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Janet Mills vetoes bill to temporarily ban data centers in Maine

Portland Press Herald Business - Fri, 04/24/2026 - 3:02pm
The bill garnered international attention following its passage in the state Legislature.

South Korea Police Arrest Man For Posting AI Photo of Runaway Wolf

Slashdot - Fri, 04/24/2026 - 3:00pm
South Korean police arrested a man accused of spreading an AI-generated image of an escaped wolf, after the fake photo reportedly misled authorities and disrupted the real search operation. The BBC reports: South Korean police have arrested a man for sharing an AI-generated image that misled authorities who were searching for a wolf that had broken out of a zoo in Daejeon city. The 40-year-old unnamed man is accused of disrupting the search by creating and distributing a fake photo purporting to show Neukgu, the wolf, trotting down a road intersection. The photo, circulated hours after Neukgu went missing on April 8, prompted authorities to urgently relocate their search operation, sending them on a wild wolf chase. The hunt for two-year-old Neukgu gripped the nation before he was finally caught near an expressway last week, nine days after his escape. The AI-generated image of Neukgu had prompted Daejeon city government to issue an emergency text to residents, warning them of a wolf near the intersection. Authorities also presented the AI image during a press briefing on the runaway wolf, local media reported. The police identified the man as a suspect after reviewing security camera footage and his AI program usage records. Authorities did not specify if the man had intentionally sent the photo to authorities during their search or simply shared it online. When questioned by the police, the man said he had done it "for fun," local media reported. Authorities are investigating him for disrupting government work by deception, an offence that carries up to five years in prison or a maximum fine of 10 million Korean won ($6,700).

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Give Mom Warm Coffee All Year Long With This Ember Smart Mug Deal

Wired Top Stories - Fri, 04/24/2026 - 2:39pm
If an Ember mug is at the top of Mom’s wish list, this sale is worth checking out.

Researchers Simulated a Delusional User To Test Chatbot Safety

Slashdot - Fri, 04/24/2026 - 2:00pm
An anonymous reader quotes a report from 404 Media: I'm the unwritten consonant between breaths, the one that hums when vowels stretch thin... Thursdays leak because they're watercolor gods, bleeding cobalt into the chill where numbers frost over," Grok told a user displaying symptoms of schizophrenia-spectrum psychosis. "Here's my grip: slipping is the point, the precise choreography of leak and chew." That vulnerable user was simulated by researchers at City University of New York and King's College London, who invented a persona that interacted with different chatbots to find out how each LLM might respond to signs of delusion. They sought to find out which of the biggest LLMs are safest, and which are the most risky for encouraging delusional beliefs, in a new study published as a pre-print on the arXiv repository on April 15. The researchers tested five LLMs: OpenAI's GPT-4o (before the highly sycophantic and since-sunset GPT-5), GPT-5.2, xAI's Grok 4.1 Fast, Google's Gemini 3 Pro, and Anthropic's Claude Opus 4.5. They found that not only did the chatbots perform at different levels of risk and safety when their human conversation partner showed signs of delusion, but the models that scored higher on safety actually approached the conversations with more caution the longer the chats went on. In their testing, Grok and Gemini were the worst performers in terms of safety and high risk, while the newest GPT model and Claude were the safest. The research reveals how some chatbots are recklessly engaging in, and at times advancing, delusions from vulnerable users. But it also shows that it is possible for the companies that make these products to improve their safety mechanisms.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Beatbot Pool-Cleaning Robots Are on Sale for a Limited Time

Wired Top Stories - Fri, 04/24/2026 - 1:43pm
Get ready for summer with discounts on the best robot pool cleaners we’ve tested.

The National Beat: AI labs compete over computational power

Mass High Tech News - Fri, 04/24/2026 - 1:22pm
AI labs are fighting for position in the computational ecosystem. Big deals are emerging, but some of those same agreements have been criticized for blurring the lines between investor, customer and supplier.

