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An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Guardian: Nearly a century ago, scientists proposed that a mysterious invisible substance they named dark matter clumped around galaxies and formed a cosmic web across the universe. What dark matter is made from, and whether it is even real, are still open questions, but according to a study, the first direct evidence of the substance may finally have been glimpsed. More work is needed to rule out less exotic explanations, but if true, the discovery would go down as a turning point in the decades-long search for the elusive substance that is said to make up 27% of the cosmos. "This could be a crucial breakthrough in unraveling the nature of dark matter," said Prof Tomonori Totani, an astrophysicist at the University of Tokyo, who said gamma rays emanating from the centre of the Milky Way appeared to bear the signature of the substance. [...] To search for potential dark matter signals, Totani analysed data from Nasa's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope, which detects the most energetic photons in the electromagnetic spectrum. He spotted a pattern of gamma rays that appeared to match the shape of the dark matter halo that spreads out in a sphere from the heart of the galaxy. The signal "closely matches the properties of gamma-ray radiation predicted to be emitted by dark matter," Totani told the Guardian. Details are published in the Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics. If Totani has seen dark matter at work, the observations suggest it is made from elementary particles 500 times more massive than the proton. But far more work is needed to rule out other astrophysical processes and background emissions that could explain the signals. Totani said the "decisive factor" would be detecting gamma rays with the same spectrum from other regions of space, such as dwarf galaxies. According to Prof Justin Read, an astrophysicist at the University of Surrey, the lack of significant signals from such galaxies strongly argues against Totani having seen gamma rays emitted from dark matter particle annihilation. Prof Kinwah Wu, a theoretical astrophysicist at UCL, urged caution, saying: "I appreciate the author's hard work and dedication, but we need extraordinary evidence for an extraordinary claim," he said. "This analysis has not reached this status yet. It is a piece of work which serves as an encouragement for the workers in the field to keep on pressing."

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Google Workspace switch drags on amid Excel dependencies, compliance requirements, and compatibility issues

Exclusive Breaking free from Microsoft is harder than it looks. Airbus began migrating its 100,000-plus workforce from Office to Google Workspace more than seven years ago and it still hasn't completed the switch.…

China launched an uncrewed Shenzhou 22 spacecraft to serve as an emergency lifeboat for three astronauts aboard the Tiangong space station after a docked return craft was found to have a cracked window likely caused by space debris. "A Long March 2F rocket fired its engines and lifted off with the Shenzhou 22 spacecraft, carrying cargo instead of a crew, at 11:11 pm EST Monday (04:11 UTC Tuesday)," reports Ars Technica. "The spacecraft docked with the Tiangong station nearly 250 miles (400 kilometers) above the Earth about three-and-a-half hours later." From the report: Chinese engineers worked fast to move up the launch of the Shenzhou 22, originally set to fly next year. On November 4, astronauts discovered one of the two crew ferry ships docked to the Tiangong station had a damaged window, likely from an impact with a small fragment of space junk. [...] Now, 20 days after the saga began, the Tiangong outpost again has a lifeboat for its long-term residents. Astronauts Zhang Lu, Fu Wei, and Zhang Hongzhang will return to Earth on the Shenzhou 22 spacecraft next year, soon after the arrival of their three replacements. The Tiangong astronauts will head outside the station on a spacewalk to inspect the damaged window on Shenzhou 20. Eventually, Shenzhou 20 will depart Tiangong and reenter the atmosphere with cargo. Assuming a smooth landing, Chinese engineers will have an opportunity to get a closer look at the damage on the ground to inform the design of future spacecraft. A preliminary assessment of the window indicates the crack is in the outermost layer of heat-insulating glass in Shenzhou 20's porthole window, according to Chinese state media. Engineers on the ground conducted simulations and wind tunnel ablation tests to determine whether the window might fail during reentry. "The results showed that the cracks would still propagate further," reported CCTV, China's government-run television network. "We held review meeting, and everyone agreed that ensuring the safe return of the astronauts was too risky with the glass damaged," Zhou said. While this crew is just one month into their planned six-month expedition, an emergency could force them to leave the station and return home at any time. Although remote, another collision with space junk, a major systems failure, or a medical emergency involving one of the astronauts could trigger an evacuation. That's why Chinese officials wanted to quickly launch Shenzhou 22 to give the crew a ticket home.The International Space Station follows the same policy, with SpaceX's Dragon spacecraft and Russian Soyuz ships serving as lifeboats until their crews' scheduled return to Earth.

