Submission + - China's Top Spy Chief Warns AI Is a Threat to Party Rule (gvwire.com)

Submitted by fjo3
fjo3 writes: China’s top spy chief has warned that artificial intelligence could pose a direct threat to the Chinese Communist Party’s hold on power, in what is the highest-level and most detailed articulation yet of how Beijing sees the technology’s security risks.

The unusually blunt assessment by Chen Yixin, the head of China’s Ministry of State Security, is in contrast to the warnings dominating the AI debate in the United States, which have focused on the possibility that AI could slip out of human control or pose a threat to humanity itself.

In an article published Sunday in the state-run magazine China Cyberspace, Chen called for more party control over AI and stricter government oversight. This, he said, was necessary to protect political stability at home; to defend against increasingly sophisticated cyberattacks and misinformation campaigns from “hostile forces”; and to compete militarily with countries like the United States.

Submission + - Windows update corrupts BIOS on HP systems

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Windows 11 KB5121003 allegedly corrupts BIOS leading to installation fails on HP systems

“The thread, on Microsoft's official support forum, got upvoted by many who were likely facing the same issue. One of the users on the thread, KP, commented that they too were facing a similar problem on their Omnibook X 14-KC0013DX, a 14 inch model HP device. The user adds that HP support confirmed to them that Microsoft's update apparently corrupted the BIOS, and as such, they had to reset the BIOS settings to default to fix the issue.”

Submission + - Ongoing Ebola disease outbreak in the Congo

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Ebola disease outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo

“On 13 September 2026, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) published a situation update reporting a total of 7 200 confirmed cases, including 3 475 related deaths (from data up until 12 September). A total of 923 patients are hospitalised in isolation. This represents an increase of 258 new confirmed cases and 126 deaths since the previous ECDC report on 11 September (reporting data up until 10 September). In total, 88% of identified case contacts are under follow-up in the affected provinces. Overall, 62 of 167 health zones are currently affected across the seven provinces.”

Submission + - Trump condemns 'sick conspiracy' against AI (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by mrspoonsi
mrspoonsi writes: US President Donald Trump posted:

"The only control or 'guardrails' that AI needs is a STRONG AND SMART (High IQ!) PRESIDENT, and the U.S.A. has that, in spades!

"The Trump Administration has stopped AI 'people' from doing bad, or potentially bad, 'things,' like Dario (Anthropic!), who is now pretending to be a 'perfect little angel' — and we will continue to do so!

"We already have tremendous CRIMINAL and REGULATORY power over these companies!

"There is a SICK conspiracy going on against AI and Data Centers, and the only one that is happy about it is China.

"WHOEVER WINS AI, WINS!

"We are leading China, and all others, and will continue to do so. Conspiracy Theorists, Treasonists, Traitors, and Leakers, BEWARE!

"Thank you for your attention to this matter!"

Submission + - The 'Anti-AI' Panic Is Led by...AI Companies (hotair.com)

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: What we are seeing is a massive, pretty obviously coordinated campaign by AI researchers, companies, NGOs, and politicians to strangle competition in an industry and, as I will show, save the financial bacon of the top AI companies that are vastly overextended financially because they have made contractual commitments that they simply have no prospect of paying for.

Submission + - European Cars Are Spying on Their Drivers. The Same Tech Could Be Coming to USA (reason.com) 3

Submitted by fjo3
fjo3 writes: As of July 7, all new passenger vehicles sold in the E.U. had to come equipped with "advanced driver distraction warning" systems that watch for signs of "distraction" and, upon detecting them, issue a visual and an audio or tactile warning. Cars will warn drivers whose gaze drifts for more than three to six seconds, depending on their speed.

To comply with this mandate, cars will have to fix cameras on drivers' faces at all times, turning private motor vehicles into efficient surveillance systems. The equipment is supposed to operate as a "closed-loop system," meaning it "shall only continuously record and retain data necessary for the system to function and operate." But it is not clear how that rule will be enforced.

Beyond privacy concerns, some critics worry that the system itself will become a dangerous distraction, issuing warnings every time a driver changes the radio station or glances at a passenger. Others have complained that the requirement will increase auto costs.

Submission + - Physicists canâ(TM)t agree on how the Universe works (sciencedaily.com)

Submitted by alternative_right
alternative_right writes: A massive worldwide survey of physicists has revealed surprisingly little agreement about some of the universeâ(TM)s biggest mysteries. No majority backed the standard cosmological model, a leading explanation for dark matter, or any single theory of quantum gravity. One area of stronger agreement stood out: 68% said the Big Bang does not necessarily represent the beginning of time. Researchers say the divisions show just how alive and unsettled the frontiers of physics remain.

