Thursday, 18 June
23:00 EDT
22:00 EDT
A bold satellite rescue mission came together in record time, but will it work? [Ars Technica - All content]
WALLOPS ISLAND, Virginia—Just 10 months ago, NASA asked three companies if they could do something nobody had done before. Could they build and launch a satellite to save a $500 million astronomy mission at risk of crashing back to Earth? What's more, could they do it in less than a year on a tight budget?
Katalyst Space Technologies, a startup founded in 2020, presented the most compelling solution. "They came back with a response that was technically and programmatically plausible, and then we were like, 'Yeah, let’s do it,'" said Shawn Domagal-Goldman, director of NASA's astrophysics division.
That was in August of last year. In September, NASA awarded Katalyst a $30 million contract to build, test, and launch a small satellite to chase down Swift and latch onto it with three robotic arms. Then, Katalyst's Link servicing spacecraft will boost Swift's orbit back to a safe operating altitude, allowing it to resume scientific observations. Easier said than done.
Microsoft discovers new lightweight backdoor that steals cryptocurrency [Ars Technica - All content]
Microsoft says it has detected new self-propagating malware that spreads through USB drives in search of cryptocurrency credentials, which it then sends to attacker-controlled servers.
The company named the worm Crypto Clipper because it monitors the contents of device clipboards for patterns consistent with wallet addresses or seed phrases. When found, the malware also takes five screenshots over a 10-second period. Both the credentials and the screenshots are then sent to the attacker through Tor, a network protocol that provides anonymous routing by sending traffic through redundant nodes so logs can’t capture both the sending and receiving IP addresses. Crypto Clipper establishes the Tor connection by using a SOCKS5 proxy, a network protocol that sends traffic through a proxy server, which then forwards it to its final destination.
A lightweight backdoor
“The execution of this clipper is notable because it does not depend on a traditional installer or exposed IP-based C2 infrastructure,” Microsoft said Thursday. “Instead, it deploys a portable Tor client, routes traffic through a local SOCKS5 proxy, and blends data theft with remote code execution, turning a financially motivated stealer into a lightweight backdoor.”
Luigi Mangione's lawyers withdraw plans for psychiatric defense [NPR Topics: News]
In a court filing Thursday, Mangione's legal team said they won't file psychiatric evidence in the 28-year-old's state murder case. The move came a day after his lawyers said they planned to pursue a psychiatric defense.
(Image credit: Angelina Katsanis)
Key FDA committee unanimously recommends its first vaccine since 2023 [NPR Topics: News]
All nine members of the committee unanimously voted to recommend Moderna's new mRNA influenza vaccine for adults 50 and over.
(Image credit: Visoot Uthairam/Moment RF)
In photos: The Knicks celebrate their first NBA championship in more than 50 years [NPR Topics: News]
The New York Knicks celebrate their NBA championship win with a ticker tape parade in Manhattan.
(Image credit: Elias Wlliams for NPR)
20:00 EDT
FDA advisors unanimously vote to approve Moderna's mRNA after agency drama [Ars Technica - All content]
Independent advisors for the Food and Drug Administration on Friday voted 9–0 in support of approving Moderna's seasonal mRNA flu vaccine, which a Trump appointee at the agency initially tried to block from even being reviewed.
In an all-day meeting, members of the FDA's advisory committee—known as VRBPAC for Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee—pored over data and presentations on the vaccine, which is dubbed mRNA-1010 and branded as mFlusiva. The presentations included a review from FDA scientists, which was supportive of the vaccine.
Data from a Phase 3 trial including over 40,000 adults age 50 and older found the mRNA vaccine was around 27 percent more effective against seasonal flu than a standard flu shot. A smaller Phase 3 trial, involving data from nearly 3,000 people age 65 years and older, showed the shot produces stronger immune responses than a high-dose flu vaccine, which is recommended for this age group. The safety profile of the vaccine was also generally good.
As China looms, Taiwan makes more drones for defense and the US military [Ars Technica - All content]
Taiwan’s existence as a self-governing democracy may depend heavily on having enough military drones to discourage any attempted invasion by China’s military. As the Taiwanese government aims to boost domestic production of military drones and Taiwanese citizens sign up for drone flight training, Taiwanese companies are forming international partnerships to sell more drones to the US military and other overseas buyers.
Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense proposed a special budget that would spend $6.6 billion over six years on buying drones made in Taiwan, according to the Central News Agency that represents the national news service of Taiwan. Presented on June 18, the budget proposal would allow the government to buy more than 208,000 coastal attack drones, along with more than 1,400 coastal reconnaissance drones and 1,320 uncrewed surface vessels, between 2026 and 2031.
That would be a significant boost to the Taiwanese military arsenal that currently includes just 5,000 US-made attack drones and domestically produced drones, according to Resilience Media. During military exercises in early June, Taiwanese soldiers fired Altius-600 loitering munition drones—made by a subsidiary of the US military technology company Anduril Industries—from towed flatbed launchers to strike offshore targets, according to USNI News. In another exercise earlier this year, Taiwanese Marines used Taiwan-made drones to similarly strike targets at sea.
Adobe Adds Its AI Assistant To Premiere, Illustrator and InDesign [Slashdot]
Adobe is expanding its Firefly AI assistant into Premiere, Illustrator, InDesign, and Frame.io, where it can automate all sorts of tasks such as organizing clips, renaming assets, adding interview markers, rearranging layers, and finding missing fonts. It's available starting today as part of a public beta. TechCrunch reports: Adobe is slowly transforming Firefly to increasingly resemble Canva, at least when it comes to AI features, loading up the app with AI tools that can generate images, videos and storyboards. The company is now adding a new feature called Elements that can save AI-generated characters, objects and locations for later use. Firefly is also getting a Projects feature that can store existing assets in one place, and share context. This could be useful for teams creating a video series or brand campaigns. Both of these features are currently available in a private beta. The company said users can now describe a brand and its style, or upload existing collateral, in Firefly to have it generate a brand kit, complete with logos, brand identity and color palettes, or even generate product videos from photos. Users can also create storyboards to create videos.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
19:00 EDT
California 'Billionaire Tax' Makes Ballot Despite Opposition From Tech Moguls [Slashdot]
California's proposed "billionaire tax" has gathered enough signatures to qualify for the November ballot, setting up a major fight between labor unions and some of Silicon Valley's richest figures. From the report: The California Billionaire Tax Act, colloquially known as the billionaire tax, would levy a one-time 5% tax on any California resident worth more than $1bn. The proposal is backed by the Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West as a means of funding California's strained healthcare and education programs. The proposal has become one of the state's biggest political flashpoints as it gained momentum throughout the year, with prominent billionaires, such as the Google co-founder Larry Page, making moves to cut ties with the state and Newsom vowing to block it from going to a vote. Although it has gained enough signatures for the ballot, the groups backing the measure have until June 25 to decide whether to move forward or potentially strike a deal with the state. While unions backing the group have framed the proposal as a way of getting the ultra-rich to pay their fair share, many of the state's tech elites have condemned the tax and spent millions attempting to crush it. The Google co-founder Sergey Brin has spent $82m alone on efforts to fight the tax, while joining other Silicon Valley billionaires in declaring he will leave California if it goes through. The Palantir co-founder Peter Thiel, crypto billionaire Chris Larsen and Ring founder James Siminoff are among the other tech moguls who have made huge political donations to groups opposing the tax. California has the most billionaires out of any state, many of whom have increased their wealth in recent years amid the AI boom.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
18:00 EDT
NASA asks Northrop Grumman to stop working on lunar HALO module [Ars Technica - All content]
Three months ago, during a flashy event at its Washington, DC, headquarters, NASA announced that it was shifting the focus of its lunar plans from an orbital space station to a Moon base on the surface.
As part of this, officials said work would be paused on the Lunar Gateway planned to orbit the Moon. Of the two elements that were furthest along, NASA also revealed that one of them—the Power and Propulsion Element—would be repurposed to serve as a core module for a nuclear-electric propulsion demonstration in deep space.
Less was said about the fate of the other major component, the Habitation and Logistics Outpost (HALO). This is the large pressurized module, 6.1 meters long, in which visiting astronauts would spend the majority of their time when visiting the Lunar Gateway. NASA has awarded contracts worth $1.1 billion to Northrop Grumman to design, build, and integrate the habitation module with the Power and Propulsion Element.
