Latest News
Last updated 09 Feb, 01:59 PM
BBC News
Chris Mason: Starmer's predicament is dire and now he faces future without top aides - Sir Keir Starmer's administration appears rudderless after the loss of two key aides, writes Chris Mason.
Police assessing claims about Andrew sharing confidential trade details - It comes after files suggest the former prince shared confidential information with Jeffrey Epstein from his official work as trade envoy.
Bad Bunny makes history as Trump criticises 'terrible' Super Bowl show - Puerto Rican artist Bad Bunny makes history with his entirely Spanish set on the sporting world's biggest stage.
20 years is a death sentence, says Jimmy Lai's son as British media tycoon jailed by China - A Hong Kong court sentences the 78-year-old British citizen Jimmy Lai to 20 years in prison after he was found guilty of national security offences last December.
More than 100 flood warnings across UK with more heavy downpours to begin - The warning covers south-west and south-east England, London and south Wales and lasts until midnight.
The Register
Brussels eyes crowbar for Meta's WhatsApp AI lockout - Euro watchdog says Zuckercorp blocked rival assistants, weighs emergency action to force 'em back in Brussels has accused Meta of breaking EU competition rules by locking rival AI chatbots out of WhatsApp, opening the door to emergency action that could force the tech giant to let competitors back onto the platform.…
How the GNU C Compiler became the Clippy of cryptography - Security devs forced to hide Boolean logic from overeager optimizer FOSDEM 2026 The creators of security software have encountered an unlikely foe in their attempts to protect us: modern compilers.…
Follow the money: Switzerland remains Europe's top destination for tech pay - Average Swiss salaries dwarf those on offer across the rest of the continent European techies looking for the biggest payday are far better off in Switzerland than anywhere else, with average salaries eclipsing all other countries on the continent.…
BBC bumps telly tax to £180 as Netflix lurks with cheaper tiers - UK's pay-to-watch license fee gets inflation-linked hike amid funding debate Brits will soon pay more to legally watch the BBC's output than to subscribe to some of the world's biggest streaming services, after the UK government confirmed the TV license fee will climb to £180 a year from April.…
European Commission probes intrusion into staff mobile management backend - Officials explore issue affecting infrastructure after CERT-EU detected suspicious activity Brussels is digging into a cyber break-in that targeted the European Commission's mobile device management systems, potentially giving intruders a peek inside the official phones carried by EU staff.…
New Scientist - Home
Personalised medicine is yet to deliver, but that must start to change - Companies are happy to sell you personalised tracking of your biomarkers or a tailored nutrition plan, but truly personalised medicine should be able to tackle the vast differences some people have in response to the same diseases
Statins don't cause most of the side effects listed on their labels - A review of the evidence suggests that statins are no more likely than a placebo to cause most of the side effects listed on their labels
Seafarers were visiting remote Arctic islands over 4000 years ago - The first people to reach the Kitsissut Islands off the north-west coast of Greenland were Indigenous peoples, who crossed over 50 kilometres of treacherous water
Why is childbirth so hard for humans – and is it getting even harder? - Some think the rise of C-sections means that one day all births will require serious medical intervention. But a surprising new understanding of the pelvis suggests a different story
Do weeds really love poor soil? Not if you look at the science - It's a truism that weeds love poor soil, but is there anything to it? And what is a weed, anyway? James Wong investigates
Hacker News
Show HN: Algorithmically Finding the Longest Line of Sight on Earth - Comments
Show HN: Browse Internet Infrastructure - Comments
Thought-Terminating Cliché - Comments
Matrix messaging gaining ground in government IT - Comments
Art of Roads in Games - Comments
Slashdot
New Raspberry Pi 4 Model Splits RAM Across Dual Chips - The blog OMG Ubuntu reports that a new version of the Raspberry Pi 4 Model B has been (quietly) introduced. "The key difference? It now uses a dual-RAM configuration." The Raspberry Pi 4 Model B (PCB 13a) adopts a dual-RAM configuration to 'improve supply chain flexibility' and manufacturing efficiency, per a company product change notice document. Earlier versions of the Raspberry Pi 4 use a single RAM chip on the top of the board. The new revision adds a second LPDDR4 chip to the underside, with a couple of passive components also moved over... In moving to a dual-chip layout, Raspberry Pi can combine two smaller — and marginally cheaper — modules to hit the same RAM totals amidst fluctuating component costs... This change will not impact performance (for better or worse). The Broadcom BCM2711 SoC has a 32-bit wide memory interface so the bandwidth stays identical; this is not doubling the memory bus, it's just a physical split, not a logical one. Plus, the new board is fully compatible with existing official accessories, HATs and add-ons. All operating systems that support the Pi 4 will work, but as the memory setup is different a new version of the boot-loader will need to be flashed first. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
SpaceX Prioritizes Lunar 'Self-Growing City' Over Mars Project, Musk Says - "Elon Musk said on Sunday that SpaceX has shifted its focus to building a 'self-growing city' on the moon," reports Reuters, "which could be achieved in less than 10 years." SpaceX still intends to start on Musk's long-held ambition of a city on Mars within five to seven years, he wrote on his X social media platform, "but the overriding priority is securing the future of civilization and the Moon is faster." Musk's comments echo a Wall Street Journal report on Friday, stating that SpaceX has told investors it would prioritize going to the moon and attempt a trip to Mars at a later time, targeting March 2027 for an uncrewed lunar landing. As recently as last year, Musk said that he aimed to send an uncrewed mission to Mars by the end of 2026. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
