On Bluesky, the joke's on you if you don't get the joke. The social network has become a "refuge" for those fleeing X and Threads, but its growing pains include a serious case of humor-impairment. When Amy Brown jokingly posted she was "screaming, crying, and throwing up" about price differences between Ohio and California Walgreens, literal-minded users scolded her for exaggerating. Brown, a former Wendy's social media manager who got banned from X after impersonating Elon Musk, puts it simply: "We're both speaking English, but I'm speaking internet." This clash stems from Bluesky's oddly mixed population: irony-steeped Twitter refugees mingling with earnest Facebook transplants and MSNBC viewers who took the plunge after seeing the platform mentioned on shows like Morning Joe. "It's riff collapse," says cartoonist Mattie Lubchansky, describing how her obviously absurd Oscar post triggered sincere movie recommendations.

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The U.S. is still the global leader in state-of-the-art AI, but China has closed the gap considerably, according to a new report from Stanford. Axios: Institutions based in the U.S. produced 40 AI models of note in 2024, compared with 15 from China and three from Europe, according to the eighth edition of Stanford's Artificial Intelligence Index, released on Monday. However, the report found that Chinese models have rapidly caught up in quality, noting that Chinese models reached near parity on two key benchmarks after being behind leading U.S. models by double digit percentages a year earlier. Plus, it said, China is now leading the U.S. in AI publications and patents.

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Colossal Biosciences has claimed it "successfully restored" the extinct dire wolf after a "10,000+ year absence," but scientists clarify these are actually genetically modified grey wolves. The U.S. company announced three pups -- males Remus and Romulus born in October, and female Khaleesi born in January -- as dire wolves, but made only 20 genetic edits to grey wolves. Beth Shapiro of Colossal told New Scientist that just 15 modifications were based on dire wolf DNA, primarily targeting size, musculature and ear shape. Five other changes involve mutations known to produce light coats in grey wolves. A 2021 DNA study revealed dire wolves and grey wolves last shared a common ancestor about 6 million years ago, with jackals and African wild dogs more closely related to grey wolves.

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New Mexico's legislature passed bills last week that would ban consumer products containing PFAS, joining a small but growing number of states taking action against these persistent "forever chemicals." If signed by the governor, the legislation would prohibit the sale of many products with added per- and polyfluorinated alkyl substances (PFAS) in New Mexico, making it the third state after Maine and Minnesota to enact such comprehensive restrictions. At least 29 states have PFAS-related bills before state legislatures this year, according to Safer States, a network of advocacy organizations. Research shows PFAS accumulate in the environment and human bodies, potentially causing health problems from high cholesterol to cancer. EPA figures indicate almost half of Americans are exposed to PFAS in their drinking water. Wired reports that chemical and consumer products industries are aggressively fighting state-level bans on "forever chemicals" through lobbying and legal action as regulations spread across the United States. The Cookware Sustainability Alliance, formed in 2024 by major cookware manufacturers, has testified in 10 statehouses against PFAS restrictions and sued Minnesota in January, claiming its ban is unconstitutional. (The New Mexico bills include notable exemptions, particularly for fluoropolymers used in nonstick cookware, following successful lobbying by industry groups.) Industry groups are also targeting federal regulators, with the American Chemistry Council and others recommending the EPA adopt a narrower definition of PFAS. "The federal regulatory approach is preferable to a patchwork of different and potentially conflicting state approaches," said Erich Shea from the American Chemistry Council.

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Framework -- a company that makes upgradeable and repairable laptops -- will pause sales on several versions of one of its models in America thanks to Trump's tariffs, it said. From a report: "Due to the new tariffs that came into effect on April 5th, we're temporarily pausing US sales on a few base Framework Laptop 13 systems (Ultra 5 125H and Ryzen 5 7640U). For now, these models will be removed from our US site. We will continue to provide updates as we have them," Framework said in a post on X. A spokesperson for Framework told 404 Media in an email that the company was pausing sales on their six lowest priced units in the U.S. They clarified that those models are still available to customers that are ordering the machines outside of America.

