Latest News
Last updated 16 Jan, 06:30 PM
BBC News
Life-extending prostate cancer drug to be offered to thousands in England - Abiraterone will be available in a matter of weeks and will be offered to 7,000 men a year.
Exiled crown prince urges world to help protesters topple Iran's government - Reza Pahlavi, a US-based opposition figure, called on the world to target Iran's Revolutionary Guards leadership.
Hospital violated trans complaint nurses' dignity, tribunal rules - A judge says the hospital chiefs' changing room policy created a "hostile" environment for women.
Trump threatens new tariffs on countries opposed to Greenland takeover - The president made the threat while a bipartisan group of US lawmakers were visiting Denmark in the hope of easing tensions over the territory.
Body found in search for missing girl, 15 - Grace Keeling, 15, was swept into the sea at Withernsea along with her mother Sarah on 2 January.
The Register
Sorry Dave, I’m afraid I can’t do that! PCs refuse to shut down after Microsoft patch - Microsoft claims it's a Secure Launch bug We're not saying Copilot has become sentient and decided it doesn't want to lose consciousness. But if it did, it would create Microsoft's January Patch Tuesday update, which has made it so that some PCs flat-out refuse to shut down or hibernate, no matter how many times you try.…
Windows Backup adds second-chance restore at sign-in - First sign-in restore aims to cut rebuilds when users skip setup options Microsoft has quietly tweaked Windows Backup for Organizations to include restore at first sign-in.…
Ready for a newbie-friendly Linux? Mint team officially releases v 22.3, 'Zena' - Newer kernel, newer Cinnamon, new tools, and even new icons The timing is right if you're looking to try out Mint. New improved "Zena" is here – still based on Ubuntu Noble, but now with Cinnamon 6.6 and improved Wayland support, plus better internationalization, new System Information and System Administration tools, and clearer icons.…
German cops add Black Basta boss to EU most-wanted list - Ransomware kingpin who escaped Armenian custody is believed to be lying low back home German cops have added Russian national Oleg Evgenievich Nefekov to their list of most-wanted criminals for his services to ransomware.…
Meta retreats from metaverse after virtual reality check - That went well Imagine changing your popular brand to capitalize on an emerging tech trend that never emerged. Mark Zuckerberg did just that, and now Meta is backing away from the virtual reality business in which it invested billions.…
New Scientist - Home
Cancelling plans may be more socially acceptable than you think - Volunteers consider it relatively unacceptable to cancel social plans – but they are more forgiving if it's someone else cancelling the plans
Earliest ever supernova sheds light on the first stars - The James Webb Space Telescope has picked up the light from a massive star that exploded about a billion years after the birth of the universe
A leading use for quantum computers might not need them after all - Understanding a molecule that plays a key role in nitrogen fixing – a chemical process that enables life on Earth – has long been thought of as problem for quantum computers, but now a classical computer may have solved it
Body fat supports your health in surprisingly complex ways - Evidence is mounting that our body fat supports everything from our bone health to our mood, and now, research suggests it also regulates blood pressure and immunity
New Scientist recommends Why We Drink Too Much for Dry January - The books, TV, games and more that New Scientist staff have enjoyed this week
Hacker News
Cloudflare acquires Astro - Comments
6-Day and IP Address Certificates Are Generally Available - Comments
STFU - Comments
Michelangelo's first painting, created when he was 12 or 13 - Comments
Just the Browser - Comments
Slashdot
Seattle is Building Light Rail Like It's 1999 - Seattle was late to the light rail party -- the city rejected transit ballot measures in 1968 and 1971, missing out on federal funding that built Atlanta's MARTA, and didn't approve a plan including rail until 1996 -- but the Pacific Northwest city is now in the middle of a multibillion-dollar building boom that has produced the highest post-pandemic ridership recovery of any US light rail system. The Link system opened its first line in 2009, funded largely by voter-approved tax measures from 2008 and 2016. The north-south 1 Line now stretches 41 miles after a $3 billion extension to Lynnwood opened in June 2025 and a $2.5 billion leg to Federal Way debuted in December. Ridership is up 24% since 2019, and 3.4 million people rode Link trains in October 2025. Test trains have been running since September across the I-90 floating bridge over Lake Washington -- what Sound Transit claims is the world's first light rail on a floating structure -- preparing for a May 31 opening. The Crosslake Connection is part of the 2 Line, a 14-mile, $3.7 billion extension voters approved in 2008 that was originally slated to open in 2020. The expansion hasn't come without problems. Sound Transit faces a roughly $30 billion budget shortfall, and a planned Ballard extension has ballooned to $22 billion, double original estimates. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Verizon Offers $20 Credit After Nationwide Outage Stranded Users in SOS Mode For Hours - Verizon is offering affected customers a $20 account credit following a nationwide network outage on Wednesday that left users across the US unable to connect, forcing phones into SOS mode for roughly ten hours before the carrier restored service around 10:15PM ET. Customers will receive a text message when the credit becomes available and can redeem it through the myVerizon app by clicking "Take action." Read more of this story at Slashdot.
AI Has Made Salesforce Engineers More Productive, So the Company Has Stopped Hiring Them, CEO Says - Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff said this week that his company's software engineering headcount has remained "mostly flat" over the past year as internal AI tools have delivered substantial productivity gains. Speaking on TBPN, Benioff said he has about 15,000 engineers who are "more productive than ever." The company has redirected its hiring efforts toward sales and customer engagement roles, hiring 20% more account executives this year as it pushes its Agentforce agentic AI service. Human salespeople remain essential for explaining the "intricacies and nuances" of agentic AI to skeptical enterprise customers, he argued. Other parts of the business have seen deeper cuts. In a separate appearance on The Logan Bartlett Show, Benioff said that Salesforce had reduced its customer support workforce by roughly 50%. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Ruby on Rails Creator Says AI Coding Tools Still Can't Match Most Junior Programmers - AI still can't produce code as well as most junior programmers he's worked with, David Heinemeier Hansson, the creator of Ruby on Rails and co-founder of 37 Signals, said on a recent podcast [video link], which is why he continues to write most of his code by hand. Hansson compared AI's current coding capabilities to "a flickering light bulb" -- total darkness punctuated by moments of clarity before going pitch black again. At his company, humans wrote 95% of the code for Fizzy, 37 Signals' Kanban-inspired organization product, he said. The team experimented with AI-powered features, but those ended up on the cutting room floor. "I'm not feeling that we're falling behind at 37 Signals in terms of our ability to produce, in terms of our ability to launch things or improve the products," Hansson said. Hansson said he remains skeptical of claims that businesses can fire half their programmers and still move faster. Despite his measured skepticism, Hansson said he marvels at the scale of bets the U.S. economy is placing on AI reaching AGI. "The entire American economy right now is one big bet that that's going to happen," he said. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
China Clamps Down on High-Speed Traders, Removing Servers - An anonymous reader shares a report: China is pulling the plug on a key advantage held by high-frequency traders, removing servers dedicated to those firms out of local exchanges' data centers, according to people familiar with the matter. Commodities futures exchanges in Shanghai and Guangzhou are among those that have ordered local brokers to shift servers for their clients out of data centers run by the bourses, according to the people, who said the move was led by regulators. The change doesn't only affect high-frequency firms but they are likely to feel the biggest impact. The Shanghai Futures Exchange has told brokers they need to get equipment for high-speed clients out by the end of next month, while other clients need to do so by April 30, the people said. The clampdown will hit China's army of domestic high-frequency firms but will also impact a swathe of global firms that are active in the country. Citadel Securities, Jane Street Group and Jump Trading are among the foreign firms whose access to servers is being affected, the people said, asking not to be named as the matter is private. Read more of this story at Slashdot.