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Black holes "often exhibit long periods of dormancy," writes Popular Science, adding that astronomers had never witnessed a black hole "wake up" in real time. "Until now..." In February of 2024 X-ray bursts were spotted coming out of a black hole named Ansky by Lorena Hernández-García at Chile's Valparaiso University, according to the article. And what astronomers have now seen "challenges prevailing theories about black hole lifecycles." Hernández-García and collaborators then determined the black hole was displaying a phenomenon known as a quasiperiodic eruption, or QPE [a short-lived flaring event...] While a black hole inevitably destroys everything it captures, objects behave differently during their impending demise. A star, for example, generally stretches apart into a bright, hot, fast-spinning disc known as an accretion disc. Most astronomers have theorized that black holes generate QPEs when a comparatively small object like a star or even a smaller black hole collides with an accretion disc. In the case of Ansky, however, there isn't any evidence linking it to the death of a star. "The bursts of X-rays from Ansky are ten times longer and ten times more luminous than what we see from a typical QPE," said MIT PhD student and study co-author Joheen Chakraborty. "Each of these eruptions is releasing a hundred times more energy than we have seen elsewhere. Ansky's eruptions also show the longest cadence ever observed, of about 4.5 days." Astronomers must now consider other explanations for Ansky's remarkable behavior. One theory posits that the accretion disc could come from nearby galactic gas pulled in by the black hole instead of a star. If true, then the X-rays may originate from high energy shocks to the disc caused by a small cosmic object repeatedly passing through and disrupting orbital matter. It's detailed in a study published on April 11 in Nature Astronomy.... Meanwhile, scientists "have uncovered the strongest evidence yet for the existence of elusive intermediate-mass black holes," reports SciTechDaily. And there's more black hole news from RockDoctor (Slashdot reader #15,477): Given the recent work on galaxy-centre Super-Massive Black Holes (SMBHs), you may be surprised to learn that the only Stellar-Mass Black Holes (SMBHs ... uh, "BHs") identified to-date have been by their gravitational waves, as they merge with another BH or a neutron star. But the long-running OGLE (Optical Gravitational Lensing Experiment) project (1992 — present) has recently confirmed that it has detected an isolated BH not orbiting another bright object, or "swallowing" much of anything... In this case, 16 other telescopes performed sensitive astrometry (position measurement) over 11 years including the Hubble Space Telescope (HST). These multiple measurements plot an ellipse on the sky, mirroring the movement of the Earth around it's orbit — parallax. Which means this is a relatively close object (1520 parsecs / ~5000 light years).... And there is no sign of a third light emitting body nearby, which means this is an isolated black hole, not orbiting any other body (or, indeed, with any other [small] star orbiting it).

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People "are likely to continue working full-time even if they receive no-strings-attached universal basic income payments," reports CNN, citing results from a recent experiment in Germany (discussed on Slashdot in 2020): Mein Grundeinkommen (My Basic Income), the Berlin-based non-profit that ran the German study, followed 122 people for three years. From June 2021 to May 2024, this group received an unconditional sum of €1,200 ($1,365) per month. The study focused on people aged between 21 and 40 who lived alone and already earned between 1,100 euros (around $1,250) and 2,600 euros ($2,950) a month. They were free to use the extra money from the study on anything they wanted. Over the course of three years, the only condition was that they had to fill out a questionnaire every six months that asked about different areas of their lives, including their financial situation, work patterns, mental well-being and social engagement. One concern voiced by critics is that receiving a basic income could make people less inclined to work. But the Grundeinkommen study suggests that may not be the case at all. It found that receiving a basic income was not a reason for people to quit their jobs. On average, study participants worked 40 hours a week and stayed in employment — identical to the study's control group, which received no payment. "We find no evidence that people love doing nothing," Susann Fiedler, a professor at the Vienna University of Economics and Business who was involved with the study, said on the study's website. Unlike the control group, those receiving a basic income were more likely to change jobs or enroll in further education. They reported greater satisfaction in their working life — and were "significantly" more satisfied with their income... And can more money buy happiness? According to the study, the recipients of a basic income reported feeling that their lives were "more valuable and meaningful" and felt a clear improvement in their mental health.

