"Only the United States, China and Germany have larger economies than California," reports CNN.

In fact, they add that California "outpaced all three countries with growth of 6% last year," according to the California governor's office (which cites new data from the International Monetary Fund and the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis): In 2024, California's growth rate of 6% outpaced the top three economies: U.S. (5.3%), China (2.6%) and Germany (2.9%)...

With an increasing state population and recent record-high tourism spending, California is the nation's top state for new business starts, access to venture capital funding, and manufacturing, high-tech, and agriculture. The state drives national economic growth and also sends over $83 billion more to the federal government than it receives in federal funding. California is the leading agricultural producer in the country and is also the center for manufacturing output in the United States, with over 36,000 manufacturing firms employing over 1.1 million Californians.
The data shows that last year California accounted for 14% of America's GDP, CNN points out, "driven by Silicon Valley and its real estate and finance sectors."

An anonymous reader shared this report from the Washington Post: The acting U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia sent a letter to the nonprofit that runs Wikipedia, accusing the tax-exempt organization of "allowing foreign actors to manipulate information and spread propaganda to the American public."

In the letter dated April 24, Ed Martin said he sought to determine whether the Wikimedia Foundation's behavior is in violation of its Section 501(c)(3) status. Martin asked the foundation to provide detailed information about its editorial process, its trust and safety measures, and how it protects its information from foreign actors. "Wikipedia is permitting information manipulation on its platform, including the rewriting of key, historical events and biographical information of current and previous American leaders, as well as other matters implicating the national security and the interests of the United States," Martin wrote. "Masking propaganda that influences public opinion under the guise of providing informational material is antithetical to Wikimedia's 'educational' mission."
Google prioritizes Wikipedia articles, the letter points out, which "will only amplify propaganda" if the content contained in Wikipedia articles "is biased, unreliable, or sourced by entities who wish to do harm to the United States." And as a U.S.-based non-profit, Wikipedia enjoys tax-exempt status while its board "is composed primarily of foreign nationals," the letter argues, "subverting the interests of American taxpayers."

While noting Martin's concerns about "allowing foreign actors to manipulate information and spread propaganda," the Washington Post also notes that before being named U.S. attorney, "Martin appeared on Russia-backed media networks more than 150 times, The Washington Post reported last week...."

Additional articles about the letter here and here.

A New York Times technology columnist has a question.

"Is there any threshold at which an A.I. would start to deserve, if not human-level rights, at least the same moral consideration we give to animals?" [W]hen I heard that researchers at Anthropic, the AI company that made the Claude chatbot, were starting to study "model welfare" — the idea that AI models might soon become conscious and deserve some kind of moral status — the humanist in me thought: Who cares about the chatbots? Aren't we supposed to be worried about AI mistreating us, not us mistreating it...?

But I was intrigued... There is a small body of academic research on A.I. model welfare, and a modest but growing number of experts in fields like philosophy and neuroscience are taking the prospect of A.I. consciousness more seriously, as A.I. systems grow more intelligent.... Tech companies are starting to talk about it more, too. Google recently posted a job listing for a "post-AGI" research scientist whose areas of focus will include "machine consciousness." And last year, Anthropic hired its first AI welfare researcher, Kyle Fish... [who] believes that in the next few years, as AI models develop more humanlike abilities, AI companies will need to take the possibility of consciousness more seriously....

Fish isn't the only person at Anthropic thinking about AI welfare. There's an active channel on the company's Slack messaging system called #model-welfare, where employees check in on Claude's well-being and share examples of AI systems acting in humanlike ways. Jared Kaplan, Anthropic's chief science officer, said in a separate interview that he thought it was "pretty reasonable" to study AI welfare, given how intelligent the models are getting. But testing AI systems for consciousness is hard, Kaplan warned, because they're such good mimics. If you prompt Claude or ChatGPT to talk about its feelings, it might give you a compelling response. That doesn't mean the chatbot actually has feelings — only that it knows how to talk about them...

[Fish] said there were things that AI companies could do to take their models' welfare into account, in case they do become conscious someday. One question Anthropic is exploring, he said, is whether future AI models should be given the ability to stop chatting with an annoying or abusive user if they find the user's requests too distressing.

