Most supply-chain attacks using Ruby's package hosting site " [1]exploit a narrow window ," according to a new blog post form Ruby core maintainer Hiroshi Shibata.

So its packaging-managing Bundler tool now offers a filter that blocks new version until it's been public "for at least N days. Releases too new to have been scrutinized are passed over in favor of ones that have aged past the window."

> The feature was [2]designed in the open , drawing on [3]how other ecosystems approach the same problem . It is opt-in, and complements rather than replaces existing defenses like mandatory 2FA and trusted publishing... Cooldown is unset by default, so a project without it keeps resolving to the newest versions.... Passing 0 disables cooldown for the run...

>

> Cooldown is most useful as one part of the wider security investment happening on rubygems.org. The registry now validates gem contents at push time and checks logins against Have I Been Pwned so that compromised passwords cannot be reused, work described in [4]Protecting rubygems.org from the outside in . A dedicated team is running [5]AI-assisted vulnerability scanning against the most critical gems , backed by Alpha Omega and Anthropic, and the direction of all of this is tracked on a [6]public roadmap . Trusted publishing and mandatory 2FA already raise the bar for who can push a release in the first place.



[1] https://blog.rubygems.org/2026/06/03/cooldown-let-new-gems-be-vetted.html

[2] https://github.com/ruby/rubygems/discussions/9113

[3] https://dev.to/hsbt/should-rubygemsbundler-have-a-cooldown-feature-40cp

[4] https://blog.rubygems.org/2026/04/09/protecting-rubygems-from-the-outside-in.html

[5] https://blog.rubygems.org/2026/04/29/scaling-rubys-defenses-with-ai.html

[6] https://blog.rubygems.org/2026/04/15/rubygems-org-has-a-public-roadmap.html

Jeff Bezos is backing [1]Flourish , a new "neuro AI" startup with $500 million in funding and a reported $2.5 billion valuation, that [2]aims to reinvent AI by studying the brain's architecture and building systems that learn continuously while using far less power than today's large language models. The company's long-term bet is that neuroscientists and AI researchers working together can uncover the brain's "core algorithm" and eventually create brain-inspired AI that runs on a tiny fraction of current compute. Wired reports:

> Rob Williams knows how to pitch Jeff Bezos: You write a press release as if your product has already been built. Bezos reads it and gives a thumbs up or down. Williams went through this process a lot as an executive on Amazon's "S-team," in charge of software products such as Alexa, until his departure last fall. But the pitch he made a few weeks later -- in December 2025 -- was different. Now he was collaborating with Thomas Reardon, a neuroscientist and repeat startup founder, and approaching Bezos as a funder, not a boss. Here's what Bezos, sitting on his yacht somewhere, read while Williams anxiously watched on Zoom: "Flourish is a neuro AI company that is solving the two most difficult problems facing AI today: power efficiency and continuous learning. We are building Cortex AI, the first synthetic intelligence system designed to match the computational capacity, learning efficiency, and power budget of the human brain."

>

> A month later, I'm lunching with Reardon and Williams in the Flatiron neighborhood in New York City. Reardon gets right to the point. AI has dug itself into a hole, he says. Though increasingly powerful, large language models are greedy consumers of computer power and data. Though the inspiration for LLMs was rooted in biology, current frontier models have little in common with the human brain. A person uses about 20 watts of energy to process information; a single chip in an AI training cluster uses more than 30 times that amount. The hyperscalers require thousands of chips and gigawatts of energy, enough to power small cities. And those models need to suck up virtually all of what humans have written. Each new model requires more, more, more. For all of that, the models don't learn. Once you train them, they're stuck. The goal, Reardon tells me, is to build "a synthetic artificial intelligence brain that runs on 50 watts or less." It should adapt to its conditions, be as nimble as a human mind, and burn a tiny fraction of an LLM's compute power and energy. The proof of concept is thriving inside our skulls. "There's something fundamentally wrong with saying, "I need to basically read every book ever written 20 times over in order to learn English,'" Reardon says. "A human baby does it with a couple hundred thousand utterances."

>

> Reardon and Williams haven't figured out yet how to build systems that match the magic of a human brain. What they have is a belief that an expert, well-resourced team -- of AI researchers and neuroscientists working essentially side by side -- can find the answer. The neuroscientists will conduct original wet lab experiments with some of the most advanced lab equipment available, to hunt for usable intel on the brain's architecture. They plan to release the models they're currently developing as near-term products on the path to a full reinvention of AI. The fuzziness of the proposal didn't bother Jeff Bezos. After reading Williams' two-pager, he chipped in $50 million. Other funding came from Lux Capital, Google Ventures, and Catalio, among others. Bezos then almost doubled his initial stake and told Reardon he'd have given more if they'd asked. Now with a war chest of $500 million and a reported valuation of $2.5 billion, Flourish just needs to invent a new way to do AI.



[1] https://flourishlabs.ai/

[2] https://www.wired.com/story/jeff-bezos-is-funding-a-wild-hunt-for-the-brains-core-algorithm/

[1]Reuters reports :

> Several large data centers and crypto facilities planning to connect to the Texas power grid ahead of peak summer demand have failed key reliability tests, raising the risk of power outages just as electricity use hits its seasonal high, according to the state grid operator... Unlike traditional industrial customers, which tend to draw electricity steadily and predictably, data centers are engineered to [2]cut their connection to the grid at the first sign of trouble to protect their equipment and keep services running. That makes them an unpredictable and potentially destabilizing force on grids already under pressure from rising demand. Four groups of unnamed large electricity users, including data centers, abruptly disconnected from the Texas grid during a test of how they would handle routine voltage disturbances, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) said in a report dated May 21.

