geek

10 Jul 2026

Slashdot

Nobel-Winning US Chemist Will Move to China to Lead AI Institute

Nobel-winning chemist Omar Yaghi is leaving UC Berkeley for China's Tsinghua University, where he will lead a new AI institute focused on accelerating the discovery of advanced materials. "Last week, Tsinghua University in Beijing welcomed Dr. Yaghi in an appointment ceremony, calling him one of the world's foremost chemists," reports The New York Times. "The university said he saw his new post as an opportunity 'not to slow down, not to repeat what has already been done, but to do science with more energy, more intensity, and more ambition than ever before.'" From the report: Dr. Yaghi was born in Amman, Jordan, to Palestinian refugees whose one-room home lacked electricity and running water. Early on, he became fascinated with a schoolbook's depiction of atomic building blocks. When he was 15, his father, a butcher, sent him to the United States. Last year, before flying to Stockholm to receive his Nobel Prize, Dr. Yaghi in an interview with The New York Times voiced concern about Mr. Trump's immigration policies, saying that they endanger the nation's system of universities, companies and governments that promote scientific excellence. "I think it's regrettable," he said of Mr. Trump's nationalism. "We have to know that people coming from different backgrounds improve the level for everybody involved," he added. "That's an amazing story. Great thinkers can improve not only the U.S. but the world." Dr. Yaghi joined the University of California, Berkeley, in 2012, and while there earned many awards for his scientific advances. He received his Nobel Prize for helping discover a world of chemistry in which molecular building blocks are assembled into structures that possess vast internal surface areas -- the largest of any known substance. His porous structures can act like sponges that readily absorb, store and release gases and vapors. He named them metal-organic frameworks. The metal atoms form an adjustable framework that can hold chemicals associated with life -- carbon atoms in particular. While deeply theoretical, the frameworks are so radical, innovative and flexible in nature that materials experts and companies foresee many commercial uses for them. The frameworks can, for instance, harvest water from desert air. In 2018, Dr. Yaghi's students at Berkeley tested the idea in the Mojave Desert in California, finding that a small passive harvester could each day produce nearly three cups of pure, drinkable water. The device is now nearing commercialization. In the interview with The Times, Dr. Yaghi credited the invention to his boyhood efforts to secure water for his family. The municipal pipes worked for only a few hours every week or two. That hardship, he added, shows how the diverse experiences of emigres can lead to unexpected breakthroughs. Dr. Yaghi has longstanding ties with Tsinghua University. In 2022, the Beijing school appointed him as an honorary professor and in that role he closely followed its work in chemistry, materials science and related disciplines. Now, on joining Tsinghua full time, Dr. Yaghi is being named as the head of a new A.I. institute for science research that will focus on the design and synthesis of new materials. Its underlying aim, the university said, is to "overcome the efficiency bottlenecks of traditional trial-and-error approaches" and shorten the usual cycles of discovery.

Humanoid Robots Controlled By Surgeons Did World-First Operation On Live Pigs

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Humanoid robots have surgically removed the gallbladders from living animals in an unprecedented medical experiment -- but not as autonomous machines capable of replacing human doctors. Instead, skilled human surgeons remotely controlled the robots' movements in a new example of human-robot teamups. The teleoperated humanoid robots completed two minimally invasive surgeries by removing gallbladders from live pigs during a preclinical trial that was published in the journal Nature. If this approach eventually proves clinically ready for human patients, surgeons could use such humanoid robots to remotely perform robotic-assisted surgical care in smaller hospitals and clinics that lack the resources to install specialized but expensive surgical robots. The experiment used a Unitree G1 humanoid robot made by leading Chinese robotics company Unitree. The cheapest baseline G1 model with effectively non-functional hands has a starting price of $13,500 and shipping costs ranging between $300 and $1,200, whereas adding crucial upgrades such as dexterous robotic hands can easily push the cost beyond $67,000. But such humanoid robots made in China are still significantly cheaper than specialized surgical robots like Intuitive Surgical's da Vinci Surgical System, which can cost anywhere between half a million dollars and several million dollars. The specialized surgical robots can also weigh about 1,800 pounds and take up considerably more space in operating rooms. By comparison, the Unitree humanoid robots, standing at 5 feet tall and weighing just 60 pounds, may be more suitable for smaller clinical settings in remote areas.

