Sci-Tech news

• #MostRead Today: 2018 tech predictions for the bitcoin bubble, 5G and robot overlords ow.ly/kfCd30hiDw4

  18-12-2017 17:49 via twitter.com
  #MostRead Today: 2018 tech predictions for the bitcoin bubble, 5G and robot overlords ow.ly/kfCd30hiDw4
  
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• Former Microsoft engineer shrinks Notepad down to size

  30-06-2026 14:14 via theregister.com
  
  Microsoft's habit of adding unnecessary features to Notepad is a symptom of broader bloating in the Windows codebase. But it is possible to go back to basics with a version of the editor that fits in less than 3 kilobytes. Former Microsoft engineer Dave Plummer comes from an era at Microsoft when Notepad handled the simple stuff, and WordPad handled everything else. "We had some clear rules," said the Task Manager author on his YouTube channel, Dave's Garage. "Notepad was for plain text. WordPad
  
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• Ark of the Covenant mystery blown wide open as 'biblical relic' is discovered

  30-06-2026 14:03 via dailymail.com
  
  Archaeologists have made a breakthrough in the hunt for the Ark of the Covenant, which vanished from the biblical record before the Babylonian sack of Jerusalem in 586 BC.
  
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• Babies and toddlers under the age of two should have NO screen time at all, landmark study says

  30-06-2026 13:54 via dailymail.com
  
  Babies and toddlers under the age of two should not receive any intentional screen time at all, according to a new study.
  
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• Where there's a will, AI still has work to do

  30-06-2026 13:30 via theregister.com
  
  A UK law firm has put AI-generated wills on trial, and the chatbot didn't fare particularly well under cross-examination. SE Solicitors has taken an AI chatbot to task after asking it to draft a will for a fictional client, concluding that while the result looked convincing enough, it missed many of the questions a probate solicitor would normally ask before putting anything into writing. The firm asked the chatbot to prepare a will for "Daniel," an unmarried 42-year-old with two adult children,
  
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• A head for heights... and maths! Study shows giraffes can do simple mental arithmetic

  30-06-2026 13:08 via dailymail.com
  
  Giraffes are head and shoulders above the savanna competition when it comes to crunching numbers, according to a new study.
  
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• Raspberry Pi OS gets a new kernel but apparently not a new version number

  30-06-2026 12:45 via theregister.com
  
  The distro formerly known as Raspbian has received some modest tweaks – and a whole new kernel version. Raspberry Pi Ltd is a little capricious when it comes to version numbering for Raspberry Pi OS, and although this release contains a fairly significant change, it doesn't seem to have a different version number. While PiOS is based on Debian 13 "Trixie," the company significantly customizes upstream Debian, including newer kernels. For 13 years now, Raspberry Pi has been adding new secti
  
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• No more Java refills for Intel Macs after JDK 27, says Oracle

  30-06-2026 12:00 via theregister.com
  
  Oracle is moving to stop maintaining the macOS/x64 port of the Java Development Kit (JDK) from version 27, which is expected in September. JEP (JDK Enhancement Proposal) 8386091 states that "Oracle engineers will stop maintaining the macOS/x64 port as of JDK 27." A few days ago, while noting that the JEP was still in a draft state, a pull request to implement the deprecation was submitted by Mikael Vidstedt, senior director Java Virtual Machine at Oracle. Building the JDK for macOS/x64 would req
  
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• WhatsApp to let people chat without swapping phone numbers - but you'll have to be quick to reserve your username

  30-06-2026 11:30 via dailymail.com
  
  Exchanging numbers could soon be a thing of the past - as WhatsApp is introducing a feature to let people chat via username.
  
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• HS2's latest reset ditches autonomous train tech to get project back on track

  30-06-2026 11:15 via theregister.com
  
  HS2 is set to ditch some of its most ambitious railway technology in a bid to make Britain's most troubled infrastructure project easier to finish. A report by spending watchdog the National Audit Office (NAO) published on Monday reveals the Department for Transport (DfT) has agreed changes to simplify parts of the railway's technical specification as part of HS2's latest reset, which began in January 2025. The report is the first full assessment of the project since the reset got underway. The
  
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• Lab-grown eye cells offer fresh hope for millions at risk of blindness: Scientists say their breakthrough paves way for 'continuous supply' of retinal tissue

  30-06-2026 11:10 via dailymail.com
  
  A revolutionary technique to grow eye cells from scratch offers fresh hope for millions at risk of blindness.
  
