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Submission + - Jimmy Lai case shows how China is rewriting Hong Kong's history (archive.is)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The judges convicted Lai of colluding with foreigners to boost the pro-democracy movement. Donald Trump’s name is mentioned 195 times in their verdict.

Instead of recognizing their yearning for greater democratic freedoms in Hong Kong or acknowledging flaws in governance, Hong Kong authorities and Beijing have placed blame almost squarely on Lai and his foreign backers.

The Communist Party “has never run across somebody with his combination of money, a media platform, and an unwavering commitment to principles,” said Mark Clifford, the author of “The Troublemaker,” a book on Lai, and a former business associate at Lai’s media company, Next Digital.

Still, Clifford added, Lai is “actually a rather shy and retiring person” who “never had any intentions to lead” a movement.

“It was easier for them to blame one man who was the alleged black hand or puppet master behind the protests than to think seriously about the aspirations of the Hong Kong people,” Clifford said.

Submission + - Texas Charges TV Makers With Consumer Surveillance (newsmax.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: “When families buy a television, they don’t expect it to spy on them. They don’t expect their viewing habits packaged and auctioned to advertisers.”

That allegation, taken directly from Texas’ lawsuit against Hisense, sits at the center of Attorney General Ken Paxton’s legal action against five major television manufacturers accused of secretly monitoring consumers inside their homes.

Paxton has sued Sony, Samsung, LG, Hisense, and TCL Technology Group Corporation, alleging the companies unlawfully collected and sold consumer viewing data from Texans through Automated Content Recognition technology, known as ACR.

Comment AI Requirement is Via a Google Partnership (Score 2) 26

by theodp (#65857997) Attached to: Purdue University Approves New AI Requirement For All Undergrads

From the AI@Purdue page: "Beginning in fall of 2026, we will implement an AI working competency graduation requirement through an expanded partnership with Google."
 
Prior to its approval by the Purdue Board of Trustees, Purdue President Mung Chiang and CEO of Google Public Sector Karen Dahut announced plans to introduce the new working AI competency graduation requirement in mid-November at the 2025 Google-Purdue AI Summit.
 
At a Sept. 2025 White House meeting, Google CEO Sundar Pichai committed $3 million to Code.org, the tech-backed nonprofit that is working towards a goal of requiring "all students to earn credit for an AI and CS course for high school graduation."

Comment Section 230 repealed hands the internet to the CCP (Score 1) 164

The lawyers will destroy social media platforms without section 230. Chinese platforms will tell lawyers to FO.

Section 230 needs tweaking. Any platform that alters or removes postings that are 1st amendment compliant should be deemed a publisher. Adding context or community notes is not an alteration.

Submission + - Tech Giant-Supported Study Chastises K-12 Schools for Lack of AI + CS Education

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: Coinciding with Computer Science Education Week and its flagship event the Hour of AI, tech-backed nonprofit Code.org this week released the 2025 State of AI & Computer Science Education report, chastising K-12 schools for the lack of access to AI and CS education and thanking its funders Microsoft, Amazon, and Google for supporting the report's creation.

"For the first time ever," Code.org explains, "the State of AI + CS Education features a state-by-state analysis of AI education policies, including whether standards and graduation requirements emphasize AI. The report continues to track the CS access, participation, and fundamental policies that have made it a trusted benchmark for policymakers, educators, and advocates."

The report laments that "0 out of 50 states require AI+CS for graduation," adding that "access to CS has plateaued" at 60% nationwide, with Minnesota and Alaska bringing up the rear with a woeful 34%. However, flaws with the statistic on which the K-12 CS education crisis movement was built — the "Percentage of Public High Schools Offering Foundational Computer Science" — become apparent with just a casual glance at the data underlying Minnesota's failing 34% grade. Because that metric neglects to take into account school sizes — which of course vary widely — the percentage of schools offering access to CS can be vastly different than the percentage of students attending schools offering access to CS. So, when Code.org reports that only 33% of the three Prior Lake-Savage Area Schools offer access to CS, keep in mind that left unreported is that more than 95% of students in the district attend the one Prior Lake-Savage Area School that does offer access to CS, which is a far less alarming metric. Code.org reports that Prior Lake High School (2,854 students, per NCES records) offers access to CS, while Prior Lake-Savage Area ALC (93 students) and Laker Online (45 students) do not. And that, kids, is today's lesson in K-12 CS education access crisis math, where 95% (2,854 students/2,992 students) can equal 33% (1 school/3 schools)!

Submission + - Startup discovers hidden abundant, clean energy and did it in an unusual way (cnn.com)

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: It’s a “classic needle in the haystack problem,” said Joel Edwards, co-founder and CTO of Zanskar. “There’s no one type of data that tells you that a system is below you, even if you’re right on top of it.” Instead, there are multiple indicators which are really hard for humans to put together to figure out if a system exists.

That’s where AI comes in.

