Microsoft Employee Disrupts 50th Anniversary and Calls AI Boss ‘War Profiteer’
An anonymous reader shares a report: A Microsoft employee disrupted the company’s 50th anniversary event to protest its use of AI. “Shame on you,” said Microsoft employee Ibtihal Aboussad, speaking directly to Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman. “You are a war profiteer. Stop using AI for genocide. Stop using AI for genocid … ⌘ Read more

Hackers Strike Australia’s Largest Pension Funds in Coordinated Attacks
Hackers targeting Australia’s major pension funds in a series of coordinated attacks have stolen savings from some members at the biggest fund, Reuters is reporting, citing a source, and compromised more than 20,000 accounts. From the report: National Cyber Security Coordinator Michelle McGuinness said in a statement she was aware of “c … ⌘ Read more

Windows 11 Poised To Beat 10, Mostly Because It Has To
An anonymous reader shares a report: The gap between Windows 10 and Windows 11 continues to narrow, and Microsoft’s flagship operating system is on track to finally surpass its predecessor by summer. The latest figures from Statcounter show the increase in Windows 11’s market share accelerating, while Windows 10 declines.

Before Champagne corks start popping in Redmond … ⌘ Read more

AI Could Affect 40% of Jobs and Widen Inequality Between Nations, UN Warns
An anonymous reader shares a report: AI is projected to reach $4.8 trillion in market value by 2033, but the technology’s benefits remain highly concentrated, according to the U.N. Trade and Development agency. In a report released on Thursday, UNCTAD said the AI market cap would roughly equate to the size of Germany’s economy, with … ⌘ Read more

Camera Makers Defend Proprietary RAW Formats Despite Open Standard Alternative
Camera manufacturers continue to use different proprietary RAW file formats despite the 20-year existence of Adobe’s open-source DNG (Digital Negative) format, creating ongoing compatibility challenges for photographers and software developers.

Major manufacturers including Sony, Canon, and Panasonic defended their prop … ⌘ Read more

China Imposes 34% Reciprocal Tariffs on Imports of US Goods
China said Friday that it will impose reciprocal 34% tariffs on all imports from the United States from April 10, making good on a promise to strike back after US President Donald Trump escalated a global trade war. CNN: On Wednesday, Trump unveiled an additional 34% tariff on all Chinese goods imported into the US, in a move poised to cause a major reset o … ⌘ Read more

China Imposes 34% Reciprocal Tariffs on Imports of US Goods
China said Friday that it will impose reciprocal 34% tariffs on all imports from the United States from April 10, making good on a promise to strike back after US President Donald Trump escalated a global trade war. CNN: On Wednesday, Trump unveiled an additional 34% tariff on all Chinese goods imported into the US, in a move poised to cause a major reset o … ⌘ Read more

Visa Bids $100 Million To Replace Mastercard As Apple’s New Credit Card Partner
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: Visa has offered Apple roughly $100 million to take over the tech giant’s credit card partnership from Mastercard, the Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday, citing sources familiar with the matter. Visa has made a bold push to secure the Apple Card, offering an upfro … ⌘ Read more

Coreboot 25.03 Released With Support For 22 More Motherboards
Coreboot 25.03 has been released with support for 22 new motherboards and several other significant updates, including enhanced display handling, USB debugging, RISC-V support, and RAM initialization for older Intel platforms. Phoronix reports: Coreboot 25.03 delivers display handling improvements, a better USB debugging experience, CPU topology upd … ⌘ Read more

The Retro Subway Map That Design Nerds Love Makes a Comeback
The M.T.A. has unveiled on Wednesday a revamped New York City subway map – the first major redesign in nearly 50 years. As reported by the New York Times, the map draws inspiration from the modernist but controversial 1972 Unimark version, prioritizing clarity over geographic precision. It’s also a part of a broader effort to refresh the system’s image … ⌘ Read more

