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Submission + - What LLMs Know About Their Users (schneier.com)

Submitted by sinij
sinij writes: Schneier writes on his blog:

That's an extraordinary amount of information, organized in human understandable ways. Yes, it will occasionally get things wrong, but LLMs are going to open a whole new world of intimate surveillance.

This is worse than any mass surveillance that we have seen prior to LLMs.

Submission + - German Police Launch Nationwide House Raids Against 170 Citizens Over Insults (amren.com) 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Germany now routinely has these “days of action” against citizens who commit “violations” against new and more draconian speech laws in Germany. In some cases, a national scandal has erupted when the details of the cases became public, such as the case of a pensioner, Stefan Niehoff, having his house raided over calling former Economic Minister Robert Habeck an “idiot.”

Submission + - Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac Ordered To Consider Crypto As an Asset (apnews.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The head of the federal government agency that oversees Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac wants the mortgage giants to consider accepting a homebuyer’s cryptocurrency holdings in their criteria for buying mortgages from banks. William Pulte, director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, which oversees Fannie and Freddie, ordered the agencies Wednesday to prepare a proposal for consideration of crypto as an asset for reserves when they assess risks in single-family home loans.

Pulte also instructed the agencies that their mortgage risk assessments should not require cryptocurrency assets to be converted to U.S. dollars. And only crypto assets that “can be evidenced and stored on a U.S.-regulated centralized exchange subject to all applicable laws” are to be considered by the agencies in their proposal, Pulte wrote in a written order, effective immediately. Pulte was sworn in as the head of FHFA in March. Public records show that as of January 2025, Pulte’s spouse owned between $500,000 and $1 million of bitcoin and a similar amount of Solana’s SOL token. [...]

The policy change is meant to encourage banks to expand how they gauge borrowers’ creditworthiness, in hopes that more aspiring homebuyers can qualify for a home loan. It also recognizes that cryptocurrencies have grown in popularity as an alternative to traditional investments, such as bonds and stocks. The agencies have to come up with their proposals “as soon as reasonably practical,” according to the order.

Submission + - The Trump Phone no longer promises it's made in America (theverge.com)

Submitted by ArchieBunker
ArchieBunker writes: When the Trump Organization launched the Trump Mobile wireless carrier, it also launched a flagship phone called the T1 Phone 8002 (gold version). One of the phone’s main selling points was that it was to be made in America. We figured that was unlikely to be true. And we were right: sometime in the last several days, the Trump Mobile site appears to have been scrubbed of all language indicating the phone is to be made in the USA. (Like, for instance, the huge banner on the homepage that says the T1 is “MADE IN THE USA.” Just to name one example.)

Instead, the Trump Mobile website now includes what can only be described as vague, pro-American gestures in the direction of smartphone manufacturing. The T1’s new tagline is “Premium Performance. Proudly American.” Its website says the device is “designed with American values in mind” and there are “American hands behind every device.” Under Key Features, the first thing listed is “American-Proud Design.” None of this indicates, well, anything. It certainly doesn’t say the device is made in the USA, or even designed in the USA. There are just some hands. In America.

That’s not the only thing that appears to have changed about the phone since its launch last week. It was originally advertised to have a 6.78-inch AMOLED screen, but now the T1’s site says it’s 6.25 inches. The site used to list the phone as having 12GB of RAM, and now doesn’t list RAM at all. It’s not entirely clear what’s happening here — the Trump Organization hasn’t responded to a request for comment — but it looks like Trump Mobile may have switched suppliers for the T1. Whatever’s going on, it’s certainly another reason to doubt whether this phone is for real. (The badly photoshopped image of the phone hasn’t changed, though, so that’s something.)

When Trump Mobile first launched, it was also promising the T1 Phone 8002 would ship in September. Now, the only timing I could find was “later this year.” Probably best not to hold your breath.

Submission + - University of Phoenix reveals surprising truth about the future of IT careers (nerds.xyz)

Submitted by BrianFagioli
BrianFagioli writes: A new white paper from the University of Phoenix dives deep into what the future of IT might actually look like, and it is based on real insights from the people working in the field. Titled The Future of IT: What IT Practitioners Predict Will Drive Career Opportunities and written by Dr. J.L. Graff, the report pulls from a 2025 survey of technology professionals. What it uncovers is a mix of optimism and pressure, where opportunity is high but the pace of change is leaving many workers struggling to keep up.

