China launched 12 satellites on Wednesday as part of the âoeThree-Body Computing Constellation,â the worldâ(TM)s first dedicated orbital computing network led by ADA Space and Zhejiang Lab. SpaceNews reports: A Long March 2D rocket lifted off at 12:12 a.m. Eastern (0412 UTC) May 14 from Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China. Insulation tiles fell away from the payload fairing as the rocket climbed into a clear blue sky above the spaceport. The China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC) announced a fully successful launch, revealing the mission to have sent 12 satellites for a space computing constellation into orbit. Commercial company ADA Space released further details, stating that the 12 satellites form the "Three-Body Computing Constellation," which will directly process data in space, rather than on the ground, reducing reliance on ground-based computing infrastructure. The constellation will be capable of a combined 5 peta operations per second (POPS) with 30 terabytes of onboard storage.... [ Read it >> ]

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Dartmouth researchers propose that dark matter originated from massless, light-like particles in the early universe that rapidly condensed into massive particles through a spin-based interaction. Phys.Org reports: [T]he study authors write that their theory is distinct because it can be tested using existing observational data. The extremely low-energy particles they suggest make up dark matter would have a unique signature on the cosmic microwave background, or CMB, the leftover radiation from the Big Bang that fills all of the universe. "Dark matter started its life as near-massless relativistic particles, almost like light," says Robert Caldwell, a professor of physics and astronomy and the paper's senior author. "That's totally antithetical to what dark matter is thought to be -- it is cold lumps that give galaxies their mass," Caldwell says. "Our theory tries to explain how it went from being light to being lumps."... [ Read it >> ]

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A Northeastern University student demanded her tuition money back after discovering her business professor was secretly using AI to create course materials. Ella Stapleton, who graduated this year, grew suspicious when she noticed telltale signs of AI generation in her professor's lecture notes, including a stray ChatGPT citation in the bibliography, recurring typos matching machine outputs, and images showing figures with extra limbs. ... [ Read it >> ]

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An anonymous reader shares an opinion piece from The Guardian, written by columnist Emma Brockes: Mark Zuckerberg has gone on a promotional tour to talk up the potential of AI in human relationships. I know; listening to Zuck on friendship is a bit like taking business advice from Bernie Madoff or lessons in sportsmanship from Tonya Harding. But at recent tech conferences and on podcasts, Zuck has been saying he has seen the future and it's one in which the world's "loneliness epidemic" is alleviated by people finding friendship with "a system that knows them well and that kind of understands them in the way that their feed algorithms do." In essence, we'll be friends with AI, instead of people. The missing air quotes around "knows" and "understands" is a distinction we can assume Zuck neither knows nor understands.... [ Read it >> ]

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YouTube has suspended ad revenue for two additional channels -- Screen Trailers and Royal Trailer -- as part of an ongoing effort to combat fake movie trailers using AI-generated content. These channels, alternative accounts of previously demonetized Screen Culture and KH Studio, splice actual movie footage with AI-generated material, often accumulating millions of views. ... [ Read it >> ]

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Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney said Thursday that Apple has "neither accepted nor rejected" Fortnite's second App Store submission, potentially delaying the game's major update planned for Friday.

Epic initially submitted Fortnite on May 9 following Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers' order for Apple to comply with the original 2021 injunction. After five days without response, Epic withdrew and resubmitted to accommodate the upcoming update. While Apple's guidelines state 90% of submissions are reviewed within 24 hours, this silence is unprecedented. ... [ Read it >> ]

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The FBI has issued a warning that cybercriminals have started using AI-generated voice deepfakes in phishing attacks impersonating senior U.S. officials. These attacks, involving smishing and vishing tactics, aim to compromise personal accounts and contacts for further social engineering and financial fraud. BleepingComputer reports: "Since April 2025, malicious actors have impersonated senior U.S. officials to target individuals, many of whom are current or former senior U.S. federal or state government officials and their contacts. If you receive a message claiming to be from a senior U.S. official, do not assume it is authentic," the FBI warned. "The malicious actors have sent text messages and AI-generated voice messages -- techniques known as smishing and vishing, respectively -- that claim to come from a senior U.S. official in an effort to establish rapport before gaining access to personal accounts."... [ Read it >> ]

