Latest News

Last updated 28 Mar, 07:52 AM

BBC News

Iran war splits older and younger conservatives - as pressure builds for Trump to find exit ramp - More than a thousand miles from Washington, the conflict was a dominant topic of conversation at CPAC.

Agent begged Epstein to have sex with model, emails show - Ramsey Elkholy introduced the financier to women as young as 18 in correspondence over almost a decade.

Tiger Woods released on bail after car crash - Tiger Woods, the 15-time golf major champion, is released on bail following his arrest on charges of driving under the influence following a car crash in Florida.

'He would have been horrified' - error in drug warnings 'misled' families - Warnings for dopamine agonist drugs are to be reviewed after BBC identified an error in patient leaflets.

How Trump and the oil markets move in sync: a tango in six charts - Oil markets have been sensitive to Donald Trump's comments on the war. But are traders growing less responsive?

The Register

Microsoft takes up residence next to OpenAI, Oracle at Crusoe's 900 MW Texas datacenter expansion - New campus to include on-site power generation Bitcoin farmer turned bit barn builder Crusoe revealed plans to add 900 megawatts of capacity to its Abilene Texas datacenter campus on Friday to support Microsoft's AI ambitions.…

Folk are getting dangerously attached to AI that always tells them they're right - Sycophantic bots coach users into selfish, antisocial behavior, say researchers, and they love it AI can lead mentally unwell people to some pretty dark places, as a number of recent news stories have taught us. Now researchers think sycophantic AI is actually having a harmful effect on everyone.…

Apple's last tower topples… and the others will follow - Farewell, Mac Pro: Increasing integration means the end of expandable computers Apple has discontinued the Mac Pro – but it's just the first of the tower computers to go. The rest will follow soon.…

Senators want datacenters to come clean on power consumption - Ratepayer Protection Pledge is unenforceable without hard numbers, Warren and Hawley argue US senators are pushing to require datacenters and other large energy customers to report consumption, arguing the data is essential to hold them accountable to local communities.…

Microsoft tells crusty old kernel drivers to get with the Windows Hardware Compatibility Program - Cross-signed code gets the cold shoulder as Redmond tightens trust Microsoft is removing trust for kernel drivers that haven't been through the Windows Hardware Compatibility Program (WHCP) in a bid to further secure the Windows kernel.…

New Scientist - Home

The simple questions cracking the hard problem of consciousness - Do we all see the same red? Or feel joy and sadness alike? Mapping how our inner experiences relate to one another could finally reveal how physical processes in the brain give rise to consciousness

AI data centres can warm surrounding areas by up to 9.1°C - Hundreds of millions of people live close enough to data centres used to power AI to feel warmer average temperatures in their local area

Surprising male G-spot found in most detailed study of the penis yet - A long-overlooked area of the penis has been found to have the highest concentration of nerve endings and sensory structures in the organ, suggesting that it is the “male G-spot”

I almost drowned in space when my helmet filled with water - During his second-ever spacewalk, European Space Agency astronaut Luca Parmitano felt water creeping across his face – and knew he could be moments from drowning inside his helmet

How Anthony Leggett pushed the boundaries of quantum physics - After the passing of physicist Anthony Leggett, columnist Karmela Padavic-Callaghan remembers their personal connection with this giant of quantum physics, and explores the legacy of his enduring recipe for testing the edges of the quantum world

Hacker News

Go hard on agents, not on your filesystem - Comments

AMD's Ryzen 9 9950X3D2 Dual Edition crams 208MB of cache into a single chip - Comments

Make macOS consistently bad unironically - Comments

.apks are just .zips; semi-legally hacking software for orphaned hardware [video] - Comments

The bee that everyone wants to save - Comments

Slashdot

UK Startup Ignites Plasma Inside Nuclear Fusion Rocket - UK startup Pulsar Fusion says it has achieved the first plasma ignition inside a nuclear fusion rocket engine prototype -- a huge step for space travel that could cut missions to Mars "from months-long journeys to just a few weeks," reports Euronews. From the report: Pulsar Fusion revealed the milestone during a live stream at Amazon's MARS Conference, hosted by Jeff Bezos in California this week, with CEO Richard Dinan calling it an "exceptional moment" for the company. The team successfully created plasma - an intensely hot, electrically charged state of matter, often described as the fourth state of matter - using electric and magnetic fields inside its experimental and early prototype "Sunbird fusion exhaust system." [...] The company now plans further testing of its Sunbird system to improve performance. Upcoming upgrades include more powerful superconducting magnets designed to better contain and control plasma. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

