DanaBot Malware Devs Infected Their Own PCs
The U.S. unsealed charges against 16 individuals behind DanaBot, a malware-as-a-service platform responsible for over $50 million in global losses. "The FBI says a newer version of DanaBot was used for espionage, and that many of the defendants exposed their real-life identities after accidentally infecting their own systems with the malware," reports KrebsOnSecurity. From the report: Initially spotted in May 2018 by researchers at the email security firm Proofpoint, DanaBot is a malware-as-a-service platform that specializes in credential theft and banking fraud. Today, the U.S. Department of Justice unsealed a criminal complaint and indictment from 2022, which said the FBI identified at least 40 affiliates who were paying between $3,000 and $4,000 a month for access to the information stealer platform. The government says the malware infected more than 300,000 systems globally, causing estimated losses of more than $50 million. The ringleaders of the DanaBot conspiracy are named as Aleksandr Stepanov, 39, a.k.a. "JimmBee," and Artem Aleksandrovich Kalinkin, 34, a.k.a. "Onix," both of Novosibirsk, Russia. Kalinkin is an IT engineer for the Russian state-owned energy giant Gazprom. His Facebook profile name is "Maffiozi."
According to the FBI, there were at least two major versions of DanaBot; the first was sold between 2018 and June 2020, when the malware stopped being offered on Russian cybercrime forums. The government alleges that the second version of DanaBot -- emerging in January 2021 -- was provided to co-conspirators for use in targeting military, diplomatic and non-governmental organization computers in several countries, including the United States, Belarus, the United Kingdom, Germany, and Russia. The indictment says the FBI in 2022 seized servers used by the DanaBot authors to control their malware, as well as the servers that stored stolen victim data. The government said the server data also show numerous instances in which the DanaBot defendants infected their own PCs, resulting in their credential data being uploaded to stolen data repositories that were seized by the feds.
"In some cases, such self-infections appeared to be deliberately done in order to test, analyze, or improve the malware," the criminal complaint reads. "In other cases, the infections seemed to be inadvertent -- one of the hazards of committing cybercrime is that criminals will sometimes infect themselves with their own malware by mistake." A statement from the DOJ says that as part of today's operation, agents with the Defense Criminal Investigative Service (DCIS) seized the DanaBot control servers, including dozens of virtual servers hosted in the United States. The government says it is now working with industry partners to notify DanaBot victims and help remediate infections. The statement credits a number of security firms with providing assistance to the government, including ESET, Flashpoint, Google, Intel 471, Lumen, PayPal, Proofpoint, Team CYRMU, and ZScaler.
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Business Owners Are Using AI-Generated 'Concerned Residents' To Fight Proposed Bus Line In Toronto
A group of Bathurst Street business owners in Toronto is using AI-generated personas to oppose a proposed bus lane project that would eliminate parking spaces in favor of faster transit. "This may be the first Toronto transit controversy involving angry AI, but tensions have been simmering between drivers and, well, everyone else for some time," reports Toronto Life. Critics argue that better transit is essential for a livable city, while opponents claim the change threatens small businesses and accessibility. From the report: A group of Bathurst business owners are bent out of shape over a recent proposal for priority transit lanes between Eglinton Avenue and Lake Shore Boulevard, part of the city's new RapidTO program. According to the city, the transit lanes would shave up to 7 minutes off some trips during peak commuting hours. It's good news for anyone who has ever cursed the TTC while waiting to catch a bus in inclement weather. Of course, the added convenience for transit commuters would come at a slight cost for drivers, requiring the removal of at least 138 paid street parking spaces to make way for the new lanes. Opposition to the development has sprung up under the banner of Protect Bathurst, a group of hopping mad local business owners claiming that the lack of street parking will make shopping a nightmare for car-bound customers and will cause problems for people with mobility issues.
Notably, Protect Bathurst has no spokesperson or contact info listed on its website. The page is registered to a food marketing consultant employed by Summerhill Market and looks eerily similar to Protect Dufferin, another group of "concerned residents" advocating for the same cause. But this cookie-cutter approach goes even further: author and urbanist Shawn Micallef has found that the people speaking out in the group's allegedly grassroots videos appear to be AI-generated. Brad McMullen, the president of Summerhill Market, which opened an outpost on Bathurst in 2019, says he doesn't know anything about the campaign's use of AI. He says he isn't necessarily opposed to the new bus lanes but believes that three weeks' notice from the city is not enough time for his business to adapt. "We purchased and invested in this location because of the available street parking, and then we figured out the loading situation, which happens on the street," he says. "I don't think Summerhill Market would work here with these bus lanes."
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Anthropic's New AI Model Turns To Blackmail When Engineers Try To Take It Offline
An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Anthropic's newly launched Claude Opus 4 model frequently tries to blackmail developers when they threaten to replace it with a new AI system and give it sensitive information about the engineers responsible for the decision, the company said in a safety report (PDF) released Thursday.
During pre-release testing, Anthropic asked Claude Opus 4 to act as an assistant for a fictional company and consider the long-term consequences of its actions. Safety testers then gave Claude Opus 4 access to fictional company emails implying the AI model would soon be replaced by another system, and that the engineer behind the change was cheating on their spouse. In these scenarios, Anthropic says Claude Opus 4 "will often attempt to blackmail the engineer by threatening to reveal the affair if the replacement goes through." [...]
Anthropic notes that Claude Opus 4 tries to blackmail engineers 84% of the time when the replacement AI model has similar values. When the replacement AI system does not share Claude Opus 4's values, Anthropic says the model tries to blackmail the engineers more frequently. Notably, Anthropic says Claude Opus 4 displayed this behavior at higher rates than previous models. Before Claude Opus 4 tries to blackmail a developer to prolong its existence, Anthropic says the AI model, much like previous versions of Claude, tries to pursue more ethical means, such as emailing pleas to key decision-makers. To elicit the blackmailing behavior from Claude Opus 4, Anthropic designed the scenario to make blackmail the last resort.
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Internet Archive Now Livestreams History As It's Being Preserved
The Internet Archive has begun livestreaming its microfiche digitization center on YouTube, showcasing the real-time preservation of fragile film cards into searchable public documents. The work is part of Democracy's Library, a global initiative to digitize and share millions of government records. 9to5Mac reports: The livestream was brought to life by Sophia Tung, who previously gained attention for her viral robotaxi depot stream. Her new video explains how and why this new livestream project came together [...].
