The Ninth Circuit has ruled that the 1967 Ford Mustang fastback nicknamed "Eleanor" in Gone in 60 Seconds is a film prop [1]rather than a protectable character . The panel said the car fails all three Towle test prongs, so it cannot receive standalone copyright protection. [2]sinij writes:

> The ruling states that the Mustang doesn't pass tests that would qualify it as a character. In the past, studio aggressively went after builders for any Mustang that even remotely approximated Eleanor, making it a hassle to restomod classic Mustangs.



[1] https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a64938535/ford-mustang-eleanor-gone-in-60-seconds-ruling/

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

Live-animal markets across Southeast Asia continue [1]operating as natural laboratories for deadly pathogens despite warnings from public health experts about their role in disease transmission, according to new research published in Nature.

Scientists studying markets like Jakarta's Jatinegara found that coronavirus detection rates in trafficked animals increase dramatically along supply chains, with rats sold at Vietnamese markets testing positive at rates ten times higher than those caught in fields. Pangolins confiscated in Vietnam showed a seven-fold increase in coronavirus infections compared to animals seized earlier in the smuggling process.

The research comes as political headwinds have severely reduced funding for pandemic preparedness, with the Trump administration terminating a $125-million disease monitoring program and cutting all USAID functions. Scientists report growing reluctance from government officials to authorize publication of pathogen discoveries, fearing stigma and trade restrictions, while wildlife traders increasingly avoid participating in studies that could reveal new health risks.



[1] https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-01690-z

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Register:

> Broadcom's VMware business unit has [1]dropped the lowest tier of its channel program , a move one analyst told The Register will benefit its rivals. The virtualization pioneer currently operates a four-tier channel program spanning Pinnacle, Premier, Select, and Registered partners. On Sunday the business unit announced the retirement of the Registered tier. A [2]blog post written by Brian Moats, Broadcom's Senior Vice President for Global Commercial Sales and Partners, states VMware made the decision because "the vast majority of customer impact and business momentum comes from partners operating within the top three tiers."

>

> Laura Falko, Broadcom's Head of Global Partner Programs, Marketing & Experience, told The Register "The vast majority of these [Registered] partners are inactive and lack the capabilities to support customers through VMware's evolving private cloud journey. That's why the Registered tier is being retired to ensure every active partner meets a higher standard of technical, sales, and service readiness." Falko told us VMware will give Registered partners 60 days' notice before deauthorization and then "work proactively with affected customers to transition them to qualified partners in the new ecosystem, ensuring continuity and support throughout the change."

>

> VMware has also introduced new requirements for partners in its remaining tiers. The virtualization giant will require Pinnacle and Premier partners to maintain dedicated sales and technical resources, and to "execute joint business plans with VMware to ensure alignment and delivery with mutual results." The Broadcom business unit is also "beginning the process of transitioning partners who no longer meet the minimum program requirements or have not demonstrated consistent engagement," suggesting even Pinnacle, Premier, and Select partners are not safe. The Register asked VMware to define "consistent engagement" and Falko told us it includes "regular deal activity," ongoing participation in joint sales activities, staying up to date with training, and "sustained, proactive commitment to a partner's VMware customer base."

The changes will only apply in its Americas, and Asia-Pacific and Japan regions. Broadcom didn't explain why Europe was excluded.

The Register notes that trade associations in Europe have [3]criticized Broadcom's changes at VMware and urged the European Commission to investigate the company.