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The Washington Post reports: The United States urgently needs more energy to fuel an artificial intelligence race with China that the country can't afford to lose, industry leaders told lawmakers at a House hearing on Wednesday. "We need energy in all forms," said Eric Schmidt, former CEO of Google, who now leads the Special Competitive Studies Project, a think tank focused on technology and security. "Renewable, nonrenewable, whatever. It needs to be there, and it needs to be there quickly." It was a nearly unanimous sentiment at the four-hour-plus hearing of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which revealed bipartisan support for ramping up U.S. energy production to meet skyrocketing demand for energy-thirsty AI data centers. The hearing showed how the country's AI policy priorities have changed under President Donald Trump. President Joe Biden's wide-ranging 2023 executive order on AI had sought to balance the technology's potential rewards with the risks it poses to workers, civil rights and national security. Trump rescinded that order within days of taking office, saying its "onerous" requirements would "threaten American technological leadership...." [Data center power consumption] is already straining power grids, as residential consumers compete with data centers that can use as much electricity as an entire city. And those energy demands are projected to grow dramatically in the coming years... [Former Google CEO Eric] Schmidt, whom the committee's Republicans called as a witness on Wednesday, told [committee chairman Brett] Guthrie that winning the AI race is too important to let environmental considerations get in the way... Once the United States beats China to develop superintelligence, Schmidt said, AI will solve the climate crisis. And if it doesn't, he went on, China will become the world's sole superpower. (Schmidt's view that AI will become superintelligent within a decade is controversial among experts, some of whom predict the technology will remain limited by fundamental shortcomings in its ability to plan and reason.) The industry's wish list also included "light touch" federal regulation, high-skill immigration and continued subsidies for chip development. Alexandr Wang, the young billionaire CEO of San Francisco-based Scale AI, said a growing patchwork of state privacy laws is hampering AI companies' access to the data needed to train their models. He called for a federal privacy law that would preempt state regulations and prioritize innovation. Some committee Democrats argued that cuts to scientific research and renewable energy will actually hamper America's AI competitiveness, according to the article. " But few questioned the premise that the U.S. is locked in an existential struggle with China for AI supremacy. "That stark outlook has nearly coalesced into a consensus on Capitol Hill since China's DeepSeek chatbot stunned the AI industry with its reasoning skills earlier this year."

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Skype is shutting down after two decades on May 5th, notes the Washington Post. But the bigger problem for retired attorney Karen Griffin is that Microsoft won't refund the money they paid into a Skype account for cheap international phone calls: "They're no longer offering this service that I prepaid for, and now they're not giving me my money back," Griffin said. "There's a lot of people out there who are going to lose money...." To its credit, Microsoft gave Skype users a couple months' warning about the shutdown coming May 5. People can transfer Skype contacts and chat history to the company's Microsoft Teams chat-and-calling app or to other companies' services. (While Microsoft sells Teams to organizations, there's a free version for personal use.) But Microsoft didn't explain well what will happen to money that people like Griffin have parked in Skype accounts, in some cases for years.... Unless you bought Skype credits very recently, Microsoft said it won't refund money in Skype accounts. The company says it will add an option for Skype account holders to keep using their funds for phone calls online or in Teams. Griffin doesn't love what Microsoft is doing. She prefers a cash refund or a credit applied to her Microsoft Office subscription, for which she pays about $110 a year. Amit Fulay, vice president of product for Skype and Teams, said it's not possible to shift funds from a Skype account to Office subscriptions. And he nixed refunds because Microsoft will still offer basic call services for former Skype customers. "Refunds make more sense if you took away something," Fulay said. "We're not." Microsoft declined to say how much money Skype users collectively have sitting in accounts that they might never use. Stacey Higginbotham, a policy specialist with Consumer Reports' technology advocacy team, said Griffin is making a reasonable request for a rich company like Microsoft that's shutting down an internet service. "The best way: Give people their money back. The second-best way, give people a credit to all of your services," Higginbotham said.

