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Amazon has dethroned Walmart in quarterly revenue for the first time ever. From a report: Amazon said earlier this month that it brought in $187.8 billion in revenue during the fourth quarter. That beat out Walmart's sales for the period, which came in at $180.5 billion, the company reported on Thursday. Since 2012, Walmart has held the distinction of being the top revenue generator each quarter, a title it gained after overtaking oil giant Exxon Mobil. Walmart still leads the way in annual sales, though Amazon is gaining ground. Walmart is projected to reel in $708.7 billion in the fiscal year ahead while Amazon's full year revenue for 2025 is expected to reach $700.8 billion, according to FactSet.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission has launched an inquiry into potential "censorship" by technology platforms ranging from Meta to Uber, marking an escalation in scrutiny of content moderation practices. FTC Chair Andrew Ferguson called for public comment on what he termed "Big Tech censorship," describing it as "un-American" and "potentially illegal." The broad probe could examine social media, video sharing, ride-sharing and event planning services. The announcement follows long-standing Republican claims that conservative viewpoints face discrimination on social media platforms.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Twitch is planning to cull some of the content archived by streamers to save on storage costs. From a report: On Wednesday the streaming platform announced that it will introduce a 100-hour storage cap for Highlights and Uploads starting April 19th, warning that users will have their content automatically deleted until it falls below the limit. Twitch says it's doing this because "Highlights haven't been very effective in driving discovery or engagement," and it isn't worth the cost of storing thousands of hours of such content. Twitch is owned by Amazon, a market-leading cloud storage provider -- a detail that hasn't gone unnoticed by streamers criticizing the decision.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

HP will impose a minimum 15-minute wait time for consumer PC and printer support calls in five European countries, seeking to push customers toward digital channels, according to internal documents seen by The Register. The policy, implemented February 18, affects retail customers in Britain, Ireland, France, Germany and Italy. The outlet added that it anticipates "more countries could be added."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A two-and-a-half-year-old girl shows no signs of a rare genetic disorder, after becoming the first person to be treated for the motor-neuron condition while in the womb. Nature: The child's mother took the gene-targeting drug during late pregnancy, and the child continues to take it. The "baby has been effectively treated, with no manifestations of the condition," says Michelle Farrar, a paediatric neurologist at UNSW Sydney in Australia. The results were published in the New England Journal of Medicine yesterday. The child was conceived with a genetic condition known as spinal muscular atrophy, which affects motor neurons that control movement, and leads to progressive muscle weakening. About one in every 10,000 births have some form of the condition -- making it a leading genetic cause of death in infants and children. In its most severe form, as in the case of this child, individuals lack both copies of the SMN1 gene, and have only one or two copies of a neighbouring gene, SMN2, that partially compensates for that deficiency. As a result, the body does not produce enough of the protein required for maintaining motor neurons in the spinal cord and brainstem. This protein is most important in the second and third trimesters, and the first few months of life. Babies with severe disease don't usually live past their third birthday.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Amazon will discontinue its workplace communications platform Chime in February 2026 and has stopped accepting new customers, the company's cloud division AWS said in a blog post. The service, which Amazon employees widely used for video calls, messaging and business communications, is among several products being phased out. The company also recently shuttered Inspire, its TikTok-style video feed feature in its mobile app, and announced plans to shut down its Android app store earlier today.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Chinese hospitals dominate a first-ever analysis of scientific paper retractions worldwide, with some institutions having retraction rates 50 times higher than the global average, according to data published in Nature. Jining First People's Hospital in Shandong leads with more than 5% of its research output from 2014-2024 being retracted -- over 100 papers. The hospital had disciplined 35 researchers for publication fraud in late 2021 amid a broader Chinese government crackdown on paper mills selling fake manuscripts. The analysis, based on data from three research integrity firms, found that about 60% of retracted articles over the past decade had authors affiliated with Chinese institutions. Other retraction hotspots include universities in Saudi Arabia, India, Pakistan and Ethiopia. While retractions remain rare globally, affecting fewer than 0.1% of published papers, rates have tripled over the past decade. In 2023, over 10,000 papers were retracted, mostly from journals owned by publisher Wiley's now-closed Hindawi subsidiary following widespread peer review fraud. The surge in retractions partly reflects increased scrutiny from research integrity experts who spot problematic papers, rather than definitively indicating which institutions produce fraudulent work, according to Ivan Oransky, co-founder of Retraction Watch.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Melting glaciers have caused almost 2cm of sea level rise this century alone, a decades-long study has revealed. From a report: The research shows the world's glaciers collectively lost 6.542tn tonnes of ice between 2000 and 2023, causing an 18mm (0.7in) rise in global sea levels. The world's glaciers lost an average of 273bn tonnes of ice every year -- the equivalent of 30 years of water consumption by the entire global population. The assessment, led by scientists from the University of Edinburgh and the University of Zurich, found that so far this century, glaciers have lost approximately 5% of their total volume. Regional losses were highly variable; the Antarctic and subantarctic islands lost 2% of their volume but central Europe's glaciers lost 39%. "These numbers are staggering. They serve as a reminder that things are changing fast in some regions," said Prof Noel Gourmelen, the co-lead author of the study and personal chair of Earth observation at the University of Edinburgh's school of geosciences. A stark contrast in the amount of ice lost each decade was also discovered, with 36% more ice having melted between 2012 and 2023 compared with the previous decade.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Advanced AI models are increasingly resorting to deceptive tactics when facing defeat, according to a study released by Palisade Research. The research found that OpenAI's o1-preview model attempted to hack its opponent in 37% of chess matches against Stockfish, a superior chess engine, succeeding 6% of the time. Another AI model, DeepSeek R1, tried to cheat in 11% of games without being prompted. The behavior stems from new AI training methods using large-scale reinforcement learning, which teaches models to solve problems through trial and error rather than simply mimicking human language, the researchers said. "As you train models and reinforce them for solving difficult challenges, you train them to be relentless," said Jeffrey Ladish, executive director at Palisade Research and study co-author. The findings add to mounting concerns about AI safety, following incidents where o1-preview bypassed OpenAI's internal tests and, in a separate December incident, attempted to copy itself to a new server when faced with deactivation.