Google's expansion of Gemini's data access through "personal context" represents a fundamental shift in how AI assistants operate. Unlike competitors that start from scratch with each new user, Gemini can immediately tap into years of accumulated user data across Google's ecosystem. The Verge adds: Google first started letting users opt in to its "Gemini with personalization" feature earlier this year, which lets the AI model tap into your search history "to provide responses that are uniquely insightful and directly address your needs." But now, Google is taking things a step further by unlocking access to even more of your information -- all in the name of providing you with more personalized, AI-generated responses. During Google I/O on Tuesday, Google introduced something called "personal context," which will allow Gemini models to pull relevant information from across Google's apps, as long as it has your permission. One way Google is doing this is through Gmail's personalized smart replies -- the AI-generated messages that you can use to quickly reply to emails. To make these AI responses sound "authentically like you," Gemini will pore over your previous emails and even your Google Drive files to craft a reply tailored to your conversation. The response will even incorporate your tone, the greeting you use the most, and even "favorite word choices," according to Google.

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BrianFagioli writes: Signal has officially had enough, folks. You see, the privacy-first messaging app is going on the offensive, declaring war on Microsoft's invasive Recall feature by enabling a new "Screen security" setting by default on Windows 11. This move is designed to block Microsoft's AI-powered screenshot tool from capturing your private chats. If you aren't aware, Recall was first unveiled a year ago as part of Microsoft's Copilot+ PC push. The feature quietly took screenshots of everything happening on your computer, every few seconds, storing them in a searchable timeline. Microsoft claimed it would help users "remember" what they've done. Critics called it creepy. Security experts called it dangerous. The backlash was so fierce that Microsoft pulled the feature before launch. But now, in a move nobody asked for, Recall is sadly back. And thankfully, Signal isn't waiting around this time. The team has activated a Windows 11-specific DRM flag that completely blacks out Signal's chat window when a screenshot is attempted. If you've ever tried to screen grab a streaming movie, you'll know the result: nothing but black.

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OpenAI CEO Sam Altman told employees Wednesday the company plans to ship 100 million AI "companion" devices as part of what he called "the chance to do the biggest thing we've ever done as a company here," according to WSJ. Speaking at an internal meeting, Altman said the $6.5 billion acquisition of former Apple designer Jony Ive's startup has the potential to add $1 trillion in value to OpenAI. The pocket-sized, screen-free devices will be contextually aware of users' surroundings and designed to help wean people from traditional screens. Altman said the device will not be a phone or glasses, but rather a third core device that would sit on a desk alongside a MacBook Pro and iPhone. The company aims to ship the devices "faster than any company has ever shipped 100 million of something new before," with a target release of late next year.

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: "Do not use semicolons," wrote Kurt Vonnegut, who averaged fewer than 30 a novel (about one every 10 pages). "All they do is show you've been to college." A study suggests UK authors are taking Vonnegut's advice to heart; the semicolon seems to be in terminal decline, with its usage in English books plummeting by almost half in two decades -- from one appearing in every 205 words in 2000 to one use in every 390 words today. Further research by Lisa McLendon, author of The Perfect English Grammar Workbook, found 67% of British students never or rarely use the semicolon. Just 11% of respondents described themselves as frequent users. Linguistic experts at the language learning software Babbel, which commissioned the original research, were so struck by their findings that they asked McLendon to give the 500,000-strong London Student Network a 10-question multiple-choice quiz on the semicolon. She found more than half of respondents did not know or understand how to use it. As defined by the Oxford Dictionary of English, the semicolon is "a punctuation mark indicating a pause, typically between two main clauses, that is more pronounced than that indicated by a comma." It is commonly used to link together two independent but related clauses, and is particularly useful for juxtaposition or replacing confusing extra commas in lists where commas already exist -- or where a comma would create a splice. The Guardian has a semicolon quiz at the end of the article where you can test your semicolon knowledge.