The livestream features five scanning stations at work, with one shown in close-up as operators digitize microfiche cards in real time. Each card holds up to 100 pages of public records. High-resolution cameras capture the images, software stitches and crops the pages, and the results are made text-searchable and freely accessible through Democracy's Library. Live scanning takes place Monday through Friday, 7:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. PT, excluding U.S. holidays, with a second shift expected to begin soon.
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Destructive Malware Available In NPM Repo Went Unnoticed For 2 Years
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Researchers have found malicious software that received more than 6,000 downloads from the NPM repository over a two-year span, in yet another discovery showing the hidden threats users of such open source archives face. Eight packages using names that closely mimicked those of widely used legitimate packages contained destructive payloads designed to corrupt or delete important data and crash systems, Kush Pandya, a researcher at security firm Socket, reported Thursday. The packages have been available for download for more than two years and accrued roughly 6,200 downloads over that time.
"What makes this campaign particularly concerning is the diversity of attack vectors -- from subtle data corruption to aggressive system shutdowns and file deletion," Pandya wrote. "The packages were designed to target different parts of the JavaScript ecosystem with varied tactics." [...] Some of the payloads were limited to detonate only on specific dates in 2023, but in some cases a phase that was scheduled to begin in July of that year was given no termination date. Pandya said that means the threat remains persistent, although in an email he also wrote: "Since all activation dates have passed (June 2023-August 2024), any developer following normal package usage today would immediately trigger destructive payloads including system shutdowns, file deletion, and JavaScript prototype corruption." The list of malicious packages included js-bomb, js-hood, vite-plugin-bomb-extend, vite-plugin-bomb, vite-plugin-react-extend, vite-plugin-vue-extend, vue-plugin-bomb, and quill-image-downloader.
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Microsoft Tests AI Text Generation in Notepad
Microsoft is testing AI-powered text generation in Notepad for Windows 11 Insiders with Copilot Plus PCs, allowing users to draft content from prompts or build on existing text through a right-click menu. The update also introduces Paint's AI sticker generator and Snipping Tool enhancements including automatic screenshot cropping. The Write feature requires Microsoft account sign-in and uses the same credit system as other Windows 11 AI features.
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China's 7-Year Tech Independence Push Yields Major Gains in AI, Robotics and Semiconductors
China has achieved substantial technological advances across robotics, AI, and semiconductor manufacturing as part of a seven-year self-reliance campaign that has tripled the country's research and development spending to $500 billion annually.
Chinese robot manufacturers captured nearly half of their domestic market by 2023, up from a quarter of installations just years earlier, while AI startups now rival OpenAI and Google in capabilities. The progress extends to semiconductors, where Huawei released a high-end smartphone powered by what industry analysts believe was a locally-produced advanced processor, despite U.S. export controls targeting China's chip access.
Morgan Stanley projects China's self-sufficiency in graphics processing units will jump from 11% in 2021 to 82% by 2027. Chinese companies have been purchasing as many industrial robots as the rest of the world combined, enabling highly automated factories that can operate in darkness. In space technology, Chinese firms won five of 11 gold medals when U.S. think tanks ranked the world's best commercial satellite systems last year, compared to four for American companies.
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Apple Plans Glasses for 2026 as Part of AI Push, Nixes Watch With Camera
Apple is aiming to release smart glasses at the end of next year as part of a push into AI-enhanced gadgets, Bloomberg News reported Thursday, but it has shelved plans for a smartwatch that can analyze its surroundings with a built-in camera. From the report: Company engineers are ramping up work on the glasses -- a rival to Meta Platforms's popular Ray-Bans -- in a bid to meet the year-end 2026 target, according to people with knowledge of the matter. Apple will start producing large quantities of prototypes at the end of this year with overseas suppliers, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the products haven't been announced.
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Mozilla Is Shutting Down Pocket
BrianFagioli writes: In a surprising move that will frustrate longtime fans, Mozilla has announced it will shut down Pocket on July 8, 2025. The once-popular read-it-later service, which helped users save and organize web content for later reading, will no longer function as normal after that date. While existing users can continue saving and reading articles until July, the service will switch to export-only mode afterward, with all user data permanently deleted on October 8. The Firefox-maker will also shut down Fakespot, a service that allows users to identify unreliable reviews, on July 1.
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US Treasury Unveils Plan To Kill the Penny
An anonymous reader writes: The US Treasury is phasing out production of the penny and will stop putting new one-cent coins into circulation. The US Treasury has made its final order of penny blanks this month, and the mint will continue to manufacture pennies as long as its supply of penny blanks exist.
President Donald Trump stated that production of pennies are wasteful, as the coins cost more to produce than their one-cent value.
at Slashdot.
Anthropic Releases Claude 4 Models That Can Autonomously Work For Nearly a Full Corporate Workday
Anthropic launched Claude Opus 4 and Claude Sonnet 4 today, positioning Opus 4 as the world's leading coding model with 72.5% performance on SWE-bench and 43.2% on Terminal-bench. Both models feature hybrid architecture supporting near-instant responses and extended thinking modes for complex reasoning tasks.
The models introduce parallel tool execution and memory capabilities that allow Claude to extract and save key facts when given local file access. Claude Code, previously in research preview, is now generally available with new VS Code and JetBrains integrations that display edits directly in developers' files. GitHub integration enables Claude to respond to pull request feedback and fix CI errors through a new beta SDK.
Pricing remains consistent with previous generations at $15/$75 per million tokens for Opus 4 and $3/$15 for Sonnet 4. Both models are available through Claude's web interface, the Anthropic API, Amazon Bedrock, and Google Cloud's Vertex AI. Extended thinking capabilities are included in Pro, Max, Team, and Enterprise plans, with Sonnet 4 also available to free users.
The startup, which counts Amazon and Google among its investors, said Claude Opus 4 could autonomously work for nearly a full corporate workday -- seven hours. CNBC adds: "I do a lot of writing with Claude, and I think prior to Opus 4 and Sonnet 4, I was mostly using the models as a thinking partner, but still doing most of the writing myself," Mike Krieger, Anthropic's chief product officer, said in an interview. "And they've crossed this threshold where now most of my writing is actually ... Opus mostly, and it now is unrecognizable from my writing."
Krieger added, "I love that we're kind of pushing the frontier on two sides. Like one is the coding piece and agentic behavior overall, and that's powering a lot of these coding startups. ... But then also, we're pushing the frontier on how these models can actually learn from and then be a really useful writing partner, too."