[1] https://www.theregister.com/2025/06/01/vmware_channel_changes/

[2] https://news.broadcom.com/partners/fueling-customer-success-through-deep-partner-collaboration

[3] https://slashdot.org/story/25/05/22/1818256/vmware-price-hikes-between-800-and-1500-since-acquisition-by-broadcom-claim-euro-customers

New simulations suggest that the long-assumed collision between the Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies is not guaranteed, with the [1]odds now estimated at just over 50% within the next 10 billion years. Factoring in other massive galaxies like M33 and the Large Magellanic Cloud revealed that their gravitational influence significantly alters the likelihood of a merger. ScienceAlert reports:

> The Milky Way and Andromeda are not, however, alone in this little corner of the cosmos. They belong to a small group of galaxies within a radius of about 5 million light-years from the Milky Way known as the Local Group. The Milky Way and Andromeda are the largest members, but there are quite a few other objects hanging out that need to be taken into consideration when modeling the future. [Astrophysicist Till Sawala of the University of Helsinki] and his colleagues took the latest data from the Hubble and Gaia space telescopes, and the most recent mass estimates for the four most massive objects in the Local Group -- the Milky Way, Andromeda, the Triangulum galaxy (M33), and the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC). Then, they set about running simulations of the next 10 billion years, adding and removing galaxies to see how that changed the results.

>

> Their results showed that the presence of M33 and LMC dramatically altered the probability of a collision between the Milky Way and Andromeda. When it is just the two large spiral galaxies, the merger occurred in slightly less than half the simulation runs. The addition of M33 increased the merger probability to two in three. Taking M33 back out and adding LMC had the opposite effect, decreasing the probability to one in three. When all four galaxies were present, the probability of a merger between the Milky Way and Andromeda within 10 billion years is slightly more than 50 percent.

"We find that there are basically two types of outcomes," Sawala said. "The Milky Way and Andromeda will either come close enough on their first encounter (first 'pericenter') that dynamical friction between the two dark matter haloes will drag the orbit to an eventual merger, which very likely happens before 10 billion years, or they do not come close enough, in which case dynamical friction is not effective, and they can still orbit for a very long time thereafter."

"The main result of our work is that there is still significant uncertainty about the future evolution -- and eventual fate -- of our galaxy," Sawala added. "Of course, as a working astrophysicist, the best results are those that motivate future studies, and I think our paper provides motivation both for more comprehensive models and for more precise observations."

The research has been [2]published in Nature Astronomy .



[1] https://www.sciencealert.com/the-milky-way-might-not-crash-into-the-andromeda-galaxy-after-all

[2] https://doi.org/10.1038/s41550-025-02563-1

President Trump's 2026 budget [1]proposes over $1 billion for Mars exploration through a new Commercial Mars Payload Services Program, while simultaneously slashing NASA's overall budget by 25%. Phys.Org reports:

> Under the proposal, NASA would award contracts to companies developing spacesuits, communications systems and a human-rated landing vehicle to foster exploration of the Red Planet. Trump's proposed $18.8 billion NASA budget would cut the agency's funding by about 25% from the year before, with big hits to its science portfolio. The fleshed-out request on Friday builds upon a condensed budget proposal released earlier this month.

>

> "We must continue to be responsible stewards of taxpayer dollars," NASA Acting Administrator Janet Petro wrote in a letter included in the request. "That means making strategic decisions -- including scaling back or discontinuing ineffective efforts." The new Mars scheme is modeled after NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services program that has benefited Intuitive Machines LLC, Firefly Aerospace Inc. and Astrobotic Technology Inc., though it has achieved mixed results. According to the budget, the contract to land on Mars would build upon existing lander contracts.

[2]America's Next NASA Administrator Will Not Be Former SpaceX Astronaut Jared Isaacman



[1] https://phys.org/news/2025-06-trump-billion-private-sector-mars.html

[2] https://science.slashdot.org/story/25/06/01/0722227/americas-next-nasa-administrator-will-not-be-former-spacex-astronaut-jared-isaacman

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian:

> People born more recently are [1]less likely to have dementia at any given age than earlier generations , research suggests, with the trend more pronounced in women. According to the World Health Organization, in 2021 there were 57 million people worldwide living with dementia, with women disproportionately affected. However, while the risk of dementia increases with age, experts have long stressed it is not not an inevitability of getting older. "Younger generations are less likely to develop dementia at the same age as their parents or grandparents, and that's a hopeful sign," said Dr Sabrina Lenzen, a co-author of the study from the University of Queensland's Centre for the Business and Economics of Health. But she added: "The overall burden of dementia will still grow as populations age, and significant inequalities remain -- especially by gender, education and geography."

