American Science & Surplus Is Fighting For Its Life
“One of the few major independent science-surplus/DIY outlets left is American Science & Surplus,” writes longtime Slashdot reader Tyler Too. “They’ve recently launched a GoFundMe campaign to ensure their survival.” Ars Technica reports: Now, nearly 90 years after its launch selling “reject lenses” as American Lens & Photo, American Science & Surplus is facing an existe … ⌘ Read more

Apple Gave Governments Data On Thousands of Push Notifications
An anonymous reader quotes a report from 404 Media: Apple provided governments around the world with data related to thousands of push notifications sent to its devices, which can identify a target’s specific device or in some cases include unencrypted content like the actual text displayed in the notification, according to data published by Apple. In … ⌘ Read more

DreamWorks Co-Founder Katzenberg Likens AI To CGI Revolution
At the Axios AI+ Summit, DreamWorks co-founder Jeffrey Katzenberg compared the rise of AI in entertainment to the CGI revolution of the 1990s, emphasizing that those who adapt to the technology will thrive. He argued AI won’t replace people – but will replace those who don’t embrace it. Axios reports: Katzenberg, a co-founder of DreamWorks and one-time Disne … ⌘ Read more

Microsoft’s LinkedIn Chief Is Now Running Office
Announced in an internal memo from Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, LinkedIn CEO Ryan Roslansky has been appointed to also lead the Office, Outlook, and Microsoft 365 Copilot teams as part of an internal AI reorganization. Roslansky will report to Rajesh Jha for Office while continuing to run LinkedIn independently under Nadella. The Verge reports: “LinkedIn remains a top priority a … ⌘ Read more

OpenAI Slams Court Order To Save All ChatGPT Logs, Including Deleted Chats
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: OpenAI is now fighting a court order (PDF) to preserve all ChatGPT user logs—including deleted chats and sensitive chats logged through its API business offering – after news organizations suing over copyright claims accused the AI company of destroying evidence. “Before Op … ⌘ Read more

Reddit Sues AI Startup Anthropic For Breach of Contract, ‘Unfair Competition’
Reddit is suing AI startup Anthropic for what it’s calling a breach of contract and for engaging in “unlawful and unfair business acts” by using the social media company’s platform and data without authority. From a report: The lawsuit, filed in San Francisco on Wednesday, claims that Anthropic has been training its models o … ⌘ Read more

KDE Targets Windows 10 ‘Exiles’ Claiming ‘Your Computer is Toast’
king*jojo shares a report: Linux desktop darling KDE is weighing in on the controversy around the impending demise of Windows 10 support with a lurid “KDE for Windows 10 Exiles” campaign. KDE’s alarming “Exiles” page opens with the text “Your computer is toast” followed by a warning that Microsoft wants to turn computers running Windows 10 into jun … ⌘ Read more

Scientists in Japan Develop Plastic That Dissolves in Seawater Within Hours
Researchers in Japan have developed a plastic that dissolves in seawater within hours, offering up a potential solution for a modern-day scourge polluting oceans and harming wildlife. From a report: While scientists have long experimented with biodegradable plastics, researchers from the RIKEN Center for Emergent Matter S … ⌘ Read more

Fake IT Support Calls Hit 20 Orgs, End in Stolen Salesforce Data and Extortion, Google Warns
A group of financially motivated cyberscammers who specialize in Scattered-Spider-like fake IT support phone calls managed to trick employees at about 20 organizations into installing a modified version of Salesforce’s Data Loader that allows the criminals to steal sensitive data. From a report: … ⌘ Read more

ChatGPT Adds Enterprise Cloud Integrations For Dropbox, Box, OneDrive, Google Drive, Meeting Transcription
OpenAI is expanding ChatGPT’s enterprise capabilities with new integrations that connect the chatbot directly to business cloud services and productivity tools. The Microsoft-backed startup announced connectors for Dropbox, Box, SharePoint, OneDrive and Google Drive that a … ⌘ Read more

Hollywood Already Uses Generative AI (And Is Hiding It)
Major Hollywood studios are extensively using AI tools while avoiding public disclosure, according to industry sources interviewed by New York Magazine. Nearly 100 AI studios now operate in Hollywood with every major studio reportedly experimenting with generative AI despite legal uncertainties surrounding copyright training data, the report said.

