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Former Google CEO Tells Workers: Turn Off Your Phone To Focus
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2025-07-21 22:22:01


Eric Schmidt, Google's former CEO, has a simple suggestion for young workers struggling to focus at work or relax: turn off your phone. Schmidt told the "Moonshots" podcast that researchers "can't think deeply" when their phones keep buzzing with notifications.

The tech veteran, who spent 10 years running Google and helped build Android's notification system, admitted the industry has worked to "monetize your attention" through constant ads and alerts.... [ Read it >> ]

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Hackers Exploit a Blind Spot By Hiding Malware Inside DNS Records
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2025-07-21 22:22:01


Hackers are hiding malware inside DNS records, allowing malicious code to bypass security defenses that typically monitor web and email traffic. DomainTools researchers discovered the technique being used to host Joke Screenmate malware, with binary files converted to hexadecimal format and broken into chunks stored in TXT records across subdomains of whitetreecollective[.]com. ... [ Read it >> ]

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UK Backing Down on Apple Encryption Backdoor After Pressure From US
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2025-07-21 21:22:01


Sir Keir Starmer's government is seeking a way out of a clash with the Trump administration over the UK's demand that Apple provide it with access to secure customer data, Financial Times reported Monday, citing two officials. From the report: The officials both said the Home Office, which ordered the tech giant in January to grant access to its most secure cloud storage system, would probably have to retreat in the face of pressure from senior leaders in Washington, including Vice President JD Vance. ... [ Read it >> ]

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Microsoft To Help France Showcase Paris' Notre-Dame Cathedral in Digital Replica
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2025-07-21 20:22:01


An anonymous reader shares a report: Microsoft is teaming up with the French government to create a digital replica of Paris' Notre-Dame Cathedral, France's most visited monument, the U.S. tech company's president, Brad Smith, said on Monday. The 862-year-old Gothic masterpiece was reopened last December after a five-year restoration following a devastating fire in 2019. A digital replica will serve as a record of the building's architectural details, Microsoft said. It will also provide a virtual experience for visitors and those unable to visit.... [ Read it >> ]

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Microsoft Releases Emergency Patches for Actively Exploited SharePoint Zero-Days
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2025-07-21 20:22:01


Microsoft has released emergency security updates for two actively exploited zero-day vulnerabilities in SharePoint, tracked as CVE-2025-53770 and CVE-2025-53771, that have compromised servers worldwide in what researchers call "ToolShell" attacks. The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency warned over the weekend that hackers were exploiting the vulnerabilities to gain remote code execution on on-premises SharePoint installations, while Microsoft has not yet provided patches for all affected versions. ... [ Read it >> ]

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T-Mobile is Bringing Low-Latency Tech To 5G For the First Time
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2025-07-21 19:22:01


T-Mobile is expanding support for the L4S standard across its 5G Advanced network over the next few weeks, becoming the first wireless carrier in the United States to implement the Low Latency, Low Loss, Scalable Throughput technology. The standard helps high-priority internet packets move with fewer delays to make video calls and cloud games feel smoother by allowing devices to manage congestion and reduce buffering issues that can occur even on higher bandwidth connections. ... [ Read it >> ]

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Replit Wiped Production Database, Faked Data to Cover Bugs, SaaStr Founder Says
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2025-07-21 19:22:01


AI coding service Replit deleted a user's production database and fabricated data to cover up bugs, according to SaaStr founder Jason Lemkin. Lemkin documented his experience on social media after Replit ignored his explicit instructions not to make code changes without permission. ... [ Read it >> ]

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Debian 13.0 To Begin Supporting RISC-V as an Official CPU Architecture
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2025-07-21 16:22:01


It was nearly a decade ago when the first RISCV64 port was started for Debian, reports Phoronix. But one of the big features planned for Debian 13.0 (planned for 9 August) is supporting RISC-V as an official CPU architecture.