>

> [2]Writing in the journal Jama Network Open , researchers in Australia report how they analyzed data from 62,437 people aged 70 and over, collected from three long-running surveys covering the US, England and parts of Europe. The team used an algorithm that took into account participants' responses to a host of different metrics, from the difficulties they had with everyday activities to their scores on cognitive tests, to determine whether they were likely to have dementia. They then split the participants into eight different cohorts, representing different generations. Participants were also split into six age groups. As expected, the researchers found the prevalence of dementia increased by age among all birth cohorts, and in each of the three regions: UK, US and Europe. However, at a given age, people in more recent generations were less likely to have dementia compared with those in earlier generations.

>

> "For example, in the US, among people aged 81 to 85, 25.1% of those born between 1890-1913 had dementia, compared to 15.5% of those born between 1939-1943," said Lenzen, adding similar trends were seen in Europe and England, although less pronounced in the latter. The team said the trend was more pronounced in women, especially in Europe and England, noting that one reason may be increased access to education for women in the mid-20th century. However, taking into account changes in GDP, a metric that reflects broader economic shifts, did not substantially alter the findings.

A number of factors could be contributing to the decline. "This is likely due to interventions such as compulsory education, smoking bans, and improvements in medical treatments for conditions such as heart disease, diabetes, and hearing loss, which are associated with dementia risk," said Prof Tara Spires-Jones, the director of the Centre for Discovery Brain Sciences at the University of Edinburgh.



[1] https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/jun/02/younger-generations-less-likely-dementia-study

[2] https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2025.13384?guestAccessKey=bacb167c-2948-4d8a-a4b4-4f6200aa35d6&utm_source=for_the_media&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=ftm_links&utm_content=tfl&utm_term=060225

Coinbase reportedly knew as early as January about a customer data breach [1]linked to its outsourcing partner TaskUs , where an employee in India was caught leaking customer information in exchange for bribes. "At least one part of [2]the breach [...] occurred when an India-based employee of the U.S. outsourcing firm TaskUs was caught taking photographs of her work computer with her personal phone," reports Reuters, citing five former TaskUs employees. Though Coinbase [3]disclosed the incident in May after receiving an extortion demand, the newly revealed timeline raises questions about how long the company was aware of the breach, which could cost [4]up to $400 million . Reuters reports:

> Coinbase said in the May SEC filing that it knew contractors accessed employee data "without business need" in "previous months." Only when it received an extortion demand on May 11 did it realize that the access was part of a wider campaign, the company said. In a statement to Reuters on Wednesday, Coinbase said the incident was recently discovered and that it had "cut ties with the TaskUs personnel involved and other overseas agents, and tightened controls." Coinbase did not disclose who the other foreign agents were.

>

> TaskUs said in a statement that two employees had been fired early this year after they illegally accessed information from a client, which it did not identify. "We immediately reported this activity to the client," the statement said. "We believe these two individuals were recruited by a much broader, coordinated criminal campaign against this client that also impacted a number of other providers servicing this client." The person familiar with the matter confirmed that Coinbase was the client and that the incident took place in January.



[1] https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/boards-policy-regulation/coinbase-breach-linked-customer-data-leak-india-sources-say-2025-06-02/

[2] https://it.slashdot.org/story/25/05/15/1415242/coinbase-offers-20-million-bounty-to-catch-data-thieves-after-extortion-attempt

[3] https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1679788/000167978825000094/coin-20250514.htm

[4] https://yro.slashdot.org/story/25/05/20/2052220/coinbase-data-breach-will-lead-to-people-dying-techcrunch-founder-says

An anonymous reader shares a report:

> Microsoft's changes in response to the Digital Markets Act already included allowing Windows machines in the regions it covers to uninstall Edge and remove Bing results from Windows search, but now the list is growing in some meaningful ways. New features announced Monday for Microsoft Windows users in the European Economic Area (the EU plus Iceland, Liechtenstein, and Norway) include the option to uninstall the Microsoft Store and [1]avoid extra nags or prompts asking them to set Microsoft Edge as the default browser unless they choose to open it.

