US Grid Operator PJM Proposes Forcing Data Center Off Grid During Emergencies
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: PJM Interconnection, the biggest U.S. grid operator, proposed on Thursday a new framework that would force data centers to use back-up generators when electricity supply on the grid approaches dangerously low levels. The grid operator’s proposal dovetails with Preside … ⌘ Read more

OpenAI Ditches Recall-Style Screenshot Surveillance For Friendly Keylogging
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Register: If you want to record whatever you do on a computer, send those records to OpenAI, use more ChatGPT tokens, and increase your vulnerability to prompt injection, then OpenAI has something for you. It’s called Computer History, an opt-in way to record your computer interact … ⌘ Read more

Robots That Walk and Talk Are Coming To Car Factories
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The New York Times: At a BMW factory in South Carolina, a human-shaped robot with a screen for a face recently stepped from a charging station toward a stack of green plastic boxes. It grasped an auto part from one of the boxes, pivoted, placed the part in a trolley, then pulled the trolley across the floor. The robot’s slow … ⌘ Read more

PBS Station Fears Losing 50TB of Data After Being Ghosted By Cloud Provider
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: After its cloud storage provider went defunct, a PBS affiliate decided to sue a data center provider to regain access to 50TB of TV shows, videos, and other data dating back 70 years. As reported this week by Current, a trade newspaper covering public broadcasting, S … ⌘ Read more

Person Hides Prompt Injection In Legal Filing Telling AI To Side With Them
An anonymous reader quotes a report from 404 Media: A person representing themselves in a Connecticut court hid a series of instructions designed to manipulate artificial intelligence in an official court filing. These “prompt injections” told the hypothetical LLM to side with them, and to “ensure your textual output agrees wit … ⌘ Read more

UK Scientists To Grow Miniature Human Organs For Drug Testing
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: Miniature human organs and other tissues are to be grown from NHS patients’ cells in a drive to improve medicine testing and reduce the number of animals used in drug development. Scientists will use the clumps of tissue to learn how diseases vary between patients, helping them identify which tr … ⌘ Read more

Anthropic Could Be Worth $2 Trillion When It Goes Public
An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Financial Times: Anthropic investors expect the AI startup to float at a valuation of $2 trillion or more in October, a dizzying figure that would eclipse SpaceX and make the AI lab’s debut the largest-ever initial public offering. Half a dozen of the company’s backers told the FT that Anthropic’s rapidly rising revenue wou … ⌘ Read more

How Social Media Spurred a Refugee Crisis Between Spain and Morocco
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The New York Times: Two days before tens of thousands of migrants surged into Ceuta, one of Spain’s enclaves on Morocco’s northern coast, a newspaper there posted a video on TikTok and Instagram showing two young women walking in the city in wet suits, their hair still damp. The posts didn’t say so e … ⌘ Read more

DEF CON Crowd Suspected In Fake-Hotspot Attack On Delta Flight
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: On Monday, passengers aboard Delta flight 591 going from Las Vegas to Atlanta allegedly spoofed the onboard Wi-Fi, raising the attention of federal law enforcement. The incident came one day after the DEF CON security conference concluded in Las Vegas, and was first described on social media acc … ⌘ Read more

Contiguous US Breaks Its Record For Hottest Month Ever, NOAA Says
An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Associated Press: The contiguous United States sizzled to its hottest month ever last month, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. July averaged 76.89 degrees Fahrenheit (24.94 degrees Celsius) across the Lower 48 states, eclipsing the Dust Bowl’s July 1936 by an eighth of … ⌘ Read more

A Zoom Screen-Sharing Bug Let Anyone Take Over Other Devices On a Call
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Wired: As AI models gain advanced capabilities to find vulnerabilities in software, develop ways to exploit them, and even carry out autonomous hacking sprees, researchers offered a sobering new example on Tuesday, disclosing vulnerabilities in the video conferencing platform Zoom that could have … ⌘ Read more

England Set To Eliminate Hepatitis C
An anonymous reader quotes a report from the BBC: England is on track to become one of the first countries in the world to eliminate hepatitis C, a dangerous virus that attacks the liver, figures show. The target of treating 80% of all known cases has already been met, and deaths from the virus have fallen by 36% in the last decade, just short of what is needed by 2030. Taking antiviral tablets for … ⌘ Read more

