This week the "Old Vintage Computing Research" blog published a 21,000-word [1]exploration of the DEC PDP-11 , the 16-bit minicomputer sold by Digital Equipment Corporation. Slashdot reader [2]AndrewZX calls the blog post "an excellent deep dive" into the machine's history and capabilities "and the classic Venix UNIX that it ran." The blogger still owns a working 1984 DEC Professional 380, "a tank of a machine, a reasonably powerful workstation, and the most practical PDP-adjacent thing you can actually slap on a (large) desk."

But more importantly, "It runs PRO/VENIX, the only official DEC Unix option for the Pros."

> In that specific market it was almost certainly the earliest such licensed Unix (in 1983) and primarily competed against XENIX, Microsoft's dominant "small Unix," which first emerged for XT-class systems as SCO XENIX in 1984. You'd wonder how rogue processes could be prevented from stomping on each other in such systems when neither the Intel 8086/8088 nor the IBM PC nor the PC/XT had a [3]memory management unit , and the answer was not to try and just hope for the best. It was for this reason that IBM's own Unix variant PC/IX, developed by Interactive Systems Corporation under contract as their intended AT&T killer, was multitasking but single-user since in such an architecture there could be no meaningful security guarantees...

>

> One of Venix's interesting little idiosyncrasies, seen in all three Pro versions, was the SUPER> prompt when you've logged on as root (there is also a MAINT> prompt when you're single-user...

>

> Although Bill Gates had been their biggest nemesis early on, most of the little Unices that flourished in the 1980s and early 90s met their collective demise at the hands of another man: Linus Torvalds. The proliferation of free Unix alternatives like Linux on commodity PC hardware caused the bottom to fall out of the commercial Unix market.

The blogger even found a 1989 log for the computer's one and only guest login session — which seems to consist entirely of someone named tom trying to exit vi .

But the most touching part of the article comes when the author discovers a file named /thankyou that they're certain didn't come with the original Venix. It's an ASCII drawing of a smiling face, under the words "THANK YOU FOR RESCUING ME".

"It's among the last files created on the system before it came into my possession..."

It's all a fun look back to a time when advances in semiconductor density meant microcomputers could do nearly as much as the more expensive minicomputers (while taking up less space) — leaving corporations pondering the new world that was coming:

> As far back as 1974, an internal skunkworks unit had presented management with two small systems prototypes described as a PDP-8 in a VT50 terminal and a portable PDP-11 chassis.

>

> Engineers were intrigued but sales staff felt these smaller versions would cut into their traditional product lines, and [DEC president Ken] Olsen duly cancelled the project, famously observing no one would want a computer in their home.



[1] https://oldvcr.blogspot.com/2025/03/more-pro-for-dec-professional-380.html

[2] https://www.slashdot.org/~AndrewZX

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memory_management_unit

Reuters reported this week that several U.S. national security agencies "have [1]halted work on a coordinated effort to counter Russian sabotage , disinformation and cyberattacks..."

> The plan was led by the president's National Security Council (NSC) and involved at least seven national security agencies working with European allies to disrupt plots targeting Europe and the United States, seven former officials who participated in the working groups told Reuters... [S]ince Trump took office on January 20 much of the work has come to a standstill, according to eleven current and former officials, all of whom requested anonymity to discuss classified matters... Regular meetings between the National Security Council and European national security officials have gone unscheduled, and the NSC has also stopped formally coordinating efforts across U.S. agencies...

>

> The FBI last month ended an effort to counter interference in U.S. elections by foreign adversaries including Russia and put on leave staff working on the issue at the Department of Homeland Security. The Department of Justice also disbanded a team that seized the assets of Russian oligarchs... Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin told Reuters the agency had placed on administrative leave personnel working on misinformation and disinformation on its election security team, without elaborating further.



[1] https://www.yahoo.com/news/exclusive-us-suspends-efforts-counter-060549726.html

Was the [1]cutting of undersea cables part of a larger pattern? Russia and its proxies are accused by western officials of "staging dozens of attacks and other incidents across Europe since the invasion of Ukraine three years ago," [2]reports the Associated Press .

