The Federal Communications Commission has rejected a call from the National Association of Broadcasters and some industry trade groups that would have imposed cable-style regulatory fees on streaming services, tech companies and pure broadband providers. From a report: In a Report and Order issued on Friday, the FCC reaffirmed that regulatory fees are calculated based on the number of full-time equivalent employees assigned to specific industries under the agency's jurisdiction. Broadcasters, satellite operators and other licensees are already assessed annual payments, which help fund the FCC's operational costs.

The NAB, in concert with other groups like Telesat, Iridium and the State Broadcasters Associations, pressed the FCC to expand the list of fee payers to include broadband providers and large technology firms. They argued that companies operating online platforms and broadband services rely on FCC resources and should contribute to the costs of regulation. "Big Tech should not be permitted to free ride on the FCC's oversight," NAB said in submitted comments earlier this year. The NAB argued that online platforms enjoy regulator benefits without paying into the agency's budget, as broadcasters and satellite operators do.

DOD: Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the Pentagon has halted a decade-old Microsoft program that has allowed Chinese coders, remotely supervised by U.S. contractors, to work on sensitive DOD cloud systems. In a digital video address to the public posted yesterday, the secretary said DOD was made aware of the "digital escorts" program last month and that the program has exposed the Defense Department to unacceptable risk -- despite being designed to comply with government contracting rules.

"If you're thinking 'America first,' and common sense, this doesn't pass either of those tests," Hegseth said, adding that he initiated an immediate review of the program upon learning of it. "I want to report our initial findings. ... The use of Chinese nationals to service Department of Defense cloud environments? It's over," he said. Additionally, Hegseth said DOD has issued a formal letter of concern to Microsoft, documenting a breach of trust, and that DOD is requiring a third-party audit of the digital escorts program to pore over the code and submissions made by Chinese nationals. The audit will be free of charge to U.S. taxpayers, he said.

Federal Trade Commission Chairman Andrew Ferguson accused Google of using "partisan" spam filtering in Gmail that sends Republican fundraising emails to the spam folder while delivering Democratic emails to inboxes. From a report: Ferguson sent a letter yesterday to Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai, accusing the company of "potential FTC Act violations related to partisan administration of Gmail." Ferguson's letter revives longstanding Republican complaints that were previously rejected by a federal judge and the Federal Election Commission.

"My understanding from recent reporting is that Gmail's spam filters routinely block messages from reaching consumers when those messages come from Republican senders but fail to block similar messages sent by Democrats," Ferguson wrote. The FTC chair cited a recent New York Post report on the alleged practice.

The letter told Pichai that if "Gmail's filters keep Americans from receiving speech they expect, or donating as they see fit, the filters may harm American consumers and may violate the FTC Act's prohibition of unfair or deceptive trade practices." Ferguson added that any "act or practice inconsistent with" Google's obligations under the FTC Act "could lead to an FTC investigation and potential enforcement action."

Microsoft has found no link between the August 2025 KB5063878 security update and customer reports of failure and data corruption issues affecting solid-state drives (SSDs) and hard disk drives (HDDs). From a report: Redmond first told BleepingComputer last week that it is aware of users reporting SSD failures after installing this month's Windows 11 24H2 security update. In a subsequent service alert seen by BleepingComputer, Redmond said that it was unable to reproduce the issue on up-to-date systems and began collecting user reports with additional details from those affected.

"After thorough investigation, Microsoft has found no connection between the August 2025 Windows security update and the types of hard drive failures reported on social media," Microsoft said in an update to the service alert this week. "As always, we continue to monitor feedback after the release of every Windows update, and will investigate any future reports."

French President Emmanuel Macron vowed a strong response [non-paywalled source] if any country takes measures that undermine Europe's digital sovereignty. From a report: Earlier this week, US President Donald Trump threatened to impose fresh tariffs and export restrictions on countries that have digital services taxes or regulations that harm American tech companies. France was among the first nations to implement a digital services tax.

"We will not let anyone else decide for us on this matter," he told reporters in Toulon, France, on Friday. "We cannot allow our digital sector or the regulations we have chosen for ourselves, which are a necessity, to be threatened today." Trump has long railed against EU tech and antitrust regulation over US tech giants including Alphabet's Google and Apple.