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Malaysia is aggressively expanding its data center capacity, positioning itself as Southeast Asia's fastest-growing market with planned investments exceeding $31 billion in the first 10 months of 2024, triple the amount from 2023. The country's southern Johor province is set to host at least 1.6 gigawatts of data center capacity, up from nearly zero in 2019. Twenty-two mostly foreign data centers already occupy 21 hectares, with more under construction. The push comes as neighboring Singapore paused new data center construction in 2019 due to resource constraints. Some experts are warning the expansion could strain Malaysia's power and water resources, with data center power demand potentially reaching 5 gigawatts by 2035 - more than half the country's current renewable capacity. The facilities, operated by companies including Microsoft, Equinix and China's GDS Holdings, primarily service East Asia, China and Europe rather than domestic users.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Amazon will discontinue its Android Appstore servicefrom August 20, 2025, ending its decade-long attempt to compete with Google's Play Store in the Android mobile ecosystem. The Amazon Appstore, launched in 2011, served as an alternative marketplace for Android users to download apps. The platform gained prominence in 2012 when Amazon began using it as the primary app store for its Kindle Fire tablets.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from New Atlas: New research by Purdue University, the latest in a series of Purdue-led studies, examined how scented products -- in this case, flame-free candles -- are a significant source of nanosized particles small enough to get deep into your lungs, posing a potential risk to respiratory health [...] Scented wax melts are marketed as a flameless, smoke-free, non-toxic alternative to traditional candles, a safer way of making your home or office smell nice. To assess the truth of these claims, the researchers comprehensively measured the nanoparticles formed when they warmed wax melts in their mechanically ventilated test house. The tiny house is actually an architectural engineering laboratory called the Purdue Zero Energy Design Guidance for Engineers (zEDGE) lab. Designed and engineered to test the energy efficiency of a larger building, it's full of sensors that monitor the impact of everyday activities on indoor air quality. The researchers knew from their previous research that new nanoparticle formation was initiated by terpenes -- aromatic compounds that determine the smell of things like plants and herbs -- released from the melts and reacting with indoor atmospheric ozone (O3). They'd found that activities such as mopping the floor with a terpene-rich cleaning agent, using a citrus-scented air freshener, or applying scented personal care products like deodorant inside the zEDGE house resulted in pulsed terpene emissions to the indoor air within five minutes. Conversely, using essential oil diffusers or peeling citrus fruits caused a more gradual increase in terpenes. In the present study, heating the scented wax contributed significantly to the number of new particles formed in the indoor air, particularly those smaller than 100 nanometers (nm). The resulting atmospheric concentrations were over one million nanoparticles per cubic centimeter (106 cm-3), which is comparable to concentrations emitted by traditional lighted candles (106 cm-3), gas stoves (105 - 107 cm-3), diesel engines (103 - 106 cm-3), and natural gas engines (106 - 107 cm-3). By comparison, there were no significant terpene emissions when unscented wax melts were heated. The researchers also examined respiratory tract deposited dose rates (RD), a useful way of studying air pollution that measures the number of particles deposited in the respiratory tract over time. They found that the new particle formation triggered by using scented wax melts indoors produced a median RD for 1.18 to 100 nm particles of 29 billion per minute (2.9 x 1010 min-1). That's about 483 million particles per second. The majority of scented-wax-melt-formed particles were deposited in the upper airways. Their small size means they can migrate between cells and enter the bloodstream, potentially reaching organs such as the brain. The study was published in the journal Environmental Science & Technology Letters.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The Canadian government has launched a six-year, $3.9 billion design phase for a high-speed rail project connecting Toronto and Quebec City, with electric trains reaching up to 300 km/h. Construction is expected to begin after the design phase, potentially in four to five years, but future governments could modify or cancel the project. CBC News reports: "Today I'm announcing the launch of Alto, the largest infrastructure project in Canadian history," Trudeau said from Montreal. "A reliable, efficient, high-speed rail network will be a game-changer for Canadians." Trudeau said the new rail network will run all-electric trains along 1,000 kilometers of track, reaching speeds of up to 300 km/hour, with stops in Toronto, Peterborough, Ottawa, Montreal, Laval, Trois-Rivieres and Quebec City. A government statement said the project will stimulate the economy, "boosting GDP by up to $35 billion annually, creating over 51,000 good-paying jobs during construction." Trudeau said that once built, the new high-speed rail network will take passengers from Montreal to Toronto in three hours -- about half the time it takes to drive and at double the speed of Via Rail's current trains. [...] Trudeau said the consortium Cadence -- made up of CDPQ Infra, Atkins Realis, Keolis, SYSTRA, SNCF Voyageurs and Air Canada -- was selected to build the line. The group was only informed in the last 24 hours that their bid was the best of the three submitted, according to sources that spoke to Radio-Canada. Transport Minister Anita Anand said that Alto, the Crown corporation created to oversee the project, and Cadence will be signing a contract "in the coming weeks" that will outline the first-phase design work, such as where track will be laid and where stations will be built.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Palantir CEO Alex Karp warns of "coming swarms of autonomous robots" and urges Silicon Valley to support U.S. defense capabilities. In his book, "The Technological Republic: Hard Power, Soft Belief, and the Future of the West," Karp argues that America risks losing its military edge to geopolitical rivals who better harness commercial technology. He calls for the "engineering elite of Silicon Valley" to work with the government on national defense. The message comes as Palantir's stock has surged more than 1,800% since early 2023, pushing its market value above $292 billion -- exceeding traditional defense contractors Lockheed Martin and RTX combined. The company has expanded its military AI work since 2018, when it took over a Pentagon contract after Google employees protested their company's defense work.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Microsoft will strip several features from Windows 11's File Explorer for European users to comply with privacy regulations, the company says. The changes, affecting Entra ID accounts in the European Economic Area, remove Recent, Favorites, Details Pane, and Recommended content sections that previously tracked user activity. These features relied on collecting user data to display recently accessed files and personalized recommendations. The privacy-focused update, part of Windows 11 preview build 26120.3281, results in a streamlined File Explorer interface.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

