"The Register has a story about a Windows backdoor that waits silently in memory for a 'magic packet' before springing into action," writes Slashdot reader fred133. "No outgoing traffic, just waiting..." From the report: Like a sleeper cell awaiting activation, a never-before-seen Windows backdoor dubbed Sleepwalker waits silently in memory for one specifically crafted network packet to wake it up and deliver commands using the malware's 23-instruction language. The commands can do everything from running code directly in memory to moving data off the computer. Malware researcher Dominik Reichel discovered the passive backdoor, which also has its own command language, and detailed Sleepwalker in a technical analysis on Monday. "What makes it worth writing up is what that packet carries: not a readable command, but a short program written in a command language of the backdoor's own design," Reichel said. "Its 23 instructions cover scheduling, several ways to move data, staged file delivery and running code directly in memory. Recovering the encryption key is not enough to understand one of these programs. The internal command language must be reverse engineered as well."... [ Read it >> ]

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A developer says AliExpress is using the browser's WebAudio API to help fingerprint users by playing inaudible audio and measuring tiny differences in how their devices process it. CyberNews reports: The developer, "laserphile," wrote on their blog that they recently ran into some weird issues with their Bluetooth headphones. They couldn't play music via their phone when, at the same time, the AliExpress website was open on their PC. The headphones, laserphile explained, support multipoint Bluetooth audio so they can be connected to the PC and phone at the same time, for instance, playing music on the phone and announcing notifications through the PC. "Shortly after loading the AliExpress homepage, audio from my phone would stop playing. Closing the AliExpress tab fixes it immediately," the developer said in the blog post.... [ Read it >> ]

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from the BBC: The world's oceans are hotter than ever recorded, new data suggests, as they suffer from human-caused climate change and the growing El Nino weather phenomenon. The average surface temperature of the planet's seas outside the polar regions hit 21.1C (70F) on Saturday, according to figures from the European Copernicus climate change service. That edges past the 21.09C recorded on three separate days in March 2024, and is far above average for the time of year. [...] The data is based on sea temperatures 10m (32ft 10in) below the surface, using measurements from buoys, ships and satellites, which are combined to produce a global estimate.... [ Read it >> ]

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Amazon has raised the prices of its hardware devices by as much as 60%, blaming "significant increases in memory and storage component costs." TechCrunch reports: The price explosion impacted Fire TVs, Echos, Kindles, and Eeros. One egregious example that's been cited is that of the Echo Dot, one of Amazon's cheapest smart speakers, the price of which jumped 60% overnight, from $49.99 to $79.99. Price-tracking sites like CamelCamelCamel show the stark uptick, which has previously hovered much lower. [...] The company also said that it would continue to offer occasional promotions to customers over the course of the next year. Amazon said in a statement: "The consumer electronics industry is facing significant increases in memory and storage component costs. After absorbing these increases for as long as we could, we recently adjusted pricing across our product lines."... [ Read it >> ]

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The SEC is investigating the near-collapse of AI-focused hedge fund Situational Awareness, sending subpoenas to major Wall Street banks for details about the fund's trades, borrowing, and communications with lenders. The fund, founded by former OpenAI researcher Leopold Aschenbrenner, managed over $30 billion and borrowed tens of billions more before leveraged bets unraveled, forcing it to sell most of its stock portfolio to Citadel at a discount. The New York Times reports: The subpoenas asked for details on the timing of Situational Awareness's trades and for its communications with lenders about the money it was borrowing, also known as "leverage," two of those people said. The subpoenas additionally warned the banks to preserve any information regarding the San Francisco hedge fund. The S.E.C. oversees financial markets with an eye toward protecting small investors, and has brought civil cases regularly against investment firms that produced large losses. Any investigation into Situational Awareness would be at its earliest stages, and it's no guarantee that it would lead to fines or other punishment. The hedge fund has not been accused of wrongdoing.... [ Read it >> ]

