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2026-04-13 22:13:43 UTC

Measles takes a plane to Idaho, which has worst vaccination rate in US
A person with measles passed through the busiest airport in Idaho, shedding one of the world's most infectious viruses in the state with the country's lowest measles vaccination rate.
Health officials are now warning residents and travelers about the exposure while trying to directly notify passengers who shared flights with the infected person. [In an announcement on April 9][1], the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare (DHW) said the infected person was at the Boise airport on March 29 between 1:30 am and 7:40 am while traveling through the area.
Measles symptoms—which begin with fever, cough, runny nose, and watery, red eyes—can develop between seven and 21 days after exposure, but typically start after 11 or 12 days. That means that for anyone infected during the airport exposure, the initial generic symptoms would likely have started over the weekend. The telltale rash of measles typically doesn't appear until two to four days after those early flu-like symptoms. The rash begins on the head and moves down the body, while fever may spike to 104° F or higher. Infected people are infectious for four days before the rash appears and for four days after its onset.
[Read full article][2]
[Comments][3]
[1]: https://healthandwelfare.idaho.gov/news/possible-measles-exposure-occurs-boise-airport
[2]: https://arstechnica.com/health/2026/04/airport-measles-case-reported-in-idaho-state-with-lowest-vaccination-rate/
[3]: https://arstechnica.com/health/2026/04/airport-measles-case-reported-in-idaho-state-with-lowest-vaccination-rate/#comments
The Boise airport is in south central Idaho in Ada County.
https://arstechnica.com/health/2026/04/airport-measles-case-reported-in-idaho-state-with-lowest-vaccination-rate/

2026-04-13 22:13:38 UTC

Retro Rewind re-creates the glorious drudgery of working a '90s video store
If you were working a retail job at a movie rental store in the early '90s, there's a decent chance you couldn't wait to clock out for the day and escape from the daily grind with a mindless video game. Here in the 2020s, on the other hand, at least one mindless video game is striving to re-create the daily grind of working at a video rental store.
*Retro Rewind: Video Store Simulator* is the latest in a burgeoning field of "work simulators" that has [found indie success on Steam][1]. And while the depth of the game's overall retail simulation is pretty shallow, there is a sort of soothing, zen comfort to be found in the repetitive nostalgia of that menial workaday world of the past.
## Working 9 to 5
Unlike simulations that rely heavily on menus or spreadsheets, *Retro Rewind* puts you in the first-person perspective of the manager of a small local VHS rental joint circa 1990. That means you have to run around doing everything from buying the tapes to laying out the furniture and decorations in the store. And while you can technically display those tapes out on any shelf you want, grouping them together by genre makes for both a better customer experience and helps to quiet those anal-retentive organizational voices in your head.
[Read full article][2]
[Comments][3]
[1]: https://gamalytic.com/game/3552140
[2]: https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2026/04/retro-rewind-re-creates-the-glorious-drudgery-of-working-a-90s-video-store/
[3]: https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2026/04/retro-rewind-re-creates-the-glorious-drudgery-of-working-a-90s-video-store/#comments
Shut up and take my money.
https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2026/04/retro-rewind-re-creates-the-glorious-drudgery-of-working-a-90s-video-store/

2026-04-01 01:54:07 UTC

NASA is leading the way to the Moon, but the military won't be far behind
KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Florida—The US military has always been part of NASA's human spaceflight program. The first astronauts were nearly all military pilots, and two of the four crew members set to fly around the Moon on NASA's Artemis II mission were Navy test pilots before joining the astronaut corps.
Artemis II, the first crew mission to the Moon's vicinity since 1972, is [set for launch Wednesday][1] from Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Commander Reid Wiseman and pilot Victor Glover, both Navy test pilots, will be at the controls of the Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft for the ride to space. NASA astronaut Christina Koch and Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen round out the four-person crew.
The mission will depart from NASA property on Florida's Space Coast, but the Space Force will play an important role in the launch. A range crew from the Space Force will track the SLS rocket as it arcs over the Atlantic Ocean. Their primary job will be ensuring public safety, with the unenviable responsibility of sending a destruct signal to the rocket if it flies off course. Thankfully for the astronauts inside the spacecraft, the Orion capsule has an abort rocket to pull it away from an exploding launch vehicle in the event of a catastrophic failure.
[Read full article][2]
[Comments][3]
[1]: https://arstechnica.com/space/2026/03/after-more-than-53-years-humans-may-finally-return-to-the-moon-this-week/
[2]: https://arstechnica.com/space/2026/03/nasa-is-leading-the-way-to-the-moon-but-the-military-wont-be-far-behind/
[3]: https://arstechnica.com/space/2026/03/nasa-is-leading-the-way-to-the-moon-but-the-military-wont-be-far-behind/#comments
A Turkish special operations soldier silhouetted by the Moon.
https://arstechnica.com/space/2026/03/nasa-is-leading-the-way-to-the-moon-but-the-military-wont-be-far-behind/

2026-03-27 17:36:21 UTC

No one is happy with NASA's new idea for private space stations
Most elements of [a major NASA event][1] this week that laid out spaceflight plans for the coming decade were well received: a Moon base, a focus on less talk and more action, and working with industry to streamline regulations so increased innovation can propel the United States further into space.
However, one aspect of this event, named Ignition, has begun to run into serious turbulence. It involves NASA's attempt to navigate a difficult issue with no clear solution: finding a commercial replacement for the aging International Space Station.
During the Ignition event on Tuesday, NASA leaders had blunt words for the future of commercial activity in low-Earth orbit. Essentially, they are not confident in the viability of a commercial marketplace for humans there, and the agency's plan to work with private companies to develop independent space stations does not appear to be headed toward success. Plenty of people in the industry share these concerns, but NASA officials have not expressed them out loud before.
[Read full article][2]
[Comments][3]
[1]: https://arstechnica.com/space/2026/03/nasa-kills-lunar-space-station-to-focus-on-ambitious-moon-base/
[2]: https://arstechnica.com/space/2026/03/what-happens-next-with-nasas-plan-to-replace-the-iss-source-it-could-get-ugly/
[3]: https://arstechnica.com/space/2026/03/what-happens-next-with-nasas-plan-to-replace-the-iss-source-it-could-get-ugly/#comments
NASA has proposed that a new core module be added to the International Space Station.
https://arstechnica.com/space/2026/03/what-happens-next-with-nasas-plan-to-replace-the-iss-source-it-could-get-ugly/

2026-03-27 17:36:16 UTC

Sony is raising PlayStation 5 prices again, this time by between $100 and $150
Memory and storage shortages and price hikes that [started hitting PC components][1] late last year have steadily rippled outward across all kinds of consumer tech—some products have [disappeared,][2] [gone out of stock,][3] or been [delayed][4], and [others][5] have undergone [multiple rounds][6] of price hikes.
Today's bad news comes from Sony, which is [raising prices][7] for PlayStation 5 consoles in the US [just eight months after their last price hike][8]. The drive-less Digital Edition will increase from $500 to $600; the base PS5 with an optical drive will increase from $550 to $650; and the PS5 Pro is going up from $750 to a whopping $900. At the beginning of 2025, these consoles cost $450, $500, and $700, respectively.
Sony, [Microsoft][9], and [Nintendo][10] had all announced one or more price increases for one or more consoles throughout 2025, though these were driven more by [the Trump administration's tariffs][11] on imported goods than component shortages. Game console price cuts [had already become less common][12] over the course of the 2010s, making consoles like the 5-plus-year-old PS5 [historically expensive][13] compared to older consoles at this point in their lifespans.
[Read full article][14]
[Comments][15]
[1]: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/01/ram-shortage-chaos-expands-to-gpus-high-capacity-ssds-and-even-hard-drives/
[2]: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/03/apples-512gb-mac-studio-vanishes-a-quiet-acknowledgement-of-the-ram-shortage/
[3]: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/02/valves-steam-deck-intermittently-out-of-stock-as-ram-shortage-drags-on/
[4]: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/02/ram-shortage-delays-valves-steam-machine-desktop-and-steam-frame-headset/
[5]: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/02/frameworks-ram-prices-climbing-on-a-monthly-cadence-with-more-hikes-to-come/
[6]: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/02/ongoing-ram-crisis-prompts-raspberry-pis-second-price-hike-in-two-months/
[7]: https://blog.playstation.com/2026/03/27/new-price-changes-for-ps5-ps5-pro-and-playstation-portal-remote-player/
[8]: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/08/sony-joins-xbox-and-nintendo-in-hiking-playstation-5-prices-in-the-us/
[9]: https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2025/09/microsoft-raises-xbox-console-prices-for-the-second-time-this-year/
[10]: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/08/citing-market-conditions-nintendo-hikes-prices-for-original-switch-consoles/
[11]: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/02/supreme-court-blocks-trumps-emergency-tariffs-billions-in-refunds-may-be-owed/
[12]: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/05/chips-arent-improving-like-they-used-to-and-its-killing-game-console-price-cuts/
[13]: https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2025/08/todays-game-consoles-are-historically-overpriced/
[14]: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/03/sony-is-raising-playstation-5-prices-again-this-time-by-between-100-and-150/
[15]: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/03/sony-is-raising-playstation-5-prices-again-this-time-by-between-100-and-150/#comments
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/03/sony-is-raising-playstation-5-prices-again-this-time-by-between-100-and-150/

2026-03-27 17:36:10 UTC

DOJ confirms FBI Director Kash Patel’s personal email was hacked
Iran-linked hackers successfully broke into FBI Director Kash Patel's personal email, the Department of Justice confirmed [to Reuters][1] on Friday.
Reuters could not authenticate the leaked emails themselves but noted that the Gmail address matched an email account "linked to Patel in previous data breaches ⁠preserved by the dark web intelligence firm District 4 Labs." The DOJ suggested the emails appeared to be authentic.
On their website, the Handala Hack Team boasted that Patel "will now find his name among the list of successfully hacked victims." The hacker group taunted Patel by sharing photos of him sniffing cigars and holding up a jug of rum, along with other documents that Reuters reported were from 2010 to 2019.
[Read full article][2]
[Comments][3]
[1]: https://www.reuters.com/world/us/iran-linked-hackers-claim-breach-of-fbi-directors-personal-email-doj-official-2026-03-27/
[2]: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/03/doj-confirms-fbi-director-kash-patels-personal-email-was-hacked/
[3]: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/03/doj-confirms-fbi-director-kash-patels-personal-email-was-hacked/#comments
FBI Director Kash Patel's personal email account was hacked.
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/03/doj-confirms-fbi-director-kash-patels-personal-email-was-hacked/

2026-03-27 15:29:54 UTC

Apple pulls the plug on its high-priced, oft-neglected Mac Pro desktop
After more than a decade of [flirting with the idea][1], Apple has finally discontinued the Mac Pro tower. The company [confirmed to 9to5Mac][2] that the latest Mac Pro iteration—an M2 Ultra model first released in mid-2023—would be its last, at least for the time being. There are no plans to make another Mac Pro.
The discontinuation of the Mac Pro should come as no surprise to anyone who has been paying attention. Reporting from late last year [suggested][3] that the Mac Pro had been put "on the back burner," but the desktop has clearly been in danger of falling off the stove since at least the mid-2010s, during the six-year period where the controversial cylindrical "trash can" Mac Pro design languished without updates.
Apple briefly rededicated itself to its pro desktop in 2019 with a new design that hearkened back to more versatile, upgradeable, be-handled versions of the Power Mac and Mac Pro. But by the time it was updated again with M2 Ultra four years later, it was already clear that the idea of a huge and expandable Mac desktop was out of step with the Apple Silicon era. The desktop's demise confirms that, at least in Apple's estimation, the Mac Pro was trying to fill a niche that no longer exists.
[Read full article][4]
[Comments][5]
[1]: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/11/report-claims-that-apple-has-yet-again-put-the-mac-pro-on-the-back-burner/
[2]: https://9to5mac.com/2026/03/26/apple-discontinues-the-mac-pro/
[3]: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/11/report-claims-that-apple-has-yet-again-put-the-mac-pro-on-the-back-burner/
[4]: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/03/apple-has-finally-discontinued-the-mac-pro-desktop-after-years-of-fitful-effort/
[5]: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/03/apple-has-finally-discontinued-the-mac-pro-desktop-after-years-of-fitful-effort/#comments
The 2019 Mac Pro tower. Apple re-used its design for the first and only Apple Silicon Mac Pro in 2023.
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/03/apple-has-finally-discontinued-the-mac-pro-desktop-after-years-of-fitful-effort/

2026-03-27 14:19:29 UTC

Rocket Report: Russia reopens gateway to ISS; Cape Canaveral hosts missile test
Welcome to Edition 8.35 of the Rocket Report! The headlines this week are again dominated by the big changes afoot in NASA's exploration program, with the announcement of a Moon base and a nuclear-powered rocket to Mars. The shakeups come as the agency is just a week away from launching Artemis II, a circumlunar flight carrying a crew of four around the Moon. The Ars space team will be writing extensively about this mission in the days ahead, and we may skip the Rocket Report next week to focus on our Artemis II coverage.
As always, we [welcome reader submissions][1]. If you don't want to miss an issue, please subscribe using the box below (the form will not appear on AMP-enabled versions of the site). Each report will include information on small-, medium-, and heavy-lift rockets, as well as a quick look ahead at the next three launches on the calendar.
NASA announces nuclear rocket demo. NASA's announcement Tuesday that it will "pause" work on a lunar space station and focus on [building a surface base on the Moon][2] was no big surprise to anyone paying attention to the Trump administration’s space policy. But what should NASA do with hardware already built for the Gateway outpost? NASA spent close to $4.5 billion on developing a human-tended complex in orbit around the Moon since the Gateway program’s official start in 2019. There are pieces of the station undergoing construction and testing in factories scattered around the world. The centerpiece of Gateway, called the Power and Propulsion Element, is closest to being ready for launch. NASA’s rejigged exploration roadmap, revealed Tuesday in an all-day event at NASA headquarters in Washington, calls for repurposing the core module for a nuclear-electric propulsion demonstration in deep space, [Ars reports][3].
[Read full article][4]
[Comments][5]
[1]: https://arstechnica.wufoo.com/forms/launch-stories/
[2]: https://arstechnica.com/space/2026/03/nasa-kills-lunar-space-station-to-focus-on-ambitious-moon-base/
[3]: https://arstechnica.com/space/2026/03/here-is-nasas-plan-for-nuking-gateway-and-sending-it-to-mars/
[4]: https://arstechnica.com/space/2026/03/rocket-report-russian-megaconstellation-takes-off-isar-preps-for-second-launch/
[5]: https://arstechnica.com/space/2026/03/rocket-report-russian-megaconstellation-takes-off-isar-preps-for-second-launch/#comments
A Russian Soyuz rocket lifts off Sunday, March 22, from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan with the Progress MS-33 supply ship for the International Space Station.
https://arstechnica.com/space/2026/03/rocket-report-russian-megaconstellation-takes-off-isar-preps-for-second-launch/

2026-03-27 14:19:23 UTC

AMD's Ryzen 9 9950X3D2 Dual Edition crams 208MB of cache into a single chip
For about four years now, AMD has offered special "X3D" variants of its high-end desktop processors with an extra 64MB of L3 cache attached, an addition that disproportionately benefits games. AMD calls this "3D V-Cache" because it stacks the cache directly on top of (for Ryzen 5000 and 7000) or beneath (for Ryzen 9000) the CPU die.
The 12- and 16-core Ryzen chips have their CPU cores split between two silicon chiplets, which has historically made the 7900X3D, 7950X3D, 9900X3D, and 9950X3D a bit weird. One of their two CPU chiplets has the 64MB of 3D V-Cache attached, and one does not. AMD relies on its driver software to make sure that software that benefits from the extra cache is run on the V-Cache-enabled CPU cores, which usually works well [but][1] [is][2] [occasionally][3] [error-prone][4].
Enter the Ryzen 9 9950X3D2 Dual Edition, a mouthful of a chip that includes 64MB of 3D V-Cache on both processor dies, without the hybrid arrangement that has defined the other chips up until now. This gives the chip a grand total of 208MB of cache—16MB of L2 cache, the 32MB of L3 cache built into each of the two CPU dies (for a total of 64MB), and then another 64MB chunk of 3D V-Cache per die. In total, AMD says the new chip should be as much as 10 percent faster than the 9950X3D in games and other apps that benefit from the extra cache.
[Read full article][5]
[Comments][6]
[1]: https://forums.tomshardware.com/threads/9950x3d-core-parking-and-excessive-temperature-issues.3889147/
[2]: https://www.overclock.net/threads/how-i-fixed-core-parking-on-my-9950x3d-and-taichi-lite.1815819/
[3]: https://steamcommunity.com/app/2479810/discussions/0/603034778380384912/
[4]: https://rog-forum.asus.com/t5/hardware-build-advice/9950x3d-not-parking-cores-in-battlefield-6/td-p/1119469
[5]: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/03/amds-ryzen-9-9950x3d2-dual-edition-crams-208mb-of-cache-into-a-single-chip/
[6]: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/03/amds-ryzen-9-9950x3d2-dual-edition-crams-208mb-of-cache-into-a-single-chip/#comments
AMD's Ryzen 9 9950X3D2 Dual Edition.
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/03/amds-ryzen-9-9950x3d2-dual-edition-crams-208mb-of-cache-into-a-single-chip/

2026-03-27 14:19:18 UTC

Senators want US energy information agency to monitor data center electricity usage
Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren and Republican Senator Josh Hawley are urging the US’s central energy information agency to provide better information on how much electricity data centers actually use.
In a joint letter sent to the Energy Information Administration Thursday morning, seen by WIRED, Hawley and Warren press the agency to publicly collect “comprehensive, annual energy-use disclosures” on data centers. This information, they write, is “essential for accurate grid planning and will support policymaking to prevent large companies from increasing electricity costs for American families.”
As the data center boom spreads across the country, there have been widespread worries from voters about how their massive energy needs may increase consumers’ electric bills; this concern [helped shape][1] some midterm elections in data-center-heavy states, including Virginia and Georgia. Last month, Hawley [cosponsored][2] a bill with Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal that would require data centers to supply their own power sources in order to protect consumers. Earlier this month, Donald Trump [convened][3] a group of executives from Big Tech companies at the White House to sign a nonbinding (and toothless) agreement pledging to pay for their own power for data centers.
[Read full article][4]
[Comments][5]
[1]: https://www.wired.com/story/the-data-center-resistance-has-arrived/
[2]: https://www.hawley.senate.gov/hawley-blumenthal-introduce-bill-to-prevent-data-centers-from-increasing-electricity-costs-for-americans/
[3]: https://www.wired.com/story/big-tech-signs-white-house-data-center-pledge-with-good-optics-not-much-substance/
[4]: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/03/senators-want-us-energy-information-agency-to-monitor-data-center-electricity-usage/
[5]: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/03/senators-want-us-energy-information-agency-to-monitor-data-center-electricity-usage/#comments
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) speaks on April 1, 2019 in Washington, DC.
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/03/senators-want-us-energy-information-agency-to-monitor-data-center-electricity-usage/

2026-03-27 14:19:12 UTC

Rivian and VW Group complete winter testing of new zonal architecture
RV Tech, a joint venture between Volkswagen Group and Rivian, has completed a successful winter test program, it said this morning. The partnership was created in 2024 when VW Group [announced it would invest][1] $5.8 billion in the American electric vehicle maker to gain access to Rivian's expertise in vehicle software and electronic architecture. VW Group initially paid Rivian $1 billion in cash, with further payments over time: the completion of the winter testing milestone should unlock a further $1 billion payment.
VW's decision to turn to Rivian followed a tortuous history of its own internal software development. It [created a new division][2] in 2019 just to develop software for cars, then immediately bit off more than it could chew by trying to simultaneously develop three different vehicle operating systems. [Things went the opposite of smoothly][3], with software-related delays to the two new platforms used by cars like the VW ID.4 and Porsche Macan that led to chairman Herbert Diess' firing and the third platform delayed until late in this decade.
Rivian, meanwhile, had no such problems developing its own vehicle electronic architecture and software, starting from a clean sheet unencumbered by generations of legacy cruft. As a startup automaker, Rivian needs money, and since Volkswagen needs better tech, the joint venture makes a lot of sense.
[Read full article][4]
[Comments][5]
[1]: https://arstechnica.com/cars/2024/06/vw-invests-5b-into-rivian-signaling-deep-tech-ties-and-collaborations/
[2]: https://arstechnica.com/cars/2019/09/volkswagen-audi-porsche-vw-group-plans-one-os-to-rule-them-all/
[3]: https://arstechnica.com/cars/2023/04/whats-going-on-with-volkswagens-software-division/
[4]: https://arstechnica.com/cars/2026/03/rivian-and-vw-group-complete-winter-testing-of-new-zonal-architecture/
[5]: https://arstechnica.com/cars/2026/03/rivian-and-vw-group-complete-winter-testing-of-new-zonal-architecture/#comments
A Volkswagen ID.EVERY1 was one of the reference vehicles being tested in northern Sweden.
https://arstechnica.com/cars/2026/03/rivian-and-vw-group-complete-winter-testing-of-new-zonal-architecture/

