Latest News
Last updated 04 May, 08:33 AM
BBC News
The threat to summer holidays looming from jet fuel shortages - What impact might shortages have on our summer holidays - and what could be done about it?
Some Iranians fear the regime is now more entrenched - and ready for revenge - Ordinary Iranians tell of worry about increased repression by authorities after the war is over.
Thousands could benefit from cancer jab that cuts treatment time to minutes - Thousands of patients will be offered a new injectable form of an immunotherapy drug that takes minutes.
What an empty car park tells us about the UK's debt problem - The BBC has been speaking to people living in one of England's poorest communities.
Met Gala 2026: How to watch, the price of tickets and this year's theme - Beyoncé, who last attended the Met Gala in 2016, is returning as a co-chair of fashion's biggest night.
The Register
Hope your holiday was horrid: You botched the last thing you did before leaving - That box-full-of-old-tech-you-should-probably-have-thrown-out-but-kept-just-in-case got a techie in trouble Who, Me? Monday is upon us once again and The Register hopes that when you arrive at your desk, all is well. We offer that sentiment because we use the first day of the working week to bring you a fresh instalment of "Who, Me?" – the reader-contributed column in which you confess to making mistakes, and explain how you survived them.…
Ask.com, former home of search butler Jeeves, closes just as conversational search comes back - Like actual butlers, this relic of the first dotcom boom has been a quaint anachronism for decades In the mid-1990s, search engine designers settled on the user interface that dominates to this day: a text box into which users enter text, and a resulting list of websites.…
Five Eyes spook shops warn rapid rollouts of agentic AI are too risky - Prioritize resilience over productivity, say CISA, NCSC and their friends from Oz, NZ, Canada Information security agencies from the nations of the Five Eyes security alliance have co-authored guidance on the use of agentic AI that warns the technology will likely misbehave and amplifies organizations’ existing frailties, and therefore recommend slow and careful adoption of the tech.…
Just in time for Labour Day, China makes it illegal to fire humans if AI takes their jobs - PLUS: Samsung cashes in on RAM prices; Booze from space fetches huge price; China's hyperscalers surge A Chinese court has ruled that it’s illegal to replace human workers with AI.…
Microsoft's turned Windows into a cesspool, but it wants to do better - Windows is a mess, GitHub keeps wobbling, Copilot draws flak - what’s wrong at Redmond? kettle When it comes to making decisions that piss off your user base, no one knows how to do it like Microsoft. …
New Scientist - Home
Why dinosaurs lived much more complex lives than we thought - A wave of dinosaur discoveries over the past decade has completely reshaped our understanding of these long-extinct animals. Palaeontologist Dave Hone spills the secrets of how dinosaurs lived, from how social they were to how much they really fought
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
Hacker News
Humanoid Robot Actuators - Comments
Using “underdrawings” for accurate text and numbers - Comments
BYOMesh – New LoRa mesh radio offers 100x the bandwidth - Comments
DeepClaude – Claude Code agent loop with DeepSeek V4 Pro - Comments
Discovering hard disk physical geometry through microbenchmarking (2019) - Comments
Slashdot
Can Investors Trust AI Sales Figures? Asks Wall Street Journal Opinion Piece - A Wall Street Journal opinion piece warns of "a troubling trend" in AI's growth. "Rather than selling software, some AI companies are paying their partners to use it." It cites OpenAI's $1.5 billion joint venture with private-equity firms, Anthropic's $200 million contribution to a private-equity firm joint venture, and Google's $750 million subsidization of Gemini's adoption by consulting firms. "These agreements muddy the distinction between a company's sound growth trajectory and artificial financial engineering." [T]he scale and structure of the recent AI deals go beyond standard incentive mechanisms... When a seller pays customers to buy its products, it is unclear if its revenue growth reflects vibrant demand or a willingness to accept subsidies. Slashdot reader destinyland writes: This warning comes from a prominent figure in the investing community. For six years Robert Pozen was chairman of America's oldest mutual fund company, after five years at Fidelity. An advocate for corporate governance, he's currently a lecturer at MIT's business school (and the author of the book Remote Inc.: How to Thrive at Work...Wherever You Are). "As AI companies prepare initial public offerings, investors should scrutinize their numbers closely," Pozner writes, warning about "time-limited financial support". "In evaluating AI sales figures, analysts should consider the distorted incentives that the recent financing deals create," writes Pozner: Private-equity firms, enticed by promised returns, might demand rapid rollouts of AI products, rather than ensuring their orderly and safe development. Portfolio companies of private-equity firms may embrace AI tools not because they are needed but because adoption is mandated by their owners. Consultants may favor one set of AI models based on the subsidy instead of the merits. If guarantees and subsidies are major factors in the rapid adoption of AI tools, investors should be skeptical of AI companies' revenue projections. Many of their customers enticed by consultants will stop paying full price when the financial incentives are gone. Many of the portfolio companies of private-equity firms could back away from selected AI tools once these joint ventures expire. The challenge with evaluating these AI financing deals is the lack of transparency. At present, AI vendors don't separate revenue driven by subsidies or joint ventures from standard sales. The lesson from the telecom debacle is that financial engineering can obscure, for years, the difference between real customer demand and demand driven by incentives. When AI companies begin to finance their own product distribution, guaranteeing returns to investors and subsidizing sales, it's a signal for investors to dig deeper. Investing in an AI company? Ask what percentage of enterprise revenue is coming from subsidized channels or joint ventures, Pozner suggests. And the renewal/retention rate for customers not supported by subsidies or joint ventures... Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Roblox Blames Age-Verification Rollout for Lowered Growth. Stock Tumbles 22% - Age verification became mandatory for chat access on Roblox in January — and Friday morning Quartz reported it's apparently impacted the company's financials: Roblox cut its full-year 2026 bookings forecast by roughly $900 million at the midpoint on Thursday, blaming stronger-than-expected headwinds from its mandatory age-verification rollout on an audience that skews heavily toward children and teenagers. Full-year 2026 bookings are now projected at $7.33 billion to $7.60 billion, a range that sits roughly $900 million below the prior guidance of $8.28 billion to $8.55 billion; analysts had expected $8.38 billion, according to Yahoo Finance. Roblox stock fell almost 22% in premarket trading.... Daily active users rose 35% year over year to 132 million, while hours engaged climbed 43% to 31 billion hours... Daily Active Users and hours engaged fell below forecasts of 143.8 million and 33.68 billion, respectively, according to Yahoo Finance... Users who have not completed age checks have faced restricted communication features, and the process has weighed on the platform's ability to bring in new users. Russia's blocking of the platform, which took effect in December 2025, added further drag on user growth, according to Yahoo Finance. As of the end of the first quarter, 51% of global daily active users had completed age verification, with 65% of U.S. users having done so, Roblox said.... The safety push has come with legal costs. Roblox accrued $57 million in the first quarter for settlements and settlement proposals with certain states over youth-related consumer protection and digital safety matters, with payments structured over multiple years, the company said. Roblox acknowledged in a letter to shareholders that "our aggressive push to enhance safety lowers our expectations for topline growth in 2026." But they argued that it also "makes our platform fundamentally better and amplifies the long-term growth potential of Roblox through more effective content targeting, tailored communication experiences, and improved community sentiment." Read more of this story at Slashdot.
NetHack 5.0 Released - "So yesterday the Devteam (it is always the Devteam) released version 5.0 of legendary and venerable rogueike compuer game NetHack," writes the Rogue-like games column @Play. "It is 39 years old..." MilenCent (Slashdot reader #219,397) writes: In addition to play changes it's left for players to discover, this version updates the code to compile with C99, makes it much easier to cross compile the code for other systems than the one running, and now uses Lua for its dungeon generation. Happy hacking! For new players, "Nethack 5.0 now has an optional tutorial in the early phases of the game that might help you," notes the Rogue-like games column @Play: Three systems binaries are provided: Windows, MS-DOS and Amiga. Yes, Nethack still supports MS-DOS, and yes, it still supports classic Amiga: it explicitly supports AmigaDOS 3.0, meaning it can still run on 68000 machines... That these are the only systems they provide binaries for shouldn't be seen as an indication that these are the "most important" platforms for Nethack, it's more that, since it's entirely open source, building it yourself is entirely possible, and more expected than with most software. Nethack can be built for Linux, Windows 8-11, AmigaDOS, MacOS (I'm not sure if this includes classic Mac too but it might), Windows CE (wow), OS/2 (additional wow), BeOS, VMS and multiple Unixes... Another option is to play through public Nethack servers. The most popular of these are probably alt.org and Hardfought. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
OpenAI Introduces AI-Generated Pets for Its Codex App - "Vibe coding just got a whole lot more adorable," writes Engadget: OpenAI introduced AI-generated pets to the Codex app, its agentic tool that helps with coding. These "optional animated companions" don't do any coding themselves, but serve as a floating overlay that can tell you what Codex is working on, notify you when Codex completes a task or whether it needs your input on something. The new feature lets developers see Codex's active thread, without having to switch away from your current open app. "The feature ships with eight built-in variations — including a cat and dog," reports Mashable. "But the more interesting play is the custom pet creator." Users can prompt Codex directly to generate their own companion, then share it online. A quick scroll through the homepage reveals the community has already gotten to work. Current creations include Goku, Patrick Star, Microsoft's long-retired Clippy, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, and — naturally — a goblin. There's also Grogu, Dobby, a tiny Bob Rossi, and a "Doge-style Shiba Inu dog"... Read more of this story at Slashdot.
AI Cameras are Being Deployed Across the Western US for Early Detection of Wildfires - The Associated Press reports: On a March afternoon, artificial intelligence detected something resembling smoke on a camera feed from Arizona's Coconino National Forest. Human analysts verified it wasn't a cloud or dust, then alerted the state's forest service and largest electric utility. One of dozens of AI cameras installed for the utility Arizona Public Service had spotted early signs of what came to be known as the Diamond Fire. Firefighters raced to the scene and contained the blaze before it grew past 7 acres (2.8 hectares). As record-breaking heat and an abysmal snowpack raise concerns about severe wildfires, states across the fire-prone West are adding AI to their wildfire detection toolbox, banking on the technology to help save lives and property. Arizona Public Service has nearly 40 active AI smoke-detection cameras and plans to have 71 by summer's end, and the state's fire agency has deployed seven of its own. Another utility, Xcel Energy in Colorado, has installed 126 and aims to have cameras in seven of the eight states it serves by year's end... ALERTCalifornia is a network of some 1,240 AI-enabled cameras across the Golden State that work similar to the system in Arizona.... Pano AI, whose technology combines high-definition camera feeds, satellite data and AI monitoring, has seen a growing interest in its cameras since launching in 2020. They've been deployed in Australia, Canada and 17 U.S. states, including Oregon, Washington and Texas... Last year, its technology detected 725 wildfires in the U.S., the company said... Cindy Kobold, an Arizona Public Service meteorologist, said the technology notifies them about 45 minutes faster on average than the first 911 call. Read more of this story at Slashdot.