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BrianFagioli writes: Cloudflare announced new controls that give publishers more say over how AI companies access and use their content. Beginning September 15, new Cloudflare sites will allow traditional search indexing while blocking AI training and AI agent access on ad supported pages by default. The company is also expanding its monetization efforts with a Pay-Per-Use model that aims to compensate publishers when their content contributes to AI generated answers rather than simply being crawled. Cloudflare argues that publishers should not have to choose between being discoverable online and giving away their work for free to AI systems.

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AleRunner writes: The first fully synthetic cell ("SpudCell") has been created in the Department of Genetics at the University of Minnesota. Strictly speaking, it's described as a "cell-like system constructed entirely from known chemical components that can perform a complete cell cycle." It is able to replicate, but only for approximately five generations. The key advance is that the cell is "built entirely bottom-up from individually purified, non-living components," although it still contains material from E. coli bacteria. "PURE is a defined mixture of 36 purified enzymes from E. coli bacteria," including ribosomes, that provides the infrastructure for genetic replication. CNN has an article on the advance, including interview material with Professor Kate Adamala, who led the research. "I know the full ingredient list of the cell. I know exactly what chemicals, what molecules, at what concentrations," she said. "It is fully defined, which means we can engineer it." "Humans did not create life," notes an anonymous Slashdot reader. "Researchers call it a constructed cell, not 'life created in the lab' but a 'genuine milestone on the road toward that question.' It lacks full autonomy (needs feeding, no independent evolution)." Special thanks to Slashdot readers kemosabi and AleRunner for submitting the story and additional sources, including reports from The New York Times and The Guardian, as well as information from the University of Minnesota Twin Cities.

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Reddit will start requiring people to be logged into Reddit to use old.reddit.com. The new requirement will take effect "over the next month," a Reddit employee going by the username boat-botany announced on the social media platform today. The person claimed that the change is part of an ongoing effort to "tighten how automated systems access Reddit." The Reddit employee wrote: "Old Reddit's logged-out experience is a significant source of abusive scraping and automated traffic on the platform. It's also an important interface for many long-time mods and Redditors. To strike the right balance between preserving your access to Old Reddit while preventing abusive scraping and automated traffic, over the next month we will start requiring everyone to log in." In a follow-up comment, boat-botany defined abusive behavior as that which violates Reddit's rule prohibiting activity that interferes with the platform's "normal use" or that "create[s] programs or applications" that break Reddit's (controversial) API rules. "By logging in, we get a lot more signal that allows us to detect whether an account is breaking the rules, and then we can block that traffic or enforce those accounts," boat-botany said. Asked why boat-botany scrapes New Reddit less frequently than Old Reddit, the Reddit employee pointed to another commenter's explanation. "[T]he shape of malicious traffic is always changing," the user, Nestramutat, wrote. "It's going to be a constant cat and mouse game[.] As you ban one method, a new one gets developed. It's easy to see abusive traffic in hindsight, but it's harder to pre-emptively block it. Given that they're claiming Old Reddit doesn't have the modern security stack, this is likely proving to be an even greater challenge." Nestramutat said that the login requirement will add a barrier against threat actors. "You're also now attaching an account ID to every malicious request, plus account creation is only available on New Reddit (with the enhanced security stack)." As for how long Old Reddit will exist, boat-botany left the door open for its retirement. "We can't promise it will be around forever, but [Reddit CEO Steve Huffman] himself has said we'll keep supporting it while folks are still using it," boat-botany wrote. "That said, it doesn't have the same modern security tech stack reddit.com has, so we need to tighten security on old reddit to keep it viable."

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Longtime Slashdot reader AmiMoJo shares a report from the BBC: New PlayStation games will no longer be released on discs from January 2028, the gaming giant has announced. Sony said in a blog post new games would still be able to be bought in shops, but they would come with a digital code. It comes just days after Rockstar announced the hotly-anticipated Grand Theft Auto VI would similarly launch without a physical disc. It marks a significant moment for the gaming industry, which has in recent years begun to rely more and more on digital distribution. Sony said the move came "as consumer preferences and the broader entertainment industry continue to shift away from physical discs to digital." "This is a natural direction for Sony Interactive Entertainment to adapt to consumer trends as the general preference for digital media significantly outpaces physical discs," it added. [...] PlayStation said the move would have no impact on games which are already released, or would be released before January 2028.