Wealthy Americans Have Death Rates On Par With Poor Europeans
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: […] The study, led by researchers at Brown University, found that the wealthiest Americans lived shorter lives than the wealthiest Europeans. In fact, wealthy Northern and Western Europeans had death rates 35 percent lower than the wealthiest Americans, whose lifespans were more like the poores … ⌘ Read more

Windows 11 Tests Taskbar Icons That Scale Up and Down Like On a Mac
Microsoft is testing a new Windows 11 feature that resizes taskbar icons dynamically like on macOS, with options to shrink icons when the taskbar is full or keep them small at all times. The Verge reports: If you’re on the beta, under Taskbar settings - Taskbar behaviors, you can now select options under Show smaller taskbar buttons: Always … ⌘ Read more

Google’s NotebookLM AI Can Now ‘Discover Sources’ For You
Google’s NotebookLM has added a new “Discover sources” feature that allows users to describe a topic and have the AI find and curate relevant sources from the web – eliminating the need to upload documents manually. “When you tap the Discover button in NotebookLM, you can describe the topic you’re interested in, and NotebookLM will bring back a curated collection … ⌘ Read more

Massive Expansion of Italy’s Piracy Shield Underway
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Techdirt: Walled Culture has been following closely Italy’s poorly designed Piracy Shield system. Back in December we reported how copyright companies used their access to the Piracy Shield system to order Italian Internet service providers (ISPs) to block access to all of Google Drive for the entire country, and how malicious actors … ⌘ Read more

Louvre Museum In Paris to Discontinue Nintendo 3DS Audio Guides
The Louvre Museum will discontinue its use of Nintendo 3DS XL consoles as audio guides by September 2025, replacing them with a new system. NintendoSoup reports: For several years the Louvre has been using specially dedicated New Nintendo 3DS XL consoles to give visitors an audio guided tour of the famous museum. According to the museum’s official … ⌘ Read more

DeepMind Details All the Ways AGI Could Wreck the World
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica, written by Ryan Whitwam: Researchers at DeepMind have … released a new technical paper (PDF) that explains how to develop AGI safely, which you can download at your convenience. It contains a huge amount of detail, clocking in at 108 pages before references. While some in the AI field believe AGI is a pipe d … ⌘ Read more

Air Conditioning, Not Data Centers, Driving Global Energy Demand Growth
Air conditioning will contribute more to rising global energy demand than data centers through 2030, according to an International Energy Agency. While attention has focused on computing power consumption, the IEA projects data centers will account for less than 10% of increased energy demand by 2030, significantly less than space … ⌘ Read more

US Stock Markets See Worst Day Since Covid Pandemic
U.S. stock markets suffered their worst day since the Covid pandemic after Donald Trump announced sweeping new tariffs, triggering a global selloff and wiping out $470 billion in value from tech giants Apple and Nvidia. From a report: The tech-heavy Nasdaq fell 6%, while the S&P 500 and the Dow dropped 4.8% and 3.9%, respectively. […] Meanwhile, the US dollar hit a si … ⌘ Read more

Intel, TSMC Tentatively Agree To Form Chipmaking Joint Venture
Intel and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. have reached a preliminary agreement to form a joint venture operating Intel’s chipmaking facilities, with TSMC taking a 20% stake, The Information reports [non-paywalled source]. Intel and other U.S. semiconductor companies would hold the majority of shares in the proposed venture. Instead of capital inve … ⌘ Read more

Microsoft’s Miniature Windows 365 Link PC Goes On Sale
An anonymous reader shares a report: Microsoft’s business-oriented “Link” mini-desktop PC, which connects directly to the company’s Windows 365 cloud service, is now available to buy for $349.99 in the US and in several other countries. Windows 365 Link, which was announced last November, is a device that is more easily manageable by IT departments than a typical com … ⌘ Read more

Oracle Tells Clients of Second Recent Hack, Log-In Data Stolen
An anonymous reader shares a report: Oracle has told customers that a hacker broke into a computer system and stole old client log-in credentials, according to two people familiar with the matter. It’s the second cybersecurity breach that the software company has acknowledged to clients in the last month.

