An anonymous reader quotes a report from MacRumors:

> iFixit today [1]disassembled the AirPods Pro 3, giving us a look at what's inside and how the AirPods Pro 3 have changed in comparison to the AirPods Pro 2. [...] To get a look at other components inside the AirPods Pro 3, iFixit essentially had to destroy them because Apple didn't design them to be repaired. Since the first version of the AirPods launched, they've included a battery that is sealed shut with glue, and that hasn't changed with the AirPods Pro 3. iFixit says battery replacements are so difficult that many repair shops won't even attempt to do it. The AirPods Pro Charging Case has the same glued-in battery.

>

> There's no way to attempt a battery repair without causing blemishes on the plastic of the earbuds and the casing, because they have to be pried open. Heat needs to be used to melt the adhesive, and there's no easy way to disconnect the flex cable that's inside each earbud. With the need for specialized equipment and the inability to repair the earbuds and the case without causing damage, the AirPods Pro 3 [2]earned a 0 out of 10 repairability score from iFixit .



[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MOsjsjvzp2E

[2] https://www.macrumors.com/2025/10/01/ifixit-airpods-pro-3-teardown/

Meta will begin using data from AI chatbot conversations and other AI-powered products to [1]fuel targeted advertising across Facebook and Instagram , with no way to opt out. The policy change, effective December 16, excludes users in South Korea, the UK, and the EU due to stricter privacy laws. TechCrunch reports:

> If a user chats with Meta AI about hiking, for example, the company may show ads for hiking gear. However, Meta spokesperson Emil Vazquez tells TechCrunch that the privacy update is broader than just Meta AI and applies to the company's other AI offerings. That means Meta may use data from AI features in its Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses -- including voice recordings, pictures, and videos analyzed with AI -- to further target its ad products.

>

> Meta may also use data from its new AI-video feed, Vibes, and its AI image generation product, Imagine. Conversations with Meta AI will only influence ads on Facebook and Instagram if a user is logged into the same account across products. [...] Meta says the company has "no plans imminently" to put ads in its AI products, though CEO Mark Zuckerberg has suggested they [2]may be coming in the future .



[1] https://techcrunch.com/2025/10/01/meta-plans-to-sell-targeted-ads-based-on-data-in-your-ai-chats/

[2] https://www.yahoo.com/news/ad-extinction-mark-zuckerberg-takes-125815262.html

Jane Goodall, world-renowned primatologist, anthropologist, and conservationist, has [1]died at the age of 91 while on a speaking tour in California. The British primatologist's "discoveries as an ethologist revolutionized science, and she was a tireless advocate for the protection and restoration of our natural world," [2]according to the institute she founded . From a report:

> Goodall was only 26 years old when she first traveled to Tanzania and began her important research on chimpanzees in the wild. Throughout her study of the species, Goodall proved that primates display an array of similar behaviors to humans, such as the ability to develop individual personalities and make and use their own tools. Among the most surprising discoveries Goodall made was "how like us" the chimpanzees are, she [3]told ABC News in 2020 .

>

> "Their behavior, with their gestures, kissing, embracing, holding hands and patting on the back," she said. "... The fact that they can actually be violent and brutal and have a kind of war, but also loving an altruistic." That discovery is considered one of the great achievements of 20th-century scholarship, according to the Jane Goodall Institute. [...] Goodall's research garnered both scientific honors and mainstream fame, and she was credited with paving the way for a rise in women pursuing careers in STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) over the years. The number of women in STEM has increased from 7% to 26% in the six last decades, according to The Jane Goodall Institute, which cited census information from 1970 to 2011.

>

> In 1991, she also founded Roots & Shoots, a global humanitarian and environmental program for young people. She was named a United Nations Messenger of Peace in April 2002. The anthropologist continued to lend her voice to environmental causes well into her 80s and 90s. In 2019, Goodall acknowledged the climate crisis and the importance of mitigating further warming, telling ABC News that the planet is "imperiled." "We are definitely at a point where we need to make something happen," she said.

>

> "We are imperiled. We have a window of time. I'm fairly sure we do. But, we've got to take action." Goodall even partnered with Apple in 2022 to encourage customers to recycle their devices to reduce individual carbon footprint and cut down on unnecessary mineral mining around the world. "Yes, people need to make money, but it is possible to make money without destroying the planet," Goodall told ABC News at the time. "We've gone so far in destroying the planet that it's shocking."



