Latest News

Last updated 13 Jan, 06:26 AM

BBC News

Trump briefed on military and covert options for Iran, sources say - The US president also imposes a 25% tariff on countries that "do business" with Tehran, while Iran's foreign minister says his country is "ready for war".

US weighs next move on Iran - and faces a complex calculation - As Iran's deadly crackdown on anti-government protests continue, the US president is considering how best to respond.

X could 'lose right to self regulate', says Starmer - It is currently illegal to share deepfakes, but the law against creating them has not yet come into force.

BBC will aim to have Trump's $5bn defamation lawsuit thrown out - Court papers filed on Monday show the broadcaster will argue the Florida court lacks "personal jurisdiction" over the BBC.

Mandelson makes personal apology for continuing Epstein friendship - The former ambassador apologises "unequivocally" for maintaining links with Epstein after 2008 conviction

The Register

Lenovo has a hunch you’re about to try quitting VMware - Tweaks its hardware to run multiple private cloud stacks, and shift between them Lenovo has a hunch that some of you are about to shift to a different hypervisor and has created hardware to make the move easier.…

India demands crypto outfits geolocate customers, get a selfie to prove they’re real - Government is fed up with bad actors using digi-cash to fund dodgy deeds India’s government has updated the regulations it imposes on cryptocurrency services providers, as part of its efforts to combat fraud, money laundering, and terrorism.…

No fire sale for firewalls as memory shortages could push prices higher - In SEC filings, Fortinet and Palo Alto show shrinking product margins taking hold. PCs and datacenters aren't the only devices that need DRAM. The global memory shortage is roiling the cybersecurity market, with the cost of firewalls expected to balloon and hit both customers and vendors in the pocketbook in 2026, according to research analysts Wedbush.…

'Violence-as-a-service' suspect arrested in Iraq, extradition underway - Gang members 'systematically exploited children and young people,' cops say A 21-year-old Swedish man accused of being a key organizer of violence-as-a-service linked to the Foxtrot criminal network, which police say has recruited and exploited minors, has been arrested in Iraq.…

Zuck forms Meta Compute to pave the planet with 'hundreds of gigawatts' of AI datacenters - No wonder he's going nuclear Meta has formed a new initiative called “Meta Compute” to oversee the planning, deployment, and operations of its growing fleet of AI datacenters.…

New Scientist - Home

Pompeii’s public baths were unhygienic until the Romans took over - Before the Romans captured Pompeii, the famous town was run by the Samnite people – and a dip in their public baths might have been an unpleasant experience

Quantum computers could help sharpen images of exoplanets - Combining two kinds of quantum computing devices could be just the trick for taking better images of faint, faraway exoplanets

Our elegant universe: rethinking nature’s deepest principle - For centuries, the principle of symmetry has guided physicists towards more fundamental truths, but now a slew of shocking findings suggest a far stranger idea from quantum theory could be a deeper driving force

Is there an evolutionary reason for same-sex sexual behaviour? - Sexual behaviour among same-sex pairs is common in apes and monkeys, and a wide-ranging analysis suggests it does boost survival

We're about to simulate a human brain on a supercomputer - The world’s most powerful supercomputers can now run simulations of billions of neurons, and researchers hope such models will offer unprecedented insights into how our brains work

Hacker News

Cowork: Claude Code for the rest of your work - Comments

TimeCapsuleLLM: LLM trained only on data from 1800-1875 - Comments

The Cray-1 Computer System (1977) [pdf] - Comments

Postal Arbitrage - Comments

The chess bot on Delta Air Lines will destroy you (2024) [video] - Comments

Slashdot

EPA To Stop Considering Lives Saved By Limiting Air Pollution - An anonymous reader quotes a report from the New York Times: For decades, the Environmental Protection Agency has calculated the health benefits of reducing air pollution, using the cost estimates of avoided asthma attacks and premature deaths to justify clean-air rules. Not anymore. Under President Trump, the E.P.A. plans to stop tallying gains from the health benefits caused by curbing two of the most widespread deadly air pollutants, fine particulate matter and ozone, when regulating industry, according to internal agency emails and documents reviewed by The New York Times. It's a seismic shift that runs counter to the E.P.A.'s mission statement, which says the agency's core responsibility is to protect human health and the environment, environmental law experts said. The change could make it easier to repeal limits on these pollutants from coal-burning power plants, oil refineries, steel mills and other industrial facilities across the country, the emails and documents show. That would most likely lower costs for companies while resulting in dirtier air. "The idea that E.P.A. would not consider the public health benefits of its regulations is anathema to the very mission of E.P.A.," said Richard Revesz, the faculty director of the Institute for Policy Integrity at New York University School of Law. "If you're only considering the costs to industry and you're ignoring the benefits, then you can't justify any regulations that protect public health, which is the very reason that E.P.A. was set up." Read more of this story at Slashdot.

