Submission + - Founder of Spyware Maker pcTattletale Pleads Guilty To Hacking, Advertising (techcrunch.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The founder of a U.S.-based spyware company, whose surveillance products allowed customers to spy on the phones and computers of unsuspecting victims, pleaded guilty to federal charges linked to his long-running operation. pcTattletale founder Bryan Fleming entered a guilty plea in a San Diego federal court on Tuesday to charges of computer hacking, the sale and advertising of surveillance software for unlawful uses, and conspiracy.

The plea follows a multi-year investigation by agents with Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), a unit within U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. HSI began investigating pcTattletale in mid-2021 as part of a wider probe into the industry of consumer-grade surveillance software, also known as “stalkerware.” This is the first successful U.S. federal prosecution of a stalkerware operator in more than a decade, following the 2014 indictment and subsequent guilty plea of the creator of a phone surveillance app called StealthGenie. Fleming’s conviction could pave the way for further federal investigations and prosecutions against those operating spyware, but also those who simply advertise and sell covert surveillance software. HSI said that pcTattletale is one of several stalkerware websites under investigation.

Submission + - Canada advances fusion records (ecoticias.com)

Submitted by sandbagger
sandbagger writes: Fusion power may only be 30 years away as Canada has just broken a world record in nuclear fusion, producing about 600 million fusion neutrons every second at peak output.

Submission + - Nvidia Details New AI Chips and Autonomous Car Project With Mercedes (nytimes.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: On Monday, [Jensen Huang, the chief executive of the chip-making giant Nvidia] said the company would begin shipping a new A.I. chip later this year, one that can do more computing with less power than previous generations of chips could. Known as the Vera Rubin, the chip has been in development for three years and is designed to fulfill A.I. requests more quickly and cheaply than its predecessors. Mr. Huang, who spoke during CES, an annual tech conference in Las Vegas, also discussed Nvidia’s surprisingly ambitious work around autonomous vehicles. This year, Mercedes-Benz will begin shipping cars equipped with Nvidia self-driving technology comparable to Tesla’s Autopilot.

Nvidia’s new Rubin chips are being manufactured and will be shipped to customers, including Microsoft and Amazon, in the second half of the year, fulfilling a promise Mr. Huang made last March when he first described the chip at the company’s annual conference in San Jose, Calif. Companies will be able to train A.I. models with one-quarter as many Rubin chips as its predecessor, the Blackwell. It can provide information for chatbots and other A.I. products for one-tenth of the cost. They will also be able to install the chips in data centers more quickly, courtesy of redesigned supercomputers that feature fewer cables. If the new chips live up to their promise, they could allow companies to develop A.I. at a lower cost and at least begin to respond to the soaring electrical demands of data centers being built around the world.

[...] On Monday, he said Nvidia had developed new A.I. software that would allow customers like Uber and Lucid to develop cars that navigate roads autonomously. It will share the system, called Alpamayo, to spread its influence and the appeal of Nvidia’s chip technology. Since 2020, Nvidia has been working with Mercedes to develop a class of self-driving cars. They will begin shipping an early example of their collaboration when Mercedes CLA cars become available in the first half of the year in Europe and the United States. Mr. Huang said the company started working on self-driving technology eight years ago. It has more than a thousand people working on the project. "Our vision is that someday, every single car, every single truck, will be autonomous," Mr. Huang said.

Submission + - Utah allows AI to renew medical prescriptions (utah.gov) 1

Submitted by sinij
sinij writes:

This agreement marks the first state-approved program in the country that allows an AI system to legally participate in medical decision-making for prescription renewals, an emerging model that could reshape access to care and ultimately improve care outcomes.

Hopefully opioids are excluded.

Submission + - NYC Wegmans is storing biometric data on shoppers' eyes, voices and faces (gothamist.com)

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: Wegmans in New York City has begun collecting biometric data from anyone who enters its supermarkets, according to new signage posted at the chain's Manhattan and Brooklyn locations earlier this month.

Anyone entering the store could have data on their face, eyes and voices collected and stored by the Rochester-headquartered supermarket chain. The information is used to "protect the safety and security of our patrons and employees," according to the signage. The new scanning policy is an expansion of a 2024 pilot.

The chain had initially said that the scanning system was only for a small group of employees and promised to delete any biometric data it collected from shoppers during the pilot rollout. The new notice makes no such assurances.

