Latest News

Last updated 27 Jan, 01:44 AM

BBC News

Fifty Labour MPs sign letter objecting to Burnham decision - Labour's ruling National Executive Committee blocked the Greater Manchester mayor from standing in a by-election.

Anthony Zurcher: Trump abandons attack mode as Minneapolis shooting backlash grows - The White House has shifted how it talks about Alex Pretti's killing as more Republicans express concern over the deadly encounter.

NI to become first in the UK to introduce graduated driving licences - The new rules will be introduced in October and are described as the most significant reform of driver licensing for 70 years.

Menopause linked to Alzheimer's-like brain changes - Menopause is linked to a loss of grey matter in regions involved with memory and emotion, study suggests.

What to expect from today's Bafta nominations - Emma Stone, Timothée Chalamet and Wunmi Mosaku are among the actors who could be nominated later.

The Register

Vibe coding may be hazardous to open source - Researchers argue AI coding tools disrupt community and hinder returns to maintainers Tailwind Labs CEO Adam Wathan recently blamed AI for forcing him to lay off three workers.…

AWS's inevitable destiny: becoming the next Lumen - The cloud giant talks loudest about what scares it most. Here's what should terrify it For a decade, AWS's position on multi-cloud was clear: don't.…

Canva among ~100 targets of ShinyHunters Okta identity-theft campaign - Atlassian, RingCentral, ZoomInfo also among tech targets ShinyHunters has targeted around 100 organizations in its latest Okta single sign-on (SSO) credential stealing campaign, according to researchers and the criminal group itself.…

How one developer used Claude to build a memory-safe extension of C - Robin Rowe talks about coding, programming education, and China in the age of AI feature TrapC, a memory-safe version of the C programming language, is almost ready for testing.…

Microsoft's Maia 200 promises Blackwell levels of performance for two-thirds the power - Inference-optimized chip 30% cheaper than any other AI silicon on the market today, Azure's Scott Guthrie claims Microsoft on Monday unveiled a new in-house AI accelerator to rival Nvidia's Blackwell GPUs.…

New Scientist - Home

Stick shaped by ancient humans is the oldest known wooden tool - Excavations at an opencast mine in Greece have uncovered two wooden objects more than 400,000 years old that appear to have been fashioned as tools by an unknown species of ancient human

Menstrual pad could give women insights into their changing fertility - A woman's fertility can be partly gauged by levels of a hormone that reflects how many eggs she has. Now, scientists have built a strip that changes colour according to levels of this hormone, which is present in period blood, into a menstrual pad

The best map of dark matter has revealed never-before-seen structures - JWST has created a map of dark matter that is twice as good as anything we have had before, and it may help unravel some of the deepest mysteries of the universe

The daring idea that time is an illusion and how we could prove it - The way time ticks forward in our universe has long stumped physicists. Now, a new set of tools from entangled atoms to black holes promises to reveal time’s true nature

Termination shock could make the cost of climate damage even higher - Solar geoengineering could halve the economic cost of climate change, but stopping it would cause temperatures to rebound sharply, leading to greater damage than unabated global warming

Hacker News

Television is 100 years old today - Comments

AI code and software craft - Comments

ChatGPT Containers can now run bash, pip/npm install packages and download files - Comments

The Hidden Engineering of Runways - Comments

People who know the formula for WD-40 - Comments

Slashdot

Apple Launches AirTag 2 With Improved Range, Louder Speaker - Apple has launched a new AirTag 2 that features improved range, a speaker that's 50% louder, and expanded Apple Watch-based tracking. Pricing stays the same at $29 (or $99 for four). 9to5Mac reports: The new AirTag comes with an upgraded second-generation Ultra Wideband chip for improved range, including when using Precision Finding. From Apple Newsroom: "Apple's second-generation Ultra Wideband chip -- the same chip found in the iPhone 17 lineup, iPhone Air, Apple Watch Ultra 3, and Apple Watch Series 11 -- powers the new AirTag, making it easier to locate than ever before. Using haptic, visual, and audio feedback, Precision Finding guides users to their lost items from up to 50 percent farther away than the previous generation. And an upgraded Bluetooth chip expands the range at which items can be located. For the first time, users can use Precision Finding on Apple Watch Series 9 or later, or Apple Watch Ultra 2 or later, to find their AirTag, bringing a powerful experience to the wrist." Another key upgrade with the new AirTag is an improved speaker, which should also make the accessory easier to find. Apple says: "With its updated internal design, the new AirTag is 50 percent louder than the previous generation, enabling users to hear their AirTag from up to 2x farther than before." Apple also touts privacy and security improvements with the new AirTag: "Designed exclusively for tracking objects, and not people or pets, the new AirTag incorporates a suite of industry-first protections against unwanted tracking, including cross-platform alerts and unique Bluetooth identifiers that change frequently." Read more of this story at Slashdot.