Submission + - Public inquiry 'clouded Letby's innocence'

Submitted by Mirnotoriety
Mirnotoriety writes: Letby’s lawyer: Public inquiry ‘clouded by her innocence’

The findings of the Thirlwall Inquiry will be clouded by Lucy Letby's innocence, her barrister has said.

On Tuesday, Lady Justice Thirlwall will publish the long-awaited report into how the NHS and other institutions could have prevented Letby from killing seven babies and attempting to murder seven more at the Countess of Chester Hospital in 2015 and 2016.

But large numbers of medical and legal experts have questioned Letby's guilt and the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) is deciding whether to send her case back to the Court of Appeal.

At the outset of the inquiry in 2024, Lady Justice Thirlwall emphasised that the inquiry's remit was not to retry the case or review Letby's guilt.

She refused Mr McDonald's request for Letby to be represented in the £18m hearing ..

Submission + - Can Machines Improve the Systems That Created Them? (linkedin.com)

Submitted by gethotelreviews
gethotelreviews writes: Today's AI can already help engineers build software and develop AI systems. Follow that trajectory far enough and an intriguing possibility appears: machines increasingly participating in the development of their successors. The question then becomes not whether AI can program, but where human control and machine contribution will eventually meet.

Submission + - India Falls Short of Its China Plus One Promise (indiadispatch.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: For the better part of a decade, some of the world's biggest companies have been trying to cut reliance on China. India was widely expected to be a big winner. Five years on, and after billions in government subsidies, its gains are real but narrow. Between 2016 and 2025, China's share of U.S. goods imports fell to 9% from 12%, and most of what it lost went to Taiwan, Vietnam and Mexico.

India assembles 28% of the world's iPhones and exports almost 80%, mostly to the U.S. The more valuable components are still made abroad, and manufacturing's share of India's economy has barely moved in a decade.

Submission + - Amazon Vine Review Recasts 'Coding Kids' Exposé as Learn-to-Code Primer for 1

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: "Amazon Vine," the e-tailer explains, "is an invitation-only program which selects the most insightful reviewers in the Amazon store to serve as Vine Voices. Vine Voices have the unique opportunity to order items free of charge and share their product experiences with Amazon customers to help them make informed buying decisions. [...] When customers see a review with the special Vine badge, they can trust that they're getting an honest, unbiased opinion from a real customer just like them."

So, how well does the reality live up to the promise? In the case of the new book Coding Kids: Big Tech's Battle to Remake Public Schools, not so much. Described by the publisher as "the inside story of how Big Tech catalyzed, co-opted, and ultimately came to capture computer science and AI education in America" ("Fourth graders doing Google-branded coding lessons. Amazon schooling seventh graders on its warehouse robots. Advanced Placement computing courses from Microsoft and Apple."), the top review selected by Amazon informs customers that the book is a 'good introduction to coding.'

"I really enjoyed Coding Kids," writes the 'trusted' Amazon Vine reviewer. "What stood out to me most was how the book takes something that can sound complicated—computer coding—and makes it feel approachable and even fun. As I was reading it, I found myself thinking that this is exactly the kind of book that could help a child become interested in technology without feeling overwhelmed by it. I particularly liked the way it encourages kids to be curious, experiment, and solve problems on their own. That was probably my favorite part because it shows that coding isn’t just about computers—it’s also about creativity and learning how to think differently. I would definitely recommend Coding Kids to parents, grandparents, or teachers looking for a good introduction to coding. I came away from the book thinking that it could genuinely spark a child’s interest in technology and give them the confidence to explore something new."

While likely just another example of Hanlon's Razor ("Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity."), the recasting of an investigative nonfiction book that casts a critical eye at Amazon's influence on K-12 education as a learn-to-code primer for children doesn't exactly instill trust in the Amazon Vine program or Amazon's 'Top Reviews' selection process. More on-point book reviews of Coding Kids can be found at the Washington Independent Review of Books ("Turns out, Silicon Valley isn’t especially altruistic.") and Science ("Big Tech’s crusade to get kids coding is more self-interested than it first appears").

Submission + - Half of Internet-facing FortiGate firewalls have leaked

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: FortiBleed: Half of Internet-Facing FortiGate Firewalls Have Leaked, Working Credentials

“A credential-exposure campaign now known as FortiBleed has compromised working login credentials for tens of thousands of FortiGate firewalls and VPN gateways worldwide, with independent researchers estimating that roughly half of all internet-facing FortiGate devices are represented in the leaked data. CISA says the exposure is tied to “approximately 74,000 Fortinet devices, including firewalls and virtual private network (VPN) gateways,” a figure that has since grown as new analysis has come in CISA.”

Submission + - Florida confirms DMV database breached

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Florida confirms DMV database breached via stolen police account

The Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles (FLHSMV) has confirmed that its DAVID driver database suffered a data breach after the ShinyHunters extortion gang claimed to have compromised the system.