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A federal judge rejected Meta's bid to dismiss claims from 29 state attorneys general alleging that Facebook and Instagram were designed to addict children while concealing the harms. The judge found significant factual disputes that must be decided at trial. They also ruled that Meta failed to comply with federal parental notice and consent requirements for children under 13, "and granted summary judgement to the states on that issue," reports Reuters. From the report: In a separate statement, California Attorney General Rob Bonta called the decision a "critical win" in holding Meta accountable for fueling a mental health crisis among American children. Gonzalez Rogers also oversees related multidistrict litigation by more than 2,600 individuals, school districts and local governments over whether social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Google and YouTube, Snapchat and TikTok addict children. The states said research has shown that children's use of Facebook and Instagram could lead to depression, anxiety, insomnia, interference with education and daily life, and self-harm including suicide. Meta countered that the attorneys general had no evidence it misled consumers about its platforms' alleged addictiveness, including in congressional testimony by Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg. The Menlo Park, California-based company said this was because "social media addiction" is not an established psychiatric condition, and therefore statements that its platforms are not addictive could not be false. Meta also said it didn't violate the children's online privacy law because it directed Facebook and Instagram to a general audience, not just children under age 13. In a 38-page decision, Gonzalez Rogers found material factual disputes over whether Meta's social media platforms are addictive, whether Meta falsely denied it designed them that way, and whether it "partially" directed the platforms at children. "The AGs present a reasonable interpretation of [Meta's] statements that Facebook and Instagram are not designed in ways that cause teens to compulsively use the platforms to their detriment," the judge wrote. "To the extent plaintiffs' evidence shows that the platforms are in fact designed to do just that, a jury could reasonably find the statements were untrue to a reasonable person," she added. A trial over California, Colorado, Kentucky and New Jersey's claims against Meta is scheduled for August 18, court records show. Further reading: Will Social Media Change After YouTube and Meta's Court Defeat?

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from Space.com: NASA provided an Artemis update today (June 30), announcing new lunar landing contracts for its Moon Base initiative and a surprise new possible rover mission that could be headed to the moon's south pole. During the second monthly update that NASA has provided for its moon base plans, the agency named Astrobotic, Firefly Aerospace and Intuitive Machines as the providers of four robotic landers that will deliver scientific payloads to the surface of the moon, as NASA tests and expands the technologies needed for a permanent human outpost. "This is this drawing on the playbook that worked very well for NASA during the 1960s," NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said during the livestreamed update, explaining the experiential approach to a crewed lunar return. "We didn't just jump right to Apollo 11." Isaacman also announced the potential repurposing of an engineering development model built to mirror the agency's Perseverance and Curiosity rovers on Mars. "There is another," Isaacman said, quoting Yoda's line from "Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back." That test rover is called PROMISE, short for "Polar Rover for Observation, Mapping, and In-Situ Exploration" (though it was formerly known as Optimism). PROMISE was developed at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Southern California, where it has been used as a test platform for fixes or commands that engineers want to try on the ground before permanently sending them to Perseverance and Curiosity. Now, NASA wants to send PROMISE on a mission of its own. Though sending PROMISE to the moon would leave Perseverance and Curiosity -- both of which remain active on Mars -- without an Earth-based testbed, Isaacman thinks it would be worth it. "We've had years now of experience operating the two rovers on the surface of Mars, and we've got this hardware that the taxpayers have invested a lot in," he said. "So the question was posed: 'What if we send it to the moon?'" With a little refurbishment, PROMISE would help advance NASA's lunar plans, Isaacman added. Like Perseverance and Curiosity, the test rover is powered by a radioisotope thermoelectric generator (RTG), which converts heat from naturally decaying radioactive material into electricity. So it wouldn't require sunlight to operate -- a real benefit on the moon, where most locations experience long stretches of darkness. (NASA plans to build its Artemis base near the moon's south pole, which is thought to harbor an abundance of water ice and also has a relatively complex lighting environment.) The other robots currently in the works to launch on future missions to the moon, including the landers announced during today's update, are all solar powered. Through 2029, NASA hopes to launch up to 20 such missions as part of the CLPS (Commercial Lunar Payload Services) initiative to support the first phase of the agency's moon base plans, and the landers announced today will be some of the first in that lineup.

