Webtagr - Technology News Summarizer

Undersea Cables Become Ocean Sensors: Monitoring Currents and Climate

2025-07-17

Scientists have ingeniously repurposed existing transatlantic fiber-optic cables as ocean sensors, developing a new instrument that measures subtle changes in light signals to monitor water temperature and pressure. Without disrupting their primary function, the system uses reflections from repeaters spaced every 50-100 kilometers along the cable to measure variations in light travel time, inferring data such as daily and weekly water temperature and tide patterns. This groundbreaking research offers a cost-effective way to monitor the ocean environment, improving our understanding of ocean currents, climate change, and natural hazards like tsunamis.

(phys.org)

Tech Fiber Optic Sensors Submarine Cables

MIT's Revolutionary Bionic Knee: Walking Redefined

2025-07-17

MIT researchers have developed a groundbreaking bionic knee that allows above-knee amputees to walk faster, climb stairs, and navigate obstacles with greater ease than traditional prostheses. Directly integrated with muscle and bone tissue, this system offers superior stability and control, providing a more natural and embodied experience. The technology combines agonist-antagonist myoneuronal interface (AMI) surgery, reconnecting muscle pairs for improved sensory feedback, and an osseointegrated system (e-OPRA), using a titanium implant for enhanced stability and signal transduction. Clinical studies demonstrate significant improvements in gait, stair climbing, and obstacle avoidance compared to traditional prosthetics, with users reporting a stronger sense of limb ownership.

(news.mit.edu)

Tech Bionics Prosthetics Biointegration

TikTok, AliExpress, and WeChat Face GDPR Complaints for Data Access Failures

2025-07-17

The non-profit noyb has filed three GDPR complaints against TikTok, AliExpress, and WeChat for failing to adequately respond to data access requests, violating Articles 12 and 15. The investigation revealed incomplete data provision, and even outright ignoring of requests, preventing users from verifying the lawfulness of data processing. noyb filed complaints with Belgian, Greek, and Dutch data protection authorities, seeking fines and enforcement of GDPR compliance.

(noyb.eu)

Tech

Google's AI Now Makes Calls for You to Local Businesses

2025-07-17

Google has launched a new feature in the US that lets its AI make calls to local businesses on your behalf, handling inquiries about pricing and availability for services like pet grooming or dry cleaning. Users simply specify their needs in Google Search, and the AI takes over, eliminating the need for phone calls. Powered by Google's Duplex model and Gemini AI, the system gathers information and sends updates via text or email. While available to all, paid subscribers get higher usage limits. Google is also testing its advanced Gemini 2.5 Pro in AI Mode, along with integrating Deep Search for more comprehensive query results.

(www.theverge.com)

Tech

Meta's AI-Optimized Concrete Cuts Data Center Emissions

2025-07-17

Meta partnered with Amrize to develop a new, AI-optimized concrete mix for its upcoming Rosemount, Minnesota data center. Leveraging open-source AI models and real-world data, this innovative concrete is projected to reduce the carbon footprint by 35% compared to traditional mixes, without sacrificing strength or construction speed. This collaboration showcases the potential of AI in materials science and sustainable infrastructure development.

(nerds.xyz)

Tech

VMware's Partner Purge: Broadcom Shakes Up the Cloud Again

2025-07-17

Broadcom, VMware's parent company, is once again drastically reshaping its partner program, leaving many smaller players out in the cold. The changes, effective October 31st, 2025, will sunset the white label program and prevent uninvited partners from signing new contracts. This has sparked outrage among partners and customers who face challenges renewing licenses, potential service quality drops, and increased migration costs. This isn't Broadcom's first major partner shakeup; a previous cull caused significant instability. While Broadcom claims these moves optimize its private cloud strategy, its erratic approach has eroded trust.

(www.theregister.com)

Tech Partner Program

China's New Phone-Hacking Malware: Massistant

2025-07-17

Security researchers have uncovered a new malware, Massistant, used by Chinese authorities to extract data from seized phones. Developed by Xiamen Meiya Pico, this Android software allows access to text messages (including from apps like Signal), images, location data, audio recordings, contacts, and more. While physical access is required, its widespread use poses significant risks to Chinese residents and visitors. Although Massistant leaves traces, allowing potential removal via tools like the Android Debug Bridge, the data is already compromised by the time of installation. Xiamen Meiya Pico, holding a reported 40% share of China's digital forensics market, was sanctioned by the U.S. in 2021. The company did not respond to requests for comment.

(techcrunch.com)

Tech china

Intel Cuts Over 5,000 Jobs in Restructuring Amidst AI Shift

2025-07-17

Intel is undertaking a major restructuring, laying off over 5,000 employees across four US states to streamline operations and focus on AI. The cuts, impacting California, Oregon, Arizona, and Texas, are part of CEO Lip-Bu Tan's plan to address the company's losses and lagging competitiveness in the semiconductor market. Tan aims to make Intel leaner, faster, and more focused on core AI products to regain its footing.

