Has Big Tech Captured America's Schools?
America's public education system has become "an avenue for multitrillion-dollar companies to enact their agendas," argues a NewYork Times reporter who's covered that tech…
Google Maps Renamed Lake Ontario to 'Lake America' - But Only for U.S. Users
It's already happened — at least on Google Maps. Google's online maps reflect name changes in official government sources, Google posted Saturday. So when the U.S. Geographic…
Scientists Turn Plastic Waste Into Edible Cookies
A team of researchers at Southern Illinois University Carbondale engineered yeast to create cookies that were 3D printed out of plastic waste, reports Futurism: The yeast breaks…
BMW Blames Young People For Loss of Real Buttons In New Cars
BMW is about to release their most screen-dependent vehicles ever, reports Car and Driver: Step into the BMW iX3, and you'll notice something is missing: real buttons. The climate…
A Tiny 'Rainbow On a Chip' Could Help Supercharge 6G Networks
ScienceDaily reports: A microchip about the size of a grain of rice can generate a highly organized "rainbow" of light, a capability that could eventually support faster,…
Citrix Adds a Linux-Powered Escape Hatch For Compromised Windows PCs
Citrix's Desktop as a Service (DaaS) product includes a lightweight, hardened second operating system called UniconOS (once called "eLux") to offer Windows customers a…
SpaceX Launching NASA's Roman Space Telescope to Explore Dark Energy and Habitable Planets
SpaceX is scheduled to launch the Roman Space Telescope on a Falcon Heavy rocket, with the launch window opening at 7:26 a.m. EDT (1126 GMT). NASA will carry the launch live on…
Anthropic Sued By Sony, Warner For Allegedly Stealing Tens of Thousands of Songs, Torrenting Copyrighted Works
Axios reports: Some of the world's largest music publishers filed a blockbuster lawsuit against Anthropic late Friday night, alleging "one of the largest and most blatant ongoing…
Debian Decides: Contributors Can Use Generative AI 'Responsibly'
This week Debian voted on whether to ban AI-assisted contributions. The winning proposal? "Debian neither endorses nor prohibits the use of generative AI tools" in its projects,…
New York City 911 System Missed 1,700 Calls Due To Software Update
Longtime Slashdot reader belmolis writes: Part of New York City's 911 emergency system was offline from about 3:13 a.m. to 10 a.m. on August 18th due to a software update,…
Google's AI-Powered Lifestyle App 'Dreambeans' Now Free in the US
Google's AI assistant Gemini crawls your Google apps for "more personalized suggestions," in a feature they call Personal Intelligence. Now when given permission, an Android/iOS…
With the Snip of a Gene, Scientists Hope To Erase High Cholesterol For Life
CNN reports that "A one-time snip of a key gene lowered heart-clogging cholesterol by about 50% over an entire year with no adverse effects, scientists have reported." The…
Trump Declares National Emergency to Ban Some Foreign Grid Equipment
Longtime Slashdot reader dhartshorn writes: Foreign-produced "bulk power" equipment is now effectively banned, and the list of what constitutes such equipment is essentially…
'Grand Theft Auto 6' Preview Signals Blockbuster Demand, Analysts Say
Rockstar Games has released a 26-minute "extended look" at Grand Theft Auto VI, due for release November 19th. After one day the video had nearly 10 million views on YouTube, and…
Xylitol Linked To Strokes and Heart Attacks, Study Finds
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: A common sweetener used in products such as chewing gum, toothpaste, jam, yoghurts and ice-cream has been linked to an…
As Backlash Grows, More Americans Now Oppose Automated Police License Plate Readers Than Support
A new survey on police license plate cameras found that "more Americans oppose these surveillance cameras than support them," reports TechCrunch: According to a new YouGov survey…
States Can Regulate Prediction Markets As Gambling, Federal Appeals Court Rules
A federal appeals court has ruled that states can regulate prediction markets like Kalshi as gambling, handing state regulators their biggest legal victory yet against the booming…
Millions of Cars Recalled Over Danger of Bursting Into Flames. But They're Not EVs.