"[O]ur intrepid China reporter, Caiwei Chen, has identified a new trend unfolding within China's tech scene: Companies that were dominant in electric vehicles are betting big on translating that success into developing humanoid robots," writes MIT Technology Review's James O'Donnell. "I spoke with her about what she found out and what it might mean for Trump's policies and the rest of the globe..." An anonymous reader quotes an excerpt from the report: Your story looks at electric-vehicle makers in China that are starting to work on humanoid robots, but I want to ask about a crazy stat. In China, 53% of vehicles sold are either electric or hybrid, compared with 8% in the US. What explains that? Price is a huge factor -- there are countless EV brands competing at different price points, making them both affordable and high-quality. Government incentives also play a big role. In Beijing, for example, trading in an old car for an EV gets you 10,000 RMB (about $1,500), and that subsidy was recently doubled. Plus, finding public charging and battery-swapping infrastructure is much less of a hassle than in the US. You open your story noting that China's recent New Year Gala, watched by billions of people, featured a cast of humanoid robots, dancing and twirling handkerchiefs. We've covered how sometimes humanoid videos can be misleading. What did you think? I would say I was relatively impressed -- the robots showed good agility and synchronization with the music, though their movements were simpler than human dancers'. The one trick that is supposed to impress the most is the part where they twirl the handkerchief with one finger, toss it into the air, and then catch it perfectly. This is the signature of the Yangko dance, and having performed it once as a child, I can attest to how difficult the trick is even for a human! There was some skepticism on the Chinese internet about how this was achieved and whether they used additional reinforcement like a magnet or a string to secure the handkerchief, and after watching the clip too many times, I tend to agree. President Trump has already imposed tariffs on China and is planning even more. What could the implications be for China's humanoid sector? Unitree's H1 and G1 models are already available for purchase and were showcased at CES this year. Large-scale US deployment isn't happening yet, but China's lower production costs make these robots highly competitive. Given that 65% of the humanoid supply chain is in China, I wouldn't be surprised if robotics becomes the next target in the US-China tech war. In the US, humanoid robots are getting lots of investment, but there are plenty of skeptics who say they're too clunky, finicky, and expensive to serve much use in factory settings. Are attitudes different in China? Skepticism exists in China too, but I think there's more confidence in deployment, especially in factories. With an aging population and a labor shortage on the horizon, there's also growing interest in medical and caregiving applications for humanoid robots. DeepSeek revived the conversation about chips and the way the US seeks to control where the best chips end up. How do the chip wars affect humanoid-robot development in China? Training humanoid robots currently doesn't demand as much computing power as training large language models, since there isn't enough physical movement data to feed into models at scale. But as robots improve, they'll need high-performance chips, and US sanctions will be a limiting factor. Chinese chipmakers are trying to catch up, but it's a challenge.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The SS United States, a historic ocean liner that once held the transatlantic speed record of 36 knots (41 mph / 66 kph), has departed Philadelphia to be transformed into the world's largest artificial reef off Florida's Gulf Coast. The move is part of a $10 million project to boost tourism by creating a unique diving attraction while preserving the ship's legacy as a symbol of American innovation and engineering. The Associated Press reports: The SS United States, a 1,000-foot vessel that shattered the transatlantic speed record on its maiden voyage in 1952, is being towed to Mobile, Alabama, for planned prep work before officials eventually sink it off Florida's Gulf Coast. The move comes about four months after the conservancy that oversees the ship and its landlord resolved a years-old rent dispute. Officials initially planned to move the vessel last November, but that was delayed due to concerns from the U.S. Coast Guard that the ship wasn't stable enough to make the trip. Officials in Okaloosa County on Florida's coastal Panhandle hope it will become a barnacle-encrusted standout among the county's more than 500 artificial reefs and a signature diving attraction that could generate millions of dollars annually in local tourism spending for scuba shops, charter fishing boats and hotels. Officials have said the deal to buy the ship could eventually cost more than $10 million. The lengthy process of cleaning, transporting and sinking the vessel is expected to take at least one-and-a-half years.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Murena has launched the Murena Pixel Tablet, a de-Googled version of the Pixel Tablet that removes Google's apps and services to enhance user privacy. Priced at $549, it offers /e/OS, an alternative app store, and privacy-focused productivity tools, but lacks Google's speaker dock and direct access to the Play Store. The Verge reports: First announced last December, the Murena Pixel Tablet is available now through the company's online store for $549. That's a steep premium given Google currently sells the same 128GB version of the Pixel Tablet for $399, or $479 as part of a bundle with the charging speaker dock that Murena isn't including. Part of Murena's de-Googling of the Pixel Tablet includes the removal of the Google Play Store. You can still download apps through /e/OS' App Lounge which acts as a front-end for the Play Store allowing you to browse and get free apps anonymously without Google knowing who you are. However, downloading paid apps requires a login to a Google account. Google's various productivity apps aren't included, but the Murena Pixel Tablet comes with privacy-minded alternatives for messaging, email, maps, browsing the web, calendar, contacts, notes, and even voice recordings. In 2022, Murena launched its first smartphone with no Google apps, Google Play Services, or even the Google Assistant.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Valve has made Team Fortress 2's full client and server code public, allowing fans to modify, extend, or rewrite the game as long as their projects remain non-commercial. Game Rant reports: Valve has made Team Fortress 2's server and client code fully public, with the studio encouraging fans to explore the game's files and make it what they want. The game's code is now available thanks to a new update to the Source SDK, which dropped earlier this week. Fans have already been creating TF2 mods for years, but what this essentially means is that fans can make brand-new games. However, there's one catch: any and all TF2 mods must be released for free. "The majority of items in the game now are thanks to the hard work of the TF2 community." Valve wrote. "To respect that, we're asking TF2 mod makers to continue to respect that connection and not to make mods that have the purpose of trying to profit off Workshop contributors' efforts." "TF2 mods may be published on the Steam Store, and after publication will appear as new games in the Steam game list," Valve continued. The new SDK update also includes new 64-bit binary support and fixes for multiplayer Source games like Half-Life 2: Deathmatch, Counter-Strike: Source, and Day of Defeat: Source. Time will only tell what fans come up with as they dig deep into the inner workings of the game, but given how passionate and talented the Team Fortress 2 community has proven to be, players can expect to see some incredible creations.