Jaguar Land Rover has halted production for nearly a month following a major cyberattack, costing an estimated 30,000 vehicles and billions in lost revenue. "The company said on Tuesday that production would be halted for another week until at least October 1, which increased concerns that a full return to production could be months away," reports The Times. From the report: David Bailey, professor of business economics at Birmingham University, said the JLR statement did not commit to reopening production on October 1 and even if it did "it's not going to be back to normal, but phased production start with some lines opening before others, as we saw after the Covid closure back in 2020." He said: "It's 24 days [shutdown] as of September 24. So that is roughly 1,000 cars a day, 24,000 cars not produced. So by then, that's about 1.7 billion pounds in lost revenue. By October 1, it will be a hit to revenue of something like 2.2 billion pounds. It's pretty massive. JLR can get through, but they're going to be burning through cash this month."... [ Read it >> ]

0 Replies

NASA aims to launch its first crewed lunar mission in over 50 years, as early as February. The 10-day Artemis II mission will send four astronauts on a lunar flyby to test systems, paving the way for future Moon landings under the Artemis program. The BBC reports: Lakiesha Hawkins, Nasa's acting deputy associate administrator said it would be an important moment in the human exploration of space. "We together have a front row seat to history," she told a news conference this afternoon. "The launch window could open as early as the fifth of February, but we want to emphasize that safety is our top priority." Artemis Launch Director, Charlie Blackwell-Thompson explained that the powerful rocket system built to take the astronauts to the Moon, the Space Launch System (SLS) was "pretty much stacked and ready to go." All that remained was to complete the crew capsule, called Orion, connected to SLS and to complete ground tests.... [ Read it >> ]

0 Replies

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: If an Iranian taxi driver waves away your payment, saying, "Be my guest this time," accepting their offer would be a cultural disaster. They expect you to insist on paying -- probably three times -- before they'll take your money. This dance of refusal and counter-refusal, called taarof, governs countless daily interactions in Persian culture. And AI models are terrible at it.... [ Read it >> ]

0 Replies

Longtime Slashdot reader schwit1 shares a report from ICO Bench: As of September 1, 2025, banks across Vietnam are closing accounts deemed inactive or non-compliant with new biometric rules. Authorities estimate that more than 86 million accounts out of roughly 200 million are at risk if users fail to update their identity verification.... [ Read it >> ]

0 Replies

Disney is raising prices again for Disney+, Hulu, and ESPN Select starting October 21, 2025, with most ad-supported tiers going up by $2-3 per month and bundles also seeing increases. It marks the third consecutive year of U.S. streaming price hikes. Variety reports: It's that time of year again, apparently: Disney is raising the prices of its Disney+ and Hulu plans in the U.S., including most bundles, as of next month. The standalone Disney+ with ads service is rising from $9.99 to $11.99/month on Oct. 21, 2025, while the Disney+ Premium (without ads) is going from $15.99 to $18.99/month. The Hulu standalone plan with ads is increasing from $9.99 to $11.99/month as of the same date; the premium version of Hulu with no ads will remain at $18.99 per month.... [ Read it >> ]

0 Replies

Microsoft is preparing a Publisher Content Marketplace to pay publishers when their work is used in AI products like Copilot. Neowin reports: Microsoft is reportedly discussing with select US publishers a pilot program for its so-called Publisher Content Marketplace, a system that pays publishers for their content when it gets used by AI products, starting with its own Copilot assistant. The PCM will launch with a limited number of partners before Microsoft hopes to expand the program over time. The company pitched the idea to publishing executives at an invite-only Partner Summit in Monaco last week. Microsoft was allegedly courting them with the message: "You deserve to be paid on the quality of your IP." No concrete launch date for the pilot was shared.... [ Read it >> ]

