13 million people live in Moscow, reports CNN.

But since early March the city “has experienced internet and mobile service outages on a level previously unseen.” (Though Wi-Fi access to the internet is still available…) Russian social media “is flooded with jokes and memes about sending letters by carrier pigeons or using smartphones as ping-pong paddles…”

[Moscow residents] complain they cannot navigate around the center or use their favorite mobile apps. The interruptions appear to have had a knock-on effect of making it more difficult to make voice calls or send an SMS. Some are panic-buying walkie-talkies, paper maps, and even pagers.

The latest shutdown builds on similar efforts around the country. For months, mobile internet service interruptions have hit Russia’s regions, particularly in provinces bordering Ukraine, which has staged incursions and launched strikes inside Russian territory to counter Russia’s full-scale invasion. Some regions have reported not having any mobile internet since summer. But the most recent outages have hit the country’s main centers of wealth and power: Moscow and Russia’s second city, St. Petersburg.

Public officials claim the blackout of mobile internet service in the capital and other regions is part of a security effort to counter “increasingly sophisticated methods” of Ukrainian attack… Speculation centers on whether the authorities are testing their ability to clamp down on public protest in the case there’s an effort to reintroduce unpopular mobilization measures to find fresh manpower for the war in Ukraine; whether mobile internet outages may precede a more sweeping digital blackout; or if the new restrictions reflect an atmosphere of heightened fear and paranoia inside the Kremlin as it watches US-led regime- change efforts unfold against Russian allies such as Venezuela and Iran… On Wednesday, Russian mobile providers sent notifications that there would be “temporary restrictions” on mobile internet in parts of Moscow for security reasons, Russian state news agency RIA-Novosti reported. The measures will last “for as long as additional measures are needed to ensure the safety of our citizens,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on March 11…

As well as banning many social media platforms, Russia blocks calling features on messenger apps such as WhatsApp and Telegram. Roskomnadzor, the country’s communications regulator, has introduced a “white list” of approved apps… Russia has also tested what it calls the “sovereign internet,” a network that is effectively firewalled from the rest of the world. The disruptions are fueling broader concerns about tightening state control. In parallel with the internet shutdown, the Kremlin has also been pushing to impose a state-controlled messaging app called Max as the country’s main portal for state services, payments and everyday communication. There has been speculation the Kremlin may be planning to ban Telegram, Russia’s most widely used messaging app, entirely. Roskomnadzor said that it was restricting Telegram for allegedly failing to comply with Russian laws.

“Russia has opened a criminal case against me for ‘aiding terrorism,'” Telegram’s Russian-born founder Pavel Durov said on X last month. “Each day, the authorities fabricate new pretexts to restrict Russians’ access to Telegram as they seek to suppress the right to privacy and free speech….”
The article includes this quote from Mikhail Klimarev, head of the Internet Protection Society and an expert on Russian internet freedom. “In any situation when they (the authorities) perceive some kind of danger for themselves and accept the belief that the internet is dangerous for them, even if it may not be true, they will shut it down,” he said. “Just like in Iran.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

“Juicier steaks could soon be served up after barley was given the go-ahead to become Britain’s first gene-edited crop,” reports the Telegraph:
In an effort to fatten up cows and get them to market faster, scientists have altered the DNA of Golden Promise barley to increase its fat content… [Regulators have approved the feeding of that barley to cows for further studies.] [T]he small increase reduces the time it takes for farmers to raise animals for slaughter and increases the amount of milk and meat they produce to make the industry more profitable.

The gene-edited barley is also able to cut the amount of methane a cow produces, [Rothamsted Research professor/biochemist Peter] Eastmond said… Reducing methane from cattle is a major goal of the industry, and Professor Eastmond estimated his barley could cut the methane output from a single cow by up to 15%.

The two genetic tweaks to the barley are believed to alter the gut bacteria in cows’ stomachs and reduce the amount of methane-generating microbes, cutting the cows’ emissions…. [Eastmond] is also working on applying the same two gene edits to rye grass to create pastures and meadows which are lipid-rich and calorie-dense. This, he said, could lead to entire fields of gene-edited grass which could be grazed by cows, sheep, horses and goats to fatten them up and cut emissions… “It would be better to have this technology in a pasture grass that’s grown to supply the livestock and graze it directly.”
The barley “has been modified to have a single letter of DNA removed from two different genes to switch them off,” the article points out. “No genes have been added to its DNA and it is not considered to be genetically modified.”

