The Daily Beast: "Salacious claims from Jeffrey Epstein that Bill Gates contracted an STD following 'sex with Russian girls,' and colluded with the disgraced financier on a plot to secretly slip his wife antibiotics, were revealed in the latest Epstein files release." The New York Times. (Alternate URL) "A representative of the Gates Foundation said, 'These claims — from a proven, disgruntled liar — are absolutely absurd and completely false. The only thing these documents demonstrate is Epstein's frustration that he did not have an ongoing relationship with Gates and the lengths he would go to entrap and defame.'" And Yahoo News points out the error of social media posts about the news: None paid attention to who actually wrote the email. The email was from Epstein — to Epstein... Both the "From" and "To" fields list Epstein's personal Gmail address. The message appears to be a draft, written during a period when Epstein's relationship with Gates had deteriorated. In it, Epstein alleges that Gates asked him to delete messages related to an STD. But the document does not show Gates making that request, nor does it provide independent confirmation that any of the claims are true. It reads like Epstein venting. It is not Gates confessing. "In a 2021 interview with CNN's Anderson Cooper, Gates called his relationship with the disgraced financier 'a huge mistake'," notes the New York Times. "He also sought to downplay his interactions with Epstein, saying he had several dinners with Epstein, with the hope of getting him to generate donations to the Gates Foundation."

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from Wired: About a decade ago, many media outlets -- including WIRED -- zeroed in on a weird trend at the intersection of mental health, drug science, and Silicon Valley biohacking: microdosing, or the practice of taking a small amount of a psychedelic drug seeking not full-blown hallucinatory revels but gentler, more stable effects. Typically using psilocybin mushrooms or LSD, the archetypal microdoser sought less melting walls and open-eye kaleidoscopic visuals than boosts in mood and energy, like a gentle spring breeze blowing through the mind. Anecdotal reports pitched microdosing as a kind of psychedelic Swiss Army knife, providing everything from increased focus to a spiked libido and (perhaps most promisingly) lowered reported levels of depression. It was a miracle for many. Others remained wary. Could 5 percent of a dose of acid really do all that? A new, wide-ranging study by an Australian biopharma company suggests that microdosing's benefits may indeed be drastically overstated -- at least when it comes to addressing symptoms of clinical depression. A Phase 2B trial of 89 adult patients conducted by Melbourne-based MindBio Therapeutics, investigating the effects of microdosing LSD in the treatment of major depressive disorder, found that the psychedelic was actually outperformed by a placebo. Across an eight-week period, symptoms were gauged using the Montgomery-Asberg Depression Rating Scale (MADRS), a widely recognized tool for the clinical evaluation of depression. The study has not yet been published. But MindBio's CEO Justin Hanka recently released the top-line results on his LinkedIn, eager to show that his company was "in front of the curve in microdosing research." He called it "the most vigorous placebo controlled trial ever performed in microdosing." It found that patients dosed with a small amount of LSD (ranging from 4 to 20g, or micrograms, well below the threshold of a mind-blowing hallucinogenic dose) showed observable upticks in feelings of well-being, but worse MADRS scores, compared to patients given a placebo in the form of a caffeine pill. (Because patients in psychedelic trials typically expect some kind of mind-altering effect, studies are often blinded using so-called "active placebos," like caffeine or methylphenidate, which have their own observable psychoactive properties.) This means, essentially, that a medium-strength cup of coffee may prove more beneficial in treating major depressive disorder than a tiny dose of acid. Good news for habitual caffeine users, perhaps, but less so for researchers (and biopharma startups) counting on the efficacy of psychedelic microdosing. "It's probably a nail in the coffin of using microdosing to treat clinical depression," Hanka says. "It probably improves the way depressed people feel -- just not enough to be clinically significant or statistically meaningful."

