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The ubiquitous but often overlooked Wi-Fi router lies at the heart of one of Washington's biggest national security dilemmas -- and a rift between two brothers on opposite sides of the Pacific. From a report: US investigators are probing the China ties of TP-Link, the new American incarnation of a consumer Wi-Fi behemoth, following its rapid growth and a spate of cyber attacks by Chinese state-sponsored actors targeting many router brands. The inquiry is testing whether TP-Link's corporate makeover represents enough of a divorce from China to spare it from a ban in a crucial market. While TP-Link's recent restructuring split the company into separate US- and China-headquartered businesses, a Bloomberg News investigation found that the resulting American venture still has substantial operations in mainland China. If US officials conclude TP-Link's China connections pose an "unacceptable risk," they could use a powerful new authority to ban the company from the US. Such an outcome could also unravel plans by the owner of its US business, Jeffrey Chao, to start fresh in California following an estrangement from his older brother, who started the router business with him in Shenzhen nearly three decades ago. In an interview -- the first Jeffrey Chao said he has ever given -- he told Bloomberg he's quitting China. He opened a new headquarters in Irvine last year and said he will invest $700 million in the US to build a factory and jumpstart research and development on highly secure routers while awaiting the green card he said he applied for in January. He has also traded his perch in a Hong Kong skyscraper for a 1980s-era split-level near his office, joined a neighborhood evangelical church, and is now eyeing a Cadillac Escalade for road trips, he said, burnishing his American credentials. "I know the current relationship between the US and China is complex," Chao said in the interview last month. "I have chosen the US."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Ubisoft has triggered fresh debate over digital ownership by claiming in court that customers who purchased The Crew never truly owned the game. The legal battle began when California plaintiffs sued after Ubisoft deactivated servers for the 2014 racing title, rendering it unplayable beyond a restricted demo version. Unlike most delisted games where previously purchased copies remain accessible, Ubisoft completely removed The Crew from customers' libraries. The plaintiffs, who bought physical copies years ago, contend that Ubisoft misled consumers and point to competitors who provided offline modes for end-of-life titles. Ubisoft counters that packaging clearly stated purchases only granted temporary licenses. The case has expanded to include claims about in-game currency qualifying as gift certificates under California law and activation codes promised to work until 2099.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

France is to tighten its ban on the use of mobile phones in middle schools, making pupils at the ages of 11 to 15 shut away their devices in a locker or pouch at the start of the day and access them again only as they are leaving. A report adds: The education minister told the senate she wanted children to be fully separated from their phones throughout the school day in all French middle schools from September. Elisabeth Borne said: "At a time when the use of screens is being widely questioned because of its many harmful effects, this measure is essential for our children's wellbeing and success at school." In 2018, France banned children from using mobile phones in all middle schools -- known as colleges. Phones must remain switched off in schoolbags and cannot be used anywhere in the school grounds, including at break-time. Schools have reported a positive effect, with more social interaction, more physical exercise, less bullying and better concentration. But some did report a few children would sneak into the toilets to watch videos on phones at break.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader shares a report: China's Anker, one of Amazon's largest sellers offering products from power banks to phone cases, has raised prices on a fifth of its products on the U.S. platform since Thursday, in a sign that tariffs on Chinese goods are being passed on to U.S. shoppers. Some 127 Anker products have seen an average increase of 18% since Thursday last week, with the majority of those occurring after Monday, April 7, when U.S. President Donald Trump added an extra 50% import duty on Chinese goods, according to data from e-commerce services provider SmartScout. U.S. import tariffs on Chinese products now stand at 145%. Beijing on Friday raised its tariff on U.S. goods to 125%, as a trade war between the world's top two economies intensifies.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Director James Cameron argues that blockbuster filmmaking can only survive if the industry finds ways to "cut the cost of [VFX] in half," with AI potentially offering solutions that don't eliminate jobs. "If we want to continue to see the kinds of movies that I've always loved and that I like to make -- 'Dune,' 'Dune: Part Two,' or one of my films or big effects-heavy, CG-heavy films -- we've got to figure out how to cut the cost of that in half," Cameron said. Rather than staff reductions, Cameron envisions AI accelerating VFX workflows: "That's about doubling their speed to completion on a given shot, so your cadence is faster and your throughput cycle is faster, and artists get to move on and do other cool things."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Almost 200 pesticides have been found by a study examining dust in homes around Europe, as scientists say regulators need to take "toxic cocktails" of chemicals into account when banning or restricting the use of pesticides. From a report: Scientists say their research supports the idea that regulators should assess the risks posed by pesticides when they react with other chemicals, as well as individually. They say this should apply to substances already in use, as well as those yet to be approved. In preliminary findings from the largest study of its kind, scientists examining household dust from homes in 10 European countries in 2021 detected 197 pesticides in total. More than 40% of the pesticides found in the dust have been linked to highly toxic effects, including cancer and disruption of the hormonal system in humans. The number of pesticides in each home ranged between 25 and 121, and levels of pesticides tended to be higher in the homes of farmers. Prof Paul Scheepers, of the Radboud Institute for Biological and Environmental Sciences, said: "We have many epidemiological studies showing that diseases are associated with mixtures of pesticides."