Submission + - NBA Suspends Steve Ballmer for 1 Year, Fines Clippers $30M for Salary-Cap Scheme

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: GeekWire reports, "The NBA dropped the hammer on Los Angeles Clippers owner Steve Ballmer on Wednesday, suspending the former Microsoft CEO from all league and team activities for one year and fining the franchise $30 million following a year-long investigation into illegal salary-cap circumvention involving star forward Kawhi Leonard. The sweeping sanctions mark one of the most severe punitive actions taken against an owner in modern sports history. Beyond Ballmer’s ban and the team fine, the Clippers were stripped of five consecutive first-round draft picks (2029 through 2033), several team executives were suspended, and Leonard was ordered to pay $700,000 in restitution. Leonard’s uncle and advisor, Dennis Robertson, was also banned from league activity for five years."

"Central to what the NBA identified as a salary-cap evasion scheme was Aspiration, a green-banking tech startup that filed for bankruptcy after its co-founder pleaded guilty to a $248 million fraud. Shortly after signing Leonard to a $176 million contract extension in 2021, Ballmer personally poured $50 million into Aspiration, while the team landed a $300 million sponsorship deal and Leonard secured a multimillion-dollar endorsement contract with the firm."

Given today's events, looking prescient in retrospect is a 2014 Deadspin item that quipped, Steve Ballmer Practiced Being Owner With His Son's High School Team, which took note of a Seattle Times investigation into "incoming Clippers owner Steve Ballmer's foray into the shady world of high school prep sports and the wealthy parents living vicariously through their kids." Summarizing Ballmer's aggressive find-a-way-to-win maneuvers, Deadspin wrote, "Ballmer's son's basketball team at Lakeside School in Seattle [which Bill Gates once attended] sucked, and he wanted to make it un-suck. So he created a non-profit as a way to pump money and talent into the school, got friendly faces coaching positions, and pushed for an administration-wide commitment to athletics at the expense of academics. He was basically the owner of Lakeside basketball."

Submission + - Google Engineer Accused of Polymarket Insider Trading Says He Was Just Gambling (wired.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Michele Spagnuolo, the Google engineer arrested in May by US authorities for alleged insider trading on Polymarket, is making a new bold bet. On Wednesday, his legal team filed a motion to dismiss the charges against him. Spagnuolo isn’t outright denying that he made money using internal information from Google. Instead, his legal team says that the wagers were not financial instruments subject to regulation by the United States’ Commodities Exchange Act but rather good old-fashioned international betting that the US has no authority over.

Spagnuolo, who has been placed on leave from Google, is accused of committing commodities fraud, wire fraud, and money laundering. Using the alias “AlphaRaccoon,” he allegedly made a series of wagers on Polymarket’s flagship platform that resulted in profits totaling over $1.2 million. According to the criminal complaint, “AlphaRaccoon” correctly wagered that the singer D4vd, who gained notoriety for his suspected connection to a grisly killing, would be Google’s most-searched person of the year in 2025. (D4vd was later charged with murder; he pleaded not guilty.) [...]

Spagnuolo’s lawyers argue that defining swaps to include wagers like who the most-searched person on Google will be each year “would fly in the face of the statute’s purpose and history” and lead to “absurd results.” They say it would make it so that any wager in the world, from a charity raffle to a local Ping-Pong match, could be classified as a financial instrument. “Spagnuolo is basically making the same argument as the states that are suing prediction markets,” says a financial services regulation expert Todd Phillips. “This is the issue that will likely go up to the Supreme Court.” Featured Video

In addition to disputing the idea that prediction markets offer swaps, Spagnuolo’s legal team argues that the US government had no jurisdiction over him in the first place because he’s a non-US citizen who was wagering on a non-US platform. Although Polymarket is headquartered in New York, the company’s flagship prediction market is banned in the United States and technically is administered by an ostensibly Panama-based entity known as Adventure One QSS. Spagnuolo was living in Zurich, Switzerland, when he allegedly made the Google-related trades on Polymarket. “The extraterritorial argument is interesting and raises the question of whether the US should be the world’s prediction markets cop,” Philipps says. Spagnuolo’s team also claims that the charges should be dismissed because the internal information he supposedly leveraged did not have any commercial value to Google.

