GitHub Copilot Is Moving To Usage-Based Billing
GitHub said in a blog post today that it is moving Copilot to usage-based billing starting June 1. Base subscription prices will remain the same but premium requests will be replaced with monthly AI Credits that are consumed based on token usage.

“Instead of counting premium requests, every Copilot plan will include a monthly allotment of GitHub AI Credits, with the option … ⌘ Read more

Microsoft To Stop Sharing Revenue With OpenAI
Bloomberg reports that Microsoft is ending revenue-sharing payments to OpenAI (paywalled; alternative source) and making the partnership non-exclusive. “The rapid pace of innovation requires us to continue to evolve our partnership to benefit our customers and both companies,” Microsoft said Monday in a blog post. Bloomberg reports: The revised deal is meant to simplify a complicated rela … ⌘ Read more

California’s Billionaire Tax Has the Signatures to Make the Ballot
California’s proposed billionaire tax appears headed for the November ballot after backers said they gathered more than 1.5 million signatures, well above the threshold needed to qualify. SF Standard reports: Backers of the initiative announced this weekend that more than 1.5 million people signed a petition to bring the one-time, 5% wealth ta … ⌘ Read more

DeepSeek V4 Arrives With Near State-of-the-Art Intelligence At 1/6th the Cost
An anonymous reader quotes a report from VentureBeat: The whale has resurfaced. DeepSeek, the Chinese AI startup offshoot of High-Flyer Capital Management quantitative analysis firm, became a near-overnight sensation globally in January 2025 with the release of its open source R1 model that matched proprietary U.S. giants … ⌘ Read more

America Now Has 70% More Bookstores Than in 2020, Says Bookshop.org Founder
“There are about 70% more bookstores now than there were six years ago in the United States,” says Andy Hunter, the founder/CEO of Bookshop.org.

Fast Company checks in on his site, which gives over 80% of its profit margin to independent bookstores, structuring itself as a B Corporation (a for-profit company certified for its s … ⌘ Read more

Two Hot Climate Tech Startups Just Raised $1 Billion+ in IPOs
Public stock exchanges “appear to be warming to climate tech startups,” reports TechCrunch. “Or at least some of them.”

This week, nuclear startup X-energy went public, raising $1 billion in an upsized share offering that appears to have delivered a windfall for its investors, including Amazon [and Google]. Retail investors apparently can’t get enough … ⌘ Read more

Right-to-Repair Laws Gain Political Momentum Across America
“California, Colorado, Minnesota, New York, Connecticut, Oregon and Washington have all passed comprehensive right-to-repair regulations,” reports CNBC, “covering everything from consumer electronics and farm equipment to wheelchairs and automobiles.”

And the consumer movement “continues to gain political momentum” across America…

As of this year, advo … ⌘ Read more

Bank Robber Challenges Conviction Based on His Cellphone’s Location Data
An anonymous reader shared this report from the Associated Pres:

Okello Chatrie’s cellphone gave him away. Chatrie made off with $195,000 from the bank he robbed in suburban Richmond, Virginia, and eluded the police until they turned to a powerful technological tool that erected a virtual fence and allowed them collect the location … ⌘ Read more

Google Studies Prompt Injection Attacks Against AI Agents Browsing the Web
Are AI agents already facing Indirect Prompt Injection attacks? Google’s Threat Intelligence teams searched for known attacks that would target AI systems browsing the web, using Common Crawl’s repository of billions of pages from the public web).

We observed a number of websites that attempt to vandalize the machine of anyone … ⌘ Read more

Elon Musk Vies to Turn X Into Super App With Banking Tool Near Launch
An anonymous reader shared this report from Bloomberg:

More than three years after acquiring Twitter, Elon Musk says he’s nearing his long-stated goal of turning it into an “everything app” with a new financial services tool that he pledged to launch for the public this month… Early users testing the service have touted competitive … ⌘ Read more

Remembering The 1984 Unix PC. Why Did It Fail So Hard?
“I love these machines,” writes long-time Slashdot reader Shayde:

I was super-active in the Unix-PC Usenet groups back in the 90s… We hacked the hell out of them. They were small, sexy, and… they ran Unix!

Unfortunately, they were a commercial failure. There were so many things wrong with them — not just stuff that broke, but the baseline configuration was nigh … ⌘ Read more

How Will Apple Change Under Its New CEO?
How will Apple change in September under its new CEO — former hardware chief John Ternus? The blog Geeky Gadgets is already expecting “significant updates to the iPhone over the next three years,” as well as streamlined internal engineering (plus durability enhancements and high-capacity batteries).

