Comment Why is this on Slashdot? (Score 1) 54
The story has nothing to do with technology or even science fiction.
Comment Aircraft toilets = bad analogy (Score 1) 93
They're not the same as terrestrial toilets by a long shot, and production volume is tiny so no economies of scale.
If you can design and fab a suitable shitter (priced to recover R&D, tooling, materials and integration into the aircraft etc) then go forth and get rich. Good luck with that.
Comment Catfish barbs can be respectably spiky (Score 1) 14
That's why specialty gloves exist. They're wearing injectors.
Catfish being bottom feeders no wonder they concentrate pollutants. I stopped eating freshwater fish long ago.
Submission + - Worlds first Wave Power Generator gets certified for regular use
Qbertino writes: The Norwegian certification agency DNV has certified the commercial Wave-driven power generator Corpower C4 for regular use. German tech news site heise.de has a detailed writeup. See a CGI video of the powerstation and it's internals here and the companies website here.
Comment Combat operations are far more than map reading. (Score 1) 93
That's why approved phones exist to support them.
https://www.samsung.com/us/bus...
Traditional Land Nav is to teach O-1s humility when they get lost in the woods.
Comment Tough to feel sorry for fools. (Score 1) 91
If you can't afford a phone for cash that's a hint to improve your financial management including not buying phones you can't afford.
Comment "Copper based" is a lie. (Score 1) 65
Last mile hardware is far from being the whole network.
Comment "Better late than never" security model. (Score 2) 104
Storing your data on an economic competitors computers is fucking stupid, yet it takes a public scandal to make it a matter of real concern.
Submission + - AI Executives Add Personal Security as Backlash Turns Violent (aiweekly.co)
fjo3 writes: In April, someone threw a Molotov cocktail at Sam Altman's San Francisco home, and within days a second attack put gunfire into the property. The Wall Street Journal reports that AI executives are hardening personal security as opposition to the industry moves from online posts into the physical world.
Prosecutors say Daniel Moreno-Gama, the 20-year-old accused in the first attack, traveled from Texas to San Francisco intending to kill Altman, and had writings on him about AI's purported risk to humanity. He faces two counts of attempted murder and attempted arson in California state court. Two more suspects were later arrested in connection with the second incident. Around the same time, The Information described Silicon Valley leaning into a new breed of bodyguards for AI leadership.
The pressure isn't only on the people at the top. According to the Data Center Watch Q1 2026 report, organized opposition groups roughly doubled from 396 at the end of last year to 833 by the end of March, spanning 49 states, and opponents blocked or delayed at least 75 projects worth about $130 billion in a single quarter. That is a very different problem from a viral tweet. It is permits denied, votes lost, sites relocated.
Prosecutors say Daniel Moreno-Gama, the 20-year-old accused in the first attack, traveled from Texas to San Francisco intending to kill Altman, and had writings on him about AI's purported risk to humanity. He faces two counts of attempted murder and attempted arson in California state court. Two more suspects were later arrested in connection with the second incident. Around the same time, The Information described Silicon Valley leaning into a new breed of bodyguards for AI leadership.
The pressure isn't only on the people at the top. According to the Data Center Watch Q1 2026 report, organized opposition groups roughly doubled from 396 at the end of last year to 833 by the end of March, spanning 49 states, and opponents blocked or delayed at least 75 projects worth about $130 billion in a single quarter. That is a very different problem from a viral tweet. It is permits denied, votes lost, sites relocated.
Submission + - AI Data Centers Being Built Faster Than They Can Be Secured (securityweek.com)
wiredmikey writes: AI is reshaping data centers and introducing security risks traditional architectures weren't designed to handle. As AI data centers scale at breakneck speed, security isn't keeping up. Researchers outline the Top 10 AI infrastructure security risks, including hardware integrity, multi-tenant isolation, high-speed network fabrics, supply chain compromise, and patching failures.
Submission + - China — New law bans AI companions bots (scmp.com) 1
schwit1 writes: Two of China’s major consumer-facing artificial intelligence apps, ByteDance’s Doubao and Alibaba Group Holding’s Qwen, are moving to disable customised agent features, as new rules on humanlike AI interaction services are set to take effect, part of Beijing’s push to build a broader regulatory framework for the fast-growing sector.
Doubao informed users in a Friday night notice that its agent feature would go offline on July 15 because of “product function adjustments”. After October 15, Doubao’s related data would be handled in accordance with the company’s privacy policy and no longer be viewable or recoverable inside the app.
Qwen also issued a similar notice on Saturday morning, saying that its “humanlike interactive agents and user-created agent functions” would be disabled on July 10, while broader “Qwen agent functions and services” would be taken offline on July 15. Users would no longer be able to access related agent settings or previous conversations after the shutdown.
Both apps had offered a pool of agents, created by both the companies and users, that could be customised for specific tasks, skills and speaking styles. Users could also create their own agents, turning a general-purpose chatbot into a named assistant, tutor, role-playing character or companion with a fixed persona and tone.