TikTok Alternative 'Skylight' Soars To 380K+ Users After TikTok US Deal Finalized - Skylight, an open-source, TikTok-style video app built on the AT Protocol, surged past 380,000 users after last week's shake-up around TikTok's U.S. ownership and privacy concerns. TechCrunch reports: Launched last year and backed by Mark Cuban and other investors, Skylight's mobile app is built on the AT Protocol, the technology that also powers the decentralized X rival Bluesky, which now has north of 42 million users. Skylight, co-founded by CEO Tori White and CTO Reed Harmeyer, offers a built-in video editor; user profiles; support for likes, commenting, and sharing; and the ability for community curators to create custom feeds for others to follow. The app now has over 150,000 videos uploaded directly to the platform. It can also stream videos from Bluesky because of its AT Protocol integration. Harmeyer said Saturday that 1.4 million videos were played on the app the day before, up 3x over the past 24 hours. The app had also seen sign-ups increase more than 150%. Other noteworthy stats include over a 50% increase in returning users, over 40% rise in video played on average, and over 100% increase in posts created. This surge was likely triggered by concerns over TikTok's change in ownership and its unfortunately timed technical glitches. [...] Over the weekend, Skylight's CEO, Tori White, said the app added around 20,000 new users and is continuing to grow. So far this January, the app has seen around 95,000 monthly active users. "We've seen what happens when one person dictates what's pushed into people's feeds," White told TechCrunch. "Not only does it harm a creator's connection with their followers, but the entire health of the platform. That's why we built Skylight Social on open standards. We wanted creator and user power to be guaranteed by the technology. Not an empty promise, but an irrevocable right." Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Microsoft's Latest AI Chip Claims Performance Edge Over Amazon and Google - An anonymous reader quotes a report from GeekWire: Microsoft on Monday announced Maia 200, the second generation of its custom AI chip, claiming it's the most powerful first-party silicon from any major cloud provider. The company says Maia 200 delivers three times the performance of Amazon's latest Trainium chip on certain benchmarks, and exceeds Google's most recent tensor processing unit (TPU) on others. The chip is already running workloads at Microsoft's data center near Des Moines, Iowa. Microsoft says Maia 200 is powering OpenAI's GPT-5.2 models, Microsoft 365 Copilot, and internal projects from its Superintelligence team. A second deployment at a data center near Phoenix is planned next. It's part of the larger trend among cloud giants to build their own custom silicon for AI rather than rely solely on Nvidia. [...] The company says Maia 200 offers 30% better performance-per-dollar than its current hardware. Maia 200 also builds on the first-generation chip with a more specific focus on inference, the process of running AI models after they've been trained. [...] Microsoft is also opening the door to outside developers. The company announced a software development kit that will let AI startups and researchers optimize their models for Maia 200. Developers and academics can sign up for an early preview starting today. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

California Tech CEO and EV Pioneer Arrested, Accused of Murder - California tech executive Gordon Abas Goodarzi has been arrested and charged with murder in the death of his estranged wife, Aryan Papoli, whose body was found last November down an embankment off Highway 138 in San Bernardino County. Authorities initially believed the injuries were consistent with a fall, but the case was later ruled a homicide following a months-long investigation by the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department. "Arrest records show that Goodarzi is currently in custody without bail and faces a murder charge and that he is set to appear in court Monday," reports SFGATE. From the report: Goodarzi, a California tech executive with ties to BattleBots, is publicly listed as the president and CEO of Magmotor, which describes itself as a "proud" supporter of the combat robot community and claims to support several teams each year. According to his LinkedIn, Goodarzi also previously worked as a research affiliate at UCLA's B. John Garrick Institute for the Risk Sciences since 2023. Originally from Iran, Papoli and Goodarzi settled in Los Angeles County's verdant Rolling Hills community because of its tranquility and natural beauty, Papoli previously wrote. [...] She described her husband, Goodarzi, as a pioneer in the world of renewable energy, developing both electric and hybrid vehicles since the 1980s. According to Papoli, he also worked as the technical director at Hughes Electronics, which developed and manufactured the EV1, an early iteration of the electric car, in the 1990s. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Gemini In Google Calendar Now Helps You Find the Best Meeting Time For All Attendees - Google is adding Gemini-powered "Suggested times" to Google Calendar, automatically scanning attendees' calendars to surface the best meeting slots based on availability, work hours, and conflicts. The feature also streamlines rescheduling with one-click alternatives when invitees decline. Digital Trends reports: According to a recent post on the Workspace Updates blog, Gemini in Google Calendar can now help you quickly identify optimal meeting times when creating an event, as long as you have access to the attendees' calendars. The new "Suggested times" feature scans everyone's calendars and highlights the best time slots based on availability, working hours, and potential conflicts, eliminating the need to manually check schedules. Google has also made rescheduling simpler. The company explains that if multiple attendees decline your invite, you'll see a banner in the event showing a time when everyone is available, letting you update the invite with a single click. The feature is being rolled out starting today to eligible Workspace tiers. It will be enabled by default and is expected to reach all eligible users over the next few weeks. Read more of this story at Slashdot.