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An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Like the rest of its Big Tech cadre, Google has spent lavishly on developing generative AI models. Google's AI can clean up your text messages and summarize the web, but the company is constantly looking to prove that its generative AI has true intelligence. The International Collegiate Programming Contest (ICPC) helps make the point. Google says Gemini 2.5 participated in the 2025 ICPC World Finals, turning in a gold medal performance. According to Google this marks "a significant step on our path toward artificial general intelligence." Every year, thousands of college-level coders participate in the ICPC event, facing a dozen deviously complex coding and algorithmic puzzles over five grueling hours. This is the largest and longest-running competition of its type. To compete in the ICPC, Google connected Gemini 2.5 Deep Think to a remote online environment approved by the ICPC. The human competitors were given a head start of 10 minutes before Gemini began "thinking." According to Google, it did not create a freshly trained model for the ICPC like it did for the similar International Mathematical Olympiad (IMO) earlier this year. The Gemini 2.5 AI that participated in the ICPC is the same general model that we see in other Gemini applications. However, it was "enhanced" to churn through thinking tokens for the five-hour duration of the competition in search of solutions. At the end of the time limit, Gemini managed to get correct answers for 10 of the 12 problems, which earned it a gold medal. Only four of 139 human teams managed the same feat. "The ICPC has always been about setting the highest standards in problem-solving," said ICPC director Bill Poucher. "Gemini successfully joining this arena, and achieving gold-level results, marks a key moment in defining the AI tools and academic standards needed for the next generation." Gemini's solutions are available on GitHub.

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Governments worldwide are implementing heat protection laws as 2.4 billion workers face extreme temperature exposure and 19,000 die annually from heat-related workplace injuries, according to a World Health Organization and World Meteorological Organization report. Japan imposed $3,400 fines for employers failing to provide cooling measures when wet-bulb temperatures reach 28C. Singapore mandated hourly temperature sensors at large outdoor sites and requires 15-minute breaks every hour at 33C wet-bulb readings. Southern European nations ordered afternoon work stoppages this summer when temperatures exceeded 115F across Greece, Italy and Spain. The United States lacks federal heat standards; only California, Colorado, Maryland, Minnesota, Nevada, Oregon and Washington have state-level protections. Boston passed requirements for heat illness prevention plans on city projects. Enforcement remains inconsistent -- Singapore inspectors found nearly one-third of 70 sites violated the 2023 law. Texas and Florida prohibit local governments from mandating rest and water breaks.

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The ability of AI displace humans at various tasks is accelerating quickly, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei said at an Axios event on Wednesday. From the report: Amodei and others have previously warned of the possibility that up to half of white-collar jobs could be wiped out by AI over the next five years. The speed of that displacement could require government intervention to help support the workforce, executives said. "As with most things, when an exponential is moving very quickly, you can't be sure," Amodei said. "I think it is likely enough to happen that we felt there was a need to warn the world about it and to speak honestly." Amodei said the government may need to step in and support people as AI quickly displaces human work.

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You didn't really trust the crims to keep their word, did you?

Spiders don't change their stripes. Despite gang members' recent retirement claims, Scattered Spider hasn't exited the cybercrime business and instead has shifted focus to the financial sector, with a recent digital intrusion at a US bank.…

Light pollution now doubles every eight years globally as LED adoption accelerates artificial brightness worldwide. A recent study measured 10% annual growth in light pollution from 2011 to 2022. Northern Chile's Atacama Desert remains one of the few Bortle Scale 1 locations -- the darkest rating for astronomical observation -- though La Serena's population has nearly doubled in 25 years. The region hosts major observatories including the Vera C. Rubin Observatory at Cerro Pachon. Satellite constellations pose additional challenges: numbers have increased from hundreds decades ago to 12,000 currently operating satellites. Astronomers predict 100,000 or more satellites within a decade. Chile faces pressure from proposed mining operations including the 7,400-acre INNA green-hydrogen facility near key astronomical sites despite national laws limiting artificial light from mining operations that generate over half the country's exports.

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Carefully crafted response makes no mention of whether DOGE employees duplicated critical database

The Social Security Administration (SSA) has disputed a whistleblower's allegations that claimed DOGE made an unauthorized, unsecured copy of a critical database - but it's what the denial doesn't say that speaks volumes. …

Crew will have to wait a little longer for science supplies, spares, and 'fun food'

NASA has delayed a supply delivery to the International Space Station (ISS) after the engines of Northrop Grumman's Cygnus XL cargo spacecraft did not perform as expected during an orbit-raising burn.…

AI models often produce false outputs, or "hallucinations." Now OpenAI has admitted they may result from fundamental mistakes it makes when training its models. The Register: The admission came in a paper [PDF] published in early September, titled "Why Language Models Hallucinate," and penned by three OpenAI researchers and Santosh Vempala, a distinguished professor of computer science at Georgia Institute of Technology. It concludes that "the majority of mainstream evaluations reward hallucinatory behavior." The fundamental problem is that AI models are trained to reward guesswork, rather than the correct answer. Guessing might produce a superficially suitable answer. Telling users your AI can't find an answer is less satisfying. As a test case, the team tried to get an OpenAI bot to report the birthday of one of the paper's authors, OpenAI research scientist Adam Tauman Kalai. It produced three incorrect results because the trainers taught the engine to return an answer, rather than admit ignorance. "Over thousands of test questions, the guessing model ends up looking better on scoreboards than a careful model that admits uncertainty," OpenAI admitted in a blog post accompanying the release.