The timing coincides with the implementation of the Interim Measures for the Administration of Artificial Intelligence Anthropomorphic Interaction Services, effective July 15. Issued in April, the rules cover AI services that “simulate human personality traits, thinking patterns and communication styles to provide sustained emotional interaction”.
The rules exclude customer service bots, knowledge Q&A, workplace assistants, education and scientific research tools, as long as they do not involve sustained emotional interaction.
Doubao informed users in a Friday night notice that its agent feature would go offline on July 15 because of “product function adjustments”. After October 15, Doubao’s related data would be handled in accordance with the company’s privacy policy and no longer be viewable or recoverable inside the app.
Qwen also issued a similar notice on Saturday morning, saying that its “humanlike interactive agents and user-created agent functions” would be disabled on July 10, while broader “Qwen agent functions and services” would be taken offline on July 15. Users would no longer be able to access related agent settings or previous conversations after the shutdown.
Both apps had offered a pool of agents, created by both the companies and users, that could be customised for specific tasks, skills and speaking styles. Users could also create their own agents, turning a general-purpose chatbot into a named assistant, tutor, role-playing character or companion with a fixed persona and tone.
The timing coincides with the implementation of the Interim Measures for the Administration of Artificial Intelligence Anthropomorphic Interaction Services, effective July 15. Issued in April, the rules cover AI services that “simulate human personality traits, thinking patterns and communication styles to provide sustained emotional interaction”.
The rules exclude customer service bots, knowledge Q&A, workplace assistants, education and scientific research tools, as long as they do not involve sustained emotional interaction.
Submission + - Physicists create first room-temperature quantum material (phys.org)
alternative_right writes: In a study published in Nature, LSU physicists have developed the first room-temperature quantum material capable of distinguishing and transporting different quantum states of light, overcoming one of the biggest challenges in quantum materials research. Led by Associate Professor of Physics Omar S. Magaña-Loaiza, the work establishes a general design principle for engineering an entirely new class of quantum materials, opening new possibilities for quantum computing, secure communications, sensing technologies and advanced energy systems.
Submission + - Federal School and Library Internet Connectivity Program Under Review (npr.org)
El Fantasmo writes: A program that helps connect schools and libraries to the internet at discounted rates is under review by the Federal Communications Commission. Educators and advocates are bracing for the funding to shrink or be eliminated.
Submission + - Records Are Made to Be Broken: Patch Tuesday Raises Triage Stakes (darkreading.com)
schwit1 writes: When Microsoft vice president of engineering Tom Gallagher warned in May that the company's monthly patch releases could soon grow larger because of AI-driven vulnerability discovery, few likely expected the numbers would surpass 600 just two months later.
But with fixes for 622 unique CVEs, Microsoft’s July 2026 Patch Tuesday update is the largest by far in the program's history and offers a preview of the growing prioritization challenges organizations face as AI dramatically increases the volume of flaws requiring attention.
July's update contains fixes for three zero-day vulnerabilities, two of which attackers are already exploiting and one that's publicly known but remains unexploited. The patch update also includes fixes for more than five dozen critical vulnerabilities, many of which Microsoft identified as flaws that attackers are more likely to exploit. The total includes 416 vulnerabilities in Windows, 82 each in Office and Office 2016, 46 in Edge, 27 in Microsoft Developer Tools, and 17 in SharePoint Server.
"If people want a severity hook, July has 26 vulnerabilities with a CVSS base score above 9.0, and 13 of those sit at 9.8," said Josh Taylor, lead cybersecurity analyst at Fortra, in an emailed comment. "That matters, but CVSS is still only one part of the risk story. The real triage problem this month is the mix of exploited issues, a publicly disclosed BitLocker flaw, and a massive concentration of vulnerabilities in Windows and Office," he said. And rather than focusing on volume, patching teams need to prioritize the exploited vulnerabilities and their exposed infrastructure first, Taylor added.
"Today, July 14, 2026, marks a pivotal moment in our industry," researchers from Nightwing said in a statement. "We are officially moving past the traditional 'Patch Tuesday' approach and entering an era of continuous, high-volume security updates" and continuous patching.
But with fixes for 622 unique CVEs, Microsoft’s July 2026 Patch Tuesday update is the largest by far in the program's history and offers a preview of the growing prioritization challenges organizations face as AI dramatically increases the volume of flaws requiring attention.
July's update contains fixes for three zero-day vulnerabilities, two of which attackers are already exploiting and one that's publicly known but remains unexploited. The patch update also includes fixes for more than five dozen critical vulnerabilities, many of which Microsoft identified as flaws that attackers are more likely to exploit. The total includes 416 vulnerabilities in Windows, 82 each in Office and Office 2016, 46 in Edge, 27 in Microsoft Developer Tools, and 17 in SharePoint Server.