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The Vera C. Rubin Observatory has begun its 10-year Legacy Survey of Space and Time, using the world's largest digital camera to image the entire southern sky every few nights. The project is expected to catalog billions of stars and galaxies, track changing and transient objects, and generate an enormous dataset for studying dark matter, galaxy formation, asteroids, and unexpected cosmic phenomena. The New York Times reports: "This is the end of a 30-year wait," said Phil Marshall, the deputy director of the telescope's operations at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory in California, in a statement to The New York Times. "It's a major milestone for us." Astronomers expect this collection of data, known as the Legacy Survey of Space and Time, to revolutionize their knowledge of our galaxy's birth, the invisible matter permeating the cosmos, what shaped the universe into the structure it has today and more. According to Dr. Marshall, the survey is designed to see everything, "even the things we don't know we're looking for yet," he said. The team behind the observatory, a joint effort funded by the U.S. Department of Energy and the National Science Foundation, unveiled several images of the cosmos that were jampacked with celestial goodness -- a peek at what the Rubin could do -- last year. Since then, scientists have been busy conducting final tests and reviews of the telescope's operations and systems. According to Bob Blum, the director of Rubin operations at the National Optical-Infrared Astronomy Research Laboratory, the team has also been hard at work ensuring that the telescope can operate reliably in different environmental conditions for the next decade.

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The FAA plans to replace its 1973 ban on civilian supersonic flight over U.S. land with a noise-based standard, potentially allowing aircraft to exceed Mach 1 as long as they stay below certain sound limits. The agency aims to finalize the rules by mid-2027, opening the door for companies such as Boom Supersonic and Spike Aerospace to operate quieter next-generation passenger jets over land. Longtime Slashdot reader schwit1 shared the notice (PDF) published Tuesday by the FAA. Forbes reports: Technological advances "will eliminate the old sonic boom," FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford said in a statement. "This means we can ultimately repeal the ban from the 1970s on supersonic flight over U.S. territory while minimizing noise impacts to residents in communities along the route and near airports." The primary reason was public opposition to loud sonic booms. In the 1960s, a plane flying faster than the speed of sound -- about 660 mph at high altitudes -- created shock waves that traveled to the ground and reached human ears as a loud gunshot-like crack or thunder-like boom. Tests during that decade, including the Oklahoma City sonic boom experiments, found repeated booms broke windows, damaged property and generated thousands of public complaints. In its 1973 ruling, the FAA stated that due to the limits of technology at that time, "a prohibition was needed to protect the public from sonic boom .... by preventing operations of a civil aircraft at a true flight Mach number greater than 1." Several years later, Air France and British Airways introduced Concorde, and were allowed to serve New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport as long as flights remained subsonic over U.S. land. Notably, "the prestigious London-New York service was the only truly profitable [Concorde] route, supported by high-powered business and celebrity travel," wrote a former British Airways network planner for Forbes in 2021. Several U.S. companies are working on a new generation of luxurious supersonic passenger aircraft with much quieter sonic booms and improved fuel efficiency. In particular, Colorado-headquartered Boom Supersonic says it has pre-orders from United Airlines, American Airlines and Japan Airlines for its Overture jets, which will carry 60-80 passengers. Atlanta-based Spike Aerospace is developing smaller Diplomat jets for up to 18 passengers. Both companies' websites tout future transatlantic flights in under four hours.

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The Trump administration has lifted export restrictions that forced Anthropic to shut off public access to its Mythos and Fable models. After weeks of talks, Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick said Anthropic "has agreed to proactively detect and address security risks associated with the models; to work diligently with the U.S. government on protocols and standards and releases for Mythos, Fable and future models; and to inform the US government of any malicious activity." Access is set to begin returning July 1. TechCrunch reports: Anthropic had already publicly pledged to do much of this voluntarily, months before the export rule existed. That's part of why cybersecurity experts were skeptical of the restrictions in the first place. To them, the ban looked less like a security fix and more like leverage, a way for the Trump administration to punish Anthropic for its executives' public criticism of how the government, and the president's political opponents, might use the technology. Mythos was originally made available to a select group of organizations beginning in April to allay concerns about its ability to identify and exploit vulnerabilities in software, while a version called Fable was released to the public in June with additional security guardrails. However, with Asian AI companies beginning to release their own AI models approaching Mythos-level capabilities -- among them Fugu and Tulonfeng -- the US government was under pressure to ease its restrictions on Anthropic to ensure that American AI could compete globally. Last week, Lutnick cleared Mythos to be released to select customers approved by the White House. OpenAI's latest models were also released to a group of organizations approved by the Trump team, instead of the public. The Trump administration's erratic approach to AI policymaking has left companies across the industry with little clarity about what will govern future model releases. An executive order issued in June that signaled a desire to review models ahead of release was criticized by influential analysts like Dean W. Ball, who recently started a policy position at OpenAI.

