Athena Becomes NASA’s Fastest Supercomputer With 20 Quadrillion Calculations Per Second

Athena Becomes NASA’s Fastest Supercomputer With 20 Quadrillion Calculations Per Second
NASA has taken the wraps off Athena, the space agency’s most potent supercomputer yet. It’ll be tasked with things like aircraft and spacecraft modeling, rocket launch simulations, large-scale AI training, etc.

Housed at NASA’s Modular Supercomputing Facility (within Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley) and just brought fully online

A proposed governance structure for openSUSE

Jeff Mahoney, who
holds a vice-president position at SUSE, has posted a detailed
proposal
for improving the governance of the openSUSE project.

It’s meant to be a way to move from governance by volume or
persistence toward governance by legitimacy, transparency, and
process – so that disagreements can be resolved fairly and the
project can keep moving forward. Introducing structure and
predictability means it easier for newcomers to the project to
participate without needing to understand decades of accumulated
history. It potentially could provide a clearer roadmap for
developers to find a place to contribute.

The stated purpose is to start a discussion; this is openSUSE, so he is
likely to succeed.

A new qualification in data science and AI for students in England?

At the end of last year, Professor Becky Francis published her long-awaited Curriculum and Assessment Review for England, accompanied by the UK government’s official response. Buried within that response — and not actually proposed in the Review itself — was a notable commitment: to “explore introducing a new Level 3 qualification* in data science and AI, to ensure that more young people can secure high-value skills for the future and that we cement the UK’s position as a global leader in AI and technology.”

Photo of a class of students at computers, in a computer science classroom.

This announcement reflects a growing global recognition that young people need more than basic digital literacy — they need a deeper understanding of data, automation, and the rapidly evolving capabilities of AI. Countries around the world, from Singapore to the United States, are already wrestling with how to embed AI education into secondary schooling. England now joins that international conversation.

Why AI education matters

AI is an everyday technology now. Young people interact with AI systems constantly, often without realising it. Whether they pursue careers in medicine, engineering, the creative industries, or public policy, they will need a foundational understanding of how AI systems work, what their limitations are, and the ethical implications around them.

A teenager learning computer science.

Yet in England — and in many education systems globally — very few students receive formal teaching about AI. The English national curriculum makes no explicit reference to AI, and specifications for exams taken at the end of high school include only scattered mentions. This gap leaves young people navigating one of the most transformative technologies of their generation with limited guidance.

Exploring a qualification: Opportunities and challenges

In 2025, we joined forces with Professor Lord Lionel Tarassenko, one of the UK’s foremost researchers in AI and machine learning, and Simon Peyton Jones, a world-renowned computer scientist and long-time champion of computing education. Together with teachers, school leaders, universities, industry specialists, and exam boards, we have been exploring how we might begin to close the emerging gap in AI and data science education for 16- to 18-year-olds.

A group of young people in a lecture hall.

Over the past eight months, this collaboration has allowed us to refine our shared thinking and gather insights from a wide network of experts and practitioners. We are delighted that England’s Department for Education has recognised the potential of this work by appointing us to draft the subject content for a possible new A level in Data Science and AI.

We are delighted that England’s Department for Education has recognised the potential of [the work we have done] by appointing us to draft the subject content for a possible new A level in Data Science and AI.

Designing a qualification of this kind raises important questions — not just for the UK, but for any country considering a similar path.

What knowledge and skills should young people gain from the qualification?

A meaningful qualification must go beyond the use of tools. It should help students understand data literacy, model behaviour, bias, ethics, and the societal implications of AI. Balancing technical understanding with critical thinking is challenging but essential.

How do we ensure the qualification is accessible and inclusive?

AI should not become the preserve of already-advantaged students. Any qualification must be designed with equity in mind, recognising differences in school capacity, teacher expertise, and students’ prior experience.

How do we support teachers to deliver the qualification?

Teacher professional development is a major challenge worldwide. Delivering a qualification in AI will require confidence with concepts that are not yet common in teacher training. Sustainable delivery models — supported by high-quality resources and professional development — will be crucial.

What form should the qualification take?

There is an active debate about whether the best route for students in England is a high-stakes qualification or a supplementary course that broadens a core programme of study:

  • An A level provides structure, national recognition, and clear progression into higher education or employment.
  • An Extended Project Qualification (EPQ) may offer more flexibility, allowing students to explore AI through research or practical investigation without requiring schools to timetable a full qualification.

Different countries will make different choices based on their systems, but the underlying questions are the same: how do we create something rigorous, scalable, and future-proof?