The article points out that Britain “has launched a push towards more gene-edited crops as a key post-Brexit freedom since splitting from the European Union,” noting that U.K. scientists and private companies “have created products such as bread with fewer cancer-causing chemicals, longer-lasting strawberries and bananas, sweeter-tasting lettuce and disease-resistant potatoes, although these are yet to be granted permission to land on supermarket shelves…”
But the EU has so far resisted the sale of any gene-edited crops in the EU.

Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader fjo3 for sharing the article.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

There could be one more step required before creating an account and posting on Reddit in the future. According to Reddit’s CEO, Steve Huffman, the social media platform is exploring different ways to verify a user is human and not a bot. When asked by the TBPN podcast how to confirm that it’s a human using Reddit, Huffman responded with several verification methods with varying degrees of heavy-handedness.

“The most lightweight way is with something like Face ID or Touch ID,” Huffman said during the interview. “They actually require a human presence, like a human has to touch, or do or look at something, so that actually just proves there’s a person there or gets you pretty far.”

Besides these passkey methods that use biometrics data, Huffman said there are other options like relying on third-party services that are decentralized or don’t require ID. On the other end of the spectrum, Huffman also mentioned more burdensome options, like ID-checking services.

Recent years have brought a rise in bots flooding social media platforms including Reddit, where they’ve even been used to conduct secret experiments. It doesn’t sound like Reddit has landed on how to verify its users’ human identity yet, but Huffman did emphasize that the platform still wants to prioritize anonymity for its users. However, verifying humanity through identifiable and personal data could end up as a dealbreaker for Reddit users who value the anonymity of the platform. 

“Part of our promise for our users is we don’t know your name but we do want to know you’re a person,” Huffman said. “It’ll be an evolution for us for a while, and probably every platform to find the right middle ground here.”

Reddit co-founder and former executive chair, Alexis Ohanian, said on X that Reddit requiring Face ID wasn’t something he expected but agreed that something had to be done about the fake content from bots, adding that, “I just don’t know how to sell face-scanning to Redditors or even lurkers.” We reached out to Reddit’s communications team and will update the story when we hear back.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/social-media/reddit-is-weighing-identity-verification-methods-to-combat-its-bot-problem-195814671.html?src=rss

China’s orbital outpost Tiangong was completed in 2022 and is hosting up to three astronauts at a time, reports CNN.

But meanwhile U.S. lawmakers are now signaling there’s not time to develop and launch a replacement for the International Space Station — considered the signal most expensive object ever built — before its deorbiting in 2030. A recent Senate bill calls for the U.S. to continue funding it as late as 2032, but that bill still awaits approval from the U.S. Senate and the House.

But some private space companies are already building their alternatives:

Private companies that are in the early design and mockup phase of developing these space stations are still waiting on NASA for guidance — and money… [NASA’s “Requests for Proposals”] were delayed, in part because it took all of 2025 to cinch a confirmation for Trump’s on-again-off-again pick for NASA administrator, Jared Isaacman [confirmed in December]… Similarly, 2025 saw a 45-day government shutdown, the longest in history — adding another hiccup in the space agency’s plans to begin formally soliciting proposals from the private sector. Companies now expect that NASA will issue its Request for Proposals in late March or early April, one CEO told CNN…

Several commercial outfits have recently announced big funding influxes aimed at speeding up the development and launch of new orbiting outposts. Houston-based Axiom Space announced a $350 million funding round last month. Its California-based competitor Vast then notched a $500 million raise in early March. Vast is determined to launch a bare-bones station to orbit as soon as possible, with or without federal input, according to the company. “Our approach is to actually not wait for (NASA) and get going and build a minimum viable product, single-module space station called Haven-1, which we’re launching into orbit next year,” Vast CEO Max Haot told CNN in a phone interview earlier this month. Similarly, Axiom Space is working toward a 2028 launch date for a module that it plans to initially attach to the ISS before breaking off to orbit on its own. A spokesperson told CNN that it the company is “committed” to winning the NASA contract money and may continue pursing such goals even without contract awards.

Still, there’s lingering doubt that any of the companies pursuing space stations will be able to stay afloat without securing a coveted NASA contract or at least cinching significant business from the public sector.

