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Anthropic boss rejects Pentagon demand to drop AI safeguards

BBC Tech News - Fri, 02/27/2026 - 5:57am
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth previously threatened to remove the firm from the department's supply chain.

Anthropic boss rejects Pentagon demand to drop AI safeguards

BBC Tech News - Fri, 02/27/2026 - 5:57am
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth previously threatened to remove the firm from the department's supply chain.

Best Red Light Therapy for Hair Growth: WIRED-Approved (2026)

Wired Top Stories - Fri, 02/27/2026 - 5:30am
After 16 weeks of daily use, our WIRED testers saw visible hair regrowth with these red light therapy devices.

'Tech Jesus' takes elevator pitching literally, trapping founders with VCs for 30 seconds

Mass High Tech News - Fri, 02/27/2026 - 5:30am
PitchLift takes the concept of an elevator pitch literally. But it's more than an event series. It's a show for the "attention economy." And its founder wants it to draw people to Boston, "the greatest city on Earth."

Moon's Ancient Magnetic Field May Have Flickered On and Off

Slashdot - Fri, 02/27/2026 - 5:00am
sciencehabit quotes a report from Science Magazine: For decades, planetary scientists have pored over a mystery hidden within the Moon rocks retrieved by Apollo astronauts in the 1960s and '70s. Minerals in the rocks record the imprint of a magnetic field, nearly as powerful as Earth's, that existed more than 3.5 billion years ago and seemed to persist for millions of years. But generating a magnetic field requires a dynamo -- a churning, molten core -- and most researchers believed the Moon's tiny core would have long since cooled off, 1 billion years after it formed. Corroborating that picture are other ancient Moon rocks of about the same age that suggest the field was weak -- leaving planetary scientists baffled. Now, researchers are proposing a new way to solve the puzzle. A paper published today in Nature Geoscience theorizes that between 3.5 billion and 4 billion years ago, blobs of titanium-rich magma melted episodically just above the core, rising in plumes that drove volcanic eruptions on the surface. By intermittently stirring up the Moon's core, these bouts of melting would have caused the Moon's magnetic field to flicker on in short, powerful bursts. The paper "links a few different concepts that people were thinking about separately, but hadn't actually brought together," says Sonia Tikoo, a planetary geophysicist at Stanford University who was not involved in the study.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

'I was on Instagram all day' - woman tells landmark trial

BBC Tech News - Fri, 02/27/2026 - 4:57am
The young woman, who accuses Meta and Google of making addictive social media platforms, has been speaking in court.

'I was on Instagram all day' - woman tells landmark trial

BBC Tech News - Fri, 02/27/2026 - 4:57am
The young woman, who accuses Meta and Google of making addictive social media platforms, has been speaking in court.

6 Great Power Bank Deals for Your Thirsty Phone Battery

Wired Top Stories - Fri, 02/27/2026 - 4:36am
We’ve tested dozens of portable power banks, and several of our top picks are on sale right now.

Preorder Google’s Newest Phone and Get a Free $100 Gift Card

Wired Top Stories - Fri, 02/27/2026 - 4:08am
If you’re planning on upgrading to the newest midrange Pixel phone, this deal is worth your while.

NASA Reveals Identity of Astronaut Who Suffered Medical Incident Aboard ISS

Slashdot - Fri, 02/27/2026 - 2:00am
Longtime Slashdot reader ArchieBunker shares a report from NBC News: NASA revealed that astronaut Mike Fincke was the crew member who suffered a medical incident at the International Space Station in January, which prompted the agency to carry out the first evacuation due to a medical issue in the space station's 25-year history. The rare decision to cut a mission short and bring Fincke and three other crew members home early made for a dramatic week in space early this year. In a statement released by NASA "at the request of Fincke," the veteran astronaut said he experienced a medical event on Jan. 7 "that required immediate attention" from his space station crew members. "Thanks to their quick response and the guidance of our NASA flight surgeons, my status quickly stabilized," Fincke, 58, said in the statement. [...] In his statement, Fincke thanked his Crew-11 colleagues, along with NASA astronaut Chris Williams and Russian cosmonauts Sergey Kud-Sverchkov and Sergei Mikaev, who were also aboard the space station at the time and are still in space. Fincke also thanked the teams at NASA, SpaceX and the medical professionals at Scripps Memorial Hospital La Jolla. "Their professionalism and dedication ensured a positive outcome," he said. Fincke ended his statement by saying he is "doing very well" and still actively involved with standard post-flight reconditioning at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston. "Spaceflight is an incredible privilege, and sometimes it reminds us just how human we are," he said. "Thank you for all your support."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Anthropic CEO Says AI Company 'Cannot In Good Conscience Accede' To Pentagon