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If global temperatures continue rising, virtually all the corals in the Atlantic Ocean will stop growing and could succumb to erosion by the end of the century, a new study finds. From a report: The analysis of over 400 existing coral reefs across the Atlantic Ocean estimates that more than 70 percent of the region's reefs will begin dying by 2040 even under optimistic climate warming scenarios. And if the planet exceeds 2 degrees Celsius of warming above preindustrial temperatures by the end of the century, 99 percent of corals in the region would meet this fate. Today, the planet has warmed about 1.3 degrees Celsius over preindustrial temperatures. The implications are grave. Corals act as the fundamental building blocks of reefs, providing habitat for thousands of species of fish and other marine life. They are also bulwarks that break up waves and help protect shorelines from rising sea levels. A quarter of all ocean life depends on coral reefs and over a billion people worldwide benefit from them, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

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American businesses join Win 10 upgrade train, consumers happy to sit on the platform

Wolrd War Fee The US PC industry is suffering from inventory indigestion caused by resellers over-ordering hardware to avoid Donald Trump's expected import taxes on China-made kit.…

An anonymous reader shares a report: After years of dismissing the idea of putting a touchscreen on a MacBook, it seems Apple may have finally caved. Its MacBook Pro overhaul in 2026 is now expected to be the first-ever MacBook to feature a touchscreen display, according to a report from supply chain analyst Ming-Chi Kuo on X. The change will reportedly affect Apple's next-generation MacBook Pro, which could feature an OLED display and "incorporate a touch panel using on-cell touch technology." The OLED MacBook Pro isn't expected to enter production until late 2026, and before then, Apple is expected to launch the M5 MacBook Pro in early 2026.

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And we're paying for it piecemeal through the software, services, and devices we buy

Tech analysts expect worldwide spending on AI to hit nearly $1.5 trillion in 2025, including $268 billion on optimized servers. These investments will also soon appear in even more consumer products.…

An anonymous reader shares a report: Business Insider has told journalists they can use AI to create first drafts of stories and suggested it won't notify readers that AI was used, according to Status, a newsletter covering the media industry. The policy makes the outlet one of the first to formally allow such extensive use of the technology. The AI guidelines were reportedly circulated in an internal memo from editor-in-chief Jamie Heller on Thursday. The policy authorized journalists to deploy AI "like any other tool" for tasks like research and image editing, Status reported.

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But will the ISS still be there to host it?

Axiom Space and Spacebilt have announced plans to add optically interconnected Orbital Data Center (ODC) infrastructure to the International Space Station (ISS).…

Scripted TV production peaked in 2022 at 599 shows and has declined since, according to FX's research division tracking. New prestige series have dropped sharply while streaming platforms prioritize returning shows over new development. Netflix has shifted majority output to unscripted content including docuseries and reality programming since 2018. YouTube leads streaming viewership ahead of Netflix, Paramount+, and Hulu. Free ad-supported platforms YouTube, Tubi and Roku Channel continue gaining market share. Subscription prices across major streaming services have increased while scripted content volume decreased. Second season of Severance cost $200 million. Fourth season of Stranger Things reached $270 million in production expenses.

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Anthropic has declined requests from federal law enforcement contractors to use its Claude AI models for surveillance activities, deepening tensions with the Trump administration, Semafor reported Wednesday, citing two senior officials. The company's usage policies prohibit domestic surveillance, limiting how agencies including the FBI, Secret Service, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement can deploy its technology. While Anthropic maintains a $1 contract with federal agencies through AWS GovCloud and works with the Department of Defense on non-weapons applications, administration officials said the restrictions amount to making moral judgments about law enforcement operations.

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Even a wrong answer is right some of the time

AI models often produce false outputs, or "hallucinations." Now OpenAI has admitted they may result from fundamental mistakes it makes when training its models.…

Jared Spataro, boss of modern work and biz apps division, says 'hard to make the ROI argument for it'

A Microsoft exec claims Copilot is boosting productivity among the customers that adopted it yet sustained efforts to convince many them of the returns on investment remains a work in progress.…

The home appliance industry would like you to believe that gas-burning stoves are not a risk to your health -- and several companies that make the devices are scrambling to erase their prior acknowledgements that they are. From a report: That claim is at the heart of a lawsuit the Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers has filed against the state of Colorado to stop it from requiring natural gas stoves, which burn methane, to carry health labels not unlike those on every pack of cigarettes. "Understand the air quality implications of having an indoor gas stove," the warning would read. The law was to take effect August 5 but is now on hold, and state officials did not respond to a request for comment. In its federal lawsuit, the Association -- whose board includes representatives of LG Electronics, BSH Home Appliance Corp. (which makes Bosch appliances), Whirlpool, and Samsung Electronics -- asserts that the labeling requirement is "unconstitutional compelled speech" and illegal under the First Amendment. It calls the legislation a climate law disguised as a health law and, most strikingly, it claims there is "no association between gas stoves and adverse health outcomes."

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But efforts to simplify popular programming language for beginners are unlikely to boost popularity

Oracle has released JDK (Java Development Kit) 25, the first long term support (LTS) version since JDK 21 two years ago. New features include beginner-friendly compact source files, succinct module imports, and more flexible constructors.…