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AmiMoJo writes: The Shenzhen 8K UHD Video Industry Cooperation Alliance, a group made up of more than 50 Chinese companies, just released a new wired media communication standard called the General Purpose Media Interface or GPMI. This standard was developed to support 8K and reduce the number of cables required to stream data and power from one device to another. According to HKEPC, the GPMI cable comes in two flavors -- a Type-B that seems to have a proprietary connector and a Type-C that is compatible with the USB-C standard. Because 8K has four times the number of pixels of 4K and 16 times more pixels than 1080p resolution, it means that GPMI is built to carry a lot more data than other current standards. There are other variables that can impact required bandwidth, of course, such as color depth and refresh rate. The GPMI Type-C connector is set to have a maximum bandwidth of 96 Gbps and deliver 240 watts of power. This is more than double the 40 Gbps data limit of USB4 and Thunderbolt 4, allowing you to transmit more data on the cable. However, it has the same power limit as that of the latest USB Type-C connector using the Extended Power Range (EPR) standard. GPMI Type-B beats all other cables, though, with its maximum bandwidth of 192 Gbps and power delivery of up to 480 watts.

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An anonymous reader shares a report: Waymo is preparing to use data from its robotaxis, including video from interior cameras tied to rider identities, to train generative AI models, according to an unreleased version of its privacy policy found by researcher Jane Manchun Wong. The draft language reveals Waymo may also share this data to personalize ads, raising fresh questions about how much of a rider's behavior inside autonomous vehicles could be repurposed for AI training and marketing. The privacy page states: "Waymo may share data to improve and analyze its functionality and to tailor products, services, ads, and offers to your interests. You can opt out of sharing your information with third parties, unless it's necessary to the functioning of the service."

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The United Kingdom has banned "outrageous fake reviews and sneaky hidden fees" to make life easier for online shoppers. From a report: New measures under the Digital Markets, Competition, and Consumer Act 2024 came into force on Sunday that require online platforms to transparently include all mandatory fees within a product's advertised price, including booking or admin charges. The law targets so-called "dripped pricing," in which additional fees -- like platform service charges -- are dripped in during a customer's checkout process to dupe them into paying a higher price than expected. The ban "aims to bring to an end the shock that online shoppers get when they reach the end of their shopping experience only to find a raft of extra fees lumped on top," according to Justin Madders, the UK's Minister for Employment Rights, Competition and Markets.

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The internet's physical mass remains contested among scientists, with estimates ranging from a strawberry to something almost unimaginably small. In 2006, Harvard physicist Russell Seitz calculated the internet weighed roughly 50 grams based on server energy, a figure that would now equate to potato-weight given internet growth. Christopher White, president of NEC Laboratories America, has dismissed this calculation as "just wrong." White suggests a more accurate method that accounts for the energy needed to encode all internet data in one place, yielding approximately 53 quadrillionths of a gram at room temperature. Alternatively, if the internet's projected 175 zettabytes of data were stored in DNA -- a storage medium scientists are actively exploring -- it would weigh 960,947 grams, equivalent to 10.6 American males. Though scientists debate measurement methods, White asserts the web's true complexity makes it "essentially unknowable."

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Apple rushed five planeloads of iPhones from India to the U.S. in just three days to beat new tariffs imposed by the Trump administration, Times of India reported Monday, citing sources. The urgent shipments during the final week of March aimed to avoid the 10% reciprocal tariff that took effect on April 5. The stockpiling will allow Apple to maintain current pricing temporarily. "The reserves that arrived at lower duty will temporarily insulate the company from the higher prices that it will need to pay for new shipments," the Indian daily cited a source as saying. The Trump administration also announced a 26% reciprocal tariff to be implemented on April 9, potentially accelerating Apple's manufacturing shift away from China. India offers a significant tariff advantage, with Indian exports facing a 26% tariff to the U.S. compared to 54% on Chinese goods. Further reading: India's Economic Chess Against Twin US Economic Threats.

