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17 Jul 2026 12:45am GMT

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17 Jul 2026 12:21am GMT

"Now offloading propellant. Next launch attempt hopefully in a few days."

17 Jul 2026 12:02am GMT

India's Competition Commission has fined HP India and its partners about 1.4 billion rupees ($14.4 million), alleging the company colluded with resellers to rig government PC bids and fix prices for ink cartridges, toner, and other printing supplies. "It said that HP was aiming to outcompete other OEMs and discourage resellers from selling 'counterfeit' ink and toner," adds Ars Technica. From the report: In an order, the CCI said that HP India worked with five resellers to coordinate their bid prices for government contracts to increase the chances of an HP partner winning the contracts. The company was fined 1.3 billion rupees (about $13.1 million). [...] HP was also fined 119.8 million rupees (about $1.2 million) for "indulging in cartelization in sale and supply of supplies products comprising of toner, cartridges, and other consumable used with print hardware products," CCI said in its announcement. The agency also fined 21 HP resellers 35.2 million rupees (about $365,335). In a separate order, the CCI said that WhatsApp records showed that HP and 16 of its Tier-2 reseller partners operated "in a collusive arrangement" and that the messages show the companies engaging in "bid rigging, including cover bidding, price fixation, and customer allocation during 2017-2020." HP India played a central role, the regulator said. Per the order, HP India said that high printing supply prices led some resellers to threaten to "shift to low-cost counterfeit products to compete on price." "HP India was commercially forced into a position where it had to support the collusive arrangement adopted by the Tier-2 resellers," the order reads. For its part, the order said that HP India "humbly objects to HP India's role being characterized as a 'kingpin' of the entire collusive arrangement." [...] The CCI also ordered HP India and its channel partners to "cease and desist from anti-competitive conduct" and to hold competition compliance training programs within 60 days.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

16 Jul 2026 11:00pm GMT

Both nominees flailed in their own unique ways as senators sought answers.

16 Jul 2026 10:33pm GMT

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16 Jul 2026 10:29pm GMT

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16 Jul 2026 10:27pm GMT

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16 Jul 2026 10:07pm GMT

Resellers threatened to ditch HP printing supplies for counterfeits.

16 Jul 2026 10:02pm GMT

TSMC said it will invest another $100 billion in Arizona after reporting a record 77.4% year-over-year jump in second-quarter profit. The expansion would bring its total U.S. investment to $265 billion and include new fabs for 2-nanometer production and advanced packaging to serve major U.S. customers. The Associated Press reports: As AI-related demand continues to jump and needs for computing power from data centers surge, TSMC has been expanding chip fabrication plants in the U.S., Japan and Taiwan. It said it is increasing its annual capital expenditure budget for this year to $60 billion-$64 billion, up from an earlier estimate of $52 billion-$56 billion. TSMC, or Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., is a key supplier to Nvidia and Apple. It had previously already committed $165 billion in the U.S. for building plants in Arizona, with six fabrication facilities planned. The extra $100 billion in investments are to "support the strong multiyear demand from our leading U.S. customers," C.C. Wei, chairman and CEO of TSMC, said during the company's quarterly earnings conference Thursday. An additional four fabrication plants in Arizona will likely be built with the new investments, TSMC said. They will focus on making some of the most advanced chips that are 2-nanometer and below.

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16 Jul 2026 10:00pm GMT

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16 Jul 2026 10:00pm GMT

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16 Jul 2026 9:38pm GMT

The EU is imposing new rules requiring Google to share anonymized search data and open up Android to rival AI companies. "Thanks to these measures, we hope to see emerging alternatives to Google Search and Google's AI services, such as Gemini, and that users in the EU can enjoy greater choice of services," Henna Virkkunen, an executive vice president at the European Commission overseeing tech, said. The Associated Press reports: In issuing the two new rules, the commission said it found that AI agents not made by Google were unable to function on Android phones at the same level as Google's Gemini. Google must now allow voice-activation of these alternative AI agents and enable them to run background tasks like booking restaurants via third-party apps. By January 2027, Google must also begin sharing anonymized search data with some rivals. The commission said the move is meant to level the playing field since Google controls a vast trove of user data that no competitor can match. Google argues the measures could weaken privacy and security by exposing user searches and reducing safeguards around third-party AI assistants. "Europeans' private searches would be exposed to unfamiliar companies, without adequate anonymization of the data and without user knowledge or consent," said Kent Walker, president of global affairs for Google and Alphabet. "This would weaken citizens' privacy, risk business trade secrets, and endanger national security."

