AI Law Firm Wins UK Court Case For First Time
Garfield AI, the UK’s first regulator-approved AI law firm, has won its first court case after helping a freelancer recover 7,000 pounds in unpaid fees. “I was owed money for work I had done, but it felt like the process of recovering it could be too stressful, expensive and time-consuming,” said Tamires Camal Taquidir, a freelancer who had provided HR-related services to a hospitalit … ⌘ Read more

2,000 Retired Google Pixel Phones Get a Second Life As a Private Cloud
UC San Diego researchers are working with Google to build a private cloud from 2,000 retired Pixel Fold motherboards, demonstrating how discarded smartphones could provide useful, low-cost computing capacity. “The full smartphone cluster is expected to launch this fall,” reports The Register. “Depending on how well the initial phas … ⌘ Read more

Ubisoft Co-Founder Claude Guillemot Dies In Plane Crash
An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Claude Guillemot, co-founder of French video game company Ubisoft, died Friday at the age of 69. According to French media (via Bloomberg), Guillemot died in a plane crash in the French resort town of La Baule. He was one of two people aboard the plane, both of whom died.

Guillemot founded Ubisoft with his fou … ⌘ Read more

Several US States Bet That AI Can Solve Their Prison Recidivism Crisis
America’s state prison systems need ways “to keep people from returning to prison,” reports the Wall Street Journal, “when an estimated 40% end up back behind bars within three years.”

Part of the problem comes in the form of filing cabinets, manila folders and legacy digital databases. In other words, records for a single prisoner m … ⌘ Read more

‘Tutor’ Who Took Online Tests for 124 Students Jailed for Three Years
A private tutor who charged money to take dozens of exams for students and submit coursework for them “has been jailed for three years,” reports the BBC, “after his scam earned him £300,000.”

Shahid Adnan completed assignments and online tests for more than 120 students at Liverpool John Moore’s University, the Crown Prosecution Service … ⌘ Read more

TikTok Shows 3x More AI Slop Than YouTube, Report Finds
“About 59% of TikTok videos served to a new account’s For You feed are AI slop,” writes Search Engine Journal, “according to a report from Kapwing, the video creation tool company. That’s roughly three times the rate Kapwing found on YouTube.”

The company manually reviewed over 10,000 TikTok videos across 20 categories and ran a separate fresh-account test, countin … ⌘ Read more

Someone Forked systemd Over Its New Birth Date Field
The blog Linuxiac reports:
A new systemd fork has appeared with a specific purpose: removing systemd’s recently added support for storing a user’s birth date in JSON user records.

The fork, called Liberated systemd, published its first tagged release as v261 shortly after the official systemd 261 release. In other words, the fork follows upstream systemd while reverti … ⌘ Read more

The Secret Revolution in Battery Technology: 3-D Printing
“There’s a revolution in battery technology hiding in plain sight,” reports The Wall Street Journal. “The 3-D printing of batteries has the potential to put energy storage inside any device.

“This will enable lightweight and long-lasting consumer gadgets, long-range military drones and even nanoscale robots.”
Almost all the innovations we regularly hear ab … ⌘ Read more

Is Tesla Planning To Sell Modular AI Data Center Hardware?
Electrek reports:

Tesla wants to sell modular AI data center hardware, according to a new trademark application for a product called “Megapod.” The filing describes a complete, self-contained computing system for AI workloads…

Tesla filed the “Megapod” trademark (serial number 99893717) with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office this month, through its … ⌘ Read more

UK Official Promises Statements ‘Around VPNs’ and Further Teen Restrictions on Chatbots and Social Media
PC Gamer reports:

The UK government is considering an Australia-style ban on social media for under-16s, with Prime Minister Keir Starmer saying that the ban could take effect as soon as spring next year. As for the much nearer future, Science and Technology Secretary … ⌘ Read more

Cops Keep Getting Arrested for Using Flock’s Cameras to Stalk People
404 Media remembers how a Florida police office looked up his ex-girlfriend’s license plate in the Flock automated license plate reader system at least 69 times in 2024 — even searching for her mom’s license plate at least 24 times. The police office was charged with stalking and hacking-related offenses, serving one day in prison with five … ⌘ Read more

After Six Years Of Work and Over 360 Patches, Linux 7.2 Finally Removes Bug-Prone strncpy
Tech Times reports:

Linux 7.2’s merge window closed out a cleanup campaign on Friday that most kernel developers had stopped expecting to see end: the complete removal of strncpy(), a C string-copy function that the kernel’s own documentation labels “actively dangerous,” from every subsystem, driv … ⌘ Read more

US Bill Would Mandate AI Chip Location Tracking to Thwart China and Other Adversaries
NBC News reports:

A group of companies that specialize in tracking international shipments of sensitive technologies is backing a Capitol Hill bill that would require America’s most powerful AI chips to incorporate stronger security mechanisms aimed at preventing the chips from reaching China and other adv … ⌘ Read more

The Rust Ecosystem Gets an AI Security Engineer in Residence
While the Rust Foundation has a Security Initiative to protect its ecosystem, “the threats have expanded,” they announced this week, “and so has the kind of help maintainers need.”

