An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: In January, the European Commission began an initial investigation, known as a specification proceeding, into how Google has implemented AI in the Android operating system. The results are in, and the EU says Android needs to be more open, which is not surprising. Meanwhile, Google says this amounts to "unwarranted intervention," which is equally unsurprising. Regardless of Google's characterization of the investigation, the commission may force Google to make Android AI changes this summer. This action stems from the continent's Digital Markets Act (DMA), a sweeping law that designates seven dominant technology companies as "gatekeepers" that are subject to greater regulation to ensure fair competition. Google has consistently spoken against the regulations imposed under the DMA, but it and the other gatekeepers have been subject to the law for several years now, and there's little chance the commission backs away from it.

The issue before the commission currently is the built-in advantage for Gemini on Android. When you turn on any Google-powered Android phone, Gemini is already there and gets special treatment at the system level. The European Commission is taking aim at the lack of features available to third-party AI services. The commission believes that there are too many experiences on Android that only work with Google's Gemini AI, and as a gatekeeper, Google must change that. "As we navigate the rapidly evolving landscape of AI, it is clear that interoperability is key to unlocking the full potential of these technologies," said Commission VP for Tech Sovereignty Henna Virkkunen in a statement. "These measures will open up Android devices to a wider range of AI services, so that users will have the freedom to choose the AI services that best meet their needs and values, without sacrificing functionality."

The commission does have a solid track record pushing for openness so far. Since the DMA came into force, Google has been required to make numerous changes to its business in Europe, like implementing search choice screens on Android, allowing alternative payment methods in the Play Store, and limiting data sharing across services. Now, the EU wants Google to make the Android platform more hospitable to third-party AI services. Google's objection focuses on preserving the autonomy for device makers (including Google) to customize AI services. "This unwarranted intervention would strip away that autonomy, mandate access to sensitive hardware and device permissions; unnecessarily driving up costs while undermining critical privacy and security protections for European users," said Google senior competition counsel Claire Kelly. The problem isn't that you can't install ChatGPT or Grok; it's that these chatbots don't have the same access to data and features as Gemini.

To address that imbalance, the EU is considering several requirements that would force Google to give third-party AI assistants deeper access to Android, closer to what Gemini currently enjoys. The proposed requirements include:
- Letting alternative AI tools be launched system-wide through hot words, gestures, or button presses.
- Allowing third-party assistants to see screen context when users invoke them.
- Giving non-Gemini AI tools access to local device data, with user permission, so they can generate proactive suggestions, summaries, and contextual help.
- Allowing other AI services to control installed apps and Android system features on the user's behalf.
- Ensuring third-party developers can access the necessary device hardware to run local AI models with strong performance, availability, and responsiveness.
- Requiring Google to create APIs that let outside AI providers plug into Android more deeply.
- Requiring Google to provide technical assistance to those AI providers.
- Making those APIs and support available free of charge.

Deezer says AI-generated songs now make up 44% of all new uploads to its platform, with nearly 75,000 arriving each day and more than two million per month. The company notes that consumption of these tracks is still very low, "between 1-3% of the total streams," and 85% are flagged as fraudulent. TechCrunch reports: The latest figure from Deezer highlights a continuous surge in AI-generated music uploads to the platform. Deezer reported receiving around 60,000 AI tracks per day in January, up from 50,000 in November, 30,000 in September, and just 10,000 in January 2025, when it first launched its AI-music detection tool.

Songs tagged as AI-generated on Deezer are automatically removed from algorithmic recommendations and not included in editorial playlists. The company announced today that it will no longer store hi-res versions of AI tracks. "AI-generated music is now far from a marginal phenomenon and as daily deliveries keep increasing, we hope the whole music ecosystem will join us in taking action to help safeguard artists' rights and promote transparency for fans," said Deezer CEO Alexis Lanternier in a press release. "Thanks to our technology and the proactive measures we put in place more than a year ago, we have shown that it's possible to reduce AI-related fraud and payment dilution in streaming to a minimum."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: A California-based credit union with over 450,000 members said it suffered a ransomware attack that is disrupting account services and could take weeks to recover from. "The next few days -- and coming weeks -- may present challenges for our members, as we continue to navigate around the limited functionality we are experiencing due to this incident," Patelco Credit Union CEO Erin Mendez told members in a July 1 message (PDF) that said the security problem was caused by a ransomware attack. Online banking and several other services are unavailable, while several other services and types of transactions have limited functionality.

