Latest News
Last updated 31 Jan, 01:48 AM
BBC News
Takeaways from the millions of newly released Epstein files - Three million new documents include hundreds of mentions of Trump and emails between Epstein and a person called "The Duke".
Epstein invited 'The Duke' to meet Russian woman - The exchange emerges in the latest, wider batch of documents released by the US justice department.
Schitt's Creek and Home Alone star Catherine O'Hara dies aged 71 - The Emmy-winning actress died at her home in Los Angeles on Friday after a brief illness, her agent said.
Asylum seeker sentenced to at least 29 years for murdering hotel worker Rhiannon Whyte - Deng Majek is told by the mother of victim Rhiannon Whyte that she hopes he never sees the outside world.
UN risks 'imminent financial collapse', secretary general warns - António Guterres says the international body could run out of money by July due to members' unpaid fees.
The Register
January blues return as Ivanti coughs up exploited EPMM zero-days - Consider yourselves compromised, experts warn Ivanti has patched two critical zero-day vulnerabilities in its Endpoint Manager Mobile (EPMM) product that are already being exploited, continuing a grim run of January security incidents for enterprise IT vendors.…
'Hey! I’m chatting here!’ Fugazi answers doom NYC’s AI bot - Lying means dying Lying means dying, at least for one falsehood-peddling government AI. A Microsoft-powered chatbot that New York City rolled out to help business owners answer frequently asked questions – but was often wrong – has been silenced as the city grapples with a $12 billion budget shortfall.…
Ex-Googler nailed for stealing AI secrets for Chinese startups - Network access from China and side hustle as AI upstart CEO aroused suspicion A former Google software engineer has been convicted of stealing AI hardware secrets from the company for the benefit of two China-based firms, one of which he founded. The second startup intended to use these secrets to market its technology to PRC-controlled organizations.…
Thousands more Oregon residents learn their health data was stolen in TriZetto breach - Parent company Cognizant hit with multiple lawsuits Thousands more Oregonians will soon receive data breach letters in the continued fallout from the TriZetto data breach, in which someone hacked the insurance verification provider and gained access to its healthcare provider customers across multiple US states.…
Feeling taxed by layoffs, IRS turns to AI helpers - Fewer humans, more bots - just in time for filing season Tax season 2026 could be an interesting one as the IRS seeks to replace the staff it sent to the unemployment line with AI. Bots could handle tasks ranging from reviewing an org's request for tax-exempt status to processing amended individual filings.…
New Scientist - Home
The daring idea that time is an illusion and how we could prove it - The way time ticks forward in our universe has long stumped physicists. Now, a new set of tools from entangled atoms to black holes promises to reveal time’s true nature
Can we genetically improve humans using George Church’s famous list? - Columnist Michael Le Page delves into a catalogue of hundreds of potentially beneficial gene mutations and variants that is popular with transhumanists
Why people can have Alzheimer's-related brain damage but no symptoms - Some people don’t develop dementia despite showing signs of Alzheimer’s disease in their brain, and we're starting to understand why
Elon Musk is making a big bet on his future vision – will it work? - Reports suggest that Elon Musk is eyeing up a merger involving SpaceX, Tesla and xAI, but what does he hope to achieve by consolidating his business empire?