Oracle staff informed some clients this … ⌘ Read more

Climate Crisis On Track To Destroy Capitalism, Warns Top Insurer
The climate crisis is on track to destroy capitalism, a top insurer has warned, with the vast cost of extreme weather impacts leaving the financial sector unable to operate. From a report: The world is fast approaching temperature levels where insurers will no longer be able to offer cover for many climate risks, said Günther Thallinger, on the b … ⌘ Read more

Climate Firm That Partnered With Meta, Microsoft Goes Bankrupt
Climate startup Aspiration, which boasted a roster of celebrity backers and arranged carbon credits for Meta Platforms, Microsoft and other large companies, filed bankruptcy weeks after its co-founder was arrested on fraud charges. From a report: CTN Holdings, as the company is now known, has about $170 million in debt. The goal of the bankruptcy is to sel … ⌘ Read more

Intel Refreshes Iconic Brand
Intel has unveiled a refresh of its iconic brand identity, introducing the slogan “That’s the power of Intel Inside” to reconnect with consumers and highlight the chipmaker’s role in modern computing. The new campaign resurrects the familiar “Intel Inside” theme that helped transform the company into a household name in the 1990s, when Intel’s marketing strategy directly targeted consumers rather than system designers.

B … ⌘ Read more

AV1 is Supposed To Make Streaming Better, So Why Isn’t Everyone Using It?
Despite promises of more efficient streaming, the AV1 video codec hasn’t achieved widespread adoption seven years after its 2018 debut, even with backing from tech giants Netflix, Microsoft, Google, Amazon, and Meta. The Alliance for Open Media (AOMedia) claims AV1 is 30% more efficient than standards like HEVC, delivering higher-q … ⌘ Read more

Schrodinger’s Economics
databasecowgirl writes: Commenting in The Times on the absurdity of Meta’s copyright infringement claims, Caitlin Moran defines Schrodinger’s economics: where a company is both [one of] the most valuable on the planet yet also too poor to pay for the materials it profits from.

Ultimately “move fast and break things” means breaking other people’s things. Or, possibly worse, going full ‘The Talented Mr Ripley’: slowly feeling … ⌘ Read more

Microsoft Pulls Back on Data Centers From Chicago To Jakarta
Microsoft has pulled back on data center projects around the world, suggesting the company is taking a harder look at its plans to build the server farms powering artificial intelligence and the cloud. From a report: The software company has recently halted talks for, or delayed development of, sites in Indonesia, the UK, Australia, Illinois, North Dakota and … ⌘ Read more

Microsoft, Amazon Execs Call Out Washington’s Low-Performing 9-Year-Olds In Tax Pushback
Longtime Slashdot reader theodp writes: A coalition of Washington state business leaders – which includes Microsoft President Brad Smith and Amazon Chief Legal Officer David Zapolsky – released a letter Wednesday urging state lawmakers to reconsider recently proposed tax and budget measures. “I actua … ⌘ Read more

ESA’s New Documentary Paints Worrying Picture of Earth’s Orbital Junk Problem
The European Space Agency’s short film Space Debris: Is it a Crisis? highlights the growing danger of orbital clutter, warning that “70% of the 20,000 satellites ever launched remain in space today, orbiting alongside hundreds of millions of fragments left behind by collisions, explosions and intentional destruction.” I … ⌘ Read more

Amazon Set To Launch First Operational Satellites For Project Kuiper Network
Amazon and United Launch Alliance will launch 27 full-scale satellites on April 9 as part of Amazon’s Project Kuiper, marking the company’s first major step toward building a global satellite internet network to rival SpaceX’s Starlink. GeekWire reports: ULA said the three-hour window for the Atlas V rocket’s liftoff from … ⌘ Read more

