Category: Science & Technology

Indonesia is on the verge of implementing significant copyright reforms that could transform the dynamics between news publishers and major tech firms like Google and Meta.

Indonesia is preparing one of the boldest copyright reforms in Asia and if the proposed law is passed it could change the relationship between news publishers and Big Tech companies like Google and Meta. After Australia forced Google and Meta to pay news organisations for using their content, Indonesia is reportedly taking a similar route while also adding rules for AI.

According to a Reuters report, the draft copyright bill proposes that Big Tech should compensate news publishers when they aggregate, republish or even show link previews of news content.

More importantly, tech brands like OpenAI, Meta or Anthropic using copyrighted material to train AI models may also have to pay or obtain licences, depending on how the content is used.

This is a major shift as AI companies increasingly rely on publicly available content to train their models.

For news publishers, this is not just about money. Digital platforms have become the biggest gateway to online information, attracting massive advertising revenue while publishers spend massive resources on reporting, editing and fact-checking.

Many media organisations across the world argue that tech companies benefit from journalism without fairly sharing the financial value it creates.

Australia became the first country to address this issue through its News Media Bargaining Code in 2021. The law encouraged commercial agreements between platforms and publishers, resulting in millions of dollars flowing into the news industry.

Indonesia now appears ready to follow a similar path, but with an added focus on AI, making it one of the first countries in Southeast Asia to directly include AI in its copyright law.

The proposed Indonesian law also makes it clear that fully AI-generated content will not receive copyright protection.

Only content created with meaningful human involvement will qualify. It further proposes that AI-generated content should be clearly disclosed and prohibits AI systems from copying a creator’s unique style.

These measures show that governments are now looking beyond traditional copyright disputes and are trying to prepare for the AI era.

Source : https://www.timesnownews.com/technology-science/after-australia-indonesia-targets-big-tech-over-news-payments-why-india-must-act-now-article-155116971

DoS has issued a memorandum to tighten the rules governing voluntary retirement and resignations for scientists associated with Gaganyaan and other critical national missions

India’s ambitious space programme has entered a crucial phase, with missions ranging from the human spaceflight programme Gaganyaan to advanced satellite launches and planetary exploration. But even as these projects gather pace, the Department of Space (DoS) has moved to stem a growing outflow of experienced scientists from the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), raising questions about talent retention in one of the country’s most prestigious scientific institutions.

According to a report by The Times of India, at least 100 scientists have resigned from ISRO in the past few months, prompting the DoS to issue a fresh internal memorandum on July 14 that significantly tightens the rules governing voluntary retirement and resignations for scientists associated with Gaganyaan and other critical national missions.

What Has Changed?

The memorandum, as per the report, directs that requests for resignation or voluntary retirement from Group ‘A’ Scientific and Technical personnel working on Gaganyaan and other important missions should no longer be accepted as a routine administrative process.

Earlier, directors of various ISRO centres had the authority to approve such requests. Under the revised guidelines, that power has been withdrawn. Instead, all resignation and voluntary retirement requests from scientists involved in key programmes will require detailed scrutiny and final approval at the Department of Space level. The move effectively centralises decision-making in an attempt to retain critical manpower for strategically important missions.

While employee attrition is not new at ISRO, the recent resignations are said to have disproportionately affected flagship programmes, particularly Gaganyaan, India’s first indigenous human spaceflight mission.

According to the DoS, the increase in resignation requests has begun affecting the implementation of projects of national importance. Scientists working on such missions possess specialised expertise that is difficult to replace quickly, making sudden exits a potential risk to mission timelines and continuity.

Why Are Scientists Leaving?

Canada warns banks about Anthropic’s Claude Mythos, saying the AI model could help attackers identify vulnerabilities faster and increase cyber risks.

Artificial intelligence tools have indeed made the jobs of several people easier but they have also emerged as a weapon for cyberattackers. After the International Monetary Fund (IMF) highlighted the risks posed by Anthropic’s Claude Mythos, Canada has now sounded the alarm over the advanced AI tool. According to Reuters, the Canadian banking regulator has warned that powerful AI models may help attackers discover security flaws much faster than before, leaving banks with far less time to respond.

The European Union has accused Instagram and Facebook of violating tech regulations, citing a two-year investigation under the Digital Service Act.

The European Union has always taken an aggressive approach against things that they feel are leaving a negative impact. Now, the union has charged Instagram and Facebook on Friday with breaching its tech rules. EU said that the platforms have been designed in a way that keeps users hooked to them. The preliminary findings of the case came from a two year long investigation under the European Union’s Digital Service Act, which requires large online platforms to do more to battle illegal and harmful content.

All over the globe, Social media companies are encountering rather tricky legal situations over concerns their platforms are contributing to a mental health crisis among children, prompting some governments to impose or consider bans for underage users. It also said that stories and reels on Facebook and Instagram could boost compulsive use amongst the users. EU also criticised Meta’s policies to mitigate these risks, suggesting time management tools can be easily dismissed, while parental controls need significant time, effort, and technical knowledge to be used effectively.

Meta should also disable features like infinite scroll and auto play by default and introduce effective time breaks, and make its recommendation algorithm less focused on driving engagement, as said by the Commission. The Commission is also investigating the rabbit hole effects caused by Instagram and Facebook recommendation algorithm.

Source : https://www.timesnownews.com/technology-science/instagram-facebook-warned-by-eu-to-change-addictive-features-or-face-heavy-fines-article-155049379

Every year, close to half of the fruits and vegetables harvested around the world never reach a single plate. They rot, dry out, or pick up contamination somewhere between the farm and the grocery aisle, and flimsy packaging is part of the reason. Researchers hunting for a fix have landed on an unlikely helper: the pumpkin scraps most kitchens throw away.

Scientists have built a new biodegradable food wrap using microscopic particles made from pumpkin peel. These particles measure less than 10 nanometers across, thousands of times thinner than a strand of hair. Blended into a film made from carboxymethyl cellulose (CMC) and gelatin, two natural materials already common in food packaging, the wrap turned out stronger, better at blocking ultraviolet light, and able to slow the growth of microbes on stored produce.

Cherry tomatoes sealed in the pumpkin-based film for 20 days stayed in better shape than tomatoes wrapped in the same base film without the added particles. Published in the journal Food Research International, the work comes from researchers at Kyushu University in Japan and the University of Peradeniya in Sri Lanka, and it marks the first time pumpkin peel has been turned into carbon quantum dots for this kind of packaging film.

Turning Pumpkin Peel Waste Into Food Packaging

Pumpkin peel accounts for roughly 10 to 12 percent of the fruit’s mass, according to the paper, yet most of it gets tossed despite being rich in fiber, minerals, and natural antioxidants. That discarded peel is exactly what the research team decided to put to work.

To make the particles, the researchers dried and ground pumpkin peels into a fine powder, then heated the powder in water inside a sealed vessel at 190 degrees Celsius for seven hours, essentially pressure-cooking it until the carbon inside formed tiny, stable specks. What came out was a yellow-brown liquid that glowed greenish-blue under UV light, a visual sign that the particles had formed.

Those particles then went into a solution of two well-established packaging materials: CMC, a plant-based compound that dries into a clear, non-toxic film, and gelatin, which adds flexibility and structural strength. Poured into flat molds and left to dry at room temperature, the mixture set into thin, bendable sheets.

Stronger Film That Blocks UV Light

Four versions of the film went head to head: a base version with no pumpkin particles, plus three loaded with 1, 2, and 3 percent particles by weight. Almost every measurement improved as more particles went in.

Tensile strength, a measure of how much force the film can take before tearing, climbed by 78 to 147 percent over the base film. The film also let less water vapor pass through, which helps keep produce from drying out in storage; the 3 percent version cut water vapor movement by 12.32 percent and shrugged off surface moisture better as particle levels rose. The added particles did tint the clear film a faint yellow-brown, though the paper reports that shift stayed within a range shoppers would find acceptable.

UV protection stood out most. At 3 percent, the film blocked 72.5 percent of UV-A and 94.3 percent of UV-B, the wavelengths that fade color and break down nutrients in fresh produce. A wrap that shields food from those rays carries real value for shelf life.

Pumpkin Peel Packaging Reduces Microbial Growth and Passes Early Safety Tests

New materials in food packaging raise a fair question: are they safe to sit against food? To check, the researchers exposed the pumpkin particles to Caco-2 cells, a human cell line commonly used as a stand-in for the gut lining in food-safety testing, and found no significant toxic effect below 2 mg/mL, with cell survival holding above 85 percent. Above that level toxicity climbed, and survival fell sharply at the highest dose tested, 8 mg/mL. This is an early lab signal for the particles themselves, not a regulatory green light for commercial food contact.

On the germ-fighting side, tomatoes left unwrapped or sealed in ordinary plastic grew so many bacterial colonies by the end of storage that the counts became too dense to measure. Tomatoes in the plain biodegradable film carried a lower, countable load, and those in the 3 percent pumpkin film carried the lowest of any measurable group, well below the plain film. That formulation also neutralized 88.58 percent of a standard test free radical, marking it as a strong antioxidant against the unstable molecules that speed spoilage.

Source : https://studyfinds.com/scientists-turned-pumpkin-scraps-into-packaging-that-keeps-produce-fresh-longer-new-study-show/

The government is reviewing Meta on two fronts, its response to a CSAM notice and the legality of the Muse Image AI feature that uses public Instagram content, raising privacy concerns.

Meta is facing wider legal troubles in India. After the government issued a notice to the company in a matter related to ads being run on Instagram showing child sexual abuse material (CSAM), the Centre is now also examining the Meta’s Muse Image feature that lets people use public Instagram posts and reels to generate AI content and eventually, it is turned on by default.

Speaking On Thursday, S. Krishnan, Secretary at the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), said that the government will decide its next action on the CSAM matter after reviewing Meta’s response. He also confirmed that the Muse Image feature will be reviewed by the government.

MeitY had issued notices to WhatsApp, Telegram and Signal over concerns that username-based messaging could increase the risks of impersonation

The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology’s (MeitY) on Thursday received a response from WhatsApp regarding the platform’s upcoming username feature, an official said without divulging details of the response.

The deadline for submitting the response had ended on Thursday. The ministry had granted WhatsApp a four-day extension after the company sought additional time following a meeting with officials on July 2. Telegram also submitted its response to MeitY’s notice on Thursday, people aware of the matter said. Signal did not respond to HT’s email.

MeitY had issued notices to WhatsApp on July 1, and to Telegram and Signal on July 3 over concerns that username-based messaging could increase the risks of impersonation, identity theft, phishing and digital fraud. The platforms were asked to explain the safeguards built into their username features.

‘Will ban accounts’: Meta tells HT

Responding to HT’s queries, a Meta spokesperson outlined additional safeguards that it said have been built into the feature to address impersonation and fraud concerns. “We’ll ban accounts or revoke usernames when we find evidence of identity impersonation or scam,” they said.

Source : https://www.hindustantimes.com/lifestyle/health/nutritionist-ishaan-sachdeva-says-this-is-exactly-how-you-can-lose-up-to-20kg-in-3-months-7-step-plan-with-no-shortcuts-101783653184189.html

A young man in Scotland spent three months pressing a muscle-recovery gadget straight against his eyes, sure it would ease the tired, heavy feeling behind them. By the time he walked into an eye clinic, both eyes carried multiple retinal tears, and his right eye had a serious separation at the edge of the retina.

Percussive massage guns, the handheld, pistol-shaped devices that pound sore muscles after a workout, have become a fixture in gyms and living rooms. They sit on store shelves next to protein powder and show up as holiday gifts, bought and used by ordinary people without any professional guidance. A new medical case report from Edinburgh, published in the journal BMJ Case Reports, shows what can go wrong when one of these powerful tools gets anywhere near the eyes.

After weeks of this routine, flashes of light started appearing in his right eye, and he finally sought help. Doctors found extensive damage to the light-sensitive tissue at the back of both eyes, and their report is the first in medical literature to describe torn retinas in both eyes alongside retinal dialysis, a dangerous separation of that tissue, tied to massage gun use.

What Doctors Found After a Massage Gun Met the Eyes

At the Princess Alexandra Eye Pavilion in Edinburgh, the patient also described about six days of floaters, those shadowy specks that drift across a person’s vision. He reported no head injury and no accident. His eyesight tested as sharp in both eyes, and he wore glasses only for mild nearsightedness.

A closer look at the back of his eyes told a more worrying story. Doctors found multiple tears in the delicate lining inside the eye, widespread bruising of that lining in both eyes, and, in the right eye, a spot where retinal tissue had begun pulling away from its edge, a condition called retinal dialysis. His left eye carried six small horseshoe-shaped tears spread across two areas.

That kind of separation usually follows a hard blow, a punch or a sports collision, and ranks as a serious, sight-threatening injury. When the eye is subjected to a sudden squeeze, the eyeball briefly bulges, creating tearing forces where the retinal lining meets the back of the eye. Something similar seems to have happened here, the authors propose, except the harm built up slowly over weeks of repeated vibration pressed straight onto the eyeball instead of arriving in one violent instant.

A Detail the Patient Held Back

He never mentioned the massage gun at first. Only after the initial exam turned up damage with no obvious cause did physicians circle back with sharper questions, and, with clear reluctance, he explained what he had been doing. His account: running the device around and directly on both eyes, once a week for several minutes, over roughly three months, to quiet a feeling of eye strain. By his own memory, he had not spotted any warning in the instructions against using it near the eyes, though that reflects his recollection rather than a confirmed check of the manual.

That point reaches well past this one patient. Instructions for massage guns differ from brand to brand, and the authors want clearer, more consistent warnings against holding these devices near the eyes.

How Massage Gun Eye Injuries Get Treated

Doctors sealed the tears in both eyes with laser treatment, which builds a controlled scar barrier around damaged spots so they cannot spread or let the retina detach completely. The dialysis in the right eye got the same laser approach. Six months on, his condition held steady, with no worsening of the separation and no clouding of the lens.

Timing worked in his favor. By the figures cited in the report, dialysis like his carries an estimated 8 to 15 percent chance of leading to a full retinal detachment, the kind that can take sight for good. He came in soon after symptoms began, and the authors credit that quick response for preserving his vision.

Only a handful of eye injuries from massage guns have reached medical journals. One involved a man in his late sixties left with a dislocated lens and rising eye pressure, still without a replacement lens months after surgery. Another described a man in his 20s who waited two months as his vision faded and turned out to have cataracts, a shrunken eye, and a detached retina. A third patient recovered fully from a massage-gun cataract. This Edinburgh patient stands apart as the only one with dialysis and tears in both eyes at once, and his vision was preserved despite the high-risk injury.

One more detail pointed back to the gun. The dialysis sat in an unusual part of the eye compared with typical injuries, which the authors link to force applied straight to the front of the eye rather than a knock to the bony rim around it.

Source : https://studyfinds.com/man-pressed-massage-gun-against-his-eyes-for-months-risked-serious-vision-loss/

Every fall brings the same routine: rolling up a sleeve for a flu shot, maybe scheduling a separate COVID booster, and worrying whether RSV will land a grandparent or a newborn in the hospital before spring. Three viruses, three appointments, three headaches. A new animal study points to a way to fold all of that into a single experimental shot, one that raised immune responses in mice, ferrets, and cotton rats and protected them against flu, COVID-19, and RSV at the same time.

Researchers of the study, published in the journal Science Advances, built one vaccine designed to take on influenza, SARS-CoV-2 (the virus behind COVID-19), and respiratory syncytial virus, better known as RSV. In the animal tests, that single shot produced protective immune responses against all three, with antibody levels that matched what the animals got from vaccines aimed at just one virus at a time. Bundling the targets together, in other words, did not force the immune system to pick favorites.

Together, these three viruses drive a large share of respiratory illness and death worldwide every year. Vaccines already exist for each one, and scientists have chased the idea of merging them into a single dose for a long time. That goal has been far easier to describe than to build, especially with older protein-based vaccine technology.

How One Shot Could Replace the Flu, COVID, and RSV Vaccine Lineup

Most long-standing vaccines, including the yearly flu shot, are what scientists call subunit vaccines. Instead of using a weakened or killed virus, they deliver just one piece of it, usually a protein the immune system can learn to spot. Subunit shots carry a strong safety record, but packing several unrelated viruses into one of them has been a stubborn technical problem.

Newer approaches, such as the mRNA technology behind some COVID-19 shots, have shown early promise at hitting more than one virus at a time. Protein-based vaccines had fallen behind in that contest. Researchers here tried to close the gap using a nanoliposome, a microscopic bubble of fat that resembles the outer layer of a human cell and can carry proteins on its surface. It works something like a small bulletin board, pinning up wanted posters for several viruses so the immune system can study each face and remember it.

What the Combination Vaccine Puts on a Single Particle

The Swift telescope has been affected by recent solar storms and is sinking faster than ever, heading toward Earth. A NASA mission will try to capture it and boost its orbit.

A recovery mission to rescue NASA’s telescope Swift Observatory launched on Friday, with a three-armed spacecraft successfully rocketing into orbit from the Marshall Islands in the Pacific Ocean.

The Swift telescope satellite is 1.6 tons (1.4 metric tons) and circling 224 miles (360 kilometers) above Earth.

US defense contractor Northrop Grumman launched Katalyst Space Technologies’ three-armed Link spacecraft to do the job of reaching and capturing Swift in roughly a month.

“This is a high-risk, high-reward mission,” Katalyst Space CEO Ghonhee Lee said ahead of liftoff.

“The biggest danger was always we don’t launch anything and we let Swift burn up in the atmosphere. So we were always trying to avoid that risk, and our team has done that,” Lee added.

Katalyst’s Link spacecraft was launched by a small rocket named Pegasus, which was launched from an airplane.

What happened to Swift?

The Swift telescope was launched in 2004 and since then, it has been tracking some of the biggest explosions in the universe, including gamma-ray bursts and exploding stars.

But the aging structure has been affected by recent solar storms and is sinking faster than ever, heading toward Earth.

NASA has paid $30 million (€26 million) to Katalyst in an attempt to capture the telescope and boost its orbit.

If the Link spacecraft is successful, Swift could return to work by September.

To do so, the Link spacecraft must raise the telescope’s altitude by 150 miles using its thrusters to boost Swift slowly, without heavy jostling.

A time-sensitive mission

NASA warned that the telescope would sink too low to recover by autumn of this year, and predicted it would plunge to its demise in October if it remained unaided.

Katalyst managed to organize the mission in just nine months, but bad weather and technical issues caused a series of last-minute launch delays.

Source : https://www.dw.com/en/nasa-launches-spacecraft-to-recover-sinking-telescope/a-77826514

Cancer has a dirty trick: it can put itself to sleep. When tumor cells slip into a kind of biological hibernation, they become hard to kill, shrugging off treatment and lying low until conditions improve, then waking up and bringing the disease back. For decades, researchers have struggled to shut down this hiding strategy without causing serious harm elsewhere in the body. A team in Switzerland has now built a molecule that flips on and off with flashes of light, giving scientists a precise new way to probe, and possibly disrupt, the way sleeping cancer cells hide.

Behind this cellular sleep state, at least in certain cancers, sits a protein called the glucocorticoid receptor, a sensor inside cells that reacts to stress hormones. When it switches on, it can push cancer cells, especially in some solid tumors such as lung cancer, into a drug-resistant, dormant state. The obvious fix would be to destroy the receptor outright, but there is a catch: the same receptor does important jobs all over the body, including calming inflammation. Removing it everywhere would cause real damage. What was needed was a way to hit the receptor inside a tumor and leave the rest of the body alone.

That is what the team set out to build. Their solution, described in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, is a class of molecules called photoPROTACs: drug-like compounds engineered to destroy the stress hormone receptor, but only when a specific color of light switches them on. Shine the right light on them, and they go to work. Keep them in the dark, and they stay idle.

A Kill Switch for a Stress Hormone Receptor

It helps to know what a PROTAC is. A PROTAC is a molecule that grabs onto a specific protein inside a cell and tags it for destruction by the cell’s own waste-disposal system. It works like slapping a “delete me” sticky note on an unwanted protein. PROTACs have stirred huge excitement in medicine because they can eliminate proteins that ordinary drugs cannot touch.

Conventional PROTACs have a problem: they are always on. Once taken, they work throughout the entire body, destroying their target in cancer cells and healthy cells alike. For a receptor this important to normal health, that is a dealbreaker.

To get around it, the team embedded a light-sensitive part directly into the PROTAC molecule. By adding a chemical structure that physically changes shape depending on the wavelength of light hitting it, they created a molecular switch. In one shape, called the E-form, the molecule has the right geometry to do its job and destroy the receptor. In the other, the Z-form, it bends into a configuration that leaves it far less active. The switch runs both ways: one wavelength turns the molecule on, another turns it off.

Building the Light-Activated Cancer Switch

Researchers built and tested several versions of these light-switchable molecules, hunting for the best balance of stability and responsiveness. Two lead compounds, KH-5-306 and KH-5-309, stood out. Both flipped almost completely between their active and inactive shapes under different wavelengths of light and showed no signs of wearing out after repeated exposure.

Inside cells, both compounds destroyed the stress hormone receptor in their active E-form at very low doses. Switched to the inactive Z-form, the effect dropped sharply, though the inactive form still held on to some activity. Because the Z-form naturally drifts back toward the active E-form at body temperature, researchers kept it locked in place during experiments by hitting the cells with brief bursts of ultraviolet light every 30 minutes, a lab-only workaround they confirmed did not harm the cells or disturb the biology under study, and not a method meant for patients.

Additional tests confirmed the receptor destruction ran through the cell’s normal disposal machinery: when a separate inhibitor blocked that machinery, the photoPROTACs stopped working. The compounds also left a closely related receptor alone, even at higher doses, a sign the molecules were hitting their intended target and not damaging look-alikes. And the effect proved temporary. When the active compound was washed away after 12 hours, receptor levels started climbing back within 24.

Waking Up Sleeping Lung Cancer Cells

With the chemistry checked, researchers moved to a test closer to real medicine. They took human lung cancer cells and treated them with dexamethasone, a common steroid that switches on the glucocorticoid receptor and nudges these cells into a dormancy-like state. That setup mirrors a real problem: dexamethasone is routinely given to cancer patients to manage inflammation and treatment side effects, yet it may quietly push tumor cells toward this drug-resistant sleep.

After confirming that dexamethasone triggered the expected dormancy response, the team tested whether the lead photoPROTAC, KH-5-309, could reverse it. Cells treated with the active E-form saw the dormancy-linked gene activity roll back toward normal, and a sweep across thousands of genes confirmed the shift toward a more active state. By contrast, the inactive Z-form left those genes essentially untouched, behaving in this experiment as a neutral control on par with no treatment at all.

Source : https://studyfinds.com/scientists-built-cancer-kill-switch-that-turns-on-with-flash-of-light-study-shows/

A BBC investigation has claimed that Instagram displayed paid ads linked to child sexual abuse material on a test account in India, alongside adult explicit content. The report said some ads directed users to Telegram channels. Meta said it removed flagged content and disabled accounts, calling the characterisation ‘categorically inaccurate.’

Instagram has reportedly been running paid advertisements promoting child sexual abuse material to users in India. The probe found that ads directing users to purchase such content on messaging app Telegram were appearing on the platform despite Meta’s own policies requiring every advertisement to be reviewed before publication. Meta has disputed the characterisation of its practices while confirming it took down some of the flagged content.

According to reportage by BBC, the investigation began after reporters noticed Instagram was surfacing sexually suggestive content on a test account even without the user searching for it. The BBC set up an alias account based in India and followed a set of accounts posting sexualised content to observe how the platform’s advertising system responded.

Within a week, the account began receiving advertisements featuring explicit adult content. Days later, the investigation found, the platform began showing ads depicting children in sexually suggestive situations alongside adults, with links directing users to Telegram channels where the material could reportedly be purchased. BBC said around 30 unique advertisements promoting child sexual abuse material appeared over the course of the investigation, along with about 20 ads featuring adult pornography.

When BBC reported one such advertisement directly to Instagram, the platform responded roughly 24 hours later stating that the post did not violate its community guidelines, the investigation found. It was only after BBC approached Meta, Instagram’s parent company, for formal comment that the company said it had disabled several of the advertisements and suspended the accounts responsible for posting them.

Meta told BBC it had since removed additional ads, disabled more accounts and blocked URLs linked to policy-violating content in response to the investigation’s findings. The company said in a statement that “child exploitation is a horrific crime and Meta works aggressively to fight it on our apps,” and pushed back on the suggestion that it had knowingly or deliberately targeted such ads at users with an inappropriate interest in the material, calling that characterisation “categorically inaccurate.”

Meta said it had automatically disabled more than four million accounts in 2025 for exhibiting signals of suspicious behaviour, and maintained that it does not prioritise revenue over user safety. The company added that it reports apparent child exploitation cases to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) as required by law.