Android verification is coming: Google confirms timeline and supported app stores [Ars Technica - All content]
Almost 20 years ago, Google pitched Android as the more open alternative to Apple's walled garden. Last year, Google announced it would begin erecting its own walls through developer verification. The company has issued an update on its plans, affirming that the verification system will begin rolling out in select countries later this year. We're also learning which app stores are participating in verification and the timeline for key features like the recently revealed "advanced flow" for bypassing verification.
Google has claimed that developer verification is a necessary change to smartphone software distribution, pointing to the increased prevalence of scams that trick Android users into installing malware apps. Google's solution requires verifying the identities of developers outside the Play Store just like it does for devs publishing on its platform. This has proven to be a contentious change for myriad reasons.
In the new blog post, Google's Matthew Forsythe confirms that the developer verification system is slated to come online on September 30 of this year. The initial deployment will be limited to countries with a high level of app scams: Brazil, Indonesia, Singapore, and Thailand.
Apple patches high-severity eavesdropping vulnerability in Beats Studio Buds [Ars Technica - All content]
Apple has updated its Beats Studio Buds wireless earbuds to patch a high-severity vulnerability that could be exploited by nearby hackers to eavesdrop on users.
The vulnerability, CVE-2025-20701, allowed improper authentication in the firmware running on the Bluetooth-related chips, enabling people within signal range to impersonate devices that had previously been paired with the earbuds. The researchers demonstrated this in a series of end-to-end attacks that allowed them to eavesdrop on conversations or sounds within earshot of the phone microphone.
Apple joins the patch party
“Impact: An attacker within Bluetooth range may be able to listen through the microphone of a device which is not yet paired and actively seeking pair requests,” Apple said in a Tuesday security advisory. The fix is contained in Beats Firmware Update 1B211, which is delivered automatically while headphones are paired with and within Bluetooth range of a user’s iPhone, iPad, or Mac. Users can check their firmware version by going to Settings on their device, navigating to Bluetooth, and tapping the info button next to the headphones.
U.S. lifts blockade on Iranian ports as 60-day clock for a final deal starts ticking [NPR Topics: News]
The U.S. is allowing ships to enter and exit Iranian ports and coastal areas as the countries move to a new phase of negotiations over the next 60 days.
(Image credit: Amirhossein Khorgooei)
The Fable of AI in Education [Rhetorica]
Claude 5 is here and . . . gone! For a few days, the general public had access to what Anthropic billed as the most capable and dangerous AI model to date. This past Friday, the American government shut it down, fearing foreign nationals would use the powerful AI tool to wreak havoc. Or was it all part of Anthropic’s stylized hype? Who knows? AI is weird. AI developers are, too. With each new release comes an increasingly odd series of rules, guidelines, policies, and internet mysticism that has propelled Anthropic from a tiny sliver of users compared to OpenAI’s and Google’s nearly billion users each, to a household name. It’s sad, really, because we don’t need to artificially create a sense of FOMO around an AI product to understand that using natural language to code practical, functional web applications can be really useful.
But that in itself is the fable, at least for higher education. None of the enterprise plans I’ve seen offers the sustained access needed to help students or faculty explore creative use cases of AI beyond simple text and image generation. The future is arriving in a freemium ecosystem that most users and institutions will never be able to meaningfully access. That alone should make even the most staunch AI critic pause and ask who, aside from the already affluent and extremely resourced institutions, will have such access and what this means for opportunities for all students.
A free or low-cost AI education plan might allow you to test advanced AI coding features, generative video, audio, etc., but that level of access isn’t enough to iterate effectively outside of maybe a single class. If you pay $20 a month, you get more access, but soon find their capacity is throttled and rate-locked for four to six hours at a time. Those who can afford elite access to premium features and capacity, often paying between $100 and a staggering $2000 per month, are the ones who will be able to fully use the evolving features teased by new model releases, like Fable.
Practical Applications
I know little about writing code, yet I’ve now used natural language to generate dozens of functional web apps, games, simulations, and even galleries to host them. I’ve used both Claude Cowork and OpenAI Codex to build functional things that I think might help me do my job better as a teacher.
There’s never been a time when I’ve felt more pressure to speed up and also feel the pull to slow down and consider preserving what matters most. Decades ago, Neal Postman coined the phrase Technopoly to illustrate how culture often surrenders agency to new technologies and many believe that’s true of our AI moment now. But Technopoly isn’t a judgment about good or bad technologies, or the companies that develop them. No, Technopoly is all about how we uncritically adopt new tools without thinking. The answer to ubiquitous AI is intentionality, but how do we become intentional when access is so jagged?
