Chinese Whistleblower Living In US Is Being Hunted By Beijing With US Tech
A former Chinese official who fled to the U.S. says Beijing has used advanced surveillance technology from U.S. companies to track, intimidate, and punish him and his family across borders. ABC News reports: Retired Chinese official Li Chuanliang was recuperating from cancer on a Korean resort island when he got an urgent call: … ⌘ Read more

China Leads Research in 90% of Crucial Technologies - a Dramatic Shift this Century
China is leading research in nearly 90% of the crucial technologies that “significantly enhance, or pose risks to, a country’s national interests,” according to a technology tracker run by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) – an independent think-tank. Nature: The ASPI’s Critical Technology Tracker e … ⌘ Read more

Genetic trick to make mosquitoes malaria resistant passes key test
The rollout of a type of genetic technology called a gene drive for tackling malaria could be edging closer after a lab study supports its success ⌘ Read more

Nvidia Builds Location Verification Tech That Could Track Where Its AI Chips End Up
Nvidia has developed location verification technology that could determine which country its AI chips are operating in, Reuters reports, citing a source, a capability that may help address ongoing concerns about the smuggling of advanced semiconductors to restricted markets like China. The feature, which Nvid … ⌘ Read more

‘Time to go’: Calls for UTS VC to resign after staff no confidence vote
The union-run vote comes as controversial, consultant-designed redundancies continue and politicians call for resignations. ⌘ Read more

IBM To Buy Confluent For $11 Billion To Expand AI Services
IBM is buying Confluent for $11 billion in a major push to own real-time data streaming infrastructure essential for enterprise AI workloads. It marks Big Blue’s biggest acquisition since Red Hat in 2019. Bloomberg reports: The AI boom has touched off billions of dollars in deals for businesses that build, train or leverage the technology, propelling the valu … ⌘ Read more

Lenovo’s Next Gaming Laptop May Have a Rollable OLED Screen That Stretches Ultrawide
Lenovo may be preparing to unveil a gaming laptop that uses rollable OLED technology to expand horizontally into an ultrawide 21:9 display, according to a Windows Latest report suggesting the device could appear at CES 2026 in January. The Lenovo Legion Pro Rollable would differ from the company’s existing T … ⌘ Read more

Japan is facing a dementia crisis – can technology help?
Elderly people aged 65 and over now make up nearly 30% of Japan’s population. ⌘ Read more

EU Urged to Soften 2035 Ban on Internal Combustion Engine Cars
Friday six European Union countries “asked the European Commission to water down an effective ban on the sale of internal combustion engine cars slated for 2035,” reports Reuters

The countries have asked the EU Commission to allow the sale of hybrid cars or vehicles powered by other, existing or future, technologies “that could contribute to the goa … ⌘ Read more

Many Privileged Students at US Universities are Getting Extra Time on Tests After ‘Disability’ Diagnoses
Today America’s college professors “struggle to accommodate the many students with an official disability designation,” reports the Atlantic, “which may entitle them to extra time, a distraction-free environment, or the use of otherwise-prohibited technology.”

Their st … ⌘ Read more

The Anxieties of Full-Body MRI Scans (Not Covered by Insurance)
Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank calls himself “a highly creative hypochondriac” — who just paid for an expensive MRI scan to locate abnormal spots as tiny as 2 millimeters.

He discusses the pros and cons of its “diffusion-weighted imaging” technology combined with the pattern recognition of AI, which theoretically “has the potential to save … ⌘ Read more

OpenAI Has Trained Its LLM To Confess To Bad Behavior
An anonymous reader quotes a report from MIT Technology Review: OpenAI is testing another new way to expose the complicated processes at work inside large language models. Researchers at the company can make an LLM produce what they call a confession, in which the model explains how it carried out a task and (most of the time) owns up to any bad behavior. Figuring out why … ⌘ Read more

‘World’s first drone war’: Russia-Ukraine war pits technology against manpower
When it comes to weaponry, Russia has strength in manpower despite Ukraine’s early technological edge while Europe’s arms production efforts are running into infrastructure hurdles. ⌘ Read more

Why One Man Is Fighting For Our Right To Control Our Garage Door Openers
An anonymous reader quotes a report from the New York Times: A few years ago, Paul Wieland, a 44-year-old information technology professional living in New York’s Adirondack Mountains, was wrapping up a home renovation when he ran into a hiccup. He wanted to be able to control his new garage door with his smartphone. But the o … ⌘ Read more