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from Inside Climate News: A new state law limits Florida communities' aims to offset greenhouse gas emissions that are warming the global climate and intensifying disasters such as hurricanes. Specifically, HB 1217 prohibits local governments from pursuing net-zero emissions goals. At least 10 cities and counties have implemented such policies, including Fort Lauderdale, Miami, Orlando and Leon County, where Tallahassee, the state capital, is located. But the new law will not necessarily upend these policies, said Bradley Marshall, senior attorney at Earthjustice, an advocacy group. "It's certainly meant to scare municipalities and local governments from trying to do things to further net-zero policies," he said. "Now, its exact impact and what it exactly prohibits is probably up for some debate. Things that are adjacent to it -- emissions reductions and even climate change reduction policies -- on their face will not run afoul at all of a ban on adopting a net zero policy." The measure requires local governments to submit an affidavit annually to the state Department of Revenue verifying compliance. Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, signed the measure on April 22, Earth Day, and the law will take effect July 1. It states that "net zero policies, carbon taxes and assessments, and emission trading programs are detrimental to this state's energy security and economic interests and inconsistent with the energy policy and the environmental policy of this state." [...] HB 1217 also prevents local governments from purchasing items such as vehicles or appliances based on the fuels they use or production of the items. Local governments may not participate in carbon-trading programs or use public funds to support other organizations with net-zero policies. Cities and counties also may not charge a tax or fee tied with carbon emissions. "This bill is definitely part of a larger coordinated push by the political enablers of the fossil fuel industry to obstruct any tools -- legal or legislative tools -- to hold the industry accountable for its contributions to climate change," said Laura Peterson, senior analyst at the Union for Concerned Scientists, an advocacy group. "Florida is really on the front lines. So I imagine the governor is taking this step because he sees what's coming down the pike. It's not getting better. So I can only assume that this is an effort to satisfy some of the pressures that he's getting from donors and from his party to protect the industry. And he's doing it at the expense of his constituents."

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Amazon says it is ending sideloading on new Fire Sticks because "apps that facilitate piracy, and other apps, can carry malware," adding that there is "a good amount of evidence" that sideloaded apps may contain unwanted code or behavior. However, the company did not provide specific examples of Fire Stick users being harmed. Ars Technica reports: Amazon has released two Fire Stick models that use its proprietary, Linux-based operating system, Vega OS. Previous Fire Sticks ran Fire OS, which is an Android fork based on the Android Open Source Project. One of the biggest differences between Vega OS and Fire OS is that the former doesn't support sideloading. [...] In a recent interview, Or Goren, editor-in-chief of Cord Busters, a UK-based streaming news outlet, noted the negative reaction to Vega being a closed OS. [Aidan Marcuss, VP of Fire TV, advertising, and Appstore] responded, per the publication, by saying that Vega OS was Amazon's opportunity to "innovate and deliver more capabilities, even on the least expensive devices." He also said that making a platform around security and privacy was "sort of utmost in my mind." The statement is somewhat ironic, considering Vega OS blocks custom launchers and other third-party apps that helped users avoid Amazon tracking and ads. Goren asked whether Amazon had evidence that sideloaded devices caused users harm. "Apps that facilitate piracy, and other apps, can carry malware," Marcuss responded. Marcuss also said that there is "a good amount of evidence that apps can carry unwanted code and behavior on them when they're sideloaded." Marcuss didn't provide specific examples of Fire Stick users being hurt by sideloaded apps. There are some potential examples, though. In 2025, Amazon claimed to blacklist (which blocked the apps from being sideloaded to Fire Sticks) four video streaming apps for malicious behavior. At the time, AFTVnews reported that two of the apps served as residential proxy providers and were considered riskware, and that the other two had APK files that were flagged by virus-scanning tools. Safari and Chrome also flagged one of the apps' official websites, the publication reported. And in 2018, a botnet that infected Android devices with cryptocurrency-mining malware appeared on some Fire Sticks, per discussion on XDA Forums. That said, Amazon also has a history of disabling apps that let users circumnavigate its home screen that Fire devices, including Fire Sticks and Fire TVs, have increasingly used for ads. Worth noting: developers can continue sideloading apps onto Vega OS devices if they register them with Amazon.