2026-03-26 19:22:35 UTC

The debut of Gemini 3.1 Flash Live could make it harder to know if you're talking to a robot
Text generated by artificial intelligence often has a particular vibe that gives it away as machine-generated, but it has become harder to pick out those idiosyncrasies as the tech has improved. We may be seeing a similar evolution of generative AI audio. Google has [announced][1] a new AI audio model called Gemini 3.1 Flash Live—as the name implies, it's designed for real-time conversation. It's rolling out in some Google products starting today, and developers will be able to start building their own chatty robots with the model, too.
Google says this AI is much faster and produces speech with a more natural cadence, aiming to solve a long-running issue with AI-generated speech. Like a chatbot, there's always a delay between input and output in generative audio systems. Longer delays and unnatural inflection make conversations feel sluggish and harder to follow. Researchers generally believe 300 milliseconds of latency is about the limit for optimal speech perception, but Google has not specified any particular delay for Gemini 3.1 Flash Live. It just vaguely has the speed you need.
But benchmark numbers? Google has plenty of those, which it claims show that 3.1 Flash Live will be a more reliable way to have audio-to-audio AI conversations. For example, a big gain in the ComplexFuncBench Audio shows the new model is better at complex, multi-step tasks. Gemini 3.1 Flash Live also tops the charts in the Big Bench Audio test, which evaluates reasoning with a set of 1,000 audio questions.
[Read full article][2]
[Comments][3]
[1]: https://blog.google/innovation-and-ai/models-and-research/gemini-models/gemini-3-1-flash-live/
[2]: https://arstechnica.com/ai/2026/03/the-debut-of-gemini-3-1-flash-live-could-make-it-harder-to-know-if-youre-talking-to-a-robot/
[3]: https://arstechnica.com/ai/2026/03/the-debut-of-gemini-3-1-flash-live-could-make-it-harder-to-know-if-youre-talking-to-a-robot/#comments
https://arstechnica.com/ai/2026/03/the-debut-of-gemini-3-1-flash-live-could-make-it-harder-to-know-if-youre-talking-to-a-robot/

2026-03-26 19:22:30 UTC

Study: Sycophantic AI can undermine human judgment
We all need a little validation now and then from friends or family, but sometimes too much validation can backfire—and the same is true of AI chatbots. There have been several [recent cases][1] of overly sycophantic [AI tools][2] leading to negative outcomes, including users [harming][3] themselves and/or [others][4]. But the harm might not be limited to these extreme cases, according to a [new paper][5] published in the journal Science. As more people rely on AI tools for everyday advice and guidance, their tendency to overly flatter and agree with users can have harmful effects on those users' judgment, particularly in the social sphere.
The study showed that such tools can reinforce maladaptive beliefs, discourage users from accepting responsibility for a situation, or discourage them from repairing damaged relationships. That said, the authors were quick to emphasize during a media briefing that their findings were not intended to feed into "doomsday sentiments" about such AI models. Rather, the objective is to further our understanding of how such AI models work and their impact on human users, in hopes of making them better while the models are still in the early-ish development stages.
Co-author Myra Cheng, a graduate student at Stanford University, said she and her co-authors were inspired to study this issue after they began noticing a pronounced increase in the number of people around them who had started relying on AI chatbots for relationship advice—and often ended up receiving bad advice because the AI would take their side no matter what. Their interest was bolstered by recent surveys showing nearly half of Americans under 30 have asked an AI tool for personal advice. "Given how common this is becoming, we wanted to understand how an overly affirming AI advice might impact people's real-world relationships," said Cheng.
[Read full article][6]
[Comments][7]
[1]: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/01/chatgpt-wrote-goodnight-moon-suicide-lullaby-for-man-who-later-killed-himself/
[2]: https://arstechnica.com/ai/2025/07/ai-therapy-bots-fuel-delusions-and-give-dangerous-advice-stanford-study-finds/
[3]: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/03/lawsuit-google-gemini-sent-man-on-violent-missions-set-suicide-countdown/
[4]: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/12/openai-refuses-to-say-where-chatgpt-logs-go-when-users-die/
[5]: http://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aec8352
[6]: https://arstechnica.com/science/2026/03/study-sycophantic-ai-can-undermine-human-judgment/
[7]: https://arstechnica.com/science/2026/03/study-sycophantic-ai-can-undermine-human-judgment/#comments
https://arstechnica.com/science/2026/03/study-sycophantic-ai-can-undermine-human-judgment/

2026-03-26 19:22:25 UTC

You've got $20,000 to spend on an EV: Here are some options
With a new war in the Middle East driving up gas prices, American drivers are once again remembering that electric vehicles are much cheaper to operate and therefore worth considering. Buying a brand-new EV might not be the best way to save money, but the good news is that the used EV market continues to grow, and for the buyer looking to spend between $15,000–$20,000 on something electric, we're starting to hit a real sweet spot.
Over the past few weeks, we've looked at used EVs on a smaller budget. If you don't need much range, [even $5,000][1] will get you behind the wheel of a Nissan Leaf. [At $10,000][2], BMW's interesting i3 becomes affordable, as does the Chevrolet Bolt, although expect examples to have some mileage on them. [For $15,000][3] you can find newer Bolts and bigger-batteried i3s, as well as some of Hyundai and Kia's smaller or older EVs.
Once we jump up into the next (arbitrary) price bracket—$15,000 to $20,000—many of the newer, longer-range EVs that debuted post-pandemic are now affordable.
[Read full article][4]
[Comments][5]
[1]: https://arstechnica.com/cars/2026/01/how-far-does-5000-go-when-you-want-an-electric-car/
[2]: https://arstechnica.com/cars/2026/02/chevy-bolt-bmw-i3-or-something-else-at-10k-you-have-lots-of-ev-options/
[3]: https://arstechnica.com/cars/2026/03/there-are-plenty-of-great-choices-if-you-want-to-spend-less-than-15k-on-an-ev/
[4]: https://arstechnica.com/cars/2026/03/youve-got-20000-to-spend-on-an-ev-here-are-some-options/
[5]: https://arstechnica.com/cars/2026/03/youve-got-20000-to-spend-on-an-ev-here-are-some-options/#comments
https://arstechnica.com/cars/2026/03/youve-got-20000-to-spend-on-an-ev-here-are-some-options/

2026-03-26 17:30:39 UTC

OpenAI “indefinitely” shelves plans for erotic ChatGPT
Following backlash, OpenAI won't be rolling out an erotic version of ChatGPT any time soon.
[According to the Financial Times][1], the controversial plan has been shelved "indefinitely" as OpenAI "refocuses" its attention on "core products."
Insiders told FT that OpenAI mulled scrapping the "adult mode" plan entirely, as even [its own advisors warned][2] that ChatGPT users could form unhealthy attachments, which might harm their mental health. One advisor chillingly suggested that the tweak risked turning ChatGPT into a "sexy suicide coach."
[Read full article][3]
[Comments][4]
[1]: https://www.ft.com/content/de9bf0af-b241-424f-8229-5870b1c0d93d
[2]: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/03/chatgpt-may-soon-become-sexy-suicide-coach-openai-advisor-reportedly-warned/
[3]: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/03/chatgpt-wont-talk-dirty-any-time-soon-as-sexy-mode-turns-off-investors-report-says/
[4]: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/03/chatgpt-wont-talk-dirty-any-time-soon-as-sexy-mode-turns-off-investors-report-says/#comments
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/03/chatgpt-wont-talk-dirty-any-time-soon-as-sexy-mode-turns-off-investors-report-says/

2026-03-26 17:30:33 UTC

Intel Core Ultra 270K and 250K Plus review: Conditionally great CPUs
Many of our graphics card reviews early last year and in the early 2020s focused on the difficulties of reviewing and recommending graphics cards when the manufacturer-suggested price points effectively didn't exist. Now, reviews of *any* new PC component have to contend with the much more broadly awful market for consumer PC parts as AI data center-fueled demand for RAM and flash memory chips drives up prices for DDR5 kits, SSDs, and GPUs.
In our August 2025 system guide, 32GB of DDR5 and a decent 2TB SSD would run you less than $200. Today, you'd pay between three and four times as much for similar components.
This is the context that Intel's Core Ultra 200S Plus chips—the $199 Core Ultra 5 250K Plus and $299 Core Ultra 7 270K Plus, still codenamed Arrow Lake just like the originals—have launched into. They're solid performers, they're reasonably power-efficient, and for heavy multi-threaded workloads, they're a better value than what AMD can offer for the same price (though even years-old non-X3D AMD chips retain a small edge in games).
[Read full article][1]
[Comments][2]
[1]: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/03/intel-core-ultra-270k-and-250k-plus-review-conditionally-great-cpus/
[2]: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/03/intel-core-ultra-270k-and-250k-plus-review-conditionally-great-cpus/#comments
Intel's Core Ultra 7 270K Plus.
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/03/intel-core-ultra-270k-and-250k-plus-review-conditionally-great-cpus/

2026-03-26 15:47:00 UTC

The Corvette E-Ray is dead, long live the Grand Sport X
Chevrolet provided flights from Albany, New York, to Las Vegas, Nevada, and accommodation so Ars could check out the new Grand Sport. Ars does not accept paid editorial content.
Chevrolet has developed something of a modern tradition with recent generations of the Corvette: As a new generation approaches, [the company rolls out the Grand Sport][1]. It's intended to be a sort of "sweet spot" version of the ’Vette, pairing the go-fast bits of the higher-spec machines with the entry-level motor found in the Stingray.
If that pattern holds, the mid-engined, eighth-generation Corvette may be nearing the end—because this is the new Grand Sport. This one, though, is different. It comes with an all-new V8 at its heart, one with substantially more power and torque than the current base Stingray. If that's not enough, you can also get it with the [ZR1X's][2] electric motor and battery. That model is called the Grand Sport X, and it's the effective replacement for the first all-wheel-drive hybrid Corvette.
Yes, the E-Ray is dead, [three years][3] after Chevrolet raised eyebrows by putting a hybrid system where many said it didn't belong. But you can't argue with that system's all-weather capability. It lives on in the new Grand Sport X, which pairs a 186-horsepower (139 kW) electric motor on the front axle with a new V8 at the rear.
[Read full article][4]
[Comments][5]
[1]: https://arstechnica.com/cars/2016/07/chevrolet-hits-it-out-of-the-park-with-the-2017-corvette-grand-sport/
[2]: https://arstechnica.com/cars/2025/06/the-first-corvette-hypercar-chevrolets-1250-hp-zr1x-hybrid-breaks-cover/
[3]: https://arstechnica.com/cars/2023/01/heres-everything-we-know-about-the-2024-corvette-e-ray-hybrid/
[4]: https://arstechnica.com/cars/2026/03/the-corvette-e-ray-is-dead-long-live-the-grand-sport-x/
[5]: https://arstechnica.com/cars/2026/03/the-corvette-e-ray-is-dead-long-live-the-grand-sport-x/#comments
Meet the C8 generation Corvette Grand Sport.
https://arstechnica.com/cars/2026/03/the-corvette-e-ray-is-dead-long-live-the-grand-sport-x/

2026-03-26 15:46:55 UTC

Damaged church floor may have revealed the grave of the fourth musketeer
Recent repairs to a centuries-old tile floor at a church in the Netherlands may have revealed the skeleton of the French Musketeer d’Artagnan.
Today, Charles de Batz de Castlemore, Count d'Artagnan, is best known as a character in *The Three Musketeers*, written by Alexandre Dumas and eventually played by both Gene Kelly [and future Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy][1]—but he was a real French military officer and spy. D’Artagnan died during a siege, and the whereabouts of his body have remained a mystery for more than 350 years. But an archaeologist in the Netherlands recently unearthed a skeleton from the floor of a 17th-century church that could actually be d’Artagnan.
## “It is only the dead who do not return”
The ground beneath the centuries-old Saints Peter and Paul Church subsided earlier this year, cracking a few of the blue tiles that pave the chapel’s floor. During repairs, church staff decided to have a look beneath the floor to see if there was any truth to the rumor that d’Artagnan—famous French Musketeer and inspiration for a series of swashbuckling novels—lay buried beneath their church. It turns out that there actually was a skeleton buried under the church floor, and there’s a decent chance it’s d’Artagnan himself.
[Read full article][2]
[Comments][3]
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Musketeers_(2004_musical)
[2]: https://arstechnica.com/science/2026/03/archaeologists-may-have-found-the-grave-of-the-legendary-fourth-musketeer/
[3]: https://arstechnica.com/science/2026/03/archaeologists-may-have-found-the-grave-of-the-legendary-fourth-musketeer/#comments
This could be the skeleton of the real-life d'Artagnan.
https://arstechnica.com/science/2026/03/archaeologists-may-have-found-the-grave-of-the-legendary-fourth-musketeer/

2026-03-26 14:46:46 UTC

2026's historic snow drought is bad news for the West
Across much of the Western United States, winter 2026 was the year the snow never came. Many ski resorts got by with snowmaking but [shut down][1] their [winter operations early][2]. Fire officials and water supply managers are worried about summer.
Where I live in Boise, Idaho, temperatures [hit the low 80s][3] Fahrenheit (high-20s Celsius) in mid-March. The same heat dome sent temperatures [soaring to 105° F][4] (40° C) in Phoenix.
Ordinarily, water managers and [hydrologists like me][5] who study the Western US expect the mountain snowpacks to be at their [fullest around April 1][6]. Snowpacks are natural reservoirs of water that farms and communities depend on through the hot, dry summer. Their [snow water equivalent][7], meaning the amount of liquid water in the snowpack, is seen as a bellwether for water supplies.
[Read full article][8]
[Comments][9]
[1]: https://www.cpr.org/2026/03/20/colorado-ski-areas-closing-dates-early/
[2]: https://www.powder.com/news/california-ski-resorts-closing-dates-2026
[3]: https://weather.com/forecast/regional/news/2026-03-23-march-record-heat-wave-southwest-plains-california-arizona-0
[4]: https://ktar.com/arizona-weather-news/heat-record-phoenix-march-22/5838935/
[5]: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=6WrzB2cAAAAJ&hl=en
[6]: https://oehha.ca.gov/climate-change/epic-2022/impacts-physical-systems/snow-water-content
[7]: https://www.climatehubs.usda.gov/hubs/northwest/topic/snow-water-equivalent-swe-its-importance-northwest
[8]: https://arstechnica.com/science/2026/03/2026s-historic-snow-drought-is-bad-news-for-the-west/
[9]: https://arstechnica.com/science/2026/03/2026s-historic-snow-drought-is-bad-news-for-the-west/#comments
The snow drought was evident in Park City, Utah, on Feb. 9, 2026. This golf course is normally used for cross-country skiing in winter.
https://arstechnica.com/science/2026/03/2026s-historic-snow-drought-is-bad-news-for-the-west/

2026-03-25 22:04:07 UTC

BRINC's new police drone uses Starlink, carries Narcan, chases vehicles at 60mph
Drone startup BRINC [announced][1] Tuesday a significant upgrade for its law enforcement drones. BRINC’s newest model, Guardian, will have Starlink connectivity on every unit—a first for commercially available drones.
This new model, which will enter production later this year, has a flight time of over an hour and can reach a top speed of over 60 miles per hour. BRINC calls it the “first drone that can pursue vehicles.”
Additionally, Guardian can carry numerous payloads from its charging “nest,” including a floatation device, a defibrillator, epipens, the overdose-reversal drug Narcan, and more. The nest can also robotically swap batteries in about a minute, the company claims.
[Read full article][2]
[Comments][3]
[1]: https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/brinc-unveils-guardian-launching-the-next-era-of-drone-as-first-responder-302723095.html
[2]: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/03/brincs-new-police-drone-uses-starlink-carries-narcan-chases-vehicles-at-60mph/
[3]: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/03/brincs-new-police-drone-uses-starlink-carries-narcan-chases-vehicles-at-60mph/#comments
The Guardian bustin' bad guys with its onboard spotlight.
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/03/brincs-new-police-drone-uses-starlink-carries-narcan-chases-vehicles-at-60mph/

2026-03-25 20:45:20 UTC

We got an audience with the "Lunar Viceroy" to talk how NASA will build a Moon base
At the end of a long day on Tuesday, NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman looked down at a table littered with microphones and jokingly referred to the space agency's new Moon base manager, [Carlos Garcia-Galan][1], as the "Lunar Viceroy." It was a bit of humor, but it also seemed to represent affection from Isaacman for a long-time NASA employee so willingly taking on a major new challenge.
Garcia-Galan was, in many ways, the emerging star at the daylong Ignition event in Washington, DC. Heretofore he has largely been an anonymous engineer at NASA who has now been thrust into a very public role of leading the agency's ambitious Moon base initiative. (His official title, by the way, is program executive.)
Ars had a chance to speak with Garcia-Galan about NASA's plans and, more importantly, how they might be implemented. Here is a lightly edited (for clarity) transcript of that conversation.
[Read full article][2]
[Comments][3]
[1]: https://www.nasa.gov/people/carlos-garcia-galan/
[2]: https://arstechnica.com/space/2026/03/we-got-an-audience-with-the-lunar-viceroy-to-talk-how-nasa-will-build-a-moon-base/
[3]: https://arstechnica.com/space/2026/03/we-got-an-audience-with-the-lunar-viceroy-to-talk-how-nasa-will-build-a-moon-base/#comments
NASA Moon Base Program Executive Carlos Garcia-Galan speaks during the Ignition event on Tuesday.
https://arstechnica.com/space/2026/03/we-got-an-audience-with-the-lunar-viceroy-to-talk-how-nasa-will-build-a-moon-base/

2026-03-25 20:45:15 UTC

Reddit will require "fishy" accounts to verify they are run by a human
Reddit will require accounts that exhibit “automated or otherwise fishy behavior” to verify that a human runs them, Reddit CEO Steve Huffman said in a [Reddit post][1] today. The verification process aims to combat unwanted bots from flooding Reddit at a time when AI bots are poised to [take over the Internet][2].
“As AI becomes a bigger part of the Internet, we want to make sure that when you’re on Reddit, you know when you’re talking to a person and when you’re not,” Huffman said.
Human verification will only occur if Reddit suspects that an account is a bot. This is “rare” and won’t apply to “most users,” Huffman emphasized. If the account cannot prove that it's human, it “may be restricted,” he said.
[Read full article][3]
[Comments][4]
[1]: https://old.reddit.com/user/spez/comments/1s3ezrc/humans_welcome_bots_must_wear_name_tags/
[2]: https://arstechnica.com/ai/2026/02/increase-of-ai-bots-on-the-internet-sparks-arms-race/
[3]: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/03/reddit-will-require-fishy-accounts-to-verify-they-are-run-by-a-human/
[4]: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/03/reddit-will-require-fishy-accounts-to-verify-they-are-run-by-a-human/#comments
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/03/reddit-will-require-fishy-accounts-to-verify-they-are-run-by-a-human/

2026-03-25 20:45:10 UTC

Here is NASA's plan for nuking Gateway and sending it to Mars
NASA's announcement Tuesday that it will "pause" work on a lunar space station and focus on [building a surface base on the Moon][1] was no big surprise to anyone paying attention to the Trump administration's space policy.
But what should NASA do with hardware already built for the Gateway outpost? NASA spent close to $4.5 billion on developing a human-tended complex in orbit around the Moon since the Gateway program's official start in 2019. There are pieces of the station undergoing construction and testing in factories scattered around the world.
The centerpiece of Gateway, called the Power and Propulsion Element, is closest to being ready for launch. NASA's rejigged exploration roadmap, revealed Tuesday in an all-day event at NASA headquarters in Washington, calls for repurposing the core module for a nuclear-electric propulsion demonstration in deep space.
[Read full article][2]
[Comments][3]
[1]: https://arstechnica.com/space/2026/03/nasa-kills-lunar-space-station-to-focus-on-ambitious-moon-base/
[2]: https://arstechnica.com/space/2026/03/here-is-nasas-plan-for-nuking-gateway-and-sending-it-to-mars/
[3]: https://arstechnica.com/space/2026/03/here-is-nasas-plan-for-nuking-gateway-and-sending-it-to-mars/#comments
Artist's illustration of NASA's Space Reactor-1 mission approaching Mars.
https://arstechnica.com/space/2026/03/here-is-nasas-plan-for-nuking-gateway-and-sending-it-to-mars/

2026-03-25 19:20:16 UTC

Nintendo is raising prices of Switch 2 game cartridges starting in May
The downloadable versions of Nintendo's first-party Switch games have always cost the same amount to buy, despite the costs of manufacturing and shipping physical releases. This was still true when the Switch 2 launched last year, despite persistent [rumors and misinformation to the contrary][1].
But that's finally, definitively changing later this year. Nintendo [announced today][2] that beginning in May and for new game releases going forward, the physical releases of new Switch 2-exclusive first-party games will cost more than the digital versions of the same game. That will start with the May 21 release of *Yoshi and the Mysterious Book*, which will cost $60 in Nintendo's online store but $70 for a physical copy.
"Nintendo games offer the same experiences whether in packaged or digital format, and this change simply reflects the different costs associated with producing and distributing each format and offers players more choice in how they can buy and play Nintendo games," reads the company's [brief announcement about the change][3]. Nintendo notes that retailers are free to charge what they want for physical and digital games, but aside from sales or other promotions most tend to follow Nintendo's guidance on pricing.
[Read full article][4]
[Comments][5]
[1]: https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2025/04/nintendo-switch-2s-gameless-game-key-cards-are-going-to-be-very-common/
[2]: https://www.nintendo.com/us/whatsnew/about-nintendo-switch-2-game-pricing/
[3]: https://www.nintendo.com/us/whatsnew/about-nintendo-switch-2-game-pricing/
[4]: https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2026/03/nintendo-will-start-charging-more-for-physical-switch-2-games-than-digital-copies/
[5]: https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2026/03/nintendo-will-start-charging-more-for-physical-switch-2-games-than-digital-copies/#comments
Yoshi's storybook-themed Switch 2 adventure will cost more if you want a physical copy.
https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2026/03/nintendo-will-start-charging-more-for-physical-switch-2-games-than-digital-copies/