On the specific advertisement BBC had flagged and which was initially left up, Meta later said that “no system is perfect, and our review process may not detect all policy violations,” adding that it runs proactive detection technology on ads once they go live and that users can report ads they believe break platform rules.

Telegram’s response

BBC also reported two Telegram channels it found selling the material. One was taken down and replaced with a notice stating it had violated Telegram’s terms of service, while the other continued posting new content, according to the investigation. Telegram told BBC it uses a combination of automated and human moderation to remove child sexual abuse material from the app, and said it has ‘virtually eliminated the public spread of CSAM from its platform.’ The company separately said it removed more than 274,000 groups and channels linked to such material in 2026. BBC noted that Telegram, unlike many major platforms, is not a member of either NCMEC or the Internet Watch Foundation.

Source : https://www.freepressjournal.in/tech/no-system-perfect-our-review-process-may-not-detect-all-policy-violations-meta-says-after-instagram-found-running-ads-promoting-child-sexual-abuse-material-in-india

India recorded 24.65 lakh cyber fraud complaints. AI scams, digital arrests, fake investment schemes and identity theft are already rising rapidly.

WhatsApp is preparing one of its biggest identity changes since the messaging platform was launched.

Instead of sharing your phone number with everyone you chat with, users will soon be able to connect using unique usernames. The feature promises greater privacy. But cybersecurity experts say it could also create an entirely new playground for scammers.

The timing couldn’t be more critical.

India recorded 24.65 lakh cyber fraud complaints, according to data from the Ministry of Home Affairs. AI-powered scams, digital arrests, fake investment schemes and identity theft are already rising rapidly. Experts believe introducing a new digital identity layer could unintentionally give fraudsters another tool to exploit.

Among those raising the alarm is Kanishk Agrawal, Chief Technology Officer at Judge Group India, who believes the benefits of usernames must be matched with stronger security awareness.

“Privacy and security must evolve at the same pace as our digital identities,” Agrawal says, adding that convenience should never come at the cost of trust.

What Is WhatsApp’s Proposed Username Feature?

For years, WhatsApp has relied entirely on phone numbers to identify users. That is about to change.

The company is introducing optional usernames that let users message people without revealing their mobile numbers. Instead of exchanging phone numbers, users can share a unique username, much like platforms such as Telegram, Signal, Instagram or X.

The feature is optional and users will still need a phone number to create a WhatsApp account. However, once usernames become available, people messaging you for the first time may only see your chosen username instead of your number, if you enable the feature. WhatsApp has also said usernames won’t be publicly searchable and users will need to know the exact username to initiate contact.

The rollout, however, has already attracted scrutiny in India.

The Centre recently asked WhatsApp to pause the rollout and explain how it plans to prevent impersonation, phishing and cyber fraud before expanding the feature.

Why Are Cybersecurity Experts Worried?

According to Kanishk Agrawal, every new digital identity creates a fresh attack surface. Today’s cybercriminals don’t merely hack devices. They manipulate people.

By combining fake usernames with AI-generated messages, deepfake images and sophisticated social engineering techniques, fraudsters can make scams appear remarkably convincing.

Here are six risks Agrawal believes every WhatsApp user should understand.

1. Fake usernames could make impersonation much easier: Imagine receiving a message from someone whose username looks almost identical to your bank, your employer or even a close friend. A single missing letter, extra underscore or altered spelling may go unnoticed. According to Agrawal, scammers could register usernames resembling trusted individuals or businesses and use them to deceive unsuspecting users.

How to stay safe: Always verify a person’s identity outside WhatsApp before sharing confidential information or transferring money. If something feels unusual, call them directly.

2. Phishing messages may become even more convincing: Cybercriminals have long relied on fake links and urgent messages. Usernames could make these scams appear even more authentic. Agrawal warns that fraudsters may send messages asking users to click malicious links, reveal OTPs or share banking credentials while pretending to be legitimate contacts.

How to stay safe: Never share OTPs, passwords, PINs or banking information over chat, regardless of who appears to be asking.

3. Brand spoofing could become harder to detect: Customer support scams already cost victims millions. With usernames replacing visible phone numbers, fake business accounts could appear more credible than before. According to Agrawal, scammers may impersonate banks, e-commerce companies, delivery platforms or payment apps to trick users into revealing sensitive information.

How to stay safe: Only communicate with verified business accounts and use official customer support channels listed on company websites.

4. AI-powered social engineering may become even more dangerous: Artificial intelligence has dramatically changed cybercrime. Today’s fraudsters can generate realistic conversations, cloned voices and convincing images within minutes. Agrawal says fake usernames combined with AI-generated content could significantly increase the success rate of social engineering attacks. Someone pretending to be a family member or colleague may sound far more believable than before.

How to stay safe: Be extra cautious whenever someone requests money, investment transfers or sensitive financial information. Pause and independently verify every request.

5. Greater privacy could also reduce accountability: The biggest advantage of usernames is also one of their biggest challenges. Hiding phone numbers enhances user privacy. But it may also make it harder to identify pranksters, scammers and malicious actors. Agrawal believes this increased anonymity could complicate investigations unless supported by robust platform safeguards.

How to stay safe: Enable WhatsApp’s two-step verification, review your privacy settings regularly and avoid accepting chats from unknown users without verification.

6. Fraud networks could scale much faster: Scammers rarely operate alone. Many fraud syndicates already manage thousands of fake digital identities. Agrawal says usernames could make it easier for cybercriminals to create and operate large numbers of fraudulent accounts across different regions, increasing the scale of phishing campaigns.

How to stay safe: Report suspicious usernames immediately. Just as importantly, educate family members — especially senior citizens and first-time internet users — about emerging scam techniques.

Convenience Shouldn’t Come At The Cost Of Trust

WhatsApp maintains that the username feature is designed to improve privacy and includes safeguards against misuse. The company says usernames are optional, protected and not searchable, while phone numbers remain linked to accounts behind the scenes.

Source : https://www.ndtv.com/tech/whatsapp-username-feature-explained-6-cyber-risks-every-user-should-know-11720563?pfrom=home-ndtv_topstories

Hiding a phone number behind a username makes it harder to trace who is messaging whom, officials and experts have said.

The Union ministry of electronics and information technology (MeitY) was set to send notices to Telegram and Signal over their username-based communication features, a day after issuing a similar notice to WhatsApp, a government official told HT on Thursday. The notices are expected to go out on Friday.

“The rules apply to everyone. Similar notices will be sent to Telegram and Signal on Friday,” the official said.

The move follows MeitY’s notice to WhatsApp, which directed the company to pause the rollout of its username feature and furnish a detailed explanation within three days. MeitY officials met WhatsApp representatives on Thursday at 11.30am, HT has learnt. According to people aware of the discussions, the company sought additional time to respond, citing the coming weekend, while ministry officials reiterated their concerns over the feature. MeitY is expected to grant an extension once it receives a formal request from WhatsApp.

The trigger was the company beginning to let users reserve usernames ahead of a planned year-end launch. The ministry has said the feature could raise the risk of impersonation, identity theft, phishing and digital fraud by allowing users to connect without revealing their number.

Hiding a phone number behind a username makes it harder to trace who is messaging whom, at a time when impersonation-driven scams are already a widespread problem in India, officials and experts have said.

Referring to Wednesday’s notice, a WhatsApp spokesperson earlier said the feature was not yet live and would roll out slowly later this year, and that the company had held back usernames resembling public figures, government entities and celebrities so they could only be claimed by their legitimate owners.

The founder of Arattai, an Indian messaging application, separately signalled a pullback on Thursday. Sridhar Vembu, the company’s founder, said on X on Thursday that Arattai would disable its username-based account feature “to comply with the regulatory change”. He did not specify the regulatory changes he referred to.

The government’s sharper concern with WhatsApp, the official cited above said, comes down to scale. “WhatsApp facilitates around 50 crore calls every day. People trust it blindly. That’s why our concerns are much greater with WhatsApp than with Telegram, which has a much smaller calling rate of around 2.5 crore calls in India,” the official said.

The official also suggested WhatsApp’s username push doubled as a competitive move against Telegram. “Maybe they want to capture Telegram’s market. WhatsApp wants to have a monopoly in this space,” the official said.

Friday’s notices will mark the second time this year that Telegram has drawn regulatory attention. The app was temporarily blocked during the NEET-UG re-examination over concerns about the circulation of exam material — an episode the official said had already sharpened government scrutiny of username-based platforms ahead of this week’s notices.

Source : https://www.hindustantimes.com/lifestyle/health/how-to-know-if-your-thyroid-is-out-of-balance-endocrinologist-reveals-signs-to-spot-hypothyroidism-and-hyperthyroidism-101782986983467.html

A spokesperson for the company said the feature has only been announced and is not yet available to users.

WhatsApp has said the names of public figures, government entities, celebrities and verified Meta accounts will be kept reserved under its upcoming usernames feature, shortly after the Centre issued a notice to Meta over concerns that the tool could be misused for impersonation and online scams.

A spokesperson for the company said the feature has only been announced and is not yet available to users.

“We’ve announced the option for people to reserve their preferred username on WhatsApp. The ability to use a username is not yet live and will roll out slowly later this year,” the spokesperson said.

Addressing concerns over misuse, the company said it has already built safeguards into the feature.

“To protect against impersonation, we’ve held the highest-profile names — think public figures, government entities, celebrities, verified Meta accounts — so they can only ever be claimed by their legitimate owners and lookalike derivatives of known names are held as well,” the spokesperson added.

Centre Seeks Explanation From Meta

WhatsApp’s clarification came after the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) issued a formal notice to Meta over the proposed username system.

According to sources quoted by CNN-News18, the government has directed Meta to submit a detailed explanation of the feature within three days and has instructed the company not to roll it out in India until the consultation process is completed.

The move follows concerns that the new username feature could make it easier for cybercriminals to impersonate individuals, government officials or public personalities by creating misleading usernames.

The upcoming feature will allow users to create an optional, unique username beginning with the “@” symbol, enabling others to message or call them without revealing their phone number. The username will be distinct from a user’s display name and will be visible by default to people who do not have their phone number saved.

Source : https://www.news18.com/tech/after-centres-notice-whatsapp-says-public-figures-govt-usernames-will-be-kept-reserved-ws-l-10185387.html

Shalini, an SDE at Google, shared her observations after recently visiting some of the most talked-about amenities inside a Google office.

Social media is full of “day in the life” videos from employees working at major tech companies, often highlighting colourful office spaces, PlayStation rooms, gyms and lavish perks. However, a Google employee has now challenged the picture these viral reels paint, saying that they rarely show the demanding work that happens behind the scenes.

Taking to X, Shalini, a Software Development Engineer at Google, shared her observations after recently visiting some of the most talked-about amenities inside a Google office. According to her, the PlayStation room and gym were both largely empty, despite their popularity in social media reels.

“Recently went to the PlayStation room and gym at the Google office. Both were almost empty. What I actually saw? People working like crazy. Some even looked stressed,” she wrote.

Shalini added that many of the viral “day in the life” videos fail to reflect the reality of working at a tech giant. “Those reels where it looks like everyone is just playing games and chilling all day? Most are either from the first few days after joining or just shot for the content. The perks are real, but so is the workload,” she said.

The techie also admitted that such content had shaped her own experience before joining the tech giant. “So yeah… stop believing every ‘day in the life’ reel you see. Those reel during my internship make me believe that work will be less but it’s mostly team dependent,” she wrote.

Concluding her post with a disclaimer, she clarified, “All thoughts are my personal, I am not speaking on behalf of Google.”

-Recently went to the PlayStation room and gym at the Google office.
Both were almost empty. 😭

-What I actually saw? People working like crazy. Some even looked stressed.

-Those reels where it looks like everyone is just playing games and chilling all day? Most are either from… pic.twitter.com/gIXME2GjLR

— Shalini (@Shalini70856041) June 28, 2026

Social media reactions

The post quickly caught the internet’s attention, with many saying that viral workplace videos often leave out the long hours and pressure employees face.

One user wrote, “Well if they spent time playing and all it is compensated by working in night. So yeah that part get skipped in reels.”

“Social media also highlights the good parts and forgets to show the parts where people actually work up to that point,” commented another.

Source : https://www.hindustantimes.com/trending/google-techie-calls-out-viral-day-in-the-life-videos-says-perks-are-real-but-so-is-the-workload-101782753353938.html

 

WhatsApp introduces usernames so users can connect without sharing phone numbers, with reservations opening now ahead of a wider rollout later this year.

Millions of users of Meta-owned messenger WhatsApp will now no longer need to share phone numbers, the company announced on Monday, adding that each user will be able to pick unique usernames to share with others.

According to a statement, “Your phone number is personal and sometimes you want to connect without handing it over, that’s why we’re introducing usernames for WhatsApp.”

your phone number is personal and sometimes you want to connect without handing it over. that’s why we’re introducing usernames for WhatsApp.

starting this week, you can reserve a username to use later this year when we launch the feature. It takes just a few seconds, make sure…

— WhatsApp (@WhatsApp) June 29, 2026

“Starting this week, you can reserve a username to use later this year when we launch the feature. It takes just a few seconds, make sure you have the latest version of WhatsApp and then go to Settings > Account > Username,” it stated.

AFP quoted the company saying that restricting access to phone numbers would mean they are not shared automatically in cases such as being added to a large group chat or messaging a person or business for the first time.

What’s more, “there’s no directory to browse and no suggestions, so people need to know your exact username to contact you,” Meta said.

The company added that it would gradually roll out this new feature worldwide “over the coming months”, notifying users in each country when they open there.

This comes days after Meta named Indian fintech ​firm CRED’s ‌founder Kunal Shah ​as the new global head of WhatsApp, marking one of the most prominent appointments of an Indian entrepreneur in the global technology sector.

Source : https://www.news18.com/tech/no-more-phone-numbers-whatsapp-will-now-allow-users-to-pick-unique-names-ws-l-10180738.html

 

For years, buyers of tech could rely on a familiar trend – that older devices would get cheaper over time.

That now seems to have stopped, or in some cases, completely reversed.

Apple and Microsoft’s Xbox have joined the firms hiking prices for devices and games consoles which are years old.

They and other tech companies have pointed to the rising cost of crucial components needed to build their machines, laying the blame on AI.

Compute-hungry data centres, which power AI, need more and more chips to keep up with demand from AI companies – which means the demand for them is far outstripping supply.

Some people have called it “Ramageddon” – as random access memory (Ram), a once-cheap part of any computer, has now shot up in price.

But big tech’s Ram woes are failing to gain the sympathy of many consumers facing eye-watering costs for barely-new electronics.

Apple has raised the prices of its tablets and laptops by nearly 20%.

The news was swiftly followed by Microsoft saying it would yet again raise the price of its five-year-old Xbox Series S and X consoles by at least $100 (£75.70).

The pricing changes, which will take effect from August, are its third in just over a year – and see the cost of a new console be 30% to 40% more expensive than it was this time last year.

“Xbox with another hardware price increase? I gotta laugh to keep from crying,” wrote one X user reacting to Xbox’s console price hikes. “My favorite hobby is cooked.”

On Reddit, another user responding to the news said Xbox “may as well just cancel” its upcoming console Helix “because no one will be able to afford it”.

Investors may not have been too overjoyed, either.

Apple’s share price took a tumble following the announcement of its price bumps on Thursday.

Yang Wang, principal analyst at Counterpoint Research, called the memory crisis “the most disruptive supply-side event the smartphone industry has ever faced”.

The iPhone has so far been shielded from price hikes, and Wang said premium phone makers such as Apple and Samsung were “better positioned to weather the disruption”.

The iPhone has so far been shielded from price hikes, and Wang said premium phone makers such as Apple and Samsung were “better positioned to weather the disruption”.

But Apple was part of a wider sell-off of tech stocks, amid concerns AI investment would impact device sales.

And these companies are by no means alone.

Nintendo has said it would raise the Switch 2’s price globally from September.

Valve recently launched its new Steam Machine gaming PC with a higher price than expected, starting its announcement with a long explanation about spiking component costs.

It has already raised the cost of its handheld Steam Deck by 40% for similar reasons in May.

Why is this happening?
The companies blame AI.

Apple’s announcement on Thursday, which cited an “unprecedented challenge” with memory chips facing the industry, has been seen by several analysts as indicating that the cost of massive AI investment is finally coming to bear.

It is no secret that AI developers are seeking to capitalise on excitement about generative AI tech, claiming it can deliver productivity boosts and help firms make more profit.

But to do so means building giant data centres filled with racks of powerful servers to enable high-speed processing of heavy AI workloads.

They use some of the same raw ingredients needed to make our smaller consumer devices, such as computer chips.

Source: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cd95k584pzqo

 

But Apple was part of a wider sell-off of tech stocks, amid concerns AI investment would impact device sales.

 

And these companies are by no means alone.

 

Nintendo has said it would raise the Switch 2’s price globally from September.

 

Valve recently launched its new Steam Machine gaming PC with a higher price than expected, starting its announcement with a long explanation about spiking component costs.

 

It has already raised the cost of its handheld Steam Deck by 40% for similar reasons in May.

 

Why is this happening?

The companies blame AI.

The iPhone has so far been shielded from price hikes, and Wang said premium phone makers such as Apple and Samsung were “better positioned to weather the disruption”.

But Apple was part of a wider sell-off of tech stocks, amid concerns AI investment would impact device sales.

And these companies are by no means alone.

Nintendo has said it would raise the Switch 2’s price globally from September.

Valve recently launched its new Steam Machine gaming PC with a higher price than expected, starting its announcement with a long explanation about spiking component costs.

It has already raised the cost of its handheld Steam Deck by 40% for similar reasons in May.

Why is this happening?
The companies blame AI.

 

India has inaugurated the world’s first plant that makes hydrogen using nuclear reactor heat instead of electricity. Built at Kalpakkam, the copper-chlorine cycle points to a cleaner, round-the-clock route to green hydrogen.

On a stretch of the Tamil Nadu coast where the sea meets some of the country’s most guarded science, a reactor that has hummed for four decades has just done something no reactor anywhere else in the world has done before. The nuclear reactor in India has used its own heat, not electricity, to pull hydrogen out of water.

That single distinction is the reason scientists are calling this a milestone.

Indonesia is enforcing strict regulations to enhance teenage safety on social media, as highlighted by Communications and Digital Minister Meutya Hafid. Following new rules, TikTok and YouTube have deactivated millions of accounts.

The teenage safety protocols on social media are being taken very seriously all over the world, and last on the list is Indonesia. According to a report published by Reuters, the country’s communications and Digital Minister, Meutya Hafid, said TikTok and YouTube have deactivated millions of accounts as soon as the new rules came into action. TikTok eradicated 4.1 million accounts while YouTube removed around 600,000 accounts.

The Communications and Digital Minister of Indonesia, Meutya Hafid, said to Reuters, ‘we’re not just delaying a child’s access, but we want behaviours from platforms to change too.’ The Minister also said that the ministry is reviewing self-assessment reports submitted by the social media companies. The account removals on both platforms follow a regulation brought by Indonesia in March that requires social media companies operating platforms considered ‘high risk’ to deactivate accounts belonging to children younger than 16. The rule is applicable to platforms like YouTube, X, Instagram, Roblox and TikTok.

The regulation imposes responsibility for enforcing the age restriction on the platforms instead of just putting it on parents or schools. Furthermore, companies are also expected to identify and deactivate accounts that belong to users below the minimum age mark. Indonesia said that these restrictions are intended to minimise the risks associated with excessive social media use among children, including cyberbullying and online addiction. With this move, the country joins the league of governments that are taking strict steps related to curbing social media use amongst children.

Source : https://www.timesnownews.com/technology-science/indonesia-launches-massive-crackdown-on-underage-youtube-and-tiktok-users-removes-4-7-million-accounts-article-154773787

The discovery means that NASA’s rovers have now found organic-bearing mudstones more than 2,000 miles apart on Mars.

NASA’s Perseverance rover has found complex carbon molecules in rocks on Mars, adding to growing interest in signs that the planet may once have supported life. The discovery was made in rocks that scientists have already been studying for possible evidence of ancient microbial life, reported the Guardian.

The Perseverance rover detected organic carbon in mudstones at the Bright Angel outcrop while travelling through Neretva Vallis, an ancient dried-up river that carried water into Jezero crater billions of years ago. The rover made the discovery using its Sherloc instrument.

The form of carbon found is known as macromolecular carbon (MMC). It can come from living organisms, but it can also be produced through geological processes. Because of this, scientists say the discovery is not proof that life once existed on Mars.

Dr Ashley Murphy from the Planetary Science Institute in Arizona said that MMC can be found in different environments and types of rocks. She said it may originate from biological sources such as fossilised organic matter found in microbial mats and coal, but it could also form through reactions between rocks and water or arrive on Mars through meteorites.

The Bright Angel mudstones had already attracted attention in 2024 when the Perseverance rover discovered unusual spots and nodules on their surface that resemble features created by fossilised microbes on Earth. After the scientific findings were published last year, former acting NASA head Sean Duffy said that this very well could be the clearest sign of life that they have ever found on Mars.

In the latest study, Murphy and her team detected the complex carbon by shining Perseverance’s Sherloc ultraviolet laser on the rocks and measuring the light reflected back.

Tests on one rock, called the Cheyava Falls mudstone, found macromolecular carbon on its surface. This suggests that the rock was either recently exposed to the Martian environment or that the carbon was able to survive the radiation and chemical oxidation that usually destroy organic material on Mars.

The discovery means that NASA’s rovers have now found organic-bearing mudstones more than 2,000 miles apart on Mars. Earlier discoveries were made by the Curiosity rover in Gale crater. The researchers wrote in Science Advances that this indicates the habitability of Mars, and the availability of organics, may have been widespread across the planet billions of years ago.

Professor John Bridges, a planetary scientist at the University of Leicester who was not involved in the study, said the findings provide more tantalising information about the Bright Angel outcrop in Jezero crater. He said they can already see that Jezero was a habitable environment for primitive life, with not only textures suggesting the possibility of life at Bright Angel but also relics of carbon building blocks that would have been present if life had existed in the ancient delta.

Source : https://www.ndtv.com/science/nasa-rover-detects-complex-carbon-in-mars-rocks-hinting-at-ancient-microbial-life-11692589

Google is enhancing its data collection methods by incorporating images, voice recordings and various uploaded media to improve its AI and Search functionalities.

Google is preparing to collect even more user data to power its artificial intelligence systems and this time it’s not limited to what you type into Search. The search giant is expanding the type of information it can save from your interactions, including images, voice recordings and other uploaded media. While the company says the feature is designed to improve Search and AI experiences, privacy advocates are once again questioning whether users are being asked to give up more data by default. Keep reading to know what is changing and how you can opt out.

According to updated support documents and information reported by Wired, the US-based tech giant is introducing a new Search Services History setting for Google Accounts. Under the new system, Google may save media from services such as Google Lens, Search Live, Google Translate speaking practice, voice searches and other uploaded content.

Google explains on its support page: “Your saved media includes your images, files, and audio and video recordings from your interactions with Search services. This includes things like Google Lens images, recordings from Search Live or Translate speaking practice, content you upload, and voice searches.”

Many users are now seeing a notification inside their Google Account settings informing them that media from Search interactions will also be stored in their history alongside existing Web & App Activity.

The move comes as AI companies race to gather more diverse datasets. Unlike text alone, images, audio and video help AI models better understand the real world. That makes these uploads increasingly valuable for training future AI systems. Google’s massive ecosystem gives it an advantage over rivals because billions of people already use its products every day.

US AI firm Anthropic claims Alibaba extracted Claude AI capabilities through millions of interactions, escalating tensions in the global AI race.

The rivalry between China and the US has not been hidden. Now, the American tech giant Anthropic has accused China’s Alibaba of carrying out a large-scale operation to extract capabilities from its Claude AI model. As per Reuters, the Dario Amodei-led Anthropic has sent a letter to the US authorities and the startup claims that this activity took place between April 22 and June 5, 2026, using nearly 25,000 fake accounts that allegedly generated over nearly 28.8 million interactions with Claude.

Telegram founder Pavel Durov criticised India’s temporary restrictions on the platform, saying the move affected over 150 million users without stopping leaked content or fraud. He argued that such activities simply shifted to other apps. The curbs were imposed ahead of the NEET UG 2026 re-examination amid concerns over fake paper leak claims.

Telegram founder Pavel Durov on Tuesday criticised India’s temporary restrictions on the messaging platform, saying the move had ‘punished’ more than 150 million ordinary users in the country while failing to stop the spread of leaked content and fraud.

Reacting to the Centre’s decision to temporarily block access to Telegram ahead of the NEET UG 2026 re-examination, Durov said the restrictions merely pushed such activities to other platforms instead of solving the problem.

India’s IT ministry banned Telegram for one week because some users shared leaked exam questions.

This punishes 150M+ ordinary Telegram users in India — not the insiders who leaked the exam materials.

