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Submission + - Mushroom Behind 'Tiny Human' Visions Lacks Genes For Known Psychedelics (sciencealert.com)

Submitted by alternative_right
alternative_right writes: When eaten undercooked, the mushroom can produce vivid visions of miniature people â" not unlike Gulliver on his travels to Lilliput.

"Biosynthetic gene mining of the L. asiatica genome found no close hits with any genes known in the production of mushroom psychoactive compounds," write the researchers in their published paper.

"This supports our hypothesis of the presence of a novel unidentified metabolite responsible for the unique hallucinogenic properties of L. asiatica."

Submission + - China Reclaims Fastest Supercomputer at 2 Exaflops (top500.org)

Submitted by hackingbear
hackingbear writes: The 67th edition of the TOP500 list of the world’s most powerful supercomputers was announced today at the ISC 2026 conference in Hamburg, Germany. LineShine, a previously unlisted system installed in China, debuts at No. 1, displacing El Capitan as the world’s most powerful supercomputer as measured by the High Performance Linpack (HPL) benchmark. LineShine achieved 2.198 Exaflop/s on HPL — about 80 percent of its 2.736 Exaflop/s theoretical peak — making it the first system on the TOP500 to exceed two exaflops of sustained double-precision performance using CPUs only. Installed at the National Supercomputing Centre in Shenzhen (NSCS) and built by the Shenzhen Cloud Computing Center, the system is based on a custom Chinese processor and the “LingKun” platform: 13.79 million cores across 304-core LX2 processors running at 1.55 GHz, linked by the proprietary LingQi interconnect and running Kylin OS. LineShine draws approximately 42.2 megawatts of power, for an efficiency of 52.07 Gigaflops/Watt. Its debut marks the first time since 2017 that a Chinese system has led the TOP500, and it also takes over the No. 1 position on the HPCG ranking with 22.00 HPCG-Petaflop/s. On the HPL-MxP mixed-precision benchmark, LineShine reached 7.92 Exaflop/s for fourth place, a comparatively modest 3.6x speedup over its HPL score that points to a CPU-only design without dedicated low-precision accelerators.

Submission + - Mark Zuckerberg Directed Meta to Create a Prediction Markets App (nytimes.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Mr. Zuckerberg, the chief executive of Meta, recently dispatched a small team at his company to create a smartphone app similar to Polymarket and Kalshi, two employees with knowledge of the matter said. Users would not wager money, and the app would probably rely on a video game-like points system instead, one person said, though the company had not ruled out the eventual use of real money betting. The app is internally referred to as “Arena” and would function independently from Meta’s social networking apps, which include Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger, said the employees, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss confidential plans. Meta aims to grow the app by leveraging its large social networking audiences and directing them toward using it, they said.

The effort, which insiders characterized as experimental but a top priority, is part of a broader push by Mr. Zuckerberg to create new types of apps based on emerging social behavior online. More than 3.56 billion people visit one or more of Meta’s apps every day, an amount that has raised questions about whether those platforms have reached a saturation point. Arena is one of a handful of apps that Meta is trying out. Others include one called Meta Photos, another stand-alone app which would create new types of media using artificial intelligence, the employees said. [...] Meta insiders have cautioned that Arena remains in development and may not be released. But as executives search for ways to keep the world’s largest social media sites thriving, Mr. Zuckerberg appears to be relying on his well-worn product development strategy: Follow the users.

Submission + - Europe: The World's Fastest-warming Continent (barrons.com)

Submitted by fjo3
fjo3 writes: The latest heatwave sweeping across Europe is a stark reminder that it is the world's fastest-warming continent, stretching into an Arctic that is heating at an even greater pace.

Britain, France, Italy and Spain have issued red alerts and health warnings for much of their territory this week as the region endures its second heat episode since May.

Submission + - A 25-Year-Old Blog Looks Back at 40 Years of Computing (markround.com)

Submitted by Mark Round
Mark Round writes: Longtime reader here (since mid-1999 — Hot Grits! Oog the Caveman! Beowulf clusters!), and I can still remember posting back on Slashdot's own 5th anniversary. Time's rolled on: my own blog just turned 25, and it's now roughly 40 years since I first sat down at a computer. So I went digging through archive.org, old backups and a box of ZIP disks, and wrote up a long look back at four decades of computing through the one website that's been my online home along the way.

It runs from my first 8-bit micro and a 1,200-baud modem, through discovering the actual Internet at university (and burning far too many hours on Slashdot and sister sites like freshmeat.net), past gloriously pimped-out Enlightenment Linux desktops, all the way to the modern cloud-native world. Plenty of dodgy screenshots, terrible code, and fond memories of long-gone haunts like kuro5hin.org and Linux Coffee Talk along the way.