It's a pickup truck "that can change into whatever you need it to be — even an SUV," according to the manufacturer's web site.

Selling in America for just $20,000 (after federal incentives), the new electric truck is "affordable, deeply customizable, and very analog," says TechCrunch. "It has manual windows and it doesn't come with a main infotainment screen. Heck, it isn't even painted..." Slate Auto is instead playing up the idea of wrapping its vehicles, something executives said they will sell in kits. Buyers can either have Slate do that work for them, or put the wraps on themselves. This not only adds to the idea of a buyer being able to personalize their vehicle, but it also cuts out a huge cost center for the company. It means Slate won't need a paint shop at its factory, allowing it to spend less to get to market, while also avoiding one of the most heavily regulated parts of vehicle manufacturing.

Slate is telling customers that they can name the car whatever they want, offering the ability to purchase an embossed wrap for the tailgate. Otherwise, the truck is just referred to as the "Blank Slate...." It's billing the add-ons as "easy DIY" that "non-gearheads" can tackle, and says it will launch a suite of how-to resources under the billing of Slate University... The early library of customizations on Slate's website range from functional to cosmetic. Buyers can add infotainment screens, speakers, roof racks, light covers, and much more.... All that said, Slate's truck comes standard with some federally mandated safety features such as automatic emergency braking, airbags, and a backup camera.
"The specs show a maximum range of 150 miles on a single charge, with the option for a longer-range battery pack that could offer up to 240 miles," reports NBC News (adding that the vehicles "aren't expected to be delivered to customers until late 2026, but can be reserved for a refundable $50 fee.") Earlier this month, TechCrunch broke the news that Bezos, along with the controlling owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers, Mark Walter; and a third investor, Thomas Tull, had helped Slate raise $111 million for the project. A document filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission listed Melinda Lewison, the head of Bezos' family office, as a Slate Auto director.
Thanks to Slashdot reader fjo3 for sharing the news.

"A group of researchers says it has identified a hidden reason we use Google for nearly all web searches," reports the Washington Post. "We've never given other options a real shot." Their research experiment suggests that Google is overwhelmingly popular partly because we believe it's the best, whether that's true or not. It's like a preference for your favorite soda. And their research suggested that our mass devotion to googling can be altered with habit-changing techniques, including by bribing people to try search alternatives to see what they are like...

[A] group of academics — from Stanford University, the University of Pennsylvania and MIT — designed a novel experiment to try to figure out what might shake up Google's popularity. They recruited nearly 2,500 participants and remotely monitored their web searches on computers for months. The core of the experiment was paying some participants — most received $10 — to use Bing rather than Google for two weeks. After that period, the money stopped, and the participants had to pick either Bing or Google. The vast majority in the group of people who were paid to use Bing for 14 days chose to go back to Google once the payments stopped, suggesting a strong preference for Google even after trying an alternative. But a healthy number in that group — about 22 percent — chose Bing and were still using it many weeks later.
"I realized Bing was not as bad as I thought it was...." one study participant said — which an assistant professor in business economics and public policy at the University of Pennsylvania says is a nice summation of the study's findings.

"The researchers did not test other search engines," the article notes. But it also points out that more importantly: the research caught the attention of some government officials: Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser (D), who is leading the group of states that sued Google alongside the Justice Department, said the research helped inspire a demand by the states to fix Google's search monopoly. They asked a judge to require Google to bankroll a consumer information campaign about web search alternatives, including "short-term incentive payments."
On the basis of that, the article suggests "you could soon be paid to try Microsoft Bing or another alternative."

And in the meantime, the reporter writes, "I encourage you to join me in a two-week (unpaid) experiment mirroring the research: Change your standard search engine to something other than Google and see whether you like it. (And drop me a line to let me know how it went.) I'm going with DuckDuckGo, a privacy-focused web search engine that uses Bing's technology."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from IEEE Spectrum: The XPrize Foundation today announced the winners of its four-year, $100 million XPrize competition in carbon removal. The contest is one of dozens hosted by the foundation in its 20-year effort to encourage technological development. Contestants in the carbon removal XPrize had to demonstrate ways to pull carbon dioxide from the atmosphere or oceans and sequester it sustainably.