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• Atlas shrugs: New UK asylum seeker IT system failed to help case workers learn from appeals

  30-06-2026 10:30 via theregister.com
  
  After eight years of development, the UK Home Office’s new system for managing immigration and asylum applications is failing to help the department learn from the politically sensitive appeals process. According to a report from Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration, the number of appeals to decisions on asylum status has rocketed from 8,000 in 2022-23 to well over 29,000 in 2023-24. However, the new case management system, Atlas, which completed its handover from the leg
  
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• Microsoft builds a bouncer to keep bots out of Teams meetings

  30-06-2026 08:11 via theregister.com
  
  Microsoft has built a bouncer to keep bots out of Teams meetings. “Bots have begun joining meetings that participants never intended them to attend,” wrote Microsoft product marketing manager Meera Ajam in a Monday post. “For example, after connecting a third-party service to a meeting, some users have found that its bot continues joining future meetings automatically.” Ajam thinks bots butting into meetings that include discussion of sensitive matters is a potential secu
  
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• South Korea’s hot new sensation is 3S+1F – a quadrillion-Won AI plan, not a band

  30-06-2026 07:06 via theregister.com
  
  The government of South Korea and local tech giants yesterday announced over ₩1 quadrillion of investment related to AI – or about $900 billion – that it says will see the country emerge a “K-Semiconductor powerhouse” and a global leader in robotics and AI. The plan is called “3S+1F”, shorthand for Speedily building fabs in regional hubs called “Strongholds”, while aiming to Spearhead innovation in new forms of semiconductors that are needed
  
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• India’s central bank mandated use of .bank domains to enhance trust – but its registry leaked sensitive info

  30-06-2026 04:24 via theregister.com
  
  In 2025, the Reserve Bank of India created the .bank.in subdomain and required all local banks to start using it for their online presences. Indian is home to thousands of banks and the new rule meant all needed to register for and use a bankname.bank.in domain, a move designed to make life harder for phishers and fraudsters. Now a security researcher has alleged that the entity chosen as the sole registrar of the subdomains – the Institute for Development and Research in Banking Technolog
  
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• Security researchers tricked LLMs into giving them cocaine recipes by abusing role models for prompt injection

  30-06-2026 01:33 via theregister.com
  
  Researchers say that machine learning models cannot reliably distinguish between authorized and unauthorized input, ensuring that prompt injection will continue to present a threat until developers find new ways to have machine learning systems process inputs. AI models provide responses to user-supplied prompts. The problem is that AI models may receive adversarial prompts – directly from a user or indirectly from an ingested document – that tell the model to take action contrary to
  
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• Four years into Ukraine invasion, Russia turns influence-ops back to US and Europe

  30-06-2026 00:10 via theregister.com
  
  Four years into the Kremlin’s illegal invasion of its neighboring country, Russian influence operations have moved beyond their near-exclusive focus on Ukraine to their former favorite targets: the US and Europe, and especially covert cyber-ops intended to undermine political stability within these countries and the unity between them, according to Google Threat Intelligence. “This shift is significant because it likely signals increased focus outside of Ukraine, warning that pro-Rus
  
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• Rare 'Strawberry Moon' will be the lowest full moon in nearly 20 years TONIGHT... here's how to see it

  29-06-2026 22:58 via dailymail.com
  
  Tonight's full Strawberry Moon will hang lower than any full moon seen from the Northern Hemisphere in nearly 20 years, creating an unusually large and dramatic display.
  
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• Anonymous researcher drops 0-day 'exploitarium' repo

  29-06-2026 22:29 via theregister.com
  
  Not everyone is willing to follow responsible disclosure of vulns. An anonymous researcher has dumped what they say is working exploit code for zero-day vulnerabilities across 15 software products and open source projects without notifying any vendors or maintainers prior to publishing - and attackers are already exploiting at least two of these. The first is CVE-2026-55200, a critical, pre-authentication remote code execution (RCE) vulnerability in libssh2, a popular client-side C library that
  
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• Supreme Court rules cops need a warrant to vacuum up phone location data

  29-06-2026 22:03 via theregister.com
  
  The US Supreme Court on Monday ruled that people have a reasonable expectation of privacy with regard to mobile phone geolocation data, a decision privacy advocates have sought for years. The Court's ruling in Chatrie vs. United States [PDF] concluded, "Police officers conducted a Fourth Amendment search when they acquired Chatrie’s location data from Google because an individual has a reasonable expectation of privacy in his cell-phone location information." Police did so through a so-cal
  
