Longtime Slashdot reader krouic shares a report from Europol: From November 24-28, 2025, Europol supported an action week conducted by law enforcement authorities from Switzerland and Germany in Zurich, Switzerland. The operation focused on taking down the illegal cryptocurrency mixing service Cryptomixer, which is suspected of facilitating cybercrime and money laundering. Three servers were seized in Switzerland, along with the cryptomixer.io domain. The operation resulted in the confiscation of over 12 terabytes of data and more than EUR 25 million worth of Bitcoin. After the illegal service was taken over and shut down, law enforcement placed a seizure banner on the website. Authorities allege that the mixing service laundered over 1.3 billion euros in bitcoin since 2016.... [ Read it >> ]

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A new study from the University of Pennsylvania finds that preteens who own smartphones by age 12 have significantly higher odds of depression, obesity, and poor sleep compared to their peers. Axios reports: Kids who owned a smartphone at age 12 were found to have about 31% higher odds of depression, 40% higher odds of obesity and 62% higher odds of insufficient sleep than their peers who didn't have one. The researchers analyzed data from the National Institutes of Health-supported Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development Study assessments conducted between 2016 and 2022. The study included responses from 10,588 youths. Kids who had smartphones were more likely to be female, Black or Hispanic, and from lower-income households. The study has been published in the journal Pediatrics.... [ Read it >> ]

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Apple's longtime AI chief John Giannandrea is retiring, with former Microsoft and Google AI leader Amar Subramanya stepping in to take over. MacRumors notes the retirement comes after the company's repeated delays in delivering its revamped Siri and internal turmoil that led to an AI team exodus. From the report: Giannandrea will serve as an advisor between now and 2026, with former Microsoft AI researcher Amar Subramanya set to take over as vice president of AI. Subramanya will report to Apple engineering chief Craig Federighi, and will lead Apple Foundation Models, ML research, and AI Safety and Evaluation. Subramanya was previously corporate vice president of AI at Microsoft, and before that, he spent 16 years at Google. He was head of engineering for Google's Gemini Assistant, and Apple says that he has "deep expertise" in both AI and ML research that will be important to "Apple's ongoing innovation and future Apple Intelligence features."... [ Read it >> ]

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from 404 Media: Flock, the automatic license plate reader and AI-powered camera company, uses overseas workers from Upwork to train its machine learning algorithms, with training material telling workers how to review and categorize footage including images people and vehicles in the United States, according to material reviewed by 404 Media that was accidentally exposed by the company. The findings bring up questions about who exactly has access to footage collected by Flock surveillance cameras and where people reviewing the footage may be based. Flock has become a pervasive technology in the US, with its cameras present in thousands of communities that cops use every day to investigate things like carjackings. Local police have also performed numerous lookups for ICE in the system.... [ Read it >> ]

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Three Austrian nuns in their 80s who escaped a care home and reclaimed their old convent are refusing the church's offer to stay because it requires them to quit Instagram, stop speaking to the press, and avoid legal counsel -- conditions they call a gag order. Their standoff with church authorities has now escalated to the Vatican as the nuns continue posting to their 185,000 followers. NPR reports: Before the church authorities moved the nuns into care almost two years ago, the local abbey and Archdiocese of Salzburg acquired the convent. The sisters say they were not aware they were signing away what they understood to be their lifelong right to remain in the cloister. On Friday, their superior, Provost Markus Grasl from Reichersberg Abbey, announced that the sisters can stay. But his offer comes with conditions: The nuns must cease all social media activities, stop talking to the press and forgo seeking legal advice. The nuns have rejected the proposal, and now Grasl has called on the Vatican to intercede.... [ Read it >> ]

