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Researchers in Japan have developed a plastic that dissolves in seawater within hours, offering up a potential solution for a modern-day scourge polluting oceans and harming wildlife. From a report: While scientists have long experimented with biodegradable plastics, researchers from the RIKEN Center for Emergent Matter Science and the University of Tokyo say their new material breaks down much more quickly and leaves no residual trace. At a lab in Wako city near Tokyo, the team demonstrated a small piece of plastic vanishing in a container of salt water after it was stirred up for about an hour. While the team has not yet detailed any plans for commercialisation, project lead Takuzo Aida said their research has attracted significant interest, including from those in the packaging sector.

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Encourages move to Linux but, for goodness sake, RTFM first

Linux desktop darling KDE is weighing in on the controversy around the impending demise of Windows 10 support with a lurid "KDE for Windows 10 Exiles" campaign.…

A group of financially motivated cyberscammers who specialize in Scattered-Spider-like fake IT support phone calls managed to trick employees at about 20 organizations into installing a modified version of Salesforce's Data Loader that allows the criminals to steal sensitive data. From a report: Google Threat Intelligence Group (GTIG) tracks this crew as UNC6040, and in research published today said they specialize in voice-phishing campaigns targeting Salesforce instances for large-scale data theft and extortion. These attacks began around the beginning of the year, GTIG principal threat analyst Austin Larsen told The Register. "Our current assessment indicates that a limited number of organizations were affected as part of this campaign, approximately 20," he said. "We've seen UNC6040 targeting hospitality, retail, education and various other sectors in the Americas and Europe." The criminals are really good at impersonating IT support personnel and convincing employees at English-speaking branches of multinational corporations into downloading a modified version of Data Loader, a Salesforce app that allows users to export and update large amounts of data.

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Stale designs and market maturation aren't helping either, says Counterpoint Research

World War Fee The Trump administration's chaotic tariff regime is likely to have a serious impact on the smartphone market worldwide, but the latest forecasts predict the disruption will be felt most keenly in the one economy Trump is trying to protect: The United States. …

OpenAI is expanding ChatGPT's enterprise capabilities with new integrations that connect the chatbot directly to business cloud services and productivity tools. The Microsoft-backed startup announced connectors for Dropbox, Box, SharePoint, OneDrive and Google Drive that allow ChatGPT to search across users' organizational documents and files to answer questions, such as helping analysts build investment theses from company slide decks. The update includes meeting recording and transcription features that generate timestamped notes and suggest action items, competing directly with similar offerings from ClickUp, Zoom, and Notion. OpenAI also introduced beta connectors for HubSpot, Linear, and select Microsoft and Google tools for deep research reports, plus Model Context Protocol support for Pro, Team, and Enterprise users.

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Major Hollywood studios are extensively using AI tools while avoiding public disclosure, according to industry sources interviewed by New York Magazine. Nearly 100 AI studios now operate in Hollywood with every major studio reportedly experimenting with generative AI despite legal uncertainties surrounding copyright training data, the report said. Lionsgate has partnered with AI company Runway to create a customized model trained on the studio's film archive, with executives planning to generate entire movie trailers from scripts before shooting begins. The collaboration allows the studio to potentially reduce production costs from $100 million to $50 million for certain projects. Widespread usage of the new technology is often happening through unofficial channels. Workers are reporting pressure to use AI tools without formal studio approval, then "launder" the AI-generated content through human artists to obscure its origins.

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Victims include hospitality, retail and education sectors

A group of financially motivated cyberscammers who specialize in Scattered-Spider-like fake IT support phone calls managed to trick employees at about 20 organizations into installing a modified version of Salesforce's Data Loader that allows the crims to steal sensitive data.…