Lionsgat … ⌘ Read more

The IRS Tax Filing Software TurboTax Is Trying To Kill Just Got Open Sourced
An anonymous reader shares a report: The IRS open sourced much of its incredibly popular Direct File software as the future of the free tax filing program is at risk of being killed by Intuit’s lobbyists and Donald Trump’s megabill. Meanwhile, several top developers who worked on the software have left the government and j … ⌘ Read more

Code.org Changes Mission To ‘Make CS and AI a Core Part of K-12 Education’
theodp writes: Way back in 2010, Microsoft and Google teamed with nonprofit partners to launch Computing in the Core, an advocacy coalition whose mission was “to strengthen computing education and ensure that it is a core subject for students in the 21st century.” In 2013, Computing in the Core was merged into Code.org, a new tec … ⌘ Read more

Morgan Stanley Says Its AI Tool Processed 9 Million Lines of Legacy Code This Year And Saved 280,000 Developer Hours
Morgan Stanley has deployed an in-house AI tool called DevGen.AI that has reviewed nine million lines of legacy code this year, saving the investment bank’s developers an estimated 280,000 hours by translating outdated programming language … ⌘ Read more

AI Startups Revolutionize Coding Industry, Leading To Sky-High Valuations
Code generation startups are attracting extraordinary investor interest two years after ChatGPT’s launch, with companies like Cursor raising $900 million at a $10 billion valuation despite operating with negative gross margins. OpenAI is reportedly in talks to acquire Windsurf, maker of the Codeium coding tool, for $3 billi … ⌘ Read more

23andMe Founder Aims To Restart Auction With Major Corporate Backing
Anne Wojcicki has asked a U.S. judge to reopen the auction for 23andMe, claiming she has backing from a $400+ billion Fortune 500 company. Reuters reports: South San Francisco, California-based 23andMe filed for bankruptcy in March, seeking to sell its business at auction after a decline in consumer demand and a 2023 data breach that e … ⌘ Read more

James Webb Space Telescope Discovers the Earliest Galaxy Ever Seen
The James Webb Space Telescope has discovered the most distant galaxy ever observed, named MoM z14. NASA estimates it existed just 280 million years after the Big Bang. Space.com reports: Prior to the discovery of MoM z14, the galaxy holding the title of earliest and distant was JADES-GS-z14-0, which existed just 300 million years after th … ⌘ Read more

‘Deliberate Attack’ Deletes Shopping App’s AWS and GitHub Resources
The CEO of Indian grocery ordering app KiranaPro has claimed an attacker deleted its GitHub and AWS resources in a targeted and deliberate attack and vowed to name the perpetrator. From a report: KiranaPro lets users shop at “Kiranas,” the Indian equivalent of convenience stores, which mostly stock basic foodstuffs. Users of the app place an ord … ⌘ Read more

World-First Biocomputing Platform Hits the Market
An anonymous reader quotes a report from IEEE Spectrum: In a development straight out of science fiction, Australian startup Cortical Labs has released what it calls the world’s first code-deployable biological computer. The CL1, which debuted in March, fuses human brain cells on a silicon chip to process information via sub-millisecond electrical feedback loops. Designed … ⌘ Read more

Polish Engineer Creates Postage Stamp-Sized 1980s Atari Computer
Ars Technica’s Benj Edwards reports: In 1979, Atari released the Atari 400 and 800, groundbreaking home computers that included custom graphics and sound chips, four joystick ports, and the ability to run the most advanced home video games of their era. These machines, which retailed for $549 and $999, respectively, represented a leap in consu … ⌘ Read more