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President Donald Trump signaled a potential diplomatic opening amid his aggressive tariff strategy on Monday, threatening China with an additional 50% tariff while simultaneously offering other nations a path to negotiate lower trade barriers. The ultimatum to Beijing demands China withdraw a 34% increase by April 8, 2025, or face supplementary tariffs effective April 9, which would push total levies on Chinese goods to 104% or higher. Trump has already imposed a 20% tariff over fentanyl concerns and a 34% tariff related to trade issues. "Negotiations with other countries, which have requested meetings, will begin taking place immediately," Trump wrote on social media, marking a shift from the administration's previously unyielding stance.

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A court has blocked a British government attempt to keep secret a legal case over its demand to access Apple user data. From a report: The UK Investigatory Powers Tribunal, a special court that handles cases related to government surveillance, said the authorities' efforts were a "fundamental interference with the principle of open justice" in a ruling issued on Monday. The development comes after it emerged in January that the British government had served Apple with a demand to circumvent encryption that the company uses to secure user data stored in its cloud services. Apple challenged the request, while taking the unprecedented step of removing its advanced data protection feature for its British users. The government had sought to keep details about the demand -- and Apple's challenge of it -- from being publicly disclosed. Apple has regularly clashed with governments over encryption features that can make it difficult for law enforcement to access devices produced by the company. The world's most valuable company last year criticized UK surveillance powers as "unprecedented overreach" by the government.

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Microsoft's AI chief Mustafa Suleyman says the company has deliberately chosen to build AI models "three or six months behind" cutting-edge developments, citing cost savings and more focused implementation. "It's cheaper to give a specific answer once you've waited for the first three or six months for the frontier to go first. We call that off-frontier," Suleyman told CNBC. "That's actually our strategy, is to really play a very tight second, given the capital-intensiveness of these models." Microsoft owns substantial Nvidia GPU capacity but sees no need to develop "the absolute frontier, the best model in the world first," as it would be "very, very expensive" and create unnecessary duplication, Suleyman said. Despite its $13.75 billion investment in OpenAI, Microsoft added the startup to its list of competitors in July 2024. OpenAI subsequently announced a partnership with Oracle on its $500 billion Stargate project, departing from exclusive reliance on Microsoft's Azure cloud. "Look, it's absolutely mission-critical that long-term, we are able to do AI self-sufficiently at Microsoft," Suleyman said, while stressing the partnership with OpenAI would continue "until 2030 at least."

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An anonymous reader shares a report: Yet another busy hurricane season is likely across the Atlantic this year -- but some of the conditions that supercharged storms like Hurricanes Helene and Milton in 2024 have waned, according to a key forecast issued Thursday. A warm -- yet no longer record-hot -- strip of waters across the Atlantic Ocean is forecast to help fuel development of 17 named tropical cyclones during the season that runs from June 1 through Nov. 30, according to Colorado State University researchers. Of those tropical cyclones, nine are forecast to become hurricanes, with four of those expected to reach "major" hurricane strength. That would mean a few more tropical storms and hurricanes than in an average year, yet slightly quieter conditions than those observed across the Atlantic basin last year. This time last year, researchers from CSU were warning of an "extremely active" hurricane season with nearly two dozen named tropical storms. The next month, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration released an aggressive forecast, warning the United States could face one of its worst hurricane seasons in two decades. The forecast out Thursday underscores how warming oceans and cyclical patterns in storm activity have primed the Atlantic basin for what is now a decades-long string of frequent, above-normal -- but not necessarily hyperactive -- seasons, said Philip Klotzbach, a senior research scientist at Colorado State and the forecast's lead author.

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Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto's ambitious plan to create 1 million hectares of new rice farms in eastern Merauke Regency faces strong criticism from scientists who have warned it will fail due to unsuitable soils and climate. Military "food brigades" are currently guarding bulldozers clearing swampy forests in Indonesian New Guinea for the project, which aims to boost food self-sufficiency for the nation's 281 million people. Soil scientists warn that Merauke's conditions could lead to acidic soils unable to support economically viable rice farming, potentially resulting in abandoned fields vulnerable to wildfires. "Farmers will get no profit at all," said Dwi Andreas, a soil scientist at Bogor Agricultural University who tested 12 rice varieties in similar soils with poor results. The initiative mirrors past failed megaprojects, including a 1990s attempt to convert 1 million hectares of Borneo peatlands to rice paddies and a 2020 onion and potato farming expansion in North Sumatra that saw 90% of fields abandoned. A previous 2010 attempt to expand rice farming in Merauke also failed, destroying forests that Indigenous Papuans relied on and increasing childhood malnutrition, according to anthropologist Laksmi Adriani.

