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Trump's firing of Democratic FTC commissioner was unlawful, judge rules

Rebecca Kelly Slaughter, one of the Democratic FTC Commissioners President Trump had fired back in March, said she looks forward to getting back to work. US District Judge Loren AliKhan has just ruled that her removal from the agency was "unlawful and without legal effect" and that she was still a "rightful member" of the commission. The judge explained that the firings violated protections that prevent a president from unilaterally removing officials at independent agencies. In her statement a

Resolve (YC W15) Is Hiring an Operations and Billing Lead for Construction VR

Location: Remote Type: Full-time About Us Resolve is an 11-person SaaS startup helping construction companies and builders review faster. Our clients include general contractors, specialty subcontractors, owner operators and engineering companies—companies that build the world around us. We’re growing fast and looking for a detail-oriented, proactive Billing and Operations Lead to take charge of key administrative processes that keep our business humming. What You’ll Do You’ll own and impro

Psilocybin produces substantial sustained decreases in depression and anxiety

Participants with a potentially life-threatening cancer diagnosis and a DSM-IV diagnosis that included anxiety and/or mood symptoms were recruited through flyers, internet, and physician referral. Of 566 individuals who were screened by telephone, 56 were randomized. Figure 1 shows a CONSORT flow diagram. Table 1 shows demographics for the 51 participants who completed at least one session. The two randomized groups did not significantly differ demographically. All 51 participants had a potentia

ChatGPT may soon watermark your AI-generated images, but there could be a way out (APK teardown)

Calvin Wankhede / Android Authority TL;DR OpenAI could be exploring image watermarking for ChatGPT-generated images. Previous leak suggests the watermark might primarily affect free users, with a “save without watermark” option for some. This feature is not yet official and may be subject to change before public release. OpenAI is working on a lot of new features for ChatGPT. We’ve spotted features like Study Together, Image Styles, and even a yearly plan in the works. Continuing the spree,

Fully homomorphic encryption and the dawn of a private internet

Fully Homomorphic Encryption and the Dawn of A Truly Private Internet 2025-07-16 fhe programming essay gene-spafford "Using encryption on the Internet is the equivalent of arranging an armored car to deliver credit card information from someone living in a cardboard box to someone living on a park bench." -- Gene Spafford Imagine sending Google an encrypted question and getting back the exact results you wanted — without them having any way of knowing what your question was or what result t

Perplexity sees India as a shortcut in its race against OpenAI

While OpenAI has cemented its lead in the U.S., Perplexity is taking a different route — quietly expanding into India to compete in the next phase of AI adoption. The search-focused AI startup is rapidly adding millions of users in the world’s second-largest internet and smartphone market, positioning itself for mass-market scale. This week, Perplexity partnered with Bharti Airtel, India’s second-largest telecom operator after Reliance Jio, to offer a free 12-month Perplexity Pro subscription —

US passes first major national crypto legislation

US passes first major national crypto legislation 43 minutes ago Share Save Natalie Sherman BBC News Share Save Getty Images Lawmakers in the US have passed the country's first major national cryptocurrency legislation. It is a major milestone for the once fringe industry, which has been lobbying Congress over regulation for years and poured millions into last year's election, backing candidates that included Donald Trump. The bill sets up a regulatory regime for so-called stablecoins, a kind

Citrix Bleed 2 exploited weeks before PoCs as Citrix denied attacks

A critical Citrix NetScaler vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2025-5777 and dubbed "CitrixBleed 2," was actively exploited nearly two weeks before proof-of-concept (PoC) exploits were made public, despite Citrix stating that there was no evidence of attacks. GreyNoise has confirmed its honeypots detected targeted exploitation from IP addresses located in China on June 23, 2025. "GreyNoise has observed active exploitation attempts against CVE-2025-5777 (CitrixBleed 2), a memory overread vulnerabili

We Sure Watched a Lot of Old Netflix Hits in the First Half of the Year

Netflix released its biannual viewership report on Thursday, ahead of its second-quarter earnings call. The findings represent engagement numbers for the first six months of 2025, which equate to about 99% of what was watched between January and June. The hit TV series Adolescence and the action film Back in Action, which starred Jamie Foxx (in his first on-screen role since his hospitalization) and Cameron Diaz, topped the charts. Surprisingly, some Netflix originals released in 2023 and earli

Fanfic study challenges leading cultural evolution theory

It's widely accepted conventional wisdom that when it comes to creative works—TV shows, films, music, books—consumers crave an optimal balance between novelty and familiarity. What we choose to consume and share with others, in turn, drives cultural evolution. But what if that conventional wisdom is wrong? An analysis based on data from a massive online fan fiction (fanfic) archive contradicts this so-called "balance theory," according to a paper published in the journal Humanities and Social S