The article includes “Another complicating fact: Russia, the United States’ primary partner on the ISS, has not pledged to keep operating its half of the space station past 2028.” NASA will eventually evaluate proposals for an ISS alternative from Vast, Axiom Space, Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin, Max Space and several competitors including Voyager Technologies, CNN notes, ultimately handing out an estimated $1.5 billion in contracts between 2026 and 2031.

And while those companies may wait decades before a return on their investment, the article includes this quotes from the cofounder/general partner of Balerion Space Ventures, which led the fundraising for Vast. ” What’s obvious to us is you’re going to have multiple vehicles with myriad companies go into space. You’re going to have vehicles leaving from celestial bodies, like the moon. And we need a habitat.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Need something new for your reading list? Here are two titles we think are worth checking out. This week, we’ve got Andy Weir’s Project Hail Mary and The Thing on the Doorstep, an H.P. Lovecraft adaptation for Image Comics. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/what-to-read-this-weekend-revisiting-project-hail-mary-and-the-thing-on-the-doorstep-190000250.html?src=rss

ReactOS aims to be compatible with programs and drivers developed for Windows Server 2003 and later versions of Microsoft Windows.

And Slashdot reader jeditobe reports that the project has now “announced significant progress in achieving compatibility with proprietary graphics drivers.”

ReactOS now supports roughly 90% of GPU drivers for Windows XP and Windows Server 2003, thanks to a series of fixes and the implementation of the KMDF (Kernel-Mode Driver Framework) and WDDM (Windows Display Driver Model) subsystems. Prior to these changes, many proprietary drivers either failed to launch or exhibited unstable behavior. In the latest nightly builds of the 0.4.16 branch, drivers from a variety of manufacturers — including Intel, NVIDIA, and AMD — are running reliably.

The project demonstrated ReactOS running on real hardware, including booting with installed drivers for graphics cards such as Intel GMA 945, NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTS and GTX 750 Ti, and AMD Radeon HD 7530G. They also highlighted successful operation on mobile GPUs like the NVIDIA Quadro 1000M, with 2D/3D acceleration, audio, and network connectivity all functioning correctly. Further tests confirmed support on less common or older configurations, including a laptop with a Radeon Xpress 1100, as well as high-performance cards like the NVIDIA GTX Titan X.

A key contribution came from a patch merged into the main branch for the memory management subsystem, which improved driver stability and reduced crashes during graphics adapter initialization.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A legal feud between the co-founders of Lux Optics, the developer behind the Halide camera app, revealed that Apple was close to acquiring the company. As first reported by The Information, Apple held acquisition talks for Lux Optics, which also developed the Kino, Spectre and Orion apps, in the summer of 2025.

According to The Information, the deal eventually fell through in September of that year, but the potential acquisition could’ve provided Apple with the third-party software to improve its own built-in camera app. Apple is already rumored to be introducing variable aperture to its upcoming iPhone 18 Pro models, so it’s not surprising that the iPhone maker was looking for software with advanced features to match its possibly upgraded camera hardware.

Despite Apple’s interest, Lux Optics’ co-founders, Ben Sandofsky and Sebastiaan de With concluded that future updates to Halide could increase the company’s valuation and ended the acquisition talks. According to the lawsuit between the co-founders, Sandofsky started investigating de With for the alleged misuse of company funds shortly after the talks with Apple ended. Afterwards, de With was fired from Lux Optics and later joined Apple’s design team. While Halide may remain third-party software for iPhones and iPads, users can still look forward to some software improvements to the built-in camera app, since that’s reportedly one of Apple’s priorities.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/apps/apple-considered-buying-halide-to-upgrade-its-native-camera-app-175139818.html?src=rss

Slashdot reader BrianFagioli writes: According to the research firm Gartner, 50% of U.S. consumers say they would prefer to do business with brands that avoid using GenAI in consumer facing content such as advertising and promotional messaging.

The survey of 1,539 Americans, conducted in October 2025, also found growing skepticism about the reliability of online information, with 61% saying they frequently question whether information they use for everyday decisions is trustworthy… Gartner found that 68% of consumers often wonder whether the content they see online is real, while fewer people now rely on intuition alone to judge credibility [only 27%]. Instead, more consumers are actively verifying information and checking sources.

