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What you need to know about the OpenAI Australian government hack

BBC Tech News - Thu, 09/24/2026 - 1:18am
The BBC’s North America technology correspondent Lily Jamali explains how the Medicare breach happened, and why it matters.

50% Off DoorDash Promo Code | September 2026

Wired Top Stories - Thu, 09/24/2026 - 1:00am
Explore today’s top DoorDash promo codes for $25 off your first order, free delivery, and 50% off DashPass for students and select users.

Starz Promo Codes: $5 Off for September 2026

Wired Top Stories - Thu, 09/24/2026 - 1:00am
Ready to stream award-winning series, hit movies, and exclusive originals? Our comprehensive guide helps you find every active Starz coupon, free trial, and discount code to save big on your subscription this 2026.

Cities Across US Oppose Trump FCC Plan to Preempt Local Broadband Rules

Slashdot - Wed, 09/23/2026 - 9:04pm
Ars Technica reports: Cities and counties around the U.S. are angry at the Trump administration over a proposal to override local rules that govern the deployment of wired broadband networks... The Federal Communications Commission [FCC] argues that too many local governments "excessively delay approvals and seek to extract exorbitant sums from providers, resulting in costs that render some deployments infeasible." The FCC plan is supported by broadband providers, but local governments told the FCC that it would override rules that protect public safety. Local governments say the plan is illegal and that the FCC should instead focus on how Internet providers thwart competition with permit-hoarding and other tactics that prevent competitors from deploying networks... They object to FCC plans to impose a 120-day deadline for processing permits and to proposed limits on fees and compensation that local governments can require from providers... Another filing submitted by the League of California Cities said the FCC has no authority to adopt the proposal. "Federal preemption of traditional state and local authority over public property, construction, public safety, permitting, and rights-of-way management should rest on clear congressional authorization," the filing said. "The commission should not infer broad preemptive authority where Congress did not expressly provide it...." A filing by Minnesota cities said the current FCC is making the same mistake it made during the first Trump administration, when its attempt to preempt state net neutrality laws was blocked in court... If the FCC finalizes its new preemption plan, city and state governments could sue and ask a court to rule that the agency exceeded its authority... Democratic Commissioner Anna Gomez approved the step of asking the public for input but signaled she would vote against the final proposal. "I am dubious about the commission's authority under Section 253 to use rulemaking to preempt states and localities when it comes to their management of rights of way and fees charged to providers," she said.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Meta Pinky Promises Its Smart Glasses Will Be Private Soon

Wired Top Stories - Wed, 09/23/2026 - 8:00pm
The company is bringing its Private Processing encryption service to its much-maligned smart glasses.

Meta VR Glasses, Ray-Ban Meta Audio, Ray-Ban Meta Gen 3: Specs, Features, Prices

Wired Top Stories - Wed, 09/23/2026 - 7:42pm
At its Meta Connect event, CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced a handful of new smart glasses, including a slimmed-down VR headset and the company’s first camera-free glasses.

Indians are discovering the thrill of shopping without paying

BBC Tech News - Wed, 09/23/2026 - 7:14pm
Dopamine sites mimic shopping’s thrill without the spending, turning the ritual of consumption into a digital game.

US rejects pleas from OpenAI, Anthropic for global AI standards

BBC Tech News - Wed, 09/23/2026 - 6:35pm
OpenAI's Sam Altman has called for risk evaluation standards, as have Anthropic's Dario Amodei and Hugging Face's Clement Delangue.

Beloved Westbrook bowling alley to shutter after 64 years

Portland Press Herald Business - Wed, 09/23/2026 - 6:06pm
Stepping into West-Port Bowling Lanes feels like traveling back in time to 1962. On Friday, it's closing its doors for the last time.

FBI investigates claim by hackers they stole data on all agency staff

BBC Tech News - Wed, 09/23/2026 - 5:30pm
The hackers claim they have every agent's name, role, badge number and personal details including home address, phone numbers and spouse information.

