An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: The Belgian prosecutor’s office said on Tuesday that it has charged five people in connection with a bribery investigation in the European Parliament allegedly linked to China’s Huawei. The five were detained last week. Four have now been arrested and charged with active corruption and involvement in a criminal organization, while a fifth faces money laundering charges and has been released conditionally. The prosecutor’s officer did not disclose the names of those involved or give information that could identify them.

It said new searches had taken place on Monday, this time at European Parliament offices. Huawei said last week it took the allegations seriously. “Huawei has a zero tolerance policy towards corruption or other wrongdoing, and we are committed to complying with all applicable laws and regulations at all times,” it said. The prosecutors have said the alleged corruption took place “very discreetly” since 2021 under the guise of commercial lobbying and involved payments for taking certain political stances or excessive gifts such as food and travel expenses or regular invitations to football matches.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Buying a house is a stressful, expensive project—something most people understand. That’s why they do their diligence. The research the property and the area, they hire a home inspector, they pay a lot of money for title insurance, and they ask questions. Lots and lots of questions.

Most of those questions are common sense, concerning the history of the house, the age and condition of the roof or the HVAC system, and the neighborhood. But there are some not-so-common questions that are also worth asking. These eight questions might seem a bit random, but they can alert you to big problems before you sign your life away.

Was the home ever used as a business?

A lot of people use their homes for their livelihood. If that means a home office for telecommuting, it’s nothing to worry about. But if the previous owner ran any kind of physical business out of the house, you need to know, because it could impact your enjoyment of the property in a few ways:

• Old customers might show up unannounced, unaware that the house has been sold, as happened to this unhappy new homeowner. This could potentially include folks who are upset with their experience with the business, or to whom the business owes money.

• Shipments, bills, and other deliveries or correspondence might continue to arrive, forcing you to deal with someone else’s business—especially if the previous owner demands that you forward materials and mail to them.

Has the house ever been hit by a car?

This might seem like a crazy question to ask, but if the house you’re considering buying is located at an intersection, at the bottom of a hill, or around a blind corner, it’s worth asking if it’s been hit by cars—and if so, how often. Homes being hit by cars isn’t common, but if the house has been hit once, there’s a good chance the conditions that caused the accident still exist, and it could be hit again.

For example, this house in San Jose has been hit 23 times in 50 years. This house in Ohio has been hit three times (plus one near-miss). And this house in North Carolina was hit by cars six times over the course of a decade. The worst time to find out that a nearby highway exit ramp or dangerous curve slings cars into your home on a regular basis is after you’ve bought it.

What exactly will I own?

Most of the time you can safely assume that what you see in and around the house will be yours once the checks clear and the deed is transferred. That usually includes the outdoor spaces, like a backyard, the appliances, and, say, the finished basement. But you should never assume, because sometimes what you see is not at all what you get.

This couple in Washington and bought a house only to discover that the back yard—starting at their back steps—was actually a separate lot. They only learned this when the lot was put up for auction, and they found themselves desperately trying to buy their own backyard. And if you want the appliances in the kitchen or laundry room, you should make sure their inclusion is specified in the contract, or you might be in for a few extra expenses when you move in to find the fridge missing.

There’s even a story about a seller who literally removed an entire finished basement from the house, leveraging the fact that below-grade areas are usually not considered part of the living space. You might not need to worry about the basement in your dream home, but it underscores the wisdom of making sure you know everything that is included in the sale.

Do all the outlets work?

Older homes often don’t have enough power outlets. They were often designed and constructed in a different era, when people didn’t have TVs in their bedrooms or a dozen gadgets charging at all times. One of the easiest upgrades people put into older homes is additional outlets, often as part of an overall upgrade to the electrical wiring.

But an unscrupulous homeowner might add nonfunctional outlets to give the appearance of such an upgrade, leaving it to you to actually connect them. Or, maybe the house has old wiring that only looks like it was upgraded and modernized. Either way, asking if the outlets all actually work—or, better yet, testing them with a volt meter yourself—is a good idea.

Is it considered historic?

If you’re buying an older home, it’s often a good idea to ask if it’s located in a historic district or designated a historic building, and if there are any restrictions that come along with that designation. Homes that are considered historic in some way often come with limitations to the kind of renovations you can do without explicit approval, and may come with extra expenses or responsibilities.

