TechCrunch reports: OpenAI CEO Sam Altman recently said that the company is doing "well more" than $13 billion in annual revenue — and he sounded a little testy when pressed on how it will pay for its massive spending commitments.

His comments came up during a joint interview on the Bg2 podcast between Altman and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella about the partnership between their companies. Host Brad Gerstner (who's also founder and CEO of Altimeter Capital) brought upreports that OpenAI is currently bringing in around $13 billion in revenue — a sizable amount, but one that's dwarfed by more than $1 trillion in spending commitments for computing infrastructure that OpenAI has made for the next decade.

"First of all, we're doing well more revenue than that. Second of all, Brad, if you want to sell your shares, I'll find you a buyer," Altman said, prompting laughs from Nadella. "I just — enough. I think there are a lot of people who would love to buy OpenAI shares."
Altman's answer continued, making the case for OpenAI's business model. "We do plan for revenue to grow steeply. Revenue is growing steeply. We are taking a forward bet that it's going to continue to grow and that not only will ChatGPT keep growing, but we will be able to become one of the important AI clouds, that our consumer device business will be a significant and important thing. That AI that can automate science will create huge value...

"We carefully plan, we understand where the technology — where the capability — is going to go, and the products we can build around that and the revenue we can generate. We might screw it up — like, this is the bet that we're making, and we're taking a risk along with that." (That bet-with-risks seems to be the $1.4 trillion in spending commitments — but Altman suggests it's offset by another absolutely certain risk: "If we don't have the compute, we will not be able to generate the revenue or make the models at this kind of scale.")

Satya Nadella, Microsoft's CEO, added his own defense, "as both a partner and an investor. There has not been a single business plan that I've seen from OpenAI that they have put in and not beaten it. So in some sense, this is the one place where in terms of their growth — and just even the business — it's been unbelievable execution, quite frankly..."

Slashdot reader BrianFagioli writes: Password manager 1Password's 2025 Annual Report: The Access-Trust Gap exposes how everyday employees are becoming accidental hackers in the AI era. The company's data shows that 73% of workers are encouraged to use AI tools, yet more than a third admit they do not always follow corporate policies. Many employees are feeding sensitive information into large language models or using unapproved AI apps to get work done, creating what 1Password calls "Shadow AI." At the same time, traditional defenses like single sign-on (SSO) and mobile device management (MDM) are failing to keep pace, leaving gaps in visibility and control.

The report warns that corporate security is being undermined from within. More than half of employees have installed software without IT approval, two-thirds still use weak passwords, and 38% have accessed accounts at previous employers. Despite rising enthusiasm for passkeys and passwordless authentication, 1Password says most organizations still depend on outdated systems that were never built for cloud-native, AI-driven work. The result is a growing "Access-Trust Gap" that could allow AI chaos and employee shortcuts to dismantle enterprise security from the inside.

An anonymous reader shared this report from NPR: It's known as the "Dueling Dinosaurs" fossil: A triceratops and a tyrannosaur, skeletons entangled, locked in apparent combat right up until the moment of their mutual demise... That discovery in 2006 now appears to have overturned decades of dinosaur dogma about Tyrannosaurus rex, the fearsome giant long thought to be the sole top predator stalking the late Cretaceous. In a paper in the journal Nature, paleontologists Lindsay Zanno and James Napoli conclude that some of the bones from that specimen belong not to a teenage T. rex, but to a fully grown individual of a different tyrannosaur species — Nanotyrannus lancensis....

One of the first of those red flags in the new specimen was the arm bones. They looked completely different than T. rex's puny appendages... "These are powerful arms with large claws, large hands. They were using them for prey capture." Contrast that with T. rex, "an animal that's a mouth on legs." There were additional clues. The animal had fewer tail vertebrae and more teeth than T. rex. Zanno and Napoli considered other lines of evidence. They created 3D models of numerous purported T. rexes against which they compared their specimen. They looked at the growth stages of the cranial nerves and sinuses of close living relatives of dinosaurs, features that were visible in the fossilized skeleton.

