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Rocket stocks soar on report Musk's SpaceX to file for share sale

BBC Tech News - Wed, 03/25/2026 - 10:01pm
Reports it plans the biggest listing ever sent the shares of firms in its orbit soaring in US trade on Wednesday.

Defense tech firm continues buying spree after moving HQ to Florida

Mass High Tech News - Wed, 03/25/2026 - 9:02pm
The company relocated to West Palm Beach in January after ranking among the Bay State's fastest-growing public firms.

Parents should monitor children '24/7' on Roblox, says developer

BBC Tech News - Wed, 03/25/2026 - 8:31pm
Roblox said safety was a top priority and it had advanced safeguards in place to keep users safe.

Parents should monitor children '24/7' on Roblox, says developer

BBC Tech News - Wed, 03/25/2026 - 8:31pm
Roblox said safety was a top priority and it had advanced safeguards in place to keep users safe.

Postal Service to Impose Its First-Ever Fuel Surcharge on Packages

Slashdot - Wed, 03/25/2026 - 7:00pm
The U.S. Postal Service plans to impose its first-ever fuel surcharge on packages (source paywalled; alternative source), adding an 8% fee starting in April as it struggles with rising fuel costs and ongoing financial pressure. The surcharge will not apply to letter mail and is currently expected to remain in place until January 2027. The Wall Street Journal reports: Other parcel carriers, including FedEx and United Parcel Service, have imposed fuel surcharges, as well as a basket of other surcharges and fees, for years. Both FedEx and UPS have dramatically raised their fuel surcharges in recent weeks as the price of oil has increased amid the turmoil in the Middle East. [...] The post office has been trying to increase the volume of packages it delivers. It previously differentiated itself from commercial carriers by saying that it doesn't apply residential, Saturday delivery or fuel or remote-delivery surcharges.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Meta and YouTube found liable in landmark social media addiction trial

BBC Tech News - Wed, 03/25/2026 - 6:59pm
A woman has been awarded $6m in a verdict that could have implications for hundreds of other cases in the US.

Canada's Immigration Rejected Applicant Based On AI-Invented Job Duties

Slashdot - Wed, 03/25/2026 - 6:00pm
New submitter haroldbasset writes: Canada's Immigration Department rejected an applicant because the duties of her current job did not match the Canadian work experience she had claimed, but the Department's AI assistant had invented that work experience. She has been working in Canada as a health scientist -- she has a Ph.D. in the immunology of aging -- but the AI genius instead described her as "wiring and assembling control circuits, building control and robot panels, programming and troubleshooting." "It's believed to be the first time that the department explicitly referred to the use of generative AI to support application processing in immigration refusals," reports the Toronto Star. "The disclaimer also noted that all generated content was verified by an officer and that generative AI was not used to make or recommend a decision." The applicant's lawyer was shocked "how any human being could make this decision." "Somehow, it hallucinated my client's job description," he said. "I would love to see what the officer saw. Something seriously went wrong here." The applicant's refusal came just as Canada's Immigration Department released its first AI strategy, which frames artificial intelligence as a way to improve efficiency, service delivery, and program integrity. The department says it has long used digital tools like analytics and automation to flag fraud risks and triage applications, and is now also experimenting with generative AI for tasks such as research, summarizing, and analysis. In this case, however, the department insisted the decision was made by a human officer and that generative AI was not involved in the final decision.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

What does Portland need in the former Renys store?

Portland Press Herald Business - Wed, 03/25/2026 - 5:05pm
The Congress Street storefront remains vacant after months on the market and a recent price reduction.

Apple Can Create Smaller On-Device AI Models From Google's Gemini

Slashdot - Wed, 03/25/2026 - 5:00pm
Apple reportedly has full access to customize Google's Gemini model, allowing it to distill smaller on-device AI models for Siri and other features that can run locally without an internet connection. MacRumors reports: The Information explains that Apple can ask the main Gemini model to perform a series of tasks that provide high-quality results, with a rundown of the reasoning process. Apple can feed the answers and reasoning information that it gets from Gemini to train smaller, cheaper models. With this process, the smaller models are able to learn the internal computations used by Gemini, producing efficient models that have Gemini-like performance but require less computing power. Apple is also able to edit Gemini as needed to make sure that it responds to queries in a way that Apple wants, but Apple has been running into some issues because Gemini has been tuned for chatbot and coding applications, which doesn't always meet Apple's needs.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Supreme Court Sides With Internet Provider In Copyright Fight Over Pirated Music

Slashdot - Wed, 03/25/2026 - 4:00pm
Longtime Slashdot reader JackSpratts writes: The Supreme Court unanimously said on Wednesday that a major internet provider could not be held liable for the piracy of thousands of songs online in a closely watched copyright clash. Music labels and publishers sued Cox Communications in 2018, saying the company had failed to cut off the internet connections of subscribers who had been repeatedly flagged for illegally downloading and distributing copyrighted music. At issue for the justices was whether providers like Cox could be held legally responsible and required to pay steep damages -- a billion dollars or more in Cox's case -- if they knew that customers were pirating music but did not take sufficient steps to terminate their internet access. In its opinion released (PDF) on Wednesday, the court said a company was not liable for "merely providing a service to the general public with knowledge that it will be used by some to infringe copyrights." Writing for the court, Justice Clarence Thomas said a provider like Cox was liable "only if it intended that the provided service be used for infringement" and if it, for instance, "actively encourages infringement." Justice Sonia Sotomayor, joined by Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, wrote separately to say that she agreed with the outcome but for different reasons. [...] Cox called the court's unanimous decision a "decisive victory" for the industry and for Americans who "depend on reliable internet service." "This opinion affirms that internet service providers are not copyright police and should not be held liable for the actions of their customers," the company said.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Amazon Spring Sale Deal: The Typhur Dome 2 Air Fryer Is 30% Off

Wired Top Stories - Wed, 03/25/2026 - 3:59pm
I tested more than 30 air fryers this past year. The Typhur Dome 2 is the one I recommend, and it’s uncommonly cheap right now.