Submission + - UK Considers Forcing Social Media Firms To Prioritize Trusted News (reuters.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Britain is considering forcing social media companies to prioritize what the government called trusted news sources as part of its broader push to tighten regulation of the sector. The culture department said on Monday it was considering requiring platforms such as Meta's Facebook, Alphabet-owned YouTube and TikTok to make content from public service media — including the BBC, ITV and Channel 4 — and other trusted news providers easier to find in users' feeds and searches.

Boosting the visibility of regulated news providers could help tackle misinformation, particularly during crises, the government said. However, any move to influence how platforms rank content is likely to face scrutiny from the social media firms, which say such rules could override user choice and disadvantage other creators. The proposals form part of a broader overhaul of Britain's public service media system to help broadcasters compete with streaming platforms and shifting viewing habits. Ministers are also considering widening public service media status to include online-only providers, extending free-to-air protections for major sporting events to on-demand viewing, and consulting on a shift to internet-based TV from 2034 or 2044.

Submission + - GM Installs Robots At Flagship EV Factory After Laying Off 1,300 Workers (arstechnica.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Dozens of new robot arms have been installed at General Motors’ flagship electric vehicle factory in Detroit—even as 1,300 workers remain out of work following what was supposed to be a temporary layoff. The latest automation push has spurred union pushback over a potentially existential issue for automakers and their workers. General Motors installed approximately 50 robot arms at GM’s Factory Zero plant in Detroit, Michigan, according to reporting by Crain’s Detroit Business. Made by the Japanese robotics company FANUC, the robots are designed to help attach various components to vehicles during the assembly line process. But leaders at United Auto Workers (UAW), the primary US union for autoworkers, reacted with anger to the new robotic presence, given how GM has not yet called back any of the workers affected by supposedly temporary layoffs in March.

More than 1,000 union members are still “laid off indefinitely,” James Cotton, president of UAW Local 22, told The Detroit News. He said that the company could bring some of those members back to work instead of installing the 50 robots. The temporary layoffs were preceded by permanent layoffs involving another 1,200 workers at GM’s Factory Zero in October 2025. Many automakers, including Stellantis NV and Ford Motor Company, have deployed assembly-line robots, such as Fanuc robot arms, as they push to automate more of their US operations. Hyundai Motor Company plans to deploy Atlas humanoid robots made by Boston Dynamics—which Hyundai acquired in 2020—to start working in the automaker’s flagship EV facility in Georgia by 2028.

Submission + - Samsung says its new UFS 5.0 storage will make AI phones faster (nerds.xyz)

Submitted by BrianFagioli
BrianFagioli writes: Samsung has announced UFS 5.0, a new mobile storage standard that it says delivers sequential read speeds of up to 10.8GB/s and write speeds of up to 9.5GB/s. According to the company, the new storage solution is designed to support increasingly demanding on-device AI workloads, where smartphones and other portable devices process large language models locally rather than relying entirely on cloud services.

Samsung also says UFS 5.0 improves power efficiency by more than 40 percent compared to its previous UFS 4.1 solution while reducing the physical package size by 16.7 percent. The company believes the faster, more efficient storage will help future smartphones, wearables, and XR devices deliver quicker AI responses and lower latency.

Mass production is scheduled to begin in the fourth quarter, with capacities reaching up to 1TB.

Submission + - How a Seemingly Harmless Image Can Jailbreak AI (nerds.xyz)

Submitted by BrianFagioli
BrianFagioli writes: Florida International University researchers have developed a technique called JaiLIP (Jailbreaking with Loss-guided Image Perturbation) that uses subtle image modifications to bypass AI safety guardrails. Unlike traditional jailbreaks that rely on carefully crafted prompts, the attack works through images that appear normal to human viewers.

The researchers tested the technique against BLIP-2, a multimodal AI model, and found that manipulated images significantly increased the likelihood of harmful responses. According to the study, the approach outperformed previous image-based jailbreak methods and nearly doubled the number of unsafe outputs generated during testing.

The findings highlight a potential security risk for businesses deploying AI systems that process both images and text. While most discussions about AI safety focus on prompts, the research suggests that seemingly harmless images may also serve as an attack vector.

Submission + - AI lawyer enables freelancer to win in court (theguardian.com)

Submitted by Bruce66423
Bruce66423 writes: An artificial intelligence law firm has won a case in an English court, in what is believed to be the first time a trial has been won using an AI lawyer.

A freelance HR consultant, Tamires Camal Taquidir, paid the firm, called Garfield AI, about £400 to send a legal letter and then issue court proceedings over an unpaid debt of £7,000.

Submission + - SPCX Stock Slides Overnight (yahoo.com)

Submitted by fjo3
fjo3 writes: Shares of SpaceX slid 4% in overnight trading late Sunday after global financial services firm MSCI Inc. assigned the company its lowest ESG rating, placing it among the weakest-rated firms in its coverage universe and prompting a familiar rebuttal from CEO Elon Musk.

SPCX stock fell for a second consecutive session on Thursday after surging to more than 65% above its IPO price during its first week of trading. Investors are also weighing reports that SpaceX is considering a $20 billion bond sale to help fund its rapidly expanding AI and space businesses.

