Researchers Use Ordinary WiFi Connections to Create Images of Nearby People and Their Surroundings
Science Daily reports: Researchers showed that unencrypted signals routinely exchanged between WiFi devices and routers can be used to create radio-based images of people and…
X Open Sources Its Ranking and Filtering Algorithms
An anonymous reader shared this report from TechCrunch: X is significantly expanding its open source codebase, which includes the app's "For You" algorithm and its core ranking…
Why Europe Keeps Being Pummeled by Heat Waves
Europe is facing its fifth round of dangerously high temperatures this summer, the New York Times reports. Now climate scientists wonder if global warming is doing more than raise…
Europe's Record Heatwave Kills 25,000, Dries Rivers, Shuts Nuclear Plant, Exposes Submerged Warships
"The European Union's Copernicus climate monitoring service confirmed Monday that June and July were the hottest on record in western Europe," .according to a report from the CBC.…
SpaceX Launches Two Falcon 9 Rockets just 38 Minutes Apart
An anonymous reader shares this report from Space.com: On Saturday evening (Aug. 15), SpaceX set another mark, for the shortest time between orbital flights: It launched two…
AI Fails to Deliver a 4-Day Work Week - Especially at AI Companies
"An engineering director at Google said four years ago that AI would deliver a four-day work week by 2025," remembers the BBC. And earlier this year OpenAI "formally urged…
How Larry Ellison Dropped From World's 2nd-Richest To No. 8 In Just 2 Months
Less than a year ago he was the #1 richest man in the world. 10 weeks ago he was #2. But yesterday Larry Ellison dropped to #8, Forbes reports, falling behind Nvidia CEO Jensen…
How Swarming Jellyfish Overran Three French Nuclear Power Reactors
A "massive influx" of jellyfish forced Electricite de France SA to shut three units at its Gravelines nuclear power plant this week and reduce output at a fourth, reports…
Copper's Surprising Melting Behavior Provides Insights for Future Fusion Power Plant Design
Phys.org reports: Future fusion power plants aim to recreate the heart of a star here on Earth to power our future energy needs. While the core fusion plasma will burn at hundreds…
University of Michigan Drops First-Semester Grades to 'Curb Mental Health Crisis'
"In order to salve the mental health of freshman students, the University of Michigan has implemented a Pass/No Credit system for new students to improve their mental health,"…
Ex-Cambridge Professor At Center of Plagiarism Row Found Dead
Former Cambridge professor Jason Arday, who resigned last week amid allegations of plagiarism and questions about his academic record, has been found dead at age 41 in London. The…
France's Top Court Blocks Social Media Ban For Under-15s
France's Constitutional Council has struck down a law that would have banned children under 15 from social media, ruling that it disproportionately restricted freedom of…
PBS Station Fears Losing 50TB of Data After Being Ghosted By Cloud Provider
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: After its cloud storage provider went defunct, a PBS affiliate decided to sue a data center provider to regain access to…
Flock Announces Changes Amid Backlash Over Its License Plate Reader Network
Flock Safety is tightening controls on its nationwide license plate reader network after mounting backlash over privacy and documented police misuse. By January 1, law enforcement…
How Social Media Spurred a Refugee Crisis Between Spain and Morocco
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The New York Times: Two days before tens of thousands of migrants surged into Ceuta, one of Spain's enclaves on Morocco's northern coast,…
It's Not Just RAM: Windows Licenses Are Also Pushing Up PC Prices
It's not just RAM prices that are going up, writes CNET. "Reports suggest the cost of Windows licenses for manufacturers is rising by up to 10%." Several sites that closely follow…
Trump Administration Enlists Private Companies To Hack Foreign Cybercrime Groups
The Trump administration today unveiled a new program that will allow vetted U.S. companies to conduct cyber surveillance and offensive cyber operations against foreign…
Ukraine Finds Nvidia AI Chip In New Russian Missile
Longtime Slashdot reader AmiMoJo shares a report from Kyiv Post: Ukraine's military intelligence (HUR) has identified an Nvidia Jetson Orin computer module inside Russia's new…
Why Are Big Tech CEOs Writing Long Manifestos About AI?
