AmiMoJo writes: The Shenzhen 8K UHD Video Industry Cooperation Alliance, a group made up of more than 50 Chinese companies, just released a new wired media communication standard called the General Purpose Media Interface or GPMI. This standard was developed to support 8K and reduce the number of cables required to stream data and power from one device to another. According to HKEPC, the GPMI cable comes in two flavors -- a Type-B that seems to have a proprietary connector and a Type-C that is compatible with the USB-C standard. Because 8K has four times the number of pixels of 4K and 16 times more pixels than 1080p resolution, it means that GPMI is built to carry a lot more data than other current standards. There are other variables that can impact required bandwidth, of course, such as color depth and refresh rate. The GPMI Type-C connector is set to have a maximum bandwidth of 96 Gbps and deliver 240 watts of power. This is more than double the 40 Gbps data limit of USB4 and Thunderbolt 4, allowing you to transmit more data on the cable. However, it has the same power limit as that of the latest USB Type-C connector using the Extended Power Range (EPR) standard. GPMI Type-B beats all other cables, though, with its maximum bandwidth of 192 Gbps and power delivery of up to 480 watts.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Waymo is preparing to use data from its robotaxis, including video from interior cameras tied to rider identities, to train generative AI models, according to an unreleased version of its privacy policy found by researcher Jane Manchun Wong. The draft language reveals Waymo may also share this data to personalize ads, raising fresh questions about how much of a rider's behavior inside autonomous vehicles could be repurposed for AI training and marketing. The privacy page states: "Waymo may share data to improve and analyze its functionality and to tailor products, services, ads, and offers to your interests. You can opt out of sharing your information with third parties, unless it's necessary to the functioning of the service."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The United Kingdom has banned "outrageous fake reviews and sneaky hidden fees" to make life easier for online shoppers. From a report: New measures under the Digital Markets, Competition, and Consumer Act 2024 came into force on Sunday that require online platforms to transparently include all mandatory fees within a product's advertised price, including booking or admin charges. The law targets so-called "dripped pricing," in which additional fees -- like platform service charges -- are dripped in during a customer's checkout process to dupe them into paying a higher price than expected. The ban "aims to bring to an end the shock that online shoppers get when they reach the end of their shopping experience only to find a raft of extra fees lumped on top," according to Justin Madders, the UK's Minister for Employment Rights, Competition and Markets.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The internet's physical mass remains contested among scientists, with estimates ranging from a strawberry to something almost unimaginably small. In 2006, Harvard physicist Russell Seitz calculated the internet weighed roughly 50 grams based on server energy, a figure that would now equate to potato-weight given internet growth. Christopher White, president of NEC Laboratories America, has dismissed this calculation as "just wrong." White suggests a more accurate method that accounts for the energy needed to encode all internet data in one place, yielding approximately 53 quadrillionths of a gram at room temperature. Alternatively, if the internet's projected 175 zettabytes of data were stored in DNA -- a storage medium scientists are actively exploring -- it would weigh 960,947 grams, equivalent to 10.6 American males. Though scientists debate measurement methods, White asserts the web's true complexity makes it "essentially unknowable."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Apple rushed five planeloads of iPhones from India to the U.S. in just three days to beat new tariffs imposed by the Trump administration, Times of India reported Monday, citing sources. The urgent shipments during the final week of March aimed to avoid the 10% reciprocal tariff that took effect on April 5. The stockpiling will allow Apple to maintain current pricing temporarily. "The reserves that arrived at lower duty will temporarily insulate the company from the higher prices that it will need to pay for new shipments," the Indian daily cited a source as saying. The Trump administration also announced a 26% reciprocal tariff to be implemented on April 9, potentially accelerating Apple's manufacturing shift away from China. India offers a significant tariff advantage, with Indian exports facing a 26% tariff to the U.S. compared to 54% on Chinese goods. Further reading: India's Economic Chess Against Twin US Economic Threats.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