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The Trump administration is proposing to make permanent a $103,265 fee on certain new H-1B visas, dramatically increasing costs for employers that rely on highly skilled foreign workers in tech, education, and research. "A federal judge in June ruled that the fee was illegal and blocked the Trump administration from collecting it," reports Reuters. "A Boston-based appeals court is reviewing that decision while a different court considers whether a judge properly rejected a challenge to the fee by a major business group." From the report: Trump's temporary fee increase expires in September, one year after it was issued. The proposed rule by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, posted in the Federal Register on Monday, would make a fee of $103,265 permanent. It could be finalized by the end of the year. The H-1B program allows U.S. employers to hire foreign workers with training in specialty fields and offers 65,000 visas annually, with another 20,000 for workers with advanced degrees, approved for three to six years. Those visas typically came with fees between $2,000 and $5,000 before Trump's order. The fee would not apply to visas granted to foreign citizens already in the United States on student visas, who make up a large share of new H-1B recipients, or to renewals of current visas.... [ Read it >> ]

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Raspberry Pi has published an official guide for building a cyberdeck, leaning into a viral trend of homemade portable computers built from repurposed cases, purses, and other oddball hardware. The guide uses a Raspberry Pi 5, keyboard, battery, and Pelican-style case. The Verge reports: Raspberry Pi's head of social, Ashley Whittaker, acknowledged the cyberdeck trend today, saying "we haven't been able to get away from cyberdecks this year." Raspberry Pi has also increased its prices multiple times this year due to rising costs for RAM and other components, which could be another reason to support this growing market of active and would-be hobbyists. The 16GB version of the Raspberry Pi 5 included in the company's official cyberdeck guide got a $100 price hike in April, nearly as much as the board's original $120 price.... [ Read it >> ]

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Taiwan has indicted nine people -- reportedly including an Nvidia senior manager and two Supermicro employees based in the country -- who allegedly helped forge documents to cover up illegal exports of high-end AI servers to China in violation of US export controls. On Monday, Reuters reported that prosecutors in Keelung did not release any names but confirmed that the suspects were "charged with breach of trust and document forgery." One suspect linked to a related case remains at large, accused of the "siphoning of funds from a distributor company involved" in helping China get access to restricted Nvidia chips.... [ Read it >> ]

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China has delayed its ambitious Chang'e 7 lunar mission until at least 2027 after scrubbing an August 24 launch. Poor weather conditions were likely a factor, with China's Manned Space Agency (CMSA) saying the decision reflects the need for "absolute safety." Scientific American reports: China and the U.S. are in a race to send humans back to the moon, a feat that that U.S. accomplished in the 1960s and that has never been achieved by any other country. Chang'e 7 is to play to a crucial part in China's ambitions: the probe is designed to search for frozen water in the Shackleton Crater, a pit that spans some 21 kilometers (13 miles) and sits beside the lunar south pole.... [ Read it >> ]

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The FDA has cleared the first Alzheimer's blood test for symptomatic patients as young as 40. The test measures amyloid and tau biomarkers from a single blood draw and identified positive biomarkers with 97.6% accuracy in a validation study. New Atlas reports: PrecivityAD2 is a single blood test that quickly assesses the proteins amyloid and tau, using mass spectrometry to measure plasma AB42/40 and p-tau217/np-tau217. The results are then scored, qualifying as negative, likely positive, or positive for AD. "Just over a year ago, there were no FDA-cleared blood tests for Alzheimer's, and now we have three," Isobel Coleman, chief executive officer of the Alzheimer's Drug Discovery Foundation (ADDF), said in a statement. "This is a proof point that sustained, early investment in translational science plays a catalytic role in moving promising ideas from the lab to patients."... [ Read it >> ]