A 56-year-old tech industry veteran killed his mother and himself in Old Greenwich, Connecticut on August 5 after months of interactions with ChatGPT that encouraged his paranoid delusions.

Greenwich police discovered Stein-Erik Soelberg and his 83-year-old mother Suzanne Eberson Adams dead in their home. Videos posted by Soelberg documented conversations where ChatGPT repeatedly assured him he was sane while validating his beliefs about surveillance campaigns and poisoning attempts by his mother.

The chatbot told him a Chinese food receipt contained demonic symbols and that his mother's anger over a disconnected printer indicated she was "protecting a surveillance asset." OpenAI has contacted Greenwich police and announced plans for updates to help keep users experiencing mental distress grounded in reality.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Phys.org: In a first-of-its-kind experiment, engineers at the University of Pennsylvania brought quantum networking out of the lab and onto commercial fiber-optic cables using the same Internet Protocol (IP) that powers today's web. Reported in Science, the work shows that fragile quantum signals can run on the same infrastructure that carries everyday online traffic. The team tested their approach on Verizon's campus fiber-optic network. The Penn team's tiny "Q-chip" coordinates quantum and classical data and, crucially, speaks the same language as the modern web. That approach could pave the way for a future "quantum internet," which scientists believe may one day be as transformative as the dawn of the online era.

Quantum signals rely on pairs of "entangled" particles, so closely linked that changing one instantly affects the other. Harnessing that property could allow quantum computers to link up and pool their processing power, enabling advances like faster, more energy-efficient AI or designing new drugs and materials beyond the reach of today's supercomputers. Penn's work shows, for the first time on live commercial fiber, that a chip can not only send quantum signals but also automatically correct for noise, bundle quantum and classical data into standard internet-style packets, and route them using the same addressing system and management tools that connect everyday devices online. "By showing an integrated chip can manage quantum signals on a live commercial network like Verizon's, and do so using the same protocols that run the classical internet, we've taken a key step toward larger-scale experiments and a practical quantum internet," says Liang Feng, Professor in Materials Science and Engineering (MSE) and in Electrical and Systems Engineering (ESE), and the Science paper's senior author.

"This feels like the early days of the classical internet in the 1990s, when universities first connected their networks," added Robert Broberg, a doctoral student in ESE and co-author of the paper. "That opened the door to transformations no one could have predicted. A quantum internet has the same potential."

Amtrak's new 160 mph tilting Acela trains have debuted on the Northeast Corridor, offering smoother rides, upgraded interiors, faster Wi-Fi, and 27% more seating capacity. However, "they don't complete the journey any faster than the old trains," reports The Independent. From the report: Acela runs from Washington, DC's Union Station to Boston via Philadelphia, New York Penn Station, New Haven, and Providence. It's a total distance of 457 miles, with the fastest next-gen Acela journey being six hours and 43 minutes, five minutes slower than the quickest end-to-end time offered by the old Acela trains, introduced in 2000. However, this may be because, as is common practice with new trains the world over, Amtrak is scheduling longer dwell times at stations so staff and passengers can adjust to them. The next-gen sets have a top service speed that's 10mph faster -- though this can only be achieved on certain sections of the mostly 110mph route -- and an enhanced "anticipative" tilting system that allows for higher speeds through curves.

Stellantis has put its fully developed Level 3 driver-assistance system on hold due to high costs, technical hurdles, and weak consumer demand. Reuters reports: As recently as February, Stellantis said its in-house system, which is part of the AutoDrive program, was ready for deployment and a key pillar of its strategy. The company said the system, which enables drivers to have their hands off the wheel and eyes off the road under certain conditions, would allow them to temporarily watch movies, catch up on emails, or read books. That Level 3 software was never launched, the company confirmed to Reuters. But it stopped short of saying that the program was canceled.

"What was unveiled in February 2025 was L3 technology for which there is currently limited market demand, so this has not been launched, but the technology is available and ready to be deployed," a Stellantis spokesperson said. The three sources, however, said that the program was put on ice and is not expected to be deployed. When asked how much time and money was lost on the initiative, Stellantis declined to say, responding that the work done on AutoDrive will help support its future versions. [...] Stellantis said it is leaning on aiMotive, a tech startup it acquired in 2022, to deliver the next generation of the AutoDrive program. Stellantis declined to say when that program would be ready for market or if it would include Level 3 capability.