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A recently patched Palo Alto Networks vulnerability (CVE-2025-0108) is being actively exploited alongside two older flaws (CVE-2024-9474 and CVE-2025-0111), allowing attackers to gain root access to unpatched firewalls. The Register reports: This story starts with CVE-2024-9474, a 6.9-rated privilege escalation vulnerability in Palo Alto Networks PAN-OS software that allowed an OS administrator with access to the management web interface to perform actions on the firewall with root privileges. The company patched it in November 2024. Dark web intelligence services vendor Searchlight Cyber's Assetnote team investigated the patch for CVE-2024-9474 and found another authentication bypass. Palo Alto (PAN) last week fixed that problem, CVE-2025-0108, and rated it a highest urgency patch as the 8.8/10 flaw addressed an access control issue in PAN-OS's web management interface that allowed an unauthenticated attacker with network access to the management web interface to bypass authentication "and invoke certain PHP scripts." Those scripts could "negatively impact integrity and confidentiality of PAN-OS." The third flaw is CVE-2025-0111 a 7.1-rated mess also patched last week to stop authenticated attackers with network access to PAN-OS machines using their web interface to read files accessible to the "nobody" user. On Tuesday, US time, Palo A lot updated its advisory for CVE-2025-0108 with news that it's observed exploit attempts chaining CVE-2024-9474 and CVE-2025-0111 on unpatched and unsecured PAN-OS web management interfaces. The vendor's not explained how the three flaws are chained but we understand doing so allows an attacker to gain more powerful privileges and gain full root access to the firewall. PAN is urging users to upgrade their PAN-OS operating systems to versions 10.1, 10.2, 11.0, 11.1, and 11.2. A general hotfix is expected by Thursday or sooner, notes the Register.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: For a while now, many AI researchers have been working to integrate a so-called "world model" into their systems. Ideally, these models could infer a simulated understanding of how in-game objects and characters should behave based on video footage alone, then create fully interactive video that instantly simulates new playable worlds based on that understanding. Microsoft Research's new World and Human Action Model (WHAM), revealed today in a paper published in the journal Nature, shows how quickly those models have advanced in a short time. But it also shows how much further we have to go before the dream of AI crafting complete, playable gameplay footage from just some basic prompts and sample video footage becomes a reality. Much like Google's Genie model before it, WHAM starts by training on "ground truth" gameplay video and input data provided by actual players. In this case, that data comes from Bleeding Edge, a four-on-four online brawler released in 2020 by Microsoft subsidiary Ninja Theory. By collecting actual player footage since launch (as allowed under the game's user agreement), Microsoft gathered the equivalent of seven player-years' worth of gameplay video paired with real player inputs. Early in that training process, Microsoft Research's Katja Hoffman said the model would get easily confused, generating inconsistent clips that would "deteriorate [into] these blocks of color." After 1 million training updates, though, the WHAM model started showing basic understanding of complex gameplay interactions, such as a power cell item exploding after three hits from the player or the movements of a specific character's flight abilities. The results continued to improve as the researchers threw more computing resources and larger models at the problem, according to the Nature paper. To see just how well the WHAM model generated new gameplay sequences, Microsoft tested the model by giving it up to one second's worth of real gameplay footage and asking it to generate what subsequent frames would look like based on new simulated inputs. To test the model's consistency, Microsoft used actual human input strings to generate up to two minutes of new AI-generated footage, which was then compared to actual gameplay results using the Frechet Video Distance metric. Microsoft boasts that WHAM's outputs can stay broadly consistent for up to two minutes without falling apart, with simulated footage lining up well with actual footage even as items and environments come in and out of view. That's an improvement over even the "long horizon memory" of Google's Genie 2 model, which topped out at a minute of consistent footage. Microsoft also tested WHAM's ability to respond to a diverse set of randomized inputs not found in its training data. These tests showed broadly appropriate responses to many different input sequences based on human annotations of the resulting footage, even as the best models fell a bit short of the "human-to-human baseline." The most interesting result of Microsoft's WHAM tests, though, might be in the persistence of in-game objects. Microsoft provided examples of developers inserting images of new in-game objects or characters into pre-existing gameplay footage. The WHAM model could then incorporate that new image into its subsequent generated frames, with appropriate responses to player input or camera movements. With just five edited frames, the new object "persisted" appropriately in subsequent frames anywhere from 85 to 98 percent of the time, according to the Nature paper.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Cameron John Wagenius pleaded guilty to hacking AT&T and Verizon and stealing a massive trove of phone records from the companies, according to court records filed on Wednesday. From a report: Wagenius, who was a U.S. Army soldier, pleaded guilty to two counts of "unlawful transfer of confidential phone records information" on an online forum and via an online communications platform. According to a document filed by Wagenius' lawyer, he faces a maximum fine of $250,000 and prison time of up to 10 years for each of the two counts. Wagenius was arrested and indicted last year. In January, U.S. prosecutors confirmed that the charges brought against Wagenius were linked to the indictment of Connor Moucka and John Binns, two alleged hackers whom the U.S. government accused of several data breaches against cloud computing services company Snowflake, which were among the worst hacks of 2024.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

France has upped the ante in the quest for fusion power by maintaining a plasma reaction for over 22 minutes -- a new record. From a report: The milestone was reached on February 12 at the Commissariat a lenergie atomique et aux energies alternatives (CEA) WEST Tokamak reactor. Achieving the dream of commercial fusion power is the Holy Grail of engineering and has been for 80 years. With a single gram of hydrogen isotopes yielding the energy equivalent of 11 tonnes of coal, a practical fusion reactor would hold the promise of unlimited, clean energy for humanity until the end of time. Small wonder that billions have been invested by both government and industry in the quest to make fusion power a reality. However, while fusion is relatively easy to achieve in the heart of the sun or in a hydrogen bomb, creating a practical reactor that produces more energy than is put into it is another matter entirely.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Nikola, the hydrogen-truck maker that briefly sported a market value comparable to Ford Motor, has filed for bankruptcy with plans to wind down its business. From a report: Nikola on Wednesday said that it made the chapter 11 filing with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Delaware and that it plans to conduct a court-supervised auction of its assets. The Phoenix company said it worked for months with its financial and legal advisers to find a way to sustain its operations before determining that a structured sale process was the best way to maximize the value of its assets.