Latest News

Last updated 01 May, 03:30 PM

BBC News

Polanski apologises for sharing post criticising officers who arrested Golders Green suspect - Green Party leader sorry for sharing post condemning actions of police officers who arrested suspect in Golders Green attack.

Woman charged over fatal Wimbledon school crash - Nuria Sajjad and Selena Lau died after a car crashed into the Study Preparatory School in July 2023.

Man appears in court charged with attempted murder of two Jewish men - Essa Suleiman, 45, is also accused of attempting to murder a third man on the same day in south London.

Superdry co-founder guilty of rape - James Holder, 54, attacked a woman after a night out in Cheltenham in May 2022.

Missing Oscar found after Academy Award winner blocked from taking it on flight - The airline said the Academy Award was safely in its care in Frankfurt and was arranging its return.

The Register

Where to buy a non-Apple, non-Google smartphone - Both Cupertino and Google are imposing ever stricter limits on their phones – but you have alternatives As both Apple and Google introduce unwelcome changes in their phone OSes, here's a quick reminder that you do have alternatives to the Gruesome Twosome.…

CIOs ready for another role-change as AI becomes agent of chaos - If software writes software the risk is “systematic failure at scale”. Someone needs to take charge, argues Forrester Forrester predicts that by decade's end, the rush toward agentic AI will grow so chaotic that CIOs will be forced into a new role as enforcer of order.…

That old phone in the kitchen drawer could save an industry - Users have less cash to burn and less patience for AI in new models... now where to get the used stock Secondhand phones sales are booming - relatively speaking - and the industry has rising inflation, AI bloat, and consumers' growing apathy toward overpriced new handsets to thank for it.…

First reports come in of victims of critical cPanel vuln as 'millions' of sites potentially exposed - Exploitation was underway before patches landed, at least one victim reports ransomware demand CISA has added a critical cPanel bug to its known-exploited list, confirming that attackers are already poking holes in one of the internet's most widely used hosting stacks.…

Microsoft releases first big update after Nadella's vow to 'win back fans' - Lots of fixes, some performance tweaks. Fingers crossed there's no out-of-band patch to follow Microsoft is following through on its promise to prioritize Windows stability with its April 30 non-security update.…

New Scientist - Home

NHS England rushes to hide software over AI hacking fears - National Health Service rules state that all software created with public money should be publicly available, but fears of computer-hacking AI models like Mythos have prompted a change in policy

The 4 biggest myths about hydration, according to an expert - Should you really be drinking eight glasses of water a day? What about reaching for a sports drink after exercise? Physiologist Tamara Hew-Butler is here to bust these hydration myths and more.

Oak trees use delaying tactics to thwart hungry caterpillars - An infestation of caterpillars can make an oak tree postpone when it opens its leaves next year by three days, wrong-footing the insects when they attack again

Why I explore our inevitable love for robots in my novel Luminous - Silvia Park, author of the May read for the New Scientist Book Club, reveals how a book that was originally intended to be for children took a darker route following a death in the family

Read an extract from Luminous by Silvia Park - In this extract from Luminous, the May read for the New Scientist Book Club, we meet a mysterious robot discovered in a salvage yard in Seoul, in a future reunified Korea

Hacker News

GhostBox – disposable little machines from the Global Free Tier. - Comments

Your Website Is Not for You - Comments

Running Adobe's 1991 PostScript Interpreter in the Browser - Comments

whohas – Command-line utility for cross-distro, cross-repository package search - Comments