You’d assume something like that would be disclosed before the sale, and it usually is if it’s the house itself that has officially been deemed historic. But if you move into an area considered historic, you might be subject to rules regarding how you can alter or update a home that haven’t been previously disclosed to you, just like this unlucky homeowner. If your new house has old charm, it’s worth asking, or checking directly with the local government.

Why exactly was the basement renovated?

If you’re touring a house that obviously hasn’t had a major renovation in a while, you might be okay as long as the bones are good and you have a vision (and a budget) for renovations. But if you head down to the basement and discover a brand-new, just-finished renovation it’s time to ask one question: Was there a flood? While many homeowners tackle their home renovations in stages, if only the below-grade areas of the house that have been updated, it’s time to worry about significant water damage that’s been erased or hidden. If the basement flooded once, it will likely flood again—so you need to know why it was singled out for a rehab.

Is there a buried tank on the premises?

Old houses sometimes have ancient oil tanks buried underground. If a house had oil heat in the past, burying the tank hid it from view—no one wants an ugly, rusting tank sitting in their backyard. And if the tank was properly decommissioned—drained, filled with foam, and capped—it’s nothing to worry (at least until you decide to dig up the yard).

But if the tank wasn’t decommissioned, it could be a huge problem. If it leaks, your health could be impacted, and if the leak spreads and poisons your neighbors’ property, you’ll be liable. And removing a tank can be expensive—around $10,000 if you’ve got an environmental disaster on your hands. Best to ask about it before you assume that responsibility.

How are those trees doing?

Trees are terrific, and offer a lot of benefits to a property. But trees can become a real hazard if they’re not cared for properly—they can fall and damage the house, become a home for insects and rodents that infiltrate the house, and can cause conflict between you and your neighbors. Taking care of trees can be expensive, so many homeowners prefer to just enjoy the shade and assume that nature will take care of itself.

It pays to ask about the trees on your potential property—how often were they pruned and trimmed? Has an arborist inspected the trees for diseases, infestations, or damage? If the trees are old and haven’t been properly cared for, you might be buying a lot of work and problems instead of a beautiful, shady yard.

While Tesla is a popular car for ride-hailing drivers employed by the likes of Uber and more, the company could soon cut out the middleman. The California Public Utilities Commission has approved the company’s bid for a transportation charter-party carrier permit, Bloomberg reports.

The permit opens the way for Tesla to operate a ride-hailing service to compete with Uber, Lyft and other established companies. Tesla employees would drive the cars, initially transporting fellow employees, before becoming available to the public. Last year, Elon Musk told investors that the company was already testing app-based transportation for Bay Area employees using safety drivers.

Notably, Tesla is still not approved to use autonomous vehicles for ride-hailing, though Musk has claimed they will be available in Austin, Texas by June and in California by the end of the year. Meanwhile, Uber and Waymo launched their robotaxi service in Austin earlier this month. Waymo’s autonomous ride-hailing service is also available in San Francisco, Los Angeles and Phoenix.  

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/transportation/tesla-gets-approval-for-ride-hailing-business-in-california-125100455.html?src=rss

This “throws open the door for corruption,” FTC commissioner Alvaro Bedoya told Gizmodo.

The NanoPhone is cheaper than an iPhone and smaller than a credit card, but with 4G connectivity and dual SIM support, it’s definitely not a toy.

The OneXSugar makes use of Qualcomm’s new G3 Gen 3, but the main reason you want it is because it’s literally a Transformer.

Carl Erik Rinsch, the director of 47 Ronin, has been charged for defrauding a streaming service out of $11 million, according to the Southern District of New York’s US Attorney’s Office. While the court documents didn’t name the service, an old report from The New York Times made it obvious that it was none other than Netflix. In 2018, Rinsch pitched a sci-fi series called White Horse, referencing the first horseman of the apocalypse, to several services, namely Amazon, Apple, HBO, Hulu, Netflix and YouTube. The Times’ report said that Amazon had already won the bidding war, but Netflix’s former VP of Original Content, Cindy Holland, called Rinsch on a weekend and offered millions more, along with the privilege of making a director’s cut. 