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Microsoft has stopped production of the Surface Laptop Studio 2 and will mark it as end-of-life in June, with no successor currently planned. Tom's Hardware reports: The Surface Laptop Studio 2 is being put out to pasture quietly, much like other devices that the company has sunset. The Surface Studio, a desktop PC that folded down into a creative studio for drawing, was formally discontinued in December without a successor. Microsoft's audio products, the Surface Headphones 2 and Surface Earbuds, have also quietly disappeared.... [ Read it >> ]

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At its second annual Upfront 2025 event yesterday, Netflix announced that it has created interactive mid-roll ads and pause ads that incorporate generative AI. These new ad formats are expected to roll out in 2026. Ars Technica reports: "[Netflix] members pay as much attention to midroll ads as they do to the shows and movies themselves," Amy Reinhard, president of advertising at Netflix, said. Netflix started testing pause ads in July 2024, per The Verge. Speaking to advertisers, Reinhard claimed that ad subscribers spend 41 hours per month on Netflix on average. The new ad formats follow Netflix's launch of its own in-house advertising platform in the US in April. It had previously debuted the platform in Canada and plans to expand it globally by June, per The Verge.... [ Read it >> ]

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: A lawyer representing Anthropic admitted to using an erroneous citation created by the company's Claude AI chatbot in its ongoing legal battle with music publishers, according to a filing made in a Northern California court on Thursday. Claude hallucinated the citation with "an inaccurate title and inaccurate authors," Anthropic says in the filing, first reported by Bloomberg. Anthropic's lawyers explain that their "manual citation check" did not catch it, nor several other errors that were caused by Claude's hallucinations. Anthropic apologized for the error and called it "an honest citation mistake and not a fabrication of authority." Earlier this week, lawyers representing Universal Music Group and other music publishers accused Anthropic's expert witness -- one of the company's employees, Olivia Chen -- of using Claude to cite fake articles in her testimony. Federal judge, Susan van Keulen, then ordered Anthropic to respond to these allegations. Last week, a California judge slammed a pair of law firms for the undisclosed use of AI after he received a supplemental brief with "numerous false, inaccurate, and misleading legal citations and quotations." The judge imposed $31,000 in sanctions against the law firms and said "no reasonably competent attorney should out-source research and writing" to AI.... [ Read it >> ]

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According to the Wall Street Journal (paywalled), Meta is delaying the release of its largest Llama 4 AI model, known as "Behemoth," over concerns that it may not be enough of an advance on previous models. "It's another indicator that the AI industry's scaling strategy -- 'just make everything bigger' -- could be hitting a wall," notes Axios. From the report: The Journal says that Behemoth is now expected to be released in the fall or even later. It was originally scheduled to coincide with Meta's Llamacon event last month, then later postponed till June. It's also possible the company could speed up a more limited Behemoth release.... [ Read it >> ]

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Longtime Slashdot reader mprindle writes: Nextcloud has been in an ongoing battle with Google over the tech giant revoking the All Files permission from the Nextcloud Android App, which prevents users from managing their files on their server. After a blog post and several tech sites reported on the issue, "Google reached out to us [Nexcloud] and offered to restore the permission, which will give users back the functionality that was lost." Nextcloud is working on an app update and hopes to have it pushed out within a week.... [ Read it >> ]

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: On Thursday, Telegram announced it had removed two huge black markets estimated to have generated more than $35 billion since 2021 by serving cybercriminals and scammers. Blockchain research firm Elliptic told Reuters that the Chinese-language markets Xinbi Guarantee and Huione Guarantee together were far more lucrative than Silk Road, an illegal drug marketplace that the FBI notoriously seized in 2013, which was valued at about $3.4 billion. Both markets were forced offline on Tuesday, Elliptic reported, and already, Huione Guarantee has confirmed that its market will cease to operate entirely due to the Telegram removal.... [ Read it >> ]

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Uber's autonomous vehicle chief Andrew Macdonald predicted this week that the company will employ more human drivers in a decade despite aggressively expanding robotaxi operations. Speaking at the Financial Times' Future of the Car conference, Macdonald outlined a "hybrid marketplace" where autonomous vehicles dominate city centers while human drivers serve areas beyond robotaxi coverage, handle airport runs, and respond during extreme weather events. ... [ Read it >> ]

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School districts across the United States were woefully unprepared for ChatGPT's impact on education, according to thousands of pages of public records obtained by 404 Media. Documents from early 2023, the publication reports, show a "total crapshoot" in responses, with some state education departments admitting they hadn't considered ChatGPT's implications while others hired pro-AI consultants to train educators. ... [ Read it >> ]