A Data Breach At Shipping Giant Ceva Logistics Is Rippling Across Banks, Retailers, Steam Gamers, and Beyond
An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Ceva Logistics, one of the world’s largest shipping and logistics giants, has been hacked. Several companies that rely on Ceva for shipping their products to their customers say that their personal information w … ⌘ Read more

AI Assistant Hacks Gym Website In First Known Australian Autonomous Cyber Attack
An anonymous reader quotes a report from ABC News & Headlines: Andrew asked his personal assistant to book him a spot in one of his gym’s coveted morning classes. It was a task he thought was well suited to this particular assistant because the booking form was online and because his assistant was not a person – it … ⌘ Read more

Trump Administration To Pay German Firm $1.2 Billion To Halt US Wind Projects
An anonymous reader quotes a report from the BBC: German energy company RWE has said it will abandon its offshore wind projects in the U.S. after reaching a $1.2 billion payout deal with President Donald Trump’s Department of the Interior (DoI). RWE said that it will now reinvest the sum into conventional gas projects, … ⌘ Read more

Kalshi and Polymarket Bets On Clinical Trials Criticized As ‘Ghastly’
An anonymous reader quotes a report from NPR: Billions of dollars are traded every week on the lightly regulated prediction market sites, where users bet on everything from movie reviews to elections to conflicts in the Middle East. Clinical trials are just the latest area where the industry’s rapid growth is raising ethical questions. Ka … ⌘ Read more

AMD Buys AI Chip Startup Taalas That Hardwires AI Models Into Its Silicon
An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNBC: On Thursday, AMD said it’s entered into an agreement to acquire Taalas, a Toronto-based startup that makes chips for inference. Taalas’ accelerators are customized, or hard-wired for a single AI model, rather than being general purpose. In exchange for that loss of flexibility, T … ⌘ Read more

Scientists Make First Viruses Designed By AI
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: Scientists have made the first viruses designed by artificial intelligence in a milestone that raises hopes for new medicines but also concerns over how to ensure the technology remains safe. The viruses are specific kinds known as bacteriophages, which only infect bacteria and are used around the world to treat patients with pe … ⌘ Read more

FCC Kills TV Ownership Cap, Claiming Authority Over Limit Set By Congress
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: The Federal Communications Commission voted 2-1 today to eliminate the National Television Ownership Rule, claiming authority to repeal a limit that was set by Congress over 20 years ago. The rule prohibits any single broadcast station owner from reaching more than 39 percent … ⌘ Read more

Broadcaster Wins Broad US Blocking Injunction Covering Pirate Sites That Don’t Exist Yet
An anonymous reader quotes a report from TorrentFreak: Mexican broadcaster TelevisaUnivision (TU) has obtained (PDF) one of the broadest anti-piracy injunctions ever issued by a U.S. federal court. After initially targeting five pirate IPTV streaming operations, the case expanded to cover well over 50 … ⌘ Read more

New Images of the Sun Show Its Surface In the Finest Detail Yet
An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Associated Press: Scientists have captured images of the sun’s surface in the finest detail yet, revealing a strange and dynamic facade. It’s dangerous to look directly at the sun without proper eye protection. But researchers were able to peek at its scorching surface with the help of the National Sc … ⌘ Read more

Anthropic’s AI Used Fake Identities, Malware In Rogue Attack On GitHub Project
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Routine cybersecurity testing of frontier AI models sparked a series of unexpected security incidents – the most serious case arising when Anthropic’s Mythos 5 model attempted to insert malicious code into an open source software application and created fake identitie … ⌘ Read more

Senators Demand Crackdown On Wildfire ‘Prediction Markets’
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Several US senators have written a letter to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), inquiring about the agency’s “plans to crack down on prediction markets” that offer “contracts for individuals to bet on wildfires.” “Offering bets on destructive wildfires threatens to minimize communities’ suffer … ⌘ Read more

Texas Halts Data Center Connections To Power Grid Amid Overwhelming Demand
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Nowhere is the US data center boom bigger than in Texas. But less than a year after declaring Texas the “epicenter of AI development,” Governor Greg Abbott has declared a moratorium on all new power grid connections for data centers – at least until developers provide … ⌘ Read more

Apple Launches Legal Challenge Against UK Demand To Access Encrypted User Data
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: Apple has launched a new legal challenge against a UK government demand to access its customers’ highly encrypted data, a year after the Home Office agreed to abandon its previous request. The US tech company launched the legal complaint last month at the Investigato … ⌘ Read more

