Latest News
Last updated 28 Jan, 08:46 PM
BBC News
Trump warns Iran 'time is running out' for nuclear deal as US military builds up in Gulf - Tehran says its armed forces are ready "with their fingers on the trigger" to respond to any aggression.
Iran protesters treated in secret to avoid arrest - Wounded demonstrators tell the BBC they are relying on medics willing to risk their own safety by treating them at their homes.
Mum says university 'failed' son who took his own life after grade error - Geography student Ethan Brown should have been awarded a 2:1 degree but was wrongly told he could not graduate.
Why China views the UK visit as part of something bigger - Sir Keir Starmer is one of a number of world leaders heading to Beijing
King's film reveals his personal philosophy - King Charles explains his philosophy of harmony in a film for Amazon Prime Video.
The Register
Claude Code's prying AIs read off-limits secret files - Developers remain unsure how to prevent access to sensitive data Don't you hate it when machines can't follow simple instructions? Anthropic's Claude Code can't take "ignore" for an answer and continues to read passwords and API keys, even when your secrets file is supposed to be blocked.…
Everybody is WinRAR phishing, dropping RATs as fast as lightning - Russians, Chinese spies, run-of-the-mill crims … Come one, come all. Everyone from Russian and Chinese government goons to financially motivated miscreants is exploiting a long-since-patched WinRAR vuln to bring you infostealers and Remote Access Trojans (RATs).…
Microsoft plans more server farms, despite water worries - Redmond has pledged to be carbon-negative by 2030 It's no secret that datacenters use a ton of water for cooling, a demand that can strain local supplies. Despite reported internal forecasts showing sharply higher water use by 2030, Microsoft continues to splash cash on new AI bit barns.…
Yes, you can build an AI agent - here’s how, using LangFlow - AI automation, now as simple as point, click, drag, and drop Hands On For all the buzz surrounding them, AI agents are simply another form of automation that can perform tasks using the tools you've provided. Think of them as smart macros that make decisions and go beyond simple if/then rules to handle edge cases in input data. Fortunately, it's easy enough to code your own agents and below we'll show you how.…
Fortinet unearths another critical bug as SSO accounts borked post-patch - More work for admins on the cards as they await a full dump of fixes Things aren't over yet for Fortinet customers – the security shop has disclosed yet another critical FortiCloud SSO vulnerability.…
New Scientist - Home
This virus infects most of us – but why do only some get very ill? - The ubiquitous Epstein-Barr virus is increasingly being linked to conditions like multiple sclerosis and lupus. But why do only some people who catch it develop these complications? The answer may lie in our genetics
Ancient humans were seafaring far earlier than we realised - Thousands of years before the invention of compasses or sails, prehistoric peoples crossed oceans to reach remote lands like Malta and Australia. Doing so meant striking out in unknowable conditions. What do such crossings tell us about ancient minds?
Huge fossil bonanza preserves 512-million-year-old ecosystem - A treasure trove of Cambrian fossils has been discovered in southern China, providing a window on marine life shortly after Earth’s first mass extinction event
We have a new way to explain why we agree on the nature of reality - An evolution-inspired framework for how quantum fuzziness gives rise to our classical world shows that even imperfect observers can eventually agree on an objective reality
We're getting closer to growing a brain in a lab dish - Clumps of cells known as organoids are helping us to understand the brain, and the latest version comes equipped with realistic blood vessels to help the organoids live longer
Hacker News
Airfoil (2024) - Comments
Mousefood – Build embedded terminal UIs for microcontrollers - Comments
Oban, the job processing framework from Elixir, has come to Python - Comments
Native Linux VST plugin directory - Comments
Computer History Museum Launches Digital Portal to Its Collection - Comments
Slashdot
Cancer Might Protect Against Alzheimer's - For decades, researchers have noted that cancer and Alzheimer's disease are rarely found in the same person, fuelling speculation that one condition might offer some degree of protection from the other. Nature: Now, a study in mice provides a possible molecular solution to the medical mystery: a protein produced by cancer cells seems to infiltrate the brain, where it helps to break apart clumps of misfolded proteins that are often associated with Alzheimer's disease. The study, which was 15 years in the making, was published on 22 January in Cell and could help researchers to design drugs to treat Alzheimer's disease. "They have a piece of the puzzle," says Donald Weaver, a neurologist and chemist at the Krembil Research Institute at the University of Toronto in Canada, who was not involved in the study. "It's not the full picture by any stretch of the imagination. But it's an interesting piece." [...] A 2020 meta-analysis of data from more than 9.6 million people found that cancer diagnosis was associated with an 11% decreased incidence of Alzheimer's disease. It has been a difficult relationship to unpick: researchers must control for a variety of external factors. For example, people might die of cancer before they are old enough to develop symptoms of Alzheimer's disease, and some cancer treatments can cause cognitive difficulties, which could obscure an Alzheimer's diagnosis. