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Last updated 18 Apr, 12:15 PM
BBC News
Senior official ousted over Mandelson security row to face MPs - Former Foreign Office chief Sir Olly Robbins is expected to be grilled by the Foreign Affairs Committee on Tuesday.
Chris Mason: Mandelson saga is a messy palaver - and the questions continue to swirl - Sir Keir and the top official at the Foreign Office at the time are expected to face questions from MPs next week.
Mortgage rates show signs of falling after Iran war peak - Major lenders make rate reductions as markets take some heart from a possible truce in the Iran war.
The home cooks reviving forgotten British dishes you've probably never heard of - Carrageen pudding and Bedfordshire clangers might no longer be household staples, but some home chefs are bringing them back.
'I'm the lucky one' - more than one in three young men now live with their parents - Last year, the highest proportion of men aged 20-34 were still living at home since at least 2007 as the rising cost of living takes hold.
The Register
Cloudflare can remember it for you wholesale - Agent Memory stores AI chat scraps off to the side and recalls them when needed Not only is hardware memory scarce these days, but context memory, the conversational data exchanged with AI models, can be an issue too.…
Atlassian’s new data collection policy protects rich customers while AI eats the rest - From August 17, the outfit will collect customer metadata by default unless you pay for the top tier Unless a customer pays for the most expensive enterprise license, or the law forbids it, Atlassian is going to collect their data to train its AI models. And you can't fully opt out.…
Intel eases reliance on TSMC with 'Merica-made Core Series 3 processors - Stripped-down Ultra for laptops and low-power edge boxes Intel brought a few more chips home from Taiwan this week, with a new round of budget-oriented Core Series 3 processors fabbed right in the US-of-A.…
Anthropic mocks up Claude Design to draft fancy new pink slips for marketing teams - The bar for creating visual assets has been lowered to the ability to converse with a model Anthropic is known for its industry-leading Claude Code that writes programs, but why stop there? The company, on Friday, introduced a research preview service called Claude Design that creates visual assets, potentially putting some folks out of work.…
CISA tells feds to patch 13-year-old Apache ActiveMQ bug under active attack - Bug hiding in plain sight for over a decade lands on KEV list CISA is sounding the alarm on a newly-exploited Apache ActiveMQ bug, ordering federal agencies to patch within two weeks as attackers circle a flaw that's been quietly lurking for more than a decade.…
New Scientist - Home
Werner Herzog searches for ghost elephants in stunning new documentary - A film about the quest for “ghost elephants” is as much about not knowing and asking the right questions as about exploration, finds Davide Abbatescianni
Electric vehicle owners could earn thousands by supporting power grid - Electric vehicles could store renewable energy when there is excess supply and give it back to the grid when demand peaks, but car companies disagree on the best way to do that
Exclusive report: Inside Chernobyl, 40 years after nuclear disaster - New Scientist reporter Matthew Sparkes secured unrivalled access to Chernobyl's most crucial scientific sites, where researchers are fighting to protect the area and ensure it remains safe amid the constant threat of attack from Russia
New Scientist recommends Jamie Bartlett's insightful How to Talk to AI - The books, TV, games and more that New Scientist staff have enjoyed this week
Why is it so hard to change your mind? - Changing your opinion can be difficult, and it’s sometimes even seen as a flaw. But research shows being open-minded has a host of benefits. Columnist David Robson finds there are a few simple ways to encourage yourself to withstand the discomfort that gets in the way of mental flexibility
Hacker News
Category Theory Illustrated – Orders - Comments
Michael Rabin Has Died - Comments
Amiga Graphics - Comments
Claude Design - Comments
It's OK to compare floating-points for equality - Comments
Slashdot
Shuttered Startups Are Selling Old Slack Chats, Emails To AI Companies - Some failed startups are reportedly selling old Slack messages, emails, and other internal records to AI companies as training data, creating a new way to cash out after shutting down. Fast Company reports: Shanna Johnson, the CEO of now-defunct software company Cielo24, told the publication that she was able to sell every Slack message, internal email, and Jira ticket as training data for "hundreds of thousands of dollars." This isn't a one-off scenario. SimpleClosure, a startup that helps companies like Cielo24 shut down, told Forbes that there's been major interest from AI companies trying to get their hands on workplace data. Because of this, SimpleClosure launched a new tool that allows companies to sell their wealth of internal communications -- from Slack archives to email chains -- to AI labs. The company said it's processed 100 such deals in the past year. Payouts ranged from $10,000 to $100,000. "I think the privacy issues here are quite substantial," Marc Rotenberg, founder of the Center for AI and Digital Policy, told Forbes. "Employee privacy remains a key concern, particularly because people have become so dependent on these new internal messaging tools like Slack. ... It's not generic data. It's identifiable people." Read more of this story at Slashdot.
