Latest News
Last updated 02 May, 03:31 PM
BBC News
Some protests may need to stop, PM suggests, after calls for pause on pro-Palestinian marches - The PM tells the BBC he is concerned about the "cumulative" effect of marches on the Jewish community.
Winners, losers and a PM on the brink - what to expect in next week's elections - Believe it or not, Thursday’s local elections aren’t just about the PM’s fate - there’s plenty more at stake.
US to cut troop levels in Germany by 5,000 amid Trump spat with Merz - The decision to reduce the US deployment to Germany comes amid a row between the two allies over Iran.
Celebrity Traitors line-up announced - 21 famous faces set to enter castle - Miranda Hart, Maya Jama, and Eastenders legend Ross Kemp are among the stars who will go head-to-head in the second series of The Celebrity Traitors.
'I bought a baseball cap to hide my kippah': Jews observe first Shabbat after Golders Green attack - British Jews tell the BBC they are agonising over whether to stick to their usual routine this Sabbath.
The Register
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.…
Brace for the patch tsunami: AI is unearthing decades of buried code debt - Britain's cyber agency says the bill for years of technical shortcuts is coming due, and it's arriving all at once Britain's cyber agency is warning that AI-fuelled bug hunting is about to flush out years of buried flaws, leaving defenders scrambling to keep up.…
ServiceNow under siege as Atlassian adds to ITSM take-outs - CEO Mike Cannon-Brookes touts 'largest ever quarter for competitive displacements' The chase is on. Atlassian reported its largest-ever quarter for taking share from a major IT service management provider, CEO Mike Cannon-Brookes said on the company's fiscal third-quarter earnings call Thursday, escalating its rivalry with ServiceNow.…
Mythos complicates the breakup, says Pentagon CTO, but Anthropic is still barred - Emil Michael says agencies are evaluating the cybersecurity model, not deploying it Pentagon CTO Emil Michael pushed back on reports of a thaw in the department’s relationship with Anthropic: The two are not getting back together, even as Mythos draws interest from government agencies.…
New Scientist - Home
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
NHS England rushes to hide software over AI hacking fears - National Health Service rules state that all software created with public money should be publicly available, but fears of computer-hacking AI models like Mythos have prompted a change in policy
Hacker News
How fast is a macOS VM, and how small could it be? - Comments
Why does it take so long to release black fan versions? - Comments
Barman – Backup and Recovery Manager for PostgreSQL - Comments
Why are there both TMP and TEMP environment variables? (2015) - Comments
Refusal in Language Models Is Mediated by a Single Direction - Comments
Slashdot
Marvel, DC, Game Publishers Launch Rival Events Saturday for Free Giveaways - The once-a-year free comic book giveaway "is splitting in two," according to a local news report. Launched in 2002 by Diamond Comic Distributor, comic book giants like Marvel and DC have historically participated together. But things changed after Diamond Comic Distributors went bankrupt in 2025, "leaving other companies to swoop in and pick up where Diamond left off." The rights to the "Free Comic Book Day" brand were sold to Universal Distribution, which plans to bring Free Comic Book Day back on Saturday. On the same day, Penguin Random House plans to launch a rival event called Comics Giveaway Day. This means you'll still get plenty of free comics, but this time they will be separated, with some coming under the Free Comic Book Day branding and others arriving under the Comics Giveaway Day branding. Free Comic Book Day will include publishers like DC, Image, Dynamite and Archie Comics. Comics Giveaway Day will include publishers such as Marvel, Dark Horse, Boom! Studios and Tokyopop... The other big change coming this year is the introduction of game publishers Wizards of the Coast and Upper Deck to the lineup, as part of Universal Distribution's Free Comic Book Day. Wizards of the Coast is known for its tabletop role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons, as well as its trading card game Magic: The Gathering. Upper Deck is best known for its sports trading cards and entertainment collectibles, along with deck-building games like the Legendary series... In addition to adding these game makers, Universal plans to expand Free Comic Book Day to include what are colloquially referred to as your friendly local game stores. Marvel's offerings this year include a special Alien, Predator & Planet of the Apes one-shot, while D.C. is offering the first chapter of their upcoming graphic novel Aquamanatee. Other comics include Avatar: The Last Airbender — Legends from Dark Horse Comics and Sonic the Hedgehog from IDW Publishing. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
GameStop Is Preparing Offer For eBay - GameStop is reportedly preparing a potential offer for eBay, an unusually ambitious move given that eBay's roughly $46 billion market value is nearly four times GameStop's. Reuters reports: GameStop is preparing an offer for eBay as CEO Ryan Cohen pursues plans to boost the struggling videogame retailer's market value more than tenfold, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday. Shares of eBay, which has a market capitalization of about $46 billion, soared about 14% in extended trading. GameStop gained 4%. The company has a market value of nearly $12 billion. GameStop has been quietly building a stake in eBay's shares ahead of a potential offer, the report said, citing people familiar with the matter. If eBay is not receptive, Cohen could decide to take the offer directly to the e-commerce company's shareholders, the Journal said. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
