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Scientists have successfully grown beating human hearts inside pig embryos for the first time, marking a significant advance in developing human-animal chimeras for potential organ transplantation. The hybrid embryos survived for 21 days, during which the fingertip-sized hearts began beating, according to findings presented at the International Society for Stem Cell Research meeting in Hong Kong. Researchers -- led by Lai Liangxue at the Guangzhou Institutes of Biomedicine and Health -- reprogrammed human stem cells to survive in pigs and introduced them into pig embryos with two heart development genes knocked out. The human cells, tagged with luminescent biomarkers, were visible glowing within the developing hearts.

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An anonymous reader shares a report: Slack, an instant-messaging service popular with businesses, recently blocked other software firms from searching or storing Slack messages even if their customers permit them to do so, according to a public disclosure from Slack's owner, Salesforce. The move, which hasn't previously been reported, could hamper fast-growing artificial intelligence startups that have used such access to power their services, such as Glean. Since the Salesforce change, Glean and other applications can no longer index, copy or store the data they access via the Slack application programming interface on a long-term basis, according to the disclosure. Salesforce will continue allowing such firms to temporarily use and store their customers' Slack data, but they must delete the data, the company said.

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Sales of HDDs to non-hyperscale outfits increasingly rare, say analysts

Feature In early May, independent digital storage analyst Thomas Coughlin shared news of falling sales and revenue in the first quarter of 2025, continuing a trend that started in around 2010. Coughlin cites data from that year showing around 600 million annual hard disk shipments.…

Google will discontinue its Android Instant Apps feature in December 2025, ending a nearly decade-long experiment that allowed users to try portions of mobile apps without installing them. The feature, rolled out in early 2017, enabled developers to create lightweight app versions under 15 megabytes that could run temporarily on users' devices when they tapped specific links. The feature struggled with low developer uptake due to the technical complexity of creating these stripped-down app versions.

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Infosec employers demanding too much from early-career recruits, says ISC2

Cybersecurity hiring managers need a reality check when it comes to hiring junior staff, with job adverts littered with unfair expectations that are hampering recruitment efforts, says industry training and cert issuer ISC2.…

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Register: US Navy Secretary John Phelan has told the Senate the service needs the right to repair its own gear, and will rethink how it writes contracts to keep control of intellectual property and ensure sailors can fix hardware, especially in a fight. Speaking to the Senate Armed Services Committee on Tuesday, Phelan cited the case of the USS Gerald R. Ford, America's largest and most expensive nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, which carried a price tag of $13 billion. The ship was struggling to feed its crew of over 4,500 because six of its eight ovens were out of action, and sailors were barred by contract from fixing them themselves. "I am a huge supporter of right to repair," Phelan told the politicians. "I went on the carrier; they had eight ovens -- this is a ship that serves 15,300 meals a day. Only two were working. Six were out." He pointed out the Navy personnel are capable of fixing their own gear but are blocked by contracts that reserve repairs for vendors, often due to IP restrictions. That drives up costs and slows down basic fixes. According to the Government Accountability Office, about 70 percent [PDF] of a weapon system's life-cycle cost goes to operations and support. A similar issue plagued the USS Gerald Ford's weapons elevators, which move bombs from deep storage to the flight deck. They reportedly took more than four years after delivery to become fully operational, delaying the carrier's first proper deployment. "They have to come out and diagnose the problem, and then they'll fix it," Phelan said. "It is crazy. We should be able to fix this." "Our soldiers are immensely smart and capable and should not need to rely on a third party contractor to maintain their equipment. Oven repair is not rocket science: of course sailors should be able to repair their ovens," Kyle Wiens, CEO of repair specialists iFixit told The Register. "It's gratifying to see Secretary Phelan echoing our work. The Navy bought it, the Navy should be able to fix it. Ownership is universal, and the same principles apply to an iPhone or a radar. Of course, the devil is in the details: the military needs service documentation, detailed schematics, 3D models of parts so they can be manufactured in the field, and so on. We're excited that the military is joining us on this journey to reclaim ownership." Further reading: Army Will Seek Right To Repair Clauses In All Its Contracts