AI Chatbots Can Sway Voters Better Than Political Ads
An anonymous reader quotes a report from MIT Technology Review: New research reveals that AI chatbots can shift voters’ opinions in a single conversation – and they’re surprisingly good at it. A multi-university team of researchers has found that chatting with a politically biased AI model was more effective than political advertisements at nudging both Democrats … ⌘ Read more

Deep-sea mining tests impact over a third of seabed animals, scientists say
The findings contribute to a controversial debate that pits green technology against the environment. ⌘ Read more

Wider use of facial recognition could see biggest change in policing since DNA, minister says
The Home Office hopes a new public consultation will lead to new laws expanding the use of the technology by more police forces. ⌘ Read more

Wider use of facial recognition could see biggest change in policing since DNA, minister says
The Home Office hopes a new public consultation will lead to new laws expanding the use of the technology by more police forces. ⌘ Read more

Facial recognition could be used more widely by police
The Home Office hopes a new public consultation will lead to new laws expanding the use of the technology by more police forces. ⌘ Read more

After Nearly 30 Years, Crucial Will Stop Selling RAM To Consumers
Micron is shutting down its Crucial consumer RAM business in 2026 after nearly three decades, citing heavy demand from AI data centers. “The AI-driven growth in the data center has led to a surge in demand for memory and storage,” Sumit Sadana, EVP and chief business officer at Micron Technology, said in a statement. “Micron has made the dif … ⌘ Read more

Como é que estas palavras não estão trocadas?

Na notícia em https://eco.sapo.pt/entrevista/amazon-web-services-prepara-investimento-em-novo-centro-de-servicos-em-portugal-data-sera-conhecida-em-breve/ , lê-se o título:

“Amazon Web Services prepara investimento em novo centro de serviços em Portugal. Data será conhecida “em breve””

mas depois temos como subtítulo:

“André Rodrigues, head of technology para a Europa do Sul da Amazon Web Services, afirma que a tecnológica está interessada em investir na cloud soberana que o Governo quer implementar.”

Portanto a acreditar nestes textos, a Amazon, quer “investir” na “cloud soberana” do Governo. Mas, claro, isso não faz sentido, a cloud soberana não é uma empresa cotada em bolsa ou algo em que se possa investir… Que poderá então isto querer dizer?

Ora, a notícia propriamente dita diz que “André Rodrigues, head of technology para a Europa do Sul da Amazon Web Services, afirma que a tecnológica está interessada em investir na cloud soberana que o Governo quer implementar. A tecnológica aguarda apenas que sejam “definidas as guidelines sobre aquilo que será a diretriz do governo para a cloud“.”

Ou seja, a Amazon está a pensar em concorrer para ser fornecedor para a nossa cloud soberana: vai tentar que Portugal invista na Amazon, não o contrário.

Esperemos que as diretrizes sejam para uma cloud verdadeiramente soberana - e se forem, então a Amazon não poderá ser fornecedora.

WA’s surrogacy, IVF laws overhauled as legislation passes parliament
Same-sex couples, single people, transgender and intersex West Australians will be able to access assisted reproductive technology and surrogacy, almost a decade after reforms were first promised. ⌘ Read more

Amazon To Use Nvidia Tech In AI Chips, Roll Out New Servers
AWS is deepening its partnership with Nvidia by adopting “NVLink Fusion” in its upcoming Trainium4 AI chips. “The NVLink technology creates speedy connections between different kinds of chips and is one of Nvidia’s crown jewels,” notes Reuters. From the report: Nvidia has been pushing to sign up other chip firms to adopt its NVLink technology, with Intel, Qualco … ⌘ Read more

New satellite images show scale of China’s Philippine Sea flotilla
Private firm Starboard Maritime Intelligence says it has used satellite technology to track down the People’s Liberation Army Navy task group. ⌘ Read more

Colleges Are Preparing To Self-Lobotomize
The skills that future graduates will most need in an age of automation – creative thinking, critical analysis, the capacity to learn new things – are precisely those that a growing body of research suggests may be eroded by inserting AI into the educational process, yet universities across the United States are now racing to embed the technology into every dimension of their curricula.