Slashdot - Thu, 02/26/2026 - 10:30pm
An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Associated Press: Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei said Thursday the artificial intelligence company "cannot in good conscience accede" to the Pentagon's demands to allow wider use of its technology. The maker of the AI chatbot Claude said in a statement that it's not walking away from negotiations, but that new contract language received from the Defense Department "made virtually no progress on preventing Claude's use for mass surveillance of Americans or in fully autonomous weapons." The Pentagon's top spokesman has reiterated that the military wants to use Anthropic's artificial intelligence technology in legal ways and will not let the company dictate any limits ahead of a Friday deadline to agree to its demands. Sean Parnell said Thursday on social media that the Pentagon "has no interest in using AI to conduct mass surveillance of Americans (which is illegal) nor do we want to use AI to develop autonomous weapons that operate without human involvement." Anthropic's policies prevent its models, such as its chatbot Claude, from being used for those purposes. It's the last of its peers -- the Pentagon also has contracts with Google, OpenAI and Elon Musk's xAI -- to not supply its technology to a new U.S. military internal network. Parnell said the Pentagon wants to "use Anthropic's model for all lawful purposes" but didn't offer details on what that entailed. He said opening up use of the technology would prevent the company from "jeopardizing critical military operations." "We will not let ANY company dictate the terms regarding how we make operational decisions," he said. In a post on X, Parnell said Anthropic will "have until 5:01 PM ET on Friday to decide. Otherwise, we will terminate our partnership with Anthropic and deem them a supply chain risk for DOW."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Northeastern prof: The state's AI momentum faces a regulatory threat

Mass High Tech News - Thu, 02/26/2026 - 10:00pm
The state has invested in AI education and healthcare pilots. A Northeastern professor warns that fear-driven policy could send the jobs to other states.

The Latest Repair Battlefield Is the Iowa Farmlands—Again

Wired Top Stories - Thu, 02/26/2026 - 8:05pm
A new bill that would give farmers in Iowa the right to repair is a big threat to tractor manufacturer John Deere.

Four Convicted Over Spyware Affair That Shook Greece

Slashdot - Thu, 02/26/2026 - 7:45pm
A Greek court has convicted four individuals linked to the marketing of Predator spyware in the wiretapping scandal that shook the country in 2022. The BBC reports: In what became known as "Greece's Watergate," surveillance software called Predator was used to target 87 people -- among them government ministers, senior military officials and journalists. The four who had marketed the software were found guilty by an Athens court of misdemeanours of violating the confidentiality of telephone communications and illegally accessing personal data and conversations. The court sentenced the four defendants to lengthy jail sentences, suspended pending appeal. Although they each face 126 years, only eight would be typically served which is the upper limit for misdemeanors. One in three of the dozens of figures targeted had also been under legal surveillance by Greece's intelligence services (EYP). Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, who had placed EYP directly under his supervision, called it a scandal, but no government officials have been charged in court and critics accuse the government of trying to cover up the truth. The case dates back to the summer of 2022, when the current head of Greek Socialist party Pasok, Nikos Androulakis - then an MEP - was informed by the European Parliament's IT experts that he had received a malicious text message containing a link. Predator spyware, marketed by the Athens-based Israeli company Intellexa, can get access to a device's messages, camera, and microphone. Its use was illegal in Greece at that time but a new law passed in 2022 has since legalised state security use of surveillance software under strict conditions. Androulakis also discovered that he had been tracked for "national security reasons" by Greece's intelligence services. The scandal has since escalated into a debate over democratic accountability in Greece.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

These Are Our Absolute Favorite Android Earbuds, and They're Below $200

Wired Top Stories - Thu, 02/26/2026 - 7:36pm
The Pixel Buds Pro 2 have great ANC and long battery life, and they’re marked down in several colors.

Jack Dorsey's Block cuts thousands of jobs as it embraces AI

BBC Tech News - Thu, 02/26/2026 - 7:06pm
The Twitter co-founder says he believes the majority of firms will make similar changes "within the next year."

Jack Dorsey's Block cuts thousands of jobs as it embraces AI

BBC Tech News - Thu, 02/26/2026 - 7:06pm
The Twitter co-founder says he believes the majority of firms will make similar changes "within the next year."

Jack Dorsey's Block cuts thousands of jobs as it embraces AI

BBC Tech News - Thu, 02/26/2026 - 7:06pm
The Twitter co-founder says artificial intelligence "fundamentally changes what it means to build and run a company."

Why you can't get a signal at festivals and sports matches

BBC Tech News - Thu, 02/26/2026 - 7:03pm
Connecting up music and sports events to the internet is a massive undertaking.

Why you can't get a signal at festivals and sports matches

BBC Tech News - Thu, 02/26/2026 - 7:03pm
Connecting up music and sports events to the internet is a massive undertaking.

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