Hawks to be deployed to tackle pigeons at new £500million London shopping centre
According to planning documents, the scheme will use 'regular hawking' to control birds near the £500million project.
Orbital Datacenter Plans Need an Environmental Review, FCC Told
Environmental groups want America's FCC "to slam the brakes on orbital datacenters," writes The Register.
They're arguing for an environmental impact assessment for what could be 1 million satellites:
Earthjustice, acting on behalf of DarkSky International, Environment America, and Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), filed a petition this week... The filing doesn't target any single company. Instead, it asks the regulator to put the entire emerging orbital datacenter sector on hold while it assesses the cumulative effects of proposals from SpaceX, Starcloud, Blue Origin, Cowboy Space, and any similar applications that follow. According to the petition, those proposals collectively seek "well over a million datacenter satellites" in low Earth orbit.... " increasing the existing volume of satellites in low-earth orbit by multiple orders of magnitude."
The groups argue that the FCC is trying to apply licensing rules written for much smaller satellite constellations to an entirely new class of infrastructure. "If ever a situation warranted a Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement [PEIS], it is this one," the petition says. It argues that a single review would allow the agency to examine "the risks, alternatives, needs, costs, and impacts of this sudden transformation of Earth's exosphere" before deciding whether any of the projects are in the public interest. The petition raises concerns about rocket launch emissions, pollutants released as satellites burn up during atmospheric reentry, depletion of the ozone layer, orbital debris, light pollution, impacts on wildlife, and interference with astronomy.
It also argues that the combined effects of these constellations cannot be understood by evaluating applications one at a time.... "It is difficult to imagine a better example of multiple projects presenting essentially identical impacts and risks that compound synergistically and cumulatively than the present proposals..." The petition argues that the FCC's current approach, which generally treats satellite licenses as categorically excluded from detailed environmental review, is no longer fit for proposals measured not in dozens or thousands of spacecraft but in hundreds of thousands and, potentially, millions.
If the FCC agrees, orbital datacenter operators will have a mountain of paperwork to clear before sending their hardware skyward.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Sofia Vergara looks nowhere near 54 as she posts sizzling bikini snap from birthday trip to Italy
The Modern Family bombshell has been vacationing in Italy to celebrate, partying with a group of intimates including her son Manolo, 34.
Who are Norway's WAGs? Meet the models, former skiers and the high-flying lawyer cheering on England's opponents in Miami tonight
Behind the likes of Erling Haaland, Sander Berge and Kristian Thorstvedt are a whole host of dedicated wives and girlfriends ready to cheer on their loved ones from the stands.
Man, 21, 'carrying a crossbow' is shot by police following 'threatening behaviour'
A 21-year-old man believed to be carrying a crossbow has been shot by police after reports of 'threatening behaviour' in St Edward Street, Newport, in South Wales, on Friday night.
Katie Price's husband Lee Andrews is 'arrested AGAIN as he scrambles to pay £120k fine' just a month after release from Dubai's Al Awir prison
Katie Price's husband Lee Andrews has reportedly been arrested again just a month after his release from Dubai prison Al Awir.
Line Of Duty's Vicky McClure says she 'can't wait to go home' after four months on set as she wraps up filming with co-stars Martin Compston and Adrian Dunbar
Line Of Duty's Vicky McClure has said she 'can't wait to go home' after four months on set as the cast finally wrapped up filming for the seventh series.
Jurgen Klopp agrees to take over Germany: Former Liverpool boss is close to sealing his return to the dugout after two years away
Jurgen Klopp has reached an agreement in principle to succeed Julian Nagelsmann as the manager of the German national team.
That '70s Show icon who also starred in RoboCop and Rambo surfaces at 83... can YOU guess who he is?
When he was glimpsed in Southern California this week at the age of 83, he still appeared spry and active, although he walked with the help of a cane.
This Factory Was Severely Short On Workers. Then It Offered Flexible Work.
"Flexible, app-based scheduling lets large pools of part-time workers choose four-hour shifts and even select the type of work they prefer," writes long-time Slashdot reader Tony Isaac. While the system started during the pandemic when factories faced severe labor shortages, the model is now "supplying hundreds of trained workers each week... while giving people — from retirees to sidejob hustlers to longtime employees — control over their hours."
NPR says it's attracting "people who may not be seeking a traditional career in the industry or even a 40-hour workweek,"
It's a change that manufacturers including Stanley Black & Decker and Georgia-Pacific are embracing... Today, in any given week, about 450 flexible workers — roughly half the pool — pick up shifts at the [GE Appliances] plant, with workers putting in an average of 24 hours a week. Their contributions have been key to GE Appliances' $180 million expansion of the Georgia plant, completed last year, which added 600 new jobs... [Darcy Duvall, the plant's director of human resources operations] has also come to see that many workers prize flexibility despite the significant trade-offs — like lower pay and almost no benefits. MyWorkChoice employees can opt into their own group healthcare plan, but few do... The flexible work option has also helped GE Appliances keep longtime employees with decades of experience on the job.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Hannah Waddingham can't stop smiling as she giggles with her new man Nick Beresford-Cleary as they enjoy a day in the Royal Box at Wimbledon
She has slowly been bringing him to more and more public events.