>

> When large customers abruptly cut their power use, it can knock the grid off balance and trigger wider outages. ERCOT, which manages electricity for most of Texas, said it reviewed about 20 gigawatts of large customers seeking to connect to the system, including eight projects totaling roughly 3.9 gigawatts aiming to start up before July 1. It said it identified four groups of large power users that could each trigger more than 5,000 megawatts of demand tripping under certain fault conditions, based on simulations of transmission system disturbances. Those abrupt drops in demand were equivalent to the electricity consumption of a large city such as Boston.



[1] https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/texas-grid-flags-risks-data-centers-crypto-sites-fail-voltage-tests-2026-06-05/

[2] https://www.reuters.com/technology/big-techs-data-center-boom-poses-new-risk-us-grid-operators-2025-03-19/

"When Hugo Parra was arrested last year on felony charges, his pleas of innocence fell on deaf ears," [1]reports the Times of San Diego :

> San Diego police had a description of the Alfa Romeo car he was riding in [but no license plate number] and a witness who identified him during a curbside lineup as the man who brandished a handgun in Golden Hill. They had also checked the city's automatic license plate camera system, run by the private company Flock, and got a "hit," substantiating the claim. The problem, says attorney Alex Coolman, was that Parra was five miles away from Golden Hill at the time of the crime, and the so-called hit from the license plate reader was captured before any police pursuit began. "This Flock hit was obviously the wrong car, as it could not have been in both places simultaneously," said Coolman, who represents Parra and the driver, 23-year-old Ariel Beltran.

>

> Despite the signs pointing to it being a different Alfa Romeo, police arrested Beltran and Parra... [An officer had informed dispatch that one of the men "matched the victim's description, other than having a different-colored hooded sweatshirt."] Parra spent nearly one month behind bars, missing Thanksgiving and other special events with his family, before the assault with a firearm and evasion charges were dropped.

Parras says he was incarcerated with actual murderers, according to the article, and Parra and Beltran are now preparing to sue the city, seeking $1.5 million each in damages for civil rights violations and negligence. Their claim notes they'd driven past several other Flock cameras which officers could've used to corroborate their story (not to mention location data on their cell phones).

Meanwhile, the article also notes that last month the Institute for Justice "identified at least 17 cases in the United States of officers allegedly using Automated License Plate Reader technology to keep tabs on partners, exes, and strangers who had caught their eye..."



[1] https://timesofsandiego.com/crime/2026/06/07/a-flock-license-plate-reader-linked-a-san-diego-man-to-a-violent-crime-he-was-five-miles-away/

Italian fashion house Prada "unveiled on Sunday the inner-layer garment set to be worn by NASA astronauts heading to the moon," [1]reports Reuters .

"The body-hugging suit, created in collaboration with Houston-based space infrastructure developer Axiom Space, features ventilation tubes knitted into the garment."

> Expertise for developing space exploration products "can come from lots of seemingly unrelated industries," said Jonathan Cirtain, CEO of Axiom Space... The new product follows Prada's splashy [2]foray into space fashion in 2024 with the unveiling of a spacesuit that is expected to be used for NASA's anticipated Artemis 4 moon landing in 2028...

>

> Other fashion and apparel companies have jumped on the space bandwagon. Under Armour has partnered with spaceflight company Virgin Galactic to create space apparel, while Columbia Sportswear has worked with space exploration company Intuitive Machines on space fabric technology.

The new "Liquid Cooling and Ventilation Garment" was displayed on a mannequin at an event at Prada's Manhattan store.



[1] https://www.reuters.com/science/nasa-wear-prada-luxury-group-pushes-into-space-industry-2026-06-07/

[2] https://www.reuters.com/technology/space/prada-axiom-space-shoot-moon-with-new-spacesuit-2024-10-16/

People are disabling the "recording light" on Meta's Ray-Ban smartglasses — "by my count, thousands of people," [1]says tech journalist Joanna Stern in a new video report :

> STERN: "They're hiring people on Facebook Marketplace to drill out the light for as much as $100. According to our reporting, folks are offering this service in at least 30 states — despite Meta's attempts to stop it... In most states, we found multiple listings. In the New York and New Jersey area alone there were 23 listings."

Stern [2]watched a man in New Jersey disable and then conceal the light with a drill and dental probe in a New Jersey garage (a skill he learned watching YouTube and TikTok videos). He said the same day he'd already been contacted by eight more interested customers, and Stern also found at least 10 other people willing to do the same thing, just in New Jersey. "But what we found is they're all over the country."

Meta sold 7 million smartglasses in 2025, but a Meta spokesperson insisted to the videomaker that a "majority" of their smartglasses owners aren't blocking the recording light. And furthermore, they added "We aggressively target anyone advertising tampering tools, have removed thousands of violating ads and Marketplace listings for these services, and pursue legal action when appropriate." (The reporter acknowledges "many" of the Marketplace ads disappeared after they brought them to Meta's attention — and Meta also said they were working with other retailers and sellers to take down listings for smartglasses-tampering parts.)