President Donald Trump signaled a potential diplomatic opening amid his aggressive tariff strategy on Monday, threatening China with an additional 50% tariff while simultaneously offering other nations a path to negotiate lower trade barriers. The ultimatum to Beijing demands China withdraw a 34% increase by April 8, 2025, or face supplementary tariffs effective April 9, which would push total levies on Chinese goods to 104% or higher. Trump has already imposed a 20% tariff over fentanyl concerns and a 34% tariff related to trade issues. "Negotiations with other countries, which have requested meetings, will begin taking place immediately," Trump wrote on social media, marking a shift from the administration's previously unyielding stance.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A court has blocked a British government attempt to keep secret a legal case over its demand to access Apple user data. From a report: The UK Investigatory Powers Tribunal, a special court that handles cases related to government surveillance, said the authorities' efforts were a "fundamental interference with the principle of open justice" in a ruling issued on Monday. The development comes after it emerged in January that the British government had served Apple with a demand to circumvent encryption that the company uses to secure user data stored in its cloud services. Apple challenged the request, while taking the unprecedented step of removing its advanced data protection feature for its British users. The government had sought to keep details about the demand -- and Apple's challenge of it -- from being publicly disclosed. Apple has regularly clashed with governments over encryption features that can make it difficult for law enforcement to access devices produced by the company. The world's most valuable company last year criticized UK surveillance powers as "unprecedented overreach" by the government.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Microsoft's AI chief Mustafa Suleyman says the company has deliberately chosen to build AI models "three or six months behind" cutting-edge developments, citing cost savings and more focused implementation. "It's cheaper to give a specific answer once you've waited for the first three or six months for the frontier to go first. We call that off-frontier," Suleyman told CNBC. "That's actually our strategy, is to really play a very tight second, given the capital-intensiveness of these models." Microsoft owns substantial Nvidia GPU capacity but sees no need to develop "the absolute frontier, the best model in the world first," as it would be "very, very expensive" and create unnecessary duplication, Suleyman said. Despite its $13.75 billion investment in OpenAI, Microsoft added the startup to its list of competitors in July 2024. OpenAI subsequently announced a partnership with Oracle on its $500 billion Stargate project, departing from exclusive reliance on Microsoft's Azure cloud. "Look, it's absolutely mission-critical that long-term, we are able to do AI self-sufficiently at Microsoft," Suleyman said, while stressing the partnership with OpenAI would continue "until 2030 at least."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Scientists "demonstrated a promising step toward using a person's own immune cells to fight gastrointestinal cancers" at America's National Institutes of Health (or NIH), reports the Washington Post. But the results were published in Nature Medicine on Tuesday — "the same day the agency was hit with devastating layoffs..." The treatment approach is still early in its development; the personalized immunotherapy regimen shrank tumors in only about a quarter of the patients with colon, rectal and other GI cancers enrolled in a clinical trial. But a researcher who was not involved in the study called the results "remarkable" because they highlight a path to a frustratingly elusive goal in medicine — harnessing a person's own immune defenses to target common solid tumor cancers. Until now, cell-based immunotherapy has worked mainly on blood cancers, such as leukemia, but not the solid cancers that seed tumors in the breast, brain, lungs, pancreas and GI tract... But the progress arrives at a sad time for science — and for patients, said the leader of the work, NIH immunotherapy pioneer Steven Rosenberg. Two patients' treatments using the experimental therapy had to be delayed because NIH's capacity to make personalized cell therapies has been slowed by the firing of highly skilled staff and by purchasing slowdowns. Those occurred even before major layoffs took place Tuesday... The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) responded to an email asking about clinical trial delays with a statement: "NIH and HHS are complying with President Trump's executive order." It's "a very exciting study," said Patrick Hwu, president of the Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa. Finding ways to tailor this cell-based immunotherapy approach to common solid tumors that cause the vast majority of cancer deaths has remained a major scientific challenge... Rosenberg and colleagues first tried to create tumor infiltrating lymphocytes [or "TILs"] using the method that worked in melanoma for 18 patients with GI cancers that had spread. It failed completely. In a second iteration, his team sequenced the mutations present in each patient's tumor and used that information to sift out and expand the TILs that could home in on that patient's specific tumor cells. The results were far from a triumph, but provided a clue — this time, three of 39 patients' tumors shrank. In the last stage of the trial, the scientists added a drug called pembrolizumab that takes the brakes off immune cells. This time, eight of the 34 patients responded. "Right now, only a few labs in the country can do what they just did," Hwu said. While Rosenberg is already working "to refine and improve upon the results," he told the Post that two scientists involved in the specialized process of preparing the cells to treat patients were fired in the probationary purge. "We've had to slow down our work and delay the treatment of some patients...." And there's also dramatically fewer people now who can purchase research materials, which the Post says it "making it slower and more difficult to obtain supplies."

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Brain rot — the inability to think deeply after too much scrolling on a phone — afflicts "plenty of people," writes the New York Times' lead consumer technology writer. [Alternate URL here.] He's suffering from it too — "These days, it's tough to even finish a book." But is the answer just avoiding distractions with a stripped-down $600 phone "that barely does anything"? For a week he tested the Light Phone III... The newest version, which began shipping in March and is set for a broader release in July, can place calls, send texts, take photos, show map directions, play music and podcasts and not do much else. There is no web browser. There is also no app store, meaning there's no Uber to hail a ride, no Slack and no social media. There isn't even email... There were moments I enjoyed it. While waiting for a train, resting at the gym or eating alone, I was not tempted to stare at the phone screen, and I felt more mindful of my surroundings. Phone calls sounded nice and clear. The maps app did a fine job navigating me around town. It reminded me of simpler times when we used phones primarily to converse before putting them away to focus on other tasks. But over the week, the downsides of a dumber phone chipped away at my enjoyment, and overall I felt more stressed and less capable. I suddenly found myself unable to get into a train station, look up the name of a new restaurant or control my garage door. Some of that has less to do with the Light Phone itself, which is a so-so product, and more to do with how society as a whole has become dependent on advanced smartphone features. For example, his old smartphone supported virtual phone-based passes for mass transit and speedy access to his gym. (And his friends made phone of the Light Phone's photos.) But at least never felt tempted to check his email when out to dinner. "While I admire the goal of the Light Phone, my experience demonstrates there's nothing we can realistically do or buy to bring us back to simpler times. So many aspects of our lives, including getting around town, working, paying for things and controlling home appliances, revolve around our highly capable smartphones. "This Light Phone experiment reminded me of glamping: paying a lot to have an artificially crummier experience."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Do you know what I had forgotten until this morning? That VBScript (and thus, older versions of Visual Basic) don't require you to use parentheses when calling a function. Foo 5 and Foo(5) are the same thing.

