Latest News
Last updated 10 Jan, 08:24 PM
BBC News
'There wasn't even time for CPR': Iran medics describe hospitals overwhelmed with dead and injured protesters - Health workers in Tehran report being overwhelmed by injured on Friday night as security forces and demonstrators clash.
Emotional scenes as Macclesfield beat FA Cup holders Crystal Palace 25 days after striker's death - Ethan McLeod died in a car crash on 16 December. The 21-year-old's parents celebrated with players and fans following the non-league side's shock 2-1 victory over Crystal Palace.
Starmer has kept Trump on side - but is it coming back to bite him? - The PM’s increasingly assertive opponents are set on turning one of his few sweet spots sour.
Dozens arrested and one police officer injured in Minneapolis protests - Days after the death of Renee Good, protests continue in Minneapolis and cities across the US.
How a friend request led a beauty queen to uncover Scotland's most prolific catfish - Abbie Draper spent a decade trying to expose the person pretending to be hospital doctor David Graham.
The Register
UK government exempting itself from flagship cyber law inspires little confidence - Ministers promise equivalent standards just without the legal obligation ANALYSIS From May's cyberattack on the Legal Aid Agency to the Foreign Office breach months later, cyber incidents have become increasingly common in UK government.…
Artificial brains could point the way to ultra-efficient supercomputers - Sandia National Labs cajole Intel's neurochips into solving partial differential equations New research from Sandia National Laboratories suggests that brain-inspired neuromorphic computers are just as adept at solving complex mathematical equations as they are at speeding up neural networks and could eventually pave the way to ultra-efficient supercomputers.…
Accenture bets AI will ring up retail sales with Profitmind investment - Let the bots figure out what to sell for how much Accenture is betting that the future of retail will run through AI with an investment in Profitmind, an agent-based platform that automates pricing decisions, inventory management, and planning. …
How hackers are fighting back against ICE surveillance tech - Remember when government agents didn't wear masks? While watching us now seems like the least of its sins, the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) was once best known (and despised) for its multi-billion-dollar surveillance tech budget.…
Most devs don't trust AI-generated code, but fail to check it anyway - Developer survey from Sonar finds AI tool adoption has created a verification bottleneck Talk about letting things go! Ninety-six percent of software developers believe AI-generated code isn't functionally correct, yet only 48 percent say they always check code generated with AI assistance before committing it.…
New Scientist - Home
The secret weapon that could finally force climate action - An ambitious form of climate modelling aims to pin the blame for disasters – from floods to heatwaves – on specific companies. Is this the tool we need to effectively prosecute the world’s biggest carbon emitters?
The science-fiction films to look forward to in 2026 - With a new 28 Days Later movie and a new Dune, not to mention films from Stephen Spielberg and Ridley Scott, this is shaping up to be a vintage year for sci-fi, says Simon Ings
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
NASA is performing an unprecedented medical evacuation from the ISS - One of the astronauts aboard the International Space Station is undergoing a “medical situation”, forcing NASA to bring the crew home early for the first time ever
Microbiome study hints that fibre could be linked to better sleep - Evidence is mounting that specific gut bacteria are linked to sleep conditions, which may open the doors to dietary recommendations aiming to boost the quality of our slumbers
Hacker News
Open Chaos: A self-evolving open-source project - Comments
Drones that recharge directly on transmission lines - Comments
A Eulogy for Dark Sky, a Data Visualization Masterpiece (2023) - Comments
ASCII-Driven Development - Comments
Side-by-side comparison of how AI models answer moral dilemmas - Comments
Slashdot
Amazon Plans Massive Superstore Larger Than a Walmart Supercenter Near Chicago - Amazon "has submitted plans for a large-format store near Chicago that would be larger than a Walmart Supercenter," reports CNBC: As part of the plans, Amazon has proposed building a one-story, 229,000-square-foot building [on a 35-acre lot] in Orland Park, Illinois, that would offer a range of products, such as groceries, household essentials and general merchandise, the city said on Saturday. By comparison, Walmart's U.S. Supercenters typically average 179,000 square feet... The Orland Park Plan Commission approved Amazon's proposal on Tuesday, and it will now proceed to a vote from the full village board. That meeting is scheduled for January 19. In a statement cited by CNBC, an Amazon spokesperson called it "a new concept that we think customers will be excited about." Read more of this story at Slashdot.