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Web crawlers collecting training data for AI models are overwhelming Wikipedia's infrastructure, with bot traffic growing exponentially since early 2024, according to the Wikimedia Foundation. According to data released April 1, bandwidth for multimedia content has surged 50% since January, primarily from automated programs scraping Wikimedia Commons' 144 million openly licensed media files. This unprecedented traffic is causing operational challenges for the non-profit. When Jimmy Carter died in December 2024, his Wikipedia page received 2.8 million views in a day, while a 1.5-hour video of his 1980 presidential debate caused network traffic to double, resulting in slow page loads for some users. Analysis shows 65% of the foundation's most resource-intensive traffic comes from bots, despite bots accounting for only 35% of total pageviews. The foundation's Site Reliability team now routinely blocks overwhelming crawler traffic to prevent service disruptions. "Our content is free, our infrastructure is not," the foundation said, announcing plans to establish sustainable boundaries for automated content consumption.

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An anonymous reader shares a report: A Microsoft employee disrupted the company's 50th anniversary event to protest its use of AI. "Shame on you," said Microsoft employee Ibtihal Aboussad, speaking directly to Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman. "You are a war profiteer. Stop using AI for genocide. Stop using AI for genocide in our region. You have blood on your hands. All of Microsoft has blood on its hands. How dare you all celebrate when Microsoft is killing children. Shame on you all."

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Hackers targeting Australia's major pension funds in a series of coordinated attacks have stolen savings from some members at the biggest fund, Reuters is reporting, citing a source, and compromised more than 20,000 accounts. From the report: National Cyber Security Coordinator Michelle McGuinness said in a statement she was aware of "cyber criminals" targeting accounts in the country's A$4.2 trillion ($2.63 trillion) retirement savings sector and was organising a response across the government, regulators and industry. The Association of Superannuation Funds of Australia, the industry body, said "a number" of funds were impacted over the weekend. While the full scale of the incident remains unclear, AustralianSuper, Australian Retirement Trust, Rest, Insignia and Hostplus on Friday all confirmed they suffered breaches.

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An anonymous reader shares a report: The gap between Windows 10 and Windows 11 continues to narrow, and Microsoft's flagship operating system is on track to finally surpass its predecessor by summer. The latest figures from Statcounter show the increase in Windows 11's market share accelerating, while Windows 10 declines. Before Champagne corks start popping in Redmond, it is worth noting that Windows 10 still accounts for over half the market -- 54.2 percent -- and Windows 11 now accounts for 42.69 percent. However, if the current trends continue, Windows 10 should finally drop below the 50 percent mark next month and be surpassed by Windows 11 shortly after. The cause is likely due to enterprises pushing the upgrade button rather than having to deal with extended support for Windows 10. Support for most Windows 10 versions ends on October 14, 2025, and Microsoft has shown no signs of deviating from its plan to retire the veteran operating system. [...] Whether users actually want the operating system is another matter. Windows 11 offers few compelling features that justify an upgrade and no killer application. The looming October 14 support cut-off date is likely to be the major driving factor behind the move to Windows 11.