Davina McCall and husband Michael Douglas lead the doubles pairings as they join Hannah Waddingham and her surgeon boyfriend in the Royal Box to watch the ladies' singles final at Wimbledon
Day 13 will see an all-Czech showdown between 10th seed Karolína Muchová and 9th seed Linda Nosková in the Ladies' Singles Final.
Families taking part in teddy bear hunt find suitcase with body inside: Two men arrested on suspicion of murder
Police were called to Borstal Recreation Ground in Rochester, Kent, on Friday following the discovery of the case that was reportedly covered in 'hundreds of flies'.
Two British tourists trapped in deadly wildfire in Spain are found alive 'with 40 per cent burns' after police heard 'very faint sound'
The blaze broke out late on Thursday in a semi-arid area near the Sierra de Los Filabres mountains in Almería province and has killed at least 12 people.
England captain Harry Kane opens up on 'surreal' round of golf with Donald Trump - and returns compliment to US President after 'great player' flattery
England captain Harry Kane described playing golf with United States President Donald Trump as a 'pretty surreal experience'.
Revealed: International five-day manhunt for £100k-a-year IT expert who fled Britain after 'murdering his wife and two daughters at the family's £1.3million home' ended with arrest in Johannesburg
After the bodies of Zandile Tshuma, Nala and Natalie were discovered on Monday at their £1.3million home in Great Denham, Bedfordshire, detectives in the UK urgently sought Ndodana Tshuma.
Jayden Adams dead at 25: Tributes flood in after death of South Africa footballer just weeks after playing at 2026 World Cup
South Africa star Jayden Adams has sadly passed away aged 25, just weeks after playing at the World Cup, according to reports.
Craig Revel Horwood calls Ann Widdecombe's murder 'undeniably cruel' as he pays heartfelt tribute to the star as police continue search for her killer
Craig Revel Horwood has paid tribute to the late Ann Widdecombe as he called her murder 'undeniably cruel' as police continue searching for her killer.
China's AI Companies May Be 'Distilling' America's AI Models
In March, Anthropic's Claude "quietly deployed software to spy on China-based customers," reports the Washington Post — apparently to unmask Chinese rivals "suspected of hijacking its technology to make their own AI tools smarter."
Last week Anthropic removed the spyware "after a software developer revealed its existence and privacy advocates criticized Anthropic, saying it had surveilled its own users."
Anthropic's tracking code was designed in part to catch Chinese firms "distilling" its AI models, a technique that involves pressing a large, expensive AI system to serve as a tutor to a smaller, cheaper one. Asking the larger system huge numbers of questions — hundreds of thousands or more — generates responses that can be used to upgrade the power of the smaller one on the cheap. Distillation isn't illegal, and it has been used for years in the AI industry. But distillation without permission is against AI companies' rules, and, used effectively, is giving Chinese AI companies a major leg up, American AI companies say... Anthropic and ChatGPT-maker OpenAI have both accused Chinese AI companies of using this technique to build copycat AI models of their own.
In a May blog post, Anthropic said that Chinese companies' use of distillation, along with evading U.S. export controls on high-end computer chips, has allowed them to "trail closely" behind U.S. models. But if these techniques can be blocked, it might be possible for the United States to "lock in a 12-24 month lead" on Chinese capabilities, the company said... This month, Anthropic said in a letter to U.S. senators that was obtained by The Post that it uncovered a campaign in which Chinese tech giant Alibaba's Qwen AI team used roughly 25,000 fraudulent accounts to generate more than 28.8 million exchanges with Claude to improve its own technology. In February, Anthropic made similar accusations against the Chinese firms Deepseek, Moonshot and MiniMax and said the campaigns were "growing in intensity and sophistication...." Anthropic and OpenAI have appealed to the U.S. government, arguing that distillation amounts to intellectual property theft that harms the U.S. in the geopolitical AI contest....
That Chinese AI labs are using U.S. models to improve their own technology appears beyond dispute. In a February 2025 study, researchers from China's Peking University and the state-funded Chinese Academy of Sciences developed methods to detect signs of distillation in leading large language models. They concluded that, with the exception of ByteDance's Doubao, most domestic models they tested showed substantial evidence of distillation, mostly drawing from U.S. models... In one set of intensive tests, a Qwen model misidentified itself as Claude nearly a third of the time, the Chinese researchers found.
U.S. firms have also used distillation to piggyback on AI systems made by others. In 2024, OpenAI released a tool to make it easier for customers to distill its own models and produce data sets for AI training. SpaceX founder Elon Musk said in court testimony in May that his AI company xAI used distillation to train its models and that the technique is common throughout the industry.
The article also notes that Anthropic "said it has banned nearly 700,000 accounts that were using Claude in China." But the article includes this quote from Kyle Chan, a fellow at the Washington-based Brookings Institution's China Center. "Anthropic's framing is that this is a geopolitical contest for basically the future of the world and freedom and democracy. It's that this is not just undercutting the U.S. commercially, but undercutting American strategic advantage in the most powerful technology we know today."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Inside Conor McGregor's UFC return: Banning sex, living like a monk in a converted storeroom - and rebuilding the leg he shattered against Dustin Poirier as icon bids to revive his career
Conor McGregor has promised many comebacks over the years. Since suffering the leg break against Dustin Poirier in 2021, he has repeatedly declared himself ready to return.