Category: Tech

ProPublica is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom. Sign up for The Big Story newsletter to receive stories like this one in your inbox. Leaders at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ordered staff this week not to release their experts’ assessment that found the risk of catching measles is high in areas near outbreaks where vaccination rates are lagging, according to internal records reviewed by ProPublica. In an aborted plan to roll out the news, the agency would have emphasized the importance of vaccinating people against the highly contagious and potentially deadly disease that has spread to 19 states, the records show. A CDC spokesperson told ProPublica in a written statement that the agency decided against releasing the assessment “because it does not say anything that the public doesn’t already know.” She added that the CDC continues to recommend vaccines as “the best way to protect against measles.” But what the nation’s top public health agency said next shows a shift in its long-standing messaging about vaccines, a sign that it may be falling in line under Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a longtime critic of vaccines: “The decision to vaccinate is a personal one,” the statement said, echoing a line from a column Kennedy wrote for the Fox News website. “People should consult with their healthcare provider to understand their options to get a vaccine and should be informed about the potential risks and benefits associated with vaccines.” ProPublica shared the new CDC statement about personal choice and risk with Jennifer Nuzzo, director of the Pandemic Center at Brown University School of Public Health. To her, the shift in messaging, and the squelching of this routine announcement, is alarming. “I’m a bit stunned by that language,” Nuzzo said. “No vaccine is without risk, but that makes it sound like it’s a very active coin toss of a decision. We’ve already had more cases of measles in 2025 than we

One of the most frustrating things about using a large language model is dealing with its tendency to confabulate information, hallucinating answers that are not supported by its training data. From a human perspective, it can be hard to understand why these models don’t simply say “I don’t know” instead of making up some plausible-sounding nonsense. Now, new research from Anthropic is exposing at least some of the inner neural network “circuitry” that helps an LLM decide when to take a stab at a (perhaps hallucinated) response versus when to refuse an answer in the first place. While human understanding of this internal LLM “decision” process is still rough, this kind of research could lead to better overall solutions for the AI confabulation problem. When a “known entity” isn’t In a groundbreaking paper last May, Anthropic used a system of sparse auto-encoders to help illuminate the groups of artificial neurons that are activated when the Claude LLM encounters internal concepts ranging from “Golden Gate Bridge” to “programming errors” (Anthropic calls these groupings “features,” as we will in the remainder of this piece). Anthropic’s newly published research this week expands on that previous work by tracing how these features can affect other neuron groups that represent computational decision “circuits” Claude follows in crafting its response. Read full article Comments

Elon Musk today said he has merged X and xAI in a deal that values the social network formerly known as Twitter at $33 billion. Musk purchased Twitter for $44 billion in 2022. xAI acquired X “in an all-stock transaction. The combination values xAI at $80 billion and X at $33 billion ($45B less $12B debt),” Musk wrote on X today. X and xAI were already collaborating, as xAI’s Grok is trained on X posts. Grok is made available to X users, with paying subscribers getting higher usage limits and more features. Read full article Comments

Microsoft released a new Windows Insider build of Windows 11 to its experimental Dev Channel today, with a fairly extensive batch of new features and tweaks. But the most important one for enthusiasts and PC administrators is buried halfway down the list: This build removes a command prompt script called bypassnro, which up until now has been a relatively easy and reliable way to circumvent the otherwise mandatory Microsoft Account sign-in requirement on new Windows 11 PCs and fresh installs of Windows 11 on existing PCs. Microsoft’s Windows Insider Program lead Amanda Langowski and Principal Product Manager Brandon LeBlanc were clear that this change is considered a feature and not a bug. “We’re removing the bypassnro.cmd script from the build to enhance security and user experience of Windows 11,” Langowski and LeBlanc write in the post. “This change ensures that all users exit setup with internet connectivity and a Microsoft Account.” Read full article Comments

The Swedish retailer H&M said it was exploring the use of artificial intelligence in producing “digital twins” of models.

The deal combined two of Mr. Musk’s companies, which have been on different trajectories. The transaction valued xAI at $80 billion and X at $30 billion, the billionaire said.

The chairman, Brendan Carr, sent a letter to the company accusing it of violating equal employment opportunity regulations.