"But maybe the most important and damning thing that we did was we were able to figure out that our animal is not a juvenile at all," she says. This conclusion was based on slicing through the fossil's limb bones to examine the growth rings. That work demonstrated that this animal was mature and done growing when it died around the age of 20. "That means it's half the size and a tenth of the mass of a full grown Tyrannosaurus rex," says Zanno... In addition, while making models of all those other alleged T. rex skeletons, Zanno says they identified another new species of tyrannosaur, one they're calling Nanotyrannus lethaeus...

"It tells us that these end-Cretaceous ecosystems right before the asteroid hit were flourishing," says Zanno. "They had an abundance of different predators. And refutes this idea that dinosaurs were in decline before the asteroid struck."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from ZDNet: Even before Azure had a global failure this week, Austria's Ministry of Economy had taken a decisive step toward digital sovereignty. The Ministry achieved this status by migrating 1,200 employees to a Nextcloud-based cloud and collaboration platform hosted on Austrian-based infrastructure. This shift away from proprietary, foreign-owned cloud services, such as Microsoft 365, to an open-source, European-based cloud service aligns with a growing trend among European governments and agencies. They want control over sensitive data and to declare their independence from US-based tech providers.

European companies are encouraging this trend. Many of them have joined forces in the newly created non-profit foundation, the EuroStack Initiative. This foundation's goal is " to organize action, not just talk, around the pillars of the initiative: Buy European, Sell European, Fund European." What's the motive behind these moves away from proprietary tech? Well, in Austria's case, Florian Zinnagl, CISO of the Ministry of Economy, Energy, and Tourism (BMWET), explained, "We carry responsibility for a large amount of sensitive data -- from employees, companies, and citizens. As a public institution, we take this responsibility very seriously. That's why we view it critically to rely on cloud solutions from non-European corporations for processing this information."

Austria's move and motivation echo similar efforts in Germany, Denmark, and other EU states and agencies. The organizations include the German state of Schleswig-Holstein, which abandoned Exchange and Outlook for open-source programs. Other agencies that have taken the same path away from Microsoft include the Austrian military, Danish government organizations, and the French city of Lyon. All of these organizations aim to keep data storage and processing within national or European borders to enhance security, comply with privacy laws such as the EU's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), and mitigate risks from potential commercial and foreign government surveillance.

Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang said that maintaining the US edge in AI will require a steady approach that ensures China remains hooked on American technology. From a report: The chipmaker is in an "awkward place" as President Donald Trump prepares to meet with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping later this week, Huang told reporters Tuesday at a company conference in Washington. The Nvidia chief praised Trump's commitment to winning but urged careful engagement with China because of the country's massive software developer base and its growing technology capabilities.

During the meeting, Trump and Xi are expected to finalize an agreement to ease trade tensions between the world's two largest economies. When it comes to those negotiations, Huang said he has "no idea" if GPUs -- the chips central to artificial intelligence capabilities -- will be a topic between Trump and Xi.

Huang was careful to leave the negotiating to Trump but encouraged US leadership to think longer term on its overall AI strategy. "A policy that causes America to lose half of the world's developers is not beneficial long-term," Huang said, warning that it was still possible for the US to cede the AI race to China. Keeping US technology in front requires finesse," he said. "It requires balance. It requires long-term thinking."

The Python Software Foundation rejected a $1.5 million U.S. government grant because it required them to renounce all diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives. "The non-profit would've used the funding to help prevent supply chain attacks; create a new automated, proactive review process for new PyPI packages; and make the project's work easily transferable to other open-source package managers," reports The Register. From the report: The programming non-profit's deputy executive director Loren Crary said in a blog post today that the National Science Founation (NSF) had offered $1.5 million to address structural vulnerabilities in Python and the Python Package Index (PyPI), but the Foundation quickly became dispirited with the terms (PDF) of the grant it would have to follow. "These terms included affirming the statement that we 'do not, and will not during the term of this financial assistance award, operate any programs that advance or promote DEI [diversity, equity, and inclusion], or discriminatory equity ideology in violation of Federal anti-discrimination laws,'" Crary noted. "This restriction would apply not only to the security work directly funded by the grant, but to any and all activity of the PSF as a whole."