That includes cyberattacks and committing acts of sabotage/vandalism/arson, as well as spreading propaganda and even plotting killings, according to the article. ("Western intelligence agencies uncovered [3]what they said was a Russian plot to kill the head of a major German arms manufacturer that is a supplier of weapons to Ukraine...") The news agency documented 59 incidents "in which European governments, prosecutors, intelligence services or other Western officials blamed Russia, groups linked to Russia or its ally Belarus."

> [Western officials] allege the disruption campaign is an extension of Russian President Vladimir Putin's war, intended to sow division in European societies and undermine support for Ukraine... The incidents range from stuffing car tailpipes with expanding foam in Germany to a plot to [4]plant explosives on cargo planes . They include setting fire to stores and a museum, hacking that targeted politicians and critical infrastructure, and spying by a ring convicted in the U.K. Richard Moore, the head of Britain's foreign intelligence service, [5]called it a "staggeringly reckless campaign " in November...

>

> The cases are varied, and the largest concentrations are in countries that are major supporters of Ukraine... In about a quarter of the cases, prosecutors have brought charges or courts have [6]convicted people of carrying out the sabotage. But in many more, no specific culprit has been publicly identified or brought to justice.

Despite that, "more and more governments are publicly attributing attacks to Russia," the article points out.

This week a nonprofit, bipartisan think tank on global policy [7]released a report which "found that Russian attacks in Europe quadrupled from 2022 to 2023 and then tripled again from 2023 to 2024," [8]reports the New York Times .

> Prime Minister Donald Tusk of Poland noted in a social media post on Monday that Lithuanian officials had confirmed his assessment that Russia was responsible for a series of fires in shopping centers in Warsaw and Vilnius, the Lithuanian capital...



[1] https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/03/05/1928223/europe-on-alert-over-suspected-sabotage-of-undersea-cables

[2] https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-war-europe-hybrid-campaign-d61887dd3ec6151adf354c5bd3e6273e

[3] https://apnews.com/article/germany-russia-threats-report-rheinmetall-plot-2cee42e9f9f6940eb960b0b052e3e670

[4] https://apnews.com/article/russia-poland-germany-sabotage-cargo-planes-b7f559805d7a996dd6aabe8e69041607

[5] https://apnews.com/article/uk-france-intelligence-mi6-dgse-russia-ukraine-6f4d41f0c4859b9127316c762561d7e7

[6] https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/man-admits-torching-ukraine-linked-business-uk-taking-pay-foreign-intelligence-2024-11-22/

[7] https://www.csis.org/analysis/russias-shadow-war-against-west

[8] https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/18/us/politics/russia-sabotage-attacks-europe-ukraine.html

Computer programming jobs in the US have [1]declined by more than a quarter over the past two years, placing the profession among the 10 hardest-hit occupations of 420-plus jobs tracked by the Bureau of Labor Statistics and potentially signaling the first concrete evidence of artificial intelligence replacing workers.

The timing coincides with OpenAI's release of ChatGPT in late 2022. Anthropic researchers found people use AI to perform programming tasks more than those of any other job, though 57 percent of users employ AI to augment rather than automate work. "Without getting hysterical, the unemployment jump for programming really does look at least partly like an early, visible labor market effect of AI," said Mark Muro of the Brookings Institution.

While software developer positions have remained stable with only a 0.3 percent decline, programmers who perform more routine coding from specifications provided by others have seen their ranks diminish to levels not seen since 1980. Economists caution that high interest rates and post-pandemic tech industry contraction have also contributed to the decline in programming jobs, which typically pay $99,700 compared to $132,270 for developers.



[1] https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/careers/1-in-4-programming-jobs-have-vanished-what-happened/ar-AA1AUumu

Apple's latest iOS 18.3.2 update is [1]automatically re-enabling its Apple Intelligence feature even for users who previously disabled it, adding to mounting concerns about the company's AI strategy.