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An anonymous reader shares a report: AI is projected to reach $4.8 trillion in market value by 2033, but the technology's benefits remain highly concentrated, according to the U.N. Trade and Development agency. In a report released on Thursday, UNCTAD said the AI market cap would roughly equate to the size of Germany's economy, with the technology offering productivity gains and driving digital transformation. However, the agency also raised concerns about automation and job displacement, warning that AI could affect 40% of jobs worldwide. On top of that, AI is not inherently inclusive, meaning the economic gains from the tech remain "highly concentrated," the report added. "The benefits of AI-driven automation often favour capital over labour, which could widen inequality and reduce the competitive advantage of low-cost labour in developing economies," it said. The potential for AI to cause unemployment and inequality is a long-standing concern, with the IMF making similar warnings over a year ago. In January, The World Economic Forum released findings that as many as 41% of employers were planning on downsizing their staff in areas where AI could replicate them. However, the UNCTAD report also highlights inequalities between nations, with U.N. data showing that 40% of global corporate research and development spending in AI is concentrated among just 100 firms, mainly those in the U.S. and China.

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Camera manufacturers continue to use different proprietary RAW file formats despite the 20-year existence of Adobe's open-source DNG (Digital Negative) format, creating ongoing compatibility challenges for photographers and software developers. Major manufacturers including Sony, Canon, and Panasonic defended their proprietary formats as necessary for maintaining control over image processing. Sony's product team told The Verge their ARW format allows them "to maximize performance based on device characteristics such as the image sensor and image processing engine." Canon similarly claims proprietary formats enable "optimum processing during image development." The Verge argues that this fragmentation forces editing software to specifically support each manufacturer's format and every new camera model -- creating delays for early adopters when new cameras launch. Each new device requires "measuring sensor characteristics such as color and noise," said Adobe's Eric Chan. For what it's worth, smaller manufacturers like Ricoh, Leica, and Sigma have adopted DNG, which streamlines workflow by containing metadata directly within a single file rather than requiring separate XMP sidecar files.

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China said Friday that it will impose reciprocal 34% tariffs on all imports from the United States from April 10, making good on a promise to strike back after US President Donald Trump escalated a global trade war. CNN: On Wednesday, Trump unveiled an additional 34% tariff on all Chinese goods imported into the US, in a move poised to cause a major reset of relations and worsen trade tensions between the world's two largest economies. "This practice of the US is not in line with international trade rules, seriously undermines China's legitimate rights and interests, and is a typical unilateral bullying practice," China's State Council Tariff Commission said in a statement announcing its retaliatory tariffs. Since returning to power in January, Trump had already levied two tranches of 10% additional duties on all Chinese imports, which the White House said was necessary to stem the flow of illicit fentanyl from the country to the US. Combined with pre-existing tariffs, that means Chinese goods arriving in the US would be effectively subject to tariffs of well over 54%.

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Air conditioning will contribute more to rising global energy demand than data centers through 2030, according to an International Energy Agency. While attention has focused on computing power consumption, the IEA projects data centers will account for less than 10% of increased energy demand by 2030, significantly less than space cooling requirements. Global cooling degree days, a measure of air conditioning need, were 6% higher in 2024 than 2023 and 20% above the long-term average for the first two decades of the century. China, India and the United States saw particularly sharp increases. Air conditioning represented 7% of global electricity consumption in 2022, with some U.S. regions reporting that cooling can comprise over 70% of residential energy use during peak periods. The number of air conditioning units worldwide could nearly triple from fewer than 2 billion in 2016 to approximately 6 billion by 2050, creating a growing challenge for power grids.

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Intel and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. have reached a preliminary agreement to form a joint venture operating Intel's chipmaking facilities, with TSMC taking a 20% stake, The Information reports [non-paywalled source]. Intel and other U.S. semiconductor companies would hold the majority of shares in the proposed venture. Instead of capital investment, TSMC has discussed sharing chipmaking methods and training Intel personnel. The talks face internal opposition from some Intel executives concerned about widespread layoffs and the abandonment of Intel's own technology, according to the report. The deal could help TSMC neutralize a struggling competitor while potentially giving Taiwan more leverage with the U.S. administration, which recently imposed tariffs on Taiwanese goods excluding chips.

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An anonymous reader shares a report: Microsoft's business-oriented "Link" mini-desktop PC, which connects directly to the company's Windows 365 cloud service, is now available to buy for $349.99 in the US and in several other countries. Windows 365 Link, which was announced last November, is a device that is more easily manageable by IT departments than a typical computer while also reducing the needs of hands on support.

