The California governor has been sending prepaid cell phones to executives throughout his state.

Sheriff John Montgomery of Baxter County, Arkansas, isn’t going to take it anymore—if by “it” you mean “having to offer lower phone call rates to incarcerated inmates.” Noting that such phone calls are “not required to be provided by law,” Montgomery is ending all inmate phone calls on March 30, 2025.

The cause of Montgomery’s wrath, and of his March 30 date, is the Federal Communications Commission, which set an April 1, 2025, deadline for smaller jails to lower the obscene rates of inmate phone calls. (Larger jails had to comply in January.) According to the FCC, 15-minute phone calls to inmates could run as much as $12.10 in these smaller jails. The Commission now demands that such calls cost no more than $1.35. (You can read the new rate schedule here.)

The rates are high in part because extra security is required for inmate communications services, but the system had also become a way for local agencies to make money by charging vendors a “site commission payment.” In this model, vendors might be selected based less on what was good for security and for inmate families and more on how much cash the vendor could funnel to the jail. FCC Commissioner Geoffrey Starks even referred to these payments as “kickbacks.”

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NVIDIA is building a desktop supercomputer. At the company’s GTC conference today, CEO Jensen Huang announced DGX Spark and DGX Station. We got a first look at the former during CES earlier this year when Huang and company revealed Project Digits. Now known as DGX Spark, NVIDIA is billing the $3,000 device as the world’s smallest AI supercomputer. 

It features a GB10 Grace Blackwell Superchip NVIDIA has shrunk down to fit inside an enclosure about the size of the previous generation Mac mini. NVIDIA says the GB10 can run up to 1,000 trillion operations per second of AI compute, making it ideal for fine-tuning the latest AI reasoning models, including the GR00T N1 robot system Huang announced at the end of his GTC keynote. The DGX Spark is available to preorder today. 

NVIDIA

For researchers and data scientists who need even more AI processing power, the DGX Station features a GB300 Grace Blackwell Ultra Desktop Superchip. The GB300 offers 20 petaflops of performance and 784GB of unified system memory. NVIDIA has yet to announce a price for the DGX Station, though the company says the computer will arrive later this year, with ASUS, BOXX, Dell, HP, Lambda and Supermicro all making their own versions of the system.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/nvidias-spark-desktop-ai-supercomputer-arrives-this-summer-200351998.html?src=rss

Nvidia unveiled its next wave of AI processors at GTC on Tuesday, announcing Blackwell Ultra chips that will ship in the second half of 2025, followed by the Vera Rubin architecture in 2026. CEO Jensen Huang also revealed that its 2028 chips will be named after physicist Richard Feynman.

The Blackwell Ultra maintains the same 20 petaflops of AI performance as standard Blackwell chips but increases memory from 192GB to 288GB of HBM3e. Nvidia claims these chips can process 1,000 tokens per second — ten times faster than its 2022 hardware — enabling AI reasoning tasks like running DeepSeek-R1 models with 10-second response times versus 1.5 minutes on H100 chips.

Vera Rubin will deliver a substantial leap to 50 petaflops in 2026, featuring Nvidia’s first custom Arm-based CPU design called Olympus. Nvidia is also changing how it counts GPUs — Rubin itself contains two dies working as one chip. The annual release cadence represents a strategic shift for Nvidia, which previously introduced new architectures every two years before the AI boom transformed its business.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Online security and an ad-free browsing can be expensive, but right now, StackSocial is offering the AdGuard Family Security Suite for just $49.99, bundling two services that would normally run you a lot more. You can also add the promo code GUARD5 to take off an additional $5, bringing the final cost of this sale down to $44.99. This bundle includes a five-year AdGuard VPN subscription (for up to 10 devices) and a lifetime Family Plan subscription to AdGuard Ad Blocker (covering up to 9 devices) across iOS, Android, macOS, Windows, and common browsers like Chrome. Just note that this plan is only for new users, and you need to redeem your code within 30 days of buying.

Unlike free VPNs that might log and sell user data, AdGuard operates with a strict no-logs policy, meaning that with AdGuard VPN, your browsing history will stay private. It also lets you connect to over 60 server locations worldwide, so you can bypass geo-restrictions, access region-locked content, and keep your online activity hidden from prying eyes. Whether you’re working remotely, streaming content from another country, or just trying to protect your information on public wifi, this VPN encrypts your data with industry-standard AES-256 encryption, preventing ISPs, hackers, and advertisers from tracking you. And with support for up to 10 devices, you can secure your phone, laptop, tablet, and your family’s gadgets under one plan.

