First US Newsroom Strike For AI Protections Staged by ProPublica's Journalists | | It's the first time a major U.S. newsroom has gone on strike partly to demand protections from AI-related layoffs, according to a report from Nieman Lab.
They noted that one of the picketer's signs read "Thoughts not bots," :
On Wednesday, roughly 150 members of the Propublica Guild, one of the largest nonprofit newsroom unions in the country, went on a 24-hour strike. About two dozen Guild members picketed ProPublica's headquarters in New York City's Hudson Square neighborhood during working hours, as simultaneous picket lines formed in front of the publication's offices in Chicago and Washington D.C...
The Guild has been negotiating its first collective bargaining agreement for two and a half years, and the one-day action was intended to put new pressure on ProPublica's management to agree to several contract proposals. The union is seeking "just cause" protections for terminations, wage increases to keep up with the rising cost of living, and contract language that would prohibit layoffs resulting from AI adoption... Beyond the strike, the ProPublica Guild has also taken its dispute over newsroom AI adoption to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). On Monday, the Guild filed an unfair-labor-practice charge, citing a "unilateral implementation of AI policy." The filing claims that ProPublica published AI editorial guidelines on its website last month, without first bargaining with union members over its tenets and language... A petition launched Wednesday calling for ProPublica to agree to the Guild's contract terms had received roughly 4,200 signatures by Thursday morning...
Susan DeCarava, the president of The NewsGuild of New York, joined strikers in front of the ProPublica offices yesterday. During a spare moment on the picket line, she told me that while this strike may be setting precedent for her union, it likely won't be the last over AI adoption in newsrooms. "We're going to see more and more concentrated conflicts between media bosses and journalists and media workers over who has a say and how AI is used in their workplaces," she said. For one, The New York Times Guild is currently in contract negotiations after its last agreement expired in February. Already, AI language has taken center stage in the Guild's initial bargaining sessions, including over a proposal that would see Guild members receive a share of the revenue earned when their work is licensed for AI training.
"Management has offered expanded severance for AI-related layoffs as a counter proposal..." according to the article. Read more of this story at Slashdot. |
The AI RAM Shortage is Also Driving Up SSD Prices | | In 2024 the Verge's consumer tech reporter paid $173 for a WD Black SN850X 2TB SSD. But "now that same SSD costs $649..."
"Like with RAM, demand from the AI industry is swallowing up supply from a limited number of manufacturers, leading to a drastic reduction in the inventory that's available to consumers" — and skyrocketing prices:
The price on my WD Black drive nearly quadrupled since November 2025, and consumer SSDs across the board are seeing similar increases, much like with RAM. The 4TB version of the popular Samsung 990 Pro SSD previously cost $320, but will now run you nearly $1,000. External SanDisk SSDs saw a 200 percent price hike at the Apple Store in March....
According to price trends from PC Part Picker, NVMe SSD prices began ticking upward in December 2025, with prices on 256GB to 4TB SSDs now double or triple what they were just a few months ago, and continuing to climb. Read more of this story at Slashdot. |
Two-Week Social Media 'Detox' Erases a Decade of Age-Related Decline, Study Finds | | Critics say social media is engineered to be as addictive as tobacco or gambling, writes the Washington Post — while adding that "the science has been moving in parallel with the court's recognition."
A growing body of research links heavy social media use not only to declines in mental health but to measurable cognitive effects — on attention, memory and focus — that in some studies resemble accelerated aging. Science also suggests we have more control than we realize when it comes to reversing this damage, and the solution is surprisingly simple: Take a break... "Digital detoxes" can sound like a fad. But in one of the largest studies to date, published in PNAS Nexus and involving more than 467 participants with an average age of 32, even a short time away produced striking results — effectively erasing a decade of age-related cognitive decline.