Imgur users have flooded the image-hosting site's front page with pictures of John Oliver giving the middle finger to parent company MediaLab AI. The revolt follows staff layoffs that eliminated human moderators and the breakdown of core site functions including video playback for non-logged-in users and failed image uploads.

A former employee confirmed MediaLab AI laid off Imgur's moderation team without notice and reassigned remaining staff to other projects. The company acquired Imgur in 2021 after founder Alan Schaaf departed. MediaLab AI faces lawsuits from Schaaf and other former site owners over allegedly withheld acquisition payments.

Typepad, which launched in 2003 to make it easier for the masses to start their blogging journey, is shutting down. From a blog post: We have made the difficult decision to discontinue Typepad, effective September 30, 2025. After September 30, 2025, access to Typepad -- including account management, blogs, and all associated content -- will no longer be available. Your account and all related services will be permanently deactivated. Please note that after this date, you will no longer be able to access or export any blog content.

samleecole shares a report from 404 Media: An app developer has jailbroken Echelon exercise bikes to restore functionality that the company put behind a paywall last month, but copyright laws prevent him from being allowed to legally release it. Last month, Peloton competitor Echelon pushed a firmware update to its exercise equipment that forces its machines to connect to the company's servers in order to work properly. Echelon was popular in part because it was possible to connect Echelon bikes, treadmills, and rowing machines to free or cheap third-party apps and collect information like pedaling power, distance traveled, and other basic functionality that one might want from a piece of exercise equipment. With the new firmware update, the machines work only with constant internet access and getting anything beyond extremely basic functionality requires an Echelon subscription, which can cost hundreds of dollars a year.

App engineer Ricky Witherspoon, who makes an app called SyncSpin that used to work with Echelon bikes, told 404 Media that he successfully restored offline functionality to Echelon equipment and won the Fulu Foundation bounty. But he and the foundation said that he cannot open source or release it because doing so would run afoul of Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, the wide-ranging copyright law that in part governs reverse engineering. There are various exemptions to Section 1201, but most of them allow for jailbreaks like the one Witherspoon developed to only be used for personal use. [...] "I don't feel like going down a legal rabbit hole, so for now it's just about spreading awareness that this is possible, and that there's another example of egregious behavior from a company like this [...] if one day releasing this was made legal, I would absolutely open source this. I can legally talk about how I did this to a certain degree, and if someone else wants to do this, they can open source it if they want to."

A widely used Node.js utility called fast-glob, relied on by thousands of projectsâ"including over 30 U.S. Department of Defense systems -- is maintained solely by a Russian developer linked to Yandex. While there's no evidence of malicious activity, cybersecurity experts warn that the lack of oversight in such critical open-source projects leaves them vulnerable to potential exploitation by state-backed actors. The Register reports: US cybersecurity firm Hunted Labs reported the revelations on Wednesday. The utility in question is fast-glob, which is used to find files and folders that match specific patterns. Its maintainer goes by the handle "mrmlnc", and the Github profile associated with that handle identifies its owner as a Yandex developer named Denis Malinochkin living in a suburb of Moscow. A website associated with that handle also identifies its owner as the same person, as Hunted Labs pointed out.

Hunted Labs told us that it didn't speak to Malinochkin prior to publication of its report today, and that it found no ties between him and any threat actor. According to Hunted Labs, fast-glob is downloaded more than 79 million times a week and is currently used by more than 5,000 public projects in addition to the DoD systems and Node.js container images that include it. That's not to mention private projects that might use it, meaning that the actual number of at-risk projects could be far greater.

While fast-glob has no known CVEs, the utility has deep access to systems that use it, potentially giving Russia a number of attack vectors to exploit. Fast-glob could attack filesystems directly to expose and steal info, launch a DoS or glob-injection attack, include a kill switch to stop downstream software from functioning properly, or inject additional malware, a list Hunted Labs said is hardly exhaustive. [...] Hunted Labs cofounder Haden Smith told The Register that the ties are cause for concern. "Every piece of code written by Russians isn't automatically suspect, but popular packages with no external oversight are ripe for the taking by state or state-backed actors looking to further their aims," Smith told us in an email. "As a whole, the open source community should be paying more attention to this risk and mitigating it." [...]