"If people want a severity hook, July has 26 vulnerabilities with a CVSS base score above 9.0, and 13 of those sit at 9.8," said Josh Taylor, lead cybersecurity analyst at Fortra, in an emailed comment. "That matters, but CVSS is still only one part of the risk story. The real triage problem this month is the mix of exploited issues, a publicly disclosed BitLocker flaw, and a massive concentration of vulnerabilities in Windows and Office," he said. And rather than focusing on volume, patching teams need to prioritize the exploited vulnerabilities and their exposed infrastructure first, Taylor added.
"Today, July 14, 2026, marks a pivotal moment in our industry," researchers from Nightwing said in a statement. "We are officially moving past the traditional 'Patch Tuesday' approach and entering an era of continuous, high-volume security updates" and continuous patching.
Submission + - How Microsoft's "Little Workaround" Created a Major Pentagon Threat (propublica.org)
joshuark writes: ProPublica Reporter Renee Dudley heard Microsoft was running tech support for the U.S. Defense Department through China, the country’s biggest cybersecurity adversary.
The arrangement was called “digital escorting.” She thought it sounded like a conspiracy theory — until she started looking into it. This is the story of what she found and how her investigation changed government policy.
Microsoft is using engineers in China to help maintain the Defense Department’s computer systems — with minimal supervision by U.S. personnel — leaving some of the nation’s most sensitive data vulnerable to hacking from its leading cyber adversary, a ProPublica investigation has found.
The arrangement, which was critical to Microsoft winning the federal government’s cloud computing business a decade ago, relies on U.S. citizens with security clearances to oversee the work and serve as a barrier against espionage and sabotage.
National security and cybersecurity experts in the Trump administration contacted by ProPublica were also surprised to learn that such an arrangement was in place, especially at a time when the U.S. intelligence community and leading members of Congress and the Trump administration view China’s digital prowess as a top threat to the country.
Microsoft uses the escort system to handle the government’s most sensitive information that falls below “classified.” According to the government, this “high impact level” category includes “data that involves the protection of life and financial ruin.” The “loss of confidentiality, integrity, or availability” of this information “could be expected to have a severe or catastrophic adverse effect” on operations, assets and individuals, the government has said. In the Defense Department, the data is categorized as “Impact Level” 4 and 5 and includes materials that directly support military operations.
“If someone ran a script called ‘fix_servers.sh’ but it actually did something malicious then [escorts] would have no idea,” a former Microsoft engineer who worked on the escort system, told ProPublica in an email. That said, he maintained that the “scope of systems they could disrupt” is limited.
In an emailed statement, the Defense Information Systems Agency said that cloud service providers “are required to establish and maintain controls for vetting and using qualified specialists,” but the agency did not respond to ProPublica’s questions regarding the digital escorts’ qualifications.
It’s unclear whether other cloud providers to the federal government use digital escorts as part of their tech support. Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud declined to comment on the record for this article. Oracle did not respond to requests for comment.
A spokesperson for the inspector general — whose office is supposed to operate independently in order to investigate potential waste, fraud and abuse — told ProPublica they were not authorized to speak about the issue and directed questions to DISA public affairs.
The arrangement was called “digital escorting.” She thought it sounded like a conspiracy theory — until she started looking into it. This is the story of what she found and how her investigation changed government policy.
Microsoft is using engineers in China to help maintain the Defense Department’s computer systems — with minimal supervision by U.S. personnel — leaving some of the nation’s most sensitive data vulnerable to hacking from its leading cyber adversary, a ProPublica investigation has found.
The arrangement, which was critical to Microsoft winning the federal government’s cloud computing business a decade ago, relies on U.S. citizens with security clearances to oversee the work and serve as a barrier against espionage and sabotage.
National security and cybersecurity experts in the Trump administration contacted by ProPublica were also surprised to learn that such an arrangement was in place, especially at a time when the U.S. intelligence community and leading members of Congress and the Trump administration view China’s digital prowess as a top threat to the country.
Microsoft uses the escort system to handle the government’s most sensitive information that falls below “classified.” According to the government, this “high impact level” category includes “data that involves the protection of life and financial ruin.” The “loss of confidentiality, integrity, or availability” of this information “could be expected to have a severe or catastrophic adverse effect” on operations, assets and individuals, the government has said. In the Defense Department, the data is categorized as “Impact Level” 4 and 5 and includes materials that directly support military operations.
“If someone ran a script called ‘fix_servers.sh’ but it actually did something malicious then [escorts] would have no idea,” a former Microsoft engineer who worked on the escort system, told ProPublica in an email. That said, he maintained that the “scope of systems they could disrupt” is limited.
In an emailed statement, the Defense Information Systems Agency said that cloud service providers “are required to establish and maintain controls for vetting and using qualified specialists,” but the agency did not respond to ProPublica’s questions regarding the digital escorts’ qualifications.
It’s unclear whether other cloud providers to the federal government use digital escorts as part of their tech support. Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud declined to comment on the record for this article. Oracle did not respond to requests for comment.
A spokesperson for the inspector general — whose office is supposed to operate independently in order to investigate potential waste, fraud and abuse — told ProPublica they were not authorized to speak about the issue and directed questions to DISA public affairs.
