Aggregator

'This is perhaps the biggest challenge the industry has faced since its inception'

The next wave of smartphones and PCs will have less memory and fewer capabilities, yet are likely to cost consumers 14 percent more as AI ambitions eat all available memory supplies, according to researchers at IDC.…

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Associated Press: The U.S. military used a laser Thursday to shoot down a "seemingly threatening" drone flying near the U.S.-Mexico border. It turned out the drone belonged to Customs and Border Protection, lawmakers said. The case of mistaken identity prompted the Federal Aviation Administration to close additional airspace around Fort Hancock, about 50 miles (80 kilometers) southeast of El Paso. The military is required to formally notify the FAA when it takes any counter-drone action inside U.S. airspace. It was the second time in two weeks that a laser was fired in the area. The last time it was CBP that used the weapon and nothing was hit. That incident occurred near Fort Bliss and prompted the FAA to shut down air traffic at El Paso airport and the surrounding area. This time, the closure was smaller and commercial flights were not affected. The FAA, CBP and the Pentagon confirmed the incident in a joint statement, saying the military "employed counter-unmanned aircraft system authorities to mitigate a seemingly threatening unmanned aerial system operating within military airspace." "At President Trump's direction, the Department of War, FAA, and Customs and Border Patrol are working together in an unprecedented fashion to mitigate drone threats by Mexican cartels and foreign terrorist organizations at the U.S.-Mexico Border," the statement said. The report notes that 27,000 drones were detected within 1,600 feet of the southern border in the last six months of 2024. Illinois Democratic U.S. Sen. Tammy Duckworth, the ranking member on the Senate's Aviation Subcommittee, is calling for an independent investigation to look into the matter. "The Trump administration's incompetence continues to cause chaos in our skies," Duckworth said.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Drivers are being advised to check before they travel

The heartbroken family of a mother who was found dead in her home have told how they will 'never get over losing her'.

Trudi Burgess, 57, had her neck broken when she threatened to leave her boyfriend Robert Easom, 56, who flew into an 'uncontrollable' rage and launched a 'vicious' and 'forceful' attack on her.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Weeks after the U.S. Congress rejected unprecedented cuts to science budgets that the administration of US President Donald Trump had sought for 2026, funding to several agencies that award research grants is still not freely flowing. One reason is that the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has been slow to authorize its release. The US National Institutes of Health (NIH) has so far not received approval to spend any of the research funding allocated in a budget bill signed into law on 3 February. The US National Science Foundation (NSF) was authorized to spend its funding just last week. And NASA has had its full funding authorized for release, but with an unusual restriction that limits spending on ten specific programmes -- many of which the Trump team had tried to cancel last year.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Tommie-lee Gracie Billington collapsed on a bed with a Lynx can by his side during a sleepover at a friend's house in Lancaster in March 2024.

Controversy surrounds a new exhibition on history's most notorious serial killers - which has gory recreations of crime scenes and killers' living quarters.

The bodies were discovered at the house on Pavia Way in Lakewood Ranch, outside Sarasota in Florida , about 8.30pm on Thursday.

Ibrahima Seck was fatally stabbed to death in the street after going to play football with his friends in New Moston, north Manchester, last summer.

An anonymous reader shares a column: I'm going to take the diplomatic hat off here and say with brutal honesty: basically everybody in the music business hates Spotify except for the people who work there. It's a platform that sucks artists for everything they have, it actively prevents community building, and, despite all of that, the platform still struggles to maintain a healthy profit margin. The streaming business model is fundamentally broken. And eventually, its demise will become more and more obvious to recognize. I'll break down exactly why the DSP era is coming to a grinding halt, why the major labels are quietly terrified, and why the artists who don't pivot now are going to go down with the ship. [...] Jimmy Iovine put it bluntly: "The streaming services have a bad situation, there's no margins, they're not making any money." This model only works for Apple, Amazon, and Google, because they don't need their music platforms to be wildly profitable. Amazon uses music as a loss-leader to keep you paying for Prime. Apple uses it to sell $1,000 iPhones. As for Spotify, or any standalone music streaming company, they're kind of screwed. And guess what -- when the platform's margins are structurally squeezed, guess who gets squeezed first? The artists. [...] What if Jimmy is right? If the DSPs are "minutes away from obsolete," what replaces them? Well, I'm not sure the DSPs are going to disappear overnight, but if you're an artist or a manager trying to sustain yourself in this evolving music economy, the answer is direct ownership. The artists who will survive the next five years are the ones who are quietly shifting their focus away from the "ATM Machine." They are building their own cultural hangars. They are capturing phone numbers on Laylo. They are driving fans to private Discord servers. They are focusing on ARPF (Average Revenue Per Fan) through high-margin merch, vinyl, and hard tickets, rather than begging for fractions of a penny from a playlist placement. We are witnessing the death of the "Mass Audience" and the birth of the "Micro-Community."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Musafar Hotak, 25, was convicted after a trial at Southampton Crown Court of the rape and sexual assault of the woman in the early hours of July 12, 2022.

Mohammed Suffi, 23, was filmed in harrowing footage driving his SUV into clubbers during the hit-and-run outside The Tunnel Club in Birmingham .

The daughter of the former Duke and Duchess of York, 35, looked to pass incognito in dark glasses, a long dark green coat and heels as she carried a paper shopping bag.

Christopher Trybus, of Swindon, Wiltshire, is accused of the manslaughter of Tarryn Baird, who took her own life aged 34 in November 2017.

A recent Office of Inspector General report detailed 'unsatisfactory kennel facility conditions', accusing the military program of neglect and failing to walk and medically care for its dogs.

The $200 billion video game industry is caught between studios eager to cut ballooning development costs through AI and a player base that has grown openly hostile to the technology after a string of visible blunders. As Bloomberg News reports, Arc Raiders, a surprise hit from Stockholm-based Embark Studios that sold 12 million copies in three months, was briefly vilified online for its robotic-sounding auto-generated voices -- even as CEO Patrick Soderlund insists AI was only used for non-essential elements. EA's Battlefield 6 and Activision's Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 both drew gamer anger this winter over thematically mismatched or poorly generated graphics, and Valve's Steam has added labels to flag games made using AI. Some 47% of developers polled by research house Omdia said they expect generative AI to reduce game quality, and PC gamers -- now facing inflated hardware prices from AI-driven demand for graphics chips -- have turned reflexively antagonistic.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The Foreign Office was criticised when the Sussexes revealed in their own press release that they had been hosted by the British Ambassador in Amman, Phillip Hall.

ChatGPT maker announces $110B in new investment amid flurry of self-serving deals

The headlines say OpenAI on Friday announced $110 billion in new investment from Amazon, Nvidia, and SoftBank at a $730 billion pre-money valuation, though terms and conditions apply.…

Who is knocking at the Dohdoor?

Digital intruders with possible links to North Korea have been infecting US education and healthcare sectors with a never-before-seen backdoor since at least December, according to security researchers.…