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Superstitions stoked by blackout of iPortal centralized platform when no maintenance was scheduled

Barclays Bank is wrestling with some digital gremlins affecting its corporate banking services this Friday the 13th of June – the final day of the working week for many of us, but perhaps not the poor techies beavering away to restore normal play.…

Jutes revolt against Redmond: Minister for Digital Affairs aims the longboats away from Vinland

Comment The boss of Denmark's Ministry for Digitalization says her department will move away from Microsoft – starting with LibreOffice.…

Deal includes 'waiver of historic fees'

UK universities and colleges have signed a contract worth up to £9.86 million ($13.33 million) with Oracle to use its controversial Java SE Universal Subscription model, in exchange for a "waiver of historic fees due for any institutions who have used Oracle Java since 2023."…

More like FlAIme Of The Week

Flame Of The Week It's been a while since our last Flame Of The Week, but it appears that AI is generating some strong feelings among our beloved readership.…

Meta has struck a new deal with geothermal startup XGS Energy to supply 150 megawatts of carbon-free electricity for its New Mexico data center. "Advances in AI require continued energy to support infrastructure development," Urvi Parekh, global head of energy at Meta, said in a press release. "With next-generation geothermal technologies like XGS ready for scale, geothermal can be a major player in supporting the advancement of technologies like AI as well as domestic data center development." The Verge reports: Geothermal plants generate electricity using Earth's heat; typically drawing up hot fluids or steam from natural reservoirs to turn turbines. That tactic is limited by natural geography, however, and the US gets around half a percent of its electricity from geothermal sources. Startups including XGS are trying to change that by making geothermal energy more accessible. Last year, Meta made a separate 150MW deal with Sage Geosystems to develop new geothermal power plants. Sage is developing technologies to harness energy from hot, dry rock formations by drilling and pumping water underground, essentially creating artificial reservoirs. Google has its own partnership with another startup called Fervo developing similar technology. XGS Energy is also seeking to exploit geothermal energy from dry rock resources. It tries to set itself apart by reusing water in a closed-loop process designed to prevent water from escaping into cracks in the rock. The water it uses to take advantage of underground heat circulates inside a steel casing. Conserving water is especially crucial in a drought-prone state like New Mexico, where Meta is expanding its Los Lunas data center. Meta declined to say how much it's spending on this deal with XGS Energy. The initiative will roll out in two phases with a goal of being operational by 2030.

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It was one of the offenders' final warning

Four staffers at the UK's Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) were let off with warnings over separate cases involving the transmission of regulator data to their personal email accounts.…

Abusive manager had to be told there's no such thing as an atomic laptop

On Call By Friday morning, Reg readers’ batteries can sometimes be a little low, which is why we always use the day to offer a jolt of amusement in the form of On Call – the reader contributed column in which we celebrate the lows and lows of tech support.…

"Spaceballs 2" is officially in development nearly 40 years after the original parody hit theaters. The sequel, produced by Amazon MGM Studios and set for a 2027 release, will see Rick Moranis returning as Dark Helmet, Mel Brooks reprising his role as Yogurt, and Bill Pullman returning as Lone Starr. You can watch the teaser trailer on YouTube. IGN reports: A trailer for the sequel to the classic '80s sci-fi Star Wars parody arrived today. Although it mostly comes with a special message from Brooks himself and a familiar text crawl that pokes fun at the long, long list of sequels that have come to theaters in the last 38 years, this is the most official look at Spaceballs 2 we've seen yet. "After 40 years, we asked, 'What do the fans want?' Brooks says in the Spaceballs 2 trailer. "But instead, we're making this movie." He added one final send-off: "May the Schwartz be with you."