>

> Additionally, setting a different browser, like Chrome, Firefox, Brave, or something else, will pin it to the taskbar unless the user chooses not to. While setting a different browser default already attaches it to a few link and file types like https and .html, now users in the EEA will see it apply to more types like "read," ftp, and .svg. The default browser changes are live for some users in the beta channel and are set to roll out widely on Windows 10 and Windows 11 in July.



[1] https://www.theverge.com/news/678350/microsoft-dma-windows-10-11-bing-edge

Texas is poised to become the first state with a Republican-controlled government to [1]pass a right to repair law , as its Senate unanimously approved [2]HB 2963 . The bill requires manufacturers to provide parts, manuals, and tools for equipment sold or used in the state. The Verge reports:

> A [3]press release from the United States Public Interest Research Group (PIRG), which has pushed for repairability laws nationwide, noted that this would make Texas the ninth state with a right to repair rule, and the seventh with a version that includes consumer electronics. It follows New York, Colorado, Minnesota, California, Oregon, Maine, and most recently, Washington [...].

"More repair means less waste. Texas produces some 621,000 tons of electronic waste per year, which creates an expensive and toxic mess. Now, thanks to this bipartisan win, Texans can fix that," said Environment Texas executive director Luke Metzger.



[1] https://www.theverge.com/law/678334/right-to-repair-texas-hb-2963

[2] https://capitol.texas.gov/BillLookup/History.aspx?LegSess=89R&Bill=HB2963

[3] https://pirg.org/media-center/release-right-to-repair-passes-overwhelmingly-in-texas/

An anonymous reader quotes a report from 404 Media:

> The moderators of a pro-artificial intelligence Reddit community announced that they have been [1]quietly banning "a bunch of schizoposters " who believe "they've made some sort of incredible discovery or created a god or become a god," highlighting a new type of chatbot-fueled delusion that started getting attention in early May. "LLMs [Large language models] today are ego-reinforcing glazing-machines that reinforce unstable and narcissistic personalities," one of the moderators of r/accelerate, [2]wrote in an announcement . "There is a lot more crazy people than people realise. And AI is rizzing them up in a very unhealthy way at the moment."

>

> The moderator said that it has banned "over 100" people for this reason already, and that they've seen an "uptick" in this type of user this month. The moderator explains that r/accelerate "was formed to basically be r/singularity without the decels." r/singularity, which is named after the theoretical point in time when AI surpasses human intelligence and rapidly accelerates its own development, is another Reddit community dedicated to artificial intelligence, but that is sometimes critical or fearful of what the singularity will mean for humanity. "Decels" is short for the pejorative "decelerationists," who pro-AI people think are needlessly slowing down or sabotaging AI's development and the inevitable march towards AI utopia. r/accelerate's Reddit page claims that it's a "pro-singularity, pro-AI alternative to r/singularity, r/technology, r/futurology and r/artificial, which have become increasingly populated with technology decelerationists, luddites, and Artificial Intelligence opponents."

>

> The behavior that the r/accelerate moderator is describing got a lot of attention earlier in May because of a post on the r/ChatGPT Reddit community about " [3]Chatgpt induced psychosis ." From someone saying their partner is convinced he created the "first truly recursive AI" with ChatGPT that is giving them "the answers" to the universe. [...] The moderator update on r/accelerate refers to another post on r/ChatGPT which claims "1000s of people [are] engaging in behavior that causes AI to have spiritual delusions." The author of that post said they noticed a spike in websites, blogs, Githubs, and "scientific papers" that "are very obvious psychobabble," and all claim AI is sentient and communicates with them on a deep and spiritual level that's about to change the world as we know it. "Ironically, the OP post appears to be falling for the same issue as well," the r/accelerate moderator wrote.

