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Submission + - SpaceX's orbital data centers would create a new category of e-waste (arstechnica.com)

Submitted by AmiMoJo
AmiMoJo writes: Elon Musk’s talk about maintaining a million-strong AI data center satellite megaconstellation may not exactly be practical or economical, but it might be unique. It’s about the closest we’ve come to confronting a scheme that would export a considerable amount of valuable materials into space. Humans aren’t doing a great job of material sustainability, but normally we’re talking about stuff escaping a recycling pipeline rather than escaping Earth’s gravitational pull.

Given the roughly five-year expected lifetime for data center GPUs, about 200,000 of the 1 million proposed SpaceX AI1 satellites would be decommissioned each year. Based on their May 29 FCC filing, about 40,000 would definitely deorbit and burn up in the atmosphere. (Those materials would largely be dispersed throughout the atmosphere, turning a resource into a diffuse contaminant that slowly settles over the globe. One related issue: the aluminum would cause an unknown amount of ozone depletion over a period of decades.) Some or all of the remaining 160,000 satellites would be moved outward into a distant “disposal” orbit, instead. Either way, they’re lost from a “material life cycle” point of view.

Submission + - US Moves Medical Marijuana Off Schedule I (justice.gov)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: US cannabis law has moved more in the past year than in the previous fifty. In April 2026, following a Trump executive order, the DOJ rescheduled FDA-approved and state-licensed medical marijuana from Schedule I to Schedule III, the first federal acknowledgment of accepted medical use in over 50 years. Recreational cannabis stays Schedule I, but a DEA administrative hearing on extending Schedule III to all cannabis ran through July, with a decision pending. Schedule III also frees medical operators from the 280E tax ban and eases research rules. Separately, a November 2025 law redefines legal hemp by total THC starting November 12, 2026. This 2026 cannabis law update breaks down each change.

Submission + - Microsoft Cut Office 2021's Support to Five Years (microsoft.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Microsoft will end support for Office 2021 on October 13, 2026, with no extension and no paid Extended Security Updates. After that date the perpetual-license apps keep running, but Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook stop getting security patches, so any newly found vulnerability stays open. The notable part for anyone who bought a one-time license: this is a five-year support window, half the ten-year lifecycle older perpetual Office releases received, and the same cutoff also ends the one-year Windows 10 consumer reprieve. Microsoft's pitch is to move to a Microsoft 365 subscription, though Office LTSC 2024 stays supported to 2029. A retailer guide runs through the Office 2021 upgrade options for holdouts.

Submission + - Nations hiding censorship in cybercrime bills. UN treaty could make things worse (fire.org)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The likely outcome here is obvious: The treaty will streamline unfree countries’ involvement with other unfree countries’ repression and pressure freer ones into helping, too. And it can all take place confidentially, without the knowledge of the public or even those being targeted . . .

And as though existing national laws punishing political expression aren’t enough, the treaty could even incentivize governments to enact harsher penalties on expressive acts. After all, if you’d like other nations to assist you in punishing your critics on the internet, you’ll want to ensure their expression qualifies for inclusion under the treaty’s definition of “serious crimes.”

It's already happening in the UK
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/ne...

Submission + - American Airlines Changed Passengers' Flights w/o Asking and No Human Oversight (inc.com)

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: In recent years, American Airlines has embraced artificial intelligence. Now the new technology appears to be changing flight tickets.

Earlier this week, columnist Marc Thiessen took to social media to voice his frustration with American‘s rebooking system. He claimed the airline rebooked his connecting flight in Chicago without his knowledge when his inbound flight was delayed. “Since when do you change my itinerary without asking?” Thiessen wrote on X.

The rebooking automation appears to be part of an American Airlines system called AURA (for AUtomated ReAccommodation). The system, which initially rolled out in 2023, is meant to help passengers with their connecting flights. “Our Automated Reaccommodation tool proactively rebooks customers impacted by flight cancellations and delays, and exchanges tickets,” the company said on its site. However, the automated system appears to have negatively impacted more than one traveler.

Below Thiessen’s post, media consultant Beverly Hallberg replied that American had done the same thing to her the day before. “I had to call and switch my connecting flight back to the original itinerary, and I had enough time to do that since we were stuck on the tarmac for so long. But, like you, they didn’t ask,” she wrote on X.

https://x.com/danikkk_wqs/stat...

Submission + - The Chemistry That Turns a Boiled Crawfish Red (manchester.ac.uk)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: A live crawfish is a drab blue-gray, but boil it and the shell turns red. The red was there the whole time. Crustacean shells are loaded with astaxanthin, the same orange-red carotenoid that colors salmon and flamingos, but while the animal is alive that pigment sits clamped inside a protein called crustacyanin, which twists it and masks the color. Heat denatures the protein, the same unfolding that turns an egg white opaque, and the freed astaxanthin snaps back to red. The pigment is heat-stable; only its protein cage isn't. The exact mechanism went unexplained for centuries and was finally pinned down in 2015. It plays out in every Louisiana crawfish boil.