The disclosure comes after the ShinyHunters extortion group claimed it breached the DAVID database and stole more than 200,000 driver records.

Submission + - Welcome to the Security Singularity (safety.google) 4

Submitted by shanen
shanen writes: Or should this be an AskSlashdot about how to avoid such problems? But mostly I think it's a funny story to build a rant around. Or it could be regarded as a kind of spinoff of the recent story about record numbers of patches from Microsoft. Is the AI fixing old bugs? Or have recent AI-driven patches created more bugs that need to be fixed in the next month's record-setting patch package?

But here's the background of my funny story. My smartphone contract has a price structure linked to data usage. The least expensive tier is for less data (of course) so I try to use Wi-Fi as much as possible. No recent problems on that front in terms of using too much data.

Often I wind up using municipal Wi-Fi systems, but they are divided up into fairly small regions here. The login procedures vary quite a bit. Yesterday I was in a memorial museum doing a bit of research and that particular municipality has a somewhat different login system for their Wi-Fi. One of the options was to use my google account... Usually a convenient and quick approach.

But this time something caused the google to go berserk. Leading to hours of password changes and account recoveries and battles between my various computers and my smartphone and I'm pert' shure there's still more to come. No idea what the google thinks it is protecting me from, but the "convenient and quick approach" led to a major nightmare. In the end it appears my SIM was my only salvation?

Slashdot wants a URL, so I linked to the google's page on the topic. Doubleplusungood on steroids.

Submission + - Scientists Discover Mysterious New X-Ray Objects 'Unlike Any They Have Seen' (space.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory has found a brand new type of an otherwise familiar object – compact binary systems that steal gas from other stars, but which do so while emitting very low-energy X-rays but copious amounts of ultraviolet. Chandra spotted 84 suspicious object emitting very low-energy X-rays in six galaxies – four evolved ellipticals and two spirals, namely our near-neighbor the Andromeda Galaxy (M31) and the Pinwheel Galaxy (M101). "We've never encountered a group of objects that act like this," said Mustafa Muhibullah of the University of Alabama in a statement.

Compact objects, in the form of black holes, neutron stars and white dwarfs, are the remains of stars that have died. Their small size and powerful gravity means that they're adept at getting close to orbiting companion stars and ripping the stars' outer layers of gas away. The gas swirls around the compact object, falling onto its surface, and this accretionary process usually produces torrents of high-energy X-rays because the stolen gas becomes superheated by the compact object's gravitational vice-like grip.

Because of their weak X-rays, Muhibullah's team refer to them as 'hypersoft X-ray sources'. Since low-energy X-rays and ultraviolet light are next to each other on the electromagnetic spectrum, Muhibullah and his team suspect that the low-energy X-rays are spillover from objects emitting prodigious amounts of ultraviolet. Moreover, they think that these objects are lower-level compact binaries. They're hard to find though, because the interstellar medium of hydrogen and helium gas between the stars absorbs ultraviolet light. This could be why we have yet to find any hypersoft X-ray sources in our own galaxy, because we have to look through the interstellar medium through the plane of the Milky Way. Consequently, there could be a large population of hypersoft X-ray sources that remain undiscovered and they could have an important effect on the universe around them.

Submission + - Canadian grocery giant Loblaws advertises, in the sky (thestar.com)

Submitted by Striek
Striek writes: Non-paywalled link

A large LED aerial drone display appeared over Toronto’s skies late Thursday night promoting Loblaw’s [a major Canadian grocery retailer] health services app in an advertisement that the city says they were not made fully aware of.

Videos and photos posted online show a large-scale drone advertisement for President’s Choice Health that sparked a heated discussion online about the use of airspace for promotional material.

In an email to the [Toronto] Star, a City of Toronto spokesperson said that while they approved the rental of Fort York National Historic Site for a third-party drone operator, they didn’t know that Loblaw would be behind the display.



The City was not informed of the client associated with the display and is updating its booking requirements to add disclosure of this information as a requirement for future bookings,

said spokesperson Nichole Jankowski.

The advertisement could be seen from multiple vantage points downtown with several phrases urging viewers to ask the Loblaw-owned platform medical questions. Some of the questions on display included “Can melatonin lose its effect? Is that third coffee keeping me up?” and “Do I really need 8 hours of sleep?” The sleep-related questions are followed with a QR code.

Commenters in threads on Reddit and posts on X, where videos of the ads surfaced, criticized the company’s use of airspace, including a tweet that calls for this sort of advertising to be banned. Loblaw confirmed the advertisement in an emailed statement to the Star.