Gartner’s senior principal analyst offered suggests discretion for brands trying to use AI. “The brands that win will be the ones that use AI in ways customers can immediately recognize as helpful, while being transparent about when AI is used, what it’s doing, and giving customers a clear choice to opt out.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The best-selling game of all time is moving from the virtual to the physical. Minecraft World, a permanent Greater London theme park based on the game, is scheduled to open in 2027. The announcement came during Minecraft Live 2026.

It will be a new section in Chessington World of Adventures, a theme park with a built-in zoo. The resort is a 35-minute train ride from London’s Waterloo station.

Details are still fairly light on the park. But we know it will include a roller coaster, “interactive adventures” and “epic block-built playscapes.” Torfi Frans Ólafsson, the game franchise’s creative director, said they’re aiming for “an experience that feels immersive, authentic and welcoming.” Naturally, that will include welcoming you to open your wallet in Minecraft-themed retail and dining spots.

The park is a collaboration between Mojang Studios and Merlin Entertainments, the world’s second-largest theme park builder. (A certain rodent-led empire is first.)

If visiting the full theme park in England isn’t your thing, the latest location of the game’s (also real-world) pop-up events will open in May. Minecraft Experience: Moonlight Trail will let visitors in Buenos Aires, Argentina, go on an hour-long outdoor nighttime adventure. As its name suggests, you’ll “walk a moonlit trail” through iconic Minecraft biomes. Along the way, you’ll craft gear, mine diamonds, battle mobs and “help restore an ancient beacon.” The event opens in May.

Mojang Studios

Not all of Minecraft Live’s announcements were about real-world empire building. Minecraft, the game, is getting some updates, too. Its next big drop, Tiny Takeover, will live up to the billing with a redesigned “cuter” look for baby mobs. The update will also add a golden dandelion, which you can feed to a baby mob to make it stay young forever. (Or, at least until you feed it a second one.) Tiny Takeover arrives on March 24.

Mojang also teased the next drop after that. Later this year, Chaos Cubed will add a sulfur cube that changes properties when absorbing different materials. “There is a lot of variety in what the cube can do,” Mojang promises. “Just like there are balls with different ‘bounciness’ and behavior, the sulfur cube can have different physics.”

Finally, the long-rumored Minecraft Dungeons II game is official. We’re still extremely light on details about the sequel to the 2020 spinoff, aside from the fact that you can wishlist it on March 21.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/a-minecraft-theme-park-will-open-in-london-in-2027-173000917.html?src=rss

A free built-in VPN is coming to Firefox on Tuesday, Mozilla announced this week:

Free VPNs can sometimes mean sketchy arrangements that end up compromising your privacy, but ours is built from our data principles and commitment to be the world’s most trusted browser. It routes your browser traffic through a proxy to hide your IP address and location while you browse, giving you stronger privacy and protection online with no extra downloads. Users will have 50 gigabytes of data monthly in the U.S., France, Germany and U.K. to start. Available in Firefox 149 starting March 24.

We also recently shared that Firefox is the first browser to ship Sanitizer API, a new web security standard that blocks attacks before they reach you [for untrusted HTML XSS vulnerabilities].

“The roadmap for Firefox this year is the most exciting one we’ve developed in quite a while,” says Firefox head Ajit Varma. “We’re improving the fundamentals like speed and performance. We’re also launching innovative new open standards in Gecko to ensure the future of the web is open, diverse, and not controlled by a single engine.

“At the same time we’re prioritizing features that give users real power, choice and strong privacy protections, built in a way that only Firefox can. And as always, we’ll keep listening, inviting users to help shape what comes next and giving them more reasons to love Firefox.”

Two new features coming next week:

Split View puts two webpages side by side in one window, making it easy to compare, copy and multitask without bouncing between tabs. Rolling out in Firefox 149 on March 24.
Tab Notes let you add notes to any tab, another tool to help with multitasking and picking up where you left off. Available in Firefox Labs 149 starting March 24.
And Firefox also released a video this week introducing their new mascot Kit.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

While other tech companies have been laying off employees year after year, OpenAI is doing the opposite. According to a report from the Financial Times, the AI giant is looking to expand its workforce to 8,000 employees by the end of 2026, nearly doubling staff from its current headcount of 4,500.