To make matters worse, the terms included a provision that if the PSF was found to have voilated that anti-DEI diktat, the NSF reserved the right to claw back any previously disbursed funds, Crary explained. "This would create a situation where money we'd already spent could be taken back, which would be an enormous, open-ended financial risk," the PSF director added. The PSF's mission statement enshrines a commitment to supporting and growing "a diverse and international community of Python programmers," and the Foundation ultimately decided it wasn't willing to compromise on that position, even for what would have been a solid financial boost for the organization. "The PSF is a relatively small organization, operating with an annual budget of around $5 million per year, with a staff of just 14," Crary added, noting that the $1.5 million would have been the largest grant the Foundation had ever received - but it wasn't worth it if the conditions were undermining the PSF's mission. The PSF board voted unanimously to withdraw its grant application.

NextEra Energy and Google have partnered to restart Iowa's long-shuttered Duane Arnold nuclear plant, marking the first major U.S. attempt to revive a decommissioned reactor. "We expect Duane Arnold to be back online in early 2029, and the plant will provide more than 600 MW of clean, safe, 'always-on' nuclear energy to the regional grid," said Google in a blog post. Reuters reports: Under the 25-year agreement, the tech giant will purchase power from the 615-MW plant for its growing cloud and AI infrastructure in the state, while also driving significant economic investment to the Midwest region. One of the plant's minority owners, Central Iowa Power Cooperative (CIPCO), will purchase the remaining portion of the plant's output on the same terms as Google, NextEra said. The utility added that it had also signed agreements to acquire CIPCO and Corn Belt Power Cooperative's combined 30% interest in the Duane Arnold plant, bringing NextEra's ownership to 100%.

A new study from the Complexity Science Hub Vienna finds that as people's close social circles expanded from two to five friends around the rise of social media (2008-2010), polarization in society spiked. "The connection between these two developments could provide a fundamental explanation for why societies around the world are increasingly fragmenting into ideological bubbles," reports Phys.org. From the report: The researchers' findings confirm that increasing polarization is not merely perceived -- it is measurable and objectively occurring. "And this increase happened suddenly, between 2008 and 2010," says [says Stefan Thurner from the Complexity Science Hub (CSH)]. The question remained: what caused it? [...] The sharp rise in both polarization and the number of close friends occurred between 2008 and 2010 -- precisely when social media platforms and smartphones first achieved widespread adoption. This technological shift may have fundamentally changed how people connect with each other, indirectly promoting polarization.

"Democracy depends on all parts of society being involved in decision-making, which requires that everyone be able to communicate with each other. But when groups can no longer talk to each other, this democratic process breaks down," emphasizes Stefan Thurner. Tolerance plays a central role. "If I have two friends, I do everything I can to keep them -- I am very tolerant towards them. But if I have five and things become difficult with one of them, it's easier to end that friendship because I still have 'backups.' I no longer need to be as tolerant," explains Thurner.

What disappears as a result is a societal baseline of tolerance -- a development that could contribute to the long-term erosion of democratic structures. To prevent societies from increasingly fragmenting, Thurner emphasizes the importance of learning early how to engage with different opinions and actively cultivating tolerance. The research was published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Texas's electricity demand has surged to record highs in 2025 but renewable energy is meeting the challenge. According to new data from the Energy Information Administration, solar output has quadrupled since 2021, wind continues steady growth, and battery storage is increasingly stabilizing the grid during evening peaks. Electrek reports: ERCOT, which supplies power to about 90% of the state, saw demand jump 5% year-over-year to 372 terawatt hours (TWh) -- a 23% increase since 2021. No other major US grid has grown faster over the past year. [...] The biggest growth story in Texas power generation is solar. Utility-scale solar plants produced 45 TWh from January through September, up 50% from 2024 and nearly four times what they generated in 2021 (11 TWh). Wind power also continued to climb, producing 87 TWh through September -- a 4% increase from last year and 36% more than in 2021.

Together, wind and solar supplied 36% of ERCOT's total electricity over those nine months. Solar, in particular, has transformed Texas's daytime energy mix. From June to September, ERCOT solar farms generated an average of 24 gigawatts (GW) between noon and 1 pm -- double the midday output from 2023. That growth has pushed down natural gas use at midday from 50% of the mix in 2023 to 37% this year. The report notes that while natural gas is still Texas's dominant power source, it isn't growing like it used to. "Gas comprised 43% of ERCOT's generation mix during the first nine months of 2025, down from 47% in the first nine months of 2023 and 2024," reports Electrek.