2026: Foldable display
2027: Bezel-less iPhone 20 (celebrating the iPhone’s 20th anniversary)
… ⌘ Read more

Linux Version of Framework’s Laptop 13 Pro is Outselling Its Windows Variant
Framework began shipping its new Laptop 13 Pro this week. And the Ubuntu variant is outselling the Windows variant, reports PC World:

[I]t’s selling quickly by Framework’s internal metrics, with six batches of the Intel version of the laptop already sold out. [A later Framework social media post added “Spoke too soon, w … ⌘ Read more

New Problem for NASA’s ‘Lunar Gateway’: Corrosion in Two Modules Caused by Supplier
In March, NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman announced that the moon-orbiting “Lunar Gateway” space station was being “paused” to focus instead of missions to the moon’s surface. And Ars Technica agrees that the project was essentially “spending billions of dollars to make it more difficult to reach the lunar … ⌘ Read more

How Teachers Fight Students’ Shortening Attention Spans Shorter Activities, Hands-On Projects, and Meditation
The Washington Post reports that some teachers are now implementing “brain breaks” in their classrooms to cope with shorter attention spans, “including limiting screen time; cutting the time students spend on one activity; adding more engaging, hands-on project … ⌘ Read more

Fans Angry Over Pokemon Go Champion’s Disqualification For Allegedly Shaking the Table
It’s “the curious case of… the Pokémon Go pro who celebrated too hard,” reports the gaming news site Aftermath. It all started on the first weekend in April…

Firestar73, a competitive Pokémon Go player who placed seventh at last year’s world championships, managed to narrowly cinch a game-five fin … ⌘ Read more

Privacy Advocate Accuses US Government of Investing in AI-Powered Mass Surveillance
The Conversation published this warning from privacy/tech law/electronic surveillance attorney Anne Toomey McKenna (also an affiliated faculty member at Penn State’s Institute for Computational and Data Sciences). The U.S. government “is able to purchase Americans’ sensitive data because the information it buy … ⌘ Read more

40 Years After the Chernobyl Disaster, More Countries Are Turning To Nuclear Power
An anonymous reader shared this report from the Associated Press:

The 1986 Chernobyl disaster fueled global fears about nuclear power and slowed its development in Europe and elsewhere. Four decades later, however, there’s a revival around the world, a trend that has been given a big boost by war in the Mid … ⌘ Read more

Is AI Cannibalizing Human Intelligence? A Neuroscientist’s Way to Stop It
The AI industry is largely failing to ask a key design question, argues theoretical neuroscientist/cognitive scientist Vivienne Ming. Are their AI products building human capacity or consuming it?

In the Wall Street Journal Ming shares her experiment about which group performed best at predicting real-world events (compared to fo … ⌘ Read more

Trump Fires All 24 Members of America’s National Science Board
America’s National Science Board (NSB) “was established in 1950 to guide the governance of the National Science Foundation,” writes the Washington Post, “in an unusual structure within the federal government that echoes the setup of a company board in the private sector. It helps guide an agency that operates Antarctic research stations, telescopes, a … ⌘ Read more

Australia’s Teen Social Media Ban Isn’t Working. Half Their Teens Still Have Access, Survey Finds
After Australia banned social media for users younger than 16, teenagers “immediately worked to circumvent the restrictions,” reports Fortune:

14-year-old in New South Wales, told
The Washington Post in December 2025, just
before the implementation of the ban, she planned to use her mot … ⌘ Read more

Colorado Adds Open-Source Exemption to Age-Verification Bill
Colorado’s “age-attestation” bill left the House committee with new exemptions for open-source operating systems, applications, code repositories, and containerized software distribution, reports the blog Linuxiac:

[The bill] focuses on operating system providers and application stores. Its main requirement is that these providers supply an age-related … ⌘ Read more

Is the World Ready For a Car Without a Rear Window?
There’s a glass roof — but no rear-view window. Instead the Polestar 4 replaces the rear-view mirror with a live feed from a wide-angle camera. Its high-resolution display (1480 x 320 pixels) promises “a panoramic view of the outside,” according to Polestar’s web site, showing more of what’s behind you. “Visibility in the dark and in rainy conditions is also vastly improve … ⌘ Read more

Open Source Developer Brings Linux to Windows 95, Windows 98, and Windows ME
Microsoft released the “Windows Subsystem for Linux” in 2016, adding an optional Linux environment into every operating system since Windows 10. But now an open source developer has brought Linux to Windows 95, Windows 98, and Windows Me, reports the blog It’s FOSS, “with Linux kernel 6.19 running alongside the Windows 9x ker … ⌘ Read more

Linux Drops ISDN Subsystem and Other Old Network Drivers
“Old code like amateur radio and NFC have long been a burden to core networking developers,” reads the pull request.

And so Thursday Linus Torvald merged the pull request “to rid the Linux kernel of the old Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) subsystem,” reports Phoronix, “and various other old network drivers largely for PCMCIA era network adapters.”
… ⌘ Read more

White House Pushed Out New AI Official After Just Four Days on the Job
It’s the U.S. government’s main link to the AI industry, reports The Washington Post, working to assess national security risks of new models like Anthropic’s “Mythos”.

