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Android 16 review: Post-hype

by Ryan Whitwam / 4h

Google recently released Android 16 , which brings a smattering of new features for Pixel phones, with promises of additional updates down the road. The numbering scheme has not been consistent over the years, and as a result, Android 16 is actually the 36th major release in a lineage that stretches back nearly two decades. In 2008, we didn't fully understand how smartphones would work, so there

The second launch of New Glenn will aim for Mars

by Eric Berger / 1h

Blue Origin is making steady progress toward the second launch of its New Glenn rocket, which could occur sometime this fall. The company already ignited the second stage of this rocket, in a pre-launch test, in April. And two sources say the first stage for this launch is in the final stages of preparation at the company's facilities in Cape Canaveral, Florida. Publicly, the company has said thi

Stung by customer losses, Comcast says all its new plans have unlimited data

Comcast drops data caps nationwide

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100+by Jon Brodkin / 2d

With Comcast trying to figure out how to stop losing broadband customers, the cable firm yesterday announced new plans that are available nationwide and do not have data caps. Comcast said it is offering "four simple national Internet tiers that include unlimited data and the advanced Xfinity WiFi Gateway for one low monthly price." Customers whose current plans have data caps won't automatically

Yesterday

Ars reflects on Apollo 13 turning 30

26by Jennifer Ouellette / 1d

This year marks the 30th anniversary of the 1995 Oscar-winning film, Apollo 13 , director Ron Howard's masterful love letter to NASA's Apollo program in general and the eponymous space mission in particular. So we're taking the opportunity to revisit this riveting homage to American science, ingenuity, and daring. (Spoilers below.) Apollo 13 is a fictional retelling of the aborted 1970 lunar miss

A neural brain implant provides near instantaneous speech

50by Jacek Krywko / 1d

Stephen Hawking, a British physicist and arguably the most famous man suffering from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), communicated with the world using a sensor installed in his glasses. That sensor used tiny movements of a single muscle in his cheek to select characters on a screen. Once he typed a full sentence at a rate of roughly one word per minute, the text was synthesized into speech b

Jun 28, 2025

In a wild time for copyright law, the US Copyright Office has no leader

by Kate Knibbs, wired.com / 2d

It’s a tumultuous time for copyright in the United States, with dozens of potentially economy-shaking AI copyright lawsuits winding through the courts . It’s also the most turbulent moment in the US Copyright Office’s history. Described as “ sleepy ” in the past, the Copyright Office has taken on new prominence during the AI boom, issuing key rulings about AI and copyright . It also hasn’t had a

Robotic sucker can adapt to surroundings like an actual octopus

by Elizabeth Rayne / 2d

Some of the most ingenious tech has been inspired by nature. From color-changing materials that function like cephalopod skin to a tiny biomimetic robot that looks and moves like an actual cockroach , the extraordinary adaptations of some organisms have upgraded our technological capabilities. Now the octopus is lending an arm—or a sucker. Octopus tentacles have remarkably strong suckers with an

Jun 27, 2025

SCOTUS upholds part of ACA that makes preventive care fully covered

Supreme Court upholds preventive coverage

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by Beth Mole / 2d

The US Supreme Court on Friday upheld a key provision of the Affordable Care Act that requires health plans to fully cover many preventive health care services recommended by a federal panel. The ruling means that tens of millions of Americans can continue getting a variety of preventive services for free under their plans . Those cost-free services include an array of screenings, such as cancer

After 27 years, engineer discovers how to display secret photo in Power Mac ROM

Power Mac G3 ROM Easter egg discovered

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100+by Benj Edwards / 2d

On Tuesday, software engineer Doug Brown published his discovery of how to trigger a long-known but previously inaccessible Easter egg in the Power Mac G3's ROM: a hidden photo of the development team that nobody could figure out how to display for 27 years. While Pierre Dandumont first documented the JPEG image itself in 2014, the method to view it on the computer remained a mystery until Brown'

Supreme Court overturns 5th Circuit ruling that upended Universal Service Fund

Supreme Court upholds telecom subsidy fund

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by Jon Brodkin / 2d

The Supreme Court today reversed a ruling that threatened the future of the Federal Communications Commission's Universal Service Fund. In a 6–3 opinion , the high court said the US Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit erred when it found that Universal Service fees on phone bills are an illegal tax. Universal Service is an $8 billion-a-year system that is used to expand telecom networks and make

