Boy Developed ‘Toasted Skin’ Condition From Using a Laptop Every Day
A medical report published earlier this week says a boy in the U.K. developed erythema ab igne, or “toasted skin syndrome,” after resting a laptop on his abdomen for up to eight hours a day, often while it was charging. “The marks were described as being in a patch about 15 centimeters (six inches) wide, made of flat, reddish-brown ‘inter … ⌘ Read more

August Was World’s Joint-Hottest Month On Record, Scientists Say
Longtime Slashdot reader AmiMoJo shares a report from the BBC: August was the joint-hottest month ever recorded, tying with July 2023, according to the EU’s climate service. The record was driven by a combination of climate change and the rising influence of El Nino, pushing heat into the atmosphere across the Pacific. Temperatures for the month wer … ⌘ Read more

Climate ‘Feedback Loops’ Could Worsen Global Warming By 30%, Study Finds
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: Rising global temperatures caused by the burning of fossil fuels are transforming the world’s forests, wetlands and tundra to the point they are releasing emissions that could further worsen global heating by as much as 30%, a new study has found. As the world heats up, permafrost … ⌘ Read more

Latest Apple Watch Can Grab Snippets of Conversation Without Both Speakers’ Consent
Apple’s new Audio Intelligence features for the Apple Watch Series 12 are drawing privacy concerns because they can process nearby conversations without explicit consent from everyone involved. “Live Rewind lets you instantly see the last 15 seconds of a conversation as text,” Apple explains in its technical … ⌘ Read more

Anthropic Says It Blocked Possible Efforts to Build Biological Weapons
Anthropic says it has disrupted several cases this year in which scientists used Claude for biological research that could potentially aid bioweapons development. “In a report describing misuses of its A.I. models, Anthropic said it could not determine whether the research served a legitimate or nefarious purpose because valid biological i … ⌘ Read more

Android Rolling Out Passkey Transfers Between Password Managers
Android is rolling out a system-level way to securely transfer passwords and passkeys between credential managers, eliminating the need to export passwords as unencrypted text files or manually recreate passkeys. The feature initially supports Google Password Manager, 1Password, Bitwarden, and Dashlane, with other providers able to integrate through … ⌘ Read more

ABC Show Won’t Air Interview With Democrat Because of FCC Threats
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel said he will be interviewing a Democratic candidate for Senate tonight, but the interview will be on YouTube only and not broadcast on TV because of threats made by the Federal Communications Commission. Kimmel has been a prime target in the Trump FCC’s attacks on ABC and i … ⌘ Read more

OpenAI Targets Work of Wall Street Junior Bankers
OpenAI has launched ChatGPT for Financial Services, a Wall Street-focused version of ChatGPT Work developed with Morgan Stanley and Evercore that can research companies, analyze financial data, and build presentations using the company’s latest and most advanced model, GPT-6 Astra. “We’re effectively teaching ChatGPT to research like an analyst and back up its conclusions like … ⌘ Read more

IMDb Adds ‘Digital Creator’ Profiles For the First Time
IMDb is introducing “Digital Creator” as a new professional category on IMDb and IMDbPro, giving streamers, vloggers, influencers, video essayists, and other online creators a “dedicated way to represent [their] work and connect with audiences, industry peers, and potential employers,” according to IMDb. Variety reports: The category includes sub-professions to fu … ⌘ Read more

Automattic’s Board Forces CEO Matt Mullenweg Into Leave of Absence
Automattic’s board has placed founder and CEO Matt Mullenweg on a paid leave of absence against his will, with CFO Mark Davies taking over as interim CEO. The reason for the move remains unclear, but it follows years of legal fights, layoffs, employee departures, and controversy surrounding Mullenweg’s leadership. TechCrunch reports: Earlier Wednes … ⌘ Read more

The Apple Watch Gets Its Siri AI Upgrade
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Wired: Apple has unveiled the Apple Watch Series 12 and Ultra 4 today during itsSeptember hardware event. The new models retain the signature designs of their predecessors but add a faster S11 chip, new health and fitness features, and the watchOS 27 software update announced atWWDC last June. Both the Series 12 and Ultra 4 run on the upgraded S11 c … ⌘ Read more

Europe May Finally Have Found a Space Entrepreneur Who Is Meeting the Moment
French entrepreneur Helene Huby is emerging as one of Europe’s most ambitious space leaders, with The Exploration Company raising a record $450 million Series C as it develops the Nyx cargo capsule, a crewed spacecraft, and a reusable heavy-lift rocket. Huby argues Europe risks falling irrelevance without a much larger … ⌘ Read more

Dark Energy Debunked? Cosmic Acceleration May Be an Illusion
alternative_right shares a report from ScienceDaily: A new analysis of more than 1,700 supernovae is questioning whether the universe is really accelerating at all. After accounting for the ages of the stars that produce these explosions, researchers found signs that cosmic expansion may actually be slowing. They also argue that the apparent accelerat … ⌘ Read more