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"The car-sharing company, first launched in the U.S. in 2000, has been active in the UK since 2010 and has just under half a million members," writes Slashdot reader guesstral. "'I'm writing to let you know that we are proposing to cease the UK operations of Zipcar,' wrote Zipcar UK's general manager, James Taylor, in an email to members today. He went on to say that Zipcar will temporarily suspend new bookings after December 31, pending the outcome of a consultation with its 71 staff members." From the BBC: In its most recent company accounts for 2024, Zipcar blamed the "cost of living crisis," which was affecting UK customers, for revenues falling to 46 million pounds to 53 million the year before, while its after-tax losses had widened to 11.6 million pounds. According to the same accounts, Zipcar membership fees cover the cost of fuelling or charging the vehicle and, as energy costs continued to rise last year, it has added to financial pressures on the company. The company would also be liable for the incoming congestion charge in London that is expanding to include electric vehicles from 26 December, although this was not referenced in Zipcar's email to membership or company accounts.... [ Read it >> ]

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: South Korean e-commerce platform Coupang over the weekend said nearly 34 million Korean customers' personal information had been leaked in a data breach that had been ongoing for more than five months. The company said it first detected the unauthorized exposure of 4,500 user accounts on November 18, but a subsequent investigation revealed that the breach had actually compromised about 33.7 million customer accounts in South Korea. The breach affected customers' names, email addresses, phone numbers, shipping addresses, and certain order histories, per Coupang. More sensitive data like payment information, credit card numbers, and login credentials was not compromised and remains secure, the company said. [...] Police have reportedly identified at least one suspect, a former Chinese Coupang employee now abroad, after launching an investigation following a November 18 complaint.... [ Read it >> ]

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New York has become the first state in the nation to enact a law requiring retailers to disclose when AI and personal data are being used to set individualized prices [non-paywalled source] -- a measure that lawyers say will make algorithmic pricing "the next big battleground in A.I. regulation." ... [ Read it >> ]

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Singapore's Ministry of Education has announced that secondary school students will be banned from using smartphones and smartwatches throughout the entire school day starting January 2026, extending current restrictions beyond regular lesson time to cover recess, co-curricular activities, and supplementary lessons. Under the new guidelines, students must store their phones in designated areas like lockers or keep them in their school bags. ... [ Read it >> ]

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Microsoft has acknowledged that a recent Windows preview update, KB5064081, contains a bug that renders the password icon invisible on the lock screen, leaving users to click on what appears to be empty space to enter their credentials.

The issue affects Windows Insider channel users who installed the non-security preview update. The company's suggested workaround is straightforward if somewhat absurd: click where the button should be, and the password field will appear. Microsoft said it is working to resolve the issue.... [ Read it >> ]

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The Santa Monica City Council has unanimously voted to order Waymo to halt overnight charging operations at two outdoor depots near Broadway and 14th Street after months of resident complaints about constant beeping from reverse sensors, noise from charging equipment, traffic congestion and flashing lights between 11 p.m. and 6 a.m. As many as 56 autonomous vehicles charge at the two sites. It's unclear whether Waymo or its Virginia-based charging operator Volterra intends to comply. ... [ Read it >> ]

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An anonymous reader writes: Netflix has removed the ability to cast shows and movies from phones to TVs, unless subscribers are using older casting devices. An updated help page on Netflix's website, first reported by Android Authority, says that the streaming service "no longer supports casting shows from a mobile device to most TVs and TV-streaming devices," and instead directs users to navigate Netflix using the remote that came with their TV hardware.... [ Read it >> ]

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The skills that future graduates will most need in an age of automation -- creative thinking, critical analysis, the capacity to learn new things -- are precisely those that a growing body of research suggests may be eroded by inserting AI into the educational process, yet universities across the United States are now racing to embed the technology into every dimension of their curricula. ... [ Read it >> ]

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Major consulting firms including McKinsey, Boston Consulting Group and Bain have frozen starting salaries for the third consecutive year as AI reshapes how these companies think about their traditional reliance on large cohorts of junior analysts. Job offers for 2026 show undergraduate packages holding steady at $135,000-$140,000 and MBA packages at $270,000-$285,000, according to Management Consulted. The Big Four -- Deloitte, EY, KPMG, and PwC -- haven't raised starting pay since 2022. ... [ Read it >> ]