An anonymous reader shares a report: The IRS open sourced much of its incredibly popular Direct File software as the future of the free tax filing program is at risk of being killed by Intuit's lobbyists and Donald Trump's megabill. Meanwhile, several top developers who worked on the software have left the government and joined a project to explore the "future of tax filing" in the private sector. Direct File is a piece of software created by developers at the US Digital Service and 18F, the former of which became DOGE and is now unrecognizable, and the latter of which was killed by DOGE. Direct File has been called a "free, easy, and trustworthy" piece of software that made tax filing "more efficient." About 300,000 people used it last year as part of a limited pilot program, and those who did gave it incredibly positive reviews, according to reporting by Federal News Network. But because it is free and because it is an example of government working, Direct File and the IRS's Free File program more broadly have been the subject of years of lobbying efforts by financial technology giants like Intuit, which makes TurboTax. DOGE sought to kill Direct File, and currently, there is language in Trump's massive budget reconciliation bill that would kill Direct File. Experts say that "ending [the] Direct File program is a gift to the tax-prep industry that will cost taxpayers time and money."

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theodp writes: Way back in 2010, Microsoft and Google teamed with nonprofit partners to launch Computing in the Core, an advocacy coalition whose mission was "to strengthen computing education and ensure that it is a core subject for students in the 21st century." In 2013, Computing in the Core was merged into Code.org, a new tech-backed-and-directed nonprofit. And in 2015, Code.org declared 'Mission Accomplished' with the passage of the Every Student Succeeds Act, which elevated computer science to a core academic subject for grades K-12. Fast forward to June 2025 and Code.org has changed its About page to reflect a new AI mission that's near-and-dear to the hearts of Code.org's tech giant donors and tech leader Board members: "Code.org is a nonprofit working to make computer science (CS) and artificial intelligence (AI) a core part of K-12 education for every student." The mission change comes as tech companies are looking to chop headcount amid the AI boom and just weeks after tech CEOs and leaders launched a new Code.org-orchestrated national campaign to make CS and AI a graduation requirement.

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Did somebody say ransomware? Not the newspaper group, not even to deny it

Regional newspaper publisher Lee Enterprises says data belonging to around 40,000 people was stolen during an attack on its network earlier this year.…

Morgan Stanley has deployed an in-house AI tool called DevGen.AI that has reviewed nine million lines of legacy code this year, saving the investment bank's developers an estimated 280,000 hours by translating outdated programming languages into plain English specifications that can be rewritten in modern code. The tool, built on OpenAI's GPT models and launched in January, addresses what Mike Pizzi, the company's global head of technology and operations, calls one of enterprise software's biggest pain points -- modernizing decades-old code that weakens security and slows new technology adoption. While commercial AI coding tools excel at writing new code, they lack expertise in older or company-specific programming languages like Cobol, prompting Morgan Stanley to train its own system on its proprietary codebase. The tool's primary strength, the bank said, lies in creating English specifications that map what legacy code does, enabling any of the company's 15,000 developers worldwide to rewrite it in modern programming languages rather than relying on a dwindling pool of specialists familiar with antiquated coding systems.

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Trump's on again off again tariffs, economic uncertainty, no vital apps and higher price tags

World War Fee PC makers were salivating at the prospect of AI notebooks driving up their margins yet it seems the price difference coupled with a lack of killer apps and the destabilizing influence of tariff talk means customer adoption is slower than expected.…

Code generation startups are attracting extraordinary investor interest two years after ChatGPT's launch, with companies like Cursor raising $900 million at a $10 billion valuation despite operating with negative gross margins. OpenAI is reportedly in talks to acquire Windsurf, maker of the Codeium coding tool, for $3 billion, while the startup generates $50 million in annualized revenue from a product launched just seven months ago. These "vibe coding" platforms allow users to write software using plain English commands, attempting to fundamentally change how code gets written. Cursor went from zero to $100 million in recurring revenue in under two years with just 60 employees, though both major startups spend more money than they generate, Reuters reports, citing investor sources familiar with their operations. The surge comes as major technology giants report significant portions of their code now being AI-generated -- Google claims over 30% while Microsoft reports 20-30%. Meanwhile, entry-level programming positions have declined 24% as companies increasingly rely on AI tools to handle basic coding tasks previously assigned to junior developers.