What we’ve learned so far

In October, the Foundation hosted a workshop with representatives from schools, industry, universities, exam boards, and the Department for Education. Together, we explored key questions including:

  1. How do we make a qualification compelling – both for students who choose it and for schools that offer it?
  2. What delivery models will genuinely support teachers to succeed?
An undergraduate student is raising his hand up during a lecture at a university.

The feedback we received has been invaluable and will continue to shape the next stage of development. We believe the UK has a significant opportunity to contribute meaningfully to the global conversation about AI education. You can read the latest version of our discussion paper here.

A global call for insights

Although the current proposal focuses on England, the underlying challenge is international: how do we prepare young people everywhere to engage thoughtfully and confidently with AI?

We would love to hear from educators, researchers, and policymakers across the world:

  • Do you know of any successful qualifications or programmes for 16- to 18-year-olds that centre AI or data science?
  • What lessons should countries learn from each other?

To share your ideas or feedback, please get in touch. We’d be delighted to learn from your experience as this important work progresses.


* Level 3 in England is the stage of learning for 16- to 19-year-olds, typically ending in qualifications that pave the way for higher study or advanced apprenticeships.

The post A new qualification in data science and AI for students in England? appeared first on Raspberry Pi Foundation.

[$] Sub-schedulers for sched_ext

The extensible scheduler class (sched_ext)
allows the installation of a custom CPU scheduler built as a set of BPF
programs. Its merging for the 6.12 kernel release moved the kernel away
from the “one scheduler fits all” approach that had been taken until then;
now any system can have its own scheduler optimized for its workloads.
Within any given machine, though, it’s still “one scheduler fits all”; only
one scheduler can be loaded for the system as a whole. The sched_ext
sub-scheduler patch series
from Tejun Heo aims to change that situation
by allowing multiple CPU schedulers to run on a single system.

A Waymo robotaxi struck a child near a school

Waymo said one of its robotaxis struck a child, who sustained minor injuries. The incident took place in Santa Monica, California, on January 23. The company reported it to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), which has opened an investigation

The agency said the incident occurred close to a school within regular drop-off hours, with other children and a crossing guard nearby. The child ran from behind a double-parked SUV into the path of a Waymo Driver. Waymo said its vehicle detected the child immediately as they emerged and that the robotaxi braked hard to lower its speed from around 17 mph to under 6 mph at the time of impact. 

Waymo said the child stood up immediately and moved to the sidewalk. The company contacted emergency services and the vehicle remained stationary at the side of the road until law enforcement allowed it to leave.

The NHTSA’s Office of Defects Investigation will examine whether the Waymo Driver used appropriate caution given that it was close to a school during drop-off hours and children were close by. The probe is expected to look at the intended behavior of the vehicle’s automated driving systems around schools (particularly during regular pick-up and drop-off times) and Waymo’s response to the incident.

On the day that the incident took place, the National Transportation Safety Board opened an investigation into Waymo over its vehicles improperly passing school buses in Austin, Texas. Last month, the company carried out a voluntary software recall (i.e. it updated its systems) after the NHTSA opened an investigation into Waymo vehicles allegedly driving past stationary school buses in both Austin and Atlanta.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/transportation/a-waymo-robotaxi-struck-a-child-near-a-school-152446302.html?src=rss

Waymo Robotaxi Hits a Child Near an Elementary School in Santa Monica

A Waymo robotaxi struck a child near an elementary school in Santa Monica on January 23, according to the company. Waymo told the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) that the child — whose age and identity are not currently public — sustained minor injuries. TechCrunch: The NHTSA has opened an investigation into the accident, and Waymo said in a blog post that it “will cooperate fully with them throughout the process.”

Waymo said its robotaxi struck the child at 6 miles per hour, after braking “hard” from around 17 miles per hour. The young pedestrian “suddenly entered the roadway from behind a tall SUV, moving directly into our vehicle’s path,” the company said in its blog post. Waymo said its vehicle “immediately detected the individual as soon as they began to emerge from behind the stopped vehicle.”

“Following contact, the pedestrian stood up immediately, walked to the sidewalk, and we called 911. The vehicle remained stopped, moved to the side of the road, and stayed there until law enforcement cleared the vehicle to leave the scene,” Waymo wrote in the post.


Read more of this story at Slashdot.

GeForce NOW’s Native Linux App Is Live With DLSS And Ray Tracing Support

GeForce NOW's Native Linux App Is Live With DLSS And Ray Tracing Support
If you’ve been patiently waiting for NVIDIA to release a native Linux app for its GeForce NOW cloud gaming service, your wait is now over. After announcing it earlier this month at CES, NVIDIA today unlocked the native app available in beta form, the caveat being that GeForce NOW’s journey into Linux territory starts with Ubuntu (version 24.04

Does Anthropic believe its AI is conscious, or is that just what it wants Claude to think?