The update presents a splash screen with no option except to tap "Continue," which activates the feature. Users must then manually disable it through settings, with the AI consuming up to 7GB of storage space. This forced activation comes amid [2]broader troubles with Apple's AI initiatives .



[1] https://www.macrumors.com/2025/03/11/ios-18-3-2-apple-intelligence-auto-on/

[2] https://apple.slashdot.org/story/25/03/21/1114253/hey-siri-what-month-is-it

The French National Assembly has [1]rejected a controversial provision that would have forced messaging platforms like Signal and WhatsApp to allow government access to encrypted private conversations, lawmakers voted Thursday night. The measure, embedded within anti-drug trafficking legislation, would have implemented a "ghost participant model" allowing law enforcement to silently join encrypted chats without users' knowledge.



[1] https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/03/win-encryption-france-rejects-backdoor-mandate

[1] Science magazine reports :

> A strange-looking telescope that scanned the skies from a perch in northern Chile for 15 years has released its final data set: detailed maps of the infant universe showing the roiling clouds of hydrogen and helium gas that would one day coalesce into the stars and galaxies we see today.

>

> The [2]Atacama Cosmology Telescope is [3]not the first to survey the cosmic microwave background (CMB), the light released 380,000 years after the Big Bang when the early universe's soup of particles formed atoms and space became transparent. But the data — posted as preprints online today — give researchers a new level of detail on the density of the gas clouds and how they were moving.

At the top of the page for Science 's article is an image where different colors "show areas where the polarization of the CMB light — its direction of vibration — differ, revealing how gases first move tangentially around areas of higher density (orange) and later fall straight in (blue) under the influence of gravity."

Long-time Slashdot reader [4]sciencehabit writes:

> Using the data, researchers tested how well the standard cosmological theory, known as [5]lambda cold dark matter , described the universe at that time 13.8 billion years ago; it's a remarkably good fit, they conclude.

The article notes that "back in the Chilean desert," the Atacama Cosmology Telescope's successor, the Simons Observatory, has already taken its first image, and "will begin its even more detailed examination of the CMB in the coming months."



[1] https://www.science.org/content/article/sharpest-image-yet-our-universe-baby

[2] https://act.princeton.edu/

[3] https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.357.6358.1339

[4] https://www.slashdot.org/~sciencehabit

[5] https://www.science.org/content/article/x-ray-survey-bolsters-prevailing-theory-of-universes-expansion

The governments of Australia, Canada, Cyprus, Denmark, Israel, and Singapore "are likely customers of Israeli spyware maker Paragon Solutions," [1]reports TechCrunch , "according to a new technical report by a renowned digital security lab."

> On Wednesday, The Citizen Lab, a group of academics and security researchers housed at the University of Toronto that has investigated the spyware industry for more than a decade, [2]published a report about the Israeli-founded surveillance startup, identifying the six governments as "suspected Paragon deployments."

>

> At the end of January, [3]WhatsApp notified around 90 users that the company believed were targeted with Paragon spyware, [4]prompting a scandal in Italy, where [5]some of the [6]targets [7]live ... Paragon's executive chairman John Fleming [8]told TechCrunch that the company "licenses its technology to a select group of global democracies — principally, the United States and its allies." Israeli news outlets reported in late 2024 that U.S. venture capital AE Industrial Partners had [9]acquired Paragon for at least $500 million upfront....

>

> Among the suspected customer countries, Citizen Lab singled out Canada's Ontario Provincial Police (OPP), which specifically appears to be a Paragon customer given that one of the IP addresses for the suspected Canadian customer is linked directly to the OPP.

In a related development [10]the Guardian reports that a prominent activist in Italy "has warned the international criminal court that his mobile phone was under surveillance" when he was providing them confidential information about torture victims in Libya.

Both articles submitted by long-time Slashdot reader [11]ISayWeOnlyToBePolite .



