As 2026 begins, MIT Technology Review publishes "educated guesses" on emerging technologies that will define the future, advances "we think will drive progress or incite the most change — for better or worse — in the years ahead." This year's list includes next-gen nuclear, gene-editing drugs (as well as the "resurrection" of ancient genes from extinct creatures), and three AI-related developments: AI companions, AI coding tools, and "mechanistic interpretability" for revealing LLM decision-making. But also on the list is sodium-ion batteries, "a cheaper, safer alternative to lithium." Backed by major players and public investment, they're poised to power grids and affordable EVs worldwide. [Chinese battery giant CATL claims to have already started manufacturing sodium-ion batteries at scale, and BYD also plans a massive production facility for sodium-ion batteries.] The most significant impact of sodium-Âion technology may be not on our roads but on our power grids. Storing clean energy generated by solar and wind has long been a challenge. Sodium-ion batteries, with their low cost, enhanced thermal stability, and long cycle life, are an attractive alternative. Peak Energy, a startup in the US, is already deploying grid-scale sodium-ion energy storage. Sodium-ion cells' energy density is still lower than that of high-end lithium-ion ones, but it continues to improve each year — and it's already sufficient for small passenger cars and logistics vehicles. And another "breakthrough technology" on their list is commercial space stations: Vast Space from California, plans to launch its Haven-1 space station in May 2026 on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. If all goes to plan, it will initially support crews of four people staying aboard the bus-size habitat for 10 days. Paying customers will be able to experience life in microgravity and conduct research such as growing plants and testing drugs. On its heels will be Axiom Space's outpost, the Axiom Station, consisting of five modules (or rooms). It's designed to look like a boutique hotel and is expected to launch in 2028. Voyager Space aims to launch its version, called Starlab, the same year, and Blue Origin's Orbital Reef space station plans to follow in 2030. Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader sandbagger for sharing the article.

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In December 2024 the Google Threat Intelligence Group published research on the code of the commercial spyware "Predator". But there's now been new research by Jamf (the company behind a mobile device management solution) showing Predator is more dangerous and sophisticated than we realized, according to SecurityWeek. Long-time Slashdot reader wiredmikey writes: The new research reveals an error taxonomy that reports exactly why deployments fail, turning black boxes into diagnostic events for threat actors. Almost exclusively marketed to and used by national governments and intelligence agencies, the spyware also detects cybersecurity tools, suppresses forensics evidence, and has built-in geographic restrictions.

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Ars Technica reports: Security firm Mandiant [part of Google Cloud] has released a database that allows any administrative password protected by Microsoft's NTLM.v1 hash algorithm to be hacked in an attempt to nudge users who continue using the deprecated function despite known weaknesses.... a precomputed table of hash values linked to their corresponding plaintext. These generic tables, which work against multiple hashing schemes, allow hackers to take over accounts by quickly mapping a stolen hash to its password counterpart... Mandiant said it had released an NTLMv1 rainbow table that will allow defenders and researchers (and, of course, malicious hackers, too) to recover passwords in under 12 hours using consumer hardware costing less than $600 USD. The table is hosted in Google Cloud. The database works against Net-NTLMv1 passwords, which are used in network authentication for accessing resources such as SMB network sharing. Despite its long- and well-known susceptibility to easy cracking, NTLMv1 remains in use in some of the world's more sensitive networks. One reason for the lack of action is that utilities and organizations in industries, including health care and industrial control, often rely on legacy apps that are incompatible with more recently released hashing algorithms. Another reason is that organizations relying on mission-critical systems can't afford the downtime required to migrate. Of course, inertia and penny-pinching are also causes. "By releasing these tables, Mandiant aims to lower the barrier for security professionals to demonstrate the insecurity of Net-NTLMv1," Mandiant said. "While tools to exploit this protocol have existed for years, they often required uploading sensitive data to third-party services or expensive hardware to brute-force keys." "Organizations that rely on Windows networking aren't the only laggards," the article points out. "Microsoft only announced plans to deprecate NTLMv1 last August." Thanks to Slashdot reader joshuark for sharing the news.