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Two humanoid robots competing at the World Humanoid Robot Games in Beijing on Saturday ran the 100-meter dash faster than Usain Bolt's 9.58-second world-record time. "[T]he Tiangong Ultra humanoid robot completed the 100-meter dash in 9.39 seconds during a preliminary heat," reports Engadget. "Developed by Beijing Humanoid Robot Innovation Center, the record-holding robot overtook Honor's Lightning robot, which completed the sprint in 9.47 seconds. From the report: Despite the impressive finish times, don't expect these humanoid robots to be used for any commercial purposes yet. After their sprints, they slammed directly into pads and some even required human assistance to be stretchered off the course. However, it's still a major improvement from last year's inaugural World Humanoid Robot Games, where the Tiangong Ultra won the 100-meter dash in 21.5 seconds. Beijing has also hosted a humanoid robot half-marathon, where Honor's Lightning won in 50 minutes and 26 seconds, which also beat the pace of another human world record.... [ Read it >> ]

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from Gizmodo: Dr. Dre, the pioneering rapper and seven-time Grammy-winning producer behind hit songs like Tupac's "California Love" and Eminem's "The Real Slim Shady," is very much pro using artificial intelligence tools to make music. In an interview with the New York Times, Dr. Dre and Interscope Records co-founder Jimmy Iovine spoke about artificial intelligence's recent foray into music production, with the producer characterizing those who oppose AI song generation tools as "afraid of learning new things." "I don't see it as a threat. I think the only people that see it as a threat are the people who have trouble creating," Dr. Dre said. "I had a discussion with a few people a few days ago. They were against AI, and I'm like, 'OK, you sound like the person that would have been against the drum machine when it came out.' Or synthesizers, right?"... [ Read it >> ]

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Gluons are the quantum 'Gorilla Glue' involved in binding quarks together, ScienceAlert reminds us. But for nearly 50 years, physicists have hunted for "glueballs", exotic particles predicted by this theory of the strong interaction — the only type of particle in nature composed entirely of force mediators: ... [ Read it >> ]

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The long legal battle over ownership of Linux "is closer than ever to ending," reports the Register, "after a panel of three judges ruled a claim against IBM and Red Hat isn't valid, and that time has expired for further action."

In 2021, an heir to SCO settled with IBM for $14.25 million — a sum that reflects the fact SCO had for years failed to produce strong evidence to back its claims. Another of SCO's legal successors, Xinuos, filed a new claim that IBM should be on the hook because Big Blue knew it did not own the code it contributed to Linux but instead had a non-exclusive license to use it. Xinuos argued that when IBM contributed Project Monterey code to Linux [25 years ago], it breached that license. ... [ Read it >> ]

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A Pew Research senior data scientist analyzed 500,000 English-language webpages from the past five years with an AI detection tool to estimate how many were likely written or edited by AI:

Of all the pages in this sample, 10% show significant signs of AI authorship... If we filter old webpages out of our samples and look at only the pages published after the release of ChatGPT, the trend is even more pronounced. In the July 2026 snapshot, signs of AI authorship can be found in over one-third of pages published after ChatGPT was released. This is in line with other studies that have shown that large shares of recently published pages on the internet were likely written or substantially edited by AI. ... [ Read it >> ]

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3,346 backers pledged $1,198,844 on Kickstarter to build the (modular) handheld Linux computer, the Mecha Comet. It's slightly bigger and heavier than your smartphone, with a 4-inch AMOLED display and loaded up with things like microphones, speakers, a SIM tray, two USB ports and a mini HDMI port. There's three separate kill switches for wifi, microphone and camera — plus a "boot mode" switch for the SD card, and even three pins for instant access to its debug console.... [ Read it >> ]

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It's "radically different from other quantum computers" reports Phys.org. The Helios system uses trapped ions — charged atoms suspended in free space using electromagnetic fields.