The reporter also heard from one journalist who said they'd used it so they could record the activities of federal immigration agents without being targeted. "Others told me they just don't want people asking questions when they're recording." (There's video of one young man saying "It's already difficult enough to film in public. I don't want to have a blinking light on my face.")

Tampering with smartglasses isn't illegal — though it is against Meta's Terms of Service, and could void your warranty. But a lawyer in the report says recording others without consent may be illegal, depending on a wide range of "jurisdictional nuances" like whether you live in an all-party consent state or a one-party consent state. "This seems to be our new reality," the report concludes: "more cameras, more microphones everywhere, and less certainty about who and what is recording." (Tech blogger John Gruber [3]offered this assessment . "Using a Meta platform to find people to hack a Meta device so you can surreptitiously record strangers. So perfectly Meta.")

Stern's report points out that "People are trying to fight back. Apps have popped up that use Bluetooth to scan for nearby camera glasses." (In the video one app-maker wonders why Meta isn't offering the same service themselves. "There are technical solutions to these problems.")

Ironically, when I watched the report on YouTube, it was preceded by... an ad for Meta's Ray-Ban AI smartglasses.



[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EaJSPeJmqis

[2] https://thenewthings.com/p/i-paid-someone-to-hack-my-meta-glasses

[3] https://daringfireball.net/linked/2026/06/03/the-underworld-market-to-remove-the-recording-indicator-light-on-meta-glasses

"Texas has dethroned California as the state with the most Fortune 500 companies," [1]reports the Los Angeles Times :

> The Fortune 500 list ranks the largest U.S. companies by revenue. This year, 57 of the top companies are headquartered in Texas, compared with California's 56. It's a reversal from two years ago when the Golden State had the pole position...

>

> California's corporate haters say they try to [2]avoid the state's high costs , income taxes and strict regulations, but the western state is still a top money maker. "California dominates on nearly every other measure: its Fortune 500 companies are the most profitable ($647 billion), most valuable ($20 trillion), and employ more people than any other state (2.8 million workers)," Fortune said in a news release. Indeed, [3]despite the naysayers , Californian companies have been [4]leading the world in developing artificial intelligence technology as well as the latest in space and defense tech. The state is home to nearly 400 "unicorns," or billion-dollar startups — more than any other state, according to CB Insights. It also gobbled up nearly two-thirds of U.S. venture capital last year, with San Francisco Bay Area startups such as OpenAI leading the way, according to the business information platform Crunchbase.

>

> Texas and California have been in a tug-of-war for the crown. In [5]2024 , after a decade, California bagged the top spot with 57 companies on the list, while Texas and New York tied in second with 52 companies each... The fourth spot was tied between Illinois and Ohio, with 29 companies each.

>

> Amazon was the top company on the list, ending Walmart's 13-year reign at the top of the annual Fortune 500 companies list. Amazon's 2025 revenue was $716.9 billion, compared with Walmart's $713.2 billion. Seattle-headquartered Amazon joined Exxon Mobil, General Motors, and Walmart as the only four companies to have ever held the top position since Fortune began publishing the data in 1955.



[1] https://finance.yahoo.com/markets/stocks/articles/california-falls-behind-texas-fortune-100000901.html

[2] https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2026-06-05/californian-conundrum-high-growth-but-high-unemployment

[3] https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2026-01-08/californias-exodus-isnt-just-billionaires-its-regular-people-renting-u-hauls-too

[4] https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2026-04-17/la-fi-california-business-relocations

[5] https://www.gov.ca.gov/2024/06/04/icymi-california-is-now-home-to-the-most-fortune-500-companies-in-the-country/

"Can a company take away something you've already paid for?" [1]asks the BBC . "In the world of online video games, some already do."

> Publishers can decide to switch off a game's servers, often leaving it effectively unplayable. Stop Killing Games , a growing consumer rights campaign started by American YouTuber Ross Scott in 2024, is challenging that practice. In January, the group submitted a petition featuring nearly 1.3 million signatures to the European Commission, triggering a [2]public hearing in the European Parliament in April . What began as an online campaign is now awaiting a decision from one of the EU's most powerful institutions...

>

> Scott's campaign began following an announcement from the major studio Ubisoft, saying it would shut down the online-only racing game The Crew in 2024... Ubisoft has already defended its position in court. Responding to a [3]proposed class-action lawsuit brought by two The Crew players in California , the studio argued that customers had purchased a licence to use the game, not unlimited ownership rights, and that players had been warned online services would not be available forever. The lawsuit was dismissed without prejudice in June 2025, after the plaintiffs voluntarily withdrew the case. The wider games industry has also pushed back against the campaign. [4]Video Games Europe, which represents many of the industry's largest publishers, said shutting down online services "must be an option" when games are no longer commercially viable. It also warned that some of the campaign's proposals could make online-only games significantly more expensive to develop.

>

> "In no way are we asking companies to keep servers running or services going, they can end it any time they want," said Scott. Instead, he and his fellow campaigners argue that when a game is shut down it should be done "responsibly", with publishers considering "end-of-life plans" such as updating the game to work offline or releasing software that allows players to continue running it.

Two key points from the article:

"In March, French consumer group UFC-Que Choisir [5]launched legal action against Ubisoft over the shutdown of The Crew, arguing that players were misled about the permanence of their purchase and that some of the company's contract terms were unfair."