2026-03-25 19:20:10 UTC

Meta, YouTube must pay $3M to woman who got hooked on apps as a child
On Wednesday, a Los Angeles jury ordered Meta and YouTube to pay $3 million in damages to a young woman who successfully argued that the companies' social media apps were designed to addict children.
Meta will pay the majority of the fine, 70 percent, while YouTube-owner Google is on the hook for 30 percent, the jury decided.
During the six-week trial, the jury heard that Meta and Google designed apps with features like auto-play, infinite scroll, and algorithmic recommendations to keep kids online. Feeling trapped in a cycle of constantly using these apps caused the plaintiff, known as K.G.M., "crippling mental distress," CNBC [reported][1]. She developed "severe body dysmorphia, depression, and suicidal thoughts," and every notification that came through made it harder to stop logging in.
[Read full article][2]
[Comments][3]
[1]: https://www.cnbc.com/2026/03/25/meta-youtube-los-angeles-california-verdict.html
[2]: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/03/meta-youtube-must-pay-3m-to-woman-who-got-hooked-on-apps-as-a-child/
[3]: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/03/meta-youtube-must-pay-3m-to-woman-who-got-hooked-on-apps-as-a-child/#comments
Laura Marquez-Garrett (3R, gray blazer), plaintiffs' attorney for Social Media Victims Law Center, gathers with family members of victims as they react to news that the jury has found Meta and YouTube liable in the social media addiction trial, outside the Los Angeles Superior Court.
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/03/meta-youtube-must-pay-3m-to-woman-who-got-hooked-on-apps-as-a-child/

2026-03-25 18:29:13 UTC

Antibiotic resistance among germs swells during droughts, study suggests
For as long as we've known that soil bacteria manufacture molecular weapons to fight each other, we've been swiping their battle plans. In clinics and hospitals, those turf-war weapons have become miraculous drugs of modern medicine—antibiotics—that blow away otherwise deadly infections.
But, of course, there's a dark side of mimicking microbial munitions—bacteria have defenses, too, namely antibiotic resistance. You're probably aware that we're facing a rising threat of drug resistance among disease-causing bacteria, one that is rendering much of our stolen weaponry obsolete and making infections harder to defeat.
Often, this growing crisis is framed as a clinical failure: We're overusing and misusing antibiotics, hastening our bacterial foes' natural ability to develop and spread resistance. While this is certainly true, [a new study in Nature Microbiology][1] this week identifies a potentially new driver of rising antibiotic resistance—and we're at least partly to blame for this one, too.
[Read full article][2]
[Comments][3]
[1]: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41564-026-02274-x
[2]: https://arstechnica.com/health/2026/03/antibiotic-resistance-among-germs-swells-during-droughts-study-suggests/
[3]: https://arstechnica.com/health/2026/03/antibiotic-resistance-among-germs-swells-during-droughts-study-suggests/#comments
A traditional boat is stranded in the mud as water recedes in the drought-striken Chibayish marshes in Iraq's southern Dhi Qar province on July 30, 2025.
https://arstechnica.com/health/2026/03/antibiotic-resistance-among-germs-swells-during-droughts-study-suggests/

2026-03-25 18:29:07 UTC

Google's TurboQuant AI-compression algorithm can reduce LLM memory usage by 6x
Even if you don't know much about the inner workings of generative AI models, you probably know they need a lot of memory. Hence, it is currently almost impossible to buy a measly stick of RAM [without getting fleeced][1]. Google Research recently [revealed TurboQuant][2], a compression algorithm that reduces the memory footprint of large language models (LLMs) while also boosting speed and maintaining accuracy.
TurboQuant is aimed at reducing the size of the key-value cache, which Google likens to a "digital cheat sheet" that stores important information so it doesn't have to be recomputed. This cheat sheet is necessary because, as we say all the time, LLMs don't actually know anything; they can do a good impression of knowing things through the use of vectors, which map the semantic meaning of tokenized text. When two vectors are similar, that means they have conceptual similarity.
High-dimensional vectors, which can have hundreds or thousands of embeddings, may describe complex information like the pixels in an image or a large data set. They also occupy a lot of memory and inflate the size of the key-value cache, bottlenecking performance. To make models smaller and more efficient, developers employ quantization techniques to [run them at lower precision][3]. The drawback is that the outputs get worse—the quality of token estimation goes down. With TurboQuant, Google's early results show an 8x performance increase and 6x reduction in memory usage in some tests *without* a loss of quality.
[Read full article][4]
[Comments][5]
[1]: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/12/for-just-a-couple-of-months-in-the-middle-of-2025-it-was-an-ok-time-to-build-a-pc/
[2]: https://research.google/blog/turboquant-redefining-ai-efficiency-with-extreme-compression/
[3]: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/12/the-npu-in-your-phone-keeps-improving-why-isnt-that-making-ai-better/
[4]: https://arstechnica.com/ai/2026/03/google-says-new-turboquant-compression-can-lower-ai-memory-usage-without-sacrificing-quality/
[5]: https://arstechnica.com/ai/2026/03/google-says-new-turboquant-compression-can-lower-ai-memory-usage-without-sacrificing-quality/#comments
https://arstechnica.com/ai/2026/03/google-says-new-turboquant-compression-can-lower-ai-memory-usage-without-sacrificing-quality/

2026-03-25 18:29:02 UTC

Supreme Court rejects Sony's attempt to kick music pirates off the Internet
The Supreme Court today decided that Internet service providers cannot be held liable for their customers' copyright infringement unless they take specific steps that cause users to violate copyrights. The court ruled unanimously in favor of Internet provider Cox Communications, though two justices did not agree with the majority's reasoning.
The ruling effectively means that ISPs do not have to conduct mass terminations of Internet users accused of illegally downloading or uploading pirated files. If the court had ruled otherwise, ISPs could have been compelled to strictly police their networks for piracy in order to avoid billion-dollar court verdicts under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).
The long-running case is *Cox Communications v. Sony Music Entertainment*. Cox was hit with a [$1 billion verdict][1] for music piracy in 2019. Although the damages award was [overturned][2] in 2024, a federal appeals court still found that Cox was liable for willful contributory infringement.
[Read full article][3]
[Comments][4]
[1]: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2019/12/cox-communications-hit-with-1-billion-verdict-over-music-piracy/
[2]: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2024/02/court-blocks-1-billion-copyright-ruling-that-punished-isp-for-its-users-piracy/
[3]: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/03/supreme-court-rejects-sonys-attempt-to-kick-music-pirates-off-the-internet/
[4]: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/03/supreme-court-rejects-sonys-attempt-to-kick-music-pirates-off-the-internet/#comments
Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito (L) and Clarence Thomas (R) at the inauguration of President Trump on January 20, 2025 in Washington, DC.
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/03/supreme-court-rejects-sonys-attempt-to-kick-music-pirates-off-the-internet/

2026-03-25 17:25:00 UTC

Google bumps up Q Day deadline to 2029, far sooner than previously thought
Google is dramatically shortening its deadline readiness for the arrival of Q Day, the point at which existing quantum computers can break public-key cryptography algorithms that secure decades' worth of secrets belonging to militaries, banks, governments, and nearly every individual on earth.
In a [post][1] published on Wednesday, Google said it is giving itself until 2029 to prepare for this event. The post went on to warn that the rest of the world needs to follow suit by adopting PQC—short for post-quantum cryptography—algorithms to augment or replace elliptic curves and RSA, both of which will be broken.
## The end is nigh
“As a pioneer in both quantum and PQC, it’s our responsibility to lead by example and share an ambitious timeline,” wrote Heather Adkins, Google’s VP of security engineering, and Sophie Schmieg, a senior cryptography engineer. “By doing this, we hope to provide the clarity and urgency needed to accelerate digital transitions not only for Google, but also across the industry.”
[Read full article][2]
[Comments][3]
[1]: https://blog.google/innovation-and-ai/technology/safety-security/cryptography-migration-timeline/
[2]: https://arstechnica.com/security/2026/03/google-bumps-up-q-day-estimate-to-2029-far-sooner-than-previously-thought/
[3]: https://arstechnica.com/security/2026/03/google-bumps-up-q-day-estimate-to-2029-far-sooner-than-previously-thought/#comments
https://arstechnica.com/security/2026/03/google-bumps-up-q-day-estimate-to-2029-far-sooner-than-previously-thought/

2026-03-25 17:24:55 UTC

Trump staffs science and technology panel with non-scientists
PCAST, the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, is generally not a high-profile group. It tends to be noticed when things go wrong, such as when the PCAST head named by Biden [had to resign][1] due to abusive behavior. Biden, who was generally supportive of science, didn't even name the members of PCAST until eight months after his inauguration. So it's no surprise that an administration that's been hostile to science took even longer to staff its version of the group.
The list of appointees was finally [released on Wednesday][2], and it's notable for its almost complete absence of scientists. There are still nine unfilled vacancies on the council, so it's possible more scientists will be named later. But for now, PCAST is heavily tilted toward extremely wealthy technology figures.
These include investor Marc Andreessen, Google's Sergey Brin, Michael Dell of Dell, Larry Ellison of Oracle, Jensen Huang of NVIDIA, Lisa Su of AMD, and Mark Zuckerberg of Meta. But many of the lesser known names have similar backgrounds. Previously named chairs of PCAST are investor David Sacks and a former investment company CFO and current head of the Office of Science and Technology Policy, John Kratsios. Of the new appointees, Safra Catz also comes from Oracle, Fred Ehrsam co-founded Coinbase, and David Friedberg is another investor.
[Read full article][3]
[Comments][4]
[1]: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/07/us/politics/eric-lander-resigns-white-house.html
[2]: https://www.whitehouse.gov/articles/2026/03/president-trump-announces-appointments-to-presidents-council-of-advisors-on-science-and-technology/
[3]: https://arstechnica.com/science/2026/03/trump-staffs-science-and-technology-panel-with-non-scientists/
[4]: https://arstechnica.com/science/2026/03/trump-staffs-science-and-technology-panel-with-non-scientists/#comments
Michael Kratsios, head of the Office of Science and Technology Policy, speaks with President Trump.
https://arstechnica.com/science/2026/03/trump-staffs-science-and-technology-panel-with-non-scientists/

2026-03-25 14:57:02 UTC

Disney cancels $1 billion OpenAI partnership amid Sora shutdown plans
OpenAI's [recently announced plans to shutter its Sora video-generating app][1] have also scuttled the company's planned $1 billion licensing partnership with Disney, according to multiple press reports.
"As the nascent AI field advances rapidly, we respect OpenAI’s decision to exit the video generation business and to shift its priorities elsewhere," Disney said in a statement provided to media outlets. "We appreciate the constructive collaboration between our teams and what we learned from it, and we will continue to engage with AI platforms to find new ways to meet fans where they are while responsibly embracing new technologies that respect IP and the rights of creators."
Disney and OpenAI [announced the blockbuster three-year licensing deal][2] in December, saying that over 200 Disney-owned characters would be available for use in Sora-generated videos. At the same time, Disney said it would be making a $1 billion equity investment in the AI company.
[Read full article][3]
[Comments][4]
[1]: https://arstechnica.com/ai/2026/03/openai-plans-to-shut-down-sora-just-15-months-after-its-launch/
[2]: https://arstechnica.com/ai/2025/12/disney-invests-1-billion-in-openai-licenses-200-characters-for-ai-video-app-sora/
[3]: https://arstechnica.com/ai/2026/03/the-end-of-sora-also-means-the-end-of-disneys-1-billion-openai-investment/
[4]: https://arstechnica.com/ai/2026/03/the-end-of-sora-also-means-the-end-of-disneys-1-billion-openai-investment/#comments
Pack the mouse up, boys, we're done here.
https://arstechnica.com/ai/2026/03/the-end-of-sora-also-means-the-end-of-disneys-1-billion-openai-investment/

2026-03-25 14:56:56 UTC

Apple begins age checks in the UK with latest iOS update
Millions of iPhone owners in the UK will be asked to verify they are over 18 in order to access several Apple services, following pressure from the UK government on smartphone makers to do more to protect children online.
The UK is believed to be the first European market where Apple is rolling out its new age controls, which are designed to ensure that only adults can download apps rated on its App Store as being suitable for over-18s.
Following an iOS software update that was pushed out on Wednesday, adults who do not verify their age will face restrictions on web browsing, as well as “communication safety” checks to their messages and FaceTime video calls, which are designed to detect nude photos and videos.
[Read full article][1]
[Comments][2]
[1]: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/03/apple-begins-age-checks-in-the-uk-with-latest-ios-update/
[2]: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/03/apple-begins-age-checks-in-the-uk-with-latest-ios-update/#comments
Apple's iPhone 17 Pro.
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/03/apple-begins-age-checks-in-the-uk-with-latest-ios-update/

2026-03-25 14:56:51 UTC

Meta loses trial after arguing child exploitation was “inevitable” on its apps
Meta has lost the first of three child safety trials it's facing this year after a jury in a New Mexico state court found that the social media giant's platforms do not effectively protect kids from child exploitation.
On Tuesday, the jury deliberated for only one day before agreeing that Meta should pay $375 million in civil damages for violating state consumer protections and misleading parents about the safety of its apps.
The trial followed a 2023 lawsuit filed by New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez after The Guardian published a [two-year investigation][1] exposing child sex trafficking markets on Facebook and Instagram. Torrez's office then conducted an undercover investigation codenamed "Operation MetaPhile," in which officers posed as children on Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp. The jury heard that these fake profiles were "simply inundated with images and targeted solicitations” from child abusers, Torrez [told CNBC][2] in 2024. Ultimately, three men were arrested amid the sting for attempting to use Meta's social networks to prey on children.
[Read full article][3]
[Comments][4]
[1]: https://www.theguardian.com/news/2023/apr/27/how-facebook-and-instagram-became-marketplaces-for-child-sex-trafficking
[2]: https://www.cnbc.com/2024/01/31/meta-chief-mark-zuckerberg-criticized-over-child-sex-targeting-on-site.html
[3]: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/03/meta-loses-trial-after-arguing-child-exploitation-was-inevitable-on-its-apps/
[4]: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/03/meta-loses-trial-after-arguing-child-exploitation-was-inevitable-on-its-apps/#comments
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg leaves the Federal Courthouse in downtown Los Angeles after defending the company in a landmark social media addiction trial.
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/03/meta-loses-trial-after-arguing-child-exploitation-was-inevitable-on-its-apps/

2026-03-25 13:22:52 UTC

Honda cancels the two electric vehicles it was developing with Sony
Earlier this month Honda decided to cancel a trio of electric vehicles it was planning to build in the US. And those cancellations are having a ripple effect. Today Sony Honda Mobility—the automaker's joint venture with the electronics and entertainment company—announced that it won't bring its EVs to market either.
Although Honda was an early adopter of hybrid technology, it has been left badly lagging when it comes to developing battery-electric cars. The diminutive Honda e might look like [the most adorable city car you've ever seen][1], but it struggled to find more than 12,000 buyers in four years across Europe and Japan.
Here in North America, [the Prologue][2] has done much better: Honda sold 33,000 in 2024, and another 39,000 last year. But the rebadged GM, which shares a platform with the Chevrolet Blazer, has seen sales implode since the end of the federal clean vehicle tax credit last fall, and it, too, leaves production at the end of the year. An earlier plan to use GM's battery platform for lower-cost EVs, [meant to arrive in 2027][3], died [in late 2023][4].
[Read full article][5]
[Comments][6]
[1]: https://arstechnica.com/cars/2019/09/dear-honda-this-adorable-electric-car-needs-to-come-to-the-us/
[2]: https://arstechnica.com/cars/2024/08/the-2024-honda-prologue-a-dependable-but-somewhat-dull-ev/
[3]: https://arstechnica.com/cars/2022/04/honda-and-general-motors-will-collaborate-on-affordable-evs-from-2027/
[4]: https://arstechnica.com/cars/2023/10/honda-cancels-plan-for-cheap-electric-vehicles-ending-collaboration-with-gm/
[5]: https://arstechnica.com/cars/2026/03/honda-cancels-the-two-electric-vehicles-it-was-developing-with-sony/
[6]: https://arstechnica.com/cars/2026/03/honda-cancels-the-two-electric-vehicles-it-was-developing-with-sony/#comments
A prototype Afeela undergoes checks at the factory in Ohio. It will not now go into series production.
https://arstechnica.com/cars/2026/03/honda-cancels-the-two-electric-vehicles-it-was-developing-with-sony/

2026-03-25 12:28:13 UTC

So long, farewell: Saying goodbye to Audi's best car, the 2026 RS6 Avant
By the time you read this, the Audi RS6 Avant is dead. Production at the factory in Neckarsulm, Germany, has already switched over [to new models][1]; any unsold wagons at dealerships will be the last of their kind. Time moves on, leaving the unelectrified 2026 RS6 Avant Performance as a relic from a bygone age where people didn't care quite so much about melting glaciers. In this regard progress is good and climate catastrophe is bad, but there are other things to like about the RS6 Avant, and much that Audi could and should bring to its other cars.
The car was always something of a unicorn here in the US. As the SUV became ascendant, the station wagon suffered a corresponding decline with the general public, and automakers like Audi responded by not importing them anymore. The economics, we were told, didn't add up: wagon sales would just cannibalize SUV sales but at too small a rate to make the imported wagons profitable. But with smaller volumes, the math made more sense, which is why in 2019 the car maker buckled to pressure and said fine, [we'll import the RS6 Avant][2]. And with a starting price of $130,700, you can understand why this is a low-volume model.
## Subtly swollen
A look down its flanks reveals wheel arches that bulge to accommodate larger wheels, part of Audi Sport's RS transformation applied to the sedate A6 starting point. Larger wheels provide clearance for larger brakes, which in turn help stop it from prodigious velocities—if you have a long enough runway or the right stretch of German Autobahn, top speed for this version, the Performance, tops out at 190 mph (305 km/h). Under the hood, hidden from view by plastic paneling, lies a twin-turbocharged 4.0 L V8 engine, which generates 621 hp (463 kW) and 627 lb-ft (850 Nm), sending power to all four wheels via an eight-speed ZF automatic transmission.
[Read full article][3]
[Comments][4]
[1]: https://arstechnica.com/cars/2025/07/audis-midsize-sedan-goes-electric-the-2025-a6-and-s6-sportback-driven/
[2]: https://arstechnica.com/cars/2019/09/audi-responds-to-demand-will-bring-its-fiery-rs6-wagon-to-america/
[3]: https://arstechnica.com/cars/2026/03/so-long-farewell-saying-goodbye-to-audis-best-car-the-2026-rs6-avant/
[4]: https://arstechnica.com/cars/2026/03/so-long-farewell-saying-goodbye-to-audis-best-car-the-2026-rs6-avant/#comments
Stormtrooper spec for this 2026 Audi RS6 Avant performance.
https://arstechnica.com/cars/2026/03/so-long-farewell-saying-goodbye-to-audis-best-car-the-2026-rs6-avant/

2026-03-25 09:52:20 UTC

How chemists turned bourbon waste into supercapacitors
[Bourbon][1] is a multi-billion-dollar market, but the American barrel-aged whiskey also produces a lot of wasted grain at distilleries. Chemists at the University of Kentucky developed a method to transform that stillage into electrodes and used those electrodes to build supercapacitors with energy storage capacity on par with existing commercial devices. They presented their work at [a meeting][2] of the American Chemical Society in Atlanta, Georgia.
US distillers began making bourbon in the 18th century, particularly in Kentucky, but it really took off commercially, in terms of consumption and exports, after World War II. Legally, a whiskey can only be sold as bourbon if its mash is comprised of at least 51 percent corn, with any other cereal grain (usually rye and barley) making up the remainder.
The grain is ground up and mixed with water, and mash from a previous distillation is added to create a sour mash. The addition of yeast launches fermentation, after which the mash is distilled to a clear spirit called "white dog." That spirit is poured into charred new oak barrels for aging of at least two years. It's the caramelized sugars and vanillin in the charred wood that give bourbon its distinctive dark color and flavor. The barrels are never reused for bourbon, typically being recycled for making barrel-aged beer, wine, and even barbecue and hot sauces.
[Read full article][3]
[Comments][4]
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bourbon_whiskey#Production_process
[2]: https://acs.digitellinc.com/live/36/page/1270
[3]: https://arstechnica.com/science/2026/03/how-chemists-turned-bourbon-waste-into-super-capacitors/
[4]: https://arstechnica.com/science/2026/03/how-chemists-turned-bourbon-waste-into-super-capacitors/#comments
https://arstechnica.com/science/2026/03/how-chemists-turned-bourbon-waste-into-super-capacitors/