[1] https://techcrunch.com/2025/03/19/researchers-name-several-countries-as-potential-paragon-spyware-customers/

[2] https://citizenlab.ca/2025/03/a-first-look-at-paragons-proliferating-spyware-operations/

[3] https://techcrunch.com/2025/01/31/whatsapp-says-it-disrupted-a-hacking-campaign-targeting-journalists-with-spyware/

[4] https://techcrunch.com/2025/02/05/paragon-spyware-used-to-target-citizens-across-europe-says-italian-government/

[5] https://techcrunch.com/2025/02/03/journalist-targeted-on-whatsapp-by-paragon-spyware-i-feel-violated/

[6] https://techcrunch.com/2025/02/05/new-target-of-paragon-spyware-comes-forward/

[7] https://techcrunch.com/2025/02/11/another-person-targeted-by-paragon-spyware-comes-forward/

[8] https://techcrunch.com/2025/02/04/spyware-maker-paragon-confirms-u-s-government-is-a-customer/

[9] https://techcrunch.com/2024/12/16/israeli-spyware-maker-paragon-bought-by-u-s-private-equity-giant/

[10] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/mar/19/italian-activist-david-yambio-alerts-icc-spyware-attack

[11] https://www.slashdot.org/~ISayWeOnlyToBePolite

Slashdot reader [1]Required Snark shared [2]this article from Phys.org :

> In the realm of science fiction, [sun-energy capturing] Dyson spheres and ringworlds have been staples [3]for decades . But it is well known that the simplest designs are unstable against gravitational forces and would thus be torn apart. Now a scientist from Scotland, UK has shown that certain configurations of these objects near a two-mass system [4]can be stable against such fractures ...

>

> [A] rigid ring around a star or planet, as in Larry Niven's "Ringworld" series of novels, is also unstable, as it would drift under any slight gravitational differences and collide with the star. So [engineering science professor Colin] McInnes considered a restricted three-body problem where two equal masses orbit each other circularly with a uniform ring of infinitesimal mass rotating in their orbital plane. The ring could enclose both masses, just one or none... McInnes also investigated a shell-restricted three-body problem with the shell also of infinitesimal mass, again with the shell enclosing two masses, one or none.

>

> For the restricted ring, McInnes found that there are seven equilibrium points in the orbital plane of the dual masses, on which, if the ring's center were placed, it would stay and not experience stresses, akin to the three stable Lagrange points where a small mass can reside permanently for the two-body problem... McInnes restricted this research to a planar ring (in the plane of the circularly orbiting masses) but says it can be shown that a vertical ring, normal to the plane, can also generate equilibria...

>

> These results can aid the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, McInnes said, "If we can understand when such structures can be stable, then this could potentially help direct future SETI surveys." An important technosignature would be one bright star orbiting in tandem with an object showing a strong infrared excess. Shells around a sun-exoplanet pair or an exoplanet-exoplanet pair could also be possible. A nested set of Dyson spheres is also a feasible geometry.

In 2003 Ringworld author Larry Niven [5]answered questions from Slashdot readers ...



[1] https://www.slashdot.org/~Required+Snark

[2] https://phys.org/news/2025-03-dyson-spheres-ringworlds-stable.html

[3] https://entertainment.slashdot.org/story/04/09/09/1620233/ringworlds-children

[4] https://academic.oup.com/mnras/article/537/2/1249/7989465

[5] https://interviews.slashdot.org/story/03/03/10/167206/ladies-and-gentlemen-dr-larry-niven

Founded in 1979, the [1]Association for the Advancement of AI is an international scientific society. Recently 25 of its AI researchers [2]surveyed 475 respondents in the AAAI community about "the trajectory of AI research" — and their results were surprising.

[3] Futurism calls the results "a resounding rebuff to the tech industry's long-preferred method of achieving AI gains" — namely, adding more hardware:

> You can only throw so much money at a problem. This, more or less, is the line being taken by AI researchers in a recent survey. Asked whether "scaling up" current AI approaches could lead to achieving artificial general intelligence (AGI), or a general purpose AI that matches or surpasses human cognition, an overwhelming 76 percent of respondents said it was "unlikely" or "very unlikely" to succeed...

