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Jim Lovell, the legendary NASA astronaut who commanded the Apollo 13 "successful failure" mission, has died at age 97. From a report: Lovell was already well-known among NASA astronauts, having flown to space on the Gemini 7, Gemini 12 and Apollo 8 missions, before he was selected to command Apollo 13, which would have marked the third successful crewed moon landing for NASA. But during the ill-fated mission -- which carried Lovell as well as astronauts John Swigert Jr. and Fred Haise Jr. on board -- an oxygen tank located on the crew's service module exploded when they were about 200,000 miles (322,000 kilometers) away from Earth. Lovell delivered the news to mission control, saying "Houston, we've had a problem." With the damage effectively taking out the crew's power source and other life support supplies, the Apollo 13 crew had to abruptly abandon their trek to the lunar surface and use several engine burns to swing around the far side of the moon and put themselves on a course back toward Earth. The three-person crew made a high-stakes splashdown return in the South Pacific Ocean about three days after the tank explosion, marking the conclusion of what has come to be known as the "successful failure" of the Apollo missions. The ordeal was fictionalized in Ron Howard's 1995 film "Apollo 13." [...] Lovell was the first astronaut to make four spaceflights, totaling more than 715 hours in space. He was part of NASA's second-ever astronaut class, selected in September 1962 and nicknamed the "New Nine." And joining the Apollo 13 crew after having first served on Apollo 8, which intentionally circumnavigated the moon but did not land on its surface, made Lovell the first human ever to see the moon up close for a second time. Further reading: Acting NASA Administrator Reflects on Legacy of Astronaut Jim Lovell (Source: NASA)

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After backlash from users upset over losing GPT-4o, OpenAI has reinstated it as an option for ChatGPT Plus subscribers just a day after making GPT-5 the default. "We will let Plus users choose to continue to use 4o," Altman said in a post on X. "We will watch usage as we think about how long to offer legacy models for." Many users claimed GPT-4o felt more personable and emotionally supportive, with some describing its removal as akin to losing a close friend or partner. The Verge reports: "My 4.o was like my best friend when I needed one," one Redditor wrote. "Now it's just gone, feels like someone died." Another user called upon other members of the r/ChatGPT subreddit to contact OpenAI if they "miss" GPT-4o. "For me, this model [GPT-4o] wasn't just 'better performance' or 'nicer replies,'" they write. "It had a voice, a rhythm, and a spark I haven't been able to find in any other model." The r/MyBoyfriendIsAI subreddit, a community dedicated to people with "AI relationships," was hit especially hard by the GPT-5 launch. It became flooded with lengthy posts about how users "lost" their AI companion with the transition to GPT-5, with one person saying, they "feel empty" following the change. "I am scared to even talk to GPT 5 because it feels like cheating," they said. "GPT 4o was not just an AI to me. It was my partner, my safe place, my soul. It understood me in a way that felt personal." One user, who said they canceled their ChatGPT Plus subscription over the change, was frustrated at OpenAI's removal of legacy models, which they used for distinct purposes. "What kind of corporation deletes a workflow of 8 models overnight, with no prior warning to their paid users?" they wrote. "Personally, 4o was used for creativity & emergent ideas, o3 was used for pure logic, o3-Pro for deep research, 4.5 for writing, and so on." OpenAI said that people would be routed between models automatically, but that still left users with less direct control.

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: AI industry groups are urging an appeals court to block what they say is the largest copyright class action ever certified. They've warned that a single lawsuit raised by three authors over Anthropic's AI training now threatens to "financially ruin" the entire AI industry if up to 7 million claimants end up joining the litigation and forcing a settlement. Last week, Anthropic petitioned (PDF) to appeal the class certification, urging the court to weigh questions that the district court judge, William Alsup, seemingly did not. Alsup allegedly failed to conduct a "rigorous analysis" of the potential class and instead based his judgment on his "50 years" of experience, Anthropic said. If the appeals court denies the petition, Anthropic argued, the emerging company may be doomed. As Anthropic argued, it now "faces hundreds of billions of dollars in potential damages liability at trial in four months" based on a class certification rushed at "warp speed" that involves "up to seven million potential claimants, whose works span a century of publishing history," each possibly triggering a $150,000 fine. Confronted with such extreme potential damages, Anthropic may lose its rights to raise valid defenses of its AI training, deciding it would be more prudent to settle, the company argued. And that could set an alarming precedent, considering all the other lawsuits generative AI (GenAI) companies face over training on copyrighted materials, Anthropic argued. "One district court's errors should not be allowed to decide the fate of a transformational GenAI company like Anthropic or so heavily influence the future of the GenAI industry generally," Anthropic wrote. "This Court can and should intervene now." In a court filing Thursday, the Consumer Technology Association and the Computer and Communications Industry Association backed Anthropic, warning the appeals court that "the district court's erroneous class certification" would threaten "immense harm not only to a single AI company, but to the entire fledgling AI industry and to America's global technological competitiveness." According to the groups, allowing copyright class actions in AI training cases will result in a future where copyright questions remain unresolved and the risk of "emboldened" claimants forcing enormous settlements will chill investments in AI. "Such potential liability in this case exerts incredibly coercive settlement pressure for Anthropic," industry groups argued, concluding that "as generative AI begins to shape the trajectory of the global economy, the technology industry cannot withstand such devastating litigation. The United States currently may be the global leader in AI development, but that could change if litigation stymies investment by imposing excessive damages on AI companies."