0 Replies

An anonymous reader quotes a report from InsideEVs: On Monday morning, I spoke to a Volvo EX90 owner who reported a litany of issues with her 2025 EX90: malfunctioning phone-as-a-key functionality, a useless keyfob, a keycard that rarely worked quickly, constant phone connection issues, infotainment glitches and error messages. I was surprised not because I hadn't heard of these kinds of problems, but because I experienced them myself over a year ago at the EX90 first drive again. At the time, Volvo said software fixes were imminent. Today, we know the issues go deeper. To solve them, Volvo announced on Tuesday that it will replace the central computer of every 2025 EX90 with the new one from the 2026 EX90. It's a tacit admission that the company can't solve the EX90's issues while simultaneously launching its next-generation software-defined vehicles, and that it's easier to replace the original computer than to build bug-free software for it. But for some, the damage to the Volvo brand has already been done. "I say without exaggeration that this car is a dumpster fire inside a train wreck," InsideEVs reader and EX90 owner Sally Greer told InsideEVs.... [ Read it >> ]

0 Replies

MLB has approved the use of robot umpires in the 2026 season. According to ESPN, the system will give teams two challenges per game for balls and strikes where hitters, pitchers, and catchers can request reviews. From the report: Hitters, pitchers and catchers will be the only ones allowed to trigger the system by tapping their head, and if a challenge is successful -- the pitch will be shown on in-stadium videoboards -- teams will retain it. While the vote in favor of the automated ball-strike challenge system was not unanimous -- some of the four players on the 11-man committee voted no, according to sources -- the vote was a fait accompli, with MLB owners all in favor and in possession of a six-seat majority on the committee.... [ Read it >> ]

0 Replies

YouTube's parent company, Alphabet, said it will reinstate creators previously banned for spreading COVID-19 misinformation and false election claims, citing free expression and shifting policy guidelines. The Hill reports: "Reflecting the Company's commitment to free expression, YouTube will provide an opportunity for all creators to rejoin the platform if the Company terminated their channels for repeated violations of COVID-19 and elections integrity policies that are no longer in effect," the company said in a letter to Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), chair of the House Judiciary Committee. "YouTube values conservative voices on its platform and recognizes that these creators have extensive reach and play an important role in civic discourse. The Company recognizes these creators are among those shaping today's online consumption, landing 'must-watch' interviews, giving viewers the chance to hear directly from politicians, celebrities, business leaders, and more," it added in the five-page correspondence.... [ Read it >> ]

0 Replies

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: While many vibe-coding startups have become unicorns, with valuations in the billions, one area where AI-assisted coding has not yet taken off is on mobile devices. Despite the numerous apps now available that offer vibe-coding tools on mobile platforms, none are gaining noticeable downloads, and few are generating any revenue at all. According to an analysis of global app store trends by the app intelligence provider Appfigures, only a small handful of mobile apps offering vibe-coding tools have seen any downloads, let alone generated revenue.... [ Read it >> ]

0 Replies

An analysis of a literature database finds that text-generating AI tools -- including ChatGPT and Gemini -- can be used to rewrite scientific papers and produce 'copycat' versions that are then passed off as new research. Nature: In a preprint posted on medRxiv on 12 September, researchers identified more than 400 such papers published in 112 journals over the past 4.5 years, and demonstrated that AI-generated biomedicine studies could evade publishers' anti-plagiarism checks. ... [ Read it >> ]

0 Replies

Microsoft has successfully tested a microfluidic cooling system that removed heat up to three times better than cold plates currently used in datacenters. The technology etches tiny channels directly into silicon chips, allowing cooling liquid to flow directly onto the heat source. In lab tests announced September 23, 2025, the system reduced the maximum temperature rise inside GPUs by 65%. The channels, roughly the width of human hair, were optimized using AI to create bio-inspired patterns resembling leaf veins. ... [ Read it >> ]

0 Replies

Pope Leo XIV declined to authorize an AI avatar that would have provided virtual papal audiences to Catholics worldwide. The first American pontiff rejected the proposal during an interview with papal biographer Elise Allen. "Someone recently asked authorization to create an artificial me so that anybody could sign onto this website and have a personal audience with 'the Pope,'" he said. "This artificial intelligence Pope would give them answers to their questions, and I said, 'I'm not going to authorize that.'" ... [ Read it >> ]