Submission + - Global Heating Will Hit At Least 1.8C, UN Warns, and There Are No Good Outcomes (theguardian.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Global heating will reach at least 1.8C under even the most optimistic future, well beyond the Paris agreement goal of 1.5C, according to a UN report that warns every fraction of temperature rise intensifies destructive extreme weather, glacier melt, ecosystem loss, and island and coastal city submersion. The report by the Nairobi-based UN Environment Programme confirmed overshooting the 1.5C goal inscribed in the landmark Paris agreement of 2015 was now “unavoidable” and, despite some progress in addressing the human-caused climate crisis driven by burning fossil fuels, likely in the next few years. It said: “There are no good outcomes above 1.5C."

Heating of up to 3C above preindustrial levels could lead to glaciers losing more than a quarter of their mass by 2100, raising sea levels by up to 13cm. Global food production could decline by up to 14% by 2050 if there are not effective strategies to adapt. Human health, water supplies, nature, cities, infrastructure and economies could all be severely damaged. Some losses would be irreversible. Many communities may have to relocate or change their livelihoods. The report said the best hope for humanity to limit damage was to adopt an “overshoot, peak and decline” pathway that required immediate and sustained greenhouse gas emissions cuts combined with steps to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

It described the goal of net zero emissions – increasingly politically contentious in some countries – as “an essential milestone that cannot be skipped” and stressed carbon dioxide removal through steps such as establishing vast new forests must occur alongside, not as an alternative to, deep cuts in fossil pollution. Crucially, the authors of the report, titled Limiting Overshoot, said the average global temperature could be returned to 1.5C this century only if heating stayed below about 1.8C. They warned nature’s capacity to store carbon was uncertain and would shrink the more the planet heats. [...] The report’s authors cited earlier work that found limiting heating to about 1.8C required global emissions to be halved by 2035. They said existing national policies were projected to lead to at least 2.3C heating, but it would still be possible to limit stay below 2C if countries delivered on net zero emissions commitments by mid-century.

Submission + - Perplexity Will Open Source Its Faster Lily AI Engine for Apple Silicon (nerds.xyz)

Submitted by BrianFagioli
BrianFagioli writes: Perplexity has built a local artificial intelligence engine designed specifically for Apple silicon and the Qwen3.6-35B-A3B model. Called Lily, the engine uses a Rust runtime and custom Metal kernels, with neither PyTorch nor MLX in its execution path. Perplexity says Lily averaged 23 percent faster prompt processing and 35 percent faster token generation than MLX-LM on an M5 Max MacBook Pro with 128GB of unified memory.

Lily is more specialized than MLX-LM, which supports a much wider range of models and architectures. Perplexity says it plans to release Lily as open source, but the code is not available yet, leaving its performance claims dependent on internal testing for now.

Submission + - Instrument cluster are now paid extra feature (caranddriver.com)

Submitted by sinij
sinij writes:

Hyundai is charging customers extra for a driver’s display in the new Elantra generation (more specifically, the Korea-market Avante), as well as the Ioniq 3.

Enshittification of car controls rapidly accelerating.

Submission + - CERN's Major Transition from RedHat to Debian (phoronix.com)

Submitted by Microsplat
Microsplat writes: CERN plans to have all 2,200+ industrial computers and embedded systems running Debian 13 by the end of 2026. These are systems used for accelerator control, laboratory equipment and other operational functions ... they store a hefty amount of data per: https://www.linux.com/topic/op... ... unsure if this covers all server infrastructure or what scientific-research based systems.

Our shops have done the same in recent years mostly due to CentOS and CFEngine hitting the can.