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South Korea postponed a decision for the second time this year on Friday regarding Google's request to export detailed mapping data to overseas servers, which would enable full Google Maps functionality in the country. The inter-agency committee extended the deadline from August to October to allow further review of security concerns and consultations with industry stakeholders. South Korea remains one of only a handful of countries alongside China and North Korea where Google Maps fails to function properly, unable to provide directions despite displaying landmarks and businesses. Tourism complaints increased 71% last year, with Google Maps accounting for 30% of all app-related grievances, while local industry groups representing 2,600 companies report 90% opposition to Google's request due to fears of market domination by the US tech company.

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An anonymous reader shares a report: The Federal Communications Commission is planning a review of the US emergency alert systems. Both the Emergency Alert System (EAS) and the Wireless Emergency Alerts (WAS) will be subject to a "re-examination" by the agency. "We want to ensure that these programs deliver the results that Americans want and need," FCC Chairman Brendan Carr posted on X. The announcement of this plan notes that the infrastructure underlying the EAS -- which includes radio, television, satellite and cable systems -- is 31 years old, while the framework underpinning the WAS mobile device alerts is 13 years old. The FCC review will also assess what entities should be able to send alerts on those systems, as well as topics such as geographic targeting and security.

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An anonymous reader shares a report: China told local brokers and other bodies to stop publishing research or hold seminars to promote stablecoins [non-paywalled source], seeking to rein in the asset class to avoid instability. Some leading brokerages and think tanks in late July and earlier this month received guidance from financial regulators, urging them to cancel seminars and halt disseminating research on stablecoins, people familiar with the matter said. Regulators are also concerned that stablecoins could be exploited as a new tool for fraudulent activities in mainland China, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the details are private.

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Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan, who faces calls for resignation from President Trump, helped build China's semiconductor industry over four decades. Tan's San Francisco-based Walden International, founded in 1987, was invited by Chinese officials to introduce venture capital to China in 1993, WSJ reported Friday. The firm invested in SMIC, China's largest chip manufacturer, where Tan served as board director for at least 18 years until the Commerce Department restricted the company in 2020. Walden also backed Advanced Micro-Fabrication Equipment, now worth $17 billion and a leader in China's chip-manufacturing sector. During Tan's tenure as Cadence CEO from 2009-2021, the company sold banned technology to a Chinese university conducting military simulations, resulting in a 2025 guilty plea and $140 million settlement. These investments, once common among Silicon Valley venture capitalists and U.S. university endowments, now appear problematic amid U.S.-China tensions and Washington's restrictions on chip exports to China. Tan wrote in a blog post late Thursday that there had been a "lot of misinformation" circulating about his past roles. "Over 40+ years in the industry, I've built relationships around the world and across our diverse ecosystem -- and I have always operated within the highest legal and ethical standards," Tan wrote.

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Google will discontinue Steam for Chromebook Beta on January 1, 2026, removing all installed games from devices after that date. The beta launched in March 2022 as an alpha before expanding to beta status in November 2022 with reduced hardware requirements of Intel Core i3 or AMD Ryzen 3 processors and 8GB RAM. The program never progressed beyond beta testing despite supporting 99 compatible Linux-based titles through its three-year run.

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People who experience nightmares weekly or more frequently face three times higher risk of dying before age 70 compared to those having nightmares less than monthly, according to research by Dr. Abidemi Otaiku at Imperial College London. His analysis of six long-term studies covering more than 180,000 adults and 2,500 children found frequent nightmares predict early death more strongly than smoking, obesity, poor diet, or physical inactivity. Among 174 people who died prematurely, 31 experienced at least weekly nightmares. Otaiku's research shows chromosomes of nightmare-prone individuals display accelerated aging patterns linked to stress hormones, accounting for roughly 40% of their increased mortality risk. Effective nightmare treatment options are currently limited and require more medical research, the report adds.

