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Submission + - trump proposes nasa budget be slashed by 23% (arstechnica.com)

Submitted by Mr. Dollar Ton
Mr. Dollar Ton writes: right in the wake of the lunar mission achieving a major milestone and on top of its 1.5 trillion military budget proposal, the trump administration want to save money by slashing nasa budget significantly.

tired of winning yet?

Submission + - Penalties stack up as AI spreads through the legal system (npr.org)

Submitted by Tony Isaac
Tony Isaac writes: When it comes to using AI, it seems some lawyers just can't help themselves.

Last year saw a rapid increase in court sanctions against attorneys for filing briefs containing errors generated by artificial intelligence tools. The most prominent case was that of the lawyers for MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, who were fined $3,000 each for filing briefs containing fictitious, AI-generated citations.

But as a cautionary tale, it doesn't seem to have had much effect. The numbers started taking off last year, and the rate is still increasing. He counts a total of more than 1,200 to date, of which about 800 are from U.S. courts.

Submission + - Brazil Builds Free Payment System; US Wonders If That's Allowed (yahoo.com) 1

Submitted by Suripat
Suripat writes: Brazil’s instant payment system, Pix, has quickly changed how people handle money, making transfers free and nearly immediate. It’s become so widely used that cash and even card payments are losing ground. That success is now getting attention abroad, especially in the United States, where officials are looking into whether a government-backed system like Pix gives it an unfair edge over private payment companies. Supporters see it as efficient and accessible, while critics raise questions about competition. As Pix keeps growing, it’s starting to look less like a local innovation and more like something that could challenge established payment systems worldwide.

Submission + - AI is looking like the Sub Prime Crisis. The math ain't mathing. (wheresyoured.at)

Submitted by sandbagger
sandbagger writes: At some point, the incredible, toxic burn rate of generative AI is going to catch up. The data centers aren't being built. The power generation facilities aren't being built. The cost of AI is being given away well below cost. AI is a negative-margin business by any calculus. It's a question of when economic reality collides with empty VC pockets and purses.

Submission + - We are nowhere near AGI (x.com)

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: Humans: 100%
Gemini 3.1 Pro: 0.37%
GPT 5.4: 0.26%
Opus 4.6: 0.25%
Grok-4.20: 0.00%

François Chollet just released ARC-AGI-3 — the hardest AI test ever created.

135 novel game environments. No instructions. No rules. No goals given.

Figure it out or fail.

Untrained humans solved every single one. Every frontier AI model scored below 1%.

Each environment was handcrafted by game designers. The AI gets dropped in and has to explore, discover what winning looks like, and adapt in real time.

The scoring punishes brute force. If a human needs 10 actions and the AI needs 100, the AI doesn't get 10%. It gets 1%. You can't throw more compute at this.

For context: ARC-AGI-1 is basically solved. Gemini scores 98% on it. ARC-AGI-2 went from 3% to 77% in under a year. Labs spent millions training on earlier versions.

ARC-AGI-3 resets the entire scoreboard to near zero.

Abstract and more here.

Submission + - Chromebook Remorse: Tech Backlash at Schools Extends Beyond Phones

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: In addition to student cell phone bans, the New York Times' Natasha Singer reports that some schools are also rethinking the wisdom of always-on-and-available school-issued laptops :

Inge Esping, the principal of McPherson Middle School, has spent years battling digital devices for children’s attention. Four years ago, her school in McPherson, Kan., banned student cellphones during the school day. But digital distractions continued. Many children watched YouTube videos or played video games on their school-issued Chromebook laptops. Some used school Gmail accounts to bully fellow students.

In December, the middle school asked all 480 students to return the Chromebooks they had freely used in class and at home. Now the school keeps the laptops, which run on Google’s Chrome operating system, in carts parked in classrooms. Children take notes mostly by hand, and laptops are used sparingly, for specific activities assigned by teachers. “We just felt we couldn’t have Chromebooks be that huge distraction,” said Ms. Esping, 43, Kansas’ 2025 middle school principal of the year. “This technology can be a tool. It is not the answer to education.”

McPherson Middle School no longer gives students their own Chromebooks to use in school and take home. The laptops are now kept in classroom carts and used only for specific activities assigned by teachers. McPherson Middle School, about an hour’s drive from Wichita, is at the forefront of a new tech backlash spreading in education: Chromebook remorse.

Elsewhere in the Times, an opinion piece by CS prof Cal Newport explains why Johnny — and his parents — can't concentrate and what to do about it.

Submission + - World's smallest QR code, smaller than bacteria, could store data for centuries (sciencedaily.com)

Submitted by alternative_right
alternative_right writes: Scientists have created a microscopic QR code so tiny it can only be seen with an electron microscope—smaller than most bacteria and now officially a world record. But this isn’t just about size; it’s about durability. By engraving data into ultra-stable ceramic materials, the team has opened the door to storing information that could last for centuries or even millennia without needing power or maintenance.

Submission + - Mozilla and Mila team up on open source AI push (nerds.xyz)

Submitted by BrianFagioli
BrianFagioli writes: Mozilla just teamed up with Mila to push open source AI, and it feels like a direct response to Big Tech tightening its grip on the space. Instead of relying on closed models, the goal here is to build AI thatâ(TM)s more transparent, privacy-focused, and actually under the control of developers and even governments. Theyâ(TM)re starting with things like private memory for AI agents, which sounds niche but matters if you care about where your data goes. Big question is whether open source can realistically keep up with the billions being poured into proprietary AI, but at least someoneâ(TM)s trying to give folks an alternative.