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Lessons from COVID and tariff shocks getting Mike D's tech shop through AI-induced memory maze

Dell has predicted PC sales will be flat next year, despite the potential of the AI PC and the slow replacement of Windows 10.…

Creating 37 supers in a decade is impressive. The homegrown tech in them, less so

Supercomputing Month In the decade since India launched its National Supercomputing Mission (NSM), the nation has commissioned 37 machines with a combined power of 39 petaFLOPS, with another 35-petaFLOPS hybrid due to come online later this year. But while plenty of those machines use locally developed technology, India is yet to deliver on its ambition to become a leader or major semiconductor player.…

Warns memory price explosion means PCs may have less RAM, or use low-cost parts

HP Inc will sack between 4,000 and 6,000 workers under a plan that calls for the PCs-and-printers prodigy to use AI to improve its operations.…

The UK is seeking to fast-track new atomic development to meet soaring energy demands driven by AI and electrification. According to a new report published by the government's Nuclear Regulatory Taskforce, excessive regulation has made Britain the most expensive place in the world to build nuclear projects. The report is calling for a sweeping overhaul to accelerate reactor construction -- everything from "streamlining regulation" to relaxing environmental and safety constraints. The Register reports: The document outlines 47 recommendations for the government, which come under five general areas: providing clearer leadership and direction for the nuclear sector; simplifying the regulatory approval process for atomic projects; reducing risk aversion; addressing incentives to delay progress; and working with the nuclear sector to speed delivery and boost innovation. Among the recommendations is that a Commission for Nuclear Regulation should be established, becoming a "unified decision maker" across all other regulators, planners, and approval bodies. The report also talks of reforming environmental and planning regimes to speed approvals, echoing the government's earlier decisions to streamline the planning process to make it easier for datacenter projects to get built. It recommends amending the cost cap for judicial reviews and limiting legal challenges to Nationally Strategic Infrastructure Projects (NSIPs), while indemnifying nuclear developers against any damages they might incur as a result of proceeding with their project while a judicial review is still being decided. Another recommendation that may be cause for concern is that the government should modify the Habitats Regulations to reduce costs. These are rules created to protect the most important and vulnerable natural sites and wildlife species across the UK. The report also states that radiation limits for workers are overly conservative and well below what could be appropriately considered "broadly acceptable," claiming that they are many times less than what the average person in the UK normally receives in a year.

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Plex is beginning to enforce new restrictions on remote streaming for its TV apps, requiring either a Plex Pass or the cheaper Remote Watch Pass to watch media from servers outside your home network. How-To Geek reports: Plex is now rolling out the remote watch changes to its Roku TV app. This means that you will need a Plex Pass or Remote Watch Pass for your Plex account if you want to stream media from a server outside your home. If you're only watching media from your own server on the same local network as your Roku device, or the owner of the server you're streaming from has Plex Pass, you don't have to do anything. Plex says this change will come to the other TV apps in 2026, such as Fire TV, Apple TV, and Android TV. Presumably, that will happen when the redesigned app arrives on those platforms. Roku was just the first TV platform to get the new app, which caused a wave of complaints from users about removed functionality and a more clunky redesign. Plex is addressing some of those complaints with more updates, but adding another limitation at the same time isn't a great look. The Remote Watch Pass costs $2 per month or $20 per year, but there's no lifetime purchase option. You can also use a Plex Pass, which normally costs $7 per month, $70 per year, or $250 for a lifetime license. However, there's currently a 40% off sale for Plex Pass subscriptions.

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HP plans to cut 4,000-6,000 jobs by 2028 "as part of a plan to streamline operations and adopt artificial intelligence," reports Reuters. From the report: HP's teams focused on product development, internal operations and customer support will be impacted by the job cuts, CEO Enrique Lores said during a media briefing call. "We expect this initiative will create $1 billion in gross run rate savings over three years," Lores added. The company laid off an additional 1,000 to 2,000 employees in February, as part of a previously announced restructuring plan. Demand for AI-enabled PCs has continued to ramp externally, reaching over 30% of HP's shipments in the fourth quarter ended October 31.