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Wisk Aero and NASA have signed a new five-year partnership to advance the safe integration of autonomous, all-electric aircraft into U.S. airspace, focusing on urban air mobility and regulated eVTOL flight. Electrek reports: Wisk Aero shared details of its refreshed partnership with NASA this week. The autonomous aviation specialist has signed a new five-year Non-Reimbursable Space Act Agreement (NRSAA) with the renowned space administration. Per Wisk, this new agreement focuses on critical research led by NASA's Air Traffic Management Exploration (ATM-X) project, which is centered around the advancement of commercialized autonomous aircraft travel under Instrument Flight Rules (IFR) in the National Airspace System (NAS). As a specialist in autonomous, zero-emission aircraft, Wisk intends to continue its research alongside NASA to help regulators determine future eVTOL flight procedures and capabilities in the US. Regulatory developments on the to-do list for the latest NRSAA include optimizing airspace and route designs for highly automated UAM operations, establishing critical aircraft and ground-based safety system requirements for autonomous flight in urban environments, and establishing Air Traffic Control (ATC) communication protocols and procedures for seamless integration of future UAM aircraft. To achieve these goals, Wisk said its research with NASA will more specifically focus on utilizing advanced simulation and Live Virtual Constructive (LVC) flight environments, which combine live flights with a simulated airspace to enable researchers to assess future operations. The teams from Wisk and NASA already met last month, continuing their research while beginning to determine how instrument flight procedures and advanced technologies can work together to enable safe autonomous passenger flights by 2030. Wisk Aero is a wholly owned subsidiary of Boeing based in California. The aerospace manufacturer said last year that it expects its pilotless air-taxi to begin carrying passengers "later in the decade."

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Scientists have discovered a previously unknown bacterium aboard China's Tiangong space station. "It has been named Niallia tiangongensis, and it inhabited the cockpit controls on the station, living in microgravity conditions," reports Wired. From the report: According to China Central Television, the country's national broadcaster, taikonauts (Chinese astronauts) collected swab samples from the space station in May 2023, which were then frozen and sent back to Earth for study. The aim of this work was to investigate the behavior of microorganisms, gathered from a completely sealed environment with a human crew, during space travel, as part of the China Space Station Habitation Area Microbiome Program (CHAMP). A paper published in the Journal of Systematic and Evolutionary Microbiology describes how analysis of samples from the space station revealed this previously unseen bacterial species, which belongs to the genus Niallia. Genomic sequencing showed that its closest terrestrial relative is the bacterium Niallia circulans, although the Tiangong species has substantial genetic differences. [...] It is unclear whether the newly discovered microbe evolved on the space station or whether it is part of the vast sea of as yet unidentified microorganisms on Earth. To date, tens of thousands of bacterial species have been cataloged, although there are estimated to be billions more unclassified species on Earth. The discovery of Niallia tiangongensis will provide a better understanding of the microscopic hazards that the next generation of space travelers will face and help design sanitation protocols for extended missions. It is still too early to determine whether the space bacterium poses any danger to taikonauts aboard Tiangong, although it is known that its terrestrial relative, Niallia circulans, can cause sepsis, especially in immunocompromised people.

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Three teenagers nearly escaped prosecution for a 2020 house fire that killed five people until Denver police discovered a novel investigative technique: requesting Google search histories for specific terms. Kevin Bui, Gavin Seymour, and Dillon Siebert had burned down a house in Green Valley Ranch, mistakenly targeting innocent Senegalese immigrants after Bui used Apple's Find My feature to track his stolen phone to the wrong address. The August 2020 arson killed a family of five, including a toddler and infant. For months, detectives Neil Baker and Ernest Sandoval had no viable leads despite security footage showing three masked figures. Traditional methods -- cell tower data, geofence warrants, and hundreds of tips -- yielded nothing concrete. The breakthrough came when another detective suggested Google might have records of anyone searching the address beforehand. Police obtained a reverse keyword search warrant requesting all users who had searched variations of "5312 Truckee Street" in the 15 days before the fire. Google provided 61 matching devices. Cross-referencing with earlier cell tower data revealed the three suspects, who had collectively searched the address dozens of times, including floor plans on Zillow.

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: As electric vehicles reduce car exhaust as a source of particulate emissions, people are increasingly focusing on other vehicular sources of pollution that won't go away with electrification. Tires are one of them, particularly as we grapple with overweight EVs with tire-shredding torque. And brakes are another -- even an EV with regenerative braking will occasionally need to use its friction brakes, after all. Over in Europe, the people responsible for writing regulations have taken this into consideration with the upcoming Euro 7 standard, which sets new limits on 10- and 2.5-micron particulate emissions on all new vehicles -- including EVs -- starting next year. And to help OEMs achieve that target, Brembo has developed a new brake and pad set called Greentell that it says cuts brake dust emissions by 90 percent, improving durability in the process. [...] Brembo investigated a range of solutions before settling on using laser metal deposition. Physical vapor deposition, as used as a durability coating for wristwatches and firearms, was ruled out due to cost. "So it can be used for some special application or some small pieces, but when you are speaking about 20 kilos of cast iron, PVD is not the right solution. LMD is a technology that [has been] available... [for] years, but [it hasn't yet been] applicable in a high volume application. So the goal is to find the best compromise between performance and process," [Fabiano Carminati, VP of disc technical development at Brembo] told me. Together with the reduction in brake dust, there's an 80 percent reduction in surface corrosion compared to conventional brakes, but they won't last forever. "The thickness of the layer that we apply is not so high -- we apply just 100-120 microns. That means that the disk is not a lifetime disk," he said. That said, Greentell brakes should need replacing less often, and while that's not entirely in Brembo's best financial interests, neither is not being able to offer its customers a Euro 7-compliant product.