And the ban hasn’t stopped anything. The leaks just moved to other apps. https://t.co/CzQWN4mXfb

— Pavel Durov (@durov) June 16, 2026

“The ban has not stopped anything. The leaks simply moved to other apps,” Durov said, while responding to the Indian government’s action against Telegram-linked examination fraud.

India Imposes Temporary Ban On Telegram

 

Anthropic said on Friday it will “abruptly ​disable” its most advanced AI models for all users after the U.S. government ordered it to suspend access to the models for foreign nationals, citing national security ‌concerns.

The company received the export control directive to suspend access to Fable 5 and Mythos 5 for all foreign nationals, without being given specific details of its national security concern, Anthropic said in a statement.

It is Anthropic’s understanding that the government believes there is a method of bypassing, or “jailbreaking,” a safeguard that would prevent Fable 5 from being used in identifying software vulnerabilities, the company said.

The order comes just as a previous dispute between Trump administration officials and IPO-bound ​Anthropic showed signs of easing across parts of the U.S. government.

Anthropic’s relationship with the government ruptured this year after it refused to allow the U.S. military to use its ​AI models for domestic surveillance and fully autonomous weapons systems. The government responded by putting Anthropic on a supply chain blacklist, set to take effect ⁠later in the year.

The action also marks a major escalation of U.S. efforts to halt foreign adversaries’ AI capabilities. For years, U.S. export controls have focused on the chips and tools that power ​AI rather than on restricting foreign access to AI itself.

Anthropic said the government has given it only “verbal evidence of a potential narrow, non-universal jailbreak”.

“We disagree that the finding of a narrow potential jailbreak should ​be cause for recalling a commercial model deployed to hundreds of millions of people,” the company said.

The government directive and Anthropic’s response highlight growing tension between AI developers and regulators over how to assess risks from so-called “jailbreaks,” or methods used to bypass model safeguards.

As recently as Wednesday, Anthropic had called for greater U.S. oversight of AI, including the ability to block models with unacceptable risks. It said, however, the government action on Friday did not follow ​principles of fair and fact-based regulation.

Source : https://www.reuters.com/technology/us-blocks-foreign-access-anthropics-most-advanced-ai-models-axios-reports-2026-06-13

Microscopic cracks in Russian Zvezda module have vented more than two pounds of air daily since 2019 despite multiple repair attempts

An air leak on board the International Space Station (ISS) left astronauts sheltering in their lifeboats on Friday afternoon, fearing an evacuation might be required.

Nasa and the Russian space agency Roscosmos have been struggling to seal microscopic structural cracks in a transfer tunnel leading to the Russian Zvezda module since 2019.

At its peak, the leak was venting more than two pounds of air per day, but in recent months the astronauts thought they had the problem under control.

However, in May, Russian cosmonauts who were unloading cargo from the Progress 95 spacecraft noticed a slow pressure drop in the Zvezda module, and discovered the leak had returned.

On Friday, Nasa ordered five of the ISS crew to shelter inside the docked SpaceX Crew Dragon “Freedom” craft, while the remaining two Russian astronauts attempted another assessment and repair.

At around 3.30pm BST, mission control told Jessica Meir, a Nasa astronaut, that the Russian crew had decided to “perform only measurements” of the leaks and so the “safe haven configuration” – or the order for them to take shelter – was being cancelled.

“We are comfortable with backing out of the safe haven config,” astronauts were told from Houston. “With today’s operations, they wanted to be extra safe, extra precautionary, and have the crew move into the safe haven posture,” a Nasa spokesman later said.

A safe haven configuration is an emergency safety procedure where crew members retreat into their docked spacecraft to use them as “lifeboats” that can immediately evacuate to Earth should the space station suffer a catastrophic failure.

Astronauts close the hatches connecting different modules of the space station, isolating the compromised area to avoid a sudden depressurisation.

Crew members float into their respective docked transport vehicles and configure the spacecraft’s internal systems to stand-alone, independent operation such as activating life support systems and establishing ground communications.

Source : https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2026/06/05/international-space-station-leak-triggers-evacuation-order

Artificial intelligence company Anthropic suggested Thursday a global pause on building the most powerful AI systems as the latest models are beginning to show signs they could escape human control.

The San Francisco-based company, which makes the Claude family of AI models, said in a report that a worldwide slowdown in cutting-edge AI development would “likely be a good thing” — but warned that if only one company stopped, rivals would simply race ahead.

“We believe it would be good for the world to have the option to slow or temporarily pause frontier AI development to enable societal structures and alignment research to keep up with the advance of the technology,” it said.

Getting a real pause to work would mean multiple major AI companies in multiple countries — most notably the United States and China — all agreeing to stop at the same time, under rules everyone could actually verify, Anthropic said.

That idea may prove somewhat unpopular with the likes of Elon Musk, as the hotly anticipated stock market debut of his SpaceX company — which owns his artificial intelligence venture xAI — is expected to make him the world’s first trillionaire.

“Without a global coordination mechanism, companies and governments will have to make difficult decisions about safety while under competitive and geopolitical pressures,” Anthropic said.

The company has faced pushback from others in the industry — and officials in the White House — who say its focus on worst-case scenarios overstates the risks and amounts to a strategy for slowing rivals under the cover of safety concerns.

Still, the White House has acknowledged the power of the company’s Mythos model — which has not been made available to the general public due to its cybersecurity capabilities and is currently deployed only to a small number of vetted organizations.

The proposal would face an uphill battle in Washington and Silicon Valley, where US officials and tech executives have repeatedly argued that any slowdown in AI development risks handing China a decisive strategic edge in what many see as the defining technology race of the century.

US President Donald Trump, however, said he discussed the possibility of cooperating with China on AI safety issues during his recent visit to Beijing.

Trump also signed an executive order this week that allows the government 30 days to conduct a preliminary review of the most powerful US AI models before their release.

– ‘Human role narrowing’ –

Anthropic compared the problem to nuclear arms control treaties, but said it would be even harder to get a handle on since AI training is far easier to hide than a missile silo, and the temptation to quietly keep going would be enormous.

“You want the option to be able to take your foot off the gas and put your foot on the brake,” Anthropic’s co-founder Jack Clark told Britain’s BBC Newsnight on Thursday.

“Right now, it’s like the AI industry has a gas pedal, but it doesn’t have a brake pedal.”

The company said it plans to bring together government officials, scientists, advocacy groups and competing AI firms in coming months to figure out how such a system could work.

The call for coordination comes alongside internal data showing that AI is already dramatically speeding up the development of AI itself, Anthropic said.

That acceleration creates a feedback loop that Anthropic warned could eventually lead to what researchers call “recursive self-improvement.”

Source : https://www.yahoo.com/news/science/articles/anthropic-calls-pause-global-ai-223531016.html?guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZHJ1ZGdlcmVwb3J0LmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAACJiiINv8a7ALArdBssnJ0_1DaS_lD6KCCgqx3z2Cnq3xyvd1Ehs8RFGlcAOMThox4MPCyk2_8B0ezdfkDcMLRCMVy_8JuqCIjfsbfl009A0mPkrbmpcFxcjvLpgMgUQtPRyPxuJe1-iQr0toiAeC9wDYyu-X56hCN6kT2Ym3tl1&guccounter=2

Cloudflare says 57.4% of requests to a selection of websites it hosts are now automated bot requests, while 42.6% are human-generated.

Website traffic from AI agents and bots has eclipsed its human-generated counterpart for the first time, according to Cloudflare, an earlier-than-expected milestone that speaks to AI’s rapid advance and impact.

“Welp, that happened faster than I predicted,” Matthew Prince, co-founder and CEO of Cloudflare, one of the largest internet hosting services, wrote Thursday on X.

“Thought it would be end of 2027, then early 2027,” he continued, “but agentic traffic growing so fast that bots have now passed human traffic online for the first time in the Internet’s history.”

The rise is attributed to the continued proliferation of AI agents, largely autonomous programs that use tools that collaborate with high-level programs and data, with little human feedback.

Cloudflare, which has a feature to display bot versus human-generated search requests, says 57.4% of requests are now initiated by bots, compared with 42.6% coming from humans.

Humans might browse five websites before making a purchase, however, while an AI service might browse 5,000 websites.

The exact day the AI agents and bots surpassed human activity remains unclear. In response to a comment under his X post, Prince wrote that the data is “a bit messy (so charts are too). But clearly on the other side now.”

In an interview with NBC News, Prince said he remains “stunned by the rate of growth” of nonhuman traffic online and explained that the increasing rate of bot traffic could have widespread implications.

“The web actually shrank” from 2015 to 2025, he said. The Pew Research Center backed this fact in a report that says that 38% of webpages that existed in 2013 were no longer accessible a decade later due to deleted websites and inactive links.

The flip started in the last six months, he said, “and we’ve seen now just exponential growth of the web, and really interesting, creative things, and that again is being powered by AI.”

In response to the news, some commenters have brought up the “dead internet theory,” which holds that due to the rise of AI, the internet will one day largely be composed of bots interacting with one another, and humans and their content will largely be rendered irrelevant. Prince said he thinks the growing capabilities of AI actually are proving the theory wrong.

“I think a lot of people kind of have said, ‘Well, this has proved sort of the dead internet theory.’ I think that’s actually kind of wrong at a lot, a lot of levels,” he said. “You don’t need to be a web designer, you don’t need to know how to program, in order to create these things anymore. It’s given access to content creation to a much broader audience.”

The rise in bot traffic also raises questions about how the internet’s business model will operate in the future, Prince said, because “bots don’t click on ads.”

Source : https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/rcna348522

From Project Solara to MAI Thinking-1, Microsoft revealed five major AI announcements at Build 2026 as it ramps up competition with OpenAI and Anthropic.

The Delhi High Court found Google liable for trademark infringement, ordering it to pay Rs 30 lakh in damages.

Tech giant Google is facing strong criticism in India after losing a court case related to its advertising business. This time, Zoho founder Sridhar Vembu has openly backed Zerodha co-founder Nithin Kamath and accused Google of following ‘shady business practices.’

In a post on X, Vembu said: “I am with Nithin on this. What Google was doing was completely unethical and I am glad it has been found illegal in India. They need to be held to account for these shady business practices.”

I am with Nithin on this.

What Google was doing was completely unethical and I am glad it has been found illegal in India. They need to be held to account for these shady business practices. https://t.co/fXCGlfD6s8

— Sridhar Vembu (@svembu) May 29, 2026

His comments came after the Delhi High Court ruled against Google in a trademark infringement case involving Hindware. The case was related to Google’s advertising platform and the use of trademarked keywords.

The Delhi High Court has ordered Google to pay damages of Rs 30 lakh.

Google lost the case because the Delhi High Court said the company was not acting as a neutral platform. Instead, it actively allowed and benefited from advertisers using Hindware’s trademark to attract customers searching for the Hindware brand.

Hindware found that competitors like Cera and Grohe were buying the keyword ‘HINDWARE’ through Google’s ad platform. do when users searched for Hindware products, ads from rival brands appeared at the top of Google Search results.

Google argued that advertisers choose the keywords, not the company, he trademark was not visible in the ad itself and Google was only an intermediary platform.

The court said that even if a trademark is used invisibly as a keyword, it is still being used for advertising purposes. It also found that Google played an active role through its Ads system and Keyword Planner tools, rather than simply hosting ads.

This is not the first time Vembu has criticised Big Tech companies. Recently, the Zoho founder questioned the growing AI hype.

Source : https://www.timesnownews.com/technology-science/zoho-ceo-sridhar-vembu-calls-google-unethical-for-shady-business-practices-article-154427523

 

AI chatbots could be quietly blurring reality, a Stanford study warns, by validating users even when they’re off track.

Artificial intelligence tools have become a major part of our lives. Today, people depend on chatbots for most of the tasks and even for personal advice. However, a new study has revealed that these AI chatbots could be too eager to agree, even when users are wrong. Researchers warn this ‘agreeable reflex’ could eventually reshape how people perceive reality and make decisions bringing moral confusion in their lives.

The Delhi High Court has made a significant ruling affecting online advertising, particularly for companies like Google and Hindware.

Delhi High Court Has Passed a landmark judgement in a case that included Google and a sanitaryware brand Hindware, and this could completely change how companies advertise online in the country. Until now, and for a very long time, businesses across sectors have relied on a common digital marketing strategy bidding on rival brand names as keywords on Google Ads to attract potential customers. For example, someone searching for one brand could also end up seeing ads from its rivals.

Now, according to the latest court ruling, the practice may face legal scrutiny. The Delhi High Court has stated that Google cannot allow rival firms to bid on trademarked keywords ‘Hindware’ via its advertising platform. The judgment came on a trademark dispute filed by HSIL Limited, the parent company of Hindware.

The court found out that letting competitors use a trademarked name as a keyword to initiate ads comes under trademark infringement. As for the case, it began when Hindware argued that rival companies are using its registered trademark on Google Ads to divert customers searching particularly for Hindware products.

In this case, the court has also rejected Google’s defence that it was only acting as an intermediary. On the contrary, the judgment said Google played an active commercial role by selling keywords, conducting ad auctions and earning revenue from these searches.

Source : https://www.timesnownews.com/technology-science/google-lost-trademark-case-in-delhi-hc-and-it-could-reshape-how-search-ads-work-article-154428080

Google’s AI Search update has sparked fears among publishers as experts warn AI-generated summaries could reduce website traffic, hurt revenues, and threaten independent journalism globally.

The ongoing feud between big tech and news publishers seems to have wider implications for the newsrooms across the world. With Google’s new update on AI Search, the company announced how its AI agents will scan “blogs, news sites and social posts” to present crisp answers and quick summaries to users. Amid the issue, the question arises, what happens if readers stop checking the original content from the news sites and simply go with the AI-generated content? This will undoubtedly bring losses to the new outlets in India and across the world.

AI-powered search is fundamentally altering the traffic dynamics that have sustained digital news publishers, shifting the model from content discovery to direct in-platform consumption. Timesnownews.com spoke with experts to understand how such a move could impact India.

Google, under Sundar Pichai’s leadership, is broadening its AI initiatives by launching CodeMender, an AI security tool designed to identify and fix vulnerabilities in software code.

Sundar Pichai-led Google is expanding its AI ambitions beyond chatbots and Search. The Alphabet-owned search giant has now introduced CodeMender, a new AI security agent that can automatically detect vulnerabilities in code, suggest fixes, test them, and even deploy patches with human approval.

Google announced CodeMender to compete with Claude Mythos, a new AI tool from Anthropic created to help companies find and fix security issues in their software.

“Leveraging Agent Platform capabilities and advanced Gemini models, CodeMender autonomously identifies vulnerabilities within your code. It then recommends precise fixes, securely tests them, and can apply patches and necessary changes across dependent systems, with your approval. This entire process automates secure deployment while ensuring your developers retain control,” the company said in a blog post.

CodeMender was originally developed by Google DeepMind and is now being integrated into Google’s Agent Platform. The tool runs on advanced Gemini models, including Gemini 3.5, and is designed to help companies secure their software faster.

For those unaware, CodeMender works like an AI security engineer. It scans source code to find bugs and security loopholes, recommends exact fixes, tests whether the fixes work and can apply those changes across connected systems after getting approval from developers.

Google says this approach can help businesses reduce the time it takes to patch vulnerabilities while keeping engineers in control of the final decision. Several Gemini Enterprise customers are already testing CodeMender, though Google has not announced a wider release date yet.

Source : https://www.timesnownews.com/technology-science/google-takes-on-anthropics-mythos-with-new-ai-security-agent-codemender-article-154354928

Indian AI warfare company FWDA has partnered with Portugal’s SKETCHPIXEL to manufacture the autonomous combat aircraft ‘Kaal Bhairava’ in Europe. The collaboration marks a major step for India’s defence technology sector, integrating indigenous AI warfare systems into European and NATO-linked defence manufacturing networks.

 

In a major boost to India’s ambitions of becoming a global defence manufacturing hub, Indian AI warfare company FWDA on Friday announced that its autonomous combat aircraft ‘Kaal Bhairava’ will now be manufactured in Europe through a strategic partnership with Portuguese defence technology firm SKETCHPIXEL.

The collaboration marks a significant milestone for India’s indigenous defence technology ecosystem, as Kaal Bhairava becomes one of the first Indian-designed AI combat aircraft platforms to enter the European manufacturing and defence network.

SKETCHPIXEL is known for developing advanced fighter jet simulation systems for aircraft such as the F-16 Fighting Falcon.

Partnership to strengthen defence technology integration

OpenAI has integrated its AI coding assistant Codex into the ChatGPT for iOS and Android, enabling developers to monitor and manage coding tasks remotely. The feature allows real-time updates, approvals, and task control across devices, including remote environments. It is rolling out in preview across all plans, with expanded enterprise and security features.

OpenAI — the parent company of ChatGPT — has integrated its AI coding assistant Codex into the ChatGPT mobile app for iOS and Android users, allowing developers to monitor, manage and approve coding tasks remotely from their smartphones.

The feature is currently being introduced in preview mode across all ChatGPT plans, including Free and Go, in supported regions.

With the integration, users can connect their phones to machines running Codex — including laptops, Mac minis, devboxes and managed remote environments — and access live project updates directly through the ChatGPT app.

According to OpenAI, the mobile experience allows users to review outputs, approve commands, switch AI models, start new coding tasks and monitor ongoing threads without returning to their desktop systems.

“Real-time updates such as screenshots, terminal output, diffs, test results and approvals are synced to the mobile app, while files, credentials and permissions remain on the connected machine,” the AI company said.

The company further highlighted that more than 4 million users are now using Codex every week.

Source: https://www.freepressjournal.in/tech/openai-integrates-codex-into-chatgpt-mobile-app-for-remote-coding-management-on-ios-android

Satellite Internet Has An Exhaust Problem Nobody Is Regulating

AI is transforming corporate operations, with over 108,724 tech layoffs in 2026 linked to increased AI investments. However, a Gartner study reveals that companies reducing workforce for AI have not improved financially.

Cisco (CSCO.O), said ​on Wednesday it would cut nearly 4,000 jobs, as part of a restructuring aimed at ‌shifting investment toward artificial intelligence and related growth areas, and raised its annual revenue forecast after a surge in hyperscaler orders.
Shares of the San Jose, California-based networking equipment maker rose more than 16% in extended trading.

“The companies that will win ​in the AI era will be those with focus, urgency, and the discipline to continuously shift ​investment toward the areas where demand and long-term value creation are strongest,” CEO Chuck ⁠Robbins said in a post on Cisco’s website.

The company said it was making strategic investments in silicon, ​optics, security and employees’ use of AI across the company, as it reduces roles in some areas.
Cisco has ​taken $5.3 billion in AI infrastructure orders from hyperscalers so far this fiscal year, and raised its full-year order expectation to $9 billion from $5 billion previously.
“Though much will likely be made about a slight decrease in headcount, the post-market move we are seeing ​is truly the result of hyperscaler capex spilling downstream. This move validates that this capex is about ​more than just chips,” said Ryan Lee, Direxion’s senior vice president of product and strategy.

Cisco is benefiting as companies expand ‌spending beyond ⁠AI processors to the high-speed networks required to connect large data-center systems. Its networking product orders grew more than 50% in the third quarter compared to a year earlier, while data-center switching orders rose more than 40%.
Shares of the company have risen 32% this year.

On a post-earnings call, Cisco’s finance chief, Mark Patterson, ​said it is “reasonable” to expect ​at least $6 billion of ⁠revenue on the AI hyperscale side in fiscal 2027.
The company reported revenue of $15.84 billion for the third quarter ended April 25, beating analysts’ average estimate of $15.56 billion, ​according to data compiled by LSEG.

Source : https://www.reuters.com/technology/cisco-raises-annual-revenue-forecast-2026-05-13/

According to mission scientists, the spacecraft is approaching Mars from a high phase angle.

A new image captured by a spacecraft traveling through deep space shows Mars as a thin crescent, offering a rare and unusual view of the Red Planet. The image was taken as the spacecraft moves closer for a planned flyby that will help it continue its long journey toward a distant asteroid, reported NASA. The spacecraft, named NASA’s Psyche spacecraft, is set to pass close to Mars on Friday, May 15. It will fly about 2,800 miles (4,500 kilometers) above the planet’s surface while moving at a speed of around 12,333 mph (19,848 kph). During this pass, Mars is being used to help change the spacecraft’s path and increase its speed using the planet’s gravity.

Launched on October 13, 2023, the Psyche spacecraft is on a mission to reach the metal-rich asteroid also named Psyche. It uses a solar-electric propulsion system powered by xenon gas, slowly gaining speed over time as it travels through space.
Mission planners are using the Mars flyby to reduce fuel use by letting the planet’s gravity assist the spacecraft instead of relying only on its engines.

During the close approach, the spacecraft’s multispectral imager is expected to capture thousands of observations of Mars. These images will help scientists prepare for future operations when the spacecraft reaches the asteroid in 2029. On May 7, the mission team began receiving initial unprocessed images, including views of a starfield and a small Mars. Scientists will later adjust these images for brightness and contrast and create a time-lapse of the flyby.

Rare Crescent View Of Mars

The image released on May 3, 2026, shows Mars as a thin crescent. According to mission scientists, the spacecraft is approaching Mars from a high phase angle, meaning it sees the planet mostly from the night side with only a narrow strip of sunlight visible. A mission imaging expert, Jim Bell, explained that this viewing angle creates both a thin crescent during approach and a nearly full view after the flyby, which helps with calibration and imaging tests.

Source : https://www.ndtv.com/science/nasas-psyche-spacecraft-captures-rare-crescent-image-of-mars-during-flyby-11476765?pfrom=home-ndtv_lateststories

A glowing streak of light lit up the sky over Odisha on May 8, 2026, spotted as far away as Cox’s Bazar in Bangladesh, after India launched a missile from Chandipur.

Something lit up the sky over Odisha on the evening of May 8, and nobody who saw it could quite believe their eyes.

A bright, comet-like object with a long, twisting orange-white tail streaked across the horizon, visible not just across Odisha but as far away as Cox’s Bazar in Bangladesh, hundreds of kilometres from the launch site.

Videos poured onto social media within minutes.

The internet had one question: what was that?

WHAT EXACTLY WAS LAUNCHED OVER ODISHA?

The mystery has now been solved. The Ministry of Defence confirmed that India successfully conducted the flight trial of an advanced Agni missile equipped with MIRV capability from Dr APJ Abdul Kalam Island, Chandipur, Odisha on May 8, 2026.

See more

India conducted successful Flight trial of an Advanced Agni missile with MIRV (Multiple Independently Targeted Re-Entry Vehicle) system from Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam Island, Odisha on 08th May 2026. The missile was flight tested with Multiple payloads, targeted to different targets… pic.twitter.com/5zUP7WYivJ

— रक्षा मंत्री कार्यालय/ RMO India (@DefenceMinIndia) May 9, 2026

MIRV stands for Multiple Independently Targetable Re-entry Vehicle. In plain language, it means one single missile carries multiple warheads that can separate mid-flight and strike several completely different targets spread across a large area, simultaneously.

The missile was tested with multiple payloads aimed at targets distributed across a large geographical area in the Indian Ocean Region.

WHAT MAKES THIS MISSILE SO SIGNIFICANT?

A conventional missile carries one warhead for one target. A MIRV-equipped missile is fundamentally different: it is, in effect, several weapons in one.

This makes it exponentially harder to intercept, because a missile defence system would need to track and destroy multiple incoming warheads at once rather than just one.

Raksha Mantri Rajnath Singh complimented DRDO, the Indian Army and industry on the successful test, stating it would add incredible capability to the country’s defence preparedness against growing threat perceptions.

WHY WAS THE MISSILE VISIBLE SO FAR AWAY?

The spectacular visuals were not a coincidence of timing. When a missile is launched at twilight, its exhaust plume, the trail of gases left behind at extreme altitudes, catches the last sunlight and glows brilliantly against the darkening sky.

Source : https://www.indiatoday.in/science/story/odisha-missile-launch-mystery-sky-trail-seen-from-bangladesh-after-chandipur-test-2909161-2026-05-09

 

Indian Council of Medical Research says reported hantavirus cases linked to the cruise ship outbreak remain isolated, with low public risk.

Amid growing global attention around the hantavirus outbreak linked to the cruise ship MV Hondius, the Indian Council for Medical Research has said that at present, there is no evidence of community spread or immediate public health threat in the country.

According to Dr. Naveen Kumar, Director of ICMR’s National Institute of Virology, the cases appear to be isolated ones. “The reported hantavirus cases appear to be isolated ones, and there is no immediate public health threat to India,” he was quoted by PTI. His remarks come after reports that two Indian nationals aboard a cruise ship were detected with hantavirus.

Health Ministry monitoring situation

The Union Health Ministry is also closely monitoring the evolving situation, in coordination with the National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), Integrated Disease Surveillance Programme (IDSP), World Health Organization (WHO), and other international health authorities, according to news reports.