Of course, why would I remember that? I thankfully haven't touched any of those languages since about… 2012. Which is actually a horrifyingly short time ago, back when I supported classic ASP web apps. Even when I did, I always used parentheses because I wanted my code to be something close to readable.

Classic ASP, there's a WTF for you. All the joy of the way PHP mixes markup and code into a single document, but with an arguably worse and weirder language.

Which finally, brings us to Josh's code. Josh worked for a traveling exhibition company, and that company had an entirely homebrewed CMS written in classic ASP. Here's a few hundred lines out of their navigation menu.

<ul class=menuMain> <% if menu = "1" then Response.Write "<li class='activ'><b></b><i></i><a href='/home.asp' title='Home'>Home</a></li>" else Response.Write "<li><a href='/home.asp' title='Home'>Home</a></li>" end if if menu = "2" then Response.Write "<li class='activ'><b></b><i></i><a href='/expeditions/about_wc_homepage.asp' title='About World Challenge'>About us</a></li>" else Response.Write "<li><a href='/expeditions/about_wc_homepage.asp' title='About World Challenge'>About us</a></li>" end if if menu = "3" then Response.Write "<li class='activ'><b></b><i></i><a href='/expeditions/book-a-school-expedition.asp' title='How to book'>How to book</a></li>" else Response.Write "<li><a href='/expeditions/book-a-school-expedition.asp' title='How to book'>How to book</a></li>" end if if menu = "4" then Response.Write "<li class='activ'><b></b><i></i><a href='/expeditions/expeditions_home.asp' title='Expeditions'>Expeditions</a></li>" else Response.Write "<li><a href='/expeditions/expeditions_home.asp' title='Expeditions'>Expeditions</a></li>" end if if menu = "5" then Response.Write "<li class='activ'><b></b><i></i><a href='/expeditions/safety_home.asp' title='Safety'>Safety</a></li>" else Response.Write "<li><a href='/expeditions/safety_home.asp' title='Safety'>Safety</a></li>" end if if menu = "6" then Response.Write "<li class='activ'><b></b><i></i><a href='/expeditions/mm_what_is_mm.asp' title='Fundraising support'>Fundraising</a></li>" else Response.Write "<li><a href='/expeditions/mm_what_is_mm.asp' title='Fundraising support'>Fundraising</a></li>" end if if menu = "7" then Response.Write "<li class='activ'><b></b><i></i><a href='/expeditions/careers_home.asp' title='Work for us'>Work for us</a></li>" else Response.Write "<li><a href='/expeditions/careers_home.asp' title='Work for us'>Work for us</a></li>" end if if menu = "8" then Response.Write "<li class='activ'><b></b><i></i><a href='/expeditions/contact_us_home.asp' title='Contact us'>Contact us</a></li>" else Response.Write "<li><a href='/expeditions/contact_us_home.asp' title='Contact us'>Contact us</a></li>" end if Response.Write "</ul>" Response.Write "<ul class='menuSub'>" if menu = "1" then end if if menu = "2" then if submenu = "1" then Response.Write "<li class='activ'><b></b><i></i><a href='/expeditions/about_wc_who_we_are.asp' title='Who we are'>Who we are</a></li>" else Response.Write "<li><a href='/expeditions/about_wc_who_we_are.asp'title='Who we are'>Who we are</a></li>" end if if submenu = "2" then Response.Write "<li class='activ'><b></b><i></i><a href='/expeditions/world_challenge_CSR.asp' title='CSR'>CSR</a></li>" else Response.Write "<li><a href='/expeditions/world_challenge_CSR.asp' title='CSR'>CSR</a></li>" end if if submenu = "3" then Response.Write "<li class='activ'><b></b><i></i><a href='/expeditions/World-Challenge-Accreditation.asp' title='Partners and accreditation'>Partners and accreditation</a></li>" else Response.Write "<li><a href='/expeditions/World-Challenge-Accreditation.asp' title='Partners and accreditation'>Partners and accreditation</a></li>" end if if submenu = "4" then Response.Write "<li class='activ'><b></b><i></i><a href='/expeditions/curriculum-links.asp' title='Curriculum links'>Curriculum links</a></li>" else Response.Write "<li><a href='/expeditions/curriculum-links.asp' title='Curriculum links'>Curriculum links</a></li>" end if if submenu = "5" then Response.Write "<li class='activ'><b></b><i></i><a href='/expeditions/expedition_advice.asp' title='Expedition advice'>Expedition advice</a></li>" else Response.Write "<li><a href='/expeditions/expedition_advice.asp' title='Expedition advice'>Expedition advice</a></li>" end if if submenu = "6" then Response.Write "<li class='activ'><b></b><i></i><a href='/expeditions/about_wc_press_and_publications.asp' title='Press resources'>Press resources</a></li>" else Response.Write "<li><a href='/expeditions/about_wc_press_and_publications.asp' title='Press resources'>Press resources</a></li>" end if end if if menu = "3" then Response.Write "<li></li>" end if if menu = "4" then if submenu = "1" then Response.Write "<li class='activ'><b></b><i></i><a href='/expeditions/exped_lh_dest_ca.asp' title='Central & North America'>Central and North America</a></li>" else Response.Write "<li><a href='/expeditions/exped_lh_dest_ca.asp' title='Central and North America'>Central and North America</a></li>" end if if submenu = "2" then Response.Write "<li class='activ'><b></b><i></i><a href='/expeditions/exped_lh_dest_sa.asp' title='South America'>South America</a></li>" else Response.Write "<li><a href='/expeditions/exped_lh_dest_sa.asp' title='South America'>South America</a></li>" end if if submenu = "3" then Response.Write "<li class='activ'><b></b><i></i><a href='/expeditions/exped_lh_dest_sea.asp' title='South East Asia'>South East Asia</a></li>" else Response.Write "<li><a href='/expeditions/exped_lh_dest_sea.asp' title='South East Asia'>South East Asia</a></li>" end if if submenu = "4" then Response.Write "<li class='activ'><b></b><i></i><a