The Washington Post shares this tip for car buyers. Electric vehicles "are not driving the recent growth in recalls warning that vehicles could erupt into flames at any time, even…
US Considers Fresh Round of Tariffs On Semiconductors
An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNBC: U.S. President Donald Trump's administration is reportedly considering new tariffs on semiconductors used in the U.S., as tech…
OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, and 100 Other Companies Call For Action To Defend Against Rogue AI
An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Over a hundred tech companies -- including OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, and Microsoft -- have signed an open letter urging both…
The World's Busiest Spaceport Is About To Get a Lot Quieter, At Least For Now
SpaceX is significantly reducing Falcon 9 launches from Florida this year, ending the Space Coast's decade-long run as the world's busiest spaceport as more missions shift to…
Is ChatGPT Changing How You're Writing?
An anonymous reader quotes a report fro SFGATE: From "rizz" to "meat proxy," words and phrases have fallen in and out of favor for centuries. Culture, politics and technological…
Chatbot Conversations Can Become Evidence in Court
The Washington Post looks "a growing number of Americans who have had their private conversations with AI chatbots made public in court," calling the chatbots "custodians of a…
Ring Says New Encryption Limits What It Can Give Police
Ring is rolling out a new default encryption system called TAKE, or "Throw Away the Key Encryption," that rotates video keys every five minutes and permanently deletes Ring's copy…
OpenAI Is Developing a 'Persistent' AI Agent
Wired reports that OpenAI is testing a new "Persistent mode" for Codex that would let the agent keep working until explicitly "put to sleep," proactively creating follow-up tasks…
Stripe and Advent Ditch $50 Billion PayPal Takeover Bid
Stripe and private equity firm Advent International have ditched their $53 billion pursuit of PayPal, ending a deal that would have been the largest fintech acquisition ever.…
Pentagon's Blacklisting of Anthropic Was Unlawful, US Judge Rules
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: A US judge ruled on Thursday that the Trump administration broke the law when it designated Anthropic as a supply chain risk…
Songs Created By AI Banned From Australia's Music Charts
Australia's official music charts will no longer accept songs that are largely or entirely AI-generated, requiring eligible releases to be "substantially human made." The BBC…
Apple TV and Apple One Subscription Prices Increase By Up To 20%
Apple is raising Apple TV's U.S. price to $14.99 per month, up from $12.99, while the annual plan jumps from $99 to $119. It's the service's fourth price hike in four years and…
Roblox Is Cracking Down On Games That Reward Kids For Doomscrolling
Roblox is restricting games that reward younger players for endlessly consuming autoplaying media feeds. The new restrictions are specifically targeting Roblox experiences like…
Gemini Notebook Now Lets You Reference Books, Turn Them Into Different Formats
Google is adding an "Expert Intelligence" feature to Gemini Notebook (formerly known as NotebookLM) that lets users cite and work directly from more than 100,000 books they own…
Trump Creates a Space Academy and Honors the Artemis Astronauts
President Trump awarded the four-member Artemis II crew the Congressional Space Medal of Honor and signed an executive order directing the creation of a new U.S. Space Academy.…
Is China Secretly Fueling America's Data Center Rage?
alternative_right shares a report from Axios: Roughly 200 accounts from a suspected Chinese bot farm have quietly tried to influence Americans to oppose AI data centers on social…
Canada Hires 48 Scholars Away From Top US Universities
Canada is recruiting 64 researchers to universities across the country (source paywalled; alternative source), including 48 from U.S. institutions such as Harvard, Yale, and MIT.…
What's 88-year-old Ridley Scott Doing Now?
The Los Angeles Times first calls Ridley Scott's newest movie "a postapocalyptic thriller that trades zombies for pandemics and asks whether hope can outlast catastrophe." But…
AI's Memory Crunch Is Coming For Android Apps
Google is imposing new memory-use limits on Android apps as the AI data center boom contributes to a broader memory chip shortage that could leave lower-cost phones with less RAM.…
The Linux Kernel Is Approaching 2,000 CVEs Per Release
Phoronix reports on Greg Kroah-Hartman's recent slide from his upcoming talk in Paris at Kernel Recipes 2026 (September 21 to 23): With the proliferation of AI/LLM models…