Wegmans representatives did not reply to questions about how the data would be stored, why it changed its policy or if it would share the data with law enforcement.

Submission + - Chinese Fusion Reactor Breaks Plasma Density Limit (futurism.com)

Submitted by hackingbear
hackingbear writes: Scientists at China’s Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST) program rang in the new year with a stunning accomplishment: empirical evidence that they used the device to achieve nuclear plasma densities once thought to be beyond human capabilities. To reach a point where fusion reactor can power itself — a sustainable fusion reaction — requires that gnarly plasma to stay hot, dense, and stable for long stretches of time. For years, it was understood that higher plasma densities would inevitably result in instability, collapsing the fuel before it could ignite, a threshold known as the Greenwald limit. In deuterium-tritium fusion, the fuel must be heated to about 13 keV (150 million kelvin) to reach optimal conditions. At such temperatures, the amount of fusion power produced increases with the square of the plasma density. This new research seemingly flips all that on its head. As the EAST team explains, the method basically involves creating a high gas pressure environment in the reactor prior to plasma formation, which allows the plasma to interact with the reactor wall in a much less destructive way than it would otherwise. Scientists also manually pump extra energy into the plasma as it heats, allowing an even rise in density. The result is a plasma that remains stable even as its internal density rises, resulting in fuel densities “far exceeding empirical limits.” While there are still plenty of breakthroughs left before humanity achieves practical power production with fusion, shattering the Greenwald represents a major item on the to-do list — and another notch on China’s lengthy green energy belt.

Submission + - Hacker Dressed as the Pink Ranger Takes Down White Supremacist Websites Live (gizmodo.com)

Submitted by t0qer
t0qer writes: On stage at the annual Chaos Communication Congress in Hamburg, Germany, a hacker known as Martha Root deleted the servers of three websites run by white nationalists. The takedown, performed by Root while dressed up as the Pink Ranger from the Power Rangers, came at the end of a talk on the Nazi online ecosystem that also featured journalists Eva Hoffmann and Christian Fuchs, per TechCrunch. The three sites targeted included WhiteDate, a white nationalist dating site; WhiteChild, a website for matching white sperm and egg donors; and WhiteDeal, an online labor market for white supremacists. As of Monday, the websites remain offline.

Submission + - Nearly all women in STEM secretly feel like impostors (sciencedaily.com)

Submitted by alternative_right
alternative_right writes: Nearly all women in STEM graduate programs report feeling like impostors, despite strong evidence of success. This mindset leads many to dismiss their achievements as luck and fear being “found out.” Research links impostorism to worse mental health, higher burnout, and increased thoughts of dropping out. Supportive environments and shifting beliefs about intelligence may help break the cycle.

Submission + - In a galaxy-brained rebrand, Microsoft Office is now 'Microsoft 365 Copilot app' (pcgamer.com)

Submitted by joshuark
joshuark writes: As spotted by Bluesky user DodgerFanLA, going to Office.com now greets you with the following helpful explainer:

"The Microsoft 365 Copilot app (formerly Office) lets you create, share, and collaborate all in one place with your favorite apps now including Copilot.*"

Never has an asterisk been more relevant to me than following the words "your favorite apps now including Copilot."

About a decade ago, hardware company Corsair attempted to pivot from its classic logo—a subtle trio of ship sails—to a newer, edgier look, a pair of crossed swords that gave off regrettable '2000s tribal tattoo' energy. The rebrand didn't last long: after a fierce outcry from people who correctly thought the new logo sucked, Corsair swapped to a refreshed take on the sail logo, which it's been using ever since.

Corsair was established in 1994, and made about $1.4 billion last year—which I bring up because today Microsoft, a slightly bigger company, has slipped on its own rebranding banana peel. The company is seemingly all but ditching the Office name—which it introduced four years before Corsair existed, and which drove more than $30 billion in revenue just last quarter—with a catchy new name: "Microsoft 365 Copilot app."

The company had already downplayed the Office name, despite it being perhaps the most universally recognized software in existence, by renaming its cloud version of Word, Powerpoint, etc. Office 365 in 2010, then Microsoft 365 in 2017. Now when you want to open up a Word document, you can get to them by launching the Microsoft 365 Copilot app. Intuitive!

