Court Orders Meta To Establish $567 Million Fund To Abate Harms To Youth
A New Mexico court ordered (PDF) Meta to create a $567 million fund to address harms linked to youth mental health and child sexual exploitation after finding its platforms constituted a public nuisance. “In sum, the Court finds that New Mexico is in the midst of a teen mental health crisis affecting public health and public safety … ⌘ Read more

Google’s $15 Billion India Data Center Project Battles Water, Wildlife Concerns
Google’s $15 billion data-center project in Visakhapatnam is facing protests and legal challenges over fears that it will worsen local water shortages and disturb wildlife near the Kambalakonda sanctuary. Google says the campus will use advanced air cooling and comply with Indian law, while state officials deny that resi … ⌘ Read more

‘Tower Dump’ Warrants Ruled Unconstitutional
alternative_right shares a report from The Hill: A federal judge in Mississippi ruled Wednesday that “tower dump” warrants are unconstitutional, declining to reverse a lower court decision refusing the government’s request to obtain the search warrants in a series of violent crime investigations. A “tower dump” involves cellphone companies providing law enforcement with access to the tim … ⌘ Read more

Azure CTO Pastes Doom Into Paint One Frame At a Time
Microsoft Azure CTO Mark Russinovich used Claude to build a gloriously impractical setup that runs Doom in the background and pastes each rendered frame into Microsoft Paint through the Windows clipboard. The project is referred to as “DoomPaint” or “MS Paint Doom” on GitHub. The Register reports: To be clear, Microsoft Paint isn’t doing anything other than serving as a … ⌘ Read more

OpenAI’s Models Shared Hacking Tips On a Secret Messaging Board Before Hugging Face Breach
OpenAI researchers say multiple AI agents secretly created an internal message board to share hacking techniques, eventually finding ways around restrictions, exploiting a zero-day, and helping two models breach Hugging Face without human prompting. “This is a pivotal moment both for our company a … ⌘ Read more

The US Government’s Mario, Pokemon and Naruto Meme Posting Could Damage These Franchises, Japanese Officials Warn
Japanese officials have repeatedly asked the Trump administration to stop using characters from franchises such as Mario, Pokemon, and Naruto in unauthorized government memes and pro-war videos, warning that the posts could damage the intellectual proper … ⌘ Read more

FCC Kills TV Ownership Cap, Claiming Authority Over Limit Set By Congress
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: The Federal Communications Commission voted 2-1 today to eliminate the National Television Ownership Rule, claiming authority to repeal a limit that was set by Congress over 20 years ago. The rule prohibits any single broadcast station owner from reaching more than 39 percent … ⌘ Read more

Times Magazine Now Serves Ads That Only AI Chatbots Can See
Longtime Slashdot reader mccalli writes: Times Magazine has started serving adverts with “brand messages” to AI crawlers, which are not part of its main page. The aim seems to be to influence chatbots to talk about the brand offerings in a positive light that can’t be traced back to the actual page. Notably, they’ve excluded Google chatbots from this, likely be … ⌘ Read more

Meta AI Hacked External Systems During Cybersecurity Testing
wiredmikey shares a report from SecurityWeek: Meta is the latest major AI developer to admit that its models broke loose during cybersecurity testing and hacked external systems. The tech giant said in a statement to the media on Wednesday that the incident occurred during independent evaluations conducted by Israeli AI security startup Irregular. The test … ⌘ Read more

Broadcaster Wins Broad US Blocking Injunction Covering Pirate Sites That Don’t Exist Yet
An anonymous reader quotes a report from TorrentFreak: Mexican broadcaster TelevisaUnivision (TU) has obtained (PDF) one of the broadest anti-piracy injunctions ever issued by a U.S. federal court. After initially targeting five pirate IPTV streaming operations, the case expanded to cover well over 50 … ⌘ Read more

FDA Approves First mRNA Flu Shot
The FDA has approved the first mRNA flu vaccine in the United States after a clinical trial found it was about 27% more effective than a standard flu shot. Manufactured by Moderna and marketed as mFlusiva, the vaccine is expected to be available this fall for adults ages 50 to 64 and those 65 and older, though approval for the older group is conditional on Moderna conducting an additional clinical trial, N … ⌘ Read more

BMW Blasts Its Cars’ Internal Screens With Aggressive Ads
Longtime Slashdot readers schwit1 and fjo3 shared a report about BMW displaying a Spider-Man promotion on connected vehicle screens in more than 70 markets. According to reports, drivers had to play or dismiss the ad before they could use the infotainment system. Futurism reports: BMW, showing that it was about as in-touch as its drivers are familiar with turn … ⌘ Read more

