Artemis II Astronauts Splash Down Off California’s Coast
NASA’s Artemis II crew safely splashed down off the California coast after completing a 10-day trip around the moon and back. “This is not just an accomplishment for NASA,” sad NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman. “This is an accomplishment for humanity, again, a historic mission to the moon and back.” From a report: Isaacman is aboard the USS John. P Murtha Nav … ⌘ Read more

Chimpanzees In Uganda Locked In Vicious ‘Civil War’, Say Researchers
Researchers say the world’s largest known wild chimpanzee community in Uganda fractured into rival factions and has been locked in a vicious “civil war” for the last eight years. “It is not clear exactly why the once close-knit community of Ngogo chimpanzees at Uganda’s Kibale National Park are at loggerheads, but since 2018 the scientist … ⌘ Read more

EU Parliament Fails To Renew Loophole Allowing Tech Firms To Report Abuse
Bruce66423 shares a report from the Guardian: The European parliament has blocked the extension of a law that permits big tech firms to scan for child sexual exploitation on their platforms, creating a legal gap that child safety experts say will lead to crimes going undetected. The law, which was a carve-out of the EU Privacy Ac … ⌘ Read more

Suspect Arrested for Allegedly Throwing Molotov Cocktail at Sam Altman’s Home
San Francisco police arrested a suspect after a Molotov cocktail was allegedly thrown at Sam Altman’s home and threats were later made outside OpenAI’s headquarters. “Thankfully, no one was hurt,” said OpenAI in a statement to WIRED. “We deeply appreciate how quickly SFPD responded and the support from the city in helping k … ⌘ Read more

Microsoft Begins Removing Copilot Branding From Windows 11 Apps
Microsoft has started stripping Copilot branding out of Notepad in Windows 11, replacing the old Copilot menu with a more generic “writing tools” label. The AI features themselves aren’t going away, but Microsoft seems to be backing off the heavy-handed Copilot branding and extra entry points. Windows Central reports: As promised, Microsoft is now … ⌘ Read more

FBI Extracts Suspect’s Deleted Signal Messages Saved In iPhone Notification Data
An anonymous reader quotes a report from 404 Media: The FBI was able to forensically extract copies of incoming Signal messages from a defendant’s iPhone, even after the app was deleted, because copies of the content were saved in the device’s push notification database, multiple people present for FBI testimony i … ⌘ Read more

Google News Now Prominently Featuring Polymarket Bets
Futurism found that Google News is surfacing Polymarket betting pages alongside traditional news sources. “The bets often appear in the ‘For you’ section of Google News, which is tailored to a user’s personal interests,” the publication reports. “In one instance, it was even the very top result, as with this bet on the price of Bitcoin.” From the report: In our testin … ⌘ Read more

Google Rolls Out Gmail End-To-End Encryption On Mobile Devices
Gmail’s end-to-end encryption is now available on all Android and iOS devices, letting enterprise users send and read encrypted emails directly in the app without any extra tools. “This launch combines the highest level of privacy and data encryption with a user-friendly experience for all users, enabling simple encrypted email for all customers from s … ⌘ Read more

France’s Government Is Ditching Windows For Linux
France says it plans to move some government computers from Windows to Linux as part of a broader push for digital sovereignty and reduced dependence on U.S. technology. TechCrunch reports: In a statement, French minister David Amiel said (translated) that the effort was to “regain control of our digital destiny” by relying less on U.S. tech companies. Amiel said that the Fre … ⌘ Read more

AI Is Coming for Car Salesmen
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Drive: An auto dealer software company is pitching AI-powered kiosks designed to replace car salesmen on showroom floors. Automotive News says the industry is “skeptical.” But be honest – would you really rather deal with the average car lot shark than a computer?

Epikar, a South Korean company that cooks up digital management solutions for car dealers, has named its n … ⌘ Read more

Meta Removes Ads For Social Media Addiction Litigation
Meta has started removing ads from law firms seeking clients for social media addiction lawsuits, just weeks after a jury found Meta and YouTube negligent in a landmark case involving harm to a young user. “Lawyers across the country now are seeking new plaintiffs, in the hopes of bringing a class action lawsuit that could result in lucrative verdicts,” reports Axio … ⌘ Read more

Particles Seen Emerging From Empty Space For First Time
Longtime Slashdot reader fahrbot-bot shares a report from NewScientist: According to quantum chromodynamics (QCD) – widely considered to be our best theory for describing the strong force, which binds quarks inside protons and neutrons – even a perfect vacuum isn’t truly empty. Instead, it is filled with short-lived disturbances in the underlying energy of spa … ⌘ Read more

US Fertility Rate Falls To All-Time Low
An anonymous reader quotes a report from NPR: Women in the U.S. gave birth to roughly 710,000 fewer children last year compared with the nation’s peak in 2007, according to preliminary data released (PDF) this week by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Lead researcher Brady Hamilton, a demographer with the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics, said the latest one percent drop … ⌘ Read more

