Anthropic has launched [1]Claude Science , an AI workbench that connects more than 60 scientific databases and tools through a single interface. Through the platform, Basecamp Research is making its [2]EDEN models available for tasks such as [3]designing antibiotic peptides and predicting vaccine targets from simple text prompts , though the results still require laboratory testing before clinical use. Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology News reports:

> In a Claude Science demo, Oliver Vince, PhD, co-founder at Basecamp, uploaded a sample patient microbiology report. When given a simple natural language prompt, the platform designed peptides, predicted their efficacy, and provided a shortlist of candidates most likely to succeed in experiments in minutes. While generating human-ready antibiotics at the click of a button is still a step away, Vince said democratizing these tools is a powerful first step, particularly for researchers in regions where accelerated computing infrastructure is not readily accessible. "Most models require you to be a computational scientist," Vince told GEN Edge. "Now, potentially any clinician in the world can chat with Claude and design an antibiotic that may work."



[1] https://www.anthropic.com/news/claude-science-ai-workbench

[2] https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.01.12.699009v1

[3] https://www.genengnews.com/topics/artificial-intelligence/claude-science-is-here-antibiotics-designed-by-text-prompt-among-applications/

Microsoft has [1]released a public preview of Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) containers, adding a built-in command-line tool and [2]API for running Linux containers directly inside Windows applications without third-party software . The update also introduces faster file access, improved networking and memory management, plus integration with Defender, Intune, and VS Code. The Register reports:

> WSL has always been a handy way to run Linux workloads from Windows, and is particularly convenient for Linux developers who must comply with corporate edicts to use a Windows device. The CLI for end-to-end container workflows furthers this. Microsoft stated, "WSL containers make it easier for developers and organizations to build, test, and run containerized workloads while benefiting from the security, manageability, and integration of the Windows platform."

>

> Alternatively, you could run your preferred Linux distribution natively, but that might not be an option, particularly if an organization is keen on the "security, manageability, and integration of the Windows platform." And this is an important point. WSL's existing Microsoft Defender for Endpoint (MDE) has been updated (in private preview) to be aware of Linux container events, and there are settings in Intune for managing WSL containers. Support is also in a pre-release version of VS Code, where the Docker path in the dev container settings can be changed to wslc.

>

> There is also a new default file system for WSL container that Microsoft claims makes Windows file access twice the speed. So, going from terribly slow to just slow? We'll wait until general availability is reached before passing judgment. There's a new default networking mode to improve compatibility and better memory reclaim techniques. However, none of these tweaks will be enabled by default in WSL. Microsoft wrote, "Since these changes touch mission critical paths like file system access and network, for now they are enabled just in WSL container."



[1] https://devblogs.microsoft.com/commandline/wsl-container-is-now-available-for-public-preview/

[2] https://www.theregister.com/virtualization/2026/06/30/microsoft-previews-linux-containers-that-run-in-windows/5264468

An anonymous reader quotes a report from 404 Media:

> On June 26, the County Manager of Henrico County, Virginia, John Vithoulkas, sent an email to thousands of county employees [1]asking them to help the local government conserve electricity . "Beginning July 1st, the rate we pay for electricity used in all Henrico County government and school facilities will increase dramatically -- by 25%, increasing costs by an estimated $5 million next fiscal year. We anticipate more rate increases for electricity in the years ahead," a copy of the email obtained by 404 Media said (emphasis his).

>

> Henrico County is a community of more than 350,000 people in eastern Virginia just outside of Richmond. It also hosts 37 data centers and there are plans to build 17 more, including plans to convert hundreds of acres of Civil War battlefields into data centers. Thanks to its proximity to DC and vast amounts of land, Henrico County became a data center hub seemingly overnight and its services clients big and small. Meta built a data center there in 2017.

>

> "To mitigate the impact of higher electric costs, I am asking that we, collectively, make slight adjustments to conserve electricity across our individual workspaces," Vithoulkas wrote in the email. "Turn off your lights when leaving your workspace, including when you leave for the day. Turn off your computers/laptops at the end of each workday. If your workspace has windows, adjust the blinds to manage heat from sunlight. Unplug any appliances, chargers, or other electrical items when they are not in use. Please limit use of (or refrain altogether from using) space heaters. A typical space heater alone can cost the county from $150 to $300 per year in electricity costs."

"Each dollar we can save by conserving electricity is another dollar the county can reinvest into staff and the services we provide our residents," Vithoulkas email said.



[1] https://www.404media.co/henrico-virginia-datacenter-energy-cost-email/

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica:

> South Korea's government and top tech companies are [1]committing $1 trillion to several flagship megaprojects that could bolster global memory chip supply, build new AI data centers and spur commercial deployment of humanoid robots by 2028. [...] "We must secure the core elements of AI faster than any other country," said South Korean President Lee Jae Myung in a televised speech on June 29, as reported by [2]BBC News and other media outlets. "Semiconductors, physical AI, and AI data centers are the triple axis for a great leap forward." [...]

