Latest News
Last updated 04 Feb, 04:53 AM
BBC News
Andrew moves out of Royal Lodge home - The former prince left Royal Lodge on Monday night and is living in a temporary property on the Sandringham Estate, the BBC understands.
Mandelson investigated by police over claims he leaked information to Epstein - The former Labour minister faces allegations of misconduct in public office when he was business secretary.
Chris Mason: Mandelson revelations a scandal on another level - Sir Keir Starmer's decision to send Lord Mandelson to Washington a year ago gives this row political salience, the BBC's political editor writes.
Three quarters of patients will survive cancer by 2035, government promises - There are plans for earlier diagnosis and faster treatment in England but experts worry about lack of staff.
Investigator 'did unlawful stuff' regarding Harry, court hears - In written evidence, Dan Portley-Hanks said the Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday were his "best client and biggest payer".
The Register
For once, Supermicro has dodged drama and just delivered datacenters - Single customer accounted for 63 percent of surging revenue In recent years, Supermicro’s regulatory filings often have delivered dramas such as losing its listing on the NASDAQ stock exchange, an admission its books may not be accurate, another possible delisting, and missing the AI boom.…
Too much AI for some, too little for others: Why AMD can't win with investors - A diverse portfolio is usually a good thing, except when AI is the only thing Usually diversity is a sign of a healthy and resilient business. But for the folks on Wall Street, the breadth of AMD's portfolio is a bug, not a feature – one that sent the House of Zen's share price down by more than eight percent in after hours trading on Tuesday.…
VS Code for Linux may be secretly hoarding trashed files - Versions installed via Snap don't delete files when users empty system trash Linux users who installed Microsoft's Visual Studio Code as a Snap package may want to check to see whether files they sent to the trash with the app have actually been deleted.…
AI agents can't yet pull off fully autonomous cyberattacks - but they are already very helpful to crims - Don't relax: This is a 'when, not if' scenario AI agents and other systems can't yet conduct cyberattacks fully on their own - but they can help criminals in many stages of the attack chain, according to the International AI Safety report.…
Sudo maintainer, handling utility for more than 30 years, is looking for support - Many vital open source resources rely on the devotion of a few individuals It's hard to imagine something as fundamental to computing as the sudo command becoming abandonware, yet here we are: its solitary maintainer is asking for help to keep the project alive.…
New Scientist - Home
Dutch air force reads pilots' brainwaves to make training harder - While pilots are flying in a VR simulation, their brainwave patterns can be fed into an AI model that assesses how challenging they are finding a task and adjusts the difficulty accordingly
The weird rules of temperature get even stranger in the quantum realm - Can a single particle have a temperature? It may seem impossible with our standard understanding of temperature, but columnist Jacklin Kwan finds that it’s not exactly ruled out in the quantum realm
Nobel laureate says he'll build world’s most powerful quantum computer - John Martinis has already revolutionised quantum computing twice. Now, he is working on another radical rethink of the technology that could deliver machines with unrivalled capabilities
Why did SpaceX just apply to launch 1 million satellites? - SpaceX says it wants to deploy an astronomical number of data centres in orbit to supply power for artificial intelligence, but the proposal might not be entirely serious
Neanderthals and early humans may have interbred over a vast area - We are getting a clearer sense of where and how often Homo sapiens and Neanderthals interbred, and it turns out the behaviour was much more common than we first thought
Hacker News
I miss thinking hard - Comments
Lessons learned shipping 500 units of my first hardware product - Comments
Data centers in space makes no sense - Comments
The largest zip tie is nearly 4 feet long and $75 - Comments
Show HN: Craftplan – I built my wife a production management tool for her bakery - Comments
Slashdot
