Nine astronauts aboard the International Space Station were forced to take shelter late Wednesday when a satellite broke up in low Earth orbit. This "debris-generating event" created "over 100 pieces of trackable [space junk]," according to U.S. space-tracking firm LeoLabs. Space.com reports: The Expedition 71 crew on the International Space Station (ISS) went to their three spacecraft, including Boeing Starliner, shortly after 9 p.m. EDT (0200 GMT), according to a brief NASA update on X, formerly known as Twitter. As the ISS follows a time zone identical to GMT, according to the European Space Agency, the astronauts were likely in their sleep period when the incident occurred. The procedure was a "precautionary measure", NASA officials added, stating that the crew only stayed in their spacecraft for about an hour before they were "cleared to exit their spacecraft, and the station resumed normal operations."

NASA did not specify which satellite was associated with the incident, but satellite monitoring and collision detection firm LeoLabs identified a "debris-generating event" that same evening. "Early indications are that a non-operational Russian spacecraft, Resurs-P1 [or] SATNO 39186, released a number of fragments," the company wrote on X. U.S. Space Command also reported the Resurs-P1 event, saying on X that over 100 pieces of trackable debris were generated. The military said it "observed no immediate threats and is continuing to conduct routine conjunction assessments." (A conjunction refers to a close approach of two objects in orbit to one another.)

An anonymous reader shares a report: Over the weekend, a clip from a recent interview with Telegram's founder Pavel Durov went semi-viral on X (previously Twitter). In the video, Durov tells right-wing personality Tucker Carlson that he is the only product manager at the company, and that he only employs "about 30 engineers." Security experts say that while Durov was bragging about his Dubai-based company being "super efficient," what he said was actually a red flag for users.

"Without end-to-end encryption, huge numbers of vulnerable targets, and servers located in the UAE? Seems like that would be a security nightmare," Matthew Green, a cryptography expert at Johns Hopkins University, told TechCrunch. (Telegram spokesperson Remi Vaughn disputed this, saying it has no data centers in the UAE.) Green was referring to the fact that -- by default -- chats on Telegram are not end-to-end encrypted like they are on Signal or WhatsApp. A Telegram user has to start a "Secret Chat" to switch on end-to-end encryption, making the messages unreadable to Telegram or anyone other than the intended recipient.

Also, over the years, many people have cast doubt over the quality of Telegram's encryption, given that the company uses its own proprietary encryption algorithm, created by Durov's brother, as he said in an extended version of the Carlson interview. Eva Galperin, the director of cybersecurity at the Electronic Frontier Foundation and a longtime expert in the security of at-risk users, said that it's important to remember that Telegram, unlike Signal, is a lot more than just a messaging app.

Top officials from the European Union and China agreed to negotiate a planned series of import taxes on Chinese electric vehicles. "The call marks the first time the two sides have agreed to negotiate since the EU threatened China with electric vehicle (EV) tariffs of up to 38%," reports the BBC. From the report: The EU said Chinese EVs were unfairly subsidised by its government. In response, China accused the EU of protectionism and trade rule breaches. An EU spokesperson told the BBC the call between Trade Commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis and his Chinese counterpart Wang Wentao was "candid and constructive." They said the two sides would "continue to engage at all levels in the coming weeks." However, the spokesperson also doubled down on the EU's opposition to how the Chinese EV industry is funded. They said "any negotiated outcome" to the proposed tariffs must address the "injurious subsidisation" of Chinese EVs.

China released a similar statement on Saturday and made clear it still disagreed with the EU. As well as its call with the EU, Mr Wang met German Vice-Chancellor and Federal Minister for Economic Affairs and Climate Action Robert Habeck on Saturday. In a Facebook post about the meeting, China's Ministry of Commerce said it had told Mr Habeck about its "firm opposition" to the tariffs. It repeated its threat to file a lawsuit with the World Trade Organization (WTO) "to firmly defend its legitimate rights and interests."