Should Microsoft just go ahead and rebrand Windows, the only piece of its arsenal more famous than Office, as Copilot, too? I do actually think we're not far off from that happening. Facebook rebranded itself "Meta" when it thought the metaverse would be the next big thing, so it seems just as plausible that Microsoft could name the next version of Windows something like "Windows with Copilot" or just "Windows AI."

Copilot is the app for launching the other apps, but it's also a chatbot inside the apps. Any questions?

Submission + - Dell Admits It Made a Huge Mistake When It Abandoned XPS (gizmodo.com)

Submitted by joshuark
joshuark writes: At last year’s CES, Dell made the eyebrow-raising decision to ax all its legacy laptop brand names and instead opt for Apple-like conventions. Instead of XPS, we were forced to comprehend the differences between a “Dell,” a “Dell Pro,” a “Dell Premium,” and a “Dell Pro Max.”

“This complicated brand we called Dell last year was trying to cover this very large consumer space with lots of similar products,” Clarke said. Now those non-XPS products are mostly dedicated to the base consumer and entry-level laptops, “no pluses, minuses, squares, or whatever the hell else we called them.”

“This complicated brand we called Dell last year was trying to cover this very large consumer space with lots of similar products,” Jeff Clarke, Dell’s chief operating officer said. Now those non-XPS products are mostly dedicated to the base consumer and entry-level laptops, “no pluses, minuses, squares, or whatever the hell else we called them.”

“We won’t chase every competitor down every rabbit hole,” he added. What that means is we probably won’t see any kind of handheld PC from Alienware, like that age-old UFO design showed off back in 2020. Just as well, Dell isn’t remodeling its entire laptop lineup for a second time in two years. The company isn’t bringing back brand names like Inspiron (which became mere “Dells) or Latitude (which transformed into “Dell Pro). According to Clarke, Dell Pro “still tests well.”

Submission + - VW Bring Back Physical Buttons (caranddriver.com)

Submitted by sinij
sinij writes:

Volkswagen is making a drastic change to its interiors, or at least the interiors of its electric vehicles. The automaker recently unveiled a new cockpit generation with the refreshed ID. Polo that now comes with physical buttons.

Unfortunately, glued-on-dash tablet look is still there.

Submission + - Ubisoft Hacked by Four Different Groups (pcquest.com)

Submitted by sinij
sinij writes:

Hackers breached Ubisoft's backend around 11 a.m. UTC on December 27, flooding countless accounts with billions of in-game Rainbow Six Siege credits, rare skins, and packs, while sending random fake ban messages. Ubisoft shut down all servers and the marketplace that afternoon to control the damage and also promised no punishments for players who spent the gifted credits and launching full transaction rollbacks with quality checks.

Submission + - Red Hat puts RHEL for NVIDIA at the center of rack scale AI (nerds.xyz)

Submitted by BrianFagioli
BrianFagioli writes: Red Hat and NVIDIA are clearly done pretending AI lives on a single GPU shoved into a lonely server. Their expanded collaboration is all about rack scale AI, and the star of the show is Red Hat Enterprise Linux for NVIDIA. The idea is simple and very enterprise: when NVIDIA rolls out new hardware like Vera Rubin, Red Hat wants Linux ready on day zero, not six months later after admins burn weekends chasing drivers and compatibility issues. This is Red Hat saying, flat out, that production AI needs boring reliability before it needs hype.

What makes this interesting is how aggressively Red Hat is centering Linux again. RHEL for NVIDIA is not a weird fork or science project. It stays aligned with regular RHEL, meaning enterprises can adopt it early and still land safely back on the main platform later. Tie that into OpenShift, Confidential Computing, and rack scale systems packed with accelerators, and you can see the play. Red Hat wants to be the default OS underneath enterprise AI factories, quietly doing its job while everyone else argues about models and agents.

Submission + - The Nation's Strictest Privacy Law Goes Into Effect (arstechnica.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Californians are getting a new, supercharged way to stop data brokers from hoarding and selling their personal information, as a recently enacted law that’s among the strictest in the nation took effect at the beginning of the year. [...] Two years ago, California’s Delete Act took effect. It required data brokers to provide residents with a means to obtain a copy of all data pertaining to them and to demand that such information be deleted. Unfortunately, Consumer Watchdog found that only 1 percent of Californians exercised these rights in the first 12 months after the law went into effect. A chief reason: Residents were required to file a separate demand with each broker. With hundreds of companies selling data, the burden was too onerous for most residents to take on.

