Why it’s so hard to bust the weather control conspiracy theory
Dave Levitan, Climate Science Writer - MIT Technology Review
_Stephan: ”king” Trump, his administration, and his Congressional vassals are doing nothing about preparing for the ongoing climate change crisis, whose crescendo is estimated to be about 14 years from now. Instead, they seek to entrap the United States in carbon energy to serve the oligarchs who have funded Trump and the Republican Congr … ⌘ Read more
‘We never thought anyone would be that crass’: Media code designer roasts Meta
Facebook will not be able to simply remove news from its platform again, according to Australia’s former competition tsar, who designed the original bargaining deal. ⌘ Read more
Russia’s AI Robot Falls Seconds After Being Unveiled
Russia’s first AI humanoid robot, Aldol, fell just seconds after its debut at a technology event in Moscow on Tuesday. “The robot was being led on stage to the soundtrack from the film ‘Rocky,’ before it suddenly lost its balance and fell,” reports the BBC. “Assistants could then be seen scrambling to cover it with a cloth – which ended up tangling in the process.” … ⌘ Read more
Meta, Microsoft respond to government’s rebooted news tax
The tech giants have reacted to the push for them to hand over millions of dollars from their domestic revenue to local media companies, or pay a higher amount in financial penalties. ⌘ Read more
Qantas says no to ransom. 96 per cent of Australian businesses say yes
Despite the government warning against paying ransoms, businesses are increasingly making the call that paying up is the easiest way out. ⌘ Read more
Food delivery service Menulog to shut down after two decades
The closure leaves Uber Eats and DoorDash dominating Australia’s increasingly competitive food delivery market. ⌘ Read more
The ‘Warren Buffett of Japan’ just shone a $9b light on AI’s vulnerabilities
Even one of the world’s biggest investors is being stretched by AI’s insatiable appetite for cash. ⌘ Read more
Food delivery service Menulog to shut down after two decades
The closure leaves Uber Eats and DoorDash dominating Australia’s increasingly competitive food delivery market. ⌘ Read more
New larval seedbox technology could help drive coral restoration on the Great Barrier Reef
Millions of coral larvae on the Great Barrier Reef have an increased chance of replenishing degraded reefs thanks to the “larval seedbox”—a coral restoration technology developed by CSIRO, Australia’s national science agency, with Southern Cross University. ⌘ Read more
China’s New Scientist Visa is a ‘Serious Bid’ For the World’s Top Talent
China has introduced a visa that will allow young foreign researchers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics to move there without having to secure a job first. From a report: Before the introduction of the K visa, most foreign STEM researchers hoping to move to China had to find a job in advance and then apply for a work visa … ⌘ Read more
UK Signs Scaled-Back Scientific Collaboration With China
The UK and China today signed a new bilateral agreement on scientific collaboration [non-paywalled source], narrowing the scope of their partnership to exclude sensitive technologies. Lord Patrick Vallance, Britain’s science and technology minister, met his Chinese counterpart Chen Jiachang in Beijing and agreed to focus cooperation on health, climate, plan … ⌘ Read more
KServe becomes a CNCF incubating project
The CNCF Technical Oversight Committee (TOC) has voted to accept KServe as a CNCF incubating project. KServe joins a growing ecosystem of technologies tackling real-world challenges at the edge of cloud native infrastructure. What is KServe?… ⌘ Read more
CNCF and SlashData Survey Finds Cloud Native Ecosystem Surges to 15.6M Developers
New research reveals 15.6 million developers now use cloud native technologies, with backend and DevOps professionals leading adoption Key Highlights: ATLANTA, KUBECON + CLOUDNATIVECON NORTH AMERICA – November 11, 2025 – The Cloud Native Computing Foundation® … ⌘ Read more
Genetically Engineered Babies Are Banned. Tech Titans Are Trying to Make One Anyway.
Emily Glazer Follow , Katherine Long Follow and Amy Dockser Marcus , Reporters - The Wall Street Journal
_Stephan: In 2017, after studying the emerging CRISPR technology, I published a research paper, “The Oncoming Challenge of Homo Superior.” (See SR archive) I wrote it because I could see that, as CRISPR advanced, the rich would try to breed their childr … ⌘ Read more
A universal law explains the chaotic motion of chromosomes
Researchers from Skoltech, the University of Potsdam, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have discovered a fundamental physical law that governs the seemingly chaotic motion of chromosomes inside a living cell. This discovery helps solve a long-standing biological mystery of how two-meter-long DNA molecules, packed into dense chromosomes, remain mobile enough for vital processes such as turning genes on and off. ⌘ Read more
How HR Took Over the World
Human-resources departments in American companies employed 1.3 million professionals in 2024, a 64% increase over ten years. Overall employment grew 14% in the same period. Professional-services and technology firms saw the number of HR workers double since 2014. Similar patterns have emerged in Australia, Britain and Germany.