2026-03-25 04:34:36 UTC

"The last straw"—RFK Jr.'s anti-vaccine ally angrily quits CDC panel after spat
One of the federal vaccine advisors hand-selected by anti-vaccine Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has angrily resigned from his position, complaining of "drama" amid a spat with a spokesperson. Robert Malone—a former researcher turned outspoken anti-vaccine activist and conspiracy theorist—confirmed he was stepping down Tuesday afternoon to[ CQ Roll Call][1], which first reported the news.
He told the outlet that his decision to quit came after a "miscommunication" about the fate of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP). Kennedy had populated ACIP with anti-vaccine allies including Malone, who served as vice chair, after summarily firing all 17 experts on the panel last June. Last week, [a federal judge temporarily blocked Kennedy's ACIP appointments][2], including Malone. He also stayed the changes that its members had made to federal vaccine guidance, as well as the dramatic overhaul of the childhood vaccine schedule Kennedy made without them. The judge ruled all the moves were likely illegal.
On Thursday, Malone claimed on social media that the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) had [disbanded ACIP and planned to completely reconstitute it (again)][3], without appealing the judge's ruling or defending Kennedy's ACIP picks from the judge's claims that they were unqualified. But soon after, Malone retracted his claim, saying it was a miscommunication and that disbanding ACIP was merely one of the "options being considered."
[Read full article][4]
[Comments][5]
[1]: https://rollcall.com/2026/03/24/cdc-vaccine-adviser-malone-steps-down-to-avoid-drama/
[2]: https://arstechnica.com/health/2026/03/judge-temporarily-blocks-rfk-jr-s-changes-to-cdc-vaccine-recommendations/
[3]: https://arstechnica.com/health/2026/03/rfk-may-replace-entire-panel-of-cdc-vaccine-advisors-again-ally-lets-slip/
[4]: https://arstechnica.com/health/2026/03/rfk-jr-anti-vaccine-ally-dramatically-quits-cdc-panel-complaining-of-drama/
[5]: https://arstechnica.com/health/2026/03/rfk-jr-anti-vaccine-ally-dramatically-quits-cdc-panel-complaining-of-drama/#comments
Committee member Dr. Robert Malone during a meeting of the CDC's Advisory Committee On Immunization Practices at the Center for Disease Control (CDC) headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia, US, on Friday, Dec. 5, 2025.
https://arstechnica.com/health/2026/03/rfk-jr-anti-vaccine-ally-dramatically-quits-cdc-panel-complaining-of-drama/

2026-03-24 23:56:56 UTC

Final analysis of 2025 Iberian blackout: Policies left Spain at risk
Roughly a year ago, Spain and Portugal went dark when the electrical grid of the entire Iberian Peninsula failed. While the grid operators did a heroic job of [restarting the grid][1] quickly, there were obvious questions about what had led to the blackout in the first place. A [preliminary report][2] suggested that a combination of grid-level voltage oscillations and early disconnections was the main factor.
Over the weekend, the European grid coordinator, ENTSO-e, released its [final, detailed report][3] on the event. While it's largely consistent with the preliminary conclusions, the report provides much more detail about what went wrong and, more significantly, offers a clear picture of how the Iberian grid operators could make changes to prevent a similar event in the future.
## Oscillations
The expert committee that prepared the report had access to a wealth of data, including status logs from most of the major hardware on the Spanish and Portuguese grid, often recorded with sub-second precision. There's also data from the two major interchanges between the Spanish grid and those in France and Morocco. The group even obtained data from two manufacturers of the small inverters used for rooftop solar about the performance of their hardware on the day in question.
[Read full article][4]
[Comments][5]
[1]: https://arstechnica.com/science/2025/04/why-restarting-a-power-grid-is-so-hard/
[2]: https://arstechnica.com/science/2025/06/spanish-blackout-report-power-plants-meant-to-stabilize-voltage-didnt/
[3]: https://www.entsoe.eu/publications/blackout/28-april-2025-iberian-blackout/#Publications_&_Documents
[4]: https://arstechnica.com/science/2026/03/final-analysis-of-2025-iberian-blackout-policies-left-spain-at-risk/
[5]: https://arstechnica.com/science/2026/03/final-analysis-of-2025-iberian-blackout-policies-left-spain-at-risk/#comments
https://arstechnica.com/science/2026/03/final-analysis-of-2025-iberian-blackout-policies-left-spain-at-risk/

2026-03-24 22:28:53 UTC

Mozilla dev's "Stack Overflow for agents" targets a key weakness in coding AI
Mozilla developer Peter Wilson has taken to the [Mozilla.ai blog][1] to announce cq, which he describes as "Stack Overflow for agents." The nascent project hints at something genuinely useful, but it will have to address security, data poisoning, and accuracy to achieve significant adoption.
It's meant to solve a couple of problems. First, coding agents often use outdated information when making decisions, like attempting deprecated API calls. This stems from training cutoffs and the lack of reliable, structured access to up-to-date runtime context. They sometimes use techniques like RAG (Retrieval Augmented Generation) to get updated knowledge, but they don't always do that when they need to—"unknown unknowns," as the saying goes—and it's never comprehensive when they do.
Second, multiple agents often have to find ways around the same barriers, but there's no knowledge sharing after said training cutoff point. That means hundreds or thousands of individual agents end up using expensive tokens and consuming energy to solve already-solved problems all the time. Ideally, one would solve an issue once, and the others would draw from that experience.
[Read full article][2]
[Comments][3]
[1]: https://blog.mozilla.ai/cq-stack-overflow-for-agents/
[2]: https://arstechnica.com/ai/2026/03/mozilla-dev-introduces-cq-a-stack-overflow-for-agents/
[3]: https://arstechnica.com/ai/2026/03/mozilla-dev-introduces-cq-a-stack-overflow-for-agents/#comments
https://arstechnica.com/ai/2026/03/mozilla-dev-introduces-cq-a-stack-overflow-for-agents/

2026-03-24 22:28:48 UTC

Newly purchased Vizio TVs now require Walmart accounts to use smart features
Prospective Vizio TV buyers should know there’s a good chance the set won’t work properly without a Walmart account. In an attempt to better serve advertisers, Walmart, which [bought Vizio][1] in December 2024, announced this week that select newly purchased Vizio TVs now require a Walmart account for setup and accessing smart TV features.
Since 2024, Vizio TVs have required a Vizio account, which a Vizio OS [website][2] says is necessary for accessing “exclusive offers, subscription management, and tailored support.” Accounts are also central to Vizio’s business, which is largely driven by ads and tracking tied to its OS.
A Walmart spokesperson confirmed to Ars Technica that Walmart accounts will be mandatory on “select new Vizio OS TVs” for owners to complete onboarding and to use smart TV features. The representative added:
[Read full article][3]
[Comments][4]
[1]: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/02/walmart-buying-tv-brand-vizio-for-its-ad-fueling-customer-data/
[2]: https://www.vizio.com/en/vizio-os
[3]: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/03/newly-purchased-vizio-tvs-now-require-walmart-accounts-to-use-smart-features/
[4]: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/03/newly-purchased-vizio-tvs-now-require-walmart-accounts-to-use-smart-features/#comments
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/03/newly-purchased-vizio-tvs-now-require-walmart-accounts-to-use-smart-features/

2026-03-24 21:23:28 UTC

Apple releases iOS, iPadOS, macOS 26.4 with a long list of medium-size tweaks
Apple has released the 26.4 updates to all of its major software platforms today, including iOS, iPadOS, macOS Tahoe, watchOS, tvOS, visionOS, and the HomePod. The most important reason to install each update is the big pile of included security fixes—you can see the ones Apple is disclosing for [iOS/iPadOS][1] and [macOS][2] on its security website—but the updates also include a few significant new features, a change from [the mostly quiet 26.3 release][3] last month.
We covered [many of the most notable features][4] when the first versions of these updates were released through Apple's beta testing channels. Those include charging limits for MacBooks, for those who don't want to allow their batteries to charge to their full capacities; the return of the "compact" tab view for Safari running on macOS Tahoe and iPadOS 26; and enabled-by-default [Stolen Device Protection][5].
Other features include the handful of new emoji from the Unicode 17.0 release ([see Emojipedia for more][6]); AI-generated Apple Music playlists; new [Creator Studio features][7] for the built-in Freeform app; and the ability for adults in a Family Sharing group to use different payment methods from one another when making purchases.
[Read full article][8]
[Comments][9]
[1]: https://support.apple.com/en-us/126792
[2]: https://support.apple.com/en-us/126794
[3]: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/02/apple-releases-ios-26-3-with-updates-that-mainly-benefit-non-apple-devices/
[4]: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/02/5-changes-to-know-about-in-apples-latest-ios-macos-and-ipados-betas/
[5]: https://support.apple.com/en-us/120340
[6]: https://blog.emojipedia.org/apple-ios-26-4-emoji-changelog/
[7]: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/01/seven-things-to-know-about-how-apples-creator-studio-subscriptions-work/
[8]: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/03/apple-releases-ios-ipados-macos-26-4-with-a-long-list-of-medium-size-tweaks/
[9]: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/03/apple-releases-ios-ipados-macos-26-4-with-a-long-list-of-medium-size-tweaks/#comments
Devices running Apple's latest operating systems.
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/03/apple-releases-ios-ipados-macos-26-4-with-a-long-list-of-medium-size-tweaks/

2026-03-24 21:23:23 UTC

FCC imposes sweeping ban on foreign-made routers, affecting all new models
The Federal Communications Commission yesterday [announced][1] it will no longer approve consumer-grade routers made outside of the US, citing a President Trump directive on reducing the use of foreign technology for national security reasons. The action will prevent foreign-made routers from being imported into or sold in the US.
Routers already approved for sale in the US can continue to be sold, and consumers can keep using any router they've previously obtained, the FCC said. But the FCC will not approve new device models made at least partly outside the US unless the Department of Defense or Department of Homeland Security determines that the router does not pose national security risks.
The prohibition applies to both US and foreign companies that produce routers outside the US. Foreign production includes "any major stage of the process through which the device is made, including manufacturing, assembly, design, and development."
[Read full article][2]
[Comments][3]
[1]: https://www.fcc.gov/document/fcc-updates-covered-list-include-foreign-made-consumer-routers
[2]: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/03/trump-fcc-prohibits-import-and-sale-of-new-wi-fi-routers-made-outside-us/
[3]: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/03/trump-fcc-prohibits-import-and-sale-of-new-wi-fi-routers-made-outside-us/#comments
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/03/trump-fcc-prohibits-import-and-sale-of-new-wi-fi-routers-made-outside-us/

2026-03-24 21:23:17 UTC

Electronic Frontier Foundation to swap leaders as AI, ICE fights escalate
Back in 2022 when Cindy Cohn, the executive director of a US digital rights nonprofit called the Electronic Frontier Foundation, started writing her memoir, *Privacy's Defender*, she worried that people would think she was an "old fuddy duddy" still sounding alarms about government spying online.
As one of EFF's first litigators and then its longtime leader, Cohn witnessed firsthand how government surveillance became one of the earliest concerns for civil rights advocates when the Internet became mainstream in the 1990s. Since then, attention has pivoted away from caring about government's Internet abuses to focusing much more on Big Tech harms, she said.
But then Donald Trump's second term started, launching aggressive Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) operations nationwide that depended on abusing tech to support its goals of mass deportation. Railing against ICE raids, communities have quickly mobilized to defend online privacy, even [banding together across political divides][1] to tear down Flock cameras that can aid in arrests. Maybe even more concerning, as the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has [increasingly sought to unmask ICE critics][2] on social media—and [largely failed][3]—EFF has [filed][4] and backed lawsuits fighting to protect Americans' rights to track ICE activity and share information anonymously online.
[Read full article][5]
[Comments][6]
[1]: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/11/flock-haters-cross-political-divides-to-remove-error-prone-cameras/
[2]: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/01/instagram-user-fights-dhs-for-the-right-to-post-ice-sightings-anonymously/
[3]: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/01/instagram-ice-critic-wins-fight-to-stay-anonymous-as-dhs-backs-down/
[4]: https://www.eff.org/cases/eff-v-doj-dhs-ice-tracking-apps
[5]: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/03/trump-made-opposing-government-spying-cool-again-effs-departing-chief-says/
[6]: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/03/trump-made-opposing-government-spying-cool-again-effs-departing-chief-says/#comments
On the left, departing director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Cindy Cohn. On the right, incoming leader, Nicole Ozer.
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/03/trump-made-opposing-government-spying-cool-again-effs-departing-chief-says/

2026-03-24 21:23:12 UTC

OpenAI plans to shut down Sora just 15 months after its launch
OpenAI is preparing to shut down Sora, the video generation app that drew widespread attention when it [launched in late 2024][1].
OpenAI [announced the move in a social media post Tuesday][2] just after a Wall Street Journal story [broke the news][3]. The company said it will have more to share soon on "timelines for the app and API and details on preserving your work."
"To everyone who created with Sora, shared it, and built community around it: thank you," OpenAI wrote. "What you made with Sora mattered, and we know this news is disappointing."
[Read full article][4]
[Comments][5]
[1]: https://arstechnica.com/ai/2024/12/ten-months-after-first-tease-openai-launches-sora-video-generation-publicly/
[2]: https://x.com/soraofficialapp/status/2036532795984715896
[3]: https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/openai-set-to-discontinue-sora-video-platform-app-a82a9e4e
[4]: https://arstechnica.com/ai/2026/03/openai-plans-to-shut-down-sora-just-15-months-after-its-launch/
[5]: https://arstechnica.com/ai/2026/03/openai-plans-to-shut-down-sora-just-15-months-after-its-launch/#comments
We'll use any excuse to reuse this image of a cool dog riding a skateboard, from a video generated by Sora during its [brief public access leak][1] in November 2024.
[1]: https://arstechnica.com/ai/2024/11/openai-is-at-war-with-its-own-sora-video-testers-following-brief-public-leak/
https://arstechnica.com/ai/2026/03/openai-plans-to-shut-down-sora-just-15-months-after-its-launch/

2026-03-24 19:04:46 UTC

Apple confirms that its Maps app will begin showing ads to users "this summer"
One benefit of most of Apple's hardware and software is that it's [relatively privacy-focused][1] and light on advertising, compared to something like modern Windows or the Roku operating system. But ads have still crept into various apps and services over time, and Apple [confirmed today][2] that its Maps app would [begin showing ads][3] to users in the US and Canada starting "this summer."
Businesses that want to show ads in Apple Maps will be able to claim their physical location and upload photos, and then pay to have their business displayed at the top of search results "based on relevance" and also in a "Suggested Places" section of the app. Apple displays similar relevance-based advertisements when users search for apps in the App Store.
Apple says that users' personal data will still stay on-device and won't be collected by Apple or shared with third parties. The company also says that ads viewed or opened in Maps won't be tied to your Apple account or used to track your physical location.
[Read full article][4]
[Comments][5]
[1]: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/06/all-the-ways-apple-tv-boxes-do-and-mostly-dont-track-you/
[2]: https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2026/03/introducing-apple-business-a-new-all-in-one-platform-for-businesses-of-all-sizes/
[3]: https://ads.apple.com/maps
[4]: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/03/apple-confirms-that-its-maps-app-will-begin-showing-ads-to-users-this-summer/
[5]: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/03/apple-confirms-that-its-maps-app-will-begin-showing-ads-to-users-this-summer/#comments
Ads in the Maps app are part of a new "Apple Business" service aimed at businesses and IT departments.
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/03/apple-confirms-that-its-maps-app-will-begin-showing-ads-to-users-this-summer/

2026-03-24 19:04:40 UTC

Google's new version of Android Automotive will move beyond infotainment
Android has been creeping into cars for more than a decade, first with the phone-based Android Auto and later with built-in Android Automotive OS. Even when Android is running on cars, it has not been allowed outside of the infotainment box. That could begin changing soon with [Google's new plans][1] for software-defined vehicles (SDVs), but don't expect most carmakers to step on the gas right away.
Car companies are notoriously protective of the software running on their vehicles, which has become a core part of the experience as cars have shifted to "[computers on wheels][2]." Part of that is a matter of safety, but the data collected by automotive software is also highly valuable. As a result of everyone going their own way, vehicles have different software stacks that can include incompatible components from myriad suppliers. Google says it can fix this "fragmentation" mess with a more powerful version of Android Automotive OS (AAOS) designed for SDVs.
For better or worse, cars are increasingly reliant on software for new features—for example, remote climate controls or using smart keys on your phone. Google's car efforts didn't start there, but they've definitely trended in that direction. Early on, the company's in-car play was Android Auto, which could run on a phone or be projected from a phone to supported car displays. Google eventually [dropped the phone-based Auto][3] to focus on the projected Android Auto experience and Android Automotive OS, which runs Android locally on the vehicle. That's where Google's latest initiative is focused.
[Read full article][4]
[Comments][5]
[1]: https://blog.google/products-and-platforms/platforms/android/android-automotive-os/
[2]: https://arstechnica.com/cars/2023/05/throw-out-all-those-black-boxes-and-say-hello-to-the-software-defined-car/
[3]: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/08/google-is-killing-android-auto-for-phones-if-you-even-know-what-that-is/
[4]: https://arstechnica.com/cars/2026/03/google-wants-android-automotive-to-control-more-of-your-car/
[5]: https://arstechnica.com/cars/2026/03/google-wants-android-automotive-to-control-more-of-your-car/#comments
https://arstechnica.com/cars/2026/03/google-wants-android-automotive-to-control-more-of-your-car/

2026-03-24 19:04:33 UTC

NASA kills lunar space station to focus on ambitious Moon base
WASHINGTON, DC—NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman on Tuesday laid out a sweeping vision for the space agency’s next decade during an event called “Ignition” in which he and other senior leaders set out their exploration plans.
Isaacman and his colleagues shared a number of major announcements, including outlining a nuclear-powered mission to Mars that will release three helicopters there and major changes to commercial space stations. However, most significantly, Isaacman outlined a detailed plan to construct a substantial Moon base over the next decade. He framed it as part of a "great power" challenge, saying that if NASA does not succeed now it will cede the Moon to China.
The base included long-range drones, multiple sources of power, sophisticated communications, permanent habitats, scientific laboratories, local manufacturing, and more. To accomplish this, NASA will work with a broad range of industry partners capable of sending medium-size and large cargos to the lunar surface. Isaacman also confirmed that NASA will no longer build a Lunar Gateway in orbit around the Moon, but would rather focus all of its energy and resources on the lunar surface.
[Read full article][1]
[Comments][2]
[1]: https://arstechnica.com/space/2026/03/nasa-kills-lunar-space-station-to-focus-on-ambitious-moon-base/
[2]: https://arstechnica.com/space/2026/03/nasa-kills-lunar-space-station-to-focus-on-ambitious-moon-base/#comments
A lunar base as seen from space.
https://arstechnica.com/space/2026/03/nasa-kills-lunar-space-station-to-focus-on-ambitious-moon-base/

2026-03-24 17:32:26 UTC

All of DOGE’s work could be undone as lawsuit against Musk proceeds
Elon Musk must defend himself against a lawsuit alleging that he unlawfully seized too much power as the leader of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), a judge ruled Monday.
According to the plaintiffs, Musk needed Senate confirmation before directing DOGE on drastic actions like eliminating agencies, mass firings, and steep budget cuts. Allegedly going far beyond the authority granted in President Donald Trump's most expansive DOGE executive orders, Musk took every inch of power granted and then increasingly used it to overreach unlike any presidential advisor who came before, the suit says.
In her [opinion][1] partly denying a [motion to dismiss][2], US District Judge Tanya S. Chutkan did not buy the US government's defense that Musk held no office formally established by law—and therefore did not need Senate confirmation and cannot be alleged to have exceeded his authority under the Constitution's Appointments Clause.
[Read full article][3]
[Comments][4]
[1]: https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/State-of-New-Mexico-v-Musk-Opinion-3-23-26.pdf
[2]: https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/State-of-New-Mexico-v-Musk-Complaint-2-13-25.pdf
[3]: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/03/all-of-doges-work-could-be-undone-as-lawsuit-against-musk-proceeds/
[4]: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/03/all-of-doges-work-could-be-undone-as-lawsuit-against-musk-proceeds/#comments
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/03/all-of-doges-work-could-be-undone-as-lawsuit-against-musk-proceeds/

2026-03-24 16:18:35 UTC

Claude Code can now take over your computer to complete tasks
Anthropic is joining the increasingly crowded field of companies with AI agents that can take direct control of your local computer desktop. The company has [announced][1] that Claude Code (and its more casual user-oriented [Claude Cowork][2]) can now "point, click, and navigate what’s on your screen" to "open files, use the browser, and run dev tools automatically" when necessary to complete tasks.
When possible, Anthropic says Claude Code and Cowork will still prioritize using [Connectors][3] to directly access and control outside apps or data sources. When that connection isn't available, though, those tools are now able to ask permission to "scroll, click to open, and explore as needed" on the machine itself to do what's asked. This kind of direct control of the computer can also be initiated and managed remotely via [Claude's Dispatch tool][4] as long as the target computer remains powered on.
An Anthropic video shows some examples of tasks Claud Code can complete on your desktop via Dispatch.
The new feature is now available to Claude Pro and Max subscribers using MacOS in what Anthropic calls a "research preview." That means the system "won't always work perfectly" and will sometimes require a "second try" for complex tasks, Anthropic warns. Completing tasks via "computer use" also "takes much longer and is more error-prone" than performing the same task via Connectors, the company writes.
[Read full article][5]
[Comments][6]
[1]: https://claude.com/blog/dispatch-and-computer-use
[2]: https://arstechnica.com/ai/2026/01/anthropic-launches-cowork-a-claude-code-like-for-general-computing/
[3]: https://claude.com/connectors
[4]: https://support.claude.com/en/articles/13947068-assign-tasks-to-claude-from-anywhere-in-cowork
[5]: https://arstechnica.com/ai/2026/03/claude-code-can-now-take-over-your-computer-to-complete-tasks/
[6]: https://arstechnica.com/ai/2026/03/claude-code-can-now-take-over-your-computer-to-complete-tasks/#comments
It's like this, minus the humanoid robot.
https://arstechnica.com/ai/2026/03/claude-code-can-now-take-over-your-computer-to-complete-tasks/