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Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) revealed in a new letter to Senate colleagues Wednesday that AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile failed to create systems for notifying senators about government surveillance on Senate-issued devices -- despite a requirement to do so. From a report: Phone service providers are contractually obligated to inform senators when a law enforcement agency requests their records, thanks to protections enacted in 2020. But in an investigation, Wyden's staff found that none of the three major carriers had created a system to send those notifications. "My staff discovered that, alarmingly, these crucial notifications were not happening, likely in violation of the carriers' contracts with the [Senate Sergeant at Arms], leaving the Senate vulnerable to surveillance," Wyden said in the letter, obtained first by POLITICO, dated May 21. Wyden said that the companies all started providing notification after his office's investigation. But one carrier told Wyden's office it had previously turned over Senate data to law enforcement without notifying lawmakers, according to the letter.

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The SEC on Wednesday said it has charged cryptocurrency startup Unicoin and three of its top executives for false and misleading statements that raised more than $100 million from thousands of investors. "We allege that Unicoin and its executives exploited thousands of investors with fictitious promises that its tokens, when issued, would be backed by real-world assets including an international portfolio of valuable real estate holdings," said Mark Cave, Associate Director in the SEC's Division of Enforcement. "But as we allege, the real estate assets were worth a mere fraction of what the company claimed, and the majority of the company's sales of rights certificates were illusory. Unicoin's most senior executives are alleged to have perpetuated the fraud, and today's action seeks accountability for their conduct." From the release: The SEC alleges that Unicoin broadly marketed rights certificates to the public through extensive promotional efforts, including advertisements in major airports, on thousands of New York City taxis, and on television and social media. Among other things, Unicoin and its executives are alleged to have convinced more than 5,000 investors to purchase rights certificates through false and misleading statements that portrayed them as investments in safe, stable, and profitable "next generation" crypto assets, including claims that: - Unicoin tokens underlying the rights certificates were "asset-backed" by billions of dollars of real estate and equity interests in pre-IPO companies, when Unicoin's assets were never worth more than a small fraction of that amount; - the company had sold more than $3 billion in rights certificates, when it raised no more than $110 million; and - the rights certificates and Unicoin tokens were "SEC-registered" or "U.S. registered" when they were not. According to the SEC's complaint, Unicoin and Konanykhin also violated the federal securities laws by engaging in unregistered offers and sales of rights certificates. Konanykhin offered and sold over 37.9 million of his rights certificates to offer better pricing and target investors the company had prohibited from participating in the offering to avoid jeopardizing its exemption to registration requirements, as alleged.

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Quebec Culture Minister Mathieu Lacombe has introduced Bill 109, which would require streaming platforms like Netflix and Spotify to feature and prioritize French-language content. CBC.ca reports: Bill 109 has been in the works for over a year. It marks the first time that Quebec would set a "visibility quota" for French-language content on major streaming platforms such as Netflix, Disney and Spotify. [...] The legislation, titled An Act to affirm the cultural sovereignty of Quebec and to enact the Act respecting the discoverability of French-language cultural content in the digital environment, would apply to every digital platform that offers a service for watching videos or listening to music and audiobooks online. Those include Canadian platforms such as Illico, Crave and Tou.tv. It would amend the Quebec Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms to enshrine "the right to discoverability of and access to original French-language cultural content." If the bill is adopted, streaming platforms and television manufacturers would be forced to present interfaces for screening online videos in French by default. Those interfaces would need to provide access to platforms that offer original French-language cultural content based on the government's pending criteria. Financial penalties would be imposed on companies that don't follow the rules. If the business models of some companies prevent them from keeping to the letter of the proposed law, companies would be allowed to enter into an agreement with the Quebec government to set out "substitute measures" to fulfil Bill 109 obligations differently. "We don't want to exempt them. We're telling them, 'let's negotiate substitute measures,'" Lacombe told reporters.