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Google has shut down the Tenor API, breaking GIF pickers in services that still relied on it and forcing platforms such as X to migrate elsewhere. 9to5Google notes that the library itself remains available at Tenor.com and "integrations within Google products are also still active, including Gboard, Google Messages, and more." From the report: The Tenor API has been rejecting new API sign-ups in January of this year, but existing integrations remained in place. This week, though, they're shutting down, and any integrations that remain in place will stop working on July 1. The support page adds details that "any API or Ads Distribution Agreements" with Tenor will be terminated on June 30, while "current integrations" will be "fully decommissioned" as of June 30. One of the most notable examples here is Twitter/X, which has relied on Tenor for its GIF picker for years. Twitter/X Head of Product Nikita Bier confirmed that the platform has migrated elsewhere, which is why the "recently used" section was purged, and why you might notice fewer GIF options when posting. Other platforms affected include Discord, WhatsApp, and Bluesky.

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California's Protect Our Games Act, which would require publishers to warn players before shutting down paid online games and offer refunds or continued access, failed to advance after a state Senate committee vote. Four state senators voted in favor, three voted against, and four abstained. Engadget reports: The committee unanimously voted in favor of granting the bill reconsideration, meaning it could come back before this group of state senators. Assemblymember Chris Ward introduced the bill in February and it passed the California State Assembly 43-16 in late May. That said, the abstentions prevented the bill's progression for now. "Not enough yeses means the bill stops here for this session," a volunteer with the Stop Killing Games campaign (which supported the bill) noted on Reddit. "That is the loss." The volunteer also claimed this was the movement's first attempt to nudge such legislation through in the U.S., and that the bill got this far without paid staff or an in-person lobbying campaign. They said the Entertainment Software Association -- a trade organization of major game industry publishers -- brought in a lobbyist to halt the bill's progress (including by claiming private servers for the likes of Minecraft would be "illegal") and that Stop Killing Games would be more prepared to counter that in the future. "Next session, we come back with an in-person lobbying presence, the funding to do this properly and a long list of organizations and developers signed on in support," the volunteer, u/Mr_Presidentle, wrote. "We are not limiting this to California. We intend to introduce versions of this in other state legislatures, and we are seriously looking at the federal level."

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"Another breach at Tata has leaked details about Apple's iPhone 18, along with documents belonging to several other Tata clients," writes Longtime Slashdot reader Ritz_Just_Ritz. "It's becoming a recurring theme for the company." Reuters reports: Reuters has previously reported the Tata Electronics leak of more than 200,000 files on the dark web by World Leaks had files with purported component design papers of older iPhones and some parts of Tesla -- both Tata clients. They also included documents of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co and Qualcomm, both of which make parts used in iPhones. New documents reviewed by Reuters show there are at least six files that map many components in the iPhone 18 Pro models to the specific company that supplies them. These include details of chips on its main circuit board and parts of the battery and cameras. Apple considers this detail sensitive and is concerned about the documents being shared on the dark web as they relate to unreleased models, according to the person familiar with the matter. The data maps suppliers to iPhone parts, which Apple does not disclose in its public database of suppliers, the person added. In all, the documents detail hundreds of parts to be on the upcoming iPhone 18 Pro models. The records also show where Apple draws a part from several suppliers and where it relies on just a few, laying bare both its bargaining leverage and its vulnerabilities. More broadly, the leak threatens Apple's trust in Tata just as Tata is becoming central to its effort to shift iPhone production away from China. With India expected to produce roughly a quarter of the world's iPhones in 2026, any deterioration in that relationship could complicate Apple's diversification strategy and force tighter security controls across its suppliers.