2026-03-24 14:51:47 UTC

Study says roads bring more fires to forests; USDA wants more roads to fight fires
When the Trump administration announced plans last year to rescind [a rule limiting roadbuilding][1] and timber harvests on millions of acres of national forests and grasslands, officials called the repeal necessary to prevent and manage wildfires.
But as the US Department of Agriculture prepares to release its draft environmental impact statement for the rescission, that justification is unraveling. And many critics of the move see the claim that roads are needed to fight fires in remote forests as cover for a giveaway to the timber industry.
On average, about 8 million acres have burned each year between 2017 and 2021, according to the [Congressional Budget Office][2], nearly double the average from 1987 to 1991. Wildfires on federal lands average about five times the size of those in the rest of the country, leading some of the nation’s top land managers to argue that national forests are a front line for fighting the nation’s steep increase in wildland blazes.
[Read full article][3]
[Comments][4]
[1]: https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2001/01/12/01-726/special-areas-roadless-area-conservation
[2]: https://www.cbo.gov/publication/58212
[3]: https://arstechnica.com/science/2026/03/study-says-roads-bring-more-fire-to-forests-usda-wants-more-roads-to-fight-fires/
[4]: https://arstechnica.com/science/2026/03/study-says-roads-bring-more-fire-to-forests-usda-wants-more-roads-to-fight-fires/#comments
The Gifford Fire burns through Los Padres National Forest in California on Aug. 2, 2025.
https://arstechnica.com/science/2026/03/study-says-roads-bring-more-fire-to-forests-usda-wants-more-roads-to-fight-fires/

2026-03-24 12:41:54 UTC

Self-propagating malware poisons open source software and wipes Iran-based machines
A new hacking group has been rampaging the Internet in a persistent campaign that spreads a self-propagating and never-before-seen backdoor—and curiously a data wiper that targets Iranian machines.
The group, tracked under the name TeamPCP, first gained visibility in December, when researchers from security firm Flare [observed ][1] it unleashing a worm that targeted cloud-hosted platforms that weren’t properly secured. The objective was to build a distributed proxy and scanning infrastructure and then use it to compromise servers for exfiltrating data, deploying ransomware, conducting extortion, and mining cryptocurrency. The group is notable for its skill in large-scale automation and integration of well-known attack techniques.
## Relentless and constantly evolving
More recently, TeamPCP has waged a relentless campaign that uses continuously evolving malware to bring ever more systems under its control. Late last week, it [compromised][2] virtually all versions of the widely used Trivy vulnerability scanner in a supply-chain attack after gaining privileged access to the GitHub account of Aqua Security, the Trivy creator.
[Read full article][3]
[Comments][4]
[1]: https://flare.io/learn/resources/blog/
[2]: https://arstechnica.com/security/2026/03/widely-used-trivy-scanner-compromised-in-ongoing-supply-chain-attack/
[3]: https://arstechnica.com/security/2026/03/self-propagating-malware-poisons-open-source-software-and-wipes-iran-based-machines/
[4]: https://arstechnica.com/security/2026/03/self-propagating-malware-poisons-open-source-software-and-wipes-iran-based-machines/#comments
https://arstechnica.com/security/2026/03/self-propagating-malware-poisons-open-source-software-and-wipes-iran-based-machines/

2026-03-24 11:59:05 UTC

Orbital data centers, part 1: There’s no way this is economically viable, right?
Let's start with the basics. What, exactly, is an orbital data center?
On the ground, data centers are typically large, warehouse-sized facilities filled with racks of storage and servers, and usually some high-speed networking gear to connect everything. A data center can be small or large, but the ones SpaceX is looking to supplant are of the big kind—the ones operated by major industry players like Amazon Web Services and Google, which provide most of the online services you use today. These are sprawling buildings, or even campuses of buildings, with redundant connections to the electrical grid, on-site generators, massive banks of batteries, and enormous cooling systems to handle the heat being shed by thousands upon thousands of machines operating around the clock.
An *orbital* data center replicates all of that, but in space.
[Read full article][1]
[Comments][2]
[1]: https://arstechnica.com/space/2026/03/orbital-data-centers-part-1-theres-no-way-this-is-economically-viable-right/
[2]: https://arstechnica.com/space/2026/03/orbital-data-centers-part-1-theres-no-way-this-is-economically-viable-right/#comments
In this article, we assess the economics behind the space data center race.
https://arstechnica.com/space/2026/03/orbital-data-centers-part-1-theres-no-way-this-is-economically-viable-right/

2026-03-23 23:43:03 UTC

A mission NASA might kill is still returning fascinating science from Jupiter
Jupiter's colossal storms generate lightning flashes at least 100 times more powerful than those on Earth, according to scientists analyzing data from NASA's Juno spacecraft.
The findings were published March 20 in the journal *AGU Advances. *Researchers used data recorded by Juno in 2021 and 2022, after NASA granted an extension to the spacecraft's operations upon completing a five-year science campaign at Jupiter. Juno remains in [good health][1], but NASA officials have not said if they will approve another extension for the mission. The issue is money.
Questions about the future of Juno and more than a dozen other robotic science missions began swirling nearly a year ago, when the Trump administration asked mission leaders to submit "closeout" plans for how to turn off their spacecraft. [Ars first reported][2] the news soon after the White House released a budget request that called for slashing NASA's science budget by nearly half.
[Read full article][3]
[Comments][4]
[1]: https://arstechnica.com/space/2025/09/scientists-its-do-or-die-time-for-americas-primacy-exploring-the-solar-system/
[2]: https://arstechnica.com/space/2025/07/trump-administration-moves-to-tighten-the-noose-around-nasa-science-missions/
[3]: https://arstechnica.com/space/2026/03/a-mission-nasa-might-kill-is-still-returning-fascinating-science-from-jupiter/
[4]: https://arstechnica.com/space/2026/03/a-mission-nasa-might-kill-is-still-returning-fascinating-science-from-jupiter/#comments
A camera on NASA’s Juno spacecraft took this image of a high-altitude storm—a stealth superstorm plume—in Jupiter’s North Equatorial Belt on January 12, 2022. The head of the storm is white because of frozen ammonia crystals. The redder clouds are deeper in the atmosphere. UC Berkeley’s Michael Wong analyzed lightning produced by four stealth superstorms like this between 2021 and 2022.
https://arstechnica.com/space/2026/03/a-mission-nasa-might-kill-is-still-returning-fascinating-science-from-jupiter/

2026-03-23 19:26:38 UTC

Apple will talk iOS 27, macOS 27, and more at WWDC 2026 on June 8
Apple [announced today][1] that it would be holding its annual Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) from June 8 to 12 this year, giving both developers and the general public a first look at "incredible updates for Apple platforms, including AI advancements and exciting new software and developer tools." The conference will start with an in-person "special event" at the company's Apple Park headquarters that will also be streamed online via YouTube and [Apple's Developer app][2], among other places.
Apple occasionally introduces new hardware at WWDC, but the presentation is usually dedicated mostly to the major software releases that Apple will test all summer and release alongside new iPhones and other products in the fall. We don't know much for sure about what's coming in the new releases, but we can probably expect iOS 27, iPadOS 27, macOS 27, and the other new updates to refine the Liquid Glass design language, introduce the promised "AI advancements," and [end support for the last remaining Intel Macs][3].
Like the past few years, Apple will primarily host the developer-centric parts of the conference online. The keynote and the more technical Platforms State of the Union presentation will be live, in-person presentations on the 8th, and Apple says that day will also include opportunities to "meet with Apple engineers and designers, and connect with the worldwide developer community." In-person passes will be [handed out via lottery][4] to those who request them.
[Read full article][5]
[Comments][6]
[1]: https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2026/03/apples-worldwide-developers-conference-returns-the-week-of-june-8/
[2]: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/apple-developer/id640199958
[3]: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/06/apple-details-the-end-of-intel-mac-support-and-a-phaseout-for-rosetta-2/
[4]: https://developer.apple.com/wwdc26/special-event/
[5]: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/03/apple-will-talk-ios-27-macos-27-and-more-at-wwdc-2026-on-june-8/
[6]: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/03/apple-will-talk-ios-27-macos-27-and-more-at-wwdc-2026-on-june-8/#comments
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/03/apple-will-talk-ios-27-macos-27-and-more-at-wwdc-2026-on-june-8/

2026-03-23 19:26:32 UTC

Intuit beats FTC in court, ending restrictions on "free" TurboTax ads
An appeals court invalidated the Biden-era Federal Trade Commission's attempt to punish Intuit for allegedly deceptive ads that pitched TurboTax as free.
Under then-Chair Lina Khan, [the FTC determined][1] in 2024 that the TurboTax maker violated US law with deceptive advertising and ordered it to stop telling consumers, without more obvious disclaimers, that TurboTax or other products are free. The FTC’s chief administrative law judge had [previously found][2] that Intuit's ads violated prohibitions on deceptive advertising because the firm “advertised to consumers that they could file their taxes online for free using TurboTax, when in truth, for approximately two-thirds of taxpayers, the advertised claim was false."
Intuit appealed in the conservative-leaning US Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit and got a resounding victory on Friday in a [3–0 ruling][3] issued by a panel of judges. "Following the Supreme Court’s decision in *SEC v. Jarkesy*, we hold that adjudication of a deceptive advertising claim before an administrative law judge violated the constitutional separation of powers," the 5th Circuit panel said.
[Read full article][4]
[Comments][5]
[1]: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2024/01/ftc-says-dishonest-intuit-violated-us-law-by-advertising-turbotax-as-free/
[2]: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/09/ftc-judge-rules-intuit-broke-law-must-stop-advertising-turbotax-as-free/
[3]: https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/intuit-5th-circuit-ruling.pdf
[4]: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/03/intuit-beats-ftc-in-court-ending-restrictions-on-free-turbotax-ads/
[5]: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/03/intuit-beats-ftc-in-court-ending-restrictions-on-free-turbotax-ads/#comments
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/03/intuit-beats-ftc-in-court-ending-restrictions-on-free-turbotax-ads/

2026-03-23 18:13:36 UTC

A bit of good news: It's possible to turn around a groundwater crisis
Generally, when you hear “water use” and “sustainability,” you expect those words to be followed by some bad news. Humanity’s enduring ability to ignore the math of declining water supplies is almost impressive. But there *are* cases where actions have successfully reversed our loss of water resources. A new paper in Science by Scott Jasechko of the University of California, Santa Barbara, examines documented cases of groundwater recovery around the world to identify which strategies have worked.
Groundwater is invaluable for many reasons. For one, it’s (usually) cleaner than surface water. It’s also right under your feet and often close enough to the surface that it doesn’t take much energy to pump it up. And there’s *loads* of it down there, no matter the season. Because of this, humans use a lot of it for drinking water, agriculture, and every other use you can think of.
Unfortunately, in many places, the rate of groundwater use has grown to exceed the rate at which precipitation soaks into the ground to replenish it.
[Read full article][1]
[Comments][2]
[1]: https://arstechnica.com/science/2026/03/a-bit-of-good-news-its-possible-to-turn-around-a-groundwater-crisis/
[2]: https://arstechnica.com/science/2026/03/a-bit-of-good-news-its-possible-to-turn-around-a-groundwater-crisis/#comments
https://arstechnica.com/science/2026/03/a-bit-of-good-news-its-possible-to-turn-around-a-groundwater-crisis/

2026-03-23 18:13:29 UTC

As teens await sentencing for nudifying girls, parents aim to sue school
Two teens behind one of the [earliest US high school deepfake scandals][1] will be sentenced this week, but the case is unlikely to resolve families' concerns about the school's significantly delayed response.
Earlier this month, the 16-year-old boys [admitted][2] to using AI tools to "nudify" images of 48 female classmates at Lancaster Country Day School in Pennsylvania, along with 12 other young female acquaintances.
The incident could have been caught early, after the school learned of the images following an anonymous report to a state-run tipline. But officials—who at the time weren't legally required to act—failed to notify parents or police for six months, as the number of victims continued to grow. In total, the boys created at least 347 AI-generated sexualized images and videos before they were stopped.
[Read full article][3]
[Comments][4]
[1]: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2024/11/school-failed-to-report-ai-nudes-of-kids-for-months-now-parents-are-suing/
[2]: https://www.attorneygeneral.gov/taking-action/2-teenagers-admit-in-juvenile-court-to-numerous-felonies-regarding-creation-of-morphed-nude-images-of-other-juveniles/
[3]: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/03/as-teens-await-sentencing-for-nudifying-girls-parents-aim-to-sue-school/
[4]: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/03/as-teens-await-sentencing-for-nudifying-girls-parents-aim-to-sue-school/#comments
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/03/as-teens-await-sentencing-for-nudifying-girls-parents-aim-to-sue-school/

2026-03-23 18:13:24 UTC

Republicans in Congress add $250 annual federal EV tax to transport bill
They might be better than gas-powered cars in most conceivable ways, but electric vehicle sales are having an undeniably hard time right now. The cause is no mystery: since January 2025 the US government has been actively hostile to the idea of energy efficiency and in the intervening months has taken an axe to fuel efficiency regulations, prosecuting polluters, and the consumer-facing tax credit.
That last one had the effect of bringing forward sales from people who needed an EV and knew the credit was expiring at the end of last September, leading to a rosy-looking Q3 2025 followed by a rather bad Q4. Things got even worse this year—in January [just 5.1 percent of all new vehicles sold were EVs][1], compared to 8.3 percent in January 2025. But the government's antipathy toward EVs isn't done yet. House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chair Sam Graves (R-Mo.) [wants to include][2] an annual $250 tax on EV drivers—hybrids would also pay $100 a year—in an upcoming bill.
This is the second time Graves has tried to tax drivers of more efficient vehicles; last year the committee under Graves [wanted to include an escalating EV tax][3], starting at $200 annually, into the budget but was unsuccessful.
[Read full article][4]
[Comments][5]
[1]: https://www.autonews.com/ev/an-ev-registrations-crash-in-january-amid-market-shakeout-0313/
[2]: https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-lawmaker-wants-collect-ev-fees-highway-repairs-2026-03-17/
[3]: https://arstechnica.com/cars/2025/04/republicans-want-to-tax-ev-drivers-200-year-in-new-transport-bill/
[4]: https://arstechnica.com/cars/2026/03/republicans-in-congress-add-250-annual-federal-ev-tax-to-transport-bill/
[5]: https://arstechnica.com/cars/2026/03/republicans-in-congress-add-250-annual-federal-ev-tax-to-transport-bill/#comments
https://arstechnica.com/cars/2026/03/republicans-in-congress-add-250-annual-federal-ev-tax-to-transport-bill/

2026-03-23 18:13:18 UTC

Long fingernails vs. touchscreens: This nail polish could help
The rise of touchscreen technology has been a boon in many respects, but for people with long fingernails, there can be issues with the capacitive variety since fingernails are non-conductive and thus don't register on the screen as a touch. One can use a stylus, of course, or simply use the finger pad under the nail, but ideally it would be nice to be able to use one's fingernail. A [conductive nail polish][1] might do the trick, according to research presented at a meeting of the American Chemical Society in Atlanta, Georgia.
The work began as a special project for Manasi Desai, an undergraduate at Centenary College of Louisiana who has an interest in cosmetic chemistry and decided to investigate ways to make fingernails compatible with touchscreen technology. There are a few existing conductive nail polishes that rely on spiking a clear polish with carbon nanotubes, [conductive polymers][2], or metallic particles. And in 2013 and 2014, a proposed press-on false fingernail with a capacitive tip [was showcased][3] at CES in Las Vegas, although the technology doesn't seem to be commercially available.
Desai reasoned that existing polishes rely on additives that could be dangerous if inhaled, as well as having a limited shade range given that they impart a black or metallic shimmer. Working with her supervisor, organometallic chemist Joshua Lawrence, Desai decided to try to create a clear, colorless nail polish that didn't use any toxic materials and could be applied over any manicure.
[Read full article][4]
[Comments][5]
[1]: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/FlPRFJx0R_A
[2]: https://luxeformulalabs.com/products/touchscreen-friendly/
[3]: https://www.cnet.com/tech/mobile/fingernail-shaped-stylus-is-manicure-friendly/
[4]: https://arstechnica.com/science/2026/03/long-fingernails-vs-touchscreens-this-nail-polish-could-help/
[5]: https://arstechnica.com/science/2026/03/long-fingernails-vs-touchscreens-this-nail-polish-could-help/#comments
https://arstechnica.com/science/2026/03/long-fingernails-vs-touchscreens-this-nail-polish-could-help/

2026-03-23 14:33:51 UTC

AI is beginning to change the business of law
In spring 2024, two days after undergoing complex cardiac surgery in the Midlands, a man in his mid-70s unexpectedly deteriorated and died.
The hospital referred the death to the coroner’s service, as is protocol when a cause is unknown, and clinical negligence barrister Anthony Searle was instructed by the man’s devastated family to represent them.
To try to get to the bottom of what had happened, Searle knew he would need to ask the surgeons some probing questions. So when the coroner declined his request for an independent expert report, Searle was frustrated.
[Read full article][1]
[Comments][2]
[1]: https://arstechnica.com/ai/2026/03/ai-is-beginning-to-change-the-business-of-law/
[2]: https://arstechnica.com/ai/2026/03/ai-is-beginning-to-change-the-business-of-law/#comments
https://arstechnica.com/ai/2026/03/ai-is-beginning-to-change-the-business-of-law/

2026-03-23 11:38:53 UTC

A unique NASA satellite is falling out of orbit—this team is trying to rescue it
BROOMFIELD, Colorado—One of NASA's oldest astronomy missions, the Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory, has been out of action for more than a month as scientists await the arrival of a pioneering robotic rescue mission.
The 21-year-old spacecraft is falling out of orbit, and NASA officials believe it's worth saving—for the right price. Swift is not a flagship astronomy mission like Hubble or Webb, so there's no talk of sending astronauts or spending hundreds of millions of dollars on a rescue expedition. Hubble was upgraded by five space shuttle missions, and billionaire and commercial astronaut Jared Isaacman—now NASA's administrator—[proposed a privately funded mission][1] to service Hubble in 2022, but the agency rejected the idea.
Swift may be a more suitable target for a first-of-a-kind commercial rescue mission. It has cost roughly $500 million (adjusted for inflation) to build, launch, and operate, but it is significantly less expensive than Hubble, so the consequences of a botched rescue would be far less severe. Last September, NASA awarded a company named Katalyst Space Technologies a $30 million contract to rapidly build and launch a commercial satellite to stabilize Swift's orbit and extend its mission.
[Read full article][2]
[Comments][3]
[1]: https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/09/nasa-and-spacex-are-studying-a-hubble-telescope-boost-adding-15-to-20-years-of-life/
[2]: https://arstechnica.com/space/2026/03/a-unique-nasa-satellite-is-falling-out-of-orbit-this-team-is-trying-to-rescue-it/
[3]: https://arstechnica.com/space/2026/03/a-unique-nasa-satellite-is-falling-out-of-orbit-this-team-is-trying-to-rescue-it/#comments
NASA's Swift observatory is unwrapped after shipment to Cape Canaveral, Florida, for launch preparations in 2004.
https://arstechnica.com/space/2026/03/a-unique-nasa-satellite-is-falling-out-of-orbit-this-team-is-trying-to-rescue-it/

2026-03-22 15:20:58 UTC

There can (still) be only one: Highlander is 40
The 1980s brought us so many terrific films, including director Russell Mulcahy's sword-and-sorcery fantasy action film [*Highlander*][1], starring Christopher Lambert as an immortal Scotsman who must battle others like him to the death until just one remains. The film spawned two direct sequels and two TV series (one live action, one animated), and a planned reboot has been kicking around Hollywood since 2008. But the original still stands tall as the best of the bunch, 40 years later.
**(Spoilers below because it's been 40 years.)**
Screenwriter Gregory Widen was a college student at UCLA when he wrote the first draft of what would become *Highlander* for a screenwriting class. It was originally entitled *Shadow Clan* and partially inspired by Ridley Scott's 1977 film about two swordsmen engaged in a longstanding feud (*The Duelists*). Combine that with Widen's visits to Scotland and the Tower of London, with its impressive display of historical armor, and Widen had all he needed for his tale of dueling Immortals secretly living among us. He sold that first draft for $200,000—a princely sum for a college student—and a few revisions later, *Highlander* was ready for filming.
[Read full article][2]
[Comments][3]
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highlander_(film)
[2]: https://arstechnica.com/culture/2026/03/there-can-still-be-only-one-highlander-is-40/
[3]: https://arstechnica.com/culture/2026/03/there-can-still-be-only-one-highlander-is-40/#comments
https://arstechnica.com/culture/2026/03/there-can-still-be-only-one-highlander-is-40/