09 Jul 2026

Slashdot

Lawmakers Probe Growing Use of Chinese AI Models In US Companies

U.S. lawmakers are probing the growing use of Chinese AI models by American companies, citing concerns over censorship, security risks, and whether U.S. firms are turning to cheaper foreign models because domestic alternatives are too costly or restricted. The investigation is specifically looking at companies such as Cursor and Airbnb. "The growing use of Chinese AI models by U.S. companies raises serious concerns," a State Department spokesperson told CNBC. Those "AI models are designed to advance Beijing's narratives, censor dissent, and reflect CCP ideology and values." CNBC reports: The House Committee on Homeland Security and the House Select Committee on China said in April they will jointly investigate the growing adoption of Chinese-developed AI models. An initial step in the probe was for the chairmen of those committees to send letters to Cursor and Airbnb, over their "use of or exposure to these risks" through AI developed in China. "The Chinese Communist Party is no longer just nipping at our heels in artificial intelligence; it is racing to close the gap in some of the exact capabilities that will shape the future of cybersecurity," Andrew Garbarino, chairman of the U.S. House Committee on Homeland Security, told CNBC. "Recent reporting that a Chinese open-weight model can match leading U.S. models in certain vulnerability discovery and cybersecurity tasks is highly alarming," said Garbarino. While some government departments have banned the usage of Chinese AI models including DeepSeek, adoption of them by U.S. companies is not prohibited. Tech chiefs, including crypto company Coinbase's Brian Armstrong and AI startup Lindy's Flo Crivello, have been publicly touting the use of models from China to reduce costs. Cursor, which will be acquired by Elon Musk's SpaceX for $60 billion, built its Composer 2 model using Chinese AI model Kimi, which was developed by Moonshot AI. Alongside focusing on the rise of Chinese AI models, the ongoing joint House Committees' investigation is also looking into whether the U.S. is doing enough to tackle their rise. "The Committees are also examining whether the United States has a sufficient open-weight AI strategy to ensure American companies and cyber defenders are not forced to choose between expensive or restricted U.S. models and cheap, capable PRC-developed alternatives," a Committee aide, who asked not to be named as they were not authorized to discuss the ongoing probe, told CNBC. [...] The administration could consider the use of federal procurement bans, which would include restricting government agencies and private companies that serve the U.S. government from using Chinese AI models, Kyle Chan, fellow in the John L. Thornton China Center at think tank Brookings, told CNBC. "However, it's ultimately impossible to ban China's open-source AI models because their model weights are available freely on the internet," Chan added. "This could enter into first amendment speech issues." [...] Another [approach] could be disseminating findings about risks and vulnerabilities associated with Chinese AI models to U.S. companies. "Regardless, I do expect both the Executive Branch and Congress to communicate their interest not to see U.S. companies adopting these models," [said Daniel Remler, senior fellow, technology and national security program at think tank the Center for a New American Security (CNAS), told CNBC].

Ars Technica

Flores Hobbits' eating habits offer clues about their evolutionary past

If Homo floresiensis wasn't a fire-using hunter, its origins could be different than we thought.

09 Jul 2026 10:29pm GMT

Michigan's explosive outbreak of diarrheal parasite jumps to over 1,200 cases

In neighboring Ohio, cases have reportedly reached over 500.

09 Jul 2026 9:56pm GMT

OpenAI wants its new tool to do your work for you and with you

Rebranded Codex promises independent workflows that can run "for hours if needed."

09 Jul 2026 9:25pm GMT

08 Jul 2026

OSnews

You paid me, a long-time Linux user, to use Windows 11 exclusively for a month: here’s how it went