Vibe Coded AI App Generates Recipes With Very Few Guardrails
An anonymous reader quotes a report from 404 Media: A “vibe coded” AI app developed by entrepreneur and Y Combinator group partner Tom Blomfield has generated recipes that gave users instruction on how to make “Cyanide Ice Cream,” “Thick White Cum Soup,” and “Uranium Bomb,” using those actual substances as ingredients. Vibe coding, in case you are unfami … ⌘ Read more

Open-Source Tool Designed To Throttle PC and Server Performance Based On Electricity Pricing
Robotics and machine learning engineer Naveen Kul developed WattWise, a lightweight open-source CLI tool that monitors power usage via smart plugs and throttles system performance based on electricity pricing and peak hours. Tom’s Hardware reports: The simple program, called WattWise, ca … ⌘ Read more

NaNoWriMo To Close After 20 Years
NaNoWriMo, the nonprofit behind the annual novel-writing challenge, is shutting down after 20 years but will keep its websites online temporarily so users can retrieve their content. The Guardian reports: A 27-minute YouTube video posted the same day by the organization’s interim executive director Kilby Blades explained that it had to close due to ongoing financial problems, which were compounded by reputat … ⌘ Read more

Five VPN Apps In the App Store Had Links To Chinese Military
A joint investigation found that at least five popular VPN apps on the App Store and Google Play have ties to Qihoo 360, a Chinese company with military links. Apple has since removed two of the apps but has not confirmed the status of the remaining three, which 9to5Mac notes have “racked up more than a million downloads.” The five apps in question are Tu … ⌘ Read more

Anthropic Launches an AI Chatbot Plan For Colleges and Universities
An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Anthropic announced on Wednesday that it’s launching a new Claude for Education tier, an answer to OpenAI’s ChatGPT Edu plan. The new tier is aimed at higher education, and gives students, faculty, and other staff access to Anthropic’s AI chatbot, Claude, with a few additional capabilities … ⌘ Read more

India Set For $100 Billion Startup IPO Surge By 2027
According to Bloomberg, India is set for a surge in tech startup IPOs valued at around $100 billion by 2027, with major players like Flipkart, PhonePe, and Oyo preparing to go public. From a report: A report from Indian investment bank The Rainmaker Group suggests that the new wave of IPO hopefuls is in a stronger financial position than their predecessors. Many of the startu … ⌘ Read more

Bill Gates Celebrates Microsoft’s 50th By Releasing Altair BASIC Source Code
To mark Microsoft’s 50th anniversary, Bill Gates has released the original Altair BASIC source code he co-wrote with Paul Allen, calling it the “coolest code” he’s ever written and a symbol of the company’s humble beginnings. Thurrott reports: “Before there was Office or Windows 95 or Xbox or AI, there was Altair BASIC,” Bill Ga … ⌘ Read more

Vast Pedophile Network Shut Down In Europol’s Largest CSAM Operation
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Europol has shut down one of the largest dark web pedophile networks in the world, prompting dozens of arrests worldwide and threatening that more are to follow. Launched in 2021, KidFlix allowed users to join for free to preview low-quality videos depicting child sex abuse materials (C … ⌘ Read more

Global Scam Industry Evolving at ‘Unprecedented Scale’ Despite Recent Crackdown
Online scam operations across Southeast Asia are rapidly adapting to recent crackdowns, adopting AI and expanding globally despite the release of 7,000 trafficking victims from compounds along the Myanmar-Thailand border, experts say. These releases represent just a fraction of an estimated 100,000 people trapped in faci … ⌘ Read more

European Commission Takes Aim At End-to-End Encryption and Proposes Europol Become an EU FBI
The European Commission has announced its intention to join the ongoing debate about lawful access to data and end-to-end encryption while unveiling a new internal security strategy aimed to address ongoing threats. From a report: ProtectEU, as the strategy has been named, describes the genera … ⌘ Read more

