[1]Grady Martin writes:

> [2]Natron Energy has announced the [3]immediate cessation of all operations , including its [4]manufacturing plant in Holland, Michigan , and plans to build a [5]$1.4 billion "gigafactory" in North Carolina . A company representative cited "efforts to raise sufficient new funding [being] unsuccessful" as the rationale for the decision.

>

> When previously covered by Slashdot, comments on the merits of sodium-ion included the ability to use aluminum [6]in lieu of heavier, more expensive copper anodes ; [7]a charge rate ten times that of lithium-ion ; and [8]Earth's abundance of sodium -- though at least one anonymous coward [9]predicted the cancellation of the project .



[1] https://slashdot.org/~Grady+Martin

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natron_Energy

[3] https://www.wral.com/story/battery-maker-natron-closes-shop-killing-plans-for-1-000-jobs-in-north-carolina/22144342/

[4] https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/24/05/03/2317204/lithium-free-sodium-batteries-exit-the-lab-enter-us-production

[5] https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/24/11/09/0414255/americas-first-sodium-ion-battery-gigafactory-announced-cost-14-billion

[6] https://hardware.slashdot.org/comments.pl?cid=64934601&sid=23515293&tid=154

[7] https://hardware.slashdot.org/comments.pl?cid=64447116&sid=23311752&tid=154

[8] https://hardware.slashdot.org/comments.pl?cid=64448130&sid=23311752&tid=154

[9] https://hardware.slashdot.org/comments.pl?cid=64934511&sid=23515293&tid=154

Longtime Slashdot reader [1]sinij shares a report from CBC News:

> Prime Minister Mark Carney is [2]delaying a plan to force automakers to hit minimum sales levels for electric vehicles . The move is part of a series of measures the government announced Friday to help the sectors most affected by U.S. President Donald Trump's tariffs. The EV mandate will be paused as the government conducts a 60-day review of the policy, and will be waived for 2026 models. Sources told CBC News that the review will look at the entire mandate and next steps.

>

> "We have an auto sector which, because of the massive change in U.S. policy, is under extreme pressure. We recognize that," Carney said at a news conference in Mississauga, Ont. "They've got enough on their plate right now. So we're taking that off." The government is using the review as part of broader look at all the government's climate measures, he added. [...]

>

> Brian Kingston, president of the Canadian Vehicle Manufacturers' Association, called it "an important first step." "The EV mandate imposes unsustainable costs on auto manufacturers, putting at risk Canadian jobs and investment in this critical sector of the economy," he said in a statement. "A full repeal of the regulation is the most effective way to provide immediate relief to the industry and keep it competitive."



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

[2] https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/carney-ev-mandate-pause-1.7625992

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Deadline:

> Anthropic has [1]agreed to pay at least $1.5 billion into a class action fund as part of a [2]settlement of litigation brought by a group of book authors. The sum, disclosed in a court filing on Friday, "will be the largest publicly reported copyright recovery in history, larger than any other copyright class action settlement or any individual copyright case litigated to final judgment," the attorneys for the authors wrote.

>

> The settlement also includes a provision that releases Anthropic only for its conduct up the August 25, meaning that new claims could be filed over future conduct, according to the filing. Anthropic also has agreed to destroy the datasets used in its models. The settlement figure amounts to about $3,000 per class work, according to the filing.

You can read the terms of Anthropic's copyright settlement [3]here (PDF). A hearing in the case is scheduled for Sept. 8.



[1] https://deadline.com/2025/09/anthropic-ai-lawsuit-settlement-1-5-billion-1236509423/

[2] https://yro.slashdot.org/story/25/07/17/1548245/judge-allows-nationwide-class-action-against-anthropic-over-alleged-piracy-of-7-million-books-for-ai-training

[3] https://deadline.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/anthropic3_Redacted.pdf

Mozilla [1]announced today that they will [2]end 32-bit Linux support for Firefox in 2026 , with version 144 being the last release and ESR 140 as the fallback option. Phoronix reports:

> Firefox has continued providing 32-bit Linux binaries even with most other web browsers and operating systems going all-in on x86_64 support. But given that 32-bit Linux support is waning by distributions and the vast majority of distributions aren't even shipping i686 install images anymore, they will be removing 32-bit Linux builds in 2026.