In its announcement of the indictment, the US Attorney’s Office explained that Netflix had paid $44 million for the development of White Horse, which had been renamed to Conquest, between 2018 and 2019. Some of that money went to paying off the project’s earliest investors. (Keanu Reeves, the star of 47 Ronin, sank his own money into the project after Rinsch got in trouble with 30West, one of the project’s first investors, for not reaching a deadline.) Between late 2019 and early 2020, Rinsch asked Netflix for more funding, and the company gave him $11 million more to complete the series. But Rinsch never finished the show, and Netflix accused him of using those funds to make “personal and speculative purchases of securities.”

The director allegedly lost most of the $11 million to trading, but he made it back and earned more from investing the rest on cryptocurrency. Rinsch allegedly went on a shopping spree after that, spending almost $4 million on furniture and antiques, $2.4 million on five Rolls-Royces and one Ferrari, as well as $652,000 on luxury watches and clothing. The indictment also said that Rinsch spent over $1 million to sue Netflix for more money. According to The Times’ report, Rinsch claimed in his lawsuit that Netflix broke its contract and owed him several more payments worth $14 million. In the midst of all of these, Rinsch reportedly displayed erratic behavior: He allegedly claimed to have discovered Covid-19’s secret transmission mechanism, treated the show’s staff horribly and accused his wife of plotting his assassination.

Conquest was supposed to be about a genius who invented a human-like species called Organic Intelligent. These OIs are deployed to solve problems and provide humanitarian aid around the world, but they are, of course, not what they seem and are hiding a darker nature. Rinsch has been charged with one count of wire fraud and one count of money laundering, both of which carry a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison. He was also charged with five counts of engaging in monetary transactions in property derived from specified unlawful activity, each count carrying a maximum sentence of 10 years.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/streaming/47-ronin-director-charged-with-11-million-fraud-over-doomed-netflix-sci-fi-series-123040218.html?src=rss

Growing seeds is a relatively simple process: Bury seeds in dirt, add water, heat, and light from the sun, and in most cases, something is going to sprout. The problem is, most of us conduct this process inside, because we’re trying to get a jump on the growing season. Inside, where there’s no sun, heat is hard to control, and the most your seedlings can stretch out their new little root legs is the size of the plastic cell they’re planted in. As such, it takes some practice to grow strong, resilient seedlings, and beginners make plenty of mistakes. The good news is, most of them are solvable. 

Not enough light

This is how close lights should be to seedlings that haven’t germinated yet or just have.
Credit: Amanda Blum

This is one of the easiest problems to diagnose, because it is also one of the most likely problems. Remember, when growing seeds inside, you have to try to replicate the sun. When people estimate how much light they need to reproduce the sun, they almost always underestimate. The tell is easy: Your seedlings will be “leggy” with long stems that aren’t strong enough to support the leaves of the plant. The stem is often curved, almost like the plant has scoliosis. The seedlings may bend towards the light, too. 

The solution is, of course, to add more light. I find too often people starting out seeding for the first time buy one growing lamp to arc over their entire shelf of seedlings, when each tray needs 2000-5000 lumens (that’s a lot of lumens). It’s not just how strong the light is but also how long they’re on: Seedlings need 14-16 hours a day of sunlight. Those lights need to be much closer to your seedlings than you think, too. Six to eight inches above your seedlings is the right distance. 

If your seedlings are already too leggy, you can try a few things. First, if they’re tomatoes or peppers, you’ll be able to bury the stem deep into the soil when you pot up the seedling or plant it outside, and this will solve many problems. If it’s another kind of seedling, like cucumber, they don’t usually require the same strong stems, and will likely correct themself over time. It will help to run a fan in the room and run your hands over the seedlings a few times a day. Both will encourage the stems to strengthen. 

Too much light

You can see how close the lights are to most seedlings, and how much light is applied.
Credit: Amanda Blum

With most plant diagnosis, it can be frustrating to hear, “it may be too much or too little.” This isn’t true with light. It’s really easy to tell if there’s not enough, as above, or too much. Like us, plants can get sunburned. They develop scorch marks with the leaves at the top bearing almost white or golden splotches. The splotches don’t have a pattern to them, either.