Delaunay Mesh Generation (2012)

Delaunay Mesh Generation Our book is a thorough guide to Delaunay refinement algorithms that are mathematically guaranteed to generate meshes with high quality, including triangular meshes in the plane, tetrahedral volume meshes, and triangular surface meshes embedded in three dimensions. It is also the most complete guide available to Delaunay triangulations and algorithms for constructing them. We have designed the book for two audiences: researchers, especially graduate students, and engin

Google's Nest Aware Just Got Pricier. Here's How Much It'll Cost You

Subscribers to Google's Nest Aware smart home system can expect a price increase starting next month. The basic Nest Aware monthly subscription will increase from $8 per month to $10 per month. The Nest Aware Plus subscription will increase from $15 per month to $20 per month. The price increase will go into effect whenever your next bill on or after Aug. 15 arrives, according to the email. It could also go into effect after your promotional period, if you currently have a special limited-time

Dictionary.com “devastated” paid users by abruptly deleting saved words lists

Logophiles are "devastated" after Dictionary.com deleted their logs of favorited words that they carefully crafted for years. The company deleted all accounts, as well as the only ways to use Dictionary.com without seeing ads —even if you previously paid for an ad-free experience. Dictionary.com offers a free dictionary through its website and free Android and iOS apps. It used to offer paid-for mobile apps, called Dictionary.com Pro, that let users set up accounts, use the app without ads, and

Today's NYT Connections Hints, Answers and Help for July 18, #768

Looking for the most recent Connections answers? Click here for today's Connections hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands puzzles. Today's NYT Connections puzzle is all over the place. If you want to solve the blue category, it helps if you know yoga. (I don't.) Read on for clues and today's Connections answers. The Times now has a Connections Bot, like the one for Wordle. Go there after you play to

Today's NYT Connections: Sports Edition Hints and Answers for July 18, #298

Looking for the most recent regular Connections answers? Click here for today's Connections hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle and Strands puzzles. The purple group for today's Connections: Sports Edition might be a tough one. If you like baseball, have been paying attention to big games and know some famous sports names, then you'll do just fine with the rest of the puzzle. Read on for more hints and the answers. Connections: Sports Edi

AI-Powered Smart Devices Help Older Adults Age at Home, Survey Finds

Older adults often find artificial intelligence smart home devices and voice assistants useful in helping them age in place, according to a new survey by the University of Michigan. More than half of people surveyed aged 50 and older have used generative AI tools they spoke or typed messages to, according to the National Poll on Healthy Aging, released by the U-M Institute for Healthcare Policy and Innovation. By comparison, a June Pew Research Center poll found that 25% of US adults 50 to 64

How Android phones became an earthquake warning system

If you're the owner of an Android phone and live in a seismically active region, there's a chance your phone has popped up an unusual warning. Not one that asks for permission to share personal information, or potential malware, but something far more serious: There's an earthquake nearby, and you have up to a minute or two to get to a safer location. Starting in the US in 2020 and expanding internationally since, the system is called Android Earthquake Alert (AEA), and it's on by default in mo

ICE Is Getting Unprecedented Access to Medicaid Data

Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials are getting access to the personal data of nearly 80 million people on Medicaid in order to acquire "information concerning the identification and location of aliens in the United States,” according to an information exchange agreement viewed by WIRED. The agreement, which is titled “Information Exchange Agreement Between the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for Disclosure of Identity and Locat

All AI models might be the same

Project CETI is a large-scale effort to decode whale speech. If AI models do learn a universal language, we might be able to use it to talk to whales. Growing up, I sometimes played a game with my friends called “Mussolini or Bread.” It’s a guessing game, kind of like Twenty Questions. The funny name comes from the idea that, in the space of everything, ‘Mussolini’ and ‘bread’ are about as far away from each other as you can get. One round might go like this: Is it closer to Mussolini or bre

Someone paid $5.3 million for a piece of Mars

Add this to the list of "things that might be fun if you had a buttload of money": Someone forked over $5.3 million in a Sotheby's auction to own a piece of Mars. The Red Planet meteorite was discovered in 2023 in a remote area of the Sahara Desert in Niger. Martian meteorites of any size are incredibly rare. To get here, an asteroid first hits the Red Planet to eject material from its surface. (Sotheby's says there are only 19 Martian craters large enough to have spit out this one.) That chunk