0 Replies

Nearly a quarter of workers aged 18-34 fear they'll lose their jobs to AI within two years, according to a Deutsche Bank survey of 10,000 people across the US and major European economies. The survey, conducted from June through August, found 24% of younger respondents scored their concern at 8 or above on a 10-point scale, compared to just 10% among workers 55 and older. Workers anticipate growing AI risk over time. 22% expressed high concern over a five-year horizon versus 18% for the two-year timeframe, the bank wrote in a report, reviewed by Slashdot. ... [ Read it >> ]

0 Replies

Abstract of a paper on pre-print server Arxiv: Elites disproportionately influence policymaking, yet little is known about their fairness and efficiency preferences -- key determinants of support for redistributive policies. We investigate these preferences in an incentivized lab experiment with a group of future elites -- Ivy League MBA students. We find that MBA students implement substantially more unequal earnings distributions than the average American, regardless of whether inequality stems from luck or merit. Their redistributive choices are also highly responsive to efficiency costs, with an effect that is an order of magnitude larger than that found in representative U.S. samples. Analyzing fairness ideals, we find that MBA students are less likely to be strict meritocrats than the broader population. These findings provide novel insights into how elites' redistributive preferences may shape high levels of inequality in the U.S.... [ Read it >> ]

0 Replies

Customs and Border Protection collected DNA from nearly 2,000 US citizens between 2020 and 2024 and sent the samples to the FBI's CODIS crime database, according to Georgetown Law's Center on Privacy & Technology analysis of newly released government data. The collection included approximately 95 minors, some as young as 14, and travelers never charged with crimes. ... [ Read it >> ]

0 Replies

An anonymous reader shares a report: Battered by funding cuts, bombarded by the White House and braced for demographic changes set to send enrollment into a nosedive, America's colleges and universities have spent this year in flux. But one of higher education's rituals resurfaced again on Tuesday, when U.S. News & World Report published the college rankings that many administrators obsessively track and routinely malign. And, at least in the judgment of U.S. News, all of the headline-making upheaval has so far led to ... well, a lot of stability. ... [ Read it >> ]

0 Replies

mrspoonsi writes: The US Secret Service says it has dismantled a network of more than 300 SIM servers and 100,000 SIM cards in the New York area that were capable of crippling telecom systems.

The devices were "concentrated within 35 miles of the global meeting of the UN General Assembly now under way in New York City" and an investigation has been launched, it adds in a press statement. ... [ Read it >> ]

0 Replies

40% of U.S. employees have received "workslop" -- AI-generated content that appears polished but lacks substance -- in the past month, according to research from BetterUp Labs and Stanford Social Media Lab. The survey of 1,150 full-time workers found recipients spend an average of one hour and 56 minutes addressing each incident of workslop, costing organizations an estimated $186 per employee monthly. For a 10,000-person company, lost productivity totals over $9 million annually. ... [ Read it >> ]

0 Replies

AI companies like OpenAI have been quick to unveil plans for spending hundreds of billions of dollars on data centers, but they have been slower to show how they will pull in revenue to cover all those expenses. Now, the consulting firm Bain & Co. is estimating the shortfall could be far larger than previously understood. Bloomberg: By 2030, AI companies will need $2 trillion in combined annual revenue to fund the computing power needed to meet projected demand, Bain said in its annual Global Technology Report released Tuesday. Yet their revenue is likely to fall $800 billion short of that mark as efforts to monetize services like ChatGPT trail the spending requirements for data centers and related infrastructure, Bain predicted. ... [ Read it >> ]