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Scientists have successfully treated a 9.5-month-old boy with an ultra-rare genetic disorder using the world's first personalized gene-editing therapy. The patient, identified as KJ, has CPS1 deficiency -- a condition affecting just one in 1.3 million babies that prevents proper ammonia processing and is often fatal. ... [ Read it >> ]

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Apple has implemented conspicuous warning labels featuring red exclamation marks on EU App Store listings that use external payment systems. The company's new tactic targets apps like Instacar, a popular Hungarian vehicle valuation tool with thousands of positive reviews, displaying ominous warnings that the app "does not support the App Store's private and secure payment system." ... [ Read it >> ]

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Google has overtaken IBM to become the leader in generative AI-related patents and also leads in the emerging area of agentic AI, according to data from IFI Claims. Axios: In the patents-for-agents U.S. rankings, Google and Nvidia top the list, followed by IBM, Intel and Microsoft, according to an analysis released Thursday. ... [ Read it >> ]

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The Federal Trade Commission has postponed enforcement of its consumer-friendly "click to cancel" rule from May 14 to July 14, giving businesses two additional months to comply. The regulation requires companies to make subscription cancellations as straightforward as the sign-up process, prohibiting practices like forcing customers who subscribed online to navigate through chatbots or call centers to cancel. ... [ Read it >> ]

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Cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase said Thursday it is offering a $20 million reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of criminals who attempted to extort the company for the same amount after stealing customer data.

The criminals bribed customer support agents in overseas markets to access records containing addresses, phone numbers, government IDs, and partial bank and Social Security details of more than 80,000 customers. "It sucks but when we see a problem like this we want to own it and make it right," Coinbase Chief Security Officer Philip Martin told Fortune. ... [ Read it >> ]

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A new study published in Nature Human Behaviour reveals that ChatGPT diminishes the diversity of ideas generated during brainstorming sessions. Researchers from the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School found [PDF] that while generative AI tools may enhance individual creativity, they simultaneously reduce the collective diversity of novel content. ... [ Read it >> ]

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An anonymous reader shares a report: Microsoft's recently announced job cuts fell hardest on the people who build the company's products, showing that even software developers are at risk in the age of artificial intelligence.

In Microsoft's home state of Washington, software engineering was by far the largest single job category to receive layoff notices, making up more than 40% of the roughly 2,000 positions cut, according to state documents reviewed by Bloomberg. Microsoft on Tuesday said it would cut about 6,000 workers across the company. The Washington state data represents about a third of the total.... [ Read it >> ]

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Nvidia-backed CoreWeave plans to spend up to $23 billion this year on AI infrastructure and data center capacity, as it aims to meet the booming demand from clients. Reuters reports: The heavy spending plan weighed on its shares, which fell 5% after surging as much as 11% on better-than-expected revenue in its first results as a public company after debuting on the Nasdaq in March. The company's projected capital expenditure of between $3 billion and $3.5 billion for the second quarter was way above its revenue expectation of $1.06 billion to $1.1 billion. "While the revenue from Microsoft is likely secure for the next three years, CoreWeave represents overflow capacity for Microsoft, which may not need that capacity in the future," D.A. Davidson analyst Gil Luria said.... [ Read it >> ]

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U.S. President Donald Trump said he has told Apple CEO Tim Cook to stop expanding manufacturing operations in India despite New Delhi offering a "no-tariff deal" to the United States, a move that could impede India's aspirations to become a global technology manufacturing hub.
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Montana has passed a bill allowing licensed clinics to offer experimental medical treatments that haven't been approved by the FDA, provided the drugs have passed phase I safety trials. MIT Technology Review reports: The bill, which was passed by the state legislature on April 29 and is expected to be signed by Governor Greg Gianforte, essentially expands on existing Right to Try legislation in the state. But while that law was originally designed to allow terminally ill people to access experimental drugs, the new bill was drafted and lobbied for by people interested in extending human lifespans -- a group of longevity enthusiasts that includes scientists, libertarians, and influencers. These longevity enthusiasts are hoping Montana will serve as a test bed for opening up access to experimental drugs. [...]... [ Read it >> ]

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Fintech startup Klarna is now recruiting humans after its AI customer service agents underperformed. The buy-now-pay-later company, which eliminated its marketing contracts in 2023 and customer service team in 2024, now plans an "Uber-type setup" with remote gig workers.