For 14 days, participants used a commercially available app, Freedom, to block internet access on their phones. They were still allowed calls and text messages, essentially turning a smartphone into a dumb phone. Their time online decreased from 314 minutes to 161 minutes, and by the end of the period the participants had improvements in sustained attention, mental health as well as self-reported well-being. The improvement in sustained attention was about the same magnitude as 10 years of age-related decline, the researchers noted, and the effect of the intervention on depression symptoms was larger than antidepressants and similar to that of cognitive behavioral therapy.
But two things were even more mind-blowing... Even those people who cheated and broke the rules after a few days seemed to have positive effects from the break; and in follow-up reports after the two weeks, many people reported the positive effects lingered. "So you don't have to necessarily restrict yourself forever. Even taking a partial digital detox, even for a few days, seems to work," Kushlev said.
The article also notes a November study at Harvard published in JAMA Network Open where nearly 400 people 'found that even a short break can make a measurable difference: After just one week of reduced smartphone use, participants reported drops in anxiety (16.1 percent), depression (24.8 percent) and insomnia (14.5 percent)..."
"Other experiments point in the same direction — whether decreasing social media use by an hour a day for one week or stepping away from just Facebook and Instagram." Read more of this story at Slashdot. |
Firefox vs. Chrome: Which Performs Better on a Linux Laptop? | | Phoronix staged "a showdown" between Firefox and Chrome, testing them both on an Intel Panther Lake laptop running Ubuntu 26.04.
JetStream 3.0 was announced at the end of March as the latest major web browser benchmark. This updated version of JetStream is focused on intensive portions of modern JavaScript and WebAssembly web applications... Google Chrome 147 came in at 1.47x the performance of Mozilla Firefox 149. A very strong showing for Google's web browser and to not much surprise Google engineers have been heavily involved in JetStream 3 as part of its open governance model. Chrome debuts very well on JetStream 3 while it will be interesting to see what optimizations Mozilla engineers pursue in the months ahead...
In the recent Speedometer 3.1 benchmark update that is focused on browser responsiveness, Chrome was at 1.24x the performance of Firefox... Firefox picked up wins in the MotionMark and StyleBench browser benchmarks. Google Chrome meanwhile continued to dominate in the JavaScript heavy benchmarks... In some of the WebAssembly benchmarks, there was at least some healthy competition between Firefox and Chrome on Linux.
Across the web browser benchmarks, the Core Ultra X7 358H power consumption came in at 11.44 Watts on average for Chrome and 11.74 Watts for Firefox. Quite close. The slight CPU power difference may come down to the CPU usage with Chrome coming in slightly lower at 8.13% on average to 8.35% with Firefox. Chrome also came in at slightly lower memory consumption across all the benchmarks with total memory usage on average at 4.67GB to Firefox at 4.83GB. Read more of this story at Slashdot. |
The End of 'Star Trek'? Every Single Series Now Cancelled | | "Every single Star Trek series has been canceled..." reports ScreenRant. "There is "no Star Trek in production or greenlit for the first time in nearly a decade."
While there were five active Star Trek series just a few years ago, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds filmed its fifth and final season in the fall of 2025, and Star Trek: Starfleet Academy "wrapped filming its second and final season at the end of February." (Though ironically, both Star Trek series still have seasons yet to premiere, with two season of Strange New Worlds mean it may continue airing through 2027.)
TrekCentral reports that the sets for Star Trek: Starfleet Academy are now being torn down... There will be a local online auction for parts of the set on Friday. Additionally, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds' sets are also being taken down... Star Trek: Starfleet Academy boasted the largest sets ever built for Star Trek. The demolition of Starfleet Academy's stunning sets includes the loss of the multi-level atrium, which had the Starfleet Wall of Heroes, the USS Athena's bridge, and the classrooms. Read more of this story at Slashdot. |
US Demands Reddit Unmask ICE Critic, Summons Firm To Grand Jury | | An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: The Trump administration has stepped up an effort to unmask a Reddit user who criticized Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). After failing to obtain information through a summons issued (PDF) to Reddit, the government reportedly issued a subpoena demanding that Reddit provide the information and appear before a grand jury in Washington, DC. The Intercept described the subpoena today. "According to a subpoena obtained by The Intercept, Reddit has until April 14 to provide a wide range of personal data on one of its users, whom US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents have been trying unsuccessfully to identify for more than a month," the article said.