"The European Commission must respond to the European Citizens' Initiative — the petition brought by the group — by 27 July."

Thanks to [6]Alain Williams — Slashdot reader #2,972 — for sharing the article.



[1] https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c8e8e7g0r82o

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QXdmoeaYZ9Y

[3] https://www.gamesindustry.biz/ubisoft-responds-to-the-crew-lawsuit-by-denying-players-had-unfettered-ownership-of-the-game

[4] https://www.videogameseurope.eu/news/statement-on-stop-killing-games/

[5] https://www.quechoisir.org/action-ufc-que-choisir-jeux-video-l-ufc-que-choisir-assigne-ubisoft-en-justice-suite-a-la-fermeture-du-jeu-the-crew-n175318/

[6] https://slashdot.org/~Alain+Williams

Yesterday 2026's International Obfuscated C Code Contest concluded, with [1]22 new winners announced in a [2]special three-hour livestreamed ceremony ! Started 42 years ago, it's been described as the internet's longest-running contest, with entrants concocting convoluted programs glorying in the C programming language's subtleties, all while having some fun. And "For IOCCC29, the volume and quality of submissions were at near-historic heights," explains its home page.

There's a " [3]Tetris-optimized" GameBoy emulator with [4]source code that looks like a GameBoy , as well as a [5]quasi-Rogue-like game voted "most likely to teleport." Awards were also given for the [6]best imaginary emulator (a virtual machine in 366 bytes of C) and the [7]best fractional emulator (a maze generator for the Commodore 64). But every one of the 22 winning programs seems wildly creative...

[8]Quine Pong . "Running the program produces the source code to generate the next frame, formatted to display the current frame. By repeatedly compiling and running each successive frame, you can play the game. To move, pass either "w" (up) or "e" (down) as an argument..."

A [9]winning Taiwanese programmer formatted their source code in the [10]shape of a Tardis from Doctor Who — code that displays an [11]intricate ASCII animation of Doctor Who's 1963 opening title sequence.

[12]One winning entry emulates an IBM 7040 mainframe, first converting a program (encoded in whitespace) into ASCII-character drawings of punchcards for a FORTRAN program — and then executing that program to calculate the light visible to an observer looking at black hole, ultimately creating an image. It's all recreating what astrophysicist [13]Jean-Pierre Luminet had to do in 1978 to generate the first-ever simulated photograph of a black hole (on an IBM 7040 mainframe). "The entry can also run other FORTRAN programs — but "they must be provided as a deck of punch cards... Tools have been provided to convert to/from decks and to interpret..."

"We have added fun challenges to this year's winning entries competition..." the web site notes. "After you figure out what a given winning entry does, we encourage you to attempt the fun challenge!"

Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader [14]achowe for bringing the news (who has submitted winning entries [15]in four different decades , starting in 1991 and continuing through 2025) — and who won again this year for a program [16]simulating the Space Invaders-like game from Casio's 1980 MG-880 calculator .

[17]Follow the IOCCC on Mastodon .



[1] https://www.ioccc.org/2025/index.html

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MoWCwZx1Swc

[3] https://www.ioccc.org/2025/ncw1/index.html

[4] https://github.com/ioccc-src/winner/blob/master/2025/ncw1/prog.c

[5] https://www.ioccc.org/2025/jhshrvdp/index.html

[6] https://www.ioccc.org/2025/cable/index.html

[7] https://www.ioccc.org/2025/ncw2/index.html

[8] https://www.ioccc.org/2025/uellenberg/index.html

[9] https://www.ioccc.org/2025/jingp49/index.html

[10] https://github.com/ioccc-src/winner/blob/master/2025/jingp49/prog.c

[11] https://youtu.be/MoWCwZx1Swc?t=1770

[12] https://www.ioccc.org/2025/cesmoak/index.html

[13] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Pierre_Luminet

[14] https://www.slashdot.org/~achowe

[15] https://www.ioccc.org/authors.html#Anthony_C_Howe

[16] https://www.ioccc.org/2025/howe/index.html

[17] https://fosstodon.org/@ioccc

A " [1]growing wave" of Reddit's "promoted posts " are sending U.S. and European audiences to money-stealing scams that impersonate major news organizations including the BBC, the Financial Times, and The Guardian, according to new findings from Bitdefender Labs.

"Domains are short-lived and rapidly rotated to evade detection," they write, noting that the impersonating sites apparently even use language "to falsely imply that the investment platform had been reviewed, approved, or vetted" by the legitimate site they're impersonating:

> The campaign promotes fake AI-powered investment platforms such as Wencoin STX, Warrior Coin AI, and Nevo Coin, using fabricated celebrity endorsements, cloned news websites, fake interviews, and invented financial success stories to lure victims into depositing money. Researchers Andrea Olariu and Emanuel Puscasu have identified multiple promoted Reddit posts masquerading as legitimate financial or breaking news stories.