O … ⌘ Read more

UK ‘Not in Favor’ of Dimming the Sun
The British government said it opposes attempts to cool the planet by spraying millions of tons of dust into the atmosphere – but did not close the door to a debate on regulating the technology. From a report: The comments in parliament Thursday came after a POLITICO investigation revealed an Israeli-U.S. company Stardust Solutions aimed to be capable of deploying solar radiation modification, as the t … ⌘ Read more

Can AI Transform Space Propulsion?
An anonymous reader shared this report from The Conversation:

To make interplanetary travel faster, safer, and more efficient, scientists need breakthroughs in propulsion technology. Artificial intelligence is one type of technology that has begun to provide some of these necessary breakthroughs. We’re a team of engineers and graduate students who are studying how AI in general, and a subset of AI call … ⌘ Read more

Smart cars used as ‘weapons’ by domestic violence abusers
A new eSafety advisory warns Australians about technology-facilitated abuse and provides advice on how to protect themselves from it. ⌘ Read more

AI Can Already Do the Work of 12% of America’s Workforce, Researchers Find
An anonymous reader shared this report from CBS News:

Artificial intelligence can do the work currently performed by nearly 12% of America’s workforce, according to a recentstudy from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The researchers, relying on a metric called the “Iceberg Index” that measures a job’s potential to be aut … ⌘ Read more

Black Sesame SoC Support To Be Merged For Linux 6.19
A new SoC vendor and in turn new SoC/platform support is set to premiere in the Linux 6.19 kernel with the initial Black Sesame Technologies C1200 support… ⌘ Read more

Uber Launches Driverless Robotaxi Service in Abu Dhabi, and Plans Many More
“A year after launching a commercial robotaxi service in Abu Dhabi, Chinese autonomous vehicle technology company WeRide and partner Uber can finally call that service driverless,” reports TechCrunch.
A company official hailed it as “a historic transportation milestone, as the first driverless AV deployment outside of the U.S … ⌘ Read more

Europe Fears It Can’t Catch Up in Great Power Competition
European leaders have spent years warning that the continent risked falling behind the U.S., China and Russia in the global contest for economic, technological and military dominance, and officials now believe they have reached that point.

The mood darkened over the summer when Europe found itself on the sidelines as Washington and Beijing negotiated a reset of glo … ⌘ Read more

Better Technology, Worse Motivation: GenAI’s Mediocrity Trap

While generative AI (GenAI) promises productive efficiency, it can paradoxically lead to lower-quality work. We conducted an experiment with professional illustrators and found that AI assistance flattens the quality curve—it accelerates initial gains but sharply diminishes the returns on sustained effort. Faced with this, a significant number of professionals made a strategic choice: they sacrificed the final quality to save time.

From http://www.jin-li.org/uploads/1/1/4/5/114595093/ai_and_motivation.pdf

I haven’t read this and can’t vouch for it; seems vaguely AI-boostery. Still, the conclusions are interesting. This seems to be the picture that is emerging about generative AI generally: most people don’t like it and find that degrades the quality of work. Coders seem to like it and think that it helps them, but in fact it makes the slower, less productive, and more bug prone.

By all measures it’s a bad technology. We should just be honest about it. There is no need to make excuses for multi-trillion-dollar corporations.

Inquest finds murder of Lilie James ‘was a premeditated killing’
A NSW coroner has urged young people to consider their use of location-sharing technology after the “senseless” murder of Lilie James at the hands of her ex-boyfriend. ⌘ Read more

@prologic@twtxt.net AI is slot machines for coders:

• “Before starting tasks, developers forecast that allowing AI will reduce completion time by 24%. After completing the study, developers estimate that allowing AI reduced completion time by 20%. Surprisingly, we find that allowing AI actually increases completion time by 19%–AI tooling slowed developers down.” https://metr.org/blog/2025-07-10-early-2025-ai-experienced-os-dev-study/
  
• “Stack Overflow data reveals the hidden productivity tax of ‘almost right’ AI code”: https://venturebeat.com/ai/stack-overflow-data-reveals-the-hidden-productivity-tax-of-almost-right-ai-code
  

The same intermittent reward operant conditioning that gets people addicted to gambling and thinking that if they follow certain rituals they’ll win “next time” drives people’s beliefs that AI tools are making them more productive when they’re making them less productive. I’m going to guess that a side effect of this is that people think they’re typing less when in the longer term they’re typing the same amount or more when you factor in the productivity loss (as far as I’ve read the studies don’t measure this so I’m only guessing).

People are also being rapidly de-skilled by this technology: the more they use it, the more their actual skills atrophy. “Continuous exposure to AI might reduce the ADR (adesoma detection rate) of standard non-AI assisted colonoscopy, suggesting a negative effect on endoscopist behaviour.” (science speak for saying that radiologists get worse at seeing tumors in scans once they’ve used AI): https://www.thelancet.com/journals/langas/article/PIIS2468-1253(25)00133-5/abstract

Nobody who cares about the future should be using this stuff for anything.

https://fokus.cool/2025/11/25/i-dont-care-how-well-your-ai-works.html

AI systems being egregiously resource intensive is not a side effect — it’s the point.

