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Last updated 11 Apr, 01:07 AM

BBC News

Back to Earth: What happens to the Artemis II astronauts now? - The astronauts will have medical checks and will be reunited with their families.

Artemis II mission was a triumph. Now comes the hard part - The mission was almost flawless but there are considerable obstacles ahead before a Moon landing.

The five big sticking points in US-Iran talks - Peace talks between the US and Iran are due to begin in Pakistan on Saturday.

British man, 77, dies after tourist bus crashes in Canary Islands - The vehicle fell from a height of 10m near the San Sebastián de La Gomera, according to Spanish news outlet El Mundo.

UK shelves Chagos deal after Trump opposition - UK government officials say they are not entirely abandoning the agreement but have run out of time.

The Register

Snowflake manager explains the 'Spider-Man' theory of AI agent data access - With access to great data comes great responsibility Snowflake is betting that the biggest bottleneck to building more and better AI agents isn't the models themselves but whether the data those agents depend on is clean, accessible, and governed, Snowflake’s director of product management James Rowland-Jones told The Register.…

Here's how to watch the Artemis II splashdown - Crew went farther from Earth than any humans we know about, now they’re coming back! In a world wracked by wars, beset by difficult economic conditions, and struggling with exploding RAM costs, there's one piece of good news. NASA's Artemis II mission has been an unqualified success, having carried four astronauts farther from Earth than any humans before them.…

Red Hat RHELocates its Chinese engineering team to India - Hundreds of layoffs, but this smells of geopolitics, not downsizing Red Hat appears to have fired its entire engineering team in China, which it no longer thinks is a country it needs to prioritize. Most of the team will move to India.…

Microsoft's Copilot strategy is just more user abuse from Redmond, says Mozilla - Firefox maker warns old web tactics are now shaping AI at the expense of user choice Firefox-maker Mozilla is calling out Microsoft after Redmond said it would scale back some Copilot features in Windows, arguing the rollback shows the company pushed AI too far without enough regard for user choice.…

Electronics industry says FCC's foreign-made router policy is a bit of a mesh - Trade group warns onshoring demands will leave Americans stuck with older gear The Global Electronics Association (GEA) warns that the US ban on foreign-made network routers is impractical because few are made domestically, leaving consumers with little choice and delaying access to next-gen products, just as Wi-Fi 7 adoption should be ramping up.…

New Scientist - Home

Tweaking the smell of cat food can encourage fussy felines to eat - Some cats will suddenly refuse to touch brands of cat food that they have eaten for years. Changing the way the food smells might solve the problem

Hidden fossils reveal secrets of oceans before major mass extinction - A handful of plankton fossils buried in a small chunk of rock show that the oceans were teeming with life before the Late Ordovician mass extinction, the second most severe on record

The secret project to settle controversial maths proof with a computer - Working in secret for more than two years, a group of mathematicians has set out to resolve of the longest and most bitter battles in modern mathematics

Quantum batteries could be charged by reversing time - Physicists have shown how time can effectively be reversed for some quantum systems, which would allow for new ways to harvest energy

The man who ruined mathematics - The incompleteness theorem is accepted as part of the mathematical canon today, but columnist Jacob Aron says it was a bombshell when Kurt Gödel first introduced it. Gödel’s seminal work directly contradicted one of the great minds of mathematics and limited the field forever

Hacker News

Filing the corners off my MacBooks - Comments

Artemis II safely splashes down - Comments

Chimpanzees in Uganda locked in eight-year 'civil war', say researchers - Comments