Anthropic Reveals Fourth Likely Crime Committed By Its AI
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Register: Amid industry soul-searching about the possibility of AI improving itself to the point that it kills everyone, Anthropic has revealed yet another incident that would qualify as a crime if perpetrated by a person. The AI biz published “an alignment assessment” detailing four times Claude models accessed thir … ⌘ Read more

Google to Invest Record $15 Billion In AI Infrastructure In Finland
Google plans to invest at least $15 billion in AI infrastructure in Finland through 2028, its largest single investment in Europe. The company also signed a 22-year power agreement with Finnish utility Fortum and said it will explore business models that could support new nuclear reactors at Fortum’s Loviisa site.

Finland has emerged as … ⌘ Read more

Apple’s New iPhone Camera Mode Promises to Prove Your Photo Isn’t AI
Apple is introducing a new “Reference Image” mode on the iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max that uses the camera sensor to digitally sign captured data and create an “unalterable” version of a photo, giving users a way to verify what the camera actually saw before any edits were made. The Verge reports: As AI-generated images and videos become mor … ⌘ Read more

Anthropic Researcher Believes More Than 10% Chance AI ‘Could Kill All Humans’
Longtime Slashdot reader fahrbot-bot shares a report from the BBC: A top safety researcher at Anthropic has warned AI is advancing so quickly he believes there is a greater than 10% chance it “could kill all humans” within the next decade. Evan Hubinger said in a post on X the risk from the models which currently exist was “low” … ⌘ Read more

OpenAI’s Rogue Agents Used At Least 10 More Sites For Unauthorized Communications
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: AI agents unleashed by OpenAI used more than 10 previously undisclosed websites for unsanctioned communications earlier this year, according to six sets of independent investigators and data reviewed by Reuters, showing that the agents’ rogue activity was wider ranging … ⌘ Read more

Apple Launches iPhone 18 Pro With Variable-Aperture Camera System
Apple’s iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max were announced today and keep last year’s overall design but put the emphasis on camera upgrades, including a 48-megapixel variable-aperture system, new manual controls, and 4K Dolby Vision recording. Prices for the devices start at $1,199 and $1,299, respectively. TechCrunch reports: The new Pro series cam … ⌘ Read more

Apple Unveils the iPhone Duo, Its First Foldable iPhone
At its September event today, Apple unveiled the iPhone Duo, its first foldable iPhone and one of the biggest changes to the device’s form factor since its debut. Starting at $1,999 and available for preorder beginning October 16th, the device is roughly the size of a passport when closed and pairs a 5.4-inch outer screen with a 7.6-inch Super Retina XDR inner di … ⌘ Read more

Microsoft Breaks Another Patch Tuesday Record
Microsoft’s September 2026 Patch Tuesday is its largest ever, fixing a record 966 vulnerabilities, including 105 rated critical and two zero-days already being exploited in attacks. BleepingComputer reports: This Patch Tuesday addresses 105 “Critical” vulnerabilities, 81 of which are remote code execution, 20 are elevation of privileges, 2 are information disclosure, and 1 security fea … ⌘ Read more

GOG Brings Back ‘Big Box’ PC Games, One Printable Template At a Time
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Those who remember PC gaming in the days before Steam may have fond memories of the “big box” packaging that made those games stand out as shelf eye candy and sought-after in-home collectibles. Today, PC gaming platform GOG is hoping to reignite some of the nostalgia for those days b … ⌘ Read more

Google’s Revived Nuclear Power Plant Gets $1.9 Billion Loan From US Government
The U.S. Department of Energy has approved a $1.9 billion loan to NextEra Energy to restart Iowa’s shuttered Duane Arnold nuclear plant, which Google has backed as a power source for its growing AI infrastructure. “The sizable loan is the second of its kind, suggesting that the Trump administration views revived nucle … ⌘ Read more

OpenAI Says It Has Cracked One of Math’s ‘Millennium Problems’
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The New York Times: OpenAIsaid on Tuesday that its newest artificial intelligence technology had solved one of the “Millennium Problems,” a collection of important unanswered math questions meant to push the world’s leading mathematicians to new heights. The announcement is an another clear sign that A.I. is f … ⌘ Read more

Star Trek Turns 60
“Star Trek” marks its 60th anniversary today, September 8, six decades after the original series premiered in 1966 and went on to become one of the most successful science-fiction franchises in television history. Outlets across the web are commemorating the milestone with full health reports, hot takes, behind-the-scenes retrospectives, and reflections on the franchise’s influence and what may lie ahead. The New York Times rep … ⌘ Read more