>

> The most costly of the megaprojects involves Samsung and SK Hynix committing $585 billion to building new chip fabrication plants in the southwest provinces of South Korea, along with boosting semiconductor fab construction in the Seoul capital region, according to [3]Reuters . The government's goal is to double South Korea's production of dynamic random-access memory (DRAM) within five years. [...] The second flagship megaproject involves a $357 billion investment by the South Korean tech companies SK Group, GS Group, and Naver into building large-scale AI data centers in more outlying provinces, including South Chungcheong Province in the west, Gangwon Province in the east, and the North and South Jeolla Provinces in the southwest corner of South Korea.

>

> The third flagship megaproject revolves around the South Korean government assigning a "national strategic industry" designation to physical AI -- the AI systems that enable robots and self-driving vehicles to interact more autonomously with the real world. The government aims to develop a Korean "general-purpose foundation model" based on a world model to support robots within three years, according to [4]The Chosun Daily . Hyundai Motor Company has also committed $5.8 billion to build a robot manufacturing facility and AI data center in the Saemangeum region of North Jeolla Province in the southwest, The Chosun Daily reported.

>

> The South Korean automaker has already been [5]helping Boston Dynamics -- the US robotics company it acquired in 2021 -- use the South Korean supply chain in scaling up manufacturing to produce 30,000 Atlas humanoid robots each year by 2028. Similarly, the South Korean government announced it would aim to commercialize humanoid robots in 10 major industries by 2028, along with training 10,000 human workers as "AI robotics specialists" over the next five years, Reuters reported.



[1] https://arstechnica.com/ai/2026/06/south-korea-to-spend-1t-on-more-memory-chip-production-and-humanoid-robots/

[2] https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c9q2pwzngjqo

[3] https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/south-korean-president-unveil-massive-ai-chip-investment-drive-2026-06-29/

[4] https://www.chosun.com/english/industry-en/2026/06/29/FVFRJHGFABF37PZDZACVLIJWZQ/

[5] https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/26/06/19/198218/hyundai-takes-full-control-of-boston-dynamics-as-softbank-exits-for-325-million

The U.S. Supreme Court [1]ruled 6-3 (PDF) in Chatrie v United States (No. 25-112) that geofence warrants sweeping up smartphone location data constitute searches under the Fourth Amendment. The Court found that individuals have a "reasonable expectation of privacy" in such data, even when the tracking covers only a brief period or records movements in public. "An individual has a reasonable expectation of privacy in records about his cell phone's location, and police intrude on that constitutionally protected interest when they demand the information -- even though for only a limited time, and from a third-party tech company," wrote Justice Elena Kagan. Longtime Slashdot reader [2]schwit1 submitted the story. The Guardian reports:

> The use of geofence warrants is widespread, and gives law enforcement agencies the power to compel tech companies to hand over sensitive cell phone data from people at or near crime scenes. The warrants allow police and the FBI to collect this information from individuals within the radius of a virtual "fence" during a particular timeframe. But they are not restricted to requesting data for precise targets.

>

> The Chatrie case focuses on local police's pursuit of an armed bank robber in Richmond, Virginia. He fled with $195,000. Law enforcement tracked Okello Chatrie down through their use of geofence warrants. Chatrie had opted in to an optional Google "location history" feature that documented his location every few minutes. He was eventually sentenced to 12 years in prison, after pleading guilty. Chatrie's lawyers argued that this search was overly broad and violated his fourth amendment rights, which protects individuals from "unreasonable search and seizure." Lawyers said that police's use of geofence warrants amounted to an official "search" under the fourth amendment, and didn't meet the constitution's requirements for one.

>

> The government had argued that accessing only a short amount of cellphone location information means this tactic does not count as a fourth amendment search and accordingly, should not be afforded the same privacy protections. But the judges in the majority disagreed. The judges in the majority opinion also wrote that the government's characterization of generating location history as a voluntary choice is "meritless." They suggested that people aren't choosing to share private information with third parties and the government "just by doing the ordinary thing cellphone users do." "The point of carrying smartphones is to use what is on them," including the apps and services they provide -- many of which use location data to customize a user's experience, they said.

>

> [...] While the majority opinion noted that police conducted a fourth amendment search by accessing Chatrie's location history data, they noted that the court of appeals will weigh in on whether the "search was reasonable, meaning that each of its steps was properly described with particularity and found to be supported by probable cause." Law enforcement has said they need geofence warrants to find suspects and witnesses -- after reaching dead ends. The US government, for its part, has argued that people can't have a "reasonable expectation of privacy" when they are in public and have allowed a third party company, such as Google, to collect and analyze phone location data.



[1] https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25pdf/25-112_0am4.pdf

[2] https://slashdot.org/~schwit1

Slashdot reader [1]joshuark summarizes this walk down memory lane [2]from the tech site MakeUseOf :

> Facing real competition from Digital Research's DR DOS, Microsoft secretly embedded a sabotaging mechanism known as "AARD code" into beta versions of Windows 3.1 to prevent it from running on Digital Research's competing DR DOS operating system.

> This code triggered fake, alarming error messages to convince developers that DR DOS was unstable... Although Microsoft disabled the feature in the final retail release, the California-based firm Caldera, Inc., which had acquired DR DOS assets, sued Microsoft for anti-competitive practices.

> Microsoft settled the lawsuit out of court in 2000 for $280 million, a figure that remained sealed until it was unsealed in 2009.