href='/expeditions/exped_lh_dest_asia.asp' title='Asia'>Asia</a></li>" else Response.Write "<li><a href='/expeditions/exped_lh_dest_asia.asp' title='Asia'>Asia</a></li>" end if if submenu = "5" then Response.Write "<li class='activ'><b></b><i></i><a href='/expeditions/exped_lh_dest_africa.asp' title='Africa'>Africa</a></li>" else Response.Write "<li><a href='/expeditions/exped_lh_dest_africa.asp' title='Africa'>Africa</a></li>" end if if submenu = "6" then Response.Write "<li class='activ'><b></b><i></i><a href='/expeditions/europe_school_expeditions.asp' title='Europe'>Europe</a></li>" else Response.Write "<li><a href='/expeditions/europe_school_expeditions.asp' title='Europe'>Europe</a></li>" end if if submenu = "7" then Response.Write "<li class='activ'><b></b><i></i><a href='/expeditions/community-projects.asp' title='Community projects'>Community projects</a></li>" else Response.Write "<li><a href='/expeditions/community-projects.asp' title='Community projects'>Community projects</a></li>" end if if submenu = "8" then Response.Write "<li class='activ'><b></b><i></i><a href='/expeditions/exped_indiv_home.asp' title='Independent'>Independent</a></li>" else Response.Write "<li><a href='/expeditions/exped_indiv_home.asp' title='Independent'>Independent</a></li>" end if end if if menu = "5" then if submenu = "1" then Response.Write "<li class='activ'><b></b><i></i><a href='/expeditions/safe-people.asp' title='Safe People'>Safe people</a></li>" else Response.Write "<li><a href='/expeditions/safe-people.asp' title='Safe People'>Safe people</a></li>" end if if submenu = "2" then Response.Write "<li class='activ'><b></b><i></i><a href='/expeditions/safe-place.asp' title='Safe places'>Safe places</a></li>" else Response.Write "<li><a href='/expeditions/safe-place.asp' title='Safe places'>Safe places</a></li>" end if if submenu = "3" then Response.Write "<li class='activ'><b></b><i></i><a href='/expeditions/safe-policies-practises.asp' title='Safe practices and policies'>Safe practices and policies</a></li>" else Response.Write "<li><a href='/expeditions/safe-policies-practises.asp' title='Safe practices and policies'>Safe practices and policies</a></li>" end if if submenu = "4" then Response.Write "<li class='activ'><b></b><i></i><a href='/expeditions/safe-resources.asp' title='Safe Resources'>Safe resources</a></li>" else Response.Write "<li><a href='/expeditions/safe-resources.asp' title='Safe Resources'>Safe resources</a></li>" end if if submenu = "5" then Response.Write "<li class='activ'><b></b><i></i><a href='/expeditions/safety_ops_centre.asp' title='Operations Centre'>Operations Centre</a></li>" else Response.Write "<li><a href='/expeditions/safety_ops_centre.asp' title='Operations Centre'>Operations Centre</a></li>" end if if submenu = "6" then Response.Write "<li class='activ'><b></b><i></i><a href='/expeditions/travel_safety_course.asp' title='Travelsafe course'>Travelsafe course</a></li>" else Response.Write "<li><a href='/expeditions/travel_safety_course.asp' title='Travelsafe course'>Travelsafe course</a></li>" end if end if if menu = "6" then ' if submenu = "1" then ' Response.Write "<li class='activ'><b></b><i></i><a href='/expeditions/fundraising-team.asp' title='Fundraising team'>Fundraising team</a></li>" ' else ' Response.Write "<li><a href='/expeditions/fundraising-team.asp' title='Fundraising team'>Fundraising team</a></li>" ' end if if submenu = "2" then Response.Write "<li class='activ'><b></b><i></i><a href='/expeditions/mm_ideas.asp' title='Fundraising ideas'>Fundraising ideas</a></li>" else Response.Write "<li><a href='/expeditions/mm_ideas.asp' title='Fundraising ideas'>Fundraising ideas</a></li>" end if if submenu = "3" then Response.Write "<li class='activ'><b></b><i></i><a href='/expeditions/about_wc_events_challenger_events.asp' title='Fundraising events'>Fundraising events</a></li>" else Response.Write "<li><a href='/expeditions/about_wc_events_challenger_events.asp' title='Fundraising events'>Fundraising events</a></li>" end if end if if menu = "7" then if submenu = "1" then Response.Write "<li class='activ'><b></b><i></i><a href='/expeditions/careers_leader_ops_overseas.asp' title='Lead an expedition'>Lead an expedition</a></li>" else Response.Write "<li><a href='/expeditions/careers_leader_ops_overseas.asp' title='Lead an expedition'>Lead an expedition</a></li>" end if if submenu = "2" then Response.Write "<li class='activ'><b></b><i></i><a href='/expeditions/permanent_jobs_world_challenge.asp' title='Office based positions'>Office based positions</a></li>" else Response.Write "<li><a href='/expeditions/permanent_jobs_world_challenge.asp' title='Office based positions'>Office based positions</a></li>" end if end if if menu = "8" then if submenu = "1" then Response.Write "<li class='activ'><b></b><i></i><a href='/pages/forms-brochure.asp' title='Request a brochure'>Request a brochure</a></li>" else Response.Write "<li><a href='/pages/forms-brochure.asp' title='Request a brochure'>Request a brochure</a></li>" end if if submenu = "2" then Response.Write "<li class='activ'><b></b><i></i><a rel='external' href='http://f.chtah.com/s/3/2069554126/signup.html' title='Sign up for e-news'>Sign up for e-news</a></li>" else Response.Write "<li><a rel='external' href='http://f.chtah.com/s/3/2069554126/signup.html' title='Sign up for e-news'>Sign up for e-news</a></li>" end if if submenu = "3" then Response.Write "<li class='activ'><b></b><i></i><a href='/expeditions/about_wc_press_and_publications.asp' title='Press resources'>Press resources</a></li>" else Response.Write "<li><a href='/expeditions/about_wc_press_and_publications.asp' title='Press resources'>Press resources</a></li>" end if end if %> </ul>