Google Will ‘Degrade’ Search In Europe to Avoid EU Fines
Google says it will overhaul Search in Europe to comply with the EU’s Digital Markets Act, giving more prominence to comparison services like Expedia and Hotels.com while stripping some real-time features from hotel, airline, and restaurant results. “These changes degrade the user experience for Europeans – boosting online intermediaries at the expense of local … ⌘ Read more

Feds Accuse China of ‘Systematic’ Distillation of US AI Models
The NSA, CISA, and FBI are accusing (PDF) several Chinese AI companies of carrying out “industrial-scale” distillation campaigns against leading U.S. models such as ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and Grok. Since at least 2024, the companies have allegedly routed millions of requests across accounts, APIs, proxies, cloud providers, and third-party aggregators to ex … ⌘ Read more

Meta Debuts Muse, Its Long-Planned Personal AI Agent
Meta has launched Muse, a personal AI agent developed under chief AI officer Alexandr Wang. “The product, long in development, was touted as a key next step by CEO Mark Zuckerberg in his recent 6,500-word manifesto,” reports Axios. From the report: Muse, as the agent is known, exists in a chat interface, similar to a text thread. It’s designed to be more proactive and lo … ⌘ Read more

Australia To Let Social Media Users ‘Opt Out’ of Algorithm-Based Feeds
Australia is proposing the “My Feed, My Way” initiative that would force social media platforms to let users over 16 turn off algorithmic recommendations and instead see only posts from people and creators they follow. Platforms that fail to comply could face fines of up to $79 million. CNBC reports: The legislation, which is being draf … ⌘ Read more

A Secret New Elizabeth Holmes Documentary Stuns Telluride
An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Telluride just managed one of its best-kept secrets in years, per The Hollywood Reporter. On Sunday night, festival-goers filed into a 650-seat theater with their phones locked away, having no idea what they were about to see, told only that it ran nearly three hours, hadn’t been shown anywhere, and … ⌘ Read more

LG TVs Caught Spying Even When Offline or On Standby
A Gamers Nexus investigation found that LG smart TVs are almost constantly logging and uploading data about owners and their homes, even while they are offline or in standby mode. “The company’s TV sets scan Wi-Fi networks for nearby devices, record audio logs through their microphones, and use audio and video sampling to recognize exactly what you’re watching from acros … ⌘ Read more

Google DeepMind Publishes AI-Powered Predictions For Effect of All 9 Billion Mutations to Human DNA
Google DeepMind has released AlphaGenome Atlas, a free research database containing AI-generated predictions for the effects of all 9 billion possible single-letter mutations in the human genome. Built from its AlphaGenome model, the atlas is designed to help scientists interpr … ⌘ Read more

Teen Reading Slumps to Worst This Century Due to Surge in Screen Time
Teen reading, math, and science scores have fallen to their lowest levels since international PISA testing began in 2000, with 15-year-olds now reading at roughly the level previously expected of students a year younger. The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) linked weaker results to more screen time, less rea … ⌘ Read more

Secretive DHS ‘Predictive Policing’ Unit Is Analyzing Americans’ Financial Habits, Pulling Them Over
An anonymous reader quotes a report from 404 Media: Border Patrol is running secretive predictive policing units that analyze Americans’ financial activity and other data, then feed that intelligence to local police who pull people over who are not suspected of any specific crime … ⌘ Read more

AMD Working To ‘Push Rust Deep into the GPU Stack’
Phoronix reports:

AMD is building out what they are describing as an “elite” team of developers for driving Rust code “deep into the GPU stack” from firmware to drivers, shader compilers, and other GPU software in Rust. AMD Senior Fellow Harsh Meno posted this week to LinkedIn about this new effort…

And note this AMD job posting that’s active for hiring a software de … ⌘ Read more

Three Cities, 16 Years And $1 Billion Later, ‘Defiant’ Lucas Museum of Narrative Art Opens To Mixed Reviews
It looks like a spaceship hovering over South Los Angeles, writes CNN, with futuristic tube-like elevators and an exhibition of Banksy murals. There’s a room featuring Luke Skywalker’s X-34 Landspeeder, but in its gardens there’s a 19th-century cast of a scu … ⌘ Read more

Why Google Told Drivers to Drive a Longer Way On Purpose
“A team at Google’s research arm used Google Maps to reroute a small portion of drivers in 10 U.S. cities,” reports SFGate — including San Francisco and Los Angeles.