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Experian's Tech Chief Defends Credit Scores: 'We're Not Palantir' - When asked directly whether people actually like Experian, Alex Lintner, the credit bureau's CEO of Software and Technology, offered an unusual defense in an interview: "First of all, we're not Palantir, so we don't do reputation scores." Speaking on The Verge's podcast, Lintner conceded that consumers who have poor credit scores through "life's circumstances" sometimes direct their frustration at Experian, though he argued the company enables vital access to credit for 247 million Americans. The 10-year company veteran said Experian has built its own large language model and about 200 AI agents for internal use, but consumer data remains entirely walled off from public AI systems. On security, Lintner said Experian hasn't experienced a data breach in a decade -- the last occurred two weeks into his tenure. When competitor Equifax suffered its massive breach, Equifax actually paid Experian to help protect affected consumers' identities. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
There's a Rash of Scam Spam Coming From a Real Microsoft Address - There are reports that a legitimate Microsoft email address -- which Microsoft explicitly says customers should add to their allow list -- is delivering scam spam. ArsTechnica: The emails originate from no-reply-powerbi@microsoft.com, an address tied to Power BI. The Microsoft platform provides analytics and business intelligence from various sources that can be integrated into a single dashboard. Microsoft documentation says that the address is used to send subscription emails to mail-enabled security groups. To prevent spam filters from blocking the address, the company advises users to add it to allow lists. According to an Ars reader, the address on Tuesday sent her an email claiming (falsely) that a $399 charge had been made to her. âoeIt provided a phone number to call to dispute the transaction. A man who answered a call asking to cancel the sale directed me to download and install a remote access application, presumably so he could then take control of my Mac or Windows machine (Linux wasn't allowed)," she said. Online searches returned a dozen or so accounts of other people reporting receiving the same email. Some of the spam was reported on Microsoft's own website. Sarah Sabotka, a threat researcher at security firm Proofpoint, said the scammers are abusing a Power Bi function that allows external email addresses to be added as subscribers for the Power Bi reports. The mention of the subscription is buried at the very bottom of the message, where it's easy to miss. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Apple Sued by App Developer Over its Continuity Camera - An anonymous reader shares a report: Apple is being sued by Reincubate, which makes the Camo smartphone webcam app. It has filed a lawsuit against Apple in a U.S. federal court in New Jersey, accusing the company of anticompetitive conduct and patent infringement. The suit alleges that Apple copied Camo's technology, integrated similar features into iOS, and used control over its software ecosystem to disadvantage Reincubate's Camo product. Reincubate's Camo and Camo Studio apps allow iOS or Android phones to function as webcams for Mac and PCs. The company launched Camo in 2020. In 2022, Apple introduced Continuity Camera, a feature that enables iPhones to serve as webcams for Macs but works only within Apple's device ecosystem. According to the lawsuit, Apple copied patented features from Camo and built them into iOS to "redirect user demand to Apple's own platform-tied offering." Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Tim Berners-Lee Wants Us To Take Back the Internet - mspohr shares a report: When Sir Tim Berners-Lee invented the world wide web in 1989, his vision was clear: it would used by everyone, filled with everything and, crucially, it would be free. Today, the British computer scientist's creation is regularly used by 5.5 billion people -- and bears little resemblance to the democratic force for humanity he intended. Since Berners-Lee's disappointment a decade ago, he's thrown everything at a project that completely shifts the way data is held on the web, known as the Solid (social linked data) protocol. It's activism that is rooted in people power -- not unlike the first years of the web. This version of the internet would turbocharge personal sovereignty and give control back to users. Berners-Lee has long seen AI -- which exists only because of the web and its data -- as having the potential to transform society far beyond the boundaries of self-interested companies. But now is the time, he says, to put guardrails in place so that AI remains a force for good -- and he's afraid the chance may pass humankind by. Berners-Lee traces the web's corruption to the commercialization of the domain name system in the 1990s, when the .com space was "pounced on by charlatans." The 2016 US elections, he said, revealed to him just how toxic his creation could become. A corner of the web, he says, has been "optimised for nastiness" -- extractive, surveillance-heavy, and designed to maximize engagement at the cost of user wellbeing. His answer is Solid, a protocol that gives users control through personal data "pods" functioning as secure backpacks of information. The Flanders government in Belgium already uses Solid pods for its citizens. On AI, his optimism remains dim. "The horse is bolting," he says, calling for a "Cern for AI" where scientists could collaboratively develop superintelligence under contained, non-commercial oversight. Read more of this story at Slashdot.