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Last updated 03 May, 05:33 PM

BBC News

Polanski says police 'should not be above scrutiny' over Golders Green response - The Green Party leader says he apologised for reposting a tweet criticising the officers' response because it was "not the appropriate forum".

Man and woman die and three injured in house blast - Police said the explosion was "suspicious" but was not being treated as a terrorist incident.

Airlines can cancel flights in advance over fuel shortages under new plans - Ministers hope move would help avoid last-minute flight cancellations for passengers this summer over Middle East fuel supplies.

Sir Alex Ferguson taken to hospital as precaution before Man Utd v Liverpool - Sir Alex Ferguson is taken to hospital after falling unwell at Old Trafford shortly before Manchester United's Premier League match with Liverpool on Sunday.

Germany troop cuts send wrong signal to Russia, say two top US Republicans - The chairs of the House and Senate armed services committees said withdrawing 5,000 service personnel risked undermining deterrence.

The Register

Inference is giving AI chip startups a second chance to make their mark - In a disaggregated AI world, Nvidia can be both a friend and an enemy AI adoption is reaching an inflection point as the focus shifts from training new models to serving them. For the AI startups vying for a slice of Nvidia's pie, it's now or never.…

Royal Navy chief backs drones, autonomous weapons in ‘Hybrid Navy’ - Plan mixes crewed ships, robot escorts, and long-range strike to bolster a stretched fleet The leader of Britain’s Royal Navy has outlined a “Hybrid Navy” built on a mix of crewed, uncrewed, and autonomous platforms to ensure it can continue to defend the nation and operate overseas.…

Job's a good 'un: Bank of England tech project wins watchdog praise - PAC: Now why can't everybody else in public sector do it like this? Parliament's spending watchdog has held up a successful large-scale public sector tech transformation as a rare example worth emulating, in a striking departure from the usual diet of failure and overspend.…

Usage-based pricing killing your vibe - here's how to roll your own local AI coding agents - Take those token limits and shove them by vibe coding with a local LLM With model devs pushing more aggressive rate limits, raising prices, or even abandoning subscriptions for usage-based pricing, that vibe-coded hobby project is about to get a whole lot more expensive. Fortunately, you're not without cost-saving options.…

UK drivers' agency shrugs off claims of week-long booking site smashes, blames browser configs - Agency insists everything is working fine, even though users spend days failing to load it The DVSA's driving test booking system has spent the week offline, according to frustrated users.…

New Scientist - Home

Is consciousness more fundamental to reality than quantum physics? - The idea that everything that exists can be built from the bottom up has long held sway among physicists. Now, a new kind of science is under construction that centres conscious experience – and might unravel the universe’s biggest mysteries

Our verdict on Red Mars: Mostly great, with a few quibbles - The New Scientist Book Club read Kim Stanley Robinson's acclaimed science fiction story about the first settlers on Mars in April – and had a lot to say about it

Ann Leckie continues to shine with new sci-fi novel Radiant Star - Set on a planet whose population lives underground, Radiant Star is Ann Leckie's latest Radch-universe novel. Its rich characterisation and meticulous world-building shine through, says our science-fiction columnist Emily H. Wilson

2026 will be the hottest year on record, leading scientist predicts - The second half of this year will almost certainly see the start of an El Niño phase that could lead to extreme heat across much of the globe, and James Hansen expects that to make this year surpass 2024 as the hottest on record

Why the keto diet could be a revolutionary way to treat mental illness - You may think of the high-fat, low-carb eating plan as a faddish way to lose weight. But the keto diet is now being used to tackle conditions from severe depression to bipolar disorder and anorexia, with transformative results

Hacker News

What Chromium versions are major browsers are on? - Comments

Mercedes-Benz commits to bringing back physical buttons - Comments

Porsche will contest Laguna Seca in historic colors of the Apple Computer livery - Comments

