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09 Sep 2026 12:29pm GMT

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09 Sep 2026 12:01pm GMT

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09 Sep 2026 11:43am GMT

Man with bipolar disorder sued OpenAI after surviving ChatGPT-linked suicide attempt.

09 Sep 2026 11:00am GMT

The U.S. Department of Energy has approved a $1.9 billion loan to NextEra Energy to restart Iowa's shuttered Duane Arnold nuclear plant, which Google has backed as a power source for its growing AI infrastructure. "The sizable loan is the second of its kind, suggesting that the Trump administration views revived nuclear power as a key source of electricity for tech companies seeking to power their AI data centers," notes TechCrunch. From the report: James Danly, Deputy Secretary of Energy, said that the Iowa power plant's restart in 2029 will "drive down electricity costs," though he did not explain how. Just 50 megawatts will be set aside for the local power cooperative, NextEra CEO John Ketchum said during an earnings call (PDF) last year. That capacity would cover 18% of Iowa's demand growth since 2021, the year before ChatGPT was released. Google is reportedly looking to build up to six data centers near the Duane Arnold Energy Center, which hasn't operated since 2020 when an intense rainstorm damaged the power plant. Rather than repair it, NextEra decided to mothball it. At the time, cheap natural gas was flooding the market, making nuclear power economically unappealing. A lot has changed in the last six years, though. After decades of little growth in demand, the sudden rise of AI coupled with broader electrification of the economy meant that utilities and power providers were suddenly scrambling to find new generating sources of electricity. New data centers are expected to nearly triple the sector's electricity demand by 2035.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

09 Sep 2026 11:00am GMT

openSUSE introduces osdiff, a new tool for comparing package versions across Tumbleweed, Leap 16.1, and Leap 16.0 from a single page.

09 Sep 2026 9:05am GMT

LibreDB Studio is a new browser-based SQL IDE for managing multiple database engines through a self-hosted interface.

09 Sep 2026 8:28am GMT

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The New York Times: OpenAIsaid on Tuesday that its newest artificial intelligence technology had solved one of the "Millennium Problems," a collection of important unanswered math questions meant to push the world's leading mathematicians to new heights. The announcement is an another clear sign that A.I. is fundamentally changing the upper reaches of mathematics, which have long been viewed as a pinnacle of human achievement. The change has excited some mathematicians, while stirring concern among others. Over the past year, A.I. systems successfully solved a wide range of problems that have bedeviled mathematicians for decades. But these problems were not as complex, nor as closely watched, as the one that OpenAI's technology has solved over the past several days. The Millennium Problems are among the most heavily researched in the field. "This is a spectacular culmination of the arc we have seen over the past twelve months," OpenAI researcher Sebastien Bubeck said of the company's new solution. The company announced that one of its latest models, which has not yet been released to the public, needed just 88 hours to solve what mathematicians call "the Navier-Stokes existence and smoothness problem." This problem involves a series of equations that are often used to predict the weather. The equations describe the movement of water and other fluids. The Navier-Stokes problem, which has no clear practical value, asks whether these equations completely break down in certain situations. OpenAI's proof claims to have defined just such a situation. This would imply, at least theoretically, that the laws of physics themselves would break down under certain conditions: that, for example, water could be made to spontaneously explode. But mathematicians and physicists do not believe that this mathematical breakdown could really lead to such an outcome in the physical world. The Navier-Stokes problem was one of seven "Millennium Problems" selected by the Clay Mathematics Institute in the year 2000 as a way of tracking the progress of mathematics in the new millennium. The institute, founded by an American businessman named Landon T. Clay, offered a million dollars for the first correct solution to each problem. Before OpenAI's announcement, only one of the problems had been solved. OpenAI says it managed to solve the Navier-Stokes problem by coordinating as many as 10,000 AI agents, an extremely expensive process that may have cost millions of dollars in computing power. For those curious about the findings, the company has released a paper (PDF) and formal Lean proof.

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09 Sep 2026 7:00am GMT

"Star Trek" marks its 60th anniversary today, September 8, six decades after the original series premiered in 1966 and went on to become one of the most successful science-fiction franchises in television history. Outlets across the web are commemorating the milestone with full health reports, hot takes, behind-the-scenes retrospectives, and reflections on the franchise's influence and what may lie ahead. The New York Times reports: As of 2026, the 60-year-old science fiction franchise boasts a fandom of carbon units -- sorry, humans -- that spans at least three generations. What began, in 1966, as a five-year space mission on the U.S.S. Enterprise to "boldly go where no man has gone before" now represents an anthology of space travel across more than 25 series and films in parts of two centuries. Where once it was James T. Kirk or bust, it's not unusual to find fans who prefer other captains, like Picard, Janeway or Sisko. There are so many series to keep track of that fans often communicate using country code-like abbreviations for each installment: TOS (the original series), TNG ("The Next Generation"), DS9 ("Deep Space Nine"), ENT ("Enterprise") and so on. Outside the Trekiverse, disparities in generational slang, politics and social mores are practically a foregone conclusion. But "Star Trek" functions as connective tissue between fans past and present. Some of that tissue is just shared references: There will always be captain's logs, timelines by stardate, warp factors one through 10, phasers and photon torpedoes and, every now and then, a doctor who insists, "I'm a doctor, not a ____!" The Vulcan salute has become a general symbol of geek-recognize-geek, but real Trekkies (or Trekkers, as some prefer) know that "Live long and prosper" is only half the message; the recipient is meant to say "Peace and long life" in response. But the series' staying power, and the ease with which each generation finds its way into them, is an indication that fans of all ages share not only language, but values, in common. Here are some of our favorite Slashdot stories from the early days. The 2004 "Should Star Trek Die?" is an especially good callback today because it features LeVar Burton (Geordi La Forge in Star Trek: The Next Generation) arguing that Trek needs to disappear for several years to become special again... Star Trek Lawsuit (1998) Salon Writes on The Troubles with "Trek" (1999) Star Trek's Next Series (2001) Should Star Trek Die? (2004) UPN Officially Cancels 'Star Trek: Enterprise' (2005)

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

09 Sep 2026 3:30am GMT

OpenPaper L is a 13.3-inch color E-Ink picture frame with open-source hardware and software, Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth, and offline operation.

08 Sep 2026 11:36pm GMT

"It doesn't cost a lot to store text forever."

08 Sep 2026 9:52pm GMT

Preservation "goodies" also include downloadable 3D models for desktop perusal.

08 Sep 2026 9:23pm GMT