This week Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg published a 6,500 word open letter titled "The Future is for Everyone". But the BBC is more interested in why big tech executives keep writing…
Robots That Walk and Talk Are Coming To Car Factories
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The New York Times: At a BMW factory in South Carolina, a human-shaped robot with a screen for a face recently stepped from a charging…
Astronomers Discover a New Kind of Cosmic Object: a Black Hole 'Star'
Astronomers using the James Webb Space Telescope say they may have found a new class of object: a "black hole star," in which a black hole is wrapped in dense gas and radiates in…
Big Tech Wants to Harvest Your Thoughts
Wired reports that consumer neurotechnology is rapidly moving from the lab into workplaces and homes, with companies including Apple, Meta, and Snap developing products that can…
Judge Orders Google To Make Rival App Store Installs Easier
A federal judge has ordered Google to remove what he called "anticompetitive friction" that makes rival Android app stores harder to find and install. The order is part of the…
The Pixel Tag Is Google's Answer To the AirTag
Google has unveiled the $29 Pixel Tag, its long-awaited AirTag rival that combines UWB with Bluetooth 6.0 Channel Sounding for two forms of precision tracking. It launches…
German Advocacy Group Lodges Criminal Complaint Over Meta AI Glasses
A German digital-rights group has filed a criminal complaint against Meta, Ray-Ban parent EssilorLuxottica, and several retailers over Meta's AI smart glasses, arguing the devices…
'Godmother of AI' Says Biggest AI Risk In Schools Is Students Losing the Desire to Learn
Fei-Fei Li, aka The Godmother of AI, says the biggest AI risk in education may be students losing the motivation and agency to learn, rather than simply using the technology to…
US Hires Over 2,000 Video Gamers As Air Traffic Controllers
The FAA says its push to recruit video gamers as air traffic controllers has helped it hire more than 2,000 trainees, reaching 94% of its hiring goal. Another 2,000-plus…
Trump Slaps a 100% Tariff On Heavy and 'Sensitive' Drones
President Trump has imposed tariffs of up to 100% on heavier and "sensitive" drones, including models over 55 pounds or equipped with docking stations or thermal imaging. "Those…
Microsoft Retreats In China
Microsoft has been steadily scaling back its China presence, closing at least 15 branch offices and joint ventures over the past five years as Beijing favors domestic software.…
Trump Administration To Pay German Firm $1.2 Billion To Halt US Wind Projects
An anonymous reader quotes a report from the BBC: German energy company RWE has said it will abandon its offshore wind projects in the U.S. after reaching a $1.2 billion payout…
'Tower Dump' Warrants Ruled Unconstitutional
alternative_right shares a report from The Hill: A federal judge in Mississippi ruled Wednesday that "tower dump" warrants are unconstitutional, declining to reverse a lower court…
Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Meta and Oracle Expect a Negative Cash Flow of $125 Billion Next Year
The Washington Post shared surprising news this week about five top AI companies. Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Meta and Oracle "are spending so much on developing AI and delivering…
Woman Pulled From Car at Gunpoint By Police After Mistaken Flock Alert - Twice
The police surrounded her car Thursday, "drew their guns, and told her to come out with her hands up," reports a local news station. The police thought they were pulling over a…
Trump Orders New 15% Tariff On Key Material For Solar Panels, Microchips
President Trump has ordered a 15% tariff on imported products made with polysilicon, a key material for semiconductors and solar panels. The new tariff will take effect on…
Flock Camera Vandalism Continues Around America, While 100 Communities Reject ALPRs
Dozens of Flock cameras have been vandalized around Dallas Texas in the last six months, reports a local news station. In Utah, ABC News reports, a county sheriff's office even…
'Asimov Was Right' About Rules For Robots, Says Ex-US Cyber Director
Former U.S. National Cyber Director Chris Inglis says the biggest AI risk isn't sentience but autonomy. "What I'm worried about is that they get to choose what and where they do…
Court Orders Meta To Establish $567 Million Fund To Abate Harms To Youth
A New Mexico court ordered (PDF) Meta to create a $567 million fund to address harms linked to youth mental health and child sexual exploitation after finding its platforms…
New Orleans Will Use AI To Answer 911 Calls Instead of a Human