Microsoft Urges Businesses To Abandon Office Perpetual Licenses
Microsoft is pushing businesses to shift away from perpetual Office licenses to Microsoft 365 subscriptions, citing collaboration limitations and rising IT costs associated with standalone software. “You may have started noticing limitations,” Microsoft says in a post. “Your apps are stuck on your desktop, limiting productivity anytime you’re away fr … ⌘ Read more

Cybersecurity Professor Faced China Funding Inquiry Before Disappearing
The FBI searched two homes of Indiana University Bloomington data privacy professor Xiaofeng Wang last week, following months of university inquiries into whether he received unreported research funding from China, WIRED reported Wednesday.

Wang, who leads the Center for Distributed Confidential Computing established with a $3 mill … ⌘ Read more

AI Masters Minecraft: DeepMind Program Finds Diamonds Without Being Taught
An AI system has for the first time figured out how to collect diamonds in the hugely popular video game Minecraft – a difficult task requiring multiple steps – without being shown how to play. Its creators say the system, called Dreamer, is a step towards machines that can generalize knowledge learned in one domain to new situati … ⌘ Read more

Amazon Said To Make a Bid To Buy TikTok in the US
An anonymous reader shares a report: Amazon has put in a last-minute bid to acquire all of TikTok, the popular video app, as it approaches an April deadline to be separated from its Chinese owner or face a ban in the United States, according to three people familiar with the bid.

Various parties who have been involved in the talks do not appear to be taking Amazon’s bid seri … ⌘ Read more

95% of Code Will Be AI-Generated Within Five Years, Microsoft CTO Says
Microsoft Chief Technology Officer Kevin Scott has predicted that AI will generate 95% of code within five years. Speaking on the 20VC podcast, Scott said AI would not replace software engineers but transform their role. “It doesn’t mean that the AI is doing the software engineering job…. authorship is still going to be human,” … ⌘ Read more

Alleged Deel Spy Confesses To Coordinating with Deel CEO Alex Bouaziz
Newcomer: Keith O’Brien, the man who allegedly spied for Deel while working at Rippling, is apparently clearing his conscience, according to a sworn Irish affidavit. O’Brien says in the affidavit that Deel paid him to spy on Rippling and that he coordinated directly with Deel’s CEO, Alex Bouaziz.

For some background, Alex Bouaziz is Dee … ⌘ Read more

Lawmakers Propose Cap on Credit Card Interest Rates
Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Anna Paulina Luna introduced bipartisan legislation in March to cap credit card interest rates at 10% annually as Americans’ debt hits record levels. “Credit cards with high interest rates regularly trap working people in endless cycles of debt,” Ocasio-Cortez said in a statement.

Credit card debt has reached $1.2 trillion in … ⌘ Read more

Nintendo Switch 2 Arrives on June 5, Priced at $450
Nintendo’s Switch 2, priced at $450, launches June 5 with a 7.9-inch LCD screen offering 1080p resolution, HDR support, and 120Hz refresh capability. The device maintains the original Switch’s 13.99mm thickness while increasing internal storage to 256GB from the previous 32GB.

The console outputs at 4K/60fps when docked, with the dock featuring a built-in cooling fan. Two … ⌘ Read more

Zelle Is Shutting Down Its App
An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Zelle is shutting down its stand-alone app on Tuesday, according to a company blog post. This news might be alarming if you’re one of the over 150 million customers in the U.S. who use Zelle for person-to-person payments. But only about 2% of transactions take place via Zelle’s app, which is why the company is discontinuing its stand-alone app.

Most consumers … ⌘ Read more

Brain Interface Speaks Your Thoughts In Near Real-time
Longtime Slashdot reader backslashdot writes: Commentary, video, and a publication in this week’s Nature Neuroscience herald a significant advance in brain-computer interface (BCI) technology, enabling speech by decoding electrical activity in the brain’s sensorimotor cortex in real-time. Researchers from UC Berkeley and UCSF employed deep learning recurrent neur … ⌘ Read more