Now, seedlings are susceptible to a lot of diseases, fungus, and virus, so you may find yourself concerned with knowing whether this is sunburn or something else. The good news is, it doesn’t matter because the solution is the same: Cut it off. The sunburned leaves can’t absorb light or nutrients and can’t recover, so cut them off entirely, and let the rest of the plant recover. Obviously, move the lights farther away, but don’t overcorrect. While seedlings can get closer to traditional lightbulbs, my experience is they burn easier with LEDs, so while traditional tube lights can be within inches of my seedlings with no issue, I keep LED lights six inches or more away. 

No germination

Of all the seeds you plant, some just aren’t going to germinate. There are a lot of reasons for that, but let’s cover the most likely causes. First, you may have buried the seed too deep or not deep enough. On the back of each seed package are directions for how deep to plant seeds—and it’s not a loose recommendation. While the difference between a seed planted an inch deep or one and a half inches deep might not matter, there’s a huge difference between seeds that need to be lightly covered—like carrots and most flowers—and those that get buried, like tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, and sunflowers. Another tell is this: The bigger the seed, the deeper you bury it. Zinnia seeds barely get covered, but pea seeds need a depth of an inch or so, and large bean seeds need to be buried deep in the soil. 

This is, unfortunately, one of those problems you need to solve ahead of time. If a seed has been sitting in wet soil for too long, and it hasn’t germinated, it has likely gone rotten. You’d just need to start over; by the time you’ve figured out a seed isn’t germinating, it’s likely only a few weeks since you planted, so you haven’t lost too much time. 

Another reason might be that the seeds are simply expired. Every kind of seed has an expiration date. It can be very short, like alliums (onions), which are good for a year. Experienced gardeners will know that these are merely guidelines; you can always test your seeds by trying to germinate them to see if they’re still OK. 

The seed mat you’re using to heat up your seeds could also be too hot, cooking your seeds. You want the seeds and soil to remain between 70-80°F, but no more. Once your seeds are cooked, they’re goners, so start over with fresh seeds. 

Too much water

You can over-love your plants. Too much water, even if your plant survives, discourages your seedlings from growing strong root systems. Under-watering is always the better solution, so long as the plants have enough to survive, since it causes the roots to reach out in search of more resources, forming stronger root systems. Watering methods for seedlings that allow them to only uptake as much water as they need are the most ideal, such as bottom watering, which leaves a little water in the tray for the soil to wick up. But even if you water from the top, you want soil that is lightly moist, but never soaking wet. 

Yellowing leaves or mushy plants are usually a sign of overwatering. If the plants start to smell bad, mold is likely developing in the water, which is another sign there’s too much water. In those cases, the solution is to go the other way and use less water. Your plants may or may not recover. If you trim away any root rot or squishy leaves and stems, it may recover. 

However, most seedlings will develop some green or white fungus on top of the soil, and that is not necessarily a bad sign. It just happens, and it won’t affect your seedling in any way. 

Not enough water

If seedlings grow with the right amount of light, the stems will be strong enough to support a taller plant, even in a small pot. Strong root systems will develop with the right amount of water.
Credit: Amanda Blum

Droopy seedlings usually need water. Tomatoes, in particular, will start leaning over and will quite literally look sad. This can happen toward the end of the watering cycle, and if not left to fester, it’s not a problem, but it’s a sign that you should water them. You should see plants immediately perk up, within an hour or two of watering. 

If your soil block is really dry, that’s never a good sign. You want your soil to always be lightly moist, not dry. If you’re having trouble keeping your soil moist, you should consider bottom watering, as mentioned above, because it is a consistent method. The soil takes up what it needs.

In the fall of 2020, a 77-year-old man in Florida realized he had gotten one of the worst gifts imaginable—one that kept on giving.

According to a case report published in this month’s issue of Emerging Infectious Diseases, the man showed up at a Gainesville hospital with chest pain that just wouldn’t go away. For nearly two years prior, the man—a pastor living on a rural farm with dogs and goats—had been in and out of hospitals, and on and off of various antibiotics.

