Latest News
Last updated 15 Oct, 09:39 PM
BBC News
US gives Israel 30 days to boost Gaza aid or risk cut to military support - The letter, sent on Sunday, amounts to the strongest known written warning from the US to its ally.
Tuchel agrees to become next England manager - Former Chelsea boss Thomas Tuchel agrees to become the next England manager.
Prison gangs: ‘I've chopped people, attacked staff, hidden drugs’ - The BBC finds gang warfare in jails is rife, and lack of space makes it difficult to keep rivals apart.
Lucy Letby failed nurse placement for being 'cold' - The nurse was described as "lacking the natural warmth" and empathy needed to care for children.
Sara Sharif hooded and burned by abusers, court hears - Makeshift plastic hoods were used on the 10-year-old, who suffered dozens of injuries, jurors heard.
The Register
DARPA pays $6M to see fully autonomous Black Hawk helicopters - Resupply like Call of Duty? Not yet - only one planned for now The US military is betting the Black Hawk helicopter of the future won't need pilots, and it's giving the bird's maker Sikorsky $6 million to prove it. …
Digital River runs dry, hasn't paid developers for sales since July - Vendor told El Reg the biz's law firm claims merchant debts aren’t valid obligations Digital River has not paid numerous merchants since midsummer for software and digital products they sold through its MyCommerce platform.…
Sysadmins rage over Apple’s ‘nightmarish’ SSL/TLS cert lifespan cuts - Maximum validity down from 398 days to 45 by 2027 Apple wants to shorten SSL/TLS security certificates' lifespans, down from 398 days now to just 45 days by 2027, and sysadmins have some very strong feelings about this "nightmarish" plan. …
Microsoft teases latest Windows 10 build despite looming end - Rearranging the deckchairs as support iceberg approaches Microsoft has released a Windows Insider build of Windows 10 despite the impending end of support for many flavors of the operating system.…
VMware settles securities fraud class suit with $102.5M payout - Traded its shares between 2018 and 2020? You could cash in Old accusations of securities fraud continue to dog VMware, with the virtualization juggernaut agreeing to pay $102.5 million to settle a shareholder suit over its alleged creation of an artificial sales backlog to hide slowing sales.…
New Scientist - News
Male mice flee to female mice to de-escalate fights - During a fight between two male mice, one will often run to a female mouse to distract their aggressor, a bait-and-switch strategy that could help abate social conflicts
First breathtaking images from Euclid telescope's map of the universe - The Euclid space telescope's massive “cosmic atlas” promises to shed light on fundamental questions in physics and cosmology
Puppies as young as 6 weeks old know to ask people for help - Puppies that are raised in someone's home seem to benefit from that extra human interaction, by asking for help at a younger age than those brought up in kennels
Human scientists are still better than AI ones – for now - A simulator for the process of scientific discovery shows that AI agents still fall short of human scientists and engineers in coming up with hypotheses and carrying out experiments on their own
Seven newly named frog species make whistles that sound like Star Trek - A group of frogs from Madagascar have mating calls that sound like Star Trek sound effects – now their species names honour captains from the series
Hacker News
Sqlite3 WebAssembly - Comments
The C23 edition of Modern C - Comments
Show HN: I built the most over-engineered Deal With It emoji generator - Comments
All possible plots by major authors (2020) - Comments
Show HN: I 3D scanned the tunnels inside the Maya Pyramid Temples at Copan - Comments
Slashdot
Apple Announces New, Faster iPad Mini Built For Apple Intelligence - In a press release this morning, Apple announced a new iPad Mini with a faster A17 Pro chip that supports Apple Intelligence. The Verge reports: The new Mini is mostly a spec bump: it runs a new A17 Pro chip, which Apple says has a 30 percent faster CPU, 25 percent faster GPU, and a Neural Engine twice as fast as the previous model. The device also supports the new Apple Pencil Pro, which is a nice touch for the Mini-toting artists out there, and comes with 128GB of storage in the base model rather than 64GB. (Those AI models need all the space they can get.) The Wi-Fi 6E chip is faster, the USB-C port is faster, everything about the iPad Mini is the same as before only faster this time. The only real design change with the new Mini is the colors. Apple's gone more colorful with a lot of its products this year, and the Mini comes in new purple and blue models. In photos they look muted rather than vivid, though, so don't expect the eye-popping new colors on the iPhone 16. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Spotify Criticized For Letting Fake Albums Appear On Real Artist Pages - An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: This fall, thousands of fake albums were added to Spotify, with some appearing on real artist pages, where they're positioned to lure unsuspecting listeners into streaming by posing as new releases from favorite bands. An Ars reader flagged the issue after finding a fake album on the Spotify page of an UK psych rock band called Gong. The Gong fan knew that the band had begun touring again after a surprise new release last year, but the "latest release" listed by Spotify wasn't that album. Instead, at the top of Gong's page was a fake self-titled album supposedly released in 2024. The real fan detected the fake instantly, and not just because the generic electronic music sounded nothing like Gong's experimental sounds. The album's cover also gave the scheme away, using a generic font and neon stock image that invoked none of the trippy imagery that characterized Gong's typical album covers. Ars confirmed with Gong member Dave Sturt that the self-titled item was an obvious fake on Monday. At that time, Sturt said the band was working to get the junk album removed from its page, but as of Tuesday morning, that album remained online, along with hundreds of other albums uploaded by a fake label that former Spotify data "alchemist" Glenn McDonald flagged in a social media post that Spotify seemingly ignored. On his site, McDonald gathered the junk album data by label, noting that Beat Street Music, which has no web presence but released the fake Gong album, uploaded 240 junk albums on Friday alone. Similarly, Ancient Lake Records uploaded 471 albums on Friday. And Gupta Music added 483 just a few days prior, along with 600 junk albums from Future Jazz Records uploaded between September 30 and October 8. These junk albums don't appear to be specifically targeting popular artists, McDonald told Ars. Rather, generic music is uploaded under a wide range of one-word artist names. However, by using that tactic, some of these fake albums appeared on real artist pages, such as Gong, experimental rock band Swans, and English rock bands Asia and Yes. And that oversight is on Spotify, McDonald suggested. "We are aware of the issue, have relocated the content in question, and are considering our further options against the providing licensor," a Spotify spokesperson said. "When we identify or are alerted to attempts by bad actors to game the system, we take action that may include removing stream counts and withholding royalties. Spotify invests heavily in automated and manual reviews to prevent, detect, and mitigate the impact of bad actors attempting to collect unearned royalties." Read more of this story at Slashdot.
FCC Launches Formal Inquiry Into Why Broadband Data Caps Are Terrible - The Federal Communications Commission announced that it will open a renewed investigation into broadband data caps and how they impact both consumer experience and company competition. From a report: The FCC is soliciting stories from consumers about their experiences with capped broadband service. The agency also opened a formal Notice of Inquiry to collect public comment that will further inform its actions around broadband data caps. "Restricting consumers' data can cut off small businesses from their customers, slap fees on low-income families and prevent people with disabilities from using the tools they rely on to communicate," FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel said. "As the nation's leading agency on communications, it's our duty to dig deeper into these practices and make sure that consumers are put first." Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Apple Study Reveals Critical Flaws in AI's Logical Reasoning Abilities - Apple's AI research team has uncovered significant weaknesses in the reasoning abilities of large language models, according to a newly published study. MacRumors: The study, published on arXiv [PDF], outlines Apple's evaluation of a range of leading language models, including those from OpenAI, Meta, and other prominent developers, to determine how well these models could handle mathematical reasoning tasks. The findings reveal that even slight changes in the phrasing of questions can cause major discrepancies in model performance that can undermine their reliability in scenarios requiring logical consistency. Apple draws attention to a persistent problem in language models: their reliance on pattern matching rather than genuine logical reasoning. In several tests, the researchers demonstrated that adding irrelevant information to a question -- details that should not affect the mathematical outcome -- can lead to vastly different answers from the models. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
More Colleges Set To Close in 2025, Even as 'Ivy Plus' Schools Experience Application Boom - Many colleges are under financial pressure, and the cracks are starting to show. From a report: At least 20 colleges closed in 2024, and more are set to shut down after the current academic year, according to the latest tally by Implan, an economic software and analysis company. Altogether, more than 40 colleges have closed since 2020, according to a separate report by Best Colleges. As the sticker price at some private colleges nears six figures a year, students have increasingly opted for less expensive public schools or alternatives to a four-year degree altogether, such as trade programs or apprenticeships. At the same time, the population of college-age students is also shrinking, a trend referred to as the "enrollment cliff." Read more of this story at Slashdot.