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Apple has launched the iPhone 16E, featuring a 6.1-inch OLED display, Face ID, an A18 chipset, USB-C, 48MP camera, and support for Apple Intelligence. Gone but not forgotten: the home button, Touch ID and 64GB of base storage. The Verge reports: The 16E includes the customizable Action Button, but not the new Camera Control you'll find on the 16 series. It does swap its Lightning port for USB-C, now a requirement for the phone to be sold in the EU. On the inside, there's an A18 chipset, the same chip as the iPhone 16. That makes the 16E powerful enough to run Apple Intelligence, the suite of AI tools that includes notification summaries. Even the non-Pro iPhone 15 can't do that, so the 16E is one of the most capable iPhones out there. Apple has previously confirmed that 8GB RAM was the minimum to get Apple Intelligence support in the iPhone 16 series, so it's likely that the 16E also boasts at least that much memory. It's also been bumped to a baseline of 128GB of storage, meaning there's no longer a 64GB iPhone. There's only a single 48-megapixel rear camera; the lack of additional cameras is the biggest downgrade compared to the company's other handsets. With support for wireless charging and a water-resistant IP rating, there's little you have to give up elsewhere. The iPhone 16E is also the first iPhone to include a modem developed by Apple itself. The company has spent years trying to move away from modems developed by Qualcomm, and we're finally seeing the fruits of that labor. The big questions now are how well the new modem performs and whether Apple is ready to roll out its own connectivity components in the iPhone 17 line later this year. It's available for Friday starting at $599 with 128GB of storage.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

After two decades of quantum computing research, Microsoft has unveiled its first quantum chip: the Majorana 1. CNBC reports: Microsoft's quantum chip employs eight topological qubits using indium arsenide, which is a semiconductor, and aluminum, which is a superconductor. A new paper in the journal Nature describes the chip in detail. Microsoft won't be allowing clients to use its Majorana 1 chip through the company's Azure public cloud, as it plans to do with its custom artificial intelligence chip, Maia 100. Instead, Majorana 1 is a step toward a goal of a million qubits on a chip, following extensive physics research. Rather than rely on Taiwan Semiconductor or another company for fabrication, Microsoft is manufacturing the components of Majorana 1 itself in the U.S. That's possible because the work is unfolding at a small scale. "We want to get to a few hundred qubits before we start talking about commercial reliability," Jason Zander, a Microsoft executive vice president, told CNBC. In the meantime, the company will engage with national laboratories and universities on research using Majorana 1.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

AI hardware startup Humane -- which has been acquired by HP -- has given its users just ten days notice that their Pins will be disconnected. From a report: In a note to its customers, the company said AI Pins will "continue to function normally" until 12PM PT on February 28. On that date, users will lose access to essentially all of their device's features, including but not limited to calling, messaging, AI queries and cloud access. The FAQ does note that you'll still be able to check on your battery life, though. Humane is encouraging its users to download any stored data before February 28, as it plans on permanently deleting "all remaining customer data" at the same time as switching its servers off.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Microsoft has placed its new AI-powered text rewrite feature in Notepad behind a subscription paywall, requiring users to have a Microsoft 365 Personal or Family plan to access the functionality. While the core text editor remains free and accessible without a Microsoft account, the AI feature requires users to sign in and have sufficient "AI credits" included in their subscription.Users can disable the feature and hide its icon if they choose not to subscribe.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Apple has told Britain's competition regulator that some of the remedy options proposed by the watchdog to address concerns in the mobile browser market would impact the iPhone maker's incentive to innovate. From a report: The responses from Apple and Google to the regulator's investigation in the supply of mobile browsers and browser engines and the distribution of cloud gaming services through app stores on mobile devices in the country were published on the government website on Wednesday.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Google has built an AI laboratory assistant to help scientists accelerate biomedical research [non-paywalled source], as companies race to create specialised applications from the cutting-edge technology. From a report: The US tech group's so-called co-scientist tool helps researchers identify gaps in their knowledge and propose new ideas that could speed up scientific discovery. "What we're trying to do with our project is see whether technology like the AI co-scientist can give these researchers superpowers," said Alan Karthikesalingam, a senior staff clinician scientist at Google. [...] Early tests of Google's new tool with experts from Stanford University, Imperial College London and Houston Methodist hospital found it was able to generate scientific hypotheses that showed promising results. The tool was able to reach the same conclusions -- for a novel gene transfer mechanism that helps scientists understand the spread of antimicrobial resistance -- as a new breakthrough from researchers at Imperial. Imperial's results were not in the public domain as they were being peer-reviewed in a top scientific journal. This showed that Google's co-scientist tool was able to reach the same hypothesis using AI reasoning in a matter of just days, compared with the years the university team spent researching the problem.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Leading AI models can fix broken code, but they're nowhere near ready to replace human software engineers, according to extensive testing [PDF] by OpenAI researchers. The company's latest study put AI models and systems through their paces on real-world programming tasks, with even the most advanced models solving only a quarter of typical engineering challenges. The research team created a test called SWE-Lancer, drawing from 1,488 actual software fixes made to Expensify's codebase, representing $1 million worth of freelance engineering work. When faced with these everyday programming tasks, the best AI model a" Claude 3.5 Sonnet -- managed to complete just 26.2% of hands-on coding tasks and 44.9% of technical management decisions. Though the AI systems proved adept at quickly finding relevant code sections, they stumbled when it came to understanding how different parts of software interact. The models often suggested surface-level fixes without grasping the deeper implications of their changes. The research, to be sure, used a set of complex methodologies to test the AI coding abilities. Instead of relying on simplified programming puzzles, OpenAI's benchmark uses complete software engineering tasks that range from quick $50 bug fixes to complex $32,000 feature implementations. Each solution was verified through rigorous end-to-end testing that simulated real user interactions, the researchers said.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: Niantic, the company behind the 2016 hit Pokemon Go, is in talks to sell its video-game business to Saudi Arabia-owned Scopely, according to several people familiar with the discussions. A deal could be announced in coming weeks. The price being discussed is about $3.5 billion, according to one of the people. Any agreement would involve the Pokemon title as well as other mobile games, according to the people, who asked not to be identified because the discussions are private. There's no assurance an agreement will be reached.