National Football League Launches Challenge to Improve Facemasks and Reduce Concussions - As Super Bowl Sunday comes to a close, America's National Football League "is challenging innovators to improve the facemask on football helmets to reduce concussions in the game," reports the Associated Press: The league announced on Friday at an innovation summit for the Super Bowl the next round in the HealthTECH Challenge series, a crowdsourced competition designed to accelerate the development of cutting-edge football helmets and new standards for player safety. The challenge invites inventors, engineers, startups, academic teams and established companies to improve the impact protection and design of football helmets through improvements to how facemasks absorb and reduce the effects of contact on the field... Most progress on helmet safety has come from improvements to the shell and padding, helping to reduce the overall rate of concussions. Working with the helmet industry, the league has brought in position-specific helmets, with those for quarterbacks, for example, having more padding in the back after data showed most concussions for QBs came when the back of the head slammed to the turf. But the facemask has mostly remained the same. This past season, 44% of in-game concussions resulted from impact to the player's facemask, up from 29% in 2015, according to data gathered by the NFL. "What we haven't seen over that period of time are any changes of any note to the facemask," [said Jeff Miller, the NFL's executive vice president overseeing player health and safety]... "Now we see, given the changes in our concussion numbers and injuries to players, that as changes are made to the helmet, fewer and fewer concussions are caused by hits to the shell, and more and more concussions as a percentage are by hits to the facemask..." Selected winners will receive up to $100,000 in aggregate funding, as well as expert development support to help move their concepts from the lab to the playing field. Winners will be announced in August, according to the article, "and Miller said he expected helmet manufacturers to start implementing any improvements into helmets soon after that." Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Carmakers Rush To Remove Chinese Code Under New US Rules - "How Chinese is your car?" asks the Wall Street Journal. "Automakers are racing to work it out." Modern cars are packed with internet-connected widgets, many of them containing Chinese technology. Now, the car industry is scrambling to root out that tech ahead of a looming deadline, a test case for America's ability to decouple from Chinese supply chains. New U.S. rules will soon ban Chinese software in vehicle systems that connect to the cloud, part of an effort to prevent cameras, microphones and GPS tracking in cars from being exploited by foreign adversaries. The move is "one of the most consequential and complex auto regulations in decades," according to Hilary Cain, head of policy at trade group the Alliance for Automotive Innovation. "It requires a deep examination of supply chains and aggressive compliance timelines." Carmakers will need to attest to the U.S. government that, as of March 17, core elements of their products don't contain code that was written in China or by a Chinese company. The rule also covers software for advanced autonomous driving and will be extended to connectivity hardware starting in 2029. Connected cars made by Chinese or China-controlled companies are also banned, wherever their software comes from... The Commerce Department's Bureau of Industry and Security, which introduced the connected-vehicle rule, is also allowing the use of Chinese code that is transferred to a non-Chinese entity before March 17. That carve-out has sparked a rush of corporate restructuring, according to Matt Wyckhouse, chief executive of cybersecurity firm Finite State. Global suppliers are relocating China-based software teams, while Chinese companies are seeking new owners for operations in the West. Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader schwit1 for sharing the article. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Amazon Delivery Drone Crashes into Texas Apartment Building - "You can hear the hum of the drone," says a local newscaster, "but then the propellors come into contact with the building, chunks of the drone later seen falling down. The next video shows the drone on the ground, surrounded by smoke... "Amazon tells us there was minimal damage to the apartment building, adding they are working with the appropriate people to handle any repairs." But there were people standing outside, notes the woman who filmed the crash, and the falling drone "could've hit them, and they would've hurt." More from USA Today: Cesarina Johnson, who captured the collision from her window, told USA TODAY that the collision seemed to happen "almost immediately" after she began to record the drone in action... "The propellers on the thing were still moving, and you could smell it was starting to burn," Johnson told Fox 4 News. "And you see a few sparks in one of my videos. Luckily, nothing really caught on fire where it got, it escalated really crazy." According to the outlet, firefighters were called out of an abundance of caution, but the "drone never caught fire...." Amazon employees can be seen surveying the scene in the clip. Johnson told the outlet that firefighters and Amazon workers worked together to clean up before the drone was loaded into a truck. Another local news report points out Amazon only began drone delivery in the area late last year. The San Antonio Express News points out that America's Federal Aviation Administration "opened an investigation into Amazon's drone delivery program in November after one of its drone struck an Internet cable line in Waco." Read more of this story at Slashdot.