Patelco Credit Union was hit by the attack on June 29 and has been posting updates on this page, which says the credit union "proactively shut down some of our day-to-day banking systems to contain and remediate the issue... As a result of our proactive measures, transactions, transfers, payments, and deposits are unavailable at this time. Debit and credit cards are working with limited functionality." Patelco Credit Union is a nonprofit cooperative in Northern California with $9 billion in assets and 37 local branches. "Our priority is the safe and secure restoration of our banking systems," a July 2 update said. "We continue to work alongside leading third-party cybersecurity experts in support of this effort. We have also been cooperating with regulators and law enforcement."

Patelco says that check and cash deposits should be working, but direct deposits have limited functionality. Security expert Ahmed Banafa "said Tuesday that it looks likely that hackers infiltrated the bank's internal databases via a phishing email and encrypted its contents, locking out the bank from its own systems," the Mercury News reported. Banafa was paraphrased as saying that it is "likely the hackers will demand an amount of money from the credit union to restore its systems back to normal, and will continue to hold the bank's accounts hostage until either the bank finds a way around the hack or until the hackers are paid." Patelco hasn't revealed details about how it will recover from the ransomware attack but acknowledged to customers that their personal information could be at risk. "The investigation into the nature and scope of the incident is ongoing," the credit union said. "If the investigation determines that individuals' information is involved as a result of this incident, we will of course notify those individuals and provide resources to help protect their information in accordance with applicable laws." While ATMs "remain available for cash withdrawals and deposits," Patelco said many of its other services remain unavailable, including online banking, the mobile app, outgoing wire transfers, monthly statements, Zelle, balance inquiries, and online bill payments. Services with "limited functionality" include company branches, call center services, live chats, debit and credit card transactions, and direct deposits.

Science Alert reports that a team of researchers found "that changes in glucose metabolism could help cancer grow by temporarily disabling a gene that protects us from tumors called BRCA2." The team first examined people who inherited one faulty copy of BRCA2. They found that cells from these people were more sensitive to methylglyoxal (MGO), which is produced when cells break down glucose for energy in the process of glycolysis. Glycolysis generates over 90 percent of the MGO in cells, which a pair of enzymes typically keep to minimal levels. In the event they can't keep up, high MGO levels can lead to the formation of harmful compounds that damage DNA and proteins. In conditions like diabetes, where MGO levels are elevated due to high blood sugar, these harmful compounds contribute to disease complications.

The researchers discovered that MGO can temporarily disable the tumor-suppressing functions of the BRCA2 protein, resulting in mutations linked to cancer development...

As the BRCA2 allele isn't permanently inactivated, functional forms of the protein it produces can later return to normal levels. But cells repeatedly exposed to MGO may continue to accumulate cancer-causing mutations whenever existing BRCA2 protein production fails. Overall, this suggests that changes in glucose metabolism can disrupt BRCA2 function via MGO, contributing to the development and progression of cancer...

This new information may lead to strategies for cancer prevention or early detection. "Methylglyoxal can be easily detected by a blood test for HbA1C, which could potentially be used as a marker," Venkitaraman says. "Furthermore, high methylglyoxal levels can usually be controlled with medicines and a good diet, creating avenues for proactive measures against the initiation of cancer."
Their research has been published in Cell.

New York City is banning TikTok from city-owned devices and requiring agencies to remove the app within the next 30 days. From a report: The directive issued Wednesday comes after a review by the NYC Cyber Command, which a city official said found that TikTok "posed a security threat to the city's technical networks." Starting immediately, city employees are barred from downloading or using the app and accessing TikTok's website from any city-owned devices.