What Thursday’s union vote means for the nurses fired by CMMC

Portland Press Herald Business - Wed, 09/23/2026 - 4:57pm
The election marks the beginning of what could be a long fight to reinstate the nurses at the Lewiston hospital.

Whatever Happened to the 150,000 Tons of Radioactive Waste Stored Under the Atlantic Ocean?

Slashdot - Wed, 09/23/2026 - 4:34pm
More than 200,000 barrels of low-level radioactive waste were stored on the floor of the Atlantic Ocean between 1949 and 1982, reports ScienceAlert. Whatever happened to those barrels? Scientists have descended to the wreckage in a crewed submersible to investigate — and found many of the barrels corroded and degraded, their contents spilling across the seafloor. Surprisingly, this isn't necessarily a subversion of the original plan... The International Atomic Energy Agency recommends that low-level waste be disposed of in robust containment in isolation for at least a few hundred years — but back in the mid-20th century, the recommendations were a little different. The contemporaneous guidelines recommended that containers needed to reach the seafloor intact and remain sealed only long enough for the short-lived radionuclides to decay. After that, the remaining waste was expected to slowly escape and disperse through the surrounding ocean. Not everything in the barrels would conveniently decay away, however. They contained a radioactive hodgepodge, including cesium-137, plutonium isotopes, and tritium, some of which can persist for thousands of years... [A] few years ago, nuclear engineer Patrick Chardon and marine geologist Javier Escartín of the French National Center for Scientific Research started to wonder what had become of the dumped waste. That question eventually became NODSSUM — Nuclear Ocean Dump Site Survey Monitoring — an interdisciplinary project bringing together nuclear physics, geology, oceanography, biology, and marine chemistry to find the barrels and investigate what, if anything, they were doing to the surrounding environment.... [T]he barrels also appeared to function as tiny oases on the otherwise sparsely populated sandy seafloor. Anemones had attached themselves to the barrels. Sponges, sea cucumbers, fish, and crustaceans lived around them, with crabs apparently particularly fond of the artificial shelters... Instruments aboard the ship detected significant signals of cobalt-60 and niobium-94, which the researchers could specifically link to the dumped waste... [Samples are now being analyzed] There is precedent, however, to suggest that even striking levels of radioactivity around a source don't necessarily spread very far. A recent study of the sunken Soviet submarine Komsomolets found radionuclide levels hundreds of thousands of times above background immediately around the leaking reactor — but those levels dropped sharply within just a few meters as the material dispersed through the seawater. The NODSSUM team similarly found that, despite the significant radioactive signals around the barrels, activity levels weren't high enough to pose major radiation-protection problems for the scientists handling the samples. [Their three-person submersible] Nautile and the instruments it carried showed no signs of contamination. The real achievement was mapping the exact location of the barrels. "None of this means the waste is harmless," the article concludes — but it also doesn't mean we're about to be overrun by radioactive crabs."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Bentley Wants Its Torcal SUV to Break the Curse of the Luxury EV

Wired Top Stories - Wed, 09/23/2026 - 2:15pm
The British high-end auto company reveals its first-ever full EV: 330 miles of range, 0 to 60 mph in under 3 seconds, and an orchestra under the hood. Will it be enough to lure high-rollers?

2 restaurants burgled in Portland’s West End

Portland Press Herald Business - Wed, 09/23/2026 - 1:55pm
The perpetrator hit both Ugly Duckling and Smalls Tuesday night in burglaries that police believe are related.

Gov. Mills calls on CMMC in Lewiston to reinstate nurses

Portland Press Herald Business - Wed, 09/23/2026 - 12:31pm
The governor said the hospital's firing of 15 nurses and suspension of 5 more raises 'serious questions about retaliation.'

