Comment How do you ban it? (Score 1) 57
Maybe in the classroom, but beyond that
Submission + - New York regulator orders X Money to STOP paying 6% interest to New Yorkers (x.com)
An anonymous reader writes: The Department of Financial Services told X Payments LLC it cannot pay interest on stored-value accounts for New York customers, effective October 1, 2026, affecting balances at partner banks. X is offering a $300 direct deposit bonus to eligible users who keep up activity, while working to resolve the issue. The move has drawn criticism online, with some seeing it as protection for traditional banks or politically driven, amid X's push into financial services without a New York money transmitter license.
Submission + - 'Supercharged' Greening in African Savannah: CO2 Brings Boost to Grass Growth (dailysceptic.org)
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.
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 + - Gov. DeSantis bans Flock cameras from state highways (www.wctv.tv)
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.
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.
Comment The 2nd booster landed miles away (Score 2) 27
One side booster (B1072-3) landed at Landing Zone 2 (LZ-2)
The other side booster (B1104-1) landed at Landing Zone 40 (LZ-40)
These two pads are several miles apart, so the classic close dual landing (the dramatic “twin touchdown” view from past missions) didn’t happen.
Why the change?
In the past, SpaceX almost always recovered both side boosters at the adjacent pads LZ-1 and LZ-2 (at the old Launch Complex 13 area).
LZ-1 has since been retired (its last landing was in 2025), and SpaceX built a new landing pad called LZ-40 right next to their main Falcon 9 launch site (SLC-40).
Comment Space Medal for a space Uber ride? (Score 1) 137
This only cheapens the medal.
There was little significant risk. Nothing like Shepherd, Glenn(Atlas was unreliable), Armstrong & Aldrin or Young & Crippen.
Submission + - President Trump signs order to create US Space Academy (space.com) 1
An anonymous reader writes:
President Donald Trump today signed an executive order creating the U.S. Space Academy, an institution of higher learning that will train students for a career studying, exploring, exploiting or helping to protect the final frontier.
"It'll serve both the United States Space Force as well as NASA and the civilian spaceflight industry, and it'll attract, train and graduate the very very best of our nation," Trump said today during a ceremony at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, at which he awarded the Artemis II moon astronauts the nation's highest space honor.
Within the next 120 days, the commission will submit a report "with recommendations on governance framework, service obligations for graduates, physical location of the academy, legislative requirements and more," NASA officials wrote in today's statement.
It's a shame the name Starfleet Academy is sullied.
Submission + - China is secretly fueling America's data center rage (axios.com)
alternative_right writes: The X Safety team probed suspected Chinese accounts involved in influence operations and identified 200,000 accounts, including 200 accounts "posting in a manner that could manipulate a legitimate debate about American AI and energy policy," the team said in a tweet.
The posts included content on how AI strains the electricity grid and increases utility prices and "cartoons that depicted data-center operators enriching themselves at the public's expense."
It's unclear what, if any, action X will take to suspend or delete accounts from the bot farm.
X, owned by Elon Musk, whose billions rely on data centers to boost his AI enterprises, did not respond to Axios' request for comment.
The posts included content on how AI strains the electricity grid and increases utility prices and "cartoons that depicted data-center operators enriching themselves at the public's expense."
It's unclear what, if any, action X will take to suspend or delete accounts from the bot farm.
X, owned by Elon Musk, whose billions rely on data centers to boost his AI enterprises, did not respond to Axios' request for comment.
Submission + - The world's busiest spaceport is about to get a lot quieter, at least for now (arstechnica.com)
schwit1 writes:
A Falcon 9 launch early Tuesday was the last planned Starlink mission from Cape Canaveral until SpaceX begins flying Starship missions from Florida, according to Kiko Dontchev, the company’s vice president of launch. For at least the rest of the year, and maybe longer, this means the launch rate at the Florida spaceport will drop from eight or nine per month to perhaps two per month.
It wasn’t long ago when two launches per month was the norm, an indication of just how quickly SpaceX’s launch cadence has grown. Cape Canaveral and Kennedy Space Center sit on adjoining property and share the same range on Florida’s east coast, so it is worth considering them a single spaceport. The last time the Florida spaceport did not lead the world in space launches was in 2015.
“From here on, Starlink missions out of Florida will fly on Starship,” Dontchev wrote on X. “The West Coast team will continue regularly launching Starlink from Vandenberg.”
Yep, that'll be louder — but everybody knows the real action will be in Louisiana, starting in 2029 or so.
Musk’s other unstated reasons for shutting down Falcon 9 in Florida.
Submission + - Q-CTRL Achieves First GPS-Free Quantum Gravimetric Maritime Navigation Demo (q-ctrl.com)
schwit1 writes: Ironstone Opal maintained 1 NM positioning accuracy over the mission duration and surpassed navigation-grade GNSS backups by more than 10 times.
Comment Until they get a national security letter (Score 1) 63
and a gag order.
Ring is no better than Flock. Expect Ring to soon support ALPR and facial recognition, it's inevitable.
Comment 'Urges', with critical infrastructure? (Score 2) 76
This is critical effiing infrastructure, not vending machines.
Critical infrastructure should be constantly red-teamed by CISA, DOD, NSA should and DHS. If you're not passing with flying colors there should be massive fines.
CISA should park in their pocket until this gets fixed.
Submission + - China's Moonshot in talks with Microsoft, Amazon, Google over K3 revenue sharing (reuters.com)
schwit1 writes: China's Moonshot AI is negotiating revenue-sharing agreements with Microsoft, Amazon, and Alphabet's Google, that would allow the U.S. cloud giants to host its blockbuster Kimi K3 model, three people familiar with the talks said.