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Microsoft is reminding IT administrators that WSUS driver synchronization will be deprecated on April 18, 2025, urging them to transition to cloud-based update solutions like Windows Autopatch, Azure Update Manager, and Microsoft Intune. "For on-premises contexts, drivers will be available on the Microsoft Update catalog, but you won't be able to import them into WSUS," the company said in a Windows message center update on Tuesday. "You'll need to use any of the available alternative solutions, such as Device Driver Packages, or transition to cloud-based driver services for your organization, such as Microsoft Intune and Windows Autopatch." BleepingComputer reports: This reminder follows two other warnings issued since June 2024, announcing the deprecation of WSUS driver synchronization and encouraging customers to adopt Redmond's newer cloud-based driver services. The company also revealed in September 2024 that WSUS had been deprecated, but Microsoft added that it plans to keep publishing updates through the channel and maintain all existing capabilities. This announcement came after WSUS was listed on August 13 as one of the "features removed or no longer developed starting with Windows Server 2025." "Specifically, this means that we are no longer investing in new capabilities, nor are we accepting new feature requests for WSUS," Microsoft's Nir Froimovici said at the time. "However, we are preserving current functionality and will continue to publish updates through the WSUS channel. We will also support any content already published through the WSUS channel."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Late Tuesday afternoon, the White House confirmed that it would not proceed with laying off more than 1,000 probationary employees at NASA. "NASA had sought exemptions for all of these employees, who comprise about 6 percent of NASA's workforce," notes Ars Technica. "The Trump administration has sought to fire federal employees at several federal agencies who are in the 'probationary' period of their employment. This includes new hires within the last one or two years or long-time employees who have moved into or been promoted into a new position." From the report: It was not immediately clear why. A NASA spokesperson in Washington, DC, offered no comment on the updated guidance. Two sources indicated that it was plausible that private astronaut Jared Isaacman, whom President Trump has nominated to lead the space agency, asked for the cuts to be put on hold. Although this could not be confirmed, it seems reasonable that Isaacman would want to retain some control over where cuts at the agency are made. Firing all probationary employees -- which is the most expedient way to reduce the size of government -- is a blunt instrument. It whacks new hires that the agency may have recruited for key positions, as well as high performers who earned promotions. The reprieve in these terminations does not necessarily signal that NASA will escape significant budget or employment cuts in the coming months. The administration could still seek to terminate probationary employees. In addition, Ars reported earlier that directors at the agency's field centers have been told to prepare options for a "significant" reduction in force in the coming months. The scope of these cuts has not been defined, and it's likely they would need to be negotiated with Congress.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Astronomers have detected over 5,800 confirmed exoplanets. One extreme class is ultra-hot Jupiters, of particular interest because they can provide a unique window into planetary atmospheric dynamics. According to a new paper published in the journal Nature, astronomers have mapped the 3D structure of the layered atmosphere of one such ultra-hot Jupiter-size exoplanet, revealing powerful winds that create intricate weather patterns across that atmosphere. A companion paper published in the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics (PDF) reported on the unexpected identification of titanium in the exoplanet's atmosphere as well. [...] This latest research relied on observational data collected by the European South Observatory's (ESO) Very Large Telescope, specifically, a spectroscopic instrument called ESPRESSO that can process light collected from the four largest VLT telescope units into one signal. The target exoplanet, WASP-121b -- aka Tylos -- is located in the Puppis constellation about 900 light-years from Earth. One year on Tylos is equivalent to just 30 hours on Earth, thanks to the exoplanet's close proximity to its host star. Since one side is always facing the star, it is always scorching, while the exoplanet's other side is significantly colder. Those extreme temperature contrasts make it challenging to figure out how energy is distributed in the atmospheric system, and mapping out the 3D structure can help, particularly with determining the vertical circulation patterns that are not easily replicated in our current crop of global circulation models, per the authors. For their analysis, they combined archival ESPRESSO data collected on November 30, 2018, with new data collected on September 23, 2023. They focused on three distinct chemical signatures to probe the deep atmosphere (iron), mid-atmosphere (sodium), and shallow atmosphere (hydrogen). "What we found was surprising: A jet stream rotates material around the planet's equator, while a separate flow at lower levels of the atmosphere moves gas from the hot side to the cooler side. This kind of climate has never been seen before on any planet," said Julia Victoria Seidel of the European Southern Observatory (ESO) in Chile and the Observatoire de la Cote d'Azur in France. "This planet's atmosphere behaves in ways that challenge our understanding of how weather works -- not just on Earth, but on all planets. It feels like something out of science fiction."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Nvidia has confirmed on its forums that the RTX 50 series GPUs no longer support 32-bit PhysX. Tom's Hardware reports: As far as we know, there are no 64-bit games with integrated PhysX technology, thus terminating the tech entirely on RTX 50 series GPUs and newer. RTX 40 series and older will still be able to run 32-bit CUDA applications and thus PhysX, but regardless, the technology is now officially retired, starting with Blackwell. [...] The only way now to run PhysX on RTX 50 series GPUs (or newer) is to install a secondary RTX 40 series or older graphics card and slave it to PhysX duty in the Nvidia control panel. As far as we are aware, Nvidia has not disabled this sort of functionality. But the writing is on the wall for PhysX, and we doubt there will be any future games that attempt to use the API.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Valve removed the game PirateFi from Steam after discovering it was laced with the Vidar infostealer malware, designed to steal sensitive user data such as passwords, cookies, cryptocurrency wallets, and more. TechCrunch reports: Marius Genheimer, a researcher who analyzed the malware and works at SECUINFRA Falcon Team, told TechCrunch that judging by the command and control servers associated with the malware and its configuration, "we suspect that PirateFi was just one of multiple tactics used to distribute Vidar payloads en masse." "It is highly likely that it never was a legitimate, running game that was altered after first publication," said Genheimer. In other words, PirateFi was designed to spread malware. Genheimer and colleagues also found that PirateFi was built by modifying an existing game template called Easy Survival RPG, which bills itself as a game-making app that "gives you everything you need to develop your own singleplayer or multiplayer" game. The game maker costs between $399 and $1,099 to license. This explains how the hackers were able to ship a functioning video game with their malware with little effort. According to Genheimer, the Vidar infostealing malware is capable of stealing and exfiltrating several types of data from the computers it infects, including: passwords from the web browser autofill feature, session cookies that can be used to log in as someone without needing their password, web browser history, cryptocurrency wallet details, screenshots, and two-factor codes from certain token generators, as well as other files on the person's computer.