The legal saga began in US District Court for the Northern District of California. On March 12, the anonymous Reddit user whose information is being sought filed a motion (PDF) to quash a summons seeking a host of information from Reddit. The summons was issued by the Department of Homeland Security and directed Reddit to turn information over to an ICE senior special agent. The summons cited authority under 19 U.S. Code 1509, which is part of the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930. The motion to quash said the summons is not authorized by the law, which deals with imports of boats, alcoholic drinks, and animals, among other things.
"J. Doe is a US citizen who has not traveled out of the country, is not engaged in any international commerce, has no business concerns outside the United States, and primarily uses their Reddit account to engage in political speech relevant to their local community," said the filing by the Civil Liberties Defense Center (CLDC), which represents the Reddit user. "Yet the government claims the right to obtain Doe's name, telephone number, home address, banking and credit card information, IP addresses, telephone model number(s), and the names of any other accounts associated with their Reddit account. The information sought by the government in no way pertains to customs or importing or exporting merchandise, and is clearly intended to chill free speech." "We should be very, very, very concerned that they've now taken one of these to a grand jury," said David Greene, senior counsel for the Electronic Frontier Foundation. "It's something to be taken very seriously."
A Reddit spokesperson told Ars today that "we seek to inform users of any legal process compelling disclosure of their data, as we did in this case, because users should have the agency to protect their own information and are often better positioned to challenge requests that impact them."
"We do not voluntarily share information with any government, especially not on users exercising their rights to criticize the government or plan a protest. We review every inquiry for legal sufficiency and routinely object to requests that are overbroad or threaten civil rights. When legally compelled to disclose data, we provide only the minimum required and notify the user whenever possible so they can defend their interests." Read more of this story at Slashdot. |
CPUID Site Hijacked To Serve Malware Instead of HWMonitor Downloads | | Attackers briefly hijacked part of CPUID's backend and swapped legitimate download links on its site with malware-laced ones. "The issue hit tools like HWMonitor and CPU-Z, with users on Reddit and elsewhere starting to notice something wasn't right when installers tripped antivirus alerts or showed up under odd names," reports The Register. From the report: CPUID has since confirmed the breach, pinning it on a compromised backend component rather than tampering with its software builds. "Investigations are still ongoing, but it appears that a secondary feature (basically a side API) was compromised for approximately six hours between April 9 and April 10, causing the main website to randomly display malicious links (our signed original files were not compromised)," one of the site's owners said in a post on X. "The breach was found and has since been fixed."
The files themselves appear to have been left alone and remain properly signed, so it doesn't seem like anyone got into the build process. Instead, the problem sat in front of that, in how downloads were being served. For anyone who hit the site during that stretch, though, that distinction offers little comfort. If the link you clicked had been swapped out, you were pulling whatever it pointed to, whether you realized it or not. Read more of this story at Slashdot. |
To Fill Air Traffic Controller Shortage, FAA Turns To Gamers | | An anonymous reader quotes a report from the New York Times: As the Trump administration seeks to fill a national shortage of air traffic controllers, officials are targeting a new talent pool: gamers. The Federal Aviation Administration on Friday is making a recruiting push aimed at avid players of video games, as the agency strives to fill thousands of vacancies that lawmakers have said leave the traveling public less safe. In a new YouTube ad, the agency is using flashy graphics and the promise of six-figure salaries to convince video game enthusiasts to apply their trigger fingers in service of air safety.