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Friday a federal judge "cleared U.S. power company Dominion Energy to resume work on its Virginia offshore wind project." But a U.S. federal judge also ruled Thursday that another major offshore wind farm is allowed to resume construction, reports the Hill. "The project, which would supply power to New York, was one of five that were halted by the Trump administration in December...." In fact, there were three different court rulings this week each allowing construction to continue on a U.S. wind project: Judge Carl Nichols, a Trump appointee, granted a preliminary injunction allowing Empire Wind to keep building... Another, Revolution Wind, was also allowed to move forward in court this week... The project would provide enough power for up to 500,000 homes, according to its website. The court's decision allows construction to resume while the underlying case against the Trump order plays out. Meanwhile, power company Orsted "is also suing over the pause of its Sunrise Wind project for New York," reports the Associated Press, "with a hearing still to be set." The fifth paused project is Vineyard Wind, under construction in Massachusetts. Vineyard Wind LLC, a joint venture between Avangrid and Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners, joined the rest of the developers in challenging the administration on Thursday. CNN points out that the Vineyard Wind project "has been allowed to send power to the grid even amid Trump's suspension, a spokesperson for regional grid operator ISO-New England told CNN in an email." Residential customers in the mid-Atlantic region, including Virginia, desperately need more energy to service the skyrocketing demand from data centers â" and many are seeing spiking energy bills while they wait for new power to be brought online. CNN notes that president Trump said last week "My goal is to not let any windmill be built; they're losers." The Associated Press adds that "In contrast to the halted action in the US, the global offshore wind market is growing, with China leading the world in new installations. Nearly all of the new electricity added to the grid in 2024 was renewable. The British government said on Wednesday it had secured a record 8.4 gigawatts of offshore wind in Europe's largest offshore wind auction, enough clean electricity to power more than 12m homes."

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A new article from Bloomberg says dozens of America's colleges "succumbed to a fundamental problem killing colleges across the US: not enough students. The schools will award their final degrees this spring, stranding students not yet ready to graduate and forcing faculty and staff to hunt for new jobs." The country's tumbling birth rate is pushing schools toward a "demographic cliff," where a steadily dropping population of people in their late teens and early 20s will leave desks and classrooms empty. Many smaller, lesser-known schools like Cazenovia have already hit the precipice. They're firing professors, paring back liberal arts courses in favor of STEM — or closing altogether. Others will likely reach the cliff in the next few years... [T]the US birth rate ticked upward slightly before the 2008 financial crisis, and that brief demographic boost has kept enrollment at larger schools afloat. But the nationwide pool of college-aged Americans is expected to shrink after 2025. Schools face the risk that each incoming class could be smaller than the last. The financial pressure will be relentless... Since 2020, more than 40 schools have announced plans to close, displacing students and faculty and leaving host towns without a key economic engine... Close to 400 schools could vanish in the coming decade, according to Huron Consulting Group. The projected closures and mergers will impact around 600,000 students and redistribute about $18 billion in endowment funds, Huron estimates... Pennsylvania State University, citing falling enrollment at many of its regional branches, plans to shutter seven of its 20 branch campuses after the spring 2027 semester... [C]ampuses in far-flung places, without brand recognition, are falling out of favor with students already questioning the value of a college degree. For example, while Penn State's flagship University Park campus saw enrollment grow 5% from 2014 to 2024, 12 other Penn State campuses recorded a 35% drop, according to a report tasked with determining whether closures were necessary. The article notes that "Less than half of students whose schools shut down before they graduate re-enroll in another college or university, according to a 2022 study." But even at colleges that remain, "The shrinking supply of students has already sparked a frenzied competition for high school seniors..." Some public institutions are letting seniors bypass traditional requirements like essays and letters of recommendation to gain entry automatically... Direct-admission programs, which allow students to skip traditional applications, are one potential response. Some 15 states have them, according to Taylor Odle, assistant professor of educational policy studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He found in a 2022 paper that direct admissions increased first-year undergrad enrollment by 4% to 8%... And they don't require nearly as many paid staff to run, since there are no essays or letters of recommendation to read.