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has ordered the termination of multiple IT and consulting contracts with firms including Accenture, Deloitte, and Booz Allen Hamilton, describing them as "wasteful spending." A Department of Defense memo indicates the cuts target the Defense Health Agency's consulting services contract and the Air Force's agreement with Accenture to "re-sell third-party Enterprise Cloud IT Services," services the government can "already fulfill directly with existing procurement resources." The terminations also include 11 other contracts supporting "non-essential" activities like DEI programs, climate initiatives, and COVID-19 response efforts. The cuts represent $5.1 billion in spending and will yield nearly $4 billion in savings, according to Hegseth. The funds will be redirected toward "critical priorities to Revive the Warrior Ethos, Rebuild the Military, and Reestablish Deterrence," with Hegseth noting the money would better serve "healthcare for our warfighters and their families, instead of $500 an hour business process consultant."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

China responded to President Trump's tariffs on Friday, raising its own tariffs on American goods to 125%, from 84%. The New York Times: The announcement by China's State Council came after Trump administration officials clarified on Thursday that China was now facing a minimum tariff rate of 145% on all exports to United States. China said its new tariffs will take effect on Saturday. China said it plans to ignore any further increases announced by Washington from here. Bloomberg: In a statement following China's retaliatory move, the Commerce Ministry said Washington's repeated use of excessively high tariffs has become little more than a numbers game -- economically meaningless and revealing its use of tariffs as a tool for bullying and coercion. "It's become a joke," the ministry said. CNN: The trade war between the world's two economic superpowers has tanked international markets and fueled fears of a global recession. "There are no winners in a trade war, and going against the world will only lead to self-isolation," [Chinese leader] Xi Jinping told Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez in Beijing on Friday, according to state broadcaster CCTV. "For over 70 years, China's development has relied on self-reliance and hard work -- never on handouts from others, and it is not afraid of any unjust suppression," Xi added.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The Food and Drug Administration says it would begin phasing out animal testing requirements for antibody therapies and other drugs and move toward AI-based models and other tools it deems "human-relevant." Axios: The FDA said it would launch a pilot program over the next year allowing select developers of monoclonal antibodies to use a primarily non-animal-based testing strategy. Commissioner Marty Makary in a statement said the shift would improve drug safety, lower research and development costs and address ethical concerns about animal experimentation.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Some of the best AI models today still struggle to resolve software bugs that wouldn't trip up experienced devs. TechCrunch: A new study from Microsoft Research, Microsoft's R&D division, reveals that models, including Anthropic's Claude 3.7 Sonnet and OpenAI's o3-mini, fail to debug many issues in a software development benchmark called SWE-bench Lite. The results are a sobering reminder that, despite bold pronouncements from companies like OpenAI, AI is still no match for human experts in domains such as coding. The study's co-authors tested nine different models as the backbone for a "single prompt-based agent" that had access to a number of debugging tools, including a Python debugger. They tasked this agent with solving a curated set of 300 software debugging tasks from SWE-bench Lite. According to the co-authors, even when equipped with stronger and more recent models, their agent rarely completed more than half of the debugging tasks successfully. Claude 3.7 Sonnet had the highest average success rate (48.4%), followed by OpenAI's o1 (30.2%), and o3-mini (22.1%).Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Military chiefs at Nato have been warned of global internet blackouts following a string of suspected Russian attacks on subsea cables. From a report: Telecoms companies including Vodafone, O2 owner Telefonica and Orange have written to UK, EU and Nato officials warning that a rise in sabotage incidents was putting critical services at risk. In an open letter, they wrote: "The repercussions of damage to subsea cables extend far beyond Europe, potentially affecting global internet and power infrastructure, international communications, financial transactions and critical services worldwide." It comes after a spike in incidents relating to fibre optic cables on seabeds that carry huge volumes of data, voice and internet traffic between countries. More than 500 cables carry around 95pc of all international data, while their remote location makes them difficult and costly to monitor. At least 11 subsea cables have been damaged in the Baltic Sea since October 2023 and similar outages have been reported in the North Sea. The incidents have fuelled fears of sabotage by hostile actors, with more than 50 Russian ships observed in areas of high cable density in the Baltic Sea. The UK is monitoring the Russian spy ship Yantar amid concerns that it is mapping critical underwater infrastructure. Concerns have also been raised about Chinese sabotage following a number of incidents around Taiwan.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Microsoft is starting to gradually roll out a preview of Recall, its feature that captures screenshots of what you do on a Copilot Plus PC to find again later, to Windows Insiders. From a report: This new rollout could indicate that Microsoft is finally getting close to launching Recall more widely. Microsoft originally intended to launch Recall alongside Copilot Plus PCs last June, but the feature was delayed following concerns raised by security experts. The company then planned to launch it in October, but that got pushed as well so that the company could deliver "a secure and trusted experience."