New Images of the Sun Show Its Surface In the Finest Detail Yet
An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Associated Press: Scientists have captured images of the sun’s surface in the finest detail yet, revealing a strange and dynamic facade. It’s dangerous to look directly at the sun without proper eye protection. But researchers were able to peek at its scorching surface with the help of the National Sc … ⌘ Read more

Waymo CEO Explains Why Camera-Only Self-Driving Falls Short
Longtime Slashdot reader AmiMoJo shares a report from Electrek: Waymo co-CEO Dmitri Dolgov laid out the clearest technical case yet for why cameras alone can’t take a self-driving system to full autonomy, arguing that “weak sensing” hits a safety ceiling long before it reaches superhuman performance. […] Dolgov made the comments in a talk at Y Combinato … ⌘ Read more

Anthropic’s AI Used Fake Identities, Malware In Rogue Attack On GitHub Project
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Routine cybersecurity testing of frontier AI models sparked a series of unexpected security incidents – the most serious case arising when Anthropic’s Mythos 5 model attempted to insert malicious code into an open source software application and created fake identitie … ⌘ Read more

Meta Debuts First AI Coding Agent To Take On Anthropic and OpenAI
Meta has launched Muse Code, its first AI coding agent that’s positioned as a lower-cost rival to Anthropic’s Claude and OpenAI’s Codex. It offers pay-as-you-go pricing and an optional zero-data-retention feature for enterprise users. CNBC reports: Muse Code is the latest major release from AI chief Alexandr Wang, who leads Meta Superinte … ⌘ Read more

Apple’s ‘Private Relay’ Is Exposing Users’ Real IP Addresses
Security researchers found that Apple’s iCloud Private Relay can expose users’ real IP addresses because some passkey-related requests bypass Safari and its proxy protections at the operating-system level. “In short: any website that supports, or pretends to support, passkeys can see the user’s real IP address despite having iCloud Private Relay on,” security … ⌘ Read more

Lawmaker Who Wants Data Center Pause Wins Kansas Democratic Primary
Kansas Democrats nominated State Senator Cindy Holscher for governor after she defeated party-backed rival Ethan Corson. “The race became a test of what sort of candidate Democratic voters prefer in what is expected to be a challenging general election race: a more moderate candidate like Mr. Corson with endorsements from party leaders … ⌘ Read more

Google Overhauls AI Leadership As DeepMind CEO Steps Aside
Google is reshuffling its AI leadership as Demis Hassabis steps away from day-to-day management of DeepMind to become chairman and Alphabet’s chief scientist, while CTO Koray Kavukcuoglu takes operational control. Meanwhile, longtime chief scientist Jeff Dean and several prominent researchers are leaving to launch their own company. Axios reports: Hassabis w … ⌘ Read more

Cloudflare Announces Open-Source Cloudflare OS As AI ‘Operating System’
Cloudflare has open-sourced Cloudflare OS, an Apache 2.0-licensed platform that lets organizations build AI agents, apps, and workflows using curated company data and tools within isolated, governed environments. Despite the name, it is not a traditional operating system but a framework for securely managing organizational AI workloads … ⌘ Read more

The Days of Walking Into a T-Mobile Store May Be Numbered
A leaked roadmap suggests T-Mobile plans to make its T-Life app the primary way customers manage their accounts by the end of 2026, “gradually moving one feature at a time into the app” and away from physical stores, reports Android Authority. That includes upgrades, new-line activations, and eventually new-account sign-ups. From the report: According to an … ⌘ Read more

Senators Demand Crackdown On Wildfire ‘Prediction Markets’
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Several US senators have written a letter to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), inquiring about the agency’s “plans to crack down on prediction markets” that offer “contracts for individuals to bet on wildfires.” “Offering bets on destructive wildfires threatens to minimize communities’ suffer … ⌘ Read more

NVMe Polishes Its Specs, Brings Virtualization to Locally Attached SSDs
The latest NVMe specifications add SSD-level virtualization that can simplify live VM migration by preserving storage identities across servers. The updates also introduce support for post-quantum cryptography, controller-based rate limiting, voltage monitoring, and factory-reset capabilities. The Register reports: Announced by t … ⌘ Read more

Watch a SpaceX Rocket Crash Into the Moon
A four-ton SpaceX Falcon 9 upper stage left drifting after a 2025 lunar mission is expected to crash into the Moon at about 5,400 mph, likely striking Einstein Crater. The impact should occur at approximately 2:35 a.m. ET (0635GMT). Reuters reports: Such stages typically fall back into Earth’s atmosphere and burn up or plunge into the ocean after boosting the rocket’s payload to a precise … ⌘ Read more

Texas Halts Data Center Connections To Power Grid Amid Overwhelming Demand
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Nowhere is the US data center boom bigger than in Texas. But less than a year after declaring Texas the “epicenter of AI development,” Governor Greg Abbott has declared a moratorium on all new power grid connections for data centers – at least until developers provide … ⌘ Read more