1D Chess - Comments

Installing Every* Firefox Extension - Comments

Slashdot

Artemis II Astronauts Splash Down Off California's Coast - NASA's Artemis II crew safely splashed down off the California coast after completing a 10-day trip around the moon and back. "This is not just an accomplishment for NASA," sad NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman. "This is an accomplishment for humanity, again, a historic mission to the moon and back." From a report: Isaacman is aboard the USS John. P Murtha Navy recovery vessel, where the astronauts will be brought once they've been retrieved from the Orion capsule, and he shared "there is a lot to celebrate right now on on a mission well accomplished for Artemis II." Isaacman also complimented the crew as "absolutely professional astronauts, wonderful communicators and almost poets" "" as well as "ambassadors from humanity to the stars." "I can't imagine a better crew than the Artemis II crew that just completed a perfect mission right now. We are back in the business of sending astronauts to the moon and bringing them back safely. This is just the beginning. We are going to get back into doing this with frequency, sending missions to the moon until we land on it in 2028 and start building our base." Isaacman also said it's time to start preparing for Artemis III, expected to launch in 2027. You can watch the moment of the splashdown here. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Chimpanzees In Uganda Locked In Vicious 'Civil War', Say Researchers - Researchers say the world's largest known wild chimpanzee community in Uganda fractured into rival factions and has been locked in a vicious "civil war" for the last eight years. "It is not clear exactly why the once close-knit community of Ngogo chimpanzees at Uganda's Kibale National Park are at loggerheads, but since 2018 the scientists have recorded 24 killings, including 17 infants," reports the BBC. From the report: [O]ver several decades, [lead author Aaron Sandel] said the nearly 200 Ngogo chimpanzees had lived in harmony. There were divided into two sets - known to researchers as Western and Central - but they had existed overall as a cohesive group. Sandel said he first noticed them polarizing in June 2015, when the Western chimpanzees ran away and were chased by the Central group. "Chimpanzees are sort of melodramatic," he said, explaining that following arguments there would ordinarily be "screaming and chasing" and then later, they would grooming and co-operating. But following the 2015 dispute, the researchers saw that there was a six-week avoidance period between the two sets, with interactions becoming more infrequent. When they did occur, Sandel said they were "a little more intense, a little more aggressive." Following the emergence of the two distinct groups in 2018, members of the Western group started attacking the Central chimpanzees. In 24 targeted attacks since the split, at least seven adult males and 17 infants from the Central chimps have been killed, the study found, although the researchers believe the actual number of deaths are higher. The researchers believe many factors such as the group size and subsequent competition of resources, and "male-male competition" for reproducing may be to blame. But they say there were three likely catalysts: - The first, were the deaths of five adult males and one adult female -- for reasons unknown -- in 2014, which could have disrupted social networks and weakened social ties across the subgroups - The following year, there was a change in the alpha male, which the study says coincided with the first period of separation between the Western and Central groups. "Changes in the dominance hierarchy can increase aggression and avoidance in chimpanzees," it explained - The third factor was the deaths of 25 chimpanzees, including four adult males and 10 adult females, as a result of a respiratory epidemic, in 2017, a year before the final separation. One of the adult males who died was "among the last individuals to connect the groups," the research paper said. The study has been published in the journal Science. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

EU Parliament Fails To Renew Loophole Allowing Tech Firms To Report Abuse - Bruce66423 shares a report from the Guardian: The European parliament has blocked the extension of a law that permits big tech firms to scan for child sexual exploitation on their platforms, creating a legal gap that child safety experts say will lead to crimes going undetected. The law, which was a carve-out of the EU Privacy Act, was put in place in 2021 as a temporary measure allowing companies to use automated detection technologies to scan messages for harms, including child sexual abuse material (CSAM), grooming and sextortion. However, it expired on April 3, and the EU parliament decided not to vote to extend it, amid privacy concerns from some lawmakers. The regulatory gap has created uncertainty for big tech companies, because while scanning for harms on their platforms is now illegal, they still remain liable to remove any illegal content hosted on their platforms under a different law, the Digital Services Act. Google, Meta, Snap and Microsoft said they would continue to voluntarily scan their platforms for CSAM, in a joint statement posted on a Google blog. Bruce66423 adds: "Child abuse as the excuse for avoiding privacy protections. Who would have thought it?" Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Suspect Arrested for Allegedly Throwing Molotov Cocktail at Sam Altman's Home - San Francisco police arrested a suspect after a Molotov cocktail was allegedly thrown at Sam Altman's home and threats were later made outside OpenAI's headquarters. "Thankfully, no one was hurt," said OpenAI in a statement to WIRED. "We deeply appreciate how quickly SFPD responded and the support from the city in helping keep our employees safe. The individual is in custody, and we're assisting law enforcement with their investigation." From the report: "At approximately 3:45am PT, an unidentified individual approached Sam's residence and threw an incendiary device toward the property. The device landed nearby and extinguished. There were no injuries and only minimal damage was reported," the message to staff reads. "Shortly afterward, an individual matching the suspect's description was contacted by security outside MB1," the message continues, referring to OpenAI's headquarters in San Francisco's Mission Bay neighborhood. "This person made threatening statements about the building." OpenAI's corporate security team told staff it is cooperating with law enforcement on an investigation, and that employees may notice an increased police and security presence around the office on Friday. The security team said that the company's offices remain open, but employees were advised to "not let anyone tailgate into the building." Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Microsoft Begins Removing Copilot Branding From Windows 11 Apps - Microsoft has started stripping Copilot branding out of Notepad in Windows 11, replacing the old Copilot menu with a more generic "writing tools" label. The AI features themselves aren't going away, but Microsoft seems to be backing off the heavy-handed Copilot branding and extra entry points. Windows Central reports: As promised, Microsoft is now beginning its effort to reduce and remove Copilot branding across Windows 11, with the latest Notepad update for Insiders outright removing the Copilot icon and phrasing. Now, the AI menu is simply called "writing tools," and maintains the same functionality as before. Additionally, Microsoft has also removed references to AI in the Settings area in Notepad. Now, the ability to turn on or off these AI powered writing tools are now listed under "Advanced features." This change is present in the latest preview build of Notepad which is now rolling out to all Windows Insiders. The app version is 11.2512.28.0, and you'll know you have it if you see the Copilot icon replaced with a pen icon instead. [...] For Notepad, it appears Microsoft has opted to replace the Copilot menu with something more generic. It's still the same functionally, but it's no longer leaning on the tainted Copilot brand. Of course, you can still easily turn off all AI features in Notepad if you don't want them. The Verge reports that the "unnecessary Copilot buttons" are also disappearing from the Snipping Tool, Photos, and Widgets. Read more of this story at Slashdot.