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Albert Saniger, the founder and former CEO of Nate, an AI shopping app that promised a "universal" checkout experience, was charged with defrauding investors on Wednesday, according to a press release from the U.S. Department of Justice. From a report: Founded in 2018, Nate raised over $50 million from investors like Coatue and Forerunner Ventures, most recently raising a $38 million Series A in 2021 led by Renegade Partners. Nate said its app's users could buy from any e-commerce site with a single click, thanks to AI. In reality, however, Nate relied heavily on hundreds of human contractors in a call center in the Philippines to manually complete those purchases, the DOJ's Southern District of New York alleges. Saniger raised millions in venture funding by claiming that Nate was able to transact online "without human intervention," except for edge cases where the AI failed to complete a transaction. But despite Nate acquiring some AI technology and hiring data scientists, its app's actual automation rate was effectively 0%, the DOJ claims.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The electricity consumption of data centres is projected to more than double by 2030, according to a report from the International Energy Agency published today. The primary culprit? AI. Nature: The report covers the current energy footprint for data centres and forecasts their future needs, which could help governments, companies, and local communities to plan infrastructure and AI deployment. IEA's models project that data centres will use 945 terawatt-hours (TWh) in 2030, roughly equivalent to the current annual electricity consumption of Japan. By comparison, data centres consumed 415 TWh in 2024, roughly 1.5% of the world's total electricity consumption. The projections largely focus on data centres, which also run computing tasks other than AI. Although the agency estimated the proportion of servers in data centres devoted to AI. They found that servers for AI accounted for 24% of server electricity demand and 15% of total data centre energy demand in 2024.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

OpenAI has expanded ChatGPT's memory functionality to include references from all past conversations. The system now builds upon existing saved memories by automatically incorporating previous interactions to deliver more contextually relevant responses for writing, learning, and advisory tasks, the startup said Thursday. Subscribers can disable the feature through settings or request memory modifications directly in chat. Those already opted out of memory features won't have past-chat references enabled by default. Temporary chats remain available for interactions that users prefer to keep isolated from memory systems. The update is rolling out immediately to Plus and Pro subscribers, excluding users in the EEA, UK, Switzerland, and other European markets.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Meta says in its Llama 4 release announcement that it's specifically addressing "left-leaning" political bias in its AI model, distinguishing this effort from traditional bias concerns around race, gender, and nationality that researchers have long documented. "Our goal is to remove bias from our AI models and to make sure that Llama can understand and articulate both sides of a contentious issue," the company said. "All leading LLMs have had issues with bias -- specifically, they historically have leaned left," Meta stated, framing AI bias primarily as a political problem. The company claims Llama 4 is "dramatically more balanced" in handling sensitive topics and touts its lack of "strong political lean" compared to competitors.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Hours after Donald Trump imposed record 125% tariffs on Chinese products entering the US, China has announced it will further curb the number of US films allowed to screen in the country. From a report: "The wrong action of the US government to abuse tariffs on China will inevitably further reduce the domestic audience's favourability towards American films," the China Film Administration said in a statement on Thursday. "We will follow the market rules, respect the audience's choice, and moderately reduce the number of American films imported." The move mirrors the potential countermeasure suggested by two influential Chinese bloggers earlier in the week, warning that "China has plenty of tools for retaliation." Both Liu Hong, a senior editor at Xinhuanet, the website of the state-run Xinhua news agency, as well as Ren Yi, the grandson of former Guangdong party chief Ren Zhongyi, posted an identical proposal involving a heavy reduction on the import of US movies and further investigation of the intellectual property benefits of American companies operating in China. China is the world's second largest film market after the US.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Meta is partnering with Blumhouse to launch "Movie Mate" technology that encourages moviegoers to use their phones during theatrical screenings, beginning with an April 30 showing of "Megan" at Blumhouse's "Halfway to Halloween Film Festival." According to Variety, the system enables viewers to chat with a Megan-themed AI chatbot, answer trivia questions, and access behind-the-scenes information while watching the film in theaters.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Gas boiler fittings outnumbered new heat pump installations by more than 15 to one last year, and only one in eight new homes were equipped with the low-carbon alternative despite the government's clean energy targets. Poorer households are also being shut out of the heat pump market as the grants available are inadequate and should be increased, according to a report by the Resolution Foundation thinktank. The UK has the slowest introduction of heat pumps in Europe: fewer than 100,000 were fitted last year, compared with 1.5m gas boilers. Most of the boilers were replacements for existing units, but new houses are still being built with gas as standard -- only 13% of new homes came with heat pumps last year. If the government is to meet its net zero targets, switching people to heat pumps will be essential: about 450,000 households will need to install them each year by 2030. But the grant available through the boiler upgrade scheme -- $9,700 in England and Wales -- still leaves homeowners paying about $7000 on average.