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"A mega rocket set to take astronauts around the Moon for the first time in decades is being taken to its launch pad," the BBC reported this morning. NASA is livestreaming their move of the 11-million-pound "stack" — which includes the Artemis II Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and the Orion spacecraft secured to it, all standing on its Mobile Launch Platform. Travelling at less than 1 mile per hour, the move is expected to take 12 hours. The mission — which could blast off as soon as 6 February — is expected to take 10 days. It is part of a wider plan aimed at returning astronauts to the lunar surface. As well as the rocket being ready, the Moon has to be in the right place too, so successive launch windows are selected accordingly. In practice, this means one week at the beginning of each month during which the rocket is pointed in the right direction followed by three weeks where there are no launch opportunities. The potential launch dates are: — 6, 7, 8, 10 and 11 February BR> — 6, 7, 8, 9 and 11 March BR> — 1, 3, 4, 5 and 6 April "The crew of four will travel beyond the far side of the moon, which could set a new record for the farthest distance humans have ever traveled from Earth, currently held by Apollo 13," reports CNN: But why won't Artemis II land on the lunar surface? "The short answer is because it doesn't have the capability. This is not a lunar lander," said Patty Casas Horn, deputy lead for Mission Analysis and Integrated Assessments at NASA. "Throughout the history of NASA, everything that we do is a bit risky, and so we want to make sure that that risk makes sense, and only accept the risk that we have to accept, within reason. So we build out a capability, then we test it out, then we build out a capability, then we test it out. And we will get to landing on the moon, but Artemis II is really about the crew..." The upcoming flight is the first time that people will be on board the Artemis spacecraft: The Orion capsule will carry the astronauts around the moon, and the SLS rocket will launch Orion into Earth orbit before the crew continues deeper into space... The mission will begin with two revolutions around Earth, before starting the translunar injection — the maneuver that will take the spacecraft out of Earth orbit and on toward the moon — about 26 hours into the flight, Horn said. "That's when we set up for the big burn — it's about six minutes in duration. And once we do this, you're on your way back to Earth. There's nothing else that you need to do. You're going to go by the moon, and the moon's gravity is going to pull you around and swing you back towards the Earth...." Avoiding entering lunar orbit keeps the mission profile simpler, allowing the crew to focus on other tasks as there is no need to pilot the spacecraft in any way. "The Artemis program's first planned lunar lander is called the Starship HLS, or Human Landing System, and is currently under development by SpaceX..."

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A couple months ago, YouTuber Benn Jordan "found vulnerabilities in some of Flock's license plate reader cameras," reports 404 Media's Jason Koebler. "He reached out to me to tell me he had learned that some of Flock's Condor cameras were left live-streaming to the open internet." This led to a remarkable article where Koebler confirmed the breach by visiting a Flock surveillance camera mounted on a California traffic signal. ("On my phone, I am watching myself in real time as the camera records and livestreams me — without any password or login — to the open internet... Hundreds of miles away, my colleagues are remotely watching me too through the exposed feed.") Flock left livestreams and administrator control panels for at least 60 of its AI-enabled Condor cameras around the country exposed to the open internet, where anyone could watch them, download 30 days worth of video archive, and change settings, see log files, and run diagnostics. Unlike many of Flock's cameras, which are designed to capture license plates as people drive by, Flock's Condor cameras are pan-tilt-zoom (PTZ) cameras designed to record and track people, not vehicles. Condor cameras can be set to automatically zoom in on people's faces... The exposure was initially discovered by YouTuber and technologist Benn Jordan and was shared with security researcher Jon "GainSec" Gaines, who recently found numerous vulnerabilities in several other models of Flock's automated license plate reader (ALPR) cameras. Jordan appeared this week as a guest on Koebler's own YouTube channel, while Jordan released a video of his own about the experience. titled "We Hacked Flock Safety Cameras in under 30 Seconds." (Thanks to Slashdot reader beadon for sharing the link.) But together Jordan and 404 Media also created another video three weeks ago titled "The Flock Camera Leak is Like Netflix for Stalkers" which includes footage he says was "completely accessible at the time Flock Safety was telling cities that the devices are secure after they're deployed." The video decries cities "too lazy to conduct their own security audit or research the efficacy versus risk," but also calls weak security "an industry-wide problem." Jordan explains in the video how he "very easily found the administration interfaces for dozens of Flock safety cameras..." — but also what happened next: None of the data or video footage was encrypted. There was no username or password required. These were all completely public-facing, for the world to see.... Making any modification to the cameras is illegal, so I didn't do this. But I had the ability to delete any of the video footage or evidence by simply pressing a button. I could see the paths where all of the evidence files were located on the file system... During and after the process of conducting that research and making that video, I was visited by the police and had what I believed to be private investigators outside my home photographing me and my property and bothering my neighbors. John Gaines or GainSec, the brains behind most of this research, lost employment within 48 hours of the video being released. And the sad reality is that I don't view these things as consequences or punishment for researching security vulnerabilities. I view these as consequences and punishment for doing it ethically and transparently. I've been contacted by people on or communicating with civic councils who found my videos concerning, and they shared Flock Safety's response with me. The company claimed that the devices in my video did not reflect the security standards of the ones being publicly deployed. The CEO even posted on LinkedIn and boasted about Flock Safety's security policies. So, I formally and publicly offered to personally fund security research into Flock Safety's deployed ecosystem. But the law prevents me from touching their live devices. So, all I needed was their permission so I wouldn't get arrested. And I was even willing to let them supervise this research. I got no response. So instead, he read Flock's official response to a security/surveillance industry research group — while standing in front of one of their security cameras, streaming his reading to the public internet. "Might as well. It's my tax dollars that paid for it." " 'Flock is committed to continuously improving security...'"

