NASA Announces Astronauts For Its Artemis III Mission
NASA has named Randy Bresnik, Luca Parmitano, Frank Rubio, and Andre Douglas as the crew for Artemis III, which has been reworked from a moon-landing mission into a roughly two-week Earth-orbit test of lunar landers being built by SpaceX and Blue Origin. NBC News reports: Randy Bresnik, Luca Parmitano, Frank Rubio and Andre Douglas are expected to launch into Earth … ⌘ Read more

FCC Wants To Kill Burner Phones By Forcing Telecoms To Get All Customers’ IDs
An anonymous reader quotes a report from 404 Media: The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) wants to make it effectively impossible for people to buy what many call burner phones – a phone not explicitly linked to your identity at the point of purchase – which would impact privacy-conscious people, to domestic abuse … ⌘ Read more

US Labels BYD, Baidu, Alibaba and Other Tech Giants As Aiding China’s Military
The Pentagon has added Alibaba, BYD, Baidu, Unitree, and other Chinese companies to its list of firms it says support China’s military, barring them from U.S. defense contracts. The companies and China’s embassy deny the allegations. The Associated Press reports: Created in 2021 by a congressional mandate, the list (PDF) … ⌘ Read more

EU Orders Meta To Open WhatsApp To Rival AI Chatbots
The European Commission has ordered Meta to temporarily restore free WhatsApp Business API access for rival AI chatbots while it investigates whether Meta’s ban on third-party assistants abuses its dominant position. Meta says it will appeal, calling the move “regulatory overreach” that would let major AI companies use a paid WhatsApp product for free. The BBC reports: … ⌘ Read more

Anthropic Releases Claude Fable, a ‘Safe’ Version of Mythos
Anthropic is releasing Claude Fable 5, a Mythos-class AI model for enterprise customers and paid subscribers. The company says broader access is possible thanks to new safeguards that block high-risk requests in areas like cybersecurity and biology. “For us, it’s really around what we call ‘race to the top,’ being able to provide this technology in a valuable fash … ⌘ Read more

High-Severity Vulnerability In Linux Caused By a Single Errant Character
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Researchers have analyzed a high-severity vulnerability in Linux that’s able to escalate untrusted users to root by exploiting a bug you don’t often see: a single errant character inside the kernel. The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2026-23111, is located in nf_tables, a subsyst … ⌘ Read more

EU Says Decision Not to Launch Siri AI in Europe Is Apple’s Alone
The European Commission says Apple’s decision not to launch Siri AI in the EU is Apple’s alone, arguing that the company sought an exemption from Digital Markets Act interoperability rules instead of building a compliant privacy- and security-preserving solution. Apple, meanwhile, says regulators rejected its proposals and claims the DMA would … ⌘ Read more

Meta Will Use Your Activity On Other Websites To Personalize Your Feeds
Meta says it will expand how it uses off-platform activity shared by other businesses to personalize Facebook and Instagram feeds as well as AI responses, not just ads. The change starts in July and can be disabled through the “Activity from other businesses” setting, though Meta says it is not collecting new data as part of the upd … ⌘ Read more

Microsoft Hacked To Deliver Malware To Claude and Gemini Users
An anonymous reader quotes a report from 404 Media: Microsoft has shut down a wave of its own repositories on GitHub, including those related to Azure and AI coding agents, as it investigates a data breach, according to research from cybersecurity researchers and a statement given to 404 Media by Microsoft. Hackers planted malware that would harvest pe … ⌘ Read more

NHS Prescribes Half a Million Copilot Licenses For Its Paperwork Headache
NHS England plans to roll out Microsoft Copilot to 505,000 clinicians and support staff after a 30,000-person pilot claimed the AI assistant saved users an average of 43 minutes a day on administrative work. The Register reports: The rollout won’t happen overnight. NHS England said that each trust will receive a central allocation of … ⌘ Read more