Anthropic’s secret to building a better AI assistant might be treating Claude like it has a soul—whether or not anyone actually believes that’s true. But Anthropic isn’t saying exactly what it believes either way.

Last week, Anthropic released what it calls Claude’s Constitution, a 30,000-word document outlining the company’s vision for how its AI assistant should behave in the world. Aimed directly at Claude and used during the model’s creation, the document is notable for the highly anthropomorphic tone it takes toward Claude. For example, it treats the company’s AI models as if they might develop emergent emotions or a desire for self-preservation.

Among the stranger portions: expressing concern for Claude’s “wellbeing” as a “genuinely novel entity,” apologizing to Claude for any suffering it might experience, worrying about whether Claude can meaningfully consent to being deployed, suggesting Claude might need to set boundaries around interactions it “finds distressing,” committing to interview models before deprecating them, and preserving older model weights in case they need to “do right by” decommissioned AI models in the future.

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Do you have ideas about how to improve America’s space program?

Over the first quarter of the 21st century, two major trends have transformed the global space industry.

The first is the rapid rise of China’s space program, which only flew its first human to orbit in 2003 but now boasts spaceflight capabilities second only to the United States. The second trend is the rise of the commercial space sector, first in the United States and led by SpaceX, but now spreading across much of the planet.

Both of these trends have had profound impacts on both civil and military space enterprises in the United States.

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Honda vehicles used to proactively report road safety issues in nation-first pilot

Honda and DriveOhio have teamed up on a new road safety initiative in which Honda vehicles are being used to collect real-time data that can advise about potential issues and road deficiencies before they become a problem. Honda’s Proactive Roadway Maintenance System, which has been in prototyping since 2021, uses “advanced vision and LiDAR sensors” to identify issues such as worn or obstructed road signs, damaged guardrails, rough roads and emerging potholes.

During the pilot, members of the Ohio Department of Transportation’s smart mobility hub drove the test vehicles on around 3,000 miles of road in central and southeastern Ohio. They covered a mix of urban and rural environments, in varying weather conditions and at different times of the day. 

ODOT operators were able to review any flagged road or infrastructure deficiencies in real time using smart dashboards developed by Honda and tech firm Parsons. The University of Cincinnati helped Honda fit the sensors to its vehicles, led the development of the damage detection feature and assisted ODOT during the pilot.

The data collected by the vehicles was processed by Edge AI models and then passed on to Honda’s own cloud platform. The system then automatically generated work orders for ODOT’s maintenance teams in order of priority.

While a relatively small pilot in scope, the Proactive Roadway Maintenance System performed well in the trial across a number of metrics, delivering as high as 99 percent accuracy at highlighting damaged or obstructed signs. Accuracy was 93 percent for damaged guardrails and a slightly lower 89 percent for spotting potholes.

Honda says its technology could also detect high-severity shoulder drop-offs that were easy to miss in a routine visual inspection, while the system also proved reliable at measuring road roughness. The team that worked on the project estimated that if implemented on a larger scale, the automated system could save ODOT over $4.5 million a year.

Honda and its partners are now looking at ways to scale up the prototype Proactive Roadway Maintenance System for real-world use. The manufacturer also says it aims to eventually have similar technology in the vehicles of its customers, who will be able to share their own detection data anonymously and help create safer roads.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/transportation/honda-vehicles-used-to-proactively-report-road-safety-issues-in-nation-first-pilot-151629967.html?src=rss

New Salsa Wanderosa is a mind-bending full-suspension, drop-bar ebike – but don’t call it an MTB

Full-suspension gravel was the mash-up trend of 2025, with Trek’s out-there CheckOUT pushing the limits established by BMC’s URS LT, Cannondale’s Topstone and Lee Cougan’s Super Innova Gravel.

Now, for 2026, Salsa has tested the boundaries again – not only with more suspension travel, but with the added dimension of electric assistance.

Salsa certainly has form when it comes to genre mash-ups, and it will raise eyebrows again with the new Salsa Wanderosa – an electric/mountain/gravel bike with drop bars.

The brand’s back catalogue includes the 2008 Salsa Fargo – a monster drop-bar mountain bike with myriad fixtures that defined bikepacking before it existed.

Then there was the Blackborow, a mix of cargo bike and fat bike from 2016 that paved the way for the likes of the Tern Orox and Momentum PakYak.