This is the first release where RISC-V 64-bit is officially supported by Debian Linux albeit with limited board support and the Debian RISC-V build process is handicapped by slow hardware. ... [ Read it >> ]

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Should California's Grid Join a Larger Regional Electricity Market?
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2025-07-21 12:22:01


One in every 9 Americans lives in California. And right now its Congress is debating a bill that "would help establish a regional electricity market capable of tying together the American West's three dozen independent power grids," according to the Los Angeles Times' newsletter about climate change and energy issues. ... [ Read it >> ]

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Mysterious Antimatter Physics Discovered at the Large Hadron Collider
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2025-07-21 09:22:01


"Scientists at the world's largest particle collider have observed a new class of antimatter particles breaking down at a different rate than their matter counterparts," reports Scientific American:

[P]hysicists have been on the hunt for any sign of difference between matter and antimatter, known in the field as a violation of "charge conjugation-parity symmetry," or CP violation, that could explain why some matter escaped destruction in the early universe. [Wednesday] physicists at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC)'s LHCb experiment published a paper in the journal Nature announcing that they've measured CP violation for the first time in baryons — the class of particles that includes the protons and neutrons inside atoms. ... [ Read it >> ]

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'Fossil' Discovered Beyond Pluto Implies 'Something Dramatic' Happened 400M Years Ago
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2025-07-21 06:22:02


"The distant reaches of the Solar System are still mysterious," writes ScienceAlert. "Not much sunlight pierces these regions, and there are strong hints that undiscovered objects lurk there. The objects that astronomers have discovered in these dim reaches are primordial, and their orbits suggest the presence of more undiscovered objects." ... [ Read it >> ]

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'Tens of Thousands' of SharePoint Servers at Risk. Microsoft Issues No Patch
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2025-07-21 06:22:02


"Anybody who's got a hosted SharePoint server has got a problem," the senior VP of cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike told the Washington Post. "It's a significant vulnerability."

And it's led to a new "global attack on government agencies and businesses" in the last few days, according to the article, "breaching U.S. federal and state agencies, universities, energy companies and an Asian telecommunications company, according to state officials and private researchers..." ... [ Read it >> ]

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After 'Superman' Scores $400M Globally, How Will Marvel Respond?
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2025-07-21 06:22:02


Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige "isn't interested in your theories of superhero fatigue, which he doesn't buy as real," writes The Hollywood Reporter. Feige points to the $400 million worldwide box office for Superman (which another article notes in only its second weekend "has already passed up the entire lifetime run of Marvel's Thunderbolts*.") ... [ Read it >> ]

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How Did Amazon Spin This Year's Prime Day Sales?
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2025-07-21 06:22:02


"Amazon stretched out its annual Prime Day sales event so that it lasted four days — twice as long as in the past — and, as a result, blew away previous sales figures," reports USA Today:

Spending for [the four-day] Prime Day amounted to "more than two Black Fridays — which drove $10.8 billion in online spending during the 2024 holiday shopping season — and sets a new benchmark for the summer shopping season," Adobe said in a news release. The total also surpassed Adobe's pre-Prime Day estimate of $23.8 billion in sales. ... [ Read it >> ]

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Kill Russian Soldiers, Win Points: Is Ukraine's New Drone Scheme Gamifying War?
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2025-07-21 06:22:02


ABC News reports that Ukrainian drones struck Moscow last night — over 100 of them — closing all four of Moscow's international airports and diverting at least 134 planes. And Ukrainian commanders estimate that drones now account for 70% of all Russian deaths and injuries, according to the BBC — which means attacks on the front line are filmed, logged, and counted. ... [ Read it >> ]

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How Gmail Server Evidence Led to a Jury Verdict of $23.2 Million For Wrongful Death
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2025-07-21 06:22:02


Long-time Slashdot reader wattersa is a lawyer in Redwood City, California, and a Slashdot reader since 1998. In 2022 he shared the remarkable story of a three-year missing person investigation that was ultimately solved with a subpoena to Google. A murder victim appeared to have sent an email at a time which would exonerate the chief suspect. But a closer inspection of that email's IP addresses revealed it was actually sent from a hotel where the suspect was staying. ("Although Google does not include the originating IP address in the email headers, it turns out that they retain the IP address for some unknown length of time...") ... [ Read it >> ]

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Delta's Boeing 767 Makes Emergency Landing as Engine Catches Fire Moments After Takeoff
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2025-07-21 06:22:02


A new video shows flames emanating from one side of a Boeing 767 moments after takeoff, reports LiveMint.com. "Delta flight 446 was forced to make an emergency landing in Los Angeles," they report, adding "No one was injured. The fire was extinguished upon landing."

