05 Sci-Tech

Chinese supercomputer displaces US machines as world’s fastest– abcnews.com

pgnewser June 24, 2026 0

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A supercomputer in China now outranks its U.S. counterparts as the world’s most powerful, marking the first time since 2017 that a Chinese computer has topped a list sometimes viewed as a measure of a nation’s technological prowess

A supercomputer in China now outranks its U.S. counterparts as the world’s most powerful, marking the first time since 2017 that a Chinese computer has topped a list sometimes viewed as a measure of a nation’s technological prowess.

The LineShine computer in Shenzhen, China, displaced top-ranked U.S. computer El Capitan in the latest version of the TOP500 ranking announced Tuesday. It was the Chinese computer’s debut on the list.

‘Unequivocal evidence’ of the age of Earth’s oldest impact crater turns out to be off by half a billion years– www.livescience.com

pgnewser June 24, 2026 0

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Earth’s oldest known impact crater formed when a meteorite slammed into what is now Australia about 3 billion years ago ‪—‬ 470 million years later than scientists previously claimed, a new study suggests.

The impact crater, known as the North Pole Dome crater, is located in Western Australia’s Pilbara region, which is home to some of the planet’s oldest rocks. It remains a record-breaking structure, beating the world’s next-oldest known meteorite impact crater — the Yarrabubba impact structure, also in Western Australia — by roughly 800 million years.

Journal retracts paper skeptical of ‘white power’ in psychology, says it conflicts with ‘values’– www.thecollegefix.com

pgnewser June 24, 2026 0

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Scholars deride move as censorship, threat to academic discourse

A New Zealand psychology journal recently retracted a paper questioning claims about science being a tool of “white power,” stating that it was “inconsistent” with the publication’s “values,” according to a former journal editor.

Now, the editors of the Journal of the New Zealand College of Clinical Psychologists are facing criticism from scholars across the globe.

Dr. Kumari Valentine, a psychologist and former editor of the journal, raised concerns about the retraction in an article Saturday on the substack Psychology at the Crossroads.

Oracle Cut 21,000 Jobs in 12 Months Amid AI Adoption– www.ndtv.com

pgnewser June 23, 2026 0

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Oracle Corp. reduced its workforce by 21,000 employees in the past 12 months, a wider scale than previously known, including those whose jobs were eliminated by the use of artificial intelligence.

“The adoption and deployment of AI technologies across our operations have resulted, and may continue to result, in reductions to our workforce,” Oracle said Monday in an annual financial regulatory filing.

The company’s global headcount shrank to 141,000 full-time employees as of the May 31 end of the fiscal year, compared with 162,000 a year earlier, Oracle said. The reductions led to about $1.8 billion in restructuring costs.

Oracle is under financial pressure because of an expensive build-out of AI data centers for customers like OpenAI. Earlier this year, it began cutting thousands of jobs as part of efforts to save cash, Bloomberg has reported. The exact scope of the cuts was never formally disclosed.

As of the end of May, the company had about 49,000 US workers while about 92,000 were employed internationally.

Meta Pauses Employee-Tracking Program Following Internal Data Leak– www.wired.com

pgnewser June 23, 2026 0

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Meta is pausing a divisive employee tracking program after an internal security issue exposed potentially sensitive data collected through the initiative to other workers.

“We have carefully designed this program with privacy safeguards and while we have no indication at this time that any data was improperly accessed by Meta employees, we’re pausing it while we investigate,” says company spokesperson Tracy Clayton.

Meta rolled out the Model Compatibility Initiative (MCI) tool in April to US employees. The tool “collects computer inputs such as mouse movements, click locations and keystrokes, as well as screen content,” according to workers who have been petitioning against it over privacy, security, and personal liberty concerns. When MCI first launched, employees couldn’t opt out, but that changed to a limited degree after workers protested.

Meta executives have repeatedly defended the data-gathering project, saying it was necessary to train AI systems to operate computer software the way humans do and that employees were the best examples for the artificial intelligence to learn from.

EU bets on digital euro to cut US tech addiction– www.channelnewsasia.com

pgnewser June 23, 2026 0

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BRUSSELS: The European Union (EU) believes a digital euro is the answer to cutting its addiction to United States payment systems like Visa and Mastercard, as well as Apple Pay and Google Pay, as the bloc seeks to favour European firms over others.

Brussels hopes it could provide an alternative local option for any payments in shops or online since people could easily pay, just like other systems, using a card, an app or via their banking app.