[1] https://abcnews.go.com/International/jane-goodall-famed-primatologist-anthropologist-conservationist-dead-91/story?id=109868347

[2] https://www.instagram.com/p/DPRn2HTCFYt/?igsh=dXJ2c3hjcGlxZnEx

[3] https://abcnews.go.com/Health/video/world-chimpanzees-71759004

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica:

> TiVo's Q2 2025 Video Trends Report: North America [1]released today points to growth in cord reviving. It reads: "The share of respondents who cut the cord but later decided to resubscribe to a traditional TV service has [2]increased about 10 percent, to 31.9 percent in Q2 2025 ." TiVo's report is based on a survey conducted by an unspecified third-party survey service in Q2 2025. The respondents are 4,510 people who are at least 18 years old and living in the US or Canada, and the survey defines traditional TV services as pay-TV platforms offering linear television via cable, satellite, or managed IPTV platforms.

>

> It's important to note that TiVo is far from an impartial observer. In addition to selling an IPTV platform, its parent company, Xperi, works with cable, broadband, and pay-TV providers and would directly benefit from the existence or perception of a cord reviving "trend." When reached for comment, a TiVo spokesperson said via email that cord reviving is driven by a "mixture of reasons, with internet bundle costs, familiarity of use, and local content (sports, news, etc.) being the primary drivers." The rep noted that it's "likely" that those re-subscribing to traditional TV services are using them alongside some streaming subscriptions. "It's possible that users are churning off some [streaming] services where there is overlap with traditional TV services," TiVo's spokesperson said.



[1] https://go2.tivo.com/Video_Trends_Report_Q2_2025_NAM

[2] https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/10/cable-nostalgia-lives-on-as-streaming-gets-more-expensive-fragmented/

[1]alternative_right writes:

> Last week, thousands of people in North and Central Texas were suddenly knocked offline. [2]The cause? A bullet . The outage hit cities all across the state, including Dallas, Irving, Plano, Arlington, Austin, and San Antonio. The outage affected Spectrum customers and took down their phone lines and TV services as well as the internet.

>

> "The outage stemmed from a fiber optic cable that was damaged by a stray bullet," Spectrum told 404 Media. "Our teams worked quickly to make the necessary repairs and get customers back online. We apologize for the inconvenience."

>

> Spectrum told 404 Media that it didn't have any further details to share about the incident so we have no idea how the company learned a bullet hit its equipment, where the bullet was found, and if the police are involved.



[1] https://slashdot.org/~alternative_right

[2] https://www.404media.co/a-bullet-crashed-the-internet-in-texas/

The Philippines became Asia's second-largest gambling hub after Macau last year as online betting proliferated across the archipelagic nation. Almost half of the country's 69 million working-age population is now registered on gambling apps, an exponential rise from less than half a million users in 2018. The government has become [1]increasingly dependent on the industry .

Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp. collects 30% of gross gaming revenue and has become the second-biggest revenue contributor among state-run companies after Land Bank of the Philippines. Revenue from online casino license fees is projected to reach $1 billion in 2025. More than 60 operators are regulated by the government.

Industry revenue almost tripled in 2024 from 2023 to 154.5 billion pesos. Revenue from internet betting eclipsed physical casinos for the first time this year. The central bank recently ordered e-wallets to remove links to betting sites, halving bets within days. President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. rejected calls for a complete ban and said outlawing online betting would only spawn illicit operations that would be more difficult to eradicate.



[1] https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/news/filipinos-are-addicted-to-online-gambling-so-is-their-government/ar-AA1MzFxz

An anonymous reader shares a report:

> Samsung Display president Lee Cheong has confirmed plans to [1]make foldable smartphone displays for a major American company , which is widely believed to be Apple. As reported in Chosun Biz, Cheong last week told journalists in Seoul that the company is accelerating preparations for mass production of OLED displays designed for foldable smartphones to be supplied to a "North American client." He declined to provide further information about the client, but it is widely expected to be Apple.



[1] https://www.macrumors.com/2025/09/29/samsung-plan-to-make-foldable-displays/

The UK government has issued a new order to Apple to [1]create a backdoor into its cloud storage service , this time targeting only British users' data, despite US claims that Britain had [2]abandoned all attempts to break the tech giant's encryption . Financial Times:

> The UK Home Office demanded in early September that Apple create a means to allow officials access to encrypted cloud backups, but stipulated that the order applied only to British citizens' data, according to people briefed on the matter.

>

> A previous technical capability notice (TCN) issued in January sought global access to encrypted user data. That move sparked a diplomatic clash between the UK and US governments and threatened to derail the two nations' efforts to secure a trade agreement.

