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Last updated 02 Apr, 09:58 AM
BBC News
Watch the moment Artemis II blasts off on historic mission - After delays and technical issues, the first crewed Moon mission in 50 years finally took off from Florida and is now in Earth's orbit.
Dream of space travel reignites with journey to circle the Moon - There was giddy euphoria at the Kennedy Space Center after the launch, writes the BBC's Pallab Ghosh.
'Oh my goodness, that is spectacular': See BBC science editor react to launch - Nasa's Artemis II has blasted off and is now orbiting Earth, before continuing on to circle the Moon.
Trump leaves key questions unanswered as he seeks to calm nerves over war - There were some glaring omissions in the president's primetime address, writes the BBC's Gary O'Donoghue.
UK to host virtual summit on reopening the Strait of Hormuz - The virtual summit will consider what diplomatic steps can be taken, though the US is not expected to attend.
The Register
SystemRescue 13 lands with Linux 6.18 and bcachefs support - And other handy tools that could save your data in a crisis The latest update to the handy SystemRescue is here with a new kernel. There's also a new GParted Live, and some other handy utilities.…
The company's biggest security hole lived in the breakroom - Connected devices can leave an otherwise secure network vulnerable Pwned Welcome to Pwned, The Register's new column, where we highlight the worst infosec own goals so you can, hopefully, protect against them. Caffeine is an essential tool for most IT defenders, so, on balance, we're sure it has protected against a lot more exploits than it has caused. But in this case, the desire for everyone's favorite stimulant led to a massive breach.…
AI recruiting biz Mercor says it was 'one of thousands' hit in LiteLLM supply-chain attack - First public downstream victim, but won't be the last AI hiring startup Mercor confirmed it was "one of thousands of companies" affected by the LiteLLM supply-chain attack as the fallout from the Trivy compromise continues to spread.…
Google's TurboQuant saves memory, but won't save us from DRAM-pricing hell - Chocolate Factory’s compression tech clears the way to cheaper AI inference, not more affordable memory When Google unveiled TurboQuant, an AI data compression technology that promises to slash the amount of memory required to serve models, many hoped it would help with a memory shortage that has seen prices triple since last year. Not so much.…
'Uncle Larry’s biggest fan' cut by email in early morning Oracle layoff spree - WARN filings in two states show 1,000+ layoffs, but wider cuts remain unconfirmed By his third failed attempt to log into Oracle’s VPN on Tuesday morning, a decades-long employee of the company started to get a bad feeling.…
New Scientist - Home
Historic Artemis II launch sends astronauts bound for the moon - Four astronauts have begun a 10-day journey around the moon and back again, the first crewed flight to the moon since 1972
Astronauts are ready to return to the moon on Artemis II mission - NASA’s Artemis II mission will be the first time humans have been around the moon in half a century, and its next launch window opens on 1 April
Tobacco plant altered to produce five psychedelic drugs - Genetically engineering tobacco plants could enable a more sustainable production method for psychedelic drugs, which are increasingly in demand for research and medical uses
Plug-in solar is coming – how dangerous is it and is it worth it? - Plug-in solar panels are a cheaper, simpler alternative to professionally installed panels. But can they really reduce energy bills and are they safe? Matthew Sparkes investigates
The first quantum computer to break encryption is now shockingly close - Traditional encryption methods have long been vulnerable to quantum computers, but two new analyses suggest a capable enough machine may be built much sooner than previously thought
Hacker News
I Am Not A Number. In memory of the more than 72,000 Palestinians killed - Comments
IBM Announces Strategic Collaboration with Arm - Comments
Bringing Clojure programming to Enterprise (2021) - Comments
Live: Artemis II Launch Day Updates - Comments
Gone (Almost) Phishin' - Comments
Slashdot
Rapid Snow Melt-Off In American West Stuns Scientists - Scientists say extreme March heat caused an unusually rapid collapse of snowpack across the American West that's leaving major basins at record or near-record lows. "This year is on a whole other level," said Dr Russ Schumacher, a Colorado State University climatologist. "Seeing this year so far below any of the other years we have data for is very concerning." The Guardian reports: [...] The issue is extremely widespread. Data from a branch of the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), which logs averages based on levels between 1991 and 2020, shows states across the south-west and intermountain west with eye-popping lows. The Great Basin had only 16% of average on Monday and the lower Colorado region, which includes most of Arizona and parts of Nevada, was at 10%. The Rio Grande, which covers parts of New Mexico, Texas and Colorado, was at 8%. "This year has the potential of being way worse than any of the years we have analogues for in the past," Schumacher said. Even with near-normal precipitation across most of the west, every major river basin across the region was grappling with snow drought when March began, according to federal analysts. Roughly 91% of stations reported below-median snow water equivalent, according to the last federal snow drought update compiled on March 8. Water managers and climate experts had been hopeful for a March miracle -- a strong cold storm that could set the region on the right track. Instead, a blistering heatwave unlike any recorded for this time of year baked the region and spurred a rapid melt-off. "March is often a big month for snowstorms," Schumacher said. "Instead of getting snow we would normally expect we got this unprecedented, way-off-the-scale warmth." More than 1,500 monthly high temperature records were broken in March and hundreds more tied. The event was "likely among the most statistically anomalous extreme heat events ever observed in the American south-west," climate scientist Daniel Swain said in an analysis posted this week. "Beyond the conspicuous 'weirdness' of it all," Swain added, "the most consequential impact of our record-shattering March heat will likely be the decimation of the water year 2025-26 snowpack across nearly all of the American west." Calling the toll left by the heat "nothing short of shocking," Swain noted that California was tied for its worst mountain snowpack value on record. While the highest elevations are still coated in white, "lower slopes are now completely bare nearly statewide." Read more of this story at Slashdot.