Chief human-resources officers also gained ground financially. Their total compensation, which stoo … ⌘ Read more
Tim Berners-Lee Says AI Will Not Destroy the Web
Tim Berners-Lee thinks AI will help the web, not destroy it. The inventor of the World Wide Web has spent years warning about platform concentration and social media’s corrosive effects, but he views AI differently. AI has accomplished what his Semantic Web project could not. The technology extracts structured data from websites regardless of how the information was formatted. … ⌘ Read more
Allowing 16-year-olds in may be the toughest part of social media ban
Face scans aren’t accurate enough to tell 14 from 17, and most 16-year-olds don’t have government-issued photo ID. ⌘ Read more
Apple’s VR headset has had a serious upgrade – but hasn’t solved its biggest problem
More than a year after Apple’s Vision Pro headset was released in Australia, it’s still exceedingly rare to meet someone who owns one. ⌘ Read more
Apple’s Vision Pro headset has had an upgrade, but is it any better?
Some interesting software updates and a much more powerful chip later, the headset is still expensive and let down by one big weakness. ⌘ Read more
‘Stratospheric’ AI Spending By Four Wealthy Companies Reaches $360B Just For Data Centers
“Maybe you’ve heard that artificial intelligence is a bubble poised to burst,” writes a Washington Post technology columnist. “Maybe you have heard that it isn’t. (No one really knows either way, but that won’t stop the bros from jabbering about it constantly.)”
“But I can confidently tell you that the m … ⌘ Read more
WINE gaming in FreeBSD Jails with Bastille
FreeBSD offers a whole bunch of technologies and tools to make gaming on the platform a lot more capable than you’d think, and this article by Pertho dives into the details. Running all your games inside a FreeBSD Jail with Wine installed into it is pretty neat. Initially, I thought this was going to be a pretty difficult and require a lot of trial and error but I was surprised at how easy it was to get this all working. I was really happy to get … ⌘ Read more
The First New Subsea Habitat In 40 Years Is About To Launch
An anonymous reader quotes a report from MIT Technology Review: Vanguard feels and smells like a new RV. It has long, gray banquettes that convert into bunks, a microwave cleverly hidden under a counter, a functional steel sink with a French press and crockery above. A weird little toilet hides behind a curtain. But some clues hint that you can’t just f … ⌘ Read more
We tried Elon Musk’s Wikipedia clone. It’s as racist as you’d expect
The world’s richest man promised the truth. Instead, we get conspiracy theories, plagiarism and distortions about Australia Day, Indigenous Australians and Hitler. ⌘ Read more
Why Does So Much New Technology Feel Inspired by Dystopian Sci-Fi Movies?
In a recent article published in the New York Times, author Casey Michael Henry argues that today’s tech industry keeps borrowing dystopian sci-fi aesthetics and ideas – often the parts that were meant as warnings – and repackages them as exciting products without recognizing that they were originally cautionary tales … ⌘ Read more
iPhone 18 Pro Said to Feature Smaller Display Hole for Front Camera
Apple is testing new camera miniaturization technology to reduce the size of the front-facing camera on next year’s iPhone 18 Pro models, claims a Chinese leaker.
According to Digital Chat Station, a Weibo account with more than three million followers, Apple is testing a single HIIA (hole-in-active-area) hole pu … ⌘ Read more
You do raise very good points though, but I don’t think any of this is particularly new because there are many other examples of technology and evolution of change over time where people have forgotten certain skills like for example, changing a car tyre
The Australian company racing Elon Musk to put chips in our brains
The Australian government has joined tech titans Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates in backing a company that started life in Melbourne and has found its way back home again. ⌘ Read more
A New Ion-Based Quantum Computer Makes Error Correction Simpler
An anonymous reader quotes a report from MIT Technology Review: The US- and UK-based company Quantinuum today unveiled Helios, its third-generation quantum computer, which includes expanded computing power and error correction capability. Like all other existing quantum computers, Helios is not powerful enough to execute the industry’s dream money- … ⌘ Read more
Apple to use Aussie solar to power your Apple device usage
Technology giant Apple is looking to ensure the Australian power grid contains enough green energy to offset the usage of every single Apple Product used by Aussies. ⌘ Read more
Gemini AI To Transform Google Maps Into a More Conversational Experience
An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Associated Press: Google Maps is heading in a new direction with artificial intelligence sitting in the passenger’s seat. Fueled by Google’s Gemini AI technology, the world’s most popular navigation app will become a more conversational companion as part of a redesign announced Wednesda … ⌘ Read more
@movq@www.uninformativ.de Gemini liked your opinion very much. Here is how it countered:
1. The User Perspective (Untrustworthiness)The criticism of AI as untrustworthy is a problem of misapplication, not capability.