[1] https://www.slashdot.org/~joshuark

[2] https://www.makeuseof.com/microsofts-windows-fake-error-ended-in-a-280-million-settlement/

"Amid growing public anger over A.I. and a debate over how to regulate it, a group of employers, state governors and foundations has raised $500 million to try to answer some of those questions themselves," [1]reports the New York Times .

"Just how many jobs will AI upend?" [2]asks the Wall Street Journal , reporting that the new coalition says it's time to ready the U.S. workforce for a "major" disruption — no matter how large it turns out to be. The coalition "has so far raised more than $500 million — about half of its multiyear goal — from companies and nonprofit groups. It will initially work with state governments in Arkansas, Maryland, Utah and Connecticut. OpenAI and Anthropic are also involved, and academics including MIT economist David Autor sit on an advisory board."

> [The new "RAISE US" coalition] will be led by former Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, who served under former President Joe Biden, and former Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb, a Republican. Its mandate, they said, isn't just to build retraining programs but also to reconsider decades-old policies such as unemployment insurance and act as a working lab for testing the most effective ways to transition workers to [3]new fields . The group will explore corporate incentives for employers to hold on to workers whose jobs are disrupted by AI and prep them for new roles... The mission of the group is to "pull all the levers at once," Raimondo said. That means teaming up with employers to find ways to help workers gain skills or new roles and joining with educators to roll out different types of training. It also plans to propose policy changes such as tweaking unemployment benefits to let displaced workers continue to get them while they, for instance, start new businesses with AI... In Maryland, the group plans to expand a service-year option in the state to help people gain exposure to such growing fields as healthcare. An effort in Arkansas will focus on supporting "an AI-powered career navigation platform."

[4]More from New York Times :

> The organization will work primarily with governors... The theory: States generally control their community college systems, which can translate work force policy through course offerings and industry partnerships. The bulk of the budget will fund pilot programs overseen by about 15 staff members and consultants. For example, Maryland will expand a "service year" for recent high school graduates to provide experience in fields where there are shortages, such as health care. In other states, Raise Us hopes to offer "wage insurance" for workers who take lower-paying jobs rather than dropping out of the work force entirely.

>

> The group plans to furnish technical assistance for companies that want to retain workers as A.I. changes their roles, rather than eliminating them. Microsoft, one of the companies backing the organization, said it had already found a promising model: cross-training its entry-level lawyers in different parts of the organization and equipping them with A.I. skills in order for them to be repositioned as technology evolves. "You can think of doing that with almost any job we have," said Brad Smith, vice chair and president at Microsoft. "It creates an opportunity to transfer people from jobs that are being eliminated to jobs that are being created...."

>

> Ms. Raimondo and her colleagues are not fans of a universal basic income, an idea that has gained popularity in Silicon Valley as an answer to job disruption. They emphasize that work provides more than just wages, and plan to focus on helping people find pathways to new jobs. But it's unclear whether A.I. will create jobs at the rate that it will destroy them. Jack Malde studied work force policy for the Bipartisan Policy Center and is now going to work for the Windfall Trust, another A.I.-focused think tank. He said long-term income support might be necessary, even if better models for transitioning workers were found. "The truth is, there's still a lot of uncertainty," Mr. Malde said. "What we think is resilient now might not be resilient later. We're not going to get everything right, so we're going to need those strong safety-net programs."

Long-time Slashdot reader [5]theodp writes:

> If you think you've seen this movie before, prior to "partnering with governors, employers, and training partners to help the American workforce make a successful transition to an AI economy" with RAISE US, Raimondo and Holcomb partnered with governors, employers and training partners to help U.S. K-12 students make a successful transition to a CS economy with the [6]Governors for Computer Science coalition.



[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/25/business/economy/ai-work-force-training-job-losses.html?unlocked_article_code=1.t1A.aK0a.QNPd7JoQfZ4H&smid=url-share

[2] https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/the-new-push-to-ready-millions-for-ai-career-upheaval/ar-AA26vXm9

[3] https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/economists-weigh-in-on-the-future-of-work-and-ai-f59311e9

[4] https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/25/business/economy/ai-work-force-training-job-losses.html?unlocked_article_code=1.t1A.aK0a.QNPd7JoQfZ4H&smid=url-share

[5] https://www.slashdot.org/~theodp

[6] https://www.governorsforcs.org/

Ford executives said they've hired 350 veteran engineers — some of them former employees — after AI and automated systems failed to deliver the desired quality, [1]reports TechCrunch :

> [2]Bloomberg reports the company's chief operating officer Kumar Galhotra told journalists that Ford had been "relying more and more on automated quality systems" with disappointing results. So the company "brought back technical specialists," and those specialists "hunt for failure points before a part ever reaches the plant floor."

>

> Charles Poon, Ford's vice president of vehicle hardware engineering, added, "Mistakenly we thought that by just introducing artificial intelligence and ingesting the design requirements that we had, that that would produce a high-quality product."

The article points out that Ford is using the rehired gray beard engineers to train younger staff — and, to reprogram its AI tools.