"While social media is great at connecting New Yorkers with one another and the city, we have to ensure we are always using these platforms in a secure manner," a New York City Hall spokesperson said in a statement to The Verge Wednesday. "NYC Cyber Command regularly explores and advances proactive measures to keep New Yorkers' data safe." The city cited US Office of Management and Budget guidelines discouraging TikTok's use on government devices as well as federal legislation banning the app that was passed earlier this year.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TorrentFreak: Over the past decade, rightsholders have asked [Google] to remove six billion links to alleged copyright-infringing content. The majority of these requests were indeed removed or put on a preemptive blacklist. The six billion links were reported by 326,575 copyright holders who identified 4,041,845 separate domain names. These domains also include many false positives, including websites of The White House, the FBI, Disney, Netflix, the New York Times, and even TorrentFreak. Overall, we can say that a relatively small number of rightsholders are responsible for a disproportionate number of takedown requests. The ten most active senders reported nearly 2.5 billion URLs, more than 40% of the total. Similarly, as we previously highlighted, most of the removed URLs belong to a small group of websites. Just 400 domains are responsible for 41% of all links removed by Google over the years.

Google continues to remove more than a million URLs per day but the trend started to change a few years ago. The frequency at which new links were reported started to decline. At the same time, Google started to cooperate more with rightsholders. For example, Google began to accept takedown notices for links that are not indexed by the search engine yet. These links, which are also counted in the six billion figure, are put on a preemptive blocklist. That prevents the links from being added to search results in the future. Google also actively demotes pirate sites in its search results when it receives an unusually high number of takedown requests for a domain. In addition, the search engine chose to voluntarily comply with third-party site-blocking orders by removing entire domain names from its index. These proactive anti-piracy measures have started to improve the relationship between Google and rightsholders. And it wouldn't be a surprise to see this trend continue going forward.

A proposed $369 billion bill would have far-reaching impacts on America's energy landscape — and in a wide variety of ways. The Washington Post took a close look at its tightly targetted energy-industry tax subisidies. "The goal? To make new green energy production cheaper for utilities to build than fossil fuel plants are." But others benefit too:

The bill contains numerous smaller measures aimed at specific parts of the economy with high emissions: $20 billion for agriculture subsidies to help farmers reduce emissions, $6 billion to reduce emissions in chemical, steel and cement plants, and $3 billion to reduce air pollution at ports.
Yet how do you convince a congressman from a coal-producing state? Politico explores what changed the mind of one of the legislation's last hold-out votes and convinced West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin that "The next generation of clean tech needed Washington's backing to take off."

Brandon Dennison, CEO of the economic development organization Coalfield Development, said he'd argued that the legislation offered a way for the coal-producing region to "stay an energy state.... If we want to benefit from the investments and the jobs that are going to come with that transition, we need to be part of the proactive solutions and policies rather than constantly playing on defense." Jason Walsh, executive director of the BlueGreen Alliance, a coalition of labor and environmental groups, said several West Virginia companies pushed Manchin to back the credits as well — even suggesting failure to pass the bill imperiled their plans to invest in new operations. "There were folks who I can't talk about who are directly involved in potentially developing clean energy manufacturing in the state of West Virginia where site visits had happened where all they needed was a set of investments," Walsh said. "And that communication happened as well."

A senior executive with a utility operating in Appalachia said that his company communicated with Manchin how aspects of the bill such as tax credits to build clean energy manufacturing plants at former coal sites and incentives for developing small nuclear reactors and hydrogen would help West Virginia's economy. "We know coal plants are ultimately going to close," the executive said. "What is going to replace them? What are the jobs? What are we transitioning to? In this case, we are going to explore hydrogen, new nuclear and get manufacturing in the state."

Form Energy, a battery storage startup backed by Gates' Breakthrough Energy Ventures and which has plans for a West Virginia manufacturing hub, walked Manchin's staff through its growth trajectories with and without the proposed suite of legislative incentives, a person directly familiar with the interaction said. That person said Form Energy officials showed the differences on a graph. Its investors — including Gates — also called to assuage Manchin's concerns over disbursing the tax credits to companies through a direct pay system rather than using tax equity markets.