The Last 5-Speed Manual In the US Is Gone
According to Automotive News (paywalled), the $17,190 base-model Nissan Versa S – the last U.S.-market production car with a five-speed manual – is ending production. A Nissan spokesperson told Auto News that the company is “trimming the fat” to focus on models with the strongest business performance – and the manual Versa S didn’t make the cut. The Drive reports: Looks like Nissan is try … ⌘ Read more

The OpenAI Board Drama Is Turning Into a Movie
Luca Guadagnino is in talks to direct Artificial, a dramatization of Sam Altman’s dramatic firing and rehiring at OpenAI in 2023. The Amazon-MGM film is rumored to star Andrew Garfield, ‘A Complete Unknown’ scene-stealer Monica Barbaro, and ‘Anora’ actor Yura Borisov as lead roles in the story. From the Hollywood Reporter: Heyday Films’ David Heyman and Jeffrey Clifford ar … ⌘ Read more

AI Pioneer Announces Non-Profit To Develop ‘Honest’ AI
Yoshua Bengio, a pioneer in AI and Turing Award winner, has launched a $30 million non-profit aimed at developing “honest” AI systems that detect and prevent deceptive or harmful behavior in autonomous agents. The Guardian reports: Yoshua Bengio, a renowned computer scientist described as one of the “godfathers” of AI, will be president of LawZero, an organization committe … ⌘ Read more

AWS Forms EU-Based Cloud Unit As Customers Fret
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Register: In a nod to European customers’ growing mistrust of American hyperscalers, Amazon Web Services says it is establishing a new organization in the region “backed by strong technical controls, sovereign assurances, and legal protections.” Ever since the Trump 2.0 administration assumed office and implemented an erratic and unpreceden … ⌘ Read more

Romanian National Pleads Guilty To ‘Swatting’ Over 75 Public Officials
Longtime Slashdot reader schwit1 shares a report: A Romanian national pleaded guilty on Monday to charges related to his role in a “swatting” ring that targeted dozens of public officials, including a former US president. Going by the aliases “Plank,” “Jonah” and “Cypher,” 26-year-old Thomasz Szabo took part in a years-long conspiracy to … ⌘ Read more

Meta and Yandex Are De-Anonymizing Android Users’ Web Browsing Identifiers
“It appears as though Meta (aka: Facebook’s parent company) and Yandex have found a way to sidestep the Android Sandbox,” writes Slashdot reader TheWho79. Researchers disclose the novel tracking method in a report: We found that native Android apps – including Facebook, Instagram, and several Yandex apps including Maps and Brows … ⌘ Read more

AI Startup Revealed To Be 700 Indian Employees Pretending To Be Chatbots
An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Latin Times: A once-hyped AI startup backed by Microsoft has filed for bankruptcy after it was revealed that its so-called artificial intelligence was actually hundreds of human workers in India pretending to be chatbots. Builder.ai, a London-based company previously valued at $1.5 billio … ⌘ Read more

Tim Sweeney Didn’t Expect a Five-Year Fortnite Ban
Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney anticipated his company’s battle with Apple would create “fireworks,” but he never expected Fortnite to disappear from the iOS App Store for nearly five years. When Epic deliberately violated App Store rules in 2020 by inserting its own payment system into Fortnite, Sweeney thought the resulting legal clash would be brief. “I had actually hoped th … ⌘ Read more

Microsoft Cuts Hundreds of Jobs After Firing 6,000 in May
Microsoft cut hundreds more jobs just weeks after its largest layoff in years, underscoring the tech industry’s efforts to trim costs even as it plows billions of dollars into artificial intelligence. From a report: More than 300 employees were told their positions had been eliminated on Monday, according to a Washington state notice reviewed by Bloomberg.