In recent years, video gamers have emerged as a target demographic for recruiters at a number of federal agencies, including the military and the Department of Homeland Security. They are welcomed for their hand-eye coordination, quick decision-making in complex environments and ability to remain focused on screens for hours on end. "To reach the next generation of air traffic controllers, we need to adapt," Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said in a statement. Focusing recruiting efforts on gamers, he added, "taps into a growing demographic of young adults who have many of the hard skills it takes to be a successful controller."
[...] The F.A.A. plans to begin prioritizing recruiting gamers over more traditional avenues like college fairs, officials said, pointing out that only 25 percent of controllers have a traditional college degree, while the vast majority appear to have logged hours gaming. During the presidential transition in 2024, incoming Trump administration officials polled about 250 new air traffic academy graduates over six weeks. Only two of those interviewed were not gamers, according to F.A.A. officials [...]. Students who failed out of the training academy were not similarly queried, officials said, though they have plans to conduct more comprehensive exit interviews in the future. Still, the overwhelming presence of gaming habits among graduates tracked with what they were hearing anecdotally from controllers already certified to work in towers and other air traffic facilities, the officials said, many of whom liked to play video games during breaks in their shifts. Read more of this story at Slashdot. |
Artemis II Astronauts Splash Down Off California's Coast | | NASA's Artemis II crew safely splashed down off the California coast after completing a 10-day trip around the moon and back. "This is not just an accomplishment for NASA," sad NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman. "This is an accomplishment for humanity, again, a historic mission to the moon and back." From a report: Isaacman is aboard the USS John. P Murtha Navy recovery vessel, where the astronauts will be brought once they've been retrieved from the Orion capsule, and he shared "there is a lot to celebrate right now on on a mission well accomplished for Artemis II."
Isaacman also complimented the crew as "absolutely professional astronauts, wonderful communicators and almost poets" "" as well as "ambassadors from humanity to the stars." "I can't imagine a better crew than the Artemis II crew that just completed a perfect mission right now. We are back in the business of sending astronauts to the moon and bringing them back safely.
This is just the beginning. We are going to get back into doing this with frequency, sending missions to the moon until we land on it in 2028 and start building our base." Isaacman also said it's time to start preparing for Artemis III, expected to launch in 2027. You can watch the moment of the splashdown here. Read more of this story at Slashdot. |
Chimpanzees In Uganda Locked In Vicious 'Civil War', Say Researchers | | Researchers say the world's largest known wild chimpanzee community in Uganda fractured into rival factions and has been locked in a vicious "civil war" for the last eight years. "It is not clear exactly why the once close-knit community of Ngogo chimpanzees at Uganda's Kibale National Park are at loggerheads, but since 2018 the scientists have recorded 24 killings, including 17 infants," reports the BBC. From the report: [O]ver several decades, [lead author Aaron Sandel] said the nearly 200 Ngogo chimpanzees had lived in harmony. There were divided into two sets - known to researchers as Western and Central - but they had existed overall as a cohesive group. Sandel said he first noticed them polarizing in June 2015, when the Western chimpanzees ran away and were chased by the Central group. "Chimpanzees are sort of melodramatic," he said, explaining that following arguments there would ordinarily be "screaming and chasing" and then later, they would grooming and co-operating.
But following the 2015 dispute, the researchers saw that there was a six-week avoidance period between the two sets, with interactions becoming more infrequent. When they did occur, Sandel said they were "a little more intense, a little more aggressive." Following the emergence of the two distinct groups in 2018, members of the Western group started attacking the Central chimpanzees. In 24 targeted attacks since the split, at least seven adult males and 17 infants from the Central chimps have been killed, the study found, although the researchers believe the actual number of deaths are higher. The researchers believe many factors such as the group size and subsequent competition of resources, and "male-male competition" for reproducing may be to blame.