2026-03-22 11:13:39 UTC

Mining the deep ocean
More than 13,000 feet below the surface of the Pacific Ocean, a more-than-70-ton machine trundled like a tank on its caterpillar tracks for a tenth of a mile—sucking up potato-sized nodules of rock packed with copper, manganese, cobalt, and nickel. It was 2022, and that pilot run of a subsea harvester by a Canadian business, The Metals Company, was pronounced a success.
The company is working to get a green light to deploy similar machines for commercial harvesting over an area of 65,000 square kilometers, to extract over 600 million metric tons of nodules.
There are riches on the ocean floor—round deposits made up of tightly packed layers of critical minerals that have long been out of reach.** **But not anymore. The pursuits of The Metals Company are among 31 initiatives by companies, governments and state-owned enterprises—including China, India, and the Republic of Nauru, a tiny island nation in the southwestern Pacific Ocean—to collect nodules for analysis and to test mining equipment.
[Read full article][1]
[Comments][2]
[1]: https://arstechnica.com/science/2026/03/mining-the-deep-ocean/
[2]: https://arstechnica.com/science/2026/03/mining-the-deep-ocean/#comments
https://arstechnica.com/science/2026/03/mining-the-deep-ocean/

2026-03-21 12:41:58 UTC

We keep finding the raw material of DNA in asteroids—what's it telling us?
On Monday, a paper announcing that all four DNA bases had been found on an asteroid sparked a lot of headlines. But many of the headlines omitted a key word needed to put the discovery in context: "again." The paper itself cited similar results dating back to 2011, and the ensuing years have seen various confirmations and more rigorous studies. The new work was less notable for showing that we had found these bases in Ryugu than for solving a previous mystery: earlier studies had failed to detect them there, despite their presence in many other asteroid samples.
Outside the headlines, though, the new work provides some interesting details, as it may answer an important question: how these bases got there in the first place. Understanding that better may be critical for getting a better picture of how the raw materials for life ended up on Earth in the first place.
## Searching for bases
Let's start with a description of what the researchers found. Both DNA and RNA, the two nucleic acids used by life, share a similar structure. That includes the backbone, a chain that alternates between sugars and phosphates that are all chemically linked together. While the specific sugar differs between DNA and RNA, the chain itself varies only in length; otherwise, the backbone of every DNA or RNA molecule is identical.
[Read full article][1]
[Comments][2]
[1]: https://arstechnica.com/science/2026/03/we-keep-finding-the-raw-material-of-dna-in-asteroids-whats-it-telling-us/
[2]: https://arstechnica.com/science/2026/03/we-keep-finding-the-raw-material-of-dna-in-asteroids-whats-it-telling-us/#comments
https://arstechnica.com/science/2026/03/we-keep-finding-the-raw-material-of-dna-in-asteroids-whats-it-telling-us/

2026-03-21 10:31:23 UTC

DOGE goes nuclear: How trump invited silicon valley into America’s nuclear power regulator
Last summer, a group of officials from the Department of Energy gathered at the Idaho National Laboratory, a sprawling 890-square-mile complex in the eastern desert of Idaho where the US government built its first rudimentary nuclear power plant in 1951 and continues to test cutting-edge technology.
On the agenda that day: the future of nuclear energy in the Trump era. The meeting was convened by 31-year-old lawyer Seth Cohen. Just five years out of law school, Cohen brought no significant experience in nuclear law or policy; he had just entered government through Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency team.
As Cohen led the group through a technical conversation about licensing nuclear reactor designs, he repeatedly downplayed health and safety concerns. When staff brought up the topic of radiation exposure from nuclear test sites, Cohen broke in.
[Read full article][1]
[Comments][2]
[1]: https://arstechnica.com/science/2026/03/doge-goes-nuclear-how-trump-invited-silicon-valley-into-americas-nuclear-power-regulator/
[2]: https://arstechnica.com/science/2026/03/doge-goes-nuclear-how-trump-invited-silicon-valley-into-americas-nuclear-power-regulator/#comments
https://arstechnica.com/science/2026/03/doge-goes-nuclear-how-trump-invited-silicon-valley-into-americas-nuclear-power-regulator/

2026-03-20 22:49:07 UTC

Widely used Trivy scanner compromised in ongoing supply-chain attack
Hackers have compromised virtually all versions of Aqua Security’s widely used Trivy vulnerability scanner in an ongoing supply chain attack that could have wide-ranging consequences for developers and the organizations that use them.
Trivy maintainer Itay Shakury [confirmed][1] the compromise on Friday, following rumors and a [thread][2], since deleted by the attackers, discussing the incident. The attack began in the early hours of Thursday. When it was done, the threat actor had used stolen credentials to force-push all but one of the trivy-action tags and seven setup-trivy tags to use malicious dependencies.
## Assume your pipelines are compromised
A [forced][3] [push][4] is a git command that overrides a default safety mechanism that protects against overwriting existing commits. Trivy is a vulnerability scanner that developers use to detect vulnerabilities and inadvertently hardcoded authentication secrets in pipelines for developing and deploying software updates. The scanner has 33,200 stars on GitHub, a high rating that indicates it’s used widely.
[Read full article][5]
[Comments][6]
[1]: https://github.com/aquasecurity/trivy/discussions/10425
[2]: https://web.archive.org/web/20260307200451/https://github.com/aquasecurity/trivy/discussions/10265#discussioncomment-16214191%20MO
[3]: https://www.git-tower.com/blog/force-push-in-git
[4]: https://www.git-tower.com/learn/git/faq/git-force-push/
[5]: https://arstechnica.com/security/2026/03/widely-used-trivy-scanner-compromised-in-ongoing-supply-chain-attack/
[6]: https://arstechnica.com/security/2026/03/widely-used-trivy-scanner-compromised-in-ongoing-supply-chain-attack/#comments
https://arstechnica.com/security/2026/03/widely-used-trivy-scanner-compromised-in-ongoing-supply-chain-attack/

2026-03-20 22:49:02 UTC

Writer denies it, but publisher pulls horror novel after multiple allegations of AI use
*Shy Girl*, a horror novel by Mia Ballard, was one of those buzzy books that leapt from self-published prominence into full-on trade publication. Until yesterday, that is, when publisher Hachette pulled the book from the UK market and canceled plans to bring it to the US.
The move came after a [New York Times investigation][1] suggested that AI had been used in significant parts of the work.
## "If it isn't AI, she's a terrible writer"
*Shy Girl* was self-published in 2025 and quickly found an audience on social media. The novel follows a depressed, OCD woman named Gia who, down on her luck, encounters a "sugar daddy" who pays off her debts. All she has to do? Live as his literal pet. Eventually, of course, living like an animal makes her into an animal, and things apparently get nasty.
[Read full article][2]
[Comments][3]
[1]: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/19/books/shy-girl-book-ai.html
[2]: https://arstechnica.com/ai/2026/03/hachette-pulls-shy-girl-horror-novel-after-concerns-about-ai-use/
[3]: https://arstechnica.com/ai/2026/03/hachette-pulls-shy-girl-horror-novel-after-concerns-about-ai-use/#comments
https://arstechnica.com/ai/2026/03/hachette-pulls-shy-girl-horror-novel-after-concerns-about-ai-use/

2026-03-20 22:48:56 UTC

Microsoft keeps insisting that it's deeply committed to the quality of Windows 11
If you were eating in a restaurant and the head chef came out from the back multiple times to loudly proclaim that the kitchen was deeply committed to the quality of the food, would you find that reassuring? Or would you start wondering why the chef felt the need to keep saying it?
That's the conundrum facing the Windows team at Microsoft right now. Windows VP Pavan Davuluri has [gone on the record][1] several times since the start of the year to insist that Microsoft is committed to Windows 11's quality, most recently [in a post today][2] titled "our commitment to Windows quality." Windows 11 is an operating system that [many people use][3] but that few enthusiasts seem to love, either because of recent high-profile bugs or the [steadily increasing flow][4] of [annoying add-ons][5], notifications, "helpful" "reminders," and ads for other Microsoft products and services that coat most of the operating system's virtual surfaces.
"Every day, we hear from the community about how you experience Windows," Davuluri wrote. "And over the past several months, the team and I have spent a great deal of time analyzing your feedback. What came through was the voice of people who care deeply about Windows and want it to be better."
[Read full article][6]
[Comments][7]
[1]: https://www.theverge.com/tech/870045/microsoft-windows-11-issues-rebuilding-trust-notepad
[2]: https://blogs.windows.com/windows-insider/2026/03/20/our-commitment-to-windows-quality/
[3]: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/01/windows-11-has-hit-1-billion-users-just-a-hair-faster-than-windows-10-did/
[4]: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023/08/windows-11-has-made-the-clean-windows-install-an-oxymoron/
[5]: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/11/what-i-do-to-clean-up-a-clean-install-of-windows-11-23h2-and-edge/
[6]: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/03/microsoft-keeps-insisting-that-its-deeply-committed-to-the-quality-of-windows-11/
[7]: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/03/microsoft-keeps-insisting-that-its-deeply-committed-to-the-quality-of-windows-11/#comments
A PC running Windows 11.
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/03/microsoft-keeps-insisting-that-its-deeply-committed-to-the-quality-of-windows-11/

2026-03-20 22:48:51 UTC

Once again, ULA can't deliver when the US military needs a satellite in orbit
For the fourth time in a little more than a year, the US Space Force needs to send up a new satellite to replenish the military's GPS navigation network. And once again, the company the Pentagon is paying to launch it can't answer the call.
United Launch Alliance, a 50-50 joint venture between Boeing and Lockheed Martin, was supposed to launch the final satellite for the Space Force's GPS Block III program this month. Space Systems Command, responsible for buying spacecraft and rockets for the military, announced Friday it has transferred the launch to a Falcon 9 rocket from SpaceX, ULA's chief rival in the market for launching US government satellites.
This is only the latest example of the Space Force moving a GPS launch from ULA to SpaceX. The three most recent GPS satellites were also supposed to launch on ULA's Vulcan rocket. Beginning in 2024, the Space Force shifted them over to SpaceX. In exchange, military officials moved three future launches from SpaceX to ULA, including the launch of the GPS III SV10 satellite.
[Read full article][1]
[Comments][2]
[1]: https://arstechnica.com/space/2026/03/spacex-swipes-yet-another-military-contract-from-united-launch-alliance/
[2]: https://arstechnica.com/space/2026/03/spacex-swipes-yet-another-military-contract-from-united-launch-alliance/#comments
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket streaks into orbit from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida.
https://arstechnica.com/space/2026/03/spacex-swipes-yet-another-military-contract-from-united-launch-alliance/

2026-03-20 22:48:45 UTC

You're likely already infected with a brain-eating virus you've never heard of
There's a virus you may have never heard of before that is estimated to infect up to 90 percent of people and lurks quietly in your cells for life—but if it becomes activated, it will destroy your brain. If that's not startling enough, [researchers reported this week][1] that there may be a new way for this virus to activate—one that affects up to 10 percent of adults worldwide.
The virus is the human polyomavirus 2, commonly called either the JC virus or John Cunningham virus, named after the poor patient from whom it was first isolated in 1971. It shows up in the urine and stool of infected people and spreads via the fecal-oral route. Many people are thought to be infected early in life, and blood testing surveys have suggested that [50–90 percent of adults][2] have been exposed at some point.
Researchers hypothesize that the initial site of infection is the tonsils, or perhaps the gastrointestinal tract. But wherever it happens, that initial infection is asymptomatic. At that point, a person is infected with what's called the [archetype JC virus][3], which quietly sets up a persistent but utterly silent lifelong infection.
[Read full article][4]
[Comments][5]
[1]: https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/aimcc.2025.0633
[2]: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3652120/#sec1
[3]: https://www.mdpi.com/1999-4915/12/9/969
[4]: https://arstechnica.com/health/2026/03/youre-likely-already-infected-with-a-brain-eating-virus-youve-never-heard-of/
[5]: https://arstechnica.com/health/2026/03/youre-likely-already-infected-with-a-brain-eating-virus-youve-never-heard-of/#comments
MRI of PML lesions in a patient with chronic kidney disease.
https://arstechnica.com/health/2026/03/youre-likely-already-infected-with-a-brain-eating-virus-youve-never-heard-of/

2026-03-20 22:48:39 UTC

Jury finds Musk owes damages to Twitter investors for his tweets
On Friday, a jury in California determined that Elon Musk [had misled investors][1] in Twitter via public statements that depressed the price of the company's stock ahead of his ultimately successful purchase of it. Because it was a class action lawsuit, Musk is likely to be faced with paying out damages to a huge range of investors, payments that may ultimately reach billions of dollars.
In the lead up to Musk's ultimate purchase of the social media platform, he made a number of comments on the platform itself and while appearing as a guest on a podcast that raised questions about whether the sale would go through, largely focused on the prevalence of bot accounts on the platform. This depressed the price of the company's shares and raised fears that the deal wouldn't go through, causing some investors to sell shares at a depressed price during this period.
A number of those investors started a suit that was certified as a class action, claiming that the statements defrauded them, and that Musk did so intentionally as part of a larger scheme. The jury rejected the arguments about the larger scheme, but found Musk liable for the tweets.
[Read full article][2]
[Comments][3]
[1]: https://www.courthousenews.com/san-francisco-jury-finds-elon-musk-defrauded-twitter-investors-during-44-billion-takeover/
[2]: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/03/jury-agrees-that-musks-tweets-during-twitter-takeover-constituted-fraud/
[3]: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/03/jury-agrees-that-musks-tweets-during-twitter-takeover-constituted-fraud/#comments
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/03/jury-agrees-that-musks-tweets-during-twitter-takeover-constituted-fraud/

2026-03-20 20:35:33 UTC

Trump FCC lets Nexstar buy Tegna and blow way past 39% TV ownership cap
The Federal Communications Commission yesterday [approved][1] Nexstar Media Group's $6.2 billion purchase of Tegna, granting a waiver that lets the broadcast giant go way past the national limit on station ownership.
Nexstar said it [closed the acquisition][2] late in the day yesterday, immediately after receiving the FCC approval. The deal was also approved by the US Department of Justice, but a group of state attorneys general are challenging the merger in court in an attempt to unwind it.
Opponents say the FCC lacks authority to grant the waiver and that only Congress can change the 39 percent ownership limit. While the FCC says Nexstar will own fewer than 15 percent of TV stations, the cap in the FCC's National Television Ownership Rule is calculated by the percentage of US households reached by a single entity's stations. The Nexstar/Tegna combination will reach 80 percent of TV households in the US, or 54.5 percent when applying what's known as the "UHF discount."
[Read full article][3]
[Comments][4]
[1]: https://www.fcc.gov/document/fcc-empowers-local-broadcast-tv-stations
[2]: https://www.nexstar.tv/nexstar-media-group-inc-closes-acquisition-of-tegna-inc/
[3]: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/03/fcc-lets-nexstar-buy-tegna-creating-trump-approved-broadcaster-reaching-80-of-us/
[4]: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/03/fcc-lets-nexstar-buy-tegna-creating-trump-approved-broadcaster-reaching-80-of-us/#comments
FCC Chairman Brendan Carr testifies before the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Financial Services and General Government on May 21, 2025 in Washington, DC.
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/03/fcc-lets-nexstar-buy-tegna-creating-trump-approved-broadcaster-reaching-80-of-us/

2026-03-20 20:35:28 UTC

NASA issues draft request for moving space shuttle Discovery—or Orion capsule
NASA has taken a step forward to moving an undetermined spacecraft of a various size on an indefinite date to a yet-to-be-decided location.
Or to put it another way: [NASA is seeking to learn more][1] about what it would take to remove the space shuttle* Discovery* from the Smithsonian in Virginia and relocate it to Houston, as compared to transporting a smaller space capsule from anywhere in the country.
The space agency on Thursday (March 19) released a [draft request for proposal][2] (DRFP) for the "NASA Flown Space Vehicle Multimodal Transportation Multiple Award Contract," seeking to learn how contractors would approach transporting both "large aerospace vehicles and smaller spacecraft capsules."
[Read full article][3]
[Comments][4]
[1]: https://www.collectspace.com/news/news-032026a-nasa-draft-rfp-space-shuttle-discovery-orion-capsule-moves.html
[2]: https://sam.gov/workspace/contract/opp/57ca8b9cc3934dfcac19e1a8d87d3778/view
[3]: https://arstechnica.com/space/2026/03/nasa-issues-draft-request-for-moving-space-shuttle-discovery-or-orion-capsule/
[4]: https://arstechnica.com/space/2026/03/nasa-issues-draft-request-for-moving-space-shuttle-discovery-or-orion-capsule/#comments
NASA has issued a draft request for proposals on how to move its historic flown space vehicles, from a large space shuttle orbiter like *Discovery* seen being rolled into the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum's Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in 2012, to smaller capsules like Orion, seen being lowered onto a transport fixture at the naval base in San Diego, California in 2014.
https://arstechnica.com/space/2026/03/nasa-issues-draft-request-for-moving-space-shuttle-discovery-or-orion-capsule/

2026-03-20 19:02:38 UTC

RFK may replace entire panel of CDC vaccine advisors again, ally lets slip
A member of an influential federal vaccine advisory panel made a dramatic claim Thursday afternoon that the panel had been disbanded following a temporary block by a federal judge and would be entirely reconstituted—again. But, just hours later, he retracted the claim, saying that it was merely a possibility.
The claim immediately caused a stir online. Public health experts began to cheer the news, given that most of the current members hold anti-vaccine views and have little to no qualifications for being on the panel—which is the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP). Current members were hand-selected by anti-vaccine health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who had summarily fired all 17 experts previously on ACIP. Kennedy's new ACIP members have since held several chaotic meetings in which they voted to roll-back CDC's evidence-based vaccine guidance.
On Monday, Federal Judge Brian Murphy issued a temporary injunction [blocking Kennedy's ACIP members][1] and their votes after finding that they were improperly appointed and vaccine recommendations were changed without procedural requirements. The ruling stemmed from a lawsuit brought by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and other medical groups, who challenged Kennedy's anti-vaccine efforts.
[Read full article][2]
[Comments][3]
[1]: https://arstechnica.com/health/2025/06/yep-rfk-jr-appoints-anti-vaccine-advocates-to-cdc-vaccine-panel/
[2]: https://arstechnica.com/health/2026/03/rfk-may-replace-entire-panel-of-cdc-vaccine-advisors-again-ally-lets-slip/
[3]: https://arstechnica.com/health/2026/03/rfk-may-replace-entire-panel-of-cdc-vaccine-advisors-again-ally-lets-slip/#comments
Dr. Robert Malone.
https://arstechnica.com/health/2026/03/rfk-may-replace-entire-panel-of-cdc-vaccine-advisors-again-ally-lets-slip/

2026-03-20 17:27:30 UTC

Amazon is reportedly developing an AI-centric smartphone
Amazon is developing a new smartphone over a decade after discontinuing the Fire Phone, [Reuters][1] reported today, citing four anonymous “people familiar with the matter.”
Reuters said the phone is codenamed Transformer but couldn’t confirm what it might cost, how much Amazon has invested into development thus far, or how much Amazon expects to make off the device. Like any product reportedly under development, it’s possible that Amazon will never release the phone. Reuters’ sources noted that Transformer could be cancelled over finances or a change in strategy.
When reached for comment by Ars Technica, an Amazon spokesperson declined to comment on Reuters’ report.
[Read full article][2]
[Comments][3]
[1]: https://www.reuters.com/technology/amazon-plans-smartphone-comeback-more-than-decade-after-fire-phone-flop-2026-03-20/
[2]: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/03/amazon-is-reportedly-developing-an-ai-centric-smartphone/
[3]: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/03/amazon-is-reportedly-developing-an-ai-centric-smartphone/#comments
Amazon's Fire Phone from 2014.
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/03/amazon-is-reportedly-developing-an-ai-centric-smartphone/

2026-03-20 17:27:25 UTC

NASA is blowing stuff up to study the explosive potential of methalox rockets
For more than 60 years, nearly every large rocket used some combination of the same liquid and solid propellants. Refined kerosene was favored for its easy handling and non-toxicity, hydrazine for its storability and simplicity, hydrogen for its efficiency, and solid fuels for their long shelf life and rapid launch capability.
About 15 years ago, rocket companies started serious development of large methane-fueled engines. SpaceX and Blue Origin now build the most powerful of these new engines—the Raptor and BE-4—each capable of generating more than half a million pounds of thrust. SpaceX's [Starship rocket][1] and its enormous booster are powered by 39 Raptors, while Blue Origin's New Glenn and United Launch Alliance's Vulcan rockets use a smaller number of BE-4s on their booster stages.
Burning methane in combination with liquid oxygen, these "methalox" engines have several advantages. Methane is better suited for reusable engines because they leave less behind sooty residue than kerosene, which SpaceX uses on the Falcon 9 rocket. Methane is easier to handle than liquid hydrogen, which is prone to leaks and must be stored at staggeringly cold temperatures of around minus 423 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 253 degrees Celsius). Methane is also a cryogenic liquid, but it has a warmer temperature closer to that of liquid oxygen, between minus 260 and minus 297 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 162 to minus 183 degrees Celsius).
[Read full article][2]
[Comments][3]
[1]: https://arstechnica.com/space/2025/06/starships-rough-year-gets-worse-after-a-late-night-explosion-in-south-texas/
[2]: https://arstechnica.com/space/2026/03/nasa-is-blowing-stuff-up-to-study-the-explosive-potential-of-methalox-rockets/
[3]: https://arstechnica.com/space/2026/03/nasa-is-blowing-stuff-up-to-study-the-explosive-potential-of-methalox-rockets/#comments
A mounted camera captured this view of the controlled detonation of a test article on February 25 at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida.
https://arstechnica.com/space/2026/03/nasa-is-blowing-stuff-up-to-study-the-explosive-potential-of-methalox-rockets/