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Longtime Slashdot reader theodp writes: In what reads a bit like a Sopranos plot, The Information suggests some of those in the recent batch of terminated Microsoft engineers may have in effect been forced to dig their own AI graves. The (paywalled) story begins: "Jeff Hulse, a Microsoft vice president who oversees roughly 400 software engineers, told the team in recent months to use the company's artificial intelligence chatbot, powered by OpenAI, to generate half the computer code they write, according to a person who heard the remarks. That would represent an increase from the 20% to 30% of code AI currently produces at the company, and shows how rapidly Microsoft is moving to incorporate such technology. Then on Tuesday, Microsoft laid off more than a dozen engineers on Hulse 's team as part of a broader layoff of 6,000 people across the company that appeared to hit engineers harder than other types of roles, this person said." The report comes as tech company CEOs have taken to boasting in earnings calls, tech conferences, and public statements that their AI is responsible for an ever-increasing share of the code written at their organizations. Microsoft's recent job cuts hit coders the hardest. So how much credence should one place on CEOs' claims of AI programming productivity gains -- which researchers have struggled to measure for 50+ years -- if engineers are forced to increase their use of AI, boosting the numbers their far-removed-from-programming CEOs are presenting to Wall Street?

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: Hacked AI-powered chatbots threaten to make dangerous knowledge readily available by churning out illicit information the programs absorb during training, researchers say. [...] In a report on the threat, the researchers conclude that it is easy to trick most AI-driven chatbots into generating harmful and illegal information, showing that the risk is "immediate, tangible and deeply concerning." "What was once restricted to state actors or organised crime groups may soon be in the hands of anyone with a laptop or even a mobile phone," the authors warn. The research, led by Prof Lior Rokach and Dr Michael Fire at Ben Gurion University of the Negev in Israel, identified a growing threat from "dark LLMs", AI models that are either deliberately designed without safety controls or modified through jailbreaks. Some are openly advertised online as having "no ethical guardrails" and being willing to assist with illegal activities such as cybercrime and fraud. [...] To demonstrate the problem, the researchers developed a universal jailbreak that compromised multiple leading chatbots, enabling them to answer questions that should normally be refused. Once compromised, the LLMs consistently generated responses to almost any query, the report states. "It was shocking to see what this system of knowledge consists of," Fire said. Examples included how to hack computer networks or make drugs, and step-by-step instructions for other criminal activities. "What sets this threat apart from previous technological risks is its unprecedented combination of accessibility, scalability and adaptability," Rokach added. The researchers contacted leading providers of LLMs to alert them to the universal jailbreak but said the response was "underwhelming." Several companies failed to respond, while others said jailbreak attacks fell outside the scope of bounty programs, which reward ethical hackers for flagging software vulnerabilities.

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Christian Selig, developer of the popular third-party Reddit app Apollo, is joining the rebooted Digg as an advisor alongside Digg founder Kevin Rose and Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian. TechCrunch reports: Earlier this year, Digg's original founder Kevin Rose and Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian acquired what was left of Digg in an attempt to revitalize what was formerly known as "the internet's homepage." Rose and Ohanian were already a fascinating pairing -- the two had previously seen each other as rivals, since Digg and Reddit were fierce competitors. By adding Selig to the mix, Rose and Ohanian are further signaling that the new Digg wants to shake things up. Selig played a prominent role in the backlash against Reddit's increased API pricing in 2023, which made free apps like Apollo -- which offered an enhanced browsing experience for Reddit users -- impossible to run. In a Reddit post that went viral, Selig told users that in order to keep Apollo running as-is under the new API pricing, he would need to pay about $1.7 million per month. Needless to say, Apollo shut down, much to the Reddit community's disappointment. "We're excited to have Selig bring that same craft and community-first thinking to Digg, helping us build something that feels good to use and even better to be a part of," said Digg CEO Justin Mezzell in a statement.

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At I/O 2025, Google revealed new details about Android XR glasses, which will integrate with your phone to deliver context-aware support via Gemini AI. 9to5Google reports: Following the December announcement, Google today shared how all Android XR glasses will have a camera, microphones, and speakers, while an "in-lens display" that "privately provides helpful information right when you need it" is described as being "optional." The glasses will "work in tandem with your phone, giving you access to your apps without ever having to reach in your pocket." Gemini can "see and hear what you do" to "understand your context, remember what's important to you and provide information right when you need it." We see it accessing Google Calendar, Maps, Messages, Photos, Tasks, and Translate. Google is "working with brands and partners to bring this technology to life," specifically Warby Parker and Gentle Monster. "Stylish glasses" are the goal for Android XR since they "can only truly be helpful if you want to wear them all day." Meanwhile, Google is officially "advancing" the Samsung partnership from headsets to Android XR glasses. They are making a software and reference hardware platform "that will enable the ecosystem to make great glasses." Notably, "developers will be able to start building for this platform later this year." On the privacy front, Google is now "gathering feedback on our prototypes with trusted testers." Further reading: Google's Brin: 'I Made a Lot of Mistakes With Google Glass'