And someone commented on that with:

I’m fascinated by the take about the resource usage being an advantage to the AI bros.

They’ve created software that cannot (practically) be replicated as open source software / free software, because there is no community of people with sufficient hardware / data sets. It will inherently always be a centralized technology.

Fascinating and scary.

Amanda’s husband seemed able to read her mind. Then she learnt why
Amanda’s husband always seemed to just know things. When fiddling around with her social media settings, she discovered how he had been using technology to gaslight her. ⌘ Read more

US Banks Scramble To Assess Data Theft After Hackers Breach Financial Tech Firm
An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Several U.S. banking giants and mortgage lenders are reportedly scrambling to assess how much of their customers’ data was stolen during a cyberattack on a New York financial technology company earlier this month. SitusAMC, which provides technology for over a thou … ⌘ Read more

Meta Plans New AI-Powered ‘Morning Brief’ Drawn From Facebook and ‘External Sources’
Meta “is testing a new product that would give Facebook users a personalized daily briefing powered by the company’s generative AI technology” reports the Washington Post. They cite records they’ve reviwed showing that Meta “would analyze Facebook content and external sources to push custom updates to its users. … ⌘ Read more

How bad was the “Digital Sovereignty Summit”?

Heise explains: https://www.heise.de/en/opinion/Analysis-of-the-Digital-Sovereignty-Summit-Open-Source-Gets-Scolded-11084765.html

But I’ll highlight one thing - the Declaration for European Digital Sovereignty, published and signed there, has this ridiculous sentence:

“Open-source solutions can play an important role enhancing digital sovereignty, provided they meet high cybersecurity standards and are complemented by reliable proprietary technologies where appropriate.”

#Sovereignty #EU #OpenSource

IBM, Cisco Outline Plans For Networks of Quantum Computers By Early 2030s
IBM and Cisco plan to link quantum computers over long distances by the early 2030s, “with the goal of demonstrating the concept is workable by the end of 2030,” reports Reuters. “The move could pave the way for a quantum internet, though executives at the two companies cautioned that the networks would require technologies that … ⌘ Read more

Future Google TV Devices Might Come With a Solar-powered Remote
An anonymous reader shares a report: Epishine, a company that makes solar cells optimized for indoor lighting, has announced its technology is being used in a new remote control for Google TV devices, as spotted by 9to5Google. The remote will rely on rechargeable batteries instead of disposable ones, and thanks to the use of solar cells on both sid … ⌘ Read more

Netgear Accused by Rival of China Smear To Fan Security Fear
An anonymous reader shares a report: California-based TP-Link says it may take a sales hit of more than $1 billion because of erroneous reports that the networking company’s technology has been “infiltrated” by Beijing. In a lawsuit, TP-Link claims its competitor, Netgear, orchestrated a smear by planting false claims with journalists and internet influen … ⌘ Read more

Only Half the Homes in America Have Cable TV Anymore
Pay television penetration in American households fell to 50.2% in the third quarter and is projected to drop to 50% or lower by December, according to Madison and Wall, a technology and media advisory firm. Fifteen years ago, nearly nine in ten households subscribed to pay television services.

The decline has prompted major media companies to shed cable asset … ⌘ Read more

Apple Cuts App Store Fee In Half For ‘Mini Apps’
Apple is cutting its App Store fee from 30% to 15% for developers who join a new Mini Apps Partner Program, which requires using more of Apple’s built-in technology to power lightweight “mini apps.” “This includes using Apple software to register a user’s purchase history, verify user ages and to process in-app purchases,” reports CNBC. From the report: A “mini app” is a lightwei … ⌘ Read more

Chinese Hackers Used Anthropic’s AI To Automate Cyberattacks
China’s state-sponsored hackers used AI technology from Anthropic to automate break-ins of major corporations and foreign governments during a September hacking campaign, the company said Thursday. From a report: The effort focused on dozens of targets and involved a level of automation that Anthropic’s cybersecurity investigators had not previously seen, a … ⌘ Read more

One billionaire’s plan to build a women-only residential college at major Sydney university
Venture capitalist Solina Chau’s donation will house science, technology, engineering and maths students on campus. ⌘ Read more

China’s EV Market Is Imploding
An anonymous reader shares a report: The Chinese electric car has become a symbol of the country’s seemingly unstoppable rise on the world stage. Many observers point to their growing popularity as evidence that China is winning the race to dominate new technologies. But in China, these electric cars represent something entirely different: the profound threats that Beijing’s meddling in markets poses to both China … ⌘ Read more

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

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