Generally, the man wasn’t in the best health. His medical history included type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and heart failure with reduced ejection fraction. For the latter, he had an automated implantable cardiac defibrillator (AICD) placed—and it was not his first. The man had a notable history of having gone through multiple defibrillators and revisions, including getting a new generator in 2018. Some possible reasons for such a history could include heavy use of the device and infections.

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Marriage: The sacred union of two hearts, two souls, and, less romantically, two tax returns. While poets and romantics wax lyrical about eternal love, accountants and financial advisors see matrimony through a different lens. After all, marriage is a significant economic transaction with its own balance sheet. Let’s take a cold, calculating look at the institution that promises “for richer or poorer”—and find out which one you’re more likely to experience.

The financial pros of marriage

For the most part, there are plenty of ways in which “I do” means “we save.”

Tax benefits (sometimes)

For some couples, marriage delivers an immediate return on investment through the “marriage bonus.” Couples with disparate incomes often find themselves in a lower tax bracket together than they would be separately. However, the IRS doesn’t send wedding gifts—this benefit typically favors traditional arrangements where one spouse significantly out-earns the other.

Check out this calculator from the Tax Policy Center to see how much federal income tax two people might pay if they were to marry. It compares the taxes a married couple would pay filing a joint return with what they would pay if they were not married and each filed as single or head of household.

Healthcare savings

Nothing says romance like discounted health insurance premiums. Many employers offer family coverage that costs less than two individual plans. Plus, you’ll only need to meet one family deductible instead of two individual ones when you both get sick from the same wedding buffet.

Economies of scale

Married or not, two can live almost as cheaply as one—especially when it comes to housing, utilities, and streaming subscriptions. Why maintain two half-empty refrigerators when you can maintain one completely full one? The shared-expense model makes everyday living more efficient, assuming you can agree on a thermostat setting.

Social security advantages

Marriage offers a built-in retirement safety net. Surviving spouses can claim their deceased partner’s Social Security benefits if they exceed their own. It’s the government’s way of saying, “Sorry for your loss—here’s some money.”

The financial cons of marriage

When “I do” becomes “I’m due…to pay.” Hey, not all of my wordplay is perfect, OK?

The marriage penalty

This is the flip side of the marriage bonus. Some dual-income couples with similar earnings find themselves paying more in taxes together than separately—the infamous “marriage penalty.” Nothing strengthens a relationship like realizing you’re paying thousands more annually for the privilege of filing jointly. Here’s that calculator again.

Shared debts

When you marry someone, you don’t just get their charming quirks—you might get their debt too. While premarital debt typically remains separate, any debt accumulated during the marriage can become shared responsibility, depending on your state’s laws. Their student loan debt remains theirs, but their impulsive decision to finance a luxury boat “for weekend getaways” becomes your shared financial burden.

Before you assume you’re on the hook for a debt, it’s usually worth it to take a breath and dig into whether you’re actually responsible.

Divorce as a financial risk

Approximately 40-50% of marriages end in divorce—a statistic that financial planners can’t ignore. The average divorce costs between $15,000 and $30,000 in legal fees alone, not counting the financial aftermath of dividing assets, potential alimony, and the cost of establishing two separate households. No wedding DJ ever announces, “And now, let’s factor in the statistical probability of spending $20,000 to undo this entire event!”

Benefit complications

Some income-based government benefits may decrease or disappear entirely when household income is calculated jointly. Marriage can inadvertently disqualify individuals from financial aid, assistance programs, or income-based repayment plans for student loans.

Tips to protect yourself financially

You’ll hear people say, “Sign a pre-nup,” but what exactly does that entail? And what else can you do to protect your finances in your marriage?

The prenuptial agreement conversation

Nothing says “romance” like discussing how to divide assets in case of divorce before you’ve even cut the wedding cake. Despite its unromantic reputation, a prenuptial agreement provides clarity and protection for both parties. Think of it as insurance—you don’t buy home insurance because you expect your house to burn down, but because you recognize it could.

Prioritize financial transparency

Before marriage, schedule a judgment-free financial disclosure session. Reveal credit scores, debt loads, assets, spending habits, and financial goals. Finding out your spouse has $60,000 in credit card debt during your honeymoon makes those “for richer or poorer” vows feel a bit more literal than intended.