‘Negative’ Views of Broadcom Driving Thousands of VMware Migrations, Rival Says
“One of VMware’s biggest competitors, Nutanix, claims to have swiped tens of thousands of VMware customers,” reports Ars Technica. They said higher prices, forced bundling, licensing changes, and more strained partner relationships have frustrated customers and driven them away from the leading virtualization firm. From … ⌘ Read more

Mozilla Accuses Microsoft of Sabotaging Firefox With Windows and Copilot Tactics
BrianFagioli writes: Mozilla is accusing Microsoft of stacking the deck against Firefox, arguing that design choices in Windows steer users toward Edge even when they explicitly choose another browser. According to Mozilla, parts of Windows still open links in Edge regardless of the default browser setting, includi … ⌘ Read more

Amazon May Sell Trainium AI Chips To Third Parties In Shot At Nvidia
Amazon CEO Andy Jassy says the company may eventually sell its Trainium AI chips directly to outside customers, not just through AWS, which would put Amazon in more direct competition with Nvidia. “There’s so much demand for our chips that it’s quite possible we’ll sell racks of them to third parties in the future,” Jassy wrote in his … ⌘ Read more

OpenAI To Limit New Model Release On Cybersecurity Fears
OpenAI is reportedly preparing a new cybersecurity product for a small group of partners, out of concern that a broader rollout could wreak havoc if it were released more widely. If that move sounds familiar, it’s because Anthropic took a similar limited-release approach with its Mythos model and Project Glasswing initiative. Axios reports: OpenAI introduced its “T … ⌘ Read more

Hacker Steals 10 Petabytes of Data From China’s Tianjin Supercomputer Center
An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNN: A hacker has allegedly stolen a massive trove of sensitive data – including highly classified defense documents and missile schematics – from a state-run Chinese supercomputer in what could potentially constitute the largest known heist of data from China. The dataset, which al … ⌘ Read more

EFF Is Leaving X
After nearly 20 years on the platform, The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) says it is leaving X. “This isn’t a decision we made lightly, but it might be overdue,” the digital rights group said. “The math hasn’t worked out for a while now.” From the report: We posted to Twitter (now known as X) five to ten times a day in 2018. Those tweets garnered somewhere between 50 and 100 million impressions per month. By 2024, our 2,500 X posts gen … ⌘ Read more

Waymo Is Offering To Help Cities Fix Their Potholes
Waymo is launching a pilot with cities and Google’s Waze to share pothole data collected by its robotaxis, giving local transportation departments a new way to find and fix road damage more quickly. “We realized, hey, once we’re at scale, we can actually share this data with cities, which is something that they’ve asked for and something that we collect at scale,” said Ar … ⌘ Read more

Skilled Older Workers Turn To AI Training To Stay Afloat
An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Guardian: [Five skilled workers aged 50 and older spoke] to the Guardian about how, after struggling to find work in their fields, they have turned to an emerging and growing category of work: using their expertise to train artificial intelligence models. Known as data annotation, the work involves labeling and evaluatin … ⌘ Read more

Little Snitch Comes To Linux To Expose What Your Software Is Really Doing
BrianFagioli writes: Little Snitch, the well known macOS tool that shows which applications are connecting to the internet, is now being developed for Linux. The developer says the project started after experimenting with Linux and realizing how strange it felt not knowing what connections the system was making. Existing tools … ⌘ Read more

Anthropic Loses Appeals Court Bid To Temporarily Block Pentagon Blacklisting
A federal appeals court denied Anthropic’s bid to temporarily block the Pentagon’s blacklisting, meaning the company remains shut out of Defense Department contracts while the case continues, even though a separate court has allowed other federal agencies to keep using Claude for now. CNBC reports: “In our view, the equitab … ⌘ Read more

Apple’s Foldable iPhone Is ‘On Track’ To Launch In September
Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman says Apple’s foldable iPhone is still “on track” for a September unveiling alongside the iPhone 18 Pro lineup. 9to5Mac reports: The report notes that Apple’s stock took a hit earlier today after Nikkei Asia indicated the iPhone Fold was having serious production issues. Clearly, sources within Apple were motivated to share positive … ⌘ Read more

John Deere To Pay $99 Million In Monumental Right-To-Repair Settlement
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Drive: Farmers have been fighting John Deere for years over the right to repair their equipment, and this week, they finally reached a landmark settlement. While the agricultural manufacturing giant pointed out in a statement that this is no admission of wrongdoing, it agreed to pay $99 milli … ⌘ Read more