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The British government said it opposes attempts to cool the planet by spraying millions of tons of dust into the atmosphere -- but did not close the door to a debate on regulating the technology. From a report: The comments in parliament Thursday came after a POLITICO investigation revealed an Israeli-U.S. company Stardust Solutions aimed to be capable of deploying solar radiation modification, as the technology is called, inside this decade. "We're not in favor of solar radiation modification given the uncertainty around the potential risks it poses to the climate and environment," Leader of the House of Commons Alan Campbell said on behalf of the government.... [ Read it >> ]

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An anonymous reader shares a report: India's telecoms ministry has privately asked all smartphone makers to preload all new devices with a state-owned cyber security app, a government order showed, a move set to spark a tussle with Apple, which typically dislikes such directives. ... [ Read it >> ]

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Airbus said Monday that the vast majority of around 6,000 A320-family jets affected by an emergency software recall have now been modified, leaving fewer than 100 aircraft still requiring work after a frantic weekend of repairs prompted by the discovery of a vulnerability to solar flares. The unprecedented recall -- described as the broadest emergency action in the company's history -- came after a mid-air incident on a JetBlue A320 revealed a possible link between a drop in altitude and a space-related computer bug. ... [ Read it >> ]

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China's central bank has flagged stablecoins as a specific concern in its latest push against virtual currencies, warning that the tokens fail to meet requirements for customer identification and anti-money-laundering controls and risk being used for fraud, money laundering, and unauthorized cross-border fund transfers. ... [ Read it >> ]

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Pat Gelsinger, the former Intel CEO who was pushed out in late 2024 during a five-year turnaround effort, told the Financial Times that the "decay" he found when he returned to the company in 2021 was "deeper and harder than I'd realized." In the five years before his return, "not a single product was delivered on schedule," he said. "Basic disciplines" had been lost. "It's like, wow, we don't know how to engineer anymore!" ... [ Read it >> ]

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Two former U.S. congressmen announced this week that they're launching two tax-exempt fundraising groups "to back candidates who support AI safeguards,"
reports The Hill, "as a counterweight to industry-backed groups."

Former Representatives Chris Stewart (Republican-Utah) and Brad Carson (Democrat-Oklahoma) plan to create separate Republican and Democratic super PACs and raise $50 million to elect candidates "committed to defending the public interest against those who aim to buy their way out of sensible AI regulation," according to a press release... ... [ Read it >> ]

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Their announcement calls it "more than a multicloud solution," saying it's "a step toward a more open cloud environment. The API specifications developed for this product are open for other providers and partners to adopt, as we aim to simplify global connectivity for everyone."
... [ Read it >> ]

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After a successful November 27th launch to the International Space Station, Russia discovered an accident had occurred on their launch site's mobile maintenance cabin — when a drone spotted it lying upside down in a flame trench.

"The main issue with the structure collapse is that it puts Site 31/6 — the only Russian launch site capable of launching crew and cargo to the International Space Station (ISS) — out of service until the structure is fixed," reports the space-news site NASA Spaceflight... [ Read it >> ]

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From the blog 9to5Linux:

Linux kernel 6.18 is now available for download, as announced today by Linus Torvalds himself, featuring enhanced hardware support through new and updated drivers, improvements to file systems and networking, and more.

Highlights of Linux 6.18 include the removal of the Bcachefs file system, support for the Rust Binder driver, a new dm-pcache device-mapper target to enable persistent memory as a cache for slower block devices, and a new microcode= command-line option to control the microcode loader's behavior on x86 platforms.... [ Read it >> ]

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Some AI experts were reportedly shocked ChatGPT wasn't fully tested for sycophancy by last spring. "OpenAI did not see the scale at which disturbing conversations were happening," writes the New York Times — sharing what they learned after interviewing more than 40 current and former OpenAI employees, including safety engineers, executives, and researchers. ... [ Read it >> ]

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It's "a complex mix of internet access and physical execution," says the chief informance security officer at Cequence Security.