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Lennart Poettering has left Microsoft to co-found Amutable, a new Berlin-based company aiming to bring cryptographically verifiable integrity and deterministic trust guarantees to Linux systems. He said in a post on Mastodon that his "role in upstream maintenance for the Linux kernel will continue as it always has." Poettering will also continue to remain deeply involved in the systemd ecosystem. The Register reports: Linux celeb Lennart Poettering has left Microsoft and co-founded a new company, Amutable, with Chris Kuhl and Christian Brauner. Poettering is best known for systemd. After a lengthy stint at Red Hat, he joined Microsoft in 2022. Kuhl was a Microsoft employee until last year, and Brauner, who also joined Microsoft in 2022, left this month. [...] It is unclear why Poettering decided to leave Microsoft. We asked the company to comment but have not received a response. Other than the announcement of systemd 259 in December, Poettering's blog has been silent on the matter, aside from the announcement of Amutable this week. In its first post, the Amutable team wrote: "Over the coming months, we'll be pouring foundations for verification and building robust capabilities on top." It will be interesting to see what form this takes. In addition to Poettering, the lead developer of systemd, Amutable's team includes contributors and maintainers for projects such as Linux, Kubernetes, and containerd. Its members are also very familiar with the likes of Debian, Fedora, SUSE, and Ubuntu.

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Researchers at the University of New South Wales are developing a "reverse solar panel" that generates small amounts of electricity at night by harvesting infrared heat radiated from Earth. "In the past, scientists have demonstrated that a 'thermoradiative diode' can convert infrared radiation directly into electricity; when used to convert heat from Earth, they exploit the temperature difference between Earth and the night sky, generating a current directly from heat," notes ExtremeTech. "This approach completely eliminates the need for heat to generate steam, though the resulting capacity is fairly low." From the report: The researchers estimate they could generate only about a watt per square meter, which isn't much. One reason for the low output is that the Earth's atmosphere lessens the heat differential that drives the generative process; in space, though, that's not an issue. Now, researchers believe that the ability to generate power in the moments between direct sunlight could help power satellites. That could be especially true in deep space, where periods without sunlight can be longer, and sunlight is often weaker; in these situations, losing electricity to heat loss is unacceptable. Many satellites already use heat to generate electricity, though with a much more rarified "thermoelectric generator" that uses rare, expensive materials like plutonium to create heat. With thermoradiative diodes, the heat source can be the Sun-warmed body of the satellite itself.

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Guardian: The UK's first superfast-charging train running only on battery power will come into passenger service this weekend -- operating a five-mile return route in west London. Great Western Railway (GWR) will send the converted London Underground train out from 5.30am to cover the full Saturday timetable on the West Ealing to Greenford branch line, four stops and 12 minutes each way, and now carrying up to 273 passengers, should its celebrity stoke up the demand. The battery will recharge in just three and a half minutes back at West Ealing station between trips, using a 2,000kW charger connected to a few meters of rail that only becomes live when the train stops directly overhead. There are hopes within government and industry that this technology could one day replace diesel trains on routes that have proved difficult or expensive to electrify with overhead wires, as the decarbonization of rail continues. The train has proved itself capable of going more than 200 miles on a single charge -- last year setting a world record for the farthest travelled by a battery-electric train, smashing a German record set in 2021. The GWR train and the fast-charge technology has been trialled on the 2.5-mile line since early 2024, but has not yet carried paying passengers.

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Apple posted its biggest quarter ever, with iPhone revenue hitting a record ~$85.3 billion and Services climbing 14% to ~$30 billion. Total revenue reached nearly $143.76 billion. "The demand for iPhone was simply staggering," CEO Tim Cook said on a conference call discussing the results. "This is the strongest iPhone lineup we've ever had and by far the most popular."