Android phones could soon warn you of “Stingrays” snooping on your communications

Android 16 enhances security against fake towers

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45by Ryan Whitwam / 2d

Smartphones contain a treasure trove of personal data, which makes them a worthwhile target for hackers. However, law enforcement is not above snooping on cell phones, and their tactics are usually much harder to detect. Cell site simulators , often called Stingrays, can trick your phone into revealing private communications, but a change in Android 16 could allow phones to detect this spying. La

Supreme Court upholds Texas porn law that caused Pornhub to leave the state

Supreme Court upholds age verification

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38by Jon Brodkin / 2d

The Supreme Court today upheld a Texas law that requires age verification on porn sites, finding that the state's age-gating law doesn't violate the First Amendment. The 6–3 decision delivered by Justice Clarence Thomas rejected an appeal by the Free Speech Coalition, an adult-industry lobby group. Pornhub disabled its website in Texas last year because of the state law. The Supreme Court's conse

Man eats dubious street food—ends up blowing apart his GI tract

24by Beth Mole / 2d

Food poisoning is never fun—and a lot of the time, it can seem quite forceful. Take the common gut-buster norovirus for example. It can ignite forces that might make jet propulsion researchers jealous. Victims may fear liftoff from a porcelain launch pad, or a vomitous blast with a reverse thrust that seems powerful enough to drop a military jet from the sky. But then there are the rare illnesses

Microsoft changes Windows in attempt to prevent next CrowdStrike-style catastrophe

Microsoft relocates antivirus from kernel

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31by Andrew Cunningham / 2d

In the summer of 2024, corporate anti-malware provider CrowdStrike pushed a broken update to millions of PCs and servers running some version of Microsoft's Windows software, taking down systems that both companies and consumers relied on for air travel, payments, emergency services, and their morning coffee. It was a huge outage, and it caused days and weeks of pain as the world's permanently be

Apple gives EU users App Store options in attempt to avoid massive fines

by Barbara Moens, Financial Times / 3d

Apple is changing its App Store policies in the EU in a last-minute attempt to avoid a series of escalating fines from Brussels. The $3 trillion iPhone maker will allow developers in the bloc to offer apps designed for the iOS operating system in places other than Apple’s App Store, the company said. Apple has been negotiating for two months with the European Commission after being fined €500 mil

Rocket Report: SpaceX’s dustup on the border; Northrop has a nozzle problem

by Stephen Clark / 3d

Welcome to Edition 7.50 of the Rocket Report! We're nearly halfway through the year, and it seems like a good time to look back on the past six months. What has been most surprising to me in the world of rockets? First, I didn't expect SpaceX to have this much trouble with Starship Version 2. Growing pains are normal for new rockets, but I expected the next big hurdles for SpaceX to clear with St

An exceedingly rare asteroid flyby will happen soon, but NASA may be left on the sidelines

NASA budget cuts threaten space exploration

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45by Eric Berger / 3d

A little less than four years from now, a killer asteroid will narrowly fly past planet Earth. This will be a celestial event visible around the world—for a few weeks, Apophis will shine among the brightest objects in the night sky. The near miss by the large Apophis asteroid in April 2029 offers NASA a golden—and exceedingly rare—opportunity to observe such an object like this up close. Critical

Jun 26, 2025

Actively exploited vulnerability gives extraordinary control over server fleets

by Dan Goodin / 3d

Hackers are exploiting a maximum-severity vulnerability that has the potential to give them complete control over thousands of servers, many of which handle mission-critical tasks inside data centers, the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency is warning. The vulnerability, carrying a severity rating of 10 out of a possible 10, resides in the AMI MegaRAC, a widely used firmware packa

NASA tested a new SLS booster that may never fly, and the end of it blew off

Northrop Grumman and NASA test powerful boosters

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100+by Stephen Clark / 3d

NASA's Space Launch System appears to have a finite shelf life. The Trump administration wants to cancel it after just three launches, while the preliminary text of a bill making its way through Congress would extend it to five flights. But chances are low the Space Launch System will make it to nine flights, and if it does, it's questionable that it would reach that point before 2040. The SLS ro