Millions of tons of discarded electronics from the United States are being shipped overseas, much of it to developing countries in Southeast Asia unprepared to safely handle hazardous waste, according to a new report by an environmental watchdog. AP: The Seattle-based Basel Action Network, or BAN, said a two-year investigation found at least 10 U.S. companies exporting used electronics to Asia and the Middle East, in what it says is a "hidden tsunami" of electronic waste. "This new, almost invisible tsunami of e-waste, is taking place ... padding already lucrative profit margins of the electronics recycling sector while allowing a major portion of the American public's and corporate IT equipment to be surreptitiously exported to and processed under harmful conditions in Southeast Asia," the report said.

Electronic waste, or e-waste, includes discarded devices like phones and computers containing both valuable materials and toxic metals like lead, cadmium and mercury. As gadgets are replaced faster, global e-waste is growing five times quicker than it's formally recycled. The world produced a record 62 million metric tons in 2022. That's expected to climb to 82 million by 2030, according to the United Nations' International Telecommunication Union and its research arm, UNITAR.

The proliferation of difficult-to-treat bacterial diseases represents a growing threat, according to the World Health Organization's (WHO) Global Antibiotic Resistance Surveillance Report. Wired: The report reveals that, between 2018 and 2023, antibiotic resistance increased by more than 40 percent in monitored pathogen-drug combinations, with an average annual increase of 5-15 percent. According to data reported by more than 100 countries to WHO's Global Antimicrobial Resistance and Use Surveillance System (GLASS), one in six laboratory-confirmed bacteria in 2023 proved resistant to antibiotic treatment, all related to various common diseases globally.

For the first time, this edition of the report includes prevalence estimates of resistance to 22 antibiotics used to treat urinary tract, gastrointestinal, bloodstream, and gonorrheal conditions. The analysis focused on eight common pathogens: Acinetobacter spp, Escherichia coli, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Neisseria gonorrhoeae, non-typhoidal Salmonella spp, Shigella spp, Staphylococcus aureus, and Streptococcus pneumoniae. The results show that resistant gram-negative bacteria pose the greatest threat. Of particular note are Escherichia coli and Klebsiella pneumoniae, which are associated with bloodstream infections that can lead to sepsis, organ failure, and death. "More than 40 percent of E. coli and more than 55 percent of K. pneumoniae strains worldwide are now resistant to third-generation cephalosporins, the first-choice treatment for these types of infections," the report warns.

Microsoft said in a blog post this week that "over half of cyberattacks with known motives were driven by extortion or ransomware... while attacks focused solely on espionage made up just 4%."

And Microsoft's annual digital threats report found operations expanding even more through AI, with cybercriminals "accelerating malware development and creating more realistic synthetic content, enhancing the efficiency of activities such as phishing and ransomware attacks." [L]egacy security measures are no longer enough; we need modern defenses leveraging AI and strong collaboration across industries and governments to keep pace with the threat...

Over the past year, both attackers and defenders harnessed the power of generative AI. Threat actors are using AI to boost their attacks by automating phishing, scaling social engineering, creating synthetic media, finding vulnerabilities faster, and creating malware that can adapt itself... For defenders, AI is also proving to be a valuable tool. Microsoft, for example, uses AI to spot threats, close detection gaps, catch phishing attempts, and protect vulnerable users. As both the risks and opportunities of AI rapidly evolve, organizations must prioritize securing their AI tools and training their teams...

Amid the growing sophistication of cyber threats, one statistic stands out: more than 97% of identity attacks are password attacks. In the first half of 2025 alone, identity-based attacks surged by 32%. That means the vast majority of malicious sign-in attempts an organization might receive are via large-scale password guessing attempts. Attackers get usernames and passwords ("credentials") for these bulk attacks largely from credential leaks. However, credential leaks aren't the only place where attackers can obtain credentials. This year, we saw a surge in the use of infostealer malware by cybercriminals...

Luckily, the solution to identity compromise is simple. The implementation of phishing-resistant multifactor authentication (MFA) can stop over 99% of this type of attack even if the attacker has the correct username and password combination.
"Security is not only a technical challenge but a governance imperative..." Microsoft adds in their blog post. "Governments must build frameworks that signal credible and proportionate consequences for malicious activity that violates international rules." (The report also found that America is the #1 most-targeted country — and that many U.S. companies have outdated cyber defenses.)