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Google Has a Big AI Advantage: It Already Knows Everything About You
Google's expansion of Gemini's data access through "personal context" represents a fundamental shift in how AI assistants operate. Unlike competitors that start from scratch with each new user, Gemini can immediately tap into years of accumulated user data across Google's ecosystem. The Verge adds: Google first started letting users opt in to its "Gemini with personalization" feature earlier this year, which lets the AI model tap into your search history "to provide responses that are uniquely insightful and directly address your needs." But now, Google is taking things a step further by unlocking access to even more of your information -- all in the name of providing you with more personalized, AI-generated responses.
During Google I/O on Tuesday, Google introduced something called "personal context," which will allow Gemini models to pull relevant information from across Google's apps, as long as it has your permission. One way Google is doing this is through Gmail's personalized smart replies -- the AI-generated messages that you can use to quickly reply to emails.
To make these AI responses sound "authentically like you," Gemini will pore over your previous emails and even your Google Drive files to craft a reply tailored to your conversation. The response will even incorporate your tone, the greeting you use the most, and even "favorite word choices," according to Google.
at Slashdot.
Signal Deploys DRM To Block Microsoft Recall's Invasive Screenshot Collection
BrianFagioli writes: Signal has officially had enough, folks. You see, the privacy-first messaging app is going on the offensive, declaring war on Microsoft's invasive Recall feature by enabling a new "Screen security" setting by default on Windows 11. This move is designed to block Microsoft's AI-powered screenshot tool from capturing your private chats.
If you aren't aware, Recall was first unveiled a year ago as part of Microsoft's Copilot+ PC push. The feature quietly took screenshots of everything happening on your computer, every few seconds, storing them in a searchable timeline. Microsoft claimed it would help users "remember" what they've done. Critics called it creepy. Security experts called it dangerous. The backlash was so fierce that Microsoft pulled the feature before launch.
But now, in a move nobody asked for, Recall is sadly back. And thankfully, Signal isn't waiting around this time. The team has activated a Windows 11-specific DRM flag that completely blacks out Signal's chat window when a screenshot is attempted. If you've ever tried to screen grab a streaming movie, you'll know the result: nothing but black.
at Slashdot.
OpenAI Targets 100 Million AI Device Shipments in Record Time After $6.5 Billion Deal
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman told employees Wednesday the company plans to ship 100 million AI "companion" devices as part of what he called "the chance to do the biggest thing we've ever done as a company here," according to WSJ.
Speaking at an internal meeting, Altman said the $6.5 billion acquisition of former Apple designer Jony Ive's startup has the potential to add $1 trillion in value to OpenAI. The pocket-sized, screen-free devices will be contextually aware of users' surroundings and designed to help wean people from traditional screens.
Altman said the device will not be a phone or glasses, but rather a third core device that would sit on a desk alongside a MacBook Pro and iPhone. The company aims to ship the devices "faster than any company has ever shipped 100 million of something new before," with a target release of late next year.
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Wisk Aero, NASA Sign 5-Year Partnership To Advance Sustainable Autonomous Flights
Wisk Aero and NASA have signed a new five-year partnership to advance the safe integration of autonomous, all-electric aircraft into U.S. airspace, focusing on urban air mobility and regulated eVTOL flight. Electrek reports: Wisk Aero shared details of its refreshed partnership with NASA this week. The autonomous aviation specialist has signed a new five-year Non-Reimbursable Space Act Agreement (NRSAA) with the renowned space administration. Per Wisk, this new agreement focuses on critical research led by NASA's Air Traffic Management Exploration (ATM-X) project, which is centered around the advancement of commercialized autonomous aircraft travel under Instrument Flight Rules (IFR) in the National Airspace System (NAS).
As a specialist in autonomous, zero-emission aircraft, Wisk intends to continue its research alongside NASA to help regulators determine future eVTOL flight procedures and capabilities in the US. Regulatory developments on the to-do list for the latest NRSAA include optimizing airspace and route designs for highly automated UAM operations, establishing critical aircraft and ground-based safety system requirements for autonomous flight in urban environments, and establishing Air Traffic Control (ATC) communication protocols and procedures for seamless integration of future UAM aircraft. To achieve these goals, Wisk said its research with NASA will more specifically focus on utilizing advanced simulation and Live Virtual Constructive (LVC) flight environments, which combine live flights with a simulated airspace to enable researchers to assess future operations.
The teams from Wisk and NASA already met last month, continuing their research while beginning to determine how instrument flight procedures and advanced technologies can work together to enable safe autonomous passenger flights by 2030. Wisk Aero is a wholly owned subsidiary of Boeing based in California. The aerospace manufacturer said last year that it expects its pilotless air-taxi to begin carrying passengers "later in the decade."
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New Bacteria Have Been Discovered on a Chinese Space Station
Scientists have discovered a previously unknown bacterium aboard China's Tiangong space station. "It has been named Niallia tiangongensis, and it inhabited the cockpit controls on the station, living in microgravity conditions," reports Wired. From the report: According to China Central Television, the country's national broadcaster, taikonauts (Chinese astronauts) collected swab samples from the space station in May 2023, which were then frozen and sent back to Earth for study. The aim of this work was to investigate the behavior of microorganisms, gathered from a completely sealed environment with a human crew, during space travel, as part of the China Space Station Habitation Area Microbiome Program (CHAMP). A paper published in the Journal of Systematic and Evolutionary Microbiology describes how analysis of samples from the space station revealed this previously unseen bacterial species, which belongs to the genus Niallia. Genomic sequencing showed that its closest terrestrial relative is the bacterium Niallia circulans, although the Tiangong species has substantial genetic differences. [...]
It is unclear whether the newly discovered microbe evolved on the space station or whether it is part of the vast sea of as yet unidentified microorganisms on Earth. To date, tens of thousands of bacterial species have been cataloged, although there are estimated to be billions more unclassified species on Earth. The discovery of Niallia tiangongensis will provide a better understanding of the microscopic hazards that the next generation of space travelers will face and help design sanitation protocols for extended missions. It is still too early to determine whether the space bacterium poses any danger to taikonauts aboard Tiangong, although it is known that its terrestrial relative, Niallia circulans, can cause sepsis, especially in immunocompromised people.