I’ve previously written about how Ohio State University’s Committee on Academic Misconduct (COAM) developed a system of standardized “Academic Integrity Icons to promote transparent communication with students about the use of various resources on assignments, including AI, to transparently communicate with students about what an instructor will allow on an assignment. What I said then was imagine logging into your LMS and being able to easily communicate with your students what is acceptable for an assignment using a common set of icons they are all aware of! We should all investigate creating a common template that everyone can use to ensure faculty AI preferences are communicated transparently to students. With Claude, I did just that.
I used the AI Assessment Scale and generated a series of academic integrity icons in a simple HTML app that can be exported and embedded within assignments. I started with Fable, then had to finish it with Opus 4.8. With a flexible badging system, I no longer need to write out lengthy instructions to communicate what’s allowable within assignments for students.
When you can create functional web applications and host them for free on platforms like GitHub, a world of possibilities is suddenly open. You aren’t locked behind the LMS or a vendor; you are now capable of creating tools needed for how you teach. Yet, that is just another layer of this fable. The more I worked with advanced AI features on Anthropic’s and OpenAI’s platforms, the more it became clear to me how limited even the $20 monthly plans I had purchased on each were for me and the implications for equitable access this will have for faculty and students.
Each time, I’d burn through tokens in a matter of a few sessions and be rate-locked for 4-6 hours until I could access them again to finish an app or webpage. That’s not feasible for a student learning how to use a tool or feature, and it’s really not workable for many faculty who already possess those skills. The $20 month plan provided limited access to advanced models, like Anthropic’s Fable, but to truly explore creative applications, you’d likely need access to the $100 a month plan or be extremely good at project design and know what you want.
A Reading Tracker
For years, I wanted to help my online students read more deeply. I’ve loved using social annotation tools like Perusall and the ability to create connections across texts and readers. For this, though, I wanted to create something students could use independently. Imagine being able to copy and paste a text, highlight sections, label them, reflect on individual passages, then see a matrix of connections you’ve made while reading, all exported to you and your teacher once you’ve finished annotating and reflecting on it. That’s what I was able to create with this simple reading tracker app.
Creative Applications
Using AI to create practical applications is one clearly valuable use case for AI, but there are far more creative applications. ’s experiments creating vibe-coded simulations for his world history students inspired me to see if I could create interactive games to augment the readings I planned for my fall students. I want my students to read a selection of classic science fiction short stories for students to explore the intersection of utopia/dystopia narratives and how these intersect with AI. So I’m building that section of my syllabus around close readings of Ursula K. Le Guin’s”The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas,” Isaac Asimov’s “Nightfall,” and Harlan Ellison’s “I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream.” To augment those readings, I tasked Claude 5 to generate simple gamified simulations interpreting aspects of each short story. It also walked me through how to host these games and set up a gallery for students to use them called Playable Texts:
The games aren’t great. They’re sketches of ideas, prototypes that need days, if not weeks, of work to make them functional for a classroom. Honestly, I’m not sure it matters that Claude 5 is down. I used up all the capacity I had on my $20 a month plan after it went down, switching between lower-tier models just to try and finish them, and I still didn’t have enough tokens.
Access to the most advanced AI models is increasingly based on what your wallet can afford and what region you were born in. What will that do to our classrooms and campuses? Industry is signaling that using AI coding agents will be extremely disruptive to our current digital world. Tim Cook stepped down from Apple recently, and several people have speculated that the reason had to do with the unclear place Apple’s app store plays in a world where anyone with a few thousand dollars and an idea can code an app and use their social influence to sell it as a product.
The messaging we’re hearing about AI is hurry! hurry! hurry!— move as fast as possible so that you aren’t left behind, but that’s not realistic for most of us. For a future arriving so quickly, many of us are trying to take stock of what these changes mean for our jobs, our daily routines, even our humanity. In that regard, there’s no reason we all shouldn’t slow down and process the big changes and challenges AI is having in our culture.