The drone show was intentionally short and carefully considered to minimize brightness and disruption. All appropriate permissions were obtained for the show, including airspace approval secured through NAV CANADA and ground space approval secured through Fort York.

reads the retail company’s statement. According to their website, Loblaw used the ad to launch their health app:

Torontonians along the waterfront can look to the skyline at approximately 11 p.m. ET on September 10, as a series of health-related questions appear overhead during a 15-minute aerial display,

reads a release from Loblaw Companies Limited. Prior to Thursday evening, the Fort York landing page on the city’s website posted that a display would be happening. In order to stage a drone show, such as the one on Thursday evening, organizers have to apply for an SFOC-RPAS — a permit for flying a drone at an advertised event — with Transport Canada. The federal agency, who has jurisdiction over the airspace, said that they issued an SFOC-RPAS for the event, but would not provide any more information about the applicant due to “privacy requirements.”

Submission + - Bipartisan support to blacklist Appin, a cyber espionage firm. (techdirt.com)

Submitted by sandbagger
sandbagger writes: There’s a cyber espionage firm called Appin that doesn’t like you mentioning that it’s a cyber espionage firm. So, definitely don’t say that Appin is a cyber espionage firm. Also, don’t forward any articles about Appin, the cyber espionage firm.

This week, Senators Ron Wyden and Sheldon Whitehouse, along with Rep. Pat Harrigan, sent a letter to Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, asking him to add Appin and several related companies to the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) “Entity List” , the tool that effectively cuts foreign entities deemed national security threats off from American technology and American business partners.

Submission + - Scientists Create a New Form of Ice at 2,357 Degrees Celsius (sciencealert.com)

Submitted by fahrbot-bot
fahrbot-bot writes: Science Alert is reporting that Scientists have now demonstrated one of the weirdest forms of ice yet – under preposterous pressures up to 2.3 million atmospheres, and tremendous temperatures up to 2,630 kelvins (2,357 degrees Celsius, or 4,274 degrees Fahrenheit).

This superionic water ice is a deeply odd state of matter that's neither entirely solid nor entirely liquid. Its oxygen atoms remain fixed in a rigid crystal lattice, as they would in a solid. But the hydrogen nuclei are mobile, diffusing through that lattice more like particles in a liquid.

Researchers squeezed the samples between the tips of diamonds to pressures as high as 230 gigapascals, while using lasers to heat them to thousands of degrees. That's 2.3 million times Earth's atmospheric pressure at sea level – the pressure at the center of Earth, for context, is around 360 gigapascals.

Then, using an extremely narrow beam of synchrotron X-rays, they probed for changes in the crystal structure of the ice.

What emerged was a configuration predicted theoretically but never unambiguously observed in experiments: hexagonal close-packed, or hcp, ice. As the hcp crystal was heated, its expansion also showed a signature of superionic behavior, suggesting it entered the superionic state at around 1,700 kelvins.

Superionic ice is thought to exist deep inside Uranus and Neptune, where its unusual properties may play a role in generating the planets' equally unusual magnetic fields.

The findings have been published in Physical Review Letters: Observation of Hexagonal Close-Packed Water Ice at Conditions in Ice Giant Planetary Interiors

Submission + - CircuitPython Turbo brings native code to tiny boards (adafruit.com)

Submitted by ptorrone
ptorrone writes: Adafruit has published CircuitPython Turbo, a workflow that compiles selected Python functions into native machine code on a computer, then loads them onto compatible microcontroller boards. It builds on MicroPython's Native and Viper emitters. In a documented Metro RP2040 fixed-point Mandelbrot test, Viper cut computation time from 8.335 seconds to 0.423 seconds, a 19.71x speedup over bytecode. The rest of the application stays in Python. The guide includes benchmarks, source code and hardware demos. The speedup is for the measured computation, not the whole application.

Submission + - Can Red-Light Therapy Treat Brain Injuries? (nytimes.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The knife, the call, the diagnosis in 2013, would lead him on a life-changing mission — one in which he and a team of researchers at the University of Utah would eventually compile research that one of those researchers, Elisabeth Wilde, Ph.D, co-director of the Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) and Concussion Center, calls “striking.” The treatment they are studying is called photobiomodulation therapy, or itPBM (intranasal transcranial PBM), also known as red-light therapy. It is different from the kind of superficial red-light usage one can find on social media skincare channels or at a wellness boutique, and its application is broader.

The research includes multiple studies, and is not just focused on ex-football players, but on women and men in various walks of life. The group recently published their latest results in the Journal of Neurotrauma, based on a study that followed 26 BYU football players throughout a season, suggesting the treatment could “potentially safeguard neurological health without reduced playing time or contact exposure.”

Definitive clinical trials haven’t been run yet; broader research and validation is required, and some in the field are skeptical. Carr acknowledges some have told him that it could be “too good to be true.” Still, other outside experts who spoke with The Athletic call the findings promising. They make sure to caution: This is not a cure-all, and there is much more to be tested. But the findings have been compelling enough to justify more research and more speculation.

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