But it operates with 98 qubits — making it the largest trapped-ion quantum computer built so far.... [ Read it >> ]

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A class action filed this week accused Amazon's Twitch gaming service of using video streams to fuel its AI products without licensing or obtaining permission, reports Engadget:

Earlier this month, Twitch Support posted on X that it added an option to opt out of "having your channel content used to train generative AI content models across Amazon." Shortly after, Twitch hosted an episode of its recurring Patch Notes stream where Mike Minton, the company's chief product officer, said "if it was opt-in, nobody would opt in," when asked by a viewer why the Twitch settings for AI training aren't opt-in but instead enabled by default, requiring users to opt out if they don't want to participate.... [ Read it >> ]

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This week OpenAI launched a version of ChatGPT exclusively designed for teenagers between the ages of 13 and 17, reports CTV, "saying this version came with stronger protections around content related to mentions of suicide, self-harm and romantic or sexual chats."
[Tech analyst Carmi Levy says] "What it's doing is it's using cues, it's sort of watching how you're using the tool, and it's trying to guess your age." Levy said if ChatGPT thinks a person has lied about their age when they first signed up, it will automatically put them into the Teens mode for protection. "It includes those sort of two things: prevent you from having experiences that are age inappropriate, and also add features that are aligned with academics, so that makes it easier to study, makes it less likely for you to cheat on an assignment, provide resources that that that allow you to learn more effectively," he said. ... [ Read it >> ]

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"Iran shut down a British power plant for four days in an unprecedented cyber attack," reports the Telegraph.

More details from the BBC:

The government said that at no point was there a risk to the UK's energy system, but the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) has contacted power companies to advise them about the risk of cyber attacks... DESNZ said the incident had affected a small-scale generator and at no point had there been a risk to the wider energy system. The UK's power network has a number of smaller gas generators which provide short-term power when needed.... [ Read it >> ]

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Slovakia acquired speed cameras to modernize its traffic control-- but there was a surprise. Tom's Hardware cites this story from the Risky Bulletin Newsletter:

Unfortunately, the country's national security service, the NBU, has discovered that the cameras have multiple security issues. Firstly, they have SMS-activated Russian backdoors. Secondly, live camera feeds can be accessed by anyone with the device IP, no password necessary... ... [ Read it >> ]

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"There is still no sign of economy-wide job destruction," says economist Erik Brynjolfsson. Working with researchers at the Stanford Digital Economy Lab, Brynjolfsson has determined an AI "job apocalypse" is unlikely, reports the Washington Post, "even though it will likely impact entry-level jobs." ... [ Read it >> ]

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"It began life just a year after SimCity 4's 2003 launch," writes the blog PCGamesN. "Now, over 20 years later, it's still going strong with the arrival of Network Addon Mod update 50."

The SimCity 4 Network Addon Mod, or simply 'NAM' among the community, has long been a de facto recommendation to anyone looking to pick up the classic city builder. It's a comprehensive overhaul to the game's transportation and infrastructure networks that combines key fixes with a vast set of additional build pieces such as overpasses, intersections, on-ramps, roundabouts, and so on.... [Y]ou'll be able to place down elements adjacent to one another that might previously have needed a one-tile gap between them. Streets can be dragged diagonally, slope tolerances have been improved, and you can build tunnels with the street network. ... [ Read it >> ]

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An anonymous reader shared this report from the blog It's FOSS:

Canonical has committed funding to a three-year PhD project focused on building a system that can automatically translate large C codebases into Rust. And they are not alone; UK Research and Innovation is matching their funding for the project, which is set to run through the University of Bristol's Programming Languages Research Group. ... [ Read it >> ]

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Falling prices have made grid-scale storage batteries more attractive, reports Bloomberg. But after decades of stagnant investment, America's grids "are racing to make the upgrades needed to plug them in," with supplies straining for the necessary equipment.

Demand for batteries has skyrocketed as electricity use across the U.S. swells, driven by data centers' booming energy needs and increasing electrification. It's also getting harder to get them connected to power grids... As those upgrades get delayed, storage projects are piling up in interconnection queues from coast to coast. For example, Consolidated Edison Inc., a major utility in New York state, says over the last two years the volume of battery storage projects waiting to be connected has grown by 300%... "The whole process of interconnecting these new power plants got really log-jammed and bottlenecked," said Joseph Rand, an energy policy researcher at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory... ... [ Read it >> ]

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Debian developers are voting on whether to ban AI-assisted contributions, reports the blog Linuxiac, with a ballot listing eight proposals and a "None of the above" option.