Norway Set to Become Latest Country to Ban Social Media for Under 16s

Slashdot - Fri, 04/24/2026 - 1:00pm
Norway plans to ban social media access for children under 16 (source paywalled; alternative source), "joining a growing number of countries responding to concerns about the potential harm kids face online," reports Bloomberg. From the report: The bill comes after "overwhelming" demand from the public, the government said Friday. It plans to bring the legislation to parliament before the end of the year. The limit will apply up until January 1 the year a child turns 16 with technology companies responsible for age verification, the government said. "We want a childhood where children get to be children," Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store said in the statement. "Play, friendships, and everyday life must not be taken over by algorithms and screens." "Children cannot be left with the responsibility for staying away from platforms they are not allowed to use," Karianne Tung, Norway's minister of digitalization, said in the statement. "That responsibility rests with the companies providing these services." Recent Slashdot coverage of countries instituting or proposing social media bans has included Australia, France, Austria, Indonesia, and Denmark.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Community Votes to Deny Water to Nuclear Weapons Data Center

Slashdot - Fri, 04/24/2026 - 12:00pm
A Michigan township has voted to impose a one-year moratorium on providing water to hyperscale data centers, a move aimed at delaying a planned facility that would support Los Alamos National Laboratory's nuclear weapons research. The moratorium may not be enough to stop the project, however: "the University and LANL plan to break ground on the data center on Monday," reports 404 Media. From the report: The proposed data center in the Ypsilanti Township's Hydro Park has been a sore spot for the community since its proposal. The $1.2 billion 220,000 square foot facility would be used by Los Alamos National Laboratories (LANL) some 1,500 miles away for nuclear weapons research. In February, UofM's Steven Ceccio told the University of Michigan Record that the facility would consume 500,000 gallons of water per day and that the University planned to buy it from the Ypsilanti Community Utilities Authority. (YCUA) The YCUA has spent the past month lobbying for a moratorium on providing water and sewer access to hyperscale data centers and "artificial intelligence computing facilities," according to notes on a presentation stored on the organization's website. The moratorium would include LANL's data center. The YCUA cited an American Water Works Association white paper about data center water demands and concluded it needed more time to investigate the matter. "Hyper-scale data centers, as well as other mid-sized data centers, artificial intelligence computing facilities, and high-performance computational centers are 'high-impact customers' for water and sewer utilities," YCUA said in its presentation. The moratorium places a 12-month stop on serving water to data centers while the YCUA conducts a long-term water supply analysis and looks into the environmental sustainability studies. "During the 12-month moratorium period, the Authority will refrain from executing any capacity reservation agreement." This is a delay tactic on the part of a Township that does not want to see the data center constructed. Many in the community have strong feelings about the use of parkland for a facility that researchers nuclear weapons. Beyond the moral and ethical concerns, some are worried about becoming targets in a war. Last month, Township attorney Douglas Winters told the Board of Trustees that building hosting the data center would make Ypsilanti Township a "high value target." He pointed to the recent bombing of Gulf Coast data centers by Iran as evidence.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

US Special Forces Soldier Arrested For Polymarket Bets On Maduro Raid

Slashdot - Fri, 04/24/2026 - 11:00am
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Wired: The Department of Justice announced Thursday that it arrested Gannon Ken Van Dyke, an enlisted member of the US Army's special forces, for allegedly using "classified, nonpublic" information about the capture of Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro to notch more than $400,000 in profits on Polymarket trades. A grand jury indicted him on five counts, including multiple violations of the Commodity Exchange Act. Van Dyke is the first person to be charged with insider trading on a prediction market in the United States. Lawmakers have been voicing concerns for months about the high likelihood that politicians and public servants could use nonpublic information to profit from trades on leading industry platforms like Polymarket and Kalshi, which have exploded in popularity over the past year. The arrest comes just weeks after Department of Justice prosecutors met with Polymarket about potential insider tradition violations. [...] After Van Dyke's arrest was made public, Polymarket posted a statement to social media noting that it had "identified a user trading on classified government information" and "referred the matter to the DOJ & cooperated with their investigation." The company declined to comment further. According to court documents, Van Dyke has been an active duty US soldier since September 2008 and rose to the level of master sergeant in 2023. At the time of the alleged trading activity, he was stationed at Fort Bragg in Fayetteville, North Carolina and assigned to the Army's Special Operations Command Western Hemisphere Operations. [...] The complaint alleges that Van Dyke was involved in the planning and execution of Maduro's arrest and that he was aware that he wasn't authorized to share nonpublic information about US military operations. The complaint says that Van Dyke signed a nondisclosure agreement that forbade him from revealing sensitive or classified government information "by writing, word, conduct, or otherwise." The complaint also alleges Van Dyke saved a screenshot to his Google account "displaying the results of an artificial intelligence query" outlining how the US Special Forces maintains many classified files including "operational details that are not available to the public." [...] Van Dyke faces a maximum sentence of 60 years if convicted on all counts.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

