Latest News
Last updated 07 Apr, 05:03 AM
BBC News
Watch: Artemis II mission loses contact with Earth for 40 minutes - Once contact was regained, astronaut Christina Koch said: "It is so great to hear from Earth again."
Clock ticks on Trump's Iran ultimatum with little sign of breakthrough - The US president is in a delicate political position as the final hours to Tuesday's deadline for Iran to open the Strait of Hormuz tick down.
Disruption expected as six-day doctors' strike begins - The NHS is advising patients in England to only use emergency services when necessary but attend any confirmed appointments.
Australia's most-decorated living soldier arrested over alleged war crimes - Ben Roberts-Smith, who denies all wrongdoing, previously lost a landmark defamation case over the alleged murders.
JD Vance due in Hungary to back Orban's re-election bid - The US vice-president's visit is the latest show of White House support for the Hungarian leader.
The Register
Yahoo<i>!</i> Japan’s owner consolidating 164 OpenStack clusters into one - Customizations are causing pain so new cloud will stick to upstream cuts of the open source stack LY Corporation, the Japanese web giant that dominates messaging, e-commerce and payments in many Asian countries, has revealed it is replacing a heavily-customized OpenStack cloud with a more conventional cut of the open source cloud stack – and making massive consolidations along the way.…
Anthropic reveals $30bn run rate and plans to use 3.5GW of new Google AI chips - Broadcom's building the silicon and is chuffed about that, but also notes Anthropic remains a risk Broadcom has announced that Google has asked it to build next-generation AI and datacenter networking chips, and that Anthropic plans to consume 3.5GW worth of the accelerators it delivers to the ads and search giant.…
AI agents found vulns in this popular Linux and Unix print server - CUPS server shown spilling out remote code execution and root access In the latest chapter on leaky CUPS, a security researcher and his band of bug-hunting agents have found two flaws that can be chained to allow an unauthenticated attacker to remotely execute code and achieve root file overwrite on the network.…
AI slop got better, so now maintainers have more work - Once AI bug reports become plausible, someone still has to verify them If AI does more of the work but humans still have to check it, you need more reviewers. Now that AI models have gotten better at writing and evaluating code, open-source projects find themselves overwhelmed with the too-good-to-ignore output.…
AMD's AI director slams Claude Code for becoming dumber and lazier since last update - 'Claude cannot be trusted to perform complex engineering tasks' according to GitHub ticket If you've noticed Claude Code's performance degrading to the point where you find you don't trust it to handle complicated tasks anymore, you're not alone.…
New Scientist - Home
Iodised salt has become uncool but many of us need to eat more iodine - Iodine deficiency is on the rise among people in the UK, the US and Australia. A century ago this led to drops in IQ, height and thyroid health – and the modern fancy salt fad may be leading to a resurgence, says columnist Alice Klein
We're solving the fundamental mystery of how reality is glued together - For decades, scientists have tried and failed to explain how the force that binds the heart of atoms together really works. But new mathematical tools are finally prising the problem open
Novel approach to clearing brain waste shows promise for Alzheimer's - Boosting the brain's waste-disposal system is increasingly showing promise for Alzheimer's disease, with a study now suggesting that a novel approach eases brain deficits and symptoms associated with the condition
Oceans are darkening all over the planet – what’s going on? - In a shift that is reshaping entire ecosystems, the open oceans are letting less light in. We don't fully understand the consequences yet, but there is still hope, says oceanographer Tim Smyth
A once-fantastical collider could answer physics’ biggest mysteries - The muon collider was once dismissed as impossible, but is now gaining steam as the successor to the Large Hadron Collider. If built, it could offer a new window to reality
Hacker News
Show HN: Ghost Pepper – Local hold-to-talk speech-to-text for macOS - Comments
Solod – A Subset of Go That Translates to C - Comments
Launch HN: Freestyle – Sandboxes for Coding Agents - Comments
A cryptography engineer's perspective on quantum computing timelines - Comments
Issue: Claude Code is unusable for complex engineering tasks with Feb updates - Comments
Slashdot
