Latest News

Last updated 14 Mar, 08:37 AM

BBC News

Chancellor to offer support over rising heating oil costs - Rachel Reeves says the Treasury is also looking at "different options" to help households most vulnerable to soaring energy bills.

Doomed hereditary peers spy chance to stay in the Lords - The Tories are deciding which hereditary peers to keep after being offered 15 seats in a compromise deal.

Rescuers blame weather and 'underprepared skiers' for rise in Alps avalanche deaths - The BBC joins a French Alps rescue team as the number of skiers killed this season passes 100.

'We're not profiteering on fuel. But my staff still face abuse' - Independent retailer Goran Raven says the higher oil price is "horrific" for him as well as his customers.

Under drone fire, exiled Kurds wait to confront Iranian regime - A group of fighters based in Iraq say they are "ready to go home", as they face drone attacks from Tehran.

The Register

Claude charts a new course with charts, of course - Conversations with Anthropic's models may now be accompanied by interactive apps Seeing is believing, or so it was said up until AI required questioning everything. But even when braced to resist the slop roulette of online interaction, pictures are worth a thousand tokens.…

GitHub infuriates students by removing some models from free Copilot plan - Coding education may become a bit more challenging, but the economics lesson is free You don't get what you don't pay for! Microsoft's GitHub is dialing back on expenses by removing several costly premium models from its free GitHub Copilot Student plan.…

AFRINIC accuses litigant of trying to ‘paralyse’ it - A 'web of litigation' The African Network Information Centre (AFRINIC) has accused one its members of trying to "paralyse" the organization.…

'Are you freaking crazy?' Bot harasses woman, gets led away by cops - An incident in Macau A 70-year old woman in China loudly shouted at a robot to leave her alone, but the bot instead stood its ground and did a “raise the roof” move when the woman called it “freaking crazy.”…

Credential-stealing crew spoofs VPN clients from Cisco, Fortinet, and others - And then they send victims to the legit VPN download to hide their tracks A group of cybercriminals tracked as Storm-2561 is using fake enterprise VPN clients from CheckPoint, Cisco, Fortinet, Ivanti, and other vendors to steal users' credentials, according to Microsoft.…

New Scientist - Home

A smartphone app can help men last longer in bed - In a randomised trial, men who experience premature ejaculation benefitted from using an app to learn techniques for extending intercourse

Frailty sets in far earlier than you’d expect, but you can reverse it - We’re learning that frailty can quietly arrive decades before old age, with some people in their 30s or 40s unknowingly in a pre-frail state. There are surprising ways to stay strong – and it’s not all about weight training

Our extinct Australopithecus relatives may have had difficult births - Simulations of Australopithecus hominins’ anatomy suggest that when they gave birth, they may have exerted tremendous pressure on their pelvic floors, putting them at risk of tearing

The 3 things you need to know about passwords, from a security expert - There are a few simple things you can do to make your digital life much more secure, says cybersecurity expert Jake Moore - follow these tips to tighten up your passwords

Single-celled organism with no brain is capable of Pavlovian learning - A trumpet-shaped, single-celled organism seems able to predict one thing will follow another, hinting that such associative learning emerged long before multicellular nervous systems

Hacker News

1M context is now generally available for Opus 4.6 and Sonnet 4.6 - Comments

A Survival Guide to a PhD (2016) - Comments

Emacs and Vim in the Age of AI - Comments

Qatar helium shutdown puts chip supply chain on a two-week clock - Comments

You gotta think outside the hypercube - Comments

Slashdot

Two Long-Lost Episodes of 'Doctor Who' Found - Longtime Slashdot reader tsuliga writes: Two new episodes of Doctor Who that were previously lost have been found. The original Doctor Who episodes were wiped or deleted by the BBC because they were not aware of the future use of re-runs of these shows. Ninety-five of the 253 episodes from the program's first six years are currently missing. How many more episodes are out there waiting to be rediscovered? "The main broadcasters in the UK in the 1960s, 70s, up to the 80s really, junked quite a lot of content," said Justin Smith, a cinema professor at England's De Montfort University and film archivist. "In some ways finding missing 'Doctor Whos' is the holy grail" of classic TV discoveries, Smith said. The two episodes were "The Nightmare Begins" and "Devil's Planet," both of which aired during the show's third series in 1965. It features William Hartnell as the Doctor in a story involving archvillains the Daleks -- pepperpot-shaped metal aggressors whose favorite word is "Exterminate!" Smith said that for fans of the show, "it's got it all, it really has. It is intergalactic, it's got some great performances. It stands up really, really well." Read more of this story at Slashdot.