Any deal could mark the first big revenue-sharing pact between a Chinese AI firm and a major U.S. cloud company.
The discussions highlight how China's leading AI models, often far cheaper than Western offerings, are gaining traction in the U.S., despite national security concerns in Washington that have led to bans on exports of AI chips to China. They are also taking place despite critical comments about Moonshot from senior U.S. officials.
IPO-bound Moonshot is seeking up to a 30% share of revenue generated from K3-related services on Microsoft's Azure, Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud, according to the sources who declined to be identified because the discussions are private.
That would be in line with terms that sources have said the startup has outlined for major customers using the open-weight model.
Moonshot has come under fire from U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent who said last month that he might add it to a trade blacklist. U.S. officials have accused the Beijing-based company of stealing from Anthropic's most sophisticated model, Fable, to help create Kimi K3 and illegally acquiring Nvidia chips.
Founded in 2023 by Carnegie Mellon-trained AI researcher Yang Zhilin, Moonshot is backed by several Chinese tech giants including cloud computing giant Alibaba.
Any deal could mark the first big revenue-sharing pact between a Chinese AI firm and a major U.S. cloud company.
The discussions highlight how China's leading AI models, often far cheaper than Western offerings, are gaining traction in the U.S., despite national security concerns in Washington that have led to bans on exports of AI chips to China. They are also taking place despite critical comments about Moonshot from senior U.S. officials.
IPO-bound Moonshot is seeking up to a 30% share of revenue generated from K3-related services on Microsoft's Azure, Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud, according to the sources who declined to be identified because the discussions are private.
That would be in line with terms that sources have said the startup has outlined for major customers using the open-weight model.
Moonshot has come under fire from U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent who said last month that he might add it to a trade blacklist. U.S. officials have accused the Beijing-based company of stealing from Anthropic's most sophisticated model, Fable, to help create Kimi K3 and illegally acquiring Nvidia chips.
Founded in 2023 by Carnegie Mellon-trained AI researcher Yang Zhilin, Moonshot is backed by several Chinese tech giants including cloud computing giant Alibaba.
Submission + - Google plans to stop making Pixel products in China in 2027 (archive.is)
An anonymous reader writes: The news broke only after Google quietly passed word to suppliers. The company has made no public announcement and ignored a request for comment.
Vietnam first got a piece of Pixel production in 2019, but the real engineering — how new models get designed for mass production, down to the testing gear and tooling — stayed in China. The Pixel 11 was the first time Google moved all of that work to Vietnam, too. That was the hard part.
Pulling that off proved the concept. Google did not need to build from scratch, either; Samsung's massive investment in Vietnam had already drawn component suppliers to the country, and if Vietnam can handle a flagship smartphone, earbuds and watches are no problem.
Google also has far less to lose in China than Apple does. Pixel phones aren't sold there, so Beijing can't threaten Google's customer base the way it can Apple's. Apple is tangled up with Chinese consumers and Chinese factories at the same time; Google can cut the manufacturing cord without sacrificing a single sale.
China still accounts for a significant share of Pixel production today. Once those lines are gone, Beijing loses whatever leverage it currently holds over Google's hardware. That's not a small thing; the ability to slow, disrupt, or pressure a company through its own factories is a tool authoritarian governments have used before.
Vietnam first got a piece of Pixel production in 2019, but the real engineering — how new models get designed for mass production, down to the testing gear and tooling — stayed in China. The Pixel 11 was the first time Google moved all of that work to Vietnam, too. That was the hard part.
Pulling that off proved the concept. Google did not need to build from scratch, either; Samsung's massive investment in Vietnam had already drawn component suppliers to the country, and if Vietnam can handle a flagship smartphone, earbuds and watches are no problem.
Google also has far less to lose in China than Apple does. Pixel phones aren't sold there, so Beijing can't threaten Google's customer base the way it can Apple's. Apple is tangled up with Chinese consumers and Chinese factories at the same time; Google can cut the manufacturing cord without sacrificing a single sale.
China still accounts for a significant share of Pixel production today. Once those lines are gone, Beijing loses whatever leverage it currently holds over Google's hardware. That's not a small thing; the ability to slow, disrupt, or pressure a company through its own factories is a tool authoritarian governments have used before.
Submission + - Alibaba secretly hijacking computer audio system (ppc.land)
An anonymous reader writes: A developer using Bluetooth headphones accidentally caught Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba secretly hijacking his computer's audio system without making a single sound.
When his wireless headphones refused to switch audio to his phone while browsing AliExpress, he inspected the site's hidden code. He discovered background scripts holding his computer's audio pipeline wide open.
Alibaba was using the browser's WebAudio API to run invisible sound waves at zero volume. By measuring tiny hardware differences in how each computer processes those signals, the site created a unique digital fingerprint to track devices.
Because the secret audio path stayed active, it froze his Bluetooth connection while quietly scraping hardware memory, screen dimensions, and network data in the background.
https://x.com/Unveiled_ChinaX/...
When his wireless headphones refused to switch audio to his phone while browsing AliExpress, he inspected the site's hidden code. He discovered background scripts holding his computer's audio pipeline wide open.
Alibaba was using the browser's WebAudio API to run invisible sound waves at zero volume. By measuring tiny hardware differences in how each computer processes those signals, the site created a unique digital fingerprint to track devices.
Because the secret audio path stayed active, it froze his Bluetooth connection while quietly scraping hardware memory, screen dimensions, and network data in the background.
https://x.com/Unveiled_ChinaX/...