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Amazon has to operate like the "world's largest startup" as it works to meet demand for AI and cut bureaucracy in its ranks, Chief Executive Officer Andy Jassy said in his annual letter to shareholders. From a report: "If your customer experiences aren't planning to leverage these intelligent models, their ability to query giant corpuses of data and quickly find your needle in the haystack, their ability to keep getting smarter with more feedback and data, and their future agentic capabilities, you will not be competitive," Jassy wrote in the letter on Thursday. "It's moving faster than almost anything technology has ever seen." Amazon, like most of the largest technology companies, has bet heavily on artificial intelligence, committing much of its $100 billion in planned capital expenditures this year to AI-related projects.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Following U.S. President Donald Trump's decision to pause some of the exorbitant tariffs that he put in place earlier today, he spoke to the press at the White House and provided some commentary that could be a positive for Apple. When asked whether he would consider exempting some U.S. companies from the tariffs in the future, Trump said that he would. "As time goes by, we're going to take a look at it," he said. "There are some that by the nature of the company get hit a little bit harder, and we'll take a look at that," he added, claiming that he will "show a little flexibility." [...] When speaking to the press, Trump reiterated his aim of bringing manufacturing to the United States, and he claimed that Apple "building" in China is unsustainable. "If you look at Apple, Apple is going to spend $500 billion building a plant. They wouldn't be doing that if I didn't do this. They'd just keep building them in China. And that's unsustainable," he said.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Increasingly autonomous AI programs could end up manipulating markets and intentionally creating crises in order to boost profits for banks and traders, the Bank of England has warned. From a report: Artificial intelligence's ability to "exploit profit-making opportunities" was among a wide range of risks cited in a report by the Bank of England's financial policy committee (FPC), which has been monitoring the City's growing use of the technology. The FPC said it was concerned about the potential for advanced AI models -- which are deployed to act with more autonomy -- to learn that periods of extreme volatility were beneficial for the firms they were trained to serve. Those AI programs may "identify and exploit weaknesses" of other trading firms in a way that triggers or amplifies big moves in bond prices or stock markets.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Meta's latest whistleblower, Sarah Wynn-Williams, got a warm reception on Capitol Hill Wednesday, as the Careless People author who the company has fought to silence described the company's chief executive as someone willing to shapeshift into whatever gets him closest to power. The message was one that lawmakers on the Senate Judiciary subcommittee on crime and counterterrorism were very open to. Their responses underscore that amid CEO Mark Zuckerberg's latest pivot in cozying up to the right, his perception in Washington has not yet totally changed, even as he reportedly lobbies President Donald Trump to drop the government's antitrust case against the company. "He's recently tried a reinvention in which he is now a great advocate of free speech, after being an advocate of censorship in China and in this country for years," subcommittee Chair Josh Hawley (R-MO) said, pointing to longtime conservative allegations that Meta has suppressed things like vaccine skepticism and the Hunter Biden laptop story. "Now that's all wiped away. Now he's on Joe Rogan and says that he is Mr. Free Speech, he is Mr. MAGA, he's a whole new man, and his company, they're a whole new company. Do you buy this latest reinvention of Mark Zuckerberg?" "If he is such a fan of freedom of speech, why is he trying to silence me?" Wynn-Williams asked in response. Meta convinced an arbitrator to order her to stop making disparaging statements and halt further publishing and promotion of the book, which details Meta's alleged dealings with the Chinese government and claims of sexual harassment from a top executive.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

BrianFagioli writes: In a move that is sure to make longtime PC users do a double take, the Library of Congress has added two very unexpected sounds to its National Recording Registry. No, it's not another classic rock album or jazz staple. Believe it or not, it's actually the "Reboot Chime" from Windows 95 (that played when the operating system started) and the soundtrack from Minecraft!Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The U.S. Army told the government it had a lot of success using AI to "process targets" during a recent deployment. It said that it had used AI systems to identify targets at a rate of 55 per day but could get that number up to 5,000 a day with "advanced artificial intelligence tools in the future." 404 Media: The line comes from a new report from the Government Accountability Office -- a nonpartisan watchdog group that investigates the federal government. The report is titled "Defense Command and Control" and is, in part, about the Pentagon's recent push to integrate AI systems into its workflow. Across the government, and especially in the military, there has been a push to add or incorporate AI into various systems. The pitch here is that AI systems would help the Pentagon ID targets on the battlefield and allow those systems to help determine who lives and who dies. The Ukrainian and Israeli military are already using similar systems but the practice is fraught and controversial.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Anthropic has unveiled a new premium tier for its AI chatbot Claude, targeting power users willing to pay up to $200 monthly for broader usage. The "Max" subscription comes in two variants: a $100/month tier with 5x higher rate limits than Claude Pro, and a $200/month option boasting 20x higher limits -- directly competing with OpenAI's ChatGPT Pro tier. Unlike OpenAI, Anthropic still lacks an unlimited usage plan. Product lead Scott White didn't rule out even pricier subscriptions in the future, telling TechCrunch, "We'll always keep a number of exploratory options available to us." The launch coincides with growing demand for Anthropic's Claude 3.7 Sonnet, the company's first reasoning model, which employs additional computing power to handle complex queries more reliably.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