The cuts … ⌘ Read more

T-Mobile Launches Fiber Internet Service in the US With a Five-Year Price Lock
T-Mobile announced Tuesday it will expand its fiber internet service to more than 500,000 households nationwide, offering three symmetrical speed tiers with five-year price locks starting June 5th. The plans range from 500 Mbps at $80 monthly to 2 Gbps at $110 monthly, with $5 autopay discounts for debit card payments. … ⌘ Read more

Meta’s Going To Revive an Old Nuclear Power Plant
Meta has struck a 20-year deal with energy company Constellation to keep the Clinton Clean Energy Center nuclear plant in Illinois operational, the social media giant’s first nuclear power purchase agreement as it seeks clean energy sources for AI data centers. The aging facility, which was slated to close in 2017 after years of financial losses and currently operates under a … ⌘ Read more

The Quietly Booming Business of Making Animals Live Forever
Animal cloning has evolved from experimental science into a thriving commercial industry producing thousands of genetic copies across nearly 60 species, despite sustained public opposition to the technology. ViaGen Pets & Equine, the world’s leading producer of cloned cats, dogs and horses, charges $50,000 to clone a pet and $85,000 for a horse, with customers … ⌘ Read more

More Office Space Being Removed Than Added For First Time in At Least 25 Years
More office space in the U.S. is being removed than added for the first time in at least 25 years. New data from CBRE Group shows that across the 58 largest US markets, 23.3 million square feet of office space is slated for demolition or conversion by year-end, while developers will complete just 12.7 million square feet of … ⌘ Read more

Ukraine’s Massive Drone Attack Was Powered by Open Source Software
An anonymous reader shares a report: Open source software used by hobbyist drones powered an attack that wiped out a third of Russia’s strategic long range bombers on Sunday afternoon, in one of the most daring and technically coordinated attacks in the war. In broad daylight on Sunday, explosions rocked air bases in Belaya, Olenya, and Ivanov … ⌘ Read more

Ford Mustang Eleanor From Gone In 60 Seconds Can’t Be Copyrighted
The Ninth Circuit has ruled that the 1967 Ford Mustang fastback nicknamed “Eleanor” in Gone in 60 Seconds is a film prop rather than a protectable character. The panel said the car fails all three Towle test prongs, so it cannot receive standalone copyright protection. sinij writes: The ruling states that the Mustang doesn’t pass tests that would … ⌘ Read more

Wild-Animal Markets Pose Rising Pandemic Threat
Live-animal markets across Southeast Asia continue operating as natural laboratories for deadly pathogens despite warnings from public health experts about their role in disease transmission, according to new research published in Nature.

Scientists studying markets like Jakarta’s Jatinegara found that coronavirus detection rates in trafficked animals increase dramatically along … ⌘ Read more

VMware Drops the Lowest Tier of Its Partner Program, Except In Europe
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Register: Broadcom’s VMware business unit has dropped the lowest tier of its channel program, a move one analyst told The Register will benefit its rivals. The virtualization pioneer currently operates a four-tier channel program spanning Pinnacle, Premier, Select, and Registered partners. On … ⌘ Read more

Trump Wants $1 Billion For Private-Sector-Led Mars Exploration
President Trump’s 2026 budget proposes over $1 billion for Mars exploration through a new Commercial Mars Payload Services Program, while simultaneously slashing NASA’s overall budget by 25%. Phys.Org reports: Under the proposal, NASA would award contracts to companies developing spacesuits, communications systems and a human-rated landing vehicle … ⌘ Read more

The Milky Way Might Not Crash Into the Andromeda Galaxy After All
New simulations suggest that the long-assumed collision between the Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies is not guaranteed, with the odds now estimated at just over 50% within the next 10 billion years. Factoring in other massive galaxies like M33 and the Large Magellanic Cloud revealed that their gravitational influence significantly alters the … ⌘ Read more

Younger Generations Less Likely To Have Dementia, Study Suggests
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: People born more recently are less likely to have dementia at any given age than earlier generations, research suggests, with the trend more pronounced in women. According to the World Health Organization, in 2021 there were 57 million people worldwide living with dementia, with women dispr … ⌘ Read more