[1] https://blog.mozilla.org/futurereleases/2025/09/05/firefox-32-bit-linux-support-to-end-in-2026/

[2] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Firefox-Ending-32-bit-Linux

Researchers from Nanjing University and the University of Sydney [1]developed an AI-powered bug-hunting agent that mimics human vulnerability discovery, validating flaws with proof-of-concept exploits. The Register reports:

> Ziyue Wang (Nanjing) and Liyi Zhou (Sydney) have expanded upon [2]prior work dubbed A1, an AI agent that can develop exploits for cryptocurrency smart contracts, with A2, an AI agent capable of vulnerability discovery and validation in Android apps. They describe A2 in [3]a preprint paper titled "Agentic Discovery and Validation of Android App Vulnerabilities."

>

> The authors claim that the A2 system achieves 78.3 percent coverage on the Ghera benchmark, surpassing static analyzers like APKHunt (30.0 percent). And they say that, when they used A2 on 169 production APKs, they found "104 true-positive zero-day vulnerabilities," 57 of which were self-validated via automatically generated proof-of-concept (PoC) exploits. One of these included a medium-severity flaw in an Android app with over 10 million installs.



[1] https://www.theregister.com/2025/09/04/boffins_build_automated_android_bug_hunting/

[2] https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.05558

[3] https://arxiv.org/pdf/2508.21579v1

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters:

> President Donald Trump said on Thursday his administration would [1]impose tariffs on semiconductor imports from companies not shifting production to the U.S. , speaking ahead of a dinner with major technology company CEOs. "Yeah, I have discussed it with the people here. Chips and semiconductors -- we will be putting tariffs on companies that aren't coming in. We will be putting a tariff very shortly," Trump said without giving an exact time or rate.

>

> "We will be putting a very substantial tariff, not that high, but fairly substantial tariff with the understanding that if they come into the country, if they are coming in, building, planning to come in, there will not be a tariff," Trump told reporters. "If they are not coming in, there is a tariff," Trump said in his comments on semiconductors. "Like, I would say (Apple CEO) Tim Cook would be in pretty good shape," he added, as Cook sat across the table.

Further reading: [2]Trump Basks in Tech Leaders' Spending Vows at White House Dinner



[1] https://finance.yahoo.com/news/trump-impose-tariffs-semiconductor-imports-002239511.html

[2] https://finance.yahoo.com/news/trump-basks-tech-leaders-spending-005921620.html

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Associated Press:

> LSD [1]reduced symptoms of anxiety in a midstage study published Thursday, paving the way for additional testing and possible medical approval of a psychedelic drug that has been banned in the U.S. for more than a half century. The results from drugmaker Mindmed tested several doses of LSD in patients with moderate-to-severe generalized anxiety disorder, with the benefits lasting as long as three months. The company plans to conduct follow-up studies to confirm the results and then apply for Food and Drug Administration approval. [...]

>

> For the study, researchers measured anxiety symptoms in nearly 200 patients who randomly received one of four doses of LSD or a placebo. The main aim was to find the optimal dose of the drug, which can cause intense visual hallucinations and occasionally feelings of panic or paranoia. At four weeks, patients receiving the two highest doses had significantly lower anxiety scores than those who received placebo or lower doses. After 12 weeks, 65% of patients taking the most effective LSD dose -- 100 micrograms -- continued to show benefits and nearly 50% were deemed to be in remission. The most common side effects included hallucinations, nausea and headaches.

>

> Patients who got dummy pills also improved -- a common phenomenon in psychedelic and psychiatric studies -- but their changes were less than half the size those getting the real drug. The research was not immune to problems seen in similar studies. Most patients were able to correctly guess whether they'd received LSD or a dummy pill, undercutting the "blinded" approach that's considered critical to objectively establishing the benefits of a new medicine. In addition, a significant portion of patients in both the placebo and treatment groups dropped out early, narrowing the final data set. It also wasn't clear how long patients might continue to benefit.