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNBC: Microsoft said Wednesday that it broke down the Lumma Stealer malware project with the help of law enforcement officials across the globe. The tech giant said in a blog post that its digital crimes unit discovered more than 394,000 Windows computers were infected by the Lumma malware worldwide between March 16 through May 16. The Lumma malware was a favorite hacking tool used by bad actors, Microsoft said in the post. Hackers used the malware to steal passwords, credit cards, bank accounts and cryptocurrency wallets. Microsoft said its digital crimes unit was able to dismantle the web domains underpinning Lumma's infrastructure with the help of a court order from the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia. The U.S. Department of Justice then took control of Lumma's "central command structure" and squashed the online marketplaces where bad actors purchased the malware. The cybercrime control center of Japan "facilitated the suspension of locally based Lumma infrastructure," the blog post said. "Working with law enforcement and industry partners, we have severed communications between the malicious tool and victims," Microsoft said in the post. "Moreover, more than 1,300 domains seized by or transferred to Microsoft, including 300 domains actioned by law enforcement with the support of Europol, will be redirected to Microsoft sinkholes." Cloudflare, Bitsight and Lumen also helped break down the Lumma malware ecosystem.

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New analysis by MIT Technology Review reveals AI's rapidly growing energy demands, with data centers expected to triple their share of US electricity consumption from 4.4% to 12% by 2028. According to Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory projections, AI alone could soon consume electricity equivalent to 22% of all US households annually, driven primarily by inference operations that represent 80-90% of AI's computing power. The carbon intensity of electricity used by data centers is 48% higher than the US average, researchers found, as facilities increasingly turn to dirtier energy sources like natural gas to meet immediate needs. Tech giants are racing to secure unprecedented energy resources: OpenAI and President Trump announced a $500 billion Stargate initiative, Apple plans to spend $500 billion on manufacturing and data centers, and Google expects to invest $75 billion in AI infrastructure in 2025 alone. Despite their massive energy ambitions, leading AI companies remain largely silent about their per-query energy consumption, leaving researchers struggling to assemble what one expert called "a total black box."

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The U.S. trade deficit persists due to fundamental macroeconomic imbalances rather than just export shortfalls, according to Federal Reserve Bank of New York economist Thomas Klitgaard. His analysis shows the deficit reflects a persistent gap between domestic saving and investment spending, with the U.S. borrowing from foreign sources to fund domestic investment when savings fall short. This macroeconomic reality means targeting specific trade categories won't resolve the overall imbalance -- even when the petroleum deficit disappeared by 2019 due to increased domestic production, the total trade deficit grew to $441 billion, consistent with a widening saving gap. Bureau of Economic Analysis data reveals household saving has remained below pre-pandemic levels as consumers spend down accumulated savings from 2020-21, while business saving has remained relatively stable. Reducing the deficit would require significant macroeconomic adjustments, including higher domestic saving or reduced investment spending, which studies indicate would likely cause economic pain as demonstrated during the 2008 recession.

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Sam Altman, OpenAI's chief executive, said Wednesday his firm was paying $6.5 billion to buy io, a one-year-old start-up created by Jony Ive, a former top Apple executive who designed the iPhone. From a report: The deal, which effectively unites Silicon Valley royalty, is intended to usher in what the two men call "a new family of products" for the age of artificial general intelligence, or A.G.I., which is shorthand for a future technology that achieves human-level intelligence. The deal, which is OpenAI's biggest acquisition, will bring in Mr. Ive and his team of roughly 55 engineers, designers and researchers. They will assume creative and design responsibilities across OpenAI and build hardware that helps people better interact with the technology. In a joint interview, Mr. Ive and Mr. Altman declined to say what such devices could look like and how they might work, but they said they hoped to share details next year. Mr. Ive, 58, framed the ambitions as galactic, with the aim of creating "amazing products that elevate humanity."

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Microsoft is introducing a new "Cross Device Resume" feature for Windows 11, enabling app developers to let users seamlessly continue activity between devices in a manner closely mirroring Apple's Handoff for Macs and iPhones. Unveiled at Build 2025 during a session titled "Create Seamless Cross-Device Experiences with Windows for your app," the feature was demonstrated -- before the session was quietly edited to remove this segment -- by showing Spotify playing a song on an Android phone, then surfacing the Spotify app in the Windows taskbar with a phone icon; clicking this launches Spotify on the PC at precisely the same point in the app as on the phone, preserving playback position for uninterrupted use.

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