(www.manufacturingdive.com)

Tech

Stellantis Scraps Hydrogen Fuel Cell Van Production

2025-07-17

Stellantis has halted its hydrogen fuel cell van production program in France and Poland. Citing low energy density, inefficient production, lack of infrastructure, high costs, and limited market demand, the company deemed the project economically unsustainable in the mid-term. Stellantis assures that no job losses will occur, with R&D staff reassigned to other projects.

(arstechnica.com)

Tech

Autism and Gait: Understanding the Differences

2025-07-17

A new study highlights diverse gait differences in autistic individuals, including toe-walking, in-toeing, and out-toeing. These differences aren't simply developmental delays, but stem from variations in brain development within the basal ganglia and cerebellum. Often accompanied by other motor skill challenges, the study emphasizes that not all gait differences require treatment; instead, an individualized approach focusing on functional impact is crucial. Community-based interventions like sports and dance can improve motor skills and social interaction in autistic children.

(www.sciencealert.com)

Tech gait neurodevelopment

Xbox Security: A Case Study in Epic Failure

2025-07-17

This article dissects the catastrophic failures in the design and implementation of the Xbox gaming console's security system. Microsoft, in an attempt to prevent game copying and unauthorized software, designed a trust-chain based system riddled with design and implementation flaws. From using the vulnerable RC4 algorithm as a hash function, to overlooking the Intel CPU's address space wrap-around behavior and underestimating RAM initialization complexities, Microsoft made a series of elementary mistakes, ultimately leading to the easy circumvention of the Xbox's security. Hackers exploited these vulnerabilities to successfully run Linux and homebrew software, even enabling game copying. This case serves as a stark reminder of the need for thorough security system design, cautioning against compromising security for cost savings.

(xboxdevwiki.net)

Tech security flaws

Intel Layoffs Shake Oregon's Economy

2025-07-17

Intel's job cuts in Oregon are raising concerns about the state's economy. Since August, Intel has eliminated at least 5,400 jobs, including 2,400 last week alone, dropping its Oregon workforce to its lowest point in over a decade. These layoffs, primarily impacting high-paying tech roles, significantly impact Oregon's tax revenue and economic growth. While Intel claims Oregon remains central to its future, the cuts highlight the state's dependence on Intel and its vulnerability to challenges in the tech industry. Oregon is grappling with this challenge, seeking economic diversification and attracting other tech companies to offset Intel's job losses.

(www.oregonlive.com)

Tech Oregon economy

Bedrock Robotics Secures $80M for Self-Driving Construction Tech

2025-07-17

Bedrock Robotics, a stealth startup founded by Waymo and Segment veterans, emerged from stealth mode with an $80 million Series A funding round led by Eclipse and 8VC. The company is developing a retrofittable autonomous driving kit for construction and other worksite vehicles. The team boasts significant experience from leading companies in the autonomous vehicle space. Bedrock is currently testing its technology in Arizona, Texas, California, and Arkansas with four major construction firms. This funding round underscores the growing interest and investment in autonomous solutions for off-road environments.

(techcrunch.com)

Tech construction tech

wttr.in: The CLI Weather Forecasting Powerhouse

2025-07-17

wttr.in is a powerful command-line weather forecasting service supporting various output formats, including terminal ANSI sequences, HTML, and PNG. Initially a small project, it's evolved into a popular service handling tens of millions of queries daily. It supports diverse query methods—city names, airport codes, coordinates—and offers extensive customization options such as units, language, and output format. Furthermore, wttr.in boasts moon phase display, multilingual support, and seamless integration with various terminal environments, making it a concise and efficient weather information retrieval tool.

(github.com)

Tech

Art-Inspired Discovery: The Third Kind of Magnetism

2025-07-16

Inspired by M.C. Escher's artwork, physicist Libor Šmejkal predicted and confirmed a third type of magnetism – altermagnetism. Unlike ferromagnetism and antiferromagnetism, altermagnets have atomic magnetic moments pointing in opposite directions but with a 90-degree rotation, resulting in unique quantum properties. This new magnetism promises to solve challenges in spintronics, leading to more efficient and faster computer memory. Researchers have confirmed altermagnetism in manganese telluride and are exploring more such materials, even predicting a fourth type: antialtermagnetism.