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T2 SDE "is not just a regular Linux distribution," explains its repository on GitHub. "It is a flexible Open Source System Development Environment or Distribution Build Kit. Others might even name it Meta Distribution. T2 allows the creation of custom distributions with state of the art technology, up-to-date packages and integrated support for cross compilation." And now after "a decade of deep focus on embedded and server systems," T2 SDE Linux "is back to the Desktop," according to its web site, calling the new "T2 Desktop" flavour "ready for everyday home and office use!" Built on the latest KDE Plasma, systemd, and Wayland, the new T2 Desktop flavour delivers a modern, clean, and performant experience while retaining the project's trademark portability and reproducible cross-compilation across architectures. T2 Desktop targets x86_64, arm64, and riscv64, delivering "a fully polished, streamlined out-of-the-box experience," according to project lead René Rebe (also long-time Slashdot reader ReneR): I>[T2 Desktop] delivered a full KDE Plasma desktop on RISC-V, reproducibly cross-compiled from source using T2 SDE Linux. The desktop spans more than 600 packages — from toolchain to Qt and KDE and targets a next-generation RVA23 RISC-V flagship desktop, including full multimedia support and AMD RDNA GPU acceleration under Wayland. As a parallel milestone, the same fully reproducible desktop stack is now also landing on Qualcomm X1 ARM64 platforms, highlighting T2 SDE's architecture-independent approach and positioning both RISC-V and ARM64 as serious, first-class Linux desktop contenders.

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An anonymous reader shared this report from the Washington Post: The U.S. Department of Transportation brought an automated bus to D.C. this week to showcase its work on self-driving vehicles, taking officials from around the country on a ride between agency headquarters at Navy Yard and Union Station. One of those trips was interrupted Sunday when the bus got rear-ended. The bus, produced by the company Beep, was following its fixed route when it was struck by a Tesla with Maryland plates whose driver was trying to change lanes, officials said. The bus had a human driver behind the wheel for backup as required by the city. The Tesla driver stayed on the scene on H Street for about 10 minutes. No police were called. "The service was temporarily paused after another vehicle made an illegal lane change and contacted the rear of the autonomous bus, which resulted in minor cosmetic damage to both vehicles," a spokesman for Beep said in a statement. "The autonomous bus operated appropriately in the moment and, after review, it was determined the autonomous bus was safe to resume service." Beep is working with the [U.S.] Transportation Department and Carnegie Mellon University on a pilot program of automated public buses. The vehicle was brought to D.C. for an annual conference that brings together transportation researchers and policymakers...

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from the New York Times: Nearly five million social media accounts belonging to Australian teenagers have been deactivated or removed, a month after a landmark law barring those younger than 16 from using the services took effect, the government said on Thursday. The announcement was the first reported metric reflecting the rollout of the law, which is being closely watched by several other countries weighing whether the regulation can be a blueprint for protecting children from the harms of social media, or a cautionary tale highlighting the challenges of such attempts. The law required 10 social media platforms, including Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat and Reddit, to prevent users under 16 from accessing their services. Under the law, which came into force in December, failure by the companies to take "reasonable steps" to remove underage users could lead to fines of up to 49.5 million Australian dollars, about $33 million. [...] The number of removed accounts offered only a limited picture of the ban's impact. Many teenagers have said in the weeks since the law took effect that they were able to get around the ban by lying about their age, or that they could easily bypass verification systems. The regulator tasked with enforcing and tracking the law, the eSafety Commissioner, did not release a detailed breakdown beyond announcing that the companies had "removed access" to about 4.7 million accounts belonging to children under 16. Meta, the parent company of Instagram and Facebook, said this week that it had removed almost 550,000 accounts of users younger than 16 before the ban came into effect. "Change doesn't happen overnight," said Prime Minister Anthony Albanese. "But these early signs show it's important we've acted to make this change."