0 Replies

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: MediaTek is launching a mobile processor more capable of handling agentic AI tasks on devices, positioning to better compete with Qualcomm. The new Dimensity 9500 will provide users with better summaries of calls and meetings, improved output from AI models and superior 4K photos, the Taiwanese company said in a statement. The chip is made using an advanced 3-nanometer process by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., according to MediaTek, and handsets carrying the new chip will become available in the fourth quarter.... [ Read it >> ]

0 Replies

alternative_right shares a report from ScienceDaily: Scientists have developed a new multi-layered metalens design that could revolutionize portable optics in devices like phones, drones, and satellites. By stacking metamaterial layers instead of relying on a single one, the team overcame fundamental limits in focusing multiple wavelengths of light. Their algorithm-driven approach produced intricate nanostructures shaped like clovers, propellers, and squares, enabling improved performance, scalability, and polarization independence. [...] Mr Joshua Jordaan, from the Research School of Physics at the Australian National University and the ARC Centre of Excellence for Transformative Meta-Optical Systems (TMOS), said the ability to make metalenses to collect a lot of light will be a boon for future portable imaging systems. "The metalenses we have designed would be ideal for drones or earth-observation satellites, as we've tried to make them as small and light as possible," he said. The findings have been published in the journal Optics Express.... [ Read it >> ]

0 Replies

NASA has unveiled 10 new astronaut candidates drawn from over 8,000 applicants. The diverse group includes four men and six women -- pilots, scientists, and medical professionals -- who will train for future missions to the ISS, the moon, and eventually Mars. CBS News reports: This is NASA's first astronaut class with more women than men. It includes six pilots with experience in high-performance aircraft, a biomedical engineer, an anesthesiologist, a geologist and a former SpaceX launch director. Among the new astronaut candidates is 39-year-old Anna Menon, a mother of two who flew to orbit in 2024 aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon as a private astronaut on a commercial, non-NASA flight. [...]... [ Read it >> ]

0 Replies

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: A new dark web portal to recruit spies for the UK was launched last Friday (19th September), as the UK steps up its commitment to national security. Harnessing the anonymity of the dark web for the first time, MI6's new secure messaging platform -- Silent Courier -- enables anyone, anywhere in the world with access to sensitive information relating to terrorism or hostile intelligence activity to securely contact the UK and offer their services. Instructions on how to access the portal will be publicly available on MI6's verified YouTube channel as the UK reaches out to potential new agents in Russia and around the world. MI6 advises individuals accessing its portal to use trustworthy VPNs and devices not linked to themselves, to mitigate risks which exist in some countries.... [ Read it >> ]

0 Replies

Longtime Slashdot reader hackingbear writes: The Chinese People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) has demonstrated its ability to launch and recover aircraft from its first electromagnetic catapult-equipped aircraft carrier, the CNS Fujian. Official imagery released by the PLAN today confirms that the new J-35 naval stealth fighters, KJ-600 airborne early warning and control aircraft, and J-15T fighter jet are carrying out carrier trials. Ben Lewis, a co-founder of PLATracker, told USNI News that the test was a "significant milestone" for the Chinese military's carrier program. "Once operational, the PLAN will have the capacity to field fifth-generation stealth carrier aircraft, supported by fixed-wing carrier-based airborne early warning and command aircraft, across the first island chain and Western Pacific Ocean," Lewis said.... [ Read it >> ]

0 Replies

The Supreme Court has temporarily allowed President Trump to fire Rebecca Slaughter, the last Democrat on the FTC. "The court's action is technically temporary, since the justices said they will hear arguments in the case in December, but every indication is that the conservative court majority will use the case to reverse a major Supreme Court precedent that dates back almost a century," reports NPR. From the report: Congress created the FTC and lots of other agencies to be multi-member, bipartisan regulatory agencies. And the Supreme Court in 1935 upheld those statutes ruling ruled against then-President Franklin D. Roosevelt's claim that he could fire FTC commissioners at will. In a unanimous opinion at the time, the court said Congress acted within its powers in declaring that a commissioner could only be fired for misconduct -- not for a policy disagreement. But now, prodded by President Trump, the court's six-member conservative majority seems poised to remake the way independent agencies operate. And if the handwriting on the wall is as clear as it seems to be, the independent agencies won't be independent. Their membership will be subject to the will of the president.... [ Read it >> ]