But while "most of the immediate attacks organizations face today come from opportunistic criminals looking to make a profit," Microsoft writes that nation-state threats "remain a serious and persistent threat." More details from the Associated Press: Russia, China, Iran and North Korea have sharply increased their use of artificial intelligence to deceive people online and mount cyberattacks against the United States, according to new research from Microsoft. This July, the company identified more than 200 instances of foreign adversaries using AI to create fake content online, more than double the number from July 2024 and more than ten times the number seen in 2023.
Examples of foreign espionage cited by the article:

• China is continuing its broad push across industries to conduct espionage and steal sensitive data...

• Iran is going after a wider range of targets than ever before, from the Middle East to North America, as part of broadening espionage operations..

• "[O]utside of Ukraine, the top ten countries most affected by Russian cyber activity all belong to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) — a 25% increase compared to last year."

• North Korea remains focused on revenue generation and espionage...

There was one especially worrying finding. The report found that critical public services are often targeted, partly because their tight budgets limit their incident response capabilities, "often resulting in outdated software.... Ransomware actors in particular focus on these critical sectors because of the targets' limited options. For example, a hospital must quickly resolve its encrypted systems, or patients could die, potentially leaving no other recourse but to pay."

The Guardian reports that atmospheric carbon dioxide "soared by a record amount in 2024 to hit another high, UN data shows."

But what's more troubling is why: Several factors contributed to the leap in CO2, including another year of unrelenting fossil fuel burning despite a pledge by the world's countries in 2023 to "transition away" from coal, oil and gas. Another factor was an upsurge in wildfires in conditions made hotter and drier by global heating. Wildfire emissions in the Americas reached historic levels in 2024, which was the hottest year yet recorded. However, scientists are concerned about a third factor: the possibility that the planet's carbon sinks are beginning to fail. About half of all CO2 emissions every year are taken back out of the atmosphere by being dissolved in the ocean or being sucked up by growing trees and plants. But the oceans are getting hotter and can therefore absorb less CO2 while on land hotter and drier conditions and more wildfires mean less plant growth...

Atmospheric concentrations of methane and nitrous oxide — the second and third most important greenhouse gases related to human activities — also rose to record levels in 2024. About 40% of methane emissions come from natural sources. But scientists are concerned that global heating is leading to more methane production in wetlands, another potential feedback loop.
Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader mspohr for sharing the article.

Long-time Slashdot reader fjo3 shares an announcement from the U.S.-based nonprofit Consumer Reports: Protein powders still carry troubling levels of toxic heavy metals, according to a new Consumer Reports (CR) investigation. Our latest tests of 23 protein powders and ready-to-drink shakes from popular brands found that heavy metal contamination has become even more common among protein products, raising concerns that the risks are growing right alongside the industry itself. For more than two-thirds of the products we analyzed, a single serving contained more lead than CR's food safety experts say is safe to consume in a day — some by more than 10 times...

[I]n addition to the average level of lead being higher than what we found 15 years ago, there were also fewer products with undetectable amounts of it. The outliers also packed a heavier punch. Naked Nutrition's Vegan Mass Gainer powder, the product with the highest lead levels, had nearly twice as much lead per serving as the worst product we analyzed in 2010. Nearly all the plant-based products CR tested had elevated lead levels, but some were particularly concerning. Two had so much lead that CR's experts caution against using them at all... Dairy-based protein powders and shakes generally had the lowest amounts of lead, but half of the products we tested still had high enough levels of contamination that CR's experts advise against daily use...

Unlike prescription and over-the-counter drugs, the Food and Drug Administration doesn't review, approve, or test supplements like protein powders before they are sold. Federal regulations also don't generally require supplement makers to prove their products are safe, and there are no federal limits for the amount of heavy metals they can contain.
The article acknowledges that "Many of these powders are fine to have occasionally, and even those with the highest lead levels are far below the concentration needed to cause immediate harm. That said, because most people don't actually need protein supplements — nutrition experts say the average American already gets plenty — it makes sense to ask whether these products are worth the added exposure."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Conversation: Sound waves at frequencies above the threshold for human hearing are routinely used in medical care. Also known as ultrasound, these sound waves can help clinicians diagnose and monitor disease, and can also provide first glimpses of your newest family members. And now, patients with conditions ranging from cancer to neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer's may soon benefit from recent advances in this technology.