This marks a stark reversal from CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski's 2024 claim that "AI can already do all of the jobs that we, as humans, do." Siemiatkowski told Bloomberg: "From a brand perspective, I just think it's so critical that you are clear to your customer that there will be always a human if you want." He added that "cost unfortunately seems to have been a too predominant evaluation factor" leading to "lower quality."... [ Read it >> ]

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Google's DeepMind research division claims its newest AI agent marks a significant step toward using the technology to tackle big problems in math and science. The system, known as AlphaEvolve, is based on the company's Gemini large language models (LLMs), with the addition of an "evolutionary" approach that evaluates and improves algorithms across a range of use cases. AlphaEvolve is essentially an AI coding agent, but it goes deeper than a standard Gemini chatbot. When you talk to Gemini, there is always a risk of hallucination, where the AI makes up details due to the non-deterministic nature of the underlying technology. AlphaEvolve uses an interesting approach to increase its accuracy when handling complex algorithmic problems.... [ Read it >> ]

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Microsoft quietly announced earlier this week that it plans to shut down a long-standing tool supplying search engine startups and other software developers with a raw feed of Bing search results. From a report: The Bing Search APIs, or application programming interfaces, were once vital to many niche Google alternatives, but fell out of favor more recently as Microsoft hiked fees for the service and restricted its use. ... [ Read it >> ]

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Google has warned that the hacker group known as "Scattered Spider," which recently disrupted UK retailer Marks & Spencer, is now targeting U.S. retailers with aggressive and sophisticated cyberattacks. "U.S. retailers should take note. These actors are aggressive, creative, and particularly effective at circumventing mature security programs," John Hultquist, an analyst at Google's cybersecurity arm, said in an email sent on Wednesday. The Guardian reports: Scattered Spider is widely reported to have been behind the particularly disruptive hack at M&S, one of the best-known names in British business, whose online operations have been frozen since 25 April. It has a history of focusing on a single sector at a time and is likely to target retail for a while longer, Hultquist said. Just a day before Google's warning, M&S announced that some customer data had been accessed, but this did not include usable payment or card details, or any account passwords. The Guardian understands the details taken are names, addresses and order histories. M&S said personal information had been accessed because of the "sophisticated nature of the incident."... [ Read it >> ]

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Netflix said its cheaper, ad-supporter tier now has 94 million monthly active users -- an increase of more than 20 million since its last public tally in November. CNBC reports: The company and its peers have been increasingly leaning on advertising to boost the profitability of their streaming products. Netflix first introduced the ad-supported plan in November 2022. Netflix's ad-supported plan costs $7.99 per month, a steep discount from its least-expensive ad-free plan, at $17.99 per month. Netflix also said its cheapest tier reaches more 18- to 34-year-olds than any U.S. broadcast or cable network. "When you compare us to our competitors, attention starts higher and ends much higher," Netflix president of advertising Amy Reinhard said in a statement. "Even more impressive, members pay as much attention to mid-roll ads as they do to the shows and movies themselves."... [ Read it >> ]

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Apple's smartphone shipments in China plunged nearly 50% year-over-year in March 2025, as domestic brands like Huawei and Vivo surged ahead -- now controlling 92% of the market. MacRumors reports: The steep decline saw shipments fall to just 1.89 million units, down from 3.75 million during the same period last year. That shrinks Apple's share of the Chinese market to approximately 8%, while domestic brands now control 92% of smartphone shipments. For the entire first quarter, non-Chinese brand shipments declined over 25%, while total smartphone shipments in China actually increased by 3.3%.... [ Read it >> ]

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from ZDNet: Would you believe Microsoft has announced a new Linux distribution service for its Azure cloud service? You should. For many years, the most popular operating system on Azure has not been Windows Server, it's been Linux. Last time I checked, in 2024, Azure Linux Platforms Group Program Manager Jack Aboutboul told me that 60% of Azure Marketplace offerings and more than 60% of virtual machine cores use Linux. Those figures mean it's sensible for Microsoft to make it easier than ever for Linux distributors to release first-class Linux distros on Azure. The tech giant is taking this step, said Andrew Randall, principal manager for the Azure Core Linux product management team, by making "Azure Image Testing for Linux (AITL) available 'as a service' to distro publishers."... [ Read it >> ]

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BrianFagioli shares a report from BetaNews: For years, NordVPN made Linux users live in the terminal. Sure, the command-line interface technically worked, but let's not pretend it was ideal for everyone. Meanwhile, competitors like Surfshark and ExpressVPN had already given their Linux users full graphical interfaces. Now, NordVPN has finally caught up by launching its very own GUI for Linux. So, what exactly does this mean? Well, instead of typing in commands, users can now click their way through connection options, settings, and even theme preferences like light or dark mode. This will arguably make using the service on Linux much easier. [...]... [ Read it >> ]