Submission + - Helion says the 1st fusion power plant is coming soon. A cofounder isn't so sure (scientificamerican.com)

Submitted by tedlistens
tedlistens writes: The startup backed by Sam Altman recently raised $465 million, tripling it's valuation as it races to build what it says will be the world's first fusion power plant, supplying Microsoft with carbon-free electricity in 2028.

But one of its founders—the plasma scientist whose research inspired its reactor design—has serious doubts.

Submission + - Russian Satellites Cosmos 2546 Have Been Jamming GPS Signals Across Europe (arstechnica.com)

Submitted by tomatocat
tomatocat writes: In 2024, Dana A. Goward, founder of the Resilient Navigation and Timing Foundation, received a call from an anonymous British researcher, He said that interference from space was more than a possibility — he had observed it. Examining data from terrestrial reference stations operated by the International Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) Service, he had noticed instances in which GPS signal strength had decreased markedly. In each case it was for less than ten seconds, but the events had been recorded by stations across a very broad section of northern Europe. The researcher consented to the Foundation sharing these findings. Todd Humphreys of the University of Texas at Austin and his student Zach Clements analyzed ground station data spanning from January 2019 to April 2026; they identified 75 days with at least one widespread GNSS interference event. The paper mentioned (PDF), "The interference peak is centered at 1577.5 MHz, about 2 MHz above the GPS L1 center frequency of 1575.42 MHz. In addition to tracked GPS L1 C/A signals, tracked Galileo E1 and BeiDou B1C/B1A signals also exhibited a concurrent drop in CNR during interference events." Humphreys and his colleagues calculated that the source had to be at least 1,200 kilometers above the Earth, But they couldn’t go further. Later, Humphreys received an email stating that radio stations in Amsterdam, Netherlands, and Trondheim, Norway, had captured raw interference signal data on February 11, 2026. By examining the difference in timing when that signal arrived at the two different stations, Humphreys and Clements calculated a “quasi-hyperboloid surface”, stretching tens of thousands of kilometers into space where the interference satellite must have been located. The margin of error represented by the thickness of that surface was only five meters. A comparison of suspect satellite orbits with the quasi-hyperboloid surface showed that only one satellite’s orbit aligned perfectly—the Russian satellite Cosmos 2546, which are designed to provide early warnings when they detect ballistic missile launches. The research paper is published at https://arxiv.org/abs/2606.03673. This discovery has raised concerns regarding Russian electronic warfare capabilities. An EU spokesperson told The New York Times that the EU has launched an investigation into these incidents but that the results remain classified, while The press office for the Russian Embassy in Washington, D.C. said they don't have a comment on that.

Submission + - College Board Announces AI-Focused AP CS Principles Course Redesign for 2027-28

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: Two days after tech-backed nonprofit Code.org completed "switching hats" from coding to AI with its announced rebranding as CodeAI, the College Board followed suit, announcing plans to 'modernize' the high school AP Computer Science Principles curriculum with AI. From the College Board's "Dear Colleague" letter announcement:

"We’re writing to share some exciting news about the design of AP Computer Science Principles (CSP) for the 2027-28 school year," begins a June 4th College Board announcement to educators. "Given the rapidly evolving technology landscape and especially the rise of artificial intelligence (AI), the AP Program will redesign the course and exam to meet the moment. Through the redesign, students will have an opportunity to learn about AI concepts and apply them immediately, while still maintaining a focus on the fundamentals of coding."

"This redesign will: 1. Modernize AP CSP with AI while maintaining its core structure. The AP Program has partnered with key organizations to identify high-priority AI skills and concepts and embed AI throughout the course sequence. 2. Update the existing project and add a second project. Students will learn AI concepts, practice AI tools, and demonstrate their understanding in a culminating AI Design Project. This new project will be offered alongside a revised and updated Code Create Project. 3. Enhance the exam with questions on AI. The AP CSP Exam will also change to include exam questions that assess understanding of AI, as well as the new AI Design Project, which provides an opportunity for students to creatively demonstrate their understanding of AI logic."

"This redesign ensures that all students develop foundational AI skills aligned to how computing is evolving. The result is a course that is more career-relevant and better aligned to the future of computer science, equipping students with the skills they need to be ahead of the curve. These changes won’t affect the 2026-27 school year. The redesigned course framework will be available in fall 2026."

Submission + - Linear A Minoan script maybe deciphered by linguistics researcher with AI help (aiclambake.com) 1

Submitted by Aristos Mazer
Aristos Mazer writes: A researcher claims to have deciphered the millennia-old Linear A script. After studying for 7 years, Tom Di Mino had an insight about the structure of one sample of Linear A that lead Tom to compare it against an ancestor of Hebrew. Tom created an AI analysis that yielded full translations of Linear A, and correlated against the known Linear B for verification.

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