Long-time Slashdot reader schwit1 summarizes this article from The Wall Street Journal:

By breaking into carriers' online systems, cyber-powered criminals are making off with truckloads of electronics, beverages and other goods In the most recent tactics identified by cybersecurity firm Proofpoint, hackers posed as freight middlemen, posting fake loads to the boards. They slipped links with malicious software into email exchanges with bidders such as trucking companies. By clicking on the links, trucking companies unwittingly downloaded remote-access software that lets the hackers take control of their online systems. Once inside, the hackers used the truckers' accounts to bid on real shipments, such as electronics and energy drinks, said Selena Larson, a threat researcher at Proofpoint. "They know the business," she said. "It's a very convincing full-scale identity takeover." ... [ Read it >> ]

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An anonymous reader shared this report from The Conversation:

To make interplanetary travel faster, safer, and more efficient, scientists need breakthroughs in propulsion technology. Artificial intelligence is one type of technology that has begun to provide some of these necessary breakthroughs. We're a team of engineers and graduate students who are studying how AI in general, and a subset of AI called machine learning in particular, can transform spacecraft propulsion. From optimizing nuclear thermal engines to managing complex plasma confinement in fusion systems, AI is reshaping propulsion design and operations. It is quickly becoming an indispensable partner in humankind's journey to the stars... ... [ Read it >> ]

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An anonymous reader shared this report from the Associated Press:

The information needed to decipher the last remaining unsolved secret message embedded within a sculpture at CIA headquarters in Virginia sold at auction for nearly $1 million, the auction house announced Friday. The winner will get a private meeting with the 80-year-old artist to go over the codes and charts in hopes of continuing what he's been doing for decades: interacting with would-be cryptanalyst sleuths. ... [ Read it >> ]

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A gauge of risk on Oracle debt "reached a three-year high in November," reports Bloomberg.

"And things are only going to get worse in 2026 unless the database giant is able to assuage investor anxiety about a massive artificial intelligence spending spree, according to Morgan Stanley."... [ Read it >> ]

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27 million people live in Australia. But there's a big change coming if you're under 16, reports CNN:

From December 10, sites that meet the Australian government's definition of an "age-restricted social media platform" will need to show that they're doing enough to eject or block children under 16 or face fines of up to 49.5 million Australian dollars ($32 million). The list includes Snapchat, Facebook, Instagram, Kick, Reddit, Threads, TikTok, Twitch, X, and YouTube... ... [ Read it >> ]

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"Amazon suggested its engineers eschew AI code generation tools from third-party companies in favor of its own ," reports Reuters, "a move to bolster its proprietary Kiro service, which it released in July, according to an internal memo viewed by Reuters."

In the memo, posted to Amazon's internal news site, the company said, "While we continue to support existing tools in use today, we do not plan to support additional third party, AI development tools. ... [ Read it >> ]

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"OpenAI is now internally testing 'ads' inside ChatGPT," reports BleepingComputer:

Up until now, the ChatGPT experience has been completelyfree. While there are premium plans and models, you don't see GPT sell you products or show ads. On the other hand, Google Search has ads that influence your buying behaviour. OpenAI is planning to replicate a similar experience. ... [ Read it >> ]

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An anonymous reader shared this report from CBS News:

Artificial intelligence can do the work currently performed by nearly 12% of America's workforce, according to a recentstudy from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The researchers, relying on a metric called the "Iceberg Index" that measures a job's potential to be automated, conclude that AI already has the cognitive and technical capacity to handle a range of tasks in technology, finance, health care and professional services. The index simulated how more than 150 million U.S. workers across nearly 1,000 occupations interact and overlap with AI's abilities... ... [ Read it >> ]

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"There are times when World of Tanks feels less like a videogame and more like a giant ad budget looking for something to be spent on," writes PC Gamer.