Mati Carbon, a Houston-based startup developing a sequestration technique called enhanced rock weathering, won the grand prize of $50 million. The company spreads crushed basalt on small farms in India and Africa. The silica-rich volcanic rock improves the quality of the soil for the crops but also helps remove carbon dioxide from the air. It does this by reacting with dissolved CO2 in the soil's water, turning it into bicarbonate ions and preventing it from returning to the atmosphere.

More than a dozen organizations globally are developing enhanced rock weathering approaches at an industrial scale, but Mati's tech-heavy verification and software platform caught the XPrize judges' attention. "On the one hand, they're moving rocks around in trucks—that's not very techy. But when we looked under the hood... what we saw was a very impressive data-collection exercise," says Michael Leitch, XPrize's technical lead for the competition. Here's a list of the runners-up:

- Paris-based NetZero won $15 million for turning agricultural waste into biochar through pyrolysis, a method that locks carbon into a stable, solid form.
- Houston-based Vaulted Deep won $8 million for geologically sequestering carbon-rich organic waste by injecting it deep underground.
- London-based Undo Carbon won $5 million for its enhanced rock weathering approach, spreading silicate minerals to speed up natural carbon removal.

Additionally, Project Hajar and Planetary Technologies each received $1 million honorary XFactor prizes, recognizing their promising work in direct air capture and ocean carbon removal, despite not meeting the competition's 1,000-tonne removal threshold.

Initial claims that life-associated gases were detected on exoplanet K2-18b are being challenged, with independent reanalysis by Jake Taylor suggesting the data is too noisy to support such conclusions and that stronger, model-independent evidence is needed. NPR reports: Rather than seeing a bump or a wiggle that indicated a signal, "the data is consistent with a flat line," says Taylor, adding that more observations from the telescope are needed to know what can be reliably said about this planet's atmosphere. "If we want to claim biosignatures, we need to be extremely sure."

What this new work shows is that "the strength of the evidence depends on the nitty gritty details of how we interpret the data, and that doesn't pass the bar for me for a convincing detection," says Laura Kreidberg, an expert on the atmospheres of distant planets at the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Germany who didn't work on the original research team or this new analysis.

She explains that astronomers can make a lot of different choices when analyzing data; for example, they can make different assumptions about the physics and chemistry at play. "Ideally, for a robust detection, we want it to be model-independent," she says -- that is, they want the signal to show up even if the underlying assumptions change from one analysis to another. But that wasn't the case here.

Longtime Slashdot reader AmiMoJo shares a report from the BBC: China will let scientists from six countries, including the U.S., examine the rocks it collected from the Moon -- a scientific collaboration that comes as the two countries remain locked in a bitter trade war. Two NASA-funded U.S. institutions have been granted access to the lunar samples collected by the Chang'e-5 mission in 2020, the China National Space Administration (CNSA) said on Thursday. CNSA chief Shan Zhongde said that the samples were "a shared treasure for all humanity," local media reported.

Chinese researchers have not been able to access NASA's Moon samples because of restrictions imposed by U.S. lawmakers on the space agency's collaboration with China. Under the 2011 law, Nasa is banned from collaboration with China or any Chinese-owned companies unless it is specifically authorized by Congress. But John Logsdon, the former director of the Space Policy Institute at George Washington University, told BBC Newshour that the latest exchange of Moon rocks have "very little to do with politics." While there are controls on space technology, the examination of lunar samples had "nothing of military significance," he said. "It's international cooperation in science which is the norm."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Multiple studies and investigations have found that about half of American households watch TV and movies with subtitles on, but only a relatively small portion of those include someone with a hearing disability. That's because of the trouble many people have understanding dialogue in modern viewing situations, and Netflix has now introduced a subtitles option to help.