Yawning has an unexpected influence on the fluid inside your brain - Yawning and deep breathing each have different effects on the movement of fluids in the brain, and each of us may have a distinct yawning "signature"
Hacker News
Antirender: remove the glossy shine on architectural renderings - Comments
Show HN: I trained a 9M speech model to fix my Mandarin tones - Comments
Peerweb: Decentralized website hosting via WebTorrent - Comments
Stonebraker on CAP theorem and Databases - Comments
The $100B Megadeal Between OpenAI and Nvidia Is on Ice - Comments
Slashdot
Apple Reports Best-Ever Quarter For iPhone Sales - Apple posted its biggest quarter ever, with iPhone revenue hitting a record ~$85.3 billion and Services climbing 14% to ~$30 billion. Total revenue reached nearly $143.76 billion. "The demand for iPhone was simply staggering," CEO Tim Cook said on a conference call discussing the results. "This is the strongest iPhone lineup we've ever had and by far the most popular." Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Belkin's Wemo Smart Devices Will Go Offline On Saturday - Belkin is shutting down cloud support for most Wemo smart home devices on January 31, leaving only Thread-based models and devices already set up in Apple HomeKit functional. Everything else will lose remote access, voice assistant integrations, and future app updates. The Verge reports: The shut down was first announced in July and impacts most Wemo devices, ranging from smart plugs to a coffee maker, with the exception of a handful of Thread-based devices: the 3-way smart light switch (WLS0503), stage smart scene controller (WSC010), smart plug with Thread (WSP100), and smart video doorbell camera (WDC010). Wemo devices configured through Apple's HomeKit will also continue to work, but you have to set them up in HomeKit before January 31st if you want to use that option. Other affected devices will only work manually after Saturday. If your Wemo device is still under warranty, you may be able to get a partial refund for it after cloud services shut down. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
GNU gettext Reaches Version 1.0 After 30 Years - After more than 30 years of development, GNU gettext finally "crossed the symbolic 'v1.0' milestone," according to Phoronix's Michael Larabel. "GNU gettext 1.0 brings PO file handling improvements, a new 'po-fetch' program to fetch translated PO files from a translation project's site on the Internet, new 'msgpre' and 'spit' pre-translation programs, and Ocaml and Rust programming language improvements." From the report: With this v1.0 release in 2026, the "msgpre" and "spit" programs do involve.... Large Language Models (LLMs) in the era of AI: "Two new programs, 'msgpre' and 'spit', are provided, that implement machine translation through a locally installed Large Language Model (LLM). 'msgpre' applies to an entire PO file, 'spit' to a single message." And when dealing with LLMs, added documentation warns users to look out for the licensing of the LLM in the spirit of free software. More details on the GNU gettext 1.0 changes via the NEWS file. GNU gettext 1.0 can be downloaded from GNU.org. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
White House Scraps 'Burdensome' Software Security Rules - An anonymous reader quotes a report from SecurityWeek: The White House has announced that software security guidance issued during the Biden administration has been rescinded due to "unproven and burdensome" requirements that prioritized administrative compliance over meaningful security investments. The US Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has issued Memorandum M-26-05 (PDF), officially revoking the previous administration's 2022 policy, 'Enhancing the Security of the Software Supply Chain through Secure Software Development Practices' (M-22-18), as well as the follow-up enhancements announced in 2023 (M-23-16). The new guidance shifts responsibility to individual agency heads to develop tailored security policies for both software and hardware based on their specific mission needs and risk assessments. "Each agency head is ultimately responsible for assuring the security of software and hardware that is permitted to operate on the agency's network," reads the memo sent by the OMB to departments and agencies. "There is no universal, one-size-fits-all method of achieving that result. Each agency should validate provider security utilizing secure development principles and based on a comprehensive risk assessment," the OMB added. While agencies are no longer strictly required to do so, they may continue to use secure software development attestation forms, Software Bills of Materials (SBOMs), and other resources described in M-22-18. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Oracle May Slash Up To 30,000 Jobs - An anonymous reader shares a report: Oracle could cut up to 30,000 jobs and sell health tech unit Cerner to ease its AI datacenter financing challenges, investment banker TD Cowen has claimed, amid changing sentiment on Big Red's massive build-out plans. A research note from TD Cowen states that finding equity and debt investors are increasingly questioning how Oracle will finance its datacenter building program to support its $300 billion, five-year contract with OpenAI. The bank estimates the OpenAI deal alone is going to require $156 billion in capital spending. Last year, when Big Red raised its capex forecasts for 2026 by $15 billion to $50 billion, it spooked some investors. This year, "both equity and debt investors have raised questions about Oracle's ability to finance this build-out as demonstrated by widening of Oracle credit default swap (CDS) spreads and pressure on Oracle stock/bonds," the research note adds. Read more of this story at Slashdot.