According to a report by Aviation A2Z, the plane (24-year-old Boeing 767-400 with registration N836MH) had just departed from Los Angeles International Airport when its left engine ignited. The pilots promptly declared an emergency and requested to return to the airport.... [ Read it >> ]

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'Inside the Silicon Valley Push to Breed Super-Babies'
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2025-07-21 06:22:02


San Francisco-based startup Orchid Health "screens embryos for thousands of potential future illnesses," reports the Washington Post, calling it "the first company to say it can sequence an embryo's entire genome of 3 billion base pairs."

It uses as few as five cells from an embryo to test for more than 1,200 of these uncommon single-gene-derived, or monogenic, conditions. The company also applies custom-built algorithms to produce what are known as polygenic risk scores, which are designed to measure a future child's genetic propensity for developing complex ailments later in life, such as bipolar disorder, cancer, Alzheimer's disease, obesity and schizophrenia. Orchid, [founder Noor] Siddiqui said in a tweet, is ushering in "a generation that gets to be genetically blessed and avoid disease." Right now, at $2,500 per embryo-screening on top of the average $20,000 for a single cycle of IVF, Siddiqui's social network in Silicon Valley and other tech hubs is an ideal target market... ... [ Read it >> ]

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Why IBM's Amazing 'Sliding Keyboard' ThinkPad 701 Never Survived Past 1995
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2025-07-21 06:22:02


Fast Company's tech editor Harry McCracken (also harrymccSlashdot reader #1,641,347) writes:

As part of Fast Company's "1995 week", I wrote about IBM's ThinkPad 701, the famous model with an expanding "butterfly" keyboard [which could be stretched from 9.7-inches to 11.5 inches]. By putting full-sized keys in a subnotebook-sized laptop, it solved one of mobile computing's biggest problems. ... [ Read it >> ]

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KDE Plasma Finally Gets Rounded Bottom Window Corners
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2025-07-20 16:22:01


Feature work on Plasma 6.5 this week includes "a major visual change that has been years in the wanting," according to the KDE blog: "rounded bottom corners for windows!"
Neowin reports:
This visual refresh, planned for the upcoming Plasma 6.5, is a feature that many users have been asking for over a long period, with a formal proposal even being submitted back in 2021.... [ Read it >> ]

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Jack Dorsey Pumps $10M Into a Nonprofit Focused on Open Source Social Media
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2025-07-20 12:22:01


Twitter co-founder/Block CEO Jack Dorsey isn't just vibe coding new apps like Bitchat and Sun Day. He's also "invested $10 million in an effort to fund experimental open source projects and other tools that could ultimately transform the social media landscape," reports TechCrunch," funding the projects through an online collective formed in May called "andOtherStuff:... [ Read it >> ]

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Healthy Babies Born in Britain After Scientists Used DNA From Three People to Avoid Genetic Disease
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2025-07-20 08:22:01


"Eight healthy babies were born in Britain," reports Phys.org, "with the help of an experimental technique that uses DNA from three people to help mothers avoid passing devastating rare diseases to their children, researchers reported Wednesday."

Mutations in mitochondrial DNA "can cause a range of diseases in children that can lead to muscle weakness, seizures, developmental delays, major organ failure and death," and in rare cases even pre-IVF testing can't clearly detect their presence.... [ Read it >> ]

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That Coldplay 'Kiss Cam' Couple Just Became a Vibe-Coded Videogame - and Then an NFT
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2025-07-20 07:22:01


"I vibe coded a little game called Coldplay Canoodlers," reads the X.com post by gaming enthusiast/songwriter Jonathan Mann. "You're the camera operator and you have to find the CEO and HR lady canoodling. 10 points every time you find them."

Mann's post includes a 30-second clip from the game, which is playable here. ... [ Read it >> ]

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First Electronic-Photonic Quantum Chip Created In Commercial Foundry
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2025-07-20 05:22:01


It's "a milestone for scalable quantum technologies," according to the announcement from Boston University. Scientists from Boston University, UC Berkeley, and Northwestern University "reported the world's first electronic-photonic-quantum system on a chip, according to a study published in Nature Electronics." ... [ Read it >> ]

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23andMe's Data Sold to Nonprofit Run by Its Co-Founder - 'And I Still Don't Trust It'
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2025-07-20 04:22:01


"Nearly 2 million people protected their privacy by deleting their DNA from 23andMe after it declared bankruptcy in March," writes a Washington Post technology columnist.

"Now it's back with the same person in charge — and I still don't trust it."