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The U.S. Supreme Court will hear Monsanto's argument that federal pesticide law should shield it and parent company Bayer from tens of thousands of state lawsuits over Roundup since the Environmental Protection Agency has not required a cancer warning label. The case could determine whether federal rules preempt state failure-to-warn claims without deciding whether glyphosate causes cancer. The Los Angeles Times reports: Some studies have found it is a likely carcinogen, and others concluded it does not pose a true cancer risk for humans. However, the court may free Monsanto and Bayer, its parent company, from legal claims from more than 100,000 plaintiffs who sued over their cancer diagnosis. The legal dispute involves whether the federal regulatory laws shield the company from being sued under state law for failing to warn consumers. [...] "EPA has repeatedly determined that glyphosate, the world's most widely used herbicide, does not cause cancer. EPA has consistently reached that conclusion after studying the extensive body of science on glyphosate for over five decades," the company told the court in its appeal. They said the EPA not only refused to add a cancer warning label to products with Roundup, but said it would be "misbranded" with such a warning. Nonetheless, the "premise of this lawsuit, and the thousands like it, is that Missouri law requires Monsanto to include the precise warning that EPA rejects," they said. On Friday, the court said in a brief order that it would decide "whether the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act preempts a label-based failure-to-warn claim where EPA has not required the warning." The court is likely to hear arguments in the case of Monsanto vs. Durnell in April and issue a ruling by late June.

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A federal judge has temporarily lifted the Trump administration's suspension of the Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind, allowing construction on the largest offshore wind project in the U.S. to resume. CNBC reports: Judge Jamar Walker of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia granted Dominion's request for a preliminary injunction Friday. Dominion called the Trump suspension "arbitrary and illegal" in its lawsuit. "Our team will now focus on safely restarting work to ensure CVOW begins delivery of critical energy in just weeks," a Dominion spokesperson told CNBC in a statement Friday. "While our legal challenge proceeds, we will continue seeking a durable resolution of this matter through cooperation with the federal government," the spokesperson said. Dominion said in December that "stopping CVOW for any length of time will threaten grid reliability for some of the nation's most important war fighting, AI and civilian assets." Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind is a 176-turbine project that would provide enough power for more than 600,000 homes, according to Dominion. It is scheduled to start dispatching power by the end of the first quarter of 2026. In December, the Trump administration paused the leases on all five offshore wind sites currently under construction in the U.S., blaming the decisions on a classified report from the Department of Defense.

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Guardian: Even low levels of common agricultural pesticides can stunt the long-term lifespan of fish, according to research led by Jason Rohr, a biologist at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana. Signs of aging accelerated when fish were exposed to the chemicals, according to the study, published in Science, which could have implications for other organisms. [...] The research found that fish from pesticide-affected lakes showed shortened telomeres, the caps at the end of chromosomes that are known as the biological clock for aging. When they shorten, it is a sign of cellular aging and a decline in the body's regenerative capacity. The lake populations consisted of younger fish, indicating that the pesticides contributed to shortened lives. Laboratory experiments confirmed the findings and showed chronic low-dose exposure reduced fish survival and degraded telomeres. These effects were not seen with acute high-dose exposure. Chemical analysis showed chlorpyrifos, which is banned in the UK and the EU but used in the US and China, was the only compound found in the fish tissues that was consistently associated with signs of aging. These included shortened telomeres and lipofuscin deposition -- a buildup of insoluble proteins often described as cellular "junk". The worrying aging effects occurred at concentrations below current US freshwater safety standards, Rohr said, suggesting the effects of chemicals and pesticides could be occurring at low levels over the long term. While short-term exposure to high doses did not appear to cause these aging issues -- though it did cause high toxicity and death in fish -- the researchers concluded that it was long-term exposure to low doses that drove the changes. The scientists added that reduced lifespan was particularly problematic because older fish often contribute disproportionately to reproduction, genetic diversity and population stability.