The AI models Zanskar uses are fed information on where blind systems already exist. This data is plentiful as, over the last century and more, humans have accidentally stumbled on many around the world while drilling for other resources such as oil and gas.

The models then scour huge amounts of data — everything from rock composition to magnetic fields — to find patterns that point to the existence of geothermal reserves. AI models have “gotten really good over the last 10 years at being able to pull those types of signals out of noise,” Hoiland said.

Once a potential location has been found, the next step for the company is to drill down to confirm the reserve exists and is hot enough to produce utility-scale power.

That’s exactly what they did at Big Blind over the summer, drilling wells to depths of around 2,700 feet where they found porous rock at 250 degrees Fahrenheit. They know the site is at least the minimum size needed to support a power plant, but don’t yet have a sense of how big it could be.

There is also work to be done to navigate permitting processes and grid interconnection, but the company estimates the first electricity could be produced here in three to five years’ time.

Submission + - Young Journalists Drone, Expose Russian Ships Off Dutch-German Coasts (digitaldigging.org)

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: Seven German journalism students, as a continuation of their OSINT course project, tracked the movements of ships with Russian crews off the coasts of the Netherlands and Germany and linked them to swarms of drones appearing over European military airfields and other strategic sites.

The guys not only analyzed thousands of data points, but also used leaked documents, established connections with sources in European agencies, and drove 2,500 km across three countries chasing one of the ships – even launching their own drone to fly over it.

At the end of the article, there’s precise data on the vessels, so you can follow them yourself.

Comment Aussie teens already defeating the block (Score 4, Interesting) 54

https://archive.is/tRHTj
Teenagers in Australia are cheating the government’s world-first social media ban and openly mocking the Prime Minister on banned platforms.

Young people told The Telegraph how they were getting past the new age-verification technology by frowning at the camera. Others told Anthony Albanese to “f--- off” after accessing sites such as Instagram and Snapchat, which the new law has banned for those under the age of 16.

The group of self-styled “social media survivors” had skirted the ban within minutes of it being introduced on Wednesday, raising concerns that the policy is not fit for purpose.

Submission + - Japan renders current conventional submarines obsolete (x.com)

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: With the Taigei class and its lithium-ion batteries, Tokyo already set a new benchmark: up to three weeks submerged without ever raising a snorkel. That, however, was merely the opening act.

Today, Toyota and Panasonic are leading the global race in solid-state batteries, with prototypes arriving in 2027–2028, mass production after 2030, and Japan’s next submarine class will be the first to use them, either in pure battery form or as a hybrid with a small reactor for onboard recharging. This hybrid would be similar to what the Chinese are developing.

The leap is staggering. A 4,000 ton conventional submarine will patrol for 40 to 60 days without surfacing, sprint well above 20 knots for hours on end, and do it all more quietly than many nuclear subs, thanks to being significantly lighter and running solely on battery power.

Solid-state cells weigh roughly one-third as much, generate 40% less heat, and eliminate half the cooling systems. The result is a faster, stealthier hull that can travel thousands of kilometers without ever breaking the surface.

Those hundreds of saved tons translate directly into more powerful electric motors, extra torpedoes and missiles, cutting-edge sensors, or greater crew comfort. The same hull now carries twice the energy or twice the weapons.

It appears there are also plans to equip the system with Mitsubishi Heavy Industries’ micro nuclear reactor. Its design has no moving parts, which gives it excellent quietness. It’s essentially like a battery that can run for 20 years.

Submission + - Sperm donor with cancer-causing gene fathered nearly 200 children across Europe (cbsnews.com)

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: A joint investigation by 14 European public service broadcasters has exposed a major scandal in the fertility industry: an anonymous Dutch sperm donor, who carried a mutated TP53 gene linked to Li-Fraumeni syndrome (LFS)—a rare condition conferring a 90% lifetime cancer risk, often striking in childhood—fathered nearly 200 children through the European Sperm Bank since 2005. Unbeknownst to the donor, a former student who passed initial screenings, the mutation affected up to 20% of his sperm, which was distributed to 67 clinics across 14 countries without adequate international oversight.

The revelation, uncovered via the European Society of Human Genetics conference where doctors flagged unusual cancer clusters in donor-conceived children, highlights systemic failures. National regulations, such as Belgium's limit of 6-12 children per donor (or 25 in the UK), were routinely violated, with one donor exceeding caps by over 10-fold. Of 67 genetically traced offspring, 23 inherited the mutation; 10 have developed cancers, including multiple tumors in some, and several died young. "We have some children that have developed already two different cancers and some of them have already died at a very early age," said cancer geneticist Edwige Kasper.

Geneticists Clare Turnbull and Edwige Kasper described LFS as a "dreadful diagnosis," imposing lifelong surveillance and emotional strain on families. The European Sperm Bank acknowledged the breach but noted no shipments to the U.S., though it operates in Canada and Mexico. No global regulatory framework exists to prevent recurrence, raising urgent calls for reform. Additional cases may surface as more children are tested, underscoring the ethical perils of unregulated sperm donation.

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