Much of this comes back to a single shift: Automated tooling (much of it now built on large language models) has gotten good enough to surface real vulnerabilities in o … ⌘ Read more

Canonical’s Upcoming AI Tool: Talk to Ubuntu Instead of Typing
This week the Ubuntu desktop’s director of engineering announced they’re bringing speech-to-text dictation to Ubuntu Desktop, aiming for an experience “that feels like a natural part of the desktop while respecting user privacy and running entirely on local hardware.”

“Speech recognition has become a common feature on modern platforms, and we think it … ⌘ Read more

New Super PAC Aims to Rally Tech Workers to Help Limit AI: ‘the Guardrails Alliance’
“A grassroots movement is forming among everyday tech workers who are demanding their companies develop and deploy AI responsibly,” reports TechCrunch.

Hoping to leverage that discontent is a new super PAC called the Guardrails Alliance. The New York Times reports that it launched Thursday with backers t … ⌘ Read more

Facial Recognition on Public Buses? Kansas City Says Yes
An anonymous reader shared this report from the Associated Press:

Officials in Kansas City, Missouri, are preparing to equip cameras on some public buses with facial recognition software capable of identifying passengers who appear on a list of banned riders or missing persons. Supporters and opponents alike view the effort as a major litmus test for tapping the … ⌘ Read more

Polymarket Paid Dozens to Post Videos of Themselves ‘Winning’ With Fake Bets
In January a college student posted a video showing him winning $100,000 on Polymarket — one of 145 that appeared to show bets adding up to almost $410,000, reports the Wall Street Journal. “But none of those bets were real.”

Instead its creator was “one of dozens of mostly college-age creators Polymarket paid to film thems … ⌘ Read more

Gamers Sue PlayStation: It’s Not Clear They’re Selling Licenses Rather Than Ownership of Games
The gaming news site Aftermath reports:

Four gamers are suing Sony Interactive Entertainment for allegedly breaking a California law that requires digital storefronts selling games to make it clear people are buying licenses, not actually owning the games.

Sony Interactive Entertainment … ⌘ Read more

How Millions of Digital Home Devices Are Secretly Powering Cyberattacks
The Wall Street Journal reports on internet-connected devices — and how every year millions of them “can contain a secret digital backdoor that opens up access to your home internet, so that anyone… can surf the web as if they were you.” (And this is especially true for “knockoffs that you buy online”…)

In a video report this wee … ⌘ Read more

OpenAI Announces Benchmarks for AI Life Sciences Research. Its Best Model Failed 63.9% of the Test
This week OpenAI announced a 750-task test to to measure “whether AI systems can support realistic life science research tasks, not just answer biology questions.”

But while OpenAI’s top-performing GPT-Rosalind model led the rankings, Slashdot reader BrianFagioli notes that “it a … ⌘ Read more

Remembering When Alan Turing Developed a Portable Voice Encryption Device
Long-time Slashdot reader smooth wombat writes: Alan Turing, one of the more famous people who worked at Bletchley Park to decipher the German Enigma coding machine, was also working on a separate project. His private papers, known as the Bayley papers for his assistant Donald Bayley who held onto the papers until his death in 2020 … ⌘ Read more

Tech Pundit Cringely Co-Founds Startup ‘2Brains Inc’ to Solve LLM Hallucinations
Long-time tech pundit Robert Cringely started his career at the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Lab back in 1978. Last month 73-year-old Cringely explained why his site went on a two-year hiatus — and it’s not just because of a heart attack and a stroke last July:

Just like everyone else, I’ve been busy all this time on … ⌘ Read more

Waymo Recalls About 3,900 Robotaxis After Some Drove Into ‘Freeway Construction Zones’
CNBC reports:

Waymo is recalling almost 3,900 robotaxis in the U.S. to fix software issues after some cars drove into freeway construction zones, according to notices filed with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. The voluntary recall, the Alphabet-owned company’s second in just over a mon … ⌘ Read more

Cellphone Alert System Breached in Brazil, Message Sent in Leetspeak
CNN reports:

An unauthorized alert bearing a mysterious message that was sent to cell phones in several states across Brazil on Saturday morning is suspected to be the work of hackers, the Brazilian government said. Devices lit up with the word “misantropi4,” an alphanumeric spelling of the Portuguese word “misantropia,” which in English … ⌘ Read more

SMPTE Opens Entire Standards Catalog for Free, Removing Century-Old Paywall
The Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers has published over 800 technical standards over the years (as a professional association for the media and entertainment industry).