If the two trials are successful, Mindmed will submit them for FDA approval.

"It's possible that some people may need retreatment," said Dr. Maurizio Fava of Mass General Brigham Hospital, the study's lead author and an adviser to Mindmed. "How many retreatments, we don't know yet, but the long-lasting effect is quite significant."

The study has been [2]published in the Journal of the American Medical Association .



[1] https://apnews.com/article/lsd-psychedelics-study-anxiety-fda-drugs-trump-8821f7f3683051506d47864db5e5edcf

[2] https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/10.1001/jama.2025.13481?guestAccessKey=f420494d-a51d-442c-9d7c-4d14dbbe1aae&utm_source=For_The_Media&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=ftm_links&utm_content=tfl&utm_term=090425

Microsoft is giving away Microsoft 365 Personal subscriptions [1]to all US college students . From a report:

> This subscription gives students free access to Microsoft's Office apps and the Copilot AI assistant integration for a year, after which the students are eligible for a 50 percent discount to continue the subscription.

>

> While most students have access to education versions of Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace, Microsoft's offer is for student's own personal Microsoft accounts, and is available to claim until October 31st. Microsoft 365 Personal is usually $99.99 a year, or $9.99 a month, and includes 1TB of OneDrive cloud storage.



[1] https://www.theverge.com/news/772385/microsoft-365-personal-free-us-college-students

A first-of-its-kind global research expedition has extracted freshwater samples from beneath the Atlantic Ocean floor off Cape Cod, [1]documenting a massive aquifer stretching from New Jersey to Maine . The three-month Expedition 501, funded at $25 million by the National Science Foundation and European Consortium for Ocean Research Drilling, drilled up to 1,289 feet into the seabed at sites 20-30 miles offshore.

Samples registered salinity as low as 1 part per thousand -- meeting U.S. freshwater standards -- with some readings even lower. Scientists collected nearly 50,000 liters for laboratory analysis to determine whether the water originates from ancient glacial melt or current terrestrial groundwater systems. The UN projects global freshwater demand will exceed supply by 40% within five years.



[1] https://apnews.com/article/freshwater-expedition-ai-501-cape-cod-5d62cae0f040d369b16d8400202f0a88

An investigation has identified more than [1]1,500 research articles produced by a network of Ukrainian companies that could be one of Europe's largest paper mills -- businesses that produce fake or low-quality research papers and sell authorships. Nature:

> Anna Abalkina, a research-integrity sleuth and social scientist at the Free University of Berlin, discovered the paper mill in 2022 after spotting papers with author e-mail addresses that had domains that did not match the geographical locations of academic affiliations. She dubbed the paper mill 'Tanu.pro' after the most frequently used of these unusual domains.

>

> Abalkina later teamed up with Svetlana Kleiner, a research integrity officer at the publisher Springer Nature, who is based in Leiden, the Netherlands. Together, they traced more than 60 suspicious e-mail domains that were linked to Tanu.pro and appeared among the author e-mails of 1,517 papers published between 2017 and 2025, listing more than 4,500 researchers affiliated with around 460 universities across 46 countries. The majority of authors were in Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Russia.



[1] https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-02809-y

Networks of pipes and heat exchangers can transfer excess heat from buildings into nearby bodies of water -- but as the world warms, the [1]cooling potential of some water courses is now diminishing, Wired reports. Paris's district cooling network, which pipes Seine river water to cool 800 buildings including the Louvre Museum, faces diminishing returns as climate change warms water temperatures. The system achieves coefficients of performance between 4 and 15 -- significantly higher than conventional air conditioning -- by transferring building heat through heat exchangers to the river. The Seine briefly exceeded 27C this summer, approaching the 30C regulatory limit for returned water.