But they say there were three likely catalysts:
- The first, were the deaths of five adult males and one adult female -- for reasons unknown -- in 2014, which could have disrupted social networks and weakened social ties across the subgroups
- The following year, there was a change in the alpha male, which the study says coincided with the first period of separation between the Western and Central groups. "Changes in the dominance hierarchy can increase aggression and avoidance in chimpanzees," it explained
- The third factor was the deaths of 25 chimpanzees, including four adult males and 10 adult females, as a result of a respiratory epidemic, in 2017, a year before the final separation. One of the adult males who died was "among the last individuals to connect the groups," the research paper said. The study has been published in the journal Science. Read more of this story at Slashdot. |
EU Parliament Fails To Renew Loophole Allowing Tech Firms To Report Abuse | | Bruce66423 shares a report from the Guardian: The European parliament has blocked the extension of a law that permits big tech firms to scan for child sexual exploitation on their platforms, creating a legal gap that child safety experts say will lead to crimes going undetected. The law, which was a carve-out of the EU Privacy Act, was put in place in 2021 as a temporary measure allowing companies to use automated detection technologies to scan messages for harms, including child sexual abuse material (CSAM), grooming and sextortion. However, it expired on April 3, and the EU parliament decided not to vote to extend it, amid privacy concerns from some lawmakers.
The regulatory gap has created uncertainty for big tech companies, because while scanning for harms on their platforms is now illegal, they still remain liable to remove any illegal content hosted on their platforms under a different law, the Digital Services Act. Google, Meta, Snap and Microsoft said they would continue to voluntarily scan their platforms for CSAM, in a joint statement posted on a Google blog. Bruce66423 adds: "Child abuse as the excuse for avoiding privacy protections. Who would have thought it?" Read more of this story at Slashdot. |
Suspect Arrested for Allegedly Throwing Molotov Cocktail at Sam Altman's Home | | San Francisco police arrested a suspect after a Molotov cocktail was allegedly thrown at Sam Altman's home and threats were later made outside OpenAI's headquarters. "Thankfully, no one was hurt," said OpenAI in a statement to WIRED. "We deeply appreciate how quickly SFPD responded and the support from the city in helping keep our employees safe. The individual is in custody, and we're assisting law enforcement with their investigation." From the report: "At approximately 3:45am PT, an unidentified individual approached Sam's residence and threw an incendiary device toward the property. The device landed nearby and extinguished. There were no injuries and only minimal damage was reported," the message to staff reads. "Shortly afterward, an individual matching the suspect's description was contacted by security outside MB1," the message continues, referring to OpenAI's headquarters in San Francisco's Mission Bay neighborhood. "This person made threatening statements about the building."
OpenAI's corporate security team told staff it is cooperating with law enforcement on an investigation, and that employees may notice an increased police and security presence around the office on Friday. The security team said that the company's offices remain open, but employees were advised to "not let anyone tailgate into the building."
"Officials subsequently confirmed that the suspect was arrested outside the OpenAI's Third Street offices as he threatened to burn down the building," reports the Financial Express.
UPDATE: Sam Altman has responded to the incident. Read more of this story at Slashdot. |
Microsoft Begins Removing Copilot Branding From Windows 11 Apps | | Microsoft has started stripping Copilot branding out of Notepad in Windows 11, replacing the old Copilot menu with a more generic "writing tools" label. The AI features themselves aren't going away, but Microsoft seems to be backing off the heavy-handed Copilot branding and extra entry points. Windows Central reports: As promised, Microsoft is now beginning its effort to reduce and remove Copilot branding across Windows 11, with the latest Notepad update for Insiders outright removing the Copilot icon and phrasing. Now, the AI menu is simply called "writing tools," and maintains the same functionality as before. Additionally, Microsoft has also removed references to AI in the Settings area in Notepad. Now, the ability to turn on or off these AI powered writing tools are now listed under "Advanced features."
