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Last updated 07 May, 09:37 AM

BBC News

Two Britons self-isolating in UK after leaving hantavirus cruise ship - A British man is among three people evacuated from the ship while two other Britons are self-isolating in the UK.

Iran considering US proposal as Trump says war will be 'over quickly' - Mediator Pakistan says it is "endeavouring to convert this ceasefire into a permanent end to this war".

The AI fitness instructors selling unreal gains - A BBC Sport investigation finds misleading adverts for fitness apps that use AI-generated instructors to make exaggerated claims.

Watch: Drone delivers first Amazon parcels in UK - The tech giant says it hopes to slowly expand the service as the demand for ultra-fast deliveries grows.

Serving Met officer and four ex-officers investigated for handling of Al Fayed allegations - A serving officer and four former officers are being investigated over the handling of reports against the businessman.

www.theregister.com - Articles

Chrome silently installs a 4 GB local LLM on your computer - You did remember to opt out of AI, didn't you?

Home Office seeks three CTOs to keep borders, passports, and core IT ticking - Roles span eGates, passports, visas, asylum applications, and enterprise services – yours for up to £105K

Minister gives Palantir's NHS platform a clean bill of health - £330M contract defended as value for money despite concerns over IP and lock-in

Neocloud IREN buys OpenStack champion Mirantis - Former bitcoin miner plans to build an easier cloudy AI on ramp while remaining a friend to FOSS

Datacenter to become Arm’s biggest business ‘soon’ - Someone other than Meta is buying $1bn of its new AGI chips

New Scientist - Home

What to read this week: the excellent Beyond Belief by Helen Pearson - Solving society's problems with evidence is a work in progress, argues a must-read new book. The process is surprisingly new – and riddled with complexities, finds Michael Marshall

Less nostalgia, more pain: scientists study 1763 Eurovision songs - Feedback discovers that the prevailing themes of Eurovision songs may come and go, but the urge to win stays the same.

What to read this week: The 21st Century Brain by Hannah Critchlow - Our brains need to adapt quickly to meet the challenges of our digital world, but a rigorous new book by a neuroscientist brings hope that we can do it, says Graham Lawton

Pressure from individual particles measured for the first time - A device made using a tiny bead floating in a beam of light can measure extremely small pressures and could help find a mysterious kind of neutrino

Dating over 50 is probably on the rise – but we know little about it - Research into dating has until now almost exclusively focused on younger people, but we’re finally beginning to investigate how romance changes in later life

Hacker News

Making LLM Training Faster with Unsloth and NVIDIA - Comments

Valve releases Steam Controller CAD files under Creative Commons license - Comments

Appearing productive in the workplace - Comments

Permacomputing Principles - Comments

SQLite Is a Library of Congress Recommended Storage Format - Comments

Slashdot

Single Dose of Magic Mushroom Psychedelic Can Cause Anatomical Brain Changes - A small study found that a single 25mg dose of psilocybin produced measurable brain changes that were still visible a month later, along with reported improvements in psychological insight, wellbeing, and mental flexibility. The Guardian reports: Evidence for the changes came from specialized scans that measured the diffusion of water along nerve bundles in the brain. They suggested that some nerve tracts had become denser and more robust after the drug was taken. While the findings are preliminary, the scientists said the opposite was seen in ageing and dementia. "It's remarkable to see potential anatomical brain changes one month after a single dose of any drug," said Prof Robin Carhart-Harris, a neurologist at the University of California, San Francisco, and senior author on the study. "We don't yet know what these changes mean, but we do note that overall, people showed positive psychological changes in this study, including improved wellbeing and mental flexibility." [...] Writing in Nature Communications, the researchers describe another key finding. Those who had the largest spike in brain entropy after psilocybin were most likely to report deeper psychological insight and better wellbeing a month later, underlining the link between flexible thinking and improved mental health. "It suggests a psychobiological therapeutic action for psilocybin," said Carhart-Harris. Prof Alex Kwan, a neuroscientist at Cornell University in New York, said studies in mice had shown that psychedelics can rewire connections between nerves, a form of "plasticity" that could underlie their therapeutic effects. The big question is whether the same occurs in humans. "This study comes closer than most to addressing that question, by giving evidence of lasting changes in brain structure after psychedelic use," he said. But while the results were "exciting," the study involved a small number of people and DTI provides an indirect and limited view of brain connections, he said. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Sam Altman's Management Style Comes Under the Microscope At OpenAI Trial - Sam Altman's management style came under scrutiny on the seventh day of Elon Musk's high-stakes OpenAI trial, as former OpenAI figures Mira Murati, Shivon Zilis, and Helen Toner took the stand to testify about their experiences working with him. Their testimony resurfaced many of the criticisms that first emerged during Altman's brief ouster as CEO in 2023. An anonymous reader quotes a report from Business Insider: The first witness was Mira Murati, OpenAI's former chief technology officer and now founder of her own AI shop, Thinking Machines Lab. Jurors watched a recorded video deposition of Murati, who was also OpenAI's interim CEO after the board briefly ousted Sam Altman. Murati's testimony focused on her concerns about Altman's "difficult and chaotic" management style. She said Altman had trouble "making decisions on big controversial things." He also had a habit of telling people what they wanted to hear. "My concern was about Sam saying one thing to one person and a completely different thing to another person, and that makes it a very difficult and chaotic environment to work with," said Murati. Murati said that her issue with Altman was not about safety, "it is about Sam creating chaos." She said she supported Altman's return to OpenAI because the company "was at catastrophic risk of falling apart" at the time of his ousting. "I was concerned about the company completely blowing up." Zilis said she was upset that Altman rolled out ChatGPT without involving the board. "It wasn't just me but the entire board raised concern about that whole thing happening without any board communication," she said. Zilis said she was also concerned about a potential OpenAI deal with a nuclear energy startup called Helion Energy because both Altman and Greg Brockman were investors. Although the executives had disclosed the investment to the board, Zilis said the deal talk made her uneasy. It "felt super out of left field," she said. "How is it the case that we want to place a major bet on a speculative technology?" In a video deposition, Helen Toner, a former member of OpenAI's board who resigned in 2023, said she first became aware of ChatGPT's release when an OpenAI employee asked another board member whether the board was aware of the development. [...] Toner also elaborated on why the board, including herself, voted to remove Altman as CEO in 2023. "There were a number of things -- the pattern of behavior related to his honesty and candor, his resistance of board oversight, as well as the concerns that two os his inner management team raised to the board about his management practices, his manipulation of board processes," said Toner. Recap: Brockman Rebuts Musk's Take On Startup's History, Recounts Secret Work For Tesla (Day Six) OpenAI President Discloses His Stake In the Company Is Worth $30 Billion (Day Five) Musk Concludes Testimony At OpenAI Trial (Day Four) 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.

