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07 Jun 2026 12:00pm GMT

U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders announced a plan for the public to take a 50% ownership stake in AI companies, remembers the Associated Press. And then OpenAI's Sam Altman "told Sanders that he, too, wants the public to have equity in AI companies." Though the CEO said he couldn't support Sanders' threshold of 50%, he nonetheless wanted to work with him to advocate for the general idea, according to people with knowledge of the conversation. The nearly hourlong meeting in Sanders' Senate office this week, held at Altman's request, highlighted the inherent tension between AI powerhouses and policymakers as Americans are increasingly asked to accept the costs of the AI boom even as they remain unconvinced of its direct benefits. Yet it's also creating odd political bedfellows fueled by populism as politicians from Sanders to President Donald Trump embrace giving the public a stake in AI's growth. Speaking to reporters on Air Force One on Friday, Trump described a potential partnership "where the American people can benefit from the success of AI" and said executives from leading AI companies will visit the White House, "probably next week," to discuss the idea. The article points out that Altman also met with congressional leaders from both of America's political parties.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

07 Jun 2026 11:34am GMT

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07 Jun 2026 10:10am GMT

Armbian Imager 2.0 now allows users to preconfigure a username, password, Wi-Fi, timezone, locale, SSH keys, and shell before flashing.

07 Jun 2026 9:50am GMT

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07 Jun 2026 9:43am GMT

Ars Technica shares some anecdotes from Steve Jobs in Exile, a new book released last month: [Author Geoffrey] Cain reminds us, in stunning detail, that Jobs' "exile" era at NeXT was not only critical to his evolution as a man and an entrepreneur, but that it mattered for the rest of us, too. The technological innovations that came out of NeXT - notably, the NeXTSTEP OS - continue to live on in what we now call both macOS and iOS. As Cain puts it, "NeXTSTEP was Steve's attempt to make Unix taste sweet...." [W]hile many tech nerds know that Tim Berners-Lee created the first World Wide Web server on a NeXT machine while working in Switzerland in 1990, few know that NeXT employees were wary of bringing the news to Jobs. Why? They feared his wrath "and that he would dismiss [the web] as 'shit.'" (In another timeline, NeXT might itself have capitalized on this world-changing innovation....) Perhaps one of the wildest anecdotes that Cain uncovered was how one voicemail changed computer history forever. In 1996, when Apple was solidly in its mediocre Performa era - and considering buying BeOS as the basis for its new operating system - a mid-level NeXT product manager asked aloud, "Why don't we just frickin' call Apple?" (NeXT was also struggling during this period.) And so someone did. As Cain writes: Garrett left the group of managers, walked back to his office, and took a risk. He picked up his designer phone and called the head of software at Apple. He left what he described as "one of my more inspired sales pitches" on the man's voicemail, explaining why Apple should be looking at NeXT instead of Be... In any other universe, Garrett's call might have gotten him fired. But in this timeline, it worked out. And thanks to him, Steve [Jobs] was about to enter Apple's airspace once again. Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader destinyland for sharing the article.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

07 Jun 2026 7:34am GMT

"A DNA-editing feat involving editing the genes of early stage embryos was announced this week," reports the Wall Street Journal. They describe the feat as "a far cry from designer babies, but nevertheless a step in that direction." Dieter Egli, an associate professor of developmental cell biology at Columbia University and his co-authors, including Nathan Treff of Nucleus Genomics, a New York-based DNA-testing startup, say the technology could help fix disease-causing mutations in embryos. "We're not throwing the final 'OK, you will have gene-edited babies tomorrow' at the public," said Egli. "That is a process that can occur through discussion matched with scientific progress...." Previous gene-editing efforts have often used Crispr, which can cut out parts of the DNA sequence, but the technology can also cause damage if the wrong DNA is targeted or cut out. In 2018, Chinese scientist He Jianku said he used Crispr to tweak DNA in human embryos and was imprisoned for the work. The technology Egli's group used, called base editing, allows them to target individual DNA letters in sequences more precisely with fewer adverse effects... Egli's group focused on altering two genes, one that can raise the risk of heart disease and one that is tied to blood disorders like sickle cell disease, and the research showed they were sometimes able to do so successfully, in the same embryo, without damage. "I am generally supportive of the concept of embryo editing to prevent genetic disease," said Dr. Paula Amato, a fertility expert at Oregon Health & Science University who wasn't involved in the research... Base editing has been used in human embryos before, according to peer-reviewed studies. The technology was used to correct a disease-causing mutation and an Alzheimer's disease-risk gene variant, said Alexis Komor, associate professor of biochemistry and molecular biophysics at the University of California, San Diego, who wasn't involved in the work. "There really is not any unmet medical or clinical need for this, especially from an in vitro fertilization perspective," Komor said. "Usually what you'll hear is that they're doing it just so that you know we can prevent genetic diseases, but there are so many other better ways to do that." Using embryo editing to create babies is illegal in the U.S. and many other countries. Scientists have long worried that it is a slippery slope and that the technology could ultimately be used to promote eugenics. Her worry is that "they're basically building a blueprint" for more ethically problematic forms of embryo editing. "In my opinion, I think this is a huge no-no," Komor said. "There's just no ethical way to use this...." Nucleus Genomics Chief Executive Kian Sadeghi said his company plans to fund Egli's further research, building on the new findings. His company sells a polygenic embryo-screening product, which screens prospective parents' embryos and produces risk scores for their likelihood of developing disease, as well as factors like height, IQ and eye color. The company has said the IQ predictions are limited in accuracy. The research was published online Monday on a preprint server.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

07 Jun 2026 4:41am GMT

Those ousted included ADA journal editor-in-chief Steven Kahn and former ADA president Desmond Schatz

06 Jun 2026 8:53pm GMT

XLibre celebrates its first anniversary with the stable 25.1 Xserver series, new features, distro adoption, and security fixes.

06 Jun 2026 8:12pm GMT

The still-in-development Ladybird browser ends public pull requests as it prepares for its first alpha, citing weakened trust around AI-generated code.

06 Jun 2026 6:47pm GMT

What's the difference between a person, an artifact, and an ecosystem?

06 Jun 2026 11:15am GMT

In the end, the three companies involved all point the finger at each other.

05 Jun 2026 10:36pm GMT