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Chinese giant adds to ‘No AI bubble’ babble by citing oversubscribed infrastructure and surging demand

China’s Alibaba Cloud can’t deploy servers fast enough to keep up with demand for AI, so is rationing access to GPUs so that customers who use all of its services enjoy priority access.…

Warner Music Group has reached a licensing deal with Suno that will let users create AI-generated music using the voices and likenesses of artists who opt in. WMG says participating artists will have "full control" over how their likeness and music are used. "These will be new creation experiences from artists who do opt in, which will open up new revenue streams for them and allow you to interact with them in new ways," Suno says, adding that users will be able to "build around" an artist's sounds "and ensure they get compensated." WMG is also dropping its previous lawsuit accusing Suno of scraping copyrighted material. "Along with the licensing agreement, Suno is planning to use licensed music from WMG to build next-gen music generation models that it claims will surpass its flagship v5 model," adds The Verge. "It will also start requiring users to have a paid account to download songs starting next year, with each tier providing a specific number of downloads each month." Further reading: First 'AI Music Creator' Signed by Record Label. More Ahead, or Just a Copyright Quandry?

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from PCMag: Four new features are coming to Google Maps, including a way to hide your identity in reviews. Maps will soon let you use a nickname and select an alternative profile picture for online reviews, so you can rate a business without linking it to full name and Google profile photo. Google says it will monitor for "suspicious and fake reviews," and every review is still associated with an account on Google's backend, which it believes will discourage bad actors. Look for a new option under Your Profile that says Use a custom name & picture for posting. You'll then be able to pick an illustration to represent you and add a nickname. Google didn't explain why it is introducing anonymous reviews; it pitched the idea as a way to be a business's "Secret Santa." Some users are nervous to publicly post reviews for local businesses as it may be used to track their location or movements. It may encourage more people to contribute honest feedback to its platform, for better or worse. Further reading: Gemini AI To Transform Google Maps Into a More Conversational Experience

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'Ah, I see you're ready to escalate. Let's make digital destruction simple and effective.'

Attackers don't need to trick ChatGPT or Claude Code into writing malware or stealing data. There's a whole class of LLMs built especially for the job.…

Poland has launched a new antitrust investigation into Apple's App Tracking Transparency rules, questioning whether Apple misled users about privacy while giving its own apps a competitive advantage over third-party developers. AppleInsider reports: On November 25, Poland's UOKiK has started another investigation into App Tracking Transparency, and whether Apple had restricted competition in mobile advertising. Reuters reports that, to the anti-monopoly regulator, ATT may have limited advertisers' ability to collect user data for advertising purposes while simultaneously favoring Apple's ad program. On November 25, Poland's UOKiK has started another investigation into App Tracking Transparency, and whether Apple had restricted competition in mobile advertising. Reuters reports that, to the anti-monopoly regulator, ATT may have limited advertisers' ability to collect user data for advertising purposes while simultaneously favoring Apple's ad program. This is not the first time that Poland has looked into ATT rules. In December 2021, the regulator held a similar probe following criticism from advertisers. It's not clear what that complaint determined, or if it is still ongoing. Regardless, in the new complaint, the logic is that Apple had a competitive advantage since its own apps were not subject to ATT rules, but third-party apps did have to deal with ATT. Since Apple didn't visibly ask for consent for its first-party apps in the same way, there is a presumption that Apple's rules only applied to other companies. This is despite Apple's repeated insistence that it doesn't use the same kinds of collected data in its own apps and services for marketing purposes, as well as its stance on privacy in general. In short, Apple apps don't use the data, so it doesn't pop up a dialog box asking the user if the app can use the data. There is also the argument that, in setting up an account with Apple, users are providing blanket consent to the company. Implementing ATT on its own apps would therefore be a waste of time, since that consent was already granted. Apple said that it will work with the regulator on the matter, but warned that it could force them to withdraw the feature "to the detriment of European consumers."

