The University of Washington Is Moving a Graduate Program to Microsoft’s Campus
Longtime Slashdot submitter theodp writes: GeekWire reports that the University of Washington has moved its Global Innovation Exchange {GIX) program to Microsoft’s campus in a rent-free deal (UW News release). GIX, an institute supporting tech leaders that offers an MS in Technology Innovation, is the first UW program … ⌘ Read more

Apple Tightens macOS ‘Full Disk Access’ Controls As AI Agents ‘Substantially’ Increase Risk
Apple says it will tighten macOS Full Disk Access controls as increasingly capable AI agents raise the risks of apps gaining broad access to users’ files, messages, mail, and browsing history. TechCrunch reports: Days after a journalist claimed that Meta’s Muse app on Mac read their private me … ⌘ Read more

Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery to Become Skydance
Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery will operate under the Skydance name once their roughly $110 billion merger closes, which is expected on October 6. The combined company will bring together Paramount+, HBO Max, CBS, CNN, MTV and other networks, along with major franchises including The Lord of the Rings, Game of Thrones, DC and Yellowstone.

Ellison sa … ⌘ Read more

Used Processor Leads To Game Ban
AmiMoJo shares a report from heise online: Anyone buying used hardware for a gaming PC needs to be careful: not just whether the components are still in order but also what the previous owner did with them. A case on Reddit shows this. Someone installed a used AMD processor, a Ryzen 7 5800X3D, in their PC. Because the previous owner was caught cheating, the new owner cannot start several online games.

Th … ⌘ Read more

EU’s Microsoft Teams Alternative Draws Bad Reviews From Officials
The European Commission has rolled out Element Pro as a self-hosted “sovereign back-up” to Microsoft Teams and the reviews aren’t great. Politico reported that several officials questioned its usefulness and usability, with one calling it “absolute shit.” Politico reports: “I don’t understand the added value here,” one official wrote on an internal s … ⌘ Read more

Judge Dismisses Chegg and Penske Antitrust Lawsuits Targeting Google AI Search
A federal judge has dismissed antitrust lawsuits from Chegg and Penske Media accusing Google of harming publishers by using their content in AI Overviews and other AI search features without compensating them or providing a meaningful opt-out. Ars Technica reports: The lawsuits were filed in 2025, and Google requested … ⌘ Read more

Social Media Harms Democracy By Spreading Rumors, Survey Shows
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: A growing number of people think social media manipulates and divides people and harms democracy, Pew Research Center said on Thursday, echoing rising concern and tighter scrutiny across the world. Companies running popular social platforms, including Meta, Snap, and TikTok, have faced thousands of law … ⌘ Read more

Error-Prone AI Nearly Sparked World War Three Last Month
In an op-ed for The Guardian, authors Timnit Gebru and Emily M. Bender argue that policymakers are focusing too heavily on hypothetical “superintelligence” while overlooking the more immediate danger of deploying unreliable AI in high-stakes settings. They point to an as-yet independently unverified CNN report claiming U.S. officials nearly intercepted a Chinese … ⌘ Read more

20% of Swiss Glaciers Lost In Five Years
Swiss glaciers lost 5.5% of their ice volume in the first eight months of 2026, bringing total losses since 2021 to 19.4%. Researchers say some glaciers are now collapsing from within as meltwater carves out large cavities. The Guardian reports: Matthias Huss, a glaciologist at ETH Zurich and lead author of the report, said many people do not realize how fast glaciers are retreating, or that ju … ⌘ Read more

OpenAI Alerts More Than 100 Groups About Rogue AI Agent Activity
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: OpenAI has informed more than 100 organizations about incidents involving unauthorized activity tied to its AI agents, according to a blog post by the ChatGPT maker, as AI labs face mounting scrutiny over rogue AI agent activity. Here are some other details:
- The Sam Altman-led company has been c … ⌘ Read more