0 Replies

The Moon is rusting -- and it's Earth's fault. Nature: Scientists have found that oxygen particles blown from Earth to the Moon can turn lunar minerals into hematite, also known as rust. The discovery adds to researchers' growing understanding of the deep interconnection between Earth and the Moon -- and shows how the Moon keeps a geological record of those interactions, says Ziliang Jin, a planetary scientist at Macau University of Science and Technology in China. He and his colleagues reported their findings earlier this month in Geophysical Research Letters. ... [ Read it >> ]

0 Replies

Google is rolling out its Gemini AI assistant to Google TV, bringing conversational AI to over 300 million devices. Users will be able to ask Gemini for help with TV recommendations, show recaps, reviews, or even general tasks like homework help, vacation planning, or learning new skills. TechCrunch reports: The company stresses that Gemini's addition doesn't mean that you won't be able to do the same things you used to be able to do through the (non-AI) Google Assistant integration. Those commands will still work, says Google. The Gemini rollout to Google TV begins on the TCL QM9K series starting today. Later in the year, Gemini will arrive on the Google TV Streamer, Walmart onn 4K Pro, 2025 Hisense U7, U8, and UX models, and 2025 TCL QM7K, QM8K, and X11K models. More functionality will be added over time.... [ Read it >> ]

0 Replies

iFixit's teardown of Apple's iPhone Air reveals a device dominated by its battery, which occupies approximately two-thirds of the internal space while critical components including the logic board cluster at the top. The battery matches the component used in Apple's iPhone Air MagSafe battery pack and can be swapped between devices. ... [ Read it >> ]

0 Replies

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Fortune: The dramatic rise in unemployment among Americans under 25 -- especially recent graduates -- has become one of the most troubling economic headlines of 2025. Recent insights from economists, central bankers, and labor market analysts signal that this appears to be a uniquely American challenge, underpinned by a "no hire, no fire" economy rather than solely by the rapid ascent of artificial intelligence.... [ Read it >> ]

0 Replies

LinkedIn has said it will start using some member profiles, posts, resumes and public activity to train its AI models from November 3, 2025. From a report: Users are rightly frustrated with the change, with the biggest concern isn't the business networking platform will do so, but that it's set to be enabled by default, with users instead having to actively opt out. Users can choose to opt out via the 'data for generative AI improvement' setting, however it will only apply to data collected after they opt out, with data up until that point still retained within the training environment.... [ Read it >> ]

0 Replies

The U.S. General Services Administration has approved Meta's AI system Llama for use by federal agencies, declaring that it meets government security and legal standards. Reuters reports: "It's not about currying favor," [said Josh Gruenbaum, the GSA's procurement lead, when asked whether tech executives are giving the government discounts to get President Donald Trump's approval]. "It's about that recognition of how do we all lock in arms and make this country the best country it could possibly be." Federal agencies will be able to deploy the tool to speed up contract review or more quickly solve information technology hiccups, among other tasks, he said.... [ Read it >> ]

0 Replies

The Trump administration has struck a deal requiring TikTok's algorithm to be copied, retrained, and operated in the U.S. using only U.S. user data, with Oracle auditing the system and U.S. investors forming a joint venture to oversee it. The BBC reports: It comes after President Donald Trump said a deal to prevent the app's ban in the US, unless sold by its Chinese parent company ByteDance, had been reached with China's approval. White House officials claim the deal will be a win for the app's US users and citizens. President Trump is expected to sign an executive order later this week on the proposed deal, which will set out how it will comply with US national security demands.... [ Read it >> ]