Coinbase Breach Linked To Customer Data Leak In India
Coinbase reportedly knew as early as January about a customer data breach linked to its outsourcing partner TaskUs, where an employee in India was caught leaking customer information in exchange for bribes. “At least one part of the breach […] occurred when an India-based employee of the U.S. outsourcing firm TaskUs was caught taking photographs of her work compute … ⌘ Read more

Microsoft To Finally Stop Bugging Windows Users About Edge - But Only in Europe
An anonymous reader shares a report: Microsoft’s changes in response to the Digital Markets Act already included allowing Windows machines in the regions it covers to uninstall Edge and remove Bing results from Windows search, but now the list is growing in some meaningful ways. New features announced Monday for Microso … ⌘ Read more

Texas Right To Repair Bill Passes
Texas is poised to become the first state with a Republican-controlled government to pass a right to repair law, as its Senate unanimously approved HB 2963. The bill requires manufacturers to provide parts, manuals, and tools for equipment sold or used in the state. The Verge reports: A press release from the United States Public Interest Research Group (PIRG), which has pushed for repairability laws nat … ⌘ Read more

Pro-AI Subreddit Bans ‘Uptick’ of Users Who Suffer From AI Delusions
An anonymous reader quotes a report from 404 Media: The moderators of a pro-artificial intelligence Reddit community announced that they have been quietly banning “a bunch of schizoposters” who believe “they’ve made some sort of incredible discovery or created a god or become a god,” highlighting a new type of chatbot-fueled delusion that s … ⌘ Read more

Jony Ive’s OpenAI Device Gets the Laurene Powell Jobs Nod of Approval
Laurene Powell Jobs has publicly endorsed the secretive AI hardware device being developed by Jony Ive and OpenAI, expressing admiration for his design process and investing in his ventures. Ive says the project is an attempt to address the unintended harms of past tech like the iPhone, and Powell Jobs stands to benefit financially if t … ⌘ Read more

Linux User Share Hits a Multi-Year High On Steam For May 2025
Linux user share on Steam rose to 2.69% in May 2025 – the highest level recorded since at least 2018. GamingOnLinux reports: Overall user share for May 2025:

- Windows 95.45% -0.65%
- Linux 2.69% +0.42%
- macOS 1.85% +0.23%

Even with SteamOS 3 now being a little more widely available, the rise was not from SteamOS directly. Filtering to just the … ⌘ Read more

Google Settles Shareholder Lawsuit, Sill Spend $500 Million On Being Less Evil
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: It has become a common refrain during Google’s antitrust saga: What happened to “don’t be evil?” Google’s unofficial motto has haunted it as it has grown ever larger, but a shareholder lawsuit sought to rein in some of the company’s excesses. And it might be working. … ⌘ Read more

Microsoft, Google, Others Team Up To Standardize Confusing Hacker Group Nicknames
Microsoft, CrowdStrike, Palo Alto Networks, and Google announced Monday they will create a public glossary standardizing the nicknames used for state-sponsored hacking groups and cybercriminals.

The initiative aims to reduce confusion caused by the proliferation of disparate naming conventions across cybersecurity … ⌘ Read more

North Korean Smartphones Automatically Capture Screenshots Every 5 Minutes For State Surveillance
A smartphone smuggled out of North Korea automatically captures screenshots every five minutes and stores them in a hidden folder inaccessible to users, according to analysis by the BBC. Authorities can later review these images to monitor citizen activity on the device. The phone, o … ⌘ Read more

Snowflake Finance VP Says Big Companies Migrate at a Glacial Pace
Snowflake’s growth among large enterprise customers faces a significant bottleneck tied to the sluggish replacement cycles of existing on-premises data warehouse systems, according to finance vice president Jimmy Sexton. Speaking at a Jefferies conference, Sexton explained that while the cloud data company secured two deals worth more than $100 m … ⌘ Read more