We may not have the resources, time, or strategies to preserve all learning from the uncritical adoption of AI by students in many of our educational spaces, especially those that are online, but we should likewise be mindful that we all don’t have the option or opportunity to use advanced models to pursue truly unique or creative experiments that transcend the academic integrity debates about AI. What we can do is lay out the stakes for students and ourselves and work to create opportunities where we all approach the technology with intention.
Preorder The Norton Guide to AI-Aware Teaching
Thanks to the wonderful team at Norton, The Norton Guide to AI-Aware Teaching is now available to pre-order! My coauthor, Derek Bruff, wrote the following in his newsletter. The ebook is expected to be available on July 1st, and print copies are expected to start shipping on September 24th. Here’s how you can get a copy:
-
Our publisher Norton is pleased to offer the guide as a free ebook for all instructors currently using a Norton textbook. If that’s you, you’ll receive access from the Norton team when the ebook is available July 1st and can contact your local Norton representative with any questions.
-
If you would like to pre-order the ebook so that you have it July 1st, you can now do so through Amazon and Barnes & Noble and perhaps other retailers.
-
If you would like to pre-order the paperback version of the book, you can now do so through Norton, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and likely other retailers. If you go through Norton, be sure to use the code AIFREESHIP at check out to get free shipping!
-
If you would like to order multiple copies for a campus reading group or some other faculty development effort, Norton has an option for you: On orders of 10 or more print copies, we offer 50% off the list price and free domestic shipping. (Such orders must be on a nonreturnable basis.) To take advantage of this offer, contact Peter Wentz at pwentz@wwnorton.com with subject line “Norton Guide to AI-Aware Teaching.”
Midjourney Pivots From AI Image Generation To Body Scanning Medical Spa [Slashdot]
Midjourney is expanding beyond AI image generation with plans for a medical-imaging business built around a water-based, full-body ultrasound scanner that uses hundreds of thousands of sensors and AI to reconstruct MRI-like images. "As you descend into the water, hundreds of thousands of tiny elements take turns, sending out waves, listening together, compressing and then streaming data to a massive cluster where thousands of computers split the task," Midjourney explained in the announcement. "By looking at how the shapes of all the waves change, we reconstruct a detailed map or 'image' which basically lets us figure out what's in there." The company hopes to open a San Francisco scanning "spa" in late 2027, with 50,000 or more deployed around the world by 2031. The Register reports: It's not clear how fast the process is with the prototype unit, but Midjourney said its goal is for the whole thing to take around a minute. "We think it's completely possible that with enough early imaging in the future, the world could avoid 30% of all deaths and 50% of all healthcare costs," the company added. According to a "technical" video included in the announcement, there's a ring of 40 scanners included in the prototype unit the company has built. That ring of 40 elements contains 358,000 ultrasonic elements made up of tiny transducers that create ultrasound waves in water while listening for how they change when they slap the body of whoever is in Midjourney's dunk tank up to a thousand times a second. [...] Midjourney said that it's planning to open its first ultrasound scanner spa at the end of 2027, but it has another hurdle to jump: FDA approval. Beyond improving its tech so that the second-generation scanner is ready for its 2027 spa date, "regulation is the next limit," the company said. "Normally, for every diagnostic medical capability you need FDA approval," Midjourney explained. "We're starting by just giving you detailed body composition maps -- and we'll be submitting regular test results to the FDA for increased capabilities." Midjourney also fails to mention how it will store and secure those scans, whether it will use said scans to train its body composition-detection algorithms, and how it's ensuring those algorithms get things right that it usually take a human a few years of education and training to learn.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
17:00 EDT
Bernie Sanders Unveils $7 Trillion Plan To Give Americans Control of AI Industry [Slashdot]