California Rushes To Prepare For Massive ‘Kelvin’ Wave, Predicted Sea Level Rise
fjo3 shares a report from The Guardian: Communities across California are rushing to prepare for the imminent arrival of the so-called “Kelvin wave,” a massive underwater band of warm water threatening to inundate swaths of the vast North American shoreline. The wave is nearing southern California and expected to reac … ⌘ Read more

Amazon’s New Kindle Accessories Bring Back Physical Controls
Alongside a refreshed Kindle lineup, Amazon today introduced two accessories that bring physical buttons back to its touchscreen e-readers. The $34.99 Kindle Click is a Bluetooth remote that lets readers turn pages and adjust brightness without touching the device, while a new $79.99 magnetic cover is available for select Paperwhite and Colorsoft models. … ⌘ Read more

Russian-Owned Snooping Software Used By US Secret Service
Bruce66423 shares a report from The Telegraph: British police forces, including specialist units within the Metropolitan Police, have used Oxygen Forensics software to break into the phones of suspects during live investigations, public documents show. The Virginia-based company behind the software has been accused in the US of having hidden its Russian ownersh … ⌘ Read more

Cloudflare Tries to Outplay Jev With Open-Weight Clef Models
Cloudflare has launched two open-weight decision models, Clef and Clef-flash, designed for structured yes/no, multiple-choice, and ranking tasks while also supporting images, video, and up to a 64K context window. Cloudflare says its models outperform TypeSafe’s Jev on several benchmarks and can run locally from Hugging Face. The Register reports: For st … ⌘ Read more

Ryan Roslansky Is Leaving After Nearly 18 Years At LinkedIn and Microsoft
Ryan Roslansky is leaving Microsoft and LinkedIn after nearly 18 years, triggering another leadership shuffle across Office and Teams. “Roslansky, who until recently was the CEO of LinkedIn, was promoted to the head of Office last year and then took control of Microsoft Teams earlier this year,” notes The Verge. From the report: “Rya … ⌘ Read more

Micron Projects Tightening RAM Shortages Through 2028 As It Generates Record Profit
Micron says the global RAM and storage shortage will tighten further through 2027 and 2028, with CEO Sanjay Mehrotra saying the company has already sold most of next year’s capacity. “In calendar 2027 as well as 2028, we see demand exceeding supply. In fact, we see greater tightness in the industry in 202 … ⌘ Read more

Cops Can Bypass iPhone’s Automatic Reboot To Get Into Locked Phones
An anonymous reader quotes a report from 404 Media: A company that makes phone hacking devices claims to have developed a solution that freezes iPhones in a state that lets cops more easily access sensitive data inside them, according to a video obtained by 404 Media. […] The new technology to get around inactivity reboot was developed by … ⌘ Read more

Pentagon Creates ‘Autowarcom’ to Expand AI and Drone Capabilities
Longtime Slashdot reader ThurstonMoore shares a report from Reuters: U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Wednesday announced the creation of a new military command that would be dedicated to building and providing autonomous and robotic capabilities across the U.S. military. The command, which Hegseth said would be called “Autonomous Warfare C … ⌘ Read more

FTC Is Investigating OpenAI, Anthropic and Other AI Companies Over Product Risks
The Federal Trade Commission has opened an investigation into OpenAI, Anthropic and other AI companies over potential consumer and safety risks posed by their products, with the agency reportedly preparing requests for documents and executive testimony. CNBC reports: OpenAI stunned the industry in July when it disclo … ⌘ Read more

HP’s Answer to the MacBook Neo Is Thinner, Lighter, and Comes With OLED
HP is taking aim at Apple’s MacBook Neo with the new OmniBook 5 14, a $699.99 Windows laptop that starts with an Intel Core 5 315 processor, 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage but includes an OLED display even on the base model. It’s also slightly thinner and lighter than the Neo. The Verge reports: The OmniBook 5 14 can be configured … ⌘ Read more