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Tech giants say blocking stolen devices via IMEI could open new fraud risks

UK legislators are questioning why Apple and Google have yet to implement measures to allow smartphones to be locked, reset, and prevented from accessing cloud services after they've been stolen, as requested by police.…

AI sales are a little 'lumpy' but all things hybrid cloud are going well - including job cuts

Hewlett Packard Enterprise CEO Antonio Neri remains optimistic that US regulators will allow its planned acquisition of Juniper Networks but has admitted the company has considered other plans if regulators nix the deal.…

Anne Wojcicki has asked a U.S. judge to reopen the auction for 23andMe, claiming she has backing from a $400+ billion Fortune 500 company. Reuters reports: South San Francisco, California-based 23andMe filed for bankruptcy in March, seeking to sell its business at auction after a decline in consumer demand and a 2023 data breach that exposed sensitive genetic and personal information of millions of customers. Last month, Regeneron Pharmaceuticals agreed to buy the firm for $256 million, topping a $146 million bid from Wojcicki and TTAM Research Institute, which was founded by Wojcicki and describes itself as a California non-profit public benefit corporation. In a filing dated May 31, Wojcicki claimed that 23andMe's debtors had attempted to tilt the sales process away from TTAM and in favor of Regeneron. TTAM and Wojcicki said in the filing that 23andMe's financial and legal advisers unfairly capped their maximum bid at $250 million due to misplaced concerns about TTAM's "financial wherewithal." The plaintiffs said the auction was prematurely concluded before they had the opportunity to submit a bid that would have exceeded $280 million. The company's debtors said the auction results came after an extensive and careful consideration by a four-member special committee of independent directors, according to the filing. According to another filing, 23andMe is seeking court approval to let Wojcicki and Regeneron submit final proposals by June 12. 23andMe is also seeking a $10 million breakup fee for Regeneron if Wojcicki's bid is ultimately accepted.

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Government details latest initiative following announcement last week

Revealing more details about the Cyber and Electromagnetic (CyberEM) military domain, the UK's Ministry of Defence (MoD) says "there are pockets of excellence" but improvements must be made to ensure the country's capability meets the needs of national defense.…

Altnet claims upgrade puts it ahead of Openreach on performance and cost, with more to come in 2026

Alternative UK network CityFibre has lifted the lid on a 5.5 Gbps wholesale package it says will allow internet service provider (ISP) customers to operate a service more than twice as fast than its current top-speed fiber product.…

Why? There's a war in Europe, Finland has a belligerent neighbor, and cyber is a settled field

Interview Mikko Hyppönen has spent the last 34 years creating security software that defends against criminals and state-backed actors, but now he's moving onto drone warfare.…

The James Webb Space Telescope has discovered the most distant galaxy ever observed, named MoM z14. NASA estimates it existed just 280 million years after the Big Bang. Space.com reports: Prior to the discovery of MoM z14, the galaxy holding the title of earliest and distant was JADES-GS-z14-0, which existed just 300 million years after the Big Bang, or around 13.5 billion years ago. This previous record galaxy has a redshift of z =14.32, while MoM z14 has a redshift of z = 14.44. There is a wider context to the observation of MoM z14 than the fact that it has broken the record for earliest known galaxy by 20 million years, though, as [explained team member and Yale University professor of Astronomy and Physics Pieter van Dokkum]. The researchers were able to determine that MoM z14 is around 50 times smaller than the Milky Way. The team also measured emission lines from the galaxy, indicating the presence of elements like nitrogen and carbon. "The emission lines are unusual; it indicates that the galaxy is very young, with a rapidly increasing rate of forming new stars," van Dokkum said. "There are also indications that there is not much neutral hydrogen gas surrounding the galaxy, which would be surprising: the very early universe is expected to be filled with neutral hydrogen. "That needs even better spectra and more galaxies, to investigate more fully." The presence of carbon and nitrogen in MoM z14 indicates that there are earlier galaxies to be discovered than this 13.52 billion-year-old example. That is because the very earliest galaxies in the universe and their stars were filled with the simplest elements in the cosmos, hydrogen and helium. Later galaxies would be populated by these heavier elements, which astronomers somewhat confusingly call "metal," as their stars forged them and then dispersed them in supernova explosions. The research has been published on arXiv.

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