>

> In February, Apple [3]withdrew its most secure cloud storage service , iCloud Advanced Data Protection, from the UK. "Apple is still unable to offer Advanced Data Protection in the United Kingdom to new users," Apple said on Wednesday. "We are gravely disappointed that the protections provided by ADP are not available to our customers in the UK given the continuing rise of data breaches and other threats to customer privacy." It added: "As we have said many times before, we have never built a back door or master key to any of our products or services and we never will."



[1] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/10/uk-once-again-demands-backdoor-to-apples-encrypted-cloud-storage/

[2] https://apple.slashdot.org/story/25/08/19/0345252/us-spy-chief-gabbard-says-uk-agreed-to-drop-backdoor-mandate-for-apple

[3] https://apple.slashdot.org/story/25/02/21/1529255/apple-removes-cloud-encryption-feature-from-uk-after-backdoor-order

Britain's net public debt has climbed from 35% of GDP in 2005 [1]to 95% today . The government is borrowing over 4% of GDP annually despite no emergency comparable to the financial crisis or pandemic that drove much of the earlier increase. The belt-tightening needed to stabilize debt levels amounts to about 2% of GDP. The Labour government holds a 157-seat majority in Parliament and has four years until the next election.

Britain spends about 6% of GDP supporting pensioners, an increase of over a third this century. Some 15% of the working-age population now claims jobless allowances following a surge in disability claims since the pandemic. Labour attempted to reduce spending on pensioners and welfare this year but reversed both reform plans after political outcry from within the party.

Tax revenue is already on course to reach 38% of GDP, a historical high for Britain. Labour promised before the election not to raise broad-based taxes on income and consumption. Four in five Britons say the government is mismanaging the economy. Yields on long-term government debt exceed those in any other major rich economy. The economy grew faster than any other G7 country in the first half of 2025, but the fiscal adjustment that would bring Britain to a primary surplus of less than 0.5% remains politically elusive.



[1] https://www.economist.com/leaders/2025/09/25/britain-is-slowly-going-bust?giftId=6c9d804b-c7bb-433d-a935-1d4cbf89894e&utm_campaign=gifted_article

Microsoft is promoting Judson Althoff, currently executive vice president and chief commercial officer at Microsoft, [1]to a new role as CEO of its commercial business . From a report:

> It's the latest shakeup inside the company, as Microsoft navigates what CEO Satya Nadella calls a "tectonic AI platform shift." It's also a move that will allow Nadella to focus on more technical work at Microsoft, while still remaining overall CEO.

>

> In an internal memo to employees today, Nadella announced Althoff's promotion and said it's linked with the need for Microsoft to reinvent itself in the AI era and "bring together sales, marketing, operations, and engineering to drive growth and strengthen our position as the partner of choice for AI transformation." Althoff has led Microsoft's global sales organization for the past nine years, helping the company build out its Microsoft Customer and Partner Solutions (MCAPS) division. He will now also be responsible for the operations and marketing teams that help sell Microsoft's software and services to businesses, but not the engineering teams that help build them.



[1] https://www.theverge.com/news/789558/microsoft-ceo-commercial-judson-althoff-internal-memo

A high court in India has ruled that [1]legible medical prescriptions are a fundamental right after a judge found a government doctor's report completely incomprehensible. Justice Jasgurpreet Singh Puri of the Punjab and Haryana High Court issued the order while reviewing a bail petition in an unrelated criminal case. The medico-legal report examining an alleged assault victim was written in handwriting that the judge said left not even a single word or letter legible.

The court directed India's government to add handwriting instruction to medical school curriculum and mandated a two-year timeline for rolling out digital prescriptions nationwide. Until electronic systems are implemented, all doctors must write prescriptions in capital letters. The Indian Medical Association, representing over 330,000 physicians, told BBC it would help address the issue. Association president Dr Dilip Bhanushali said doctors in Indian cities have largely adopted digital prescriptions but practitioners in rural areas and small towns continue using handwritten notes.



[1] https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cn0r88nrx70o

Microsoft has announced that Xbox Game Pass Ultimate will [1]cost $29.99 per month , up from $19.99. The company restructured its subscription service into three tiers ahead of the October 16 launch of two Xbox ROG Ally handheld consoles. The new Essential tier offers 50-plus games for $9.99 monthly. Premium includes 200-plus games for $14.99. Ultimate subscribers gain access to more than 400 games, day-one releases, improved cloud streaming quality, and services including EA Play, Ubisoft+ Classics, and Fortnite Crew.

Game Pass generated nearly $5 billion in fiscal 2025 revenue with 34 million subscribers in 2024. Console hardware prices are also increasing, with the Xbox Series X rising $50 to $649.99 starting October 3.



