Latest News
Last updated 12 Jan, 04:26 PM
BBC News
Former Tory Chancellor Nadhim Zahawi defects to Reform UK - Zahawi is the latest former Conservative MP to join Nigel Farage's party, as a Tory source claims he had approached Kemi Badenoch seeking a nomination for the Lords.
'It was far too soon': Referee and student among hundreds killed in Iran protests - More than 500 people have been killed during anti-government protests, a US-based human rights group says.
Ofcom investigates Elon Musk's X over Grok AI sexual deepfakes - The watchdog said it had received reports of the platform's Grok AI chatbot creating undressed images of people.
Daughter of taxi driver killed in Bolton crash 'in shock' - Humayra Ali says her first thought was the fear her father must have felt before he died in Bolton.
Hailee Steinfeld's bump and Jessie Buckley's blue dress - Golden Globes red carpet photos - Ariana Grande, Hailee Steinfeld and Paul Mescal were among the stars pictured ahead of the ceremony.
The Register
Microsoft euthanizes ancient deployment toolkit - Immediate retirement for freebie automation platform Microsoft has abruptly pulled the plug on the venerable Microsoft Deployment Toolkit (MDT), sending any administrators still clinging to the platform scrambling for alternatives.…
Claude joins the ward as Anthropic eyes US healthcare data - AI firm promises HIPAA-compliant integrations as chatbot moves into hospital admin Fresh from watching rival OpenAI stick its nose into patient records, Anthropic has decided now is the perfect moment to march Claude into US healthcare too, promising to fix medicine with yet more AI, APIs, and carefully-worded reassurances about privacy.…
ISS stint ends early as NASA aborts Crew-11 over crew illness - Sick astronaut back on Earth by Thursday, nature of ailment remains undisclosed NASA astronaut Mike Fincke has handed command of the ISS to Roscosmos cosmonaut Sergey Kud-Sverchkov as Fincke and the rest of Crew-11 are scheduled to head back to Earth on Wednesday.…
Microsoft teases targeted Copilot removal for admins - Yes, you can get rid of it – assuming nobody's looked at it in 28 days Microsoft's latest Windows Insider release introduces a policy allowing admins to remove the Copilot app from managed devices. But there's a catch - actually, several.…
Infamous BreachForums forum breached, spilling data on 325K users - Website built around buying and selling stolen data has lost control of its own BreachForums, the serially resurrected cybercrime marketplace, has tripped over itself after a data breach spilled details tied to about 324,000 user accounts.…
New Scientist - Home
Why it’s easy to be misunderstood when talking about probability - Mathematicians rely on numbers, but finding words to explain different levels of certainty has stymied everyone from the ancient Greeks to the most famous modern philosophers. Maths columnist Jacob Aron tells the story of how a CIA analyst finally cracked it
Making autism into a partisan issue can only be harmful - While US President Donald Trump and his administration are making false and debunked claims about the causes of autism, real research is improving our understanding of the condition
Sinking trees in Arctic Ocean could remove 1 billion tonnes of CO2 - Cutting down boreal forest and sinking the felled trees in the depths of the Arctic Ocean could remove up to 1 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere each year – but it could come at a cost to the Arctic ecosystem
How rethinking your relationship with time could give you more of it - You might feel like the days and weeks are slipping by. Here is how one psychologist says you can shift your experience of time
Why my 2026 fitness resolution is all about getting mobile - After finding success with last year's New Year's resolution, health reporter Grace Wade has grand plans for 2026 – and the science to back them up
Hacker News
LLVM: The Bad Parts - Comments
TimeCapsuleLLM: LLM trained only on data from 1800-1875 - Comments
Date is out, Temporal is in - Comments
Floppy disks turn out to be the greatest TV remote for kids - Comments
The struggle of resizing windows on macOS Tahoe - Comments
Slashdot
Apple Partners With Google on Siri Upgrade, Declares Gemini 'Most Capable Foundation' - Apple has struck a multi-year partnership with Google to power a more capable version of Siri using Gemini AI models, ending months of speculation about which company would help the iPhone maker catch up in the generative AI race. In a statement, Apple said it had determined after "careful evaluation" that "Google's technology provides the most capable foundation for Apple Foundation Models." The deal comes after Apple delayed its planned Siri AI upgrade last March, acknowledging that the project was taking "longer than we thought." Bloomberg had reported in August that Apple was in early talks with Google about using a custom Gemini model. Apple also explored potential partnerships with OpenAI, Anthropic and Perplexity, and CEO Tim Cook has said the company plans to integrate with more AI companies over time. The upgraded Siri is expected to perform actions on users' behalf and understand personal context. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
US President Calls for 10% Credit Card Interest Cap, Banks Push Back - President Donald Trump revived a campaign pledge Friday night by calling for a one-year, 10% cap on credit card interest rates, a proposal that banking groups immediately opposed despite the industry's heavy donations to his 2024 campaign and support for his second-term agenda. Trump posted on Truth Social that he hoped the cap would be in place by January 20, one year after he took office, though he did not specify whether it would come through executive action or legislation. Americans currently pay between 19.65% and 21.5% interest on credit cards on average and carry roughly $1.23 trillion in credit card debt, according to the New York Federal Reserve. Researchers found that a 10% cap would save Americans roughly $100 billion in interest annually. The American Bankers Association warned that such a cap "would only drive consumers toward less regulated, more costly alternatives." Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Cloudflare Threatens Italy Exit After $16.3M Fine For Refusing Piracy Blocks - Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince has threatened to withdraw free cybersecurity services from Italy's Milano-Cortina Winter Olympics and potentially exit the country after Italy's telecommunications regulator fined the company approximately 14 million euros for failing to comply with anti-piracy blocking orders. The penalty equals 1% of Cloudflare's global annual revenue but exceeds twice what the company earned from Italy in 2024. Prince called Italy's Autorita per le Garanzie nelle Comunicazioni a "quasi-judicial body" administering a "scheme to censor the Internet" on behalf of "a shadowy cabal of European media elites." The fine stems from Cloudflare's refusal to comply with Italy's Piracy Shield law, which requires internet service providers and DNS operators to block sites within 30 minutes of receiving blocking requests from copyright holders. Prince said Cloudflare may discontinue free services for Italian users, remove servers from Italian cities and cancel plans to build an Italian office. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Streamer Spend To Top $100B For First Time In 2026 - Streamer spend on content is set to top the $100 billion mark for the first time this year, according to an Ampere Analysis report. From a report: The landmark figure will be met as global streamers "remain the primary driver of growth in content investment," according to Ampere. Spend by the likes of Netflix, Disney+, Prime Video, HBO Max, Paramount+ and Apple TV will shoot up 6% this year, helping lead to a 2% increase in overall global content spend, Ampere forecast. The $101 billion figure, the first time streamer spend has crossed that major $100 Billion landmark, will represent around two-fifths of the overall figure. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Linux Hit a New All-Time High for Steam Market Share in December - A year ago the Steam Survey showed a 2.29% marketshare for Linux. Last May it reached 2.69%, its highest level since 2018. November saw another all-time high of 3.2%. But December brought a surprise, reports Phoronix: Back on the 1st Valve published the Steam Survey results for December 2025 and they put the Linux gaming marketshare at 3.19%, a 0.01% dip from November. But now the December results have been revised... [and] put the Linux marketshare at 3.58%, a 0.38% increase over November. Valve didn't publish any explanation for the revision but occasionally they do put out monthly revised data. This is easily an all-time high... both in percentage terms and surely in absolute terms too. Read more of this story at Slashdot.