(www.newscientist.com)

Tech

Nvidia's H20 AI Chips Flood Back into China, Spurring a Rush of Orders

2025-07-16

Reuters reports that Chinese firms are scrambling to order Nvidia's H20 AI chips as the company prepares to resume sales to mainland China. Nvidia expects imminent US government licenses to restart shipments of the restricted processors, just days after CEO Jensen Huang met with President Trump, potentially adding $15 billion to $20 billion in revenue this year. This surge follows the 2022 launch of ChatGPT, highlighting the link between Nvidia's financial success and the demand for specialized hardware to efficiently power AI models. While the H20 chips are Nvidia's most powerful legally available in China, they are less potent than versions sold elsewhere due to 2022 export restrictions; Nvidia remains banned from selling its most powerful GPUs in China.

(arstechnica.com)

Tech

Ukrainian Hackers Cripple Major Russian Drone Manufacturer

2025-07-16

In a significant cyberattack, Ukrainian cyber activists, working with military intelligence, successfully paralyzed Gaskar Integration, a leading Russian drone manufacturer. The attack resulted in the destruction of over 47TB of critical data, crippling internal systems and halting production. The BO Team, a prominent hacker group, claimed responsibility, releasing information detailing close collaboration between Gaskar and China. The compromised data included technical documentation on drone production, now in the hands of Ukrainian defense forces. The attack highlights the growing role of cyber warfare in the ongoing conflict.

(prm.ua)

Tech cyberwarfare

Oracle Java's High Costs Drive Businesses to Open Source

2025-07-16

A survey of 500 IT asset managers using Oracle Java reveals that 73% have been audited in the past three years, and nearly 80% have migrated or plan to migrate to open-source Java to avoid high costs and risks. Oracle's repeated pricing model changes since 2018 have led to significant price hikes, with many users facing yearly costs exceeding $500,000. The survey shows only 14% intend to stick with Oracle's subscription model, highlighting the challenges and high costs of software licensing compliance for businesses.

(www.theregister.com)

Tech

Phoronix Founder Michael Larabel: 20 Years of Linux Hardware Expertise

2025-07-16

Michael Larabel, founder and principal author of Phoronix.com, has dedicated over two decades to enriching the Linux hardware experience since launching the site in 2004. He's penned over 20,000 articles covering Linux hardware support, performance, graphics drivers, and more. Larabel is also the lead developer of automated benchmarking software including the Phoronix Test Suite, Phoromatic, and OpenBenchmarking.org.

(www.phoronix.com)

Tech Hardware Testing

S&P 500 Firms Quietly Worry About AI Risks

2025-07-16

Despite public pronouncements of AI's business opportunities, a growing number of S&P 500 companies are listing AI among their major risks in official financial filings. Research from The Autonomy Institute reveals that three-quarters of S&P 500 firms have updated their risk disclosures to detail AI-related concerns, including cybersecurity threats (like deepfakes and malicious code generation), data privacy, intellectual property issues, and reliance on third-party AI vendors. Some even warn of potential losses on AI investments. While public discourse focuses on job displacement, corporate concerns center on AI harming business interests and exposing sensitive data. This shift highlights a growing corporate awareness of AI risks.

(www.theregister.com)

Tech corporate risk disclosure

40-Hour Whole-Body Connectome Mapping of a Mouse: A Breakthrough Imaging Technique

2025-07-16

Scientists have developed a high-speed imaging technique that can map the detailed three-dimensional connectome of a mouse's entire nervous system in just 40 hours, achieving micrometer-scale resolution. This technique utilizes a custom-built microscope to scan a cleared and labelled sample, enabling precise tracing of nerve fibers from the brain and spinal cord to organs throughout the body. This provides a powerful tool for connectomics research. Published in *Cell*, this breakthrough represents significant progress in the field and lays the foundation for future understanding of neurological diseases and the development of new treatments.

(www.nature.com)

Tech Imaging Technology

NASA's 2026 Budget: Less Robotics, More Humans?

2025-07-16

The House version of NASA's FY2026 budget boosts exploration funding by roughly 25 percent, but cuts science and space technology. While a five-year budget plan for SLS and Orion suggests their continuation, cuts to science programs could lead to cancellations or delays for robotic missions. Rep. Grace Meng expressed concern that this will hinder US progress in space exploration and climate science. The final budget is still months away and its outcome remains uncertain.

(arstechnica.com)

Tech NASA budget robotic missions

NIST Creates World's Most Accurate Atomic Clock: 19 Decimal Places of Precision

2025-07-16

Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have developed the world's most accurate atomic clock, based on a trapped aluminum ion, achieving an astounding 19 decimal places of precision. This breakthrough, built on 20 years of continuous improvement, boasts 41% greater accuracy and 2.6 times the stability of previous records. The team cleverly paired the aluminum ion with magnesium, using 'quantum logic spectroscopy' to overcome the challenges of controlling aluminum ions. Further improvements involved redesigning the ion trap and vacuum chamber to address issues like excess micromotion and hydrogen gas interference. The use of an ultra-stable laser from JILA further enhanced precision. This achievement paves the way for redefining the second and exploring new frontiers in quantum physics, potentially even allowing for measurements of changes in fundamental constants of nature.

