Latest News
Last updated 19 Mar, 07:42 AM
BBC News
How the Iran war has left Europe facing yet another energy crisis - It is not the first time that there has been deep energy-linked frustration in the heart of Europe.
All doctors in England warned to watch for meningitis symptoms after Kent outbreak - Health workers across England are urged to look out for signs of infection as thousands have jabs.
Pay growth at lowest rate in more than five years - Annual earnings grew at an annual rate of 3.8% in the November to January period, the Office for National Statistics says.
US aircraft carrier to sail to Crete for repairs after fire on board - The USS Gerald R Ford has played a significant role in US operations during the war with Iran.
'Designer' dog owners report more problem behaviours, vets warn - The Royal Veterinary College says popular "doodle" dogs do not always behave as expected.
The Register
Struggling to put your AI aversion into words? Here's a handy glossary - From mild vegetarianism to full-blown haterdom, there's a label for everything Opinion Are you an AI hater, an AI vegan, or a slightly more moderate AI vegetarian? Or are you on the side of the clankers? A bot-licker, a prompt-fondler, a ChatNPC?…
Google offers ‘vibe design’ tool that you can shout at to create a UI - Stitch gets voice input and an infinite canvas The term “vibe coding” has become associated with use of AI coding assistants to create code that expresses a developer’s intent, even if the results are ropey and require plenty of extra work to put into production. Google’s now proudly adapted the term to describe the workings of its Stitch design tool.…
Your next car might need 300 GB of RAM, and so will autonomous robots - Micron plans to cash in, after already growing revenue $10 billion in a single quarter Autonomous cars will need 300 gigabytes of DRAM or more, and robots will need similar quantities, leading memory-maker Micron Technology to predict it has a long and happy future ahead of it.…
Tencent says small clouds can’t get hardware, so big clouds can hike prices - Baidu joins the Chinese cloud price rise party Two more Chinese cloud giants have signalled price rises for their services, again due to the impact of AI on their supply chains.…
Anthropic's Claude claws its way towards the top of the AI market - Who knew questioning authority and signaling virtue would lead to growth? Anthropic has been killing it in the business market, success that appears to be at least partially attributable to pushback against the Pentagon.…
New Scientist - Home
Fluorescent ruby-like gems have been found on Mars for the first time - The Perseverance rover has found tiny crystals that seem to be rubies or sapphires inside pebbles on Mars, where they have never been seen before
Boosting the blood-brain barrier could avert brain damage in athletes - The neurodegenerative condition chronic traumatic encephalopathy appears to be driven by damage to the blood-brain barrier due to repetitive head injuries, like those that occur in boxing. This suggests that drugs that strengthen this barrier could prevent or slow the condition
Neanderthals may have treated wounds with antibiotic sticky tar - Tar made from birch tree bark is commonly found at Neanderthal sites, and experiments show that it kills some bacteria that cause skin infections
The neuroscientist who wants us to be nicer to psychopaths - Abigail Marsh has found that many psychopaths don’t want to be cruel and uncaring, and argues that they deserve support to help them get there
Will war in the Middle East accelerate the clean energy transition? - Disruption to shipping traffic through the Strait of Hormuz has led to a spike in oil and natural gas prices, which could spur countries to boost the rollout of renewable energy and electric vehicles
Hacker News
A sufficiently detailed spec is code - Comments
Cook: A simple CLI for orchestrating Claude Code - Comments
Nvidia greenboost: transparently extend GPU VRAM using system RAM/NVMe - Comments
Warranty Void If Regenerated - Comments
Conway's Game of Life, in real life - Comments
Slashdot
Pardoned Nikola Fraudster Is Raising Funds For AI-Powered Planes He Claims Will Reshape Aviation - Trevor Milton, the pardoned founder of Nikola, is seeking $1 billion for AI-powered autonomous planes through a new venture called SyberJet. The Tech Buzz reports: "Autonomous planes will be 10 times harder than Nikola ever was," Milton told the Wall Street Journal in a rare interview. It's a remarkable admission from someone whose last venture collapsed under the weight of securities fraud charges after he overstated the capabilities of Nikola's electric and hydrogen-powered trucks. Milton was convicted in 2022 on three counts of fraud for misleading investors about Nikola's technology, including staging a video that made it appear a truck prototype was driving under its own power when it was actually rolling downhill. The conviction sent him to prison and turned Nikola into a cautionary tale about startup hype culture. His pardon, which came earlier this year, sparked immediate controversy in venture capital and legal circles. Now he's betting that AI and autonomous aviation represent a clean slate. SyberJet appears focused on developing artificial intelligence systems capable of piloting aircraft without human intervention - a technical challenge that's stumped even well-funded players like Boeing and Airbus. [...] Milton hasn't detailed SyberJet's technical approach or revealed who's backing the venture. The company's website remains sparse, and aviation industry sources say they haven't seen concrete demonstrations of the technology. That opacity echoes the early days of Nikola, when Milton made sweeping claims about revolutionary trucks that existed mostly in renderings and promotional videos. If you need a quick refresher on the Nikola saga, here's a timeline of key events: June, 2016: Nikola Motor Receives Over 7,000 Preorders Worth Over $2.3 Billion For Its Electric Truck December, 2016: Nikola Motor Company Reveals Hydrogen Fuel Cell Truck With Range of 1,200 Miles February, 2020: Nikola Motors Unveils Hybrid Fuel-Cell Concept Truck With 600-Mile Range June, 2020: Nikola Founder Exaggerated the Capability of His Debut Truck September, 2020: Nikola Motors Accused of Massive Fraud, Ocean of Lies September, 2020: Nikola Admits Prototype Was Rolling Downhill In Promo Video September, 2020: Nikola Founder Trevor Milton Steps Down as Chairman in Battle With Short Seller October, 2020: Nikola Stock Falls 14 Percent After CEO Downplays Badger Truck Plans November, 2020: Nikola Stock Plunges As Company Cancels Badger Pickup Truck July, 2021: Nikola Founder Trevor Milton Indicted on Three Counts of Fraud December, 2021: EV Startup Nikola Agrees To $125 Million Settlement September, 2022: Nikola Founder Lied To Investors About Tech, Prosecutor Says in Fraud Trial Read more of this story at Slashdot.