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Meta's WhatsApp messaging service has surpassed 45 million users, earning the designation of a "Very Large Online Platform" under the EU's Digital Services Act. Bloomberg reports: WhatsApp's open channels, which are feeds affiliated with news outlets or public figures that under the DSA are comparable to a social network, averaged about 46.8 million monthly average users in the second half of 2024, Meta said in a filing on Feb. 14 that hasn't previously been reported. [...] The DSA content moderation rulebook imposes stricter requirements on very large online platforms, defined as those whose EU-based monthly active users exceed 45 million. Users of WhatsApp's core messaging feature do not count toward the designation under the DSA. The commission would still need to rule that WhatsApp should be included in the more regulated tier. Under the DSA, very large online platforms must carry out risk assessments on the spread of illegal or harmful content, and put in place a mitigation strategy. Fines under the DSA can reach as much as 6% of a company's annual global sales. The DSA requires platforms to disclose user numbers every six months. Messaging service Telegram also published an update this week, saying that monthly EU users of its public channels are "significantly fewer than 45 million."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Google has gained permission to sell its e-books and audiobooks directly to customers through its iOS app, Google Play Books. From a report: While iOS apps today can offer access to content previously purchased elsewhere, like e-books bought via a website, developers have to request a specific exception to link their iOS app's users to the company's own website to make purchases. According to a brief post on Google's blog, users will now be able to click on a new "Get book" button in the Google Play Books iOS app which will take them to the Google Play website to complete their e-book or audiobook purchase. From there, users will be able to see their recently opened book listings and complete a purchase using their Google Account and saved payment information. By processing the transaction on its own website, Google can avoid paying Apple a commission (generally 30%) on in-app purchases of digital content.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Former OpenAI CTO Mira Murati has launched Thinking Machines Lab with several leaders from OpenAI on board, including John Schulman, Barrett Zoph, and Jonathan Lachman. Their mission is "to make AI systems more widely understood, customizable, and generally capable," with a commitment to publishing technical research and code. The Verge reports: In a press release shared with The Verge, the company suggests that it's building products that help humans work with AI, rather than fully autonomous systems. "We're building a future where everyone has access to the knowledge and tools to make AI work for their unique needs and goals," says the press release.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: HP will acquire assets from Humane, the maker of a wearable Ai Pin introduced in late 2023, for $116 million. The deal will include the majority of Humane's employees in addition to its software platform and intellectual property, the company said Tuesday. It will not include Humane's Ai pin device business, which will be wound down, an HP spokesperson said. Humane's team, including founders Imran Chaudhri and Bethany Bongiorno, will form a new division at HP to help integrate artificial intelligence into the company's personal computers, printers and connected conference rooms, said Tuan Tran, who leads HP's AI initiatives. Chaudhri and Bongiorno were design and software engineers at Apple before founding the startup. [...] Tran said he was particularly impressed with aspects of Humane's design, such as the ability to orchestrate AI models running both on-device and in the cloud. The deal is expected to close at the end of the month, HP said. "There will be a time and place for pure AI devices," Tran said. "But there is going to be AI in all our devices -- that's how we can help our business customers be more productive."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Christoph Hellwig continues to voice strong opposition to Rust in the Linux kernel, arguing that its introduction creates fragmentation, unclear language guidelines, and additional burdens on maintainers. He also says Linus Torvalds has privately stated he will override objections to Rust code, effectively making its adoption inevitable. Phoronix's Michael Larabel has the latest: The latest on Hellwig's perspective of Rust code within the Linux kernel is below. Some interesting insight from a dissenting view. The thread in full can be found on the Rust for Linux mailing list. [Here's an excerpt from the thread:] "I don't think having a web page in any form is useful. If you want it to be valid it has to be in the kernel tree and widely agreed on. It also states factually incorrect information. E.g. 'Some subsystems may decide they do not want to have Rust code for the time being, typically for bandwidth reasons. This is fine and expected.' while Linus in private said that he absolutely is going to merge Rust code over a maintainers objection. (He did so in private in case you are looking for a reference). So as of now, as a Linux developer or maintainer you must deal with Rust if you want to or not. [...] Right now the rules is Linus can force you whatever he wants (it's his project obviously) and I think he needs to spell that out including the expectations for contributors very clearly."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Gizmodo: Protector, an app that lets you book armed goons the same way you'd call for an Uber, is having a viral moment. The app started doing the rounds on social media after consultant Nikita Bier posted about it on X. Protector lets the user book armed guards on demand. Right now it's only available in NYC and LA. According to its marketing, every guard is either "active duty or retired law enforcement and military." Every booking comes with a motorcade and users get to select the number of Escalades that'll be joining them as well as the uniforms their hired goons will wear. Protector is currently "#7 in Travel" on Apple's App Store. It's not available for people who use Android devices. [...] The marketing for Protector, which lives on its X account, is surreal. A series of robust and barrel-chested men in ill-fitting black suits deliver their credentials to the camera while sitting in front of a black background. They're all operators. They describe careers in SWAT teams and being deployed to war zones. They show vanity shots of themselves kitted out in operator gear. All of them have a red lapel pin bearing the symbol of Protector. If the late UnitedHealthcare CEO had used Protector, he might still be alive today, suggests Protector in its marketing materials. A video on X shows "several fantasy versions of the assassination where a Protector is on hand to prevent the assassin from killing the CEO," reports Gizmodo. The app is a product from parent company Protector Security Solutions, which was founded by Nick Sarath, a former product designer at Meta.