TikTok, YouTube and Snapchat will appear before Congress Tuesday with a key priority: distinguishing their practices from Facebook's. From a report: Facebook is under attack, and its tech peers don't want to get caught in the crossfire as lawmakers mull legislation to rein in the company. At the hearing before the Senate Commerce consumer protection subcommittee, representatives from TikTok, YouTube and Snap will focus on ways their services differ from Facebook and Instagram and measures they've already put in place to protect children.

TikTok's Michael Beckerman, vice president and head of public policy, will highlight proactive safety moves the company has made, including disabling direct messages for users under 16. Snap's Jennifer Stout, vice president of global public policy, will note that the company was designed to avoid some of the toxicity of social media platforms and uses human moderation for creator posts that will reach more than 25 users. YouTube's Leslie Miller, vice president of government affairs and public policy, will point out that the company already has designed different services and products for younger users, including YouTube Kids, Made for Kids and Supervised Experiences.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Microsoft is moving forward with its promise to extend enterprise security protections to non-Windows platforms with the general release of a Linux version and a preview of one for Android. The software maker is also beefing up Windows security protections to scan for malicious firmware. The Linux and Android moves -- detailed in posts published on Tuesday here, here, and here -- follow a move last year to ship antivirus protections to macOS. Microsoft disclosed the firmware feature last week. All the new protections are available to users of Microsoft Advanced Threat Protection and require Windows 10 Enterprise Edition. Public pricing from Microsoft is either non-existent or difficult to find, but according to this site, costs range from $30 to $72 per machine per year to enterprise customers. "We are just at the beginning of our Linux journey and we are not stopping here!" Tuesday's post announcing the Linux general availability said. "We are committed to continuous expansion of our capabilities for Linux and will be bringing you enhancements in the coming months."

The Android preview, meanwhile, provides several protections, including:

- The blocking of phishing sites and other high-risk domains and URLs accessed through SMS/text, WhatsApp, email, browsers, and other apps. The features use the same Microsoft Defender
- SmartScreen services that are already available for Windows so that decisions to block suspicious sites will apply across all devices on a network.
- Proactive scanning for malicious or potentially unwanted applications and files that may be downloaded to a mobile device.
- Measures to block access to network resources when devices show signs of being compromised with malicious apps or malware.
- Integration to the same Microsoft Defender Security Center that's already available for Windows, macOS, and Linux. As for the new firmware protections, Microsoft's new offering via Microsoft Defender "scans Unified Extensible Firmware Interface, which is the successor to the traditional BIOS that most computers used during the boot process to locate and enumerate hardware installed," adds Ars. "The firmware scanner uses a new component added to virus protection already built into Defender."

Slashdot reader krisdickie is a developer for embedded devices (and many other systems), and spends a lot of time being proactive about security. This is obviously important, and I don't necessarily see it as a distraction, but rather a complex problem that has some added thrill to being solved. I can't help but wonder though if I (and my team) would have been X times more productive or have come up with some amazing new concept or feature, if we didn't have to deal with implementing security measures.

In a utopian world, where there are no bad actors, we would have likely forfeited many of the systems and ideas that have been put into place to prevent bad things from happening. So my question is -- are we more technically advanced because of the thoughtfulness that has gone into creating these systems?

Or are we just losing precious resources and time dealing with the necessity of protecting ourselves from the perilous few?
Share your own thoughts in the comments. Is the world better or worse off because of our ongoing development of security tech?

Companies including Google, Facebook and Twitter could face European Union laws forcing them to be more proactive in removing illegal content if they do not do more to police what is available on the Internet. From a report: The European Union executive outlines in draft guidelines reviewed by Reuters how Internet firms should step up efforts with measures such as establishing trusted flaggers and taking voluntary measures to detect and remove illegal content. Proliferating illegal content, whether because it infringes copyright or incites terrorism, has sparked heated debate in Europe between those who want online platforms to do more to tackle it and those who fear it could impinge on free speech. The companies have significantly stepped up efforts to tackle the problem of late, agreeing to an EU code of conduct to remove hate speech within 24 hours and forming a global working group to combine their efforts remove terrorist content from their platforms.

