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Arthur T Knackerbracket writes:https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/02/whoops-us-military-laser-strike-takes-down-cbp-drone-near-mexican-border/

Trump Bans Anthropic AI From Federal Agencies After Firm Refuses to Unlock CapabilitiesArthur T Knackerbracket writes:Anthropic cites risks of autonomous military applications, mass domestic surveillance:

Arthur T Knackerbracket writes:There's a silent vulnerability lurking underneath the architecture of Wi-Fi networks:

Arthur T Knackerbracket writes:https://www.slashgear.com/2107938/removable-battery-phones-making-comeback/

Arthur T Knackerbracket writes:https://arstechnica.com/science/2026/02/genomes-chart-the-history-of-neanderthal-modern-human-interactions/

Arthur T Knackerbracket writes:https://www.slashgear.com/2109851/states-cracking-down-drivers-move-over-laws/5def81c4f1d3d85733888dd4951cd6f1

Arthur T Knackerbracket writes:Neuron-powered computer chips can now be easily programmed to play a first-person shooter game, bringing biological computers a step closer to useful applications:

Arthur T Knackerbracket writes:https://arstechnica.com/ai/2026/02/block-lays-off-40-of-workforce-as-it-goes-all-in-on-ai-tools/c16fbef0848a80413fcac6e5598b4dc9

Arthur T Knackerbracket writes:https://www.slashgear.com/2105562/us-military-c-17-airlifts-advanced-nuclear-reactor-california-to-utah/

fliptop writes:OpenAI has closed a new funding round that could total $110 billion, valuing the ChatGPT maker at $730 billion pre-money and potentially putting it on course for an IPO in the second half of the year:

owl writes:https://osmand.net/blog/fast-routing/

fliptop writes:https://www.irregular.com/publications/vibe-password-generation

fliptop writes:A single attacker used Anthropic's Claude and OpenAI's ChatGPT to compromise nine Mexican government agencies, stealing 195 million taxpayer records and voter data:

upstart writes:Hackers Expose The Massive Surveillance Stack Hiding Inside Your Age Verification" Check:

Arthur T Knackerbracket writes:Electronic eyes are watching from above, ready to catch dumpers of smashed up couches in the act:

canopic jug writes:Blogger Ben Werdmuller has discussed an article in Nature about the political impact of the algorithm(s) used by X (formerly known as Twitter). The gist is that the use of the algorithms against X's users tends to shift about 5% of them in a specific direction. That's more than enough to tip an election one way or another especially since the damage seems persistent and lasts even after exposure ceases.

Arthur T Knackerbracket writes:12-core chiplets coming to Zen 6?

upstart writes:NASA Officially Classifies Boeing Starliner Failure As A Maximum-Level Type A Mishap - Jalopnik:

upstart writes:Hungarian startup Allonic secures $7.2M to transform robot manufacturing with 3D tissue braiding:

upstart writes:Tesla 'Robotaxi' adds 5 more crashes in Austin in a month:

Arthur T Knackerbracket writes:https://www.theregister.com/2026/02/20/spacex_falcon_europe_breakup_lithium_plume/

jelizondo writes:NPR has a nice summary of an interview with Michael Pollan about AI and consciousness, but it kind of goes beyond that.[Professor Pollan is the author of more than an dozen books, most notably "This is your mind on plants" about using psychedelics .]

owl writes:https://nand2mario.github.io/posts/2026/80386_protection/

upstart writes:AI bot seemingly shames developer for rejected pull request:

Dan Anderson writes:Two weeks ago, I set up an AI agent on a Raspberry Pi.A week later, my agent-Figaro-taught itself to play NetHack... and then things got weird (in the best way).Highlights so far:

Arthur T Knackerbracket writes:The galaxy is almost invisible, but its gravity gives it away:

Arthur T Knackerbracket writes:Plus 3 new goon squads targeted critical infrastructure last year:

Arthur T Knackerbracket writes:Modifying firmware or using open-source software would probably become illegal:

Arthur T Knackerbracket writes:Billions of files were left exposed:

HeadlineEditor writes:Forget about Discord - this proposed legislation in Colorado requires each OS user to have an age associated with it. I wonder if they're worried about children pretending to be adults, or adults pretending to be children.-Provide an accessible interface at account setup that requires an account holder to indicate the birth date or age of the user of that device to provide a signal regarding the user's age bracket (age signal) to applications available in a covered application store;

AnonTechie writes:

hubie writes:Study by the University of Bonn shows that positive effects are still evident even six weeks later:

An Anonymous Coward writes:

hubie writes:Astronomers have found thousands of exoplanets around single stars, but few around binary stars - even though both types of stars are equally common. Physicists can now explain the dearth:

hubie writes:Red Hat's toolkit offers governments and enterprises a way to measure the control they actually have over their data, infrastructure, and operations in this era of geopolitical cloud anxiety:

Arthur T Knackerbracket writes:https://www.slashgear.com/2102659/mandatory-digital-vehicle-lien-title-illinois/

upstart writes:Concrete "battery" developed at MIT now packs 10 times the power:

canopic jug writes:Privacy is prerequisite for free thought, dissent, experimentation, and innovation, which are in turn prerequisites for democracy.At NBTV, Naomi Brockwell has posted four reasons why limits on privacy are absolutely not a price worth paying for mainstream adoption.

hubie writes:Penn Medicine researchers find that earplugs work better in protecting sleep from traffic noise, challenging the widespread use of ambient sound machines and apps marketed as sleep aids:

canopic jug writes:A while back, Freenet Africa had a nice background piece about software luminary and founder of the software freedom movement, Richard Stallman (aka RMS). The article covers his background starting with the GNU project and following through to the current, ongoing fight for digital freedom.

NASA releases "Starliner Propulsion System Anomalies during the Crewed Flight Test"VLM writes:https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/nasa-releases-report-on-starliner-crewed-flight-test-investigation/To quote Cheryl Warner, NASA News Chief, "At a news conference on Thursday, NASA released a report of findings from the Program Investigation Team examining the Boeing CST-100 Starliner Crewed Flight Test as part of the agency's Commercial Crew Program."The direct link to the redacted report is:https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/nasa-report-with-redactions-021926.pdf?emrc=76e561Redacted? "For the full report, which includes redactions in coordination with our commercial partner to protect proprietary and privacy-sensitive material is available online."Its 311 pages and they're not providing a summary so it is likely to be extremely juicy and spicy, as NASA historically doesn't water down press releases for many other reasons. So I know what I'll be reading with breakfast tea later this morning.So the facts are above. My separate opinions below.I'd give it a different take than the report as I've read it so far; they designed a semi-disposable cost-reduced capsule but space projects ALWAYS take longer so if backflowing oxidizer will inevitably very slowly eat the o-rings in the helium manifold, well, its going to sit around a long time before launching so its going to eat thru, thats the nature of space program delays. Or propellant residue plus CO2 will rot out thruster nozzles given enough time, and space programs being space programs they will indeed be given time to sit around and slowly rot. They still are not sure about the RCS thrusters jamming but it seems likely to be a lack of ground testing during R+D; teflon is like a viscous liquid over a long time while under stress, key being over a long time.The "Hardware Longevity and Sparing Concerns" section hints to me that the program is about to be cancelled if it doesn't cancel itself first. Reads like they're not permitted under the terms of the investigation to recommend program shutdown but they wanted to recommend it anyway.The report follows that with numerous identified management failures at NASA and Boeing. This is the new Boeing, which is no longer competent, so "NASA's hands-off contract approach limited insight" precisely when Boeing needed adult supervision as they've downsized, outsourced, refused to recruit, or otherwise eliminated their competent adults for various reasons over the years. But who knows, what do y'all think?Read more of this story at SoylentNews.

An Anonymous Coward writes:It opens inside Bing in your default browser:

owl writes:https://buttondown.com/creativegood/archive/its-time-to-get-rid-of-networked-cameras/

upstart writes:Researchers have described a novel mechanochemical process that can store gases safely in powders, using very little energy, in a repeatable process:

upstart writes:Cosmic mystery of the impossibly high-energy neutrino solved by "dark charge" model of black holes :

Arthur T Knackerbracket writes:https://gizmodo.com/theres-a-new-term-for-workers-freaking-out-over-being-replaced-by-ai-2000723019

An Anonymous Coward writes:

canopic jug writes:Software engineer Kevin McDonald has investigated the topology of the Internet itself before. He enjoys the open data archaeology of this nature. In this recent edition, he has used BGP routing to visualize the Internet again.

Arthur T Knackerbracket writes:https://www.theregister.com/2026/02/18/palo_alto_q2_26/

Arthur T Knackerbracket writes:https://gizmodo.com/bacteria-frozen-inside-5000-year-old-ice-cave-is-crazy-resistant-to-antibiotics-2000723002