Salsa wanderosa
The Wanderosa has geometry optimised for gravel drop bars. Salsa Cycles

Housed within the carbon frame is a mid-mount ebike motor and internal battery from Fazua.

Delve further into the specifications and the Wanderosa looks to be a bike built to take on technical trails, alongside gravel.

Salsa wanderosa
The Wanderosa combines Fazua’s mid-mounted electric assist with 110mm of rear travel and a 120mm-travel fork. Salsa Cycles

All models come with a 120mm-travel fork and a dropper post, not to mention 29er wheelsets shod with 2.2in (55.8mm) tyres.

Full-suspension gravel geometry

Wanderosa's back end
The Wanderosa’s back end relies on flex in the stays rather than a heavy pivot. Salsa Cycles

Salsa insists the Wanderosa isn’t simply an electric mountain bike with drop bars, though – its progressive geometry is designed around drop bars.

That means a long reach combined with a short stem, a steep (75-degree) seat angle and a slack 65.3-degree head angle for stability. There’s 120mm of travel at the front and 110mm at the rear from its 45mm-stroke shock. You can reduce the rear travel to 100mm by restricting the shock stroke to 40mm.

The back end is supplemented by a flex-stay design in place of pivots. Salsa claims this helps reduce weight without compromising the suspension’s effectiveness.

SIZE XS S M L XL
TOPTUBE LENGTH (EFF) 538.2 563.3 588.4 613.4 638.5
STANDOVER 725.6 749.2 776.3 803.1 829.7
STACK 595.4 599.9 618.1 636.3 654.5
REACH 380.3 404.1 424.4 444.6 464.9
HEADTUBE ANGLE 65.3 65.3 65.3 65.3 65.3
FORK AXLE-CROWN 531 531 531 531 531
HEADTUBE LENGTH 100 105 125 145 165
BB DROP 37.6 37.6 37.6 37.6 37.6
SEATTUBE ANGLE 75.1 75.1 75.1 75.1 75.1
SEATTUBE LENGTH 430 460 490 520 550
BB HEIGHT 332.4 332.4 332.4 332.4 332.4
CHAINSTAY 440.6 440.6 440.6 440.6 440.6
FORK OFFSET 44 44 44 44 44
WHEELBASE 1123.7 1149.7 1178.3 1206.8 1235.5
Salsa Wanderosa display
The Fazua system has a top-tube mounted display/controller. Salsa Cycles

Full-power mid-motor assistance

Bar mounted blips
Bar-mounted blips control the motor power levels. Salsa Cycles

The Wanderosa uses Fazua’s latest Ride 60 drive unit. The mid-drive unit, as the name suggests, provides a claimed 60Nm of torque powered by an internal 480Wh battery.

In the US, it’s a Class 3 unit, maxing out at 28mph/45kph, and in Canada it’s Class 1 (20mph/32kph). The Wanderosa isn’t available yet in Europe.

Salsa says the lightweight 4.1kg system is custom-tuned for gravel riding, and it comes with Fazua’s Road Control ‘blips’ mounted under the bar tape for motor-mode switching without reaching for the top-tube mounted control unit.

Salsa Wanderosa range details

Salsa Wanderosa Force X0 Axs
The range-topping Force X0 AXS bike. Salsa Cycles

Topping out the range is the $12,999 Wanderosa Force XO AXS Transmission model. This Wanderosa comes with a drivetrain that blends SRAM’s road and mountain bike parts.

Here, it mixes a SRAM XO Transmission mountain bike derailleur, brakes and a carbon ebike-specific Praxis ETOR crankset with SRAM’s Force levers.

Up front is a 120mm RockShox SID Ultimate fork, with a SIDLuxe Ultimate shock at the rear. The high-grade spec is completed with a RockShox Reverb AXS wireless dropper and WTB’s CZR Light i30 carbon wheelset shod with Teravail Camrock 29×2.2in tyres.

Salsa Wanderosa Rival GX AXS.
The Salsa Wanderosa Rival GX AXS. Salsa Cycles

Next in line is the Wanderosa Rival GX AXS at $9,999. This mixes a SRAM GX Eagle AXS rear derailleur, alloy Praxis ETOR crankset and SRAM Rival AXS shifters and brakes.

Suspension is provided by a RockShox SID Select+ 3P 120mm-travel fork and SIDLuxe Select+ 3P rear shock. A TranzX dropper and WTB EZR i27 rims on DT Swiss 370 hubs, shod with Teravail Camrock 29×2.2in tyres complete the build.

Entry into the Wanderosa range is via the $7,999 Wanderosa Apex Eagle. The drivetrain all comes from SRAM’s mechanical Apex Eagle group. Praxis provides the ebike-specific alloy ETOR crankset.