>

> Some ads claimed that:

>

> — NVIDIA and OpenAI were "creating the future"

> — Heathrow police discovered hundreds of thousands of pounds in cash

> — Governments and banks were allegedly trying to "hide" a revolutionary AI investment platform

> — European regulators were "silencing" articles about AI trading systems

>

> Some Reddit ads delivered in video format, including what appeared to be a deepfake BBC news segment featuring a news anchor presenting fabricated financial headlines... Examples observed by researchers included:

>

> — Fake BBC pages discussing "$20 billion conversations" tied to AI investments

> — Fraudulent Financial Times articles about Heathrow airport cash seizures

> — Fake Guardian stories claiming governments were trying to suppress coverage of Wencoin STX or Nevo Coin

>

> The pages featured fabricated interviews, fake profit screenshots, manipulated banking documents, false testimonials, and even fictional journalists or business editors designed to make the scam look legitimate. In many cases, the content sought to create a sense of exclusivity or conspiracy, suggesting that banks, regulators, or governments were trying to suppress public access to the investment platform...

>

> Our researchers found that after users clicked links embedded within the fake Guardian articles, they were redirected to a registration form allegedly used to create a "Nevo Coin" investment account. The form requested personal contact information, including the victim's name, email address, and phone number. To increase pressure and encourage immediate action, the page warned that registration availability was limited, claiming that once all spots were filled, new user registrations would be suspended.

And in the final stage, they're asked to deposit money...



[1] https://www.bitdefender.com/en-us/blog/hotforsecurity/reddit-scam-ads-impersonate-bbc-and-the-guardian

Ars Technica shares some anecdotes from [1] Steve Jobs in Exile , a new book released last month:

> [Author Geoffrey] Cain reminds us, in stunning detail, that Jobs' "exile" era at NeXT was not only critical to his evolution as a man and an entrepreneur, but that it mattered for the rest of us, too. The technological innovations that came out of NeXT — notably, the NeXTSTEP OS — [2]continue to live on in what we now call both macOS and iOS. As Cain puts it, "NeXTSTEP was Steve's attempt to make Unix taste sweet...."

>

> [W]hile many tech nerds know that Tim Berners-Lee created the first World Wide Web server on a NeXT machine while working in Switzerland in 1990, few know that NeXT employees were wary of bringing the news to Jobs. Why? They feared his wrath "and that he would dismiss [the web] as 'shit.'" (In another timeline, NeXT might itself have capitalized on this world-changing innovation....)

>

> Perhaps one of the wildest anecdotes that Cain uncovered was how one voicemail changed computer history forever. In 1996, when Apple was solidly in its mediocre Performa era — and considering buying BeOS as the basis for its new operating system — a mid-level NeXT product manager asked aloud, "Why don't we just frickin' call Apple?" (NeXT was also struggling during this period.) And so someone did. As Cain writes:

>

> Garrett left the group of managers, walked back to his office, and took a risk. He picked up his designer phone and called the head of software at Apple. He left what he described as "one of my more inspired sales pitches" on the man's voicemail, explaining why Apple should be looking at NeXT instead of Be... In any other universe, Garrett's call might have gotten him fired. But in this timeline, it worked out. And thanks to him, Steve [Jobs] was about to enter Apple's airspace once again.

Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader [3]destinyland for sharing the article.



[1] https://amzn.to/4oaqnD4

[2] https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2012/12/the-legacy-of-next-lives-on-in-os-x/

[3] https://slashdot.org/~destinyland

U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders announced a plan for the public to take a 50% ownership stake in AI companies, [1]remembers the Associated Press .

And then OpenAI's Sam Altman "told Sanders that he, too, wants the public to have equity in AI companies."

> Though the CEO said he couldn't support Sanders' threshold of 50%, he nonetheless wanted to work with him to advocate for the general idea, according to people with knowledge of the conversation. The nearly hourlong meeting in Sanders' Senate office this week, held at Altman's request, highlighted the inherent tension between AI powerhouses and policymakers as Americans are increasingly asked to accept the costs of the AI boom even as they remain unconvinced of its direct benefits.

>

> Yet it's also creating odd political bedfellows fueled by populism as politicians from Sanders to President Donald Trump embrace giving the public a stake in AI's growth. Speaking to reporters on Air Force One on Friday, Trump described a potential partnership "where the American people can benefit from the success of AI" and said executives from leading AI companies will visit the White House, "probably next week," to discuss the idea.

The article points out that Altman also met with congressional leaders from both of America's political parties.



[1] https://apnews.com/article/sam-altman-ai-bernie-sanders-trump-public-ownership-772224f9cd138eb79d3ef3336858a5d5

[1] Science magazine reports :

> For decades, string theory promised a "theory of everything" that described all particles and forces as tiny vibrating strings. Physicists hoped it could also solve one of the field's deepest problems: reconciling quantum mechanics with gravity. But as string theory grew increasingly elaborate — and experimentally unreachable — many physicists lost hope.

>

> Now, some researchers are revisiting the theory from first principles. In a [2]paper in press at Physical Review Letters , Clifford Cheung, a physicist at the California Institute of Technology, and colleagues lay out a small set of assumptions about the universe and show that they inevitably give rise to string theory.... Cheung's study, along with [3]another one posted to arXiv in January, starts with two reasonably conservative assumptions: that the probabilities of all possible outcomes of an event add up to 100%, and that the laws of physics are consistent for observers moving at different speeds. Each group then posits additional assumptions that have not been borne out by observations. Cheung's analysis invokes " [4]ultrasoftness ," the idea that the probability of certain particle interactions drops off at a particular rate at high energies. The second study, led by University of Michigan physicist Henriette Elvang, instead assumes "supersymmetry," a maximal coupling between matter and forces. Both groups conclude the only theory that can satisfy their assumptions is one that looks like string theory...