Germany has also expressed criticism of the tariffs. When the EU first proposed them last week following its investigation of Chinese EVs in the trading bloc, Germany's Transport Minister, Volker Wissing, said the move risked a "trade war" with Beijing. "The European Commission's punitive tariffs hit German companies and their top products," he wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter, at the time. The European car industry has been critical too. Stellantis - which owns Citroen, Peugeot, Vauxhall, Fiat, and several other brands - said it did not support measures that "contribute to the world fragmentation [of trade]."

A researcher has found a bug that allows anyone to impersonate Microsoft corporate email accounts, making phishing attempts look credible and more likely to trick their targets. From a report: As of this writing, the bug has not been patched. To demonstrate the bug, the researcher sent an email to TechCrunch that looked like it was sent from Microsoft's account security team. Last week, Vsevolod Kokorin, also known online as Slonser, wrote on X (formerly Twitter) that he found the email-spoofing bug and reported it to Microsoft, but the company dismissed his report after saying it couldn't reproduce his findings. This prompted Kokorin to publicize the bug on X, without providing technical details that would help others exploit it.

YouTube is piloting a new feature called "Notes" that allows viewers to add context and information under videos. The move comes as YouTube aims to minimize the spread of misinformation on its platform, particularly during the pivotal 2024 U.S. election year. The feature, similar to Community Notes on X (formerly Twitter), will initially be available on mobile in the U.S. in English.

"At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, the U.S. military launched a secret campaign to counter what it perceived as China's growing influence in the Philippines..." reports Reuters.

"It aimed to sow doubt about the safety and efficacy of vaccines and other life-saving aid that was being supplied by China, a Reuters investigation found."

Reuters interviewed "more than two dozen current and former U.S officials, military contractors, social media analysts and academic researchers," and also reviewed posts on social media, technical data and documents about "a set of fake social media accounts used by the U.S. military" — some active for more than five years. Friday they reported the results of their investigation: Through phony internet accounts meant to impersonate Filipinos, the military's propaganda efforts morphed into an anti-vax campaign. Social media posts decried the quality of face masks, test kits and the first vaccine that would become available in the Philippines — China's Sinovac inoculation. Reuters identified at least 300 accounts on X, formerly Twitter, that matched descriptions shared by former U.S. military officials familiar with the Philippines operation. Almost all were created in the summer of 2020 and centered on the slogan #Chinaangvirus — Tagalog for China is the virus.

"COVID came from China and the VACCINE also came from China, don't trust China!" one typical tweet from July 2020 read in Tagalog. The words were next to a photo of a syringe beside a Chinese flag and a soaring chart of infections. Another post read: "From China — PPE, Face Mask, Vaccine: FAKE. But the Coronavirus is real." After Reuters asked X about the accounts, the social media company removed the profiles, determining they were part of a coordinated bot campaign based on activity patterns and internal data.

The U.S. military's anti-vax effort began in the spring of 2020 and expanded beyond Southeast Asia before it was terminated in mid-2021, Reuters determined. Tailoring the propaganda campaign to local audiences across Central Asia and the Middle East, the Pentagon used a combination of fake social media accounts on multiple platforms to spread fear of China's vaccines among Muslims at a time when the virus was killing tens of thousands of people each day. A key part of the strategy: amplify the disputed contention that, because vaccines sometimes contain pork gelatin, China's shots could be considered forbidden under Islamic law...

A senior Defense Department official acknowledged the U.S. military engaged in secret propaganda to disparage China's vaccine in the developing world, but the official declined to provide details. A Pentagon spokeswoman... also noted that China had started a "disinformation campaign to falsely blame the United States for the spread of COVID-19."
A senior U.S. military officer directly involved in the campaign told Reuters that "We didn't do a good job sharing vaccines with partners. So what was left to us was to throw shade on China's."