Submission + - AI Banned in NYC Elementary and Middle Schools

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: The NY Times and others are reporting on a moratorium on student-facing generative AI use in schools, alongside a new screen time policy, a decision that will impact nearly 600,000 public school students, or two-thirds of the system's total enrollment. An announcement from the NYC Mayor's Office — Mayor Mamdani and Chancellor Samuels Put Students First with Nation’s Broadest Generative AI Moratorium in Schools — characterizes the policy as the most expansive student-facing AI moratorium in the nation

The new policy eliminates AI use for students in grades 2-K through 8th grade. This includes all software that uses student-facing generative AI. Companion chatbots will be prohibited across all grades. At the high school level, no more than 50,000 students in five limited pilots will be introduced to AI in general education courses. All high school students will also have access to twice-yearly AI literacy classes (two 45-minute modules) designed to help them think critically about AI before they begin to rely on it. Students in 2nd grade and below will see restricted 1:1 screen time, with recommended caps of 30 minutes a day for students in 3rd grade through 5th grade and 45 minutes for students in 6th grade through 8th grade.

“Children need teachers and human connection in order to learn and grow. They need to develop skills alongside their peers, build relationships with educators and wrestle with tough problems on their own,” said Mayor Mamdani. “The tech industry wants us to believe that A.I.-powered early education is not only inevitable, but necessary. We do not see it that way. That’s why we’re implementing a moratorium on generative AI for students in 2-K through 8th grade and spending the next year studying the impacts of this technology.”

Submission + - Google Escapes Ad Tech Breakup In Third Big Tech Antitrust Loss For US (yahoo.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Alphabet's Google escaped a breakup of its advertising technology business on Wednesday, when a judge in Virginia rejected U.S. antitrust enforcers' bid to force a sale of Google's online advertising exchange. While the ad exchange is a small part of Google's business, the ruling is the second powerful symbolic victory against the U.S. Department of Justice in its efforts to force Google to sell assets to address illegal monopolies. U.S. Judge Leonie Brinkema in Alexandria, Virginia, declined to make Google sell AdX, where publishers pay Google a 20% fee to sell ads in auctions that happen instantly when users load websites. She accepted most of the parties' proposed behavioral remedies.

The DOJ and a broad coalition of states sued Google in 2023 over its dominance in markets for advertising technology used by online publishers and websites. In April 2025, Brinkema ruled that Google holds illegal monopolies on servers that host publisher ads and ad exchanges which sit between buyers and sellers. Google unlawfully locked publishers on its ad server into using its AdX, the judge found. The tech giant's anticompetitive conduct "substantially harmed Google's publisher customers, the competitive process, and, ultimately, consumers of information on the open web," Brinkema said at the time.

At a trial last year on remedies in the case, the DOJ argued that Google cannot be trusted to run AdX, given its past behavior. Google argued that a forced sale would be technically difficult and result in a long and painful transition that would hurt customers. [...] The ruling is the third time in a row that a judge has rejected a bid by U.S. antitrust enforcers to break up Big Tech in a crackdown that started during President Donald Trump's first term. It is likely to fuel questions about whether courts are up to the task of checking the industry's unprecedented power over the U.S. economy.

Submission + - A16z Says You Actually Love Social Media, Enshittification Isnâ(TM)t Real (404media.co)

Submitted by alternative_right
alternative_right writes: âoePerhaps the reason why the platform seems worse is because your life has changed,â Thelot says. âoeOver the same period of time, your goals have changed, and they no longer fit with the platformâ(TM)s new features. Why the hell would a fifty-five year-old be watching Reels? Go take care of your kids.â

The indisputable fact of Thelotâ(TM)s argument is that various social media platforms have more users and are more profitable than ever. This data is readily available from reliable market surveys, polls, and quarterly earning reports from the companies themselves. Itâ(TM)s important to note that companies like Meta have a history of juking the numbers, and that despite this it recently reported its first ever decline of 20 million users, but Thelotâ(TM)s point stands: Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok are massively popular.