The closed captioning we've all been using for years includes not only the words the people on-screen are saying, but additional information needed by the hard of hearing, including character names, music cues ("dramatic music intensifies") and sound effects ("loud explosion"). For those who just wanted to make sure they didn't miss a word here and there, the frequent descriptions of sound effects and music could be distracting. This new format omits those extras, just including the spoken words and nothing else -- even in the same language as the spoken dialogue. The feature will be available in new Netflix original programming, starting with the new season of You in multiple languages. Netflix says it's looking at bringing the option to older titles in the library (including those not produced by Netflix) in the future.

Traditional closed captions are still available, of course. Those are labeled "English CC" whereas this new option is simply labeled "English" (or whatever your preferred language is).

TV producer Alex Berger criticized Apple TV+ as "the worst marketer in the universe" for failing to promote his French-language show La Maison, despite its success in Europe. Berger said he initially partnered with Apple out of hope, but ultimately felt they undermined their own content by not supporting it properly. 9to5Mac reports: Rafa Sales Ross at Variety recently interviewed TV producer Alex Berger, who made La Maison for Apple TV+. That partnership is apparently not one he intends to repeat: "Marketing makes a show," he emphasized. "Apple, for example, is probably the worst marketer in the universe -- the best for iPhones, the worst for television. They don't do marketing, and it was an issue for us with 'La Maison.' We did a great show that had an amazing success in France and other places in Europe, but they never promoted it. It drove me crazy."

Asked why, while believing Apple TV+ to lack in marketing efforts, did he decide to take "La Maison" to the streamer, Berger said simply: "Hope. We had hope." "Apple TV+ had never done a show in France and never really done a show in Europe," adds the producer. "'Slow Horses' started [things] in the U.K., but it was with the U.S.. I was hoping I would change them. We got very frustrated and just thought at one point that they were shooting themselves in the foot, and why? "La Maison faced the additional challenge of being a French-language series, at the time one of the only non-English shows on the streamer," notes 9to5Mac's Ryan Christoffel. "So it had an uphill battle already, making Apple's marketing struggles even more of a problem."

YKK, the world's largest zipper maker, has unveiled a prototype self-propelled zipper that uses a motorized worm gear to zip itself closed at the push of a button. It currently relies on a wired remote and external power, and can zip spans up to 16 feet in under a minute. The Verge reports: Although some recent zipper innovations, such as Under Armour's one-handed MagZip upgrade, are designed to improve accessibility and make zippers easier to use for those with limited mobility, YKK envisions more industrial use cases for its prototype. As demonstrated in a video recently shared on the company's YouTube channel, the self-propelled zipper is seen connecting a pair of 16-foot-tall membranes in about 40 seconds. Zipping them together manually would require the use of a ladder or other machinery.

In another video, the prototype is used to quickly connect a pair of 13-foot-wide temporary shelters standing over eight feet tall, taking about 50 seconds to progress from one side to the other. [...] In addition to miniaturizing the tech and adding a battery, YKK would also need to develop some safety mechanisms before its self-propelled zipper could ever reach consumers' clothing, ensuring there's nothing that might get stuck.

Some developers are "crying foul" after Microsoft's C/C++ extension for Visual Studio Code stopped working with VS Code derivatives like VS Codium and Cursor, reports The Register. The move has prompted Cursor to transition to open-source alternatives, while some developers are calling for a regulatory investigation into Microsoft's alleged anti-competitive behavior. From the report: In early April, programmers using VS Codium, an open-source fork of Microsoft's MIT-licensed VS Code, and Cursor, a commercial AI code assistant built from the VS Code codebase, noticed that the C/C++ extensionstoppedworking. The extension adds C/C++ language support, such as Intellisense code completion and debugging, to VS Code. The removal of these capabilities from competing tools breaks developer workflows, hobbles the editor, and arguably hinders competition. The breaking change appears to have occurred with the release of v1.24.5 on April 3, 2025.

Following the April update, attempts to install the C/C++ extension outside of VS Code generate this error message: "The C/C++ extension may be used only with Microsoft Visual Studio, Visual Studio for Mac, Visual Studio Code, Azure DevOps, Team Foundation Server, and successor Microsoft products and services to develop and test your applications." Microsoft has forbidden the use of its extensions outside of its own software products since at least September 2020, when the current licensing terms were published. But it hasn't enforced those terms in its C/C++ extension with an environment check in its binaries until now. [...]