Andreessen Horowitz Launches AI/Company-Building School As a College Alternative

Slashdot - Wed, 09/23/2026 - 12:04pm
TechCrunch quipped it was like if startup school Y Combinator and Peter Thiel's build-a-company-instead of-college Fellowship Program had a baby. Silicon Valley venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz is investing $35 million to launch a private school in San Francisco "aimed at turning high school graduates into founders," writes the SF Standard. Or, as CBS News describes it, "One blue-chip Silicon Valley investor has a proposal for young people who are questioning whether to attend college — enroll in AI school instead...." Specifically, the academy will provide instruction geared to subjects such as designing AI systems, fundraising for startups, selling businesses and storytelling. Students won't take tests or be assigned homework but will instead focus on building real projects. Courses will be taught by tech entrepreneurs, with the academy naming OpenAI CEO Sam Altman as either an instructor or guest lecturer. From the SF Standard: "There will be no traditional grades, tests, or homework," said the announcement. Instead, students will be encouraged to "build" in SF and work with partners from Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, Meta, and other firms. They'll be encouraged to live in campus housing in San Francisco. "The #1 goal is to help students learn to build, which is the most important skill in the AI era," Gagan Biyani, chief executive of the academy, wrote on X. Biyani cofounded the ed-tech startup Udemy... The school is opening applications for a Founding Class Fellowship a one-year, tuition-free program for around 50 students... The academy said it will bring in notable Silicon Valley names, like OpenAI's Sam Altman, as guest speakers and faculty. Students in the founding class will receive about $50,000 worth of computing credit — the sought-after currency in Silicon Valley to run AI models — as well as a $5,000 travel and research budget. The school is receiving funding from tech executives, including Fidji Simo, formerly of OpenAI and Instacart; Garry Tan, CEO of Y Combinator; and Tobi Lütke, CEO of Shopify. "In the AI era, it's more important to come out with a portfolio of projects that you worked on and work experience than it is to have a diploma or certificate," Biyani told the San Francisco Chronicle: Biyani said the academy plans to grow its enrollment and open a two-year program, pending regulatory approval, starting in the fall of 2028. Tuition is expected to be on par with the cost of an elite private university... The academy raised $42 million in funding led by Andreessen Horowitz. The ten founding partners are Anduril, Anthropic, Coinbase, Google, Meta, Nvidia, OpenAI, Palantir, Replit and Stripe. A network of hundreds of instructors, hiring partners and guest speakers includes OpenAI co-founder Sam Altman, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, neuroscientist Andrew Huberman and Microsoft chairman and CEO Satya Nadella, according to the academy's website. The FAQ describes a typical week by saying "Most of your time is yours to build. Each week, you share your progress with peers and practitioners, get direct feedback, and decide where to take your work next." Q: Can I use AI to help with my application? A: Yes. Use AI the way you'd use it on any project: to move faster, test ideas, and get past a blank page.... "The best assignments now are problems so hard they cannot be solved without AI," Andreessen Horowitz argued on X.com. "The Academy courses follow the same logic and will be taught by world-class leaders... The next generation will not be taught the way the last one was. The Academy is built for that world, and it begins in San Francisco." Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader theodp for sharing the news.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Pornhub investigated over its age checks

BBC Tech News - Wed, 09/23/2026 - 11:56am
The regulator says it has concerns over how the site is relying on third party checks provided by Apple for some users.

Bangor’s W.A. Bean now using all-natural dye in red snapper hot dogs

Portland Press Herald Business - Wed, 09/23/2026 - 11:36am
The change comes before a federal ban on artificial red dye in foods takes effect in January.

Fast casual bowl and smoothie restaurant opens on Congress Street

Portland Press Herald Business - Wed, 09/23/2026 - 11:34am
Paak comes from the team behind Sook Thai Mobile Kitchen.

Kingfield bans large gatherings at campsite after complaints linked to religious group’s music, chanting

Portland Press Herald Business - Wed, 09/23/2026 - 11:30am
Town officials say Deer Farm violated town zoning rules by hosting a large men's religious retreat in August without required approval.

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