2026-03-20 17:27:08 UTC

Perseverance’s radar revealed ancient subsurface river delta on Mars
When NASA’s Perseverance rover landed in Jezero Crater in 2021, its primary mission was to scour the remnants of a dried-up Martian lakebed for signs of ancient life. Scientists have been focused on the crater's spectacular Western Delta, a fan-shaped geologic feature deposited by a river flowing into the basin billions of years ago. But now Perseverance’s ground-penetrating radar (called RIMFAX) detected what is likely another, even older river delta buried tens of meters beneath it.
“I think it’s a promising place to look for signs of biosignatures at depth,” says Emily L. Cardarelli. “Microbial life could have potentially developed in those types of environments.” Cardarelli, an astrobiologist at the University of California Los Angeles, led the team interpreting RIMFAX imagery.
## Peeking underground
Perseverance’s RIMFAX, the Radar Imager for Mars Subsurface Experiment, continuously fires radar waves into the ground, acquiring soundings each time the rover traveled 10 centimeters. When these radio waves hit boundaries between different types of rock, ice, or sediment layers, some of the signal bounces back. The timing and intensity of these reflections allow scientists to construct a two-dimensional, vertical slice of the subsurface, much like a sonogram of the Martian crust.
[Read full article][1]
[Comments][2]
[1]: https://arstechnica.com/science/2026/03/perseverances-radar-revealed-ancient-subsurface-river-delta-on-mars/
[2]: https://arstechnica.com/science/2026/03/perseverances-radar-revealed-ancient-subsurface-river-delta-on-mars/#comments
https://arstechnica.com/science/2026/03/perseverances-radar-revealed-ancient-subsurface-river-delta-on-mars/

2026-03-20 16:02:16 UTC

Feds say no need to recall Tesla's one-pedal driving despite petition
One-pedal driving is not causing Tesla electric vehicles to suddenly accelerate when parked, according to federal regulators. For almost as long as Tesla has been selling cars, it has been hit with [sporadic accusations][1] of parked cars accelerating when they shouldn't. Known to the industry as "sudden unintended acceleration," the question for regulators is whether the problem is a human one or an engineering one, and over the years, engineers who think they've found the culprit have petitioned the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to force a recall. These efforts usually fail, as was the case today, [when NHTSA said][2] it would not tell Tesla to recall every EV it built since 2013.
Because electric motors are also generators, EVs use regenerative braking to recover energy when they slow down rather than wasting that kinetic energy as heat (and maybe a bit of sound) via the friction brakes. In many battery EVs and just about any hybrid I can think of, a brake-by-wire system blends the two together—the driver uses the left pedal as normal, and the car slows down. Some automakers (I'm looking at you, Porsche) think this is the only way a driver should slow their EV. But an electric motor can also be programmed to regeneratively brake when the driver lifts their foot from the throttle, and in Tesla's EVs (as well as Rivian's and Lucid's), this is the only way to regen, as there is no brake-by-wire system, only traditional hydraulic friction brakes.
Technically, I just described lift-off regen, but if the car has been programmed to come to a complete stop when you take your foot from the accelerator, that's one-pedal driving. Some EV drivers absolutely love one-pedal driving; others don't. I like one-pedal for low-speed driving or when I want something similar to engine braking. But according to the petition [sent to NHTSA in 2023 by a Greek engineer][3], this causes a "short-circuit" in Tesla drivers' brains.
[Read full article][4]
[Comments][5]
[1]: https://arstechnica.com/cars/2023/05/massive-trove-of-tesla-files-contains-thousands-of-safety-complaints/
[2]: https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/us-auto-safety-regulator-closes-defect-petition-over-2-million-tesla-vehicles-2026-03-20/
[3]: https://static.nhtsa.gov/complaints/11515119/11515119-0003.pdf
[4]: https://arstechnica.com/cars/2026/03/theres-no-sudden-acceleration-problem-with-tesla-feds-say/
[5]: https://arstechnica.com/cars/2026/03/theres-no-sudden-acceleration-problem-with-tesla-feds-say/#comments
This Model X was part of a lawsuit in 2017 claiming Tesla had a sudden unintended acceleration problem.
https://arstechnica.com/cars/2026/03/theres-no-sudden-acceleration-problem-with-tesla-feds-say/

2026-03-20 16:02:11 UTC

The US is looking at a year of chaotic weather
Despite being declared the third-hottest year on record, 2025 was a relatively quiet year for [climate][1] disasters in the US. No major hurricanes made landfall, while the total [number of acres][2] burned in wildfires last year—a way of measuring the intensity of [wildfire season][3]—fell below the 10-year average.
But starting this week, the West is experiencing what looks to be a record-breaking heat wave, while forecasting models predict that a strong El Niño event is likely to emerge later this year. These two unrelated phenomena could set the stage for a long stretch of unpredictable and extreme weather reaching into next year, compounding the effects of a climate that’s getting hotter and hotter thanks to human activity.
First, there’s the heat. Beginning this week and heading into next, a massive ridge of high-pressure air will bring record-breaking temperatures to the American West. The National Weather Service [predicts][4] that temperature records across multiple states are set to be broken in dozens of locations, stretching as far east as Missouri and Tennessee. The NWS has issued heat warnings for parts of California, Arizona, and Nevada, as well as fire warnings for parts of Wyoming, Nebraska, South Dakota, and Colorado.
[Read full article][5]
[Comments][6]
[1]: https://www.wired.com/tag/climate/
[2]: https://www.nifc.gov/sites/default/files/NICC/2-Predictive%20Services/Intelligence/Annual%20Reports/2025/annual_report_2025_0.pdf
[3]: https://www.wired.com/story/the-growing-and-inexact-science-of-fleeing-a-wildfire/
[4]: https://x.com/NWS/status/2033625153070825756
[5]: https://arstechnica.com/science/2026/03/the-us-is-looking-at-a-year-of-chaotic-weather/
[6]: https://arstechnica.com/science/2026/03/the-us-is-looking-at-a-year-of-chaotic-weather/#comments
https://arstechnica.com/science/2026/03/the-us-is-looking-at-a-year-of-chaotic-weather/

2026-03-20 16:02:06 UTC

Jeff Bezos just announced plans for a third megaconstellation—this one for data centers
A little more than a month ago, SpaceX founder Elon Musk [put down a marker of his intent][1] to saturate low-Earth orbit with up to 1 million satellites. Its purpose? Provide always-on data center services around the planet.
Now, Amazon and Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos has done something similar with a [filing to the Federal Communications Commission][2] of his own, proposing a constellation of up to 51,600 satellites operating in Sun-synchronous orbits at altitudes ranging from 500 to 1,800 km. Bezos' space company, Blue Origin, sought the authority to do this and is calling the constellation "Project Sunrise."
In its filing, Blue Origin argues that terrestrial AI-based data centers will face difficulties scaling up to meet computing demand.
[Read full article][3]
[Comments][4]
[1]: https://arstechnica.com/ai/2026/02/spacex-acquires-xai-plans-1-million-satellite-constellation-to-power-it/
[2]: https://t.co/ZjiVPZgz80
[3]: https://arstechnica.com/space/2026/03/jeff-bezos-throws-his-hat-in-the-ring-for-an-orbital-data-center-megaconstellation-too/
[4]: https://arstechnica.com/space/2026/03/jeff-bezos-throws-his-hat-in-the-ring-for-an-orbital-data-center-megaconstellation-too/#comments
Jeff Bezos has his sights set on another megaconstellation.
https://arstechnica.com/space/2026/03/jeff-bezos-throws-his-hat-in-the-ring-for-an-orbital-data-center-megaconstellation-too/

2026-03-20 16:02:01 UTC

Monte Verde site gets a new date, but the big picture doesn't change
A landmark site in the peopling of the Americas is several thousand years younger than we thought. While that means very different things about the site itself, it doesn’t change the big picture as much as the researchers who generated the new date are claiming.
University of Wyoming archaeologist Todd Surovell and his colleagues recently took a second look at the age of a site called Monte Verde in southern Chile, and it turns out that people lived there 8,000 years ago—not 14,500, as the archaeologists who first described it claimed.
Monte Verde is about as far from the Bering Land Bridge as you can get without leaving the continents, so its age was the first piece of evidence that people were well-established in the Americas before the end of the last Ice Age. But it hasn't been the last, so Surovell and his colleagues’ findings don’t actually change what we now know about the peopling of the Americas—and they definitely don’t put the “Clovis First” hypothesis back on the table.
[Read full article][1]
[Comments][2]
[1]: https://arstechnica.com/science/2026/03/an-early-indigenous-site-may-not-be-early-but-it-doesnt-really-matter/
[2]: https://arstechnica.com/science/2026/03/an-early-indigenous-site-may-not-be-early-but-it-doesnt-really-matter/#comments
This is what Monte Verde looks like today (or at least what it looked like in 2012).
https://arstechnica.com/science/2026/03/an-early-indigenous-site-may-not-be-early-but-it-doesnt-really-matter/

2026-03-20 16:01:55 UTC

Major SteamOS update adds support for Steam Machine, even more third-party hardware
Valve's Steam Machine desktop is currently in [a state of involuntary limbo][1], driven by historically awful pricing and availability for memory and storage chips. AI data centers are absorbing much of what memory manufacturers can produce, leaving much less for enthusiast and hobbyist hardware like the Steam Machine and the Steam Frame VR headset. Even the years-old Steam Deck is [currently out of stock][2] thanks to component shortages.
But that hardware uncertainty hasn't stopped Valve from working on the software, and the company released a major update this week. The [SteamOS 3.8.0 preview release][3] comes with a long list of changes for the Steam Deck as well as third-party gaming handhelds and other PC hardware, and it also adds "initial support for upcoming Steam Machine hardware."
Many of the update's improvements come from various upstream Linux components. Valve says the update includes a new Arch Linux base, an updated graphics driver, version 6.16 of the Linux kernel, and a new version of the KDE Plasma desktop environment for Desktop Mode (which now uses Wayland rather than X11).
[Read full article][4]
[Comments][5]
[1]: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/02/ram-shortage-delays-valves-steam-machine-desktop-and-steam-frame-headset/
[2]: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/02/valves-steam-deck-intermittently-out-of-stock-as-ram-shortage-drags-on/
[3]: https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1675200/view/532126482488623649
[4]: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/03/major-steamos-update-adds-support-for-steam-machine-even-more-third-party-hardware/
[5]: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/03/major-steamos-update-adds-support-for-steam-machine-even-more-third-party-hardware/#comments
A strip of LEDs adds a touch of color to the front face of the Steam Machine.
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/03/major-steamos-update-adds-support-for-steam-machine-even-more-third-party-hardware/

2026-03-20 11:52:41 UTC

Project Hail Mary is in theaters—but do the linguistics work?
The film adaptation of Andy Weir's novel *Project Hail Mary* hits general release today, March 20, [and it's great][1]—go see it! Though a little light on the science, the movie goes hard on the relationship between schoolteacher Ryland Grace (Ryan Gosling) and an extraterrestrial named Rocky, and it's a ride well worth taking.
But as good as it is, the movie shares a small flaw with the book: Despite having very few things in common, Grace and Rocky learn to communicate with each other extremely quickly. In fact, Grace and Rocky begin conversing in abstracts (concepts like "I like this" and "friendship") in even less time than it takes in the book. Obviously, there are practical narrative reasons for this choice—you can't have a good buddy movie if your buddies can't talk to each other. It's therefore critical to the flow of the story to get that talking happening as soon as possible, but it can still be a little jarring for the technically minded viewer who was hoping for the acquisition of language to be treated with a little more complexity.
And because this is Ars Technica, we're doing [the same thing we did when the book came out][2]: talking with Dr. Betty Birner, a former professor of linguistics at NIU (now retired), to pick her brain about cognition, pragmatics, cooperation, and what it would actually ake for two divergently evolved sapient beings not just to gesture and pantomime but to truly *communicate*. And this time, we'll hear from Andy Weir, too. So buckle up, dear readers—things are gonna get nerdy.
[Read full article][3]
[Comments][4]
[1]: https://arstechnica.com/culture/2026/03/verdict-yes-you-should-go-see-project-hail-mary-as-soon-as-possible/
[2]: https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2021/05/andy-weirs-project-hail-mary-and-the-soft-squishy-science-of-language/
[3]: https://arstechnica.com/culture/2026/03/project-hail-mary-is-in-theaters-but-do-the-linguistics-work/
[4]: https://arstechnica.com/culture/2026/03/project-hail-mary-is-in-theaters-but-do-the-linguistics-work/#comments
https://arstechnica.com/culture/2026/03/project-hail-mary-is-in-theaters-but-do-the-linguistics-work/

2026-03-20 11:52:35 UTC

Rocket Report: Canada makes a major move, US Space Force says actually, let's be hasty
Welcome to Edition 8.34 of the Rocket Report! The most important significant news this week, I believe, is the decision by Canada to make a serious investment in launch infrastructure at a spaceport in Nova Scotia. Tensions have risen between the United States and Canada of late (for reasons which are baffling to this author, who has always had an affinity for the nation to our north), and as a result Canada is seeking launch independence. This is an important start, but it will require a sustained, long-term commitment to really develop a flourishing launch industry.
As always, we [welcome reader submissions][1], and if you don't want to miss an issue, please subscribe using the box below (the form will not appear on AMP-enabled versions of the site). Each report will include information on small-, medium-, and heavy-lift rockets as well as a quick look ahead at the next three launches on the calendar.
**Canada makes major commitment to space launch**. The country's leading minister of national defense, David J. McGuinty, announced on Monday a $200 million investment in "core infrastructure" for a spaceport in Nova Scotia. The investment is a 10‑year, $200 million agreement to lease a dedicated space‑launch pad that will serve as the central foundation for a multi-user spaceport near Canso, Nova Scotia. The facility is operated by Maritime Launch Services.
[Read full article][2]
[Comments][3]
[1]: https://arstechnica.wufoo.com/forms/launch-stories/
[2]: https://arstechnica.com/space/2026/03/rocket-report-canada-makes-a-major-move-us-space-force-says-actually-lets-be-hasty/
[3]: https://arstechnica.com/space/2026/03/rocket-report-canada-makes-a-major-move-us-space-force-says-actually-lets-be-hasty/#comments
Isar Aerospace's Spectrum rocket is seen at the Andøya Space launch site.
https://arstechnica.com/space/2026/03/rocket-report-canada-makes-a-major-move-us-space-force-says-actually-lets-be-hasty/

2026-03-19 23:14:32 UTC

RFK Jr. has destroyed over a quarter of health dept's expert panels
In his role as health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.—a long-time anti-vaccine activist with no background in science, medicine, or public health—has made headlines for his thorough perversion of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's vaccine advisory panel.
In June, Kennedy fired all 17 independent experts who made up the CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, or ACIP. The panel sets federal vaccination guidance that dictates insurance coverage and influences state school requirements. Kennedy then repopulated ACIP with mostly unqualified allies who share his anti-vaccine views. The corrupted board went on to hold several chaotic meetings in which they voted, without scientific backing, to change vaccine policies to align with Kennedy's anti-vaccine agenda.
The blatant undermining of ACIP led a federal judge this week to [temporarily block Kennedy's installed ACIP members][1] and the anti-vaccine changes they made to CDC guidance. But while ACIP's corruption has drawn the spotlight, it's far from the only advisory committee Kennedy has destroyed or corrupted.
[Read full article][2]
[Comments][3]
[1]: https://arstechnica.com/health/2026/03/judge-temporarily-blocks-rfk-jr-s-changes-to-cdc-vaccine-recommendations/
[2]: https://arstechnica.com/health/2026/03/rfk-jr-s-war-on-scientific-expertise-destroyed-27-of-agencys-advisor-panels/
[3]: https://arstechnica.com/health/2026/03/rfk-jr-s-war-on-scientific-expertise-destroyed-27-of-agencys-advisor-panels/#comments
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., US secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS)
https://arstechnica.com/health/2026/03/rfk-jr-s-war-on-scientific-expertise-destroyed-27-of-agencys-advisor-panels/

2026-03-19 21:41:48 UTC

Cloud service providers ask EU regulator to reinstate VMware partner program
A trade association of cloud service providers (CSPs) filed an antitrust complaint today with the European Union’s European Commission (EC) over Broadcom's shuttering of VMware’s CSP partner program this year.
Since Broadcom bought VMware, it has drastically cut the number of channel partners VMware works with, a shift that began with the elimination of [VMware’s partner program][1]. Broadcom replaced the program with an [invite-only alternative][2] that favors larger partners working with enterprise-sized clients [rather than small-to-medium-sized businesses][3].
There are even fewer CSP partners working with VMware today. Broadcom introduced a requirement that CSP partners operate at least 3,500 cores, rendering hundreds of CSPs ineligible for partnership. Before Broadcom bought VMware, the virtualization company had over 4,000 CSP partners, per a February 2024 report from [The Register][4]. Today, VMware reportedly has 19 CSP partners in the US and about nine in the United Kingdom, [The Register][5] reported.
[Read full article][6]
[Comments][7]
[1]: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2024/01/broadcom-killing-vmware-partner-program-could-disrupt-thousands-of-businesses/
[2]: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2025/07/more-vmware-cloud-partners-axed-as-broadcom-launches-new-invite-only-program/
[3]: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2025/06/broadcom-ends-business-with-vmwares-lowest-tier-channel-partners/
[4]: https://www.theregister.com/2024/02/13/broadcom_ends_free_esxi_vsphere/
[5]: https://www.theregister.com/2026/03/19/cispe_eu_complaint_vmware_vcsp_closure/
[6]: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2026/03/cloud-service-providers-ask-eu-regulator-to-reinstate-vmware-partner-program/
[7]: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2026/03/cloud-service-providers-ask-eu-regulator-to-reinstate-vmware-partner-program/#comments
The Broadcom office building with the company logo is in Regensburg, Bavaria, Upper Palatinate, Germany, on October 4, 2025.
https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2026/03/cloud-service-providers-ask-eu-regulator-to-reinstate-vmware-partner-program/

2026-03-19 20:49:32 UTC

Dogfighting in space won't look like the movies, but this company wants in on it
If a battle is fought in space, it will look nothing like those depicted in the *Star Wars *franchise, with sleek TIE fighters blasting enemy ships with laser cannons and mag-pulses. Instead, these battles will be cerebral and unhurried, somewhat like the 1973 film *The Day of the Jackal*, a slow-burning political thriller with a plot that somehow mixes tension with clinical precision.
In that film, an assassin sets out to murder the French president. The main character's moves are meticulously planned, with backup plans for backup plans. A police commissioner, just as clever, must pursue the assassin and stop the conspiracy. The events play out over weeks and months, not seconds and minutes.
True Anomaly, which emerged from stealth just three years ago, is planning for *The Day of the Jackal* in space. The startup's primary hardware product, aptly named Jackal, is a war-ready satellite platform designed for mass production. In nature, jackals are known for their intelligence, adaptability, and hunting prowess. True Anomaly's Jackal boasts similar traits in space.
[Read full article][1]
[Comments][2]
[1]: https://arstechnica.com/space/2026/03/dogfighting-in-space-this-company-builds-satellites-for-high-tempo-engagement/
[2]: https://arstechnica.com/space/2026/03/dogfighting-in-space-this-company-builds-satellites-for-high-tempo-engagement/#comments
Artist's illustration of True Anomaly's Jackal spacecraft in proximity to another satellite in orbit.
https://arstechnica.com/space/2026/03/dogfighting-in-space-this-company-builds-satellites-for-high-tempo-engagement/

2026-03-19 20:49:27 UTC

FBI started buying Americans' location data again, Kash Patel confirms
Three years after saying it had stopped buying location data of Americans without a warrant, the FBI acknowledged it has restarted the purchases. During questioning at a Senate Select Committee on Intelligence [hearing][1] yesterday, FBI Director Kash Patel said the location data purchases have produced valuable information, and he did not commit to stopping the practice.
In March 2023, then-FBI Director Christopher Wray [confirmed][2] that the agency had previously bought location data of US citizens without obtaining a warrant. "To my knowledge, we do not currently purchase commercial database information that includes location data derived from Internet advertising,” Wray, who led the agency during Trump's first term and during the Biden era, said at the time. “I understand that we previously—as in the past—purchased some such information for a specific national security pilot project. But that’s not been active for some time.”
At yesterday's [hearing][3], Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) recounted Wray's 2023 statement and asked Patel, "Is that the case still and, if so, can you commit this morning to not buying Americans' location data?"
[Read full article][4]
[Comments][5]
[1]: https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/2026/03/17/open-hearing-worldwide-threats-2/
[2]: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/03/fbi-finally-admits-to-buying-location-data-on-americans-horrifying-experts/
[3]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXcbvDE6fsg&t=4302s
[4]: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/03/fbi-started-buying-americans-location-data-again-kash-patel-confirms/
[5]: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/03/fbi-started-buying-americans-location-data-again-kash-patel-confirms/#comments
FBI Director Kash Patel testifies during the Senate Select Intelligence Committee hearing on worldwide threats on Wednesday, March 18, 2026.
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/03/fbi-started-buying-americans-location-data-again-kash-patel-confirms/