[1] https://techcrunch.com/2026/06/28/ford-rehires-gray-beard-engineers-after-ai-falls-short/

[2] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-06-25/ford-has-been-rehiring-quality-inspectors-after-ai-fell-short

"South Korea plans to train every single member of its nearly half-million-strong military to operate drones as easily as they handle personal firearms," [1]reports Ars Technica :

> The goal is to make drones a "universal combat tool" for all troops by training them to use drones like a "second personal weapon," said Ahn Gyu-back, South Korea's Minister of National Defense, in a June 26 briefing [2]reported by Reuters and other media outlets. The announcement coincides with broader plans to equip individual military units with more cheap and expendable drones for surveillance and strike missions, along with deploying more counter-drone lasers and microwave weapons.

>

> Meanwhile, South Korea's former drone operations command headquarters that used to have direct command authority over combat units will be reorganized to focus on collaborating with South Korean industry on developing and procuring commercial drone technology, according to [3]The Korea Times . The South Korean defense minister specifically cited the conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East as inspiring such military reforms with a focus on drone technologies... Ukraine's [4]use of drones and [5]military robots as a force multiplier to offset its numerical disadvantage on the battlefield versus Russia's larger military may carry special resonance for South Korea, given that the South Korean military's [6]current active-duty strength of 450,000 personnel faces a numerical disadvantage against North Korea's active-duty military consisting of more than 1.2 million soldiers...

>

> The defense ministry is starting out by providing 11,000 "training drones" to military personnel this year, with the goal of eventually deploying 60,000 drones across the military by 2029. An additional complication comes from the South Korean military looking to procure drones with 100 percent domestically produced components and [7]no Chinese components due to security concerns, according to the defense minister's comments reported by Reuters... South Korean companies are building new military attack drones, but the defense ministry may struggle to find enough commercial drones made without Chinese components to train hundreds of thousands of military conscripts, said Min-Cheol Jung, a cofounder of the Team Retriever counter-drone red team based in South Korea, in a [8]War on the Rocks article.



[1] https://arstechnica.com/ai/2026/06/south-korea-plans-to-train-entire-military-as-drone-warriors/

[2] https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/south-korea-expand-drone-forces-train-500000-operators-ministry-says-2026-06-26/

[3] https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/amp/southkorea/politics/20260626/korea-overhauls-uav-command-structure-to-train-all-soldiers-to-operate-drones

[4] https://arstechnica.com/ai/2026/06/ukraines-one-time-test-used-fully-autonomous-drones-to-kill-russian-soldiers/

[5] https://arstechnica.com/ai/2026/04/ukraines-military-robot-surge-aims-to-offset-drone-risks-to-humans/

[6] https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/south-koreas-military-has-shrunk-by-20-six-years-male-population-drops-2025-08-10/

[7] https://arstechnica.com/ai/2026/06/as-china-looms-taiwan-makes-more-drones-for-defense-and-the-us-military/

[8] https://warontherocks.com/south-koreas-500000-drone-warriors-will-be-a-hollow-force/

The planets Neptune and Uranus may be better described as "magma-ocean giants" rather than "ice giants," according to a team of researchers from the University of California. [1] Gizmodo reports :

> While the Voyager flyby confirmed the planets' classification as ice giants... [a]s the least explored planets in the solar system, the two planets have never been thoroughly investigated. Therefore, scientists aren't sure where the planets originally formed in the early solar system or the reason for their wildly chaotic magnetic fields. A long-standing hypothesis suggests that both worlds have a hydrogen/helium atmosphere that covers a vast mantle of ices, made primarily of water, ammonia, and methane, with a rocky core. The new study, however, notes that the three-layer model of an ice giant's interior structure is not the only way to explain the properties of the two planets.

>

> The researchers also point out that objects found in the Kuiper Belt, which are thought to preserve evidence of the material in the outer Solar System where Uranus and Neptune formed, are primarily composed of rock rather than ice. For the recent study, the researchers simulated different models for the interior processes and composition of Uranus and Neptune. The model that best fits Uranus's and Neptune's different properties suggests the two planets have a well-mixed magma ocean with dissolved hydrogen at the bottom and a hydrogen-dominated envelope at the top. The model suggests that at high pressures, hydrogen gas can dissolve into magma, forming a well-mixed fluid. This mixing might help explain Uranus's and Neptune's density, which has traditionally been interpreted as evidence for an ice-rich interior.

The article notes that the theory "could also help scientists understand the interior structure of sub-Neptune planets in the Milky Way, which have thus far remained a mystery."



[1] https://gizmodo.com/scientists-think-uranus-and-neptune-may-not-be-the-ice-giants-we-imagined-2000778382

Donald Trump shuttered the web site Climate.gov in 2025, cutting off public access to climate information from America's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

But "former members of the site's team have brought much of it back at a new domain," [1]reports The Register :

> "Trusted climate information should not disappear when politics change," [2]Climate.us managing director Rebecca Lindsey said of the new platform in a [3]press release . Lindsey, who previously served as the Climate.gov program manager and lead editor, told The Register in an email that she and one of the web developers responsible for the site were the first to be caught up in government purges when DOGE swept through the department in late February 2025... Created in cooperation with sustainability nonprofit accelerator Multiplier, Climate.us aims to be an independent alternative to its old .gov, and many of the former NOAA crew behind the previous website have teamed up for the new initiative to "keep climate information accurate, accessible, scientifically rigorous, and useful for the people who rely on it."