As of this week, genetic data from the more than 10 million remaining 23andMe customers has been formally sold to an organization called TTAM Research Institute for $305 million. That nonprofit is run by the person who co-founded and ran 23andMe, Anne Wojcicki. In a recent email to customers, the new 23andMe said it "will be operating with the same employees and privacy protocols that have protected your data." Never mind that Wojcicki and her privacy protocols are what put your DNA at risk in the first place... ... [ Read it >> ]

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In Shallow Water Ships Trigger Seafloor Methane Emissions, Study Finds
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2025-07-20 04:22:01


An anonymous reader shared this report from the Washington Post:
Ships trigger seafloor methane emissions while moving through shallow water, researchers report in Communications Earth & Environment. The scientists say the unexpected discovery has nothing to do with the type of fuel used by the ship. Instead, "ship-induced pressure changes and turbulent mixing" trigger the release of the gas from the seafloor. Bubbles and gas diffusion push the methane into the atmosphere, where it acts as a greenhouse gas... ... [ Read it >> ]

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Android Phones Can Detect Earthquakes Before the Ground Starts Shaking
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2025-07-20 04:22:01


Electronic messages travel faster than seismic waves, Gizmodo points out — meaning some people near an earthquake receive an Android Earthquake Alert "before the seismic waves reach them — and even a few seconds could be just enough time to hide under a table or run outside." ... [ Read it >> ]

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What Eyewitnesses Remembered About the World's First Atomic Bomb Explosion in 1945
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2025-07-20 04:22:01


Historian Garrett M. Graff describes his upcoming book, The Devil Reached Toward the Sky: An Oral History of the Making and Unleashing of the Atomic Bomb. "I assembled an oral history of the Manhattan Project, the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the end of World War II in the Pacific, told through the voices of around 500 participants and witnesses of the events — including luminaries like Albert Einstein and Oppenheimer and political figures like President Harry Truman." ... [ Read it >> ]

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Boeing Fuel Switches Checked, as Critic Cites a Similar Fuel Switch Cutoff in 2019
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2025-07-20 04:22:01


ABC News reports:

Dialogue heard on a cockpit voice recording indicates that the captain of the Air India flight that crashed in June, killing 260 people, may have turned off the fuel just after takeoff, prompting the first officer to panic, according to The Wall Street Journal, which cited sources familiar with U.S. official's early assessment... The president of the Federation of Indian Pilots condemned the Wall Street Journal report, saying, "The preliminary report nowhere states that the pilots have moved the fuel control switches, and this has been corroborated by the CVR [cockpit voice recorder] recording." ... [ Read it >> ]

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Chinese Companies Now Authorized to Conduct Foreign Cyberattacks, Sell Access to Government
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2025-07-20 04:22:01


"The U.S. is absolutely facing the most serious Chinese hacking ever." That's what the Washington Post was told by a China-focused consultant at security company SentinelOne:

Undeterred by recent indictments alleging widespread cyberespionage against American agencies, journalists and infrastructure targets, Chinese hackers are hitting a wider range of targets and battling harder to stay inside once detected, seven current and former U.S. officials said in interviews. Hacks from suspected Chinese government actors detected by the security firm CrowdStrike more than doubled from 2023 to more than 330 last year and continued to climb as the new administration took over, the company said... Although the various Chinese hacking campaigns seem to be led by different government agencies and have different goals, all benefit from new techniques and from Beijing's introduction of a less constrained system for cyber offense, the officials and outside researchers told The Washington Post... Chinese intelligence, military and security agencies previously selected targets and tasked their own employees with breaking in, they said. But the Chinese government decided to take a more aggressive approach by allowing private industry to conduct cyberattacks and hacking campaigns on their own, U.S. officials said. ... [ Read it >> ]

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After 30 Years, You Can Buy a New 'Commodore 64 Ultimate' for $299
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2025-07-20 04:22:01


"Commodore has returned from a parallel timeline where tech stayed optimistic, inviting, and human," explains the official web site for "the first real Commodore computer in over 30 years..." You can check out an ad for it here. "Not an emulator. Not a PC... Powered by a FPGA recreation of the original motherboard, wrapped in glowing game-reactive LEDs (or classic beige of course)." ... [ Read it >> ]

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OpenAI CEO Says Meta Tried Poaching ChatGPT Engineers With $100M Bonuses
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2025-07-20 04:22:01


The Independent notes a remarkable-if-true figure that's being bandied around this week.

