The U.S. Space Force released the first-ever public image of its secretive X-37B space plane in orbit, captured during its ongoing seventh mission that launched on December 28, 2023. Space.com reports: The photo, released on Thursday (Feb. 20), was taken by a camera onboard the X-37B while the secretive space plane orbited high above the African continent. One of the plane’s solar panels is visible on the left side of the photo, while what appears to be its open payload bay is visible along the top edge. The vehicle has been in orbit for well over a year now, having launched on its seventh mission on Dec. 28, 2023 atop a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket.

And now, the X-37B has notched another milestone with the Space Force’s release of this photo, the first-ever image of this space plane in orbit that has been shown to the public. While the photo contains scant details about the vehicle and what it’s currently testing, it offers a look at Earth far in the background, revealing just how high the vehicle is flying on its seventh mission. We’ve gotten only one other glimpse at the X-37B in orbit prior to this. During the livestream of its most recent launch, a brief shot of the spacecraft deploying from Falcon Heavy’s upper stage was seen while its service module was still attached.

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: A study by the Pew Research Center found that Americans’ views of Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg skew more negative than positive. While Zuckerberg has sparked chatter in Silicon Valley with his sudden interest in high fashion, the Meta CEO is less popular than President Trump’s right-hand man, Elon Musk, the report found. While about 54% of U.S. adults say they have an unfavorable view of Musk, 67% feel negatively toward Zuckerberg. […] But Zuckerberg, the Facebook founder, is more universally disliked, though he draws more ire from the left-leaning demographic. While 60% of Republican and Republican-leaning respondents hold an unfavorable view of Zuckerberg, 76% of their Democratic counterparts share that sentiment.

So, while Zuck may be playing the part of the cool guy, Americans haven’t been fooled by his gold chains or musical ambitions, it seems. Pew’s study involved a panel of 5,086 randomly selected U.S. adults. The survey was conducted from January 27, 2025, through February 2, 2025, so these responses reflect people’s recent opinions.

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Microsoft’s announcement of a breakthrough in quantum computing faces skepticism from physicists, who say evidence supporting the company’s claims remains insufficient.

The tech giant reported creating Majorana particles – a development it says could revolutionize quantum computing – but the accompanying peer-reviewed paper in Nature does not conclusively demonstrate this achievement, according to multiple quantum physics experts who reviewed the research.

Microsoft’s corporate vice president for quantum hardware, Chetan Nayak, acknowledged the Nature paper wasn’t meant to prove the particles’ existence, though he claimed measurements suggested “95% likelihood” of topological activity. The company plans to publish additional findings.

The announcement has drawn particular scrutiny given the field’s history of retracted claims. Two previous Nature papers on similar discoveries were withdrawn in 2017 and 2018, while a 2020 paper in Science involving Microsoft researchers remains under review. “This is where you cross over from the realm of science to advertising,” said Jay Sau, a theoretical physicist at the University of Maryland who sometimes consults for Microsoft but wasn’t involved in the current research.

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The Register’s Lindsay Clark reports: Fifteen years of big data hype, and guess what? Less than one in four of those in charge of analytics projects actually measure the value of the activity to the organization they work for. The result from Gartner — a staggering one considering the attention heaped on big data and its various hype-oriented successors — found that in a survey of chief data and analytics (D&A) officers, only 22 percent had defined, tracked, and communicated business impact metrics for the bulk of their data and analytics use cases.

It wasn’t for lack of interest though. For more than 90 percent of the 504 respondents, value-focused and outcome-focused areas of the D&A leader’s role have gained dominance over the past 12 to 18 months, and will continue to be a concern in the future. It is difficult, though: 30 percent of respondents say their top challenge is the inability to measure data, analytics and AI impact on business outcomes.

“There is a massive value vibe around data, where many organizations talk about the value of data, desire to be data-driven, but there are few who can substantiate it,” said Michael Gabbard, senior director analyst at Gartner. He added that while most chief data and analytics officers were responsible for data strategy, a third do not see putting in place an operating model as a primary responsibility. “There is a perennial gap between planning and execution for D&A leaders,” he said.

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Asus has introduced the Fragrance Mouse, a hybrid wireless mouse that features a removable container for fragrance oils. Despite not being a gaming mouse, it includes premium features like PTFE pads, low-noise clicks rated for up to 10 million presses, and three fixed DPI settings (1200, 1600, 2400). Tom’s Hardware reports: The selling point of the new mouse is its fragrance-producing capabilities. Under the mouse (right behind the AA battery housing) is a small semi-translucent container designed to house oils that give the mouse a pleasing aroma. There’s no limit to what scents can be used; the container can be washed and refilled with different scents. Last year, the peripheral maker debuted an aroma-dispensing laptop that featured a fragrance dispenser at the center of the lid.

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Register: On Saturday at the Silverstone Cafe in San Francisco, a smattering of activists gathered to discuss plans to stop the further advancement of artificial intelligence. The name of their non-violent civil resistance group, STOP AI, makes its mission clear. The organization wants to ban something that, by most accounts, doesn’t yet exist — artificial general intelligence, or AGI, defined by OpenAI as “highly autonomous systems that outperform humans at most economically valuable work.”

STOP AI outlines a broader set of goals on its website. For example, “We want governments to force AI companies to shut down everything related to the creation of general-purpose AI models, destroy any existing general-purpose AI model, and permanently ban their development.” In answer to the question “Does STOP AI want to ban all AI?”, the group’s answer is, “Not necessarily, just whatever is necessary to keep humanity alive.” The group, which has held protests outside OpenAI’s office and plans another outside the company’s San Francisco HQ on February 22, has bold goal: rally support from 3.5 percent of the U.S. population, or 11 million people. That’s the so-called “tipping point” needed for societal change, based on research by political scientist Erica Chenoweth.

“The implications of artificial general intelligence are so immense and dangerous that we just don’t want that to come about ever,” said Finn van der Velde, an AI safety advocate and activist with a technical background in computer science and AI specifically. “So what that will practically mean is that we will probably need an international treaty where the governments across the board agree that we don’t build AGI. And so that means disbanding companies like OpenAI that specifically have the goal to build AGI.” It also means regulating compute power so that no one will be able to train an AGI model.

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The General Services Administration (GSA) is shutting down its nationwide electric vehicle (EV) chargers, deeming them “not mission critical.” The U.S. government agency also plans to offload newly purchased EVs, reversing initiatives from the Biden administration aimed at transitioning the federal vehicle fleet to electric. The Verge reports: The GSA currently operates several hundred EV chargers across the country, with approximately 8,000 plugs that are available for government-owned EVs as well as federal employees’ personally owned vehicles.

The official guidance instructing federal workers to begin the process of shutting down the chargers will be announced internally next week, according to a source with knowledge of the plans. Some regional offices have been told to start taking their chargers offline, according to an email viewed by The Verge. “As GSA has worked to align with the current administration, we have received direction that all GSA owned charging stations are not mission critical,” the email reads.

The GSA is working on the timing of canceling current network contracts that keep the EV chargers operational. Once those contracts are canceled, the stations will be taken out of service and “turned off at the breaker,” the email reads. Other chargers will be turned off starting next week. “Neither Government Owned Vehicles nor Privately Owned Vehicles will be able to charge at these charging stations once they’re out of service,” it concludes.

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