AV1's Open, Royalty-Free Promise In Question As Dolby Sues Snapchat Over Codec - An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: AOMedia Video 1 (AV1) was invented by a group of technology companies to be an open, royalty-free alternative to other video codecs, like HEVC/H.265. But a lawsuit that Dolby Laboratories Inc. filed this week against Snap Inc. calls all that into question with claims of patent infringement. Numerous lawsuits are currently open in the US regarding the use of HEVC. Relevant patent holders, such as Nokia and InterDigital, have sued numerous hardware vendors and streaming service providers in pursuit of licensing fees for the use of patented technologies deemed essential to HEVC. It's a touch rarer to see a lawsuit filed over the implementation of AV1. The Alliance for Open Media (AOMedia), whose members include Amazon, Apple, Google, Microsoft, Mozilla, and Netflix, says it developed AV1 "under a royalty-free patent policy (Alliance for Open Media Patent License 1.0)" and that the standard is "supported by high-quality reference implementations under a simple, permissive license (BSD 3-Clause Clear License)." Yet, Dolby's lawsuit filed in the US District Court for the District of Delaware [PDF] alleges that AV1 leverages technologies that Dolby has patented and has not agreed to license for free and without receiving royalties. The filing reads: "[AOMedia] does not own all patents practiced by implementations of the AV1 codec. Rather, the AV1 specification was developed after many foundational video coding patents had already been filed, and AV1 incorporates technologies that are also present in HEVC. Those technologies are subject to existing third-party patent rights and associated licensing obligations." Dolby is seeking a jury trial, a declaration that Dolby isn't obligated to license the patents in questions under FRAND (fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory) licensing obligations, and for the court to enjoin Snap from further "infringement." Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Google Moves Post-Quantum Encryption Timeline Up To 2029 - Google has moved up its post-quantum encryption migration target to 2029. "This new timeline reflects migration needs for the PQC era in light of progress on quantum computing hardware development, quantum error correction, and quantum factoring resource estimates," said vice president of security engineering Heather Adkins and senior staff cryptology engineer Sophie Schmieg in a blog post. CyberScoop reports: Google is replacing outdated encryption across their devices, systems and data with new algorithms vetted by the National Institute for Standards and Technology. Those algorithms, developed over a decade by NIST and independent cryptologists, are designed to protect against future attacks from quantum computers. While Google has said it is on track to migrate its own systems ahead of the 2035 timeline provided in NIST guidelines, last month leaders at the company teased an updated timeline for migration and called on private businesses and other entities to act more urgently to prepare. Unlike the federal government, there is no mandate for private businesses to migrate to quantum-resistant encryption, or even that they do so at all. Adkins and Schmieg said the hope is that other businesses will view Google's aggressive timeframe as a signal to follow suit. "As a pioneer in both quantum and PQC, it's our responsibility to lead by example and share an ambitious timeline," they wrote. "By doing this, we hope to provide the clarity and urgency needed to accelerate digital transitions not only for Google, but also across the industry." Read more of this story at Slashdot.

European Commission Investigating Breach After Amazon Cloud Account Hack - The European Commission is investigating a breach after a threat actor allegedly accessed at least one of its AWS cloud accounts and claimed to have stolen more than 350 GB of data, including databases and employee-related information. AWS says its own services were not breached. BleepingComputer reports: Sources familiar with the incident have told BleepingComputer that the attack was quickly detected and that the Commission's cybersecurity incident response team is now investigating. While the Commission has yet to share any details about this breach, the threat actor who claimed responsibility for the attack reached out to BleepingComputer earlier this week, stating that they had stolen over 350 GB of data (including multiple databases). They didn't disclose how they breached the affected accounts, but they provided BleepingComputer with several screenshots as proof that they had access to information belonging to European Commission employees and to an email server used by Commission employees. The threat actor also told BleepingComputer that they will not attempt to extort the Commission using the allegedly stolen data as leverage, but intend to leak the data online at a later date. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Windows PCs Crash Three Times As Often As Macs, Report Says - A workplace-device study says Windows PCs crash significantly more often than Macs, lag further behind on patching and encryption in some sectors, and are typically replaced sooner. TechSpot reports: Omnissa's 2026 State of Digital Workspace report outlines the IT challenges that various organizations face from the growing use of AI and the heterogeneous deployment of enterprise devices. The relative instability of Windows and Android is a recurring theme throughout the report. The company gathered telemetry from clients located across the globe in retail, healthcare, finance, education, government, and other sectors throughout 2025. The data suggests that IT administrators face frustrating security gaps due to inconsistent patching across a diverse mosaic of devices and operating systems. Employee workflow disruption, often due to software issues, is one area of concern. The report found that Windows devices were forced to shut down 3.1 times more often than Macs. Windows programs also froze 7.5 times more often than macOS apps and needed to be restarted more than twice as often. Certain industries were also alarmingly lax in securing Windows and Android devices. More than half of Windows and Android devices in healthcare and pharma were five major operating system updates behind, likely leaving them more vulnerable to errors and malware. More than half of the desktops and mobile devices used for education were also unencrypted, putting students' privacy at risk. Macs also last longer, being replaced every five years on average, compared to every three years for Windows PCs. Despite a recent backlash against Windows, driven by a push for digital sovereignty in countries such as Germany, Windows use on government devices actually doubled last year. Meanwhile, Macs using Apple's M-series chips showcase a significant thermal advantage, with an average temperature of 40.1 degrees Celsius, while Intel processors run at 65.2 degrees. Read more of this story at Slashdot.