At least six senior State Department officials for the region objected, according to the article. But in 2019 U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper signed "a secret order" that "elevated the Pentagon's competition with China and Russia to the priority of active combat, enabling commanders to sidestep the StateDepartment when conducting psyops against those adversaries."

[A senior defense official] said the Pentagon has rescinded parts of Esper's 2019 order that allowed military commanders to bypass the approval of U.S. ambassadors when waging psychological operations. The rules now mandate that military commanders work closely with U.S. diplomats in the country where they seek to have an impact. The policy also restricts psychological operations aimed at "broad population messaging," such as those used to promote vaccine hesitancy during COVID...

Nevertheless, the Pentagon's clandestine propaganda efforts are set to continue. In an unclassified strategy document last year, top Pentagon generals wrote that the U.S. military could undermine adversaries such as China and Russia using "disinformation spread across social media, false narratives disguised as news, and similar subversive activities [to] weaken societal trust by undermining the foundations of government."

And in February, the contractor that worked on the anti-vax campaign — General Dynamics IT — won a $493 million contract. Its mission: to continue providing clandestine influence services for the military.

Paul M. Nakasone, a retired U.S. Army general and former NSA director, is now OpenAI's newest board member. Nakasone will join the Safety and Security Committee and contribute to OpenAI's cybersecurity efforts. CNBC reports: The committee is spending 90 days evaluating the company's processes and safeguards before making recommendations to the board and, eventually, updating the public, OpenAI said. Nakasone joins current board members Adam D'Angelo, Larry Summers, Bret Taylor and Sam Altman, as well as some new board members the company announced in March: Dr. Sue Desmond-Hellmann, former CEO of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation; Nicole Seligman, former executive vice president and global general counsel of Sony; and Fidji Simo, CEO and chair of Instacart.

OpenAI on Monday announced the hiring of two top executives as well as a partnership with Apple that includes a ChatGPT-Siri integration. The company said Sarah Friar, previously CEO of Nextdoor and finance chief at Square, is joining as chief financial officer. Friar will "lead a finance team that supports our mission by providing continued investment in our core research capabilities, and ensuring that we can scale to meet the needs of our growing customer base and the complex and global environment in which we are operating," OpenAI wrote in a blog post. OpenAI also hired Kevin Weil, an ex-president at Planet Labs, as its new chief product officer. Weil was previously a senior vice president at Twitter and a vice president at Facebook and Instagram. Weil's product team will focus on "applying our research to products and services that benefit consumers, developers, and businesses," the company wrote. Edward Snowden, a former NSA contractor who leaked classified documents in 2013 that exposed the massive scope of government surveillance programs, is wary of the appointment. In a post on X, Snowden wrote: "They've gone full mask-off: Do not ever trust OpenAI or its products (ChatGPT etc). There is only one reason for appointing an NSA director to your board. This is a willful, calculated betrayal of the rights of every person on Earth. You have been warned."

An anonymous reader shares a report: Since April, a hacker with a history of selling stolen data has claimed a data breach of billions of records -- impacting at least 300 million people -- from a U.S. data broker, which would make it one of the largest alleged data breaches of the year. The data, seen by TechCrunch, on its own appears partly legitimate -- if imperfect.

The stolen data, which was advertised on a known cybercrime forum, allegedly dates back years and includes U.S. citizens' full names, their home address history and Social Security numbers -- data that is widely available for sale by data brokers. But confirming the source of the alleged data theft has proven inconclusive; such is the nature of the data broker industry, which gobbles up individuals' personal data from disparate sources with little to no quality control. The alleged data broker in question, according to the hacker, is National Public Data, which bills itself as "one of the biggest providers of public records on the Internet."

On its official website, National Public Data claimed to sell access to several databases: a "People Finder" one where customers can search by Social Security number, name and date of birth, address or telephone number; a database of U.S. consumer data "covering over 250 million individuals;" a database containing voter registration data that contains information on 100 million U.S. citizens; a criminal records one; and several more. Malware research group vx-underground said on X (formerly Twitter) that they reviewed the whole stolen database and could "confirm the data present in it is real and accurate."