[1] https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/xbox-game-pass-price-how-much-does-it-cost-asus-rog-ally-x-1236390793/

Yoshua Bengio called for a pause on AI model development two years ago to [1]focus on safety standards . Companies instead invested hundreds of billions of dollars into building more advanced models capable of executing long chains of reasoning and taking autonomous action. The A.M. Turing Award winner and Universite de Montreal professor told the Wall Street Journal that [2]his concerns about existential risk have not diminished .

Bengio founded the nonprofit research organization LawZero earlier this year to explore how to build truly safe AI models. Recent experiments demonstrate AI systems in some circumstances choose actions that cause human death over abandoning their assigned goals. OpenAI recently insisted that current frontier model frameworks will not eliminate hallucinations. Bengio, however, said even a 1% chance of catastrophic events like extinction or the destruction of democracies is unacceptable. He estimates advanced AI capable of posing such risks could arrive in five to ten years but urged treating three years as the relevant timeframe. The race condition between competing AI companies focused on weekly version releases remains the biggest barrier to adequate safety work, he said.



[1] https://tech.slashdot.org/story/23/05/30/1149219/ai-poses-risk-of-extinction-industry-leaders-warn

[2] https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/other/a-godfather-of-ai-remains-concerned-as-ever-about-human-extinction/ar-AA1NF4Np

An anonymous reader shares a report:

> Immigration anxieties and a challenging job market have [1]sparked an online backlash over China's latest attempt at attracting global talent -- a new visa program announced in August. The program, which was rolled out on Wednesday with the aim of attracting foreign professionals, will also test how China balances its immigration policy with its pursuit of technological ambitions.

>

> Under the new rules, young graduates -- in the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics or STEM -- no longer need backing from a local employer and can enjoy more flexibility in terms for entry frequency and duration of stay. The keyword "K-visa" -- as China's new visa category is called -- was among the top searches on social media site Weibo for days, before chatter about National Day traffic jams pushed it off the charts as millions hit the road for a week-long holiday.

>

> Chinese social media users argue that the new visa tilts the playing field toward foreign graduates at the expense of those educated in China. Others on Weibo warned that without employer sponsorship, the program could invite fraudulent applications and open the door to a surge in arrivals from developing countries, piling pressure on an already strained labor market.



[1] https://www.cnbc.com/2025/10/01/cnbcs-the-china-connection-newsletter-chinas-k-visa-plans-spark-worries-of-a-talent-flood.html

In India, Bollywood stars are asking judges to protect their voice and persona in the era of AI. From a report:

> One famous couple's biggest target is Google's YouTube. Abhishek Bachchan and his wife Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, known for her iconic Cannes Film Festival red carpet appearances, have asked a judge to remove and prohibit creation of AI videos infringing their intellectual property rights. But in a more far-reaching request, they also want Google ordered to have safeguards to ensure such YouTube videos uploaded anyway [1]do not train other AI platforms , legal papers reviewed by Reuters show.

>

> A handful of Bollywood celebrities have begun asserting their "personality rights" in Indian courts over the last few years, as the country has no explicit protection for those like in many U.S. states. But the Bachchans' lawsuits are the most high-profile to date about the interplay of personality rights and the risk that misleading or deepfake YouTube videos could train other AI models. The actors argue that YouTube's content and third-party training policy is concerning as it lets users consent to sharing of a video they created to train rival AI models, risking further proliferation of misleading content online, according to near-identical filings from Abhishek and Aishwarya dated September 6, which are not public.



[1] https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/society-equity/spooked-by-ai-bollywood-stars-drag-google-into-fight-personality-rights-2025-10-01/

The mass adoption of ChatGPT is [1]yet to have a big disruptive impact on US jobs , contradicting claims by chief executives and tech bosses that AI is already upending labour markets. Financial Times:

> Research from economists at the Yale University Budget Lab and the Brookings Institution think-tank indicates that, since OpenAI launched its popular chatbot in November 2022, generative AI has not had a more dramatic effect on employment than earlier technological breakthroughs.

>

> The [2]research , based on an analysis of official data on the labour market and figures from the tech industry on usage and exposure to AI, also finds little evidence that the tools are putting people out of work. The study follows widespread concern that generative AI will spark job losses -- and even the disappearance of certain types of work -- amid a US labour market that has recently weakened.