- AI as a Force Multiplier: AI should be treated as a high-speed drafting and brainstorming tool, not an authority. For experts, it offers an immense speed gain, shifting the work from slow manual creation to fast critical editing and verification.
- The Rise of AI Literacy: Users must develop a new skill—AI literacy—to critically evaluate and verify AI’s probabilistic output. This skill, along with improving citation features in AI tools, mitigates the “gaslighting” effect.
The fear of skill loss is based on a misunderstanding of how technology changes the nature of work; it’s skill evolution, not erosion.
- Shifting Focus to High-Level Skills: Just as the calculator shifted focus from manual math to complex problem-solving, AI shifts the focus from writing boilerplate code to architectural design and prompt engineering. It handles repetitive tasks, freeing humans for creative and complex challenges.
- Accessibility and Empowerment: AI serves as a powerful democratizing tool, offering personalized tutoring and automation to people who lack deep expertise. While dependency is a risk, this accessibility empowers a wider segment of the population previously limited by skill barriers.
The legal and technical flaws are issues of governance and ethical practice, not reasons to reject the core technology.
- Need for Better Bot Governance: Destructive scraping is a failure of ethical web behavior and can be solved with better bot identification, rate limits, and protocols (like enhanced
robots.txt). The solution is to demand digital citizenship from AI companies, not to stop AI development.
I’m a father and IT worker. The social media ban won’t protect our kids – it will hurt them
The social media world is not some alternate reality our children “escape” into – it is the reality they live in. The sooner we accept that, the sooner we can help them thrive within it. ⌘ Read more
Australia’s teen social media ban has a gaming-sized loophole
The list of banned platforms requires mental gymnastics that the government has struggled to explain, and ignores where kids actually spend their time. ⌘ Read more
This Aussie start-up plans to make Medibank-style breaches impossible
As the cost of cybercrime heads toward $10 trillion annually, one Australian company is taking a radically new approach to protecting data. ⌘ Read more
10 Futuristic Fungal Technologies
Fungi are miraculous. They provide us with food, alcohol, medicine, and the essential decomposition that keeps life going. And yet, their potential may be far greater. Fungi can be made into computer chips, bio-batteries, circuit boards, insulation, self-repairing building materials, and reactive clothing. They can even devour plastic, absorb heavy metals, and clean pollution. Make […]
The post [10 Futuristic Fungal Technologies](https://listverse.com/2025/11/03/1 … ⌘ Read more
Savaged Optus boss faces claims of misleading Senate
The telco will add 300 people to its Australian call centres and will on-shore its network operations in response to the fatal network failure. ⌘ Read more
Rue refuses to resign as Optus unveils Triple Zero overhaul
The telco will add 300 people to its Australian call centres and will on-shore its network operations in response to the fatal network failure. ⌘ Read more
Playstation’s latest blockbuster brings samurai cinema to life
Australian developer Rob Davis directed the missions, fights and stories in Ghost of Yotei, and says the key to an authentic game world is trusting the player. ⌘ Read more
These Bluetooth headphones cost $1000. They’re still a bargain
The premium noise-cancelling headphones market has never been more competitive or expensive. But there’s one clear leader, and it’s not Apple. ⌘ Read more
Rate my AI teacher? Students’ perceptions of chatbots will influence how they learn with AI
A “transformation” is upon us. After a multi-year procession of educational technology products that once promised to shake things up, now it’s AI’s turn. ⌘ Read more
Java’s Swing is allegedly in “maintenance mode”, so I doubt it’s a good idea to use it for new programs. For example, I very much doubt that it will ever support Wayland.
The replacement is supposed to be JavaFX, but that’s not included in JREs – anymore! It used to be, now it’s not, even though it’s well over 15 years old now.
This whole thing (“Java GUIs”) appears to have stagnated a lot. Probably because everything is web stuff these days …
https://www.oracle.com/java/technologies/javafx/faq-javafx.html#6
‘Huge risk’: ChatGPT’s suicide prevention not enough, experts say
OpenAI says its latest models can provide support for vulnerable people, but some experts still have concerns. ⌘ Read more