>

> Climate.gov, which now [4]redirects to a NOAA page about climate but which hosts none of the data the shuttered site used to contain, was taken offline in July 2025 following a Trump [5]executive order prioritizing "gold standard science...." arguing that prior climate science models relied on worst-case scenarios, which somehow meant the public availability of 15 years of climate data and reporting ought to change...

>

> All of the content that was purged from the .gov is now back, along with blogs from experts, climate status reports, maps and data pathways, and national assessments of climate change as well. Lindsey told us that rapidly changing political winds have led her to believe that the government isn't the right place for that mission to continue, and that she would have concerns about returning the site to federal management if a future administration changed its position on climate change... Lindsey said that the Climate.us team will continue with the same mission it had before the Trump administration attempted to quash it: Getting climate science in front of the public in a manner that's understandable so they can make their own decisions about how to respond.



[1] https://www.theregister.com/science/2026/06/26/trump-shuttered-climate-change-site-back-online-in-nonprofit-hands/5263319

[2] https://www.climate.us/

[3] https://www.climate.us/news-features/feed/climateus-launches-independent-website-trusted-climate-information

[4] https://www.noaa.gov/climate

[5] https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/05/restoring-gold-standard-science/

IBM has unveiled "what it says is the world's first sub-1-nanometer chip technology," [1]reports ZDNet , "designed to pack nearly 100 billion transistors on a fingernail-size die, roughly doubling the density of IBM's earlier 2-nm test chip, first shown in 2021... Today, the smallest, most powerful chips top out at about 80 billion transistors."

> At the heart of the announcement is NanoStack. This is a three-dimensional, nanosheet-based transistor design that scales vertically, or along the z-axis, by stacking and staggering CMOS devices. Unlike today's nanosheet architectures, which IBM also pioneered and which are being adopted by leading foundries at 3 nm and 2 nm, NanoStack bonds two nanosheet transistors into a single vertical structure, with each tier optimized independently and contacted from opposite sides. Each transistor in the demonstrated structure uses three sub-5 nm-thick nanosheets, about "15 silicon atoms" across, separated by roughly 9 nm spacers. Two such devices are then bonded vertically using an ultra-thin dielectric process IBM describes as a key innovation. Because the top and bottom devices can use different channel materials, dielectrics, and metals, IBM argues NanoStack is less a single trick and more a transistor platform that can be extended through multiple generations: 7 angstrom (Å), 5 Å, 3 Å, and potentially down to 1 Å in its internal roadmap.

>

> An angstrom, by the by, is one ten-billionth of a meter. In terms of chips, an angstrom is a tenth of a nanometer. "This is the world's first sub-1 nanometer chip technology with a new transistor architecture," said Jay Gambetta, Director of IBM Research and IBM Fellow, during a press briefing. "We're not just making smaller transistors, we're reinventing how chips are built to deliver dramatically more power and energy efficiency...." Based on internal benchmarking against its 2 nm node, the company said its new chips will deliver up to 50% higher performance at the same power, or up to 70% lower power for the same performance. Big Blue also highlighted a 40% improvement in the scaling of static random-access memory (SRAM) cell area relative to its 2 nm technology.

>

> This is a change IBM described as a "step the industry hasn't seen in over a decade" and one that could be particularly important for AI accelerators that live or die on on-chip memory bandwidth... According to Huiming Bu, IBM's VP of silicon technology R&D, NanoStack is a new paradigm. It's moving chips to scaling fully into three dimensions and giving the industry at least "another decade" of logic advances as it crosses from nanometers into angstroms... The 40% SRAM density bump could also help architects push caches and on-die memory closer to compute units, cutting data movement overhead in training and inference workloads.

IBM sees a path to production use "in as early as the next 5 years", according to the article, and "expects NanoStack to eventually underpin CPUs, GPUs, mobile SoCs, and SRAM arrays."

IBM's VP of silicon technology R&D says the new innovation "can improve performance by 50% compared to the best available chip today, and at the same time can reduce power by 70%."



[1] https://www.zdnet.com/education/computers-tech/ibm-claims-beyond-nanometer-milestone-with-sub-1-nm-nanostack-chip-architecture/

The New York Times alleges Microsoft actively encouraged OpenAI to steal its copyrighted work, [1]reports Ars Technica , citing a new (and heavily redacted) [2]court filing Thursday:

> NYT's motion comes after the [U.S.] Supreme Court [3]sided with Cox Communications in a case where Sony tried and failed to claim that Cox was contributing to music piracy as an Internet service provider, which set a new standard for contributory infringement. Moving forward, plaintiffs will have to prove that parties intentionally acted to induce illegal conduct. Recognizing that the legal precedent has changed, the NYT now wants to amend its complaint to align its contributory infringement claim against Microsoft with that new standard... A Microsoft spokesperson told Ars that the company views the amended complaint as "a last-ditch effort by the plaintiff to save its claim from unfavorable precedent set in other recent rulings..."