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Uber is launching a fixed-route shuttle service in major U.S. cities that offers commuters up to 50% off UberX fares during weekday peak hours. Called "Route Share," the service aims to provide a more affordable, predictable alternative to standard ride-hailing. TechCrunch reports: The commuter shuttles will drive between pre-set stops every 20 minutes, according to Sachin Kansal, Uber's chief product officer. He noted that there will be dozens of routes in each launch city -- like between Williamsburg and Midtown in NYC. The routes, which are selected based on Uber's extensive data on popular travel patterns, might have one or two additional stops to pick up other passengers. To start, riders will only ever have to share the route with up to two other co-riders.... [ Read it >> ]

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: We've known for months now that Valve is expanding its Linux-based SteamOS operating system beyond the Steam Deck to other handheld PCs, starting with some versions of the Asus ROG Ally. This week, Valve began making some changes to its Steam storefront to prepare for a future when the Deck isn't the only hardware running SteamOS. A new "SteamOS Compatible" label will begin rolling out "over the next few weeks" to denote "whether a game and all of its middleware is supported on SteamOS," including "game functionality, launcher functionality, and anti-cheat support." Games that don't meet this requirement will be marked as "SteamOS Unsupported." As with current games and the Steam Deck, this label doesn't mean these games won't run, but it does mean there may be some serious compatibility issues that keep the game from running as intended.... [ Read it >> ]

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Palantir CEO Alex Karp criticized Europe's AI adoption while praising Saudi Arabia's engineering talent at Tuesday's Saudi-US Investment Forum in Riyadh. "It's like people have given up," Karp said of Europe, while commending Saudi engineers for their "meritocracy and patriotism" and "deep tradition in engineering excellence."... [ Read it >> ]

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A California judge slammed a pair of law firms for the undisclosed use of AI after he received a supplemental brief with "numerous false, inaccurate, and misleading legal citations and quotations." From a report: In a ruling submitted last week, Judge Michael Wilner imposed $31,000 in sanctions against the law firms involved, saying "no reasonably competent attorney should out-source research and writing" to AI, as pointed out by law professors Eric Goldman and Blake Reid on Bluesky. ... [ Read it >> ]

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Gilmoure shares a report: U.S. energy officials are reassessing the risk posed by Chinese-made devices that play a critical role in renewable energy infrastructure after unexplained communication equipment was found inside some of them, two people familiar with the matter said. Power inverters, which are predominantly produced in China, are used throughout the world to connect solar panels and wind turbines to electricity grids. They are also found in batteries, heat pumps and electric vehicle chargers. ... [ Read it >> ]

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Warner Bros. Discovery said Wednesday it will revert its streaming service name from Max back to HBO Max this summer, just two years after dropping the HBO branding.

The decision, revealed at the company's upfront presentation to advertisers in New York, represents an admission that HBO's premium brand equity remains valuable in the streaming landscape. "Returning the HBO brand into HBO Max will further drive the service forward and amplify the uniqueness that subscribers can expect," WBD stated in a press release.... [ Read it >> ]

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An anonymous reader shares a report: Sony just announced its financial forecast for the next year, and it's expecting to be impacted by tariffs to the tune of 100 billion yen (about $680 million). To compensate, the company says it's considering options including moving manufacturing to the US and increasing prices for consumers. ... [ Read it >> ]

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Workers who secured substantial salary increases during the pandemic hiring frenzy are now confronting a stark reality: they're likely overpaid in today's cooling job market. According to new Korn Ferry data, two-thirds of U.S. workers believe they're compensated at or above their market value. ... [ Read it >> ]

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President Donald Trump's administration has taken a tougher stance on Chinese technology advances, warning companies around the world that using AI chips made by Huawei could trigger criminal penalties for violating US export controls. From a report: The commerce department issued guidance to clarify that Huawei's Ascend processors were subject to export controls because they almost certainly contained, or were made with, US technology. ... [ Read it >> ]

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An anonymous reader shares a report: U.K. retail giant Marks & Spencer has confirmed hackers stole its customers' personal information during a cyberattack last month. In a brief statement with London's stock exchange on Tuesday, the retailer said an unspecified amount of customer information was taken in the data breach. ... [ Read it >> ]