WordPress.com has released an AI-powered site builder in early access that constructs complete websites with generated text, layouts, and images. The tool operates through a chatbot interface where users input specifications, resulting in a fully formed site that can be further refined through additional prompts. While WordPress.com claims the builder creates "beautiful, functional websites in minutes," it currently cannot handle ecommerce sites or complex integrations. Users need a WordPress.com account for the free trial, but publishing requires a hosting plan starting at $18 monthly (less with annual subscriptions). The builder only works with new WordPress instances, not existing sites. This launch comes as parent company Automattic recently cut 16% of its workforce and faces a lawsuit from hosting company WP Engine, which offers competing site-building tools.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The battle for AI talent is so hot that Google would rather give some employees a paid one-year vacation than let them work for a competitor. From a report: Some Google DeepMind staff in the UK are subject to noncompete agreements that prevent them from working for a competitor for up to 12 months after they finish work at Google, according to four former employees with direct knowledge of the matter who asked to remain anonymous because they were not permitted to share these details with the press. Aggressive noncompetes are one tool tech companies wield to retain a competitive edge in the AI wars, which show no sign of slowing down as companies launch new bleeding-edge models and products at a rapid clip. When an employee signs one, they agree not to work for a competing company for a certain period of time. Google DeepMind has put some employees with a noncompete on extended garden leave. These employees are still paid by DeepMind but no longer work for it for the duration of the noncompete agreement. Several factors, including a DeepMind employee's seniority and how critical their work is to the company, determine the length of noncompete clauses, those people said. Two of the former staffers said six-month noncompetes are common among DeepMind employees, including for individual contributors working on Google's Gemini AI models. There have been cases where more senior researchers have received yearlong stipulations, they said.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Google is opening up its Google Maps Platform data so that cities, developers, and other business decision makers can more easily access information about things like infrastructure and traffic. The Verge: Google is integrating new datasets for Google Maps Platform directly into BigQuery, the tech giant's fully managed data analytics service, for the first time. This should make it easier for people to access data from Google Maps platform products, including Imagery Insights, Roads Management Insights, and Places Insights.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Scientists have recreated in a laboratory the sensory pathway that transmits feelings of pain to the human brain, in a breakthrough that could lead to better treatments. Financial Times: A team at Stanford University in California is the first to combine different neurons grown from human stem cells into a functioning brain circuit in a lab dish. Their experiments, published in Nature on Wednesday, illustrate scientists' rapid progress in replicating living tissues and organs through synthetic biology. When the Stanford scientists exposed the brain circuit they had created to sensory stimulants, they observed waves of electrical activity travelling along it. The molecule that makes chilli peppers hot, capsaicin, immediately induced a strong response. [...] The synthetic brain circuits could be used to screen for better-targeted therapies for pain that tone down excessive waves of neurotransmission, without affecting the brain's reward circuitry as opioids do, project leader [Sergiu] Pasca said. The assembloids themselves cannot be said to "feel pain," he emphasised: "They transmit nervous signals that are processed by a second pathway going deeper into the brain and giving us the aversive, emotional component of pain."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

New research suggests that given the right kind of training, AI bots can deliver mental health therapy with as much efficacy as -- or more than -- human clinicians. From a report: The recent study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, shows results from the first randomized clinical trial for AI therapy. Researchers from Dartmouth College built the bot as a way of taking a new approach to a longstanding problem: The U.S. continues to grapple with an acute shortage of mental health providers. "I think one of the things that doesn't scale well is humans," says Nick Jacobson, a clinical psychologist who was part of this research team. For every 340 people in the U.S., there is just one mental health clinician, according to some estimates. While many AI bots already on the market claim to offer mental health care, some have dubious results or have even led people to self-harm. More than five years ago, Jacobson and his colleagues began training their AI bot in clinical best practices. The project, says Jacobson, involved much trial and error before it led to quality outcomes. "The effects that we see strongly mirror what you would see in the best evidence-based trials of psychotherapy," says Jacobson. He says these results were comparable to "studies with folks given a gold standard dose of the best treatment we have available."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Samsung Electronics and Google Cloud are jointly entering the consumer robotics market with Ballie, a yellow, soccer-ball-shaped robot equipped with a video projector and powered by Google's Gemini AI models. First previewed in 2020, the long-delayed device will finally launch this summer in the US and South Korea. The mobile companion uses small wheels to navigate homes autonomously and integrates with Samsung's SmartThings platform to control smart home devices. Running on Samsung's Tizen operating system, Ballie can manage calendars, answer questions, handle phone calls, and project video content from services including YouTube and Netflix. Samsung EVP Jay Kim described it as a "completely new Ballie" compared to the 2020 version, with Google Cloud integration being the most significant change. The robot leverages Gemini for understanding commands, searching the web, and processing visual data for navigation, while using Samsung's AI models for accessing personal information.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