This change is present in the latest preview build of Notepad which is now rolling out to all Windows Insiders. The app version is 11.2512.28.0, and you'll know you have it if you see the Copilot icon replaced with a pen icon instead. [...] For Notepad, it appears Microsoft has opted to replace the Copilot menu with something more generic. It's still the same functionally, but it's no longer leaning on the tainted Copilot brand. Of course, you can still easily turn off all AI features in Notepad if you don't want them. The Verge reports that the "unnecessary Copilot buttons" are also disappearing from the Snipping Tool, Photos, and Widgets. Read more of this story at Slashdot. |
FBI Extracts Suspect's Deleted Signal Messages Saved In iPhone Notification Data | | An anonymous reader quotes a report from 404 Media: The FBI was able to forensically extract copies of incoming Signal messages from a defendant's iPhone, even after the app was deleted, because copies of the content were saved in the device's push notification database, multiple people present for FBI testimony in a recent trial told 404 Media. The case involved a group of people setting off fireworks and vandalizing property at the ICE Prairieland Detention Facility in Alvarado, Texas in July, and one shooting a police officer in the neck. The news shows how forensic extraction -- when someone has physical access to a device and is able to run specialized software on it -- can yield sensitive data derived from secure messaging apps in unexpected places. Signal already has a setting that blocks message content from displaying in push notifications; the case highlights why such a feature might be important for some users to turn on.
"We learned that specifically on iPhones, if one's settings in the Signal app allow for message notifications and previews to show up on the lock screen, [then] the iPhone will internally store those notifications/message previews in the internal memory of the device," a supporter of the defendants who was taking notes during the trial told 404 Media. [...] During one day of the related trial, FBI Special Agent Clark Wiethorn testified about some of the collected evidence. A summary of Exhibit 158 published on a group of supporters' website says, "Messages were recovered from Sharp's phone through Apple's internal notification storage -- Signal had been removed, but incoming notifications were preserved in internal memory. Only incoming messages were captured (no outgoing)."
404 Media spoke to one of the supporters who was taking notes during the trial, and to Harmony Schuerman, an attorney representing defendant Elizabeth Soto. Schuerman shared notes she took on Exhibit 158. "They were able to capture these chats bc [because] of the way she had notifications set up on her phone -- anytime a notification pops up on the lock screen, Apple stores it in the internal memory of the device," those notes read. The supporter added, "I was in the courtroom on the last day of the state's case when they had FBI Special Agent Clark testifying about some Signal messages. One set came from Lynette Sharp's phone (one of the cooperating witnesses), but the interesting detailed messages shown in court were messages that had been set to disappear and had in fact disappeared in the Signal app." Further reading: Apple Gave Governments Data On Thousands of Push Notifications Read more of this story at Slashdot. |
Google News Now Prominently Featuring Polymarket Bets | | Futurism found that Google News is surfacing Polymarket betting pages alongside traditional news sources. "The bets often appear in the 'For you' section of Google News, which is tailored to a user's personal interests," the publication reports. "In one instance, it was even the very top result, as with this bet on the price of Bitcoin." From the report: In our testing, Polymarket bets are also showing up on the Google News home page. But links from the prediction market can pop up all over Google News, including in searches. In further tests, looking up "will ships transit the strait," referring to the Strait of Hormuz, returned numerous credible sources like Financial Times, The Guardian, and Reuters. Just below them, however, was a Polymarket bet on the number of ships that would be allowed to pass through the critical oil passageway.
This doesn't appear to be an accident. When searching "Polymarket" in its search bar, Google News now allows users to choose it as a "source," directing them to a page that aggregates other Polymarket hits. It's not the only non-news site that's selectable as a source -- looking up "Reddit" and "X" offers the option, too -- but searching for "Kalshi," another prediction market and Polymarket's main competitor, doesn't give the option to use it as a source. [...] In light of all this, Polymarket appearing in Google News is a major victory for the prediction platform -- rubber-stamping its image as an authority on developing real-world events right alongside genuine real publishers of journalism. Read more of this story at Slashdot. |
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