This renders the whole menu, but based on the selected menu and submenu, it adds an activ class to the HTML elements. Which means that each HTML element is defined here twice, once with and without the CSS class on it. I know folks like to talk about dry code, but this code is SOGGY with repetition. Just absolutely dripping wet with the same thing multiple times. Moist.

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"Gen Z is rediscovering Tumblr — a chaotic, cozy corner of the internet untouched by algorithmic gloss and influencer overload..." writes Fast Company, "embracing the platform as a refuge from an internet saturated with influencers and algorithm fatigue." Thanks to Gen Z, the site has found new life. As of 2025, Gen Z makes up 50% of Tumblr's active monthly users and accounts for 60% of new sign-ups, according to data shared with Business Insider's Amanda Hoover, who recently reported on the platform's resurgence. User numbers spiked in January during the near-ban of TikTok and jumped again last year when Brazil temporarily banned X. In response, Tumblr users launched dedicated communities to archive and share their favorite TikToks... To keep up with the momentum, Tumblr introduced Reddit-style Communities in December, letting users connect over shared interests like photography and video games. In January, it debuted Tumblr TV — a TikTok-like feature that serves as both a GIF search engine and a short-form video platform. But perhaps Tumblr's greatest strength is that it isn't TikTok or Facebook. Currently the 10th most popular social platform in the U.S., according to analytics firm Similarweb, Tumblr is dwarfed by giants like Instagram and X. For its users, though, that's part of the appeal. First launched in 2007, Tumblr peaked at over 100 million users in 2014, according to the article. Trends like Occupy Wall Street had been born on Tumblr, notes Business Insider, calling the blogging platform "Gen Z's safe space... as the rest of the social internet has become increasingly commodified, polarized, and dominated by lifestyle influencers." Tumblr was also "one of the most hyped startups in the world before fading into obsolescence — bought by Yahoo for $1.1 billion in 2013... then acquired by Verizon, and later offloaded for fractions of pennies on the dollar in a distressed sale. "That same Tumblr, a relic of many millennials' formative years, has been having a moment among Gen Z..." "Gen Z has this romanticism of the early-2000s internet," says Amanda Brennan, an internet librarian who worked at Tumblr for seven years, leaving her role as head of content in 2021... Part of the reason young people are hanging out on old social platforms is that there's nowhere new to go. The tech industry is evolving at a slower pace than it was in the 2000s, and there's less room for disruption. Big Tech has a stranglehold on how we socialize. That leaves Gen Z to pick up the scraps left by the early online millennials and attempt to craft them into something relevant. They love Pinterest (founded in 2010) and Snapchat (2011), and they're trying out digital point-and-shoot cameras and flip phones for an early-2000s aesthetic — and learning the valuable lesson that sometimes we look better when blurrier. More Gen Zers and millennials are signing up for Yahoo. Napster, surprising many people with its continued existence, just sold for $207 million. The trend is fueled by nostalgia for Y2K aesthetics and a longing for a time when people could make mistakes on the internet and move past them. The pandemic also brought more Gen Z users to Tumblr... And Tumblr still works much like an older internet, where people have more control over what they see and rely less on algorithms. "You curate your own stuff; it takes a little bit of work to put everything in place, but when it's working, you see the content you want to see," Fjodor Everaerts, a 26-year-old in Belgium who has made some 250,000 posts since he joined Tumblr when he was 14... Under Automattic, Tumblr is finally in the home that serves it, [says Ari Levine, the head of brand partnerships at Tumblr]. "We've had ups and downs along the way, but we're in the most interesting position and place that we've been in 18 years," he says... And following media companies (including Business Insider) and social platforms like Reddit, Automattic in 2024 was making a deal with OpenAI and Midjourney to allow the systems to train on Tumblr posts. "The social internet is fractured," the article argues. ("Millennials are running Reddit. Gen Xers and Baby Boomers have a home on Facebook. Bluesky, one of the new X alternatives, has a tangible elder-millennial/Gen X vibe. Gen Zers have created social apps like BeReal and the Myspace-inspired Noplace, but they've so far generated more hype than influence....") But in a world where megaplatforms "flatten our online experiences and reward content that fits a mold," the article suggests, "smaller communities can enrich them."