China's 'Artificial Sun' Breaks Nuclear Fusion Limit Thought to Be Impossible - "Scientists in China have made a breakthrough with fusion energy that could finally overcome one of the most stubborn barriers to realising the next-generation energy source," reports the Independent: A team from the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) said its experimental nuclear reactor, dubbed the 'artificial Sun', achieved a plasma density that was previously thought impossible... Through a new process called plasma-wall self organisation, the CAS researchers were able to keep the plasma stable at unprecedented density levels. By pushing plasma density well past long-standing empirical limits, the researchers said fusion ignition can be achieved with far higher energy outputs. "The findings suggest a practical and scalable pathway for extending density limits in tokamaks and next-generation burning plasma fusion devices," said Professor Ping Zhu from Huazhong University of Science and Technology, who so-led the research. Professor Zhu's team now plan to apply this new method on the EAST reactor to confirm that it will work under high-performance plasma conditions. The latest breakthrough was detailed in the journal Science Advances in a study titled 'Accessing the density-free regime with ECRH-assisted ohmic start-up on EAST'. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Meta Announces New Smartglasses Features, Delays International Rollout Claiming 'Unprecedented' Demand' - This week Meta announced several new features for "Meta Ray-Ban Display" smartglasses: - A new teleprompter feature for the smart glasses (arriving in a phased rollout) - The ability to send messages on WhatsApp and Messenger by writing with your finger on any surface. (Available for those who sign up for an "early access" program). - "Pedestrian navigation" for 32 cities. ("The 28 cities we launched Meta Ray-Ban Display with, plus Denver, Las Vegas, Portland, and Salt Lake City," and with more cities coming soon.) But they also warned Meta Ray-Ban Display "is a first-of-its-kind product with extremely limited inventory," saying they're delaying international expansion of sales due to inventory constraints — and also due to "unprecedented" demand in the U.S. CNBC reports: "Since launching last fall, we've seen an overwhelming amount of interest, and as a result, product waitlists now extend well into 2026," Meta wrote in a blog post. Due to "limited" inventory, the company said it will pause plans to launch in the U.K., France, Italy and Canada early this year and concentrate on U.S. orders as it reassesses international availability... Meta is one of several technology companies moving into the smart glasses market. Alphabet announced a $150 million partnership with Warby Parker in May and ChatGPT maker OpenAI is reportedly working on AI glasses with Apple. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Medical Evacuation from Space Station Next Week for Astronaut in Stable Condition - It will be the first medical evacuation from the International space station in its 25-year history. The Guardian reports: An astronaut in the orbital laboratory reportedly fell ill with a "serious" but undisclosed issue. Nasa also had to cancel its first spacewalk of the year... The agency did not identify the astronaut or the medical problem, citing patient privacy. "Because the astronaut is absolutely stable, this is not an emergent evacuation," [chief health and medical officer Dr. James] Polk said. "We're not immediately disembarking and getting the astronaut down, but it leaves that lingering risk and lingering question as to what that diagnosis is, and that means there is some lingering risk for that astronaut onboard." "SpaceX says it's Dragon spacecraft at the International Space Station is ready to return its four Crew-11 astronauts home in an unprecedented medical evacuation on Jan. 14 and 15," reports Space.com: The SpaceX statement came on the heels of NASA's announcement that the Crew-11 astronauts were scheduled to undock from the space station on Jan. 14 and splashdown off the coast of California early on Jan. 15. The Crew-11 Dragon spacecraft will return NASA astronauts Zena Cardman and Mike Fincke to Earth alongside Japanese astronaut Kimiya Yui and Russian cosmonaut Oleg Platanov... NASA officials opted for a "controlled medical evacuation" in order to provide the astronaut better treatment on the ground, NASA chief Jared Isaacman has said... Dr. James Polk, NASA's chief medical officer, has said the medical issue is not an injury to the astronaut afflicted, but rather something related to the prolonged exposure to weighlessness by astronauts living and working on the International Space Station. "It's mostly having a medical issue in the difficult areas of microgravity and the suite of hardware that we operate in," Polk said. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
More US States Are Preparing Age-Verification Laws for App Stores - Yes, a federal judge blocked an attempt by Texas at an app store age-verification law. But this year Silicon Valley giants including Google and Apple "are expected to fight hard against similar legislation," reports Politico, "because of the vast legal liability it imposes on app stores and developers." In Texas, Utah and Louisiana, parent advocates have linked up with conservative "pro-family" groups to pass laws forcing mobile app stores to verify user ages and require parental sign-off. If those rules hold up in court, companies like Google and Apple, which run the two largest app stores, would face massive legal liability... California has taken a different approach, passing its own age-verification law last year that puts liability on device manufacturers instead of app stores. That model has been better received by the tech lobby, and is now competing with the app-based approach in states like Ohio. In Washington D.C., a GOP-led bill modeled off of Texas' law is wending its way through Capitol Hill. And more states are expected to join the fray, including Michigan and South Carolina. Joel Thayer, president of the conservative Digital Progress Institute and a key architect of the Texas law, said states are only accelerating their push. He explicitly linked the age-verification debate to AI, arguing it's "terrifying" to think companies could build new AI products by scraping data from children's apps. Thayer also pointed to the Trump administration's recent executive order aimed at curbing state regulation of AI, saying it has galvanized lawmakers. "We're gonna see more states pushing this stuff," Thayer said. "What really put fuel in the fire is the AI moratorium for states. I think states have been reinvigorated to fight back on this." He told Politico that the issue will likely be decided by America's Supreme Court, which in June upheld Texas legislation requiring age verification for online content. Thayer said states need a ruling from America's highest court to "triangulate exactly what the eff is going on with the First Amendment in the tech world. "They're going to have to resolve the question at some point." Read more of this story at Slashdot.