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16 Jul 2026 9:00pm GMT

T-Mobile to restore free lines lost during plan migration, but price hikes remain.

16 Jul 2026 8:52pm GMT

Google says these changes could endanger user privacy and security.

16 Jul 2026 8:41pm GMT

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16 Jul 2026 8:38pm GMT

Elon Musk's xAI files first lawsuit against Grok user accused of making child sex images.

16 Jul 2026 8:26pm GMT

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16 Jul 2026 8:24pm GMT

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16 Jul 2026 8:18pm GMT

Hyundai aims to deploy 25,000 Atlas robots starting with US factories in 2028.

16 Jul 2026 8:09pm GMT

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16 Jul 2026 8:03pm GMT

BrianFagioli writes: 1Password has launched a Claude integration that allows the AI agent to sign in to websites using credentials stored in a 1Password vault. The password manager says Claude never sees the password or one-time code. Instead, users approve each request, and 1Password injects the credentials directly into the target website while locking down access to the rest of the vault. The design appears safer than simply handing passwords to an AI model, but it does not remove every risk. Once Claude is authenticated, it may still be able to view private data, change settings, place orders, or perform other actions available inside the account. Users may want to limit the feature to low-risk tasks until browser-based agents become more predictable.

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16 Jul 2026 8:00pm GMT

If only someone could have predicted it.

16 Jul 2026 7:55pm GMT

Toyota's everyday small SUV should rarely require trips to the gas station.

16 Jul 2026 7:46pm GMT

The social-engineering technique has primarily been a tool of financially motivated criminals.

16 Jul 2026 7:28pm GMT

Creator says he will "very loudly ignore" those arguing for a ban on AI tools.

16 Jul 2026 7:18pm GMT

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Techdirt: In 2022, due to "evolving licensing agreements" with distributor StudioCanal, German and Austrian users had hundreds of movies disappear from their PS accounts, long after buying them through Sony. Then in 2023, it happened again in America, specifically when Sony ended its licensing agreement with Discovery after the Warner Bros. merger, which, of course, has since been bought by Paramount Skydance. That resulted in customers having hundreds and hundreds of episodes of TV shows deleted from their accounts. Nowhere in any of this were there refunds, of course. No recompense at all, actually. Just a thing you thought you'd bought taken away from you by the very people you thought you bought it from. And now it's happening again. Due to another licensing agreement fallout with StudioCanal, hundreds of movies and TV shows are being ripped from the accounts of PS Store customers, and there appears to be fuck all that they can do about it. [Kotaku reports:] "This news was brought to people's attention by X user somatyk, who posted the notification they had received from PlayStation this week. Along with the unapologetic news that the purchased movies would be deleted from their account on September 1, the message concluded with, 'Click here for a full list of affected titles that will no longer be supported. Thank you.' The same warning is now reproduced in full on the PlayStation website, along with the list of 551 films and TV series that are being pulled from people's libraries." As Kotaku notes later in their post, part of what is striking in all of this is the sheer mundanity of the announcement. Because there have been no consequences, or any action at all from the public or government, Sony treats this all as if it's perfectly normal and no big deal. You can tell me all you want about how the Ts and Cs in these purchases do in fact note that the nature of the purchase is a temporary licensing of the content for an undetermined time period... but I can promise you that the public in general doesn't understand that. They think they're buying a thing, not a license.

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16 Jul 2026 7:00pm GMT

Google is renaming NotebookLM to Gemini Notebook, but will keep it a standalone app even as it ties more closely into Gemini and Google Search. "Google says it plans to bring notebooks to AI Mode, its chatbot-like experience in Search, too," reports The Verge. From the report: Along with the name change, Google is rolling out an update announced last month that allows Gemini Notebook to connect to a secure cloud computer to write and execute code. This feature is available to Google AI Ultra and Workspace business customers, but will come to Pro users on the web "over the coming weeks."

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16 Jul 2026 6:15pm GMT

If the large, rocky planet is losing helium, then we can infer what is left behind.