>

> "The vast investments in scaling, unaccompanied by any comparable efforts to understand what was going on, always seemed to me to be misplaced," Stuart Russel, a computer scientist at UC Berkeley who helped organize the report, [4]told New Scientist . "I think that, about a year ago, it started to become obvious to everyone that the benefits of scaling in the conventional sense had plateaued...." In November last year, reports indicated that OpenAI researchers discovered that the upcoming version of its GPT large language model [5]displayed significantly less improvement , and in some cases, no improvements at all than previous versions did over their predecessors. In December, Google CEO Sundar Pichai [6]went on the record as saying that easy AI gains were "over" — but confidently asserted that there was no reason the industry couldn't "just keep scaling up."

>

> Cheaper, more efficient approaches are being explored. OpenAI has used a method known as [7]test-time compute with its latest models, in which the AI spends more time to "think" before selecting the most promising solution. That achieved a performance boost that would've otherwise taken mountains of scaling to replicate, [8]researchers claimed . But this approach is "unlikely to be a silver bullet," Arvind Narayanan, a computer scientist at Princeton University, told New Scientist.



[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_for_the_Advancement_of_Artificial_Intelligence

[2] https://aaai.org/about-aaai/presidential-panel-on-the-future-of-ai-research/

[3] https://futurism.com/ai-researchers-tech-industry-dead-end

[4] https://www.newscientist.com/article/2471759-ai-scientists-are-sceptical-that-modern-models-will-lead-to-agi/

[5] https://www.theinformation.com/articles/openai-shifts-strategy-as-rate-of-gpt-ai-improvements-slows

[6] https://futurism.com/the-byte/google-ceo-easy-ai-over

[7] https://openai.com/index/learning-to-reason-with-llms/

[8] https://www.reuters.com/technology/artificial-intelligence/openai-rivals-seek-new-path-smarter-ai-current-methods-hit-limitations-2024-11-11/

" [1]I intend to sue the National Archives ," said Joseph diGenova, an 80-year-old former [2]Trump campaign lawyer (and [3]a U.S. Attorney from 1983 to 1988). While [4]releasing 63,000 unredacted pages about the 1963 assassination of President Kennedy, the U.S. government erroneously "made public the Social Security numbers and other sensitive personal information of potentially hundreds of former congressional staffers and other people," [5]reports USA Today . ("It is virtually impossible to tell the scope of the breach because the National Archives put them online without a way to search them by keyword, some JFK files experts and victims of the information release told USA TODAY...")

Mark Zaid, a national security lawyer who represented current and former spies and other officials in cases against the government, told USA Today that he "saw a few names I know and I informed them of the breach... Hundreds were doxxed but of that number I don't know how many are still living."

> Zaid, who has fought for decades for the JFK records to be made public, said many of the thousands of investigative documents had been made public long ago with everything declassified and unredacted except for the personal information. Releasing that information now, he told USA TODAY, poses significant threats to those whose information is now public, including dates and places of birth, but especially their Social Security numbers. "The purpose of the release was to inform the public about the JFK assassination, not to help permit identity theft of those who actually investigated the events of that day," Zaid said.

The Associated Press [6]reported Thursday afternoon that government officials "said they are still screening the records to identify all the Social Security numbers that were released."

> One of the newly unredacted documents... discloses the Social Security numbers of more than two dozen people seeking security clearances in the 1990s to review JFK-related documents for the Assassination Records Review Board.



[1] https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2025/03/20/jfk-files-social-security-trump/82567111007/

[2] https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/14/politics/rudy-giuliani-trump-lawsuits-2020-election/index.html

[3] https://web.archive.org/web/20180323154828/https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1988/02/29/digenovas-legacy/8f02d31e-df56-4b9f-aac1-416f1f947077/?utm_term=.ce1171c8ddfc

[4] https://news.slashdot.org/story/25/03/20/086201/government-releases-thousands-of-declassified-pages-related-to-jfk-assassination

[5] https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2025/03/20/jfk-files-social-security-trump/82567111007/

[6] https://apnews.com/article/jfk-assassination-files-personal-information-5609ccd6e106c5b30ee6b6cca3a30e3c

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy is pushing to [1]cut bureaucracy by reducing management layers , according to a recording of a recent internal all-hands meeting obtained by Business Insider. Amazon plans to increase the ratio of individual contributors to managers by 15% by March-end, a process the company says is now complete and affected a "relatively small subset of employees."