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Longtime Slashdot reader ndsurvivor shares a report from TechCrunch: In 2018, Liangbing Hu, a materials scientist at the University of Maryland, devised a way to turn ordinary wood into a material stronger than steel. It seemed like yet another headline-grabbing discovery that wouldn't make it out of the lab. "All these people came to him," said Alex Lau, CEO of InventWood, "He's like, OK, this is amazing, but I'm a university professor. I don't know quite what to do about it."... [ Read it >> ]

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General Motors is partnering with LG to develop lithium manganese-rich (LMR) batteries, which are safer, denser, and cheaper than current EV battery tech. The automaker aims to begin U.S. production by 2028 and become the first to deploy LMR cells in electric vehicles. Ford also announced it would start adopting LMR batteries for its EVs, but not until 2030. The Verge reports: GM's current crop of electric Chevys and Cadillacs use high-nickel batteries, which supply enough energy for around 300-320 miles of range. The new LMR batteries are denser, with greater space efficiency due to their prismatic shape, enabling up to 400 miles of range, GM says. Prismatic cells are packed flat in rigid cases and are generally thought to be less complex to manufacture than cylindrical cells. Less complexity and cheaper materials will hopefully lead to lower-cost EVs, which has been a significant challenge for the auto industry's shift to electric vehicles. "The EV growth rate is really dependent on how quickly we can bring the costs down over time," says GM's VP for batteries Kurt Kelty. "And this is the biggest lever we have. Batteries make up roughly 30 to 40 percent of the cost of vehicles. And if you can drop that down significantly like we're doing here, then it ends up being a lower cost to the consumer."... [ Read it >> ]

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Identity thieves have found an insidious target: death row inmates. A SentiLink report published this week reveals scammers are stealing identities of Texas prisoners awaiting execution to orchestrate "bust-out" fraud schemes -- patiently building credit before disappearing with up to $100,000. ... [ Read it >> ]

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr has threatened to revoke EchoStar licenses for radio frequency bands coveted by rival firms including SpaceX, which alleges that EchoStar is underutilizing the spectrum. "I have directed agency staff to begin a review of EchoStar's compliance with its federal obligations to provide 5G service throughout the United States per the terms of its federal spectrum licenses," Carr wrote in a May 9 letter to EchoStar Chairman Charles Ergen. EchoStar and its affiliates "hold a large number of FCC spectrum licenses that cover a significant amount of spectrum," the letter said.... [ Read it >> ]

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Google's stalwart search button has a new neighbor: AI Mode. From a report: The artificial intelligence feature is being tested directly beneath the Google search bar beside a "Google Search" button, replacing the "I'm Feeling Lucky" widget. The new feature, though not widely available yet, is being tested in a location where Google rarely makes changes.... [ Read it >> ]

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Qatar is gifting Trump a $400 million luxury 747 to serve as a temporary Air Force One, but experts warn that retrofitting it to meet presidential security standards could take years, cost hundreds of millions more, and risk national security due to potential embedded surveillance. The Register's Iain Thomson reports: The current VC-25s aren't just repainted 747s. They're a pair of flying fortresses that must be capable of allowing the president to run the country, survive wartime conditions (even nuclear), and be totally secure from outside influence or intrusion. While the precise details of the current airframe are a tightly guarded secret, some details are included on government fact sheets or have been revealed in various media reports. For a start, it must have an in-flight refueling capability so the president can go anywhere in the world and stay up as long as needed. Retrofitting this to an existing 747 would be very expensive, as the feds would need to strengthen portions of the hull to handle the refueling system and reconfigure the fuel tanks to handle trim issues.... [ Read it >> ]

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According to Rest of the World, a major confrontation between Meta and the local authorities in Nigeria is currently taking place: "Local authorities have fined Meta $290 million for regulatory breaches, prompting the social media giant to threaten pulling Facebook and Instagram from the country." Techdirt reports: As with earlier EU fines imposed on the company, the sticking point is Meta's refusal to comply with local privacy laws [...]. The fine itself is small change for Meta, which had a net income of $62 billion on a turnover of $165 billion in 2024, and a market capitalization of $1.5 trillion. Meta's current revenues in Nigeria are relatively small, but its market shares are high: "According to social media performance tracker Napoleoncat, Meta has a massive presence in the country, with Facebook alone reaching about 51.2 million users as of May 2024, more than a fifth of the population. Instagram had 12.6 million Nigerian users as of November 2023, while WhatsApp had about 51 million users, making Nigeria the 10th largest market globally for the messaging app."... [ Read it >> ]

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