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An anonymous reader shares a report: Oracle has told customers that a hacker broke into a computer system and stole old client log-in credentials, according to two people familiar with the matter. It's the second cybersecurity breach that the software company has acknowledged to clients in the last month. Oracle staff informed some clients this week that the attacker gained access to usernames, passkeys and encrypted passwords, according to the people, who spoke on condition that they not be identified because they're not authorized to discuss the matter. Oracle also told them that the FBI and cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike are investigating the incident, according to the people, who added that the attacker sought an extortion payment from the company. Oracle told customers that the intrusion is separate from another hack that the company flagged to some health-care customers last month, the people said.

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The climate crisis is on track to destroy capitalism, a top insurer has warned, with the vast cost of extreme weather impacts leaving the financial sector unable to operate. From a report: The world is fast approaching temperature levels where insurers will no longer be able to offer cover for many climate risks, said Günther Thallinger, on the board of Allianz SE, one of the world's biggest insurance companies. He said that without insurance, which is already being pulled in some places, many other financial services become unviable, from mortgages to investments. Global carbon emissions are still rising and current policies will result in a rise in global temperature between 2.2C and 3.4C above pre-industrial levels. The damage at 3C will be so great that governments will be unable to provide financial bailouts and it will be impossible to adapt to many climate impacts, said Thallinger, who is also the chair of the German company's investment board and was previously CEO of Allianz Investment Management. The core business of the insurance industry is risk management and it has long taken the dangers of global heating very seriously. In recent reports, Aviva said extreme weather damages for the decade to 2023 hit $2tn, while GallagherRE said the figure was $400bn in 2024. Zurich said it was "essential" to hit net zero by 2050.

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Climate startup Aspiration, which boasted a roster of celebrity backers and arranged carbon credits for Meta Platforms, Microsoft and other large companies, filed bankruptcy weeks after its co-founder was arrested on fraud charges. From a report: CTN Holdings, as the company is now known, has about $170 million in debt. The goal of the bankruptcy is to sell its assets as quickly as possible in order to repay creditors, chief restructuring officer Miles Staglik said in a court filing. The pool of potential bidders is small and the nature of the CTN's ventures will likely require more cash and "long term horizons before any potential value could be realized for creditors," Staglik said. The bankruptcy was filed after co-founder Joseph Sanberg was charged by federal prosecutors with conspiring to defraud two investor funds of at least $145 million, according to a US Department of Justice announcement earlier this month. The charges involve his personal conduct and don't implicate CTN or its affiliates "in any criminal activity," said Staglik, a managing director at CR3 Partners that's been hired as CTN's restructuring adviser.

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Intel has unveiled a refresh of its iconic brand identity, introducing the slogan "That's the power of Intel Inside" to reconnect with consumers and highlight the chipmaker's role in modern computing. The new campaign resurrects the familiar "Intel Inside" theme that helped transform the company into a household name in the 1990s, when Intel's marketing strategy directly targeted consumers rather than system designers. Brett Hannath, Intel's chief marketing officer, said the message reflects the company's belief that its products can unlock potential for employees, customers, consumers and partners. The original "Intel Inside" campaign, launched in 1991, revolutionized tech marketing by making processors a key selling point for PCs with its recognizable sticker and five-note jingle. The strategy helped Intel differentiate itself from competitors like AMD and Cyrix during the PC market explosion.

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Despite promises of more efficient streaming, the AV1 video codec hasn't achieved widespread adoption seven years after its 2018 debut, even with backing from tech giants Netflix, Microsoft, Google, Amazon, and Meta. The Alliance for Open Media (AOMedia) claims AV1 is 30% more efficient than standards like HEVC, delivering higher-quality video at lower bandwidth while remaining royalty-free. Major services including YouTube, Netflix, and Amazon Prime Video have embraced the technology, with Netflix encoding approximately 95% of its content using AV1. However, adoption faces significant hurdles. Many streaming platforms including Max, Peacock, and Paramount Plus haven't implemented AV1, partly due to hardware limitations. Devices require specific decoders to properly support AV1, though recent products from Apple, Nvidia, AMD, and Intel have begun including them. "In order to get its best features, you have to accept a much higher encoding complexity," Larry Pearlstein, associate professor at the College of New Jersey, told The Verge. "But there is also higher decoding complexity, and that is on the consumer end."