"The way to get ahead at Amazon is not to go accumulate a giant team and fiefdom," Jassy told employees, stressing that successful leaders "get the most done with the least amount of resources." Jassy has established a "No Bureaucracy" email alias that has received over a thousand suggestions, leading to more than 375 changes aimed at speeding operations. "It's a meritocracy," Jassy said, urging employees to "move fast and act like owners."



[1] https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-ceo-andy-jassy-manager-fiefdoms-2025-3

Web infrastructure provider Cloudflare unveiled "AI Labyrinth" this week, a feature designed to [1]thwart unauthorized AI data scraping by feeding bots realistic but irrelevant content instead of blocking them outright. The system lures crawlers into a "maze" of AI-generated pages containing neutral scientific information, deliberately wasting computing resources of those attempting to collect training data for language models without permission.

"When we detect unauthorized crawling, rather than blocking the request, we will link to a series of AI-generated pages that are convincing enough to entice a crawler to traverse them," Cloudflare explained. The company reports AI crawlers generate over 50 billion requests to their network daily, comprising nearly 1% of all web traffic they process. The feature is available to all Cloudflare customers, including those on free plans. This approach marks a shift from traditional protection methods, as Cloudflare claims blocking bots sometimes alerts operators they've been detected. The false links contain meta directives to prevent search engine indexing while remaining attractive to data-scraping bots.



[1] https://arstechnica.com/ai/2025/03/cloudflare-turns-ai-against-itself-with-endless-maze-of-irrelevant-facts/

London's Heathrow Airport resumed operations late Friday after an electrical fire at a nearby substation forced a full-day closure, [1]causing global travel chaos with hundreds of canceled flights and thousands of stranded passengers. The explosion at a Hayes substation 1.5 miles from the airport knocked out power early Thursday, requiring 70 firefighters to battle a blaze in a transformer containing 25,000 liters of cooling oil.

Despite backup generators, Europe's busiest airport couldn't maintain normal operations, forcing flights to divert to airports across Europe and as far as Bangor, Maine. "Contingencies of certain sizes we cannot guard ourselves against 100%," Heathrow CEO Thomas Woldbye told the BBC. "This is as big as it gets for our airport." British Airways, which planned to carry 100,000 passengers Friday, prioritized long-haul flights to Australia, Brazil and South Africa when operations resumed after 4 p.m.



[1] https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/how-an-electrical-fire-shut-down-heathrow-and-upended-global-air-travel/ar-AA1Bput9

Hollywood filmmaker Carl Erik Rinsch has been [1]charged with defrauding Netflix of $11 million after allegedly [2]misusing funds intended for an unfinished science fiction series , federal prosecutors said.

Rinsch, 47, was arrested in West Hollywood this week on charges of wire fraud, money laundering and unlawful monetary transactions that could result in decades of imprisonment if convicted. The FBI and Acting U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York allege Rinsch diverted funds meant for his series "Conquest" to speculate on cryptocurrency, stay in luxury hotels and purchase high-end items including five Rolls-Royces and a Ferrari.

Netflix had paid Rinsch $44 million between 2018 and 2019 for the science fiction project about an artificial humanlike species. Prosecutors say he then requested an additional $11 million but never completed the production. An arbitrator ruled in Netflix's favor last year, ordering Rinsch to pay the company $11.8 million. Rinsch appeared in federal court with shackles and posted a $100,000 bond.