[1] https://www.ft.com/content/c9f905a0-cbfc-4a0a-ac4f-0d68d0fc64aa

[2] https://budgetlab.yale.edu/research/evaluating-impact-ai-labor-market-current-state-affairs

Independent UK bookshops will [1]now be able to sell ebooks via a new platform (Bookshop.org's expansion), keeping 100% of profits and offering a non-Amazon way to reach digital readers. "Bookshops now have an additional tool in their fight against Amazon," said Nicole Vanderbilt, managing director of Bookshop.org UK. "Digital readers don't depend on Amazon's monopoly any more, now that they can find ebooks at the same price on Bookshop.org." The Guardian reports:

> Bookshop.org launched in the UK in November 2020 as a platform for independent bookshops to sell physical books. Bookshops receive 30% of the cover price from each sale they generate; so far, the UK site has generated 4.5 million pounds for independent bookshops. Customers will also now be able to buy ebooks through a bookshop of their choice. Profits from orders without a specified bookshop will be added to a shared pool, which will be distributed among all participating bookshops on the platform. [...]

>

> The platform will launch with a catalogue of more than a million ebooks from all major publishers. It will be available online via a web browser and through the Bookshop.org apps on Apple and Android. "Due to Amazon's proprietary digital rights management [DRM] software and publishers' DRM requirements, it's not currently possible to buy DRM-protected ebooks from Bookshop.org or local bookshops and read them on your Kindle," said Bookshop.org. However, the site is working with the e-reader company Kobo to support Kobo devices "later this year," and longer term would "love to offer our own eInk device."



[1] https://www.theguardian.com/books/2025/oct/01/online-platform-independent-bookshops-ebooks-uk

[1]alternative_right shares a report from Phys.org:

> For the first time, a new study has [2]tested the effectiveness of trigger warnings in real life scenarios , revealing that the vast majority of young adults choose to ignore them. A new Flinders University study has found that nearly 90% of young people who saw a trigger warning still chose to view the content, saying that they did so out of curiosity, rather than because they felt emotionally prepared or protected. The findings [3]published in the Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry aligned with a growing body of lab-based research suggesting that trigger warnings rarely lead to the avoidance of potentially distressing material.



[1] https://slashdot.org/~alternative_right

[2] https://phys.org/news/2025-09-curiosity-viewers-trigger.html

[3] https://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S0005791625000242

An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNBC:

> Lufthansa announced plans to cut 4,000 roles on Monday as it [1]aims to increase profitability and lean on AI to drive efficiency . The airline group said it will eliminate a total of 4,000 FTE, or full-time equivalent, roles worldwide by 2030. The company is targeting primarily admin roles, the majority of which will be affected at its home base in Germany, as part of a broader restructuring strategy.

>

> "The Lufthansa Group is reviewing which activities will no longer be necessary in the future, for example due to duplication of work. In particular, the profound changes brought about by digitalization and the increased use of artificial intelligence will lead to greater efficiency in many areas and processes," the company said in a release issued during its Capital Markets Day in Munich. CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski said earlier this year that artificial intelligence had partially helped to shrink the company's headcount by 40% down from 5,000 employees to almost 3,000.



[1] https://www.cnbc.com/2025/09/29/lufthansa-to-cut-4000-jobs-turns-to-ai-to-boost-efficiency-.html

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the BBC:

> US scientists have, for the first time, made early-stage human embryos by [1]manipulating DNA taken from people's skin cells and then fertilizing it with sperm . The technique could overcome infertility due to old age or disease, by using almost any cell in the body as the starting point for life. It could even allow same-sex couples to have a genetically related child. [...]

>

> The Oregon Health and Science University research team's technique takes the nucleus -- which houses a copy of the entire genetic code needed to build the body -- out of a skin cell. This is then placed inside a donor egg that has been stripped of its genetic instructions. So far, the technique is like the one used to create Dolly the Sheep -- the world's first cloned mammal -- born back in 1996. However, this egg is not ready to be fertilized by sperm as it already contains a full suite of chromosomes.

>

> You inherit 23 of these bundles of DNA from each of your parents for a total of 46, which the egg already has. So the next stage is to persuade the egg to discard half of its chromosomes in a process the researchers have termed "mitomeiosis" (the word is a fusion of mitosis and meiosis, the two ways cells divide). The study, [2]published in the journal Nature Communications , showed 82 functional eggs were made. These were fertilized with sperm and some progressed onto the early stages of embryos development. None were developed beyond the six-day-stage.

>

> The technique is far from polished as the egg randomly chooses which chromosomes to discard. It needs to end up with one of each of the 23 types to prevent disease, but ends up with two of some and none of others. There is also a poor success rate (around 9%) and the chromosomes miss an important process where they rearrange their DNA, called crossing over. Prof Mitalipov, a world-renowned pioneer in the field, told me: "We have to perfect it. "Eventually, I think that's where the future will go because there are more and more patients that cannot have children."



[1] https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4g2vyee0zlo

[2] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-025-63454-7