The EU will move one step closer on Tuesday (Jun 23) to creating a digital euro when EU lawmakers hold a long-awaited vote on the virtual currency.

California drivers sue gas stations for allegedly using AI to inflate prices | California– www.theguardian.com

pgnewser June 23, 2026 0

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Gas ⁠station ​operators including BP, Circle K, Marathon, 7-Eleven, Walmart and Albertsons were sued on Monday by California drivers ⁠who accused them of using artificial intelligence to boost prices at the pump.

According to a proposed class action, the defendants ⁠violated California’s main antitrust law, the Cartwright Act, by using an AI-based tool that ​uses data from competing gas ‌stations to “coordinate high prices ‌and wring more money from the pockets of consumers”.

The lawsuit in the ‌Sacramento federal court said the scheme violated assembly bill 325, a California law that took effect on 1 January and was intended to crack down on algorithmic price fixing.

America’s naval power transformation to be in spotlight at major Threat Status event– www.washingtontimes.com

pgnewser June 23, 2026 0

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U.S. naval power is undergoing its greatest transformation in a generation, and the nation’s status as the top global military superpower may hinge on the outcome.

That transformation and all the challenges that come with it — including advanced technology integration, shipbuilding labor shortages and budgetary tensions — will be at the center of a special event to be hosted Wednesday by The Washington Times’ Threat Status national security team at the U.S. Navy Memorial in Washington.

‘We Will Fight to Our Very Last Breath:’ Township Leaders Vow to Fight Nuclear AI Data Center– www.404media.co

pgnewser June 23, 2026 0

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Board members of a small township in Michigan agreed to “fight to our very last breath” against an AI data center planned in their community. America’s nuclear scientists and the University of Michigan want to build a massive data center in Ypsilanti Township, Michigan. If built, the data center will, among other things, run simulations to help America build nuclear weapons.

The residents of Ypsilanti Township overwhelmingly oppose the construction of the data center and voiced their opposition to the computer warehouse during a public board meeting on June 16. In a show of support that’s often rare from local leaders in communities with data centers, Ypsilanti Township’s board vowed to fight UofM and Los Alamos National Laboratory, which is partnering with the university, with everything they had.

Why More Data Centers Might Mean Cheaper Electricity | American Enterprise Institute– www.aei.org

pgnewser June 23, 2026 0

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Economics is full of counterintuitive insights. Rent control can make housing less affordable. Business failures can strengthen an economy. And, yes, higher demand can sometimes lower prices. That’s a possibility worth remembering in the ongoing debates over data centers and electricity bills.

It sure seems like we’re going to build a whole lot more data centers in this country—at least, that’s what Wall Street is expecting. JPMorgan just raised its forecast for data-center capacity growth to 138 gigawatts through 2030, up from 122 gigawatts in its forecast last November. The bank also said it expects $5.5 trillion in AI-related capex through 2030, up from its previous forecast of $5.1 trillion.

Confirmed Ebola cases in Congo top 1,000. More than a quarter have died, officials say.– www.cbsnews.com

pgnewser June 23, 2026 0

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Bunia, Congo — Confirmed cases in the Ebola outbreak in eastern Congo have reached 1,003, including 254 deaths, officials said, as tracing those who had been in contact with patients remains a major challenge.

A total of 100 people have recovered in the outbreak concentrated in the Ituri province since it was declared on May 15, Congo’s Ministry of Health said Sunday. At least 365 patients are in hospitals or in isolation, it said.

The Ebola outbreak caused by the rare Bundibugyo virus, which has no vaccines or treatment, was the worst ever in its first month.

Officials admit there could be far more cases they still don’t know about and that the peak of the outbreak is still ahead.

UK confirms social media ban for kids is coming – Meta, YouTube, and Snapchat respond– www.techspot.com

pgnewser June 17, 2026 0

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What just happened? The UK’s long-expected social media ban for under-16s has finally been confirmed by Prime Minister Keir Starmer, though it’s not expected to be introduced until spring 2027. The PM also revealed that livestreaming will be prohibited, while restrictions will be enabled by default for 17-year-olds.

The UK was one of several countries examining potential under-16 social media bans, following the lead of nations such as Australia.

On Monday, Starmer announced a full, rather than partial, ban as he is not “prepared to compromise on the safety and happiness of our children.”