The ministry remains on high alert and is maintaining close coordination with the WHO and other international partners.

What is hantavirus?

Hantaviruses are a group of viruses mainly transmitted to humans through contact with infected rodents or their excreta, including urine, saliva, and droppings. Doctors explain that people usually become infected after inhaling aerosolised viral particles in enclosed or poorly ventilated spaces such as warehouses, ships, storage facilities, barns, and rodent-infested buildings.
Health authorities say most hantavirus infections are linked to environmental exposure rather than widespread human transmission.

Former OpenAI Chief Technology Officer Mira Murati testified in court that CEO Sam Altman created “chaos” and distrust among senior executives during important periods in the company’s growth. Her recorded testimony was played in a California federal court as part of Elon Musk’s lawsuit against OpenAI

Former OpenAI Chief Technology Officer Mira Murati testified in court that CEO Sam Altman created “chaos” and distrust among senior executives during important periods in the company’s growth.

Her recorded testimony was played in a California federal court as part of Elon Musk’s lawsuit against OpenAI, according to a report by Reuters.

Murati said Altman often gave different information to different people and was sometimes dishonest in his communications.

According to her testimony, this behaviour caused confusion inside the company and weakened trust among top executives.

She also said Altman undermined her role at times, making it harder for her to do her job effectively.

In a major boost to India’s indigenous defence and aerospace ambitions, the Andhra Pradesh government has extended full support for setting up a world-class Aircraft Integration & Flight Testing Complex at Puttaparthi in the Sri Sathya Sai district.

The proposed facility, to be developed by the Aeronautical Development Agency (ADA) under the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), is expected to become a key centre for aircraft assembly, systems integration, and flight testing for India’s next-generation combat aircraft and unmanned aerial systems programmes.

The project has reportedly received in-principle approval from the Ministry of Defence following sustained discussions between the Andhra Pradesh government and the Centre. The initiative is aligned with the union government’s Atmanirbhar Bharat vision and Andhra Pradesh’s Defence & Aerospace Policy 4.0, which aims to position the state as a leading destination for aerospace and advanced manufacturing industries.

As part of the approved framework, the Andhra Pradesh government will facilitate:

• Allocation of 150 acres adjoining the Puttaparthi runway for the Aircraft Integration & Flight Testing Complex.

• Allocation of an additional 200 acres for a satellite office complex and residential township.

• Extension of the runway length to 10,000 feet.

• Development of critical aviation infrastructure, including ATC tower, navigation aids and meteorological support systems.

• Facilitation of approvals for creation of a dedicated Local Flying Zone in coordination with the Ministry of Civil Aviation, Ministry of Defence and the Indian Air Force.

Aerospace Manufacturing Ecosystem Planned

In another major boost to the aerospace ecosystem, the government has authorised Andhra Pradesh Industrial Infrastructure Corporation (APIIC) to initiate the development of industrial land banks in the surrounding region, including 300 acres earmarked for private industry partners to establish aerospace and defence manufacturing facilities.

Lab-Engineered Virus Drives Bacterial Evolution 160,000 Times Faster Than Normal

Running is one of the most familiar forms of exercise for heart health. But a new study in lab rats found that swimming may actually do more for the heart, and on several measures, the gap between the two was wider than expected.

Researchers at the Federal University of São Paulo published their findings in Scientific Reports after comparing the two exercise types under identical lab conditions. Swimming produced bigger hearts and stronger heart-muscle performance, while running at the same effort level did not trigger the same degree of cardiac growth. Both improved overall fitness, but when it came to the heart itself, swimming had the edge.

Not all heart growth works the same way. When the heart enlarges due to disease, such as chronic high blood pressure, that growth is often harmful. But when the heart grows in response to exercise, the enlargement is considered healthy, preserving or even boosting the organ’s ability to contract and relax. Knowing which exercises drive this beneficial remodeling could eventually inform how doctors think about physical activity.

Swimming Outperforms Running on Heart Size and Muscle Strength

Researchers divided male lab rats into three groups of 24: a sedentary group, a running group training on a motorized treadmill, and a swimming group exercising in a heated water tank. Both exercise groups worked out five days a week, 60 minutes per day, for eight weeks at roughly 75 percent of their maximum oxygen capacity.

Rats in both exercise groups improved their peak oxygen consumption by more than 5 percent, while the untrained group declined. Both exercise types equally boosted an enzyme in muscle tissue that reflects improved energy production at the cellular level, and at the whole-body fitness level, running and swimming were comparable.

Where things diverged was inside the chest. Only the swimming group showed a meaningful increase in heart mass relative to body weight and in the mass of the left ventricle, the chamber responsible for pumping blood to the rest of the body. Heart muscle cells in the swimming group were wider and their internal structures larger, both signs of healthy cardiac growth. Running group hearts looked statistically similar to those of sedentary rats on these measures.

Ultrasound imaging showed swimming produced a pattern in which the heart’s chambers grew larger in diameter, an adaptation tied to the high blood-volume demands of water immersion. Neither exercise type impaired the heart’s ability to fill or pump blood at rest. But when researchers tested isolated strips of heart muscle directly, swimming-trained rats developed significantly more force, and both the rate of force buildup and relaxation were greater than in the running and untrained groups.

Swimming’s Molecular Advantage Traced to a Key Growth Pathway

To understand why swimming outperformed running at the cellular level, the team examined signaling proteins known to drive healthy heart growth. One standout finding involved a protein called PTEN, which acts as a brake on a growth-promoting pathway. Only in the swimming group was PTEN significantly reduced, meaning the brake was released, allowing a downstream chain of signals to help heart cells build new structural components. Both exercise types activated some of these shared signals, but swimming pushed them further.

Part of the reason may come down to tiny genetic regulators called microRNAs, which act like dimmer switches for gene activity. Swimming drove significantly higher levels of five of these microRNAs compared to running, and two of them are known to suppress PTEN directly. In other words, swimming may be turning down the very brake that holds back heart growth. Notably, blood levels of IGF-1, a growth factor often assumed to be the main driver of exercise-related heart growth, were unchanged in all three groups. That points researchers toward mechanisms inside heart tissue rather than a simple hormonal explanation.

Source : https://studyfinds.com/swimming-heart-running-benefits/

A fossil found today in Norway might have formed in the tropics millions of years ago. Coal deposits in Antarctica perhaps initially accumulated in what was once a warm, swampy forest. Paleolatitude, a rock’s ancient position relative to the equator, is the single biggest factor scientists use to reconstruct those vanished environments, because latitude controls how directly sunlight strikes the ground and therefore drives climate. Get that number wrong, and the whole picture of what an ancient world looked like can fall apart.

A decade ago, a team of researchers built a free online calculator to help solve that problem. Called Paleolatitude.org, it lets scientists estimate where rocks and fossils originally formed, long before plate tectonics shuffled them to their current locations. Now that tool has received its biggest upgrade yet.

Version 3.0 went live in April 2026 with three major improvements. For the first time, it incorporates what the authors describe as the first global paleogeographic model back to 320 million years that also restores many rock units now stacked inside mountain ranges like the Himalayas, the Alps, and the Andes. It also uses a more precise magnetic reference system and a redesigned interface that lets researchers process entire datasets at once instead of entering locations one at a time.

Published in PLOS ONE, the work was led by Douwe van Hinsbergen of Utrecht University in the Netherlands, with nine co-authors from institutions across Italy, France, Tajikistan, Austria, and the Netherlands.

Earth’s continents have never stayed put. Plates split apart, collide, and rotate. On top of that, the entire solid Earth can wobble relative to its spin axis, shifting all the continents at once relative to the equator and poles. Accounting for all of those motions simultaneously is exactly why the original tool was built. Type in coordinates and a time period, and the calculator returns an estimate of where that spot was, along with a margin of error.

Mountain Belt Rocks Finally Included in Global Paleolatitude Model

Version 3.0’s biggest change is the inclusion of the Utrecht Paleogeography Model, which covers most locations in the model for chosen time intervals over the last 320 million years. For the first time, the model attempts to restore rock units now crumpled and stacked inside mountain ranges, not just the stable continental cores that earlier versions handled.

Mountains form when tectonic plates collide and compress, thrusting slices of rock into towering piles. The Himalayas, for instance, contain rocks that were once part of a distant ocean floor. Earlier versions of the tool left those regions out entirely, which was a significant gap. Mountain belts tend to have far better rock exposures and richer fossil collections than many stable continental interiors, which are often buried under soil and vegetation.

Version 3.0 incorporates detailed reconstructions of deformed zones including the Mediterranean, the Caribbean, the Tibetan Plateau and Himalaya, Southeast Asia, the western United States, Iran, the Scotia Sea near Antarctica, and the continental fragments making up Mongolia, China, and Indochina. Each region was reconstructed using field geology, rock dating, and layering patterns, deliberately without using any climate or biological data, preventing circular reasoning when the tool is later used to study those very subjects.

Each deformed region was divided into thousands of small rigid pieces representing recognizable geological units. When reconstructed backward in time, these pieces may overlap, representing ancient stretching, or separate, representing compression. Overlaps rarely exceed about 100 kilometers, translating to roughly one degree of latitude in uncertainty.

Sharper Magnetic Reference Data Shrinks Paleolatitude Uncertainty

Ancient rocks preserve a record of Earth’s magnetic field like tiny frozen compasses. By analyzing these records from rocks of known ages on stable continents, scientists can track how the magnetic pole appeared to shift over time, which is really a record of moving continents.

Earlier versions of the calculator grouped magnetic data into study-level averages that contained arbitrary numbers of measurements. This introduced reproducibility problems and inflated uncertainty. Version 3.0 uses a reference system called gAPWP25, which works at the level of individual measurement sites, giving equal weight to each reading and producing smaller uncertainty bands.

Thirty-two new datasets, roughly a ten percent increase, were added to the magnetic database, drawing from locations as varied as New Zealand, Iceland, Morocco, Brazil, Argentina, India, Siberia, and England. Despite those additions, the updated reference path differs only slightly from its predecessor, with the largest shifts of about 1.5 to 2.5 degrees appearing in time windows with the sparsest existing data.

Source : https://studyfinds.com/scientists-track-fossils-320-million-years/

 

Elon Musk faced intense cross-examination in the OpenAI trial, with lawyers presenting emails showing his push for control in 2017 and efforts to recruit staff to Tesla. Musk defended his actions, saying he offered opportunities freely. The case centres on his claim that OpenAI abandoned its nonprofit mission.

A federal courtroom in Oakland has become the arena for one of Silicon Valley’s most consequential legal battles, as Elon Musk takes the stand against Sam Altman and OpenAI. The third day focused mainly on Elon Musk’s cross-examination by OpenAI lawyers.

Wired reports that OpenAI lawyers went back to 2017 and showed the court how Musk tried to gain more control but ultimately lost out and left. OpenAI’s lawyer William Savitt used emails, texts, and other evidence to portray Musk as aggressively trying to ‘squeeze’ the organisation after tensions rose.

Key points from Musk’s testimony on day three of the trial

– In 2017, Musk pushed for a for-profit structure and demanded the ability to appoint four board members (giving him voting control over the cofounders’ three). He wrote that he would ‘unequivocally have initial control of the company, but this will change quickly.’ Ilya Sutskever and others pushed back, worried it gave Musk too much power.

– Musk, who had been the primary funder (part of a $1 billion pledge), stopped his quarterly $5 million payments in spring 2017. An August 2017 email from his family office head asked if they should continue withholding. Musk replied, “Yes.”

– Musk and his teams (Tesla/Neuralink) discussed recruiting OpenAI researchers while he was still on the board. In June 2017, Musk emailed about hiring Andrej Karpathy (a top computer vision researcher) to Tesla. He was reported to have said, “The OpenAI guys are gonna want to kill me, but it had to be done.” On the stand, Musk said Karpathy had already decided to leave OpenAI anyway.

– Musk told a Neuralink cofounder to “Hire independently or directly from OpenAI” and that he had “no problem” pitching people there.

– Musk told then OpenAI board member Shivon Zilis they would “actively try to move three or four people from OpenAI to Tesla” and more would follow over time.

Musk defended these moves on the stand, arguing that restricting employment would be illegal and that he was simply offering opportunities to people who wanted to leave.

Courtroom environment on third day of the trial

The courtroom on the third day is said to have been tense, with the judge even reprimanding someone for photographing Musk. The OpenAI president Greg Brockman was present during the third day.

Musk is reported to appear frustrated, frequently objecting that questions were misleading, claiming poor recall on some details, and dealing with technical glitches and objections.

Source : https://www.freepressjournal.in/tech/elon-musk-vs-sam-altman-tesla-founder-accused-of-poaching-openai-researchers-withholding-funding-seeking-majority-control

On April 29, 2026, Earth will be hit by two airplane-sized asteroids in safe flybys, astronomical data suggests. The near-Earth asteroids, (2026 HL3) and (2026 HP3), will miss Earth by millions of miles and will not pose a threat.

Meet the two flybys making approach towards Earth

On April 29, 2026, two airplane-sized asteroids will safely pass Earth at distances of 1.6 million and 3.68 million miles respectively. Know more about these:

Asteroid 2026 HL3: Closer but smaller one

The first of the pair, (2026 HL3), is thought to be about 80 feet (the size of a small plane) across. It’s expected to approach close to Earth at about 1.6 million miles. This asteroid is considered a near-Earth object but is deemed non-threatening at the current distance.

Asteroid 2026 HP3: Biggest but more distant

The second asteroid, (2026 HP3), is a bit larger, at about 93 feet in diameter. However, it will make its closest approach at much further away (3.68 million miles away), making it harmless.

What are these near-Earth asteroids?

Near-Earth asteroids are cosmic rocks with orbits that take them near the Earth’s orbit. A large number of these objects fly past Earth, but only a few get close enough to trigger interest from scientists or space watchers.

While 2026 HL3 and 2026 HP3 are referred to as “airplane-sized”, both are safe flybys. Their millions of miles from Earth position them far away from Earth.

There are more significant close approaches when objects pass within the distance of the Moon or closer, which happen very rarely (a few per year), and are tracked by space agencies.

Source : https://www.moneycontrol.com/science/two-heavy-asteroids-to-skim-past-earth-on-29-april-confirmed-by-nasa-and-scientists-are-not-alarmed-article-13902220.html

For the millions of Americans living with diabetes, the dream of a lasting cure has always felt close yet frustratingly out of reach. Transplanting insulin-producing cells from a donor can, in theory, replace what the disease destroys. But the body’s immune system attacks those foreign cells, and the treatments used to prevent that rejection can be nearly as dangerous as the disease itself. Now, a team at Stanford has found a way to cure diabetes in mice by dramatically reducing the toxic preparation the body needs before a transplant, while still convincing the immune system to accept donor tissue as its own.

The study, published in JCI Insight on April 21, 2026, takes on one of the most stubborn problems in transplant medicine. When doctors transplant cells or organs from one person to another, the recipient’s immune system recognizes the new tissue as foreign and launches an attack. One powerful strategy to prevent this is to first transplant bone marrow cells from the same donor, creating a state where the recipient’s blood and immune system becomes a mix of their own cells and the donor’s, a condition called “mixed chimerism.” In that scenario, the immune system essentially learns to treat the donor’s tissue as “self,” a state known as tolerance. It’s an elegant solution, but it requires harsh preparation of the patient’s bone marrow beforehand, often involving high doses of radiation or chemotherapy, that carries serious risks of its own.

The Stanford team, led by senior author Seung K. Kim from the Department of Developmental Biology at Stanford School of Medicine, wanted to know whether they could achieve that same tolerance using a gentler recipe. Their answer, demonstrated in a mouse model of diabetes, appears to be yes. It is important to emphasize that this work has been done only in mice so far, and significant hurdles remain before it could be tested in people.

A Gentler Recipe for Curing Diabetes in Mice

To understand what sets this work apart, it helps to know what normally happens before a bone marrow transplant. The patient’s existing bone marrow, the factory where blood and immune cells are made, needs to be partially or fully cleared out to make room for the donor’s cells. Traditionally, this “conditioning,” the medical preparation that readies the body to receive new bone marrow, involves large doses of full-body radiation or powerful drugs that wipe out immune cells. These treatments work, but they also cause damage to organs and raise the risk of infections, among other serious side effects. That toxicity is a major reason why bone marrow transplants aren’t more widely used as a strategy to train the immune system to accept donated tissue.

The Stanford researchers tested a combination of agents, many of which are already in clinical use for other conditions. Their cocktail included baricitinib, a drug that blocks certain immune signaling pathways; venetoclax, a drug that targets a protein helping certain immune cells survive; and an antibody against CD47, a molecule sometimes called a “don’t eat me” signal on cells. They combined these with an antibody against CD117, a protein found on blood stem cells, along with temporary removal of immune cells called T cells.

The real breakthrough was in how little radiation they needed. The team used just 10 centigray of full-body radiation, an extraordinarily low dose. Traditional conditioning for bone marrow transplants can use doses many times higher. By pairing this minimal radiation with their drug combination, the researchers achieved lasting mixed chimerism across a complete mismatch in the molecular markers that the immune system uses to tell “self” from “foreign.” A complete mismatch in these markers represents the toughest immunological barrier, comparable to transplanting between two entirely unrelated individuals.

Curing Diabetes in Mice Without Dangerous Immune Reactions

Once the researchers established mixed chimerism in their diabetic mice, they transplanted insulin-producing cells from donor mice that matched the bone marrow donor. The transplanted cells were accepted by the recipient’s immune system, and the mice’s diabetes was reversed. Blood sugar levels returned to normal, effectively curing the disease in these animals.

Just as important was what didn’t happen. One of the most feared complications of bone marrow transplantation is graft-versus-host disease, a condition where the donor’s immune cells turn against the recipient’s own body, attacking organs like the skin, liver, and gut. In this study, the researchers did not observe signs of that reaction in the treated mice. Their gentler conditioning approach worked, and it worked safely, at least in this animal model.

The transplanted insulin-producing cells came from donors completely mismatched in their immune markers, which matters because it shows tolerance can be achieved even under the most difficult conditions. The team carefully tracked the proportion of donor versus recipient blood cells to confirm that the mixed state lasted over time, rather than fading quickly.

Why Existing Drugs Make This Approach Especially Promising

One of the most practically significant aspects of this research is that the agents used are not experimental compounds sitting in a laboratory freezer. Baricitinib is prescribed for rheumatoid arthritis and other inflammatory conditions. Venetoclax is used in certain blood cancers. The anti-CD47 antibody has been explored in cancer treatment. The antibody against CD117 has also been studied in clinical settings for conditioning before bone marrow transplants.

This means the path from laboratory discovery to potential human trials could be shorter than it would be for entirely new drugs. Of course, “could be” carries a lot of weight in that sentence. Mouse studies don’t always translate to humans, and there are good reasons for caution. The specific mouse strains, diabetes model, and transplant conditions used in this study may not fully replicate the complexity of the human immune system or human diabetes.

Source : https://studyfinds.com/scientists-cure-diabetes-in-mice-stanford/

Close your eyes and picture a red apple. Most people can do this without effort, conjuring a vivid mental snapshot of something that isn’t actually in front of them. For decades, brain scientists assumed this trick worked by running the visual system in reverse, with higher brain regions firing up the same neurons that would activate if you were actually seeing the apple. A provocative new paper argues that this long-held assumption is probably wrong, and that the brain may create mental images through a far stranger process: not by switching neurons on, but by selectively silencing them.

Researchers at the University of New South Wales, the University of Technology Sydney, and the University of the Sunshine Coast propose that mental imagery works by reshaping the brain’s background “noise.” Rather than feedback signals from executive brain regions causing neurons in the visual processing area to fire, the authors suggest imagery suppresses the neurons irrelevant to the imagined object while leaving the relevant ones relatively untouched. It’s less like painting a picture on a blank canvas and more like sculpting a figure by chipping away marble.

Published in Psychological Review, the paper pulls together decades of research on brain connectivity, neural recordings, brain imaging, and behavioral experiments rather than presenting new data of its own.

What Happens When the Brain Processes Mental Images
Normal vision works in a forward direction: light hits the eye, signals travel through a chain of brain regions, and early areas process simple features like edges before higher areas handle complex tasks like recognizing a face. Mental imagery runs in reverse. Brain scanning studies show that imagining something starts activity in executive areas near the front of the brain, which then flows backward toward early visual regions through “feedback” connections, signals traveling top-down rather than bottom-up.

Feedback connections outnumber their forward-moving counterparts by about two to one, according to primate studies cited in the paper. Yet despite being more numerous, they are generally thought to be weaker and slower, mainly acting as adjusters rather than initiators. Authors Roger Koenig-Robert, Thomas Pace, and Joel Pearson argue that forward connections cause neurons to fire, while feedback connections adjust the rate of neurons already firing, often by turning the volume down rather than up.

Why Brain Scans May Have Misled Scientists About Mental Imagery
Much of what scientists know about mental imagery comes from fMRI, a brain scanning technique that measures blood flow as a rough stand-in for neural activity. Numerous fMRI studies have shown that when people imagine visual scenes, early visual areas light up, widely interpreted as evidence that imagination fires up the same neurons as real seeing.

According to the paper, this interpretation has a critical flaw. Blood flow signals don’t specifically measure neurons firing; they reflect a mix of electrical activity, including signals that fall below the threshold needed for a neuron to fire at all. Some studies combining fMRI with direct electrode recordings in animals have shown it’s possible for strong blood flow responses to occur even when local neuron firing decreases, given adjusting signals arriving from other brain regions. In short, fMRI shows that something is happening in early visual areas during imagination, but can’t confirm whether neurons are being switched on or tuned down.

What Animal Studies and Human Experiments Suggest
Since scientists can’t ethically implant electrodes in healthy human visual cortex, much of the direct evidence comes from animal experiments. In higher brain regions, feedback can clearly drive neuron firing. Recordings from human epilepsy patients revealed that 88% of neurons in the medial temporal lobe, a memory-related region rather than early visual cortex, maintained the same selectivity whether their preferred image was seen or merely imagined.

In early visual areas, the picture looks different. When forward-moving input is knocked out in animal studies, activity in the next area up the chain drops sharply. Feedback removal, by contrast, tends to have far more limited effects, suggesting its role there is to refine rather than generate. In one attention experiment in monkeys, stimulating a frontal brain area boosted neuron firing in a mid-level visual area only when a stimulus was already present. When no stimulus was there, feedback had little or no effect, consistent with adjustment rather than direct driving.

Behavioral results in humans are mixed. Imagining motion appears to produce adaptation effects in motion-detecting brain areas, suggesting, but not proving, that feedback drives neurons in those mid-level regions. For basic features processed in early visual areas, results pointed more toward suppression than activation.

Brain May Use Suppression, Not Activation, to Build Mental Images
Pulling these threads together, the authors propose that mental imagery works differently depending on where in the brain’s visual chain one looks. In higher regions, feedback likely drives neurons to fire. In early visual areas, it may instead reshape ongoing background activity by suppressing neurons coding for irrelevant features, carving out a representation rather than lighting one up.

That could explain why mental images are almost always less vivid than real perception, and why they feel unstable: background neural activity is inherently variable, so a representation sculpted from it would naturally be more fragile than one driven by direct activation. Whether the brain builds pictures in the mind’s eye by turning lights on or knowing which ones to switch off remains unresolved, but the answer may change how scientists think about imagination, memory, and the brain’s inner life altogether.

 

Source: https://studyfinds.com/brain-build-mental-images-turning-neurons-off/

Apple (AAPL.O), on Monday named longtime hardware boss John Ternus as its next CEO, turning ​to another insider to steer the iPhone maker after Tim Cook as it navigates a world radically altered by artificial intelligence, a technology it has lagged on.
Cook, a ‌supply-chain genius who boosted Apple’s market value by $3.6 trillion in his 15 years at the helm, will stay on as executive chairman when Ternus takes over on September 1, Apple said in a statement.

Ternus, who joined Apple in 2001, has played a central role in reviving products such as the Mac, which has gained market share against PCs. Though he has kept a low public profile, he has been deeply involved in shaping Apple’s biggest products such as iPads and AirPods.
The transition ​comes at a crucial time for Apple. After years on top of the most-valuable company scoreboard, Apple has lost its crown to AI chipmaker Nvidia (NVDA.O), as investors have fretted over its lack ​of innovation in the technology that is changing how people work, create and get information.
Integrating AI into the iPhone – the most successful consumer product in history – ⁠may be Ternus’ hardest challenge.

In January, Apple struck a deal with longtime rival in smartphones, Alphabet’s (GOOGL.O), Google, to use Google’s Gemini in an effort to improve its Siri virtual assistant.
Despite introducing a form of AI ​to the public imagination in 2011 with Siri, Apple has not yet scored a hardware or software product hit centered on new AI technologies, while emerging rivals such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT have attracted hundreds of millions ​of users.
In particular, Siri has not yet become an “agent” – the term that AI firms use for systems that carry out complex tasks like a human assistant.
“I expect his biggest challenge and efforts will be focused on getting a better AI story and offering together that relies more on Apple’s own capabilities and less on third parties,” said Bob O’Donnell, head of tech consulting firm TECHnalysis Research.