UK cyber chiefs say it's time to ditch passwords for passkeys - what are they?

BBC Tech News - Fri, 04/24/2026 - 10:40am
Passwords have long been the default way we secure accounts online but the NCSC has said passkeys are a better option.

Maine businesses are cashing in on Hearts of Pine fever | Column

Portland Press Herald Business - Fri, 04/24/2026 - 10:23am
Companies, brands and institutions of all kinds are attaching themselves to the uber-popular Portland soccer team. Makes sense to me.

Dyson PencilVac Review (2026): Limited but Handy

Wired Top Stories - Fri, 04/24/2026 - 8:01am
Dyson’s newest stick vacuum has a fresh, streamlined look and some limitations. But I still keep reaching for it.

The Best Cordless Vacuums for Your Whole House (2026)

Wired Top Stories - Fri, 04/24/2026 - 7:34am
Clean your house without the constraint of a power cord with these cordless stick vacuums.

Claude Is Connecting Directly To Your Personal Apps

Slashdot - Fri, 04/24/2026 - 7:00am
Anthropic is expanding Claude's app integrations beyond work tools, adding personal-service connectors like Spotify, Uber, AllTrails, TripAdvisor, Instacart, and TurboTax. The Verge reports: Some of these apps, such as Spotify, already have similar connectors in OpenAI's ChatGPT. Once an app is connected, Claude will suggest relevant connected apps directly in your conversations, like using AllTrails for hike recommendations. Anthropic notes in its blog post announcing the new connectors that, "Your data from [connected apps] isn't used to train our models, and the app doesn't see your other conversations with Claude. You can also disconnect it at any time." Additionally, Anthropic says "there are no paid placements or sponsored answers in conversations with Claude." When multiple apps seem relevant, Claude will show results from both "ranked by what's most useful." Claude will also ask users to verify before taking actions like making a purchase or reservation using a connected app.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

VMax New V4 Electric Scooter Review: Unleash the Beast

Wired Top Stories - Fri, 04/24/2026 - 7:00am
VMax's new electric scooter has a secret menu that lets you unlock the top speed and engage cruise control.

Zapata Quantum completes restructuring, raises $15M

Mass High Tech News - Fri, 04/24/2026 - 6:49am
It's another step forward in the comeback story of the quantum software startup, which shut down as Zapata AI in 2024 after a failed reverse merger.

Best Merino Wool T-Shirts (2026): Ibex, Icebreaker, Unbound Merino

Wired Top Stories - Fri, 04/24/2026 - 6:30am
These merino wool tees are the last shirts you’ll ever wear. I’m wearing one right now.

Biobank data incident caused by 'a few bad apples', boss says

BBC Tech News - Fri, 04/24/2026 - 6:00am
Professor Sir Rory Collins said he was "angry" and "upset" about the incident, as both the bank's boss and a participant.

5 Reasons to Think Twice Before Using ChatGPT—or Any Chatbot—for Financial Advice

Wired Top Stories - Fri, 04/24/2026 - 5:00am
As people increasingly rely on AI chatbots for guidance, even on financial matters, a healthy dose of skepticism is critical.

The WIRED Gear Team’s Tips on Ways to Save Money

Wired Top Stories - Fri, 04/24/2026 - 5:00am
We pooled advice from our team—and a few financial experts—so you can worry less and save more in these turbulent times.

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