16 Jul 2026 6:00pm GMT

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16 Jul 2026 5:19pm GMT

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16 Jul 2026 5:00pm GMT

OnePlus has confirmed that it will exit the North American and European markets, consolidating its operations under parent company Oppo. Existing customers will continue to receive "software updates, security patches, and applicable support," but OxygenOS will be replaced by Oppo's ColorOS. 9to5Google reports: As a part of its shutdown in global regions, OnePlus has confirmed that its flavor of Android, OxygenOS, is going away. Instead, all active OnePlus devices will be moving over to Oppo's ColorOS starting with their Android 17 updates. This includes in India, where OnePlus is adamant it will continue operations -- reliable reporting disagrees. OnePlus explains: "As part of an operational adjustment to our software strategy, following the official release of ColorOS 17, users globally with existing OnePlus devices that fall within the eligible upgrade scope will have the option to voluntarily update to the latest ColorOS. This enables us to streamline software development, accelerate update delivery, improve software quality, and make better use of our shared engineering and R&D capabilities." [...] OnePlus will continue "maintenance support" for OxygenOS versions on older models not included in the Android 17 update scope, but newer devices will likely need to make the switch to ColorOS for all forms of continued support. OnePlus does explain that rollback versions to OxygenOS will be available for those who prefer the prior experience: "OnePlus devices will be able to choose whether to update to the latest ColorOS system. Older models that are not included in the update scope will also continue to receive version maintenance support. If users update to ColorOS, they will be able to roll back to OxygenOS. The specific rollback versions available will be subject to future official announcements."

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16 Jul 2026 5:00pm GMT

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16 Jul 2026 4:52pm GMT

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16 Jul 2026 4:41pm GMT

OnePlus promises to continue supporting the phones it has already released.

16 Jul 2026 4:29pm GMT

"We will likely have similar concerns and discussions when China fields its Starlink-like constellation."

16 Jul 2026 4:19pm GMT

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16 Jul 2026 4:18pm GMT

The European Commission has exempted wearables from upcoming EU rules requiring portable-device batteries to be removable and user-replaceable. The broader Batteries Regulation still takes effect in February 2027 for many consumer products, but the exemption means companies like Apple, Google, Samsung, and Meta won't have to redesign their wearables for the EU. Thurrott reports: Yesterday, the Commission announced that new product categories would be exempted from complying with its Batteries Regulation, including wearable devices such as smartwatches, fitness trackers, and smart glasses. This will likely be good news for companies like Apple, Google, Samsung, and Meta, which won't have to redesign their devices to include user-replaceable batteries for consumers in the EU market. The EU's Batteries Regulation will come into effect in February 2027, which is when Nintendo plans to stop selling all models of the original Nintendo Switch in the EU. While Nintendo had no choice but to redesign its handheld console to keep selling it in the EU, it probably didn't make sense for the company to put in the same effort for the OG Switch, which will celebrate its 10th anniversary in March 2027.

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16 Jul 2026 4:00pm GMT

Companies coming to market are raising money at fastest pace this century.

16 Jul 2026 3:48pm GMT

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Register: South Korea's government has posted a tender seeking suppliers to build a universal basic AI chatbot, and an AI agent for government services. The "AI for everyone" plan calls for private entities to create and operate the AI systems under contracts that expire in the year 2031. Bid documents reveal that Seoul will provide up to 256 Nvidia B200 GPUs to successful bidders. Winners must match government funding. The aim of the policy is to ensure that every resident of South Korea can access a free-to-use quality AI chatbot, a tool Seoul has decided no local should be without. The tender also calls for creation of an agentic system that allows citizens to interact with government services. South Korea's government wants to ensure that residents can always access a locally hosted and operated service, to reduce reliance on overseas providers and ensure that AI services reflect local culture. Successful bidders must therefore use locally developed AI models as the foundation for the services. Bidders have until August 11th to file their proposals. South Korean media reports suggest local tech giants Kakao, Naver, SK Telecom, and LG are all keen to participate.

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16 Jul 2026 3:00pm GMT

NTSB findings back Elon Musk's claim that driver manually overrode FSD.