The good news is that most IT professionals still believe in the value of their field. According to the survey, 86 percent are optimistic about the future of information technology. More than half say they are very optimistic. But that confidence drops when it comes to keeping up with fast-moving trends. Nearly two out of three say they are not fully confident they will be able to keep up over the next five years.

Submission + - Swarms of Tiny Nose Robots Could Clear Infected Sinuses, Researchers Say (theguardian.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Swarms of tiny robots, each no larger than a speck of dust, could be deployed to cure stubborn infected sinuses before being blown out through the nose into a tissue, researchers have claimed. The micro-robots are a fraction of the width of a human hair and have been inserted successfully into animal sinuses in pre-clinical trials by researchers at universities in China and Hong Kong. Swarms are injected into the sinus cavity via a duct threaded through the nostril and guided to their target by electromagnetism, where they can be made to heat up and catalyse chemical reactions to wipe out bacterial infections. There are hopes the precisely targeted technology could eventually reduce reliance on antibiotics and other generalised medicines.

[...] The latest breakthrough, based on animal rather than human trials, involves magnetic particles “doped” with copper atoms which clinicians insert with a catheter before guiding to their target under a magnetic field. The swarms can be heated up by reacting to light from an optical fibre that is also inserted into the body as part of the therapy. This allows the micro-robots to loosen up and penetrate viscous pus that forms a barrier to the infection site. The light source also prompts the micro-robots to disrupt bacterial cell walls and release reactive oxygen species that kill the bacteria.

The study, published in Nature Robotics, showed the robots were capable of eradicating bacteria from pig sinuses and could clear infections in live rabbits with “no obvious tissue damage." The researchers have produced a model of how the technology could work on a human being, with the robot swarms being deployed in operating theatre conditions, allowing doctors to see their progress by using X-rays. Future applications could include tackling bacterial infections of the respiratory tract, stomach, intestine, bladder and urethra, they suggested. “Our proposed micro-robotic therapeutic platform offers the advantages of non-invasiveness, minimal resistance, and drug-free intervention,” they said.

Submission + - Meta scores worst on GenAI data privacy ranking (scworld.com)

Submitted by spatwei
spatwei writes: Meta AI was ranked worst for data privacy among nine AI platforms assessed by Incogni, according to a report published Tuesday.

Mistral AI’s Le Chat was deemed the most privacy-friendly generative AI (GenAI) platform, followed closely by OpenAI’s ChatGPT.

The GenAI and large language model (LLM) platforms were scored by Incogni based on 11 criteria grouped into three main categories: AI-specific privacy issues, transparency and data collection.

The “AI-specific privacy” ranking mostly covered how users’ prompts and data are used in training AI models, as well as the extent to which user prompts are shared with third parties.

Incogni said its researchers gave the criteria in this category significant weight compared to criteria involving non-AI-specific data privacy issues.

While Google Gemini was ranked as the second most privacy-invasive AI platform overall, it ranked best compared with other platforms for AI-specific issues.

While Gemini does not appear to allow users to opt out of using its prompts to train models, Google does not share prompts with third parties other than necessary service providers and legal entities.

By contrast, Meta, which scored second-worst in this category, shared user prompts with corporate group members and research partners, while OpenAI, which scored third-worst, shared data with unspecified “affiliates.”

Submission + - US judge rules copyrighted books are fair use for AI training (nbcnews.com)

Submitted by SonicSpike
SonicSpike writes: A federal judge has sided with Anthropic in a major copyright ruling, declaring that artificial intelligence developers can train models using published books without authors’ consent.

The decision, filed Monday in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, sets a precedent that training AI systems on copyrighted works constitutes fair use. Though it doesn’t guarantee other courts will follow, Judge William Alsup’s ruling makes the case the first of dozens of ongoing copyright lawsuits to give an answer about fair use in the context of generative AI.