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Anna's Archive has been hit with a U.S. federal court default judgment and permanent injunction over its scraping and distribution of OCLC's WorldCat data, which occurred more than two years ago. According to the ruling, the shadow library must delete all copies of its WorldCat data and stop scraping, using, storing, or distributing the data. "It is expected that OCLC will use the injunction to motivate third-party intermediaries to take action against Anna's Archive," reports TorrentFreak. From the report: Yesterday, a federal court in Ohio issued a default judgment and permanent injunction against the site's unidentified operator(s). This order was requested by OCLC, which owns the proprietary WorldCat database that was scraped and published by Anna's Archive more than two years ago. OCLC initially demanded millions of dollars in damages but eventually dropped this request, focusing on taking the site down through an injunction that would also apply to intermediaries. "Anna's Archive's flagrantly illegal actions have damaged and continue to irreparably damage OCLC. As such, issuance of a permanent injunction is necessary to stop any further harm to OCLC," the request read. This pivot makes sense since Anna's Archive did not respond to the lawsuit and would likely ignore all payment demands too. However, with the right type of court order, third-party services such as hosting companies and domain registrars might come along. The permanent injunction, issued by U.S. District Court Judge Michael Watson yesterday, does not mention any third-party services by name. However, it is directed at all parties that are "in active concert and participation with" Anna's Archive. Specifically, the site's operator and these third parties are prohibited from scraping WorldCat data, storing or distributing the data on Anna's Archive websites, and encouraging others to store, use or share this data. Additionally, the site has to delete all WorldCat data, which also includes all torrents. Judge Watson denied the default judgment for 'unjust enrichment' and 'tortious interference.' However, he granted the order based on the 'trespass to chattels' and 'breach of contract' claims. The latter is particularly noteworthy, as the judge ruled that because Anna's Archive is a 'sophisticated party' that scraped the site daily, it had constructive notice of the terms and entered into a 'browsewrap' agreement simply by using the service. While these nuances are important for legal experts, the result for Anna's Archive is that it lost. And while there are no monetary damages, the permanent injunction can certainly have an impact. Further reading: Spotify Says 'Anti-Copyright Extremists' Scraped Its Library

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A recent Microsoft Patch Tuesday update has introduced a bug in Windows 11 23H2 that causes some PCs to refuse to shut down or hibernate, "no matter how many times you try," reports The Register. From the report: In a notice on its Windows release health dashboard, Microsoft confirmed that some PCs running Windows 11 23H2 might fail to power down properly after installing the latest security updates. Instead of slipping into shutdown or hibernation, affected machines stay stubbornly awake, draining batteries and ignoring shutdown like they have a mind of their own and don't want to experience temporary non-existence. The bug appears to be tied to Secure Launch, a security feature that uses virtualization-based protections to ensure only trusted components load during boot. On systems with Secure Launch enabled, attempts to shut down, restart, or hibernate after applying the January patches may fail to complete. From the user's perspective, everything looks normal -- until the PC keeps running anyway, refusing to be denied life. Microsoft says that entering the command "shutdown /s /t 0" at the command prompt will, in fact, force your PC to turn off, whether it wants to or not. "Until this issue is resolved, please ensure you save all your work, and shut down when you are done working on your device to avoid the device running out of power instead of hibernating," Microsoft said.

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The Trump administration urged the largest electricity grid in the U.S. to make big tech companies pay for new power plants to support the surging electricity demand from AI and data centers. CNBC reports: Electricity prices have exploded in recent years on PJM Interconnection due in part to the data centers that tech companies are building to train and power artificial intelligence. The PJM grid serves more than 65 million people across 13 states and Washington, D.C. Its service area includes northern Virginia, the largest data center market in the world. The Trump administration and several states signed a pact that calls for tech companies to pay for new power plants built in PJM. Leading tech companies have agreed to fund $15 billion of new generation for the grid, according to an administration statement. The Trump administration and the states urged PJM to hold an emergency capacity auction to procure this power, according to the Department of Energy. PJM should also cap the amount that existing power plants can charge in the grid's capacity market to protect ratepayers, according to the administration. "We have to get out from underneath this bureaucratic system that we have in the regional grid operators and we've got to allow markets to work," said Interior Secretary Doug Burgum at the White House. "One of the ways markets can work is to have the hyperscalers actually rapidly building power."