New Jersey Cannot Regulate Kalshi's Prediction Market, US Appeals Court Rules - An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: A federal appeals court ruled on Monday that New Jersey gaming regulators cannot prevent Kalshi from allowing people in the state to use its prediction market to place financial bets on the outcome of sporting events. A three-judge panel of the Philadelphia-based 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 2-1 (PDF) in finding that the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission has exclusive jurisdiction over the sports-related event contracts that Kalshi allows people to trade on its platform. The ruling marked the first time a federal appeals court has ruled on what has become the central issue in an escalating battle over the ability of state gaming regulators to police the activity of prediction market operators. Kalshi and companies like it allow users to place trades and profit from predictions on events such as sports and elections. States argue that firms like Kalshi are operating without required state licenses, in violation of gaming laws, including bans on wagers by those under 21. Those states include New Jersey, which last year sent Kalshi a cease-and-desist letter stating that its listing of sports-related event contracts on its platform violated state gambling laws that prohibit betting on collegiate sports. Kalshi sued the state, arguing its event contracts qualify as "swaps," a type of derivative contract, that under the Commodity Exchange Act can only be regulated by the CFTC, which had granted the company a license to operate a designated contract market (DCM). A lower-court judge had sided with New York-based Kalshi and issued a preliminary injunction, prompting New Jersey to appeal. But a majority of the judges on the 3rd Circuit panel concluded the Commodity Exchange Act likely preempted state law. "Kalshi's sports-related event contracts are swaps traded on a CFTC-licensed DCM, so the CFTC has exclusive jurisdiction," U.S. Circuit Judge David Porter wrote. The ruling was in line with the position advanced in other litigation by the CFTC under President Donald Trump's administration. The regulator last week sued Arizona, Connecticut and Illinois to prevent them from pursuing what it called unlawful efforts to regulate prediction markets. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
OpenAI Calls For Robot Taxes, Public Wealth Fund, and 4-Day Workweek To Tackle AI Disruption - OpenAI is proposing (PDF) sweeping policy changes to help manage the societal disruption caused by advanced AI, including taxes on automated labor, a public wealth fund, and experiments with a four-day workweek. The company said the policy document offered a series of "initial ideas" to address the risk of "jobs and entire industries being disrupted" by the adoption of AI tools. Business Insider reports: Among the core policy suggestions is a public wealth fund, which would see lawmakers and AI companies work together to invest in long-term assets linked to the AI boom, with returns distributed directly to citizens. Another is that the government should encourage and incentivize employers to experiment with four-day workweeks with no loss in pay and offer "benefits bonuses" tied to productivity gains from new AI tools. The policy document also suggests lawmakers modernize the tax system and shift the tax base to corporate income and capital gains, rather than relying on labor income and payroll taxes that could be hit by a wave of AI-powered job losses. It also recommends taxes related to automated labor. OpenAI also called for the accelerated expansion of the US's electricity grid, which is already feeling the strain from a wave of data center construction and energy demand for training ever more powerful AI models. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Teardown of Unreleased LG Rollable Shows Why Rollable Phones Aren't a Thing - A teardown video of LG's never-released Rollable phone helps explain why rollable phones never became a real product category: they were likely too expensive, fragile, and complicated to manufacture at scale. "The complexity of the internals would have made the Rollable extremely expensive to manufacture, and it would have demanded a high price tag," reports Ars Technica. "Durability is also a big concern. There's just a lot going on inside this phone, with multiple motors, springy arms, tracks, and a screen that has to loop around the back. [...] It seems unlikely the LG Rollable could have survived daily use for multiple years." From the report: The LG Rollable is just one of several rollable concept phones that appeared throughout the early 2020s. Flexible OLED screens had finally become affordable, leading to foldable phones like the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold. Although, "affordable" is relative here. Foldables were and still are very expensive devices. Based on what we can see of the complex inner workings of the LG Rollable, these devices may have commanded even higher prices. Noted YouTube phone destroyer JerryRigEverything managed to snag a working prototype LG Rollable. It may even be the unit LG demoed at CES 2021. The device looks like a regular phone at first glance, but a quick swipe activates the motor, which unfurls additional screen real estate from around the back. This makes the viewable area about 40 percent larger without the added thickness of a foldable. The device expands with the aid of two tiny motors, which are attached via straight teeth to an internal track. The screen assembly has zipper-like