But this week SMPTE “announced that its complete Standards catalog, the technical backbone behind everything from SDI and timecode to IP-ba … ⌘ Read more

Microsoft Discovers Cryptocurrency Stealer That Spreads Through USB Drives and Uses Tor
Ars Technica’s senior security editor reports:

Microsoft says it has detected new self-propagating malware that spreads through USB drives in search of cryptocurrency credentials, which it then sends to attacker-controlled servers.

The company named the worm Crypto Clipper because it monitors the cont … ⌘ Read more

FSF Patches Two-Year-Old Vulnerability Found by AI Researchers in GNU Savannah Repository
The Free Software Foundation’s GNU Savannah hosts thousands of free software projects — both GNU and non-GNU projects, including Drupal.

But in early May, security researchers from Hacktron.AI reported vulnerabilities and demonstrated an exploit, according to a new statement Friday from the FSF:
… ⌘ Read more

Student Loan Borrowers Will Get Interest Rate Cut If They Sign Up For Auto Pay
An anonymous reader quotes a report from NPR: Student loan borrowers who enroll in automatic payments will get a much bigger discount on interest starting July 1, the U.S. Department of Education says. Auto pay has long offered a modest discount off borrowers’ interest rate – .25 percentage points – but after millions … ⌘ Read more

Amazon Retaliated Against Workers Who Supported Regulating Data Centers, Complaint Says
Three Amazon employees have filed a civil-rights complaint alleging the company retaliated against them for publicly supporting Seattle regulations on data centers. “The complaint was filed on the workers’ behalf by Amazon Employees for Climate Justice, an independent group of corporate employees at Amazon … ⌘ Read more

Using Sound Waves To Make Espresso Could Cut Coffee-Brewing Energy Use By 75%
Researchers developed an ultrasonic espresso process that uses high-frequency sound waves instead of hot water to produce espresso-strength coffee at room temperature. And, not only did coffee drinkers find it comparable to traditional espresso, but the brewing process cut energy use by up to 75%. An anonymous reade … ⌘ Read more

Amazon Drops Sam Altman Movie After Announcing OpenAI Partnership
Amazon MGM has dropped Luca Guadagnino’s nearly completed Sam Altman biopic Artificial and is seeking another distributor for the film. The move comes months after Amazon expanded its multibillion-dollar partnership with OpenAI, fueling speculation about a potential conflict given the movie’s reportedly unflattering portrayal of Altman … ⌘ Read more

Norway Imposes Near Ban On AI In Elementary School
Norway will largely prohibit generative AI use for elementary kids ages 6 to 13 beginning with the new school year, while allowing limited, teacher-supervised use for older students. The government says the restrictions are intended to prevent children from skipping foundational reading, writing, and mathematics skills amid declining test scores. Reuters reports: Facing a br … ⌘ Read more

Doom Composer Bobby Prince Has Died
Video game composer and sound designer Bobby Prince has died at age 81 following an illness. Developer id software shared the news. Engadget reports: Prince was perhaps best known for his pioneering work on the Doom series. The Library of Congress inducted his soundtrack for the original game into the National Recording Registry just last month. “Despite the limitations of the 1993-era sound card drive … ⌘ Read more

Hyundai Takes Full Control of Boston Dynamics As SoftBank Exits For $325 Million
Hyundai Motor Group is acquiring SoftBank’s remaining 9.65% stake in Boston Dynamics for $325 million, “closing out SoftBank’s last piece of Boston Dynamics and turning the Waltham, Massachusetts robotics company into a wholly owned Hyundai business,” reports Startup Fortune. From the report: The price is $325 mi … ⌘ Read more

Canada Missed Chances To Inspect OceanGate’s Titan Before Fatal Implosion
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Wired: A report from Canada’s Transportation Safety Board has highlighted regulatory failures that allowed OceanGate’s unregistered, unflagged, and uncertified Titan submersible to operate out St. John’s, Newfoundland, for years before it imploded on a tourist trip to the wreck of the Tita … ⌘ Read more

New Unpatchable Exploit Targets Apple Devices With A12 and A13 Chips
Researchers have disclosed a new unpatchable BootROM exploit affecting Apple devices with A12, A13, S4, and S5 chips. The attack requires physical USB access and DFU mode, but can let an attacker run code before iOS loads, bypass signature checks, and boot modified software. 9to5Mac reports the details: In a highly detailed technical post p … ⌘ Read more