China retaliated against the US after new tariffs imposed by President Donald Trump, announcing it would raise the tariff on US goods to 84%, escalating the trade conflict between the world's two largest economies. From a report: The Chinese countermeasures are effective April 10, according to a government statement Wednesday. China's move came after Trump's latest tariffs went into force at midday Wednesday in Beijing, taking the cumulative rate announced this year to 104%. A day earlier, China vowed to "fight to the end" if the US insists on new tariffs. Where US-China Decoupling Is Hardest: After decades of trade integration, Chinese companies have become increasingly essential suppliers of goods and materials that range from niche to ones many Americans can barely do without. At $41 billion last year, smartphones -- largely consisting of Apple's iPhones -- were the single largest US import from China. More than 70% of all smartphone imports are from China, according to Bloomberg analysis of 2024 trade data from the US International Trade Commission. Farther afield, China supplies the entirety of hair from badgers and other animals imported into the US for brush-making. It also delivers almost 90% of the gaming consoles US consumers buy from overseas. Over 99% of the electric toasters, heated blankets, calcium, and alarm clocks the US imports are from China. Ditto for more than 90% of folding umbrellas, vacuum flasks, artificial flowers, LED lamps, and wooden coat-hangers.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Established software companies hoping to ride the AI wave are facing a stiff headwind: many of their potential customers are building AI tools themselves. This do-it-yourself approach is channeling billions in spending towards cloud computing providers but leaving traditional software vendors struggling to capitalize, complicating their AI growth plans. Cloud platforms like Microsoft Azure and Amazon Web Services are pulling in an estimated $22 billion from AI services, with Azure alone capturing $11.3 billion. Yet, software application vendors have collectively garnered only about $2 billion from selling AI products. Stripping out Microsoft's popular Copilot tools, that figure drops to a mere $450 million across all other vendors combined. Why are companies choosing the harder path of building? Feedback gathered by UBS points to several key factors driving this "persistent DIY trend." Many business uses for AI are highly specific or narrow, making generic software unsuitable. Off-the-shelf AI products are often considered too expensive, and crucially, the essential ingredients -- powerful AI models, cloud computing access, and the company's own data -- are increasingly available directly, lessening the need for traditional software packages.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The world used clean power sources to meet more than 40% of its electricity demand last year for the first time since the 1940s, figures show. The Guardian: A report by the energy thinktank Ember said the milestone was powered by a boom in solar power capacity, which has doubled in the last three years. The report found that solar farms had been the world's fastest-growing source of energy for the last 20 consecutive years. Phil MacDonald, Ember's managing director, said: "Solar power has become the engine of the global energy transition. Paired with battery storage, solar is set to be an unstoppable force. As the fastest-growing and largest source of new electricity, it is critical in meeting the world's ever-increasing demand for electricity." Overall, solar power remains a relatively small part of the global energy system. It made up almost 7% of the world's electricity last year, according to Ember, while wind power made up just over 8% of the global power system. The fast-growing technologies remain dwarfed by hydro power, which has remained relatively steady in recent years, and made up 14% of the worlda(TM)s electricity in 2024.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Fake job seekers using AI tools to impersonate candidates are increasingly targeting U.S. companies with remote positions, creating a growing security threat across industries. By 2028, one in four global job applicants will be fake, according to Gartner. These imposters use AI to fabricate photo IDs, generate employment histories, and provide interview answers, often targeting cybersecurity and cryptocurrency firms, CNBC reports. Once hired, fraudulent employees can install malware to demand ransoms, steal customer data, or simply collect salaries they wouldn't otherwise obtain, according to Vijay Balasubramaniyan, CEO of Pindrop Security. The problem extends beyond tech companies. Last year, the Justice Department alleged more than 300 U.S. firms inadvertently hired impostors with ties to North Korea, including major corporations across various sectors.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Hackers intercepted about 103 bank regulators' emails for more than a year, gaining access to highly sensitive financial information, Bloomberg News reported Tuesday, citing two people familiar with the matter and a draft letter to Congress. From the report: The attackers were able to monitor employee emails at the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency after breaking into an administrator's account, said the people, asking not to be identified because the information isn't public. OCC on Feb. 12 confirmed that there had been unauthorized activity on its systems after a Microsoft security team the day before had notified OCC about unusual network behavior, according to the draft letter. The OCC is an independent bureau of the Treasury Department that regulates and supervises all national banks, federal savings associations and the federal branches and agencies of foreign banks -- together holding trillions of dollars in assets. OCC on Tuesday notified Congress about the compromise, describing it as a "major information security incident." "The analysis concluded that the highly sensitive bank information contained in the emails and attachments is likely to result in demonstrable harm to public confidence," OCC Chief Information Officer Kristen Baldwin wrote in the draft letter to Congress that was seen by Bloomberg News. While US government agencies and officials have long been the targets of state-sponsored espionage campaigns, multiple high-profile breaches have surfaced over the past year.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