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• Large Hadron Collider goes offline to make room for its enhanced successor

  29-06-2026 21:17 via theregister.com
  
  The end has come for CERN’s Large Hadron Collider (LHC), but it’s not being turned off for fear of the world being sucked into some sort of cosmic anomaly - it’s getting a major upgrade. Physicists at CERN are still bidding goodbye to the LHC, per a Monday announcement from the lab, but this is very much a “the king is dead, long live the king” sort of moment, as the four-year shutdown will result in the completion of the High-Luminosity LHC, or HiLumi LHC, not a fu
  
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• .NET's long-term support is not long-term enough, dev complains

  29-06-2026 21:15 via theregister.com
  
  Microsoft's support policy for its .NET runtime and development platform is too short for enterprises, according to a developer who has revived a long-standing complaint in a new GitHub issue. The current release lifecycle for modern .NET, formerly known as .NET Core, is an annual major release, with even-numbered versions being long-term support (LTS) for three years, and odd-numbered versions maintained for two years. The legacy and Windows-only .NET Framework, which is in maintenance, is defi
  
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• Can YOU spot the fake faces? Take the test to see if you can distinguish between real and AI-generated people

  29-06-2026 21:00 via dailymail.com
  
  Can you tell the difference between a real person and an image generated by artificial intelligence (AI)? According to a new study, it might be a lot harder than you think.
  
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• How the AI bubble could pop and take down the global economy, according to the BIS

  29-06-2026 19:55 via theregister.com
  
  The central bank for central banks is concerned about the eye-watering sums being invested into AI, and it's raising the specter of a global recession should the bubble burst.In its annual report for 2026, the Bank for International Settlements compared the current craze to historical events, including canal and British railway mania in the 1800s, electrification exuberance of the 1920s, and the dotcom boom of the 1990s.The report states: “all shared one common trait: a genuine technologic
  
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• Mageia 10 keeps the 32-bit Linux flame alive

  29-06-2026 19:32 via theregister.com
  
  Mageia 10 marks 15 years since the distribution's first release in June 2011. The project began the previous year as a fork of Mandriva, itself formerly known as Mandrake Linux. We last looked at Mageia alongside the other Mandrake descendants in 2022. What sets Mageia apart from OpenMandriva Lx, PCLinuxOS, and Russia's ROSA Linux is its continued support for 32-bit x86 PCs. Its GNOME and KDE Plasma live images are available only for x86-64, while the Xfce edition comes in both x86-64 and x86-32
  
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• Stay-alert warnings issued as sharks return to one of America's busiest beaches

  29-06-2026 19:10 via dailymail.com
  
  A 'stay-alert' warning has been issued to hundreds of thousands of beachgoers ahead of the Fourth of July weekend due to the return of one of the ocean's greatest predators.
  
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• Rocket Lab buys its way into the satellite big league with $8B Iridium deal

  29-06-2026 18:08 via theregister.com
  
  Rocket Lab has agreed to acquire Iridium Communications in an $8 billion cash-and-stock deal, potentially creating another challenger to SpaceX and Amazon for vertically integrated satellite broadband. Both Rocket Lab and Iridium's boards unanimously agreed to the deal, which was jointly announced on Monday and is expected to close by the middle of next year. Rocket Lab separately described the move in an investor slide deck [PDF] as positioning it as a "fully integrated, self-launching, tier-1
  
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• Suffocating 'mega heat dome' to engulf 35 states as forecasters issue urgent health alert

  29-06-2026 17:42 via dailymail.com
  
  A major heatwave is breaking out across most of the US as 200 million people are trapped under a 'mega heat dome' set to cause severe illnesses.
  
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• Catholic nun issues chilling warning about aliens amid religious conflict

  29-06-2026 17:40 via dailymail.com
  
  A Catholic nun is sounding the alarm over the growing fascination with aliens, warning that alleged encounters could have spiritual implications and may play a role in a coming religious conflict.
  
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• Ford rehires 'veteran' engineers after AI failed to match their skills and experience

  29-06-2026 17:28 via dailymail.com
  
  Ford has revealed it was forced to call veteran engineers out of retirement after AI failed to match their skills and expertise.
  
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