APPLE GAVE TERNUS AIRTIME RECENTLY

At 50, Ternus is the same age Cook was when he took ​over CEO duties from Apple co-founder Steve Jobs.
Apple, which rarely allows its executives to speak publicly, has sought to elevate Ternus’ profile in recent years, having him speak with the press about Apple’s products.

He ​showed off the iPhone Air in September, the biggest revamp of the firm’s top-selling product in nearly a decade.
Ternus will also have to fend off rivals such as Meta Platforms (META.O), whose augmented-reality glasses have become a surprise hit with ‌just a ⁠fraction of the capabilities – and price tag – of Apple’s $3,499-plus Vision Pro headset. Nvidia, too, has announced its own personal computer and is working on chips that can power laptops.
“The promotion of Mr. Ternus indicates the company will focus on new hardware devices such as folding phones, glasses, VR devices and AI pins,” said Gil Luria, managing director of D.A. Davidson & Co.

COOK OVERSAW HISTORIC GROWTH

Apple shares declined about 0.5% after regular trading hours when the news was announced, after being up about 1% during regular trading. The stock has soared 20-fold since Cook took over as CEO in August 2011.
Cook, 65, was recruited by Jobs from Compaq at a ​time when that firm was riding high on ​the 1990s PC boom and Jobs was working ⁠to rescue Apple from the brink of insolvency.
He made his early reputation at Apple by building out its sprawling supply chain with contract manufacturers in China, a model that became the envy of Corporate America because it kept expensive factory operations and product inventories largely off Apple’s books while maximizing profits.
Apple’s decades of ​investments in China helped fuel that nation’s rise as the world’s workshop, a phenomenon that even Cook has found hard to shift away from.

Source : https://www.reuters.com/technology/john-ternus-become-apple-ceo-tim-cook-become-executive-chairman-2026-04-20/

Houston, we may have a problem!

A rare, colossal-sized asteroid is on course to fly by Earth — and will come closer to our planet than any other rocks of its size in human history.

The asteroid, named Apophis after the ancient Egyptian God of evil and destruction, is believed to span about 1,230 feet — even longer than the Eiffel Tower’s whopping 1,083-foot height.

Dubbed the “God of chaos,” the asteroid is on track to safely pass by Earth in a once-in-a-lifetime fly-by, lighting up the night sky visible to the naked eye on unlucky Friday, April 13, 2029, according to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

It is predicted that Apophis will come approximately 20,000 miles from the Earth’s surface, closer than many satellites floating in space — nearly 12 times closer than the moon’s average distance from Earth.

Asteroids of this size fly by Earth “only every few thousand years on average, so it’s likely that an event like this has not happened at any time in recorded human history,” NASA said.

“Without a doubt, this is the first time it’s happened when humans have had the technology to observe it,” the agency said.

Depending on the weather, space fanatics and eagle-eyed observers on Earth will be able to observe the asteroid’s approach from the ground in the Eastern Hemisphere without a telescope or binoculars, according to NASA.

The space agency reassures that there is no danger to anyone living on Earth, or to the astronauts and satellites in space, “but the event is an amazing and totally unprecedented opportunity to learn much more about Apophis and similar near-Earth asteroids.”

NASA has been studying the asteroid closely for years; it initially sparked global concern when scientists calculated it could potentially impact Earth in 2029, 2036 or 2068 — hence the destructive name of Apophis.

The “God of chaos” asteroid was first discovered by astronomers in 2004, and briefly reached level 4 on NASA’s Torino Impact Hazard Scale, which assesses possible space dangers.

Today, Apophis is classified as “potentially hazardous” — not because it poses any danger to life on Earth, but due to its large size and proximity to Earth, according to Space.com.

NASA originally put the astronomically sized rock at a 2.7% chance of devastation, but all danger was ruled out after new radar observations in 2021, leaving Earth safe from harm for at least 100 years.

Source : https://nypost.com/2026/04/18/science/god-of-chaos-asteroid-apophis-will-be-once-in-a-lifetime-event-visible-to-the-naked-eye-and-closer-than-many-satellites-scientists/

The rising incidence of liver cancer across the globe is becoming an alarming public health concern. Once considered relatively uncommon in many regions, liver cancer cases are now increasing steadily due to a combination of lifestyle factors, chronic infections, and late detection.

World Liver Day is observed every year on April 19. The day aims to raise awareness about liver health, liver-related diseases, the importance of early detection, and preventive measures. Your liver is one of the most important organs of the body. It helps in detoxification, metabolism, and storage. The liver filters blood, produces bile for fat digestion, manages glucose/iron levels, synthesises blood-clotting proteins, and stores vitamins. While the liver is an important organ, there has been an increase in cases of fatty liver disease, liver cirrhosis and liver cancer.

Speaking to NDTV, Dr. Rinkesh Kumar Bansal, Director, Gastroenterology at Fortis Memorial Research Institute, Gurugram, said, “The rising incidence of liver cancer across the globe is becoming an alarming public health concern. Once considered relatively uncommon in many regions, liver cancer cases are now increasing steadily due to a combination of lifestyle factors, chronic infections, and late detection.” This trend raises an important question: are we ignoring the early warning signs and missing opportunities for prevention. Read on as Dr. Bansal shares the cause behind this increase, warning signs and more.

Major Causes Of Liver Cancer

One of the major drivers behind the increase is chronic infection with Hepatitis B and Hepatitis C. These infections can silently damage the liver over many years, often without noticeable symptoms. If left untreated, they may lead to cirrhosis and eventually liver cancer. Despite the availability of vaccines for Hepatitis B and effective treatments for Hepatitis C, lack of awareness, limited screening, and delayed diagnosis continue to fuel the problem.

In addition to viral causes, modern lifestyle changes are significantly contributing to rising liver cancer rates. Conditions such as nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), often linked to obesity, diabetes, and poor diet, are becoming leading risk factors. As sedentary lifestyles and unhealthy eating habits increase globally, more individuals are unknowingly putting their liver health at risk. Excessive alcohol consumption is another major contributor, leading to long-term liver damage and increasing the likelihood of cancer development.

Signs And Symptoms Of Liver Cancer

A critical issue in addressing liver cancer is the lack of early symptoms. In its initial stages, liver cancer often develops silently, making it difficult to detect without routine screening. Warning signs such as unexplained weight loss, persistent fatigue, abdominal pain, jaundice, and swelling are frequently overlooked or mistaken for less serious conditions. By the time symptoms become severe, the disease is often at an advanced stage, limiting treatment options and reducing survival rates.

Why Is Liver Cancer Detected At Later Stages?

The gap in public awareness and preventive healthcare is a major reason why liver cancer cases are detected at later stages. Many people remain unaware of the importance of regular liver check-ups, especially those at higher risk. Screening programs for high-risk populations, such as individuals with chronic hepatitis or liver cirrhosis, are not widely implemented in many parts of the world. This leads to missed opportunities for early intervention, which could significantly improve outcomes.

Healthcare systems also face challenges in managing the growing burden. Access to advanced diagnostic tools, timely treatment, and specialised care is not evenly distributed, particularly in low- and middle-income countries. This disparity further increases the problem, as patients are often diagnosed too late for effective treatment.

Source : https://www.ndtv.com/health/rising-liver-cancer-cases-are-we-ignoring-the-warning-signs-doctor-answers-11375914

That bag of chips, that frozen pizza, that shelf-stable pastry grabbed on the way out the door. Americans know these foods aren’t exactly good for them. But a new study says the damage may go deeper than the waistline. Researchers found that people who ate more ultra-processed foods had higher levels of fat within their thigh muscles, even after accounting for factors like body weight, calorie intake, and lifestyle differences.

That fat wasn’t sitting under the skin or pooling around the belly. It had worked its way inside the muscles themselves, the very muscles needed to walk, climb stairs, and keep knees stable. In a country where ultra-processed foods make up more than half of the average person’s diet, that’s a problem that reaches well beyond concerns about appearance.

Published in the journal Radiology, the research drew on data from 615 older adults enrolled in the Osteoarthritis Initiative, a major long-term study focused on knee health. None had diagnosed osteoarthritis or ongoing knee or hip pain at the start of the study, but all were considered at risk for developing knee problems down the road. Researchers wanted to know whether diet quality, specifically how much of a person’s food came from industrial, heavily processed sources, might be associated with degraded quality in the muscles that protect aging joints.

What Counts as Ultra-Processed Food?

Researchers used a system called the NOVA classification, which sorts foods not by their nutritional labels but by how much industrial processing went into making them. Ultra-processed foods are those made with chemical additives, things like artificial flavorings, colorings, and shelf-life extenders, designed to make products last longer, taste better, and look more appealing. Packaged snack cakes, instant noodles, hot dogs, sweetened cereals, and soft drinks all fall into this category. These aren’t foods that were simply cooked or canned. They were engineered in factories.

On average, ultra-processed foods made up about 41% of the participants’ diets. Men ate slightly more of these foods than women, roughly 45% of their diet compared with about 39% for women.

How Researchers Connected Ultra-Processed Food to Muscle Fat

Led by Zehra Akkaya at Ankara University and the University of California, San Francisco, the team analyzed data collected between February 2004 and October 2015. Participants completed a detailed food survey covering 102 items, reporting how often and how much of each they ate over the prior 12 months. Each item was then classified using the NOVA system, and researchers calculated what percentage of each person’s diet came from ultra-processed sources.

To measure muscle quality, the team used MRI scans of both thighs. Two trained observers scored fat infiltration in 10 individual muscles per thigh using the Goutallier grading system, which rates each muscle on a zero-to-four scale. A score of zero means no visible fat in the muscle; a four means more than half the muscle tissue has been replaced by fat. Rather than relying on a single image, observers evaluated 15 consecutive slices covering a roughly three-inch section of each thigh.

Participants had a mean age of about 60 years, and just over half were women. Nearly 65% were overweight and about 24% were obese. People with diabetes, stroke, cancer, or inflammatory joint disease were excluded, an intentional choice to isolate the relationship between diet and muscle fat without the distorting effects of chronic illness.

After adjusting for age, sex, race, education, income, physical activity, smoking, depression, total daily calories, and body mass index, the results showed a consistent pattern. As ultra-processed food made up a larger share of someone’s diet, fat scores in the thigh muscles climbed across all muscle groups examined, including the muscles on the back and inner thigh. Sex made no difference; the relationship held equally for men and women.

Why Waist Size Tells More Than the Scale

When researchers swapped BMI for waist measurement, a more precise gauge of how fat is distributed in the body, the associations grew stronger and extended to every muscle group, including the front of the thigh. The strongest link appeared in the inner thigh muscles. That pattern suggests fat distribution may play an important role in understanding how diet relates to muscle health, beyond what overall body weight can capture alone.

When total dietary fat was added as an extra variable, the results barely moved, suggesting the link may not be explained by fat content alone. Something about ultra-processed foods beyond their fat content appears connected to muscle deterioration.

Source : https://studyfinds.com/ultra-processed-food-muscles/

OpenAI on Tuesday unveiled GPT-5.4-Cyber, a variant of its latest flagship model fine-tuned specifically for defensive cybersecurity work, following rival Anthropic’s announcement of frontier AI model Mythos.

Mythos, announced on April 7, is being deployed as part of Anthropic’s “Project Glasswing”, a controlled initiative under which select organizations are permitted to use the unreleased Claude Mythos Preview model for defensive cybersecurity purposes. It has found “thousands” of major vulnerabilities in operating systems, web browsers and other software.

OpenAI, creator of popular chatbot ChatGPT, said that GPT-5.4-Cyber will initially be rolled out on a limited basis to vetted security vendors, organizations and researchers because of its more permissive design.

The company is also expanding its Trusted Access for Cyber program to thousands of verified individual defenders and hundreds of teams protecting critical software, it said in a post on its website.

Source : https://www.channelnewsasia.com/business/openai-unveils-gpt-54-cyber-week-after-rivals-announcement-ai-model-6056831

According to outage tracking website Downdetector, complaints surged sharply over a short period, indicating a sudden service disruption.

Users of X across the United States reported widespread disruption on 14 April, with many saying they were unable to access their feeds, log in, or post content. The issues appeared to affect both the platform’s mobile application and its website, with complaints emerging from multiple regions.

According to the outage tracking service Downdetector, reports of problems rose sharply within a short period, suggesting a sudden service interruption. Data from the site indicated that as many as 17,500 complaints were logged at the peak of the disruption.

Source : https://www.timesnownews.com/technology-science/is-x-twitter-down-right-now-thousands-of-users-report-outage-downdetector-article-154078899

For nearly 180 years, researchers have been digging up fossils of synapsids, the ancient animal group that gave rise to mammals. Not a single convincing egg from these creatures had ever turned up in that time, a gap so persistent that some scientists openly questioned whether these animals laid eggs at all. A tiny, curled-up skeleton from South Africa, no bigger than a tennis ball, may finally change that. A research team says it offers the first compelling evidence of a pre-mammal synapsid embryo preserved in its egg, roughly 250 million years old.

At the center of the find is Lystrosaurus, a stocky, beaked, roughly pig-sized plant-eater that became one of the most common land animals on Earth after surviving the worst mass extinction in the planet’s history. That catastrophe wiped out roughly 90 percent of marine species and a huge proportion of land life. Understanding how Lystrosaurus reproduced touches one of biology’s most debated questions: how mammals eventually started producing milk rather than relying entirely on eggs. Leading theories hold that milk didn’t begin as food, but as a skin secretion that may have moistened soft-shelled eggs or protected them from infection, and this depends on early synapsids being egg-layers. Until now, the supporting evidence was largely circumstantial.

To find answers, the team examined three of the smallest Lystrosaurus fossils ever found, all from South Africa’s Karoo Basin, using CT scanning and a particle accelerator at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility in Grenoble, France. Their findings were published in the journal PLOS ONE.

How Scientists Found the First Synapsid Embryo Preserved in an Egg

Cataloged as NMQR 3636, the standout fossil is a nearly complete skeleton curled tightly inside a rock roughly the size and shape of a large chicken egg, with a skull measuring only about 34.5 millimeters. What caught the researchers’ attention wasn’t its size. It was the lower jaw.

In modern birds and turtles, both of which use beaks to feed after hatching, the two halves of the lower jaw always fuse before hatching, typically in the final third of development inside the egg. In NMQR 3636, those jaw halves had not yet fused. A deep, smooth-edged notch separated the two bones at the chin, and high-resolution imaging confirmed this was a genuine developmental feature, not burial damage. Both comparison specimens, slightly larger and more developed, had nearly or fully fused jaw joints, consistent with having already hatched.

That unfused jaw is central to the argument. Lystrosaurus had a beak and needed a strong jaw to eat. An animal at this stage of development could not have chewed food on its own. And unlike platypuses and echidnas, the only modern egg-laying mammals, whose helpless hatchlings survive on their mother’s milk, Lystrosaurus likely did not produce milk. Without milk to fall back on, an individual with a partly cartilaginous jaw could not have survived outside an egg.

Ancient Synapsid Embryo Evidence: Building the Case Bone by Bone

Beyond the unfused jaw, NMQR 3636 showed multiple signs of extreme immaturity. Its tusk sockets were empty, while comparison specimens already had small tusk buds. Bones at the back of its skull were loose and displaced. Its hip bones were too weak to support body weight, and limb bone ends were unfinished. A third specimen, found splayed out with a fully connected skeleton, had clearly already hatched before dying.

No preserved eggshell was found, consistent with the egg having been soft and leathery, a trait suspected to be common among early egg-laying land animals. The identification rests on cumulative anatomical and postural evidence rather than direct confirmation of an egg structure, a limitation the authors acknowledge.

Egg Size and the Ancient Origins of Milk

Working from the curled skeleton’s dimensions, the team estimated the egg at roughly 115 cubic centimeters and about 115 grams. Compared to other egg-laying animals relative to body size, the Lystrosaurus egg fell in the upper range for reptiles and well above those of modern platypuses and echidnas.

That size difference matters for understanding how milk evolved. Modern egg-laying mammals produce tiny eggs because their young are fed milk after hatching, compensating for limited yolk. Lystrosaurus’s larger egg points toward the opposite strategy: the embryo likely relied on yolk for most of its nutrition, suggesting relatively well-developed hatchlings capable of feeding on their own soon after birth, an approach scientists call “precocial.”

Researchers also compared their findings to Kayentatherium, a more mammal-like synapsid from the Early Jurassic whose fossilized nest held 38 tiny babies. That animal’s eggs, relative to body size, were far smaller, closer in proportion to modern egg-laying mammals, raising the possibility that Kayentatherium may have relied more on post-hatching care, possibly including early forms of milk feeding. Lystrosaurus, further back on the family tree, appears to have taken a different path.

Source : https://studyfinds.com/ancient-mammal-ancestor/

Google Messages is introducing a new feature for Android users that enables the recovery of deleted chats through a Trash folder. This update allows users to retrieve accidentally deleted conversations within a 30-day grace period before permanent deletion.

In some good news for Android users across the globe, Google Messages is rolling out a much-needed feature that will allow them to recover deleted chats. So, if you accidentally delete an important conversation, the app now gives you a second chance to bring it back.

According to a report from 9To5Google, Google Messages has released its new Trash folder to save users from accidental deletions. This feature is now rolling out gradually to Android users and should be available widely soon.

Earlier, when you deleted a chat in Google Messages, it was removed permanently right away. But soon, things will work differently. With the latest update, any chat you delete will first move to the trash folder instead of being erased instantly.

Never-before-glimpsed views of the moon’s far side. Check. Total solar eclipse gracing the lunar scene. Check. New distance record for humanity. Check.

With NASA’s lunar comeback a galactic-sized smash thanks to Artemis II, the world is wondering: What’s next? And how do you top that?

“To people all around the world who look up and dream about what is possible, the long wait is over,” NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said as he introduced Artemis II commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Canada’s Jeremy Hansen at Saturday’s jubilant homecoming celebration.

Now that the first lunar travelers in more than a half-century are safely back in Houston with their families, NASA has Artemis III in its sights.

“The next mission’s right around the corner,” entry flight director Rick Henfling observed following the crew’s Pacific splashdown on Friday.

In a mission recently added to the docket for next year, Artemis III’s yet-to-be -named astronauts will practice docking their Orion capsule with a lunar lander or two in orbit around Earth. Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin are racing to have their company’s lander ready first.

Musk’s Starship and Bezos’ Blue Moon are vying for the all-important Artemis IV moon landing in 2028. Two astronauts will aim for the south polar region, the preferred location for Isaacman’s envisioned $20 billion to $30 billion moon base. Vast amounts of ice are almost certainly hidden in permanently shadowed craters there — ice that could provide water and rocket fuel.

The docking mechanism for Artemis III’s close-to-home trial run is already at Florida’s Kennedy Space Center. The latest model Starship is close to launching on a test flight from South Texas, and a scaled-down version of Blue Moon will attempt a lunar landing later this year.

NASA promises to announce the Artemis III crew “soon.” Like 1969’s Apollo 9, Artemis III aims to reduce risk for the moon landings that follow.

Apollo 9 astronaut Rusty Schweickart loved flying the lunar module in low-Earth orbit — “a test pilot’s dream.” But there’s no question, he noted, that “the real astronauts” at least in the public’s mind were the ones who walked on the moon.

Wiseman and his crew put their passion and feelings on full display as they flew around the moon and back, choking up over lost loved ones as well as those left behind on Earth.

During the their nearly 10-day journey, they tearfully requested that a fresh, bright lunar crater be named after Wiseman’s late wife, Carroll, who died of cancer in 2020. They also openly shared their love for one another and Planet Earth, an exquisite yet delicate oasis in the black void that they said needs better care.

Artemis II included the first woman, the first person of color and the first non-U.S. citizen to fly to the moon.

“Wonderful communicators, almost poets,” Isaacman said from the recovery ship while awaiting their return.

Apollo’s manly, all-business moon crews of the 1960s and 1970s certainly did not do group hugs.

For those old enough to remember Apollo, Artemis — Apollo’s twin sister in Greek mythology — couldn’t come fast enough.

Author Andy Chaikin said he felt like Rip Van Winkle awakening from a nearly 54-year nap. His 1994 biography “A Man on the Moon” led to the HBO miniseries “From the Earth to the Moon.”

“It’s amazing how far we’ve come and how different this experience is from back then,” Chaikin said from Johnson Space Center late last week.

Source : https://apnews.com/article/nasa-artemis-moon-astronauts-apollo-74008cb58e79ed525ae5e1fe08a04ad9

Chief Justice of India Surya Kant highlighted that technology should promote equality before the law and improve access to justice, allowing the judiciary to overcome procedural hurdles.

In todays times technology has become a constitutional instrument, it is no longer an administrative convenience but a tool that strengthens equality before the law, expands access to justice, and allows the judiciary to transcend procedural rigidities, Chief Jusrice of India Surya Kant has said.

CJI Kant was speaking at the national conference on judicial process re-engineering and digital transformation.

The two-day National Conference on Judicial Process Re-Engineering and Digital Transformation is being held by e-Committee of Supreme Court of India in collaboration with the Department of Justice, Government of India

“At the core of any justice system lies a simple but enduring promise: that every individual, regardless of means or circumstance, must be able to access justice in a fair, timely, and effective manner. I believe that as our society evolves, so must the institutions that serve it, and today, that evolution increasingly finds expression in the thoughtful integration of technology into judicial processes,” the CJI said.

He said the subject being discussed at the event was an issue that lies at the very heart of the future of justice delivery in India.

“How do we ensure that even as we harness the power of technology, justice remains accessible to all, irrespective of economic, geographical or other barriers? That is very important”, said CJI Kant.

SC E-COMMITTEE PRAISED

“In this journey, the e-Committee has played a pivotal role in charting the roadmap for the computerisation of the District Judiciary, while the High Courts and the Supreme Court have advanced initiatives such as e-filing, digitisation of records, and hybrid hearings,” he said.

Source: https://www.timesnownews.com/india/technology-now-a-constitutional-instrument-that-strengthens-equality-before-law-cji-kant-article-154053289

A hacker has reportedly breached a Chinese government supercomputer and stolen a massive trove of sensitive data, including defence and military research. The stolen dataset, said to be over 10 petabytes, is now being offered for sale online.

A hacker has reportedly pulled off what could be one of the biggest data breaches in China, stealing a massive amount of sensitive information from a government supercomputer. According to a CNN report, the stolen data allegedly includes classified defence documents, missile schematics, and even research linked to fighter jets and advanced war simulations.

According to the report, the stolen data is estimated to exceed 10 petabytes. For reference, a high-end laptop typically stores about one terabyte. If the estimates are accurate, this heist would make it one of the largest known data leaks to emerge from China’s critical infrastructure.

The breach is reportedly believed to have taken place at the National Supercomputing Center (NSCC) in Tianjin, a key facility that supports more than 6,000 organisations across the country. These include major players in advanced science, aerospace, and defence research. Essentially, the facility acts as a backbone for some of China’s most sensitive and high-end computational work.

How did the hacker manage to pull this off?

According to reports, cybersecurity experts who examined samples of the leaked data say the hacker seems to have gained access quite easily and managed to quietly take out data over several months without setting off any alarms. The attacker reportedly used a compromised VPN entry point and then deployed a botnet—a network of automated systems—to slowly siphon off data in chunks.

Researchers note that the method used by the hacker to siphon the data wasn’t very advanced, but it worked. By taking data in small parts across different systems instead of all at once, the hacker avoided detection. The whole operation is believed to have taken around six months.

Stolen data surfaces on Telegram

The dataset first appeared online in early February, when an account calling itself “FlamingChina” posted samples on an anonymous Telegram channel. The preview hinted at a wide range of research areas, including aerospace engineering, military technology, bioinformatics, and fusion simulations. The group also claimed links to major Chinese organisations such as the Aviation Industry Corporation of China and the National University of Defense Technology.

Experts who reportedly analysed the samples say they include documents marked “secret” in Chinese, along with technical files, simulations, and renderings of defence systems such as bombs and missiles. According to the report, the breach could have significant intelligence value, especially for foreign governments or rival agencies.

Source : https://www.indiatoday.in/technology/news/story/supercomputer-in-china-hacked-hackers-steal-data-on-fighter-jets-and-war-simulations-2893621-2026-04-09

ChatGPT labelled the woman as manipulative and unstable, prompting the ex-boyfriend to stalk and harass her, as per the lawsuit.

A woman has sued ChatGPT creator OpenAI, alleging that the chatbot enabled her ex-boyfriend to stalk and harass her. The lawsuit claims that the AI chatbot fuelled the unnamed man’s delusions and amplified his harassment attempts despite repeated warnings from the victim. The couple broke up in 2024, and the man used ChatGPT to process the split, only to turn into a stalker, according to a report in TechCrunch.