EA Is Now Officially Privately Owned
Longtime Slashdot reader neoRUR shares a report from Game Developer: EA Sports FC and Battlefield publisher EA has been taken private by an investor consortium led by Saudi Arabia’s sovereign Public Investment Fund (PIF). The move means the U.S. juggernaut is no longer a publicly-traded entity and is now majority owned by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia through its PIF investment arm. Other investors incl … ⌘ Read more

Apple Limits Bug Bounty Submissions After Flood of AI Slop
Apple has capped the number of open bug-bounty reports researchers can submit after being flooded with low-quality and sometimes entirely fabricated vulnerabilities generated by AI. MacRumors reports: The Financial Times learned of the limit after cybersecurity startup Bynario used ChatGPT to locate more than 50 macOS bugs in three weeks. Bynario found a privi … ⌘ Read more

Bending Spoons to Buy Airtable For $1.28 Billion
Bending Spoons has made its first acquisition since going public last month at an $18 billion valuation, agreeing to buy spreadsheet and database startup Airtable for $1.28 billion in cash. Airtable joins a growing portfolio of notable brands owned by the Italian app developer, including Evernote, WeTransfer, EventBrite, and Vimeo. TechCrunch reports: Founded in 2013, Airtable has so … ⌘ Read more

Microsoft Tells Engineers ‘Tokenmaxxing Is Not What We Are Optimizing For’
Microsoft is introducing AI token budgets for employees, making the cheaper GPT-5.6 its default internal model and telling engineers to focus on business results rather than maximizing AI usage. 404 Media reports: “As we accelerate our use of GitHub Copilot to deliver on our goals, we all need to be aware of how we consume tokens,” J … ⌘ Read more

Trump Begins Selling $100,000 Monthly Subscription Service to Wall Street
Trump Media has officially launched its $100,000-per-month data feed giving trading firms machine-readable access to Truth Social posts milliseconds before the public. According to Fortune, five Wall Street firms have already signed up for the service, which “would generate about $500,000 in monthly revenue, or $6 million annually … ⌘ Read more

Trump Administration Drafting Ban On Chinese Data Center Devices
Longtime Slashdot reader schwit1 shares a report from Reuters: The Federal Communications Commission, which oversees the U.S. telecom industry, is working on the measure to bar imports of new Chinese optical transceivers, which allow data to travel over fiber-optic cables at the speed of light within data centers. Officials hope to publish it this … ⌘ Read more

Apple Says More Ex-Employees May Have Taken Confidential Data to OpenAI
Apple is now seeking a preliminary injunction to prevent OpenAI and Jony Ive’s io startup from developing AI hardware allegedly based on stolen Apple trade secrets. “The iPhone maker also claims that more of its former employees may be involved with the trade secrets theft,” reports TechCrunch. From the report: In a new filing, Apple … ⌘ Read more

Apple Launches Legal Challenge Against UK Demand To Access Encrypted User Data
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: Apple has launched a new legal challenge against a UK government demand to access its customers’ highly encrypted data, a year after the Home Office agreed to abandon its previous request. The US tech company launched the legal complaint last month at the Investigato … ⌘ Read more

Sandisk and SK Hynix Publish First Open High Bandwidth Flash Standard
BrianFagioli writes: Sandisk and SK hynix have published the first open technical specification for High Bandwidth Flash (HBF) through the Open Compute Project. HBF is designed to create a new memory tier between High Bandwidth Memory and traditional SSD storage, giving AI inference systems more near compute capacity without relying … ⌘ Read more

Russia-Linked ‘Midnight Blizzard’ Group Hijacks Hotel Wi-Fi With CaptiveCrunch
A Russia-linked group tracked as Midnight Blizzard has compromised hotel and conference Wi-Fi portals worldwide, redirecting guests to phishing pages and fake software updates that steal credentials, session tokens, and other sensitive data. Microsoft says the campaign, dubbed CaptiveCrunch, “targets traveling employees g … ⌘ Read more

Spain Offers $1.14 Billion To Get Thirty Meter Telescope Moved To Canary Islands
Longtime Slashdot reader schwit1 shares a report from Behind the Black: In a new bid to get the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) to move from Hawaii, which has blocked its construction for more than a decade, the Spanish government has put together a $1.14 billion package that would not only pay for construction on th … ⌘ Read more

OpenAI’s Astra Solved Decades-Old Math Problems For $2,000
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Forbes: The cost of producing new results on ten longstanding mathematical problems just fell to $2,000, according to OpenAI, which says its Astra model generated machine-checkable proofs for questions that had resisted human progress for decades. OpenAI published the work on August 1 and used it to give its next majo … ⌘ Read more