Microsoft Edge Stores Passwords In Plaintext In RAM - Longtime Slashdot reader UnknowingFool writes: Security researcher Tom Joran Sonstebyseter Ronning has found that Microsoft Edge stores passwords in plaintext in RAM. After creating a password and storing it using Edge's password manager, Ronning found that he could dump the RAM and recover his password which was stored in plaintext. Part of the issue is Edge loads all passwords to all sites upon a single verification check, even if the user was not visiting a specific site. This is very different from Chrome, which only loads passwords for specific websites when challenged for the site's password. Also, Chrome will delete the password from memory once the password has been filled. Edge does not delete the passwords from memory once they are used. Microsoft downplayed the risk noting access would require control over a user's PC like a malware infection: "Access to browser data as described in the reported scenario would require the device to already be compromised," Microsoft said. Ronning countered that it was possible to dump passwords for multiple users using administrative privileges for one user to view the passwords for other logged-on users. "Design choices in this area involve balancing performance, usability, and security, and we continue to review it against evolving threats," Microsoft said. "Browsers access password data in memory to help users sign in quickly and securely -- this is an expected feature of the application. We recommend users install the latest security updates and antivirus software to help protect against security threats." Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Google's AI Search Results Will Now Turn To Reddit For 'Expert Advice' - Google is updating AI Overviews and AI Mode to more prominently surface "Expert Advice" from public discussions, social platforms, forums, blogs, and Reddit. Engadget reports: Via a new "Expert Advice" section that can appear in AI responses, Google will display "a preview of perspectives from public online discussions, social media and other firsthand sources." In the sample screenshot the company provided, quotes from forums, WordPress blogs and Reddit were arranged above links to their respective sources. Google plans to add more context to these links, too, showing "a creator's name, handle or community name," so you can judge what you might want to click through and read from a glance. Google will also start recommending in-depth articles at the end of AI responses for further exploration of a given topic, and link to more sources directly in its generated answers rather than just at the end. If you subscribe to any publications, AI responses will also highlight sources from the subscriptions you link to your Google account. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Valve Releases Steam Controller CAD Files Under Creative Commons License - Valve has released CAD files for the new Steam Controller and its Puck under a Creative Commons license. "The idea is to let enterprising modders create their own Steam Controller add-ons, like skins, charging stands, grip extenders or smartphone mounts," reports Digital Foundry. From the report: The Valve release includes files for the external shell ("surface topology") of the Controller and Puck, with a .STP, .STL and engineering diagram of each device, with the latter showing areas that must remain uncovered to let the device maintain its signal strength and otherwise function as designed. Valve has previously released CAD files for its Steam Deck handheld, Valve Index VR suite and even the original Steam Controller a decade ago, so this release is welcomed but not unexpected. The release is under a fairly restrictive Creative Commons license which allows for non-commercial use and requires attribution and sharing of designs back to the community. However, the license also suggests that commercial entities interested in making accessories for the Steam Controller or its Puck can contact Valve directly to discuss terms. You can find the files here. Read more of this story at Slashdot.