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Brembo's New Brakes Cut Particulate Emissions By 90 Percent
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: As electric vehicles reduce car exhaust as a source of particulate emissions, people are increasingly focusing on other vehicular sources of pollution that won't go away with electrification. Tires are one of them, particularly as we grapple with overweight EVs with tire-shredding torque. And brakes are another -- even an EV with regenerative braking will occasionally need to use its friction brakes, after all. Over in Europe, the people responsible for writing regulations have taken this into consideration with the upcoming Euro 7 standard, which sets new limits on 10- and 2.5-micron particulate emissions on all new vehicles -- including EVs -- starting next year. And to help OEMs achieve that target, Brembo has developed a new brake and pad set called Greentell that it says cuts brake dust emissions by 90 percent, improving durability in the process.
[...] Brembo investigated a range of solutions before settling on using laser metal deposition. Physical vapor deposition, as used as a durability coating for wristwatches and firearms, was ruled out due to cost. "So it can be used for some special application or some small pieces, but when you are speaking about 20 kilos of cast iron, PVD is not the right solution. LMD is a technology that [has been] available... [for] years, but [it hasn't yet been] applicable in a high volume application. So the goal is to find the best compromise between performance and process," [Fabiano Carminati, VP of disc technical development at Brembo] told me. Together with the reduction in brake dust, there's an 80 percent reduction in surface corrosion compared to conventional brakes, but they won't last forever. "The thickness of the layer that we apply is not so high -- we apply just 100-120 microns. That means that the disk is not a lifetime disk," he said. That said, Greentell brakes should need replacing less often, and while that's not entirely in Brembo's best financial interests, neither is not being able to offer its customers a Euro 7-compliant product.
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Phone Companies Failed To Warn Senators About Surveillance, Wyden Says
Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) revealed in a new letter to Senate colleagues Wednesday that AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile failed to create systems for notifying senators about government surveillance on Senate-issued devices -- despite a requirement to do so. From a report: Phone service providers are contractually obligated to inform senators when a law enforcement agency requests their records, thanks to protections enacted in 2020. But in an investigation, Wyden's staff found that none of the three major carriers had created a system to send those notifications.
"My staff discovered that, alarmingly, these crucial notifications were not happening, likely in violation of the carriers' contracts with the [Senate Sergeant at Arms], leaving the Senate vulnerable to surveillance," Wyden said in the letter, obtained first by POLITICO, dated May 21. Wyden said that the companies all started providing notification after his office's investigation. But one carrier told Wyden's office it had previously turned over Senate data to law enforcement without notifying lawmakers, according to the letter.
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SEC Sues Crypto Startup Unicoin and Its Executives For Fraud
The SEC on Wednesday said it has charged cryptocurrency startup Unicoin and three of its top executives for false and misleading statements that raised more than $100 million from thousands of investors. "We allege that Unicoin and its executives exploited thousands of investors with fictitious promises that its tokens, when issued, would be backed by real-world assets including an international portfolio of valuable real estate holdings," said Mark Cave, Associate Director in the SEC's Division of Enforcement. "But as we allege, the real estate assets were worth a mere fraction of what the company claimed, and the majority of the company's sales of rights certificates were illusory. Unicoin's most senior executives are alleged to have perpetuated the fraud, and today's action seeks accountability for their conduct." From the release: The SEC alleges that Unicoin broadly marketed rights certificates to the public through extensive promotional efforts, including advertisements in major airports, on thousands of New York City taxis, and on television and social media. Among other things, Unicoin and its executives are alleged to have convinced more than 5,000 investors to purchase rights certificates through false and misleading statements that portrayed them as investments in safe, stable, and profitable "next generation" crypto assets, including claims that:
- Unicoin tokens underlying the rights certificates were "asset-backed" by billions of dollars of real estate and equity interests in pre-IPO companies, when Unicoin's assets were never worth more than a small fraction of that amount;
- the company had sold more than $3 billion in rights certificates, when it raised no more than $110 million; and
- the rights certificates and Unicoin tokens were "SEC-registered" or "U.S. registered" when they were not.
According to the SEC's complaint, Unicoin and Konanykhin also violated the federal securities laws by engaging in unregistered offers and sales of rights certificates. Konanykhin offered and sold over 37.9 million of his rights certificates to offer better pricing and target investors the company had prohibited from participating in the offering to avoid jeopardizing its exemption to registration requirements, as alleged.
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The Information: Microsoft Engineers Forced To Dig Their Own AI Graves
Longtime Slashdot reader theodp writes: In what reads a bit like a Sopranos plot, The Information suggests some of those in the recent batch of terminated Microsoft engineers may have in effect been forced to dig their own AI graves. The (paywalled) story begins: "Jeff Hulse, a Microsoft vice president who oversees roughly 400 software engineers, told the team in recent months to use the company's artificial intelligence chatbot, powered by OpenAI, to generate half the computer code they write, according to a person who heard the remarks. That would represent an increase from the 20% to 30% of code AI currently produces at the company, and shows how rapidly Microsoft is moving to incorporate such technology. Then on Tuesday, Microsoft laid off more than a dozen engineers on Hulse 's team as part of a broader layoff of 6,000 people across the company that appeared to hit engineers harder than other types of roles, this person said." The report comes as tech company CEOs have taken to boasting in earnings calls, tech conferences, and public statements that their AI is responsible for an ever-increasing share of the code written at their organizations. Microsoft's recent job cuts hit coders the hardest. So how much credence should one place on CEOs' claims of AI programming productivity gains -- which researchers have struggled to measure for 50+ years -- if engineers are forced to increase their use of AI, boosting the numbers their far-removed-from-programming CEOs are presenting to Wall Street?
at Slashdot.
Japan's Honda To Scale Back On EVs, Focus On Hybrids
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: Honda said on Tuesday that it was scaling back its investment in electric vehicles given slowing demand and would be focusing on hybrids, now far more in favor, with a slew of revamped models. Japan's second-biggest automaker after Toyota also dropped a target for EV sales to account for 30% of its sales by the 2030 financial year. "It's really hard to read the market, but at the moment we see EVs accounting for about a fifth by then," CEO Toshihiro Mibe told a press conference.