An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Associated Press: As artificial intelligence companies reshape the economy and race toward trillion-dollar valuations, Sen. Bernie Sanders is proposing a sweeping transfer of wealth and power from the industry to the American public. The legislation, shown first to The Associated Press, would create a sovereign wealth fund overseen by an independent commission and financed through a one-time 50% tax on the stock of the largest AI companies. Sanders estimates that the tax would create a nearly $7 trillion fund that would generate hundreds of billions of dollars annually in direct payments to Americans and programs such as health care, education and housing. [...] The 50% tax would apply to AI companies that reach $200 million in annual AI sales. Any new AI company that reaches that benchmark would also be subject to the tax. It would create a sovereign wealth fund -- similar to those used by countries around the world and some U.S. states -- that Sanders estimates would be worth around $7 trillion. Unlike a traditional tax, the proposal would require companies to transfer stock rather than cash, effectively making the American public a major shareholder in the country's largest AI firms. A seven-person independent commission -- nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate -- would manage the fund and use its voting shares "to block decisions that hurt the American people and to push for policies that help them," the bill summary says. Sanders proposes that a 5% annual dividend from the fund would provide direct payments of more than $1,000 to every American. If companies grow, the gains would be used for public goods such as education, housing and health care. Sanders argues taxpayers would not bear the losses if AI company valuations decline. "We're not going to lose any money, even if there is a bust in the bubble," Sanders said. The commission would be directed to "to block decisions that hurt the American people and to push for policies that help them," according to the summary. "The benefits cannot simply go to the handful of wealthy corporations. They will be shared by the American people," the independent Vermont senator said in an interview Wednesday. "The public has got to have a significant seat at the table to make sure that terrible things do not happen to ordinary people, and that in fact, AI benefits ordinary people, not hurts them," Sanders said.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
16:00 EDT
Trump's FISA threat is like 'cutting off your nose to spite your face,' says Sen. Slotkin [NPR Topics: News]
Sen. Elissa Slotkin, D-Mich., says Trump's threat to block FISA reauthorization is like "cutting off your nose to spite your face."
(Image credit: Alex Wong)
Elon Musk is a dangerous racist [Pharyngula]
There was a violent crime in Belfast: a black immigrant stabbed a white man. It’s a common kind of crime, horrible and deserving of condemnation, but trust Elon Musk to fan the flames of hatred and turn it into a cause celebre, and the city was consumed with violent riots.
As the bedlam raged in Belfast after the stabbing—resulting in far-right rioters torching cars, buses, and even the homes of immigrants—Musk egged it on. Using X—the platform he acquired precisely for moments like these—he posted locations for groups of rioters to congregate. He elevated vile, overtly fascist and white-supremacist exhortations. When one far-right British politician called for the prosecution of officials who “placed dangerous third world savages in our communities,” Musk replied: “This is the way.”
These developments graphically illustrate the future that Musk truly envisions. They also demonstrate that Musk will use his stratospheric wealth and influence to incite untold levels of global fascist violence going forward. Which leads to an unavoidable conclusion: At some point, friends of liberal democracy throughout the advanced democracies—including future liberal governments—will simply have to come together in a concerted and deliberate way to constrain Musk and all he’s unleashing. Whenever Democrats take back power in the United States, this must be squarely on the agenda.
The article has a lot to say about Musk’s outrageous fascism, and don’t deny it: it’s fucking fascism of the kind Hitler would have endorsed, combined with the same crazy ignorance of actual genetics, and he has a plan that Donald Trump would recognize.
It’s instructive that amid the violence, Musk endorsed a call for “Reconquista,” an allusion to Christian military campaigns to retake the Iberian peninsula from Islamic forces. (Modern-day keyboard fascists have long rather pathetically imagined themselves to be akin to Charles Martel, who turned back the Muslims at Tours in 732.) And Musk boosted a call for the removal of millions from the U.K.
I was wondering what Democrats could possibly do against a trillionaire. Here are some suggestions.
Then there’s what a future Democratic Congress can do. The Musk problem will have to be on its agenda in a serious and meaningful way. Claire Finkelstein, a professor of national security law at the University of Pennsylvania, points out a core problem here: His many government contracts, and his access to privileged information, pose a “national security threat,” even as Space X itself is in many ways a “national security asset.” We need to know a lot more about what Musk’s contracts actually translate into in terms of his personal influence inside the government.
“Congress has to do rigorous oversight of Musk’s government contracts as well as his entire financial empire,” Finkelstein tells us.
Other ideas abound. Brian Beutler has urged the next Democratic administration to closely scrutinize the murky circumstances of Musk’s own immigration to the United States. Beyond such things, we’ll need a coordinated effort across liberal democracies. Appropriately, the targeting of apartheid in Musk’s native South Africa provides a model. We need an international consensus that recognizes the threat Musk poses and works against it with boycotts, with the withdrawal of support and funding, and with whatever creative tools are available. Politicians and publics alike need to think internationally.