>

> The updated complaint seeks to specify that [Microsoft's] supercomputer was tailor-made to help OpenAI infringe and allege that it was built for the explicit purpose of training AI on copyrighted works without permission. And as the NYT alleged, its articles were more heavily weighted by this system, as both firms hoped to train models on the highest-quality journalism possible, so that level of writing could be confidently mimicked in outputs. By building this "unusually complex" machine, Microsoft not only helped select the works that were infringed but also provided a means to seize copyrighted works without permission, the NYT alleged. "Microsoft specifically designed it for the purpose of using essentially the whole Internet — curated to disproportionately feature Times Works — to train the most capable LLM in history," the NYT alleged... Similarly as problematic for the NYT are hallucinations where Microsoft and OpenAI models falsely cite the NYT for content that they never published... "Users who ask a search engine what The Times has written on a subject should be provided with neither an unauthorized copy nor an inaccurate forgery of a Times article, but a link to the article itself," the NYT alleged...

>

> In a statement provided to Ars, OpenAI spokesperson Drew Pusateri reiterated the AI firm's often-repeated claims that AI training on copyrighted works is indisputably fair use... OpenAI has argued that "ChatGPT is not a substitute for a Times subscription," the NYT [4]reported , partly because "they transformed the material for a different use."

An OpenAI spokesperson told Ars Technica that OpenAI's models "empower innovation," while a New York Times spokesperson insisted that Microsoft "actively encouraged OpenAI to steal our copyrighted works... [O]ur core claims remain the same from the day we filed this lawsuit — that Microsoft and OpenAI stole millions of The Times's copyrighted works to compete with our products and illegally enrich themselves."

The article speculates that the case's most extreme outcome "could require OpenAI and Microsoft to wipe models and start over. The NYT has also asked for permanent injunctive relief to prevent future infringement, as well as extensive damages..."



[1] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/06/microsoft-built-supercomputer-to-help-openai-infringe-copyrights-nyt-alleged/

[2] https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/NYT-v-OpenAI-Third-Amended-Complaint-6-25-26.pdf

[3] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/03/supreme-court-rejects-sonys-attempt-to-kick-music-pirates-off-the-internet/

[4] https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/25/technology/times-lawsuit-openai-microsoft.html

Spanish startup FOSSA Systems "has raised about $10.5 million to expand its connectivity constellation," [1]reports Space News , noting some funding is backed by Spain's government:

> The support from the Spanish Society for Technological Transformation (SETT) comes a year after the fund injected 14 million euros [2]into Spain's Sateliot , which is also developing a satellite connectivity network with security and defense applications. Spanish private investment firm Kibo Ventures led FOSSA's funding round, the six-year-old venture announced June 24, bringing its total raised to date to nearly 20 million euros.

>

> The proceeds will help fuel FOSSA's push beyond the tiny picosatellites it once used to connect low-power monitoring devices toward larger cubesats in low Earth orbit, enabling additional sovereign communications and space-based intelligence capabilities... The company's funding round follows a wave of investments this year in European ventures planning to develop sovereign space capabilities, including Austrian propulsion startup Gate Space, which [3]secured 6.3 million euros earlier this month from a European Commission-backed accelerator program.

> "Our goal is to establish FOSSA as a European benchmark in sovereign space infrastructure," said Julián Fernández, FOSSA's CEO and cofounder.



[1] https://spacenews.com/spain-backed-fund-joins-fossas-sovereign-satellite-communications-push/

[2] https://spacenews.com/spain-backs-sateliot-with-15-million-to-expand-connectivity-constellation/

[3] https://spacenews.com/austrian-propulsion-startup-joins-sovereign-space-funding-surge/

Chinese AI systems "have matched the performance of Anthropic's powerful model Mythos in some cybersecurity scenarios," [1]reports the Wall Street Journal .

They call it "a development poised to reset the global tech race and pressure the White House in its overhaul of U.S. [2]AI policy ."

> Security researchers said that a new AI model, released this month by China's Zhipu AI, also known as Z.ai, can match the latest U.S. models when it comes to finding security bugs, although it still lags behind Anthropic's and OpenAI's products in other tasks. Overall, the capability gap between top U.S. models and those built by Chinese companies has narrowed significantly, and use of Chinese AI systems has surged as businesses seek to rein in runaway costs. A host of companies, including Microsoft, are weighing how they can offer [3]Chinese models on their platforms, a development that is set to alter the balance of power among tech companies...

>

> Unlike models from Anthropic or OpenAI, Zhipu's GLM-5.2 is [4]open-weight . That means it can be downloaded and run on hardware operated by anybody and can be modified and used without supervision. Open-weight models are ideal for users who want unfettered access to systems they control, but they are also ideal for hackers, who can run them in the shadows. GLM-5.2 has ranked as one of the 10 most-used AI models, according to data from OpenRouter, a company that provides access to more than 400 AI models. In some benchmarking tests, according to the cybersecurity company Semgrep, GLM-5.2 bested Anthropic's Claude Opus 4.8 model, which was released in May. When given further instructions, Opus 4.8 and GLM-5.2 can match Mythos in bug-finding ability, according to researchers...