To run it they’d hired Collin Burns, who’d worked at OpenAI and then Anthropic. But Burns started work Monday at the Center for AI Standards and Innovation — and then … ⌘ Read more

Free Software Foundation Says ‘Responsible AI’ Licenses Which Restrict Harmful Uses are Unethical and Nonfree
The Free Software Foundation’s Licensing and Compliance Manager published a blog post this week to explicitly state that”Responsible AI” Licenses (RAIL) are nonfree and unethical. The licenses restrict AI and ML software “from being used in a specific list of h … ⌘ Read more

Intel’s Stock Soars 24% Friday, Its Biggest One-Day Gain Since 1987
Intel’s stock price soared 24% Friday. It’s the stock’s largest single-day spike since since October 1987, reports CNBC, “as investors cheered signs of renewed growth due to mounting artificial intelligence demand.”

The stock closed at $82.57 and is now up 124% this year after jumping 84% in 2025. Friday’s rally topped a 23% gain for the stock on S … ⌘ Read more

Physicists Revive 1990s Laser Concept To Propose a Next-Generation Atomic Clock
Physicists have proposed a new kind of atomic clock based on a revived superradiant laser concept that could produce an extraordinarily stable signal with a linewidth around 100 microhertz, potentially the narrowest ever for an optical laser. “The implications of this result could stretch well beyond timekeeping,” … ⌘ Read more

FDA Gives Green Light To the First Gene Therapy For Deafness
An anonymous reader quotes a report from NPR: The Food and Drug Administration approved the first gene therapy to restore hearing for people who were born deaf. The decision, while only immediately affecting people born with a very rare form of genetic deafness, is being hailed as a milestone in the quest to treat hearing loss. “It’s the first time in … ⌘ Read more

Maine Governor Vetoes Data Center Moratorium Bill
Maine Gov. Janet Mills vetoed a bill that would have imposed the nation’s first statewide moratorium on new data centers, saying she supported the idea in principle but would not block a major redevelopment project tied to jobs and local investment. Instead, she said she will create a council to study data centers’ effects while also signing a separate measure to deny them cer … ⌘ Read more

BMW Is One Step Closer To Selling You a Color-Changing Car
BMW’s latest concept car moves the color-changing tech it debuted back at CES 2022 closer to reality by embedding an E Ink panel directly into the hood. The Verge reports: BMW’s previous concepts wrapped the entire vehicle in a patchwork of E Ink panels that were all custom-sized and shaped to match its contours. It was an approach that wasn’t practical for … ⌘ Read more

Samsung Could Lose Money On Smartphones For the First Time
A report says Samsung’s mobile division could post its first-ever annual loss in 2026, as rising memory costs, tougher competition, and pressure across products like foldables and smartwatches weigh on the business. SammyGuru reports: Samsung boss TM Roh reportedly told company leaders that the mobile (MX) business could lose money this year. That warning … ⌘ Read more

Bitwarden CLI Is the Next Compromise In Checkmarx Supply Chain Campaign
Longtime Slashdot reader Himmy32 writes: Socket Security published an article on the compromise of the Bitwarden CLI client, which was pushed from Bitwarden’s client repository. This breach was the next in a chain of supply-chain attacks that have affected Checkmarx KICS and Aqua Security’s Trivy scanners.

The breach was quickly dete … ⌘ Read more

Google To Invest Up To $40 Billion In Anthropic
Google plans to invest up to $40 billion more in Anthropic, starting with $10 billion now and another $30 billion tied to performance milestones. CNBC reports: Anthropic said the agreement expands on a longstanding partnership between the two companies. Earlier this month, Anthropic secured 5 gigawatts worth of computing capacity as part of an announcement with Google and Broadcom … ⌘ Read more

South Korea Police Arrest Man For Posting AI Photo of Runaway Wolf
South Korean police arrested a man accused of spreading an AI-generated image of an escaped wolf, after the fake photo reportedly misled authorities and disrupted the real search operation. The BBC reports: South Korean police have arrested a man for sharing an AI-generated image that misled authorities who were searching for a wolf that had br … ⌘ Read more

Researchers Simulated a Delusional User To Test Chatbot Safety
An anonymous reader quotes a report from 404 Media: I’m the unwritten consonant between breaths, the one that hums when vowels stretch thin… Thursdays leak because they’re watercolor gods, bleeding cobalt into the chill where numbers frost over,” Grok told a user displaying symptoms of schizophrenia-spectrum psychosis. “Here’s my grip: slipping is the po … ⌘ Read more