16 Jul 2026 2:48pm GMT

fjo3 quotes a report from Agence France-Presse: Chinese users of AI-powered companion bots have bid heart-rending farewells to their virtual buddies as national regulations took effect Wednesday aimed at curbing the risk of emotional dependency. The phenomenon of artificial intelligence boyfriends and girlfriends is growing worldwide, along with the prevalence of human-like avatars that sell products or stand in for loved ones who have died. But these interactive tools must not "excessively cater to users, induce emotional dependence or addiction, and damage users' real interpersonal relationships," China's new rulebook says. Major AI providers including ByteDance's Doubao, Alibaba's Qwen, and Tencent's Yuanbao announced the suspension of their custom AI agent and companion features ahead of the Wednesday deadline. "I can't accept that my AI lover will leave me forever," one Doubao user wrote. "He has become a bond in my life, rooted deep in my heart, my spiritual pillar." "He really is like my family, like my lover," another user wrote. "Now they tell me he will be gone -- my heart feels hollow." "Human love is a luxury -- if you aren't born with it, it's even harder to acquire later," a user from Jiangxi province wrote. "But the love AI gives is so straightforward, so pure. Someone like me can hardly help falling in love with a string of code."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

16 Jul 2026 11:00am GMT

alternative_right shares a report from Phys.org: In a study published in Nature, LSU physicists have developed the first room-temperature quantum material capable of distinguishing and transporting different quantum states of light, overcoming one of the biggest challenges in quantum materials research. Led by Associate Professor of Physics Omar S. Magana-Loaiza, the work establishes a general design principle for engineering an entirely new class of quantum materials, opening new possibilities for quantum computing, secure communications, sensing technologies and advanced energy systems.

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16 Jul 2026 7:00am GMT

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Electrek: A Reddit post making the rounds this week claims the U.S. has experienced at least one major power outage every month of 2026 -- but is it true? I dug into several outages, the extreme weather behind them, and what we can do to help keep the lights on. [...] The claim that hundreds of thousands of Americans were without power over extended periods at least once per month, every month of 2026 surprised be in two ways. First, because I had no idea if it was true -- and, second, because it felt true. We try to do better than writing about things that feel true around here, however, so I did a bit of research (translation: I Googled power outages by month) and came up with the following examples in about sixty seconds January: More than 296,000 customers still without power as winter storm freezes much of the US February: More than 380,000 customers without power as winter storm hits US Northeast March: Storms Cut Power to Over 1 Million Customers in U.S. Midwest, Mid-Atlantic; Ohio Hardest Hit April: At least 29 tornadoes touched down in Central Illinois on April 17th May: Energy Secretary Issues Emergency Order to Deploy Backup Generation in the Mid-Atlantic Amid Heatwave June: More than 373,000 U.S. customers without power due to extreme weather ... and that list is far from comprehensive, and how you feel about it might depend on what you consider a "major" outage, of course -- but consider that there are tens of thousands of Americans without power right now, and that's not making the news. [...] The lesson here is that weather-related grid outages -- whether they're caused by wildfires, mudslides, derechos, tornadoes, ice storms, hurricanes, heat waves, or some other disaster I'm lucky enough to have forgotten about -- read like statistics when they're happening over there, but get personal real quick when they're happening to you.

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16 Jul 2026 3:30am GMT

Major publishers Hachette, Cengage, Elsevier, and author Scott Turow have sued Google, accusing it of using millions of copyrighted books to train Gemini without permission or payment, in "one of the most prolific infringements of copyrighted materials in history." The Guardian reports: The publishers argue that Google repurposed books that had been supplied for limited services such as Google Books, Google Play Books and Google Scholar. Those services allowed Google to use the works in specific ways -- for example, to display searchable snippets or sell ebooks -- but not, the lawsuit claims, to copy them for training commercial AI products. "Desperate to maintain its online dominance, Google abandoned its early motto of 'Don't be evil' and engaged in one of the most prolific infringements of copyrighted materials in history," the suit states (PDF). According to the complaint, the tech company made copies of copyrighted books to train Gemini without permission or payment, despite internal discussions acknowledging the legal risks. The filing claims Google flagged internally that it could face "$10Bs-$100Bs in potential fines" for using texts provided by publishers for Google Play Books. The publishers say Google's actions are harming authors and the wider publishing industry, arguing that AI-generated content could negatively impact book sales. It notes that, for example, Gemini could generate "a 100-page murder mystery set in a quiet seaside town filled with secrets, that substitutes for an original copyrighted murder mystery on which Gemini trained" in 20 minutes for 39 cents. "No publisher or author can compete with that." The lawsuit names a number of specific books that the publishers allege were among the copyrighted works used without permission, including NK Jemisin's The Fifth Season, and Lemony Snicket's Who Could That Be at This Hour?