FBI Is Buying Location Data To Track US Citizens, Director Confirms - An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: The FBI has resumed purchasing reams of Americans' data and location histories to aid federal investigations, the agency's director, Kash Patel, testified to lawmakers on Wednesday. This is the first time since 2023 that the FBI has confirmed it was buying access to people's data collected from data brokers, who source much of their information -- including location data -- from ordinary consumer phone apps and games, per Politico. At the time, then-FBI director Christopher Wray told senators that the agency had bought access to people's location data in the past but that it was not actively purchasing it. When asked by U.S. Senator Ron Wyden, Democrat of Oregon, if the FBI would commit to not buying Americans' location data, Patel said that the agency "uses all tools ... to do our mission." "We do purchase commercially available information that is consistent with the Constitution and the laws under the Electronic Communications Privacy Act -- and it has led to some valuable intelligence for us," Patel testified Wednesday. Wyden said buying information on Americans without obtaining a warrant was an "outrageous end-run around the Fourth Amendment," referring to the constitutional law that protects people in America from device searches and data seizures. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Cloudflare Appeals Piracy Shield Fine, Hopes To Kill Italy's Site-Blocking Law - Cloudflare is appealing a 14.2 million-euro fine from Italy for refusing to comply with its "Piracy Shield" law, which requires blocking access to websites on its 1.1.1.1 DNS service within 30 minutes. The company argues the system lacks oversight, risks widespread overblocking, and could undermine core Internet infrastructure. Ars Technica's Jon Brodkin reports: Piracy Shield is "a misguided Italian regulatory scheme designed to protect large rightsholder interests at the expense of the broader Internet," Cloudflare said in a blog post this week. "After Cloudflare resisted registering for Piracy Shield and challenged it in court, the Italian communications regulator, AGCOM, fined Cloudflare... We appealed that fine on March 8, and we continue to challenge the legality of Piracy Shield itself." Cloudflare called the fine of 14.2 million euros ($16.4 million) "staggering." AGCOM issued the penalty in January 2026, saying Cloudflare flouted requirements to disable DNS resolution of domain names and routing of traffic to IP addresses reported by copyright holders. Cloudflare had previously resisted a blocking order it received in February 2025, arguing that it would require installing a filter on DNS requests that would raise latency and negatively affect DNS resolution for sites that aren't subject to the dispute over piracy. Cloudflare co-founder and CEO Matthew Prince said that censoring the 1.1.1.1 DNS resolver would force the firm "not just to censor the content in Italy but globally." Piracy Shield was designed to combat pirated streams of live sports events, requiring network operators to block domain names and IP addresses within 30 minutes of receiving a copyright notification. Cloudflare said the fine should have been capped at 140,000 euros ($161,000), or 2 percent of its Italian earnings, but that "AGCOM calculated the fine based on our global revenue, resulting in a penalty nearly 100 times higher than the legal limit." Despite its complaints about the size of the fine, Cloudflare said the principles at stake "are even larger" than the financial penalty. "Piracy Shield is an unsupervised electronic portal through which an unidentified set of Italian media companies can submit websites and IP addresses that online service providers registered with Piracy Shield are then required to block within 30 minutes," Cloudflare said. Cloudflare is pushing for the law to be struck down, arguing that it is "incompatible with EU law, most notably the Digital Services Act (DSA), which requires that any content restriction be proportionate and subject to strict procedural safeguards." In addition to appealing the fine, Cloudflare says it will continue to challenge Piracy Shield in Italian courts, engage with EU officials, and seek full access to AGCOM's Piracy Shield records. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Google Is Trying To Make 'Vibe Design' Happen - With today's latest Stitch updates, Google is trying to make "vibe design" happen, reports The Verge's Jay Peters. The AI-native design platform encourages users to describe goals, feelings, or inspiration in "natural language," rather than starting with traditional blueprints. In a blog post, Google Labs Product Manager Rustin Banks says that Stitch can turn those inputs into interactive prototypes, automatically map user flows, and support real-time iteration. It introduces voice capabilities that allow users to "speak directly to [the] canvas" for feedback or changes. Tools like DESIGN.md also help users create reusable design systems across various projects. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
New Windows 11 Bug Breaks Samsung PCs, Blocking Access To C: Drive - Longtime Slashdot reader UnknowingFool writes: Users of Samsung PCs are reporting the inability to access the C: drive after the Windows 11 February update. The bug seems to be in connection with the Samsung Galaxy Connect app, which allows Samsung phones and tablets to connect to Windows machines. [A previous stable version of the app has been re-released to prevent this problem from spreading.] This parody explains the situation with humor. The issue stems from update KB5077181 and is impacting Samsung PCs running Windows 11 25H2 or 24H2. Microsoft and Samsung have confirmed the issue and published a workaround, but as PCWorld notes, it will take some time. The workaround "requires removing the Samsung application, then asking Windows to repair the drive permissions and assigning a new owner, then restoring the Windows default permissions, including patching in some custom code that Microsoft wrote." Read more of this story at Slashdot.