Latest News

Last updated 10 Mar, 10:32 AM

BBC News

Five Iranian footballers granted Australian visas after anthem protest - Concern has grown for team after one critic called them "wartime traitors" for failing to salute during the Iranian anthem.

Mixed messages from Trump leave more questions than answers over war's end - The US president has tried to soothe nerves over oil and markets, but his comments still lack clarity, writes Anthony Zurcher.

Chris Mason: The cost of living is catapulted centre stage yet again - Labour faces pressure to stem the Middle East's impact on energy bills, writes the BBC's political editor.

US missile hit military base near Iran school, video analysis shows - A US Tomahawk missile hit a military base near a primary school in southern Iran where Iranian authorities said 168 people were killed, expert video analysis shows.

Why the price of oil matters more than you might think - A shock to oil supplies is rattling financial markets, driving up prices at the pump and raising fears of a bigger economic hit.

The Register

Mystery outage behind US airline JetBlue asking FAA to ground its flights - Aircraft on the ground briefly halted until systems were up again JetBlue took the unusual step of requesting a ground stop for all flights this morning, with the US airline resuming operations less than an hour later and blaming the stop on "a brief system outage."…

Brit competition cops warn AI agents may not be 'faithful servants' to consumers - Autonomous assistants could manipulate choices, push pricier deals, and prioritize their creators Britain's competition watchdog says the next wave of agentic AI assistants could end up nudging people toward worse deals, manipulating choices, or quietly prioritizing the interests of the companies behind them.…

Xen Project quietly announced five years of support for all releases - As Citrix slips out a preview of Xen Server 9, the release that brings it back to the V12N mainstream The Xen Project has decided to support all releases of its flagship hypervisor for five years, and one of the first beneficiaries of the change is Citrix, which has delivered a preview of XenServer 9 – the release that will take the product back into the mainstream virtualization market.…

SETI admits its search for alien life may be too narrowly focussed - Solar winds near aliens’ homes – and ours – might be blowing away signs of alien technosignatures by broadening signals The SETI Institute, the nonprofit that conducts a search for extraterrestrial intelligence by examining radio waves for artefacts that are unlikely to be the result of natural processes, thinks it may have been going about it the wrong way.…

HPE tweaks T&Cs so the price it quotes may not be the price you pay - With memory and storage contributing over half the price of a server, Big Green needs to protect its margins HPE has changed its terms and conditions in ways that allow it to change hardware prices after it’s issued a quote, due to rampant storage and memory price rises.…

New Scientist - Home

Why is black rain falling on Iran and how dangerous is it? - US-Israeli strikes on oil facilities have caused black rain to fall on Tehran, but the black smoke filling the air is likely to be a bigger health risk

We’ve only just confirmed that Homo habilis really existed - Their species name is well known, but until recently we’ve understood very little for certain about Homo habilis. Columnist Michael Marshall reveals what new fossils are telling us about the hominins that have been considered the first humans

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

A daily multivitamin may slightly slow rates of ageing - Taking a multivitamin every day might slightly slow the rate of ageing, but the extent to which this is relevant to our health is unclear

'Singing' dogs may show the evolutionary roots of musicality - Some Samoyeds adjust the pitch of their howls depending on the music being played, showing a form of vocal ability they might have inherited from their wolf ancestors

Hacker News

Redox OS has adopted a Certificate of Origin policy and a strict no-LLM policy - Comments

Lotus 1-2-3 on the PC with DOS - Comments

Two Years of Emacs Solo - Comments

LoGeR – 3D reconstruction from extremely long videos (DeepMind, UC Berkeley) - Comments

Building a Procedural Hex Map with Wave Function Collapse - Comments

Slashdot

FBI Investigates Breach That May Have Hit Its Wiretapping Tools - The FBI is investigating a breach affecting systems tied to wiretapping and surveillance warrant data, after abnormal logs revealed possible unauthorized access to law-enforcement-sensitive information. "The FBI identified and addressed suspicious activities on FBI networks, and we have leveraged all technical capabilities to respond," a spokesperson for the bureau said. "We have nothing additional to provide." The Register reports: [W]hile the FBI declined to provide any additional information, it's worth noting that China's Salt Typhoon previously compromised wiretapping systems used by law enforcement. Salt Typhoon is the PRC-backed crew that famously hacked major US telecommunications firms and stole information belonging to nearly every American. According to the Associated Press, the FBI notified Congress that it began investigating the breach on February 17 after spotting abnormal log information related to a system on its network. "The affected system is unclassified and contains law enforcement sensitive information, including returns from legal process, such as pen register and trap and trace surveillance returns, and personally identifiable information pertaining to subjects of FBI investigations," the notification said. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Startup Wants To Launch a Space Mirror - A startup called Reflect Orbital wants to launch thousands of mirror-bearing satellites to reflect sunlight onto Earth at night and "power solar farms after sunset, provide lighting for rescue workers and illuminate city streets, among other things," reports the New York Times. From the report: It is an idea seemingly out of a sci-fi movie, but the company, Reflect Orbital of Hawthorne, Calif., could soon receive permission to launch its first prototype satellite with a 60-foot-wide mirror. The company has applied to the Federal Communications Commission, which issues the licenses needed to deploy satellites. If the F.C.C. approves, the test satellite could get a ride into orbit as soon as this summer. The F.C.C.'s public comment period on the application closes on Monday. "We're trying to build something that could replace fossil fuels and really power everything," Ben Nowack, Reflect Orbital's chief executive, said in an interview. The company has raised more than $28 million from investors. [...] Reflect Orbital's first prototype, which will be roughly the size of a dorm fridge, is almost complete. Once in space, about 400 miles up, the test satellite would unfurl a square mirror nearly 60 feet wide. That would bounce sunlight to illuminate a circular patch about three miles wide on the Earth's surface. Someone looking up would see a dot in the sky about as bright as a full moon. Two more prototypes could follow within a year. By the end of 2028, Reflect Orbital hopes to launch 1,000 larger satellites, and 5,000 of them by 2030. The largest mirrors are planned to be nearly 180 feet wide, reflecting as much light as 100 full moons. The company said its goal was to deploy the full constellation of 50,000 satellites by 2035. How much does it cost to order sunlight at night? Mr. Nowack said the company would charge about $5,000 an hour for the light of one mirror if a customer signed an annual contract for 1,000 hours or more. Lighting for one-time events and emergencies, which might require numerous satellites and more effort to coordinate, would be more expensive. For solar farms, he envisions splitting revenue from the electricity generated by the additional hours of light. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