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"U.S. stock market futures plunged on Sunday evening," reports Yahoo Finance, "after the new U.S. tariff policy began collecting duties over the weekend..." The EU will vote on $28 billion in retaliatory tariffs Wednesday, Reuters reports. (And those tariffs will be approved unless "a qualified majority of 15 EU members representing 65% of the EU's population oppose it. They would enter force in two stages, a smaller part on April 15 and the rest a month later.") But France's Economy and Finance Minister has an idea: more strictly regulating how data is used by America's Big Tech companies. Politico EU reports/A>: "We may strengthen certain administrative requirements or regulate the use of data," Lombard said in an interview with Le Journal Du Dimanche. He added that another option could be to "tax certain activities," without being more specific. A French government spokesperson already said last week that the EU's retaliation against U.S. tariffs could include "digital services that are currently not taxed." That suggestion was fiercely rejected by Ireland, which hosts the European headquarters of several U.S. Big Tech firms... Technology is seen as a possible area for Europe to retaliate. The European Union has a €157 billion trade surplus in goods, which means it exports more than it imports, but it runs a deficit of €109 billion in services, including digital services. Big Tech giants like Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Google and Meta dominate many parts of the market in Europe. Amid the market turmoil, what about cryptocurrencies, often seen as a "proxy" for the level of risk felt by investors? In the 10 weeks after October 6, the price of Bitcoin skyrocketed 67% to $106,490 by December 10th. But by January 30th it had started dropping again, and now sits at $77,831 — still up 22% for the last six months, but down nearly 27% over the last 10 weeks. Yet even after all that volatility, Bitcoin suddenly fell again more than 6% on Sunday, reports Reuters, "as markets plunged amid tariff tensions. Ether, the second largest cryptocurrency, fell more than 10% on Sunday."

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"Three Microsoft CEOs walk into a room..." Satya Nadella posted on X.com, "and are interviewed by Copilot!" As part of Microsoft's 50th anniversary celebration, Microsoft CEO Nadella joined former Microsoft CEOs Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer in a funny two-minute video (also available on YouTube) in which Nadella asks Copilot for an AI-powered roast of each of them. "All right Satya," Copilot answers. "Let's spice it up..." Copilot: Steve, we'll start with you. Your enthusiasm is legendary. But do you ever worry that your energy might short-circuit the AI? I mean, even robots need a coffee break after your pep talks. Steve Ballmer: Come on dude! If you can't handle me, you can't handle a huge percentage of the world's population! We're counting on you! Copilot: Ha ha, fair point Steve. Now Bill, you've got that signature thoughtful gaze. But do you ever think the AI might feel intimidated by your intense thinking face? I mean, it's like it's waiting for a blue screen moment. Bill Gates: I hope so. I mean, it's all I've got left as the AIs get so damn intelligent. It's just that gaze and my willingness to criticize that differentiates me. Copilot: And it's a formidable gaze indeed, Bill. Steve Ballmer: Copilot, would you ever be willing to criticize him? Copilot: Absolutely. Criticism is where growth happens. Now Satya, AI seems to be your best buddy — but ever worry that your deep passion for AI could one day have it running the show, leaving you to just enjoy the ride? Satya Nadella: Well, the day AI can play like the best cricket player that I enjoy, that's the day it can run the show, as far as I'm concerned. Copilot: Touche, Satya. Let's see if it can hit a century in cricket and then we'll talk. This has been a blast, gentlemen. Here's to another 50 years of innovation and adventure. Cheers. Ballmer, Nadella, and Gates: Cheers. Bill Gates: Whatever that means to an AI. Does it drink?

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Nuclear fusion — which releases four times the energy of fission — could theoretically happen sooner in space than on earth, reports CNN. "And it could help spacecraft achieve speeds of up to 500,000 miles (805,000 kilometers) per hour — more than the fastest object ever built..." With funding from the UK Space Agency, British startup Pulsar Fusion has unveiled Sunbird, a space rocket concept designed to meet spacecraft in orbit, attach to them, and carry them to their destination at breakneck speed using nuclear fusion... For now, Sunbird is in the very early stages of construction and it has exceptional engineering challenges to overcome, but Pulsar says it hopes to achieve fusion in orbit for the first time in 2027. [Pulsar's founder/CEO says the first functional Sunbird would be ready four to five years later.] If the rocket ever becomes operational, it could one day cut the journey time of a potential mission to Mars in half. CNN says the proposed Sunbird process would use helium-3 — which may be abundant on the Moon — to generate protons which "can be used as a 'nuclear exhaust' to provide propulsion". (And without generating any dangerous radioactive material.) "It's very unnatural to do fusion on Earth," says Richard Dinan, founder and CEO of Pulsar. "Fusion doesn't want to work in an atmosphere. Space is a far more logical, sensible place to do fusion, because that's where it wants to happen anyway...." Sunbirds would operate similarly to city bikes at docking stations, according to Dinan: "We launch them into space, and we would have a charging station where they could sit and then meet your ship," he says. "You turn off your inefficient combustion engines, and use nuclear fusion for the greater part of your journey. Ideally, you'd have a station somewhere near Mars, and you'd have a station on low Earth orbit, and the (Sunbirds) would just go back and forth...." Initially, the Sunbirds will be offered for shuttling satellites in orbit, but their true potential would come into play with interplanetary missions. The company illustrates a few examples of the missions that Sunbird could unlock, such as delivering up to 2,000 kilograms (4,400 pounds) of cargo to Mars in under six months, deploying probes to Jupiter or Saturn in two to four years (NASA's Europa Clipper, launched in 2024 towards one of Jupiter's moons, will arrive after 5.5 years), and an asteroid mining mission that would complete a round trip to a near-Earth asteroid in one to two years instead of three. Other companies are working on nuclear fusion engines for space propulsion, including Pasadena-based Helicity Space, which received investment from aerospace giant Lockheed Martin in 2024. San Diego-based General Atomics and NASA are working on another type of nuclear reactor — based on fission rather than fusion — which they plan to test in space in 2027.