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Anthropic has launched Claude Science, an AI workbench that connects more than 60 scientific databases and tools through a single interface. Through the platform, Basecamp Research is making its EDEN models available for tasks such as designing antibiotic peptides and predicting vaccine targets from simple text prompts, though the results still require laboratory testing before clinical use. Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology News reports: In a Claude Science demo, Oliver Vince, PhD, co-founder at Basecamp, uploaded a sample patient microbiology report. When given a simple natural language prompt, the platform designed peptides, predicted their efficacy, and provided a shortlist of candidates most likely to succeed in experiments in minutes. While generating human-ready antibiotics at the click of a button is still a step away, Vince said democratizing these tools is a powerful first step, particularly for researchers in regions where accelerated computing infrastructure is not readily accessible. "Most models require you to be a computational scientist," Vince told GEN Edge. "Now, potentially any clinician in the world can chat with Claude and design an antibiotic that may work."

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Microsoft has released a public preview of Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) containers, adding a built-in command-line tool and API for running Linux containers directly inside Windows applications without third-party software. The update also introduces faster file access, improved networking and memory management, plus integration with Defender, Intune, and VS Code. The Register reports: WSL has always been a handy way to run Linux workloads from Windows, and is particularly convenient for Linux developers who must comply with corporate edicts to use a Windows device. The CLI for end-to-end container workflows furthers this. Microsoft stated, "WSL containers make it easier for developers and organizations to build, test, and run containerized workloads while benefiting from the security, manageability, and integration of the Windows platform." Alternatively, you could run your preferred Linux distribution natively, but that might not be an option, particularly if an organization is keen on the "security, manageability, and integration of the Windows platform." And this is an important point. WSL's existing Microsoft Defender for Endpoint (MDE) has been updated (in private preview) to be aware of Linux container events, and there are settings in Intune for managing WSL containers. Support is also in a pre-release version of VS Code, where the Docker path in the dev container settings can be changed to wslc. There is also a new default file system for WSL container that Microsoft claims makes Windows file access twice the speed. So, going from terribly slow to just slow? We'll wait until general availability is reached before passing judgment. There's a new default networking mode to improve compatibility and better memory reclaim techniques. However, none of these tweaks will be enabled by default in WSL. Microsoft wrote, "Since these changes touch mission critical paths like file system access and network, for now they are enabled just in WSL container."

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from 404 Media: On June 26, the County Manager of Henrico County, Virginia, John Vithoulkas, sent an email to thousands of county employees asking them to help the local government conserve electricity. "Beginning July 1st, the rate we pay for electricity used in all Henrico County government and school facilities will increase dramatically -- by 25%, increasing costs by an estimated $5 million next fiscal year. We anticipate more rate increases for electricity in the years ahead," a copy of the email obtained by 404 Media said (emphasis his). Henrico County is a community of more than 350,000 people in eastern Virginia just outside of Richmond. It also hosts 37 data centers and there are plans to build 17 more, including plans to convert hundreds of acres of Civil War battlefields into data centers. Thanks to its proximity to DC and vast amounts of land, Henrico County became a data center hub seemingly overnight and its services clients big and small. Meta built a data center there in 2017. "To mitigate the impact of higher electric costs, I am asking that we, collectively, make slight adjustments to conserve electricity across our individual workspaces," Vithoulkas wrote in the email. "Turn off your lights when leaving your workspace, including when you leave for the day. Turn off your computers/laptops at the end of each workday. If your workspace has windows, adjust the blinds to manage heat from sunlight. Unplug any appliances, chargers, or other electrical items when they are not in use. Please limit use of (or refrain altogether from using) space heaters. A typical space heater alone can cost the county from $150 to $300 per year in electricity costs." "Each dollar we can save by conserving electricity is another dollar the county can reinvest into staff and the services we provide our residents," Vithoulkas email said.