An AI-Supervised Remote Exam Went So Badly That 58,000 Students Must Retake It
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Earlier this summer, nearly 160,000 applicants took the entrance exam for UNAM, Mexico’s largest university. For the first time, they did it completely remotely, using a “lockdown” browser and AI-powered webcam proctoring software, over several weeks from late May th … ⌘ Read more

Schools Are Ditching Chromebooks For MacBooks By the Thousands
Apple says its lower-cost MacBook Neo is beginning to displace Windows laptops and Chromebooks in K-12 schools, with several districts purchasing thousands of units. According to the company’s latest earnings call, nearly half of the large MacBook Neo purchases made by U.S. educational institutions last quarter reportedly replaced competing platform … ⌘ Read more

Microsoft Is Bringing Xbox 360 Games to PC
Microsoft reportedly plans to let developers bring Xbox 360 games to PC and next-generation Xbox devices, with a gradual rollout expected between 2027 and 2028. A separate disc-to-digital program would also give players transferable digital licenses tied to their physical Xbox discs, preserving the ability to resell or trade them. The Verge reports: With 360 games, developers can opt into … ⌘ Read more

Microsoft CEO Touts His Own DIY AI Project To Wall Street and His 20 Million Followers
theodp writes: During Microsoft’s 2026Q4 earnings call, CEO Microsoft Satya Nadella took time to tout a dashboard he personally created using AI from a Morgan Stanley analyst’s PDF research report, which suggested a rosy payback for the so-called MAG7’s (‘Magnificent 7’ companies) massive capital expenditure … ⌘ Read more

Apple’s iCloud File Sharing Left Ex-Employees With Access to Secret Documents
Apple’s practice of mixing employees’ work files with personal iCloud accounts reportedly left some former staff with continued access to confidential documents, messages, and even new updates after leaving the company. “The former employees said many Apple files they had been shared on over their careers at the company - … ⌘ Read more

Samsung Bans Smart TV Apps That Share Users’ Internet Connections
An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Several popular Samsung smart TV apps contain code that share the owner’s internet connection with strangers, potentially putting millions of Samsung smart TVs at risk of hijacking, according to new security research published on Monday. Some of these apps claim to have been installed … ⌘ Read more

As Reddit Stock Falls, CEO Questions Value of Google’s AI Overviews
Reddit CEO Steve Huffman criticized Google’s AI Overviews for summarizing publishers’ content without delivering the traffic benefits of traditional search, arguing that users increasingly value Reddit’s human perspectives and firsthand experiences. Ars Technica reports: First, there was a letter to investors (PDF), wherein Huffman spun his n … ⌘ Read more

South Korea Records Its Highest Ever Temperature
South Korea recorded its highest temperature since modern observations began in 1904, with the city of Yangsan reaching 42.5C as temperatures exceeded 40C for a fifth consecutive day. Authorities warned residents to “immediately stop all outdoor activities.” The Guardian reports: More than 20 localities in South Korea were under emergency heatwave alerts on Sunday – a new warn … ⌘ Read more

Company Offering Printed Books To Train AI Stops After 404 Media Coverage
An anonymous reader quotes a report from 404 Media: Following 404 Media’s reporting that book database company ISBNdb claimed to source printed books to then sell to AI companies for AI training, the company deleted the part of its website offering the service and walked back claims that it would train AI models, and instead cal … ⌘ Read more

‘AI’s Decimation of Call Center Jobs Has Begun’
“AI’s decimation of call center jobs has begun,” reports Bloomberg:

Companies including the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, Microsoft Corp., Uber Technologies Inc. and Hyatt Hotels Corp. are using automated chat and phone systems to handle work that previously required humans. In some cases, they’ve already wiped out sizable chunks of their customer service operations, together repres … ⌘ Read more

Massive Debian 13 Linux Kernel Security Update Patches 68 Vulnerabilities
Slashdot reader prisoninmate shares this report from 9to5Linux:

Coming ten days after the previous Linux kernel security update, which only fixed 12 vulnerabilities that may lead to a privilege escalation, denial of service, or information leaks, the new Debian 13 Linux kernel security update is a massive one, and it patches n … ⌘ Read more

Hollywood Fights AI In Public While Quietly Building It Into Movies
Even as Hollywood performers protest and Hollywood studios sue “in their war on AI,” reports the Los Angeles Times, “the entertainment industry is deepening its dependence on it.”

Among hundreds of job postings in late June, more than one in 10 was likely connected to AI. The top studios’ public postings suggest they have been rec … ⌘ Read more

Rogue Police Officers Have Turned Flock’s Nationwide Camera Network Into a Stalking Tool
A woman found her police officer ex-boyfriend cop had used Flock’s camera system 600 times to look up the location of her and her daughter, reports the Washington Post (Alternate URL here). (She found out through Have I Been Flocked, described as “a website that aggregates police search logs made avail … ⌘ Read more