(www.nist.gov)

Tech

GPUHammer: Practical Rowhammer Attacks on GPU Memory

2025-07-16

Researchers from the University of Toronto have developed GPUHammer, the first successful Rowhammer attack against GPU memory, specifically GDDR6 memory in an NVIDIA A6000 GPU. The attack uses user-level CUDA code to bypass in-DRAM defenses like TRR, inducing bit flips across all tested DRAM banks. This allows a malicious user to tamper with other users' data in shared, time-sliced environments. A proof-of-concept demonstrated an accuracy degradation attack against a victim's DNN model, reducing accuracy from 80% to 0.1% with a single bit flip. While enabling ECC mitigates the risk, it can introduce up to a 10% slowdown for ML inference workloads on the A6000.

(gpuhammer.com)

Tech GPU Security

Ford's Assembly Line: The Unsung Centennial

2025-07-15

October 7, 1913, marked the quiet debut of the world's first moving assembly line at Ford's Highland Park plant. This innovation, far from a sudden breakthrough, evolved through meticulous experimentation. By borrowing from automated processes in other industries (like Chicago's meatpacking plants) and leveraging electricity, Ford dramatically reduced Model T assembly time from over 12 hours to under 3. This efficiency boost, coupled with continuous design improvements, led to mass production, lower costs, and a revolutionary impact on global heavy industry. Ironically, this pivotal moment initially lacked fanfare, its significance only fully recognized later.

(www.assemblymag.com)

Tech assembly line

AI's Power Hungry Colossus: Texas Data Center Expansion Strains Grid

2025-07-15

CoreWeave's acquisition of Core Scientific and subsequent expansion of its Denton, Texas data center is projected to double the city's electricity demand. Initially used for cryptocurrency mining, the facility's pivot to AI workloads has resulted in unrelenting power consumption, straining the local grid. Denton is covering added infrastructure costs and passing some expenses to the data center operator. While the project promises significant tax revenue and job creation, concerns remain about its impact on the already stressed Texas power grid, highlighting the challenges of AI's burgeoning energy needs.

(finance.yahoo.com)

Tech

Musk's xAI Employee Leaks API Key, Raising Security Concerns

2025-07-15

A 25-year-old employee at Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), Marko Elez, inadvertently leaked a private API key granting access to over 50 of xAI's large language models (LLMs). This raises serious concerns about government data security, especially given Elez's history: previously fired for racist posts and security breaches, he was later reinstated and granted access to sensitive databases across multiple government agencies. The leak highlights systemic security flaws and negligence within DOGE, exposing a pattern of irresponsible handling of government data.

(krebsonsecurity.com)

Tech API key leak

Apple's AI Stumble: Is a Mega-Acquisition the Answer?

2025-07-15

Apple Inc.'s stock has plummeted this year, losing over $640 billion in market value, fueled by concerns over its slow-moving AI strategy. Analysts suggest Apple needs to break with tradition, pursuing large acquisitions and aggressively recruiting AI talent. Acquiring the $14 billion AI startup Perplexity AI is mentioned as a potential game-changer. Despite its massive cash reserves, Apple's long-standing aversion to large mergers and acquisitions might need to shift to compete with rivals like Meta. Recent executive changes at Apple hint at a potential broad management shake-up to address its AI shortcomings.

(finance.yahoo.com)

Tech

Windows 11's Adaptive Energy Saver: Smart Power Saving Based on Load, Not Just Battery

2025-07-15

Microsoft is testing a new adaptive energy saver mode in Windows 11 that intelligently manages power consumption based on system load, not just remaining battery. Unlike the traditional energy saver, which dims the screen, this new mode maintains brightness while optimizing background processes, pausing non-critical updates, and more. It's designed for battery-powered devices like laptops and will automatically turn on and off as needed. Currently in testing for Canary Channel Insiders, it's expected to roll out later this year.

(www.theverge.com)

Tech Energy Saver

Saudi Arabia's Futuristic 'The Line' City Faces Major Setbacks

2025-07-15

Saudi Arabia's ambitious plan to build a futuristic 170km-long city, 'The Line,' a key part of the Neom megaproject, is facing significant challenges. The Public Investment Fund (PIF) has commissioned consultants to review the project's feasibility, following reports of substantial downsizing. The initial goal of 1.5 million residents by 2030 has reportedly been slashed to under 300,000, with only a small portion of the city expected to be completed by then. This reflects broader difficulties faced by Saudi Arabia's Vision 2030 projects due to high costs and falling oil prices, casting doubt on the future of 'The Line'.

(www.middleeasteye.net)

Tech The Line

Category: Tech