The first one is still the original proposal to ban LLM-assisted contributions by changing the Debian Social Contract. This would stop generative AI from being used for direct Debian work like packaging, software, documentation, translations, websites, and project communication. However, upstream projects made with AI help would not be affected. The proposal gives several reasons for the ban, such as unclear copyright and licensing, doubts about the reliability of AI-generated work, extra review work for maintainers, aggressive scraping of Free Software resources, and the high resource use of large AI systems... ... [ Read it >> ]

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Retraction Watch reports:

A trial date has been set in a $1 billion defamation case against Elsevier that alleges the company published what plaintiffs say was a manipulated study about an air purifying technology over objections from peer reviewers. The case has already cost Elsevier a $10,000 sanction from a judge. ... [ Read it >> ]

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BleepingComputer reports:

Microsoft says ongoing issues causing games to crash or fail to launch after installing the August 2026 Windows updates may be caused by peripherals with RGB lighting.

As Microsoft explained when it confirmed it's investigating on Wednesday, this known issue affects games like ARC Raiders, MARVEL Tokon: Fighting Souls, and The Finals on systems running Windows 11 24H2 and 25H2... "[Peripherals or internal device components with RGB lighting features] may install drivers or code components with file names similar to inpoutx64. In systems where these drivers are found, the issue is then triggered by launching certain games," it noted.... [ Read it >> ]

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Wrongly discarded lithium batteries, such as those in vapes, are causing more than 10 fires a week at U.K. recycling centers, according to figures shared with the Guardian:

The Environment Services Association (ESA), the trade body for waste management companies, said its members had reported 1,518 fires in the year to March 2026. At least 541 of these fires were directly attributed to lithium ion batteries, the survey found. There were a further 216 battery fires in bin lorries [garbage trucks]. The ESA said the reported number of battery-related fires underestimated the scale of the problem, because in most incidents it was impossible to determine the cause of the blaze. A spokesperson said: "We know 40% of fires at recycling centres are caused by batteries, but we think the actual number is more like 70%." ... [ Read it >> ]

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"AI went from being very terrible to seemingly genuinely quite good at a professional level in a very short space of time..." says the Verge's AI reporter.

But AI systems "are still truly, truly terrible at some areas of math... even the days of the week."

If you look at academic math papers, a lot of the time you won't see numbers... So they're still terrible, but they're now also very good at this other part. As to why, at some point you reach a critical mass of what these systems can do. We saw it with writing, we've seen it with programming. They're very good at forging connections between different areas, applying old methods in new ways, those kinds of things. It appears that the newer models they're training have apparently reached that level where it clicks, and now it can do math... ... [ Read it >> ]

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Remember that rush rescue mission for NASA's $500M space telescope? It failed, reports CNN, and the LINK satellite won't be able to boost the telescope's orbit. NASA says its decades-old Swift telescope will now continue losing altitude, until it reaches Earth's atmosphere later this year and burns up. ... [ Read it >> ]

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Slashdot reader fjo3 shared this article from Wired:

[Flock] has told the public for years that its technology "cannot recognize, identify, or track individuals." It has now built a system that does both, an artificial intelligence tool for police that can identify drivers and track vehicles by their patterns of movement alone, WIRED has learned... Because the system also reaches police case files, 911 dispatch logs, and commercial identity records, those plates can be turned into names, home addresses, and relatives. It can search for people in an area drawn on a map based on nothing more than a physical description... ... [ Read it >> ]

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Long-time Slashdot reader AmiMoJo shared this report from the Guardian:

Children's lungs grew bigger and stronger after the most polluting vehicles were restricted from entering London, a study has found. Examinations of London schoolchildren before and after the introduction of the city's ultra-low emission zone found a restoration of lung capacity that had been stunted by exposure to pollution... "Traffic pollution in cities damages children's health and development," said Chris Griffiths, a professor of primary care at the University of Oxford and Queen Mary University of London, and the study's joint senior author. "We provide the strongest evidence yet on how these harms can be prevented. Ambitious clean-air zones should be considered a priority for cities globally with traffic-related air pollution." ... [ Read it >> ]

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Reuters reports "a major success in a new field of cancer treatment this week, as Moderna and Merck announced a personalized mRNA cancer vaccine "reduced the risk of recurrence and spread of melanoma in a late-stage trial". The vaccine was tested with Merck's widely used immunotherapy drug Keytruda:... [ Read it >> ]

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47% of recent graduates say AI has already impacted hiring in their field, according to an April survey from ZipRecruiter.

"But is AI really the problem, or is it more complicated?" asks NPR. "Here's what economists have to say."

According to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the unemployment rate for recent graduates — which it defines as 22-to-27-year-olds with a new bachelor's degree or higher — was 5.7% as of June, more than the rate for all workers, which stands at 4.1%... Stanford University economist Erik Brynjolfsson says AI is impacting the labor market for entry-level roles. "AI is not the whole story, but it's part of the story and the evidence is building," he says. Using payroll data, Brynjolfsson and his co-authors found that since late 2022 — when large language models like ChatGPT started popping up — early-career workers ages 22 to 25 in AI-exposed roles, like software developers and marketing managers, have experienced a 16% relative employment decline. In comparison, employment rates for older workers in AI-exposed fields and for all workers in jobs that aren't easily automated — like home health aides, physical therapists and construction workers — remained stable or have grown over that same time period... [Though he also says often when companies pull back on hiring, they cut junior roles first.] ... [ Read it >> ]

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Firefox 154 "brings a number of usability improvements," writes PC World:

The free built-in VPN, introduced with Firefox 149, continues to offer a selection of virtual locations — temporarily extended to 28 countries until the end of August... The free VPN is currently available to Firefox users in the US, Canada, the UK, France, and Germany. In addition, the free VPN can now also be used in Firefox for Android (rolling out gradually) with iOS to follow soon. ... [ Read it >> ]

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fjo3 shares a report from SFGATE: The San Francisco Bay Area, epicenter of the artificial intelligence boom, is home to a massive amount of tech workers employed by some of the world's most valuable companies, from Apple to Nvidia. But for the first time, New York has eclipsed the Bay Area as the home of the largest "tech talent workforce," a report by real estate and investment firm CBRE shows. The firm has published the annual report for 13 years. Last year, the New York Metro Area's tech talent workforce reached 394,300, surpassing the Bay Area's 375,730, according to the report. Fueled by mass layoffs, the Bay Area's tech talent workforce dropped by 6% from 2022 to 2025. New York's tech talent workforce, on the other hand, grew by more than 8% during that period "The Bay Area is likely to remain ... the central location for the AI industry and for innovation. But as we've seen during past cycles, as it tends to grow, that spreads out to all the key markets," Colin Yasukochi, executive director of CBRE's Tech Insights Center, said during a news conference Tuesday.... [ Read it >> ]

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According to a post from chief product officer Hari Srinivasan, "over a million people" have clicked on LinkedIn's new "Seems like AI slop" button, which launched after one analysis found 41% of the platform's longform posts were fully AI-generated. The Verge reports: In Thursday's post, Srinivasan said that users are overall "now experiencing 40% less views on what we classify as AI slop from just a few weeks ago." LinkedIn is also adding a new message that will tell users who make a post if "Some members told us this post seems like AI." "We approached this assuming good intent; I know I'm increasingly conscious on how to not sound like AI & the goal is to provide helpful feedback," Srinivasan said.... [ Read it >> ]