Submission + - Tracy Kidder, Author of "The Soul of a New Machine", has died.

Submitted by wiredog
wiredog writes: Tracy Kidder, author of "The Soul of a New Machine" has died at the age of 80.

"The Soul of a New Machine" is about the people who designed and built the Data General Nova, one of the 32 bit superminis that were released in the 1980's, just before the PC destroyed that industry. It was excerpted in The Atlantic.

"I'm going to a commune in Vermont and will deal with no unit of time shorter than a season."

Submission + - Stephen Colbert to Write Next Lord of the Rings Movie (cnn.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Stephen Colbert already has a new job lined up for when he ends his 11-year run as host of “The Late Show” in May – the comedian and well-known J.R.R. Tolkien superfan announced he will co-write and develop a new film in the blockbuster “Lord of the Rings” franchise.

Colbert joined “LOTR” director Peter Jackson to reveal the news in a video announcement.

“I’m pretty happy about it. You know what the books mean to me and what your films mean to me,” the late-night host told Jackson, who led the Oscar-winning team behind the nearly $6 billion original “Lord of the Rings” and “The Hobbit” trilogies.

Submission + - Delivery Robot Drives Through Bus Stop Shelter, Shattering Glass Everywhere (404media.co)

Submitted by joshuark
joshuark writes: A Serve Robotics food delivery robot crashed through the glass wall of a bus stop shelter in Chicago earlier this week, shattering the glass all over the sidewalk.

“We’re aware of the incident involving one of our robots in Chicago. No injuries were reported, our team responded quickly to clean up, and we’re reviewing what happened to make improvements,” the spokesperson said. “We have also been in contact with local stakeholders and are committed to addressing any concerns directly. We take this matter very seriously.”

Serve deployed its robots to Chicago in September under a partnership with Uber Eats. The company operates in a few cities around the country, including in Los Angeles, where activists have been filming the robots in various compromising positions or after they have been knocked over by passersby.

Footage of the aftermath of the crash went viral on social media, with one of the company’s robots shaking shards of glass onto the sidewalk. The crash comes amid a protest against delivery robots in Chicago. Delivery robots have been controversial in Chicago, where at least 3,600 Chicago residents have signed a “No Sidewalk Bots” petition asking the city to ban the robots. The Chicago Department of Transportation did not respond to a request for comment.

Submission + - Chandra resolves why black holes hit the brakes on growth (phys.org)

Submitted by alternative_right
alternative_right writes: Astronomers have an answer for a long-running mystery in astrophysics: why is the growth of supermassive black holes so much lower today than in the past? A study using NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and other X-ray telescopes found that supermassive black holes are unable to consume material as rapidly as they did in the distant past. The results appeared in the December 2025 issue of The Astrophysical Journal.

Submission + - China is mass-producing hypersonic missiles for $99,000 (substack.com) 2

Submitted by cusco
cusco writes: https://kdwalmsley.substack.co...

A private company in China has developed hypersonic missiles, that cost the same as a Tesla Model X. This missile, the YKJ-1000 is being marketed for sale, at a reported price of $99,000, and it’s in mass production now after successful tests. That is far below what countries will spend to target and shoot down the missile if it’s heading their way.

Besides the low cost, they can be launched from anywhere. The launcher looks like any one of the tens of millions of shipping containers floating around on the ocean, or sitting at ports, or riding along on trucks, or sitting on industrial lots. The launchers for these missiles are hiding in plain sight, in other words.

Whatever tactical advantages great-power countries have in ballistics is going away, fast; 1,300 km is 800 miles, and so the range is anything within 800 miles of wherever someone can send a shipping container.

Submission + - The rewilding milestone Earth has already passed (bbc.com)

Submitted by AmiMoJo
AmiMoJo writes: Throughout the 20th Century, humanity demanded more and more land leading to the loss of vast areas of natural forest and grassland. Today, around half the world's land is farmed, used to grow crops or graze animals. However, according to the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), global agricultural land use peaked in the early 2000s and has been slowly falling ever since. Around the world, farmland is being replaced by grasslands, trees and bush. Wild animals are returning to abandoned pasturelands in areas they had once dominated.

Reaching "peak agricultural land" does not mean the problem of deforestation is solved. Growing demand for products like beef, soy, cocoa and palm oil has put increasing pressure on land across South America, South East Asia and Africa. In the last decade, the world lost an area of tropical forest twice the size of Spain. Still, acre-for-acre across the world there has been yet more farmland abandonment, driven by reforestation in Europe and North America and the abandonment of pastures in Australia and Central Asia.

Submission + - Ads Are Popping Up on the Fridge and It Isn't Going Over Well (wsj.com)

Submitted by fjo3
fjo3 writes: Walking into his kitchen, Tim Yoder recoiled at a message on his refrigerator door: “Shop Samsung water filters.”

Yoder, a supply-chain manager in Chicago, owns a Samsung Electronics Family Hub fridge. He paid $1,400 for an appliance that came with a 32-inch screen on the door that allows him to control other Samsung gadgets, pull up recipes or stream music.

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