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databasecowgirl writes: Commenting in The Times on the absurdity of Meta's copyright infringement claims, Caitlin Moran defines Schrodinger's economics: where a company is both [one of] the most valuable on the planet yet also too poor to pay for the materials it profits from. Ultimately "move fast and break things" means breaking other people's things. Or, possibly worse, going full 'The Talented Mr Ripley': slowly feeling so entitled to the things you are enamored of that you end up clubbing out the brains of your beloved in a boat.

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Microsoft has pulled back on data center projects around the world, suggesting the company is taking a harder look at its plans to build the server farms powering artificial intelligence and the cloud. From a report: The software company has recently halted talks for, or delayed development of, sites in Indonesia, the UK, Australia, Illinois, North Dakota and Wisconsin, according to people familiar with the situation. Microsoft is widely seen as a leader in commercializing AI services, largely thanks to its close partnership with OpenAI. Investors closely track Microsoft's spending plans to get a sense of long-term customer demand for cloud and AI services. It's hard to know how much of the company's data center pullback reflects expectations of diminished demand versus temporary construction challenges, such as shortages of power and building materials. Some investors have interpreted signs of retrenchment as an indication that projected purchases of AI services don't justify Microsoft's massive outlays on server farms. Those concerns have weighed on global tech stocks in recent weeks, particularly chipmakers like Nvidia which suck up a significant share of data center budgets.

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Online scam operations across Southeast Asia are rapidly adapting to recent crackdowns, adopting AI and expanding globally despite the release of 7,000 trafficking victims from compounds along the Myanmar-Thailand border, experts say. These releases represent just a fraction of an estimated 100,000 people trapped in facilities run by criminal syndicates that rake in billions through investment schemes and romance scams targeting victims worldwide, CNN reports. "Billions of dollars are being invested in these kinds of businesses," said Kannavee Suebsang, a Thai lawmaker leading efforts to free those held in scam centers. "They will not stop." Crime groups are exploiting AI to write scamming scripts and using deepfakes to create personas, while networks have expanded to Africa, South Asia, and the Pacific region, according to the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime. "This is a situation the region has never faced before," said John Wojcik, a UN organized crime analyst. "The evolving situation is trending towards something far more dangerous than scams alone."

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The European Commission has announced its intention to join the ongoing debate about lawful access to data and end-to-end encryption while unveiling a new internal security strategy aimed to address ongoing threats. From a report: ProtectEU, as the strategy has been named, describes the general areas that the bloc's executive would like to address in the coming years although as a strategy it does not offer any detailed policy proposals. In what the Commission called "a changed security environment and an evolving geopolitical landscape," it said Europe needed to "review its approach to internal security." Among its aims is establishing Europol as "a truly operational police agency to reinforce support to Member States," something potentially comparable to the U.S. FBI, with a role "in investigating cross-border, large-scale, and complex cases posing a serious threat to the internal security of the Union." Alongside the new Europol, the Commission said it would create roadmaps regarding both the "lawful and effective access to data for law enforcement" and on encryption.

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Microsoft is pushing businesses to shift away from perpetual Office licenses to Microsoft 365 subscriptions, citing collaboration limitations and rising IT costs associated with standalone software. "You may have started noticing limitations," Microsoft says in a post. "Your apps are stuck on your desktop, limiting productivity anytime you're away from your office. You can't easily access your files or collaborate when working remotely." In its pitch, the Windows-maker says Microsoft 365 includes Office applications as well as security features, AI tools, and cloud storage. The post cites a Microsoft-commissioned Forrester study that claims the subscription model delivers "223% ROI over three years, with a payback period of less than six months" and "over $500,000 in benefits over three years."