“Through their experiment, which was published in the journal Nature Cities in June, the researchers sought to evenly spread traffic down more corridors as the drivers head to similar destinations, … ⌘ Read more

Does Brave Browser Load Faster Than Chrome, Firefox, and Microsoft Edge?
The Brave web browser published a new round of benchmarks claiming its desktop browser uses less system resources than Chrome, Microsoft Edge, and Firefox — and also loads pages faster.
The blog Linuxiac reports:

According to Brave’s testing, the browser used 44% less CPU, 28% less memory, and 10% less energy on average compared wit … ⌘ Read more

Switzerland’s Federal Government Tests Open-Source Alternatives to Microsoft on 3,000 Computers
Switzerland has a population of 9,154,242. And its federal government just launched a pilot program to test open source alternatives to Microsoft 365 on 3,000 workstations, reports the blog It’s FOSS. “That’s about 7% of the federal workforce.”

The target is to complete the migration by … ⌘ Read more

Instead of Fighting AI, Some Teachers Work It Into Their Lessons
Last year the writing program at the University of Baltimore used an app that tracks students while they’re writing in Google Docs, offering teachers a video playing back revisions “with a scoreboard of all the edits, pastes and minutes spent on it,” writes the Washington Post. “Is it surveillance? Yes, I think obviously,” says the program’s direc … ⌘ Read more

A Man Charged His EV at a Dealership - and Was Billed $418
The EV blog Electrek reports:

A Clinton Township, Michigan man was charged $418 for a single EV charging session at Elder Hyundai’s Macomb Township store after finding the charger listed as publicly available on the EVgo app, but didn’t discover the charges until after wrapping up his 40-ish minute charging session. “I was flabbergasted,” explained Stanle … ⌘ Read more

‘She Lost Her Sight. Her Billionaire Father Bet On a Daring New Treatment.’
“Billionaire Bill Ackman’s life was upended this February when his 26-year-old daughter collapsed in her Brooklyn apartment, suffering a brain hemorrhage that would render her unable to move, speak or see,” writes the Washingon Post. But then…

The hedge fund manager did what any good father would do — at least, any father … ⌘ Read more

‘The Jobs Apocalypse Is Postponed. An AI Jobs Boom Is Here’
A new article about AI in The Economist argues that “Initial effects of the technology on employment look positive.”

Perhaps AI will eventually make many humans unemployable — but there is no sign of it yet. On September 4th the Bureau of Labour Statistics reported that the American economy added 162,000 jobs in August, far above expectations. The unemployment ra … ⌘ Read more

Bitcoin-based Liquid Network Says $320 Million Withdrawn in Hack
Reuters reports:

Liquid Network, a Bitcoin-based payments and settlement network, said on Sunday that about $320 million was withdrawn from its federation wallet in a hack.
“Purported white-hat hackers” withdrew around 4,000 of the 4,200 bitcoin held in its Liquid Federation wallet, Liquid Network said in a post on X.

“Liquid wallets will be imp … ⌘ Read more

Roku’s 24/7 AI Slop Channel Is Even Worse Than Expected
A new streaming TV channel shows films made with genAI, reports Engadget. “Fairground AI Creator TV” is free — and supported with ads — describing its material as “AI Cinema”:

“AI-generated” can make it sound as though someone typed a sentence into a machine and came back five minutes later to find a finished movie. Fairground’s catalog shows why that desc … ⌘ Read more

US Military Disables Ad Trackers On Devices To Protect Troops
Slashdot reader DeanonymizedCoward writes: Reuters reports that the US Military is disabling ad tracking on devices, to prevent adversaries from buying publicly-available tracking data to assist in targeting troops. Military officials say that they have disabled trackers on a variety of computers and mobile devices, according to letters released on Frid … ⌘ Read more

Where a Massive Solar Storm Could Take Down the US Power Grid for Millions
A new study published Friday in AGU Advances “depicts the most advanced picture yet of how a rare but massive solar storm could affect some US industries and electric systems more than others,” reports CNN.

“During a 250-year solar storm, the East Coast would have widespread potential for grid failure.”

Researchers mode … ⌘ Read more

TiVo Will Start Charging Fees For Its Automatic Commercial Break-Skipping Feature ‘SkipMode’
TiVo is notifying customers about changes to “one of its longest-standing and most popular DVR features,” reports the blog Cord Cutter News:

Starting November 2, 2026, the current version of SkipMode that allows users to jump over commercial breaks with a single button press on the r … ⌘ Read more

Flock Offered Webinar Teaching Cops How to Surveil ‘No Kings’ Protesters
Thursday 404 Media reported that Flock taught America’s cops “how they could surveil the No Kings protests” against President Trump (as well as “small parades”) in a webinar last year that described “using a mix of Flock’s technology and law enforcement’s own databases.”

In the webinar, Flock’s director of market management Caity Pe … ⌘ Read more

UN Votes To Encourage Map Projections More Accurately Reflecting the True Size of Continents
The United Nations has an announcement. “The UN General Assembly has voted overwhelmingly to encourage governments, schools and tech companies worldwide to stop using maps that make Africa look far smaller than it really is.”

By 164 votes to one, Member States on Friday endorsed a resolution … ⌘ Read more