ChatGPT, Other Chatbots Approved For Official Use In the Senate - An anonymous reader quotes a report from the New York Times: A top Senate administrator on Monday gave aides the green light to use three artificial intelligence chatbots for official work, a reflection of how widespread the use of the products has become in workplaces around the globe. The chief information officer for the Senate sergeant-at-arms, who oversees the chamber's computers as well as security, said in a one-page memo reviewed by The New York Times that aides could use Google's Gemini chat, OpenAI's ChatGPT or Microsoft Copilot, which is already integrated into Senate platforms. Copilot "can help with routine Senate work, including drafting and editing documents, summarizing information, preparing talking points and briefing material, and conducting research and analysis," the memo said. The document later added that "data shared with Copilot Chat stays within the secure Microsoft 365 Government environment and is protected by the same controls that safeguard other Senate data." It's unclear how widely AI is used in the Senate or how widespread it might become, as individual offices and committees set their own rules. The chamber has also not publicly released comprehensive guidance on chatbots, the report notes. In contrast, the House has clearer policies allowing the general use of AI for limited internal tasks but restricting it from sensitive data or for being used for deepfakes and certain decision-making activities. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Instagram Discontinues End-To-End Encryption For DMs - Meta plans to remove end-to-end encryption (E2EE) from Instagram direct messages by May 8, 2026. "Very few people were opting in to end-to-end encrypted messaging in DMs, so we're removing this option from Instagram in the coming months," says Meta. "Anyone who wants to keep messaging with end-to-end encryption can easily do that on WhatsApp." The Hacker News reports: The American company first began testing E2EE for Instagram direct messages in 2021 as part of CEO Mark Zuckerberg's "privacy-focused vision for social networking." The feature is currently "only available in some areas" and is not enabled by default. Weeks into the Russo-Ukrainian war in February 2022, the company made encrypted direct messaging available to all adult users in both countries. Last week, TikTok said it would not introduce E2EE, arguing it makes users less safe by preventing police and safety teams from being able to read direct messages if needed. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Qatar Helium Shutdown Puts Chip Supply Chain On a Two-Week Clock - Iranian drone strikes shut down a major helium facility in Qatar, removing about 30% of global helium supply and raising concerns for the semiconductor industry, which relies on the gas for chip fabrication. "QatarEnergy declared force majeure on existing contracts on March 4, freeing it from supply obligations to customers," reports Tom's Hardware. The industry outlet Gasworld reports that no imminent restart is planned. From the report: Helium consultant Phil Kornbluth, speaking at a Gasworld webinar on March 4, said that if the outage extends beyond roughly two weeks, industrial gas distributors could be forced to relocate cryogenic equipment and revalidate supplier relationships, a process that could stretch over months regardless of when Qatari output resumes. South Korea is among the most exposed countries, which, according to the Korea International Trade Association, imported 64.7% of its helium from Qatar in 2025. The country relies heavily on helium imports to cool silicon wafers during fabrication and is understood to have no viable substitute. The country's Ministry of Trade, Industry and Resources has reportedly launched an investigation into supply and demand for 14 semiconductor materials and equipment types with high dependence on Middle Eastern sources, Nikkei reported on Wednesday. Bromine, which is used in circuit formation, is another big concern, with South Korea sourcing 90% of its imports from Israel, also party to the ongoing conflict in Iran. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Don't Get Used To Cheap AI - AI services may not stay cheap for long, as companies like OpenAI and Anthropic are currently subsidizing usage to rapidly grow market share. As these companies move toward profitability and potential IPOs, Axios reports that investors will likely push them to increase prices and improve margins. An anonymous reader shares an excerpt from the report: Flashback: Silicon Valley has seen this movie before. The so-called "millennial lifestyle subsidy" meant VC money helped underwrite cheap Uber rides and DoorDash deliveries. Before that, Amazon built its base with low prices, free shipping and, for years, no sales tax in most states. Eventually, all of these companies had to charge enough to cover costs -- and make a profit. Follow the money: The current iteration of AI subsidies won't last forever. Both OpenAI and Anthropic are widely expected to go public. Public investors will demand earnings growth and expanding margins. Even as chips get more efficient, total spending keeps rising. Labs need more capacity, more upgrades and more supply to meet demand. The bottom line: The costs of AI will keep going down. But total spend from customers will need to keep going up if AI companies are going to become profitable and investors are ever going to get returns on their massive investments. Read more of this story at Slashdot.