On January 1, a new law known as DROP (Delete Request and Opt-out Platform) took effect. DROP allows California residents to register a single demand for their data to be deleted and no longer collected in the future. CalPrivacy then forwards it to all brokers. Starting in August, brokers will have 45 days after receiving the notice to report the status of each deletion request. If any of the brokers’ records match the information in the demand, all associated data—including inferences—must be deleted unless legal exemptions such as information provided during one-to-one interactions between the individual and the broker apply. To use DROP, individuals must first prove they’re a California resident.

Submission + - Supercritical CO2 Generators Now In Production 1

Submitted by cusco
cusco writes: https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fkdwalmsley.substack.co...

Chinese engineers deployed the world's first commercially viable sCO2 power generators, at a steel mill in Guizhou.

The Supercritical Carbon Dioxide (sCO2) generator converts waste heat into electricity. Compared to traditional steam and thermal systems, the sCO2 design is more than 85% more efficient, and produces 50% more electricity. . .

SCO2 is supercritical carbon dioxide. CO2 that’s maintained in a state above critical temperature and pressure, which is over 31 degrees Celsius and 1070 psi. Once there, CO2 acts both as a liquid and as a gas, and in industrial applications, that becomes very useful. As a gas, there is less resistance, and as a liquid, it provides greater thrust. And, turning CO2 into supercritical CO2 is more energy efficient than turning water into steam. . .
-----
Not everyone is as optimistic. Long article which assumes the Chinese will be sloppy with implementation for some reason.
https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcleantechnica.com%2F2026...

Experience with hydrogen suggests that expecting seals to remain effectively perfect over many years of continuous high pressure operation is absurdly optimistic, and there is little reason to assume supercritical CO systems will escape a similar long term reality. . .

Submission + - The 'Godfather of SaaS' says he replaced most of his sales team with AI agents (businessinsider.com)

Submitted by joshuark
joshuark writes: 'We're done with hiring humans' the 'Godfather of SaaS' says. Jason Lemkin, known to some as the Godfather of SaaS, says the time has come to push the limits of AI in the workplace. Lemkin, the founder of SaaStr, the world's largest community of business-to-business founders. In a recent podcast Lemkin said that this means he will stop hiring humans in his sales department.

SaaStr is going all in for AIagents which are commonly defined as virtual assistants that can complete tasks autonomously. They break down problems, outline plans, and take action without being prompted by a user. The company now has 20 AI agents automating tasks once handled by a team of 10 sales development representatives and account executives. That move to AI was rapid from an entirely human workforce.

During the SaaStr Annual a yearly gathering of over 10,000 founders, executives, and VCs, two of its high-paid sales representatives abruptly quit. Lemkin said he turned to Amelia Lerutte, SaaStr's chief AI officer, and said, "We're done with hiring humans in sales. We're going to push the limits with agents." Lemkin's calculus was that it just wasn't worth the cost of hiring another junior sales representative for a $150,000 a year position who would eventually quit, when he could use a loyal AI agent instead.

Lemkin said SaaStr is training its agents on its best humans. "Train an agent with your best person, and best script, then that agent can start to become a version of your best salesperson," he said. Lemkin said that the net productivity of agents is about the same as humans. However, he said, agents are more efficient and can scale — just like software.

Many companies are experimenting with AI agents, but risks remain. One of the big ones is the threat of data leaks and cybercrime.

Submission + - Lego's Smart Brick Gives the Iconic Analog Toy a New Digital Brain (wired.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: At CES in Las Vegas today, Lego has unveiled its new Smart Play platform, aimed at taking its distinctly analog plastic blocks and figures into a new world of tech-powered interactive play—but crucially one without any reliance on screens. Smart Play revolves around Lego's patented sensor- and tech-packed brick. It's the same size as a standard 2 x 4 Lego brick, but it is capable of connecting to compatible Smart Minifigures and Smart Tags and interacting with them in real time. By pairing these components, kids big and small can create context-appropriate sounds and light effects as they play with the Danish company's toys.