The AdGuard Ad Blocker Family Plan takes care of the other internet headaches too, blocking pop-ups, banners, and video ads across browsers and apps, meaning you get faster page loads and a cleaner experience without autoplay videos or sketchy pop-ups trying to trick you into clicking. Unlike most ad blockers that only work in browsers, AdGuard’s system-level filtering works on apps too, giving you cleaner feeds on social media and ad-free experiences on mobile games. It also includes advanced parental controls, letting you filter out inappropriate content to create a safer browsing environment for kids. The $45 deal with the promo code GUARD5 runs through March 30.

The popular Apple TV+ series has just one episode left to go in season two.

On the heels of its release of new Gemini models last week, Google has announced a pair of new features for its flagship AI product. Starting today, Gemini has a new Canvas feature that lets you draft, edit, and refine documents or code. Gemini is also getting Audio Overviews, a neat capability that first appeared in the company’s NotebookLM product, but it’s getting even more useful as part of Gemini.

Canvas is similar (confusingly) to the OpenAI product of the same name. Canvas is available in the Gemini prompt bar on the web and mobile app. Simply upload a document and tell Gemini what you need to do with it. In Google’s example, the user asks for a speech based on a PDF containing class notes. And just like that, Gemini spits out a document.

Canvas lets you refine the AI-generated documents right inside Gemini. The writing tools available across the Google ecosystem, with options like suggested edits and different tones, are available inside the Gemini-based editor. If you want to do more edits or collaborate with others, you can export the document to Google Docs with a single click.

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Because if you yell ‘Free Bird’ at enough concerts somebody is bound to oblige, this is a video of musician Mo Yun performing Lynyrd Skynyrd’s guitar solo from the song on a traditional Chinese guzheng (a form of plucked zither). Like my girlfriend whenever she senses I’m about to start talking about my pen1s at a dinner party, it slaps.

Commissioner Geoffrey Starks will resign from the Federal Communications Commission this spring, he announced today. Starks’ exit will give Chairman Brendan Carr a Republican majority, as the FCC has had two Democrats and two Republicans since the January resignation of former Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel.

“Today I sent a letter to the President and Leader Schumer indicating that I intend to resign my seat as a Commissioner this spring,” said Starks, a Democrat who has been an FCC commissioner for over six years. “Serving the American people as a Commissioner on the Federal Communications Commission has been the honor of my life… Over the next few weeks, I look forward to working with the chairman and my fellow Commissioners, and all FCC staff, to further the mission of the agency.”

Even with a 2-2 deadlock, Carr has gotten to work on some of his priorities, such as investigating news stations accused of bias against President Donald Trump and dropping a Biden-era proposal to increase regulation of broadband providers.

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More than 300 organizations in critical infrastructure, including the medical, tech, and manufacturing sectors, have been victimized by a ransomware threat known as Medusa—and with attacks escalating significantly in the first few months of 2025, the FBI and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency (CISA) are advising companies to take steps now to secure their systems.

What is Medusa ransomware?

Medusa is a ransomware-as-a-service software that, when deployed successfully, encrypts your data along with a threat to release stolen information unless you comply with ransom demands.

According to the CISA advisory, victims receive ransom notes requesting a response within 48 hours, or Medusa actors will reach out to them by phone or email. Victims are also listed on a data-leak website alongside a countdown timer and ransom demands with direct links to cryptocurrency wallets. Victims can pay $10,000 to add a day to the countdown—meanwhile, Medusa advertises the data for sale before the timer runs out. This “double extortion” approach forces payment to both decrypt locked files and prevent them from being released or sold (so even if you have a backup you can recover, you still face the threat of information being leaked).

The Medusa ransomware was first identified in June 2021 and has since affected organizations across the medical, education, legal, insurance, technology, and manufacturing industries. According to the advisory, Medusa actors use common tricks like phishing campaigns and exploitation of unpatched software vulnerabilities to steal victims’ credentials and gain access to their systems.

While much of the Medusa threat mitigation happens at the organizational level, there are a few things you as an individual can do to protect your accounts and—by extension—the company you work for.

How to protect yourself from Medusa ransomware

The FBI and CISA are recommending a number of steps to lock down your devices and data against the Medusa threat:

• Use long, strong passwords for all accounts (a minimum of 15 characters is recommended).

• Enable multi-factor authentication (MFA) wherever possible, but especially for webmail, VPNs, and accounts with access to critical systems.