Changing one gene can restore some tissue regeneration to mice

27by Jacek Krywko / 3d

Regeneration is a trick many animals, including lizards, starfish, and octopuses, have mastered. Axolotls, a salamander species originating in Mexico, can regrow pretty much everything from severed limbs, to eyes and parts of brain, to the spinal cord. Mammals, though, have mostly lost this ability somewhere along their evolutionary path. Regeneration persisted, in a limited number of tissues, in

RFK Jr.’s CDC panel ditches some flu shots based on anti-vaccine junk data

CDC finds no autism link

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100+by Beth Mole / 3d

The vaccine panel hand-selected by health secretary and anti-vaccine advocate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Thursday voted overwhelmingly to drop federal recommendations for seasonal flu shots that contain the ethyl-mercury containing preservative thimerosal. The panel did so after hearing a misleading and cherry-picked presentation from an anti-vaccine activist. There is extensive data from the last

Judge: Pirate libraries may have profited from Meta torrenting 80TB of books

Meta wins AI copyright case

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50by Ashley Belanger / 3d

Now that Meta has largely beaten an AI training copyright lawsuit raised by 13 book authors—including comedian Sarah Silverman and Pulitzer Prize-winning author Junot Diaz—the only matter left to settle in that case is whether Meta violated copyright laws by torrenting books used to train Llama models . In an order that partly grants Meta's motion for summary judgment, judge Vince Chhabria confir

Anthropic summons the spirit of Flash games for the AI age

Anthropic enables no-code AI app creation

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by Benj Edwards / 3d

On Wednesday, Anthropic announced a new feature that expands its Artifacts document management system into the basis of a personal AI app gallery resembling something from the Flash game era of the early 2000s—though these apps run on modern web code rather than Adobe's defunct plugin. Using plain English dialogue, users can build and share interactive applications directly within Claude's chatbo

VMware perpetual license holder receives audit letter from Broadcom

100+by Scharon Harding / 3d

After sending cease-and-desist letters to VMware users whose support contracts had expired and who subsequently declined to subscribe to one of Broadcom’s VMware bundles, Broadcom has started the process of conducting audits on former VMware customers. Broadcom stopped selling VMware perpetual licenses in November 2023 in favor of pushing a small number of VMware SKUs that feature multiple VMware

Book authors made the wrong arguments in Meta AI training case, judge says

Meta wins AI copyright case

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52by Ashley Belanger / 3d

Soon after a landmark ruling deemed that when Anthropic copied books to train artificial intelligence models, it was a "transformative" fair use, another judge has arrived at the same conclusion in a case pitting book authors against Meta. But that doesn't necessarily mean the judges are completely in agreement, and that could soon become a problem for not just Meta, but other big AI companies ce

13-inch Microsoft Surface Laptop review: A slightly worse version of a year-old PC

by Andrew Cunningham / 3d

Microsoft's new 13-inch Surface Laptop is an odd one. It's inarguably a step down in every respect from last year's 13.8-inch Surface Laptop. But it's also too good (and too expensive) to be considered a replacement for the Surface Laptop Go, the company's perennially overpriced and underspecced entry-level laptop. It's cheaper than last year's Surfaces, but mostly because Microsoft gave those de

45-hour voyage in replica canoe tests Paleolithic migration theory

Ancient canoe tests migration theory

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by Jennifer Ouellette / 3d

Earlier this week, we reported on a Swedish archaeologist who spent the last three years sailing the fjords in a replica boat similar to those the Vikings may have used. Not to be outdone, Japanese researchers have followed suit, building their own seaworthy dugout canoe with Paleolithic-era tools to cross between Taiwan and Yonaguni Island, where one of the world’s strongest ocean currents, the

Google begins rolling out AI search in YouTube

YouTube introduces AI search features

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33by Ryan Whitwam / 3d

Over the past year, Google has transformed its web search experience with AI, driving toward a zero-click experience . Now, the same AI focus is coming to YouTube, and Premium subscribers can get a preview of the new search regime. Select searches on the video platform will now produce an AI-generated results carousel with a collection of relevant videos. Even if you don't pay for YouTube, AI is