>

> Cheung and Elvang stress that their aim is not to prove the inevitability of string theory. "I don't have a dog in the fight; I just work here," Cheung says. Rather, the goal is to explore the space of possible theories under rigid constraints — regardless of whether they reflect reality... The one thing the researchers all agree on is that the field would benefit from more alternative models to string theory. Cheung sees the agnostic, bottom-up exploration as a step in that direction. "You can either give up on the problem because it's too culturally toxic, or you can ask: If you want to find an alternative, what do you need?" he says. "Now, we know exactly what to do."

Thanks to Slashdot reader [5]sciencehabit for sharing the article.



[1] https://www.science.org/content/article/after-empty-promises-string-theory-finds-new-uses

[2] https://doi.org/10.1103/cw4p-cqh7

[3] https://arxiv.org/abs/2601.11705

[4] https://journals.aps.org/prl/accepted/10.1103/cw4p-cqh7

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

"A DNA-editing feat involving editing the genes of early stage embryos was announced this week," [1]reports the Wall Street Journal .

They describe the feat as "a far cry from designer babies, but nevertheless a step in that direction."

> Dieter Egli, an associate professor of developmental cell biology at Columbia University and his co-authors, including Nathan Treff of Nucleus Genomics, a New York-based DNA-testing startup, say the technology could help fix disease-causing mutations in embryos. "We're not throwing the final 'OK, you will have gene-edited babies tomorrow' at the public," said Egli. "That is a process that can occur through discussion matched with scientific progress...."

>

> Previous gene-editing efforts have often used Crispr, which can cut out parts of the DNA sequence, but the technology can also cause damage if the wrong DNA is targeted or cut out. In 2018, [2]Chinese scientist He Jianku said he used Crispr to tweak DNA in human embryos and was imprisoned for the work. The technology Egli's group used, called base editing, allows them to target individual DNA letters in sequences more precisely with fewer adverse effects... Egli's group focused on altering two genes, one that can raise the risk of heart disease and one that is tied to blood disorders like sickle cell disease, and the research showed they were sometimes able to do so successfully, in the same embryo, without damage.

>

> "I am generally supportive of the concept of embryo editing to prevent genetic disease," said Dr. Paula Amato, a fertility expert at Oregon Health & Science University who wasn't involved in the research... Base editing has been used in human embryos before, according to peer-reviewed studies. The technology was used to correct a disease-causing mutation and an Alzheimer's disease-risk gene variant, said Alexis Komor, associate professor of biochemistry and molecular biophysics at the University of California, San Diego, who wasn't involved in the work. "There really is not any unmet medical or clinical need for this, especially from an in vitro fertilization perspective," Komor said. "Usually what you'll hear is that they're doing it just so that you know we can prevent genetic diseases, but there are so many other better ways to do that."

>

> Using embryo editing to create babies is illegal in the U.S. and many other countries. Scientists have long worried that it is a slippery slope and that the technology could ultimately be used to promote eugenics. Her worry is that "they're basically building a blueprint" for more [3]ethically problematic forms of embryo editing . "In my opinion, I think this is a huge no-no," Komor said. "There's just no ethical way to use this...."

>

> Nucleus Genomics Chief Executive Kian Sadeghi said his company plans to fund Egli's further research, building on the new findings. His company sells a [4]polygenic embryo-screening product , which screens prospective parents' embryos and produces risk scores for their likelihood of developing disease, as well as factors like height, IQ and eye color. The company has said the IQ predictions are limited in accuracy.

The research was [5]published online Monday on a preprint server.



[1] https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/other/scientist-edits-human-embryo-genes-but-questions-remain/ar-AA24WE3o

[2] https://www.wsj.com/world/china/china-scientist-he-jiankui-gene-editing-alzheimers-1b1af283

[3] https://www.wsj.com/podcasts/tech-news-briefing/the-secret-plan-to-create-genetically-engineered-babies/b972cd9d-773e-42bb-90e7-4b5688bd43d1

[4] https://www.wsj.com/health/embryo-ivf-screening-longevity-2b1f096a

[5] https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.05.30.728989v1

The University of California at Berkeley discovered the percentage of failing grades in multiple CS classes this spring "is significantly higher than past semesters," [1]reports the campus's student newspaper .

"Instructors point to students' increased reliance on AI, lack of mathematical preparedness and understaffing as potential contributing factors."

> According to [coursework platform] Berkeleytime, 35.3% of CS 10 students and 10.6% of CS 61A students received F's in spring 2026. In spring 2025 and spring 2024, the percentage of F's did not exceed 10% for either class. The electrical engineering and computer sciences department's grading guidelines state that 7% of students in lower division courses, including CS 10 and CS 61A, should receive D's and F's...

>

> [UC Berkeley teaching professor Dan Garcia, who taught both classes] believes the "primary driver" of these abnormally high failing rates is due to a "vast increase in academic dishonesty" due to students' usage of large language models, such as Claude, ChatGPT and Google Gemini. "Some of the numbers that you saw from the number of students who receive failing grades were because we caught them (cheating) and prosecuted them and are sending their cases to the Center for Student Conduct," Garcia said. "But in other cases, it's students who are leaning a little too hard on LLMs to do their work for them, and then at exam time just really aren't ready." According to Garcia, nearly 30 students in CS 10 were "caught cheating on take-home exams" in spring 2026...