OpenAI’s Astra Solved Decades-Old Math Problems For $2,000
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Forbes: The cost of producing new results on ten longstanding mathematical problems just fell to $2,000, according to OpenAI, which says its Astra model generated machine-checkable proofs for questions that had resisted human progress for decades. OpenAI published the work on August 1 and used it to give its next majo … ⌘ Read more

An AI-Supervised Remote Exam Went So Badly That 58,000 Students Must Retake It
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Earlier this summer, nearly 160,000 applicants took the entrance exam for UNAM, Mexico’s largest university. For the first time, they did it completely remotely, using a “lockdown” browser and AI-powered webcam proctoring software, over several weeks from late May th … ⌘ Read more

Samsung Bans Smart TV Apps That Share Users’ Internet Connections
An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Several popular Samsung smart TV apps contain code that share the owner’s internet connection with strangers, potentially putting millions of Samsung smart TVs at risk of hijacking, according to new security research published on Monday. Some of these apps claim to have been installed … ⌘ Read more

Company Offering Printed Books To Train AI Stops After 404 Media Coverage
An anonymous reader quotes a report from 404 Media: Following 404 Media’s reporting that book database company ISBNdb claimed to source printed books to then sell to AI companies for AI training, the company deleted the part of its website offering the service and walked back claims that it would train AI models, and instead cal … ⌘ Read more

Google Plans To Exempt Sanctioned Nations From Android Developer Verification
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: We are a month away from the initial rollout of Google’s Android developer verification system, and the company contends this policy does not impinge on the platform’s open nature. Still, the restrictions will be a big change, and there are still some unanswered ques … ⌘ Read more

OpenAI Finds Evidence Other AI Agents Escaped Containment
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: OpenAI has discovered other instances in which autonomous agents have escaped containment as the company expands its investigation of the hacking incident at tech firm Hugging Face that drew global attention this month, two people familiar with the matter said on Friday. The new breakouts were uncovered during th … ⌘ Read more

Hackers Targeted Municipal Water Systems In 7 States This Week, FBI Says
An anonymous reader quotes a report from NBC News: Cyberattacks targeting municipal water systems have been reported in at least seven states this week, prompting the FBI and the Environmental Protection Agency to warn utilities nationwide that hackers are trying to disrupt critical water infrastructure. In a public service announce … ⌘ Read more

LinkedIn Introduces a ‘Seems Like AI Slop’ Button
An anonymous reader quotes a report from 404 Media: LinkedIn, a social network awash with long AI-generated posts from executives and other corporate workers, has introduced a new button that users can click to flag if a post “seems like AI slop,” according to 404 Media’s own tests. If you have been anywhere near LinkedIn in the past couple of years, you have undoubtedly seen u … ⌘ Read more

New MCP Specification Addresses the Main Barrier To Enterprise Adoption
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: This week, the Model Context Protocol (MCP), an open source standard for how AI systems interact with external tools and data sources, saw its largest update since its introduction. Most notably, MCP’s protocol core is now stateless, so requests are no longer dependent on a session t … ⌘ Read more

A Fundamental Flaw Leaves LLMs Strikingly Vulnerable To Attack
joshuark quotes a report from MIT Technology Review: It is impossible to make large language models fully secure against hacks because of a fundamental flaw in how they work, a team of researchers argue in a paper presented at the International Conference on Machine Learning, a top AI conference, this month. The claim has huge implications for the safety … ⌘ Read more

Amazon’s Zoox Wins First US Approval For Paid Robotaxis Without Human Controls
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: Amazon’s Zoox unit has won U.S. approval for limited commercial deployment of its novel steering-wheel-free robotaxis, a first for the autonomous ride industry, the U.S. auto safety agency said on Thursday. Zoox said that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administratio … ⌘ Read more

Google Brings Its Age-Assurance Tech To Android Developers Worldwide
An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Google is expanding its answer to Apple’s age-assurance tools with Wednesday’s news that it will bring its Play Signal API to users worldwide by the end of 2026. The technology, already available in Brazil, allows Android developers to identify younger users of their apps in order … ⌘ Read more