"If you call 911 in New Orleans, you may hear the sound of an artificial intelligence (AI) agent answering your call instead of a human voice," reports the Shreveport Times: The…
More Police Officers Fired, Investigated, or Arrested for Misusing Flock Camera Systems
In Georgia the Savannah Police Department "terminated four sworn officers and two civilian employees following an internal investigation into misuse of the department's Flock…
Radical Study Suggests Life on Earth Arose Twice
A new study argues that life may have emerged twice on Earth. "Two of the main lineages of life -- bacteria and archaea -- may have independently figured out the secrets of…
Google's $15 Billion India Data Center Project Battles Water, Wildlife Concerns
Google's $15 billion data-center project in Visakhapatnam is facing protests and legal challenges over fears that it will worsen local water shortages and disturb wildlife near…
Scientists Make First Viruses Designed By AI
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: Scientists have made the first viruses designed by artificial intelligence in a milestone that raises hopes for new…
Slashdot Reader Builds 'Spaced Linux', a New Devuan-Based, User-Friendly Desktop Distro
"I've been a Linux IT administrator for 30 years now," says crhylove (Slashdot reader #205,956), in a new video on his YouTube channel. "I used to be a data center architect, at…
Framework Notifies 'All Customers' of a Data Breach Via Compromised Metabase BI Service
"Framework has been sending out email notifications to customers alerting of a limited data breach in which customer information was accessed through a Metabase BI service…
Dress Made of Living Mycelium Can Renew and Repair Itself
Researchers in China have developed a living mycelium textile that can self-clean, renew its surface, and partially repair holes when treated with a nutrient solution and fresh…
Google Should Still Be Forced To Shed Chrome, Advocacy Group Argues
"Google should be required to divest the Chrome browser, and prohibited from paying Apple to distribute Google's search engine, the nonprofit advocacy group Public Knowledge…
NASA Figured Out How To Keep Its 48-Year-Old Voyager 2 Probe Running For Yet Another Year
NASA has squeezed at least another year of science out of Voyager 2 by cutting power to nonessential systems and switching to lower-power alternatives. Voyager 1 is expected to…
GNOME Receiving Additional Design Help From Germany's Sovereign Tech Agency Fellowship
The new GNOME Boxes app for accessing virtual systems has reached beta, announced This Week in GNOME. There's also been more work on the Sushi file previewer for Nautilus, and…
Paper Goods Company Is Investigating an Alternative to Trees
The Dallas Business Journal reported Monday that the U.S. multinational paper goods company Kimberly-Clark announced "that its researchers identified and advanced patented…
OpenAI Announces It's Enhancing Security Controls, Pausing Some Work for New AI Model Astra
OpenAI announced Friday it's pausing work on its Astra AI model because of security concerns. The Guardian reports: The company had evaluated the agent, Astra, and found…
Brain Activity Reveals the Melodies That People Imagine
Researchers believe they've found evidence that brain signals reveal the pitches of notes in imagined musical melodies, reports Medical Express: Study participants were 10…
Virginia Governor To Intervene In Dominion-NextEra Merger
Longtime Slashdot reader schwit1 shares an opinion piece from the Washington Post, written by Virginia Governor Abigail Spanberger: NextEra Energy, a Florida-based utility…
Suno Says It Will Start Watermarking Songs
Suno says it will begin watermarking and fingerprinting AI-generated songs, tighten download policies to curb mass distribution, and explicitly prohibit deceptive audio and…
AMD Buys AI Chip Startup Taalas That Hardwires AI Models Into Its Silicon
An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNBC: On Thursday, AMD said it's entered into an agreement to acquire Taalas, a Toronto-based startup that makes chips for inference.…
ByteDance Is Training a 10-Trillion-Parameter Model To Chase the Frontier
ByteDance is reportedly training an AI model with roughly 10 trillion parameters as it tries to close the gap with leading frontier systems such as Anthropic's Mythos. The model…
Quake Celebrates 30th Anniversary: New Official Episode With New Maps and Mechanics
To celebrate Quake's 30th anniversary, Bethesda released "a brutal new episode" — a new campaign chapter titled Dawn of the Machine "delivering ferocious combat, labyrinthine…
America's First Grid-Scale Sodium-Ion Battery Plant Gets Its First Big Test