It’s a question that has been raised by creatives across various industries for years since generative AI tools exploded into the mainstream, allowing users to easily produce art from models trained on copyrighted work — often without the human creators’ knowledge or permission.

AI companies have been hit with a slew of copyright lawsuits from media companies, music labels and authors since 2023. Artists have signed multiple open letters urging government officials and AI developers to constrain the unauthorized use of copyrighted works. In recent years, companies have also increasingly reached licensing deals with AI developers to dictate terms of use for their artists’ works.

Submission + - This crewless ship is defending Denmark's and NATO's waters. This is how it work (euronews.com)

Submitted by alternative_right
alternative_right writes: Drones are mounted on these 10-meter-long vessels and artificial intelligence (AI) helps analyse data of the surrounding environment under and above the surface of the ocean using advanced sensors.

"So, the vehicles [work] like a truck. The truck carries the sensors and we use on-board sophisticated machine learning and AI to fuse that data to give us a full picture of what's above and below the surface," said Richard Jenkins, the founder and CEO of Saildrone, the company that makes the ships.

Submission + - Smallest Alien World Ever Seen Spotted by JWST in Stunning First (sciencealert.com)

Submitted by alternative_right
alternative_right writes: Around a newly formed star just 111 light-years away, the powerful space telescope has officially discovered its first exoplanet. It's called TWA-7b, and it's the smallest world that humanity has ever directly imaged.

TWA-7b is a cold gas giant with about a third of the mass of Jupiter, orbiting its red dwarf host star at a staggering distance – 52 times farther than Earth orbits the Sun. In our Solar System, that distance would place TWA-7b out in the Kuiper Belt, far beyond the orbit of Pluto.

Comment Mind-bending craziness (Score 2) 48

Soon, it will also be home to Meta's massive, 4 million square foot AI data center hosting thousands of perpetually humming servers that require billions of watts of energy to power.

All this waste and pollution and energy usage for.....Facebook? A craptastic social media site?

We have truly lost sight of what's important in the world, wasting such a huge level of resources on this toxic mental-masturbation machine.

Utter insanity, writ large.

Comment What an asshole (Score 2) 348

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced a major federal campaign to promote wearable health tech, aiming for every American to adopt a device within four years as part of a broader effort to "Make America Healthy Again.

Go fuck yourself, you delusional, lying psychopath. Even the worm died from eating your toxic brain.

Submission + - Carbon record reveals evidence of extensive human fire use 50,000 years ago (phys.org)

Submitted by alternative_right
alternative_right writes: To address this question, researchers from the Institute of Oceanology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (IOCAS), alongside collaborators from China, Germany, and France, analyzed the pyrogenic carbon record in a 300,000-year-old sediment core from the East China Sea.

"Our findings challenge the widely held belief that humans only began influencing the environment with fire in the recent past, during the Holocene," said Dr. Zhao Debo, the study's corresponding author.

Submission + - Google Earth adds Street View time travel to celebrate 20th birthday (nerds.xyz)

Submitted by BrianFagioli
BrianFagioli writes: Itâ(TM)s hard to believe, but Google Earth just turned 20 years old! Since launching in 2005, itâ(TM)s grown from a curious digital globe into a tool used by scientists, city planners, and regular folks to explore nearly every corner of our planet. Now, two decades later, Google is celebrating the birthday by bringing historical Street View imagery directly into Google Earth.

If youâ(TM)ve ever wondered what your childhood neighborhood looked like ten years ago or how a favorite vacation spot has evolved, now you can go back in time without ever leaving your computer or phone. This long-awaited update makes it easier than ever to virtually time travel and see changes across cities, landscapes, and communities.

Comment AI trashtastic incoherence (Score 4, Insightful) 68

All this shit about "AI getting worse as it's tuned and tweaked" reminds me of when you start writing a program and it's shitty and so you go back and add code to it and to fix it, but it just makes it even worse and messy and tangled, so you add more code to it and of course it gets even worse until you realize that it's such a pile of steaming horseshit that NOTHING will ever fix it.

That seems to be the current state of AI. You have a poison milkshake, but if for some reason you're convinced that if you just add some more sugar, maybe it'll be okay.

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