Category: Tech

Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has gained access “to a payroll system that processes salaries for about 276,000 federal employees across dozens of agencies,” despite “objections from senior IT staff who feared it could compromise highly sensitive government personnel information” and lead to cyberattacks, The New York Times reported today. The system at the Interior Department gives DOGE “visibility into sensitive employee information, such as Social Security numbers, and the ability to more easily hire and fire workers,” the NYT wrote, citing people familiar with the matter. DOGE workers had been trying to get access to the Federal Personnel and Payroll System for about two weeks and succeeded over the weekend, the report said. “The dispute came to a head on Saturday, as the DOGE workers obtained the access and then placed two of the IT officials who had resisted them on administrative leave and under investigation, the people said,” according to the NYT report. The agency’s CIO and CISO are reportedly under investigation for their “workplace behavior.” Read full article Comments

It’s a regrettable reality that there is never time to cover all the interesting scientific stories we come across each month. In the past, we’ve featured year-end roundups of cool science stories we (almost) missed. This year, we’re experimenting with a monthly collection of such stories. March’s list includes fascinating papers on such topics as how the brain responds to speaking Klingon (or Dothraki, or Navi), the discovery of creepy preclassic Salvadoran puppets, the effectiveness of “dazzle camouflage,” and how male blue-lined octopuses manage not to be cannibalized by their chosen mates. Wind Cave’s rocks fluoresce under black light Several fluorescence measurements of a zebra calcite in Wind Cave were taken using portable spectrometers. Credit: Joshua Sebree South Dakota’s Wind Cave gets its name from the flow of air moving continually through its many passages and equalizing the atmospheric pressure between the air inside and outside—almost like the cave is “breathing.” Its rock and mineral formations also boast a unique chemistry that fluoresces when exposed to black light, according to talks presented at the spring meeting of the American Chemical Society in San Diego. That fluorescence could shed light on how life can thrive in extreme environments, including that of Jupiter’s moon, Europa. University of Northern Iowa astrobiologist Joshua Sebree and several students have been mapping new areas of Wind Cave (as well as other caves in the US), recording the passages, rock formations, minerals, and lifeforms they encounter in the process. They noticed that under UV light, certain parts of Wind Cave took on otherworldly hues, thanks to different concentrations of organic and inorganic fossilized chemical compounds. Those areas seem to indicate where water once flowed, carrying minerals into the cave from the surface 10,000 to 20,000 years ago, according to their analysis of the fluorescent spectra. Sebree et al. found that Wind Cave was likely carved out by waters rich in manganese, producing zebra stripes that glow pink under UV light, revealing the

In Britain, amid growing evidence of harm to young people from extreme content online, a “Smartphone Free Childhood” campaign is going viral.

The start-up’s valuation, which has nearly doubled in six months, shows continued enthusiasm for A.I. among investors.

AI video startup Runway announced the availability of its newest video synthesis model today. Dubbed Gen-4, the model purports to solve several key problems with AI video generation. Chief among those is the notion of consistent characters and objects across shots. If you’ve watched any short films made with AI, you’ve likely noticed that they’re either dream-like sequences of thematically but not realistically connected images—mood pieces more than consistent narratives. Runway claims Gen-4 can maintain consistent characters and objects, provided it’s given a single reference image of the character or object in question as part of the project in Runway’s interface. Read full article Comments

Apple dropped a big batch of medium-size software updates for nearly all of its products this afternoon. The iOS 18.4, iPadOS 18.4, macOS 15.4, tvOS 18.4, and visionOS 2.4 updates are all currently available to download, and each adds a small handful of new features for their respective platforms. A watchOS 11.4 update was also published briefly, but it’s currently unavailable. For iPhones and iPads that support Apple Intelligence, the flagship feature in 18.4 is Priority Notifications, which attempts to separate time-sensitive or potentially important notifications from the rest of them so you can see them more easily. The update also brings along the handful of new Unicode 16.0 emoji, a separate app for managing a Vision Pro headset (similar to the companion app for the Apple Watch), and a grab bag of other fixes and minor enhancements. Read full article Comments

The European Space Agency’s (ESA) Rosalind Franklin rover is back on course for a landmark trip to Mars, where it will probe the red planet for signs of extraterrestrial life.  ESA initially designed the Mars rover alongside Roscosmos, Russia’s space agency, as part of the ExoMars programme. The vehicle was set to launch in 2022, but when Russia invaded Ukraine, ESA severed ties with Moscow, putting the mission in jeopardy. Rosalind Franklin — named after the British chemist whose work was crucial to understanding the structure of DNA— was left without several key components, including a landing platform to safely… This story continues at The Next Web

U.S. spec is 3-row, 10 in. longer than Euro version out two years ago Larger 91-kwh battery pack, higher-power rear motor EPA range up to 234 miles, 10-80% in 26 min. Starts at $61,545, spans to $71,545 for top 1st Edition AWD VW’s electric Bus reboot is finally arriving in the U.S.. And by design, it’s hard to imagine a better way…

Owners report more than ten times the issues with Shell Recharge, EVgo, or Blink than with Tesla Rivian’s own charging network was second only to Tesla Hardware-related issues have become more prevalent than payment problems Charging networks operated by Tesla and Rivian tended to have fewer problems than non-automaker efforts, according to a…

Chinese researchers claim to have developed a process to recover nearly all of the lithium from used electric vehicle batteries for recycling. The Independent (via InsideEVs) reports on study results first published in the German academic journal Angewandte Chemie claiming recovery of 99.99% of lithium from a used battery, as well as 97% of nickel…

Eric Trump and Tweety McTreason Jr. are investing in a Bitcoin-mining company called American Bitcoin, created by the merger of two firms.

Big brands are allocating small amounts of their advertising budget to Elon Musk’s X, seeking to avoid being seen as boycotting the social media platform and triggering a public fallout with its billionaire owner. Multiple marketing executives told the Financial Times that companies have felt pressure to spend a nominal sum on X following Musk’s high-profile role in US President Tweety McTreason’s administration. They said Musk’s pursuit of legal action against groups that have stopped advertising since his $44 billion acquisition in late 2022 had also sparked alarm. X last month added about half a dozen more companies to its case including Shell, Nestlé, Pinterest, and Lego. Read full article Comments

Late last week, President Tweety McTreason decided to upend the automotive industry by levying a new 25 percent import tariff on all imported cars, which goes into effect on April 2. An additional 25 percent tariff on car parts is set to go into effect within the next month, which promises to make US-made cars more expensive as well, as many parts and subassemblies used in domestic manufacturing come from suppliers in Canada or Mexico. During the election campaign (and in the years preceding it), Trump repeatedly claimed that the cost of tariffs would be borne by the exporters. But tariffs don’t work that way—they’re paid by the importer, at the time of import. The White House does not appear to have any concerns about this, despite a report in The Wall Street Journal last week claiming that Trump had warned automakers not to pass the costs on to their customers. Read full article Comments

The company, which uses artificial intelligence to develop new treatments, now counts the venture capital firm Thrive Capital as a backer.