teeth that keep it locked into the frame as it moves. The motors make a surprising amount of noise when operating, so LG designed the phone to play a musical chime to hide the sound. While the motor does the heavy lifting, the phone also has a lattice of articulating spring-loaded arms inside that keep the OLED panel even as the frame slides side to side. The battery and motherboard sit in a tray that allows the back of the phone to expand as the OLED rolls into view. This is a prototype phone, featuring a chunky frame and visible screws. That helped Zack Nelson from JerryRigEverything successfully disassemble and reassemble the phone. So this little bit of mobile history was not destroyed, and the teardown gives us a good look at how LG was hoping to attract new customers before calling it quits. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
AP Offers Buyouts As Part of Pivot Away From Newspaper Journalism - The Associated Press is offering buyouts to U.S. journalists "as part of an acceleration away from the focus on newspaper journalism that sustained the company since the mid-1800s," the not-for-profit outlet reported today. AP says it is making the move from a position of strength, responding to shrinking newspaper revenue and growing demand from digital, broadcast, and tech clients. "The AP is not in trouble," said Julie Pace, executive editor and senior vice president of the AP. "We're making these changes from a position of strength but we're doing so now to recognize our changing customer base." From the report: The news organization is becoming more focused on visual journalism and developing new revenue sources, particularly through companies investing in artificial intelligence, to cope with the economic collapse of many legacy news outlets. Once the lion's share of AP's revenue, big newspaper companies now account for 10% of its income. "We're not a newspaper company and we haven't been for quite some time," [said Pace]. Despite changes -- the company has doubled the number of video journalists it employs in the United States since 2022 -- remnants of a staffing structure built largely to provide stories to newspapers and broadcasters in individual states have remained. That has its roots well back in American history; the AP was started in the mid-19th century by New York newspapers looking to share the costs of reporting outside their immediate territory. The number of AP journalists who will lose jobs is murky, in part intentionally. The AP does not say how many journalists it employs, though it has a large international presence as well as its U.S. staff. Pace said the AP's goal is to reduce its global staff by less than 5%. The Marketing and Media Alliance estimated the AP had 3,700 staffers, but it was not clear when that estimate was made. Since buyouts are being offered now to only U.S. journalists, it stands to reason that the cut among that workforce will be more than 5%. Whether there are layoffs depends on how many people take the offer, Pace said. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Artemis II Astronauts Break Apollo Record For Farthest Distance Humans Have Traveled From Earth - Artemis II has broken the Apollo 13 record for the farthest distance humans have ever traveled from Earth. NASA reports: The Artemis II crew of NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, and Christina Koch, along with CSA (Canadian Space Agency) astronaut Jeremy Hansen have set the record for the farthest distance from Earth traveled by a human mission, surpassing the Apollo 13 record of 248,655 miles set in 1970. NASA Flight Director Brandon Lloyd, Capsule Communicator Amy Dill, and Command and Handling Data Officer Brandon Borter also marked a lighthearted milestone today by emailing the crew what is now assumed to be the longest person-to-person message ever sent in human history. After breaking the record for human spaceflight, crew also took a moment to provisionally name a couple of craters on the Moon, noting they were able to see them with their naked eye. Just northwest of Orientale basin highlighted above is a crater they would like to name Integrity after their spacecraft and this historic mission. Just northeast of Integrity, on the near and far side boundary, and sometimes visible from Earth, the crew suggested Carroll crater in honor of Reid Wiseman's late wife, Carroll Taylor Wiseman. After this mission is complete, the crater name proposals will be formally submitted to the International Astronomical Union, the organization that governs the naming of celestial bodies and their surface features. On April 1, NASA successfully launched humanity's first crewed trip around the Moon in more than 50 years. A couple of days into the mission, attention turned to a more mundane problem when reports said the astronauts had access to "two Microsoft Outlooks" and neither was working properly. By April 4, the crew had passed 100,000 miles from Earth as they continued deeper into space, and by April 6, they had entered the Moon's gravitational pull and caught their first views of the lunar far side. Read more of this story at Slashdot.