The (Unfinished) PDE Coffee Table Book

THE (UNFINISHED) PDE COFFEE TABLE BOOK Lloyd N. Trefethen and Kristine Embree, editors Unpublished, 2001 During 2000-2001 a group project based in the Oxford University was begun to write this book. The vision was 100 2-page spreads, each one giving exactly the most useful possible starting information about a different partial differential equation, with beautiful color illustrations. Many people at Oxford and around the world contributed drafts, which were then extensively rewritten and e

All AI Models Might be The Same

Project CETI is a large-scale effort to decode whale speech. If AI models do learn a universal language, we might be able to use it to talk to whales. Growing up, I sometimes played a game with my friends called “Mussolini or Bread.” It’s a guessing game, kind of like Twenty Questions. The funny name comes from the idea that, in the space of everything, ‘Mussolini’ and ‘bread’ are about as far away from each other as you can get. One round might go like this: Is it closer to Mussolini or bre

Donkey Kong Bananza is already cheaper at Costco

Theis a great desk accessory for charging multiple devices, and it’s currently down to $35.99 ($14 off) at Amazon , which is an all-time low price. The charging station offers a maximum output of 100W, allowing you to charge power-hungry devices quickly. There are seven ports in total — three AC outlets on the back, and four USB ports (two USB-C and two USB-A) on the front. In addition, the charging station offers surge protection and a 5-foot built-in cable, giving you flexibility to position i

Razer’s new Pokémon collab is not very effective

Razer’s new Pokémon collaboration is a missed opportunity. The four PC gaming peripherals in this lineup are simply reskinned versions of products that already exist, and which cost $20 to $40 more than their all-black counterparts. You really should be getting more for your money here. For example, the themed BlackWidow V4 X keyboard should include at least one highly detailed custom keycap (switching out Alt for pokéball designs doesn’t cut it). Maybe the Kraken V4 X headset could have includ

Microsoft is buying tons of carbon removal from Xprize startup Vaulted Deep

Microsoft is building data centers as fast as it can, and that’s killing its carbon balance sheet. Since 2020, its carbon emissions have grown by nearly a quarter, undermining the pledge it made that year to remove more carbon from the atmosphere than it generates by 2030. So Microsoft has been buying massive amounts of carbon-removal credits to attempt to remedy that situation, including a newly announced purchase of 4.9 million metric tons from Vaulted Deep. Neither party disclosed the financ

Tell HN: Notion Desktop is monitoring your audio and network

If you have the Notion Desktop App installed, you may have started to notice a "In a meeting? Start AI Meeting Notes" notification pop up exactly when you are joining a virtual meeting (e.g. joining a Google Meet on Firefox). At first, I assumed it must have been using my Google Workspace account to snoop on my calendar. But then I started to notice it would notify exactly when I joined even if I was late and the meeting had previously started. This was the response from Notion Support after t

July Mortgage Rate Forecast: Buyers Retreat as Rates Rebound

Buyers should keep an eye on the possibility of rate cuts in the next few months. Tharon Green/CNET Every time the average 30-year fixed mortgage rate dips, even by a few tenths of a percentage point, prospective homebuyers jump to take advantage. As soon as rates move up again, mortgage activity goes down. The past few weeks offer a textbook example. When rates fell to around 6.7% (the lowest level in months) in early July, applications for home loans promptly ticked up, according to the Mort

Roblox Adds Age Verification for Teens Who Want to Chat: What You Need to Know

Roblox, the popular gaming platform, has revamped the way it will handle player communications, particularly for those under 18. As detailed in a blog post, the company says it's changing "Friends" to "Connections" across the platform and is launching new tools to estimate a player's age via a video selfie. That age verification, for those 13 to 17, will unlock a feature called "Trusted Connections" that allows for less filtered text or voice chat. Those who aren't able to verify their age with

Substack raises $100M from Chernin Group, Andreessen Horowitz, Skims CEO, and more

In Brief Substack announced on Thursday that it has raised $100 million in Series C funding led by investors at BOND and The Chernin Group (TCG). The round included participation from Andreessen Horowitz; Rich Paul, CEO and founder of Klutch Sports Group; and Jens Grede, CEO and co-founder of Skims. The New York Times reports that the funding brings Substack’s valuation to $1.1 billion, almost 70% higher than its 2021 valuation of $650 million. Founded in 2017, Substack has gained popularity

Amazon’s AI push is undermining its sustainability goals

Amazon’s decarbonization goals are being undermined by its push to be a leader in generative AI. Its most recent sustainability report concedes its overall carbon emissions grew for the first time since 2022. It reported a six percent increase in its carbon footprint across 2024, laying much of the blame at the feet of its data center rollout. The reported increase is significant given Amazon’s method of reporting its own environmental impact. Critics have suggested the mega-retailer “ dramatic