>

> In addition to overreliance on AI, Garcia also pointed out that many students are underprepared mathematically, a concern echoed by campus associate teaching professor Gireeja Ranade. Ranade noticed a similar lack of prerequisite mathematical skills in her spring 2026 EECS 127 class, "Optimization Models in Engineering," which she described as "differently challenging" to teach this semester. The class saw a 16.8% F rate, far higher than the 5% of D's and F's that the EECS department describes as "typical" for an upper division course...

>

> Both Garcia and Ranade have joined more than 1,300 UC faculty in signing a petition [2]calling for the reinstatement of ACT and SAT standardized testing scores for STEM admissions in the UC system.

Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader [3]theodp for sharing the article.



[1] https://www.dailycal.org/news/campus/academics/failing-grades-soar-as-professors-see-greater-ai-usage-dwindling-math-skills-in-uc-berkeley/article_16fad0bf-02cb-4b8c-8d88-888ffd9f8608.html

[2] https://www.dailycal.org/news/uc/uc-berkeley-faculty-first-to-sign-1-000-strong-systemwide-petition-for-reinstatement-of-standardized/article_d8fd756e-b14d-4cdd-8280-3ff0e530af6e.html

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

[1]Sales have increased for Hyundai's under-$35,000 IONIQ 5, totalling 18,395 for the first five months of 2026, [2]reports Electrek , "up 16% from the same period last year."

But meanwhile BYD's [3]overseas sales surpassed 160,000 for the first time last month, "up 80% from May 2025 and 19% from the previous record of 135,098 set in April."

> Through the first five months of 2026, BYD sold 616,263 vehicles overseas. In May, overseas sales accounted for over 41% of BYD's total sales. In several major markets, including the UK, BYD surpassed Tesla and Kia to become the [4]best-selling EV brand through April. "With fuel prices remaining high, more drivers are turning to electric vehicles as a smarter and more economical choice," Bono Ge, BYD UK's Country Manager, said last month.

Elsewhere Electrek notes that Toyota's bZ (starting at under $35,000) was the [5]third-best-selling EV in the U.S. in the first three months of 2026, behind only the Tesla Model 3 and Model Y. "Last month, bZ sales doubled from May 2025, with 2,646 units sold."

And meanwhile the first Volkswagen ID. Polo and Cupra Raval models "rolled off the production line at the Group's Martorell plant in Spain, the first [6]of several new affordable, mass-market EVs ."

> Starting at €24,995 ($29,000) and €26,000 ($30,100), the ID. Polo and Cupra Raval are the first models from the Group's [7]Electric Urban Car Family ...

>

> [T]he first customer deliveries are scheduled to begin later this summer and into the fall. Following the ID. Polo and Cupra Raval, Volkswagen will introduce new members to the Electric Urban Car Family, including [8]the ID. Cross , an electric version of the T-Cross, later this year. According to Volkswagen, the ID. Cross will start at around €28,000 ($32,500).



[1] https://www.hyundainews.com/releases/4813

[2] https://electrek.co/2026/06/02/hyundais-ioniq-5-still-on-tear-ioniq-9-sales-surge-279/

[3] https://electrek.co/2026/06/01/byds-overseas-sales-surge-to-over-160000-first-time/

[4] https://electrek.co/2026/05/05/byd-outsells-tesla-kia-as-top-selling-ev-brand-overseas/

[5] https://electrek.co/2026/06/05/toyota-finally-has-evs-people-want-to-buy-why-slow-down-now/#more-470389

[6] https://electrek.co/2026/06/05/volkswagens-more-affordable-evs-starts-with-these-two

[7] https://www.vwpress.co.uk/releases/5344

[8] https://electrek.co/2026/05/05/volkswagens-affordable-electric-suv-spotted-undisguised-video/

[1] The Root reports :

> A New Mexico jury has found the Gila Regional Medical Center negligent in the death of Nichelle Nichols, who famously played Lieutenant Nyota Uhura on the hit television series "Star Trek."

>

> [2]According to KRQE News 13 , Nichols' family filed a lawsuit against the hospital last year following her 2022 admission for shortness of breath. Nichols' family claimed that she should have received a full cardiac examination, but the medical personnel sent her to the observation unit, and she was discharged the next day. After being transported to her assisted living home, [3]the 89-year-old passed away just seven hours later.

>

> In response to Nichol's tragic passing, the lawsuit [4]alleged that Gila Medical Center "hired, credentialed, and inappropriately supervised unqualified medical providers" who treated the actress. The lawsuit also alleged that the hospital failed to secure a bed for Nichols or transfer her to a facility that had one. Furthermore, the attorney argued that the staff should have known that the assisted living center was not equipped to handle a patient with her medical needs.

>

> On Thursday (June 4), a jury found the hospital negligent and awarded Nichols' estate $13 million.

KRQE [5]got this quote from the estate's attorney about the death of the 89-year-old acctress. "At the end of the day, Nichelle Nichols had a heart attack that was missed. Thatâ(TM)s why she died." The jury deliberated for "just two hours."