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A rapidly developing El Nino is already reaching record-setting levels for this time of year and is expected to intensify further over the coming months. "The El Nino has blossomed. It is off the charts. Usual measures of El Nino have blown past prior record levels in the period with good data, even though maximum effects are still several months in the future," writes renowned climate scientist James Hansen at Columbia University in New York in a newsletter sent today. Climate scientists disagree over whether it has already surpassed previous "super El Nino" events on every metric, but several say the signal is unprecedented in forecasts and could ultimately become the strongest modern event on record. New Scientist reports: There are different ways of measuring El Ninos, which occur when warm surface waters spread eastwards along the equator across the surface of the tropical Pacific Ocean. Hansen thinks the best measure is how much warmer than usual the upper 300 meters of the eastern tropical Pacific becomes. "Our preferred metric, the heat anomaly in the upper 300 meters of the Equatorial Pacific Ocean... already exceeds the 1997-98 super El Nino," he writes.... [ Read it >> ]

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from ZDNet: According to a Bloomberg report, attributed to China's Ministry of State Security, the country has ordered some government agencies to drop Windows 10 China Government Edition for Chinese-made Linux distributions. Why not Windows 11? Because China, like many other non-US governments, no longer trusts American companies with their software and services. This approach is all about digital sovereignty. In addition, even before the recent trend of governments outside America moving away from Windows, Beijing has started a long-running push to replace foreign technology in sensitive systems with domestic, open-source alternatives.... [ Read it >> ]

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Ypsilanti Township, Michigan, has imposed a six-month moratorium on "major electric utility infrastructure" in its latest attempt to delay a proposed $1.2 billion University of Michigan-Los Alamos data center that would support nuclear-weapons research. Township leaders, who have already paused water service for data centers, say the project has moved forward without adequate consultation and want more time to study noise, grid impacts, and other effects on residents. 404 Media reports: Last year, the university announced it was partnering with LANL on the construction of a massive 220,000 square foot hyperscale data center in Ypsilanti Township and residents have been fighting it ever since. During a meeting of the Township Board on August 18, the council unanimously passed a resolution that will delay the construction of new electrical infrastructure for 180 days. Data centers need a lot of energy, and Michigan's power authority will have to build new substations in the Township to power the proposed facility. The moratorium asked the local power authorities to use the six month delay to study noise pollution and how the new infrastructure would affect existing customers.... [ Read it >> ]

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Apple is cutting more than 200 jobs as it shifts resources toward a rebuilt, AI-powered Siri and other future products. Roughly 100 positions are being eliminated from the Vision Pro organization, including much of its gaming team and some immersive-video staff. Another 100 cuts are hitting the Siri and software teams. Bloomberg reports: In a statement, Apple acknowledged that it was realigning some teams "to evolve our business to deliver the best experiences for our users." "While we will create new roles as part of this change, it will also impact a limited number of existing roles," the company said. "We are grateful to these team members for their contributions, and we are committed to supporting them throughout their transition, including opportunities to apply for other roles at Apple."... [ Read it >> ]

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Federal prosecutors have charged activist Samuel Tunick with obstruction after he gave Customs and Border Protection officers a duress passcode that wiped his GrapheneOS-powered Pixel during a border search. "His prosecution is one of the earliest known instances of the federal authorities charging a person with destroying evidence using a program designed to wipe a device clean after a specific code is entered," reports The New York Times. From the report: "Obstructing federal law enforcement is a serious matter that has serious repercussions," Theodore Hertzberg, the U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Georgia, said in a statement. "Individuals who destroy or attempt to destroy property, including data, to prevent lawful search and seizure should expect to face prosecution and punishment for their actions."... [ Read it >> ]

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Economist: Students and school children are increasingly using artificial intelligence. A survey last year by Chegg, an ed-tech firm, found that 80% of rich-world undergraduates used it in their studies. More recent polls put the figure at 94% in Britain and 93% in Germany. Such widespread adoption has fueled concerns about the impact the technology might be having on learning. Teachers report marking identikit essays that they suspect are churned out by ChatGPT. Yet firm evidence on AI's educational effects has been lacking.... [ Read it >> ]