You all donated en masse to have me use Windows 11 for a month, and so I did. What was it like for a long-time Linux user to go back and experience Windows as it exists now? Is it really as bad as we've collectively made it out to be? Did my month with Windows 11 consist of nothing but pain and misery, or are there good things to say, too? Or, was it an unexpected pleasant surprise? And ultimately, did I stay with Windows 11, or move back to the Linux world? ➡️ Donate through Ko-Fi ➡️ Donate through SEPA transfer* ➡️ Buy merch from our store ➡️ Why a fundraiser? *Name: Thom Holwerda - IBAN: SE08 8000 0820 1684 4657 8414 - BIC: SWEDSESS This year, I'm celebrating the milestone of having posted 20000 stories on OSNews during my 21 years as managing editor of OSNews. This is my full-time job, and since nobody is going to give me any bonuses, stock options, or golden pens, we're running a big fundraiser to keep OSNews going. To add some spice to the whole thing, I added some incentives, with the first being using Windows 11 for a month. We're slowly but steadily approaching the next incentive, too, which is a proper video tour of my office, (unique) computers, and massive devices collection. There's a similar incentive to this Windows 11 one, but for macOS. Yikes. The rules for the Windows 11 incentive are simple: use stock Windows 11 for a month for my computing tasks (with the exception of gaming - converting my Linux gaming PC to Windows just to play the same games seemed silly). I wasn't allowed to use any debloating tools, but as an EU citizen, I do have the ability to remove a ton of Windows stuff thanks to the success of the Digital Markets Act. I also tried to stick to Microsoft's own applications as much as possible, for that true "ecosystem experience", and wasn't allowed to hack my way into a normal local user account. I was all-in. So what was it like? Setting it all up The installation process posed a number of challenges and issues. First and foremost, the Windows 11 installation process is incredibly barebones, and basically assumes no other operating system exists in the world. It has no clue anything other than Windows' filesystems exist, making it dangerously easy to accidentally damage or outright delete any other operating systems you might have installed. My laptop happens to have two M.2 SSDs in, so I could safely dedicate one of them to Windows 11 without interfering with the other SSD with Fedora installed on it, but if you're experimenting with Windows 11 on your Linux machine with just one drive, you might want to reconsider. I also had to perform the first portion of the installation process - the WinPE section - with just my keyboard, since apparently, my trackpad was not supported and did not work at all. Once the system went through its first of what would be many reboots to come and loaded into the phase of the installation where you're actually already running Windows 11, my trackpad came to life, but without any gestures support - so no scrolling. Not a gamebreaker or anything, but definitely annoying. A bigger issue was that the Wi-Fi 7 Intel BE200 chip in my laptop was not supported out of the box by Windows 11. This meant that I had to install these drivers during the installation process, which involves going to the Intel website and finding the correct drivers to use. To make this process more obtuse and less intuitive, you can't use the normal driver installer; you have to specifically opt for the "Intel® PROSet/Wireless Software and Wi-Fi Drivers for IT Administrators", download the ZIP, unpack it on a different computer, put the unpacked drivers on a USB stick, and point the Windows 11 installer to this USB stick. Mind you, the BE200 chip was launched almost three years ago, and there's no excuse for Windows 11 not supporting this chip out of the box - like Linux does. The remainder of the installation process involved dodging a lot of tracking and telemetry prompts, reboots, a lot of waiting, setting up the dreaded online account, waiting some more, and then finally ending up at the desktop. I then set out to enjoy my EU privileges by removing whatever applications I didn't need and turning off features I didn't want, as well as making sure all the drivers were up to date. This mostly involved installing the Intel Driver & Support Assistant and the Intel graphics drivers. Curiously, this is where I hit a returning issue: after installing the Intel GPU drivers for the first time, as well as after every subsequent update, the screen would go black and stay that way, forcing a reboot. Windows' graphics stack is supposed to be able to gracefully handle driver updates, but clearly, some bug or problem was preventing the updated Intel driver from being reinitialised. Once those initial setup tasks were behind me, I experienced two more problems. First, sleep/wake was entirely broken and simply did not work. It turns out Windows 11 really doesn't like S3 sleep, and I had to specifically go into my laptop's Dasharo Coreboot firmware to switch to S0ix get sleep/wake to work on Windows 11. Windows defaults to something it calls "Modern Standby", which requires the S0ix state to be enabled. You can also disable Modern Standby which would presumably make sleep/wake work with S3 (?), but this is a whole ordeal and clearly not something Microsoft wants you to do. Of course, the correct way of handling this would be for Windows 11 to adapt its sleep/wake settings to what the firmware reports, but alas. Another problem were the laptop's cooling fans seemingly leading lives of their own, spinning up loudly at entirely random times, irrespective of use. It was so bad and loud

08 Jul 2026 10:27pm GMT

The state of accessibility in GNOME

With July being Disability Pride Month, GNOME's Sophie Herold published a blog post taking stock of where GNOME stands on this front, progress that's been made, as well as areas where the project comes short. One particular paragraph from her introduction really hits the nail on the head about accessibility discussions in tech circles: The reality of tech communities is that they are often ableist and elitist. Probably more so than the average population. If a user or contributor struggles with a tool, blame is shifted to a "skill issue," if an interface is simplified to make it accessible to more people, it's "dumbed down". Assistive technologies are often developed by abled people, without involving and paying disabled people. This also leads to an attitude where contributors expect gratefulness from disabled people for providing them with the most basic needs. All these issues are also not absent from the GNOME community. ↫ Sophie Herold Even as someone who isn't disabled and doesn't use any tools classically shelved under the "accessibility" moniker, I encounter the attitudes she mentions in the quoted paragraph basically every day. While we can have normal, productive discussions and differences of opinion about accessibility - for instance, I strongly believe robust theming support is absolutely crucial to accessibility, while the wider GNOME community does not - the dismissive attitudes towards people with accessibility needs in the software world is shameful. Even if you don't have accessibility needs today, you will definitely be needing them at some point in your life. If accessibility isn't one of the first words you jot down on your mood board or whatever when you start a new software project, you've already done millions of people a massive disservice. Get educated, learn what you can about accessibility, listen to people with accessibility needs, and make your software better for everyone. You'll thank yourself one day.

08 Jul 2026 10:23pm GMT

Next release of Cinnamon finally supports Wayland

Linux Mint's Cinnamon is one of the last desktops to still not support Wayland, and is relegated to only being compatible with legacy X11 environments. With the next release of Cinnamon, however, this is finally going to change. We worked really hard on Wayland and we got to the point where it feels solid and the experience is almost on par with X11. Wayland support will no longer be considered "experimental". In the next version of Cinnamon, both X11 and Wayland will be fully supported. ↫ Clement Lefebvre on the Linux Mint blog The next release of Cinnamon, version 6.8, will be part of the next release of Linux Mint, scheduled for Christmas of this year.

08 Jul 2026 10:07pm GMT