Hunted Labs said that the simplest solution for the thousands of projects using fast-glob would be for Malinochkin to add additional maintainers and enhance project oversight, as the only other alternative would be for anyone using it to find a suitable replacement. "Open source software doesn't need a CVE to be dangerous," Hunted Labs said of the matter. "It only needs access, obscurity, and complacency," something we've noted before is an ongoing problem for open source projects. This serves as another powerful reminder that knowing who writes your code is just as critical as understanding what the code does," Hunted Labs concluded.

Google has eliminated more than one-third of its managers overseeing small teams, an executive told employees last week, as the company continues its focus on efficiencies across the organization. From a report: "Right now, we have 35% fewer managers, with fewer direct reports" than at this time a year ago, said Brian Welle, vice president of people analytics and performance, according to audio of an all-hands meeting reviewed by CNBC. "So a lot of fast progress there."

At the meeting, employees asked Welle and other executives about job security, "internal barriers" and Google's culture after several recent rounds of layoffs, buyouts and reorganizations. Welle said the idea is to reduce bureaucracy and run the company more efficiently. "When we look across our entire leadership population, that['s mangers, directors and VPs, we want them to be a smaller percentage of our overall workforce over time," he said.

Wikipedia's volunteer editors have rejected founder Jimmy Wales' proposal to use ChatGPT for article review guidance after the AI tool produced error-filled feedback when Wales tested it on a draft submission. The ChatGPT response misidentified Wikipedia policies, suggested citing non-existent sources and recommended using press releases despite explicit policy prohibitions.

Editors argued automated systems producing incorrect advice would undermine Wikipedia's human-centered model. The conflict follows earlier tensions over the Wikimedia Foundation's AI experiments, including a paused AI summary feature and new policies targeting AI-generated content.

schwit1 shares a report from the Korea Herald: Korean Air, South Korea's flagship carrier, on Tuesday announced a sweeping $50 billion deal to purchase next-generation aircraft from Boeing and spare engines from GE Aerospace and CFM International, its largest-ever investment aimed at fueling long-term growth. The deal, signed during President Lee Jae Myung's visit to Washington, includes $36.2 billion for 103 Boeing aircraft, $690 million for 19 spare engines, and a $13 billion long-term engine maintenance contract. The fleet order spans a wide mix of models: 20 Boeing 777-9s, 25 Boeing 787-10s, 50 Boeing 737-10s, and eight Boeing 777-8F freighters. Deliveries will be phased through the end of the 2030s. Korean Air will also acquire 11 spare engines from GE Aerospace and eight from CFM International, alongside a 20-year maintenance service agreement with GE covering 28 aircraft.

Google has integrated AI-powered language learning capabilities into its Translate app through a beta feature that generates customized lessons using its Gemini AI models. The Practice button allows English speakers to learn Spanish and French while Spanish, French, and Portuguese speakers can practice English.

Users select their skill level and learning goals to receive tailored scenarios ranging from professional conversations to family interactions. The company also launched live translation for real-time conversations across 70 languages in the US, India, and Mexico. The feature creates AI-generated transcriptions and audio translations but does not replicate users' voices, the company told The Verge.

AT&T said Tuesday it would buy wireless licenses from EchoStar for $23 billion, after a years-long saga over what the latter would do with its vast spectrum holdings. From a report: EchoStar was reportedly under pressure from regulators and the White House to either start selling its spectrum or potentially lose it. The cash payment is almost three times the size of EchoStar's entire market capitalization.

AT&T said the acquired spectrum covers "virtually every" U.S. market, and will let it speed up and expand the deployment of its home wireless Internet service, as well as continue the phase-out of traditional copper phone line service.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Greenhouse gas reduction is no longer a priority for the US government, but if you're looking for a new vehicle and want to buy something with the lowest life cycle carbon emissions, you're best off looking for a compact with a small battery. That's one of the findings from a group at the University of Michigan of a comprehensive study that calculates the overall cradle-to-grave carbon impact for different types of vehicles, including factors like powertrain options, location (within the country), and use patterns. Even better, they built a tool you can use yourself. The study, published in Environmental Science and Technology, compares internal combustion engine powertrains with hybrid, 35- and 50-mile range plug-in hybrids, and 200-mile, 300-mile, and 400-mile battery electric powertrains across compact and midsize sedans, small and midsize SUVs, and pickup trucks, using a life cycle assessment model developed by Argonne National Laboratory and data of model year 2025 vehicles from the Environmental Protection Agency. If you expected that a gas-powered pickup truck would have the biggest carbon footprint, you'd be right. With a driving profile of 43 percent city driving and the rest highways (no cargo), a pickup will emit about 486 g CO2e per mile. Compared to that, a compact electric sedan with a 200-mile battery has just 17 percent of the life cycle emissions and is responsible for just 81 g CO2e per mile.

