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An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: University of Oregon chemist Christopher Hendon loves his coffee -- so much so that studying all the factors that go into creating the perfect cuppa constitutes a significant area of research for him. His latest project: discovering a novel means of measuring the flavor profile of coffee simply by sending an electrical current through a sample beverage. The results appear in a new paper published in the journal Nature Communications. [...] …

Apple's Vision Pro has been used in what's described as the world's first cataract surgery performed with the headset. MacRumors reports: [New York opthalmologist] Dr. Eric Rosenberg of SightMD completed the initial procedure in October 2025 and has since performed hundreds of additional cases using ScopeXR, a surgical platform he co-developed for Apple's mixed reality device. ScopeXR streams live feeds from 3D digital surgical microscopes directly into the Vision Pro, which lets the surgeon vi…

Sony is reportedly rolling out a 30-day online check-in requirement for some digital PS4 and PS5 games, meaning players could temporarily lose access if their console does not reconnect to renew the license. Tom's Hardware reports: In the info page of an affected game, you'd see a new validity period and a "remaining time" deadline. At first, this seemed like a software bug, but now PlayStation Support has confirmed its authenticity to multiple users. PlayStation owners are furious about the ch…

Apple is adding a new App Store subscription option that lets developers offer lower monthly prices in exchange for a 12-month commitment. "This model will allow developers to offer discounted rates to customers in exchange for more predictable long-term revenue," reports TechCrunch. "This also caters to how many developers have already been marketing their annual subscriptions in their apps." From the report: Often, app developers will display the lower monthly price to highlight the discount …

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Wired: For its famous intractability, the Bloomberg Terminal has long inspired devotion, bordering on obsession. Among traders, the ability to chart a path through the software's dizzying scrolls of numbers and text to isolate far-flung information is the mark of a seasoned professional. But as a greater mass of data is fed into the Terminal -- not only earnings and asset prices, but weather forecasts, shipping logs, factory locations, consumer spending …

Google has reportedly signed a classified agreement allowing the Pentagon to use its AI models for "any lawful government purpose." While the deal is said to discourage domestic mass surveillance and autonomous weapons without human oversight, it apparently does not give Google the power to block how the government actually uses its models. The Verge reports: The agreement was reported less than a day after Google employees demanded CEO Sundar Pichai block the Pentagon from using its AI amid co…

fjo3 writes: The United Arab Emirates announced Tuesday that it would exit the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (source paywalled; alternative source), or OPEC, along with the wider group of partners known as OPEC+, effective May 1, in what could be a blow to control over prices by the group, long led in practice by Saudi Arabia. The move "reflects the UAE's long-term strategic and economic vision and evolving energy profile" read an official statement carried by a UAE state ne…

Bay Area homeowner and investment banker Storm Duncan is trying to swap a 13-acre Mill Valley property for Anthropic equity instead of cash. He created a LinkedIn page for the home, describing the move as a "diversification play" because he is "under-concentrated in AI investments relative to the importance of AI in the future, and over-concentrated in real estate." A young Anthropic employee, Duncan says, might be "in the exact opposite scenario." TechCrunch reports: Duncan is asking potential…

An anonymous reader quotes a report from NPR: A divided U.S. Supreme Court on Monday heard a dispute over labels on the popular Roundup weed killer, which thousands of people blame for their cancers. How the Supreme Court rules could have implications for tens of thousands of lawsuits against Roundup maker Monsanto, which is now owned by Bayer. The case centers on who decides about warning labels on chemicals: the federal government -- or states or juries. [...] The justices will not be evaluat…

Researchers say infrasound -- low-frequency vibrations from things like pipes, HVAC systems, and traffic that humans can't consciously hear -- may help explain why some old buildings feel unsettling or "haunted." Rodney Schmaltz, senior author and professor at MacEwan, says: "Consider visiting a supposedly haunted building. Your mood shifts, you feel agitated, but you can't see or hear anything unusual. In an old building, there is a good chance that infrasound is present, particularly in basem…

The Trump administration says it will reimburse energy companies $885 million to cancel two planned offshore wind farms, with the firms in turn agreeing to put money into oil and gas projects instead. "The deals are modeled after a similar agreement last month with the French energy giant TotalEnergies," notes the New York Times. "TotalEnergies forfeited its leases for two wind projects planned off the coasts of New York and North Carolina, while committing to a range of fossil-fuel investments…

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Associated Press: Technology tycoons Elon Musk and Sam Altman are poised to face off in a high-stakes trial revolving around the alleged betrayal, deceit and unbridled ambition that blurred the bickering billionaires' once-shared vision for the development of artificial intelligence. The trial, which started Monday with jury selection, centers on the 2015 birth of ChatGPT maker OpenAI as a nonprofit startup primarily funded by Musk before evolving in…

alternative_right shares a report from 404 Media: Researchers working with data from the Internet Archive have discovered that a third of websites created since 2022 are AI-generated. The team of researchers -- which includes people from Stanford, the Imperial College London, and the Internet Archive -- published their findings online in a paper titled "The Impact of AI-Generated Text on the Internet." The research also found that all this AI-generated text is making the web more cheery and les…

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: In January, the European Commission began an initial investigation, known as a specification proceeding, into how Google has implemented AI in the Android operating system. The results are in, and the EU says Android needs to be more open, which is not surprising. Meanwhile, Google says this amounts to "unwarranted intervention," which is equally unsurprising. Regardless of Google's characterization of the investigation, the commission may …

BrianFagioli writes: Notepad++ has finally made its way to macOS, and this time it is not through a compatibility layer. A new community-driven port brings the long-standing Windows text editor over as a fully native Mac application, built with Cocoa and compiled for both Apple Silicon and Intel systems. Instead of relying on Wine or similar tools, the project replaces the Windows-specific interface with a macOS-native one while keeping the core editing engine intact, allowing longtime users to…