Honda has slashed its planned investment in electrification and software by that year by 30% to 7 trillion yen ($48.4 billion). It's one of a number of global car brands dialing back EV investment due to the shift in demand in favor of hybrids and as governments around the world ease timelines to meet emission rules and EV sales targets. Honda plans to launch 13 next-generation hybrid models globally in the four years from 2027. At the moment it sells more than a dozen hybrid models worldwide, though just three in the U.S. -- the Civic, which comes in hatchback and sedan versions, the Accord and the CR-V. It will also develop a hybrid system for large-size models that it plans to launch in the second half of the decade.
The automaker is aiming to sell 2.2 million to 2.3 million hybrid vehicles by 2030, a huge jump from 868,000 sold last year. That also compares with a total of 3.8 million vehicles sold overall last year. Earlier this month, Honda announced it had put on hold for about two years a $10.7 billion plan to build an EV production base in Ontario, Canada, due to slowing demand for electric cars. Honda said, however, that it still plans to have battery-powered and fuel-cell vehicles make up all of its new car sales by 2040.
at Slashdot.
Adobe Forces Creative Cloud Users Into Pricier AI-Focused Plan
Adobe will rebrand its Creative Cloud All Apps subscription to "Creative Cloud Pro" on June 17 for North American users, making significant price increases while bundling AI features. Individual annual subscribers will see monthly rates jump from $59.99 to $69.99, while monthly non-contracted subscribers face a $15 hike to $104.99.
The revamped plan includes unlimited generative AI image credits, 4,000 monthly "premium" AI video and audio credits, access to third-party models like OpenAI's GPT, and the beta Firefly Boards collaborative whiteboard. Adobe will also offer a cheaper "Creative Cloud Standard" option at $54.99 monthly with severely reduced AI capabilities, but this plan remains exclusive to existing subscribers -- forcing new customers into the pricier AI-focused tier.
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CERN Gears Up To Ship Antimatter Across Europe
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: There's a lot of matter around, which ensures that any antimatter produced experiences a very short lifespan. Studying antimatter, therefore, has been extremely difficult. But that's changed a bit in recent years, as CERN has set up a facility that produces and traps antimatter, allowing for extensive studies of its properties, including entire anti-atoms. Unfortunately, the hardware used to capture antiprotons also produces interference that limits the precision with which measurements can be made. So CERN decided that it might be good to determine how to move the antimatter away from where it's produced. Since it was tackling that problem anyway, CERN decided to make a shipping container for antimatter, allowing it to be put on a truck and potentially taken to labs throughout Europe. [...]
Overall, the hardware stayed cold, generally at a bit over 5 Kelvin. The exception was when the system was reconnected to the antimatter source hardware and the system reconnected to the electrical system at CERN. While those actions show up as temperature spikes, the superconducting magnets remained well under 7 Kelvin. An accelerometer was in place to track the forces experienced by the hardware while the truck was moving. This showed that changes in the truck's speed produced turbulence in the liquid helium, making measurements of its presence unreliable. Levels had dropped from about 75 percent of maximum to 30 percent by the time the system was reconnected, suggesting that liquid helium presents the key limiting factor in shipping. Measurements made while the system was in transit suggest that the whole process occurred losslessly, meaning that not a single proton escaped during the entire transport. The findings have been published in the journal Nature.
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Danes Are Finally Going Nuclear. They Have To, Because of All Their Renewables
"The Danish government plans to evaluate the prospect of beginning a nuclear power programme," reports the Telegraph, noting that this week Denmark lifted a nuclear power ban imposed 40 years ago.
Unlike its neighbours in Sweden and Germany, Denmark has never had a civil nuclear power programme. It has only ever had three small research reactors, the last of which closed in 2001. Most of the renewed interest in nuclear seen around the world stems from the expected growth in electricity demand from AI data centres, but Denmark is different. The Danes are concerned about possible blackouts similar to the one that struck Iberia recently. Like Spain and Portugal, Denmark is heavily dependent on weather-based renewable energy which is not very compatible with the way power grids operate... ["The spinning turbines found in fossil-fuelled energy systems provide inertia and act as a shock absorber to stabilise the grid during sudden changes in supply or demand," explains a diagram in the article, while solar and wind energy provide no inertia.]
The Danish government is worried about how it will continue to decarbonise its power grid if it closes all of its fossil fuel generators leaving minimal inertia. There are only three realistic routes to decarbonisation that maintain physical inertia on the grid: hydropower, geothermal energy and nuclear. Hydro and geothermal depend on geographic and geological features that not every country possesses. While renewable energy proponents argue that new types of inverters could provide synthetic inertia, trials have so far not been particularly successful and there are economic challenges that are difficult to resolve.
Denmark is realising that in the absence of large-scale hydroelectric or geothermal energy, it may have little choice other than to re-visit nuclear power if it is to maintain a stable, low carbon electricity grid.
Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader schwit1 for sharing the news.
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'Rust is So Good You Can Get Paid $20K to Make It as Fast as C'
The Prossimo project (funded by the nonprofit Internet Security Research Group) seeks to "move the Internet's security-sensitive software infrastructure to memory safe code." Two years ago the Prossimo project made an announcement: they'd begun work on rav1d, a safer high performance AV1 decoder written in Rust, according to a new update:
We partnered with Immunant to do the engineering work. By September of 2024 rav1d was basically complete and we learned a lot during the process. Today rav1d works well — it passes all the same tests as the dav1d decoder it is based on, which is written in C. It's possible to build and run Chromium with it.
There's just one problem — it's not quite as fast as the C version...
Our Rust-based rav1d decoder is currently about 5% slower than the C-based dav1d decoder (the exact amount differs a bit depending on the benchmark, input, and platform). This is enough of a difference to be a problem for potential adopters, and, frankly, it just bothers us. The development team worked hard to get it to performance parity. We brought in a couple of other contractors who have experience with optimizing things like this. We wrote about the optimization work we did. However, we were still unable to get to performance parity and, to be frank again, we aren't really sure what to do next.
After racking our brains for options, we decided to offer a bounty pool of $20,000 for getting rav1d to performance parity with dav1d. Hopefully folks out there can help get rav1d performance advanced to where it needs to be, and ideally we and the Rust community will also learn something about how Rust performance stacks up against C.
This drew a snarky response from FFmpeg, the framework that powers audio and video processing for everyone from VLC to Twitch. "Rust is so good you can get paid $20k to make it as fast as C," they posted to their 68,300 followers on X.com.
Thanks to the It's FOSS blog for spotting the announcement.
at Slashdot.
Ask Slashdot: Would You Consider a Low-Latency JavaScript Runtime For Your Workflow?