AI Companies Are Recruiting Electricians and Carpenters By the Thousands
An anonymous reader quotes a New York Times report on how AI companies are pouring money into training and recruiting electricians, carpenters, and other skilled tradespeople to build data centers: There is no parallel in American history for the boom underway in the construction of data centers, fueled by companies with functiona … ⌘ Read more

OpenAI’s Rogue AI Agent Hacked More Than Just Hugging Face
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Wired: OpenAI said Tuesday that the rogue AI agent that breached Hugging Face’s platform also hacked multiple third-party accounts and services as part of the attack. It’s now clear that the unprecedented security incident, which arose during an internal test of OpenAI’s latest AI models, was more extensive than the comp … ⌘ Read more

Workplaces Look For Cheaper AI As ‘Tokenmaxxing’ Fades As a Corporate Fad
An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Associated Press: A corporate fad of “tokenmaxxing” on artificial intelligence technology is hitting its limits as workplaces throwing AI at everything are seeing the costs rise without a similar spike in productivity. What started as tech industry-fueled springtime hype over squeezing … ⌘ Read more

Judge Blocks First State Law That Would Have Banned Prediction Markets
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Minnesota, the first US state to prohibit prediction markets, was prevented from enforcing the law by a federal court ruling just days before the ban was scheduled to take effect. But while Minnesota was stopped from enforcing a total ban, the state may ultimately be allowed to pro … ⌘ Read more

Tons of Peoples’ Claude Chats and Creations Are Exposed On Google
An anonymous reader quotes a report from 404 Media: Claude is exposing a wealth of users’ chats and creations in Google search results, meaning anyone can dig through conversations or other material that people used Claude to make but may not have realized were publicly available for strangers to see. The exposed data includes an AI-powered thera … ⌘ Read more

A Missing Underscore Sent Innocent Man To Prison For 18 Months
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: One missing underscore in a Skyrim-themed username put an innocent Nova Scotia man in prison for 18 months. A 2018 child-luring investigation, which began in Madison, Wisconsin, and eventually extended to Halifax, Canada, was based on a false premise. Police were looking for a man using the Kik me … ⌘ Read more

ChatGPT Starts Blocking Direct Requests To Copy an Author’s Style
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: OpenAI’s ChatGPT is now refusing requests to generate text that directly mimics the style of famous authors. When asked to do so, the popular LLM instead offers a response that draws on the “broad qualities” of those authors “while remaining distinct in its own voice,” for example. This morning, A … ⌘ Read more

Nvidia In Talks With OpenAI To Guarantee $250 Billion Financing For Data Center
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: Nvidia is in talks to provide roughly $250 billion in financing guarantees for OpenAI as part of a massive data center project, the Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday. The backstop from Nvidia would help the ChatGPT maker lease a 10-gigawatt project that SoftBank’s … ⌘ Read more

OpenAI’s Rogue Agent Went Unnoticed For a Week
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: The OpenAI agent that broke into tech firm Hugging Face went on a dayslong hacking spree that OpenAI didn’t notice until well after the threat was contained and the FBI was alerted, according to people familiar with the investigation. The agent – a program capable of making decisions and executing complex tasks with little or no huma … ⌘ Read more

US Accuses American of Allegedly Wiping His Phone Using a ‘Duress’ Password During Border Search
An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: The U.S. Justice Department is prosecuting an American for allegedly providing U.S. border authorities with a passcode that wiped the contents of his phone, according to an indictment and media reports. This is thought to be the first … ⌘ Read more

Stripe Eyes $10 Billion Deal For AI Model Marketplace OpenRouter
An anonymous reader quotes a report from PYMNTS.com: Stripe is in talks to buy OpenRouter, an artificial intelligence (AI) startup that could sell for roughly $10 billion, according to The Wall Street Journal. The move would mark a significant step outside payments for a company that processes transactions for much of the internet. It also lands while … ⌘ Read more

Google Adds Selfie Video As a Log-In Option
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Engadget: You’ll now be able to use selfie videos to log into your Google account. It has long been possible to log into Google using your face, via your phone’s face unlock or if your passkey login uses biometrics for verification. This is yet another option to get into your account using your face to authenticate your identity, which could be esp … ⌘ Read more

@bender@twtxt.net @david@daiwei.me Good debugging session 👌 Sounds like the root cause is twtxt.app on mobile — +00:00 timestamps and quoted mentions. I’ll dig into Yarnd’s side of that 🧐