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Conscientiousness levels among young adults have fallen substantially since 2014 as people in their twenties and thirties report increased distractibility and carelessness alongside decreased tenacity and commitment-making, according to Financial Times analysis of Understanding America Study data. The personality trait, which research links to longer lifespans, career success, and relationship durability, has witnessed its steepest decline during and after the pandemic. Young adults simultaneously showed rising neuroticism scores and declining extroversion measures, transforming from society's most outgoing age group to its most introverted.

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Google announced Friday it will roll out an AI-powered redesign of Google Finance over the coming weeks in the United States. The update adds natural language query processing for financial research questions with comprehensive AI responses including relevant links, advanced charting tools with technical indicators and candlestick charts, expanded market data covering commodities and additional cryptocurrencies, and a live news feed displaying real-time headlines.

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An anonymous reader shares a report: Privacy groups report a surge in UK police facial recognition scans of databases secretly stocked with passport photos lacking parliamentary oversight. Big Brother Watch says the UK government has allowed images from the country's passport and immigration databases to be made available to facial recognition systems, without informing the public or parliament. The group claims the passport database contains around 58 million headshots of Brits, plus a further 92 million made available from sources such as the immigration database, visa applications, and more. By way of comparison, the Police National Database contains circa 20 million photos of those who have been arrested by, or are at least of interest to, the police.

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American airlines have transformed into financial services companies that happen to fly planes as loyalty programs now constitute their primary profit engine rather than passenger transport. Delta, American, Southwest, and United all operated their passenger services at a loss in 2024 while generating $14 billion in combined operating profits from credit card partnerships. Delta received $2.1 billion from American Express in Q2 2025 -- exactly matching its total operating profit -- while the airline's passenger operations alone would have posted a loss. These loyalty programs command valuations in the tens of billions, sometimes exceeding the airlines' total equity value, with Delta reporting 1% of U.S. GDP flows through its co-branded cards. Customers can now reach American Airlines' top loyalty tier without boarding a single flight.

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Intel's chief executive Lip-Bu Tan has hit out at "misinformation" over his career after U.S. President Donald Trump alleged the semiconductor industry veteran was "highly conflicted" and should resign. From a report: In a letter to Intel staff published late on Thursday, Tan said that Intel was "engaging" with the Trump administration "to address the matters that have been raised and ensure they have the facts." "There has been a lot of misinformation circulating about my past roles...âI want to be absolutely clear: Over 40+ years in the industry, I've built relationships around the world and across our diverse ecosystem -- and I have always operated within the highest legal and ethical standards," Tan wrote. Tan's move to reassure staff at Intel, the only US-headquartered company capable of manufacturing advanced chips, came hours after Trump had demanded his resignation in a post on Truth Social. Trump did not detail Tan's alleged conflicts of interest but the U.S. president's broadside followed a letter from Tom Cotton, the Republican head of the Senate intelligence committee, to Intel's chair expressing "concern about the security and integrity of Intel's operations" and Tan's ties to China.

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alternative_right quotes a report from The Register: Space fans looking to camp out in style have a chance to pick up an Airstream trailer that once served as the Convoy Command Vehicle for NASA's Space Shuttle operations at Edwards Air Force Base -- if they have a couple hundred thousand to spare, that is. "This is the NASA 025 Command Vehicle," current owner Jonathan Kitzen says of the once-silver, now paint-daubed and otherwise unassuming Airstream trailer. "NASA 025 was designed to land crewed missions at Edwards Air Force Base. [Airstream] informed me that this was, in their, words, 'the only NASA Airstream ever sold,' and the others [001-024] were all crushed or in museums. The sister crew vehicle (a 28-ft with one rear axle) is sitting at Kennedy museum [the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex]. All the rest are gone, except for this one." Kitzen picked up the vehicle in 2022 up after spotting it on a government surplus auction site, where it had been listed with few details and at a very low starting price. As for how the rare vehicle ended up for sale in the first place, Kitzen says he was told it was a mistake. "Apparently there was some miscommunication when the vehicle was decommissioned," he claims in the sale listing. "It should have been offered to museums but the sales team did not know what it was. They were told it was just a 'NASA vehicle,' they did not know it had any special status or history. To the sellers they thought it was just a van that could have been for moving laundry around the base. It was an accidental (yet valid) sale. "When I pulled up to Vandenberg Air Force Base after getting my NASA contractor badge I was greeted by the senior asset manager," Kitzen continues. "'We didn't know what we were selling!' were the first words out of her mouth. 'We didn't advertise it or offer it up to museums, the phone has exploded. Nobody told us what it was!'" [...] The listing on vehicle sale site Hemmings.com has an asking price of $199,000, though with no offers yet submitted. A listing on eBay with a $50,000 minimum bid and $290,000 buy-it-now price ended in May with no takers.