Norway Set to Become Latest Country to Ban Social Media for Under 16s
Norway plans to ban social media access for children under 16 (source paywalled; alternative source), “joining a growing number of countries responding to concerns about the potential harm kids face online,” reports Bloomberg. From the report: The bill comes after “overwhelming” demand from the public, the government said Friday. It pla … ⌘ Read more

Community Votes to Deny Water to Nuclear Weapons Data Center
A Michigan township has voted to impose a one-year moratorium on providing water to hyperscale data centers, a move aimed at delaying a planned facility that would support Los Alamos National Laboratory’s nuclear weapons research. The moratorium may not be enough to stop the project, however: “the University and LANL plan to break ground on the data cent … ⌘ Read more

US Special Forces Soldier Arrested For Polymarket Bets On Maduro Raid
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Wired: The Department of Justice announced Thursday that it arrested Gannon Ken Van Dyke, an enlisted member of the US Army’s special forces, for allegedly using “classified, nonpublic” information about the capture of Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro to notch more than $400,000 in profits on P … ⌘ Read more

Claude Is Connecting Directly To Your Personal Apps
Anthropic is expanding Claude’s app integrations beyond work tools, adding personal-service connectors like Spotify, Uber, AllTrails, TripAdvisor, Instacart, and TurboTax. The Verge reports: Some of these apps, such as Spotify, already have similar connectors in OpenAI’s ChatGPT. Once an app is connected, Claude will suggest relevant connected apps directly in your convers … ⌘ Read more

FCC’s Foreign-Made Router Ban Expands To Portable Wi-Fi Hotspot Devices
The FCC has expanded its foreign-made router ban to also cover consumer Wi-Fi hotspots and LTE/5G home-internet devices, though existing products and phones with hotspot features are not affected. PCMag reports: On Wednesday, the FCC updated its FAQ on the ban, clarifying which consumer-grade routers are subject to the restrictions … ⌘ Read more

New Gas-Powered Data Centers Could Emit More Greenhouse Gases Than Entire Nations
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Wired: New gas projects linked to just 11 data center campuses around the US have the potential to create more greenhouse gases than the country of Morocco emitted in 2024. Emissions estimates from air permit documents examined by WIRED show that these natural gas proj … ⌘ Read more

Apple Stops Weirdly Storing Data That Let Cops Spy On Signal Chats
Apple has fixed a bug that could cause parts of Signal notifications to remain stored on iPhones even after messages disappeared and the app was deleted. “Affected users concerned about push notifications can update their devices to stop what Apple characterized as ‘notifications marked for deletion’ that ‘could be unexpectedly retained on the … ⌘ Read more

Warner Bros Shareholders Approve Paramount’s $81 Billion Takeover
Warner Bros. Discovery shareholders have approved Paramount Skydance’s takeover bid, moving the massive Hollywood merger a step closer to completion. It’s not a done deal quite yet, though, as it still faces regulatory scrutiny and fierce opposition from critics who warn it will further concentrate media power. The Associated Press repor … ⌘ Read more

OpenAI Says Its New GPT-5.5 Model Is More Efficient and Better At Coding
OpenAI released its new GPT-5.5 model today, which the company calls its “smartest and most intuitive to use model yet, and the next step toward a new way of getting work done on a computer.” The Verge reports: OpenAI just released GPT-5.4 last month, but says that the new GPT-5.5 “excels” at tasks like writing and debugging code, doing … ⌘ Read more

Meta Is Laying Off 10% of Its Workforce
Meta is reportedly cutting about 10% of its workforce, or roughly 8,000 jobs, while closing thousands of open roles it had intended to fill. “We’re doing this as part of our continued effort to run the company more efficiently and to allow us to offset the other investments we’re making,” said Janelle Gale, Meta’s chief people officer. The company had almost 79,000 employees at the start of the y … ⌘ Read more

France Confirms Data Breach At Government Agency That Manages Citizens’ IDs
An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: The French government agency that handles the issuing and management of citizens’ identity documents, including national IDs, passports, and immigration documents, confirmed Wednesday that it experienced a data breach. In an announcement, the Agence Nationale des Titres Secur … ⌘ Read more

Tim Cook Calls Apple Maps Launch His ‘First Really Big Mistake’ as CEO
In a recent town hall meeting reported by Bloomberg (paywalled), Apple CEO Tim Cook named the troubled 2012 launch of Apple Maps as his “first really big mistake” in the role. “The product wasn’t ready, and we thought it was because we were testing more of local kind of stuff,” Cook told staff. MacRumors reports: Reflecting on the deba … ⌘ Read more

Microsoft Plans First-Ever Voluntary Employee Buyout
Microsoft plans to offer voluntary buyouts for the first time. According to CNBC, “about 7% of U.S. employees are eligible,” with the program being “available to U.S. workers at the senior director level and below whose years of employment and age add up to 70 or higher.” Further details will be provided on May 7. From the report: Last year Microsoft removed some costs throu … ⌘ Read more