NASA Restarts Work To Support Europe's Uncrewed Trip To Mars After Years of Setbacks - NASA has revived support for the European Space Agency's long-delayed Rosalind Franklin Mars rover mission. According to the space agency, the current plan is to launch via a SpaceX Falcon Heavy no earlier than 2028. Engadget reports: This is a partnership between NASA and the ESA, with the European agency providing the rover, the spacecraft and the lander. The US will provide braking engines for the lander, heater units for the rover's internal systems and, of course, assistance with the actual launch. The rover will be outfitted with scientific instruments to look for signs of ancient life on the red planet. These include a state-of-the-art mass spectrometer and an organic molecule analyzer, which will come in handy as the vehicle collects samples at the Oxia Planum landing site. The mission has been stuck in development limbo since 2001, with delays caused by budget problems, technical issues, shifting international partners, and geopolitical fallout. After NASA dropped out, Russia stepped in, then was cut loose after invading Ukraine, and now -- despite NASA rejoining in 2024 and fresh political budget threats -- the rover is tentatively back on track for a 2028 launch. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Critical Atlantic Current Significantly More Likely To Collapse Than Thought - An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Guardian: The critical Atlantic current system appears significantly more likely to collapse than previously thought after new research found that climate models predicting the biggest slowdown are the most realistic. Scientists called the new finding "very concerning" as a collapse would have catastrophic consequences for Europe, Africa and the Americas. The Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (Amoc) is a major part of the global climate system and was already known to be at its weakest for 1,600 years as a result of the climate crisis. Scientists spotted warning signs of a tipping point in 2021 and know that the Amoc has collapsed in the Earth's past. Climate scientists use dozens of different computer models to assess the future climate. However, for the complex Amoc system, these produce widely varying results, ranging from some that indicate no further slowdown by 2100 to those suggesting a huge deceleration of about 65%, even when carbon emissions from fossil fuel burning are gradually cut to net zero. The research combined real-world ocean observations with the models to determine the most reliable, and this hugely reduced the spread of uncertainty. They found an estimated slowdown of 42% to 58% in 2100, a level almost certain to end in collapse. The Amoc is a major part of the global climate system and brings sun-warmed tropical water to Europe and the Arctic, where it cools and sinks to form a deep return current. A collapse would shift the tropical rainfall belt on which many millions of people rely to grow their food, plunge western Europe into extreme cold winters and summer droughts, and add 50-100cm to already rising sea levels around the Atlantic. The slowdown has to do with the Arctic's rapidly rising temperatures from global warming. "Warmer water is less dense and therefore sinks into the depths more slowly," explains the Guardian. "This slowing allows more rainfall to accumulate in the salty surface waters, also making it less dense, and further slowing the sinking and forming an Amoc feedback loop." The new research has been published in the journal Science Advances. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Online Personalities and Comedians Overtake TV and Newspapers as Primary News Sources - A new Ipsos poll finds Americans are increasingly getting news from online personalities and comedians instead of traditional TV or newspapers. The survey says nearly 70% get news online in a given week, versus 55% from TV and 25% from newspapers, with figures like Joe Rogan, Greg Gutfeld, Sean Hannity, and late-night hosts ranking prominently depending on political leanings. From the Hollywood Reporter: The poll, which was conducted in March, actually found the conservative politicians and cabinet members, including President Trump, were the top news influencers. When politicos were excluded, Joe Rogan led the list, followed by Fox News personalities Greg Gutfeld and Sean Hannity, and then TuckerCarlson and Ben Shapiro. The only three influencers to crack 10 percent were Trump, Rogan, and JD Vance. Among people who voted for Kamala Harris, the top news personalities were late night hosts, led by ABC's Jimmy Kimmel, followed by CBS Late Show host Stephen Colbert, and Daily Show host Jon Stewart. Just under 70 percent of respondents said they get their news online in a given week, compared to 55 percent for TV, and 25 percent for newspapers. [...] Of traditional media outlets, TV dominated, with Fox News, the broadcast networks, and CNN topping the list of sources. Facebook, YouTube and Instagram were the most popular online news sources. "On these platforms opinionated personalities and comedians appear to drown out anyone who would fit in the traditional journalist category," said assistant professor of practice and Jordan Center Executive Director Steven L Herman. "Even in the late 19th century and early 20th centuries, sensationalist and polarizing voices in print and later on air were among the most influential in the political landscape -- such as political satirist Mark Twain and populist Father Charles Coughlin." Read more of this story at Slashdot.
NIST Limits CVE Enrichment After 263% Surge In Vulnerability Submissions - NIST is narrowing how it handles CVEs in the National Vulnerability Database (NVD), saying it will only automatically enrich higher-priority vulnerabilities. "CVEs that do not meet those criteria will still be listed in the NVD but will not automatically be enriched by NIST," it said. "This change is driven by a surge in CVE submissions, which increased 263% between 2020 and 2025. We don't expect this trend to let up anytime soon." The Hacker News reports: The prioritization criteria outlined by NIST, which went into effect on April 15, 2026, are as follows: - CVEs appearing in the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency's (CISA) Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog. - CVEs for software used within the federal government. - CVEs for critical software as defined by Executive Order 14028: this includes software that's designed to run with elevated privilege or managed privileges, has privileged access to networking or computing resources, controls access to data or operational technology, and operates outside of normal trust boundaries with elevated access. Any CVE submission that doesn't meet these thresholds will be marked as "Not Scheduled." The idea, NIST said, is to focus on CVEs that have the maximum potential for widespread impact. "While CVEs that do not meet these criteria may have a significant impact on affected systems, they generally do not present the same level of systemic risk as those in the prioritized categories," it added. [...] Changes have also been instituted for various other aspects of the NVD operations. These include: - NIST will no longer routinely provide a separate severity score for a CVE where the CVE Numbering Authority has already provided a severity score. - A modified CVE will be reanalyzed only if it "materially impacts" the enrichment data. Users can request specific CVEs to be reanalyzed by sending an email to the same address listed above. - All unenriched CVEs currently in backlog with an NVD publish date earlier than March 1, 2026, will be moved into the "Not Scheduled" category. This does not apply to CVEs that are already in the KEV catalog. - NIST has updated the CVE status labels and descriptions, as well as the NVD Dashboard, to accurately reflect the status of all CVEs and other statistics in real time. Read more of this story at Slashdot.