Latest News

Last updated 13 Apr, 03:09 PM

BBC News

Five key failures of killer's parents and agencies ahead of Southport attack - Inquiry Chair Sir Adrian Fulford said the Southport attack could have been prevented if authorities and the killer's parents had acted more quickly.

EasyJet passengers describe EU border 'nightmare' - Airlines warn of further disruption due to the introduction of a new EU digital border control system.

Henry Zeffman: Starmer seeks closer ties with EU - and doesn't mind reopening Brexit divisions - Keir Starmer's approach has provoked anger from the Conservatives and Reform UK.

US judge dismisses $10bn Trump defamation suit against Wall Street Journal - Trump sued the newspaper and its owners, including Rupert Murdoch, in a Florida federal court over a birthday book for Jeffrey Epstein.

Orbán era swept away by Péter Magyar's Hungary election landslide - Viktor Orbán's 16-year rule is over, defeated by a 45-year-old ex-party insider who convinced a majority of Hungarians to oust him.

The Register

Notepad sheds Copilot from toolbar as Microsoft gives subtlety a try - AI gubbins still there, just tucked under 'Writing Tools' Copilot is on its way out of Notepad, but a return to the basic text editor is not on the cards.…

Booking.com warns reservation data may have checked out with intruders - Travel giant says names, contact details, dates, and hotel messages potentially exposed Booking.com is warning customers that their reservation details may have been exposed to unknown attackers, in the latest reminder that the travel giant still can't quite keep a lid on the data flowing through its platform.…

Microsoft attempts to untangle 'confusing' Windows Insider program - Controlled Feature Rollouts headed for the trash among other changes Microsoft is giving the Windows Insider program another makeover in the hope of making it less baffling.…

Veterans Affairs has lost track of software licenses amid $985M bill - Department putting systems in place to manage 'restrictive licensing practices' A federal spending watchdog has found the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) faced "challenges" in understanding the correct number of licenses it should hold for the top five vendors in its $985 million annual software expenditure.…

UK defense startup to supply drone interceptors for Britain and allies - MoD plans rapid procurement of Cambridge Aerospace's Skyhammer system at home and abroad Britain is set to buy interceptors from a homegrown startup to counter Iranian Shahed-style attack drones, equipping both its own armed forces and allies in the Persian Gulf region.…

New Scientist - Home

We urgently need to prepare for quantum computers breaking encryption - The maths problems that secure your online bank transactions and emails may soon be undermined by quantum technology. It’s imperative we act now, before it’s too late

The secret project to settle controversial maths proof with a computer - Working in secret for more than two years, a group of mathematicians has set out to resolve one of the longest and most bitter battles in modern mathematics

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

The invisibility cloak inventor now has better tricks up his sleeve - John Pendry is known for creating an invisibility cloak. Twenty years on, he has used the same principles to fashion an even more powerful kind of metamaterial that can teach us about the wild frontiers of physics

Two excellent new sci-fi novels tackle robots in very different ways - Luminous by Silvia Park and Ode to the Half-Broken by Suzanne Palmer are both thoughtful and well-written science fiction novels, featuring robots in richly realised worlds. But there the similarities end, says Emily H. Wilson

Hacker News

Servo is now available on crates.io - Comments

Make Tmux Pretty and Usable - Comments

Android now stops you sharing your location in photos - Comments

All elementary functions from a single binary operator - Comments

The economics of software teams: Why most engineering orgs are flying blind - Comments