SpaceX Files To Go Public - Reuters reports that SpaceX has confidentially filed for a U.S. IPO, reportedly targeting a valuation above $1.75 trillion. Reuters reports: SpaceX puts more rockets in space than any other company and promises a chance to invest in humanity's return to the moon and attempt to colonize Mars. The company aspires to put artificial intelligence data centers in space, while running a lucrative satellite communications system that opens up much of the earth to the internet and is increasingly used in war. [...] A public listing at a potential valuation of more than $1.75 trillion comes after SpaceX merged with Musk's artificial intelligence startup xAI in a deal that valued the rocket company at $1 trillion and the developer of the Grok chatbot at $250 billion. SpaceX is hosting an analyst day on April 21, encouraging research analysts to attend in person, [...]. The company is also offering analysts an optional visit to xAI's "Macrohard" data center site in Memphis, Tennessee, on April 23, and plans to hold a virtual session on May 4 to discuss financial models with banks' research analysts, the source said. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
NASA Launches Artemis II Astronauts Around the Moon - NASA's Artemis II mission has launched four astronauts around the moon and back, marking humanity's first crewed lunar voyage in 53 years and the first test flight of NASA's Orion capsule and Space Launch System (SLS) with people on board. Five minutes into the flight, Commander Reid Wiseman saw the team's target: "We have a beautiful moonrise, we're headed right at it," he said from the capsule. The Associated Press reports: Artemis II set sail from the same Florida launch site that sent Apollo's explorers to the moon so long ago. The handful still alive cheered this next generation's grand adventure as the Space Launch System rocket thundered into the early evening sky, a nearly full moon beckoning some 248,000 miles (400,000 kilometers) away. Artemis II commander Reid Wiseman led the charge into space with "Let's go to the moon!" accompanied by pilot Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Canada's Jeremy Hansen. It was the most diverse lunar crew ever with the first woman, person of color and non-U.S. citizen riding in NASA's new Orion capsule. Carrying three Americans and one Canadian, the 32-story rocket rose from NASA's Kennedy Space Center where tens of thousands gathered to witness the dawn of this new era. Crowds also jammed the surrounding roads and beaches, reminiscent of the Apollo moonshots in the 1960s and '70s. It is NASA's biggest step yet toward establishing a permanent lunar presence. Visit NASA's Artemis II Launch Day blog for the latest updates. Developing... Read more of this story at Slashdot.
UFC-Que Choisir Takes Ubisoft To French Court Over the Crew Shutdown - Longtime Slashdot reader Elektroschock writes: When Ubisoft pulled the plug on The Crew's servers without warning, players were left with a worthless game they'd already paid for. Now, consumer watchdog UFC-Que Choisir is fighting back, demanding gamers' right to play regardless of publisher whims. Supported by the "Stop Killing Games" movement, this landmark case challenges unfair terms before the Creteil Judicial Court (Val-de-Marne near Paris), and aims to protect players from disappearing games. The lawsuit that UFC-Que Choisir filed against Ubisoft on Tuesday alleges that the video game publisher "misled consumers about the permanence of their purchase and imposed abusive contractual clauses stripping players of ownership rights," reports Reuters. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
AI Can Clone Open-Source Software In Minutes - ZipNada writes: Two software researchers recently demonstrated how modern AI tools can reproduce entire open-source projects, creating proprietary versions that appear both functional and legally distinct. The partly-satirical demonstration shows how quickly artificial intelligence can blur long-standing boundaries between coding innovation, copyright law, and the open-source principles that underpin much of the modern internet. In their presentation, Dylan Ayrey, founder of Truffle Security, and Mike Nolan, a software architect with the UN Development Program, introduced a tool they call malus.sh. For a small fee, the service can "recreate any open-source project," generating what its website describes as "legally distinct code with corporate-friendly licensing. No attribution. No copyleft. No problems." It's a test case in how intellectual property law -- still rooted in 19th-century precedent -- collides with 21st-century automation. Since the US Supreme Court's Baker v. Selden ruling, copyright has been understood to guard expression, not ideas. That boundary gave rise to clean-room design, a method by which engineers reverse-engineer systems without accessing the original source code. Phoenix Technologies famously used the technique to build its version of the PC BIOS during the 1980s. Ayrey and Nolan's experiment shows how AI can perform a clean-room process in minutes rather than months. But faster doesn't necessarily mean fair. Traditional clean-room efforts required human teams to document and replicate functionality -- a process that demanded both legal oversight and significant labor. By contrast, an AI-mediated "clean room" can be invoked through a few prompts, raising questions about whether such replication still counts as fair use or independent creation. Read more of this story at Slashdot.