“Elon Musk said on Sunday that SpaceX has shifted its focus to building a ‘self-growing city’ on the moon,” reports Reuters, “which could be achieved in less than 10 years.”

SpaceX still intends to start on Musk’s long-held ambition of a city on Mars within five to seven years, he wrote on his X social media platform, “but the overriding priority is securing the future of civilization and the Moon is faster.”

Musk’s comments echo a Wall Street Journal report on Friday, stating that SpaceX has told investors it would prioritize going to the moon and attempt a trip to Mars at a later time, targeting March 2027 for an uncrewed lunar landing. As recently as last year, Musk said that he aimed to send an uncrewed mission to Mars by the end of 2026.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

As Super Bowl Sunday comes to a close, America’s National Football League “is challenging innovators to improve the facemask on football helmets to reduce concussions in the game,” reports the Associated Press:

The league announced on Friday at an innovation summit for the Super Bowl the next round in the HealthTECH Challenge series, a crowdsourced competition designed to accelerate the development of cutting-edge football helmets and new standards for player safety. The challenge invites inventors, engineers, startups, academic teams and established companies to improve the impact protection and design of football helmets through improvements to how facemasks absorb and reduce the effects of contact on the field…

Most progress on helmet safety has come from improvements to the shell and padding, helping to reduce the overall rate of concussions. Working with the helmet industry, the league has brought in position-specific helmets, with those for quarterbacks, for example, having more padding in the back after data showed most concussions for QBs came when the back of the head slammed to the turf. But the facemask has mostly remained the same. This past season, 44% of in-game concussions resulted from impact to the player’s facemask, up from 29% in 2015, according to data gathered by the NFL. “What we haven’t seen over that period of time are any changes of any note to the facemask,” [said Jeff Miller, the NFL’s executive vice president overseeing player health and safety]… “Now we see, given the changes in our concussion numbers and injuries to players, that as changes are made to the helmet, fewer and fewer concussions are caused by hits to the shell, and more and more concussions as a percentage are by hits to the facemask…”

Selected winners will receive up to $100,000 in aggregate funding, as well as expert development support to help move their concepts from the lab to the playing field.
Winners will be announced in August, according to the article, “and Miller said he expected helmet manufacturers to start implementing any improvements into helmets soon after that.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

“How Chinese is your car?” asks the Wall Street Journal. “Automakers are racing to work it out.”

Modern cars are packed with internet-connected widgets, many of them containing Chinese technology. Now, the car industry is scrambling to root out that tech ahead of a looming deadline, a test case for America’s ability to decouple from Chinese supply chains. New U.S. rules will soon ban Chinese software in vehicle systems that connect to the cloud, part of an effort to prevent cameras, microphones and GPS tracking in cars from being exploited by foreign adversaries.
The move is “one of the most consequential and complex auto regulations in decades,” according to Hilary Cain, head of policy at trade group the Alliance for Automotive Innovation. “It requires a deep examination of supply chains and aggressive compliance timelines.”

Carmakers will need to attest to the U.S. government that, as of March 17, core elements of their products don’t contain code that was written in China or by a Chinese company. The rule also covers software for advanced autonomous driving and will be extended to connectivity hardware starting in 2029. Connected cars made by Chinese or China-controlled companies are also banned, wherever their software comes from…

The Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security, which introduced the connected-vehicle rule, is also allowing the use of Chinese code that is transferred to a non-Chinese entity before March 17. That carve-out has sparked a rush of corporate restructuring, according to Matt Wyckhouse, chief executive of cybersecurity firm Finite State. Global suppliers are relocating China-based software teams, while Chinese companies are seeking new owners for operations in the West.

Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader schwit1 for sharing the article.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

“You can hear the hum of the drone,” says a local newscaster, “but then the propellors come into contact with the building, chunks of the drone later seen falling down. The next video shows the drone on the ground, surrounded by smoke…
“Amazon tells us there was minimal damage to the apartment building, adding they are working with the appropriate people to handle any repairs.” But there were people standing outside, notes the woman who filmed the crash, and the falling drone “could’ve hit them, and they would’ve hurt.”