UK PM Gives Tech Firms Ultimatum To Block Explicit Images on Children’s Phones
UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer has given Apple, Google, and other tech firms until September to introduce device-level protections that prevent children from taking, sharing, or viewing explicit images. “If businesses do not comply within three months, legislation will be brought forward requiring the protection to be add … ⌘ Read more

Tests Suggest Russian Satellites Can Jam GPS On a Continental Scale
Researchers say mysterious, seconds-long GPS interference bursts detected across Europe appear to come from Russian EKS early-warning satellites, making this “a rare example of human-made GPS interference coming from space,” reports Ars Technica. The signals may be tests of space-based jamming capability, short satellite communications, … ⌘ Read more

Donut Lab’s ‘Solid-State’ Battery Exposed As Regular Li-Ion
A battery researcher’s investigation, backed by more than 20 independent experts, claims Donut Lab’s much-hyped “solid-state” battery is actually a conventional lithium-ion cell, with voltage curves and expansion data matching high-nickel NCM chemistry rather than the promised sodium-ion solid-state design. Electrek reports the company raised about $25 mil … ⌘ Read more

‘Severe’ Stress On Oceans As Rate of Sea Level Rise Doubles In 10 Years, UN Warns
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: The world’s oceans are under “severe and accelerating” pressure from human activities, with the rate of sea-level rise double that of a decade ago, according to a damning assessment from the United Nations. The “intensifying” stressors, which include pollution a … ⌘ Read more

OpenAI Files For IPO
OpenAI has confidentially filed for an IPO, “setting it up for what may be the most highly anticipated market debut in recent history and a massive payday for early investors,” reports CNN. The decision follows recent IPO announcements from Anthropic and SpaceX. From the report: OpenAI said it has not decided on timing yet. And because the filing is confidential, it’s not yet clear how many shares the company plans to sell or at wha … ⌘ Read more

Meta Deletes Face-Recognition System From Its Smart Glasses App
Last Thursday, Wired reported that Meta had quietly embedded an unreleased facial recognition system called NameTag into software installed on millions of phones. In a follow-up report, Wired says the tech giant has now removed the face-recognition-related code, while saying “no final decision” has been made about whether the feature will launch. Fr … ⌘ Read more

Xbox Game Exclusivity Will Be Decided on a ‘Case-by-Case’ Basis, Microsoft Says
Microsoft executive Matt Booty says future Xbox exclusivity will be decided “case-by-case,” with Gears of War: E-Day and Clockwork Revolution remaining Xbox console exclusives while major multiplayer, live-service, and previously promised PlayStation releases stay multiplatform. But IGN’s Tom Phillips says Microsoft’s … ⌘ Read more

Apple Announces macOS 27 ‘Golden Gate’, Drops Support For Intel Macs
An anonymous reader quotes a report from AppleInsider: Apple has unveiled its next Mac operating system, macOS Golden Gate, with Apple promising better performance, the improved Siri, and more. […] On the surface, macOS Golden Gate is not as significant an upgrade as macOS Big Sur, or even macOS Tahoe with its Liquid Glass redesign. But … ⌘ Read more

Apple Announces Siri AI, Next Generation of Apple Intelligence
At WWDC 2026, Apple announced a new “Siri AI,” describing it as a more conversational, personalized, and systemwide assistant that can understand on-screen context and interact with apps while relying on on-device processing or Private Cloud Compute. The relaunch comes two years after Apple’s original Apple Intelligence promises stumbled and “never f … ⌘ Read more

WhatsApp Catches Spyware Firm NSO Defying No-Hacking Court Order
wiredmikey shares a report from SecurityWeek: Meta-owned communications app WhatsApp says it recently detected and disrupted a spear-phishing attempt linked to spyware company NSO Group. The attack is allegedly in defiance of a court order that bars the spyware maker from targeting WhatsApp. WhatsApp filed a lawsuit against NSO in 2019, after it ca … ⌘ Read more