Developers discussing the issue in Cursor's GitHub repo have noted that Microsoft recently rolled out a competing AI software agent capability, dubbed Agent Mode, within its Copilot software. One such developer who contacted us anonymously told The Register they sent a letter about the situation to the US Federal Trade Commission, asking them to probe Microsoft for unfair competition -- alleging self-preferencing, bundling Copilot without a removal option, and blocking rivals like Cursor to lock users into its AI ecosystem.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Comcast executives apparently realized something that customers have known and complained about for years: The Internet provider's prices aren't transparent enough and rise too frequently. This might not have mattered much to cable executives as long as the total number of subscribers met their targets. But after reporting a net loss of 183,000 residential broadband customers in Q1 2025, Comcast President Mike Cavanagh said the company isn't "winning in the marketplace" during an earnings call today. The Q1 2025 customer loss was over three times larger than the net loss in Q1 2024.

While customers often have few viable options for broadband and the availability of alternatives varies widely by location, Comcast faces competition from fiber and fixed wireless ISPs. "In this intensely competitive environment, we are not winning in the marketplace in a way that is commensurate with the strength of the network and connectivity products that I just described," Cavanagh said. "[Cable division CEO] Dave [Watson] and his team have worked hard to understand the reasons for this disconnect and have identified two primary causes. One is price transparency and predictability and the other is the level of ease of doing business with us. The good news is that both are fixable and we are already underway with execution plans to address these challenges." [...]

Cavanagh said that Comcast plans to make changes in marketing and operations "with the highest urgency." This means that "we are simplifying our pricing construct to make our price-to-value proposition clearer to consumers across all broadband segments," he said. Comcast last week announced a five-year price guarantee for broadband customers who sign up for a new package. Comcast said customers will get a "simple monthly price starting as low as $55 per month," without having to enter a contract, giving them "freedom and flexibility to cancel at any time without penalty." The five-year guarantee also comes with one year of Xfinity Mobile at no charge, Comcast said. [...] Additional offers are in the works, Cavanagh said. "We are not done. Providing more value to our customers with less complexity and friction is a top priority and you will see our go-to-market approach continue to evolve over the coming months," he said. Comcast investors shouldn't expect an immediate turnaround, though. "We anticipate that it will take several quarters for our new approach to gain traction and impact the business in a meaningful way," Cavanagh said.

DoorDash has sent a proposal to buy the British meal delivery company Deliveroo for $3.6 billion. "The current offer marks the first formal approach since the last report in the summer," notes Reuters. From the report: The deal is expected to face no regulatory hurdles, as it provides DoorDash access to 10 new markets where it currently has no presence, creating a highly complementary footprint - other competitors might encounter more antitrust issues, the source said. Last year, Reuters reported DoorDash had shown interest in a takeover of Deliveroo, but a source said talks ended after disagreements on valuation.

A deal between the two firms would help DoorDash solidify its footprint in Europe, after the U.S. meal delivery group's 2021 purchase of Finland-based rival Wolt Enterprises in an all-stock deal valued at about $8 billion.

Google announced it will end software updates and remote control support for the first- and second-generation Nest Learning Thermostats (plus the 2014 European model) starting October 25th. "You will no longer be able to control them remotely from your phone or with Google Assistant, but can still adjust the temperature and modify schedules directly on the thermostat," the company wrote in a Friday blog post. The Verge reports: In other significant news, Google is flatly stating that it has no plans to release additional Nest thermostats in Europe. "Heating systems in Europe are unique and have a variety of hardware and software requirements that make it challenging to build for the diverse set of homes," the company said. "The Nest Learning Thermostat (3rd gen, 2015) and Nest Thermostat E (2018) will continue to be sold in Europe while current supplies last." [...]

In a clear attempt to ease customer anger, Google is offering a $130 discount on the fourth-gen Nest Learning Thermostat in the US, $160 off the same device in Canada, and 50 percent savings on the Tado Smart Thermostat X in Europe since the Nest lineup will soon be gone. The original Nest thermostats were released while the company was an independent brand under the leadership of former Apple executive Tony Fadell. Google acquired Nest in 2014 for $3.2 billion.