Alert-Driven Monitoring - Comments

For thirty years I programmed with Phish on, every day - Comments

Slashdot

ChatGPT Became So Obsessed With Goblins That OpenAI Had to Intervene - The Wall Street Journal reports that OpenAI "recently gave its popular ChatGPT strict instructions. Stop talking about goblins." Recent models of the artificial-intelligence chatbot have been bringing up the creatures in conversations with users seemingly out of the blue, as well as gremlins, trolls and ogres. The goblin-speak caught the attention of programmers, who are often heavy users of the bot. Barron Roth, a 32-year-old product manager at a tech company, said the bot referred to a flaw in his code as a "classic little goblin." He said he counted more than 20 times it mentioned goblins, without any prompting... Several users speculated that goblin terminology was how the model characterized itself, in lieu of identifying as a person with a soul. Then OpenAI decided enough was enough. "Never talk about goblins, gremlins, raccoons, trolls, ogres, pigeons, or other animals or creatures unless it is absolutely and unambiguously relevant to the user's query," reads an open source line in ChatGPT's base instructions for its coding assistant. The Journal calls this "a reminder that even as AI companies tout one advance after another in their technology, they are sometimes baffled by the things their own models do...." While training a "nerdy" personality for their model's customization feature, "We unknowingly gave particularly high rewards for metaphors with creatures," OpenAI explained in a log post. And "From there, the goblins spread." When we looked, use of "goblin" in ChatGPT had risen by 175% after the launch of GPT-5.1, while "gremlin" had risen by 52%... With GPT-5.4, we and our usersâ noticed an even bigger uptick in references to these creatures... Nerdy accounted for only 2.5% of all ChatGPT responses, but 66.7% of all "goblin" mentions in ChatGPT responses... The rewards were applied only in the Nerdy condition, but reinforcement learning does not guarantee that learned behaviors stay neatly scoped to the condition that produced them. Once a style tic is rewarded, later training can spread or reinforce it elsewhere, especially if those outputs are reused in supervised fine-tuning or preference data. It all started because the "nerdy" personality's prompt had said "You must undercut pretension through playful use of language. The world is complex and strange, and its strangeness must be acknowledged, analyzed, and enjoyed..." Now OpenAI calls this "a powerful example of how reward signals can shape model behavior in unexpected ways, and how models can learn to generalize rewards in certain situations to unrelated ones." But "fans of goblins don't have to fear," notes the Wall Street Journal. "OpenAI provided a command in its blog post that would remove its creature-suppressing instructions." Read more of this story at Slashdot.