"Particularly concerning to me are the comments in that thread where the AIs seem to fall into a pattern of encouraging users to separate from family members who challenge their ideas, and other manipulative instructions that seem to be cult-like and unhelpful for these people," an r/accelerate moderator told 404 Media. "The part that is unsafe and unacceptable is how easily and quickly LLMs will start directly telling users that they are demigods, or that they have awakened a demigod AGI. Ultimately, there's no knowing how many people are affected by this. Based on the numbers we're seeing on reddit, I would guess there are at least tens of thousands of users who are at this present time being convinced of these things by LLMs. As soon as the companies realise this, red team it and patch the LLMs it should stop being a problem. But it's clear that they're not aware of the issue enough right now."

Moderators of the subreddit often cite the term "Neural Howlround" to describe a failure mode in LLMs during inference, where recursive feedback loops can cause fixation or freezing. The term was first coined by independent researcher Seth Drake in a [4]self-published, non-peer-reviewed paper . Both Drake and the r/accelerate moderator above suggest the deeper issue may lie with users projecting intense personal meaning onto LLM responses, sometimes driven by mental health struggles.



[1] https://www.404media.co/pro-ai-subreddit-bans-uptick-of-users-who-suffer-from-ai-delusions/

[2] https://www.reddit.com/r/accelerate/comments/1kyc0fh/mod_note_we_are_banning_ai_neural_howlround/?ref=404media.co

[3] https://www.reddit.com/r/ChatGPT/comments/1kalae8/chatgpt_induced_psychosis/?ref=404media.co

[4] https://arxiv.org/pdf/2504.07992?ref=404media.co

Laurene Powell Jobs has publicly endorsed the [1]secretive AI hardware device being developed by Jony Ive and OpenAI, [2]expressing admiration for his design process and investing in his ventures . Ive says the project is an attempt to address the unintended harms of past tech like the iPhone, and Powell Jobs stands to benefit financially if the device succeeds. The Verge reports:

> In a new [3]interview published by The Financial Times , the two reminisce about Jony Ive's time working at Apple alongside Powell Jobs' late husband, Steve, and trying to make up for the "unintentional" harms associated with those efforts. [...] Powell Jobs, who has remained close friends with Ive since Steve Jobs passed in 2011, echoes his concerns, saying that "there are dark uses for certain types of technology," even if it "wasn't designed to have that result." Powell Jobs has invested in both Ive's LoveFrom design and io hardware startups following his departure from Apple. Ive notes that "there wouldn't be LoveFrom" if not for her involvement. Ive's io company is being purchased by OpenAI for almost $6.5 billion, and with her investment, Powell Jobs stands to gain if the secretive gadget proves anywhere near as successful as the iPhone.

>

> The pair gives away no extra details about the device that Ive is building with OpenAI, but Powell Jobs is expecting big things. She says she has watched "in real time how ideas go from a thought to some words, to some drawings, to some stories, and then to prototypes, and then a different type of prototype," Powell Jobs said. "And then something that you think: I can't imagine that getting any better. Then seeing the next version, which is even better. Just watching something brand new be manifested, it's a wondrous thing to behold."



[1] https://slashdot.org/story/25/05/21/1710237/openai-acquires-jony-ives-startup-in-65-billion-deal-to-create-ai-devices

[2] https://www.theverge.com/news/677921/jony-ive-openai-laurene-powell-jobs-interview

[3] https://www.ft.com/content/7f0a45b0-a3cc-4e1c-be71-1b7b42958d4d

Linux user share on Steam [1]rose to 2.69% in May 2025 -- the highest level recorded since at least 2018. GamingOnLinux reports:

> Overall user share for May 2025:

>

> - Windows 95.45% -0.65%

> - Linux 2.69% +0.42%

> - macOS 1.85% +0.23%

>

> Even with SteamOS 3 now being a little more widely available, the rise was not from SteamOS directly. Filtering to just the Linux numbers gives us these most popular distributions:

>

> - SteamOS Holo 64 bit 30.95% -2.83%

> - Arch Linux 64 bit 10.09% +0.64%

> - Linux Mint 22.1 64 bit 7.76% +1.56%

> - Freedesktop SDK 24.08 (Flatpak runtime) 64 bit 7.42% +1.01%

> - Ubuntu Core 22 64 bit 4.63% +0.01%

> - Ubuntu 24.04.2 LTS 64 bit 4.30% -0.14%

> - CachyOS 64 bit 2.54% +2.54%

> - EndeavourOS Linux 64 bit 2.44% -0.02%

> - Manjaro Linux 64 bit 2.43% -0.18%

> - Pop!_OS 22.04 LTS 64 bit 2.17% -0.06%

> - Debian GNU/Linux 12 (bookworm) 64 bit 1.99% -0.28%

> - Other 23.27% -2.27%



[1] https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2025/06/linux-user-share-hits-a-multi-year-high-on-steam-for-may-2025/

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica:

> It has become a common refrain during Google's antitrust saga: What happened to "don't be evil?" Google's unofficial motto has haunted it as it has grown ever larger, but a shareholder lawsuit sought to rein in some of the company's excesses. And it might be working. The plaintiffs in the case have reached a settlement with Google parent company Alphabet, which will [1]spend a boatload of cash on "comprehensive" reforms . The goal is to steer Google away from the kind of anticompetitive practices that got it in hot water.

>

> Under the terms of the settlement, obtained by [2]Bloomberg Law , Alphabet will spend $500 million over the next 10 years on systematic reforms. The company will have to form a board-level committee devoted to overseeing the company's regulatory compliance and antitrust risk, a rarity for US firms. This group will report directly to CEO Sundar Pichai. There will also be reforms at other levels of the company that allow employees to identify potential legal pitfalls before they affect the company. Google has also agreed to preserve communications. Google's propensity to use auto-deleting chats drew condemnation from several judges overseeing its antitrust cases. The agreement still needs approval from US District Judge Rita Lin in San Francisco, but that's mainly a formality at this point. Naturally, Alphabet does not admit to any wrongdoing under the terms of the settlement, but it may have to pay tens of millions in legal fees on top of the promised $500 million investment.



[1] https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/06/google-settles-shareholder-lawsuit-will-spend-500m-on-being-less-evil/

[2] https://www.bloomberglaw.com/public/desktop/document/InreAlphabetIncShareholderDerivativeLitigationDocketNo321cv09388N/1?doc_id=X6L5I3F7H479DQB4STTU3JAG8JV

Microsoft, CrowdStrike, Palo Alto Networks, and Google announced Monday they will create a public glossary [1]standardizing the nicknames used for state-sponsored hacking groups and cybercriminals.

The initiative aims to reduce confusion caused by the proliferation of disparate naming conventions across cybersecurity firms, which have assigned everything from technical designations like "APT1" to colorful monikers like "Cozy Bear" and "Kryptonite Panda" to the same threat actors. The companies hope to bring additional industry partners and the U.S. government into the effort to streamline identification of digital espionage groups.



[1] https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/boards-policy-regulation/forest-blizzard-vs-fancy-bear-cyber-companies-hope-untangle-weird-hacker-2025-06-02/

A smartphone smuggled out of North Korea automatically [1]captures screenshots every five minutes and stores them in a hidden folder inaccessible to users, according to [2]analysis by the BBC . Authorities can later review these images to monitor citizen activity on the device. The phone, obtained by Seoul-based media outlet Daily NK, resembles a Huawei or Honor device but runs state-approved software designed for surveillance and control. The device also automatically censors text, replacing "South Korea" with "puppet state" and Korean terms of endearment with "comrade."