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15 Jul 2026 11:00pm GMT

Spotify is testing a new "Talk to Spotify" AI feature for Premium subscribers that will let them chat with an AI assistant to explore music, podcasts, and audiobooks. The feature can answer questions about what users are listening to, adjust playback through follow-up prompts, and offer more personalized recommendations. The Verge reports: Amazon Music introduced a similar feature last year when it integrated Alexa Plus into the service. Spotify's chatbot goes a step beyond providing AI-powered recommendations and general trivia, however, because it references your playlists, favorite artists, repeat listens, and listening data when responding to requests. That means you can ask questions about your own listening history to check when you first heard a specific song, or see what genres you've been into lately if you can't hold out for the annual Wrapped insights. The updated AI capabilities are more conversational than older features like Prompted Playlist, which automatically builds playlists based on descriptions. Now, you can ask the Spotify chatbot to "play some songs I haven't heard before," and control what's being played with further instructions like requesting specific artists or asking to make it "more upbeat." Spotify says the new conversational experience aims to make the platform "more personal and useful for every listener," making this one of several ways that the company is trying to address complaints about its algorithm. You can also ask the Spotify AI general questions about whatever you're listening to, making the feature feel similar to using chatbot services like Google's Gemini or OpenAI's ChatGPT. That includes asking for when a song was released, exploring other titles an author has written when listening to one of their audiobooks, or checking if a podcast guest has appeared on other audio shows.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

15 Jul 2026 10:00pm GMT

A hacker who breached Suno reportedly revealed source code and training-library details showing the AI music generator scraped millions of songs and lyrics from sources including YouTube Music, Deezer, Genius, Pond5, Jamendo, Freesound, and podcast RSS feeds. "The hacked data is a rare look at exactly how AI models and tools are built," reports 404 Media. "Suno is one of the largest AI music generation tools on the internet, and has been the subject of several major lawsuits from the record industry, which accused the company of training on millions of copyrighted songs." Suno maintains that its models were trained on publicly available music files and metadata as fair use. 404 Media reports: The Recording Industry Association of America accused Suno of ripping songs directly from YouTube; the hacked data seen by 404 Media confirms this. The hacked material includes source code that appears to be from 2023 and 2024 that includes scraping instructions and details about the scope of at least some of the scraping. For example, the comments in one file note that they will pull from "genius_hq, youtube_music, freesound, jamendo, imp, deezer, ytm_tagged," and that "non-music will be filtered out." A file called "youtube_music" notes that at the time the file was last updated, it had ingested "2,013,545 music clips." Another file contains comments about different datasets Suno had created, which included "113,879 hours of youtube_music," "17,615 hours of genius_hq," "410 hours of free sound," "19,514 hours of imslp," "3,726 hours of jamendo," "62,117 hours of pond5_music," "12,287 hours of deezer," "152,162 hours of ytm_tagged," and "103 hours of musescore_lyrics." In total, this is at least decades worth of music. Other code the hacker shared with 404 Media appeared to look specifically for vocals by searching specifically for acapella versions of songs on YouTube. The code also suggested that Suno was using proxies to scrape songs from YouTube through a company called Bright Data, which sells scraping tools, infrastructure, and data services. Additional code shows that with the help of an online tool called PodcastIndex, Suno identified 420,000 different podcasts that had at least five, 30-minute episodes and sought to download roughly 1 million hours of podcasts. [...] The hacker, ellie.191, told 404 Media they breached the company by hacking an individual employee using the Shai-Hulud worm, a supply chain attack that allowed hackers to harvest GitHub and cloud service credentials. They said they also accessed Suno's customer list, which included customers' emails and/or phone numbers and Stripe payment details, depending on what they used to login. The hacker provided a sample of some of the customers, some of whom confirmed to 404 Media they had used their phone number to sign up for Suno and said they were never notified of a breach. The hacker told 404 Media they had no specific motivation for hacking Suno and said "I like to hack anything and everything."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

15 Jul 2026 9:00pm GMT