The network currently spans 100 kilometers of pipes and will expand to 245 kilometers by 2042 to serve 3,000 buildings. Similar installations operate in Toronto using lake water from 83-meter depths and at Cornell University drawing 4C water from Lake Cayuga at 76 meters. Rotterdam and other cities are developing comparable systems as cooling demand rises.



[1] https://www.wired.com/story/people-are-so-proud-of-this-how-river-and-lake-water-is-cooling-buildings/

Alphabet's Google was [1]hit with a $3.45 billion EU antitrust fine on Friday for anti-competitive practices in its lucrative adtech business, marking its fourth penalty in its decade long fight with EU competition regulators. From a report:

> The move by the European Commission was triggered by a complaint from the European Publishers Council and comes amid a threat by U.S. President Donald Trump to retaliate against the European Union for any push against Big Tech.

>

> The EU competition enforcer had originally planned to hand out the fine on Monday but opposition from EU trade chief Maros Sefcovic on concerns about the impact on U.S. tariffs on European cars derailed EU antitrust chief Teresa Ribera's plan. The Commission said Google favored its own online display technology services to the detriment of rivals and online publishers and that it abused its market power since 2014 until today.



[1] https://ca.finance.yahoo.com/news/google-hit-3-45-billion-152109490.html

Panasonic's market value has remained flat at approximately $25 billion over the past decade while rivals Hitachi, Sony and NEC have increased their valuations sixfold during the same period. The Osaka-based conglomerate announced a restructuring plan in May 2025 to [1]eliminate 10,000 positions and streamline operations across its six operating companies and hundreds of product lines. The company generates $57 billion in annual revenue and maintains dominant positions in several markets. Financial Times [2]reports :

> Within Panasonic's six operating companies and hundreds of product lines are industrial technology gems. The company supplies 70 per cent of the world's in-flight entertainment systems, its facial recognition technology is being used to measure brain health, and its EV battery plants are among the world's most efficient, according to auto industry insiders.

Panasonic chief said in January that AI-driven hardware and software solutions would constitute 30% of revenues by 2035, compared to approximately 10% currently. But Goldman Sachs analyst Ryo Harada wrote recently that investors are seeking a growth strategy beyond the announced reforms.



[1] https://slashdot.org/story/25/05/09/0911253/panasonic-to-cut-10000-jobs

[2] https://www.ft.com/content/f1ff7284-3e7b-40f1-bf31-ccf1c4056fa6

Much of the world favors [1]protecting 30% of the world's land and water for nature by 2030, according to new research that has found overwhelming public support for the goal across eight countries on five continents. The Guardian:

> Nearly 200 nations agreed in 2022 to set aside 30% of the world's land and 30% of marine areas for nature. But just 17.6% of the world's land and 8.6% of the seas are now under global protection, and more than 100 nations are less than halfway to meeting the target, which was established under the 2022 Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework.

>

> Governments will need to implement swift changes if they are to achieve the target within the next five years. But setting aside more space for nature can be a political pitfall. Often it can mean restricting people's access to land, halting resource extraction and relocating human settlements. These issues, along with possible effects on economic growth, are often cited by countries as barriers to expanding protecting areas. Research [2]published last week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, however, suggests that more than 80% of the public across eight sampled countries support the policy.



[1] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/sep/05/30x30-biodiversity-target-protecting-nature-land-seas-survey-public-support-aoe

[2] https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2503355122

Nobel laureate Geoffrey Hinton has warned that AI will [1]concentrate wealth among a small elite while impoverishing most workers. The computer scientist, who pioneered neural network research in the 1980s, told Financial Times that rich people will use AI to replace workers, creating massive unemployment and profit increases.

Hinton, who left Google in 2023 after selling his AI startup for $44 million a decade earlier, dismissed universal basic income as insufficient to address human dignity concerns from job losses. The 77-year-old physicist predicts superintelligent AI will arrive within five to twenty years. He blamed capitalism rather than AI technology itself for the coming economic disruption, stating the system ensures AI will primarily benefit the wealthy rather than solve grand problems like hunger or poverty.