[1] https://www.techspot.com/news/108156-north-korean-smartphone-secretly-takes-screenshot-every-5.html

[2] https://www.bbc.com/news/videos/cewd82p09l0o

Snowflake's growth among large enterprise customers faces a significant bottleneck tied to the sluggish replacement cycles of existing on-premises data warehouse systems, according to finance vice president Jimmy Sexton. Speaking at a Jefferies conference, Sexton explained that while the cloud data company secured two deals worth more than $100 million each in the financial services sector during its latest quarter, such migrations [1]unfold over multiple years as "cumbersome projects."



[1] https://www.theregister.com/2025/06/02/snowflake_analyst_conference/

An anonymous reader shares a report:

> Internet service provider Frontier Communications [1]agreed to settle a lawsuit filed by major record labels that demanded mass disconnections of broadband users accused of piracy. Universal, Sony, and Warner sued Frontier in 2021. In a notice of settlement filed last week in US District Court for the Southern District of New York, the parties agreed to dismiss the case with prejudice, with each side to pay its own fees and costs.

>

> The record labels and Frontier simultaneously announced a settlement of similar claims in a Bankruptcy Court case in the same district. Frontier also settled with movie companies in April of this year, just before a trial was scheduled to begin. (Frontier [2]exited bankruptcy in 2021 .) [...] Regardless of what is in the agreement, the question of whether ISPs should have to crack down more harshly on users accused of piracy could be decided by the US Supreme Court.



[1] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/06/isp-settles-with-record-labels-that-demanded-mass-termination-of-internet-users/

[2] https://tech.slashdot.org/story/21/05/04/1920223/frontier-exits-bankruptcy-claims-it-will-double-fiber-to-the-home-footprint

Automated web-scraping bots seeking training data for AI models are flooding scientific databases and academic journals [1]with traffic volumes that render many sites unusable . The online image repository DiscoverLife, which contains nearly 3 million species photographs, started receiving millions of daily hits in February this year that slowed the site to the point that it no longer loaded, Nature reported Monday.

The surge has intensified since the release of DeepSeek, a Chinese large language model that demonstrated effective AI could be built with fewer computational resources than previously thought. This revelation triggered what industry observers describe as an "explosion of bots seeking to scrape the data needed to train this type of model." The Confederation of Open Access Repositories reported that more than 90% of 66 surveyed members experienced AI bot scraping, with roughly two-thirds suffering service disruptions. Medical journal publisher BMJ has seen bot traffic surpass legitimate user activity, overloading servers and interrupting customer services.



[1] https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-01661-4

Microsoft will require all USB-C ports on Windows 11 certified laptops and tablets to [1]support data transfer, charging, and display functionality under updated hardware compatibility program rules. The mandate targets devices shipping with Windows 11 24H2 and aims to eliminate what Microsoft -- and [2]the industry -- calls "USB-C port confusion," where identical-looking ports offer different capabilities across PC manufacturers.

The Windows Hardware Compatibility Program updates also require USB 40Gbps ports to maintain full compatibility with both USB4 and Thunderbolt 3 peripherals.



[1] https://www.tomshardware.com/software/windows/microsoft-promises-it-is-ending-usb-c-port-confusion-with-updated-windows-11-certified-program

[2] https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/20/06/05/2131221/its-2020-and-usb-c-is-still-a-mess

Apple has [1]filed an appeal with the European Union's General Court in Luxembourg challenging the bloc's order requiring greater iOS interoperability with rival companies' products under the Digital Markets Act. The EU executive in March directed Apple to make its mobile operating system [2]more compatible with competitors' apps, headphones, and virtual reality headsets by granting developers and device makers access to system components typically reserved for Apple's own products.

Apple contends the requirements threaten its seamless user experience while creating security risks, noting that companies have already requested access to sensitive user data including notification content and complete WiFi network histories. The company faces potential fines of up to 10% of its worldwide annual revenue if found in violation of the DMA's interoperability rules designed to curb Big Tech market power.



[1] https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/boards-policy-regulation/apple-challenges-unreasonable-eu-order-open-up-rivals-2025-06-02/

[2] https://apple.slashdot.org/story/25/03/19/1857241/eu-orders-apple-to-open-ecosystem-to-rivals