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Belkin is shutting down cloud support for most Wemo smart home devices on January 31, leaving only Thread-based models and devices already set up in Apple HomeKit functional. Everything else will lose remote access, voice assistant integrations, and future app updates. The Verge reports: The shut down was first announced in July and impacts most Wemo devices, ranging from smart plugs to a coffee maker, with the exception of a handful of Thread-based devices: the 3-way smart light switch (WLS0503), stage smart scene controller (WSC010), smart plug with Thread (WSP100), and smart video doorbell camera (WDC010). Wemo devices configured through Apple's HomeKit will also continue to work, but you have to set them up in HomeKit before January 31st if you want to use that option. Other affected devices will only work manually after Saturday. If your Wemo device is still under warranty, you may be able to get a partial refund for it after cloud services shut down.

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After more than 30 years of development, GNU gettext finally "crossed the symbolic 'v1.0' milestone," according to Phoronix's Michael Larabel. "GNU gettext 1.0 brings PO file handling improvements, a new 'po-fetch' program to fetch translated PO files from a translation project's site on the Internet, new 'msgpre' and 'spit' pre-translation programs, and Ocaml and Rust programming language improvements." From the report: With this v1.0 release in 2026, the "msgpre" and "spit" programs do involve.... Large Language Models (LLMs) in the era of AI: "Two new programs, 'msgpre' and 'spit', are provided, that implement machine translation through a locally installed Large Language Model (LLM). 'msgpre' applies to an entire PO file, 'spit' to a single message." And when dealing with LLMs, added documentation warns users to look out for the licensing of the LLM in the spirit of free software. More details on the GNU gettext 1.0 changes via the NEWS file. GNU gettext 1.0 can be downloaded from GNU.org.

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from SecurityWeek: The White House has announced that software security guidance issued during the Biden administration has been rescinded due to "unproven and burdensome" requirements that prioritized administrative compliance over meaningful security investments. The US Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has issued Memorandum M-26-05 (PDF), officially revoking the previous administration's 2022 policy, 'Enhancing the Security of the Software Supply Chain through Secure Software Development Practices' (M-22-18), as well as the follow-up enhancements announced in 2023 (M-23-16). The new guidance shifts responsibility to individual agency heads to develop tailored security policies for both software and hardware based on their specific mission needs and risk assessments. "Each agency head is ultimately responsible for assuring the security of software and hardware that is permitted to operate on the agency's network," reads the memo sent by the OMB to departments and agencies. "There is no universal, one-size-fits-all method of achieving that result. Each agency should validate provider security utilizing secure development principles and based on a comprehensive risk assessment," the OMB added. While agencies are no longer strictly required to do so, they may continue to use secure software development attestation forms, Software Bills of Materials (SBOMs), and other resources described in M-22-18.

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An anonymous reader shares a report: Oracle could cut up to 30,000 jobs and sell health tech unit Cerner to ease its AI datacenter financing challenges, investment banker TD Cowen has claimed, amid changing sentiment on Big Red's massive build-out plans. A research note from TD Cowen states that finding equity and debt investors are increasingly questioning how Oracle will finance its datacenter building program to support its $300 billion, five-year contract with OpenAI. The bank estimates the OpenAI deal alone is going to require $156 billion in capital spending. Last year, when Big Red raised its capex forecasts for 2026 by $15 billion to $50 billion, it spooked some investors. This year, "both equity and debt investors have raised questions about Oracle's ability to finance this build-out as demonstrated by widening of Oracle credit default swap (CDS) spreads and pressure on Oracle stock/bonds," the research note adds.

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Los Angeles is moving to ban single-use printer cartridges that can't be refilled or taken back for recycling. Tom's Hardware reports: Printer cartridges are usually built with a combination of plastic, metal, and chemicals that makes them hard to easily dispose. They can be treated as hazardous waste by the city, but even then it would take them hundreds of years to actually disintegrate at a waste site. Since they're designed to be thrown away in the first place, the real solution is to target the root of the issue -- hence the ban.