Researchers develop a battery cathode material that does it all

by John Timmer / 3d

Battery electrode materials need to do a lot of things well. They need to be conductors to get charges to and from the ions that shuttle between the electrodes. They also need to have an open structure that allows the ions to move around before they reach a site where they can be stored. The storage of lots of ions also causes materials to expand, creating mechanical stresses that can cause the s

Reddit CEO pledges site will remain “written by humans and voted on by humans”

Reddit commits to human authenticity

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by Daniel Thomas and Hannah Murphy, Financial Times / 4d

Reddit is in an “arms race” to protect its devoted online communities from a surge in artificial intelligence-generated content, with the authenticity of its vast repository of human interaction increasingly valuable in training new AI-powered search tools. Chief executive Steve Huffman told the Financial Times that Reddit had “20 years of conversation about everything,” leaving the company with

Analysis: During a town hall NASA officials on stage looked like hostages

200+by Stephen Clark / 4d

The four people at the helm of America's space agency held a town hall meeting with employees Wednesday, fielding questions about downsizing, layoffs, and proposed budget cuts that threaten to undermine NASA's mission and prestige. Janet Petro, NASA's acting administrator, addressed questions from an auditorium at NASA Headquarters in Washington, DC. She was joined by Brian Hughes, the agency's c

Jun 25, 2025

All childhood vaccines in question after first meeting of RFK Jr.’s vaccine panel

CDC advisers to discuss thimerosal

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500+by Beth Mole / 4d

A federal vaccine panel entirely hand-selected by health secretary and anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. gathered for its first meeting Wednesday—and immediately announced that it would re-evaluate the entire childhood vaccination schedule, as well as the one for adults. The meeting overall was packed with anti-vaccine talking points and arguments from the new panel members, confirming

After a week, Trump Mobile drops claim that Trump phone is “made in the USA”

Trump launches mobile service

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500+by Jon Brodkin / 4d

The Trump phone was announced last week with a claim that the device would be made entirely in America, and people were rightly skeptical. Trump Mobile's $500 T1 Phone "is a sleek, gold smartphone engineered for performance and proudly designed and built in the United States for customers who expect the best from their mobile carrier," the Trump Organization said in a press release. But with elec

Google’s spotty Find Hub network could get better thanks to a small setup tweak

Google Find Hub Bluetooth theft risk

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by Ryan Whitwam / 4d

Bluetooth trackers have existed for quite a while, but Apple made them worthwhile when it enlisted every iPhone to support AirTags. The tracking was so reliable that Apple had to add anti-stalking features. And although there are just as many Android phones out there, Google's version of mobile device tracking, known as Find Hub, has been comparatively spotty. Now, Google is about to offer users

Is DOGE doomed to fail? Some experts are ready to call it.

Congress debates DOGE efficiency cuts

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96by Ashley Belanger / 4d

Critics are increasingly branding Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) as a failure, including lawmakers fiercely debating how much funding to allot next year to the controversial agency. On Tuesday, Republicans and Democrats sparred over DOGE's future at a DOGE subcommittee hearing, according to NextGov , a news site for federal IT workers. On one side, Republicans sought to "l

Looking at Framework’s progress on software support for its repairable laptops

by Andrew Cunningham / 4d

For the past five years, we've been paying a lot of attention to Framework, the upstart PC company focused on modular, repairable, upgradeable, and customizable laptop designs. So far, Framework has done a solid job of offering a steady stream of hardware upgrades for its systems, particularly the original Framework Laptop 13. But the company's track record on software support—including BIOS upda

Anthropic destroyed millions of print books to build its AI models

California courts approve AI training

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500+by Benj Edwards / 4d

On Monday, court documents revealed that AI company Anthropic spent millions of dollars physically scanning print books to build Claude , an AI assistant similar to ChatGPT . In the process, the company cut millions of print books from their bindings, scanned them into digital files, and threw away the originals solely for the purpose of training AI—details buried in a copyright ruling on fair us