Sierra EV Denali stands out with a GM-estimated 460 miles Midgate setup allows flexibility for items nearing 11-feet long Versatility from air suspension, rear-wheel steering, Super Cruise “I’ve been on that route, and it’s not one for a full-size pickup—let alone one weighing nearly 9,000 pounds.” That was what I…

Imagine working with special cameras that capture light your eyes can’t even see—ultraviolet rays that cause sunburn, infrared heat signatures that reveal hidden writing, or specific wavelengths that plants use for photosynthesis. Or perhaps using a special camera designed to distinguish the subtle visible differences that make paint colors appear just right under specific lighting. Scientists and engineers do this every day, and they’re drowning in the resulting data. A new compression format called Spectral JPEG XL might finally solve this growing problem in scientific visualization and computer graphics. Researchers Alban Fichet and Christoph Peters of Intel Corporation detailed the format in a recent paper published in the Journal of Computer Graphics Techniques (JCGT). It tackles a serious bottleneck for industries working with these specialized images. These spectral files can contain 30, 100, or more data points per pixel, causing file sizes to balloon into multi-gigabyte territory—making them unwieldy to store and analyze. When we think of digital images, we typically imagine files that store just three colors: red, green, and blue (RGB). This works well for everyday photos, but capturing the true color and behavior of light requires much more detail. Spectral images aim for this higher fidelity by recording light’s intensity not just in broad RGB categories, but across dozens or even hundreds of narrow, specific wavelength bands. This detailed information primarily spans the visible spectrum and often extends into near-infrared and near-ultraviolet regions crucial for simulating how materials interact with light accurately. Read full article Comments

Stellantis may be looking to adapt planetary gear hybrid systems—like the one currently used in the Chrysler Pacifica Hybrid plug-in hybrid minivan—to more rugged vehicles, a patent filing indicates. The Pacifica Hybrid uses a planetary power-split system to juggle its 3.6-liter V-6 and a pair of electric motors, which can both be used…

Since Trump took office on January 20, research funding from the National Institutes of Health has plummeted by more than $3 billion compared with the pace of funding in 2024, according to an analysis by The Washington Post. By this time in March 2024, the NIH had awarded US researchers a total of $1.027 billion for new grants or competitive grant renewals. This year, the figure currently stands at about $400 million. Likewise, funding for renewals of existing grants without competition reached $4.5 billion by this time last year, but has only hit $2 billion this year. Together, this slowdown amounts to a 60 percent drop in grant support for a wide variety of research—from studies on cancer treatments, diabetes, Alzheimer’s, vaccines, mental health, transgender health, and more. The NIH is the primary source of funding for biomedical research in the US. NIH grants support more than 300,000 scientists at more than 2,500 universities, medical schools, and other research organizations across all 50 states. Read full article Comments

Auto-industry tariffs coming in April, may bring immediate price hikes Mexico makes many U.S.-bound EVs, buys few of them EV tax credit still potentially applies to models made in Mexico and Canada The threat of auto tariffs affecting models made in Mexico and Canada has not abated. And as industry experts continue to suggest, there may be rocky…

Five high-flying scaleups from the Benelux region have made it into TECH5 — the “Champions League of Technology.” The classy quintet joins an exclusive group of Europe’s fastest-growing tech companies. Over the next two months, they will join six other regions — the Nordics, Southern Europe, France, the Baltic States, DACH, and the UK & Ireland — in a competition for the crown of hottest scaleup on the continent.  The contest will conclude on June 19-20, when the TECH5 champion will be announced on the main stage of TNW Conference. But first, the contenders have to win their regional title. The… This story continues at The Next Web

A coalition of European startups has urged swift action to slash burdensome EU regulations after a landmark declaration from the D9+ group of digitally advanced nations. The declaration stressed the need for “removing barriers” and “simplifying EU rules and procedures.” Ministers from all 13 countries in the D9+ — Belgium, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Ireland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain, and Sweden — signed the statement. They emphasised the need for a “reviewed digital rulebook” that is “deregulated where possible” and “avoids unnecessary red tape.” A startup group has called for the ministers to back up their… This story continues at The Next Web