[1] https://www.ft.com/content/31feb335-4945-475e-baaa-3b880d9cf8ce

An anonymous reader shares a report:

> Can AI help "smooth over" discussion on abortion, racism, immigration, or Israel-Palestine? Columbia University sure hopes so. The Verge has learned that the university [1]recently began testing Sway , an AI debate program currently in beta. Developed by two researchers at Carnegie Mellon University, Sway matches up students with opposing views to chat one-on-one about hot-button issues and "facilitates better discussions between them," according to the tool's website. Nicholas DiBella, a postdoctoral scholar at CMU who helped develop Sway, told The Verge that about 3,000 students from more than 30 colleges and universities have used the tool.

>

> One of those may soon be Columbia. News of the potential partnership comes after more than two years of escalating tensions at Columbia between students, administrators, and the federal government. The university has spent years at the center of controversy after controversy: expulsions of pro-Palestinian student protesters, a string of police raids, and demands from the federal government.

>

> People at Columbia's Teachers College are testing Sway in order to potentially integrate it into the conflict resolution curriculum and "bridge-building initiatives at Columbia," DiBella said. He said there's also been interest from other teams at Columbia in using Sway for the fall 2026 semester and onward. Simon Cullen, an assistant professor at CMU and the other developer behind Sway, told The Verge that the company is also in touch with Columbia University Life.



[1] https://www.theverge.com/ai-artificial-intelligence/770510/columbia-university-sway-ai-to-cool-off-student-tensions-israel-palestine-protests

Uber's Indian arm has started using its app to offer rideshare and delivery drivers the chance to make money by [1]classifying data used by AI systems . From a report:

> Megha Yethadka, global head of Uber AI Solutions, revealed the new gigs in a Thursday LinkedIn post in which she said drivers sometimes have downtime during the day or might want to make some extra cash after hours. Yethadka said the work can involve reviewing photos, counting objects, classifying text, recording audio, or digitizing receipts.

>

> She said the gigs are "Powering our enterprise customers worldwide for their gen AI models or consumer applications." "Until now, these tasks were completed by independent contractors outside the app," Yethadka wrote. "The early results are very promising, and we're eager to scale this further." In an accompanying video, she mentioned "worldwide" expansion for the offering. Prabhjeet Singh, Uber's president for India and South Asia, said the gigs are available in 12 cities and that "tens of thousands of drivers" are already performing what Uber calls "digital tasks."



[1] https://www.theregister.com/2025/09/05/uber_india_ai_model_gigs/

An anonymous reader [1]shares a report :

> Google's CEO Sundar Pichai stood smiling in a leafy-green California garden in September 2020 and declared that the tech behemoth was entering the "most ambitious decade yet" in its climate action. "Today, I'm proud to announce that we intend to be the first major company to operate carbon free -- 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year," he said, in a video announcement at the time.

>

> Pichai added that he knew the "road ahead would not be easy," but Google "aimed to prove that a carbon-free future is both possible and achievable fast enough to prevent the most dangerous impacts of climate change." Five years on, just how hard Google's "energy journey" would become is clear. In June, Google's Sustainability website proudly boasted a headline pledge to achieve net-zero emissions by 2030. By July, that had all changed. An investigation by Canada's National Observer has found that Google's net-zero pledge has quietly been scrubbed, demoted from having its own section on the site to an entry in the appendices of the company's sustainability report.



[1] https://www.nationalobserver.com/2025/09/04/investigations/google-net-zero-sustainability

Anthropic is [1]blocking its services from Chinese-controlled companies , saying it's taking steps to prevent a US adversary from advancing in AI and threatening American national security. From a report:

> The San Francisco-based startup is widening existing restrictions on "authoritarian" regimes to cover any company that's majority-owned by entities from countries such as China. That includes their overseas operations, it said in a statement. Foreign-based subsidiaries could be used to access its technology and further military applications, the startup added.