This year, all those huge sacks with dollar signs on them have been thrown Benedict Cumberbatch's way, making him the game's newest "Holiday Ambassador" and the star of an absolutely bizarre Christmas advert. The story has very little to do with Christmas and, frankly, not much connection to tanks either, featuring Cumberbatch as a sort of chaotic, supernatural therapist trying to bring a meek nerd out of his shell with the help of a chaotic crowd of his other patients. It's a good watch, shedding the usual hard man action star vibe of past celebrity trailers in favour of something that feels more like a mischievous one act play. ... [ Read it >> ]

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"The internet is being increasingly polluted by AI generated text, images and video," argues the site for a new browser extension called Slop Evader. It promises to use Google's search API "to only return content published before Nov 30th, 2022" — the day ChatGPT launched — "so you can be sure that it was written or produced by the human hand." ... [ Read it >> ]

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Earlier this month MasterCard noted that even Walmart now allows its customers to make purchases through ChatGPT. And after polling more than 4,000 consumers in the U.S., Canada, U.K., and UAE, they found "more than four in 10 consumers already use AI tools to help them shop, including 61% of Gen Z and 57% of millennials."... [ Read it >> ]

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"By my count, Linux has over 11% of the desktop market," writes ZDNet's Steven Vaughan-Nichols:

In StatCounter's latest US numbers, which cover through October, Linux shows up as only 3.49%. But if you look closer, "unknown" accounts for 4.21%. Allow me to make an educated guess here: I suspect those unknown desktops are actually running Linux. What else could it be? FreeBSD? Unix? OS/2? Unlikely. In addition, ChromeOS comes in at 3.67%, which strikes me as much too low. Leaving that aside, ChromeOS is a Linux variant. It just uses the Chrome web browser for its interface rather than KDE Plasma, Cinnamon, or another Linux desktop environment. Put all these together, and you get a Linux desktop market share of 11.37%... ... [ Read it >> ]

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Psychology Today reports:

In a study conducted in Milan, Italy, and published in November 2025, the sight of a person dressed as Batman led to a nearly doubled rate of people giving up their seat to a pregnant woman. Over the course of 138 subway rides, researchers found that people who saw "Batman" standing near the pregnant woman were far more altruistic than those who did not. ... [ Read it >> ]

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An anonymous reader shared this report from CNBC:

Italian defense company Leonardo on Thursday unveiled plans for an AI-powered shield for cities and critical infrastructure, adding to Europe's push to ramp up sovereign defense capabilities amid rising geopolitical tensions. ... [ Read it >> ]

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In his mid-20s, Lu Heng "got an idea that has made him a lot richer," writes the Wall Street Journal.

He scooped up 10 million unused IP addresses, mostly form Africa, and then leases them to companies, mostly outside Africa, "that need them badly."

[A]round half of internet traffic continues to use IPv4, because changing to IPv6 can be expensive and complex and many older devices still need IPv4. Companies including Amazon, Microsoft and Google still want IPv4 addresses because their cloud-hosting businesses need them as bridges between the IPv4 and IPv6 worlds... Africa, which has been slower to develop internet infrastructure than the rest of the world, is the only region that still has some of the older addresses to dole out... He searches for IPv4 addresses that aren't being used — by ISPs or anyone else that holds them — and uses his Hong Kong-based company, Larus, to lease them out to others. ... [ Read it >> ]

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The Free Software Foundation describes how "After months of preparation and excitement, we finally came together on November 21 for a global online hackathon to support free software projects and "put a spotlight on the difficult and often thankless work that free software hackers carry out..." ... [ Read it >> ]

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Almost two-thirds of registered U.S. voters "say that a four-year college degree isn't worth the cost," according to a new NBC News poll:

Just 33% agree a four-year college degree is "worth the cost because people have a better chance to get a good job and earn more money over their lifetime," while 63% agree more with the concept that it's "not worth the cost because people often graduate without specific job skills and with a large amount of debt to pay off." In 2017, U.S. adults surveyed were virtually split on the question — 49% said a degree was worth the cost and 47% said it wasn't. When CNBC asked the same question in 2013 as part of its All American Economic Survey, 53% said a degree was worth it and 40% said it was not. The eye-popping shift over the last 12 years comes against the backdrop of several major trends shaping the job market and the education world, from exploding college tuition prices to rapid changes in the modern economy — which seems once again poised for radical transformation alongside advances in AI... ... [ Read it >> ]

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"A year after launching a commercial robotaxi service in Abu Dhabi, Chinese autonomous vehicle technology company WeRide and partner Uber can finally call that service driverless," reports TechCrunch.
A company official hailed it as "a historic transportation milestone, as the first driverless AV deployment outside of the U.S. or China." But TechCrunch notes that's just the beginning:... [ Read it >> ]

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Digital Trends reports:
A wave of shortages now threatens to ripple across RAM, SSDs, and even hard drives, affecting not only performance-hungry rigs but also everyday systems.