EU To Soon Classify AWS and Azure As Gatekeepers Under DSA
The European Commission is reportedly preparing to provisionally classify Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure as “gatekeepers” under the Digital Markets Act, bringing cloud infrastructure under the law’s stricter competition rules for the first time. The designation could require greater interoperability and data portability, making it easier for customers to … ⌘ Read more

The Korean Telecom Giant At the Center of Anthropic’s Mythos Controversy
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Wired: The Trump administration’s move to impose export controls on Anthropic’s most powerful AI technology followed a spat over the company granting South Korean telecom giant SK Telecom access to its Claude Mythos model, according to people familiar with the matter. US officials were concerned a … ⌘ Read more

Meta Lobbies Congress For Protection From Child-Harm Lawsuits
Longtime Slashdot reader schwit1 shares a report from Reuters: Meta has lobbied the U.S. Congress for legal immunity from child-harm claims tied to social media products such as Instagram, as it faces thousands of lawsuits from young users and their families, according to a source familiar with the matter and proposed legislative language reviewed by R … ⌘ Read more

NASA Picks Eric Schmidt’s Rocket Company For Mars Mission
NASA has selected Relativity Space to build and launch Aeolus, a 2028 Mars orbiter that would provide daily global measurements of dust, winds, and atmospheric temperatures to support future robotic and human missions. TechCrunch reports: The structure of the contract is akin to the deals that NASA made with SpaceX to fly cargo to the International Space Sta … ⌘ Read more

Rolls-Royce Secures Deal To Build Small Nuclear Reactors For Sweden
Rolls-Royce SMR has secured a multibillion-pound agreement to build three small modular reactors on Sweden’s west coast, “marking a major step in the British engineering group’s ambition to become a leading supplier of the technology in Europe,” reports Euronews. From the report: Following a rigorous selection process that started in 20 … ⌘ Read more

Trump Admin Backs Off Plans To Kill Ocean Monitoring
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: In May, the federal government announced without warning that it would take apart a network of ocean monitoring systems that it had spent over $350 million to build. No reason was given for the decision to shut down the Ocean Observatories Initiative (OOI), but suspicion immediately focused on the network’s role in … ⌘ Read more

Adobe Adds Its AI Assistant To Premiere, Illustrator and InDesign
Adobe is expanding its Firefly AI assistant into Premiere, Illustrator, InDesign, and Frame.io, where it can automate all sorts of tasks such as organizing clips, renaming assets, adding interview markers, rearranging layers, and finding missing fonts. It’s available starting today as part of a public beta. TechCrunch reports: Adobe is slowly tr … ⌘ Read more

California ‘Billionaire Tax’ Makes Ballot Despite Opposition From Tech Moguls
California’s proposed “billionaire tax” has gathered enough signatures to qualify for the November ballot, setting up a major fight between labor unions and some of Silicon Valley’s richest figures. From the report: The California Billionaire Tax Act, colloquially known as the billionaire tax, would levy a one-time 5% tax … ⌘ Read more

Midjourney Pivots From AI Image Generation To Body Scanning Medical Spa
Midjourney is expanding beyond AI image generation with plans for a medical-imaging business built around a water-based, full-body ultrasound scanner that uses hundreds of thousands of sensors and AI to reconstruct MRI-like images. “As you descend into the water, hundreds of thousands of tiny elements take turns, sending out wave … ⌘ Read more

Bernie Sanders Unveils $7 Trillion Plan To Give Americans Control of AI Industry
An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Associated Press: As artificial intelligence companies reshape the economy and race toward trillion-dollar valuations, Sen. Bernie Sanders is proposing a sweeping transfer of wealth and power from the industry to the American public. The legislation, shown first to The Ass … ⌘ Read more

Apple Announces Major App Store Changes on iOS in Brazil
Apple is allowing iPhone developers in Brazil to distribute apps through authorized alternative marketplaces and use third-party payment systems following action by the country’s competition regulator. “In other words, developers in Brazil will be able to circumvent the App Store and Apple’s in-app purchase system, but there are still fees,” reports MacRumors. … ⌘ Read more

Android 17 Drops For Pixel Phones and Watch
Google has begun rolling out Android 17, the June Pixel Feature Drop, and Wear OS 7 simultaneously across supported Pixel phones and watches. Highlights include floating app bubbles, improved foldable multitasking and gaming, tighter location and contact permissions, stronger lost-device protections, new Pixel AI tools, and up to 10% better Pixel Watch battery life. PhoneArena reports: … ⌘ Read more

Google Toldl Researchers ‘Nice Catch!’ Then Denied Bug Bounty For Flaw It Still Hasn’t Fixed
Security researcher Justin O’Leary says Google initially accepted his Config Connector privilege-escalation report as a high-priority, high-severity bug, then denied a bounty by declaring the behavior “working as intended.” “Google initially rated the bug high priority and high severity, with a re … ⌘ Read more