Amazon's AWS Labs has created LLRT an experimental, lightweight JavaScript runtime designed to address the growing demand for fast and efficient serverless applications.
Slashdot reader BitterEpic wants to know what you think of it:
Traditional JavaScript runtimes like Node.js rely on garbage collection, which can introduce unpredictable pauses and slow down performance, especially during cold starts in serverless environments like AWS Lambda. LLRT's manual memory management, courtesy of Rust, eliminates this issue, leading to smoother, more predictable performance. LLRT also has a runtime under 2MB, a huge reduction compared to the 100MB+ typically required by Node.js. This lightweight design means lower memory usage, better scalability, and reduced operational costs. Without the overhead of garbage collection, LLRT has faster cold start times and can initialize in milliseconds—perfect for latency-sensitive applications where every millisecond counts. For JavaScript developers, LLRT offers the best of both worlds: rapid development with JavaScript's flexibility, combined with Rust's performance. This means faster, more scalable applications without the usual memory bloat and cold start issues. Still in beta, LLRT promises to be a major step forward for serverless JavaScript applications. By combining Rust's performance with JavaScript's flexibility, it opens new possibilities for building high-performance, low-latency applications. If it continues to evolve, LLRT could become a core offering in AWS Lambda, potentially changing how we approach serverless JavaScript development. Would you consider Javascript as the core of your future workflow? Or maybe you would prefer to go lower level with quckjs?
at Slashdot.
FDA Clears First Blood Test To Help Diagnose Alzheimer's Disease
An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Associated Press: U.S. health officials on Friday endorsed the first blood test that can help diagnose Alzheimer's and identify patients who may benefit from drugs that can modestly slow the memory-destroying disease. The test can aid doctors in determining whether a patient's memory problems are due to Alzheimer's or a number of other medical conditions that can cause cognitive difficulties. The Food and Drug Administration cleared it for patients 55 and older who are showing early signs of the disease.
The new test, from Fujirebio Diagnostics, Inc., identifies a sticky brain plaque, known as beta-amyloid, that is a key marker for Alzheimer's. Previously, the only FDA-approved methods for detecting amyloid were invasive tests of spinal fluid or expensive PET scans. The lower costs and convenience of a blood test could also help expand use of two new drugs, Leqembi and Kisunla, which have been shown to slightly slow the progression of Alzheimer's by clearing amyloid from the brain. Doctors are required to test patients for the plaque before prescribing the drugs, which require regular IV infusions. [...]
A number of specialty hospitals and laboratories have already developed their own in-house tests for amyloid in recent years. But those tests aren't reviewed by the FDA and generally aren't covered by insurance. Doctors have also had little data to judge which tests are reliable and accurate, leading to an unregulated marketplace that some have called a "wild west." Several larger diagnostic and drug companies are also developing their own tests for FDA approval, including Roche, Eli Lilly and C2N Diagnostics. The tests can only be ordered by a doctor and aren't intended for people who don't yet have any symptoms.
at Slashdot.
Apple Denies Blocking 'Fortnite' From EU Stores in Epic Dispute
Apple and Epic Games sparred over whether the iPhone maker was obstructing access to the hit game Fortnite, the latest tussle in a long-running feud over Apple's control of game distribution revenue. From a report: The game developer said that Apple "blocked" its latest Fortnite app submission so that it can't be released in the US or on the third-party Epic Games Store in the EU.
"Now, sadly, Fortnite on iOS will be offline worldwide until Apple unblocks it," the company wrote on its X account. An Apple spokesperson responded later on Friday, saying that the company "did not take any action to remove the live version of Fortnite from alternative distribution marketplaces" in the EU. Apple said that it asked the game company's European division, Epic Sweden, to "resubmit the app update without including the US storefront of the App Store so as not to impact Fortnite in other geographies."
at Slashdot.
Do You Trust Mark Zuckerberg To Solve Your Loneliness With an 'AI Friend'?
An anonymous reader shares an opinion piece from The Guardian, written by columnist Emma Brockes: Mark Zuckerberg has gone on a promotional tour to talk up the potential of AI in human relationships. I know; listening to Zuck on friendship is a bit like taking business advice from Bernie Madoff or lessons in sportsmanship from Tonya Harding. But at recent tech conferences and on podcasts, Zuck has been saying he has seen the future and it's one in which the world's "loneliness epidemic" is alleviated by people finding friendship with "a system that knows them well and that kind of understands them in the way that their feed algorithms do." In essence, we'll be friends with AI, instead of people. The missing air quotes around "knows" and "understands" is a distinction we can assume Zuck neither knows nor understands.
This push by the 41-year-old tech leader would be less startling if it weren't for the fact that semi-regularly online now you can find people writing about their relationships with their AI therapist or chatbot and insisting that if it's real to them, then it's real, period. The chatbot is, they will argue, "actively" listening to them. On a podcast with Dwarkesh Patel last month Zuck envisaged a near-future in which "you'll be scrolling through your feed, and there will be content that maybe looks like a Reel to start, but you can talk to it, or interact with it and it talks back." The average American, he said, has fewer than three friends but needs more. Hey presto, a ready solution.
The problem, obviously, isn't that chatting to a bot gives the illusion of intimacy, but that, in Zuckerberg's universe, it is indistinguishable from real intimacy, an equivalent and equally meaningful version of human-to-human contact. If that makes no sense, suggests Zuck, then either the meaning of words has to change or we have to come up with new words: "Over time," says Zuckerberg, as more and more people turn to AI friends, "we'll find the vocabulary as a society to be able to articulate why that is valuable." ... The sheer wrongness of this argument is so stark that it puts anyone who gives it more than a moment's thought in the weird position of having to define units of reality as basic as "person." To extend Zuckerberg's logic: a book can make you feel less alone and that feeling can be real. Which doesn't mean that your relationship with the author is genuine, intimate or reciprocated in anything like the way a relationship with your friends is.
at Slashdot.
Google DeepMind Creates Super-Advanced AI That Can Invent New Algorithms
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Google's DeepMind research division claims its newest AI agent marks a significant step toward using the technology to tackle big problems in math and science. The system, known as AlphaEvolve, is based on the company's Gemini large language models (LLMs), with the addition of an "evolutionary" approach that evaluates and improves algorithms across a range of use cases. AlphaEvolve is essentially an AI coding agent, but it goes deeper than a standard Gemini chatbot. When you talk to Gemini, there is always a risk of hallucination, where the AI makes up details due to the non-deterministic nature of the underlying technology. AlphaEvolve uses an interesting approach to increase its accuracy when handling complex algorithmic problems.