>

> "Banning Fable while selling chips China needs to develop its own version is a gift to China," said Saif Khan, a distinguished technology fellow at the Institute for Progress think tank who worked on export restrictions in the Biden administration. The U.S. needs to maximize the use of Mythos and comparable models to harden its cyber defenses while it can, he added. Among the Mythos 5 and Fable 5 users that had lost access before Friday's decision to restore Mythos 5 access for some trusted entities: the National Security Agency, which had been testing the tools and found them impressive in trials, according to people familiar with the matter... "It is incentivizing companies across the globe to use cheaper but very capable Chinese open-weight models, while at the same time undermining the U.S. AI industry," said Niels Provos, a researcher who led security teams at Google and Stripe. "I don't understand it."

Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader [5]schwit1 for sharing the article.



[1] https://www.msn.com/en-us/technology/artificial-intelligence/china-has-matched-anthropic-in-cybersecurity-resetting-ai-race/ar-AA26I0hA

[2] https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/trump-ai-anthropic-mythos-regulation-2378971f?

[3] https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/microsofts-satya-nadella-we-cant-let-ai-giants-eat-the-economy-b9d33b9f

[4] https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/chinas-lead-in-open-source-ai-jolts-washington-and-silicon-valley-ffdec83b

[5] https://slashdot.org/~schwit1

The New York Times tells the story of a 63-year-old retiree who wrote a check for several thousand dollaras to pay her taxes. But she discovered much later that her taxes were never paid because that check had been [1]intercepted and then altered to be payable to someone else :

> In some cases, thieves may pilfer one or more checks from local mailboxes. Adam Rust, director of financial services for the Consumer Federation of America, said thieves sometimes "fish" for checks at free-standing drop boxes, using long tools with sticky pads on the ends to grab letters. In other cases, more sophisticated criminals may steal large batches of checks, copy them and then [2]sell them on the internet. Often, the purloined checks are chemically altered in what's known as "check washing" to remove the name of the recipient. The thief replaces it with a fraudulent name, and often increases the amount of the check, before cashing or depositing it.

The 63-year-old retiree's bank told her she'd waited too long to recover the funds:

> Schwab's "security guarantee," outlined on its [3]website , says that "Schwab will cover losses in any of your Schwab accounts due to unauthorized activity." But fine print at the bottom of the page notes that reimbursement "requires your timely reporting of unauthorized activity to Schwab," and that Schwab "will not be liable for additional or increased losses resulting from a failure to report unauthorized activity in a timely manner." It notes that more details are available in account agreements... Notify your bank as soon as possible, said Scott Anchin, senior vice president of strategic initiatives and policy at the independent bankers association. Banks generally allow at least 30 days and sometimes up to 90 days from the time your statement is made available to you to report suspected check fraud, he said.

So how can you avoid check fraud? Adam Rust, director of financial services for the Consumer Federation of America, just suggests that "No one should ever mail a check."

> If you must write a check, he said, try to deliver it in person or take it inside a post office to mail rather than relying on your own mailbox or public drop boxes. The American Bankers Association [4]recommends using permanent "gel" ink pens when you do write checks to reduce the risk of tampering... And if you don't already, consider using your bank's online bill payment service.

The article notes that even the U.S. federal government "has been moving away from [5]paper checks for things like benefit payments and income tax refunds, saying digital payment methods are more secure."



[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/26/your-money/paper-checks-mail-fraud.html

[2] https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/09/business/stolen-checks-telegram.html

[3] https://www.schwab.com/schwabsafe/security-guarantee

[4] https://www.practicesafechecks.com/safe-check-tips

[5] https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/20/your-money/irs-paper-checks-end-tax-refund-direct-deposit.html

America's Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives has "canceled its contract for a surveillance tool that enables warrantless tracking of mobile devices," [1]reports the Associated Press .

They note the move comes "after lawmakers, a prosecutor and a judge raised concerns about the legality of the tool in criminal investigations."

> ATF, the federal agency responsible for enforcing the nation's gun laws, told The Associated Press that it discontinued what it called a "pilot" program using a tool called Webloc after Rep. Michael Cloud, a Republican from Texas, and Sen. Ron Wyden, a Democrat from Oregon, expressed reservations about the agency's use of bulk commercial location data. Webloc, which is made by a vendor called Penlink, sources data from consumer apps and advertising networks, which collect the location of mobile devices from consumers who download apps or browse the web...

>

> The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2018 that police needed a warrant to obtain historic movement data from cellphone companies on a criminal suspect. But it has never addressed the growing practice of commercially acquired data.

>

> Other users of Webloc include the U.S. military and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement but also local law enforcement agencies such as police in places like Elk Grove, Calif. and Durham, N.C. The technology has also expanded around the world, with the national police in El Salvador and Hungarian intelligence agencies as customers, according to a report from earlier this year [2]from Citizen Lab , a group of researchers at the University of Toronto who investigate digital threats to civil society.

The article notes that other U.S. law enforcement agencies continue to buy commercial geolocation data, "including the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security."



[1] https://apnews.com/article/atf-surveillance-wyden-cloud-566f702fe6082310d6b7c64e5b2de009

[2] https://citizenlab.ca/research/analysis-of-penlinks-ad-based-geolocation-surveillance-tech/

"Enterprises may soon be paying as much for their developers' AI token usage as they do for their salaries," [1]writes InfoWorld :

> [2]According to Gartner , these costs will meet, or even exceed, the typical software engineer's monthly salary within the next two years. This is not only because developers are increasingly adopting generative AI and agentic tools, it reflects a trend toward consumption-based licensing models as vendors balance infrastructure investments with profitability...