[...] Lego is claiming this Smart Play platform developed in house by the company’s Creative Play Lab team in collaboration with Capgemini's Cambridge Consultants “features more than 20 patented world-firsts within its technology.” The heart of the system is the Smart Brick's custom-made chip, measuring smaller than a standard Lego stud. Other elements crammed into the eight-stud brick are an LED light array, accelerometers, light sensors, and sound sensor, and even a miniature speaker. The internal battery will supposedly work even after years of inactivity, and to avoid any need for cable access to the Smart Brick once it's built into a beloved creation, Lego has also added wireless charging. Indeed, Lego has made a charging pad that will power up several Smart Bricks simultaneously.

That all-important brain chip is a 4.1-millimeter custom mixed-signal ASIC chip running a bespoke Play Engine, which interprets motion, orientation, and magnetic fields. A copper coil assembly enables the brick’s tag recognition, while a proprietary “Brick-to-Brick position system” uses these coils to sense distance, direction, and orientation between multiple Smart Bricks. Moreover, Lego claims this use of multiple Smart Bricks creates a “self-organizing network” that requires no setup, no app, no central hub, nor external controllers—and so no screens. A Bluetooth-based “BrickNet” protocol shares the data between the Smart Bricks.

Sounds are handled by a tiny analog synthesizer putting out real-time audio (thus minimizing memory load) via the brick's miniature speaker, which uses the brick's internal air spaces to amplify sound. As a result, the audio effects are apparently immediate and can be used to enhance play with real-time sound. Lego insists there are no prerecorded clips of lightsabers or other pieces of audio being used as a cheat. Just like the Smart Minifigs, the 2 x 2 studless tile tags trigger sounds, lights, or behaviors tied to where they are placed or how they are played with. They communicate with other components through near-field magnetic connections. Each tile has a unique digital ID, which is read by the brain brick, while the minifigures—outwardly identical to standard minifigs—carry their unique digital ID on an internal chip.

Submission + - Amazon's AI Assistant Comes To the Web With Alexa.com (techcrunch.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Amazon’s AI-powered overhaul of its digital assistant, now known as Alexa+, is coming to the web. On Monday, at the start of the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, the company announced the official launch of a new website, Alexa.com, which is now rolling out to all Alexa+ Early Access customers. The site will allow customers to use Alexa+ online, much as you can do today with other AI chatbots such as ChatGPT or Google’s Gemini.

[...] Related to this expansion, Amazon is updating its Alexa mobile app, which will now offer a more “agent-forward” experience. Or, in other words, it’s putting a chatbot-style interface on the app’s homepage, making it seem more like a typical AI chatbot. (While you could chat with Alexa before in the app, the focus is now on the chatting — while the other features take a back seat.) On the Alexa.com website, customers can use Alexa+ for common tasks — for instance, exploring complex topics, creating content, and making trip itineraries. However, Amazon aims to differentiate its assistant from others by focusing on families and their needs in the home.

[...] The Alexa.com website features a navigation sidebar for quicker access to your most-used Alexa features, so you can pick up where you left off on tasks like setting the thermostat, checking your calendar for appointments, reviewing shopping lists, and more. In addition, Amazon aims to convince customers to share their personal documents, emails, and calendar access with Alexa+, so its AI can become a sort of hub to manage the goings-on at home, from kids’ school holidays and soccer schedules to doctor’s appointments and other things families need to remember — like when the dog got its last rabies shot, or what day the neighbor’s backyard BBQ is taking place.

Submission + - Namecheap takes down domain hosting video archives of Israeli war crimes (neosmart.net) 1

Submitted by Devar
Devar writes: Namecheap.com, the popular domain name and webhosting platform, has taken over the Genocide.live domain name, which was home to a publicly accessible archive of over 16,000 videos documenting alleged Israeli war crimes, the vast majority of which were recorded since the onset of the war on Gaza in late 2023. The archive, formerly known as TikTokGenocide, was previously submitted as “evidence on the State of Israel’s acts of genocide against the Palestinians in Gaza” by the South African UN delegation to the United Nations Security Council in February of 2025 and is also included in ongoing court proceedings of the International Court of Justice case South Africa (et. al.) v. Israel.

Submission + - China's "artificial sun" just broke a fusion limit scientists thought was unbrea (sciencedaily.com)

Submitted by alternative_right
alternative_right writes: Researchers using China’s “artificial sun” fusion reactor have broken through a long-standing density barrier in fusion plasma. The experiment confirmed that plasma can remain stable even at extreme densities if its interaction with the reactor walls is carefully controlled. This finding removes a major obstacle that has slowed progress toward fusion ignition.

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