0 Replies

An anonymous reader quotes a report from CalMatters: A California attorney must pay a $10,000 fine for filing a state court appeal full of fake quotations generated by the artificial intelligence tool ChatGPT. The fine appears to be the largest issued over AI fabrications by a California court and came with a blistering opinion (PDF) stating that 21 of 23 quotes from cases cited in the attorney's opening brief were made up. It also noted that numerous out-of-state and federal courts have confronted attorneys for citing fake legal authority. "We therefore publish this opinion as a warning," it continued. "Simply stated, no brief, pleading, motion, or any other paper filed in any court should contain any citations -- whether provided by generative AI or any other source -- that the attorney responsible for submitting the pleading has not personally read and verified."... [ Read it >> ]

0 Replies

An anonymous reader shares a report: The iPhone 17 Pro and 17 Pro Max appear to provide little resistance to scratches and scuffs around the sharp edges of the camera bump. Tech blogger Zack Nelson demonstrates this weakness in a durability test on his JerryRigEverything YouTube channel, explaining that the anodized aluminium layer on the iPhone 17 Pro and 17 Pro Max "does not stick to corners very well" -- creating a weak point in the coating. This is a known issue with the electrochemical anodizing process, so it was a design decision Apple knowingly made. ... [ Read it >> ]

0 Replies

The rise of self-driving cars could eventually cost many ride-hailing drivers their jobs -- and that's a big problem, Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said. From a report: Khosrowshahi spoke about the issue onstage this month at a summit hosted by the "All-In" podcast, which posted a video of the conversation on Wednesday. At the summit, Khosrowshahi was asked about concerns that gig workers, who have played a key role in Uber's development, will eventually lose their jobs as self-driving cars become more prevalent. ... [ Read it >> ]

0 Replies

Microsoft is working on bringing support for setting a video as your desktop wallpaper on Windows 11. From a report: Hidden in the latest Windows 11 preview builds, the feature lets you set an MP4, MOV, AVI, WMV, M4V, or MKV file as your wallpaper, which will play the video whenever you view the desktop. ... [ Read it >> ]

0 Replies

Nvidia will invest up to $100 billion in OpenAI as the AI lab builds data centers requiring 10 gigawatts of power capacity. The 10-gigawatt deployment equals 4 to 5 million GPUs -- the same number Nvidia will ship globally this year. Building one gigawatt of data center capacity costs $50 to $60 billion, including approximately $35 billion for Nvidia chips and systems. The first phase begins in the second half of 2026 using Nvidia's next-generation Vera Rubin systems. ... [ Read it >> ]

0 Replies

An anonymous reader shares a report: Venture capitalists in clean tech are starting to say out loud what they've suspected for a while: China's dominance has left key sectors in the West uninvestable. A group of eight VCs from Western firms agreed to share with Bloomberg the details of a July road trip across China during which they visited factories, spoke with startup investors, and interviewed founders of companies. ... [ Read it >> ]

0 Replies

Subscribing to an online service is often as easy as a click of a button. Is it illegal if it takes a maze of clicks to cancel? That issue is at the heart of a civil trial beginning this week that will scrutinize the tactics Amazon uses to entice consumers to sign up for its signature Prime service -- and to steer them away from leaving. WSJ: The Federal Trade Commission alleges the online giant has duped nearly 40 million customers, in violation of consumer-protection laws. It is seeking civil penalties, refunds to consumers and a court order prohibiting Amazon from using subscription practices that could confuse or deceive customers. The case, which will unfold in a Seattle courtroom, is a top test of the agency's enforcement campaign against allegedly deceptive digital subscription practices. ... [ Read it >> ]

0 Replies

Major U.S. corporations are mandating more office time but seeing minimal compliance changes. Companies now require 12% more in-office days than in early 2024, according to Work Forward data tracking 9,000 employers. Yet Americans continue working from home approximately 25% of the time, unchanged from 2023, Stanford economist Nicholas Bloom's monthly survey of 10,000 Americans shows. ... [ Read it >> ]