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: South Korea's government and top tech companies are committing $1 trillion to several flagship megaprojects that could bolster global memory chip supply, build new AI data centers and spur commercial deployment of humanoid robots by 2028. [...] "We must secure the core elements of AI faster than any other country," said South Korean President Lee Jae Myung in a televised speech on June 29, as reported by BBC News and other media outlets. "Semiconductors, physical AI, and AI data centers are the triple axis for a great leap forward." [...] The most costly of the megaprojects involves Samsung and SK Hynix committing $585 billion to building new chip fabrication plants in the southwest provinces of South Korea, along with boosting semiconductor fab construction in the Seoul capital region, according to Reuters. The government's goal is to double South Korea's production of dynamic random-access memory (DRAM) within five years. [...] The second flagship megaproject involves a $357 billion investment by the South Korean tech companies SK Group, GS Group, and Naver into building large-scale AI data centers in more outlying provinces, including South Chungcheong Province in the west, Gangwon Province in the east, and the North and South Jeolla Provinces in the southwest corner of South Korea. The third flagship megaproject revolves around the South Korean government assigning a "national strategic industry" designation to physical AI -- the AI systems that enable robots and self-driving vehicles to interact more autonomously with the real world. The government aims to develop a Korean "general-purpose foundation model" based on a world model to support robots within three years, according to The Chosun Daily. Hyundai Motor Company has also committed $5.8 billion to build a robot manufacturing facility and AI data center in the Saemangeum region of North Jeolla Province in the southwest, The Chosun Daily reported. The South Korean automaker has already been helping Boston Dynamics -- the US robotics company it acquired in 2021 -- use the South Korean supply chain in scaling up manufacturing to produce 30,000 Atlas humanoid robots each year by 2028. Similarly, the South Korean government announced it would aim to commercialize humanoid robots in 10 major industries by 2028, along with training 10,000 human workers as "AI robotics specialists" over the next five years, Reuters reported.

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The U.S. Supreme Court ruled 6-3 (PDF) in Chatrie v United States (No. 25-112) that geofence warrants sweeping up smartphone location data constitute searches under the Fourth Amendment. The Court found that individuals have a "reasonable expectation of privacy" in such data, even when the tracking covers only a brief period or records movements in public. "An individual has a reasonable expectation of privacy in records about his cell phone's location, and police intrude on that constitutionally protected interest when they demand the information -- even though for only a limited time, and from a third-party tech company," wrote Justice Elena Kagan. Longtime Slashdot reader schwit1 submitted the story. The Guardian reports: The use of geofence warrants is widespread, and gives law enforcement agencies the power to compel tech companies to hand over sensitive cell phone data from people at or near crime scenes. The warrants allow police and the FBI to collect this information from individuals within the radius of a virtual "fence" during a particular timeframe. But they are not restricted to requesting data for precise targets. The Chatrie case focuses on local police's pursuit of an armed bank robber in Richmond, Virginia. He fled with $195,000. Law enforcement tracked Okello Chatrie down through their use of geofence warrants. Chatrie had opted in to an optional Google "location history" feature that documented his location every few minutes. He was eventually sentenced to 12 years in prison, after pleading guilty. Chatrie's lawyers argued that this search was overly broad and violated his fourth amendment rights, which protects individuals from "unreasonable search and seizure." Lawyers said that police's use of geofence warrants amounted to an official "search" under the fourth amendment, and didn't meet the constitution's requirements for one. The government had argued that accessing only a short amount of cellphone location information means this tactic does not count as a fourth amendment search and accordingly, should not be afforded the same privacy protections. But the judges in the majority disagreed. The judges in the majority opinion also wrote that the government's characterization of generating location history as a voluntary choice is "meritless." They suggested that people aren't choosing to share private information with third parties and the government "just by doing the ordinary thing cellphone users do." "The point of carrying smartphones is to use what is on them," including the apps and services they provide -- many of which use location data to customize a user's experience, they said. [...] While the majority opinion noted that police conducted a fourth amendment search by accessing Chatrie's location history data, they noted that the court of appeals will weigh in on whether the "search was reasonable, meaning that each of its steps was properly described with particularity and found to be supported by probable cause." Law enforcement has said they need geofence warrants to find suspects and witnesses -- after reaching dead ends. The US government, for its part, has argued that people can't have a "reasonable expectation of privacy" when they are in public and have allowed a third party company, such as Google, to collect and analyze phone location data.

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Slashdot reader joshuark summarizes this walk down memory lane from the tech site MakeUseOf: Facing real competition from Digital Research's DR DOS, Microsoft secretly embedded a sabotaging mechanism known as "AARD code" into beta versions of Windows 3.1 to prevent it from running on Digital Research's competing DR DOS operating system.This code triggered fake, alarming error messages to convince developers that DR DOS was unstable... Although Microsoft disabled the feature in the final retail release, the California-based firm Caldera, Inc., which had acquired DR DOS assets, sued Microsoft for anti-competitive practices.Microsoft settled the lawsuit out of court in 2000 for $280 million, a figure that remained sealed until it was unsealed in 2009.

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