‘Survivor’ Style Corporate Retreat Descends Into Hellish Nightmare
A $500,000 “Survivor”-style corporate retreat for 120 Plex employees in Honduras “turned into a week-long disaster involving illness, wild animals, armed guards, and employees stranded on a remote island,” reports the Daily Beast. The CEO was bedridden by E. coli, staff were collapsing in brutal heat during Navy SEAL-led drills, there were fire ant … ⌘ Read more

Iran-Linked Hackers Disrupted US Oil, Gas, Water Sites
The FBI says (PDF) Iran-linked hackers disrupted internet-connected systems used by U.S. oil, gas, and water companies. Even with the recent two-week ceasefire between Iran and the United States and Israel, hackers backing Tehran say they won’t end their retaliatory cyberattacks. The Hill reports: The report warned that similar companies across the country should be awa … ⌘ Read more

NYT Claims Adam Back Is Bitcoin Creator Satoshi Nakamoto
A New York Times investigation by John Carreyrou claims a British cryptographer named Adam Back is the strongest circumstantial candidate yet for being Satoshi Nakamoto. The report citing overlaps in writing style, ideology, technical background, and old posts that outlined key parts of Bitcoin years before its launch. Carreyrou is a renowned investigative journalist … ⌘ Read more

Amazon Is Ending Support For Older Kindles
Starting May 20th, Amazon will stop Kindle Store access for Kindle and Kindle Fire devices released in 2012 and earlier. After that date, those devices will “no longer be able to purchase, borrow, or download new content.” Owners can still read content already on the device, but if an affected device is reset or deregistered after the cutoff, it can’t be re-registered. The Verge reports: T … ⌘ Read more

Iran Demands Bitcoin For Ships Passing Hormuz During Ceasefire
An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Financial Times: Iran will demand that shipping companies pay tolls in cryptocurrency for laden oil tankers passing through the Strait of Hormuz (source paywalled; alternative source), as it seeks to retain control over passage through the key waterway during the two-week ceasefire. Hamid Hosseini, a spokespers … ⌘ Read more

Meta Debuts ‘Muse Spark’, First AI Model Under Alexandr Wang
Meta has launched Muse Spark, its first major AI model under Alexandr Wang’s leadership. The model was built over the past nine months and is being positioned as a significant step up from Llama 4. Axios reports: Muse Spark will power queries in the Meta AI app and Meta.ai website immediately, with plans to expand across Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp. Th … ⌘ Read more

Microsoft Abruptly Terminates VeraCrypt Account, Halting Windows Updates
Microsoft has apparently terminated the account VeraCrypt uses to sign its Windows drivers and bootloader, leaving the encryption project unable to publish Windows updates and throwing future releases into doubt. VeraCrypt’s developer says Microsoft gave no clear explanation or warning for the move. “I didn’t receive any emails fro … ⌘ Read more

Valve Releases Native Steam Link App For Apple’s Vision Pro
Valve has released a native Steam Link beta for Apple Vision Pro, letting users stream their existing Steam games onto a large virtual screen in visionOS. It supports up to 4K resolution and will let you dynamically adjust the curve of the display. The Mac Observer reports: Steam Link does not support VR titles in this beta, and Valve clearly states that t … ⌘ Read more

Apple and Lenovo Have the Least Repairable Laptops, Analysis Finds
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Apple earned the lowest grades in a report on laptop and smartphone repairability released today by the consumer advocacy group Public Interest Research Group (PIRG) Education Fund. The report, which looks at how easy devices are to disassemble and how easy it is to find repairability … ⌘ Read more

CIA Reportedly Used Secret Quantum Tool To Find Downed Airman in Iran
alternative_right quotes a report from the New York Post: The CIA used a futuristic new tool called “Ghost Murmur” to find and rescue the second American airman who was shot down in southern Iran, The Post has learned. The secret technology uses long-range quantum magnetometry to find the electromagnetic fingerprint of a human heartbea … ⌘ Read more

Planet Labs Tests AI-Powered Object Detection On Satellite
BrianFagioli writes: Artificial intelligence has now run directly on a satellite in orbit. A spacecraft about 500km above Earth captured an image of an airport and then immediately ran an onboard AI model to detect airplanes in the photo. Instead of acting like a simple camera in space that sends raw data back to Earth for later analysis, the satellite perfo … ⌘ Read more

Russian Government Hackers Broke Into Thousands of Home Routers To Steal Passwords
An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: A group of Russian government hackers have hijacked thousands of home and small business routers around the world as part of an ongoing campaign aimed at redirecting victim’s internet traffic to steal their passwords and access tokens, security researchers and … ⌘ Read more

Apple Faces ‘Massive Dilemma’ With Success of the MacBook Neo
Apple may have a supply problem on its hands with the MacBook Neo… The laptop reportedly relies on “binned” A18 Pro chips with one GPU core disabled, and demand is so strong that the supply of those cheaper leftover chips could run out before the next model is ready. That leaves Apple choosing between lower margins, shifting production plans, or ch … ⌘ Read more