[1] https://www.theroot.com/heartbreaking-victory-star-treks-lt-uhura-s-family-wi-2000109708

[2] https://www.krqe.com/entertainment-news/jury-rules-gila-regional-medical-center-negligent-in-death-of-nichelle-nichols/

[3] https://www.theroot.com/nichelle-nichols-star-trek-s-lt-uhura-dies-at-89-1849354586

[4] https://www.koat.com/article/nichelle-nichols-medical-negligence-star-trek-new-mexico/67972268

[5] https://www.krqe.com/news/new-mexico/new-mexico-jury-awards-nichelle-nichols-family-13-million-for-wrongful-death/

The Ladybird browser isn't opposed to AI coding tools, but it's just brought a new change to their code-contributing policies.

February 23: " [1]Ladybird adopts Rust, with help from AI ."

> Our first target was LibJS , Ladybirdâ(TM)s JavaScript engine... I used [2]Claude Code and [3]Codex for the translation. This was human-directed, not autonomous code generation. I decided what to port, in what order, and what the Rust code should look like. It was hundreds of small prompts, steering the agents where things needed to go... The requirement from the start was byte-for-byte identical output from both pipelines. The result was about 25,000 lines of Rust, and the entire port took about two weeks. The same work would have taken me multiple months to do by hand.

[4]June 5 (Friday) :

> We will no longer accept public pull requests... A pull request no longer tells us as much as it used to about the person submitting it. A substantial patch used to imply substantial effort, and that effort was a reasonable proxy for good faith. That assumption no longer holds....

>

> We have already seen patient, well-resourced campaigns in open source to earn maintainer trust and abuse it. What has changed is how much faster and cheaper it has become to produce work that looks like a serious contribution... Whether code was typed by hand is beside the point. What matters is who is responsible for it once it enters the browser. Ladybird is becoming a browser for real users. The people introducing changes to it must be the people who decide those changes belong in the project, and who will answer for the consequences.

>

> As part of this change, we will close all currently open public pull requests. We are grateful for the work people put into them, but keeping the existing queue open would keep that contribution path open in practice. There is no perfect time to make this change, so we are making it now. Going forward, pull requests will only be available to project maintainers. There will not be a separate process for submitting patches by other means. We do not want to create a shadow contribution system through issues, comments, email, or forks...

>

> Outside involvement still matters: clear bug reports, reductions, website testing, standards discussion, design discussion, security reports, and technical feedback all help move the project forward. This is the right change for Ladybird now. We are preparing to ship a browser to real users, and our development process has to match that responsibility.



[1] https://ladybird.org/posts/adopting-rust/

[2] https://docs.anthropic.com/en/docs/claude-code

[3] https://openai.com/codex/

[4] https://ladybird.org/posts/changing-how-we-develop-ladybird/

[1]From Android Authority :

> Singapore-based BMX has announced that its SolidSafe magnetic power bank lineup, first showcased at CES 2026, is now available for purchase through [2]its website and Amazon US, with [3]prices starting at $59 . What sets these power banks apart is their use of semi-solid-state batteries. Traditional lithium-ion and [4]lithium-polymer batteries rely on liquid electrolytes to move energy between electrodes. Semi-solid-state batteries significantly reduce the amount of flammable liquid inside the cell, improving thermal stability and lowering the risk of overheating, swelling, or fire...

>

> BMX says the power banks are designed to remain stable under extreme conditions and show greater resistance to physical damage and thermal stress than conventional battery packs. The company has also launched the SolidSafe Air, a 5,000mAh magnetic power bank that it claims is the world's thinnest semi-solid-state Qi2 power bank... BMX is positioning the device as a travel-friendly alternative for users who want added safety and the convenience of a magnetic battery pack without the bulk.

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



[1] https://www.androidauthority.com/bmx-semi-solid-state-battery-power-banks-3674759/

[2] https://heybmx.com/collections/solid-state-power-banks

[3] https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GK2QZF35?th=1&linkCode=sl2&tag=destinyland-20&linkId=7a9df3297c043c9f7c855e535ab0b1fd&language=en_US&ref_=as_li_ss_tl

[4] https://www.androidauthority.com/batteries-what-is-mah-673637/

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

Bluesky's chief operating officer believes teen social media bans "risk entrenching Big Tech's dominance," [1]reports CNBC :

> Rose Wang, Bluesky's chief operating officer, told CNBC on the sidelines of SXSW in London on Wednesday that the smaller open-source platform isn't opposed to regulation but that smaller players in the industry should be protected. "I support the protection and the safety of youth... The question that we have then is at what cost? Because essentially what I'm scared of is in the long term, we're headed to a world where there's about three to five platforms, and extreme heavy regulation of those platforms...

>

> "Basically the whole compliance teams of these platforms are 10 times the size of our entire team," Wang said. "So, basically, we're living in a world where it's almost impossible for smaller entrants to come in and build healthier spaces."

The article notes Bluesky had grown to [2]43 million users as of March, "which is still only around 10% of X's estimated [3]450 million users . Bluesky has struggled to maintain popularity, and by the end of October last year, it had reportedly seen a [4]40% drop in daily mobile active users over the past 12 months."



[1] https://www.cnbc.com/2026/06/06/bluesky-teen-social-media-ban-monopolies.html

[2] https://bsky.social/about/blog/03-19-2026-series-b

[3] https://www.statista.com/forecasts/1146722/twitter-users-in-the-world/

[4] https://www.forbes.com/sites/conormurray/2025/11/07/bluesky-and-x-users-plummet-year-after-trumps-election-win-truth-social-makes-small-gains/