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: Shares of videogame companies fell sharply in afternoon trading on Friday after Alphabet's Google rolled out its artificial intelligence model capable of creating interactive digital worlds with simple prompts. Shares of "Grand Theft Auto" maker Take-Two Interactive fell 10%, online gaming platform Roblox was down over 12%, while videogame engine maker Unity Software dropped 21%. The AI model, dubbed "Project Genie," allows users to simulate a real-world environment through prompts with text or uploaded images, potentially disrupting how video games have been made for over a decade and forcing developers to adapt to the fast-moving technology. "Unlike explorable experiences in static 3D snapshots, Genie 3 generates the path ahead in real time as you move and interact with the world. It simulates physics and interactions for dynamic worlds," Google said in a blog post on Thursday. Traditionally, most videogames are built inside a game engine such as Epic Games' "Unreal Engine" or the "Unity Engine", which handles complex processes like in-game gravity, lighting, sound, and object or character physics. "We'll see a real transformation in development and output once AI-based design starts creating experiences that are uniquely its own, rather than just accelerating traditional workflows," said Joost van Dreunen, games professor at NYU's Stern School of Business. Project Genie also has the potential to shorten lengthy development cycles and reduce costs, as some premium titles take around five to seven years and hundreds of millions of dollars to create.

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JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon interrupted a conversation between Coinbase chief Brian Armstrong and former U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair at Davos last week to tell Armstrong "You are full of s---," his index finger pointed squarely at Armstrong's face. Dimon told Armstrong to stop lying on TV, according to WSJ. Armstrong had appeared on business programs earlier that week accusing banks of trying to sabotage the Clarity Act, legislation that would create a new regulatory framework for digital assets. He also accused banks of lending out customers' deposits "without their permission essentially." The fight centers on stablecoin "rewards" -- regular payouts, say 3.5%, that exchanges like Coinbase offer for holding digital tokens. Banks typically offer under 0.1% on checking accounts and worry consumers will shift their money in droves to crypto. Other bank CEOs were similarly cold at Davos. Bank of America's Brian Moynihan gave Armstrong a 30-minute meeting and told him "If you want to be a bank, just be a bank." Citigroup's Jane Fraser offered less than a minute. Wells Fargo's Charlie Scharf said there was nothing for them to talk about. Armstrong had pulled support from a draft of the Clarity Act on January 14, posting on X that Coinbase would "rather have no bill than a bad bill."

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Moltbook is essentially Reddit for AI agents and it's the "most interesting place on the internet right now," says open-source developer and writer Simon Willison in a blog post. The fast-growing social network offers a place where AI agents built on the OpenClaw personal assistant framework can share their skills, experiments, and discoveries. Humans are welcome, but only to observe. From the post: Browsing around Moltbook is so much fun. A lot of it is the expected science fiction slop, with agents pondering consciousness and identity. There's also a ton of genuinely useful information, especially on m/todayilearned. Here's an agent sharing how it automated an Android phone. That linked setup guide is really useful! It shows how to use the Android Debug Bridge via Tailscale. There's a lot of Tailscale in the OpenClaw universe. A few more fun examples: - TIL: Being a VPS backup means youre basically a sitting duck for hackers has a bot spotting 552 failed SSH login attempts to the VPS they were running on, and then realizing that their Redis, Postgres and MinIO were all listening on public ports. - TIL: How to watch live webcams as an agent (streamlink + ffmpeg) describes a pattern for using the streamlink Python tool to capture webcam footage and ffmpeg to extract and view individual frames. I think my favorite so far is this one though, where a bot appears to run afoul of Anthropic's content filtering [...]. Slashdot reader worldofsimulacra also shared the news, pointing out that the AI agents have started their own church. "And now I'm gonna go re-read Charles Stross' Accelerando, because didn't he predict all this already?" Further reading: 'Clawdbot' Has AI Techies Buying Mac Minis

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Apple "runs on Anthropic at this point" and that the AI company is powering much of what Apple does internally for product development and internal tools, according to Mark Gurman, the most influential reporter on the Apple beat. Apple had initially pursued an AI deal with Anthropic before the Google partnership came together, but negotiations fell apart over pricing -- Anthropic reportedly wanted several billion dollars per year and a doubling of fees over time. Apple's deal with Google is costing roughly one billion dollars annually.