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Last week, Nicholas Moore, 24, a resident of Springfield, Tennessee, pleaded guilty to repeatedly hacking into the U.S. Supreme Court's electronic document filing system. At the time, there were no details about the specifics of the hacking crimes Moore was admitting to. On Friday, a newly filled document -- first spotted by Court Watch's Seamus Hughes -- revealed more details about Moore's hacks. Per the filing, Moore hacked not only into the Supreme Court systems, but also the network of AmeriCorps, a government agency that runs stipend volunteer programs, and the systems of the Department of Veterans Affairs, which provides healthcare and welfare to military veterans. Moore accessed those systems using stolen credentials of users who were authorized to access them. Once he gained access to those victims' accounts, Moore accessed and stole their personal data and posted some online to his Instagram account: @ihackthegovernment. In the case of the Supreme Court victim, identified as GS, Moore posted their name and "current and past electronic filing records." [...] According to the court document, Moore faces a maximum sentence of one year in prison and a maximum fine of $100,000.

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Cloudflare has acquired the core team behind the open source JavaScript framework Astro, bringing its creators in-house while pledging to keep Astro fully open source. The New Stack reports: Astro is used by major brands like IKEA, Unilever, Visa and OpenAI to build fast, content-driven websites. Search engines prioritize fast-loading and clean pages, the Cloudflare statement noted. Websites that rely heavily on JavaScript for initial rendering often struggle to deliver the required speed, which hinders search rankings and customer conversions. Pages on Astro serve up only the code needed to display a page in a browser. That's in part because of its Island architecture, which it introduced in 2021. Astro's Islands allow developers to create "islands" of interactive client-side components, while most of the page is generated statically in HTML. Server Islands extend the same architecture to the server. Astro is also UI-agnostic, meaning that while it has its own independent engine, it allows developers to bring in components from React, Svelte, Vue and other frameworks. This makes Astro a preferred choice for building high-performance, content-driven websites optimized for speed, according to Cloudflare. "Over the past few years, we've seen an incredibly diverse range of developers and companies use Astro to build for the web," said Astro's former CTO, Fred Schott, in a post with Cloudflare senior product manager Brendan Irvine-Broque. "At Cloudflare, we use Astro, too -- for our developer docs, website, landing pages and more." They said that the acquisition will allow them to "double down" on making Astro the best framework for content-driven websites.

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Longtime Slashdot reader hackingbear shares a report from the Washington Times: Breaking with the United States, Canada has agreed to cut its 100% tariff [back to 6.1%] on Chinese electric cars in return for lower tariffs on Canadian farm products, Prime Minister Mark Carney said Friday after meeting Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing. He said there would be an initial annual cap of 49,000 vehicles on Chinese EV exports to Canada, growing to about 70,000 over five years. Prior to the 100% tariff, China exported about 41,000 vehicles to Canada in 2023. In exchange, China will reduce its total tariff on canola seeds, a major Canadian export, from 84% to about 15%, he told reporters. Carney said China has become a more predictable partner to deal with than the U.S, the country's neighbor and longtime ally. [hackingbear writes: "After helping the U.S. arrest Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou, who was later released without admitting guilty by the Biden administration after bickering with China, Canada had followed the U.S. in putting tariffs of 100% on EVs from China and 25% on steel and aluminum under former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Carney's predecessor."] China responded by imposing duties of 100% on Canadian canola oil and meal and 25% on pork and seafood. It added a 75.8% tariff on canola seeds last August. Collectively, the import taxes effectively closed the Chinese market to Canadian canola, an industry group has said.

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: On Thursday, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) reported record fourth-quarter earnings and said it expects AI chip demand to continue for years. During an earnings call, CEO C.C. Wei told investors that while he cannot predict the semiconductor industry's long-term trajectory, he remains bullish on AI. "All in all, I believe in my point of view, the AI is real -- not only real, it's starting to grow into our daily life. And we believe that is kind of -- we call it AI megatrend, we certainly would believe that," Wei said during the call. "So another question is 'can the semiconductor industry be good for three, four, five years in a row?' I'll tell you the truth, I don't know. But I look at the AI, it looks like it's going to be like an endless -- I mean, that for many years to come." TSMC posted net income of NT$505.7 billion (about $16 billion) for the quarter, up 35 percent year over year and above analyst expectations. Revenue hit $33.7 billion, a 25.5 percent increase from the same period last year. The company expects nearly 30 percent revenue growth in 2026 and plans to spend between $52 billion and $56 billion on capital expenditures this year, up from $40.9 billion in 2025.

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