The definition of the word "bot" is shifting to become an insult to someone you know is human, according to researchers who analyzed more than 22 million tweets. Researchers found this shift began around 2017, with left-leaning users more likely to accuse right-leaning users of being bots. "A potential explanation might be that media frequently reported about right-wing bot networks influencing major events like the [2016] US election," says Dennis Assenmacher at Leibniz Institute for Social Sciences in Cologne, Germany. "However, this is just speculation and would need confirmation." NewScientist reports: To investigate, Assenmacher and his colleagues looked at how users perceive what is a bot or not. They did so by looking at how the word "bot" was used on Twitter between 2007 and December 2022 (the social network changed its name to X in 2023, following its purchase by Elon Musk), analyzing the words that appeared next to it in more than 22 million English-language tweets. The team found that before 2017, the word was usually deployed alongside allegations of automated behavior of the type that would traditionally fit the definition of a bot, such as "software," "script" or "machine." After that date, the use shifted. "Now, the accusations have become more like an insult, dehumanizing people, insulting them, and using this as a technique to deny their intelligence and deny their right to participate in a conversation," says Assenmacher. The study has been published in the journal Proceedings of the Eighteenth International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media.

Long-time Slashdot reader theodp writes: "Great news, Louisiana!" tech-backed Code.org exclaimed Wednesday in celebratory LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter posts. Louisiana is "officially the 10th state to make computer science a [high school] graduation requirement. Huge thanks to Governor Jeff Landry for signing the bill and to our legislative champions, Rep. Jason Hughes and Sen. Thomas Pressly, for making it happen! This means every Louisiana student gets a chance to learn coding and other tech skills that are super important these days. These skills can help them solve problems, think critically, and open doors to awesome careers!"

Representative Hughes, the sponsor of HB264 — which calls for each public high school student to successfully complete a one credit CS course as a requirement for graduation and also permits students to take two units of CS instead of studying a Foreign Language — tweeted back: "HUGE thanks @codeorg for their partnership in this effort every step of the way! Couldn't have done it without [Code.org Senior Director of State Government Affairs] Anthony [Owen] and the Code.org team!"

Code.org also on Wednesday announced the release of its 2023 Impact Report, which touted its efforts "to include a requirement for every student to take computer science to receive a high school diploma." Since its 2013 launch, Code.org reports it's spent $219.8 million to push coding into K-12 classrooms, including $19 million on Government Affairs (Achievements: "Policies changed in 50 states. More than $343M in state budgets allocated to computer science.").

In Code.org by the Numbers, the nonprofit boasts that 254,683 students started Code.org's AP CS Principles course in the academic year (2025 Goal: 400K), while 21,425 have started Code.org's new Amazon-bankrolled AP CS A course. Estimates peg U.S. public high school enrollment at 15.5M students, annual K-12 public school spending at $16,080 per pupil, and an annual high school student course load at 6-8 credits...

Some artists are jumping ship for the anti-AI portfolio app Cara after Meta began using Instagram content to train its AI models. Fast Company explains: The portfolio app bills itself as a platform that protects artists' images from being used to train AI, and only allowing AI content to be posted if it's clearly labeled. Based on the number of new users the Cara app has garnered over the past few days, there seems to be a need. Between May 31 and June 2, Cara's user base tripled from less than 100,000 to more than 300,000 profiles, skyrocketing to the top of the app store. [...] Cara is a social networking app for creatives, in which users can post images of their artwork, memes, or just their own text-based musings. It shares similarities with major social platforms like X (formerly Twitter) and Instagram on a few fronts. Users can access Cara through a mobile app or on a browser. Both options are free to use. The UI itself is like an arts-centric combination of X and Instagram. In fact, some UI elements seem like they were pulled directly from other social media sites. (It's not the most innovative approach, but it is strategic: as a new app, any barriers to potential adoption need to be low).