Lenny’s at Hawkes Plaza in Westbrook relaunches under new owners

Portland Press Herald Business - Wed, 03/25/2026 - 3:22pm
The 10-year-old bar, restaurant and music venue relaunched March 11.

How a chemical spill in Brunswick has affected Casco Bay

Portland Press Herald Business - Wed, 03/25/2026 - 3:14pm
A 2-year study tracked the toxic reach of forever chemicals from a 51,000-gallon spill of firefighting foam in 2024.

Stephen Colbert To Write Next 'Lord of the Rings' Movie

Slashdot - Wed, 03/25/2026 - 3:00pm
An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNN: Stephen Colbert already has a new job lined up for when he ends his 11-year run as host of "The Late Show" in May -- the comedian and well-known J.R.R. Tolkien superfan announced he will co-write and develop a new film in the blockbuster "Lord of the Rings" franchise. Colbert joined "LOTR" director Peter Jackson to reveal the news in a video announcement. "I'm pretty happy about it. You know what the books mean to me and what your films mean to me," the late-night host told Jackson, who led the Oscar-winning team behind the nearly $6 billion original "Lord of the Rings" and "The Hobbit" trilogies. [...] Colbert said the next installment will be based on parts of Tolkien's "The Fellowship of the Ring" book that didn't make it into the original movies. "The thing I found myself reading over and over again were the six chapters early on in (The Fellowship of the Ring) that y'all never developed into the first movie back in the day ... and I thought, 'Oh, wait, maybe that could be its own story that could fit into the larger story.'" he said. Colbert said he discussed the idea with his son, screenwriter Peter McGee, to work out the framing of the story. "It took me a few years to scrape my courage into a pile and give you a call, but about two years ago, I did. You liked it enough to talk to me about it," Colbert told Jackson. Colbert said he, McGee and Jackson have been working alongside screenwriter Philippa Boyens on the development of the story. "I could not be happier to say that they loved it, and so that's what we're going to be working on," Colbert said. Colbert's LOTR movie, tentatively titled "Shadow of the Past," will be the second of two new upcoming films in the franchise from Warner Bros. Discovery. The first of which is called "The Hunt for Gollum" due to be released in 2027.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Scams growing more sophisticated, Bethel bankers warn

Portland Press Herald Business - Wed, 03/25/2026 - 2:48pm
Tellers in Bethel say customers are coached by scammers, while a Rumford woman’s loss highlights how quickly fraud can unfold.

Meta and YouTube Found Negligent in Landmark Social Media Addiction Case

Slashdot - Wed, 03/25/2026 - 2:00pm
A jury found Meta and YouTube negligent in a landmark social media addiction case, ruling that addictive design features such as infinite scroll and algorithmic recommendations harmed a young user and contributed to her mental health distress. The verdict awards $3 million in compensatory damages so far and could pave the way for more lawsuits seeking financial penalties and product changes across the social media industry. "Meta is responsible for 70 percent of that cost and YouTube for the remainder," notes The New York Times. "TikTok and Snap both settled with the plaintiff for undisclosed terms before the trial started." From the report: The bellwether case, which was brought by a now 20-year-old woman identified as K.G.M., had accused social media companies of creating products as addictive as cigarettes or digital casinos. K.G.M. sued Meta, which owns Instagram and Facebook, and Google's YouTube over features like infinite scroll and algorithmic recommendations that she claimed led to anxiety and depression. The jury of seven women and five men will deliberate further to decide what further punitive damages the companies should pay for malice or fraud. The verdict in K.G.M.'s case -- one of thousands of lawsuits filed by teenagers, school districts and state attorneys general against Meta, YouTube, TikTok and Snap, which owns Snapchat -- was a major win for the plaintiffs. The finding validates a novel legal theory that social media sites or apps can cause personal injury. It is likely to factor into similar cases expected to go to trial this year, which could expose the internet giants to further financial damages and force changes to their products. The verdict also comes on the heels of a New Mexico jury ruling that found Meta liable for violating state law by failing to protect users of its apps from child predators.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Apple brings in age checks for UK iPhone users

BBC Tech News - Wed, 03/25/2026 - 1:41pm
Customers who do not confirm how old they are or are underage will have web content filters turned on automatically.

Apple brings in age checks for UK iPhone users

BBC Tech News - Wed, 03/25/2026 - 1:41pm
Customers who do not confirm how old they are or are underage will have web content filters turned on automatically.

The Comedy Club at the End of the Metaverse

Wired Top Stories - Wed, 03/25/2026 - 1:28pm
“This is my home”: At a VR comedy club in Horizon Worlds, users mourn Meta's plans for the platform.

Save $100 on Our Favorite Soundbar and Subwoofer Combo

Wired Top Stories - Wed, 03/25/2026 - 1:24pm
The JBL Bar 500MK2 boasts Dolby Atmos support and easy setup and streaming.

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