>

> Anthropic's Dario Amodei has publicly advocated technological sanctions on China, particularly after DeepSeek stunned Silicon Valley with an advanced model this year. While Anthropic didn't name any companies, Chinese big tech firms from Alibaba to ByteDance have joined DeepSeek in an intensifying race to build AI services that can rival the likes of OpenAI in the US. Chinese entities "could use our capabilities to develop applications and services that ultimately serve adversarial military and intelligence services and broader authoritarian objectives," Anthropic said in its Friday post.



[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-09-05/anthropic-clamps-down-on-ai-services-for-chinese-owned-firms?accessToken=eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJzb3VyY2UiOiJTdWJzY3JpYmVyR2lmdGVkQXJ0aWNsZSIsImlhdCI6MTc1NzA1MDA0MCwiZXhwIjoxNzU3NjU0ODQwLCJhcnRpY2xlSWQiOiJUMjNLUTlHUEwzWEEwMCIsImJjb25uZWN0SWQiOiJDNTc5RDIwMDZBQjQ0RjRDODkwMTU0M0U0ODMxNkJCNiJ9.TbM4iXBe4R1kR3PLnysypmz5dBlj9gP77I6nG4gE4_g

A UK government trial of Microsoft's M365 Copilot [1]found no clear productivity gains despite user satisfaction with tasks like summarizing meetings and writing emails. While the tool sped up some routine work, it actually slowed down more complex tasks like Excel analysis and PowerPoint creation, often producing lower-quality results. The Register reports:

> The Department for Business and Trade received 1,000 licenses for use between October and December 2024, with the majority of these allocated to volunteers and 30 percent to randomly selected participants. Some 300 of these people consented to their data being analyzed. An evaluation of time savings, quality assurance, and productivity was then calculated in [2]the assessment (PDF). Overall, 72 percent of users were satisfied or very satisfied with their digital assistant and voiced disappointment when the test ended. However, the reality of productivity gains was more nuanced than Microsoft's marketing materials might suggest. Around two-thirds of the employees in the trial used M365 at least once a week, and 30 percent used it at least once a day -- which doesn't sound like great value for money. [...]

>

> According to the M365 Copilot monitoring dashboard made available in the trial, an average of 72 M365 Copilot actions were taken per user. "Based on there being 63 working days during the pilot, this is an average of 1.14 M365 Copilot actions taken per user per day," the study says. Word, Teams, and Outlook were the most used, and Loop and OneNote usage rates were described as "very low," less than 1 percent and 3 percent per day, respectively. "PowerPoint and Excel were slightly more popular; both experienced peak activity of 7 percent of license holders using M365 Copilot in a single day within those applications," the study states. The three most popular tasks involved transcribing or summarizing a meeting, writing an email, and summarizing written comms. These also had the highest satisfaction levels, we're told.

>

> Participants were asked to record the time taken for each task with M365 Copilot compared to colleagues not involved in the trial. The assessment report adds: "Observed task sessions showed that M365 Copilot users produced summaries of reports and wrote emails faster and to a higher quality and accuracy than non-users. Time savings observed for writing emails were extremely small. "However, M365 Copilot users completed Excel data analysis more slowly and to a worse quality and accuracy than non-users, conflicting time savings reported in the diary study for data analysis. PowerPoint slides [were] over 7 minutes faster on average, but to a worse quality and accuracy than non-users." This means corrective action was required.

>

> A cross-section of participants was asked questions in an interview -- qualitative findings -- and they claimed routine admin tasks could be carried out with greater efficiency with M365 Copilot, letting them "redirect time towards tasks seen as more strategic or of higher value, while others reported using these time savings to attend training sessions or take a lunchtime walk." Nevertheless, M365 Copilot did not necessarily make them more productive, the assessment found. This is something Microsoft has worked on with customers to quantify the benefits and justify the greater expense of a license for M365 Copilot.



[1] https://www.theregister.com/2025/09/04/m365_copilot_uk_government/

[2] https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/68adbe409e1cebdd2c96a19d/dbt-microsoft-365-copilot-evaluation.pdf