Submission + - Uber is firing 10% of its employees

Submitted by greytree
greytree writes: Uber is laying of 10% of its employees worldwide.

If you had these cliches on your bingo card, you win:

  — "removing layers, simplifying team structures"
  — "focusing our people"
  — "This wasn’t a decision we made lightly"
  — "It’s our job as leaders to make these difficult calls"
  — "The decisions we’re making today are difficult, but they will help us build an even stronger Uber for the years ahead."

https://www.uber.com/us/en/new...

Submission + - SpaceX excluded :o

Submitted by Mirnotoriety
Mirnotoriety writes: Blue Origin a company that can barely get a satellite into low Earth orbit gets the contract. The most charitable explanation is political influence in Washington. Going back to Tesla being excluded from that EV summit in Washington.

Submission + - Sonos Has New Devices, a New OS, and Yes, a New App (wired.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Sonos has a new app. Stop me if you’ve heard this one before. The smart speaker company, long a darling of the audio industry, undid much of the goodwill it earned with its multiroom speakers through a bevy of software updates that broke its app in 2024. Almost all app users hated it, citing the loss of features like volume control and accessibility tools meant to help blind people use the wireless speaker system. Sonos eventually owned up to the mistake, considered bringing back the old app again, then booted its CEO and marched its new leaders out to apologize profusely to win back the company’s furious customers.

Now, Sonos says it has a brand-new app update, infused with lots of generative AI features. The company also announced a new soundbar and its second pair of over-the-ear headphones. Sonos representatives say it doesn’t want to be seen as a speaker company anymore, but as something bigger and more holistic. “For years people have been seeing us as a speaker company,” says Brandon Holley, the interim hardware lead at Sonos. “What we actually are is an audio operating system.” The company is calling that operating system Sonos 27, and it manifests in a few ways.

[...] This is a lot of change for Sonos, something the company hasn’t always handled gracefully. Sonos’ home systems already aren’t the easiest to set up, sometimes requiring separate apps for older products. The company may be rejiggering itself as an “audio operating system,” but its software has long been the source of its troubles with getting its products to work right. Will AI smarts fix that? Maybe for its newer devices. But anyone with an existing system may still struggle. The AI features on products and in the Sonos 27 app will be opt-in, meaning you can avoid them entirely. “That really is our new approach to our app release,” Patel says. “We're going to bring our customers along. We're going to listen more.” That would be a good plan. Sounds like Sonos’ speakers will be listening more, too.

Submission + - 'Supercharged' Greening in African Savannah: CO2 Brings Boost to Grass Growth (dailysceptic.org)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Global greening is being supercharged in the African savannah, new research published in Nature has found, with higher CO2 levels driving a 28% increase in plant growth in just 32 years.

More evidence of global greening from carbon dioxide fertilisation has been published in the prestigious publication Nature . The research involved 70 experiments and three decades of field data from many locations in the savannah of South Africa's Kruger National Park. The international scientific team was led by Dr Kimberley Simpson of the University of Sheffield, the paper entitled 'Increasing CO2 levels fertilise C4 grass production'. Phys.org reported the study as follows: 'Rising carbon dioxide is supercharging grass growth in African savannas, study finds.' The latest study challenges the previously held view that the dominant grasses in the savannah (known as 'C4') benefit little from rising levels of carbon dioxide.

African savannah covers approximately half of the great continent and sustains a vast habitat for wildlife across tropical and sub-tropical regions. Globally, savannah grassland covers about 20% of Earth's land surface, and contributes nearly one-third of plant productivity. C4 grasses form a major part of these ecosystems in hot climates; they utilise a more complex form of photosynthesis which allows them to thrive in harsher conditions where hotter and sunnier conditions prevail. These grasses are able to retain water and capture carbon dioxide more efficiently than other types of plants. C4 grasses include both wild grasses and important crops such as maize and sugarcane.