Firefox Merges Support For Vulkan Video Decoding
Firefox has merged initial support for Vulkan Video decoding, giving the browser a more cross-platform path for GPU-accelerated video playback beyond Linux’s long-running reliance on VA-API. Phoronix reports: Firefox on Linux has long been focused on the Video Acceleration API (VA-API) that isn’t universally supported by Linux graphics drivers. This has left to efforts like NVI … ⌘ Read more

Italy’s Bending Spoons, Owner of AOL and Vimeo, Files For Nasdaq IPO
Bending Spoons, the Italian app studio behind acquisitions like Eventbrite, Vimeo, WeTransfer, Evernote, and AOL, has filed to go public in the U.S. after growing into a subscription-heavy app conglomerate with more than 500 million monthly active users. TechCrunch reports: In its filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Bending Spoons … ⌘ Read more

Jeff Bezos Is Funding a Wild Hunt for the Brain’s ‘Core Algorithm’
Jeff Bezos is backing Flourish, a new “neuro AI” startup with $500 million in funding and a reported $2.5 billion valuation, that aims to reinvent AI by studying the brain’s architecture and building systems that learn continuously while using far less power than today’s large language models. The company’s long-term bet is that neuroscientis … ⌘ Read more

Ruby Fights Supply-Chain Attacks With Filter Offering ‘Cooldown’ Before Installing New Packages
Most supply-chain attacks using Ruby’s package hosting site “exploit a narrow window,” according to a new blog post form Ruby core maintainer Hiroshi Shibata.

So its packaging-managing Bundler tool now offers a filter that blocks new version until it’s been public “for at least N … ⌘ Read more

A San Francisco Burglar Escaped in a Robotaxi - and Police Still Can’t Find Him
A burglar took a self-driving Waymo taxi to rob a San Francisco yoga studio this past January, reports TechCrunch — “and police have still not caught them.”

Even the police officer assigned to the case thought it would be easier to solve, notes The San Francisco Chronicle, since Waymos are outfitted with multiple high … ⌘ Read more

Texas Grid Flags Risks As Data Centers, Crypto Sites Fail Voltage Tests
Reuters reports:
Several large data centers and crypto facilities planning to connect to the Texas power grid ahead of peak summer demand have failed key reliability tests, raising the risk of power outages just as electricity use hits its seasonal high, according to the state grid operator… Unlike traditional industrial custom … ⌘ Read more

Police Sued After Imprisoning Innocent Man Placed Near Violent Crime By Flock License Plate Reader
“When Hugo Parra was arrested last year on felony charges, his pleas of innocence fell on deaf ears,” reports the Times of San Diego:

San Diego police had a description of the Alfa Romeo car he was riding in [but no license plate number] and a witness who identified him during … ⌘ Read more

Prada Unveils ‘Liquid Cooling’ Inner-Layer Garment for NASA’s Moon Astronauts with Knitted-In Ventilation Tubes
Italian fashion house Prada “unveiled on Sunday the inner-layer garment set to be worn by NASA astronauts heading to the moon,” reports Reuters.

“The body-hugging suit, created in collaboration with Houston-based space infrastructure developer Axiom Spa … ⌘ Read more

Black Market Tinkerers on Facebook Marketplace Offer to Hide ‘Recording Lights’ on Meta Smartglasses
People are disabling the “recording light” on Meta’s Ray-Ban smartglasses — “by my count, thousands of people,” says tech journalist Joanna Stern in a new video report:

STERN: “They’re hiring people on Facebook Marketplace to drill out the light for as much as $100. According t … ⌘ Read more

New Fortune 500 Rankings: Texas Overtakes California, But Amazon is #1, Beating Walmart
“Texas has dethroned California as the state with the most Fortune 500 companies,” reports the Los Angeles Times:

The Fortune 500 list ranks the largest U.S. companies by revenue. This year, 57 of the top companies are headquartered in Texas, compared with California’s 56. It’s a reversal from two years ago … ⌘ Read more

The Gamer-Rights Group Fighting to Make the Industry Stop Killing Games (Servers)
“Can a company take away something you’ve already paid for?” asks the BBC. “In the world of online video games, some already do.”