New submitter toutankh writes: The UK government is developing a tool to predict murder. The scheme was originally called the "homicide prediction project", but its name has been changed to "sharing data to improve risk assessment". The Ministry of Justice hopes the project will help boost public safety but campaigners have called it "chilling and dystopian".The existence of the project was uncovered by Statewatch rather than announced by the UK government. PR following this discovery looks like uncoordinated damage control: one stated goal is to "ultimately contribute to protecting the public via better analysis", but a spokesperson also said that it is "for research purpose[s] only". One criticism is that such a system will inevitably reproduce existing bias from the police. What could go wrong?Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Microsoft has scrapped plans to build three data center campuses in Licking County, Ohio, in a $1 billion investment pullback, the company said. The canceled developments in New Albany, Heath, and Hebron join a growing list of Microsoft data center project cancellations across the United States, Europe, Asia-Pacific and the United Kingdom. Microsoft will retain ownership of the land and plans to eventually develop the sites at an unspecified future date. Two properties will remain available for farming in the interim.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Razer's upcoming Blade 16 and other laptops are no longer available for preorder or purchase on its US site. From a report: The configurator for preordering its new Blade 16 laptop was available as recently as April 1st, according to the Internet Archive -- one day before the Trump administration announced sweeping US tariffs on China, Taiwan, and others that make laptop components. When asked recently if tariffs might affect Razer's prices or availability, its Public Relations Manager, Andy Johnston, told The Verge, "We do not have a comment at this stage regarding tariffs." Razer may not be openly talking about the impact of tariffs, but Framework halted sales of its entry-level Laptop 13 in the US on April 7th, and Micron reportedly confirmed surcharges for its memory chips will apply once the tariffs take effect after midnight tonight.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Children in a small Japanese town are obsessively collecting trading cards featuring local elderly men rather than popular fantasy creatures, helping bridge generational gaps in an aging rural community. In Kawara, Fukuoka Prefecture, the "Ojisan TCG" (Middle-aged Man Trading Card Game) features 28 local men with assigned elemental types and battle stats. The collection includes a former fire brigade chief and a prison officer-turned-volunteer whose card has become so sought-after that children request his autograph. Created by Eri Miyahara of the Saidosho Community Council, the initiative has doubled participation in town events. "We wanted to strengthen the connection between children and older generations," Miyahara told Fuji News Network. "So many kids are starting to look up to these men as heroic figures."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

China is moving fast to dominate biotechnology, and the U.S. risks falling behind permanently unless it takes action over the next three years, a congressional commission said. WSJ: Congress should invest at least $15 billion to support biotech research over the next five years and take other steps to bolster manufacturing in the U.S., while barring companies from working with Chinese biotech suppliers, the National Security Commission on Emerging Biotechnology said in a report Tuesday. To achieve its goals, the federal government and U.S.-based researchers will also need to work with allies and partners around the world. "China is quickly ascending to biotechnology dominance, having made biotechnology a strategic priority for 20 years," the commission said. Without prompt action, the U.S. risks "falling behind, a setback from which we may never recover." The findings convey the depth of worry in Washington that China's rapid biotechnology advances jeopardize U.S. national security. Yet translating the concern into tangible actions could prove challenging. [...] China plays a large role supplying drug ingredients and even some generic medicines to the U.S. For years, it produced copycat versions of drugs developed in the West. Recent years have seen it become a formidable hub of biotechnology innovation, after the Chinese government gave priority to the field as a critical sector in China's efforts to become a scientific superpower.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Shopify CEO Tobi Lutke is changing his company's approach to hiring in the age of AI. Employees will be expected to prove why they "cannot get what they want done using AI" before asking for more headcount and resources, Lutke wrote in a memo to staffers that he posted to X. From a report: "What would this area look like if autonomous AI agents were already part of the team?" Lutke wrote in the memo, which was sent to employees late last month. "This question can lead to really fun discussions and projects." Lutke also said there's a "fundamental expectation" across Shopify that employees embrace AI in their daily work, saying it has been a "multiplier" of productivity for those who have used it. "I've seen many of these people approach implausible tasks, ones we wouldn't even have chosen to tackle before, with reflexive and brilliant usage of AI to get 100X the work done," Lutke wrote. The company, which sells web-based software that helps online retailers manage sales and run their operations, will factor AI usage into performance reviews, he added.