• Update operating systems, software, and firmware regularly to ensure timely patching of known vulnerabilities.

• Use a VPN when accessing systems remotely.

The advisory also has guidance for organizations, such as auditing user accounts, maintaining offline backups, utilizing network monitoring tools, and discontinuing frequent mandatory password changes (which are considered outdated and may make systems less secure, not more).

Fans of Portal 2 have been waiting nearly 14 years now for another official entry in the beloved action-puzzle series. In the meantime, those fans have had to settle for DLC, fan mods, and odd, Aperture-Science-themed spinoffs that capture the look and feel of the Portal universe in a number of decidedly non-Portal games.

Now, it seems we can add a full-fledged physical pinball table to that list of spinoffs with the announcement of a full-size, fully licensed Portal-themed pinball table built on Multimorphic’s P3 pinball platform. Pinball News’ write-up has more details than the press release, noting that the table was developed in conjunction with the team at Valve “to ensure all the features are accurately represented and they had access to all the assets from the Portal and Portal 2 games.”

That means new stylized Aperture Science art on the side of the table and new “Test Chamber” animations on the large display that runs underneath the playfield. It also means Ellen McLain and Marc Silk reprising their iconic roles as GLaDOS and Wheatley, respectively, to record new spoken reactions to in-game events. Watching the promotional trailer and hearing a fully animated toy sculpt of Wheatley intone “I’m making a note here: huge success!” in his trademark British accent is sure to make even the most jaded Portal fan grin at least a little bit.

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: A federal appeals court in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday affirmed that a work of art generated by artificial intelligence without human input cannot be copyrighted under U.S. law. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit agreed with the U.S. Copyright Office that an image created by Stephen Thaler’s AI system “DABUS” was not entitled to copyright protection, and that only works with human authors can be copyrighted.

Tuesday’s decision marks the latest attempt by U.S. officials to grapple with the copyright implications of the fast-growing generative AI industry. The Copyright Office has separately rejected artists’ bids for copyrights on images generated by the AI system Midjourney. The artists argued they were entitled to copyrights for images they created with AI assistance — unlike Thaler, who said that his “sentient” system created the image in his case independently. […]

U.S. Circuit Judge Patricia Millett wrote for a unanimous three-judge panel on Tuesday that U.S. copyright law “requires all work to be authored in the first instance by a human being.” “Because many of the Copyright Act’s provisions make sense only if an author is a human being, the best reading of the Copyright Act is that human authorship is required for registration,” the appeals court said.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

In a Truth Social post on Monday about the Starliner return mission, the president delivered a masterclass in misinformation.

Roku is testing whether users will enjoy watching ads before they can even get to the home screen.

HP is launching a thinner and lighter version of its Omen 16 gaming laptop. The Omen 16 Slim is 16 percent thinner than the standard model, ranging from 0.78 to 0.89 inches (19.9 to 22.7 mm) thick when closed. It weighs 5.35 lbs.

The HP Omen 16 Slim includes up to NVIDIA RTX 5070 graphics (no word yet on the cheaper configurations). It uses Intel Arrow Lake processors, ranging from the entry-level Core Ultra 5 225H to the Core Ultra 9 285H. You can fit it with 16GB, 24GB or 32GB of RAM and choose between 512GB and 1TB storage tiers.

As its name suggests, it has a 16-inch display with up to 2,560 x 1,600 resolution. (Cheaper configs are limited to 1,920 x 1,200.) The machine includes a 10Gbps USB-C port, along with a 10Gbps Type-A, two 5Gbps Type-A ports, an RJ-45 ethernet connector, a 3.5mm headphone / mic combo jack and a single HDMI 2.1 port.

There’s no official word yet on pricing or a release date, but The Verge reports that HP is targeting a May launch.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/computing/laptops/hp-has-a-thinner-and-lighter-version-of-the-omen-16-gaming-laptop-190717824.html?src=rss

We’re one month away from the world’s biggest Star Wars convention and here’s what’s in store.

A recent YouTube video from channel The Ultimate Discovery makes some claims that might surprise fans of actor Gene Hackman. According to the video, FBI agents searching Hackman’s home following his death discovered a “hidden passageway concealed behind the library wall” that led to a “vast, eerie underground warehouse” containing documents, antiques, old photographs, and parts of unidentifiable machines. The walls were covered in runes and symbols that seem to be of ancient origin and could not be translated. Not only that, the bunker connects to larger network of tunnels, “similar to the catacombs of Paris.”