“Social media is making children unhappy, it’s making it easier for bullies to harass and abuse them, and it could even be harming their mental health,” the Prime Minister added.

The ban also includes restrictions on online products such as gaming apps, including removing the option to message with strangers.

Pro-Life States Want to Protect People From Water Contaminated With Abortion Drugs– www.lifenews.com

pgnewser June 17, 2026 0

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Republicans are calling on federal authorities to impose stringent regulations on the abortion drug mifepristone, citing the dangers posed by the drug’s largely unregulated use to Americans’ drinking water. A coalition of 15 red state attorneys general is urging the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to add mifepristone to the agency’s Contaminant Candidate List, which would likely trigger safety studies and potentially stricter regulations under the Safe Drinking Water Act. The latest state to join the effort was Indiana.

Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita (R) said in a press release this week that the use of the abortion drug is “causing pain and suffering to women. … Obviously, this starts with the individuals persuaded by Planned Parenthood and Big Pharma to use mifepristone to abort their pregnancies, but increasingly it extends to other women who might ingest the drug from their local water supplies.” Rokita noted that when a woman ingests mifepristone, whether via the drug in pill form or via mifepristone contaminating drinking water, the chemicals block the natural production of the hormone progesterone and erodes an unborn baby’s uterine environment. “The baby, in effect, is starved to death in the womb,” the Hoosier State A.G.’s office said.

28,800 bath toys accidentally fell into the Pacific Ocean, and their journey revealed the secrets of ocean currents |– timesofindia.indiatimes.com

pgnewser June 17, 2026 0

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A cargo ship crossing the North Pacific encountered a powerful storm that swept several shipping containers into the ocean. One of those containers carried 28,800 plastic bath toys consisting of yellow ducks, blue turtles, red beavers, and green frogs. What appeared to be a routine shipping accident soon turned into one of the most unusual scientific experiments in history. As the toys drifted across oceans for years, researchers tracked their movements and used the information to gain a deeper understanding of how ocean currents move around the planet. The accidental spill provided scientists with valuable data that would have been extremely difficult and expensive to collect through traditional methods.

U.S. Anthropic ban opens door for open-source AI, particularly from China– fortune.com

pgnewser June 17, 2026 0

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The U.S. government’s decision to stop Anthropic from offering its Mythos and Fable 5 models to non-U.S. nationals may end up providing a big boost to the adoption of open-source models, including those from Chinese AI labs like DeepSeek and Moonshot AI.

Users can download open-source models and run them on their own computers or cloud networks, effectively sidestepping the ability of both AI developers and governments to control access. These models can also be more easily fine-tuned by developers to tailor them for specific needs.

Chinese labs are already claiming a public relations win from the Anthropic controversy.

How Anthropic lost the White House’s trust — and then its flagship product– www.washingtonpost.com

pgnewser June 17, 2026 0

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Trump administration officials began weighing sanctions on Anthropic weeks before they demanded the company take its latest and most advanced artificial intelligence model offline, after a dispute shattered the White House’s already-fragile trust in the company, according to two White House officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private deliberations.

 

This man with ALS is “the first power user” of a brain implant that lets him speak– www.technologyreview.com

pgnewser June 17, 2026 0

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“Living with a disease like ALS, you are supposed to have diminished dreams. I do not,” Harrell tells MIT Technology Review. “Any one of these things would be an absolute godsend of improvement. To have all of them, and many, many more, is truly revolutionary.”

Within the first 22.6 months after the device was implanted, Harrell had used it for more than 3,800 hours at home without any researchers present, the team reported today in the journal Nature Medicine. “He’s the first power user of a speech BCI,” says team member Sergey Stavisky, a neuroengineer at the University of California, Davis.

Unlocking UK house-building with AI-accelerated planning — Google DeepMind– deepmind.google

pgnewser June 17, 2026 0

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New UK government AI planning prototype built with Gemini aims to halve the time it takes to process homeowner applications

Around the world, Governments are exploring how AI can deliver better public services, faster. The UK is working to build 1.5 million new homes by 2029, but local planning authorities are often slowed down by dense paperwork and administrative backlogs. To help get Britain building, we’re partnering with the UK government to help radically shorten the time it takes to process householder planning applications. Our goal is to help officers cut application decision times by 50%, freeing up time for planners so that more homes can be built. We’re excited to see how our National Partnerships for AI, which seek to support reimagining of public services to create more resilient societies, can help Britain build faster.