Ubuntu disables Intel GPU security mitigations, promises 20% performance boost

Ubuntu boosts Intel GPU performance

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27by Dan Goodin / 4d

Ubuntu users could see up to a 20 percent boost in graphics performance on Intel-based systems under a change that will turn off security mitigations for blunting a class of attacks known as Spectre. Spectre, you may recall, came to public notice in 2018. Spectre attacks are based on the observation that performance enhancements built into modern CPUs open a side channel that can leak secrets a C

Games run faster on SteamOS than Windows 11, Ars testing finds

400+by Kyle Orland / 4d

Nearly a decade ago, Ars testing found that Valve's "Steam Machines"-era version of SteamOS performed significantly worse than Windows when SteamOS's Linux game ports were tested on the same hardware as their Windows counterparts. Today, though, Ars testing on the Lenovo Legion Go S finds recent games generally run at higher frame rates on SteamOS 3.7 than on Windows 11. The performance advantage

Today! Ars Live: What’s up with the sudden surge in temperatures?

21by John Timmer / 4d

At 1pm on Thursday, we encourage you to join us for a live chat with Zeke Hausfather , a climate scientist and researcher at Berkeley Earth. We'll talk a bit about how he got into climate science and ended up at Berkeley Earth and the role that organization plays in the world of climate science. It was launched by a physicist who was somewhat skeptical of the work being done by climate scientists

It’s a family affair in final Fantastic Four: First Steps trailer

Fantastic Four trailer showcases Galactus

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by Jennifer Ouellette / 4d

The Fantastic Four: First Steps opens next month. Marvel Studios has been ramping up its marketing efforts for The Fantastic Four: First Steps in recent weeks, culminating with the release of one last trailer before the film premieres next month. While prior efforts have focused on the (very cool) 1950s/Tomorrowland kitschy vibe of the film, this newest trailer emphasizes the family angle is choc

Trump’s FTC announces merger condition that prohibits advertising boycotts

FTC approves Omnicom IPG merger conditions

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95by Jon Brodkin / 4d

The Federal Trade Commission is approving a merger of big advertising agencies after extracting an agreement that the combined firm won't lead or participate in any advertising boycotts based on political or ideological viewpoints. The merger condition is a new strategy in the Republican-controlled FTC's fight against alleged advertising boycotts, which could help Elon Musk's X social network and

Three axial flux motors and 850 kW fast charging? Meet the GT XX.

Mercedes-AMG GT XX electric supercar

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by Chad Kirchner / 4d

Mercedes-Benz provided flights from Detroit to Stuttgart and accommodation so Ars could be briefed on the GT XX, as well as some other things we can't publish just yet. Ars does not accept paid editorial content. AFFALTERBACH, Germany—A few years ago, we were treated to the Mercedes-Benz EQXX. It was, at the time, the pinnacle of Mercedes engineering built for the purpose of maximum electric rang

Apple’s push to take over the dashboard resisted by car makers

Carmakers resist Apple's CarPlay Ultra

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by Kana Inagaki and Michael Acton, Financial Times / 5d

Apple is facing resistance from the automotive industry over its CarPlay Ultra software system, which the tech group launched in an attempt to take over a vehicle’s dashboard for the first time. German luxury brands Mercedes-Benz and Audi as well as Volvo Cars, Polestar, and Renault said they had no plans to bring the upgraded software to their vehicles, despite earlier indications from Apple tha

Gemini CLI is a free, open source coding agent that brings AI to your terminal

Google launches Gemini CLI tool

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39by Ryan Whitwam / 5d

Some developers prefer to live in the command line interface (CLI), eschewing the flashy graphics and file management features of IDEs. Google's latest AI tool is for those terminal lovers. It's called Gemini CLI, and it shares a lot with Gemini Code Assist , but it works in your terminal environment instead of integrating with an IDE. And perhaps best of all, it's free and open source. Gemini CL

The axion may help clean up the messy business of dark matter

by Paul Sutter / 5d

In recent years, a curious hypothetical particle called the axion, invented to address challenging problems with the strong nuclear force, has emerged as a leading candidate to explain dark matter. Although the potential for axions to explain dark matter has been around for decades, cosmologists have only recently begun to seriously search for them. Not only might they be able to resolve some iss

Jun 24, 2025