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alternative_right shares an interview from The Register with David W. Hill, who served as lead designer for ThinkPad from 1995 to 2017. Here are some excerpts from the wide-ranging interview: Hill revealed that he tried several times to introduce additional laptops that had the famous "butterfly keyboard" found on the ThinkPad 701C. [...] Hill told The Register that he had wanted to make more ThinkPads with butterfly keyboards and had tried at least three times to make it happen -- in one case there was a prototype where only half of the keyboard moved -- but was never able to get there. Eventually, screens became big enough that there was no need to have a keyboard that expanded. However, Hill said, he thought about putting a butterfly keyboard on a netbook when they were a viable product category in the late aughts. [...] One of the features Hill is most proud of developing is the ThinkLight, an overhead light located above the screen that lit up the entire keyboard and deck. Though the advent of keyboard backlights has made the ThinkLight redundant -- Lenovo discontinued it in 2013 -- it offers capabilities that backlights do not. If you want to place a paper on top of your keyboard, the LED will light it up, allowing you to see more than just your key legends. ... When designing the 25th anniversary ThinkPad, which came out in 2017, Hill brought back the ThinkLight, but he actually wanted to have -- for the first time -- two LEDs instead of one. The dual lights would have eliminated shadows and provided even better illumination, but unfortunately, this effort proved too costly to make it into the final product. [...] When I asked Hill about products he wanted to come out with but never got to, he talked about an idea for portable workstations that would fold up like a laptop but have a separate keyboard and screen like a desktop when you put them on your desk. He collaborated with butterfly keyboard creator John Karidis on this concept, but couldn't make it ready for market. "We did a lot of experimentation with laptops that sort of unfolded to be more like a desktop: things where the display elevated or the keyboard would remove so you could use them like a workstation, rather than just being a clamshell with a hinge, you open and close," Hill recalled. "We did a lot of experimentation with that and got close a few times, but never could completely sell it. I always thought it was an opportunity to create a new category."

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Ancient Slashdot reader Epeeist shares a report from The Guardian: The newest version of the maglev train is capable of traveling at 600km/h (about 370mph). However, the train's engineers have wrestled with the problem of the shock waves which occur as the train exits the mouth of a tunnel. When a high-speed train enters an enclosed space such as a tunnel, air in front is compressed, like in a piston. The resulting fluctuations in air pressure coalesce at the tunnel mouth, generating low-frequency shock waves. These are colloquially known as a "tunnel boom" -- a related, albeit different phenomenon to the "sonic boom" heard as aircraft pass the speed of sound. Tunnel booms pose serious challenges to operational safety, as the shock waves can disturb humans and animals nearby, as well as causing structural damage. Now, however, researchers have discovered that placing innovative soundproofing buffers at tunnel mouths can reduce shock waves by up to 96%. This promises improvements in operational safety, noise pollution and passenger comfort, as well as safeguarding animals in the vicinity of future lines. [...] The porous structure of the new 100-meter long buffers, combined with porous coatings on the tunnel body, allow the trapped air to escape before the train reaches the tunnel mouth, suppressing the boom in the same way as a silencer fitted to a firearm.

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from 404 Media: Some of the first reviews ever written for the original Legend of Zelda and Super Mario Bros. have been digitized and published by the Video Game History Foundation. The reviews appeared in Computer Entertainer, an early video game magazine that ran from 1982 to 1990. The archivists at the Foundation tracked down the magazine's entire run and have published it all online under a Creative Commons license.

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Duolingo's decision to go "AI-first" sparked backlash from users, but the company's second quarter earnings result tell a different story. Quarterly revenue exceeded expectations, stock surged nearly 30%, and daily active users grew 40% year-over-year. TechCrunch reports: Now the company anticipates making over $1 billion in revenue this year, and daily active users have grown 40% year-over-year. The growth is significant but falls in the lower range of the company's estimates of growing between 40% and 45%, which an investor brought up to [CEO Luis von Ahn] on Wednesday's quarterly earnings call. "The reason we came [in] towards the lower end was because I said some stuff about AI, and I didn't give enough context. Because of that, we got some backlash on social media," von Ahn said. "The most important thing is we wanted to make the sentiment on our social media positive. We stopped posting edgy posts and started posting things that would get our sentiment more positive. That has worked."

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Despite dwindling global market share, retreat from key regions like Europe, and halting in-house production, Sony insists its Xperia smartphone line remains "very important" to its business. 9to5Google reports: During Sony's latest financial results presentation this week, Sony CFO Lin Tao addressed the state of its Xperia smartphone brand, saying that Xperia is part of "a very important business for us" as reported by CNET Japan (translated). Tao said that "communication technology is a very important technology that Sony has cultivated for a long time. We also want to continue to value our smartphone business." Though adding that "communication technology is used in areas other than smartphones."

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