Establish a financial framework

Decide early how you’ll handle money: Will you merge everything, keep separate accounts, or create a hybrid system? Determine who pays for what, how savings will be allocated, and how major purchases will be decided. This prevents the “I thought you were paying the electric bill” conversation in the dark.

Create an exit strategy for your accounts

Consider maintaining some financial independence, like a personal emergency fund or credit card in your own name. This isn’t about planning for divorce—it’s about maintaining financial identity and credit history, which becomes crucial if you face unexpected circumstances like a spouse’s death or incapacitation.

The bottom line

Marriage represents many things: a romantic milestone, a legal contract, and—whether we like to admit it or not—a financial partnership with significant economic implications. While love may be the reason you marry, money will likely be something you discuss daily for the rest of your lives together.

The good news? Financial compatibility doesn’t require identical views on money—just open communication, mutual respect, and occasionally, the willingness to compromise on whether a $7 daily latte habit constitutes “essential spending.”

After all, as the old saying goes: Love may be blind, but marriage is a long-term investment strategy with variable returns and significant tax implications.

Thousands of years ago, Greco-Roman statues offered viewers a multi-dimensional experience that also called to our olfactory senses.

Playdate, the little yellow gaming machine with a crank, is getting a price increase in a few days. In a newsletter that Panic has sent out, the developer said that Playdates will cost $229 starting on March 25 but that you can still get the device for $199 until then. Apparently, Panic moved to a new factory, and it would “cost quite a bit more” to manufacture the devices there than at the company’s old facility. Panic cited manufacturing costs, as well, when it raised the handheld’s price from $179 to $199 last year. 

On the day the Playdate is getting a price hike, Panic is also dropping “an (extremely) limited stock” of systems that are either fully refurbished at its factory or have “very minor cosmetic issues.” The refurbished units will sell for $179, and Panic says that they “work great,” can “play games perfectly” and come with a six-month warranty. “If price has kept you from buying a Playdate, we’re hopeful these great systems might help,” the company has written in its announcement. 

The handheld gaming console came out in 2022. It has a black-and-white screen with over 150 games that you can download from its Catalog. While the device has the traditional arrow and gaming buttons, it also has a crank that developers incorporate into their games — in Chopter Copter, for instance, you’ll have to turn the Playdate on its side to use the crank as a helicopter-style rotor. If you already have a Playdate, the company is having a Catalog Anniversary Sale right now until March 20, where you can stock up on more titles for the handheld. Panic also reconfirmed that it’s working with developers to put together a Season 2 bundle, which will deliver a set number of games in a curated collection to buyers’ devices over a certain period.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/the-diminutive-playdate-console-is-getting-a-price-increase-to-229-on-march-25-120004199.html?src=rss

Save up to $1,000 with a trade-in and another $300 if you choose to go pink.

This lifetime subscription will grant you access to all 14-languages in Babbel’s curriculum and will never expire.

The mission’s first large set of survey data is a treasure trove for clues about the history of the universe.

The abstract of a paper published on National Bureau of Economic Research: Ensuring broad access to the patent system is crucial for fostering innovation and promoting economic growth. To support this goal, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office offers reduced fees for small and micro entities. This paper investigates whether fee rates affect the filing of applications by small and micro entities. Exploiting recent fee reforms, the study evaluates the relationship between fee changes and the number of new entrants, controlling for potential confounding factors such as legislative changes. The findings suggest that fee reductions alone are insufficient to significantly increase participation in the patent system among small and micro entities.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

During the company’s GTC 2025 keynote today, Nvidia founder and CEO Jensen Huang announced Isaac GR00T N1 — the company’s first open-source, pre-trained yet customizable foundation model designed to accelerate the development and capabilities of humanoid robots. “The age of generalist robotics is here,” said Huang. “With Nvidia Isaac GR00T N1 and new data-generation and robot-learning frameworks, robotics developers everywhere will open the next frontier in the age of AI.” The Verge reports: Huang demonstrated 1X’s NEO Gamma humanoid robot performing autonomous tidying jobs using a post-trained policy built on the GR00T N1 model. […] Other companies developing humanoid robots who have had early access to the GR00T N1 model include Boston Dynamics, the creators of Atlas; Agility Robotics; Mentee Robotics; and Neura Robotics. Originally announced as Project GR00T a year ago, the GR00T N1 foundation model utilizes a dual-system architecture inspired by human cognition.