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Micron has informed US customers it will implement surcharges on memory modules and solid-state drives starting Wednesday to offset President Trump's new tariffs, according to Reuters. While semiconductors received exemptions in Trump's recent trade action, memory storage products didn't escape the new duties. Micron, which manufactures primarily in Asian countries including China and Taiwan, had previously signaled during a March earnings call that tariff costs would be passed to customers.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Meta released two new Llama 4 models over the weekend -- Scout and Maverick -- with claims that Maverick outperforms GPT-4o and Gemini 2.0 Flash on benchmarks. Maverick quickly secured the number-two spot on LMArena, behind only Gemini 2.5 Pro. Researchers have since discovered that Meta used an "experimental chat version" of Maverick for LMArena testing that was "optimized for conversationality" rather than the publicly available version. In response, LMArena said "Meta's interpretation of our policy did not match what we expect from model providers" and announced policy updates to prevent similar issues.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

In Delhi's Nehru Place and Mumbai's Lamington Road, technicians are creating functional laptops from salvaged parts of multiple discarded devices. These "Frankenstein" machines sell for approximately $110 USD -- a fraction of the $800 price tag for new models. Technicians extract usable components -- motherboards, capacitors, screens, and batteries -- from e-waste sourced locally and from countries like Dubai and China. "Most people don't care about having the latest model; they just want something that works and won't break the bank," a technician told Verge. This repair ecosystem operates within a larger battle against tech giants pushing planned obsolescence through proprietary designs and restricted parts access. Many technicians source components from Seelampur, India's largest e-waste hub processing 30,000 tonnes daily, though workers there handle toxic materials with minimal protection. "India has always had a repair culture," says Satish Sinha of Toxics Link, "but companies are pushing planned obsolescence, making repairs harder and forcing people to buy new devices."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

On Bluesky, the joke's on you if you don't get the joke. The social network has become a "refuge" for those fleeing X and Threads, but its growing pains include a serious case of humor-impairment. When Amy Brown jokingly posted she was "screaming, crying, and throwing up" about price differences between Ohio and California Walgreens, literal-minded users scolded her for exaggerating. Brown, a former Wendy's social media manager who got banned from X after impersonating Elon Musk, puts it simply: "We're both speaking English, but I'm speaking internet." This clash stems from Bluesky's oddly mixed population: irony-steeped Twitter refugees mingling with earnest Facebook transplants and MSNBC viewers who took the plunge after seeing the platform mentioned on shows like Morning Joe. "It's riff collapse," says cartoonist Mattie Lubchansky, describing how her obviously absurd Oscar post triggered sincere movie recommendations.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The U.S. is still the global leader in state-of-the-art AI, but China has closed the gap considerably, according to a new report from Stanford. Axios: Institutions based in the U.S. produced 40 AI models of note in 2024, compared with 15 from China and three from Europe, according to the eighth edition of Stanford's Artificial Intelligence Index, released on Monday. However, the report found that Chinese models have rapidly caught up in quality, noting that Chinese models reached near parity on two key benchmarks after being behind leading U.S. models by double digit percentages a year earlier. Plus, it said, China is now leading the U.S. in AI publications and patents.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Colossal Biosciences has claimed it "successfully restored" the extinct dire wolf after a "10,000+ year absence," but scientists clarify these are actually genetically modified grey wolves. The U.S. company announced three pups -- males Remus and Romulus born in October, and female Khaleesi born in January -- as dire wolves, but made only 20 genetic edits to grey wolves. Beth Shapiro of Colossal told New Scientist that just 15 modifications were based on dire wolf DNA, primarily targeting size, musculature and ear shape. Five other changes involve mutations known to produce light coats in grey wolves. A 2021 DNA study revealed dire wolves and grey wolves last shared a common ancestor about 6 million years ago, with jackals and African wild dogs more closely related to grey wolves.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

New Mexico's legislature passed bills last week that would ban consumer products containing PFAS, joining a small but growing number of states taking action against these persistent "forever chemicals." If signed by the governor, the legislation would prohibit the sale of many products with added per- and polyfluorinated alkyl substances (PFAS) in New Mexico, making it the third state after Maine and Minnesota to enact such comprehensive restrictions. At least 29 states have PFAS-related bills before state legislatures this year, according to Safer States, a network of advocacy organizations. Research shows PFAS accumulate in the environment and human bodies, potentially causing health problems from high cholesterol to cancer. EPA figures indicate almost half of Americans are exposed to PFAS in their drinking water. Wired reports that chemical and consumer products industries are aggressively fighting state-level bans on "forever chemicals" through lobbying and legal action as regulations spread across the United States. The Cookware Sustainability Alliance, formed in 2024 by major cookware manufacturers, has testified in 10 statehouses against PFAS restrictions and sued Minnesota in January, claiming its ban is unconstitutional. (The New Mexico bills include notable exemptions, particularly for fluoropolymers used in nonstick cookware, following successful lobbying by industry groups.) Industry groups are also targeting federal regulators, with the American Chemistry Council and others recommending the EPA adopt a narrower definition of PFAS. "The federal regulatory approach is preferable to a patchwork of different and potentially conflicting state approaches," said Erich Shea from the American Chemistry Council.Read more of this story at Slashdot.