Cara doesn't train any AI models on its content, nor does it allow third parties to do so. According to Cara's FAQ page, the app aims to protect its users from AI scraping by automatically implementing "NoAI" tags on all of its posts. The website says these tags "are intended to tell AI scrapers not to scrape from Cara." Ultimately, they appear to be html metadata tags that politely ask bad actors not to get up to any funny business, and it's pretty unlikely that they hold any actual legal weight. Cara admits as much, too, warning its users that the tags aren't a "fully comprehensive solution and won't completely prevent dedicated scrapers." With that in mind, Cara assesses the "NoAI" tagging system as a "a necessary first step in building a space that is actually welcoming to artists -- one that respects them as creators and doesn't opt their work into unethical AI scraping without their consent."

In December, Cara launched another tool called Cara Glaze to defend its artists' work against scrapers. (Users can only use it a select number of times.) Glaze, developed by the SAND Lab at University of Chicago, makes it much more difficult for AI models to accurately understand and mimic an artist's personal style. The tool works by learning how AI bots perceive artwork, and then making a set of minimal changes that are invisible to the human eye but confusing to the AI model. The AI bot then has trouble "translating" the art style and generates warped recreations. In the future, Cara also plans to implement Nightshade, another University of Chicago software that helps protect artwork against AI scapers. Nightshade "poisons" AI training data by adding invisible pixels to artwork that can cause AI software to completely misunderstand the image. Beyond establishing shields against data mining, Cara also uses a third party service to detect and moderate any AI artwork that's posted to the site. Non-human artwork is forbidden, unless it's been properly labeled by the poster.

Fans have noticed that, over the last few months, Sony quietly removed any mention of 8K on the PlayStation 5 boxes. "I have been endlessly bitching since the PS5 released about that 8k Badge," writes X user @DeathlyPrice. "It is false Advertising and Sony should be sued for it." Others shared their grievances via PlayStation Lifestyle and a Reddit thread. GameSpot reports: A FAQ on Sony's official site in 2020 stated that "PS5 is compatible with 8K displays at launch, and after a future system software update will be able to output resolutions up to 8K when content is available, with supported software." But to date, the only game that offers 8K resolution on PS5 is The Touryst, which looks more like Minecraft than a game with advanced visuals.

The reality is that 8K has not been widely adopted by video game developers, or even by filmmakers at this point. There are 8K televisions on the market, but it may be quite some time, if ever, before it becomes the standard for either gaming or entertainment.

New submitter OwnedByTwoCats writes: SpaceX's Starship, the most powerful launch vehicle ever built, launched Thursday and achieved key objectives laid out for its fourth test flight that demonstrated the vehicle's reusability. The highly anticipated event was the company's second uncrewed test of 2024. Launch occurred from the private Starbase facility in Boca Chica, Texas, at 7:50 a.m. CT (8:50 a.m. ET), and the company streamed live coverage on X, formerly known as Twitter, drawing millions of viewers.

The Starship launch system includes the upper Starship spacecraft and a rocket booster known as the Super Heavy. Of the rocket's 33 engines, 32 lit during launch, according to the SpaceX broadcast. The vehicle soared through multiple milestones during Thursday's test flight, including the survival of the Starship capsule upon reentry during peak heating in Earth's atmosphere and splashdown of both the capsule and booster. After separating from the spacecraft, the Super Heavy booster for the first time successfully executed a landing burn and had a soft splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico about eight minutes after launch.

Meanwhile, the Starship capsule successfully achieved orbital insertion. About 50 minutes after launch, the spacecraft began its controlled reentry journey, and an incredibly colorful buildup of plasma could be seen around the vehicle as its heat shield faced the extreme temperatures of Earth's atmosphere. The company's Starlink satellites helped facilitate a livestream that was continuously available during reentry. A flap near the camera view on Starship appeared to scorch during reentry and particulate matter blocked some of the view of the camera. But in the end, there was enough of a view to see Starship achieve its expected landing burn into the Indian Ocean.