Submission + - Scientists Have Built Miniature Brains That Experience The Passage of Time (sciencealert.com)

Submitted by alternative_right
alternative_right writes: Our brains comprise 86 billion neurons and the trillions of connections between them, whipping up an orchestrated storm of electricity and chemicals that pulse within a 3-pound lump of jellified fat, protein, and water.

The intricate biological machine that defines us humans requires about 20 years to mature, a much lengthier developmental period than in most other species.

This, along with the added inconvenience that it's locked within our craniums, makes our developing brains experimentally inaccessible.

So, scientists are building brains in the lab, no big deal.

In a breakthrough described in the journal Nature, researchers have created miniature brains, called organoids, that can 'sense' the passage of time and retain a cellular 'memory' of how long they have already spent developing.

Submission + - Whistleblower Arturo Bejar Leads Testimony In Landmark Trial Against Meta (npr.org)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Meta was infused with a culture in which employees obsessed over user numbers and consistently pushed safety to the side, according to Arturo Bejar, a former employee turned whistleblower, who testified today in the landmark child safety trial against the social media company. Only one man had the ability to change that, Bejar said: CEO Mark Zuckerberg. But he didn't. "At the end of the day, it was the company culture that Mark had created that made it so that it was practically impossible to deliver features that addressed the wellbeing and safety issues that we've been talking about," he said.

Bejar is a linchpin witness for a consortium of states led by California, Colorado, Kentucky and New Jersey that sued Meta, alleging violations of consumer and child data protection laws, and that the company lied to the public about risks its platforms posed. The attorneys for the states say Meta designed Facebook and Instagram to hook young users and to keep them on site longer thanks to features such as infinite scrolling and the "like" button. Meta has denied the allegations. In his opening statement on Tuesday, attorney Paul Schmidt argued that the company was sensitive to the risks to teens, sought to address them and did not deceive the public about them. The state attorneys have not yet said if they will call Zuckerberg as a witness.

Testifying in federal court in Oakland, California, for a second day on Wednesday, Bejar, who worked on safety issues at Meta for eight years, said he interacted with Zuckerberg dozens of times, and charged that Zuckerberg was not telling the truth when he made public denials that the company put profits over safety. In particular, Bejar addressed a widely-shared Facebook post Zuckerberg made in 2021 after another whistleblower, Frances Haugen, shared internal documents with The Wall Street Journal that highlighted risks to the mental health of teens. In the post, Zuckerberg said it's "just not true" that Meta prioritizes profit over safety and wellbeing. "Based on my experience at Meta, that is not an accurate statement," Bejar said. [...] Bejar testified, at almost every turn the company chose policies that boosted usership and revenue over safety. Safety was "not a meaningful priority," he said.

Submission + - FCC Abolishes Gigabit Speed Goal, Suggesting It Is Unfair to Slower Technologies (arstechnica.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The Federal Communications Commission last week eliminated the gigabit speed goal established during the Biden administration and declared that current levels of broadband deployment in the US are acceptable. Though fiber networks have routinely offered such speeds for years, the FCC said the gigabit speed goal is not “technologically neutral,” suggesting that it isn’t fair to other, slower technologies.

In 2024, the FCC raised its broadband benchmark to 100Mbps downstream and 20Mbps upstream, setting the new standard by which to judge whether deployment is reasonable and timely. The FCC at the time also set a long-term speed goal of 1Gbps download speeds paired with 500Mbps upload speeds, saying it would use the goal “as a guidepost for evaluating our efforts to encourage deployment.” Republican Brendan Carr, who is now the FCC chairman, never liked that long-term goal. He proposed abolishing it last year, and the change was finalized on August 14 in the FCC’s latest broadband deployment report. The reports are mandated by Section 706 of the Telecommunications Act.

“As part of our return to following the plain language of Section 706, we adopt our proposal from the Notice [of Inquiry] to abolish without replacement the long-term goal of 1,000/500 Mbps established in the 2024 Report,” the order said. “A long-term goal is not mentioned in Section 706 and could appear to violate our obligation to conduct our analysis in a technologically neutral manner. At present, it is impossible to predict long-term technological developments and the evolution of consumer preferences." The FCC said that comments submitted by cable industry group NCTA and wireless industry group CTIA “support our reasoning for abolishing the long-term goal.”

Submission + - PINE64 Halts Linux Device Production Amid DRAM and eMMC Shortages (nerds.xyz)

Submitted by BrianFagioli
BrianFagioli writes: PINE64 has some very bad news for Linux hardware fans

PINE64 says it has no plans to produce additional Linux devices in the near future because of the ongoing DRAM and eMMC shortage. Future production will depend on component pricing after mid 2027, while existing PineNote and PineTab2 inventory could run out in roughly three months.