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It was already the best-selling videogame of all time, notes the Hollywood Reporter. And A Minecraft Movie just had the biggest opening ever for a video game movie adaptation. WIth a production budget of $150 million, it earned in $157 million in just its first weekend in the U.S., with a worldwide total of $301 million. A Warner Bros. executive called the movie "lightning in a bottle," while the head of co-producer Legendary Pictures acknowledged the game is a global phenomon, according to the article. (About the movie's performance, the executive "said the opening is a both a reflection of the mandate to celebrate the world of Minecraft in a joyful way, and the singular experience that only theatrical can offer." But an unfinished version leaked online before the movie was even released, reports Variety Screenshots and footage from the fantasy adventure were being shared widely on social media platforms this week, and were also available on file sharing sites. The images and scenes have uncompleted visual effects. Most of the footage was quickly taken down by the rights holders. Although pirated footage is a common problem for major film releases, it's rare to have a working print leak online in this way, raising questions about how such an early version of the movie was accessed, stolen and then shared.

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theodp writes: America's National Football League announced that beginning with the 2025 season, Sony's Hawk-Eye virtual measurement technology will assess and identify first downs after a ball spot. Sony's Hawk-Eye virtual measurement technology, which consists of six 8K cameras for optical tracking of the position of the ball, is operated from the NFL's "Art McNally GameDay Central Officiating Center" in New York and is integrated with the League's existing replay system. It will serve as an efficient alternative to the process of having a three-person chain crew walk chains onto the field and manually measure whether 10 yards have been met after the official has spotted the ball. However, the chain crew will remain on the field in a secondary capacity. The NFL's executive VP of football operations says their move brings "world-class on field officiating with state-of-the-art technology to advance football excellence." (The NFL's announcement notes the whole process takes about 30 seconds, "saving up to 40 seconds from a measurement with the chains.") The move comes a full seven years after Apple introduced its iPhone Measure app...

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It's "a milestone for Meta AI and for open source," Mark Zuckerberg said this weekend. "For the first time, the best small, mid-size, and potentially soon frontier [large-language] models will be open source." Zuckerberg anounced four new Llama LLMs in a video posted on Instagram and Facebook — two dropping this weekend, with another two on the way. "Our goal is to build the world's leading AI, open source it, and make it universally accessible so that everyone in the world benefits." Zuckerberg's announcement: I've said for a while that I think open source AI is going to become the leading models. And with Llama 4 this is starting to happen. - The first model is Llama 4 Scout. It is extremely fast, natively multi-modal. It has an industry-leading "nearly infinite" 10M-token context length, and is designed to run on a single GPU. It is 17 billion parameters by 16 experts, and it is by far the highest performing small model in its class. - The second model is Llama 4 Maverick — the workhorse. It beats GPT-4o and Gemini Flash 2 on all benchmarks. It is smaller and more efficient than DeepSeek v3, but it is still comparable on text, plus it is natively multi-modal. This one is 17B parameters x 128 experts, and it is designed to run on a single host for easy inference. This thing is a beast. Zuck promised more news next month on "Llama 4 Reasoning" — but the fourth model will be called Llama 4 Behemoth. "This thing is massive. More than 2 trillion parameters." (A blog post from Meta AI says it also has a 288 billion active parameter model, outperforms GPT-4.5, Claude Sonnet 3.7, and Gemini 2.0 Pro on STEM benchmarks, and will "serve as a teacher for our new models.") "I'm not aware of anyone training a larger model out there," Zuckberg says in his video, calling Behemoth "already the highest performing base model in the world, and it is not even done training yet." "If you want to try Llama 4, you can use Meta AI in WhatsApp, Messenger, or Instagram Direct," Zuckberg said in his video, "or you can go to our web site at meta.ai." The Scout and Maverick models can be downloaded from llama.com and Hugging Face. "We continue to believe that openness drives innovation," Meta AI says in their blog post, "and is good for developers, good for Meta, and good for the world." Their blog post declares it's "The beginning of a new era of natively multimodal AI innovation," calling Scout and Maverick "the best choices for adding next-generation intelligence." This is just the beginning for the Llama 4 collection. We believe that the most intelligent systems need to be capable of taking generalized actions, conversing naturally with humans, and working through challenging problems they haven't seen before. Giving Llama superpowers in these areas will lead to better products for people on our platforms and more opportunities for developers to innovate on the next big consumer and business use cases. We're continuing to research and prototype both models and products, and we'll share more about our vision at LlamaCon on April 29... We also can't wait to see the incredible new experiences the community builds with our new Llama 4 models. "The impressive part about Llama 4 Maverick is that with just 17B active parameters, it has scored an ELO score of 1,417 on the LMArena leaderboard," notes the tech news site Beebom. "This puts the Maverick model in the second spot, just below Gemini 2.5 Pro, and above Grok 3, GPT-4o, GPT-4.5, and more. "It also achieves comparable results when compared to the latest DeepSeek V3 model on reasoning and coding tasks, and surprisingly, with just half the active parameters."

