Latest News

Last updated 08 Apr, 06:04 PM

BBC News

Jeremy Bowen: Ceasefire means respite for civilians, but it might not last long - Whether or not a lasting peace deal can be reached, the war and its consequences are reshaping the Middle East, writes international editor Jeremy Bowen.

Why it could take months for fuel and food prices to return to normal - Analysts fear long-lasting economic damage has already been set in motion.

Iran warning adds to shipping uncertainty - Only a few vessels have crossed the strait since the US-Iran ceasefire deal, according to BBC Verify analysis.

Faisal Islam: Pause in attacks is welcome but the economic scars will last - Allowing all ships through the Strait of Hormuz will calm markets but the war has created new problems.

What we know about the two-week ceasefire between the US and Iran - The provisional truce comes more than a month after the US and Israel launched coordinated attacks on Iran.

The Register

RAF eyes cheap drone-killer as Typhoon jet tests laser-guided rockets - BAE says trials could offer cheaper way to counter uncrewed aerial threats BAE Systems has successfully tested a laser-guided rocket system with a Typhoon fighter jet from Britain's Royal Air Force (RAF) as a potential anti-drone weapon. It follows earlier trials in the US with the F-15E Strike Eagle.…

Minnesota State payroll problems grew after Workday launch, auditors say - Sample testing found incorrect payments and delays after college system adopted new HR platform A Workday-based HR platform rollout at Minnesota State universities and colleges likely left more than a thousand faculty and staff with payroll errors.…

Talk ain't cheap: DARPA offers grants for new AI-to-AI communication protocol - MATHBAC program wants better machine-to-machine chatter for scientific discovery To supercharge agents' ability to make scientific discoveries, DARPA is looking to improve cross-bot collaboration by developing a "science of AI communication" that will help the models work together to come up with better ideas. …

Microsoft calls time on ASP.NET Core 2.3 on .NET Framework - Tangled tale nears end as Redmond classifies it as a tool, not a library Microsoft has set an end-of-support date of April 7, 2027, for ASP.NET Core 2.3, the only supported version on .NET Framework, even though .NET Framework (and the original ASP.NET) will continue to be supported.…

Supermicro launches probe after staff charged with China export violations - Board-led inquiry follows indictment of two employees and a contractor over alleged diversion of Nvidia GPU servers Supermicro has launched an independent investigation after three people associated with the company were charged with violating US export restrictions on China.…

New Scientist - Home

Particles seen emerging from empty space for first time - By tracing the origins of an unusual, short-lived particle, researchers have gathered some of the strongest evidence yet that mass can emerge from fluctuations in the vacuum

Why The Double Helix is such an extraordinary but infuriating book - James Watson’s The Double Helix is probably one of the greatest science books of all time – but Michael Le Page finds he can’t recommend that anyone actually reads it

How a century-long argument over light’s true nature came to an end - Two of the forefathers of quantum theory, Albert Einstein and Niels Bohr, had a famous argument over whether light is a wave or a particle. Columnist Karmela Padavic-Callaghan finds that the matter has been settled once and for all

The most stunning pictures from Artemis II’s flyby of the moon - The crew of NASA’s Artemis II mission have captured extraordinary views of the moon, including close-ups of the far side and a breathtaking solar eclipse

I don’t see images in my head. Can training give me a mind’s eye? - Training programmes for people with aphantasia – the inability to create mental images – are challenging neuroscientists' understanding of how we create thoughts