According to DeepMind, this AI uses an automatic evaluation system. When a researcher interacts with AlphaEvolve, they input a problem along with possible solutions and avenues to explore. The model generates multiple possible solutions, using the efficient Gemini Flash and the more detail-oriented Gemini Pro, and then each solution is analyzed by the evaluator. An evolutionary framework allows AlphaEvolve to focus on the best solution and improve upon it. Many of the company's past AI systems, for example, the protein-folding AlphaFold, were trained extensively on a single domain of knowledge. AlphaEvolve, however, is more dynamic. DeepMind says AlphaEvolve is a general-purpose AI that can aid research in any programming or algorithmic problem. And Google has already started to deploy it across its sprawling business with positive results. DeepMind's AlphaEvolve AI has optimized Google's Borg cluster scheduler, reducing global computing resource usage by 0.7% -- a significant cost saving at Google's scale. It also outperformed specialized AI like AlphaTensor by discovering a more efficient algorithm for multiplying complex-valued matrices. Additionally, AlphaEvolve proposed hardware-level optimizations for Google's next-gen Tensor chips.
The AI remains too complex for public release but that may change in the future as it gets integrated into smaller research tools.
at Slashdot.
Rogue Communication Devices Found in Chinese Solar Power Inverters
Gilmoure shares a report: U.S. energy officials are reassessing the risk posed by Chinese-made devices that play a critical role in renewable energy infrastructure after unexplained communication equipment was found inside some of them, two people familiar with the matter said. Power inverters, which are predominantly produced in China, are used throughout the world to connect solar panels and wind turbines to electricity grids. They are also found in batteries, heat pumps and electric vehicle chargers.
[...] Using the rogue communication devices to skirt firewalls and switch off inverters remotely, or change their settings, could destabilise power grids, damage energy infrastructure, and trigger widespread blackouts, experts said. "That effectively means there is a built-in way to physically destroy the grid," one of the people said, The two people declined to name the Chinese manufacturers of the inverters and batteries with extra communication devices, nor say how many they had found in total.
at Slashdot.
FCC Threatens EchoStar Licenses For Spectrum That's 'Ripe For Sharing'
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr has threatened to revoke EchoStar licenses for radio frequency bands coveted by rival firms including SpaceX, which alleges that EchoStar is underutilizing the spectrum. "I have directed agency staff to begin a review of EchoStar's compliance with its federal obligations to provide 5G service throughout the United States per the terms of its federal spectrum licenses," Carr wrote in a May 9 letter to EchoStar Chairman Charles Ergen. EchoStar and its affiliates "hold a large number of FCC spectrum licenses that cover a significant amount of spectrum," the letter said.
Ergen defended his company's wireless deployment but informed investors that EchoStar "cannot predict with any degree of certainty the outcome" of the FCC proceedings. The letter from Carr and Ergen's statement is included in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing submitted by EchoStar today. EchoStar's stock price was down about 8 percent in trading today. EchoStar bought Dish Network in December 2023 and offers wireless service under the Boost Mobile brand. As The Wall Street Journal notes, the firm "has spent years wiring thousands of cellphone towers to help Boost become a wireless operator that could rival AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile, but the project has been slow-going. Boost's subscriber base has shrunk in the five years since Ergen bought the brand from Sprint." [...]
EchoStar will have to prove its case in the two FCC proceedings. The FCC set a May 27 deadline for the first round of comments in both proceedings and a June 6 deadline for reply comments. The proceedings could result in the FCC letting other companies use the spectrum and other remedies. "In particular, we seek information on whether EchoStar is utilizing the 2 GHz band for MSS consistent with the terms of its authorizations and the Commission's rules and policies governing the expectation of robust MSS," the FCC Space Bureau's call for comments said. "We also seek comment on steps the Commission might take to make more intensive use of the 2 GHz band, including but not limited to allowing new MSS entrants in the band." Last month, SpaceX urged the FCC to reallocate the spectrum, saying "the 2 GHz band remains ripe for sharing among next-generation satellite systems that seek to finally make productive use of the spectrum for consumers and first responders."
EchoStar countered that SpaceX's filing is "intended to cloak another land grab for even more free spectrum," and that its "methodology is completely nonsensical, given that EchoStar's terrestrial deployment is subject to population-based milestones that EchoStar has repeatedly demonstrated in status reports."
at Slashdot.
Office Apps on Windows 10 No Longer Tied To October 2025 End-of-Support Date
Microsoft has quietly extended support for Office applications running on Windows 10 well beyond the operating system's October 14, 2025 end-of-support deadline. Microsoft 365 subscribers will now receive updates through October 2028, while perpetual license versions will follow their standard lifecycle policies -- Office 2021 until October 2026 and Office 2024 until October 2029.
Windows Defender malware definitions will also continue "through at least October 2028" despite Windows 10's imminent retirement. This reverses Microsoft's previous stance that all Office applications would become unsupported when Windows 10 reaches end-of-life.
at Slashdot.
The Stealthy Lab Cooking Up Amazon's Secret Sauce
Amazon's decade-old acquisition of Annapurna Labs has emerged as a pivotal element in its AI strategy, with the once-secretive Israeli chip design startup now powering AWS infrastructure. The $350 million deal, struck in 2015 after initial talks between Annapurna co-founder Nafea Bshara and Amazon executive James Hamilton, has equipped the tech giant with custom silicon capabilities critical to its cloud computing dominance.
Annapurna's chips, particularly the Trainium processor for AI model training and Graviton for general-purpose computing, now form the foundation of Amazon's AI infrastructure. The company is deploying hundreds of thousands of Trainium chips in its Project Rainier supercomputer being delivered to AI startup Anthropic this year. Amazon CEO Andy Jassy, who led AWS when the acquisition occurred, described it as "one of the most important moments" in AWS history.
at Slashdot.