OK, let’s strip him of his government contracts, and then turn his own plans against him: deport Musk. Maybe we can seize all of his assets and turn SpaceX into a subdivision of NASA, too. And that’s a mild response: he really ought to be jailed for incitement.
Apple Announces Major App Store Changes on iOS in Brazil [Slashdot]
Apple is allowing iPhone developers in Brazil to distribute apps through authorized alternative marketplaces and use third-party payment systems following action by the country's competition regulator. "In other words, developers in Brazil will be able to circumvent the App Store and Apple's in-app purchase system, but there are still fees," reports MacRumors. Apple will collect commissions ranging from 5% on externally distributed apps to as much as 26% for some App Store transactions using its payment system. From the report: Alternative app marketplaces will have to be authorized by Apple and will need to meet ongoing requirements. For apps that are still distributed through the App Store, developers will be able to include an alternative payment processing method in their app and/or link users to a website to complete a transaction. These changes are available on iOS 26.5 and later, and they are the result of regulatory action from Brazil's competition regulator. Apple has added a new page on its website with additional details for developers in Brazil. Apple said these changes introduce privacy and security risks for users, including children. The company has introduced safeguards to mitigate these risks, including a notarization process for iOS apps, an authorization process for app marketplaces, and limitations on external links and alternative payments for users under the age of 18. Apple has already allowed alternative app stores and/or third-party payment systems on iOS in the EU, Japan, and South Korea, and it will likely be forced to do so in the UK and Australia too, due to similar regulations in those countries.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
15:00 EDT
After Senate vote, Trump admin backs off plans to kill ocean monitoring [Ars Technica - All content]
In May, the federal government announced without warning that it would take apart a network of ocean monitoring systems that it had spent over $350 million to build. No reason was given for the decision to shut down the Ocean Observatories Initiative (OOI), but suspicion immediately focused on the network's role in tracking climate change.
But the OOI also provides data that's useful for weather forecasting and fisheries management, leading to widespread opposition. Today, it appears that the opposition has won, as the government will announce that it's reversing the decision. The big remaining question is how much damage the OOI took during the intervening month.
As of now, there is no formal statement available from the federal government. However, The New York Times reports that the decision will be announced later today, and Ars received a statement from Zoe Lofgren, the ranking Democrat on the House Science Committee, indicating that the decision has been made.
Before SpaceX IPO, investors in China secretly acquired stakes [Ars Technica - All content]
A businessman with ties to Chinese military contractors was among the overseas investors who acquired stakes in SpaceX while it was still a private company. An entity linked to the Qatari royal family also took a stake.
The new details come from a private investor list obtained by ProPublica that sheds light on a particularly delicate issue for Elon Musk’s rocket company: which people in countries like China bought into the company, and how. SpaceX built its business off sensitive US government work like making spy satellites for the Pentagon. While there is no ban on Chinese investment in US military contractors, such investment is heavily regulated.
In a sign of its sensitivity to the concerns, SpaceX barred investors from China and Hong Kong from buying shares in its initial public offering last week due to “regulatory and compliance risks,” Bloomberg reported. The US government alleges that China has a strategy of using investments in sensitive industries for espionage and to get access to cutting-edge technology.
Bernie Sanders unveils $7 trillion plan to give Americans control of AI industry [Ars Technica - All content]
Bernie Sanders has unveiled an aggressive plan to transfer trillions from leading AI firms to the public, and, to the likely horror of AI firms, it goes even further than expected to give Americans more control over the AI industry.
Sanders shared a summary of his legislation with AP News. If passed, the law would create a sovereign wealth fund “financed through a one-time 50 percent tax on the stock of the largest AI companies,” AP News reported. Any AI firm that does $200 million in annual AI sales would be subject to the tax, as would any new firm once it reaches that revenue level.
In total, Sanders estimated the fund could be worth $7 trillion, generating “hundreds of billions of dollars annually in direct payments to Americans and programs such as health care, education and housing,” AP News reported. Each American would likely receive more than $1,000 annually in 5 percent annual dividends, Sanders estimated.
Student loan borrowers will get an interest rate cut if they sign up for auto pay [NPR Topics: News]
The Trump administration wants to jumpstart student loan repayment, with federal student loan debt approaching $2 trillion.
(Image credit: Daniel de la Hoz)