New Lithium-Plasma Engine Passes Key Mars Propulsion Test - NASA engineers have tested a next-generation lithium-plasma electric propulsion system that reached 120 kilowatts, a new U.S. record and about 25 times the power of the electric thrusters on NASA's Psyche spacecraft. "Designing and building these thrusters over the last couple of years has been a long lead-up to this first test," said James Polk, who is a senior research scientist at NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory. "It's a huge moment for us because we not only showed the thruster works, but we also hit the power levels we were targeting. And we know we have a good testbed to begin addressing the challenges to scaling up." Universe Today reports: While 120 kilowatts is a new record, NASA estimates it a future human mission to Mars will require 2 to 4 megawatts of power consisting of several thrusters and requiring more than 23,000 hours (958 days/2.6 years) of operation. To accomplish this, the thrusters would have to withstand more than 2,800 degrees Celsius (5,000 degrees Fahrenheit), which the thrusters achieved during testing. The reason for the extended operation is due to the estimated time of an entire human mission to Mars, which is estimated to be approximately 2.6 years. This is because the launch window to Mars only opens once every two years due to the orbital behaviors of both planets. While no mission has ever returned from the Red Planet, this same launch window works from Mars to Earth, too. When launched within this window, robotic spacecraft have traditionally taken approximately 6-7 months to reach Mars. However, a human mission would require a much larger spacecraft to accommodate the astronauts, food, fuel, water, and other mission-essential items. For the approximate 2.6-year mission, this would entail approximately 6-9 months traveling to Mars, followed by approximately 18 months on the surface of Mars until the next launch window opens, then another approximate 6-9 months back to Earth. However, having much less fuel due to the electric propulsion system could potentially alter this timeframe. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Amazon Stuck With Months of Repairs After Drone Strikes On Data Centers - An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Amazon's cloud customers will need to wait several more months before the US tech company can repair war-damaged data centers and restore normal operations in the Middle East. The announcement comes two months after Iranian drone strikes targeted three Amazon data centers in the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain -- meaning that full recovery from the cloud disruption could take nearly half a year in all. The Amazon Web Services (AWS) dashboard posted an April 30 update describing how its UAE and Bahrain cloud regions "suffered damage as a result of the conflict in the Middle East" and are unable to support customer applications. The update also said that "relevant billing operations are currently suspended while we restore normal operations" in a process that "is expected to take several months." That wording suggests Amazon will continue to avoid billing AWS customers in the affected regions -- ME-CENTRAL-1 and ME-SOUTH-1 -- after it initially waived all usage-related charges for March 2026 at an estimated cost of $150 million. AWS also "strongly" recommended that customers migrate resources to other cloud regions and rely on remote backups to restore any "inaccessible resources." Some customers, such as the Dubai-based super app Careem—which offers ride-hailing, household services, and food and grocery delivery -- were able to get back online quickly after doing an overnight migration to other data center servers. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Microsoft's Xbox Mode Is Now Available For All Windows 11 PCs - Microsoft is rolling out Xbox mode to all Windows 11 PCs, bringing a full-screen Xbox PC app interface similar to Steam's Big Picture Mode. "Some players in select markets will be able to download the Xbox mode experience today, with availability expanding to more players in those markets over the next several weeks," says the Xbox team. The Verge reports: Xbox mode aims to try and bridge the gap between Xbox consoles and Windows, but its original debut felt like a beta on the Xbox Ally devices. "Since first introducing Xbox mode, formerly known as 'full screen experience,' on Windows handhelds, we've been listening closely to player feedback and continuing to evolve the experience across devices," says the Xbox team. "Those learnings directly shaped Xbox mode on Windows 11 PCs." Microsoft is also rolling out improvements to the Xbox Ally X handheld today, including a preview of its Auto SR upscaling technology. Xbox console owners are also getting a new dashboard update today, with the ability to disable Quick Resume on individual games and a feature to add custom colors to the dashboard. Read more of this story at Slashdot.