It’s a pretty good story (if you can swallow the premise that actor Gene Hackman is a character in a Lovecraft novel) but It’s not true. (I liked Gene Hackman in The Quick and the Dead, but he wasn’t that cool.) At least, there’s no reason to think it’s true. The FBI has not issued a statement about the tunnels, nor have local authorities, and the Ultimate Discovery YouTube channel makes it clear it isn’t telling the truth in its channel description, which reads:

“Content on The Ultimate Discovery is for entertainment only… our information may not always be correct, up-to-date or complete. Always consult experts and do your own research.”

But almost a million people have viewed the video, despite the disclaimer and how farfetched the story is on its face. Claims about Hackman’s secret tunnels are being repeated on TikTok videos, in X posts, and basically everywhere else. Judging by the comments, people believe it, too. The b-roll footage (that’s either generated by AI or from unrelated incidents) helps, but any conspiracy theory that involves secret tunnels is bound to get people worked up.

What is it about tunnels?

Cave paintings from over 40,000 years ago suggest our ancestors used caverns as religious sites. During the Roman Empire, followers of Mithra dug tunnels specifically for elaborate rites, then swore oaths to not reveal what went on underground. There are around 170 miles of corpse-filled tunnels under Paris and a large portion of it has not been explored. So people have always thought something strange was going on under their feet. And they often aren’t wrong. Modern cities are built atop elaborate, mysterious networks of utility tunnels, transportation tunnels, and more, and you generally can’t visit them. While you could go down to the city hall and request civic planning documents that describe the sub-basements and sewers under your town, it’s easier to just fill in the blanks with whatever you’d like. Hence the prominence of tunnels in modern conspiracy theories.

D.U.M.B’s: Deep Underground Military Bases

Underground spaces are a key aspect of “Pizzagate” conspiracies, lizard people conspiracies, Fourth Reich conspiracies, and more, whether it’s non-existent basements below Italian restaurants in D.C., the claim that children were freed from Mammoth Cave in Kentucky by the National Park Service, or, now, the supposed tunnels beneath Gene Hackman’s house.

It’s not stated outright in the video, but if you’re of a conspiratorial mindset, you probably see the Gene Hackman tunnels as connected to our nation’s D.U.M.Bs—Deep Underground Military Bases. The existence of a large, interconnected network of military bases under the United States is a common belief among conspiracy theorists. There are various ideas as to their purpose, but among the most widely accepted is that the Deep State uses DUMBs to transport and traffic children, and Hollywood people like Gene Hackman help in some way. Everyone wants that adrenochrome.

But the most lasting conspiracy theories often have a germ of truth to them, and there really are underground military complexes in the U.S. Take, for example, The Cheyenne Mountain Complex, which was built under 2,000 feet of granite in Colorado in 1957. It was once the home of NORAD, as seen in War Games, but now it’s a United States Space Force installation. Cheyenne Mountain isn’t exactly secret, though: Before 9/11, they gave public tours, and if you know someone who works there, you can supposedly still visit.

A very D.U.M.B. idea

Reality and conspiracy theories differ as to the purpose and extent of underground military installations. Reality says there’s a few of them, and they were built mainly so that the government could continue to function after a nuclear war (and probably as a Cold War show of strength.) Conspiracy theorists imagine a huge, interconnected network of underground bases that allow coast-to-coast hidden transportation of stolen children and/or lizard people. But the point of Cheyenne Mountain’s design is that it’s not connected to anything else. Cheyenne Mountain is built to be self-sufficient.

Like most conspiracy theories, asking a few basic questions dispels the myth. Like: Why would the United States spend the time, money, and effort to build secret bases underground when we already have secret military bases that are above ground? It’s way easier and cheaper to put up some fences and post some guards in the desert—which is what we actually do. Wouldn’t a military jet, a train, or some trucks be a better way of transporting alien bodies or whatever? Again, this is how we already transport secrets.

Gene Hackman—seriously?

As for why conspiracy theorists would focus on Gene Hackman of all people, your guess is as good as mine. Usually the entertainment industry figures featured in conspiracy theories are particularly outspoken politically and highly visible, like George Clooney or Tom Hanks. Hackman was a lukewarm Hollywood liberal at best (He hated Nixon but supported Reagan) and he hadn’t starred in a movie since 2004, so he’s a strange target. Maybe the initial uncertainty about how he died was enough to suggest a mysterious hidden world. But as always, reality is way more boring than the imaginations of conspiracy theorists: Hackman was 95 years old when he died of a heart attack, and there was nothing under his house more mysterious than a basement rec room.