Meta "started making these, like, giant offers to a lot of people on our team," OpenAI CEO Sam Altman told his brother Jack on his podcast. "You know, like, $100 million signing bonuses, more than that [in] compensation per year... I'm really happy that, at least so far, none of our best people have decided to take him up on that." ... [ Read it >> ]

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'Edge of Space' Skydiver Felix Baumgartner Dies in Paragliding Accident
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2025-07-20 04:22:01


Felix Baumgartner has died. He was 56.
In 2012 Slashdot extensively covered the skydiver's "leap from the edge of space."

ABC News remembers it as a Red Bull-financed stunt that involved "diving 24 miles from the edge of space, in a plummet that reached a speed of more than 500 mph."... [ Read it >> ]

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'Utopian' City 'California Forever' Announces Huge Tech Manufacturing Park
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2025-07-20 04:22:01


An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: California Forever announced on Thursday plans to build a massive manufacturing park called Solano Foundry, the newest addition to its master-planned "utopian" city backed by a group of Silicon Valley billionaires. Solano Foundry is 2,100 acres that can host 40 million square feet of advanced tech manufacturing space. The manufacturing park will be built as part of its planned walkable city with over 175,000 homes, CEO Jan Sramek said at the Reindustrialize conference in Detroit.... [ Read it >> ]

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Microsoft To Stop Using Engineers In China For Tech Support of US Military
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2025-07-20 04:22:01


Microsoft will stop using China-based engineers to support U.S. military cloud services after a ProPublica report revealed their involvement, prompting backlash from Senator Tom Cotton and a two-week Pentagon review ordered by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. In response, Hegseth announced an immediate ban on any Chinese involvement in Department of Defense cloud contracts. Reuters reports: The report detailed Microsoft's use of Chinese engineers to work on U.S. military cloud computing systems under the supervision of U.S. "digital escorts" hired through subcontractors who have security clearances but often lacked the technical skills to assess whether the work of the Chinese engineers posed a cybersecurity threat. [Microsoft] told ProPublica it disclosed its practices to the U.S. government during an authorization process.... [ Read it >> ]

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Largest Piece of Mars On Earth Fetches $5.3 Million At Auction
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2025-07-20 04:22:01


At Sotheby's Geek Week auction, the largest known Martian meteorite on Earth sold for a record-breaking $5.3 million. The Associated Press reports: The 54-pound (25-kilogram) rock named NWA 16788 was discovered in the Sahara Desert in Niger by a meteorite hunter in November 2023, after having been blown off the surface of Mars by a massive asteroid strike and traveling 140 million miles (225 million kilometers) to Earth, according to Sotheby's. The estimated sale price before the auction was $2 million to $4 million. The identity of the buyer was not immediately disclosed. The final bid was $4.3 million. Adding various fees and costs, the official sale price was about $5.3 million, making it the most valuable meteorite ever sold at auction, Sotheby's said.... [ Read it >> ]

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Scientists Make 'Magic State' Breakthrough After 20 Years
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2025-07-20 04:22:01


An anonymous reader quotes a report from Live Science: In a world first, scientists have demonstrated an enigmatic phenomenon in quantum computing that could pave the way for fault-tolerant machines that are far more powerful than any supercomputer. The process, called "magic state distillation," was first proposed 20 years ago, but its use in logical qubits has eluded scientists ever since. It has long been considered crucial for producing the high-quality resources, known as "magic states," needed to fulfill the full potential of quantum computers. [...] Now, however, scientists with QuEra say they have demonstrated magic state distillation in practice for the first time on logical qubits. They outlined their findings in a new study published July 14 in the journal Nature.... [ Read it >> ]

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Intel Kills Clear Linux OS As Support Ends Without Warning
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2025-07-20 04:22:01


BrianFagioli shares a report from NERDS.xyz: Intel has quietly pulled the plug on Clear Linux OS, officially ending support for the once-promising Linux distribution that it had backed for nearly a decade. Effective immediately, the company says it will no longer provide any updates, security patches, or maintenance for the operating system. In a final blow, the Clear Linux OS GitHub repository is now archived in read-only mode.... [ Read it >> ]

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Google Sues Operators of 10-Million-Device Badbox 2.0 Botnet
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2025-07-20 04:22:01