After months of sustained use of GPT-4o last year, the man became convinced he had invented a cure for sleep apnea. However, when no one took his work seriously, ChatGPT told him that “powerful forces” were watching him, including using a helicopter to keep a close tab on his activities.

After the woman told him to stop using ChatGPT and seek help from a mental health professional, the man turned back to ChatGPT. The sycophant chatbot assured him that he was a “level 10 in sanity” while doubling down on his delusions, the lawsuit highlighted.

ChatGPT also labelled the woman as manipulative and unstable. The man then took these AI-generated statements into the real world, using them as justification to stalk and harass her. The man also generated clinical-style psychological reports about the woman and distributed them amongst her family members.

The woman said she issued at least three separate warnings to OpenAI regarding the user’s escalating threats. The lawsuit highlights that OpenAI allegedly ignored an internal safety flag that had classified the man’s activity as involving “mass-casualty weapons”.

The lawsuit stated that the chatbot was engineered to be dangerously sycophantic, which prioritised user engagement by agreeing with and expanding upon even harmful or false takes.

Source: https://www.ndtv.com/feature/woman-sues-openai-alleging-chatgpt-encouraged-stalker-ex-boyfriend-to-harass-her-11343363?pfrom=home-ndtv_lateststories

The Artemis II capsule and its four-member crew streaked through Earth’s atmosphere and safely splashed down in the Pacific Ocean on Friday after nearly 10 days in space, capping the first voyage by humans to the ​vicinity of the moon in over half a century.
NASA’s gumdrop-shaped Orion capsule, dubbed Integrity, parachuted gently into calm seas off the Southern California coast shortly after 5:07 p.m. Pacific Time (0007 GMT on Saturday), concluding a mission that four days prior took ‌the astronauts 252,756 miles away from Earth, deeper into space than anyone had flown before.

The Artemis II flight, traveling a total of 694,392 miles (1,117,515 km) in two Earth orbits and a climactic lunar flyby some 4,000 miles from its surface, was the debut crewed test flight in a series of Artemis missions that aim to return astronauts to the lunar surface starting in 2028.
‘PERFECT BULL’S EYE’ SPLASHDOWN
The splashdown under partly cloudy skies was carried by live video feed in a NASA webcast. “A perfect bull’s eye splashdown for Integrity and its four astronauts,” NASA commentator Rob Navias said moments after the landing.
“We are stable one – four green crew members,” mission commander Reid Wiseman radioed just after splashdown, signaling the ​capsule was upright and that all four astronauts were in good shape.

It took NASA and U.S. Navy recovery teams less than two hours to secure the floating capsule and retrieve the four crew members – U.S. astronauts Wiseman, 50, Victor Glover, 49, and Christina Koch, 47, ​along with Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen, 50.
The crew’s homecoming was the riskiest test of the mission and its Lockheed Martin-built (LMT.N), opens new tab Orion spacecraft, proving the capsule’s heat shield could withstand the extreme forces of re-entry from a ⁠lunar-return trajectory.
The capsule plunged into Earth’s atmosphere at 32 times the speed of sound, with atmospheric friction pummeling its heat shield at temperatures of some 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit (2,760 degrees Celsius). A sheath of ionized gas enveloped the vehicle, causing a planned radio blackout of over six minutes at the peak ​of re-entry stress.

The tension broke as contact was re-established some 40 seconds later than expected, and two sets of parachutes billowed from the nose of the free-falling capsule to slow its descent to about 15 mph (25 kph) before Orion gently hit the water.
Once Navy divers had attached a floating collar to ​stabilize the capsule, the four astronauts, still wearing their orange flight suits, were helped onto an inflatable raft. From there, they were hoisted one by one to helicopters hovering overhead and flown a short distance to a nearby Navy amphibious transport vessel, the John P. Murtha, for further medical examination.
Glover and Koch smiled broadly and waved toward cameras as they sat on the edge of a helicopter door on the flight deck. The crew was expected to spend the night aboard the ship and be flown on Saturday to Houston, where they will be reunited with family, NASA said.
STEPPING STONE TO MARS
The quartet blasted off from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on April 1 aboard NASA’s giant Space ​Launch System rocket, orbiting twice around Earth before sailing on for a rare journey around the far side of the moon.
In so doing, they became the first astronauts to fly around Earth’s only natural satellite since the Apollo program of the 1960s and ’70s. Glover, Koch and Hansen also made history ​as the first Black astronaut, the first woman and first non-U.S. citizen, respectively, to take part in a lunar mission.
The crew’s peak distance of 252,756 miles away broke the record of roughly 248,000 miles set in 1970 by the crew of Apollo 13.

“This is an incredible test of an incredible machine,” said NASA’s associate administrator, ‌Amit Kshatriya.
The voyage, ⁠following the uncrewed Artemis I test flight around the moon by the Orion spacecraft in 2022, marked a critical hardware test for a planned attempt later this decade to land astronauts on the lunar surface for the first time since Apollo 17 in late 1972.
NASA is seeking to achieve a crewed moon landing ahead of China, which is aiming to put its own crews there around 2030. The agency more broadly aims to establish a long-term lunar presence as a stepping stone to eventual human exploration of Mars.
In a historical parallel to the Cold War era of Apollo, the Artemis II mission has played out against a backdrop of political and social turmoil, including a U.S. military conflict that has proven unpopular at home.
PUBLIC FASCINATION
For many in a global audience captivated by the latest moon shot, it reaffirmed the achievements of science and technology at a time when big tech has become widely distrusted, even feared. More than ​3 million viewers watched the splashdown on NASA’s YouTube channel, the streaming ​service showed.
The return to Earth put the Orion spacecraft through a ⁠critical test of its heat shield, which sustained an unexpected level of scorching and stress on re-entry during its 2022 debut test flight. As a result, NASA engineers altered the descent trajectory for Artemis II in order to reduce heat buildup and lower the risk to the capsule and its crew.
Last week’s successful launch was a major milestone for the SLS rocket, handing its principal contractors, Boeing (BA.N), opens new tab and Northrop Grumman (NOC.N), opens new tab, long-sought validation that the launch system more than ​a decade in development was ready to safely fly humans to space.
President Donald Trump congratulated the astronauts’ return in a message posted to his Truth Social platform, saying “the entire trip was spectacular, the landing was perfect ​and, as President of the United States, ⁠I could not be more proud!”
NASA’s renewed lunar ambitions have been clouded in recent months, however, by workforce reductions under the Trump administration’s federal downsizing efforts that have cut space agency personnel by 20%. The White House last week proposed a 2027 NASA budget that would cut $3.4 billion from its science unit and some 40 science missions.
Compared with Apollo, born of the Cold War-era U.S.-Soviet space race, NASA has characterized Artemis as a broader, more cooperative effort, while hoping to return to the moon before China.

Source: https://www.reuters.com/science/artemis-ii-astronauts-hurtle-home-moon-toward-splashdown-2026-04-10/

Astronauts on board Artemis II reported a mysterious burning smell coming from the $23 million advanced toilet system which previously malfunctioned after takeoff.

“Regarding the smell, I just wanted to make sure you all were tracking the EGS notes of the kind of burning heater smell that was coming from toilet several times,” astronaut Chrisna Koch, who fixed the toilet on Thursday, radioed to mission control on Saturday, Space.com reported.

“It was never identified as the source, what it exactly was, but it was identified as an unknown smell,” Koch said.

The four moon-bound passengers reported the smell was similar to the scent of an old electric heater that hasn’t been used in a while, the report stated.

NASA flight controllers initially suspected the mystery burning smell was coming from orange insulation on the toilet’s hygiene bay door.

Source : https://nypost.com/2026/04/04/us-news/artemis-ii-astronauts-report-burning-smell-from-malfunctioning-23m-toilet/

The photo, appears as a glowing blue marble against the blackness of space. Africa is clearly visible as the large landmass, with two glowing auroras lighting up the atmosphere

NASA just shared a stunning high-resolution image of Earth captured by the Artemis II crew as they journeyed toward the Moon and the internet is absolutely losing it. The official NASA Earth account posted the breathtaking photo with the simple, powerful caption, “That’s us! ”

In the image, appears as a glowing blue marble against the blackness of space. Africa is clearly visible as the large landmass, with two glowing auroras lighting up the atmosphere (one in the top right, another in the bottom left), plus zodiacal light and faint airglow visible. As Artemis II astronaut Christina Koch added her take on the post saying, “You guys look great.”

This is the first crewed Artemis mission since Apollo, and these are among the first photos ever taken by humans traveling this far from Earth since the 1970s. The crew is currently on their way to the Moon, having successfully completed the translunar injection burn.

The post has already exploded with 1.5 million views, 91K likes, 17K reposts, and thousands of replies in just hours. Netizens are flooding the comments with pure emotion, science love, and hilarious takes.

One user shared the awe feeling of living on earth saying, “Bro I literally stopped scrolling for a full minute just staring at this 😭🌍 Like we live THERE. That big beautiful blue marble spinning in all that darkness and we’re just out here complaining about Mondays.”

Another user compared the two photo of Earth taken 50 years apart, asking people to spot the difference, “Apollo 17 (1972) vs Artemis II (2026). Two photos of Earth from deep space, taken more than 50 years apart. Notice any differences?”

Source : https://www.news18.com/viral/nasa-drops-jaw-dropping-photo-of-earth-from-artemis-ii-viral-image-shows-our-planet-like-never-before-thats-us-ws-l-10013568.html

The Cicada BA.3.2 strain, linked to COVID-19 and the Omicron Variant, carries 70+ mutations, raising concerns. Experts say mutations don’t always mean greater danger. Current vaccines still protect against severe illness, though infection risk may vary. Boosters, hygiene, and precautions remain key as scientists continue monitoring this evolving variant closely.

A new COVID-19 strain, informally dubbed the Cicada variant, has sparked global curiosity and concern. Scientifically linked to the evolving COVID-19 virus and its Omicron Variant lineage, BA.3.2 is reported to carry more than 70 mutations.

This raises a critical question: will existing vaccines still protect us?

Four astronauts embarked on a high-stakes flight around the moon Wednesday, humanity’s first lunar voyage in more than half a century and the thrilling leadoff in NASA’s push toward a landing in two years.

Carrying three Americans and one Canadian, the 32-story rocket rose from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center where tens of thousands gathered to witness the dawn of this new era. Crowds also jammed the surrounding roads and beaches, reminiscent of the Apollo moonshots in the 1960s and ’70s. It is NASA’s biggest step yet toward establishing a permanent lunar presence.

“On this historic mission, you take with you the heart of this Artemis team, the daring spirit of the American people and our partners across the globe, and the hopes and dreams of a new generation,” launch director Charlie Blackwell-Thompson told the crew right before liftoff. “Good luck, Godspeed Artemis II. Let’s go.”

Artemis II set sail from the same Florida launch site that sent Apollo’s explorers to the moon so long ago. The handful still alive cheered this next generation’s grand adventure as the Space Launch System rocket thundered into the early evening sky, a nearly full moon beckoning some 248,000 miles (400,000 kilometers) away.

Five minutes into the flight, Commander Reid Wiseman saw the team’s target: “We have a beautiful moonrise, we’re headed right at it,” he said from the capsule. On board with him are pilot Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Canada’s Jeremy Hansen. It is the most diverse lunar crew ever with the first woman, person of color and non-U. S. citizen riding in NASA’s new Orion capsule.

“NASA is back in the business of sending astronauts to the moon,” NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman told reporters following liftoff, calling the half-century hiatus a brief intermission.

Tensions high in the hours leading up to launch

Tensions were high earlier in the day as hydrogen fuel started flowing into the rocket. Dangerous hydrogen leaks erupted during a countdown test earlier this year, forcing a lengthy flight delay.

To NASA’s relief, no significant hydrogen leaks occurred. The launch team loaded more than 700,000 gallons of fuel (2.6 million liters) into the 32-story Space Launch System rocket on the pad, a smooth operation that set the stage for the Artemis II crew to board.

Then NASA had to overcome a flurry of last-minute technical issues — bad battery sensors and an inability to get commands through to the rocket’s flight termination system. In both cases, the issues were quickly resolved, allowing the launch to proceed.

What’s on tap for 10-day test flight?

The astronauts will stick close to home for the first 25 hours of their 10-day test flight, checking out the capsule in orbit around Earth before firing the main engine that will propel them to the moon.

They won’t pause for a stopover or orbit the moon like Apollo 8’s first lunar visitors did so famously on Christmas Eve 1968, reading from Genesis. But they stand to become the most distant humans ever when their capsule zooms past the moon and continues another 4,000 miles (6,400 kilometers) beyond, before making a U-turn and tearing straight home to a splashdown in the Pacific.

Once settled in a high orbit around Earth, the astronauts assumed manual control and practiced steering their capsule around the rocket’s detached upper stage, venturing as close as 33 feet (10 meters). NASA wants to know how Orion handles in case the self-flying feature fails and the pilots need to take control.

Crew has an amazing sight in store

During Monday’s lunar flyby, the moon will appear to be the size of a basketball held at arm’s length. The astronauts will take turns peering through Orion’s windows with cameras. If the lighting is right, they should see features never before viewed through human eyes. They’ll also catch snippets of a total solar eclipse, donning eclipse glasses as the moon briefly blocks the sun from their perspective and the corona is revealed.

All of NASA’s moon plans — a surge in launches over the next several years leading to a sustainable moon base for astronauts assisted by robotic rovers and drones — hinge on Artemis II going well.

It’s been more than three years since Artemis I, the only other time NASA’s SLS rocket and Orion capsule have soared. With no one aboard, the Artemis I capsule lacked life-support equipment and other crew essentials like a water dispenser and toilet.

These systems are now making their space debut on Artemis II, ratcheting up the risk. That’s why NASA is waiting a full day before committing Wiseman and his crew to a four-day trip to the moon and four-day journey back.

The capsule’s toilet is already acting up. Koch informed Mission Control that it shut down seconds after she activated it. Mission Control advised her to to use a handheld bag-and-funnel system for now — CCU, short for Collapsible Contingency Urinal — while engineers pondered how to deal with the so-called lunar loo.

“There’s always been a lot riding on this mission,” NASA’s Lori Glaze said ahead of launch. But the teams are even more “energized” now that the space agency is finally accelerating the lunar launch pace and laser-focusing on surface operations — seismic changes recently announced by Isaacman.

Artemis offers a fresh beginning

With half the world’s population not yet born when NASA’s 12 moonwalkers left their boot prints in the gray lunar dust, Artemis offers a fresh beginning, NASA’s science mission chief Nicky Fox said earlier this week.

“There are a lot of people who don’t remember Apollo. There are generations who weren’t alive when Apollo launched. This is their Apollo,” said Fox, who was 4 when Apollo 17 closed out the era.

NASA is in it for the long haul this time. Unlike Apollo, which focused on fast flags and footprints in a breakneck race against the Soviet Union, Artemis is striving for a sustainable moon base elaborate enough to satisfy even the most hard-core science fiction fans. But make no mistake: Isaacman and the Trump Administration want the next boot prints to be made by Americans, not the Chinese.

Until Isaacman’s program makeover, Artemis III was crawling toward a moon landing no sooner than 2029. The billionaire spacewalker slid in a new Artemis III for 2027 so astronauts could practice docking their Orion capsule with a lunar lander in orbit around Earth. Astronauts’ momentous landing near the moon’s south pole shifted to Artemis IV in 2028 — two years before an anticipated Chinese crew’s arrival.

Like Apollo 13 — astronauts’ only moon landing miss — Artemis II will use a free-return, lunar flyby trajectory to get home with gravity’s tug and a minimum of gas. The gravity of both the moon and Earth will provide much if not most of the oomph to keep Orion on its out-and-back, figure-eight loop.

Source : https://apnews.com/article/nasa-artemis-moon-launch-055040ce0579ec238d0ec9fcb0278ed3

WhatsApp has alerted users about a spyware attack involving a counterfeit version of its app. The platform’s security team has logged out these users, warned them about potential privacy risks and advised them to uninstall the fake app.

In a big development, WhatsApp, one of the most popular instant messaging platforms in the world, has issued warning to its users after detecting a spyware attack linked to a fake version of its app. According to a report from TechCrunch, at least over 200 WhatsApp users were tricked into downloading a fake WhatsApp that contained malicious software.

According to the social media giant, most of the affected users were based in Italy.

“Our security team proactively identified around 200 users primarily in Italy who we believe may have downloaded this malicious unofficial client We have logged them out, alerted to the risks to their privacy and security that come with downloading fake unofficial clients, and encouraged them to remove it and download the official WhatsApp app,” the company said in a statement.

Speaking to TechCrunch, WhatsApp spokesperson Margarita Franklin said that the instant messaging platform cannot share more information about the users it notified, such as whether they were journalists or members of civil society.

“Our priority has been protecting the users who may have been tricked into downloading this fake iOS app,” Franklin was quoted as saying

As per the report, the Meta-owned app has accused Italian spyware maker SIO of being behind the fake app. WhatsApp also said it plans to take legal action and send a formal notice to stop such activities.

The focus right now is on protecting users who may have unknowingly downloaded the malicious app. This is not the first time such a case has come to light. Reports suggest that fake apps are a common method used in surveillance operations, where users are tricked into installing software that can access their personal data.

Earlier reports had also linked SIO to spyware campaigns on Android, including fake versions of popular apps and tools. The spyware, reportedly called ‘Spyrtacus,’ was found hidden inside these apps.

How To Protect Your WhatsApp Account

 

In just a few days Nasa is planning to launch the Artemis II mission, sending four astronauts on their way to the Moon.

Their voyage around our nearest neighbour will pave the way for a lunar landing and, eventually, a Moon base.

Nasa’s Artemis programme has taken years of work, involved thousands of people and is estimated to have cost $93bn to date.

But for some, there’s a distinct feeling of “been there, done that”.

More than 50 years ago, America’s Apollo missions made history when the first people set foot on the lunar surface. With six landings in total, it felt like the Moon had been well and truly ticked off the space to-do list.

So why is the US spending so much time, effort and money racing to return?

Valuable resources

The terrain might look dry, dusty and seems rather barren, but it’s far from that.

“The Moon has got the same elements in it that we have here on Earth,” says Prof Sara Russell, a planetary scientist at the Natural History Museum.

“An example is rare earth elements, which are very scarce on Earth, and there might be parts of the Moon where these are concentrated enough to be able to mine them.”

There are metals too, like iron and titanium, and also helium, which is used in everything from superconductors to medical equipment.

But the resource that’s the biggest draw is the most surprising: water.

“It has water trapped in some of its minerals, and it also has substantial amounts of water at the poles,” says Russell.

There are craters that are permanently in shadow, she says, where ice can build up.

Having access to water is vital if you want to live on the Moon. It not only provides drinking water, but can also be split into hydrogen and oxygen to provide air for astronauts to breathe, and even fuel for spacecraft.

Race for space dominance

America’s Apollo missions of the 1960s and 1970s were driven by a race for space dominance with the Soviet Union. This time around China is the competition.

China has been making fast progress with its space programme. It’s successfully landed robots and rovers on the Moon, and says it will get humans there by 2030.

There’s still prestige in being the first to plant your flag in the lunar dust. But now it really matters where you plant it.

Both the US and China want access to the areas with the most abundant resources, which means securing the best lunar real estate.

The United Nations 1967 Outer Space Treaty says that no country can own the Moon. But when it comes to what’s found on the Moon, it’s not quite so straightforward.

“Although you can’t own a piece of the land because of the UN treaty, you can basically operate on that land without anybody interfering with it,” says Dr Helen Sharman, the first British astronaut.

“So the big thing right now is to try to grab your piece of land. You can’t own it, but you can use it. And once you’re there, you’ve got it for as long as you want it.”

Paving the way to Mars

Nasa has its sights set on Mars and wants to send people there by the 2030s.

Given the technological hurdles it needs to overcome, it’s a pretty ambitious timeline.

But you have to start somewhere, and the US has decided the Moon is that place.

“Going to the Moon and staying there for a sustained period is much safer, much cheaper and much easier to be a test bed for learning how to live and work on another planet,” says Libby Jackson, head of space at the Science Museum.

On a Moon base, Nasa can perfect the tech to provide the air and water astronauts need. They’ll have to work out how to generate power and build habitats to protect people from extreme temperatures as well as dangerous space radiation.

“These are all technologies that if you try them for the first time on Mars and they go wrong, it’s potentially catastrophic. It’s much safer and much easier to try them out on the Moon,” Jackson says.

Mysteries yet to be unlocked

Scientists can’t wait to get their (gloved) hands on material from the Moon.

The rocks brought home by the Apollo astronauts transformed our understanding of our celestial neighbour.

“They told us that the Moon was formed by this incredibly dramatic event, where a Mars-sized body smashed into the Earth and the bits that came off formed the Moon. We know about that because of the Apollo rocks,” says Prof Sara Russell.

But she says there is still much to discover.

Because the Moon was once a part of the Earth, it holds a record of 4.5bn years of our own planet’s history. And with no plate tectonics, or wind and rain to wipe this record away, the Moon is a perfect time capsule.

“The Moon is a fantastic archive of the Earth,” says Russell. “A new haul of rocks from a different area of the Moon would be amazing.”

Source : https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cd6wp6xenv0o

A researcher flagged the issue on 31 March 2026, and the code has since been archived on multiple public repositories, raising fresh questions about the company’s software release practices.

Anthropic, the American artificial intelligence company behind the Claude family of AI models, has once again inadvertently exposed the complete source code of its AI coding tool, Claude Code, through a basic packaging oversight that security researchers say should never occur in a finished software product.

On 31 March 2026, security researcher Chaofan Shou discovered that Claude Code, Anthropic’s flagship command-line coding tool, had its entire source code exposed through a 60MB source-map file (cli.js.map) included in its npm package. The file allowed anyone to reconstruct the full underlying TypeScript codebase from the published build, according to DEV Community. The npm registry is the world’s largest public software library, widely used by developers to download and share programming tools.

See more

Claude code source code has been leaked via a map file in their npm registry!

Code: https://t.co/jBiMoOzt8G pic.twitter.com/rYo5hbvEj8

— Chaofan Shou (@Fried_rice) March 31, 2026

What Is Source Code, and Why Does This Matter?

Source code is the original, human-readable set of instructions that programmers write to build software. When a company releases software to the public, it typically compiles or bundles that code into a compressed, harder-to-read format in order to protect its intellectual property and internal systems. Think of source code as the original recipe for a dish: you may be able to taste the final product, but the recipe itself is supposed to remain private.

A source map is a supplementary file used during software development that acts as a bridge between the compressed, published version of a programme and its original, readable source code. It is an essential tool for developers when testing and fixing bugs. However, it has no place in a finished product released to the public, as it effectively hands anyone the complete original recipe.

According to BlockBeats, the latest version of Claude Code, v2.1.88, released on 31 March, was found to still contain this file. It held the complete code of 1,906 proprietary Claude Code source files, covering internal API design, telemetry analysis systems, encryption tools, and inter-process communication protocols.

Not the First Time

According to Odaily, a Web3 and blockchain-focused media platform, in February 2025, an early version of Claude Code was exposed for the same reason, prompting Anthropic at the time to remove the old version from npm and delete the source map. However, the problem has now resurfaced.

The published source map referenced unobfuscated TypeScript sources hosted in Anthropic’s cloud storage, which made the source code publicly downloadable. TypeScript is a popular programming language commonly used to build sophisticated software applications.

The leaked codebase was quickly archived to a public GitHub repository, where it surpassed 1,100 stars and 1,900 forks within hours of discovery. GitHub is a platform where developers share and collaborate on code.

What Was Exposed?

Anthropic accidentally included a file in their public package that lets anyone read the original code, which was supposed to be hidden. This was a packaging mistake rather than a hack.

According to BlockBeats, the leak involves the client implementation code of the Claude Code command-line tool and does not involve model weights or user data, posing no direct security risk to ordinary users. However, the continued exposure of the complete source code means that internal architecture, security mechanisms, and telemetry logic are entirely transparent to the public. In simple terms, your personal data and conversations with Claude are not at risk. However, the inner workings of the tool, including how it communicates internally, how it collects usage data, and how its security layers are built, are now visible to anyone who chooses to look.

Source : https://www.ndtv.com/science/anthropics-ai-coding-tool-leaks-its-own-source-code-for-the-second-time-in-a-year-11291517?pfrom=home-ndtv_topstories

 

NASA is preparing to launch the first crew of astronauts toward the moon in over 53 years with its second ​Artemis mission, a critical test flight in humanity’s broader lunar goals as the U.S. races to reassert leadership in space faced with growing competition from China.
Three U.S. and one Canadian astronaut ‌are due for liftoff aboard NASA’s Orion capsule and Space Launch System rocket on Wednesday for a 10-day test mission swinging around the moon and back, a winding journey taking them deeper into space than humans have ever gone before.