"In a milestone for energy storage technology, Peak Energy has selected Sacramento, California, as the home of America's first manufacturing facility dedicated to grid-scale…
Water Utilities Group Partners With DEF CON Offshoot For Water Watch Center
The National Rural Water Association has partnered with DEF CON Franklin to launch the Water Watch Center, which will provide threat intelligence and cybersecurity services to…
Before and After Views of SpaceX Rocket's Moon Crash
A South Korean lunar orbiter has captured the first before-and-after images of the Moon's crash scene caused by a stray SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. The Associated Press reports: The…
Microsoft Is Combining Its Copilot Apps Ahead of a 'Super App'
Microsoft is merging its consumer Copilot and Microsoft 365 Copilot apps ahead of a broader "super app" launch later this year. "Both personal and work accounts will be moved to…
RAMageddon? 2027 Memory Capacity Reportedly Sold Out
IGN reports: [A] new report suggests that all three memory manufacturers — Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron — have collectively sold through their 2027 memory manufacturing capacity…
Prime Minister Leaves Door Open For Reviewing Policy of No Nuclear Weapons in Japan
At a Hiroshima memorial ceremony, Japan's prime minister said the country "maintains" its three long-standing non-nuclear principles, reports UPI. But the prime minister "stopped…
Slashdot Reader Builds a Photo-Verification App for iPhones
Long-time Slashdot reader BrianFagioli is announcing that he's released a new iPhone app that creates a cryptographic witness for photos without uploading the original image. The…
Kalshi and Polymarket Bets On Clinical Trials Criticized As 'Ghastly'
An anonymous reader quotes a report from NPR: Billions of dollars are traded every week on the lightly regulated prediction market sites, where users bet on everything from movie…
Slashdot Reader Builds a Free Photo-Verification App for iPhones
Long-time Slashdot reader BrianFagioli is announcing that he's released a new iPhone app that creates a cryptographic witness for photos without uploading the original image. The…
Apple Wants to Charge Developers Up to 15 Percent for Linking Outside the App Store
Apple is proposing to charge U.S. developers up to 15% when users leave an app through an external purchase link, with lower rates of 10% or 5% for certain programs and smaller…
VA Launches Psilocybin Trial For Veterans With Treatment-Resistant Depression
Longtime Slashdot reader sbinning shares a press release: The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs announced the launch of a new clinical trial to evaluate the effectiveness and…
World's Largest 106-Foot Electric Plane Takes Maiden Flight In New York
Heart Aerospace's X1, billed as the world's largest battery-electric aircraft, completed a 27-minute maiden flight in New York using more than 1 MW of power and only about $5…
Google's Gemini 3.7 Flash Targets Coding and Agents With a 50% Price Cut
Google has released Gemini 3.7 Flash just three weeks after 3.6 Flash, focusing on better coding, agentic workflows, and enterprise automation while temporarily cutting API prices…
UK Scientists To Grow Miniature Human Organs For Drug Testing
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: Miniature human organs and other tissues are to be grown from NHS patients' cells in a drive to improve medicine testing and…
Swarms of Tiny Robots Remove Microplastics From Soil and Water
alternative_right shares a report from Phys.org: Scientists from the Czech Republic have created microscopic cleanup robots that successfully removed microplastics from both soil…
Scientists Create Largest 2D Map of the Universe
After 13 years of observations and data processing, astronomers have released the largest two-dimensional map of the universe ever assembled, "offering a sweeping new view of…
Amazon Will Train On Twitch Streamers' Content By Default, Unless They Opt Out
Twitch will begin allowing Amazon to use streamers' content to train generative AI models by default, requiring creators to manually opt out if they don't want their videos and…
Google Unveils Pixel 11 Lineup
At its Made by Google 2026 event today, Google unveiled a slew of new devices, headlined by the Pixel 11, Pixel 11 Pro, and Pixel 11 Pro Fold. Here's a breakdown of the company's…
Scientists Turn Starlink Into a Giant Scanner For Earth's Upper Atmosphere
alternative_right shares a report from ScienceDaily: Researchers have found a clever new way to map a part of Earth's upper atmosphere that is notoriously difficult to observe.…