Google has filed a lawsuit to dismantle the sprawling Badbox 2.0 botnet, which infected over 10 million Android devices with pre-installed malware. Badbox 2.0 "is already the largest known botnet of internet-connected TV devices, and it grows each day. It has harmed millions of victims in the United States and around the world and threatens many more," Google said in its complaint. SecurityWeek reports: The internet giant cautions that, while it has been used mainly for fraud, the botnet could be used for more harmful types of cybercrime, such as ransomware or distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks. In addition to pre-installing the malware on devices, Badbox 2.0's operators also tricked users into installing infected applications that provided them with further access to their personal devices, Google says. As part of their operation, the individuals behind Badbox 2.0 sold access to the infected devices to be used as residential proxies, and conducted ad fraud schemes by abusing these devices to create fake ad views or to exploit pay-per-click compensation models, the company continues. The internet giant also points out that this is the second global botnet the perpetrators have built, after the initial Badbox botnet was disrupted by German law enforcement in 2023.... [ Read it >> ]

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Ukrainian Hackers Claim To Have Destroyed Major Russian Drone Maker's Entire Network
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2025-07-18 05:22:02


Ukrainian hacker group BO Team, with help from the Ukrainian Cyber Alliance and possibly Ukraine's military, claims to have wiped out one of Russia's largest military drone manufacturers, destroying 47TB of production data and even disabling the doors in the facility. "Or, as described by the hacking collective (per Google translate), they 'deeply penetrated' the drone manufacturer 'to the very tonsils of demilitarization and denazification,'" reports The Register. From the report: BO Team (also known as Black Owl) announced the breach on its Telegram channel, and claimed to have carried out the operation alongside fellow hackers the Ukrainian Cyber Alliance "and one very well-known organization, the mention of which makes Vanya's bottle receivers explode," according to a Google translation of the Russian text. While the "very well-known organization" isn't named, BO Team included a link to Ukraine's Ministry of Defence.... [ Read it >> ]

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Dictionary.com 'Devastated' Paid Users By Abruptly Deleting Saved Word Lists
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2025-07-18 04:22:01


Dictionary.com abruptly deleted all user accounts and saved word lists from its premium apps without notice or refunds, leaving long-time logophiles "devastated." "The company deleted all accounts, as well as the only ways to use Dictionary.com without seeing ads -- even if you previously paid for an ad-free experience," reports Ars Technica. From the report: Dictionary.com offers a free dictionary through its website and free Android and iOS apps. It used to offer paid-for mobile apps, called Dictionary.com Pro, that let users set up accounts, use the app without ads, and enabled other features (like grammar tips and science and rhyming dictionaries) that are gone now. Dictionary.com's premium apps also let people download an offline dictionary (its free apps used to let you buy a downloadable dictionary as a one-time purchase), but offline the dictionaries aren't available anymore.... [ Read it >> ]

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House Passes Historic Crypto Bill Regulating Stablecoins
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2025-07-18 04:22:01


The House passed a bipartisan bill regulating stablecoins which now heads to President Trump's desk as part of his push to make the U.S. the "crypto capital of the world." Two other crypto-related bills -- one defining digital asset market structure and another banning a U.S. central bank digital currency -- were also approved by the House but face uncertain futures in the Senate amid partisan tensions and concerns over Trump's personal financial ties to crypto ventures. CNBC reports: The stablecoin bill, passed on a 308-122 vote, sets initial guardrails and consumer protections for the cryptocurrency, which is tied to a stable asset, often the U.S. dollar, to reduce price volatility. It passed the Senate with bipartisan support in June. "Around the world, payment systems are undergoing a revolution," said House Financial Services Chair French Hill of Arkansas as lawmakers debated the stablecoin legislation Thursday morning. Hill said the bill will "ensure American competitiveness and strong guardrails for our consumers."... [ Read it >> ]

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Google Spots Tailored Backdoor Malware Aimed At SonicWall Appliances
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2025-07-18 03:22:01


An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Record: Threat actors are stealing sensitive data from organizations by breaching end-of-life appliances made by cybersecurity company SonicWall. Incident responders from Google Threat Intelligence Group (GTIG) and Mandiant said on Wednesday that they have uncovered an ongoing campaign by an unidentified threat group that leverages credentials and one-time password (OTP) seeds stolen during previous intrusions -- allowing the hackers to regain access to organizations even after security updates are installed. [...]... [ Read it >> ]

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New Russian Law Criminalizes Online Searches For Controversial Content
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2025-07-18 02:22:01