System 1, as Nvidia calls it, is described as a “fast-thinking action model” that behaves similarly to human reflexes and intuition. It was trained on data collected through human demonstrations and synthetic data generated by Nvidia’s Omniverse platform. System 2, which is powered by a vision language model, is a “slow-thinking model” that “reasons about its environment and the instructions it has received to plan actions.” Those plans are passed along to System 1, which translates them into “precise, continuous robot movements” that include grasping, moving objects with one or two arms, as well as more complex multistep tasks that involve combinations of basic skills.

While the GR00T N1 foundation model is pretrained with generalized humanoid reasoning and skills, developers can customize its behavior and capabilities for specific needs by post-training it with data gathered from human demonstrations or simulations. Nvidia has made GR00T N1 training data and task evaluation scenarios available for download through Hugging Face and GitHub.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Italian newspaper Il Foglio claims to have published the world’s first entirely AI-generated edition as part of a month-long experiment to explore AI’s impact on journalism. The special four-page supplement, available in print and online, features AI-written articles, headlines, and reader letters. The only thing the human journalists provided were prompts. The Guardian reports: The front page of the first edition of Il Foglio AI carries a story referring to the US president, Donald Trump, describing the “paradox of Italian Trumpians” and how they rail against “cancel culture” yet either turn a blind eye, or worse, “celebrate” when “their idol in the US behaves like the despot of a banana republic.” The front page also features a column headlined “Putin, the 10 betrayals,” with the article highlighting “20 years of broken promises, torn-up agreements and words betrayed” by Vladimir Putin, the Russian president.

In a rare upbeat story about the Italian economy, another article points to the latest report from Istat, the national statistics agency, on the redistribution of income, which shows the country “is changing, and not for the worse” with salary increases for about 750,000 workers being among the positive effects of income tax reforms. On page 2 is a story about “situationships” and how young Europeans are fleeing steady relationships. The articles were structured, straightforward and clear, with no obvious grammatical errors. However, none of the articles published in the news pages directly quote any human beings.

The final page runs AI-generated letters from readers to the editor, with one asking whether AI will render humans “useless” in the future. “AI is a great innovation, but it doesn’t yet know how to order a coffee without getting the sugar wrong,” reads the AI-generated response.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Trend Micro uncovered an eight-year-long spying campaign exploiting a Windows vulnerability involving malicious .LNK shortcut files, which attackers padded with whitespace to conceal commands. Despite being reported to Microsoft in 2023, the company considers it a UI issue rather than a security risk and has not prioritized a fix. The Register reports: The attack method is low-tech but effective, relying on malicious .LNK shortcut files rigged with commands to download malware. While appearing to point to legitimate files or executables, these shortcuts quietly include extra instructions to fetch or unpack and attempt to run malicious payloads. Ordinarily, the shortcut’s target and command-line arguments would be clearly visible in Windows, making suspicious commands easy to spot. But Trend’s Zero Day Initiative said it observed North Korea-backed crews padding out the command-line arguments with megabytes of whitespace, burying the actual commands deep out of sight in the user interface.

Trend reported this to Microsoft in September last year and estimates that it has been used since 2017. It said it had found nearly 1,000 tampered .LNK files in circulation but estimates the actual number of attacks could have been higher. “This is one of many bugs that the attackers are using, but this is one that is not patched and that’s why we reported it as a zero day,” Dustin Childs, head of threat awareness at the Zero Day Initiative, told The Register. “We told Microsoft but they consider it a UI issue, not a security issue. So it doesn’t meet their bar for servicing as a security update, but it might be fixed in a later OS version, or something along those lines.”

After poring over malicious .LNK samples, the security shop said it found the vast majority of these files were from state-sponsored attackers (around 70 percent), used for espionage or information theft, with another 20 percent going after financial gain. Among the state-sponsored crews, 46 percent of attacks came from North Korea, while Russia, Iran, and China each accounted for around 18 percent of the activity.

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