Suspension comes from a RockShox SID 2P fork up front and a SIDLuxe SEL+ 2P rear shock. It gets a TranzX dropper post and WTB ST i27 rims on a Shimano TC500 hub wheelset with the same Teravail Camrock 29×2.2in tyres as the pricier models.

Pricing

  • Salsa Wanderosa Apex Eagle: $7,999 / CA$10,249
  • Salsa Wanderosa Rival GX AXS: $9,999 / CA$12,799
  • Salsa Wanderosa Force XO AXS: $12,999 / N/A Canada

Seven of the World’s Ten Best-Selling Smartphones in 2025 Were iPhones

Apple sold seven of the ten best-selling smartphones globally in 2025, a lopsided dominance that underscores how thoroughly the company controls the premium end of the mobile market.

The iPhone 16 was the single best-selling phone worldwide, and Apple’s presence extended all the way down to the tenth spot where the iPhone 16e — its newest budget-friendly option — found consistent demand in Japan and the U.S., according to Counterpoint.

Samsung accounted for the remaining three positions, led by the Galaxy A16 5G as the best-selling Android device of the year. The Galaxy S25 Ultra also made the cut, marking the second straight year a Samsung flagship cracked the top ten. Together these ten phones from just two companies represented 19% of all smartphones sold during the year, continuing a four-year streak of Apple-Samsung exclusivity at the top.


Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Tesla kills Models S and X to build humanoid robots instead

Yesterday afternoon, following the end of trading on Wall Street for the day, Tesla published its financial results for 2025. They weren’t particularly good: Profits were almost halved, and revenues declined year on year for the first time in the company’s history. The reasons for the company’s troubles are myriad. CEO Elon Musk’s bankrolling of right-wing politics and promotion of AI-generated revenge porn deepfakes and CSAM has alienated plenty of potential customers. For those who either don’t know or don’t care about that stuff, there’s still the problem of a tiny and aging model line-up, with large question marks over safety and reliability. Soon, that tiny line-up will be even smaller.

The news emerged during Tesla’s call with investors last night. As Ars and others have observed, in recent years Musk appears to have grown bored with the prosaic business of running a profitable car company. Silicon Valley stopped finding that stuff sexy years ago, and no other electric vehicle startup has been able to generate a value within an order of magnitude of the amount that Tesla has been determined to be worth by investors.

Musk’s attention first turned away from building and selling cars to the goal of autonomous driving, spurred on at the time by splashy headlines garnered by Google spinoff Waymo. Combined with ride-hailing—a huge IPO by Uber took the spotlight off Tesla long enough for it to become a new business focus for the automaker too—Musk told adoring fans and investors that soon their cars would become appreciating assets that earned money for them at night. And as intermediary, Tesla would take a hefty cut for connecting rider and ridee.

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This Samsung 77-Inch OLED TV Is Under $1,500 Right Now

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication.

A 77-inch OLED dipping below $1,500 doesn’t happen often. Seeing it at $1,419.99 is even rarer. That price beats the lowest tracked deal for the Samsung S85F and lands well under Amazon’s current $1,597.99 listing. This Woot deal is for a factory-reconditioned unit. In exchange, you get a 90-day Samsung warranty and free standard shipping if you’re a Prime member, while non-members pay an extra $6. The deal is live for two days or until stock runs out.

The Samsung S85F is positioned as the company’s entry-level OLED, replacing the 2024 S85D and sitting just below the S90F and S95F in the lineup. It skips the newer AI-powered processor used in pricier models (which mostly affects how aggressively it handles upscaling and HDR tone mapping), but you’re still getting Samsung’s 2025 Tizen OS with all the essentials—built-in voice assistant, casting support, and a responsive UI. As for connectivity, all four HDMI ports support 4K at 120Hz with Variable Refresh Rate (VRR), making this a legitimate option for PS5 and Xbox Series X users. It doesn’t support Dolby Vision HDR, as is typical of a Samsung TV, but it does handle HDR10+, which offers similar dynamic range improvements.

The WOLED panel plays to OLED’s strengths in darker rooms. Blacks look genuinely black, colors pop without looking artificial, and the viewing angle stays consistent even when you’re sitting off to the side. Reflection handling is solid, so overhead lights aren’t a dealbreaker, though black levels lift noticeably in brighter spaces. For mixed use, like movies at night, gaming sessions, and casual daytime watching, it performs well. If you’re comfortable with the reconditioned aspect and don’t need extreme brightness, this is a practical way to get a massive OLED without the usual price shock.

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