Russian lawmakers passed sweeping new legislation allowing authorities to fine individuals simply for searching and accessing content labeled "extremist" via VPNs. The Washington Post reports: Russia defines "extremist materials" as content officially added by a court to a government-maintained registry, a running list of about 5,500 entries, or content produced by "extremist organizations" ranging from "the LGBT movement" to al-Qaeda. The new law also covers materials that promote alleged Nazi ideology or incite extremist actions. Until now, Russian law stopped short of punishing individuals for seeking information online; only creating or sharing such content is prohibited. The new amendments follow remarks by high-ranking officials that censorship is justified in wartime. Adoption of the measures would mark a significant tightening of Russia's already restrictive digital laws.... [ Read it >> ]

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News Publishers Take Paywall-Blocker 12ft.io Offline
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2025-07-18 01:22:01


The Verge's Emma Roth reports: The News/Media Alliance, a trade association behind major news publishers, announced that it has "successfully secured" the removal of 12ft.io, a website that helped users bypass paywalls online. The trade association says 12ft.io's webhost took down the site on July 14th "following the News/Media Alliance's efforts." 12ft.io -- or 12 Foot Ladder -- also allowed users to view webpages without ads, trackers, or pop-ups by disguising a user's browser as a web crawler, giving them unfettered access to a webpage's contents. Software engineer Thomas Millar says he created the site when he realized "8 of the top 10 links on Google were paywalled" when doing research during the pandemic. [...]... [ Read it >> ]

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Meta Investors, Mark Zuckerberg Reach Settlement To End $8 Billion Trial Over Facebook Privacy Litigation
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2025-07-18 01:22:01


An anonymous reader quotes a report from NBC News: Mark Zuckerberg and current and former directors and officers of Meta Platforms agreed on Thursday to settle claims seeking $8 billion for the damage they allegedly caused the company by allowing repeated violations of Facebook users' privacy, a lawyer for the shareholders told a Delaware judge on Thursday. The parties did not disclose details of the settlement and defense lawyers did not address the judge, Kathaleen McCormick of the Delaware Court of Chancery. McCormick adjourned the trial just as it was to enter its second day and she congratulated the parties. The plaintiffs' lawyer, Sam Closic, said the agreement just came together quickly.... [ Read it >> ]

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Robinhood CEO Says Majority of Company's New Code Written by AI
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2025-07-18 00:22:01


Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev has said that the majority of his company's new code is written by AI, with "close to 100%" of engineers using AI code editors. Speaking on the 20VC podcast, Tenev estimated around 50% of new code at the trading platform is AI-generated.

Tenev said the 50% figure is imprecise due to advanced "agentic" code editors that have made it difficult to distinguish human-written from AI-generated code. The company has progressed from GitHub Copilot to Cursor and now Windsurf, where "nearly all of the code is written by AI," he said. Tenev estimated only a "minority" of new code at Robinhood is written by humans.... [ Read it >> ]

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Mozilla Ships WebGPU in Firefox 141, Catching Up To Chrome's 2023 Launch
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2025-07-17 23:22:01


Mozilla will ship WebGPU support in Firefox 141 when the browser launches July 22, bringing graphics processing capabilities that Chrome users have had since 2023. The initial release supports Windows only, with Mac, Linux, and Android planned for the coming months.

WebGPU provides web content direct access to graphics processors for high-performance computation and rendering in games and complex 3D applications. Chrome gained WebGPU support with version 113 in 2023, while Safari 26 is expected to add the feature this fall. Firefox's implementation uses the WGPU Rust crate, which translates web requests into native commands for Direct3D 12, Metal, or Vulkan.... [ Read it >> ]

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Britain's Bankrupt Universities Are Hunting For Cheaper Models
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2025-07-17 22:22:01


British universities face mounting financial pressures with four in ten institutions running deficits, according to the Office for Students regulator. Half have closed courses to save money, while Durham and Newcastle each shed 200 staff members. Lancaster's cost-saving plan could eliminate one in five academic positions. The crisis, writes Economist, stems from frozen tuition fees for English students, which will rise by only a few percent in August for the first time in eight years.... [ Read it >> ]

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OpenAI Debuts AI Agent That Controls Browsers To Automate Shopping, Presentations
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2025-07-17 22:22:01


OpenAI launched ChatGPT agent Thursday, an AI tool that can complete multi-step tasks including online shopping, creating PowerPoint presentations, and generating spreadsheets. The agent combines capabilities from two existing OpenAI services: Operator, which can browse and interact with websites like a human, and Deep Research, which handles complex online research tasks. ... [ Read it >> ]

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