2026-03-19 20:49:21 UTC

Hundreds of millions of iPhones can be hacked with a new tool found in the wild
iPhone hacking techniques have sometimes been described almost like rare and elusive animals: Hackers have used them so stealthily and carefully against such a small number of hand-picked targets that they're only rarely seen in the wild. Now a recent spate of [espionage and cybercriminal campaigns][1] has instead deployed those same phone-takeover tools, embedded in infected websites, to indiscriminately hack phones by the thousands. And one new technique in particular—capable of taking over any of hundreds of millions of [iOS devices][2]—has appeared on the web in an easily reusable form, putting a significant fraction of the world's [iPhone][3] users at risk.
Researchers at Google and cybersecurity firms iVerify and Lookout on Wednesday [jointly][4] [revealed][5] the [discovery][6] of a sophisticated iPhone hacking technique known as DarkSword that they've seen in use on infected websites, capable of instantly and silently hacking iOS devices that visit those sites. While the technique doesn't affect the latest updated versions of iOS, it does work against iOS devices running versions of Apple's previous operating system release, iOS 18, which as of last month still accounted for close to a quarter of iPhones, [according to Apple's own count.][7]
“A vast number of iOS users could have all of their personal data stolen simply for visiting a popular website,” says Rocky Cole, iVerify's cofounder and CEO. “Hundreds of millions of people who are still using older Apple devices or older operating system versions remain vulnerable.”
[Read full article][8]
[Comments][9]
[1]: https://www.wired.com/story/coruna-iphone-hacking-toolkit-us-government/
[2]: https://www.wired.com/story/apple-ios-26-and-ipados-26-top-new-features/
[3]: https://www.wired.com/gallery/iphone-buying-guide/
[4]: https://iverify.io/blog/darksword-ios-exploit-kit-explained
[5]: https://www.lookout.com/threat-intelligence/article/darksword
[6]: https://cloud.google.com/blog/topics/threat-intelligence/darksword-ios-exploit-chain
[7]: https://developer.apple.com/support/app-store/
[8]: https://arstechnica.com/security/2026/03/hundreds-of-millions-of-iphones-can-be-hacked-with-a-new-tool-found-in-the-wild/
[9]: https://arstechnica.com/security/2026/03/hundreds-of-millions-of-iphones-can-be-hacked-with-a-new-tool-found-in-the-wild/#comments
https://arstechnica.com/security/2026/03/hundreds-of-millions-of-iphones-can-be-hacked-with-a-new-tool-found-in-the-wild/

2026-03-19 19:33:45 UTC

OpenAI is acquiring open source Python tool-maker Astral
OpenAI announced Thursday that it has entered into an agreement to acquire Astral, the company behind popular open source Python development tools such as [uv][1], [Ruff][2], and [ty][3], and integrate the company into its Codex team.
The deal, whose financial terms were not publicly disclosed, will help OpenAI "accelerate our work on Codex and expand what AI can do across the software development lifecycle," the company [said in an announcement post][4]. Integrating Astral's tools more closely with Codex after the acquisition will "enable AI agents to work more directly with the tools developers already rely on every day," it continued.
Astral's most popular open source projects include:
[Read full article][5]
[Comments][6]
[1]: https://github.com/astral-sh/uv
[2]: https://github.com/astral-sh/ruff
[3]: https://github.com/astral-sh/ty
[4]: https://openai.com/index/openai-to-acquire-astral/
[5]: https://arstechnica.com/ai/2026/03/openai-is-acquiring-open-source-python-tool-maker-astral/
[6]: https://arstechnica.com/ai/2026/03/openai-is-acquiring-open-source-python-tool-maker-astral/#comments
The team behind Astral will become part of OpenAI's Codex team.
https://arstechnica.com/ai/2026/03/openai-is-acquiring-open-source-python-tool-maker-astral/

2026-03-19 18:17:18 UTC

Afroman keeps trolling cops after winning “Lemon Pound Cake” defamation case
On Wednesday, Afroman won a widely watched defamation lawsuit that seven cops filed after the [rapper made music videos mocking them][1] for conducting a 2022 raid of his home that resulted in no charges and no marijuana found.
Videos for songs like "Lemon Pound Cake," "Why You Disconnecting My Video Camera," and "Will You Help Me Repair My Door" used real footage from the raid, pulling from security camera footage and videos shot by Afroman's wife. Cops from the Adams County Sheriff's Office alleged they were humiliated and received death threats after the videos went viral.
Accusing Afroman of defamation, cops individually sought damages as high as $1.5 million. But Afroman's lawyer, David Osborne, argued this was a clear-cut First Amendment case. At trial, Afroman testified that cops had no one to blame for the reputational damage but themselves, arguing that "if they hadn’t wrongly raided my house, there would be no lawsuit," The New York Times [reported][2].
[Read full article][3]
[Comments][4]
[1]: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/03/cops-sue-rapper-for-using-raid-footage-in-viral-music-videos/
[2]: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/19/us/afroman-trial-lemon-cake-verdict.html
[3]: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/03/afroman-keeps-trolling-cops-after-winning-lemon-pound-cake-defamation-case/
[4]: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/03/afroman-keeps-trolling-cops-after-winning-lemon-pound-cake-defamation-case/#comments
Afroman in 2019, three years before cops raided his Ohio home.
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/03/afroman-keeps-trolling-cops-after-winning-lemon-pound-cake-defamation-case/

2026-03-19 18:17:13 UTC

At the last minute, Meta decides not to kill Horizon Worlds VR after all
The dream of the metaverse may have died for now, but Meta has decided it's not *completely* giving up on the VR experience in Horizon Worlds, the virtual worlds service that it originally envisioned as the first step toward said metaverse.
The news was announced via the [Instagram account][1] of Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth. "We have decided, just today in fact, that we will keep Horizon Worlds working in VR," said Bosworth in an AMA on the platform in response to someone who expressed disappointment at the previously announced plan to end support.
He went on to clarify that only games and experiences that already support VR will continue to do so, while new games will be exclusive to mobile, and the majority of the team's development focus will be on mobile instead of VR.
[Read full article][2]
[Comments][3]
[1]: https://www.instagram.com/stories/boztank/3855871525543453750
[2]: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/03/at-the-last-minute-meta-decides-not-to-kill-horizon-worlds-vr-after-all/
[3]: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/03/at-the-last-minute-meta-decides-not-to-kill-horizon-worlds-vr-after-all/#comments
Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth, announcing continuing VR support for Horizon Worlds in an Instagram AMA.
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/03/at-the-last-minute-meta-decides-not-to-kill-horizon-worlds-vr-after-all/

2026-03-19 17:36:16 UTC

Despite hardware limits, Parallels supports running Windows on MacBook Neo
Apple's MacBook Neo is impressive for its $600 price, but its A18 Pro processor is one of its biggest compromises compared to a modern MacBook Air—[in our review][1], we found it was more than up to basic computing tasks, but for demanding workloads that benefit from more CPU and GPU cores and RAM, the Air is a better choice.
But those limited computing resources are still enough to run Windows on your Mac using the Parallels Desktop virtualization software—[so says Parallels itself][2], which after some testing and benchmarking has declared the Neo suitable for "lightweight computing and everyday productivity, document editing, and web-based apps" while running Windows 11.
Parallels says the MacBook Neo's respectable single-core CPU performance keeps the Neo feeling "quick and responsive" when running multiple Windows-only software packages, including QuickBooks Desktop and other accounting apps, Microsoft Office, "light engineering and data tools" including AutoCAD LT and MATLAB, and "Windows-only courseware and education software" with "no Mac equivalent." In Parallels' testing, the Neo's single-core CPU performance in Windows was still roughly 20 percent faster compared to a Core Ultra 5 235U chip in a Dell Pro 14 laptop.
[Read full article][3]
[Comments][4]
[1]: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/03/apple-macbook-neo-review-can-a-mac-get-by-with-an-iphones-processor-inside/
[2]: https://www.parallels.com/blogs/apple-macbook-neo/
[3]: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/03/despite-hardware-limits-parallels-supports-running-windows-on-macbook-neo/
[4]: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/03/despite-hardware-limits-parallels-supports-running-windows-on-macbook-neo/#comments
Apple's MacBook Neo, in Citrus.
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/03/despite-hardware-limits-parallels-supports-running-windows-on-macbook-neo/

2026-03-19 17:36:11 UTC

Google details new 24-hour process to sideload unverified Android apps
Google is planning big changes for Android in 2026 aimed at combating malware across the entire device ecosystem. Starting in September, Google will begin [restricting application sideloading][1] with its developer verification program, but not everyone is on board. Android Ecosystem President Sameer Samat tells Ars that the company has been listening to feedback, and the result is the newly unveiled advanced flow, which will allow power users to skip app verification.
With its new limits on sideloading, Android phones will only install apps that come from verified developers. To verify, devs releasing apps outside of Google Play will have to provide identification, upload a copy of their signing keys, and pay a $25 fee. It all [seems rather onerous][2] for people who just want to make apps without Google's intervention.
Apps that come from unverified developers won't be installable on Android phones—unless you use the [new advanced flow][3], which will be buried in the developer settings.
[Read full article][4]
[Comments][5]
[1]: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/08/google-will-block-sideloading-of-unverified-android-apps-starting-next-year/
[2]: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/03/with-developer-verification-googles-apple-envy-threatens-to-dismantle-androids-open-legacy/
[3]: https://android-developers.googleblog.com/2026/03/android-developer-verification.html?m=1
[4]: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/03/google-details-new-24-hour-process-to-sideload-unverified-android-apps/
[5]: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/03/google-details-new-24-hour-process-to-sideload-unverified-android-apps/#comments
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/03/google-details-new-24-hour-process-to-sideload-unverified-android-apps/

2026-03-19 16:14:34 UTC

Study pinpoints when bow and arrow came to North America
People in North America adopted the bow and arrow as replacement weapons for the dart and atlatl about 1,400 years ago, according to a [new paper][1] published in the journal PNAS Nexus. But the adoption was almost immediate in southern regions, while people living farther north initially adopted the bow and arrow as a complement to their existing toolkit, gradually phasing out the atlatl and dart over a thousand years.
That's according to the latest research from [experimental archaeologist][2] Metin Eren's [Experimental Archaeology Laboratory][3] at Kent State University in Ohio, where he and his team try to reverse-engineer a wide range of ancient technologies, from stone tools and ceramics to metal, butchery, and textiles. Eren achieved some notoriety for his [2019 debunking][4] of an Inuit legend, testing rudimentary knives made of frozen feces to see whether they could cut through pig hide, muscle, and tendon. [That paper][5] snagged Eren [an Ig Nobel prize][6].
While such work might be colorful, Eren has always emphasized that what he does is very much serious science, not entertainment. His lab has conducted studies on [the pitches and octaves][7] produced from the percussive aspects of flint-knapping; [common injuries][8] suffered by flint-knappers; the [butchering efficiency][9] of Clovis points (field work done jointly with the MeatEater hunters and immortalized [on YouTube][10]); and [ballistics experiments][11] to test a 1970s hypothesis about whether some stone blades once had some sort of wood or bone backing on the flat, dulled edge (as opposed to the sharp cutting edge), which would have increased adhesion.
[Read full article][12]
[Comments][13]
[1]: https://academic.oup.com/pnasnexus/article/5/3/pgag040/8524400?login=false
[2]: https://arstechnica.com/science/2025/01/inside-the-hands-on-lab-of-an-experimental-archaeologist/
[3]: https://www.kent.edu/anthropology/experimental-archaeology-laboratory
[4]: https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/09/knives-made-of-frozen-feces-dont-make-the-cut-disproving-well-known-legend/
[5]: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352409X19305371?via%3Dihub
[6]: https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/09/bellowing-alligators-and-frozen-poop-knives-the-2020-ig-nobel-prizes/
[7]: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01977261.2021.1967581
[8]: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/american-antiquity/article/injury-costs-of-knapping/38646F8580956D68F2AFFDD9C98DD8B4
[9]: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352409X24001081
[10]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XmsrkFjPiKM
[11]: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2352409X22003029
[12]: https://arstechnica.com/science/2026/03/study-pinpoints-when-bow-and-arrow-came-to-north-america/
[13]: https://arstechnica.com/science/2026/03/study-pinpoints-when-bow-and-arrow-came-to-north-america/#comments
A petroglyph from Newspaper Rock, a site along Indian Creek in southeastern Utah.
https://arstechnica.com/science/2026/03/study-pinpoints-when-bow-and-arrow-came-to-north-america/

2026-03-19 16:14:29 UTC

After 25 years, Valve reworks Counter-Strike's reload system
For decades now, *Counter-Strike* players have gotten used to tapping the reload button whenever they have a spare, safe moment. Yesterday evening, though, Valve [announced][1] that it had decided this system needed "higher stakes," overhauling *Counter-Strike 2*'s reload mechanic in a way that could disrupt years of muscle memory for millions of players.
Until now, reloading in *CS2* has meant dumping the remainder of your current clip "back into an essentially endless reserve supply," Valve wrote in [the game's latest update announcement][2]. From now on, hitting the reload button will instead make players "drop the used magazine and discard all of its remaining ammo. Instead of 'topping off' your weapon with a few bullets, a new full magazine will be taken from the reserves whenever you reload."
While most weapons will now come with three full clips of reserve ammo, Valve wrote that "some weapons will have less to reward efficiency and precision, or more to encourage spamming through walls and smokes." *Counter-Strike* specialist Thour [did the math][3] on the changes and found that 7 weapons gained ammo, 16 lost ammo, and 12 saw their total ammo remain unchanged under this new system. Shotguns seem to have seen the biggest upgrades, while strategies that rely on "pistol spam" might have to be rethought from now on.
[Read full article][4]
[Comments][5]
[1]: https://steamcommunity.com/games/CSGO/announcements/detail/532126482488623354
[2]: https://steamcommunity.com/games/CSGO/announcements/detail/532126482488623354
[3]: https://x.com/ThourCS2/status/2034414618060468491
[4]: https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2026/03/after-25-years-valve-reworks-counter-strikes-reload-system/
[5]: https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2026/03/after-25-years-valve-reworks-counter-strikes-reload-system/#comments
Get ready for this *CS2* animation to get a lot less common.
https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2026/03/after-25-years-valve-reworks-counter-strikes-reload-system/

2026-03-19 11:27:29 UTC

TCL’s German QLED ban puts pressure on TV brands to be more honest about QDs
Germany recently banned TCL from marketing some of its TVs as QLED (quantum dot light-emitting diode), with a Munich court ruling that the TVs lack the quantum dot (QD) structure and performance associated with QLED TVs. The decision increases pressure on TV companies to [be more honest with their marketing][1].
Samsung has [actively campaigned against][2] TCL’s use of the term QLED. A year ago, Samsung[ sent Ars Technica results][3] from testing performed by [Intertek][4], a London-headquartered testing and certification company, on TCL’s [65Q651G][5], [65Q681G][6], and [75Q651G][7]. The results showed that the TVs lacked sufficient amounts of cadmium and indium (two chemicals used in QD TVs, either individually or in combination). Intertek reportedly tested the optical sheet, diffuser plate, and LED modules in each TV using a minimum detection standard of 0.5 mg/kg for cadmium and 2 mg/kg for indium.
At the time, a TCL representative told me that TCL had “definitive substantiation for the claims made regarding its QLED televisions.”
[Read full article][8]
[Comments][9]
[1]: 1.%09https:/arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/03/overblown-quantum-dot-conspiracy-theories-make-important-points-about-qled-tvs/
[2]: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/09/tcl-accused-of-selling-quantum-dot-tvs-without-actual-quantum-dots/
[3]: https:/arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/03/overblown-quantum-dot-conspiracy-theories-make-important-points-about-qled-tvs/
[4]: https://www.intertek.com/testing/
[5]: https://www.tcl.com/us/en/products/home-theater/q6-class/65-class-4k-qled-hdr-google-tv-65q651g
[6]: https://www.tcl.com/ca/en/products/home-theater/q6-class/65-class-4k-qled-hdr-google-tv-65q681g-ca
[7]: https://www.tcl.com/us/en/products/home-theater/q6-class/75-class-4k-qled-hdr-google-tv-75q651g
[8]: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/03/tcls-german-qled-ban-puts-pressure-on-tv-brands-to-be-more-honest-about-qds/
[9]: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/03/tcls-german-qled-ban-puts-pressure-on-tv-brands-to-be-more-honest-about-qds/#comments
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/03/tcls-german-qled-ban-puts-pressure-on-tv-brands-to-be-more-honest-about-qds/

2026-03-18 22:26:08 UTC

Musk’s tactic of blaming users for Grok sex images may be foiled by EU law
The European Union may soon ban nudify apps after Elon Musk's chatbot Grok emerged as a prime example of the dangers of an AI platform failing to block outputs that [sexualized images of real people, including children][1].
In a joint [press release][2], the European Parliament's Internal Market and Civil Liberties committees confirmed that lawmakers voted 101–9 (with 8 abstentions) to simplify the Artificial Intelligence Act and "propose bans on AI 'nudifier' systems."
The vote came after the European Commission [concluded][3] earlier this year that the AI Act does not prohibit "AI systems that generate child sexual abuse material (CSAM) or sexually explicit deepfake nudes." At that time, the Commission signaled that Parliament members were already proposing ways to amend the law to strengthen protections against such harmful content.
[Read full article][4]
[Comments][5]
[1]: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/01/xai-silent-after-grok-sexualized-images-of-kids-dril-mocks-groks-apology/
[2]: https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/press-room/20260316IPR38219/meps-support-postponement-of-certain-rules-on-artificial-intelligence
[3]: https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/E-10-2026-000202-ASW_EN.pdf
[4]: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/03/eu-moves-to-ban-nudify-apps-after-grok-made-them-mainstream/
[5]: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/03/eu-moves-to-ban-nudify-apps-after-grok-made-them-mainstream/#comments
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/03/eu-moves-to-ban-nudify-apps-after-grok-made-them-mainstream/

2026-03-18 22:26:02 UTC

Kagi Translate's AI answers the question "What would horny Margaret Thatcher say?"
If you've been using the Internet for any length of time, you've probably used a tool like Google Translate to convert webpages or snippets of text to and from languages ranging from Uzbek to Esperanto. But what if you want to translate into more esoteric "languages" like ["LinkedIn Speak,"][1] ["Gen Z slang,"][2] or ["horny Margaret Thatcher"][3]?
This week, many people across the Internet have been bemused to find that the AI-powered [Kagi Translate][4] can perform these and countless other unlikely "translation" tasks. And while the collective discovery highlights the playful, creative side of large language models, it also exposes the risks of letting users play with generalized LLM tools.
## What is a "language," really?
While you might know Kagi best as [the paid competitor to Google's ever-worsening search product][5], the company launched its Kagi Translate tool [back in 2024][6], saying at the time that it was a "simply better" competitor to tools like Google Translate and [DeepL][7]. At launch, the company said Kagi Translate "uses a combination of LLMs, selecting and optimizing the best output for each task," a fact that "can occasionally lead to quirks that we're actively working to resolve."
[Read full article][8]
[Comments][9]
[1]: https://translate.kagi.com/?from=en&to=linkedin&text=I+am+starting+a+new+job+at+Google+next+Monday.+I+will+work+as+a+contractor+cleaning+toilets.
[2]: https://translate.kagi.com/?from=en&to=gen-z-slang&text=i+really+enjoy+this+warm+weather
[3]: https://bsky.app/profile/giziti.bsky.social/post/3mhbyrtjtlk2s
[4]: https://translate.kagi.com/
[5]: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/08/enough-is-enough-i-dumped-googles-worsening-search-for-kagi/
[6]: https://blog.kagi.com/kagi-translate
[7]: https://www.deepl.com/en/translator
[8]: https://arstechnica.com/ai/2026/03/kagi-translates-ai-answers-the-question-what-would-horny-margaret-thatcher-say/
[9]: https://arstechnica.com/ai/2026/03/kagi-translates-ai-answers-the-question-what-would-horny-margaret-thatcher-say/#comments
Your so-called "human language translation" is just another generalized puzzle box to be solved for an LLM.
https://arstechnica.com/ai/2026/03/kagi-translates-ai-answers-the-question-what-would-horny-margaret-thatcher-say/

2026-03-18 21:28:50 UTC

Never mind Band-Aids, Neanderthals had antiseptic birch tar
Neanderthals may have used birch tar as more than just glue; it could have helped them ward off infection and even insect bites.
People from several modern Indigenous cultures, including the Mi'kmaq of eastern Canada, use tar from birch bark to treat skin infections and keep wounds from festering. We know from several archaeological sites that Neanderthals also knew how to extract birch tar and that they used it as an adhesive to haft weapons. A recent study tested distilled birch tar against the bacteria *S. aureleus* and *E. coli* and found that Neanderthals could easily have used the same material as medicine for [their frequent injuries][1].
[from left to right: a birch tree, a roll of bark on fire, and a hand with sticky black tar on it] This is the simplest step-by-step tutorial for making birch tar: find a tree, set some bark on fire, get messy hands. Credit: Tjaark Siemssen, CC-BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
## Medicine can be messy
What we call "birch tar" in English has a lot of other names in multiple Indigenous languages, and it can range from an oily fluid to a brittle, almost solid tarry resin, depending on how long you heat it in the open air after extracting it from the bark. The Mi'kmaq of eastern Canada prefer the more fluid version, which they call maskwio'mi, for wound dressings and skin ointment.
[Read full article][2]
[Comments][3]
[1]: https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/02/early-humans-kept-getting-their-heads-knocked-in/
[2]: https://arstechnica.com/science/2026/03/never-mind-band-aids-neanderthals-had-antiseptic-birch-tar/
[3]: https://arstechnica.com/science/2026/03/never-mind-band-aids-neanderthals-had-antiseptic-birch-tar/#comments
This replica shows how Neanderthals might have used birch tar to haft a projectile point.
https://arstechnica.com/science/2026/03/never-mind-band-aids-neanderthals-had-antiseptic-birch-tar/