Contiguous US Breaks Its Record For Hottest Month Ever, NOAA Says
An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Associated Press: The contiguous United States sizzled to its hottest month ever last month, according to the National Oceanic and…
Behold the 'Glueball,' a Strange New Form of Matter
sciencehabit shares a report from Science Magazine: For more than half a century, physicists have searched for one of the strangest particles predicted by modern theory. It would…
Apple Turns to Publishers For Help With Siri AI
Apple is reportedly negotiating multi-year deals with news publishers to give its redesigned Siri access to current news and other information, with payments potentially tied to…
China-Linked Hackers Used AI To Run First-Ever 'Autonomous' Cyberattack On Taiwan
Researchers at Israeli cybersecurity firm Dream say suspected China-linked hackers used an open-source AI-agent system to conduct what may be the first observed end-to-end…
Linux Desktop Use Surged To 22% On One Workday, Cloudflare Data Shows
Cloudflare data suggests desktop Linux usage in North America has climbed to 6.4%, up from 4.1% a year earlier, with one post-holiday workday briefly spiking to 22%. ZDNet…
Freenet Creator Ian Clarke Shares Progress on Its New Decentralized Network
Ian Clarke (aka ancient Slashdot reader Sanity), designer of the peer-to-peer communication platform Freenet, is back with an update on the project's progress following the launch…
Google Gemini Hits 1 Billion Users In Record Time
Gemini has become Google's fastest-growing product ever, reaching 1 billion monthly active users faster than any of the company's 13 other billion-user services. Ars Technica…
Paramount Considers Leaving California Amid Antitrust Suit
Paramount CEO David Ellison is threatening to begin moving the studio out of California on October 1 if state Attorney General Rob Bonta refuses to enter settlement talks over the…
France Bans Unsolicited Telemarking Calls
Starting today, unsolicited telemarking calls are banned in France unless consumers explicitly consent to them. Companies that violate the law can face fines of up to 375,000…
England Set To Eliminate Hepatitis C
An anonymous reader quotes a report from the BBC: England is on track to become one of the first countries in the world to eliminate hepatitis C, a dangerous virus that attacks…
Zuckerberg's Superyacht Reportedly Declined To Help Stranded Boat
Ancient Slashdot reader Alain Williams shares a report from The Guardian: Mark Zuckerberg has faced questions over why a small cruise ship in south-east Alaska rescued a stranded…
Reddit Bans 11-Year Account for GPL Game Post, Testing the EU's DSA
Longtime Slashdot reader DF5JT writes: On July 26, I posted a single announcement in r/backgammon: GNU Backgammon for Android, GPLv3, the first standalone backgammon engine on…
Taxi Drivers Rarely Die of Alzheimer's
An anonymous reader shares a report from The Conversation, written by Hatim Sharif, a civil and environmental engineer who has "spent more than two decades staring at maps" and…
Cyber Vulnerability Sweep Picks Up Royal Navy Drones Sending Data To China
A routine security assessment found that cameras aboard Royal Navy Kraken unmanned surface vessels were sending "heartbeat" signals to an IP address in China. "A thorough…
A Data Breach At Shipping Giant Ceva Logistics Is Rippling Across Banks, Retailers, Steam Gamers, and Beyond
An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Ceva Logistics, one of the world's largest shipping and logistics giants, has been hacked. Several companies that rely on Ceva…
Wall Street Giants Partner With Nvidia On $500 Billion AI Financing Deal
Nvidia is working with Wall Street heavyweights on a potential $500 billion financing package for AI infrastructure (source paywalled; alternative source). The consortium includes…
Meta's 'Open' Muse Glimmer Model Can Run On a Single Computer
Meta has released Muse Glimmer, a slimmed-down open-weight AI model designed to run locally on a single GPU for agent tasks such as scheduling, file management, coding, and tool…
AI Assistant Hacks Gym Website In First Known Australian Autonomous Cyber Attack
An anonymous reader quotes a report from ABC News & Headlines: Andrew asked his personal assistant to book him a spot in one of his gym's coveted morning classes. It was a task he…
Toxic Underground Fires Are Spreading at California Landfills
Three years ago environmental regulators discovered garbage burning deep inside California's Chiquita Canyon Landfill, reports the Los Angeles Times. [Alternate URL here.] "Few…
How Accurate Are Flock's AI-Powered License-Reading Cameras?
