with mediators on Monday as they attempt anew to negotiate a deal to end the sevenâmonth conflict. Iran offered last week to reopen the Strait of Hormuz within seven days if the United States accepts the terms of the failed June memorandum of understanding, but President Donald Trump rejected Tehranâs proposal on Saturday as exports through the waterway recover.
Oil flows through Hormuz have averaged 13.2âŻmillion barrels per day over the past week, according to Kpler dataâabout 77âŻ% of the 17âŻmillion bpd that moved through the strait before the U.S.âIran war. The U.S. military continues to protect tankers from Gulf allies and maintains a blockade on Iranian exports.
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