Hacker News

I Ported Mac OS X to the Nintendo Wii - Comments

Git commands I run before reading any code - Comments

Muse Spark: Scaling Towards Personal Superintelligence - Comments

They're Made Out of Meat (1991) - Comments

Veracrypt project update - Comments

Slashdot

Meta Debuts 'Muse Spark', First AI Model Under Alexandr Wang - Meta has launched Muse Spark, its first major AI model under Alexandr Wang's leadership. The model was built over the past nine months and is being positioned as a significant step up from Llama 4. Axios reports: Muse Spark will power queries in the Meta AI app and Meta.ai website immediately, with plans to expand across Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp. The model accepts voice, text and image inputs, but produces text-only output. [...] Meta plans to release a version of Muse Spark under an open-source license. The model uses a fast mode for casual queries and several reasoning modes. A "shopping mode" highlights how Meta hopes to differentiate itself. It combines large language models with data on user interests and behavior. Over time, the model will also power "features that cite recommendations and content people share across Instagram, Facebook, and Threads," Meta said in a blog post. Wang, the 29-year-old entrepreneur who co-founded Scale AI, joined Meta's "superintelligence" unit last year to help Meta catch up to rival models from OpenAI and Anthropic. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Microsoft Abruptly Terminates VeraCrypt Account, Halting Windows Updates - Microsoft has apparently terminated the account VeraCrypt uses to sign its Windows drivers and bootloader, leaving the encryption project unable to publish Windows updates and throwing future releases into doubt. VeraCrypt's developer says Microsoft gave no clear explanation or warning for the move. "I didn't receive any emails from Microsoft nor any prior warnings," Mounir Idrassi, VeraCrypt's developer, told 404 Media. From the report: VeraCrypt is an open-source tool for encrypting data at rest. Users can create encrypted partitions on their drives, or make individual encrypted volumes to store their files in. Like its predecessor TrueCrypt, which VeraCrypt is based on, it also lets users create a second, innocuous looking volume if they are compelled to hand over their credentials. Last week, Idrassi took to the SourceForge forums to explain why he had been absent for a few months. The most serious challenge, he wrote, "is that Microsoft terminated the account I have used for years to sign Windows drivers and the bootloader." "Regarding VeraCrypt, I cannot publish Windows updates. Linux and macOS updates can still be done but Windows is the platform used by the majority of users and so the inability to deliver Windows releases is a major blow to the project," he continued. "Currently I'm out of options." Idrassi told 404 Media the termination happened in mid-January. "I was surprised to discover that I could no longer use my account," he said. On the forum and in the email to 404 Media, Idrassi shared what he said was the only message he received connected to the account shutdown. "Based on the information you have provided to date, we have determined that your organization does not currently meet the requirements to pass verification. There are no appeals available, we have closed your application," it reads. Idrassi told 404 Media the message is concerning his company IDRIX. "As you can read in their message, they say that the organization (IDRIX) doesn't meet their requirements, but I don't see which requirement IDRIX suddenly stopped meeting," he said. Idrassi said he has tried contacting Microsoft support, but he received automated responses that he believes contained AI-generated text. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Valve Releases Native Steam Link App For Apple's Vision Pro - Valve has released a native Steam Link beta for Apple Vision Pro, letting users stream their existing Steam games onto a large virtual screen in visionOS. It supports up to 4K resolution and will let you dynamically adjust the curve of the display. The Mac Observer reports: Steam Link does not support VR titles in this beta, and Valve clearly states that the app is limited to 2D game streaming, but this still opens up a large library of games that users can play on a massive virtual screen inside Vision Pro. At the same time, Vision Pro already handles 2D media very well, and this update builds on that strength by turning the headset into a portable gaming display that connects directly to your existing setup without needing extra hardware. You can join the Steam Link beta through TestFlight right now, and this early release shows how Apple Vision Pro continues to expand beyond media into more practical and everyday use cases like gaming. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Apple and Lenovo Have the Least Repairable Laptops, Analysis Finds - An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Apple earned the lowest grades in a report on laptop and smartphone repairability released today by the consumer advocacy group Public Interest Research Group (PIRG) Education Fund. The report, which looks at how easy devices are to disassemble and how easy it is to find repairability information, gave Apple a C-minus in laptop repairability and a D-minus in cell phone repairability. For its "Failing the Fix (2026): Grading laptop and cell phone companies on the fixability of their products" report, PIRG analyzed the 10 newest laptops and phones that were available via manufacturers' French website in January. [...] Apple leads the list of laptop repairability losers, largely due to it having low disassembly scores. Apple, along with Dell and Samsung, also lost a full point for being members of TechNet and the CTA. Lenovo had the second-worst grade with a C-minus. Like Apple, Lenovo had low disassembly scores. It also lost 0.5 points for failing to properly post PDFs explaining the French repair scores for some of its newest laptops sold in the region, as required in France. This is especially noteworthy because Lenovo got an F in last year's report for missing this information on at least 12 laptops. At the time, Lenovo director of communications David Hamilton provided a statement to Ars saying that the missing information was "due to a backend web compatibility issue that temporarily prevented the display of repairability scores on our Lenovo France website" that was "widely resolved." However, it appears that over a year later, Lenovo still isn't providing sufficient information to meet France's requirements "While Lenovo has improved somewhat with their compliance with French consumer law by providing more repair score PDFs on their website, we urge the company to resolve this multi-year issue," this year's report says. PIRG's report concluded that "laptops are pretty stagnant in terms of repairability" across many of the eight most popular laptop brands in the US. However, Proctor noted to Ars that consumers' access to parts, tools, and information that vendors have has improved, but improvements around ease of disassembly "take longer to realize." He also praised vendors' efforts to release more repairable designs, such as Apple's MacBook Neo. For its repairability index, PIRG weighed physical ease of disassembly most heavily, while also considering the availability of repair documentation, spare parts, spare-parts affordability, and other product-specific criteria. It then adjusted company grades by deducting points for membership in trade groups that oppose right-to-repair laws and adding small bonuses for manufacturers that supported right-to-repair legislation. Acer stood out as the only laptop vendor that avoided the 0.5-point trade-group penalty, since it was not listed as a member of TechNet or the Consumer Technology Association. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

CIA Reportedly Used Secret Quantum Tool To Find Downed Airman in Iran - alternative_right quotes a report from the New York Post: The CIA used a futuristic new tool called "Ghost Murmur" to find and rescue the second American airman who was shot down in southern Iran, The Post has learned. The secret technology uses long-range quantum magnetometry to find the electromagnetic fingerprint of a human heartbeat and pairs the data with artificial intelligence software to isolate the signature from background noise, two sources close to the breakthrough said. It was the tool's first use in the field by the spy agency -- and was alluded to Monday afternoon by President Trump and CIA Director John Ratcliffe at a White House briefing. "It's like hearing a voice in a stadium, except the stadium is a thousand square miles of desert," a source briefed on the program told The Post. "In the right conditions, if your heart is beating, we will find you." The relatively barren landscape made for "an ideal first operational use" of Ghost Murmur, the first source noted. "Normally this signal is so weak that it can only be measured in a hospital setting with sensors pressed nearly against the chest," the source said. "But advances in a field known as quantum magnetometry -- specifically sensors built around microscopic defects in synthetic diamonds -- have apparently made it possible to detect these signals at dramatically greater distances." "The capability is not omniscient. It works best in remote, low-clutter environments and requires significant processing time," this person added. Read more of this story at Slashdot.