Solar power in California has reached a new record output, briefly surpassing 100% of power demand. It comes just days after the state exceeded 100% of energy demand with renewables (wind, solar and hydro) over a record 45 days straight, and 69 out of 75. CleanTechnica reports: As you can see [here], at its peak, solar power was providing 102.1% of electricity demand in California. Together, wind, water, and solar peaked at 136.4% of electricity demand! [...] The best news is that California seems to quickly be chopping the duck curve down to size. [...] The solution for the duck curve is clear: energy storage. Store that bursting solar energy produced in the middle of the day and gradually use it in the evening as the sun goes down and electricity demand rises. The good news is that California has been making progress on this very fast! Look at the graph [here] regarding electricity generation from natural gas and note the line for 2023 versus the line for 2024. [...]

The overall story is that California renewable energy continues to lead the way forward. Solar power is now peaking at more than 100% of electricity demand, renewables as a whole are peaking at 134% electricity demand, the duck curve has been shaved down to basically no duck curve at all (but you could now call the battery charge/discharge curve a duck curve), and the whole state (and world) is benefitting. Get ready for more records in the days to come. We're still a few weeks away from the summer solstice. Further reading: Battery-Powered California Faces Lower Blackout Risk This Summer

An anonymous reader shares a report: Chinese people know their country's internet is different. There is no Google, YouTube, Facebook or Twitter. They use euphemisms online to communicate the things they are not supposed to mention. When their posts and accounts are censored, they accept it with resignation. They live in a parallel online universe. They know it and even joke about it. Now they are discovering that, beneath a facade bustling with short videos, livestreaming and e-commerce, their internet -- and collective online memory -- is disappearing in chunks.

A post on WeChat on May 22 that was widely shared reported that nearly all information posted on Chinese news portals, blogs, forums, social media sites between 1995 and 2005 was no longer available. "The Chinese internet is collapsing at an accelerating pace," the headline said. Predictably, the post itself was soon censored. It's impossible to determine exactly how much and what content has disappeared. [...] In addition to disappearing content, there's a broader problem: China's internet is shrinking. There were 3.9 million websites in China in 2023, down more than a third from 5.3 million in 2017, according to the country's internet regulator.

If you contact Spotify's customer service with a valid receipt, the company will refund your Car Thing purchase. That's the latest development reported by Engadget. When Spotify first announced that it would brick every Car Thing device on December 9, 2024, it said that it wouldn't offer owners any subscription credit or automatic refund. From the report: Spotify has taken some heat for its announcement last week that it will brick every Car Thing device on December 9, 2024. The company described its decision as "part of our ongoing efforts to streamline our product offerings" (read: cut costs) and that it lets Spotify "focus on developing new features and enhancements that will ultimately provide a better experience to all Spotify users."

TechCrunch reports that Gen Z users on TikTok have expressed their frustration in videos, while others have complained directed toward Spotify in DMs on X (Twitter) and directly through customer support. Some users claimed Spotify's customer service agents only offered several months of free Premium access, while others were told nobody was receiving refunds. It isn't clear if any of them contacted them after last Friday when it shifted gears on refunds.

Others went much further. Billboard first reported on a class-action lawsuit filed in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York on May 28. The suit accuses Spotify of misleading Car Thing customers by selling a $90 product that would soon be obsolete without offering refunds, which sounds like a fair enough point. It's worth noting that, according to Spotify, it began offering the refunds last week, while the lawsuit was only filed on Tuesday. If the company's statement about refunds starting on May 24 is accurate, the refunds aren't a direct response to the legal action. (Although it's possible the company began offering them in anticipation of lawsuits.) Editor's note: As a disgruntled Car Thing owner myself, I can confirm that Spotify is approving refund requests. You'll just have to play the waiting game to get through to a Spotify Advisor and their "team" that approves these requests. You may have better luck emailing customer service directly at support@spotify.com.