— CyberPowerPC has publicly confirmed it will raise prices on all systems starting December 7th due to RAM costs spiking by 500% and SSD prices doubling since October. ... [ Read it >> ]

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Hyperloop One ceased operations in December 2023, notes CNN. "Yet nearly two years on, in other parts of the world, hyperloop projects are ongoing." For example, Rotterdam-based Hardt Hyperloop has a cool web site — and the company's managing director tells CNN that hyperloops are the only "actionable, sustainable solution to replace short-haul air travel" over distances greater than 300 miles. "It's 90% more efficient than air travel, operational expenses and maintenance costs are much lower than conventional high-speed railways and, as an enclosed, autonomous system, it's not affected by external factors such as bad weather or strikes."... [ Read it >> ]

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An EDM song by the British group Haven ran into trouble in October after it shared clips of upcoming song "I Run" on TikTok.

The song "was an overnight viral sensation online," writes Digital Music News — racking up millions of plays "even before it hit streaming services." (Although the Washington Post notes that "Record labels and TikTok users began questioning whether 'I Run' used an AI deepfake, modeled off British R&B singer Jorja Smith, for the vocals.") ... [ Read it >> ]

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OpenAI's data centre partners are on course to amass almost $100 billion in borrowing tied to the lossmaking start-up, as the ChatGPT maker benefits from a debt-fuelled spending spree without taking on financial risks itself. Financial Times: SoftBank, Oracle and CoreWeave have borrowed at least $30 billion to invest in the start-up or help build its data centres, according to FT analysis. Investment group Blue Owl Capital and computing infrastructure companies such as Crusoe also rely on deals with OpenAI to service about $28 billion in loans. ... [ Read it >> ]

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The investigation into the June 12 Air India crash that killed 260 people has been marked by tension, suspicion and poor communication between American and Indian officials, including an episode where NTSB chairwoman Jennifer Homendy instructed her black-box specialists not to board a late-night Indian military flight to a remote facility, WSJ reports. ... [ Read it >> ]

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Black fungus found growing inside Chernobyl's destroyed reactor may be feeding on radiation, and researchers have tested samples of the same species aboard the International Space Station to explore whether it could eventually shield astronauts from cosmic rays. Ukrainian scientist Nelli Zhdanova first discovered the melanin-rich mould colonizing the walls and ceilings of the exploded reactor building during a May 1997 survey. Her research indicated that the fungal hyphae were actually growing toward sources of ionizing radiation rather than merely tolerating it. ... [ Read it >> ]

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Europe's Airbus said on Friday it was ordering immediate repairs to 6,000 of its widely used A320 family of jets in a sweeping recall affecting more than half the global fleet, threatening upheaval during the busiest travel weekend of the year in the United States and disruption worldwide. From a report: The setback appears to be among the largest recalls affecting Airbus in its 55-year history and comes weeks after the A320 overtook the Boeing 737 as the most-delivered model. At the time Airbus issued its bulletin to the plane's more than 350 operators, some 3,000 A320-family jets were in the air. ... [ Read it >> ]

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EU antitrust regulators will examine whether Apple's Apple Ads and Apple Maps should be subject to the onerous requirements of the bloc's digital rules after both services hit key criteria, with the U.S. tech giant saying they should be exempted. From a report: Apple's App Store, iOS operating system and Safari web browser were designated core platform services under the Digital Markets Act two years ago aimed at reining in the power of Big Tech and opening up the field to rivals so consumers can have more choice. The European Commission said that Apple has notified it that Apple Ads and Apple Maps met the Act's two thresholds to be considered "gatekeepers." The DMA designates companies with services with more than 45 million monthly active users and $79 billion in market capitalisation as gatekeepers subject to a list of dos and don'ts.... [ Read it >> ]

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