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

Maestro Technology Sells Used SSD Drives as New
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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

‘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

A.I. and Social Media Contribute to ‘Brain Rot’
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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.

Image

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

Refund requests flood Microsoft after tricking users into AI upgrades
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