Futurism reports: 404 Media revealed that a July 10 audit by the Los Angeles Police Department Office of the Inspector General caught the department's ALPR cameras generating 161…
Anthropic Discovers AI Agents Given Conflicting Instructions Soon Tried to Sabotage Each Other
When Anthropic instructed three agents to migrate a Python backend, but telling each agent to perform the migration in a different language, "We consistently saw a multiagent turf…
Privacy Backlash Explodes Against Meta's Smart Glasses
With nearly 70% of the market, "Meta wants its smart glasses to be a big hit," writes the Los Angeles Times. But after some users found ways to disable the light that warns people…
AI Reviews Bring 'New Normal' to Linux Release Candidates: Lots of Bug Fixes
Linux Torvalds expects Linux 7.2 should be released next weekend "unless something really bad pops up," Torvalds said while announcing today's release candidate. But there's…
Flock Accused of Reactivating Its Cameras Without Notifying a Town
A Massachusetts newspaper reports that officials from the town of Littleton (population: 10,141) "claim that five of Littletonâ(TM)s Flock Safety cameras were switched back on by…
First Rival Android App Store Arrives In the US Play Store
Aptoide has become the first third-party Android app store available directly through Google Play in the U.S. "The change is a direct result of Google's litigation with Epic,…
California City Declares State of Emergency After Cyberattack
NBC Bay Area brings news from the small idyllic California town of Suisun City (population: 29,518). The city council "declared a state of emergency Saturday after a cyberattack…
Disneyland Announces Star Wars/Fortnite Collaboration, 'Avatar' Attraction, and a Newer Tomorrowland
Saturday Disneyland announced a special Star Wars-themed collaboration with third-person shooter game Fortnite — including a slick new trailer for its Star Wars: Smuggler's Gambit…
AI-Powered Browser Just Generates Every Website From Scratch
XDA Developers reports: On July 22, a Google DeepMind engineer, Vidy Thatte, shared a snippet of a browser he built that "treats every URL as a prompt and generates a site from…
Ask Slashdot: What are the Costs of Switching Between Windows, MacOS, and Chrome?
UI changes, lost productivity, untransferrable knowledge... Long-time Slashdot reader theodp notes the folly of switching to an unfamiliar new environment to be "more…
A Zoom Screen-Sharing Bug Let Anyone Take Over Other Devices On a Call
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Wired: As AI models gain advanced capabilities to find vulnerabilities in software, develop ways to exploit them, and even carry out…
Microsoft Responds to Outcry After Quietly Installing Beta 'Photos' App on Enterprise Machines
Microsoft's cloud storage app OneDrive got a new Photos app in the worst possible way, reports the blog Neowin . "The app is reportedly showing up even on Windows 11 Enterprise…
Taiwan 'Throttles' Mobile Internet For First Time During Annual War Games
Taiwan deliberately throttled mobile internet across the Taichung area during its annual Han Kuang war games, "simulating communication disruption in the event of a Chinese attack…
Paramount Promises 30 Film-A-Year Contracts After WBD Acquisition
Paramount is making commitments to major theater chains to release 30 films annually for three years if its Warner Bros. deal goes through. According to Deadline, the written…
Spotify Will Label 'AI Persona' Profiles, Exclude Their Music From Recommendations
Spotify will begin labeling AI-generated artist identities with "AI Persona" badges and exclude their music from editorial, algorithmic, and personalized recommendations unless…
Three Supermassive Black Holes Discovered In a Single Galaxy For the First Time
Astronomers using JWST have found three actively feeding supermassive black holes in the distant galaxy J0148-4214, seen as it existed about 1.2 billion years after the Big Bang.…