Publishers can decide to switch off a game’s servers, often leaving it effectively unplayable. Stop Killing Games, a growing consumer rights campaign started by American YouTuber Ross S … ⌘ Read more

Winners Announced in 2026’s ‘International Obfuscated C Code Competition’
Yesterday 2026’s International Obfuscated C Code Contest concluded, with 22 new winners announced in a special three-hour livestreamed ceremony! Started 42 years ago, it’s been described as the internet’s longest-running contest, with entrants concocting convoluted programs glorying in the C programming language’s subtleties, … ⌘ Read more

James Bond Videogame ‘007 First Light’ Sells 2.2M Copies, Earns $150M
The new James Bond-themed videogame 007 First Light had a budget of 1.3 billion Danish krone — a little more than USD $202 million, reports IGN, citing a report from Denmark’s public service broadcaster. “Denmark’s TV 2 said that makes 007 First Light the most expensive entertainment product in the country’s history” — and the game “still ha … ⌘ Read more

After Empty Promises, Will String Theory Find New Uses?
Science magazine reports:

For decades, string theory promised a “theory of everything” that described all particles and forces as tiny vibrating strings. Physicists hoped it could also solve one of the field’s deepest problems: reconciling quantum mechanics with gravity. But as string theory grew increasingly elaborate — and experimentally unreachable — many phy … ⌘ Read more

Reddit Ads Impersonate BBC and The Guardian to Push Fake AI Investment Schemes
A “growing wave” of Reddit’s “promoted posts” are sending U.S. and European audiences to money-stealing scams that impersonate major news organizations including the BBC, the Financial Times, and The Guardian, according to new findings from Bitdefender Labs.

“Domains are short-lived and rapidly rotated to evade detecti … ⌘ Read more

Donald Trump, Bernie Sanders And Sam Altman Are All Talking About Public Ownership In AI
U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders announced a plan for the public to take a 50% ownership stake in AI companies, remembers the Associated Press.

And then OpenAI’s Sam Altman “told Sanders that he, too, wants the public to have equity in AI companies.”

Though the CEO said he couldn’t support Sanders’ thr … ⌘ Read more

‘Steve Jobs In Exile’ Remembers the Birth of the Web and ‘Making Unix Taste Sweet’
Ars Technica shares some anecdotes from Steve Jobs in Exile, a new book released last month:

[Author Geoffrey] Cain reminds us, in stunning detail, that Jobs’ “exile” era at NeXT was not only critical to his evolution as a man and an entrepreneur, but that it mattered for the rest of us, too. The technological … ⌘ Read more

Scientists Edited Human Embryo Genes. But Questions Remain
“A DNA-editing feat involving editing the genes of early stage embryos was announced this week,” reports the Wall Street Journal.

They describe the feat as “a far cry from designer babies, but nevertheless a step in that direction.”

Dieter Egli, an associate professor of developmental cell biology at Columbia University and his co-authors, including Nath … ⌘ Read more

Failing CS Grades Soar At UC Berkeley As Professors See Greater AI Usage
The University of California at Berkeley discovered the percentage of failing grades in multiple CS classes this spring “is significantly higher than past semesters,” reports the campus’s student newspaper.

“Instructors point to students’ increased reliance on AI, lack of mathematical preparedness and understaffing as poten … ⌘ Read more

Cheaper EVs Sales are Increasing
Sales have increased for Hyundai’s under-$35,000 IONIQ 5, totalling 18,395 for the first five months of 2026, reports Electrek, “up 16% from the same period last year.”

But meanwhile BYD’s overseas sales surpassed 160,000 for the first time last month, “up 80% from May 2025 and 19% from the previous record of 135,098 set in April.”