Sally McKee, who coined the term "the Memory Wall", has died - Comments

Slashdot

The California Government Is Coming For Your E-Bikes - An anonymous reader quotes a report from the San Francisco Standard: If state lawmakers have their way, you'll have to get a license plate for your e-bike, and if you're planning to buy one next year, it'll be slower. Amid growing concerns about e-bike safety, particularly among children in Bay Area suburbs, two bills introduced this year aim to make it easier to ticket riders and reduce the top speed of some models. AB 1942 would require certain e-bikes to be registered with the Department of Motor Vehicles and display license plates, and AB 1557 would slow e-bikes that children are allowed to operate. Both bills are still being reviewed in committee. If either bill passes this year, it will take effect Jan. 1. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The Invisible Force Making Food Less Nutritious - fjo3 shares a report from the Washington Post: Surging concentrations of carbon in the atmosphere, caused largely by burning fossil fuels, have produced potent changes in the way plants grow -- from increasing their sugar content to depleting essential nutrients like zinc. Experts fear the degradation of Earth's food supply will cause an epidemic of hidden hunger, in which even people who consume enough calories won't get the nutrients they need to thrive. "The diets we eat today have less nutritional density than what our grandparents ate, even if we eat exactly the same thing," said Kristie Ebi, a professor at the University of Washington's Center for Health and the Global Environment. People in wealthy countries with strong health care systems will have many tools to cope with the change, experts said. But for the world's poorest and most vulnerable, the consequences could be devastating. One study concluded that by the middle of the century the phenomenon could put more than a billion additional women and children at risk of iron-deficiency anemia -- a condition that can cause pregnancy complications, developmental problems and even death. Meanwhile, some 2 billion people across the globe who already suffer from some form of nutrient shortage could see their health problems grow even worse. "The scale of the problem is huge," Ebi said. Plants depend on carbon dioxide to perform photosynthesis -- but that doesn't mean they grow better when there's more carbon in the air, scientists say. A sweeping survey of changes among 32 compounds in 43 crops found that nearly every plant that humans eat is harmed by rising CO2 levels. [...] For the past several years, [Sterre F. ter Haar, an environmental scientist at Leiden University in the Netherlands and lead author of the survey] and her colleagues have worked to compile a database of all existing research on nutrient changes linked to rising CO2. They tracked down hundreds of studies, ranging from tightly controlled lab experiments to sprawling global analyses of real-world crops. Next the team used their dataset to calculate the nutritional densities of each crop under different carbon dioxide levels -- and to predict how their composition could continue to shift in the future. On average, they found, nutrients have already decreased by an average 3.2 percent across all plants since the late 1980s, when the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was about 350 parts per million. That figure may seem small, ter Haar said, but with so much of the world already living on the brink of nutrient insufficiency, a drop of just a few percentage points has the potential to push millions of additional people into a health crisis. Researchers are still trying to understand the exact causes of this change. Extra CO2 can make plants grow faster and produce more carbohydrates, but without a matching increase in mineral uptake, nutrients like zinc, iron, and protein become diluted. Higher CO2 also causes plants to open their leaf pores less often, reducing the amount of water -- and dissolved minerals -- they absorb through their roots. At the same time, higher temperatures can further disrupt soil chemistry, affecting how plants take up nutrients and, in some cases, increasing their absorption of harmful substances like arsenic. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Belgium Plans To Nationalize Nuclear Power Plants - Belgium plans to buy its seven aging nuclear reactors from French power giant Engie in a "full takeover" aimed at securing domestic energy supplies, extending reactor operations, and developing new nuclear capacity. "The move would also mean suspending plans to decommission nuclear operations in Belgium," reports the BBC. From the report: The move would reverse the phase-out of nuclear energy legislation approved in the early 2000s amid safety concerns prohibiting the building of new nuclear power plants and limiting the operating lifetimes of existing ones to 40 years. Only two of Belgium's seven nuclear reactors are operational - located at plants in Doel and in Tihange - and their operating licenses were recently extended until 2035. The other five reactors were shut between 2022 and 2025 and plans to dismantle them will now be suspended. Engie and the government said they aim to reach an agreement on the takeover of the nuclear stations by October 1st. In a joint statement with Engie, the Belgian government said the move also highlights its aim to extend operations of existing nuclear reactors and to develop "new nuclear capacity" in Belgium. "By doing so, the Belgian Government is taking responsibility for Belgium's long-term energy future, with the objective of building a financially and economically viable activity that supports security of supply, climate objectives, industrial resilience and socio-economic prosperity," the statement adds. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Musk Concludes Testimony At OpenAI Trial - An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNBC: Elon Musk wrapped up his testimony on Thursday as the trial in his lawsuit against OpenAI CEO Sam Altman continued into its fourth day. OpenAI's attorney, William Savitt, cross-examined Musk in the morning. He asked Musk about the capped nature of Microsoft's investments in OpenAI, his involvement in negotiations about the company's structure, and whether he knew about the OpenAI nonprofit's recent initiatives. "I don't know what's going on at OpenAI," Musk testified. Savitt also asked Musk about his competing artificial intelligence startup, xAI. While not the main focus of the case, Musk said it is "partly" true that xAI used some of OpenAI's models to train its own models, a process known as distilling. Musk also suggested that xAI has used OpenAI's technology to help build the company. Musk sued OpenAI, Altman, and Greg Brockman, the company's president, in 2024, alleging that they went back on their commitments to keep the artificial intelligence company a nonprofit and to follow its charitable mission. He claims that the roughly $38 million he donated to seed OpenAI, a company he co-founded, was used for unauthorized commercial purposes. Once Musk wrapped up his testimony after roughly two hours of questioning on Thursday, his attorneys called Jared Birchall, who manages Musk's billions at his family office, as their next witness. Birchall testified about his knowledge of Musk's specific donations to OpenAI. Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers oversaw the proceedings from federal court in Oakland, California. The trial will resume on Monday. Recap: Elon Musk Says OpenAI Betrayed Him, Clashes With Company's Attorney (Day Three) Musk Testifies OpenAI Was Created As Nonprofit To Counter Google (Day Two) Elon Musk and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman Head To Court (Day One) Read more of this story at Slashdot.

US Senators Ban Themselves From Prediction Markets Trading - The U.S. Senate unanimously passed a rule banning senators from trading on prediction markets effective immediately. CNBC reports: The move came amid rising concern about insider trading on prediction market platforms such as Kalshi and Polymarket, and about event contracts that can involve death or violence. On April 22, Kalshi said it had suspended and fined one U.S. Senate candidate and two candidates for the House of Representatives for political insider trading on their own campaigns. Earlier on Thursday, a group of Democratic members of Congress called on the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to issue a rule "that prevents insider trading and corruption in the market and prohibits event contracts on the outcome of elections, war and military actions in the U.S. or abroad, sports, and government actions without a valid economic hedging interest." Kalshi and Polymarket both praised the Senate's action. "I applaud the Senate for passing this resolution to ban Senators and their offices from trading on prediction markets," Kalshi CEO Tarek Mansour wrote in a post on X. "Kalshi already proactively blocks members of congress and enforces against insider trading. This is a great step to increase trust in our markets by making it an industry standard," Mansour said. "Now, let's pass this in the House!" Polymarket, in its own post on X, said, "We're in full support of this. Our Rulebook & Terms of Service already prohibit such conduct, but codifying this into law is a step forward for the industry. Happy to help move this forward however we can." Read more of this story at Slashdot.