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Embracing the Chocolate Factory's tensor processing units would be easier said than done for The Social Network

Growing demand for Google's homegrown AI accelerators appears to have gotten under Nvidia's skin amid reports that one of the GPU giant's most loyal customers may adopt the Chocolate Factory's tensor processing units (TPUs).…

In an essay published in The Verge, Benjamin Riley argues that today's AI boom is built on a fundamental misunderstanding: language modeling is not the same as intelligence. "The problem is that according to current neuroscience, human thinking is largely independent of human language -- and we have little reason to believe ever more sophisticated modeling of language will create a form of intelligence that meets or surpasses our own," writes Riley. Slashdot reader RossCWilliams shares the report, writing: The article goes on to point out that we use language to communicate. We use it to create metaphors to describe our reasoning. That people who have lost their language ability can still show reasoning. That human beings create knowledge when they become dissatisfied with the current metaphor. Einstein's theory of relativity was not based on scientific research. He developed it as thought experiment because he was dissatisfied with the existing metaphor. It quotes someone who said, "common sense is a collection of dead metaphors." And that AI, at best, can rearrange those dead metaphors in interesting ways. But it will never be dissatisfied with the data it has or an existing metaphor. A different critique (PDF) has pointed out that even as a language model AI is flawed by its reliance on the internet. The languages used on the internet are unrepresentative of the languages in the world. And other languages contain unique descriptions/metaphors that are not found on the internet. My metaphor for what was discussed was the descriptions of the kinds of snow that exist in Inuit languages that describe qualities nowhere found in European languages. If those metaphors aren't found on the internet, AI will never be able create them. This does not mean that AI isn't useful. But it is not remotely human intelligence. That is just a poor metaphor. We need a better one. Benjamin Riley is the founder of Cognitive Resonance, a new venture to improve understanding of human cognition and generative AI.

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Acquirers inherit more than staff and systems

Routine mergers and acquisitions are giving extortionists an easy way in, with Akira affiliates reaching parent networks through compromised SonicWall gear inherited in the deal, according to ReliaQuest.…

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Several U.S. banking giants and mortgage lenders are reportedly scrambling to assess how much of their customers' data was stolen during a cyberattack on a New York financial technology company earlier this month. SitusAMC, which provides technology for over a thousand commercial and real estate financiers, confirmed in a statement over the weekend that it had identified a data breach on November 12. The company said that unspecified hackers had stolen corporate data associated with its banking customers' relationship with SitusAMC, as well as "accounting records and legal agreements" during the cyberattack. The statement added that the scope and nature of the cyberattack "remains under investigation." SitusAMC said that the incident is "now contained," and that its systems are operational. The company said that no encrypting malware was used, suggesting that the hackers were focused on exfiltrating data from the company's systems rather than causing destruction. According to Bloomberg and CNN, citing sources, SitusAMC sent data breach notifications to several financial giants, including JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, and Morgan Stanley. SitusAMC also counts pension funds and state governments as customers, according to its website. It's unclear how much data was taken, or how many U.S. banking consumers may be affected by the breach. Companies like SitusAMC may not be widely known outside of the financial world, but provide the mechanisms and technologies for its banking and real estate customers to comply with state and federal rules and regulations. In its role as a middleman for financial clients, the company handles vast amounts of non-public banking information on behalf of its customers. According to SitusAMC's website, the company processes billions of documents related to loans annually.

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Eric Migicovsky wants to ensure Pebble can’t be killed again, and DIYers benefit most

Pebble, the e-ink smartwatch with a tumultuous history, is making a move sure to please the DIY enthusiasts that make up the bulk of its fans: Its entire software stack is now fully open source, and key hardware design files are available too.…

Up to 3 million low-skilled jobs could disappear in the UK by 2035 because of automation and AI, according to a report by a leading educational research charity. The Guardian: The jobs most at risk are those in occupations such as trades, machine operations and administrative roles, the National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER) said. Highly skilled professionals, on the other hand, were forecast to be more in demand as AI and technological advances increase workloads "at least in the short to medium term." Overall, the report expects the UK economy to add 2.3 million jobs by 2035, but unevenly distributed. The findings stand in contrast to other recent research suggesting AI will affect highly skilled, technical occupations such as software engineering and management consultancy more than trades and manual work.

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