More from USA Today:

Cesarina Johnson, who captured the collision from her window, told USA TODAY that the collision seemed to happen “almost immediately” after she began to record the drone in action… “The propellers on the thing were still moving, and you could smell it was starting to burn,” Johnson told Fox 4 News. “And you see a few sparks in one of my videos. Luckily, nothing really caught on fire where it got, it escalated really crazy.” According to the outlet, firefighters were called out of an abundance of caution, but the “drone never caught fire….”

Amazon employees can be seen surveying the scene in the clip. Johnson told the outlet that firefighters and Amazon workers worked together to clean up before the drone was loaded into a truck.

Another local news report points out Amazon only began drone delivery in the area late last year.

The San Antonio Express News points out that America’s Federal Aviation Administration “opened an investigation into Amazon’s drone delivery program in November after one of its drone struck an Internet cable line in Waco.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Sure, most Americans are glued to their TVs for the today’s Super Bowl and/or the Winter Olympics. But for the non-sports minded, Amazon MGM Studios has released one last trailer for its forthcoming space odyssey Project Hail Mary, based on Andy Weir’s (The Martian) bestselling 2021 novel about an amnesiac biologist-turned-schoolteacher in space.

As previously reported, Amazon MGM Studios acquired the rights for Weir’s novel before it was even published and brought on Drew Goddard to write the screenplay. (Goddard also wrote the adapted screenplay for The Martian, so he’s an excellent choice.) The studio tapped Phil Lord and Christopher Miller (Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, The LEGO Movie) to direct and signed on Ryan Gosling to star. Per the official premise:

Science teacher Ryland Grace (Ryan Gosling) wakes up on a spaceship light years from home with no recollection of who he is or how he got there. As his memory returns, he begins to uncover his mission: solve the riddle of the mysterious substance causing the sun to die out. He must call on his scientific knowledge and unorthodox ideas to save everything on Earth from extinction… but an unexpected friendship means he may not have to do it alone.

In addition to Gosling, the cast includes Sandra Huller as head of the Hail Mary project and Ryland’s superior; Milana Vayntrub as project astronaut Olesya Ilyukhina; Ken Leung as project astronaut Yao Li-Jie; Liz Kingsman as Shapiro; Orion Lee as Xi; and James Ortiz as a new life form Ryland names Rocky.

Read full article

Comments

It’s the first “AI” Super Bowl, argues the tech/business writer at Slate, with AI company advertisements taking center stage, even while consumers insist to surveyors that they’re “mostly negative” about AI-generated ads.

Last year AI companies spent over $1.7 billion on AI-related ads, notes the Washington Post, adding the blitz this year will be “inescapable” — even while surveys show Americans “doubt the technology is good for them or the world…”

Slate wonders if that means history will repeat itself…

The sheer saturation of new A.I. gambits, added to the mismatch with consumer priorities, gives this year’s NFL showcase the sector-specific recession-indicator vibes that have defined Super Bowls of the past. 2022 was a pride-cometh-before-the-fall event for the cryptocurrency bubble, which collapsed in such spectacular fashion later that year — thanks largely to Super Bowl ad client Sam Bankman-Fried — that none of its major brands have ever returned to the broadcast. (… the coins themselves are once again crashing, hard.) Mortgage lender Ameriquest was as conspicuous a presence in the mid-2000s Super Bowls as it was an absence in the later aughts, having folded in 2007 when the risky subprime loans it specialized in helped kick off the financial crisis. And then there were all those bowl-game commercials for websites like Pets.com and Computer.com in 2000, when the dot-com rush brought attention to a slew of digital startups that went bust with the bubble.

Does this Super Bowl’s record-breaking A.I. ad splurge also portend a coming pop? Look at the business environment: The biggest names in the industry are swapping unimaginable stacks of cash exclusively with one another. One firm’s stock price depends on another firm’s projections, which depend on another contractor’s successes. Necessary infrastructure is meeting resistance, and all-around investment in these projects is riskier than ever. And yet, the sector is still willing to break the bank for the Super Bowl — even though, time and again, we’ve already seen how this particular game plays out.

People are using AI apps. And Meta has aired an ad where a man in rural New Mexico “says he landed a good job in his hometown at a Meta data center,” notes the Washington Post. “It’s interspersed with scenes from a rodeo and other folksy tropes, in one of . The TV commercial (and a similar one set in Iowa), aired in Washington, D.C., and a handful of other communities, suggesting it’s aimed at convincing U.S. elected officials that AI brings job opportunities.