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STEP sucked up £220 million in 2022, and it's still not apparent what that accomplished

The UK government has just allocated another £2.5 billion to an ambitious fusion energy project without any indication it's progressed much beyond the planning stages.…

Meta's standalone AI app is broadcasting users' supposedly private conversations with the chatbot to the public, creating what could amount to a widespread privacy breach. Users appear largely unaware that hitting the app's share button publishes their text exchanges, audio recordings, and images for anyone to see. The exposed conversations reveal sensitive information: people asking for help with tax evasion, whether family members might face arrest for proximity to white-collar crimes, and requests to write character reference letters that include real names of individuals facing legal troubles. Meta provides no clear indication of privacy settings during posting, and if users log in through Instagram accounts set to public, their AI searches become equally visible.

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Two European journalists were hacked using government spyware made by Israeli surveillance tech provider Paragon, new research has confirmed. On Thursday, digital rights group The Citizen Lab published a new report detailing the results of a new forensic investigation into the iPhones of Italian journalist Ciro Pellegrino and an unnamed "prominent" European journalist. The researchers said both journalists were hacked by the same Paragon customer, based on evidence found on the two journalists' devices. Until now, there was no evidence that Pellegrino, who works for online news website Fanpage, had been either targeted or hacked with Paragon spyware. When he was alerted by Apple at the end of April, the notification referred to a mercenary spyware attack, but did not specifically mention Paragon, nor whether his phone had been infected with the spyware. The confirmation of the first-ever known Paragon infections further deepens an ongoing spyware scandal that, for now, appears to be mostly focused on the use of spyware by the Italian government, but could expand to include other countries in Europe. These new revelations come months after WhatsApp first notified around 90 of its users in over two dozen countries in Europe and beyond, including journalists, that they had been targeted with Paragon spyware, known as Graphite. Among those targeted were several Italians, including Pellegrino's colleague and Fanpage director Francesco Cancellato, as well as nonprofit workers who help rescue migrants at sea. Last week, Italy's parliamentary committee known as COPASIR, which oversees the country's intelligence agencies' activities, published a report (PDF) that said it found no evidence that Cancellato was spied on. The report, which confirmed that Italy's internal and external intelligence agencies AISI and AISE were Paragon customers, made no mention of Pellegrino. The Citizen Lab's new report puts into question COPASIR's conclusions.

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Alleges dirty PR campaign to slur its tech

China’s Yangtze Memory Technologies has accused rival chipmaker Micron of defamation through a campaign to publish nasty stories and reports about it.…

Meta has invested $14.3 billion in Scale AI while recruiting the startup's CEO to join its AI team, marking an aggressive move by the social media giant to accelerate its AI development efforts. The unusual deal gives Meta a 49% non-voting stake in Scale, valuing the company at more than $29 billion. Scale co-founder Alexandr Wang will join Meta's "superintelligence" unit, which focuses on building AI systems that perform as well as humans -- a theoretical milestone known as artificial general intelligence. Wang will remain on Scale's board while Jason Droege takes over as interim CEO. The investment represents Meta's intensified push to compete in AI development after CEO Mark Zuckerberg grew frustrated with the lukewarm reception of the company's Llama 4 language model, which launched in April. Since then, Zuckerberg has taken a hands-on approach to recruiting AI talent, hosting job candidates at his personal homes and reorganizing Meta's offices to position the superintelligence team closer to his workspace.

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Japan must stop being overly optimistic about how quickly its population is going to shrink, economists have warned, as births plunge at a pace far ahead of core estimates. From a report: Japan this month said there were a total of 686,000 Japanese births in 2024, falling below 700,000 for the first time since records began in the 19th century and defying years of policy efforts to halt population decline. The total represented the ninth straight year of decline and pushed the country's total fertility rate -- the average number of children born per woman over her lifetime -- to a record low of 1.15. But public and parliamentary dismay over the latest evidence of Japan's decline was intensified by the extent to which the figures undershot population estimates calculated by government demographers just two years ago. The median forecast produced by the National Institute of Population and Social Security Research (IPSS) in 2023 did not foresee the number of annual births -- which does not include children born to non-Japanese people -- dropping into the 680,000 range until 2039.

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