Helen Toner, a former OpenAI board member, said that the board didn't know about the company's 2022 launch of its chatbot ChatGPT until afterward -- and only found out about it on Twitter. From a report: In a podcast, Toner gave her fullest account to date of the events that prompted her and other board members to fire Sam Altman in November of last year. In the days that followed Chief Executive Officer Sam Altman's sudden ouster, employees threatened to quit, Altman was reinstated, and Toner and other directors left the board. "When ChatGPT came out in November 2022, the board was not informed in advance about that," Toner said on the podcast. "We learned about ChatGPT on Twitter."

In a statement provided to the TED podcast, OpenAI's current board chief, Bret Taylor said, "We are disappointed that Ms. Toner continues to revisit these issues." He also said that an independent review of Altman's firing "concluded that the prior board's decision was not based on concerns regarding product safety or security, the pace of development, OpenAI's finances, or its statements to investors, customers, or business partners." [...] In the podcast, Toner also said that Altman didn't disclose his involvement with OpenAI's startup fund. And she criticized his leadership on safety. "On multiple occasions, he gave us inaccurate information about the formal safety processes that the company did have in place," she said,"meaning that it was basically impossible for the board to know how well those safety processes were working or what might need to change."

Jan Leike, one of OpenAI's "superalignment" leaders, who resigned last week due to AI safety concerns, has joined Anthropic to continue the mission. According to Leike, the new team "will work on scalable oversight, weak-to-strong generalization, and automated alignment research." TechCrunch reports: A source familiar with the matter tells TechCrunch that Leike will report directly to Jared Kaplan, Anthropic's chief science officer, and that Anthropic researchers currently working on scalable oversight -- techniques to control large-scale AI's behavior in predictable and desirable ways -- will move to report to Leike as Leike's team spins up. In many ways, Leike's team sounds similar in mission to OpenAI's recently-dissolved Superalignment team. The Superalignment team, which Leike co-led, had the ambitious goal of solving the core technical challenges of controlling superintelligent AI in the next four years, but often found itself hamstrung by OpenAI's leadership. Anthropic has often attempted to position itself as more safety-focused than OpenAI.

Messaging app Signal's president Meredith Whittaker criticized rival Telegram's security on Friday, saying Telegram founder Pavel Durov is "full of s---" in his claims about Signal. "Telegram is a social media platform, it's not encrypted, it's the least secure of messaging and social media services out there," Whittaker told TechCrunch in an interview. The comments come amid a war of words between Whittaker, Durov and Twitter owner Elon Musk over the security of their respective platforms. Whittaker said Durov's amplification of claims questioning Signal's security was "incredibly reckless" and "actually harms real people."

"Play your games, but don't take them into my court," Whittaker said, accusing Durov of prioritizing being "followed by a professional photographer" over getting facts right about Signal's encryption. Signal uses end-to-end encryption by default, while Telegram only offers it for "secret chats." Whittaker said many in Ukraine and Russia use Signal for "actual serious communications" while relying on Telegram's less-secure social media features. She said the "jury is in" on the platforms' comparative security and that Signal's open source code allows experts to validate its privacy claims, which have the trust of the security community.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Electrek: In a major clean energy benchmark, wind, solar, and hydro exceeded 100% of demand on California's main grid for 69 of the past 75 days. Stanford University professor of civil and environmental engineering Mark Z. Jacobson continues to track California's renewables performance – and it's still exciting. In an update today on Twitter (X), Jacobson reports that California has now exceeded 100% of energy demand with renewables over a record 45 days straight, and 69 out of 75. [...]

Jacobson predicted on April 4 that California will entirely be on renewables and battery storage 24/7 by 2035. California passed a law that commits to achieving 100% net zero electricity by 2045. Will it beat that goal by a decade? We hope so. It's going to be exciting to watch. Further reading: California Exceeds 100% of Energy Demand With Renewables Over a Record 30 Days