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The FBI searched two homes of Indiana University Bloomington data privacy professor Xiaofeng Wang last week, following months of university inquiries into whether he received unreported research funding from China, WIRED reported Wednesday. Wang, who leads the Center for Distributed Confidential Computing established with a $3 million National Science Foundation grant, was terminated on March 28 via email from the university provost. The university had contacted Wang in December regarding a 2017-2018 grant in China that listed him as a researcher, questioning whether he properly disclosed the funding to IU and in applications for U.S. federal research grants. Jason Covert, Wang's attorney, said Wang and his wife Nianli Ma, whose employee profile was also removed, are "safe" and neither has been arrested. The couple's legal team has viewed a search warrant but received no affidavit establishing probable cause.

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An AI system has for the first time figured out how to collect diamonds in the hugely popular video game Minecraft -- a difficult task requiring multiple steps -- without being shown how to play. Its creators say the system, called Dreamer, is a step towards machines that can generalize knowledge learned in one domain to new situations, a major goal of AI. From a report: "Dreamer marks a significant step towards general AI systems," says Danijar Hafner, a computer scientist at Google DeepMind in San Francisco, California. "It allows AI to understand its physical environment and also to self-improve over time, without a human having to tell it exactly what to do." Hafner and his colleagues describe Dreamer in a study in Nature published on 2 April. In Minecraft, players explore a virtual 3D world containing a variety of terrains, including forests, mountains, deserts and swamps. Players use the world's resources to create objects, such as chests, fences and swords -- and collect items, among the most prized of which are diamonds. Importantly, says Hafner, no two experiences are the same. Every time you play Minecraft, it's a new, randomly generated world," he says. This makes it useful for challenging an AI system that researchers want to be able to generalize from one situation to the next. "You have to really understand what's in front of you; you can't just memorize a specific strategy," he says.

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An anonymous reader shares a report: Amazon has put in a last-minute bid to acquire all of TikTok, the popular video app, as it approaches an April deadline to be separated from its Chinese owner or face a ban in the United States, according to three people familiar with the bid. Various parties who have been involved in the talks do not appear to be taking Amazon's bid seriously, the people said. The bid came via an offer letter addressed to Vice President JD Vance and Howard Lutnick, the commerce secretary, according to a person briefed on the matter. Amazon's bid highlights the 11th-hour maneuvering in Washington over TikTok's ownership. Policymakers in both parties have expressed deep national security concerns over the app's Chinese ownership, and passed a law last year to force a sale of TikTok that was set to take effect in January.

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Microsoft Chief Technology Officer Kevin Scott has predicted that AI will generate 95% of code within five years. Speaking on the 20VC podcast, Scott said AI would not replace software engineers but transform their role. "It doesn't mean that the AI is doing the software engineering job.... authorship is still going to be human," Scott said. According to Scott, developers will shift from writing code directly to guiding AI through prompts and instructions. "We go from being an input master (programming languages) to a prompt master (AI orchestrator)," he said. Scott said the current AI systems have significant memory limitations, making them "awfully transactional," but predicted improvements within the next year.

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Newcomer: Keith O'Brien, the man who allegedly spied for Deel while working at Rippling, is apparently clearing his conscience, according to a sworn Irish affidavit. O'Brien says in the affidavit that Deel paid him to spy on Rippling and that he coordinated directly with Deel's CEO, Alex Bouaziz. For some background, Alex Bouaziz is Deel's CEO and Philippe Bouaziz is his father, Deel's CFO. Rippling, which competes directly with Deel, has sued Deel over the alleged spying. O'Brien says in the affidavit: I decided to cooperate after I got a text from a friend on March 25, 2025 saying, "the truth will set you free." I was also driving with a family member to meet my solicitors and she told me that if I had done something wrong that I should "just tell the truth." I was having bad thoughts at the time; it was a horrible time for me. I was getting sick concealing this lie. I realised that I was harming myself and my family to protect Deel. I was concerned, and I am still concerned, about how wealthy and powerful Alex and Philippe are, but I know that what I was doing was wrong. After I spoke with my solicitors at Fenecas Law, I started to feel a sense of relief. I want to do what I can to start making amends and righting these wrongs. Deel CEO allegedly agreed to pay O'Brien 5000 euros a month.

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