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SUNDAY, 03 MAY 2026, 23:59

Science/Tech

Robots Are Building Clay Homes In Texas Using Dirt From the Ground

Today at 22:59 PM, via Slashdot

A startup south of Austin is using robots to build homes out of clay pulled directly from the ground, reports a local news station:The materials are gathered on site, mixed, and placed on a build plate. From there, a robot lowers from above, picks up the clay with a claw, carries it to the wall and drops it into place. Later, the same robot switches tools, using a hammer attachment to pound the...

Three passengers dead after suspected hantavirus outbreak on cruise ship

Today at 21:52 PM, via The Guardian

Further three people taken ill, including 69-year-old Briton reported to be in intensive care in South Africa

Three people have died after a suspected hantavirus outbreak on a cruise ship sailing in the Atlantic.

One case of hantavirus infection had been confirmed and there were five additional suspected cases, the World Health Organization told Agence France-Presse on Sunday.

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It’s Goodbye Time for Jeeves and Ask.com – Relics of Yesterday’s Internet

Today at 21:41 PM, via Slashdot

A 1999 press release bragged “Jeeves” answered 92.3 million questions in just three months. “In the digital wilds of Y2K, we came to him with our most probing questions,” remembers the New York Times — whether it was Britney Spears or tamagotchis: We asked, and he answered: Jeeves, the digital butler of information, the online valet who led us into the depths of cyberspace. Now, like so many...

Former Nintendo Executive Says Amazon Once Requested ‘Illegal’ Price Discounts

Today at 20:28 PM, via Slashdot

Amazon once tried to pressure Nintendo to break the law, says former Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Aimé. At a recent NYU lecture, he describes a conversation with an Amazon executive, Kotaku reports:”Amazon was looking to get bigger into the video game space,” said Fils-Aimé. “Amazon’s mentality back then is they wanted to have the lowest price out in the marketplace, even lower...

ChatGPT Became So Obsessed With Goblins That OpenAI Had to Intervene

Today at 18:34 PM, via Slashdot

The Wall Street Journal reports that OpenAI “recently gave its popular ChatGPT strict instructions. Stop talking about goblins.”Recent models of the artificial-intelligence chatbot have been bringing up the creatures in conversations with users seemingly out of the blue, as well as gremlins, trolls and ogres. The goblin-speak caught the attention of programmers, who are often heavy users of the...

South Africa’s Draft AI Policy Withdrawn Due to ‘Fictitious’ AI-Generated Citations

Today at 17:34 PM, via Slashdot

An official in South Africa withdrew a draft of the country’s national AI policy, reports a local newspaper, “after it was found the draft policy was compiled using AI, which cited academic articles that were ‘fictitious’.”Earlier this month, minister in the Presidency Khumbudzo Ntshavheni announced cabinet had approved the draft policy for public comment. [Ntshavheni] said the policy seeks to...

Ransomware Is Getting Uglier As Cybercriminals Fake Leaks and Skip Encryption Entirely

Today at 16:34 PM, via Slashdot

“Ransomware activity jumped again in Q1 2026,” writes Slashdot reader BrianFagioli, “with 2,638 victim posts on leak sites, up 22% year over year,” according to a report from cybersecurity company ReliaQuest.But the bigger shift is how messy the ecosystem has become. Established groups like Akira and Qilin are still active, while newer players like The Gentlemen surged into the top tier with a...

Nasa brought crashing down to earth as budget threat follows lunar success

Today at 14:00 PM, via The Guardian

Artemis II inspired the public but the Trump administration wants to slash the science underpinning human spaceflight

It should have been a victory lap for Jared Isaacman. The Nasa administrator was in Washington DC for what he surely hoped would be a celebration with lawmakers and the US president, little more than two weeks after the successful conclusion of the first human journey around the...

Smuggled Starlink Terminals are Beating Iran’s Internet Blackout

Today at 13:34 PM, via Slashdot

An anonymous reader shared this report from the BBC:”If even one extra person is able to access the internet, I think it’s successful and it’s worth it,” says Sahand. The Iranian man is visibly anxious, speaking to the BBC outside Iran, as he carefully explains how he is part of a clandestine network smuggling satellite internet technology — which is illegal in Iran — into the country....

UK ‘invention agency’ grants £50m of public money to US tech and venture capital firms

Today at 11:00 AM, via The Guardian

Exclusive: Brainchild of Dominic Cummings, Aria is aimed at funding ‘crazy’ scientific projects to benefit the UK

Britain’s “invention agency” has pledged £50m of UK taxpayer money to US tech companies and venture capital projects.

Dreamed up by Dominic Cummings to fund “crazy” ideas, the Advanced Research and Invention Agency (Aria) is meant to “restore Britain’s place as a scientific...

Claude, Microsoft Copilot Fail Again to Predict the Winners of the Kentucky Derby

Today at 09:34 AM, via Slashdot

In 2016 an online “swarm intelligence” platform generated a correct prediction for the Kentucky Derby — naming all four top finishers in order. (But its 2017 predictions weren’t even close.) Slashdot checked in again on how modern AI systems performed in 2023, 2024, and 2025 — but their predictions were still pretty bad. Would AI-generated Derby predictions be any better in 2026? This...

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