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It was long-time Slashdot reader uninet who argued "Apple Needs a Snow Sequoia." (That is, Apple needs an upgrade to MacOS Sequoia that's like it's earlier "Snow Leopard" upgrade to "Leopard" OS — an upgrade that's "all about how little it added and how much it took away".) "My recent column on Apple's declining software quality hit a nerve..." he writes in a follow-up. "So why do any of us put up with software that grows increasingly buggy?" "One word: hardware. And that's where I'd love to see someone help Linux take the next step." Apple knows how to turn out very good quality pieces of hardware and, for many purposes, stands alone. That's been largely true for the last couple of decades. The half-decade of Apple Silicon has cemented this position. At any price point Apple contends, Macs, iPads and iPhones are either without peers or at the top of the market in build quality and processing power... [I]f only there were hardware that was as good and worked together as well as Apple's, jumping ship to Linux would be awfully attractive at this juncture... For Apple aficionados troubled by the state of MacOS, the modern GNOME desktop on Linux beckons as a more faithful implementation of the ideals of MacOS than current MacOS does. GNOME is painstakingly consistent across its different apps and exudes the minimalist philosophy with which Apple's hardware shines... Now is a perfect moment for a modern Linux push to take that wind back. What it needs, though, is to solve its remaining weakness on the hardware side. One of the giants of electronics manufacturing, tired of being stuck between the Microsoft and Apple ecosystems, would only need to decide to commit the resources necessary to solve the hardware puzzle... ChromeOS has grown to the extent it does because there is hardware designed for it. Take that and carry it further by making it good hardware utilizing the best Linux software and you'd have something disruptive... Initially, the hardware could be "good enough" for the software, much as Apple's software today is merely "good enough" for the hardware. Iterating from there could lead to a genuine third way of computing. They titled their piece, "I Want a Better Mac, so I'm Cheering for a Better Linux." (Wondering if Dell or Sony could be the one to supply that good hardware...) "I say this not as someone who thinks Linux will ever dominate the personal computing world, but as someone who wants to see a spark of creativity and push beyond mediocrity in it again. "Apple needs a real competitor, one alternatives such as GNOME on Linux could actually be, if only the hardware rose to the occasion."

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"I started working on Voyager in 1977," the Voyager mission's project scientist told Gizmodo Saturday in a new interview. "It was my first job out of college." 35 years later, a Voyager probe became the first spacecraft to cross into interstellar space in 2012, with Voyager 2 following in 2018. But while each Voyager spacecraft carries 10 scientific instruments, all but three have now been turned off to conserve power, Gizmodo writes. "The two spacecraft now have enough power to operate for another year or so before engineers are forced to turn off two more instruments..." Voyager Mission Project Scientist Linda Spilker: The number of people that are working on and flying Voyager is a whole lot smaller than it was in the planetary days... The challenge was, can we reach the heliopause? We didn't know where it was, we had no idea how far away it was. We got to Neptune, and then we thought, "well, maybe it's just another 10 [astronomical units] or so, a little bit further, a little bit further." And so every time we got a little bit further, the modelers would go back, scratch their heads and say, "ah, it could be a little bit more, a little bit farther away," and so on and on that continued, until finally, Voyager 1 crossed the heliopause in 2012... Gizmodo: Is it an emotional decision to turn off Voyager's instruments? Spilker: I was talking to the cosmic ray instrument lead, and I said, "Wow, this must really be tough for you to see your instrument turned off." He helped build the instrument in the early 1970s. This instrument that's been sending you data, and that's been part of your life for over 50 years now. And he said, it was hard to think about turning it off for the whole team. It's kind of like losing a best friend, or someone that's been a part of your life for so many years, and then suddenly, it's silent. At the same time, there's this pride that you were part of that, and your instrument got so much great data — so it's a mix of emotions... The spacecraft had a lot of redundancy on it, so that means two of every computer and two of all the key components. We've been able to turn off those backup units, but we're now at the point where, to really get a significant amount of power, all that's left are some of the science instruments to turn off. So, that's where we're at... How cold can the lines get before they freeze? How cold can some of these other components get before they stop working? So that's another challenge. Then there are individual tiny thrusters that align the spacecraft and keep that antenna pointed at the Earth so we can send the data back, and they're very slowly clogging up with little bits of silica, and so their puffs are getting weaker and weaker. That's another challenge that we're going through to balance. But we're hopeful that we can get one, possibly two, spacecraft to the 50th anniversary in 2027. Voyager's golden anniversary, and perhaps even into the early 2030s with one, maybe two, science instruments. "We're well past the warranty of four years..." Spilker says at one point. And "We're still working and thinking about an interstellar probe that would go much, much farther than Voyager. "You're talking about a multi-generation mission."

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