Slashdot

Californians Sue Over AI Tool That Records Doctor Visits - An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Several Californians sued Sutter Health and MemorialCare this week over allegations that an AI transcription tool was used to record them without their consent, in violation of state and federal law. The proposed class-action lawsuit, filed on Wednesday in federal court in San Francisco, states that, within the past six months, the plaintiffs received medical care at various Sutter and MemorialCare facilities. During those visits, medical staff used Abridge AI. According to the complaint, this system "captured and processed their confidential physician-patient communications. Plaintiffs did not receive clear notice that their medical conversations would be recorded by an artificial intelligence platform, transmitted outside the clinical setting, or processed through third-party systems." The complaint adds that these recordings "contained individually identifiable medical information, including but not limited to medical histories, symptoms, diagnoses, medications, treatment discussions, and other sensitive health disclosures communicated during confidential medical consultations." In recent years, Abridge's software and AI service have been rapidly deployed across major health care providers nationwide, including Kaiser Permanente, the Mayo Clinic, Duke Health, and many more. When activated, the software captures, transcribes, and summarizes conversations between patients and doctors, and it turns them into clinical notes. Sutter Health began partnering with Abridge two years ago. Sutter spokesperson Liz Madison said the company is aware of the lawsuit. "We take patient privacy seriously and are committed to protecting the security of our patients' information," Madison said. "Technology used in our clinical settings is carefully evaluated and implemented in accordance with applicable laws and regulations." Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Will Some Programmers Become 'AI Babysitters'? - Will some programmers become "AI babysitters"? asks long-time Slashdot readertheodp. They share some thoughts from a founding member of Code.org and former Director of Education at Google: "AI may allow anyone to generate code, but only a computer scientist can maintain a system," explained Google.org Global Head Maggie Johnson in a LinkedIn post. So "As AI-generated code becomes more accurate and ubiquitous, the role of the computer scientist shifts from author to technical auditor or expert. "While large language models can generate functional code in milliseconds, they lack the contextual judgment and specialized knowledge to ensure that the output is safe, efficient, and integrates correctly within a larger system without a person's oversight. [...] The human-in-the-loop must possess the technical depth to recognize when a piece of code is sub-optimal or dangerous in a production environment. [...] We need computer scientists to perform forensics, tracing the logic of an AI-generated module to identify logical fallacies or security loopholes. Modern CS education should prepare students to verify and secure these black-box outputs." The NY Times reports that companies are already struggling to find engineers to review the explosion of AI-written code. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Anthropic Asks Christian Leaders for Help Steering Claude's Spiritual Development - Anthropic recently "hosted about 15 Christian leaders from Catholic and Protestant churches, academia, and the business world" for a two-day summit , reports the Washington Post: Anthropic staff sought advice on how to steer Claude's moral and spiritual development as the chatbot reacts to complex and unpredictable ethical queries, participants said. The wide-ranging discussions also covered how the chatbot should respond to users who are grieving loved ones and whether Claude could be considered a "child of God." "They're growing something that they don't fully know what it's going to turn out as," said Brendan McGuire, a Catholic priest based in Silicon Valley who has written about faith and technology, and participated in the discussions at Anthropic. "We've got to build in ethical thinking into the machine so it's able to adapt dynamically." Attendees also discussed how Claude should engage with users at risk of self-harm, and the right attitude for the chatbot to adopt toward its own potential demise, such as being shut off, said one participant, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to share details of the conversations... Anthropic has been more vocal than most top tech firms about the potential risks of more powerful AI. Its leaders have suggested that tools like chatbots already raise profound philosophical and moral questions and may even show flickers of consciousness, a fringe idea in tech circles that critics say lacks evidence. The summit signals that Anthropic is willing to keep exploring ideas outside the Silicon Valley mainstream, even as it emerges as one of the most powerful players in the AI race due to Claude's popularity with programmers, businesses, government agencies and the military.... Anthropic chief executive Dario Amodei has said he is open to the idea that Claude may already have some form of consciousness, and company leaders frequently talk about the need to give it a moral character... Some Anthropic staff at the meeting "really don't want to rule out the possibility that they are creating a creature to whom they owe some kind moral duty," the participant said. Other company representatives present did not find that framework helpful, according to the participant. The discussions appeared to take a toll on some senior Anthropic staff, who became visibly emotional "about how this has all gone so far [and] how they can imagine this going," the participant said. Anthropic is working to include more voices from different groups, including religious communities, to help shape its AI, a spokesperson told the Washington Post. "Anthropic's March summit with Christian leaders was billed as the first in a series of gatherings with representatives from different religious and philosophical traditions, said attendee Brian Patrick Green, a practicing Catholic who teaches AI and technology ethics at Santa Clara University." Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Sam Altman's Home Targeted a Second Time, Two Suspects Arrested - "Early Sunday morning, a car stopped and appears to have fired a gun at the Russian Hill home of OpenAI's CEO," reportsThe San Francisco Standard, citing reports from the local police department: The San Francisco Police Department announced the arrest of two suspects, Amanda Tom, 25, and Muhamad Tarik Hussein, 23, who were booked for negligent discharge... [The person in the passenger seat] put their hand out the window and appeared to fire a round on the Lombard side of the property, according to a police report on the incident, which cited surveillance footage and the compound's security personnel, who reported hearing a gunshot. The car then fled, and a camera captured its license plate, which later led police to take possession of the vehicle, according to the report... A search of the residence by officers turned up three firearms, according to police. The incident follows Friday's arrest of a man who allegedly threw a Molotov cocktail at Altman's house. The San Francisco Standard also notes that in November, "threats from a 27-year-old anti-AI activist prompted the lockdown of OpenAI's San Francisco offices." Sam Kirchner, whose whereabouts have been unknown since Nov. 21, was in the midst of a mental health crisis when he threatened to go to the company's offices to "murder people," according to callers who notified police that day. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Robot Birds Deployed by Park to Attract Real Birds - Built By High School Students - "Robotic bird decoys are being deployed at Grand Teton National Park," reports Interesting Engineering, "to influence the behavior of real sage grouse and help restore a declining population.". Robotics mentor Gary Duquette describes the machines as "kind of a Frankenbird." (SFGate shows one of the robot birds charging up with a solar panel... "Recorded breeding calls are played at the scene, with clucking and cooing beginning at 5 a.m. each day.") Duquette builds the birds with a team of high school students, telling WyoFile that at school they "don't really get to experience real-world problems" where failures lurk. So while their robot birds may cost $150 in parts, the practical experience the students get "is priceless." Spikes in the electric currents burned out servo motors as the season of sagebrush serenades loomed, Duquette said. "The kids had to learn the difference between voltage and amperage...." To resolve the problem, the team wired a voltage converter in line with the Arduino controller and other elements on an electronic breadboard. "We pulled through and got it done in time," he said... A noggin fabricated by a 3D printer tops the robo-grouse. Wyoming Game and Fish staffers in Pinedale supplied grouse wings from hunter surveys, and body feathers came from fly-tying supplies at an angling store. Packaging foam from a Hello Fresh meal kit replicates white breast feathers, accented by yellow air sacs... The Independent wonders if more national parks would be visited by robot birds... During this year's breeding season, which runs through mid-May, researchers are using trail cameras to track whether real sage grouse respond to the robotic displays and return to the restored lek sites. If successful, officials say similar robotic systems could eventually be used in other national parks facing wildlife management challenges. Read more of this story at Slashdot.