Latest News

Last updated 10 Feb, 09:01 PM

BBC News

Boy, 13, arrested for attempted murder after two pupils stabbed at school - Counter-terror officers are leading the investigation after two boys were left seriously injured.

I will never walk away, says PM after facing pressure to quit - The prime minister sought to strike a defiant tone after a day of political jeopardy.

Six key questions about Keir Starmer's future - There is no doubting the peril the prime minister was in, but while Labour MPs have decided to stick with him, his future is far from certain.

FBI releases images of masked person in hunt for Savannah Guthrie's mother - The mother of the news anchor Savannah disappeared in the middle of night from her Tucson, Arizona, home and was last seen on 31 January.

Watch: BBC in Tehran for first time since protest crackdown - Lyse Doucet reports from Iran, where she says the pain is still raw after unprecedented force was used to put down the protests there.

The Register

Cadence heard you wanted some AI in your AI so it used AI to design an AI chip - Nvidia, Qualcomm, and Altera among the first to trial EDA giant's AI chip design agent The idea of machines that can build even better machines sounds like sci-fi, but the concept is becoming a reality as companies like Cadence tap into generative AI to design and validate next-gen processors that also use AI.…

AI agents spill secrets just by previewing malicious links - Zero-click prompt injection can leak data when AI agents meet messaging apps, researchers warn AI agents can shop for you, program for you, and, if you're feeling bold, chat for you in a messaging app. But beware: attackers can use malicious prompts in chat to trick an AI agent into generating a data-leaking URL, which link previews may fetch automatically.…

Kyndryl to review accounting practices as several execs leave - CFO and general counsel both step down IBM services spin-out Kyndryl said it was reviewing its accounting practices after it announced revenue below market expectations and the departure of its CFO.…

AFRINIC says it's back on track and will soon deliver the plan that proves it - As the governance policy designed to protect regional internet registries nears completion APRICOT 2026 After years of strife, the African Network Information Centre (AFRINIC) is weeks away from signing off on a budget and action plan, activity that one of the organization’s newly appointed executives believes demonstrates it is back on track.…

Trump to hyperscalers: your datacenters, your power bill - As communities push back on utility costs, White House tells Big Tech to fund their own AI expansion The Trump administration continues its AI push, working to defuse public opposition to datacenter energy and water consumption - while dangling a promise to exempt hyperscalers from chip tariffs to help them stock their facilities with GPUs and accelerators.…

New Scientist - Home

Which humans first made tools or art – and how do we know? - Building the human story based on a few artefacts is tricky – particularly for wooden tools that don’t preserve well, or cave art that we don’t have the technology to date. Columnist Michael Marshall explores how we determine what came first in the timeline of our species

Time crystals could be used to build accurate quantum clocks - Once considered an oddity of quantum physics, time crystals could be a good building block for accurate clocks and sensors, according to new calculations

How teaching molecules to think is revealing what a 'mind' really is - Networks of molecules in our body behave as though they have goals and desires. Understanding this phenomenon could solve the origins of life and mind in one fell swoop

Old EV batteries could meet most of China's energy storage needs - Electric vehicle batteries are typically retired once they reach about 80 per cent of their original capacity, but they could be repurposed in electricity grids to balance out slumps in renewable generation

Why 1.5°C failed and setting a new limit would make things worse - Setting a limit for global warming didn't succeed in galvanising climate action quickly enough – now we should focus on making the annual average temperature rise clear for all to see, says Bill McGuire