I am a biomedical engineer who studies how focused ultrasound -- the concentration of sound energy into a specific volume -- can be fine-tuned to treat various conditions. Over the past few years, this technology has seen significant growth and use in the clinic. And researchers continue to discover new ways to use focused ultrasound to treat disease. [...] Research on focused ultrasound has primarily focused on the most devastating and prevalent diseases, such as cancer and Alzheimer's disease. However, I believe that further developments in, and increased use of, focused ultrasound in the clinic will eventually benefit patients with rare diseases.

One rare disease of particular interest for my lab is cerebral cavernous malformation, or CCM. CCMs are lesions in the brain that occur when the cells that make up blood vessels undergo uncontrolled growth. While uncommon, when these lesions grow and hemorrhage, they can cause debilitating neurological symptoms. The most common treatment for CCM is surgical removal of the brain lesions; however, some CCMs are located in brain areas that are difficult to access, creating a risk of side effects. Radiation is another treatment option, but it, too, can lead to serious adverse effects.

We found that using focused ultrasound to open the blood-brain barrier can improve drug delivery to CCMs. Additionally, we also observed that focused ultrasound treatment itself could stop CCMs from growing in mice, even without administering a drug. While we don't yet understand how focused ultrasound is stabilizing CCMs, abundant research on the safety of using this technique in patients treated for other conditions has allowed neurosurgeons to begin designing clinical trials testing the use of this technique on people with CCM. With further research and advancements, I am hopeful that focused ultrasound can become a viable treatment option for many devastating rare diseases.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Associated Press: Google announced on Tuesday that it will invest $15 billion in India over the next five years to establish its first artificial intelligence hub in the country. Located in the southern city of Visakhapatnam, the hub will be one of Google's largest globally. It will feature gigawatt-scale data center operations, extensive energy infrastructure and an expanded fiber-optic network, the company said in a statement. The investment underscores Google's growing reliance on India as a key technology and talent base in the global race for AI dominance.

For India, it brings in high-value infrastructure and foreign investment at a scale that can accelerate its digital transformation ambitions. Google said its AI hub investment will include construction of a new international subsea gateway that would connect to the company's more than 2 million miles (3.2 million kilometers) of existing terrestrial and subsea cables. "The initiative creates substantial economic and societal opportunities for both India and the United States, while pioneering a generational shift in AI capability," the company's statement said.

Enthusiasm for Sora 2 "wasn't shared in Hollywood," reports the Los Angeles Times, "where the new AI tools have created a swift backlash" that "appears to be only just the beginning of a bruising legal fight that could shape the future of AI use in the entertainment business." [OpenAI] executives went on a charm offensive last year. They reached out to key players in the entertainment industry — including Walt Disney Co. — about potential areas for collaboration and trying to assuage concerns about its technology. This year, the San Francisco-based AI startup took a more assertive approach. Before unveiling Sora 2 to the general public, OpenAI executives had conversations with some studios and talent agencies, putting them on notice that they need to explicitly declare which pieces of intellectual property — including licensed characters — were being opted-out of having their likeness depicted on the AI platform, according to two sources familiar with the matter who were not authorized to comment. Actors would be included in Sora 2 unless they opted out, the people said. OpenAI disputes the claim and says that it was always the company's intent to give actors and other public figures control over how their likeness is used.