>

> Gartner senior principal analyst Nitish Tyagi explained that it's important to note that Gartner's prediction is based on a global average salary of $2,000 per month; it doesn't mean AI token usage will exceed all salaries. For instance, in the US, yearly pay rates can be six digits or more. However, that kind of spend is not out of the realm of possibility, Tyagi emphasized. "I have heard scary numbers like 'My developer consumed $20K last month,' or 'A business user consumed $32K'."

>

> If these amounts sound shocking, that's the point. "The goal is to alarm the industry about the impact of token cost if it is not governed and controlled," he said... AI coding vendors have yet to deliver "mature, built-in cost optimization capabilities," Tyagi said, and prices will likely only continue to rise as vendors further build out their models while at the same time trying to remain profitable. Thus, enterprises struggle to forecast and control costs, and, because AI is moving so fast, many organizations lack the "maturity and frameworks" to determine ROI, he noted. Agent-driven workflows are difficult to govern, context windows become bloated, budgets are wiped out earlier than anticipated, and token spend becomes hard to justify....

>

> "Without a governed engineering operating model, costs can escalate faster than the productivity gains these tools are designed to deliver," Tyagi said.



[1] https://www.infoworld.com/article/4189176/ai-coding-token-costs-are-on-track-to-rival-human-payroll-2.html

[2] https://www.gartner.com/en/newsroom/press-releases/2026-06-24-gartner-predicts-ai-coding-costs-will-surpass-average-developer-salary-by-2028-as-token-consumption-surges

Jack Nekhala had a business selling on Amazon — and in December he received an unusual offer, [1]reports Bloomberg . A woman said she could bribe an Amazon employee "to help him retrieve $90,000 in funds that the e-commerce giant had frozen after suspending him over an alleged violation of review policy."

> Hoping to ingratiate himself with the company and restart his business, Nekhala offered to provide evidence, including recorded conversations and screen shots, that he said proved Amazon personnel were peddling inside information and influence. The smoking gun, Nekhala told the representative: information about his seller account. Only certain Amazon employees are supposed to have access to such details, but Nekhala had received them from the woman on WeChat, the Chinese messaging app. Nekhala's experience, which he documented and shared with Bloomberg, provides a rare glimpse into an international black market that has been a persistent scourge of Amazon's online store. On one side are sellers looking for a variety of favors: a competitive edge over their rivals, information on how to boost sales, a way to get themselves unsuspended. On the other are middlemen who lurk on message apps like Telegram, WeChat and WhatsApp offering access to people inside Amazon who can get things done for a price...

>

> It's impossible to determine the scope of the illicit activity, but it's an open secret among Amazon sellers and consultants, who are frequently approached on social-media platforms and messaging apps. "The message is always the same: 'I'm going to show you screenshots to prove I have inside access,'" said Chris McCabe, a former Amazon employee who runs a seller consulting firm... In 2020, federal prosecutors exposed an international bribery scheme involving Amazon sellers and employees. The ring allegedly extracted about $100 million in unfair advantages by bribing Amazon employees in Asia to help them sell more products and sabotage their competitors. Five people in the US were convicted and received jail terms or probation. Last year, law enforcement officials in India began investigating more than 20 former Amazon employees suspected of accepting bribes from trucking companies in exchange for routes, according to The Times of India.

>

> After Nekhala reported his own experience to Amazon, the representative committed to "do some digging" and to email him instructions on how his evidence could be shared, according to a recording of the conversation. But Nekhala said he never heard back. The employee who leaked his personal information had already been fired for unrelated misconduct, according to Amazon.

Amazon told Bloomberg employee involvement was "very rare," and that "We invest heavily in this area and have dedicated teams and systems in place to prevent all types of fraud, including by our own employees."



[1] https://www.mercurynews.com/2026/06/24/amazon-seller-reveals-rare-glimpse-of-shadow-bribery-market/

IBM spent a decade "building, testing and improving" quantum computing, [1]reports the Wall Street Journal .

"This year, the company is laying the groundwork to turn that technology into a fully-fledged, scalable business from an expensive science project."

> IBM said last month it plans to form a new independent subsidiary called Anderon, a foundry to produce the silicon wafers needed to make quantum-computing processors. The venture is seeded by a $1 billion investment from the Trump administration and another $1 billion of IBM's own cash. Anderon will give the company a new line of business in selling wafers to other quantum-computing companies. It will also provide a steady stream of wafers to continue developing its own quantum technology, positioning IBM to capture part of what the Boston Consulting Group projects will be a $90 billion to $170 billion market for quantum-computing providers by 2040...

>

> The company also plans to spend an additional $9 billion over five years to advance the final stages of its quest to build a quantum-mechanics-powered computer capable and reliable enough for widespread use, a goal known as fault tolerance. That computer, named Starling, is being targeted for 2029. With Anderon, IBM is thinking beyond Starling, or even a more powerful quantum computer planned for 2033.



[1] https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/technologyinvesting/ibm-getting-ready-to-scale-quantum-computing/ar-AA26mMZg