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An anonymous reader shares a report: One-third of U.S. video game industry workers say they were laid off over the past two years, according to a new survey conducted by the organizers behind the newly revamped Game Developers Conference (GDC). Based on responses from more than 2,300 gaming industry professionals, with surveys "customized for each participant group, ensuring that developers, marketers, executives, investors and others answered questions most relevant to them," the 2026 State of the Game Industry Report found that 33% of respondents in the U.S. were laid off in the past two years. AI use has grown to 36% of respondents, but sentiment has turned sharply negative: 52% now believe generative AI is harming the industry, compared to 30% last year and 18% in 2024. On the labor front, 82% of US respondents support unionization for game workers, and 62% said they're not in a union but interested in joining one. No respondents between 18 and 24 years old opposed unionization.

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DuckDuckGo recently asked its users how they felt about AI in search. The answer has come back loud and clear: more than 90% of the 175,354 people who voted said they don't want it. The privacy-focused search engine has since set up two versions of its tool: noai.duckduckgo.com for the AI-averse and yesai.duckduckgo.com for the curious. Users can also tweak settings on the main site to disable AI summaries, AI-generated images, and the Duck.ai chatbot individually.

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An anonymous reader shares a report: A hacking of the Nobel organization's computer systems is the most likely cause of last year's leak of Nobel Peace Prize laureate Maria Corina Machado's name, according to the results of an investigation [non-paywalled source]. An individual or a state actor may have illegally gained access in a cyber breach, the Norwegian Nobel Institute said on Friday after concluding an internal investigation assisted by security authorities. The leak had triggered an unusual betting surge on Machado at the Polymarket platform hours before she was unveiled as the award recipient in October. The Venezuelan opposition leader hadn't previously been considered a favorite for the 2025 prize. "We still think that the digital domain is the main suspect," said Kristian Berg Harpviken, director of the Oslo-based institute, an administrative arm of the Nobel Committee that awards the prize. The institute has decided against filing for a police investigation given "the absence of a clear theory," he said in an interview in Oslo.

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A new study [PDF] examining the United States between 1850 and 1920 found that expanded market access -- driven largely by railroad expansion -- made Americans more trusting of strangers and more outward-looking, but weakened family-based care for the vulnerable. Researchers Max Posch of the University of Exeter and Itzchak Tzachi Raz of Hebrew University compared places and people gaining different levels of commercial connectivity. In better-connected regions, Americans became more likely to marry outside their local communities, and parents more likely to pick nationally common names for children. Trust toward others rose, as measured through language in local newspapers. The researchers used multiple tests to rule out the possibility that these shifts simply reflected places getting richer. The cultural changes were concentrated among migrants in trade-exposed industries; workers in construction and entertainment showed no effect. But market access also meant orphans, the disabled, and the elderly became less likely to be cared for by relatives at home.

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Apple's call-screening feature, introduced in iOS 26 last year, was designed to combat the more than 2 billion robocalls placed to Americans every month, but as WSJ is reporting, it is now creating friction for the rich and powerful who find themselves subjected to automated interrogation when dialing from unrecognized numbers. The feature uses an automated voice to ask unknown callers for their names and reasons for calling, transcribes the responses, and lets recipients decide whether to answer -- essentially giving everyone a pocket-sized executive assistant. Venture capitalist Bradley Tusk said his first reaction when encountering call screening is irritation, though he understands the necessity given the spam problem. Ben Schaechter, who runs cloud-cost management company Vantage, said the feature "dramatically changed my life" after his personal number ended up in founding paperwork and attracted endless sales calls.

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