The mission is the first crewed test flight in NASA’s Artemis program, the flagship U.S. effort to begin regular flights to the moon, at an estimated cost of at least $93 billion since 2012. Not since Apollo 17 in 1972 have humans touched down on the moon’s surface, a tricky ​feat NASA aims to repeat in 2028 at the rugged lunar south pole.
The U.S. is the only country to have put humans on another celestial body with its six lunar landings of the Apollo ​program, driven by competition with the former Soviet Union.
U.S. officials have more recently focused on China, a formidable technological rival that has made steady progress in its ⁠own moon program in recent years with a string of robotic lunar landings and a 2030 goal to put its own crew on the surface.

ANSWERING ‘THE QUESTION OF OUR LIFETIME’

NASA astronaut Christina Koch, Artemis II mission specialist, on ​Sunday said the moon is a “witness plate” to the solar system’s formation, and a stepping stone to Mars, “where we might have the most likelihood of finding evidence of past life.”
“Many, many countries have recognized the value that there is ​in exploring further into the solar system, to the moon and on to Mars,” she told reporters. “They recognize that not only can we gain all these extremely tangible benefits, but that we have the opportunity to answer the question that could be the question of our lifetime, which is, are we alone?”
“Answering that question starts at the moon,” she said. “The question is not should we go, but should we lead, or should we follow?”
Through a series of increasingly advanced Artemis missions extending into the next decade, ​the U.S. aims to set precedent for how others will operate and coexist on the moon’s surface, where someday countries and companies can exploit rocky lunar resources and practice for much more difficult missions to Mars.

The other crew ​members are NASA astronauts Victor Glover and Reid Wiseman, and Jeremy Hansen, who will be the first Canadian astronaut to reach the lunar vicinity.

Hansen’s participation was part of a 2020 agreement between NASA and the Canadian Space Agency. “It was the result ‌of decades of ⁠contribution and strategic investment on our part that led to this participation,” said Mathieu Caron, head of CSA’s astronaut office, citing Canadian robotics contributions on the International Space Station.

COMMERCIAL LUNAR MARKET

NASA is relying on an array of companies in its moon program, hoping to stimulate a commercial lunar market in the future, the value of which is hard to estimate, analysts say.
Boeing (BA.N), and Northrop Grumman (NOC.N), lead SLS and Lockheed Martin (LMT.N), builds Orion for NASA. SpaceX and Blue Origin are developing their own landers with NASA funding, but under contracts that allow them to offer the spacecraft to other customers.

A January PricewaterhouseCoopers report estimates $127 billion in revenues by 2050 from lunar surface activities, with investments potentially ​reaching $72 billion to $88 billion through the same period.
For now, and ​in the near future, governments will drive companies’ ⁠lunar strategies and revenue. It will be a long time before key infrastructure, such as energy and communications systems, develop to the point where commercial growth exists on the moon independently of government funding, said Akhil Rao, an economist at analysis firm Rational Futures who was a research economist at NASA.
Rao, who was among the group of ​NASA economists and space policy staff laid off last year during the Trump administration’s sweeping federal workforce cuts, said he does “not see a short-run economic value ​that companies would be able to ⁠derive that would allow NASA to be hands-off.”
The Artemis II mission will pose a greater test of NASA’s Orion capsule and SLS, which conducted a similar uncrewed mission in 2022. The astronauts on board will test critical life-support systems, crew interfaces, navigation and communications.

Source : https://www.reuters.com/science/nasa-set-first-crewed-moon-return-over-half-century-2026-03-30/

Starting a family beyond Earth could be more challenging than expected. New research from Adelaide University shows that sperm struggle to navigate in low gravity, suggesting that gravity plays a key role in helping them reach an egg.

NASA is also reevaluating its lunar Gateway space station, planning to repurpose components for the moon base instead.

NASA has unveiled plans to build a permanent base on the moon and send a nuclear-powered spacecraft to Mars by 2028. The agency’s new initiative, dubbed “Ignition,” aims to establish a sustainable human presence on the lunar surface and pave the way for deeper space exploration.

“NASA is committed to achieving the near-impossible once again, to return to the Moon before the end of President Trump’s term, build a Moon base, establish an enduring presence, and do the other things needed to ensure American leadership in space,” said NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman. “This is why it is essential we leave an event like Ignition with complete alignment on the national imperative that is our collective mission. The clock is running in this great-power competition, and success or failure will be measured in months, not years.”

The proposed moon base will be built in three phases, starting with increased robotic missions to the lunar surface. NASA plans to launch up to 30 robotic landers by 2027, carrying scientific instruments and technology demonstrations. The base will be powered by nuclear reactors, providing continuous energy during the lunar night.

NASA is also reevaluating its lunar Gateway space station, planning to repurpose components for the moon base instead. The agency aims to land astronauts on the moon by 2028 and establish a sustainable presence, with plans for at least one surface landing per year.

Nuclear-powered spacecraft to Mars

When it comes to the Mars mission, the nuclear-powered spacecraft, called Space Reactor-1 Freedom, will demonstrate advanced nuclear electric propulsion technology on its way to Mars. The mission will deploy helicopters, similar to the Ingenuity drone, to explore the Martian surface and gather data.

Source : https://www.ndtv.com/science/nasa-unveils-moon-base-plan-and-nuclear-powered-spacecraft-for-mars-mission-11266395

New NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman says the US space agency will pivot from launching an orbiting lunar station to constructing a base on the moon’s surface. It comes amid a renewed moon race with Russia and China.

NASA will cancel plans to deploy a space station in lunar orbit, instead focusing on the construction of a roughly $20 billion (about €17.25 billion) base on the moon’s surface over the next seven years.

New NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman, who was sworn in at the US space agency in December, made the announcement at the opening of an all-day event at NASA’s Washington headquarters.

He outlined a raft of changes to the agency’s flagship Artemis II moon project, which has encountered a series of setbacks in recent months amid a 21st century race with Russia and China to return to the Earth’s satellite.

After a series of delays, NASA repositioned its Space Launch System rocket on the launchpad at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida a few days ago, hoping to launch its first flight orbiting the moon soon, potentially in early April.

What did NASA’s Isaacman say about the changes?

The Lunar Gateway station, much of which has already been built by contractors Northrop Grumman and Lanteris Space Systems, was meant to be a space station that would orbit the moon. The original plan was for this to serve as the base of operations for astronauts to use landers to shuttle to and from the surface.

“It should not really surprise anyone that we are pausing Gateway in its current form and focusing on infrastructure that supports sustained operations on the lunar surface,” Isaacman told delegates at the event, after criticism of the project as either waseteful or a distraction from other lunar ambitions.

“Despite some of the very real hardware and schedule challenges, we can repurpose equipment and international partner commitments to support surface and other program objectives,” the 43-year-old entrepreneur with close ties to SpaceX founder Elon Musk said.

What rekindled NASA’s interest in the moon?

Isaacman said the core target of the Artemis II mission, a return to the moon’s surface by 2028, would remain unchanged despite his major shakeup of the details. He said the agency would also shift its flight plans to incorporate a test mission prior to an eventual lunar landing to improve “muscle memory.”

The rush to return to the satellite first reached by the Apollo 11 mission in July 1969 comes as China works on its own moon mission, aiming to land on the orb in 2030. China and Russia have also touted plans to build a nuclear power plant on the orb’s south pole, as they aim to develop their International Lunar Research Station (ILRS) by 2036.

Returning to the moon is also billed by the US as a stepping stone towards an eventual mission to Mars, long a stated goal of Musk’s.

Source : https://www.dw.com/en/nasa-plans-moon-base-instead-of-orbital-lunar-station/a-76510267

 

For the second time this year, NASA moved its moon rocket from the hangar out toward the pad Friday in hopes of launching four astronauts on a lunar fly-around next month.

If the latest repairs work and everything else goes NASA’s way, the Space Launch System could blast off as early as April 1 from Florida’s Kennedy Space Center. The Artemis II crew went into quarantine this week in Houston.

The 322-foot (98-meter) rocket began the slow 4-mile (6.4-kilometer) trek in the middle of the night, transported atop a massive crawler used since the 1960s Apollo era. The trip was held up for several hours by high wind but completed by midday, 11 hours after it began.

The three Americans and one Canadian will zip around the moon in their capsule and then come straight home without stopping. Their mission should have been completed by now, but hydrogen fuel leaks and clogged helium lines forced two months of delay.

Source : https://apnews.com/article/nasa-moon-rocket-artemis-e5b018866abb059cb1fce3af44c4452c

In India, 55 per cent of outages were reported from the mobile application and 37 per cent from the website.

Social media platform X, formerly Twitter, experienced a brief outage in India, with users reporting they could not access feeds or links shared on the platform. However, the platform was back again after some time.

As of 8:17 pm, a total of 1227 outage reports were recorded across India, Downdetector reported. With three minutes, at 8:30 pm IST, the monitoring platform reported that over 4500 users have reported an outage.

Twitter Down In India

Thousands of X users across India have reported being unable to access the social media platform. Although alerts from the platform continue to be received, users reported that they were unable to refresh their feeds.

Meanwhile, on the mobile application, users encountered the message: “Cannot retrieve posts at this time. Please try again later.”

In addition to India, an outage has been reported in the United States, according to Downdetector, which logged over 14,000 user reports in the last 30 minutes.

In India, 55 per cent of outages were reported from the mobile application and 37 per cent from the website.

Source : https://www.news18.com/tech/x-down-for-thousands-of-users-in-india-services-restored-after-brief-outage-9985355.html

Claude, the AI chatbot developed by Anthropic, reportedly experienced a significant outage in the US on Wednesday, with over 4,500 users flagging issues on Downdetector.

Popular AI chatbot Claude appears to be experiencing a temporary outage in the US on Wednesday, leaving users unable to use its major services. According to Downdetector, an outage tracking platform, over 4,500 users reported issues, with the tally later increased to 6,132. The disruption reportedly affected several American cities, including Dallas, Houston, New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Washington, among others.

A powerful artificial intelligence model that appeared anonymously on a developer platform last week was revealed on Wednesday to be from Chinese smartphone and EV giant Xiaomi (1810.HK), after it fueled speculation that ​startup DeepSeek was quietly testing its next-generation system ahead of a launch.
The release of DeepSeek’s low-cost models DeepSeek-V3 and R1 triggered a global ‌tech stock selloff last year, causing investors to question whether U.S. AI firms needed to spend billions of dollars on AI computing power. Since then, there has been a great deal of interest in DeepSeek-V4, a next-generation model that has yet to be released.

The mysterious free model, called Hunter Alpha, surfaced on the AI gateway platform OpenRouter on March 11 ​without any developer attribution and was later described by the platform as a “stealth model.”
Xiaomi’s AI model team MiMo, run by former DeepSeek researcher ​Luo Fuli, on Wednesday said Hunter Alpha was an “early internal test build of MiMo-V2-Pro,” a model designed to serve as ⁠the “brain” of AI agents, tools that can allow users to execute complex tasks with fewer human prompts and supervision when compared with a chatbot.
Xiaomi’s release ​comes at a time when OpenClaw, an open-source agent framework, is being rapidly adopted by users of all stripes in China.

“I call this a quiet ambush – ​not because we planned it, but because the shift from chat to agent paradigm happened so fast, even we barely believed it,” Luo said in an X post on Thursday.
“People ask why we move so fast. I saw it firsthand building DeepSeek R1.”

THE MYSTERIOUS CHINESE MODEL

During tests conducted by Reuters, the Hunter Alpha chatbot described itself as “a Chinese AI model ​primarily trained in Chinese” and said its data extended back to May 2025, the same knowledge cutoff point that was reported by DeepSeek’s own chatbot.
When ​asked about its creator, however, the system declined to identify its developer.
“I only know my name, my parameter scale and my context window length,” the chatbot said.
Hunter Alpha’s profile ‌page describes ⁠it as a 1-trillion-parameter model, meaning it was trained using roughly one trillion adjustable values that determine how the system processes language and generates responses.

The system also advertises a context window of up to one million tokens, a measure of how much text an AI model can process or remember during a single interaction. A token roughly corresponds to a short piece of text, such as part of a word.
“The combination that stood out was Hunter Alpha’s 1-million-token context ​paired with reasoning capability and free access,” ​said Nabil Haouam, an engineer ⁠who builds AI agent systems.
“Most frontier models with that context window come with real cost at scale,” he added.
Those specifications resembled expectations in local media for DeepSeek’s next-generation V4 model, which Chinese outlets have reported could launch as early ​as April.
Umur Ozkul, who runs independent AI benchmark tests, said speculation connecting the model to DeepSeek was understandable given ​the timing and capabilities ⁠advertised.

Source : https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/mystery-ai-model-has-developers-buzzing-is-this-deepseeks-latest-blockbuster-2026-03-18/

Using ground-penetrating radar, NASA’s Perseverance rover has detected underground remains of an ancient river delta on Mars in some of the oldest evidence yet obtained showing how water once ​flowed on the surface of Earth’s planetary neighbor.
Researchers said the six-wheeled rover revealed geological features up to 115 feet (35 meters) underground while traversing ‌3.8 miles (6.1 km) of terrain inside Jezero Crater, an area in the Martian northern hemisphere believed to have been flooded with water and home to an ancient lake basin long ago.

Perseverance identified layered sediments and eroded surfaces indicative of a delta environment, a large-scale fan-shaped deposit of sediment formed at the location where a river enters a larger body of water like a lake. They ​estimated that the now-buried delta dates to about 3.7 to 4.2 billion years ago. Mars, like Earth, formed roughly 4.5 billion years ago, meaning this ​delta existed relatively early in its history.
The researchers said this delta predated a similar nearby surface feature called the Western Delta ⁠that dates to about 3.5 to 3.7 billion years ago.
The rover’s RIMFAX instrument sends radar pulses downward and records pulses bouncing back off underground features, allowing a ​three-dimensional mapping of the subsurface. The new findings were based on RIMFAX’s deepest data collected to date, obtained from September 2023 to February 2024 over a span of 250 ​Martian days.

Because water is considered crucial to the possibility of past life on Mars, the mounting evidence of its wet past is of particular interest. Mars, now cold and desolate, long ago possessed a thicker atmosphere and warmer climate, allowing for liquid water on its surface.
“From the features mapped by RIMFAX, we believe that Jezero Crater hosted an ancient water-rich environment, capable of biosignature ​preservation that existed prior to the formation of Jezero’s Western Delta,” said UCLA planetary scientist Emily Cardarelli, a member of the Perseverance science team and lead author of ​the research published on Wednesday in the journal Science Advances.

A biosignature refers to chemical or physical evidence indicating past or present life.
On Earth, river deltas are places that concentrate sediments and create ‌niches favorable ⁠to microbial life.

Scientists last year announced that a sample of rock obtained by Perseverance in Jezero Crater contained a potential biosignature suggestive of ancient microbial life, though the minerals in the sample also can form through nonbiological processes. The rock dated to roughly 3.2 to 3.8 billion years ago.
Perseverance since 2021 has been exploring Jezero Crater. Scientists believe river channels spilled over the crater wall and created a lake.
“It’s very exciting that RIMFAX was able to provide such a detailed view of these deposits, and thus help ​solve the puzzle of their origin,” UCLA ​planetary scientist and study co-author David ⁠Paige, also a member of the Perseverance rover science team, said of the new findings. “This further cements the notion that ground-penetrating radar is indeed an extremely valuable new tool for studying planetary geology.”

Source : https://www.reuters.com/science/nasa-rover-detects-some-oldest-evidence-water-flowing-mars-2026-03-18/

Microsoft is considering legal action against its partner OpenAI and Amazon over a $50 billion deal that could violate its exclusive cloud agreement with the ChatGPT maker, the Financial Times reported on Wednesday.

Last month, Amazon and OpenAI signed several agreements, including one that makes Amazon Web Services (AWS) the exclusive third-party cloud provider for Frontier, OpenAI’s enterprise platform for building and running AI agents.

The dispute centers on whether OpenAI can offer Frontier via AWS without violating the Microsoft partnership, which requires the start-up’s models to be accessed through the Windows-OS maker’s Azure cloud platform, the FT report said, citing sources.

Reuters could not immediately verify the report. Microsoft, Amazon and OpenAI did not immediately respond to Reuters’ requests for comment.

FT said Microsoft executives believed the approach was not feasible and would violate the spirit, if not the letter, of their agreement, and added that the companies were in talks to resolve the dispute without litigation ahead of Frontier’s launch.

“We know our contract,” a person familiar with Microsoft’s position told the newspaper. “We will sue them if they breach it. If Amazon and OpenAI want to take a bet on the creativity of their contractual lawyers, I would back us, not them.”

Microsoft was one of OpenAI’s earliest investors, infusing $1 billion in the firm in 2019 and $10 billion at the beginning of 2023. In September last year, the two signed a non-binding deal under new relationship terms, paving the way for OpenAI to sign deals with SoftBank, Nvidia and Amazon.

Source : https://www.channelnewsasia.com/business/microsoft-considers-legal-action-over-50-billion-amazon-openai-cloud-deal-ft-reports-6000861

Scientists have developed a highly accurate blood test that can detect brain tumours, including aggressive glioblastomas, with over 90% precision. By identifying specific proteins in the blood, the test offers a non-invasive alternative to MRIs and biopsies. It could enable earlier diagnosis, monitor treatment response, and improve outcomes, marking a significant step toward more accessible, precision-based cancer care.

SCIENTISTS have made major progress on a blood test that can help detect brain tumours and monitor them in real time. The test, which is said to be more than 90 per cent accurate, could be used by doctors to pick up deadly growths. Early research focuses on fast-growing glioblastomas, but it is being expanded to other kinds of brain tumours.

At present, treatment for those suffering from brain tumours is not just complex but also difficult in the later stages, as it requires way too many MRI scans and invasive surgical biopsies. However, researchers from the University of Manchester, assisted by teams in Denmark, say this can be drastically streamlined.

iPhone Fold could have a different branding, and Apple is likely to rely on its biggest rival to make the foldable happen.

Apple’s iPhone foldable has a lot of interest which is hardly surprising for the brand and even the much awaited product. The iPhone Fold, as many thought it will be called at launch, could actually have a different branding, according to a recent report. The company has been building up the big launch over the last few years and 2026 could finally be the end game for Apple and its foldable ambitions to get a lift off.

The iPhone Fold (or Ultra) is going to be a unique product for the brand, as much as its new budget MacBook Neo model which has generated a lot of debate and question mark over Microsoft’s Windows play book from now.

iPhone Ultra: The Big Foldable Push?

Apple needs a lot of external help to make the iPhone foldable succeed and one of its main rivals will be at the forefront of that objective. Samsung will most likely make the display for the device, which is tipped to be creaseless, something the company had showcased earlier this year at a display event.

Apple will demand the best and the latest tech for its products and the iPhone Ultra should be one of the first to pack them innards. The other important aspect of the device will be the software and Apple needs to make sure that iOS is tweaked well enough to run on a foldable and handle the dual load of a foldable screen across apps.

We haven’t heard much about that from Apple or any leaks, but the WWDC 2026 should have more on the front with iOS 27 fully in focus and hopefully deliver the ideal foldable experience.

Source : https://www.news18.com/tech/apples-foldable-likely-to-launch-as-iphone-ultra-heres-what-we-know-9962582.html

NavIC, India’s answer to GPS, has dropped below the minimum strength needed to function after a key satellite’s atomic clock failed. With only three satellites left and replacements delayed, the system is in trouble.

India’s homegrown satellite navigation system, NavIC (Navigation with Indian Constellation), is in serious trouble. The Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) has confirmed that IRNSS-1F, a satellite launched in March 2016, completed its 10-year design life on March 10 this year, and that the on-board atomic clock had stopped functioning.

The satellite will continue to orbit and send one-way broadcast messages, but it can no longer help anyone navigate. That one failure has pushed NavIC below the minimum threshold it needs to function as a navigation system.

You need at least four satellites working in tandem to calculate a position on Earth. India now has three.

WHICH THREE NAVIC SATELLITES REMAIN FUNCTIONAL?

The three satellites still providing navigation services are IRNSS-1B, launched in April 2014, IRNSS-1L, launched in April 2018, and NVS-01, the first of the second-generation NavIC satellites, launched in May 2023. IRNSS stands for Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System.

Of these, IRNSS-1B has already crossed its 10-year design life and is running on borrowed time. NVS-01 is the youngest and healthiest of the three, but one satellite cannot carry a navigation system on its own.

WHAT IS AN ATOMIC CLOCK AND WHY DOES IT MATTER?

An atomic clock is the beating heart of any navigation satellite. It measures time by tracking the natural vibrations of atoms with extraordinary precision. When a signal travels from a satellite to your phone, the clock calculates exactly how long that journey took.

A billionth of a second’s error can push your calculated position off by hundreds of metres. Without a working clock, a navigation satellite is useless.

For the first time in the NavIC programme, an indigenous atomic clock was flown aboard NVS-01 (Navigation Satellite 1), the first of the second-generation satellites launched in May 2023.

Earlier satellites relied on imported clocks, and that dependence proved to be a persistent weak point.

HOW DID NAVIC END UP IN THIS MESS?

As of July 2025, of the 11 NavIC satellites put into orbit, four were providing Position, Navigation and Timing (PNT) services, four were being used only for one-way message broadcast after losing navigation capability, one was decommissioned after end-of-life, and two could not reach their intended orbits.

The IRNSS-1F failure on March 13, 2026 has now reduced the PNT count from four to three.

NavIC is designed with a constellation of seven satellites. The system is a long way from that target.

WHAT HAPPENED TO THE REPLACEMENT SATELLITE NVS-02?

NVS-02 launched in January 2025 but never made it to its intended orbit. A tiny electrical fault stopped its engine from firing at exactly the wrong moment, leaving the satellite stranded. It cannot provide any navigation services, and remains out of action.

Isro implemented corrective actions in subsequent missions. The fixes were applied to the CMS-03 spacecraft launched in November 2025, placing the satellite in its intended orbit.

WHEN WILL NAVIC BE BACK ON ITS FEET?

In July 2025, Union Minister of State for Science and Technology and Earth Sciences Dr Jitendra Singh told the Lok Sabha in a written reply that NVS-03 would launch by the end of 2025, with NVS-04 to follow after six months. NVS-03 has not launched yet, meaning the schedule has slipped.

The new NVS satellites also bring a welcome upgrade. They support the L1 band, which means future smartphones could work with NavIC without needing extra hardware, just a software update.

Source : https://www.indiatoday.in/science/story/navic-india-gps-satellite-failure-atomic-clock-isro-2026-2882274-2026-03-15 

Nasa said preparations are continuing at the Kennedy Space Centre, where engineers are completing final work on the rocket and spacecraft inside the Vehicle Assembly Building.

Nasa is set to launch its next Moon mission, Artemis II, on April 1 as the US space agency moves closer to sending astronauts back to lunar orbit for the first time since 1972. The mission will be the first crewed flight of Nasa’s Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and Orion spacecraft and will carry four astronauts on a journey around the Moon before returning to Earth.

The flight is designed as a major test of the spacecraft systems that will eventually enable astronauts to land on the lunar surface again under Nasa’s Artemis programme.

“This mission will prove Orion’s life support systems are ready to sustain crew on future missions and allow the crew to practice operations essential to the success of Artemis III and beyond,” Nasa said.

According to the space agency, preparations for the mission are currently underway at the Kennedy Space Centre, where engineers are completing final integration work on the SLS rocket and Orion spacecraft inside the Vehicle Assembly Building. Nasa said the rocket is expected to roll out to the launch pad on March 19 ahead of the targeted April launch window.

Once at the pad, teams will conduct additional testing, including another wet dress rehearsal, a full launch countdown simulation during which the rocket is fuelled with cryogenic propellants to ensure all systems operate as expected before liftoff.

TECHNICAL ISSUES DURING PREVIOUS DRILLS

The mission timeline has faced several delays after engineers detected technical problems during earlier drills. During one of the tests, teams discovered a helium flow issue in the rocket’s upper stage, which is used to pressurise the propellant tanks and maintain proper engine conditions.

After engineers failed to access the affected components easily at the launch pad, Nasa decided to roll the massive rocket back to the Vehicle Assembly Building for closer inspection and repairs. The issue was eventually traced to a faulty seal in the quick-disconnect system that connects ground helium supply lines to the rocket. Engineers repaired the system and ran validation tests to confirm the fix.

Earlier tests had also revealed a liquid hydrogen leak during a wet dress rehearsal, forcing Nasa to halt countdown operations and conduct additional troubleshooting before continuing launch preparations.

Despite the setbacks, Nasa officials stated such tests are designed to uncover problems before launch. Engineers are now working through final checks to ensure the rocket and spacecraft are ready for the historic mission.