But the Post argues the AI industry “is selling a vision of the future that Americans don’t like.” And they offer cite Allen Adamson, a brand strategist and co-founder of marketing firm Metaforce, who says the perennial question about advertising is whether it can fix bad vibes about a product.

“The answer since the dawn of marketing and advertising is no.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Amazon MGM just released the final trailer for its upcoming film starring Ryan Gosling, Project Hail Mary, and it provides our first good look at his five-legged alien co-star, Rocky. The movie adapts a 2021 Andy Weir (The Martian) novel of the same name, and follows Dr. Ryland Grace, a scientist who wakes up on a spacecraft far from Earth with no recollection of how he got there or why, only to discover he’s on a seemingly impossible mission to stop an extinction event. 

If you’ve read the book, you already know we’re in for an emotional rollercoaster with this one, and the latest trailer aptly tugs at our heartstrings with a glimpse of the friendship that grows between Grace and an alien he meets after waking up — and the incredibly high stakes they’re facing. The movie will be released nationwide on March 20, but Amazon announced alongside this trailer that it’ll be offering tickets for early screenings in premium formats including IMAX, Dolby Cinema, 4DX and 70MM to Prime members. Those screenings will begin on March 16, and tickets go on sale February 20 through Fandango. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/tv-movies/the-final-trailer-for-project-hail-mary-is-here-and-its-an-emotional-ride-213444765.html?src=rss

The mailing list for the North American Network Operators’ Group discusses Internet infrastructure issues like routing, IP address allocation, and containing malicious activity. This morning there was another message:

We are heartbroken to report that our colleague — our mentor, friend, and conscience — David J. Farber passed away suddenly at his home in Roppongi, Tokyo. He left us on Saturday, Feb. 7, 2026, at the too-young age of 91…

Dave’s career began with his education at Stevens Institute of Technology, which he loved deeply and served as a Trustee. He joined the legendary Bell Labs during its heyday, and worked at the Rand Corporation. Along the way, among countless other activities, he served as Chief Technologist of the U.S. Federal Communications Commission; became a proficient (instrument-rated) pilot; and was an active board member of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital civil-liberties organization.

His professional accomplishments and impact are almost endless, but often
captured by one moniker: “grandfather of the Internet,” acknowledging the
foundational contributions made by his many students at the University of
California, Irvine; the University of Delaware; the University of
Pennsylvania; and Carnegie Mellon University. In 2018, at the age of 83, Dave moved to Japan to become Distinguished
Professor at Keio University and Co-Director of the Keio Cyber Civilization
Research Center (CCRC). He loved teaching, and taught his final class on
January 22, 2026… Dave thrived in Japan in every way…

It’s impossible to summarize a life and career as rich and long as Dave”s
in our few words here. And each of us, even those who knew him for decades,
represent just one facet of his life. But because we are here at its end,
we have the sad duty of sharing this news.

Farber once said that ” At both Bell Labs and Rand, I had the privilege, at a young age, of working with and learning from giants in our field. Truly I can say (as have others) that I have done good things because I stood on the shoulders of those giants. In particular, I owe much to Dr. Richard Hamming, Paul Baran and George Mealy.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

It might be near impossible to be a kid these days without a smartphone, but AT&T wants to offer parents a decent compromise. The wireless carrier launched its AmiGO Jr. Phone, which combines Samsung hardware and AT&T’s app, to offer kids a smartphone that has parental controls baked right in.

The AmiGO Jr. Phone is just a Samsung Galaxy A16, which still remains a solid budget smartphone pick with a 50-megapixel main camera, a 6.7-inch display and reliable battery life. However, AT&T tweaked the Samsung hardware into its kid-friendly smartphone by including features like live location tracking, safe zones and screentime restrictions that can be controlled via the AmiGO app. It’s not the first time we’ve seen a smartphone with parental controls, since competitors like Bark and Pinwheel have been on the market for a couple of years now, but it’s the first time a major mobile carrier is offering its own standalone product.