European Firms Hit Hiring Brakes Over AI and Slowing Growth - European hiring momentum is cooling as slower growth and accelerating AI adoption make both employers and workers more cautious. DW.com reports: [Angelika Reich, leadership adviser at the executive recruitment firm Spencer Stuart] noted how Europe's labor market has "cooled down" and how "fewer job vacancies and a tougher economic climate naturally make employees more cautious about switching jobs." Despite remaining resilient, the 21-member eurozone's labor market is projected to grow more slowly this year, at 0.6% compared with 0.7% in 2025, according to the European Central Bank (ECB). Although that drop seems tiny, each 0.1 percentage point difference amounts to about 163,000 fewer new jobs being created. Just three years ago, the eurozone created some 2.76 million new jobs while growing at a robust rate of 1.7%. Migration has also played a major role in shaping Europe's labor supply, helping to ease acute worker shortages and support job growth in many countries. However, net migration is now stabilizing or falling. In Germany, more than one in three companies plans to cut jobs this year, according to the Cologne-based IW economic think tank. The Bank of France expects French unemployment to climb to 7.8%, while in the UK, two-thirds of economists questioned by The Times newspaper think unemployment could rise to as high as 5.5% from the current 5.1%. Unemployment in Poland, the European Union's growing economic powerhouse, is edging higher, reaching 5.6% in November compared to 5% a year earlier. Romania and the Czech Republic are also seeing similar upticks in joblessness. The softening of the labor market has prompted new terms like the Great Hesitation, where companies think twice about hiring and workers are cautious about quitting stressful jobs, and Career Cushioning, quietly preparing a backup plan in case of layoffs. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Viral Chinese App 'Are You Dead?' Checks On Those Who Live Alone - The viral Chinese app Are You Dead? (known as Sileme in Chinese) targets people who live alone by requiring regular check-ins and alerting an emergency contact if the user doesn't respond. It launched in May and is now the most downloaded paid app in China. Cybernews reports: Users need to check in with the app every two days by clicking a large button to confirm that they are alive. Otherwise, the app will inform the user's appointed emergency contact that they may be in trouble, Chinese state-run outlet Global Times reports. The app is marketed as a "safety companion" for those who live far from home or choose a solitary lifestyle. Initially launched as a free app, "eAre You Dead?" now costs 8 yuan, equivalent to $1.15. Despite its growing popularity, the app has sparked criticism in China, where some said they were repulsed by the negative connotation of death. Some suggested the app should be renamed to "Are You Alive?" The app's creators told Chinese media that they will focus on improving the product, such as adding SMS notification features or a messaging function. Moreover, they will consider the criticism over the app's name. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Even Linus Torvalds Is Vibe Coding Now - Linus Torvalds has started experimenting with vibe coding, using Google's Antigravity AI to generate parts of a small hobby project called AudioNoise. "In doing so, he has become the highest-profile programmer yet to adopt this rapidly spreading, and often mocked, AI-driven programming," writes ZDNet's Steven Vaughan-Nichols. Fro the report: [I]t's a trivial program called AudioNoise -- a recent side project focused on digital audio effects and signal processing. He started it after building physical guitar pedals, GuitarPedal, to learn about audio circuits. He now gives them as gifts to kernel developers and, recently, to Bill Gates. While Torvalds hand-coded the C components, he turned to Antigravity for a Python-based audio sample visualizer. He openly acknowledges that he leans on online snippets when working in languages he knows less well. Who doesn't? [...] In the project's README file, Torvalds wrote that "the Python visualizer tool has been basically written by vibe-coding," describing how he "cut out the middle-man -- me -- and just used Google Antigravity to do the audio sample visualiser." The remark underlines that the AI-generated code met his expectations well enough that he did not feel the need to manually re-implement it. Further reading: Linus Torvalds Says Vibe Coding is Fine For Getting Started, 'Horrible Idea' For Maintenance Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Fintech Firm Betterment Confirms Data Breach After Hackers Send Fake $10,000 Crypto Scam Messages - An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: Betterment, a financial app, sent a sketchy-looking notification on Friday asking users to send $10,000 to Bitcoin and Ethereum crypto wallets and promising to "triple your crypto," according to a thread on Reddit. The Betterment account says in an X thread that this was an "unauthorized message" that was sent via a "third-party system." TechCrunch has since confirmed that an undisclosed number of Betterment's customers have had their personal information accessed. "The company said customer names, email and postal addresses, phone numbers, and dates of birth were compromised in the attack," reports TechCrunch. Betterment said it detected the attack on the same day and "immediately revoked the unauthorized access and launched a comprehensive investigation, which is ongoing." The fintech firm also said it has reached out to the customers targeted by the hackers and "advised them to disregard the message." "Our ongoing investigation has continued to demonstrate that no customer accounts were accessed and that no passwords or other log-in credentials were compromised," Betterment wrote in the email. Read more of this story at Slashdot.