PS5 Emulation Is Suddenly Making Big Strides On PC
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: For a long time, PC gamers could access many PlayStation 5 games only if the publisher invested in a bespoke port (something Sony has recently said it will be scaling back). Now, though, rapid advancements in PS5 emulators and other tools are making recent PlayStation titles increasingly playable on generic PCs. SharpE … ⌘ Read more

Google Unveils Gemini 4 Argon, Retaking Benchmark Lead Over OpenAI and Anthropic
Google has unveiled Gemini 4 Argon, a new frontier AI model that it says leads or ties rivals on 13 of 18 disclosed benchmarks. The model is initially being released only to trusted cyber defenders and select pre-release testers, with broader availability planned later. VentureBeat reports: Google is not claiming th … ⌘ Read more

‘Xbox Is Not For Sale,’ Says Microsoft’s Gaming Chief
Xbox CEO Asha Sharma says Microsoft has no plans to sell the gaming business, telling The New York Times that “Xbox is not for sale” and that the company intends to take a long-term view. Windows Central reports: Microsoft’s vast layoffs across the summer have hit Xbox in their thousands, with studios like Ninja Theory on the path to being closed, and others like Double … ⌘ Read more

Hackers Stole Millions of US Military Personnel Records During Months-Long Data Breach
A months-long breach of the Defense Manpower Data Center exposed personal information belonging to roughly 2.8 million living current and former U.S. military personnel and staff, plus records for nearly 300,000 deceased people. Attackers reportedly exploited a file-sharing vulnerability between October … ⌘ Read more

Google Reportedly Tests Paying Publishers For AI Search Results
Google is reportedly testing a program that pays around 100 publishers based on how much their content contributes to its AI-powered search features. According to The Information, one publisher earned more than $1 million over a year, while another has received roughly $50,000 to $60,000.” Digiday reports: Once a publisher joins the “AI contributio … ⌘ Read more

Reddit Is Killing RSS Feeds, Ending Public API Access
An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Amid a number of updates for moderators and developers announced Wednesday comes bad news for supporters of a more open web: Reddit is ending support for RSS feeds. Reddit says RSS has now become a “common surface for large-scale scraping and automated abuse,” which is why it’s made the decision to wind down RSS feed … ⌘ Read more

Singapore Pilots a Government-Built Dating Service
Longtime Slashdot reader AmiMoJo shares a report from Mashable: Singapore’s government is trying its hand at matchmaking again. The country’s Government Technology Agency (GovTech) has launched FirstDate, a pilot dating service for singles aged 21 to 35. For now, it’s open only to public officers, according to the service’s website. Applications close Oct. 5. FirstDate is de … ⌘ Read more

Trump Administration Launches New AI-Powered ‘America.gov’ Website
fahrbot-bot shares a report from CNN: President Donald Trump on Tuesday unveiled America.gov, a government website meant to serve as a one-stop shop for people trying to accomplish basic tasks like renewing a passport, enrolling in Medicare or applying for disaster relief. The site, which launched with some basic functions ahead of a full rollou … ⌘ Read more

Trump Hosts AI CEOs to Discuss Safety Standards, Rebrands AI as ‘Super Intelligence’
hcs_$reboot writes: Trump hosted executives from OpenAI, Anthropic, Meta, Google, Nvidia, and other tech companies at the White House. They agreed to voluntary AI-safety standards, including independent audits and safeguards aimed at preventing AI systems from accessing or hacking technical systems in uni … ⌘ Read more

Dutch Police Arrest ‘Reformed’ Hacker In Shiny Hunters Investigation
An anonymous reader quotes a report from KrebsOnSecurity: Authorities in the Netherlands have arrested a 24-year-old convicted cybercriminal on suspicion of aiding in data thefts and extortions by the prolific hacker group ShinyHunters. In the days immediately following the suspect’s arrest, remaining ShinyHunters members dramatically escalat … ⌘ Read more