Walmart Joins $1 Trillion Club - Walmart's market cap surpassed $1 trillion on Tuesday, putting the largest U.S. retail chain in an exclusive club dominated by tech groups. Bloomberg adds: The Bentonville, Arkansas-based chain -- a longtime favorite of bargain-hunting consumers -- has flexed its massive scale and supplier network to keep prices low and grab market share across the income spectrum. While Walmart has maintained its appeal to households looking for value, its online offerings are drawing new, wealthier shoppers seeking convenience. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Google Home Finally Adds Support For Buttons - An anonymous reader shares a report: Google Home users, your long nightmare is over. The platform has finally added support for buttons. The release notes for a February 2 update state that several new starter conditions for automations are now available, including "Switch or button pressed." Smart buttons are physical, programmable switches that you can press to trigger automations or control devices in your smart home, such as turning lights on or off, opening and closing shades, running a Good Night scene, or starting a robot vacuum. A great alternative to voice and app control when you want to control multiple devices, smart buttons are often wireless and generally have several ways to press them: single press, double press, and long press, meaning one button can do multiple things. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Ultra-Processed Foods Should Be Treated More Like Cigarettes Than Food, Study Says - Ultra-processed foods (UPFs) have more in common with cigarettes than with fruit or vegetables, and require far tighter regulation, according to a new report. The Guardian: UPFs and cigarettes are engineered to encourage addiction and consumption, researchers from three US universities said, pointing to the parallels in widespread health harms that link both. UPFs, which are widely available worldwide, are food products that have been industrially manufactured, often using emulsifiers or artificial colouring and flavours. The category includes soft drinks and packaged snacks such as crisps and biscuits. There are similarities in the production processes of UPFs and cigarettes, and in manufacturers' efforts to optimise the "doses" of products and how quickly they act on reward pathways in the body, according to the paper from researchers at Harvard, the University of Michigan and Duke University. They draw on data from the fields of addiction science, nutrition and public health history to make their comparisons, published on 3 February in the healthcare journal the Milbank Quarterly. The authors suggest that marketing claims on the products, such as being "low fat" or "sugar free," are "health washing" that can stall regulation, akin to the advertising of cigarette filters in the 1950s as protective innovations that "in practice offered little meaningful benefit." Read more of this story at Slashdot.
NASA Delays Artemis II To March - ClickOnThis writes: NASA has delayed the Artemis II launch to March of this year, after a wet dress-rehearsal uncovered a hydrogen leak. From the NASA article: During tanking, engineers spent several hours troubleshooting a liquid hydrogen leak in an interface used to route the cryogenic propellant into the rocket's core stage, putting them behind in the countdown. Attempts to resolve the issue involved stopping the flow of liquid hydrogen into the core stage, allowing the interface to warm up for the seals to reseat, and adjusting the flow of the propellant. Teams successfully filled all tanks in both the core stage and interim cryogenic propulsion stage before a team of five was sent to the launch pad to finish Orion closeout operations. Engineers conducted a first run at terminal countdown operations during the test, counting down to approximately 5 minutes left in the countdown, before the ground launch sequencer automatically stopped the countdown due to a spike in the liquid hydrogen leak rate. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Google Plots Big Expansion in India as US Restricts Visas - Alphabet is plotting to dramatically expand its presence in India [non-paywalled source], with the possibility of taking millions of square feet in new office space in Bangalore, India's tech hub. From a report: Google's parent company has leased one office tower and purchased options on two others in Alembic City, a development in the Whitefield tech corridor, totaling 2.4 million square feet, according to people familiar with the deal. The first tower is expected to open to employees in the coming months, while construction on the remaining two is set to conclude next year. Options in the real estate industry give would-be tenants the exclusive right to rent, or in some cases buy, a property at a predetermined price within a specific time frame. It's also possible Alphabet will not exercise the option to use the additional towers. If it does take all of the space, the complex could accommodate as many as 20,000 additional staff, which could more than double the company's footprint in India, said the people, asking not to be identified because the plans aren't public. Alphabet currently employs around 14,000 in the country, out of a global workforce of roughly 190,000. [...] US President Donald Trump's visa restrictions have made it harder to bring foreign talent to America, prompting some companies to recruit more staff overseas. India has become an increasingly important place for US companies to hire, particularly in the race to dominate artificial intelligence. Read more of this story at Slashdot.