South Africa's Draft AI Policy Withdrawn Due to 'Fictitious' AI-Generated Citations - An official in South Africa withdrew a draft of the country's national AI policy, reports a local newspaper, "after it was found the draft policy was compiled using AI, which cited academic articles that were 'fictitious'." Earlier this month, minister in the Presidency Khumbudzo Ntshavheni announced cabinet had approved the draft policy for public comment. [Ntshavheni] said the policy seeks to strengthen government's ability to regulate and adopt AI responsibly, while fostering innovation, job creation, and skills access. The article includes this quotes from the country's minister of communications/digital technologies department. "This unacceptable lapse proves why vigilant human oversight over the use of artificial intelligence is critical." Thanks to Slashdot reader Tokolosh for sharing the article. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Ransomware Is Getting Uglier As Cybercriminals Fake Leaks and Skip Encryption Entirely - "Ransomware activity jumped again in Q1 2026," writes Slashdot reader BrianFagioli, "with 2,638 victim posts on leak sites, up 22% year over year," according to a report from cybersecurity company ReliaQuest. But the bigger shift is how messy the ecosystem has become. Established groups like Akira and Qilin are still active, while newer players like The Gentlemen surged into the top tier with a 588 percent spike in activity. At the same time, questionable leak sites such as 0APT and ALP-001 are muddying the waters by posting possibly fake breach claims, forcing companies to investigate incidents that may not even be real. Meanwhile, actors like ShinyHunters are showing that ransomware does not always need encryption anymore. By targeting identity systems and SaaS platforms, attackers can steal data using legitimate access, often through phishing or even phone-based social engineering, and then extort victims without deploying traditional malware. With a record 91 active leak sites and faster attack timelines, the report suggests defenders should focus less on tracking specific groups and more on stopping common tactics like credential theft, remote access abuse, and large-scale data exfiltration. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Smuggled Starlink Terminals are Beating Iran's Internet Blackout - An anonymous reader shared this report from the BBC: "If even one extra person is able to access the internet, I think it's successful and it's worth it," says Sahand. The Iranian man is visibly anxious, speaking to the BBC outside Iran, as he carefully explains how he is part of a clandestine network smuggling satellite internet technology — which is illegal in Iran — into the country. Sahand, whose name we have changed, fears for family members and other contacts inside the country. "If I was identified by the Iranian regime, they might make those I'm in touch with in Iran pay the price," he says. For more than two months, Iran has been in digital darkness as the government maintains one of the longest-running national internet shutdowns ever recorded worldwide... Sahand says he has sent a dozen [Starlink terminals] to Iran since January and "we are actively looking for other ways to smuggle in more". The human rights organisation Witness estimated in January that there are at least 50,000 Starlink terminals in Iran. Activists say the number is likely to have risen... Last year, the Iranian government passed legislation that made using, buying or selling Starlink devices punishable by up to two years in prison. The jail term for distributing or importing more than 10 devices can be up to 10 years. State-affiliated media has reported multiple cases of people being arrested for selling and buying Starlink terminals, including four people — two of them foreign nationals — arrested last month for "importing satellite internet equipment". "The BBC contacted SpaceX for more details about the use of Starlink in the country but did not receive a response." Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Claude, Microsoft Copilot Fail Again to Predict the Winners of the Kentucky Derby - In 2016 an online "swarm intelligence" platform generated a correct prediction for the Kentucky Derby — naming all four top finishers in order. (But its 2017 predictions weren't even close.) Slashdot checked in again on how modern AI systems performed in 2023, 2024, and 2025 — but their predictions were still pretty bad. Would AI-generated Derby predictions be any better in 2026? This year's winner was 24-to-1 longshot "Golden Tempo" — though a lot of oddsmakers had favored a horse named Further Ado (which ultimately only finished 11th). So when USA Today prompted Microsoft Copilot for its own picks for the Kentucky Derby, Copilot also went with Further Ado. (Even worse, it predicted Golden Tempo would come in... 13th.) Here's how Copilot's picks actually performed... Further Ado (finished 11th)Chief Wallabee (finished 4th)The Puma (SCRATCHED)Renegade (finished 2nd)Commandment (finished 7th)So Happy (finished 9th)Emerging Market (finished 10th)Danon Bourbon (finished 5th)Potente (finished 12th)Incredibolt (finished 6th)Robusta (finished 14th)Ocelli (finished 3rd)Golden Tempo (finished 1st)Pavlovian (finished 18th)Great White (SCRATCHED)Wonder Dean (finished 8th) Litmus Test (finished 17th)Albus (finished 15th)Six Speed (finished 13th)Intrepido (finished 16th) Copilot was told to use the latest odds, conditions, and analysis of favorites, best bets, expert picks, previous results and race history with the post positions, according to USA Today. And meanwhile, Yahoo Sports asked Claude "to simulate the race using the opening odds, draw and potential track conditions. We also asked it to factor in some human predictions." Like Microsoft Copilot, Claude also picked Further Ado to finish first (though it came in 11th) — and predicted that Golden Tempo (the eventual first-place finisher) would finish 12th. Further Ado (finished 11th)The Puma (SCRATCHED)Commandment (finished 7th)Chief Wallabee (finished 4th)Renegade (finished 2nd)Emerging Market (finished 10th)So Happy (finished 9th)Incredibolt (finished 6th)Danon Bourbon (finished 5th)Potente (finished 12th)Pavlovian (finished 18th)Golden Tempo (finished 1st) Litmus Test (finished 17th)Albus (finished 15th)Wonder Dean (finished 8th)Six Speed (finished 13th)Intrepido (finished 16th) Read more of this story at Slashdot.