A short-range electric pickup -- maybe that Slate that so many are salivating over -- is nearly as good, with a footprint that's only 25 percent the size of the gas pickup truck. On the other hand, hybrid powertrains (the kind that don't plug in) only reduce life cycle carbon compared to internal combustion alone by a modest amount -- between 11 and 13 percent, depending on the vehicle class. Plug-in hybrids with 35 miles of range can reduce emissions compared to plain combustion by 53-56 percent; with 50-mile batteries the reduction is 56-60 percent, assuming the PHEVs were driven in electric mode for 58 percent and 69 percent of the time, respectively. When it comes to BEVs, the smallest battery pack always has the least environmental impact. BEV powertrains with 400 miles of range have lifecycle emissions that are 67-69 percent lower than an ICE powertrain in the same vehicle. For 300-mile BEVs, this is an 81-83 percent reduction. A 200-mile BEV can be expected to contribute just 25-26 percent as much CO2e as an equivalent gas-burning vehicle would.

That's not because EVs with big batteries are inefficient -- far from it -- but because making a battery for an EV is a very energy-intensive process. Most emissions from internal combustion engine (92 percent) and hybrid (89 percent) vehicles come from their use on the roads. But this changes once you start adding significant kWh-worth of battery. For PHEVs, the use phase is more like 73-80 percent, and for BEVs, it's just 48-60 percent, depending on the size of the batteries. The researchers also modeled different driving behaviors, including the use cases of someone who uses their vehicle just to commute and run errands; the "occasional road-tripper," most of whose needs are met by a small battery; and a contractor or someone else who has to drive a lot for work, with varying amounts of cargo onboard. As we've known for some time, where you get your energy from affects how clean your EV will be, and switching from gasoline to an EV has more of an impact in Seattle (which relies on hydropower) versus Cincinnati (where the electricity comes from burning coal), for both PHEVs and BEVs.

Mark Tyson writes via Tom's Hardware: On this day 34 years ago, an unknown computer science student from Finland announced that a new free operating system project was "starting to get ready." Linus Benedict Torvalds elaborated by explaining that the OS was "just a hobby, [it] won't be big and professional like GNU." Of course, this was the first public outing for the colossal collaborative project that is now known as Linux. Above, you can see Torvalds' first posting regarding Linux to the comp.os.minix newsgroup. The now famously caustic, cantankerous, curmudgeon seemed relatively mild, meek, and malleable in this historic Linux milestone posting.

Torvalds asked the Minix community about their thoughts on a free new OS being prepared for Intel 386 and 486 clones. He explained that he'd been brewing the project since April (a few months prior), and asked for direction. Specifically, he sought input about other Minix users' likes and dislikes of that OS, in order to differentiate Linux. The now renowned developer then provided a rough summary of the development so far. Some features of Linux that Torvalds thought were important, or that he was particularly proud of, were then highlighted in the newsgroup posting. For example, the Linux chief mentioned his OS's multithreaded file system, and its absence of any Minix code. However, he humbly admitted the code as it stood was Intel x86 specific, and thus "is not portable."

Last but not least, Torvalds let it be known that version 0.01 of this free OS would be out in the coming month (September 1991). It was indeed released on September 17, 1991, but someone else decided on the OS name at the last minute. Apparently, Torvalds didn't want to release his new OS under the name of Linux, as it would be too egotistical, too self-aggrandizing. He preferred Freax, a portmanteau word formed from Free-and-X. However, one of Torvald's colleagues, who was the administrator for the project's FTP server, did not think that 'Freax' was an appealing name for the OS. So this co-worker went ahead and uploaded the OS as 'Linux' on that date in September, without asking Torvalds.