As for the AmiGO Jr. Phone, it’s now available on AT&T’s website for $3 a month, but you’ll have to commit to a 36-month contract that provides bill credits. You still have to pay for your monthly service charges as an AT&T customer, but it’ll be cheaper than buying a Galaxy A16 outright for $200. For even more security, AT&T also launched its AmiGO Jr. Watch 2 to expand its ecosystem that already includes a tablet designed for kids.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/mobile/smartphones/atts-budget-friendly-phone-for-kids-was-designed-with-parental-controls-in-mind-202200139.html?src=rss

“They were crouched down like turkeys peeking over the balcony,” the county sheriff told Ars Technica. A half hour past midnight, they were skulking through a courthouse in Iowa’s Dallas County on September 11 “carrying backpacks that remind me and several other deputies of maybe the pressure cooker bombs.” More deputies arrived…

Justin Wynn, 29 of Naples, Florida, and Gary De Mercurio, 43 of Seattle, slowly proceeded down the stairs with hands raised. They then presented the deputies with a letter that explained the intruders weren’t criminals but rather penetration testers who had been hired by Iowa’s State Court Administration to test the security of its court information system. After calling one or more of the state court officials listed in the letter, the deputies were satisfied the men were authorized to be in the building.

But Sheriff Chad Leonard had the men arrested on felony third-degree burglary charges (later reduced to misdemeanor trespassing charges). He told them that while the state government may have wanted to test security, “The State of Iowa has no authority to allow you to break into a county building. You’re going to jail.”

More than six years later, the Des Moines Register reports:

Dallas County is paying $600,000 to two men who sued after they were arrested in 2019 while testing courthouse security for Iowa’s Judicial Branch, their lawyer says.

Gary DeMercurio and Justin Wynn were arrested Sept. 11, 2019, after breaking into the Dallas County Courthouse. They spent about 20 hours in jail and were charged with burglary and possession of burglary tools, though the charges were later dropped. The men were employees of Colorado-based cybersecurity firm Coalfire Labs, with whom state judicial officials had contracted to perform an analysis of the state court system’s security. Judicial officials apologized and faced legislative scrutiny for how they had conducted the security test.

But even though the burglary charges against DeMercurio and Wynn were dropped, their attorney previously said having a felony arrest on their records made seeking employment difficult. Now the two men are to receive a total of $600,000 as a settlement for their lawsuit, which has been transferred between state and federal courts since they first filed it in July 2021 in Dallas County. The case had been scheduled to go to trial Monday, Jan. 26 until the parties notified the court Jan. 23 of the impending deal…

“The settlement confirms what we have said from the beginning: our work was authorized, professional, and done in the public interest,” DeMercurio said in a statement. “What happened to us never should have happened. Being arrested for doing the job we were hired to do turned our lives upside down and damaged reputations we spent years building….”

“This incident didn’t make anyone safer,” Wynn said. “It sent a chilling message to security professionals nationwide that helping government identify real vulnerabilities can lead to arrest, prosecution, and public disgrace. That undermines public safety, not enhances it.”

County Attorney Matt Schultz said dismissing the charges was the decision of his predecessor, according to the newspaper, and that he believed the sheriff did nothing wrong.

“I am putting the public on notice that if this situation arises again in the future, I will prosecute to the fullest extent of the law.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

It’s about that time. Apple is gearing up for a slew of hardware announcements that will include upgrades for the entry-level iPad, iPad Air, MacBook Pro and MacBook Air, according to Mark Gurman’s Power On newsletter. In line with what we’ve seen in recent years, Gurman reports, “A product launch is currently slated for as early as the week of March 2.”

Apple unveiled the M5 MacBook Pro in October, bringing the chip first to the 14-inch model. With the coming announcements, we should see the M5 Pro and M5 Max chips finally arrive. Gurman notes that new 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pros are on the way, along with a new MacBook Air. We’re also likely to see new iPads soon. A new entry-level iPad will be able to support Apple Intelligence thanks to the inclusion of the A18 chip, and the iPad Air will be getting the M4, according to Gurman. 

Updates to the Mac Studio and Studio Display are expected to follow, as well as a Mac mini refresh down the line this year. As Gurman previously reported, Apple is also said to be releasing its first “low-cost MacBook” sometime in the very near future.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/computing/we-may-see-apples-new-ipads-and-macbooks-in-only-a-matter-of-weeks-192953977.html?src=rss