The FT reported that the new hires will be across several departments, including product development, engineering, research and sales. OpenAI’s hiring spree will also include “specialists” for “technical ambassadorship,” or employees tasked with helping businesses better utilize its AI tools, according to the report. As the FT noted, OpenAI is likely trying to amp up the competition against Anthropic and its Claude AI chatbot. According to the AI Index from Ramp, a fintech startup that manages corporate expenses, businesses are now 70 percent more likely to go with Anthropic when buying AI services for the first time as opposed to OpenAI.

OpenAI made waves in February when it announced a contract with the Department of Defense to use its AI models, following a public fallout between Anthropic and the federal agency. On top of the government contract, OpenAI is also in “advanced talks” with private equity firms like Brookfield Asset Management to deploy its AI tools across a firms’ portfolio of companies, according to Reuters.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/openai-reportedly-plans-to-double-its-workforce-to-8000-employees-161028377.html?src=rss

It doesn’t sound like Crimson Desert, the recently released prequel to Black Desert Online, will support Intel Arc GPUs anytime soon, if at all. On the game’s FAQ page, its developer Pearl Abyss advised players expecting Arc support to apply for a refund. “If you purchased the game expecting Intel Arc support, please refer to the refund policy of the platform where the game was purchased for available options,” the company wrote. Apparently, though, it’s not from lack of guidance from Intel. The chipmaker told Wccftech that it reached out to Pearl Abyss “many times” over the past several years.

The Intel spokesperson said that the company has tried to help the developer “test, validate, and optimize support for Intel graphics” for years. Intel also tried to provide the developer “early hardware, drivers, and engineering resources” across several generations of GPUs, “including Alchemist, Battlemage, Meteor Lake, and Lunar Lake.” The chipmaker said it’s “hugely disappointed that players using Intel graphics hardware” can’t play the game, but that it remains “ready to assist Pearl Abyss” however it can. It also advised players to reach out directly to the developer for “details on the choice not to enable Intel support at launch.”

Pearl Abyss, of course, doesn’t have the obligation to tweak the game so that it runs on PCs with Intel Arc GPUs. The good news is that since the title came out just a few days ago, it will still be easy to get a refund. Steam, where Crimson Desert is now one of the top-selling games, issues refunds within two weeks of purchase.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/pc/intel-says-crimson-desert-devs-ignored-offers-of-help-to-support-arc-gpus-155514896.html?src=rss

“The systemd project merged a pull request adding a new birthDate field to the JSON user records managed by userdb in response to the age verification laws of California, Colorado, and Brazil,” reports the blog It’s FOSS.

They note that the field “can only be set by administrators, not by users themselves” — it’s the same record that already holds metadata like realName, emailAddress, and location:

Lennart Poettering, the creator of systemd, has clarified that this change is “an optional field in the userdb JSON object. It’s not a policy engine, not an API for apps. We just define the field, so that it’s standardized iff people want to store the date there, but it’s entirely optional. ”

In simple words, this is something that adds a new, optional field that can then be used by other open source projects like xdg-desktop-portal to build age verification compliance on top of, without systemd itself doing anything with the data or making it mandatory to provide. A merge request asking for this change to be repealed was struck down by Lennart, who gave the above-mentioned reasoning behind this, and further noted that people were misunderstanding what systemd is trying to do here.
“It enforces zero policy,” Poettering said. “It leaves that up for other parts of the system.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Remember when Japan sent a spacecraft to an asteroid 180 million miles away to scoop some dirt off the surface? Six years on from its arrival to Earth, that sample has yielded some insights about what may have seeded life on our planet. Read on to learn more about the latest findings, and other science news we found interesting this week.  

DNA ingredients on Ryugu

In 2020, a capsule from the Japanese space probe Hayabusa2 returned to Earth with samples collected from the surface of asteroid Ryugu, and scientists have spent the subsequent years analyzing those materials for clues about the conditions that existed in the early solar system. This week, researchers from Japan reported an exciting discovery: the Ryugu samples contain the five building blocks of DNA and RNA. The findings, coupled with those from other recent studies, could put us closer to understanding how the ingredients for life first made it to Earth billions of years ago. 

The study, published in the journal Nature Astronomy, found the nucleobases adenine, guanine, cytosine, thymine and uracil — all of which were also found in samples gathered from a different asteroid, Bennu, last year, and before that in meteorites dubbed Murchison and Orgueil. This suggests these nucleobases were widespread in the early solar system, and supports the hypothesis that carbonaceous asteroids like Ryugu and Bennu transported them to Earth, the authors explain in the paper. Ammonia was discovered in the samples as well, which may play a role in how these nucleobases formed. 