Submission + - OpenClaw 2.0 Is Here, Ushering In the Era of 'Multiplayer' AI Coding (venturebeat.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The viral fervor we saw earlier this year around OpenClaw, the open source AI harness that turns powerful language models into autonomous workers the user can message via their favorite channels (Telegram, iMessage, WhatsApp, Discord etc), has cooled off substantially from its peak in March 2026. But over the weekend, OpenClaw's creator Peter Steinberger and current team of co-developers gave the world — especially enterprises — a reason to look at it again, announcing OpenClaw 2.0, billed as the most significant update to the harness and surrounding platform yet.

OpenClaw 2.0 seeks to transform what began largely as a personal agent harness into something increasingly designed for teams, shared infrastructure and enterprise workflows. OpenClaw 2.0 introduces a rebuilt browser interface that brings conversations, files, approvals, configuration and live agent activity into a common workspace. It adds shared cloud sessions and multi-user collaboration. And it expands the security model with stronger sandboxing, role-based permissions, approval controls, secrets handling and auditing.

Together, those additions move OpenClaw closer to being infrastructure that an organization could deploy for employees rather than simply a powerful agent an individual developer runs locally. They also sharpen a competitive question surrounding the project: whether OpenClaw has addressed the security and isolation concerns that helped inspire newer alternatives such as NanoClaw. The answer is increasingly yes at the capability level — but not necessarily by default.

Submission + - Chinese study claims stem cell therapy reversed type 2 diabetes in patient (business-standard.com)

Submitted by AmiMoJo
AmiMoJo writes: In a medical breakthrough, researchers in China have reported the world’s first successful reversal of type 2 diabetes using stem cell therapy. By restoring the body’s natural ability to produce insulin, the treatment moves beyond lifelong symptom management and signals a future in which diabetes may no longer be a permanent condition. Researchers in China used advanced stem cell technology to generate insulin-producing pancreatic cells in the laboratory and then transplanted these into a patient with type 2 diabetes. After receiving the treatment, the patient reportedly no longer needed insulin injections or diabetes medications to control blood sugar levels.

Submission + - Gov. DeSantis bans Flock cameras from state highways (www.wctv.tv)

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said he’s removing Flock camera from state roadways.

The announcement comes amid a growing concern over the misuse of automated license plate readers.

On Monday, DeSantis ordered all Flock cameras removed from what he calls the “state highway system” within the next 30 days, which would include interstates like I-10 and I-75.

That order led to several sheriff’s departments like in Franklin, Liberty and Putnam Counties to announce they’re ending their own license plate reader programs.

Submission + - Coral bleaching occurring too frequently for reefs to recover (reuters.com)

Submitted by walterbyrd
walterbyrd writes: Coral reefs are experiencing bleaching events so frequently that they no longer have time to recover before the next one strikes, with global coral cover now well below normal levels and at risk of irreversible decline, scientists said on Monday.

The world's coral reefs sustain a quarter of all marine life, make coastlines more resilient and provide food and livelihoods for millions of people, but their survival has been threatened by pollution and increasingly frequent mass bleaching caused by soaring ocean heat.

Submission + - SNICKERS wants you to prompt inject your AI chatbot with a digital candy bar (nerds.xyz)

Submitted by BrianFagioli
BrianFagioli writes: SNICKERS has launched Digital SNICKERS, a promotion that asks users to feed a virtual candy bar to an AI chatbot when it starts hallucinating, becoming overly agreeable, or otherwise acting strangely. The joke goes considerably deeper than an image of candy. The Digital SNICKERS directs the AI to a lengthy set of instructions for a one-turn role-play game, including looking back at the previous conversation, reconsidering its last answer, adopting a temporary personality, and answering again after supposedly taking a bite.

The campaign is essentially a user-initiated form of prompt injection turned into advertising. Mars even includes an extensive safety gate and acknowledges that its instructions cannot override an LLMs existing policies. It is a strange example of an AI security concept entering mainstream marketing, complete with free physical SNICKERS bars available through a related promotion.

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