The response was immediate.... [Big talent agencies objected, along with performers' unions and major studios.] "Decades of enforceable copyright law establishes that content owners do not need to 'opt out' to prevent infringing uses of their protected IP," Warner Bros. Discovery said in a statement... The strong pushback from the creative community could be a strategy to force OpenAI into entering licensing agreements for the content they need, legal experts said... One challenge is figuring out a way that fairly compensates talent and rights holders. Several people who work within the entertainment industry ecosystem said they don't believe a flat fee works.
Meanwhile, "the complete copyright-free-for-all approach that OpenAI took to its new AI video generation model, Sora 2, lasted all of one week," writes Gizmodo. But that means the service has "now pissed off its users." As 404 Media pointed out, social channels like Twitter and Reddit are now flooded with Sora users who are angry they can't make 10-second clips featuring their favorite characters anymore. One user in the OpenAI subreddit said that being able to play with copyrighted material was "the only reason this app was so fun."
Futurism published more reactions, including ""It's official, Sora 2 is completely boring and useless with these copyright restrictions." Others accused OpenAI of abusing copyright to hype up its new app. "This is just classic OpenAI at this point," another user wrote. "They do this s*** all the time. Let people have fun for a day or two and then just start censoring like crazy." The app now has a measly 2.9-star rating on the App Store, indicative of growing disillusionment and frustration with censorship... [It's not dropped to 2.8.]

In an apparent effort to save face, Altman claimed this week that many copyright holders are actually begging to have their characters appear on Sora, instead of complaining about the trend. "In the case of Sora, we've heard from a lot of concerned rightsholders and also a lot of rightsholders who are like 'My concern is you won't put my character in enough,'" he told the a16z podcast earlier this week. "So I can completely see a world where subject to the decisions that a rightsholder has, they get more upset with us for not generating their character often enough than too much," he added. Whether most rightsholders would agree with that sentiment remains to be seen.
Business Insider offers another reaction. After watching Sora 2's main public feed, they write that Sora 2 "seems to be overrun with teenage boys."

US datacenters are experiencing a significant shift toward coal-powered energy due to elevated natural gas prices and rapidly growing electricity demand. From a report: According to a research note from financial services firm Jefferies, datacenter operators are racing to connect new capacity to the electrical grid, with accelerated load growth expected during the 2026-2028 period. This spike in demand is driving an unexpected resurgence in coal generation, which has increased nearly 20 percent year-to-date.

The research note, seen by The Register, states: "We raise our estimate for coal generation by ~11 percent (driven by higher capacity factors), and staying elevated through 2027 on favorable fuel pricing vs gas (particularly for existing fleet)." Warnings emerged last year that rising energy demand from the proliferation of data centers in the US risked outstripping available generation capacity, potentially extending the operational life of coal-fired power plants. Further reading: India Needs Coal For the Next Decade and Nobody Wants To Say It.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Poland's critical infrastructure has been subject to a growing number of cyberattacks by Russia, whose military intelligence, has trebled its resources for such action against Poland this year, the country's digital affairs minister told Reuters. Of the 170,000 cyber incidents that have been identified in the first three quarters of this year, a significant portion has been attributed to Russian actors, while other cases are financially motivated, involving theft or other forms of cybercrime, Krzysztof Gawkowski said.

He said Poland is a subject to between 2,000 and 4,000 incidents a day and that 700 to 1,000 are "taken up by us, meaning they posed a real threat or had the potential to cause serious problems," he said. Foreign adversaries are now expanding their focus beyond water and sewage systems to the energy sector, he said.

fjo3 shares a report from the Washington Post: Across vast stretches of farmland in southern Brazil, researchers at a carbon removal company are attempting to accelerate a natural process that normally unfolds over thousands or millions of years. The company, Terradot, is spreading tons of volcanic rock crushed into a fine dust over land where soybeans, sugar cane and other crops are grown. As rain percolates through the soil, chemical reactions pull carbon from the air and convert it into bicarbonate ions that eventually wash into the ocean, where the carbon remains stored. The technique, known as "enhanced rock weathering," is emerging as a promising approach to lock away carbon on a massive scale. Some researchers estimate the method has the potential to sequester billions of tons of carbon, helping slow global climate trends. Other major projects are underway across the globe and have collectively raised over a quarter-billion dollars. [...]

Terradot was founded in 2022 at Stanford, growing out of an independent study between James Kanoff, an undergraduate seeking large-scale carbon removal solutions, and Scott Fendorf, an Earth science professor. Terradot ran a pilot project across 250 hectares in Mexico and began operations in Brazil in late 2023. Since then, the company has spread about 100,000 tons of rock over 4,500 hectares. It has signed contracts to remove about 300,000 tons of carbon dioxide and is backed by a who's who of Silicon Valley. It expects to deliver its first carbon removal credit -- representing one metric ton of verified carbon dioxide removed -- by the end of this year and then scale up from there.