Anthropic Unveils ‘Claude Mythos’, Powerful AI With Major Cyber Implications
“Anthropic has unveiled Claude Mythos, a new AI model capable of discovering critical vulnerabilities at scale,” writes Slashdot reader wiredmikey. “It’s already powering Project Glasswing, a joint effort with major tech firms to secure critical software. But the same capabilities could also accelerate offensive cyber operation … ⌘ Read more

Chrome Is Finally Getting Vertical Tabs
Chrome is finally adding built-in vertical tabs, “which will move the tabs to the side of the browser window, making it easier to read full page titles and manage tab groups,” reports TechCrunch. The company is also introducing an immersive reading mode for a distraction-free, text-focused experience. From the report: The company notes that the new vertical tabs can be enabled at any time by rig … ⌘ Read more

Supreme Court Wipes Piracy Liability Verdict Against Grande Communications
An anonymous reader quotes a report from TorrentFreak: Following on the heels of the landmark Cox v. Sony ruling, the Supreme Court has vacated the contributory copyright infringement verdict against ISP Grande Communications, ordering the Fifth Circuit to reconsider its decision in light of the new precedent. […] The order … ⌘ Read more

Testing Suggests Google’s AI Overviews Tells Millions of Lies Per Hour
A New York Times analysis found Google’s AI Overviews now answer questions correctly about 90% of the time, which might sound impressive until you realize that roughly 1 in 10 answers is wrong. “[F]or Google, that means hundreds of thousands of lies going out every minute of the day,” reports Ars Technica. From the report: The Times … ⌘ Read more

Anthropic Reveals $30 Billion Run Rate, Plans To Use 3.5GW of New Google AI Chips
Anthropic says its annualized revenue run rate has surpassed $30 billion and disclosed plans to secure roughly 3.5 gigawatts of next-generation Google TPU compute starting in 2027. Broadcom will supply the key chips and networking gear for the effort, the company announced. The Register reports: News of the two d … ⌘ Read more

Cloudflare Fast-Tracks Post-Quantum Rollout To 2029
Cloudflare is accelerating its post-quantum security plans and now aims to make its entire platform fully post-quantum secure by 2029. “The updated timeline follows new developments in quantum computing research that suggest current cryptographic standards could be broken sooner than previously expected,” reports SiliconANGLE. From the report: The decision by Cloudflare t … ⌘ Read more

New Revelations Reignite Crypto Scandal Involving Argentina’s President Milei
An anonymous reader quotes a report from the New York Times: President Javier Milei of Argentina promoted a cryptocurrency last year that quickly skyrocketed in value then cratered just as fast, costing investors millions of dollars and setting off a scandal and an investigation. Mr. Milei said he was simply highlighting a … ⌘ Read more

Stanford Daily Ponders Fate of Bill Gates Namesake Building On April Fools’ Day
theodp writes: “Gates Computer Science Building renamed Peter Thiel Center for Panoptic Computing” reads the headline of an April Fools’ Day story that ran in the Humor section of The Stanford Daily (with the further disclaimer that “This article is purely satirical and fictitious”). The story begins: “Following revel … ⌘ Read more

LinkedIn Faces Spying Allegations Over Browser Extension Scanning
LinkedIn is facing allegations that it quietly scans users’ browsers for installed Chrome extensions. The German group Fairlinked e.V. goes so far as to claim that the site is “running one of the largest corporate espionage operations in modern history.”

“The program runs silently, without any visible indicator to the user,” the group says. “It … ⌘ Read more

China Flies World’s First Megawatt-Class Hydrogen Turboprop Engine
Longtime Slashdot reader walterbyrd shares a report from Fuel Cells Works: China says the AEP100, a megawatt-class hydrogen-fueled turboprop engine developed by the Aero Engine Corporation of China, has completed its maiden flight on a 7.5-ton unmanned cargo aircraft in Zhuzhou, Hunan. The 16-minute test covered 36km at 220km/h and 300 meters … ⌘ Read more

New Jersey Cannot Regulate Kalshi’s Prediction Market, US Appeals Court Rules
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: A federal appeals court ruled on Monday that New Jersey gaming regulators cannot prevent Kalshi from allowing people in the state to use its prediction market to place financial bets on the outcome of sporting events.
A three-judge panel of the Philadelphia-based 3rd U.S. Ci … ⌘ Read more

OpenAI Calls For Robot Taxes, Public Wealth Fund, and 4-Day Workweek To Tackle AI Disruption
OpenAI is proposing (PDF) sweeping policy changes to help manage the societal disruption caused by advanced AI, including taxes on automated labor, a public wealth fund, and experiments with a four-day workweek. The company said the policy document offered a series of “initial ideas” to address … ⌘ Read more