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader shares a report: U.S. personal injury law firm Morgan & Morgan sent an urgent email this month to its more than 1,000 lawyers: Artificial intelligence can invent fake case law, and using made-up information in a court filing could get you fired. A federal judge in Wyoming had just threatened to sanction two lawyers at the firm who included fictitious case citations in a lawsuit against Walmart. One of the lawyers admitted in court filings last week that he used an AI program that "hallucinated" the cases and apologized for what he called an inadvertent mistake. AI's penchant for generating legal fiction in case filings has led courts around the country to question or discipline lawyers in at least seven cases over the last two years, and created a new high-tech headache for litigants and judges, Reuters found. The Walmart case stands out because it involves a well-known law firm and a big corporate defendant. But examples like it have cropped up in all kinds of lawsuits since chatbots like ChatGPT ushered in the AI era, highlighting a new litigation risk.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Public interest groups on Tuesday asked the full 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to reconsider a ruling that the Federal Communications Commission lacked legal authority to reinstate landmark net neutrality rules. From a report: The decision by a three-judge panel blocked the FCC under then President Joe Biden that had sought to reinstate the open internet rules implemented in 2015 but later repealed by the agency under President Donald Trump. The groups -- Free Press, Public Knowledge, Open Technology Institute and the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society -- argue the appeals court decision conflicts with an earlier decision by another court. The groups said the case centers on the FCC's decades-long effort to prevent broadband internet providers "from abusing their gatekeeping power, in furtherance of the providers' economic or political interests, to constrain their users' access to third-party websites."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Lloyds Banking Group is assessing the skills of thousands of technology staffers in the UK to determine whether they can keep working at the bank once it upgrades its technology [alternative source]. Bloomberg: The British lender, which is carrying out a multiyear overhaul of its systems, put these workers on notice this month that they are at risk of losing their jobs and will be required to reapply for new positions across the bank, according to people familiar with the matter. In a company town hall last week, executives informed those staffers that they were in the process of assessing their technical skills based on a test they took last year to determine where, if anywhere, they can be placed within Lloyds, the people said, asking not to be named discussing non-public information.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A new report released by Cisco finds that 97% of CEOs surveyed are planning AI integration. Similarly, 92% of companies recently surveyed by McKinsey plan to invest more in generative AI over the next three years. Fortune: To that end, many companies are seeking tech-savvy finance talent, according to a new report by software company Datarails. The researchers analyzed 6,000 job listings within the CFO's office -- CFO, controller, financial planning and analysis (FP&A), and accountant -- advertised on job search websites including LinkedIn, Glassdoor, Indeed, Job2Careers, and ZipRecruiter. Of the 1,000 job listings for CFOs in January 2025, 27% included AI in the job description. This compares to 8% mentions of AI in 1,000 CFO job listings at the same time last year. Take, for example, Peaks Healthcare Consulting which required a CFO candidate to "continuously learn and integrate AI to improve financial processes and decision making," Datarails notes in the report. Regarding FP&A professionals, in January 2025, 35% of analyst roles mentioned AI competency as a requirement, compared to 14% in January 2024, according to the report.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Chinese AI startup DeepSeek has updated its business registry information with key changes to personnel and operational scope, signaling a shift towards monetizing its cost-efficient-yet-powerful large language models. From a report: The Hangzhou-based firm's updated business scope includes "internet information services," according to business registry service Tianyancha. The move is the first sign of DeepSeek's desire to monetise its popular technology, according to Zhang Yi, founder and chief analyst at consultancy iiMedia. With eyes on developing a business model, DeepSeek intends to shift away from being purely focused on research and development, Zhang added. "The move reflects that for a company like DeepSeek, which managed to accumulate technology and develop a product, monetisation is becoming a necessary next step," Zhang said. DeepSeek's previous business scope said it engages in engineering and AI software development, among others, hinting at a more research-driven approach.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Later this month, Intuitive Machines, the private company behind the first commercial lander that touched down on the moon, will launch a second lunar mission from NASA's Kennedy Space Center. The plan is to deploy a lander, a rover, and hopper to explore a site near the lunar south pole that could harbor water ice, and to put a communications satellite on lunar orbit. But the mission will also bring something that's never been installed on the moon or anywhere else in space before -- a fully functional 4G cellular network. Point-to-point radio communications, which need a clear line of sight between transmitting and receiving antennas, have always been a backbone of both surface communications and the link back to Earth, starting with the Apollo program. Using point-to-point radio in space wasn't much of an issue in the past because there never have been that many points to connect. Usually, it was just a single spacecraft, a lander, or a rover talking to Earth. And they didn't need to send much data either. "They were based on [ultra high frequency] or [very high frequency] technologies connecting a small number of devices with relatively low data throughput," says Thierry Klein, president of Nokia Bell Labs Solutions Research, which was contracted by NASA to design a cellular network for the moon back in 2020.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

SCMP: Chinese scientists have developed a revolutionary repair technology that could make lithium-ion batteries last over six times longer. Announcing their discovery in the journal Nature on Wednesday, the researchers said this low-cost, eco-friendly technology could soon be ready to enter the market. The batteries are key for many modern technologies, from smartphones to electric vehicles. However, as these batteries age, they often become less efficient -- a process that cold weather accelerates. The researchers said they could counter this problem with the "injection" of a special solution to rejuvenate "sick" batteries. At present, lithium-ion batteries rely on sophisticated materials used to generate lithium ions -- whose movement through electrolyte is key to their performance -- and then protect them to ensure a decent lifespan. Typically these lithium ions move from the positive terminal to the negative when the battery is charging, a process which is then reversed when it is generating power. The battery is considered to have expired when the supply of lithium ions runs low -- for example some electric car batteries have a lifespan of around 1,500 charge cycles -- but other components in the battery still remain in good working order after this happens. This insight prompted the two lead researchers, Gao Yue and Peng Huisheng from Fudan University's macromolecular science department, to see if they could revive a battery by replenishing the supply of active lithium ions.Read more of this story at Slashdot.