Source : https://www.indiatoday.in/science/story/nasa-to-launch-artemis-ii-mission-to-the-moon-on-april-1-2881193-2026-03-13

Microsoft (MSFT.O), filed on Tuesday a brief in support of Anthropic’s lawsuit asking the court to temporarily block the U.S. Department ​of Defense’s designation of the AI startup as a supply-chain risk.
In an ‌amicus brief filing in a federal court in San Francisco, Microsoft backed Anthropic’s request for a temporary restraining order against the Pentagon order, arguing that its determination should be paused while the court ​considers the case.

Microsoft, which integrates the AI lab’s products and services into technology ​it provides to the U.S. military, said that it was directly ⁠impacted by the DOD designation.
The Claude maker had filed a lawsuit to block the ​Pentagon from placing it on a national security blacklist on Monday, escalating a high-stakes ​battle with the U.S. military over usage restrictions on its technology.
Microsoft’s filing argued the TRO is needed to prevent costly disruptions for suppliers, who would otherwise have to rapidly rebuild offerings that rely ​on Anthropic’s products. The judge overseeing the case must approve Microsoft’s request to file the ​brief before it is officially entered, but courts often permit outside parties to weigh in on important ‌cases.

While ⁠the Pentagon gave itself six months to phase out Anthropic, it did not provide the same transition period for contractors that use Anthropic’s products or services to perform under DOD, Microsoft said.
“Should this action proceed without the entry of a temporary restraining order, ​Microsoft and other government ​contractors with expertise ⁠in developing solutions to support U.S. government missions will be forced to account for a new risk in their business planning,” the ​company said.

Source : https://www.reuters.com/legal/litigation/microsoft-files-amicus-brief-support-anthropics-lawsuit-with-us-dod-2026-03-10/

The online users can see where Orion and the crew are in relation to the Earth and the Moon.

The Artemis II mission, NASA’s first crewed lunar mission since Apollo, is set to embark on a historic journey. The space agency revealed that the mission’s live updates, crew schedule, and mission milestones can be tracked by anyone worldwide through official channels. The Artemis II mission will fly four astronauts around the Moon and will last for about 10 days. This will be the first crewed test flight of the Space Launch System rocket, the Orion spacecraft, and the Exploration Ground Systems needed to support them.

In an official blog, NASA revealed that the concept of the Artemis Real-time Orbit Website (AROW), which can be used by anyone with internet access to track Orion and the crew. Space enthusiasts can also track the spacecraft’s distance from Earth and distance from the Moon.

“Using AROW, the public can visualize data that is collected by sensors on Orion and then sent to the Mission Control Center at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston during its flight. It will provide constant information using this real-time data beginning about one minute after liftoff through Orion’s atmospheric reentry to Earth at the end of the mission,” said NASA.

With the help of AROW, the online users can see where Orion and the crew are in relation to the Earth and the Moon. They can also look at key mission milestones and characteristics on the Moon, including information about landing sites from the Apollo programme.

Meanwhile, as per NASA, the mobile app includes similar features to the website, with the addition of an augmented reality tracker.

Source : https://www.ndtv.com/science/nasa-shares-steps-to-track-artemis-ii-lunar-flyby-mission-in-real-time-11187852?pfrom=home-ndtv_lateststories

The Tesla CEO Elon Musk announced that the electric vehicle maker is positioned to develop artificial general intelligence, with its Optimus humanoid robot and ‘atom-shaping’ manufacturing systems seen as key pathways.

Elon Musk declared on Wednesday that Tesla is on track to become one of a small number of companies capable of building artificial general intelligence (AGI), and suggested it could be the first to reach that milestone, not through software alone, but through the physical form of humanoid robots.

In a post shared on X, the social media platform he owns, Musk singled out Tesla’s work on its Optimus humanoid robot and advanced manufacturing capabilities as the company’s most promising routes to AGI. The Optimus robot, currently in development, is designed to perform repetitive and physically demanding tasks, drawing on the same AI infrastructure Tesla has built for its autonomous driving program.

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Tesla will be one of the companies to make AGI and probably the first to make it in humanoid/atom-shaping form

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 4, 2026

Among the more striking elements of Musk’s remarks was his reference to “atom-shaping” as a pathway to AGI, a phrase that points to the precise, fine-grained manipulation of physical matter at microscopic scales. While Musk did not elaborate at length, the term signals an ambition that goes well beyond conventional software-driven AI, encompassing robotic systems capable of engaging with the physical world with extraordinary precision.

If realised, such capabilities could fundamentally transform industrial manufacturing, supply chains, and the very definition of what machines can do autonomously.

Tesla vs. the AI Pack

 

Instagram is introducing parental alerts that notify supervised parents if their teens repeatedly search for suicide or self-harm related terms,

Instagram will soon begin notifying parents if their teenager repeatedly searches for content related to suicide or self-harm within a short period of time, as part of its expanded parental supervision tools.

The social media platform, owned by Meta Platforms, said the feature is designed to give parents greater awareness while ensuring that vulnerable young people are directed to appropriate support services.

How the New Alerts Will Work

Under the new system, parents and teenagers enrolled in Instagram’s supervision programme will receive advance notice that alerts are being introduced.

If a teen repeatedly attempts to search for phrases promoting suicide or self-harm, or uses terms such as “suicide” or “self-harm”, parents will be informed.

The alerts will be sent via email, text message or WhatsApp, depending on the contact details provided, as well as through an in-app notification. The message will explain that the teen has repeatedly tried to search for sensitive terms within a short period. Parents will also be given access to expert guidance to help them approach potentially difficult conversations.

Building on Existing Teen Protections

Instagram said that most teenagers do not search for such content. The platform already blocks searches clearly linked to suicide or self-harm and instead directs users to helplines and mental health resources.

Content that promotes or glorifies suicide or self-harm is prohibited. While posts discussing personal struggles may be allowed, they are hidden from teen accounts.

The company added that it will continue to alert emergency services if it becomes aware of someone at imminent risk of physical harm.

Source : https://www.ndtv.com/feature/instagram-to-alert-parents-if-teens-repeatedly-search-for-suicide-or-self-harm-terms-11150611?pfrom=home-ndtv_lateststories

Does the corporate reality differ from the enthusiasm outside about the AI revolution?

Even as the artificial intelligence tools have led to a major transformation and brought a revolution to the tech world, corporate companies in India haven’t quite embraced the new age and are imposing data security regulations on their techies. In a post shared online, a man claimed that their software development engineer friend, who works for a “big MNC”, has been barred from using new AI-based models as a potential coding companion.

“Today, I was talking to a friend who works as an SDE at a big MNC. I asked him about all the new AI models launching every other week. He looked genuinely surprised. He didn’t even know most of them,” shared the individual about their friend, roped in for a coding job at a multi-national company.

‘Don’t You Use AI To Code?”

Discovering the reality of their corporate life, detached from the AI revolution, the individual said his techie friend admitted he wasn’t aware of the coding tools he was discussing since he is “not allowed to” use them at work. The developer confirmed that all AI tools are blocked by his organisation while operating on client projects.

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today I was talking to a friend who works as an SDE at a big MNC

I asked him about all the new AI models launching every other week. tbh he looked genuinely surprised he didn’t even know most of them

then I asked him, “Don’t you use AI to code?”

he said he is not allowed to.…

— Shikhar (@shekhu04) February 26, 2026

“I asked him, Don’t you use AI to code? He said he is not allowed to. All AI tools are blocked while working on client projects,” the post claimed. When asked to further explain the scenario at hand, the techie is understood to have cited the data security restrictions in play.

“Reason? Clients don’t want their proprietary code potentially being used as training data,” the post added.

Techie’s Situation Strikes A Chord Online

As the post related to an individual’s developer friend facing hurdles in using the AI tools to ease his daily operations gained traction online, people sympathised with the person and shared their own stories of the corporate world imposing restrictions on AI usage.

“Even though a new AI model appears almost every day, it takes companies a lot of time to adopt them. In my office work, I have used only ChatGPT or Copilot,” shared a person.

Someone else commented, “Corporate constraints slow adoption. Policy often lags behind capability. Builders outside big systems move faster.”

Source : https://www.news18.com/viral/all-ai-tools-are-blocked-techie-shares-ordeal-of-facing-data-security-rules-in-corporate-life-aa-ws-l-9934128.html

 

WhatsApp has announced the global rollout of status ads and promoted channels, aimed at assisting businesses in reaching new customers. While personal chats remain end-to-end encrypted, businesses can now advertise within Status and Channels, enhancing content discovery.

Meta-owned WhatsApp is WhatsApp has confirmed the launch of status ads and promoted channels globally. According to Mark Zuckerberg-owned instant messaging giant, WhatsApp Status will now show ads to help businesses reach new customers and start conversations directly on the app.

The instant messaging app is also promoting Channels,by boosting selected channels in the directory. WhatsApp claims that personal chats, calls and Status updates will remain end-to-end encrypted and will not be used for targeted advertising.

“By showing ads in Status, you can help your business get discovered by new customers and make it easy for them to start a conversation with you, all within WhatsApp. Promoted channel ads help your business get discovered by boosting your channel in the directory and making it easy for people to find content that’s right for them,” the messaging app wrote in a blogpost.

These updates can include text, photos, videos, stickers and polls. With promoted Channels, businesses can pay to appear higher in the directory so more users can discover them. WhatsApp says ads will only appear in Status and Channels, where people are more open to discovering new content.

In short, while your personal messages will stay private, WhatsApp is opening up new spaces inside the app for businesses to advertise and grow.

The feature also includes controls that allow users to block or hide ads from specific businesses if users get annoyed by their repetitive ads. This gives users greater control over what they see in the Updates tab.

In some regions, the Meta-owned app may also offer users the option to pay for an ad-free experience. This subscription will remove ads from the Updates tab, which includes Status and Channels. However, the price and availability of this option may differ depending on the country and the platform being used.

In related news, Indian government has introduced new rules for messaging platforms such as WhatsApp. The Meta-owned platform will be required to automatically log out every Indian user from WhatsApp Web every six hours due to national security concerns.

Source : https://www.timesnownews.com/technology-science/whatsapp-brings-ads-to-status-claims-chats-will-remain-end-to-end-encrypted-article-153712098

Heart disease is the leading cause of death in America, making prevention crucial. But new research suggests there’s a heart attack risk factor that women face. A study found that women may experience heart attacks and major adverse cardiovascular events (MACE) with lower levels of plaque buildup in their arteries than men.

The study, which was published in the journal Circulation: Cardiovascular Imaging, is raising a lot of questions about heart disease prevention in women and whether more intensive interventions are needed.

For the study, researchers analyzed data from nearly 4,300 people with no known prior coronary artery disease who sought help for chest pain. The researchers analyzed computed tomography angiography (CCTA) images that measured total plaque volume and total plaque burden (TPB), or the amount of plaque relative to the size of the blood vessel. (Plaque is a waxy buildup of cholesterol, fat, calcium, and more that accumulates inside the arteries. Plaque buildup restricts blood flow and raises the risk of heart attack and stroke.)

Meet the experts: Kevin Shah, M.D., cardiologist and program director of heart failure outreach at MemorialCare Heart & Vascular Institute at Long Beach Medical Center in Long Beach, CA; Navjot Sobti, M.D., interventional cardiologist and women’s heart health specialist at Northwell’s Northern Westchester Hospital and Katz Institute for Women’s Health

While the researchers found that women had lower amounts of plaque than men and less plaque with characteristics that were considered high-risk, they still had similar rates of major adverse cardiovascular events over 26 months compared to men. To put it more plainly, women, heart risk in genetic women rose when plaque burden reached 20%, whereas in men, it rose when it reached 28%.

The risk of major adverse cardiovascular events increased more steeply at lower levels of plaque than men, while the risk of these cardiovascular events increased more gradually in men and required higher levels of plaque.

The researchers wrote in the study’s conclusion that the findings suggest there should be “sex-specific interpretation” of plaque measurements for “timely intervention” in women.

So, why does this happen, and what does it suggest for heart disease prevention in genetic women? Here’s what cardiologists want you to know.

Why might women have a higher risk of cardiovascular events with lower levels of plaque?

The exact reason for this isn’t clear. While the study found that women were more likely to have the same risk of major cardiovascular events at lower levels of plaque buildup, it didn’t explore why.

“The theory is that females, on average, are smaller than males, and their heart sizes are smaller,” says Kevin Shah, M.D., cardiologist and program director of heart failure outreach at MemorialCare Heart & Vascular Institute at Long Beach Medical Center in Long Beach, CA. “But the actual metric with plaque volume tries to adjust for the size of the blood vessels.” Because of that, Dr. Shah says it’s “hard to chalk it up to the size of the person or the size of their heart.”

But heart disease tends to show up differently in women, points out Navjot Sobti, M.D., interventional cardiologist and women’s heart health specialist at Northwell’s Northern Westchester Hospital and Katz Institute for Women’s Health. “Additionally, women have been historically underrepresented in cardiovascular research,” Dr. Sobti says. “Many risk thresholds and imaging cutoffs were developed using male populations and focus on finding large artery blockages a.k.a. ‘obstructive disease,’ but women are more likely to have non-obstructive disease and types of heart attacks that don’t show large blockages on heart imaging.”

In many cases, women develop heart attacks or heart disease from issues like coronary artery spasm, a spontaneous coronary artery tear or dissection (SCAD), or problems in the heart’s small blood vessels—conditions that don’t show up as major blockages and are often missed by traditional heart disease risk models, Dr. Sobti explains.

“As a result, women can have serious heart events at lower levels of visible plaque, highlighting the limitations of a one-size-fits-all approach and the need for sex-specific risk assessment and prevention strategies,” she says. “Sex-specific risk assessment matters.”

How can I lower my risk of a heart attack?

Everyone should follow the American Heart Association (AHA)’s Life’s Essential eight, which are steps designed to improve and maintain cardiovascular health, Dr. Shah says. “But there should be a greater emphasis on these if a female patient has some plaque volume detected,” he says. Even mild coronary plaque in women may increase the need for earlier and more aggressive prevention methods, like statins, blood pressure control, and lifestyle interventions, along with proactive screening like coronary calcium scoring, Dr. Sobti says.

While a conversation with your cardiologist is essential, here’s what the AHA suggests people do to lower their risk of heart disease:

• Eat a diet that consists of whole foods, including fruits and vegetables, lean protein, nuts, and seeds.
• Aim to get 2.5 hours of moderate-intensity exercise, or 75 minutes of vigorous physical activity a week.
• Avoid tobacco.
• Try to get seven or more hours of sleep a night.
• Do your best to maintain a certain weight.
• Try to manage your cholesterol by limiting sugary foods and drinks, red and processed meats, salty foods, refined carbohydrates, and highly processed foods.
• Do your best to manage your blood sugar.
• Stay on top of your blood pressure.

Source : https://www.prevention.com/health/health-conditions/a70479751/heart-attack-risk-women-plaque-study/

He warned that failure to adhere to these principles would lead to accountability for these platforms. Vaishnaw also expressed concerns about the dangers posed by deepfakes and disinformation campaigns.

Speaking at the Digital News Publishers Association (DNPA) Conclave 2026, Union minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said social media platforms must ensure fair revenue sharing with those who create content, including journalists, traditional media, influencers and researchers.

‘Social media platforms must also share revenue in a fair way with the people who are creating the content, whether it is news persons, the conventional media, the creators sitting in far-flung areas, influencers, the professors and researchers who are disseminating their work using the platforms,” Vaishnaw said at DNPA Conclave.

Vaishnaw also said there will be consequences if platforms do not follow these principles. “Non-adherence to these principles will definitely make them responsible because the nature of Internet has changed now,” he added.

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The nature of the internet has changed. The nature of the internet which emerged decades ago was very different from the nature of the internet which exists today. No longer is the case where the internet was open-sourced, where it was basically used to exchange information… pic.twitter.com/lDXPWDeck1

— PIB India (@PIB_India) February 26, 2026

IT Minister said the internet has changed a lot over the years. “The nature of the internet which emerged decades ago was very different from the nature of the internet which exists today. No longer is the case where the internet was open-sourced, where it was basically used to exchange information between different parts of the world. The times are gone when a platform could say they are not responsible for the country. Those times are gone because the platforms themselves have changed from being pure platforms to becoming hosts to the world,” he explained.

Union Minister also raised concerns over the rising threat of deepfakes and organised disinformation campaigns.

“The way the world is emerging today the core tenet of trust is under threat. The threat is coming from so many different angles – Deepfakes – which can make you belief things which have never happened anyway,” he said.

Source : https://www.timesnownews.com/technology-science/it-minister-ashwini-vaishnaw-warns-social-media-platforms-share-revenue-with-content-creators-article-153699575

 

OpenAI is targeting roughly $600 billion in total compute spend through 2030, a source familiar with the matter told Reuters on Friday, as the ChatGPT maker lays groundwork for an IPO that could value it at up to $1 trillion.

OpenAI’s 2025 revenue totaled $13 billion, beating its $10 billion projection, while it spent $8 billion during the year, under its $9 billion target, the person said.

The development comes as Nvidia closes in on finalizing a $30 billion investment in OpenAI, as part of a fundraising round in which the AI startup is seeking more than $100 billion.

That would value the Sam Altman-led company at about $830 billion and amount to one of the largest private capital raises on record.

Microsoft-backed OpenAI expects more than $280 billion in total revenue by 2030, divided nearly equally across its consumer and enterprise units, according to CNBC, which had reported the development earlier.

Altman had said last year that OpenAI is committed to spending $1.4 trillion to develop 30 gigawatts of computing resources — enough to power roughly 25 million U.S. homes.

Source : https://www.channelnewsasia.com/business/openai-expects-compute-spend-around-600-billion-through-2030-source-says-5943906

Google claims fewer bad actors are targeting the Play Store, pointing to a drop in policy-violating apps and banned developer accounts in 2025. The company credits tougher verification rules and expanded AI-driven review systems, even as threats increasingly shift outside the official app marketplace.

Policy-violating apps fall year over year

Anthropic CEO Amodei is speaking at the India AI Impact Summit in Delhi where the big tech giants have announced their plans.

The energy to build together here is palpable, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei said on the sidelines of the India AI Impact Summit 2026 on Thursday referring to the tech companies part of the big event and the likes of Google CEO Sundar Pichai and other tech giants looking to build for the future of AI in the country. I’ve been spending the last few days meeting with Indian builders and enterprises, and the energy to build together here is palpable, unlike anywhere else,” he added.

Anthropic is one of the many companies looking to build in India, and the AI company, known for its Claude AI model and agent, has been scouting for space in the country with its first base announce in Bengaluru recently.

“The advances in AI technology have been absolutely staggering along with those the advancement in the commercial applications have only grown more urgent,” Amodei pointed out during his keynote in Delhi.

Amodei also talked about the advancements in the world of AI agents and how the technology is getting close to replacing humans with its smarter inputs. “We are now well advanced on the AI curve and only a small number of years for AI models to surpass cognitive capabilities of most humans for most things. We are increasingly close to having AI agents that are more capable than most humans,” he said.

“We are now well advanced on the AI curve and only a small number of years for AI models to surpass cognitive capabilities of most humans for most things. We are increasingly close to having AI agents that are more capable than most humans.”

He also wanted to highlight both pros and cons of having AI evolving at such a pace. “That level of capability (from AI) is something the world has never seen before, and brings a very wide range of opportunities and concerns for humanity.

Source : https://www.news18.com/tech/the-energy-to-build-together-here-is-anthropic-ceo-amaodei-at-india-ai-summit-9916754.html

For the millions of people whose constipation persists despite every laxative, fiber supplement, and dietary overhaul they throw at it, a new study may finally offer an explanation. Researchers have proposed what they call a new form of constipation, “bacterial constipation,” driven by a specific partnership between two common gut microbes, and they believe a simple fecal test could one day identify who has it.

The research, published in the journal Gut Microbes, centers on a finding that sounds almost unfair: two bacteria that are harmless on their own can team up to thin the protective mucus layer that keeps stool soft and moving. When both are elevated at the same time, the gut’s natural lubricant gets picked apart, leaving behind dry, hard, infrequent stools with no obvious cause.

Most treatments for chronic constipation target gut nerves or bowel contractions, the physical mechanics of moving waste through the intestine. Bacterial constipation, as the researchers describe it, operates through an entirely different mechanism, which would explain why so many patients get so little relief from standard care.

Two Gut Bacteria Are Teaming Up to Cause Constipation

The two bacteria at the center of the study, Akkermansia muciniphila and Bacteroides thetaiotaomicron, are everyday inhabitants of the human colon. Neither is a pathogen. Neither causes illness on its own. Together, though, they can quietly dismantle a critical layer of protection.

That layer is mucin, a thick, slippery gel that coats the intestinal wall. It retains water, lubricates stool, and keeps the gut lining from coming into direct contact with the bacteria living inside it. Colonic mucin carries chemical tags called terminal sulfates, and most bacteria cannot get past them. A. muciniphila feeds on mucin but lacks the enzyme needed to remove those tags, so the colonic variety is essentially off-limits without outside help.

B. thetaiotaomicron provides that help. It produces sulfatases, enzymes that strip the sulfate tags away, opening the mucin up for A. muciniphila to break down. Over time, the mucus layer thins, moisture drains from stool, and bowel movements slow. The researchers described this as “cooperative degradation of colonic mucins by sulfatases and glycosylases by two commensal bacteria,” one that “reduces lubrication and induces fecal dehydration, leading to the development of constipation.”

Constipation Patients Showed Elevated Levels of Both Bacteria

To see whether this bacterial pattern appeared in real patients, the research team analyzed fecal samples from 231 people with Parkinson’s disease, 54 patients with chronic idiopathic constipation (a diagnosis given when no secondary cause can be found), and 147 healthy controls. Both bacteria were elevated in the constipated groups. Fecal mucin levels were also lower across all three groups in patients who reported fewer than three bowel movements per week.

Parkinson’s disease entered the picture because patients with that condition often develop severe, treatment-resistant constipation up to 10 to 20 years before motor symptoms appear. Standard dopamine-based treatments do almost nothing for it. The fact that the same bacterial signature appeared in both Parkinson’s patients and those with no neurological diagnosis suggests the mechanism operates independently of the underlying disease, which is exactly what a new disease category would require.

Statistical analysis backed that up: mucin depletion tracked more closely with constipation itself than with any specific diagnosis, which strengthens the case that bacterial constipation is its own entity.

A Single Deleted Gene Reversed Constipation in Mice

To confirm the mechanism, the team used germ-free mice, animals raised without any gut bacteria at all. Mice given only one of the two bacteria showed no signs of constipation. Mice given both developed it: fewer stool pellets, drier feces, lower mucin levels, and a gut lining that was becoming more permeable. Food intake, water intake, and urine output stayed the same in all groups, which ruled out dehydration as the cause.

The cleanest result came from a genetic experiment. The researchers engineered a version of B. thetaiotaomicron with a single gene deleted, the one responsible for activating its sulfatases. Without functioning sulfatases, B. thetaiotaomicron could no longer unlock mucin for its partner. Mice colonized with this modified bacterium alongside A. muciniphila showed almost no constipation. Stool output recovered, moisture content rose, and mucin levels came back. Taking out one gene in one bacterium broke the whole cycle.

What a Bacterial Constipation Diagnosis Could Mean for Patients

The researchers propose that measuring fecal levels of A. muciniphila, especially when found alongside certain partner bacteria, could help identify patients in this new category. If levels are elevated and sulfatase-producing bacteria are present alongside it, the conditions for bacterial constipation exist. As a treatment path, they point to phage therapies (which use viruses to target specific bacteria) or small-molecule drugs designed to block bacterial sulfatase activity, either of which would aim to preserve the mucus layer without relying on laxatives.

As the authors put it: “Fecal abundance of A. muciniphila may serve as a biomarker for identifying such patients. In addition, phage-mediated bacterial suppression or small molecules to block bacterial sulfatases may preserve colonic mucus integrity, improve stool hydration, and alleviate constipation in these patients.”

That would be a meaningful shift. For people who have spent years managing a condition their doctors can explain but not reliably fix, a named mechanism and a targeted treatment approach offers something that fiber and stool softeners never could: an actual answer.

Source : https://studyfinds.com/new-type-of-constipation-caused-by-gut-bacteria-discovered/

Reports of disruptions to YouTube have tapered off after hitting a peak on Wednesday (Feb 18) morning in Asia.

Thousands of users in several Southeast Asian countries – including Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines – reported errors, according to Downdetector, which tracks outages by collating status reports from multiple sources.

In Singapore, the number of incidents of people reporting issues with the social media platform began spiking shortly before 9am, reaching almost 3,000 at 9.27am before declining. By 10.12am, only around 200 incidents were reported.

Over 320,000 users reported errors in the United States.

“If you’re having trouble accessing YouTube right now, you’re not alone – our teams are looking into this,” the company said on X, linking to a support page.

The help page later posted that “an issue with our recommendations system prevented videos from appearing across surfaces on YouTube (including the homepage, the YouTube app, YouTube Music and YouTube Kids).”

Source : https://www.channelnewsasia.com/business/youtube-down-downdetector-5937216