Hacker News

Show HN: Clawe – open-source Trello for agent teams - Comments

The Singularity will occur on a Tuesday - Comments

The Switch to Linux and the Beginning of My Self-Hosting Journey - Comments

Show HN: Showboat and Rodney, so agents can demo what they've built - Comments

Ex-GitHub CEO launches a new developer platform for AI agents - Comments

Slashdot

Google's Personal Data Removal Tool Now Covers Government IDs - Google on Tuesday expanded its "Results about you" tool to let users request the removal of Search results containing government-issued ID numbers -- including driver's licenses, passports and Social Security numbers -- adding to the tool's existing ability to flag results that surface phone numbers, email addresses, and home addresses. The update, announced on Safer Internet Day, is rolling out in the U.S. over the coming days. Google also streamlined its process for reporting non-consensual explicit images on Search, allowing users to select and submit removal requests for multiple images at once rather than reporting them individually. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The US Is Flirting With Its First-Ever Population Decline - The U.S., whose population the Census Bureau did not expect to start shrinking until 2081, may record its first-ever decline as early as this year because of the Trump administration's accelerating immigration crackdown. Census data released in late January showed US population growth slowed to just 0.5% in the year prior to July 2025 -- the lowest rate since the pandemic -- as net migration fell to 1.3 million from a peak of 2.7 million the year before. Census experts now expect net migration to drop to only 316,000 in the year prior to July 2026 and say the country is "trending toward negative net migration." A joint study by researchers at the American Enterprise Institute and the Brookings Institution estimates that 2026 net immigration could range from a gain of 185,000 to a loss of 925,000. Births exceeded deaths by just 519,000 in the most recent period, a surplus the Congressional Budget Office expects to vanish by 2030. At the low end of the AEI/Brookings range, the overall US population would shrink by more than 400,000 -- something that has never happened since the country began taking censuses in 1790. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Microsoft Begins the First-Ever Secure Boot Certificate Swap Across Windows Ecosystem - Microsoft has begun automatically replacing the original Secure Boot security certificates on Windows devices through regular monthly updates, a necessary move given that the 15-year-old certificates first issued in 2011 are set to expire between late June and October 2026. Secure Boot, which verifies that only trusted and digitally signed software runs before Windows loads, became a hardware requirement for Windows 11. A new batch of certificates was issued in 2023 and already ships on most PCs built since 2024; nearly all devices shipped in 2025 include them by default. Older hardware is now receiving the updated certificates through Windows Update, starting last month's KB5074109 release for Windows 11. Devices that don't receive the new certificates before expiration will still function but enter what Microsoft calls a "degraded security state," unable to receive future boot-level protections and potentially facing compatibility issues down the line. Windows 10 users must enroll in Microsoft's paid Extended Security Updates program to get the new certificates. A small number of devices may also need a separate firmware update from their manufacturer before the Windows-delivered certificates can be applied. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A Bitcoin Blunder for the Ages: $40 Billion Accidentally Given Away - An anonymous reader shares a report: The hundreds of prize payouts were mostly just a few bucks each, part of a promotional campaign by a South Korean cryptocurrency exchange. The total reward pot: 620,000 Korean won, or about $425. Then came a colossal mistake. A staffer for Bithumb, South Korea's No. 2 crypto exchange, didn't distribute 620,000 Korean won. Rather, the prizes, due to an input error, emerged in a different currency: 620,000 bitcoins, valued at more than $40 billion. That meant a winner who should have received a sum of 2,000 won -- enough to buy a cheap cup of coffee -- reaped, at least momentarily, more than $120 million in bitcoins. Enough recipients sought to sell or withdraw bitcoin that the market sank 17%, before Bithumb halted transactions after roughly 30 minutes. Those affected included investors who had held bitcoin before the botched giveaway. The losses totaled about $685,000, Bithumb says. The company has since said it has reversed the transactions or had recipients voluntarily return more than 99% of the misdistributed bitcoins. But Bithumb is still trying to convince users who during the brief window of trading managed to offload more than 100 bitcoins, valued at roughly $9 million, to give back the equivalent funds. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Apple and Google Agree To Change App Stores After 'Effective Duopoly' Claim - Apple and Google have agreed to a set of commitments to the UK's Competition and Markets Authority that will prevent them from giving preferential treatment to their own apps and require greater transparency around how third-party apps are approved for sale. The CMA announced the measures on Tuesday, seven months after it declared that the two companies held an "effective duopoly" over the UK's mobile app ecosystem. Both companies also committed to not using data gathered from third-party developers in ways the regulator deems unfair. The CMA granted both app stores "strategic market status" in October 2025, a designation that gave it the authority to demand changes. CMA head Sarah Cardell called the commitments "important first steps" and said the regulator would "closely monitor" implementation. Technology analyst Paolo Pescatore described the announcement as a "pragmatic first step" but noted some may see it as "addressing the low-hanging fruit." The UK's app economy is the largest in Europe by revenue and number of developers, generating an estimated 1.5% of the country's GDP. Read more of this story at Slashdot.