An anonymous reader writes: After in September Google discovered SSL certificates issued in its name by Symantec, and after in October the company discovered over 2,500 more certificates issued for non-existent domains, also by Symantec, Google has now decided to ban Symantec's dodgy certificates from Android and Chrome. "Symantec has decided that this root will no longer comply with the CA/Browser Forum's Baseline Requirements," said Ryan Sleevi, Google Software Engineer. "As these requirements reflect industry best practice and are the foundation for publicly trusted certificates, the failure to comply with these represents an unacceptable risk to users of Google products." Apparently Symantec hasn't been very careful of where and to whom it issues SSL certificates from a particular root branch.

Recently the founder of the Mars Settlement Research Organization and author of The International Mars Research Station Shaun Moss agreed to sit down and answer any questions you had about space exploration and colonizing Mars. Below you will find his answers to your questions.

benrothke writes "When I first heard about the book The Death of the Internet, it had all the trappings of a second-rate book; a histrionic title and the fact that it had nearly 50 contributors. I have seen far too many books that are pasted together by myriad disparate authors, creating a jerry-rigged book with an ISBN, but little value or substance. The only negative thing about the book is the over the top title, which I think detracts from the important message that is pervasive in it. Other than that, the book is a fascinating read. Editor Markus Jakobsson (Principal Scientist for Consumer Security at PayPal) was able to take the collected wisdom from a large cross-section of expert researchers and engineers, from different countries and nationalities, academic and corporate environments, and create an invaluable and unique reference." Read below for the rest of Ben's review.

Last week we asked you for questions to pass on to the folks behind the Gamers2Gamers RMT service. The response, from reading the comments, was mixed. The thinking seemed to mostly be that this was a marketing stunt, aimed at getting people to check out their website. There were several good questions, though, and we passed on the hardest ones to Sparter CEO Dan Kelly and CTO Boris Putanec. The response from these executives should lay to rest for you the issue of whether this was a marketing ploy or not. Moreover, some of their answers give insight into the company's grasp of the RMT market as a whole, and their chances of success in the competitive MMOG genre. I encourage you to read on to see how they've responded to our queries. Thanks to the Sparter execs for their timely response.

Wednesday we requested questions for Jonathan Zdziarski, an open source contributor and author of the recently reviewed book "Ending Spam." Jonathan seems to have taken great care in answering your questions, which you will find published below. We have also invited Jonathan to take part in the discussion if he has time so if your question didn't make the cut perhaps there is still hope.

Ben Rothke writes "Outsource: Competing in the Global Productivity Race is a persuasive overview of the outsourcing phenomenon. Author Edward Yourdon's premise is that outsourcing is not going to disappear anytime soon, and -- given the success that many companies have begun enjoying during the past few years -- it is not likely to level off anytime soon. Outsourcing is now a mainstream phenomenon and is affecting more and more workers, in nearly every knowledge-based sector. In a nutshell, this is Yourdon's book of how to prepare yourself for the inevitable." Read on for the rest of Rothke's review, as well as Jason Bennett's different take on the book.

David Schaffter writes "I bought Hacking Linux Exposed when it first came out. What struck me about it at the time was that it was unlike the other hacking books that were out there. Most seemed to play on the hacker craze, and were essentially lists of cracks. Hacking Exposed, presumably the model for HLE, was very much like this. Topical, overblown, and in the end it was outdated by the time you got it." Read on to see what David finds has changed (or not) in the second edition.

Reader Bob Johnson wrote this detailed review of Hacking Exposed followup Hacking Linux Exposed -- especially in light of the various color-coded Windows viruses still on the loose, this might be a good present for your your local Windows administrator as well, but both Bob and the authors are clear: GNU/Linux systems may be more resistant, but are not immune to cracking.

This week's "main" interview guest is L0pht Heavy Industries as a group. (We hope to have answers from Linux International head Jon "maddog" Hall tomorrow). Many insightful questions for the L0pht guys were posted Monday. Today, lots of insightful answers on everything from political controls on the Internet to hardware hacking. (Click below to read.)