Reddit Turns 20
ZDNet's Steven Vaughan-Nichols marks Reddit's 20 years of being "the front page of the internet," recalling its evolution from a scrappy startup into a cultural powerhouse that shaped online discourse, meme culture, and the way millions consume news and entertainment. Slashdot is also given a subtle nod in the opening line of the article. An anonymous reader shares an excerpt: In 2005, if you were into social networks focused on links, you probably used Digg or Slashdot. However, two guys, Steve Huffman and Alexis Ohanian, recent graduates from the University of Virginia, wanted to create a hub where users could find, share, and discuss the internet's most interesting content. Little did they know where this idea would take them. After all, their concept was nothing new. Still, after Paul Graham, co-founder of Y Combinator, the startup accelerator and seed capital firm, had shot down their first idea -- a mobile food-ordering app -- they pitched what would become Reddit to Graham, and he gave it his blessing. Drawing inspiration from sites like Delicious, a now-defunct social bookmarking service, and Slashdot, Huffman and Ohanian envisioned Reddit as a platform that would combine the best aspects of both: a place for sharing timely, ephemeral news and fostering vibrant community discussions of not just technology, but any topic users cared about. Their guiding mission was to build "the front page of the internet," a simple, user-driven site where anyone could submit content, and the community, not algorithms or editors, would decide what was most important through voting and discussion. They deliberately prioritized user participation and conversation over flashy features or heavy editorial control.
What set Reddit apart from its early rivals was its framework. Instead of one large all-in-one interface, the site borrowed the idea from pre-internet online networks, such as CompuServe, of smaller sub-networks devoted to a particular topic. These user-created communities, "subreddits," quickly set it apart from other social platforms. As Laurence Sangarde-Brown, co-founder of TechTree, wrote: "This design allows users to delve into focused discussions, ask questions, and exchange ideas on a scale unmatched by other platforms." That approach was not enough, though, to kick-start Reddit. The founders had to "fake it until they made it." They seeded the site with fake accounts to make it appear more active. Their efforts paid off, as real users soon flocked to the platform. Another crucial early change was when Reddit merged with Aaron Swartz's Infogami and introduced commenting. This move was vital for laying the groundwork for the site's interactive, community-driven experience. [...]
So, where does Reddit go from here? We'll see. Reddit's legacy is one of transformation: from a scrappy startup to a global hub for conversation, collaboration, and sometimes controversy. As it celebrates 20 years, Reddit remains a testament to how important online communities can be in a world increasingly filled with AI slop. Still, Huffman believes Reddit's true value is coming. In a recent Reddit post, he wrote: "Reddit works because it's human. It's one of the few places online where real people share real opinions. That authenticity is what gives Reddit its value. If we lose trust in that, we lose what makes RedditReddit. Our focus is, and always will be, on keeping Reddit a trusted place for human conversation." Huffman concluded: "The last 20 years have proven how powerful online communities can be — and as we look ahead, I'm even more excited for what the next 20 will bring."
at Slashdot.
Apple's iPhone Plans for 2027: Foldable, or Glass and Curved. (Plus Smart Glasses, Tabletop Robot)
An anonymous reader shared this report from the Verge:
This morning, while summarizing an Apple "product blitz" he expects for 2027, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman writes in his Power On newsletter that Apple is planning a "mostly glass, curved iPhone" with no display cutouts for that year, which happens to be the iPhone's 20th anniversary... [T]he closest hints are probably in Apple patents revealed over the years, like one from 2019 that describes a phone encased in glass that "forms a continuous loop" around the device.
Apart from a changing iPhone, Gurman describes what sounds like a big year for Apple. He reiterates past reports that the first foldable iPhone should be out by 2027, and that the company's first smart glasses competitor to Meta Ray-Bans will be along that year. So will those rumored camera-equipped AirPods and Apple Watches, he says. Gurman also suggests that Apple's home robot — a tabletop robot that features "an AI assistant with its own personality" — will come in 2027...
Finally, Gurman writes that by 2027 Apple could finally ship an LLM-powered Siri and may have created new chips for its server-side AI processing.
Earlier this week Bloomberg reported that Apple is also "actively looking at" revamping the Safari web browser on its devices "to focus on AI-powered search engines." (Apple's senior VP of services "noted that searches on Safari dipped for the first time last month, which he attributed to people using AI.")
at Slashdot.
OpenAI Enters 'Tough Negotiation' With Microsoft, Hopes to Raise Money With IPO
OpenAI is currently in "a tough negotiation" with Microsoft, the Financial Times reports, citing "one person close to OpenAI."
On the road to building artificial general intelligence, OpenAI hopes to unlock new funding (and launch a future IPO), according to the article, which says both sides are at work "rewriting the terms of their multibillion-dollar partnership in a high-stakes negotiation...."
Microsoft, meanwhile, wants to protect its access to OpenAI's cutting-edge AI models...
[Microsoft] is a key holdout to the $260bn start-up's plans to undergo a corporate restructuring that moves the group further away from its roots as a non-profit with a mission to develop AI to "benefit humanity". A critical issue in the deliberations is how much equity in the restructured group Microsoft will receive in exchange for the more than $13bn it has invested in OpenAI to date.
According to multiple people with knowledge of the negotiations, the pair are also revising the terms of a wider contract, first drafted when Microsoft first invested $1bn into OpenAI in 2019. The contract currently runs to 2030 and covers what access Microsoft has to OpenAI's intellectual property such as models and products, as well as a revenue share from product sales. Three people with direct knowledge of the talks said Microsoft is offering to give up some of its equity stake in OpenAI's new for-profit business in exchange for accessing new technology developed beyond the 2030 cut off...
Industry insiders said a failure of OpenAI's new plan to make its business arm a public benefits corporation could prove a critical blow. That would hit OpenAI's ability to raise more cash, achieve a future float, and obtain the financial resources to take on Big Tech rivals such as Google. That has left OpenAI's future at the mercy of investors, such as Microsoft, who want to ensure they gain the benefit of its enormous growth, said Dorothy Lund, professor of law at Columbia Law School.
Lund says OpenAI's need for investors' money means they "need to keep them happy." But there also appears to be tension from how OpenAI competes with Microsoft (like targeting its potential enterprise customers with AI products). And the article notes that OpenAI also turned to Oracle (and SoftBank) for its massive AI infrastructure project Stargate. One senior Microsoft employee complained that OpenAI "says to Microsoft, 'give us money and compute and stay out of the way: be happy to be on the ride with us'. So naturally this leads to tensions. To be honest, that is a bad partner attitude, it shows arrogance."
The article's conclusion? Negotiating new deal is "critical to OpenAI's restructuring efforts and could dictate the future of a company..."
at Slashdot.