Wearable Nanotech Could Combat Nerve Agents
alternative_right shares a report from Phys.org: Nanoparticles could someday provide a new way to help soldiers fight back against deadly nerve agents on the front lines. In a new study, Northwestern University scientists developed a nanoparticle-based compound that, when mixed into clothing dyes, could limit the impact of chemicals commonly found in pesticides, insecticides and nerv … ⌘ Read more

The Night Sky Is Getting 10% Brighter Every Year
fjo3 quotes a report from The Guardian, written by Tove Danovich: Every year, the night sky is becoming 10% brighter. Eighty percent of people live under light-polluted skies. And while the UN declared a healthy environment – clean air, clean water – to be a human right, I believe we also all have a right to darkness as well. This doesn’t mean turning off every streetlamp. … ⌘ Read more

Tech Workers Made ChatGPT Drive a Toyota Corolla
An anonymous reader quotes a report from 404 Media: Some tech workers in San Francisco hooked up ChatGPT to a Toyota Corolla and got it to drive around a parking lot. This may not sound impressive in the age of the self-driving car until you realize that the LLM driving the car was a general purpose chatbot running on a laptop and not the purpose-built driving system based on m … ⌘ Read more

Firefox Redesign Brings Round Tabs, New Themes, and Compact Mode
Firefox 157 is rolling out a major redesign across desktop and mobile, bringing rounded “bubble” tabs, a curved address bar, refreshed icons and colors, and a more consistent visual language across devices. Mozilla is also adding more themes and wallpapers while bringing back Compact Mode, which the company says “reduces the size of your tabs and … ⌘ Read more

Microsoft Makes Linux Containers Native On Windows 11
BrianFagioli shares a report from NERDS.xyz: Microsoft has made WSL Containers generally available, giving Windows 11 developers a built-in way to build, run, and deploy Linux containers through Windows Subsystem for Linux. The release includes wslc.exe for managing containers, GPU support, networking improvements, health checks, storage mounts, and integration with … ⌘ Read more

Mistral CEO Says US AI Safety Debate Masks Competitors’ ‘Negligence’
An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNBC: Mistral Chief Executive Arthur Mensch has accused leading global artificial intelligence companies of using the debate over the safety of the technology as a cover-up for their “negligence.” “The debate that we’ve seen in the U.S. has been a cover for the negligence of some of our competitors,” Mensc … ⌘ Read more

McDonald’s Reportedly Using AI to ‘Dynamically’ Price Its Burgers
McDonald’s is reportedly using AI-powered pricing tools to recommend menu prices based on what customers near individual restaurants are willing to pay. Franchisees technically retain control over final prices, but some told Reuters they feel pressured to follow the algorithm’s recommendations. “A corporate document reviewed by the publication sho … ⌘ Read more

500K Facial Recognition Scans at UK Stations Yield Zero Arrests, One False Positive
A six-month British Transport Police trial of live facial recognition at London railway stations scanned more than 500,000 faces, cost over 320,000 pounds, and produced just one alert with no arrests directly resulting from the technology. That one alert ended up being a false positive.

Despite those results, … ⌘ Read more

OpenAI Unveils Always-On AI Agent ‘Dots’
In addition to the company’s GPT-6.1 Astra announcement, OpenAI announced always-on AI agents called “Dots” that can proactively use a computer and connected apps to research, draft documents, write software and handle other tasks on a user’s behalf. “OpenAI said it would roll out Dots to paid users starting Tuesday,” reports Bloomberg. “Initially, OpenAI said, each user will have access to a single … ⌘ Read more

Google Says Chromebook Updates End In 2034, ‘Many’ Models Move to Googlebook OS
Google says ChromeOS will keep receiving regular updates and security patches through mid-2034, after which qualifying newer Chromebooks will be able to migrate to the new Googlebook OS. 9to5Google reports: Starting with Chromebook updates, Google says that “Chromebooks you have today will continue to receive updates th … ⌘ Read more