Through the first five months of 2026, BYD sold 616,263 vehicles overseas. I … ⌘ Read more

EU’s Tech Sovereignty Package Includes 29 Pages on Open Source, Says Open Source Initiative
Friday the Open Source Initiative welcomed the EU’s new tech sovereignty package, noting that “over a third of the 29-page document is devoted to Open Source.”

The nonprofit OSI — maintainers of the Open Source definition — submitted their official feedback in February, and notes that “many” of … ⌘ Read more

Hospital Ordered to Pay $13M Over 2022 Death of Star Trek’s Nichelle Nichols
The Root reports:

A New Mexico jury has found the Gila Regional Medical Center negligent in the death of Nichelle Nichols, who famously played Lieutenant Nyota Uhura on the hit television series “Star Trek.”

According to KRQE News 13, Nichols’ family filed a lawsuit against the hospital last year following her 202 … ⌘ Read more

Ladybird Browser Stops Accepting Public Pull Requests
The Ladybird browser isn’t opposed to AI coding tools, but it’s just brought a new change to their code-contributing policies.

February 23: “Ladybird adopts Rust, with help from AI.”
I used Claude Code and Codex for the translation. This was human-directed, not autonomous code generation. I decided what to port, in what order, and what the Rust code should look like. … ⌘ Read more

New Power Banks Released By BMX With Safer Semi-Solid-State Batteries
From Android Authority:

Singapore-based BMX has announced that its SolidSafe magnetic power bank lineup, first showcased at CES 2026, is now available for purchase through its website and Amazon US, with prices starting at $59. What sets these power banks apart is their use of semi-solid-state batteries. Traditional lithium-ion and … ⌘ Read more

Teen Social Media Bans Risk Strengthening Big Tech’s Dominance, Warns Bluesky Exec
Bluesky’s chief operating officer believes teen social media bans “risk entrenching Big Tech’s dominance,” reports CNBC:

Rose Wang, Bluesky’s chief operating officer, told CNBC on the sidelines of SXSW in London on Wednesday that the smaller open-source platform isn’t opposed to regulation but that smaller playe … ⌘ Read more

Early Research Suggests a Path to Predict and Prevent Lung Cancer
Scientists “have made a discovery that may help prevent some people from developing lung cancer,” reports the New York Times, noting that lung cancer “kills more people worldwide than any other cancer.”

A team of more than 80 researchers working across four continents have identified a set of proteins in the blood that accurately predict lu … ⌘ Read more

Criticisms Rise Before Vote on America’s Cryptocurrency ‘Clarity Act’
An upcoming vote in a few weeks on America’s cryptocurrency “Clarity Act” is “rattling Wall Street and consumer advocates,” reports CNN, with its proposal to regulate the bulk of crypto markets through America’s Commodity Futures Trading Commission. “It allows crypto companies to operate, at long last, in compliance with U.S. rules, rather … ⌘ Read more

2027’s ‘Tomb Raider’ Remake: Unreal Engine 5 and AI-Assisted Assets ‘Refined’ By Humans
An official trailer dropped this week for Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis. It’s “a full-blown remake of the original 1996 Tomb Raider game,” reports Kotaku, “rebuilt from the ground up using Unreal Engine 5.” Developed by Flying Wild Hog (with assistance/guidance from longtime Tomb Raider studio Crystal Dy … ⌘ Read more

Utah Residents Sue Officials Over Kevin O’Leary Data Center Plan
Utah residents and a progressive nonprofit are suing officials over Kevin O’Leary’s planned Stratos Project AI data center, arguing that the special authority overseeing it gives unelected officials too much control over land use, taxation, public health, and local governance. The lawsuit comes as O’Leary has agreed to shrink the proposed 40,000-ac … ⌘ Read more

Scientists Find Wind Blowing From Our Milky Way’s Black Hole
After 50 years of searching, astronomers say they have finally found evidence of a long-sought “wind” blowing from Sagittarius A*, the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way. “Unless a black hole exists in a perfect vacuum, it must blow a wind somehow. And there is no perfect vacuum in the universe,” team co-leader and Northwestern Uni … ⌘ Read more