[1] https://www.npr.org/2025/03/20/nx-s1-5334497/carl-erik-rinsch-netflix-fraud-fbi

[2] https://slashdot.org/story/23/11/22/1523229/the-strange-55-million-saga-of-a-netflix-series-youll-never-see

Apple has been hit with a federal lawsuit claiming that the company's promotion of now-delayed Apple Intelligence features [1]constituted false advertising and unfair competition . From a report:

> The suit, filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court in San Jose, seeks class action status and unspecified financial damages on behalf of those who purchased Apple Intelligence-capable iPhones and other devices. "Apple's advertisements saturated the internet, television, and other airwaves to cultivate a clear and reasonable consumer expectation that these transformative features would be available upon the iPhone's release," the suit reads.

>

> "This drove unprecedented excitement in the market, even for Apple, as the company knew it would, and as part of Apple's ongoing effort to convince consumers to upgrade at a premium price and to distinguish itself from competitors deemed to be winning the AI-arms race. [...] Contrary to Defendant's claims of advanced AI capabilities, the Products offered a significantly limited or entirely absent version of Apple Intelligence, misleading consumers about its actual utility and performance. Worse yet, Defendant promoted its Products based on these overstated AI capabilities, leading consumers to believe they were purchasing a device with features that did not exist or were materially misrepresented."



[1] https://www.axios.com/2025/03/20/apple-suit-false-advertising-ai-intelligence

Meta is testing an AI feature that [1]generates comment suggestions for Instagram posts. Users with access to the test see a pencil icon beside the comment field that activates "Write with Meta AI." The system analyzes photos before offering three comment suggestions, which users can refresh for alternatives. For a photo showing someone smiling with a thumbs-up in their living room, suggested comments include "Cute living room setup" and "Love the cozy atmosphere."



[1] https://techcrunch.com/2025/03/21/meta-spotted-testing-ai-generated-comments-on-instagram/

Higher use of chatbots like ChatGPT [1]may correspond with increased loneliness and less time spent socializing with other people, according to new research from OpenAI in partnership with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. From a report:

> Those who spent more time typing or speaking with ChatGPT each day tended to report higher levels of emotional dependence on, and problematic use of, the chatbot, as well as heightened levels of loneliness, according to research released Friday. The findings were part of a pair of studies conducted by researchers at the two organizations and have not been peer reviewed.

>

> San Francisco-based OpenAI sees the new studies as a way to get a better sense of how people interact with, and are affected by, its popular chatbot. "Some of our goals here have really been to empower people to understand what their usage can mean and do this work to inform responsible design," said Sandhini Agarwal, who heads OpenAI's trustworthy AI team and co-authored the research. To conduct the studies, the researchers followed nearly 1,000 people for a month.



[1] https://finance.yahoo.com/news/openai-study-finds-links-between-170033149.html

Microsoft has begun urging Windows 10 users to upgrade their systems ahead of [1]the October 14, 2025 support deadline , but with a solution many find impractical: [2]just buy a new computer . According to StatCounter data, 58.7% of Windows users remain on Windows 10 despite the impending end of security updates and technical assistance.

In emails to Windows 10 users, Microsoft's primary recommendation is to trade in old devices for newer Windows 11-compatible hardware, rather than focusing on alternative solutions.



[1] https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/01/06/1713234/microsoft-would-really-like-you-to-stop-using-windows-10-this-year

[2] https://www.xda-developers.com/microsoft-tells-windows-10-users-trade-in-pc/

The U.S. Treasury Department's sanctions watchdog [1]removed cryptocurrency mixing tool Tornado Cash from its global blacklist on Friday, following a federal appeals court ruling last November that the Office of Foreign Asset Control couldn't sanction its smart contracts. Despite the delisting of over 100 Ethereum addresses from the Specially Designated Nationals list, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent emphasized continuing concerns about North Korea's digital asset theft operations.

"We remain deeply concerned about the significant state-sponsored hacking and money laundering campaign aimed at stealing, acquiring, and deploying digital assets for the Democratic People's Republic of Korea," Treasury stated. Roman Storm, Tornado Cash co-founder, still faces a July criminal trial for his alleged development role. A Treasury court filing Monday had warned that completely lifting sanctions could have "significantly disruptive consequences for national security."



[1] https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2025/03/21/u-s-government-removes-tornado-cash-sanctions