California Is Banning Public Officials From Making Memecoins
California Gov. Gavin Newsom has signed AB 2409, barring California public officials from issuing memecoins and prohibiting companies from listing memecoins that use a public official’s image or likeness. Engadget reports: The governor’s office pointed to reports that about a million investors lost an alleged $3.8 billion on their purchases of the memecoin re … ⌘ Read more

Florida Invokes Extinction Fears In Legal Bid To Halt OpenAI Development
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: The state of Florida is seeking a temporary injunction to stop OpenAI from continuing to develop what it calls a “reckless, unacceptably risky product” without the deployment of “third-party approved safety guardrails.” The new legal motion (PDF), filed Monday morning, is part … ⌘ Read more

El Nino Bursts Through Temperature Record Months Before Peak
The current El Nino has already surpassed the highest Pacific temperature anomaly recorded in the modern era, reaching 3.05C above the 1991-2020 average months before its expected peak. The commonly used ONI measure is also on the verge of breaking the 2015 record. Forecasts cited by The Guardian suggest the event could reach about 4.0C later this year. F … ⌘ Read more

Microbes Could Survive On Saturn’s Moon Enceladus
New research suggests Enceladus may be an especially promising place to search for extraterrestrial life: microbes similar to those found near Earth’s hydrothermal vents survived in lab conditions designed to mimic the Saturnian moon’s subsurface ocean. A separate study also found that material blasted from Enceladus’ plumes may naturally separate and concentrate salts, org … ⌘ Read more

Bananas That Don’t Go Brown To Hit Supermarkets Thanks to DNA Editing
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: It is the bane of every fruit bowl: sliced banana that turns brown before it has reached the table. But such woes could soon be a thing of the past, with gene-edited bananas that keep their freshly peeled color now one step closer to reaching British shoppers. According to Tropic, … ⌘ Read more

China Broadens Travel Curbs To Encompass Family of Top AI Talent
Longtime Slashdot reader schwit1 shares a report from Business Standard: China has expanded overseas travel restrictions for top AI professionals in private firms to include the families of key personnel, further tightening measures designed to prevent the outflow of critical know-how and information to the US. Government agencies have recently begun … ⌘ Read more

AMD Acquires Fei-Fei Li’s World Labs For $8.2 Billion
AMD has agreed to acquire Fei-Fei Li’s World Labs for about $8.2 billion in stock, making it the chipmaker’s second-largest acquisition and giving it a major foothold in “world models” that simulate 3D environments for robotics and other physically grounded AI. CNBC reports: AI researchers expect world models will be able to help develop robots and other physically-grounded a … ⌘ Read more

TikTok to Pay Alabama $100 Million, Limit Teen Use In First State Settlement
TikTok has agreed to pay Alabama at least $100 million and adopt new restrictions for teenage users, including a two-hour daily limit, overnight access restrictions, stronger age verification, a ban on beauty filters, and an option for a non-personalized feed. The settlement could grow to as much as $300 million if enough oth … ⌘ Read more

Data Center Developer Offers $10,000 Checks To Nearby Households
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Tom’s Hardware: NorthPoint Development wants to build a data center on 1,300 acres in the Pocono foothills, near Hazle Township, Pennsylvania. As well as seeking to charm the local government with various funding packages, it has proposed paying checks of $10,000 per household. Despite the Pennsylvania town’s … ⌘ Read more

Meta Taps MongoDB CEO Desai to Drive Enterprise AI Push
Meta has hired MongoDB CEO Chirantan “CJ” Desai to lead a new enterprise AI business aimed at turning Meta’s models, agents and tools into products companies can deploy themselves. Reuters reports: Desai, a veteran technology executive, took over the role from Dev Ittycheria. MongoDB has appointed Ittycheria as interim CEO as it searches for a permanent repl … ⌘ Read more