0 Replies

The US will charge companies $100,000 for each new H-1B visa starting February 2026 under Project Firewall. According to a new analysis, the fee exceeds average H-1B salaries at firms like TCS where engineers earn $105,000 annually. Previous visa costs ranged from $2,000 to $33,000. Indians hold an estimated 70% of H-1B visas. The fee eliminates five to six years of profit per engineer. Typical engineers deployed to American client sites generate $150,000 to $200,000 in annual billings at 10% operating margins, producing $15,000 to $20,000 in yearly profit. J.P. Morgan states the move "prices out the utility of H-1B as a source of labor supply." But it might not be bad for the IT giants. ... [ Read it >> ]

0 Replies

It's not just glitches at the launch of the Meta Ray-Ban Display smart glasses... The New York Times remains skeptical of its market share:

[Meta's] smart glasses remain a niche. As of February, Meta had sold about two million of its $300 Ray-Ban Meta camera glasses since their 2023 debut, and it hopes to sell 10 million annually by the end of 2026, which is a tiny amount for a company this size. In the last decade, Meta has spent over $100 billion on its virtual and augmented reality division, which includes its smart glasses and is not profitable. Last quarter, the division reported a $4.5 billion loss, nearly the same as a year ago.... [ Read it >> ]

0 Replies

Reddit's content became AI training data last year when Google signed a $60 million-per-year licensing agreement. But now Reddit is "in early talks" about a new deal seeking "deeper integration with Google's AI products," reports Bloomberg (citing executives familiar with the discussions). ... [ Read it >> ]

0 Replies

"New research suggests ash and soot from burning wildlands has caused more than 41,000 excess deaths annually from 2011 to 2020," reports the Los Angeles Times:

By 2050, as global warming makes large swaths of North America hotter and drier, the annual death toll from smoke could reach between 68,000 and 71,000, without stronger preventive and public health measures... ... [ Read it >> ]

0 Replies

Many Apple Watches will soon be able to alert users about possible high blood pressure, reports Reuters — culminating six years of research and development:

Apple used AI to sort through the data from 100,000 people enrolled in a heart and movement study it originally launched in 2019 to see whether it could find features in the signal data from the watch's main heart-related sensor that it could then match up with traditional blood pressure measurements, said Sumbul Ahmad Desai [Apple's vice president of health]. After multiple layers of machine learning, Apple came up with an algorithm that it then validated with a specific study of 2,000 participants. ... [ Read it >> ]

0 Replies

"Astronomers have spotted a quasi-moon near Earth," reports CNN, "and the small space rock has likely been hanging out near our planet unseen by telescopes for about 60 years, according to new research."
The newly discovered celestial object, named 2025 PN7, is a type of near-Earth asteroid that orbits the sun but sticks close to our planet. Like our world, 2025 PN7 takes one year to complete an orbit around the sun... ... [ Read it >> ]

0 Replies

Long-time Slashdot reader theodp writes: Over at the Communications of the ACM, Bard College CS Prof Valerie Barr explains why she's Feeling Cranky About AI and CS Education. Having seen CS education go through a number of we-have-to-teach-this moments over the decades — introductory programming languages, the Web, Data Science, etc. — Barr turns her attention to the next hand-wringing "what will we do" CS education moment with AI. "We're jumping through hoops without stopping first to question the run-away train," Barr writes...... [ Read it >> ]

0 Replies

"On a recent assignment to test defenses, Dave Brauchler of the cybersecurity company NCC Group tricked a client's AI program-writing assistant into executing programs that forked over the company's databases and code repositories," reports the Washington Post.

"We have never been this foolish with security," Brauchler said...... [ Read it >> ]

0 Replies

Long-time Slashdot reader fahrbot-bot shared this report from ZME Science
Researchers from the University of Turku, in collaboration with Aalto University and Wageningen University, have developed a bio-based UV protection film for solar cells that not only blocks nearly all harmful ultraviolet light but also outperforms commercial plastic films. The key ingredient is a water extract made from red onion skins... ... [ Read it >> ]

0 Replies