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A man dressed as Darth Vader used a Public Safety and Livable Neighborhoods Committee meeting in San Diego to mock the city's use of Flock surveillance cameras, sarcastically arguing that the technology would help the "emperor" track "rebel scum" and find Luke Skywalker. "This is what the emperor needs. This technology will help us find the rebel scum and the hidden base on Hoth," he said. The Hill reports: He urged that the cameras be used to surveil any "rebel scum as they move from playground to playground, from playground to pool, from pool to gymnasium, because we all know that the Flock cameras are not only following the license plate readers, they are following children." The plea for the cameras shifted to raising taxes to clear out storm drains and to the clearing of homeless encampments in the city. The man said the council members can use "doublespeak" to say the police department is humanitarian.... [ Read it >> ]

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Micron says it will spend $10 billion over the next decade on a new research lab in Boise focused on advanced memory technologies, computing systems, and future chip manufacturing. Here are some details, as reported by Reuters:
- Micron Research Labs will bring together customers, academia, government and the broader semiconductor ecosystem to pursue breakthroughs, the company said.... [ Read it >> ]

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Linus Torvalds says AI "enormously helped" him track down a stubborn Intel Xe graphics driver bug that took 24 debugging patches and 18 kernel boots to isolate. "I'd like to call it my tireless helper, but the AI several times stated flat out that this was impossible and unsolvable and that we should just write a report about it," wrote Torvalds on the commit. "I suspect those things have been trained by people who may not be quite as stubborn as I am..." Phoronix reports: The patch by Linus Torvalds is for the Xe kernel driver and the change is no longer hand out the flat Compute Command Streamer (CCS) storage as usable vRAM. On a Battlemage G21 graphics card, he was hitting a scenario where there was a mismatch where the usable memory ended and hit a case where the GDM display manager would end up being endlessly restarted. [...]... [ Read it >> ]

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After years of refusing to adopt tap-to-pay technology in its stores, retail giant Walmart announced today that it is finally accepting payments via both Apple Pay and Google Pay. The rollout begins August 24 at select Walmart and Sam's Club locations and is expected to reach all stores by year-end. It will then expand to fuel stations by mid-2027. TechCrunch reports: The news is a surprise, as Walmart has long refused to adopt the ubiquitous payment technology to instead promote its own in-house solutions, like Walmart Pay and Scan-and-Go. In years past, Walmart even teamed up with other big retailers in an attempt to take down Apple Pay entirely with an alternative mobile payment system of their own, called CurrentC. The effort failed and was shut down back in 2016.... [ Read it >> ]

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Google is giving publishers a new way to fight declining referral traffic from AI-powered search by letting them embed a "Preferred Sources" button that readers can use to favor their sites across Search, Discover, and Google News. "The idea is to make it easier for readers to find links from the sites they know and trust when they're searching for content or interacting with Google's AI to learn about a topic or read the latest news," reports TechCrunch. "As of May's launch, the company said that people across the web had already selected over 345,000 unique sources through this method." From the report: Becoming a preferred source can drive more traffic to publishers' websites, Google said. In earlier studies, it found that people are twice as likely to click through to a preferred source when available. By offering publishers these additional tools, Google is trying to assuage the damage that the rapid growth of AI-powered search features has had on traffic-dependent businesses.... [ Read it >> ]

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Microsoft is expanding Windows Task Manager to show per-process NPU and GPU neural-engine usage, giving users more visibility into which apps are consuming hardware for AI workloads. The Register reports: The Processes tab can show NPU use alongside CPU and GPU activity, while the Performance tab displays overall utilization. [...] Microsoft was keen to point out the metrics that can be monitored. "As AI workloads become more common on Windows devices, visibility into NPU and GPU neural engine utilization can help you make better-informed decisions," the company said. "With the latest Task Manager improvements, you can monitor AI processing activity alongside CPU, memory, storage, and networking data from a familiar interface."... [ Read it >> ]

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