The discovery of these building blocks “does not mean that life existed on Ryugu,” Toshiki Koga, the study’s lead author from the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology, told AFP. “Instead, their presence indicates that primitive asteroids could produce and preserve molecules that are important for the chemistry related to the origin of life.”

Bacteria collaborate to eat plastic waste

Researchers in Germany have identified a trio of bacteria that can digest a common plastic additive, but only when working together. The study published in the journal Frontiers in Microbiology found that a “consortium” of bacterial strains (two from species in the genus Pseudomonas and one from Microbacterium) was able to break down several phthalate esters (PAEs), which are often used to make plastic materials more flexible. These chemicals are increasingly finding their way into the environment as plastic pollution grows, and research suggests they can have harmful effects on human health and that of wildlife. 

The team focused on microbes that could be found right at home in their own lab, taking a sample of biofilm that had formed on the polyurethane tubing of a bioreactor. This sample was then incubated in a growth medium containing the PAE diethyl phthalate (DEP) as the main source of carbon and energy. They eventually ended up with a stable culture of bacteria that could break down DEP, as long as the DEP concentration didn’t exceed 888 milligrams per liter, according to a press release. The consortium could gobble up all the DEP in 24 hours at 30 degrees C. It was also able to grow on the PAEs dimethyl phthalate, dipropyl phthalate and dibutyl phthalate.

The researchers identified the bacteria in the consortium through DNA sequencing, but found that they were not individually able to tackle the PAEs, suggesting they break down the chemicals through a “cooperative process” known as cross-feeding. The consortium could make for another tool in the pollution-fighting toolbox, with potential to help break down PAEs in contaminated areas or speed up the degradation of plastics that contain PAEs by making them more brittle. “This approach may also be effective in treating industrial plastic waste streams,” they note. 

Hubble witnesses a breakup

Newly released images from the Hubble Space Telescope show the unexpected breakup of Comet C/2025 K1 (ATLAS) — Comet K1, for short — as it made its way out of the solar system back in November. A team of researchers that initially set out to observe a different comet ended up switching targets due to technical issues, only to catch Comet K1 right after it started crumbling. Hubble captured three 20-second images between November 8 and November 10 2025, the first of which the team estimates was about eight days after the fragmenting started. During the observation period, one of the comet’s smaller pieces began to break up too. Talk about being in the right place at the right time.

“Never before has Hubble caught a fragmenting comet this close to when it actually fell apart,” said John Noonan, a research professor in the Department of Physics at Auburn University, in a statement. “Most of the time, it’s a few weeks to a month later. And in this case, we were able to see it just days after.” You can read more about the rare sighting here. 

Before you go, be sure to check these stories out too:

• States are suing the EPA for relinquishing its role as a greenhouse gas emissions regulator

• Blue Origin also wants to put AI data centers in space

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/science/dna-building-blocks-on-asteroid-ryugu-bacteria-that-eat-plastic-waste-and-more-science-news-150000975.html?src=rss

Jeff Bezos “is in early talks to raise $100 billion,” reports the Wall Street Journal, “for a new fund that would buy up manufacturing companies and seek to use AI technology to accelerate their path to automation.”

“The Amazon.com founder is meeting with some of the world’s largest asset managers to raise funding for the project.”

A few months ago, [Bezos] traveled to the Middle East to discuss the new fund with sovereign wealth representatives in the region. More recently, he went to Singapore to raise funding for the effort as well, according to people familiar with the matter. The fund, described in investor documents as a “manufacturing transformation vehicle,” is aiming to buy companies in major industrial sectors such as chipmaking, defense and aerospace…

Bezos was recently appointed co-CEO of Project Prometheus, a new startup that is building artificial-intelligence models that can understand and simulate the physical world. Bezos plans to use the company’s technology to boost the efficiency and profitability of businesses owned by the fund, a playbook that some investment firms are similarly deploying in sectors such as accounting and property management… [Prometheus has also hired employees from OpenAI and Google DeepMind, the article points out.]

While much of the AI revolution has been focused on large language models, billions of dollars have begun to flow to companies that are seeking to apply spatially focused AI systems toward industries including robotics and manufacturing… Amazon, one of [America’s] largest employers, has closed in on the milestone of having as many robots as humans.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.