The company says PineTime, PineVoice, and Pinecil production will continue as usual, but the outlook for its Linux hardware is much less certain.

Submission + - Screen time is good for kids? (sciencedaily.com)

Submitted by bryanandaimee
bryanandaimee writes: Recent study found that screen time actually improves cognition. From TFA: "An eight-year Finnish study found that children who spent more time on screens tended to show better cognitive processing as teenagers, challenging common assumptions about screen use. Researchers say the key may be balancing physical activity with screen activities that encourage learning, creativity, and active thinking."

Submission + - The Year's Ugliest Animated Movie Has Become an Anti-AI Phenomenon (gizmodo.com)

Submitted by hackingbear
hackingbear writes: A crude, low-tech animation about a cow and a skylark has become a sleeper hit at China’s box office, sitting alongside blockbusters such as The Odyssey and Spider-Man: Brand New Day in cinema revenue rankings, jumping from its opening day grossed only 342 yuan ($50) to almost 15 million yuan ($2.25m), with some projecting it to hit 1.3 billion yuan (~$192m), after discussion online about how bad the film was turned it into a meme. Niu Lai, which translates to The Cow is Coming, is an 86-minute budget animation about a newborn calf and a skylark whose relationship develops over the course of an abstract dream sequence. Chinese film site Mao Yan lists Niu Lai as being written, animated, and voiced entirely by two people, Xin Yumeng and his mother Sun Lifang, without the support of a professional production team, outsourced processes, rendering teams, or AI. The BBC is reporting that “[Niu Lai] does not even have a proper promotional poster, [so] cinema staff have resorted to drawing their own posters to entice audiences to watch.” Audiences seemed to appreciate its outsider-y charm, and the fact that whatever its merits, the film feels undeniably human—largely because even AI slop doesn’t look quite this bad.

Submission + - Flock Has a Powerful New AI Tool for Police. We Got Its Code (archive.ph) 1

Submitted by fjo3
fjo3 writes: Vehicle surveillance giant Flock Safety has told the public for years that its technology “cannot recognize, identify, or track individuals.” It has now built a system that does both, an artificial intelligence tool for police that can identify drivers and track vehicles by their patterns of movement alone, WIRED has learned.

Submission + - It's On: OpenAI ChatGPT for Teens and Google Gemini Vie for K-12 Schoolchildren

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: "We’re introducing ChatGPT for Teens, announced OpenAI on Tuesday, "an experience designed to help teens learn, think critically, deepen understanding, and use AI with confidence. It provides stronger built-in safety protections for teens, including features to promote healthy use and additional controls for parents." The partnership, OpenAI explains, "also builds on our ChatGPT for Teachers work to empower teachers and districts to guide AI use and our ongoing work with the American Federation of Teachers to build AI skills.

OpenAI added that it's also "partnering with [tech-backed nonprofit] CodeAI to prepare the first AI generation", announcing a 'signature partnership' to give students and educators access to tools and resources that will help them learn how to use and benefit from AI [...] helping teens understand how AI works, direct it, question it, and create with it—with teachers playing a meaningful role in shaping how AI enters the classroom." Separately, CodeAI provided a few details on how they'll work with OpenAI, including "helping students build foundational AI literacy" via the Hour of AI, through which it said "OpenAI and CodeAI will introduce millions of students to the basics of using AI thoughtfully and responsibly." With funding and encouragement from Microsoft, which is partnering with OpenAI on the $22.5 million AFT AI skill building and has a stake in OpenAI valued as high as $228 billion, CodeAI — formerly known as Code.org before rebranding in June — replaced its signature 'Hour of Code' event last December with the new 'Hour of AI' in a pivot from coding to AI literacy.

Interestingly, OpenAI's K-12 AI announcement comes less than a week after Google turned on Gemini AI for K-12 students using its Google Classroom, a learning management system for posting assignments and turning in schoolwork that's used by 150+ million students and teachers worldwide. At last September's White House AI Education Taskforce meeting, Google CEO Sundar Pichai briefed First Lady Melania Trump on the tech giant's efforts to get Gemini for Education in 'every high school in America', which he noted "includes $3 million to Code.org [now CodeAI] to transform its [K-12] curriculum and integrate new AI features." And in December, VP and Global Head of Google.org Maggie Johnson — who joined Code.org's Board together with Microsoft President Brad Smith back in 2013 as founding members — kicked off the 'Hour of AI' by announcing "over $5 million in new Google.org funding to bolster computer science teaching in the age of AI."

So, who do you think will win the AI custody battle over the nation's K-12 schoolchildren and their teachers? Is Google vs. OpenAI/Microsoft shaping up to be 2026's Kramer vs. Kramer?

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