European Consortium Wants Open-Source Alternative To Google Play Integrity - An anonymous reader quotes a report from Heise: Pay securely with an Android smartphone, completely without Google services: This is the plan being developed by the newly founded industry consortium led by the German Volla Systeme GmbH. It is an open-source alternative to Google Play Integrity. This proprietary interface decides on Android smartphones with Google Play services whether banking, government, or wallet apps are allowed to run on a smartphone. Obstacles and tips for paying with an Android smartphone without official Google services have been highlighted by c't in a comprehensive article. The European industry consortium now wants to address some problems mentioned. To this end, the group, which includes Murena, which develops the hardened custom ROM /e/OS, Iode from France, and Apostrophy (Dot) from Switzerland, in addition to Volla, is developing a so-called "UnifiedAttestation" for Google-free mobile operating systems, primarily based on the Android Open-Source Project (AOSP). According to Volla, a European manufacturer and a leading manufacturer from Asia, as well as European foundations such as the German UBports Foundation, have also expressed interest in supporting it. Furthermore, developers and publishers of government apps from Scandinavia are examining the use of the new procedure as "first movers." In its announcement, Volla explains that Google provides app developers with an interface called Play Integrity, which checks whether an app is running on a device with specific security requirements. This primarily affects applications from "sensitive areas such as identity verification, banking, or digital wallets -- including apps from governments and public administrations". The company criticizes that the certification is exclusively offered for Google's own proprietary "Stock Android" but not for Android versions without Google services, such as /e/OS or similar custom ROMs. "Since this is closely intertwined with Google services and Google data centers, a structural dependency arises -- and for alternative operating systems, a de facto exclusion criterion," the company states. From the consortium's perspective, this also leads to a "security paradox," because "the check of trustworthiness is carried out by precisely that entity whose ecosystem is to be avoided at the same time". The UnifiedAttestation system is built around three main components: an "operating system service" that apps can call to check whether the device's OS meets required security standards, a decentralized validation service that verifies the OS certificate on a device without relying on a single central authority, and an open test suite used to evaluate and certify that a particular operating system works securely on a specific device model. "We don't want to centralize trust, but organize it transparently and publicly verifiable. When companies check competitors' products, we can strengthen that trust," says Dr. Jorg Wurzer, CEO of Volla Systeme GmbH and initiator of the consortium. The goal is to increase digital sovereignty and break free from the control of any one, single U.S. company, he says. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Samsung Wants To Let You Vibe Code Your Galaxy Phone Experience - Samsung says it's thinking about bringing "vibe coding" to future Galaxy phones, allowing users to describe apps or interface changes in plain language and have AI generate the code. TechRadar interviewed Won-Joon Choi, Samsung's head of mobile experience, to learn more about the plans. Here's an excerpt from their report: As noted by Won-Joon Choi, the usefulness of vibe coding on smartphones is that it opens up the "possibility of customizing your smartphone experience in new ways, not just your apps but your UX." He added, "Right now we're limited to premade tools, but with vibe coding, users could adjust their favorite apps or make something customized to their needs. So vibe coding is very interesting, and something we're looking into." [...] Samsung recently debuted the Galaxy S26 series of phones and made a point to not call them smartphones -- they're "AI phones" now. This certainly rang true with the majority of upgrades to the devices being AI software-focused, like the new Now Nudge and expanded Audio Eraser tools, with the biggest hardware bump for the base models coming via the 39% improved NPU processing (the processor in charge of on-device AI tasks). It also teased the debut of Perplexity on its phones, joining as an alternative to the Gemini assistant, and teased the possibility of other AI models getting the same treatment in the future. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

EA Lays Off Staff Across All Battlefield Studios Following Record-Breaking Battlefield 6 Launch - Electronic Arts has laid off staff across multiple Battlefield studios despite Battlefield 6 being the best-selling game in the U.S. in 2025 and the "biggest launch in franchise history." According to IGN, the layoffs include workers at Criterion, Dice, Ripple Effect, and Motive Studios. From the report: Individuals are being informed that the layoffs are taking place as part of a "realignment" across the Battlefield studios, as the team continues its ongoing, live service support for Battlefield 6 following launch. All four studios will remain operational, though the layoffs seem to be impacting a variety of teams across multiple studios and offices. IGN asked EA for comment on total number and types of roles impacted, as well as for the specific reasons for the layoffs. An EA spokesperson told IGN: "We've made select changes within our Battlefield organization to better align our teams around what matters most to our community. Battlefield remains one of our biggest priorities, and we're continuing to invest in the franchise, guided by player feedback and insights from Battlefield Labs." Read more of this story at Slashdot.