SUNDAY, 26 APRIL 2026, 04:35
America’s National Science Board (NSB) “was established in 1950 to guide the governance of the National Science Foundation,” writes the Washington Post, “in an unusual structure within the federal government that echoes the setup of a company board in the private sector. It helps guide an agency that operates Antarctic research stations, telescopes, a fleet of research vessels and supports...
After Australia banned social media for users younger than 16, teenagers “immediately worked to circumvent the restrictions,” reports Fortune:14-year-old in New South Wales, toldThe Washington Post in December 2025, justbefore the implementation of the ban, she planned to use her mother’sface ID to log in to Snapchatand .In a Reddit thread on ways to bypass the ban, one user suggestedusing a...
After nearly 60 years of marriage, Pam wanted to honour her husband Bill with a hologram at his funeral.
Colorado’s “age-attestation” bill left the House committee with new exemptions for open-source operating systems, applications, code repositories, and containerized software distribution, reports the blog Linuxiac:[The bill] focuses on operating system providers and application stores. Its main requirement is that these providers supply an age-related signal via an interface, so applications...
There’s a glass roof — but no rear-view window. Instead the Polestar 4 replaces the rear-view mirror with a live feed from a wide-angle camera. Its high-resolution display (1480 x 320 pixels) promises “a panoramic view of the outside,” according to Polestar’s web site, showing more of what’s behind you. “Visibility in the dark and in rainy conditions is also vastly improved.” Besides the...
Microsoft released the “Windows Subsystem for Linux” in 2016, adding an optional Linux environment into every operating system since Windows 10. But now an open source developer has brought Linux to Windows 95, Windows 98, and Windows Me, reports the blog It’s FOSS, “with Linux kernel 6.19 running alongside the Windows 9x kernel, letting both operate on the same machine at the same time.”A...
Even a Times reporter qualified for the event, which caused outrage last year for providing access to President Trump in exchange for investment in one of his family’s crypto ventures.
“Old code like amateur radio and NFC have long been a burden to core networking developers,” reads the pull request. And so Thursday Linus Torvald merged the pull request “to rid the Linux kernel of the old Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) subsystem,” reports Phoronix, “and various other old network drivers largely for PCMCIA era network adapters.” This was the code suggested for...
It’s the U.S. government’s main link to the AI industry, reports The Washington Post, working to assess national security risks of new models like Anthropic’s “Mythos”. To run it they’d hired Collin Burns, who’d worked at OpenAI and then Anthropic. But Burns started work Monday at the Center for AI Standards and Innovation — and then “was pushed out Thursday by the White House, according to...
The Free Software Foundation’s Licensing and Compliance Manager published a blog post this week to explicitly state that”Responsible AI” Licenses (RAIL) are nonfree and unethical. The licenses restrict AI and ML software “from being used in a specific list of harmful applications,” according to the license’s web site, “e.g. in surveillance and crime prediction.” (The license’s steering...
Intel’s stock price soared 24% Friday. It’s the stock’s largest single-day spike since since October 1987, reports CNBC, “as investors cheered signs of renewed growth due to mounting artificial intelligence demand.”The stock closed at $82.57 and is now up 124% this year after jumping 84% in 2025. Friday’s rally topped a 23% gain for the stock on Sept. 18, when Nvidia agreed to invest $5 billion...
Distractions? What distractions? Here are our recommendations for apps that help you stay focused on the task at hand.
Physicists have proposed a new kind of atomic clock based on a revived superradiant laser concept that could produce an extraordinarily stable signal with a linewidth around 100 microhertz, potentially the narrowest ever for an optical laser. “The implications of this result could stretch well beyond timekeeping,” reports Phys.org. “A laser immune to environmental frequency shifts would be a...
Plus: Spy firms tap into a global telecom weakness to track targets, 500,000 UK health records go up for sale on Alibaba, Apple patches a revealing notification bug, and more.
The new game from the creators of Returnal goes all-in on the PlayStation’s haptics and 3D audio. Maybe it will catch on with other game developers.
Fans want to reclaim the music and myth of Michael Jackson in the new biopic while critics call for accountability. Who’s right?
Ace can read the trajectory of a ball, adjust the racket angle, and respond with strokes that keep the exchange alive with real players.
The leases on hundreds of thousands of battery-powered cars and trucks will end in the next three years, and many will end up on used-car lots.
Study of 1,300 campaigners finds arrests, fines and jail terms increase determination of activists to take direct action
The criminalisation of direct action climate protests in the UK is counterproductive and increases the determination of activists to undertake disruptive demonstrations, according to a study of 1,300 campaigners.
New findings suggest arrests, fines and lengthy prison...
An anonymous reader quotes a report from NPR: The Food and Drug Administration approved the first gene therapy to restore hearing for people who were born deaf. The decision, while only immediately affecting people born with a very rare form of genetic deafness, is being hailed as a milestone in the quest to treat hearing loss. “It’s the first time in history there’s a new drug for hearing...
Progress has always been made by people who think differently. Neurodiversity helps us think outside the box – and when we do, the sky’s the limit
One of my favourite pieces of scientific equipment is something called a retrospectroscope. I admit that it only exists in my imagination, but it has turned out to be a very useful bit of kit. It allows me to look back through the years of my life...