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"A modern free society has an obligation to offer electronic tax filing that respects user freedom," says a Free Software Foundation blog post, "and the United States is not excluded from this responsibility." "Governments, and/or the companies that they partner with, are responsible for providing free as in freedom software for necessary operations, and tax filing is no exception." For many years now, a large portion of [U.S.] taxpayers have filed their taxes electronically through proprietary programs like TurboTax. Millions of taxpayers are led to believe that they have no other option than to use nonfree software or Service as a Software Substitute (SaaSS), giving up their freedom as well as their most private financial information to a third-party company, in order to file their taxes... While the options for taxpayers have improved slightly with the IRS's implementation of the IRS Direct File program [in 25 states], this program unfortunately does require users to hand over their freedom when filing taxes.... Taxpayers shouldn't have to use a program that violates their individual freedoms to file legally required taxes. While Direct File is a step in the right direction as the program isn't in the hands of a third-party entity, it is still nonfree software. Because Direct File is a US government-operated program, and ongoing in the process of being deployed to twenty-five states, it's not too late to call on the IRS to make Direct File free software. In the meantime, if you need to file US taxes and are yet to file, we suggest filing your taxes in a way that respects your user freedom as much as possible, such as through mailing tax forms. Like with other government interactions that snatch away user freedom, choose the path that most respects your freedom. Free-as-in-freedom software would decrease the chance of user lock-in, the FSF points out. But they list several other advantages, including: Repairability: With free software, there is no uncertain wait period or reliance on a proprietary provider to make any needed bug or security fixes. Transparency: Unless you can check what a program really does (or ask someone in the free software community to check for you), there is no way to know that the program isn't doing things you don't consent to it doing. Cybersecurity: While free software isn't inherently more secure than nonfree software, it does have a tendency to be more secure because many developers can continuously improve the program and search for errors that can be exploited. With proprietary programs like TurboTax, taxpayers and the U.S. government are dependent on TurboTax to protect the sensitive financial and personal information of millions with few (if any) outside checks and balances... Taxpayer dollars spent should actually benefit the taxpayers: Taxpayer dollars should not be used to fund third-party programs that seek to control users and force them to use their programs through lobbying.... "We don't have to accept this unjust reality: we can work for a better future, together," the blog post concludes (offering a "sample message" U.S. taxpayers could send to IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel). "Take action today and help make electronic tax filing free as in freedom for everyone."

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Smartphones, computer monitors, semiconductors, and various other electronics will be exempt from U.S. President Trump's tariffs, reports CNN, "according to a US Customs and Border Protection notice posted late Friday." And several other products also received an exemption which "applies to products entering the United States or removed from warehouses as early as April 5, according to the notice." Roughly 90% of Apple's iPhone production and assembly is based in China, according to Wedbush Securities' estimates. Counterpoint Research, a firm that monitors global smartphone shipments, estimated Apple has up to six weeks of inventory in the United States. Once that supply runs out, prices would have been expected to go up... Semiconductors and microchips are among the products heavily outsourced to factories in Asia due to lower costs. Those electronic parts are now exempt, according to the Friday notice. That could help Asian chipmakers, such as Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), South Korea's Samsung and SK Hynix. The exemptions also include solar cells, memory cards, and computers, according to the BBC. "It was not clear whether technology imports from China would still be hit by a 20% tariff that was not part of the reciprocal tariffs announced on 2 April..." Thanks to Slashdot readers Alain Williams and Mr. Dollar Ton for sharing the news.

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A former Facebook employee/whistleblower alleges Meta's AI model Lllama was used to help DeepSeek. The whistleblower — former Facebook director of global policy Sarah Wynn-Williams — testified before U.S. Senators on Wednesday. CBS News found this earlier response from Meta: In a statement last year on Llama, Meta spokesperson Andy Stone wrote, "The alleged role of a single and outdated version of an American open-source model is irrelevant when we know China is already investing over 1T to surpass the US technologically, and Chinese tech companies are releasing their own open AI models as fast, or faster, than US ones." Wynn-Williams encouraged senators to continue investigating Meta's role in the development of artificial intelligence in China, as they continue their probe into the social media company founded by Zuckerberg. "The greatest trick Mark Zuckerberg ever pulled was wrapping the American flag around himself and calling himself a patriot and saying he didn't offer services in China, while he spent the last decade building an $18 billion business there," she said. The testimony also left some of the lawmakers skeptical of Zuckerberg's commitment to free speech after the whistleblower also alleged Facebook worked "hand in glove" with the Chinese government to censor its platforms: In her almost seven years with the company, Wynn-Williams told the panel she witnessed the company provide "custom built censorship tools" for the Chinese Communist Party. She said a Chinese dissident living in the United States was removed from Facebook in 2017 after pressure from Chinese officials. Facebook said at the time it took action against the regime critic, Guo Wengui, for sharing someone else's personal information. Wynn-Williams described the use of a "virality counter" that flagged posts with over 10,000 views for review by a "chief editor," which Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut called "an Orwellian censor." These "virality counters" were used not only in Mainland China, but also in Hong Kong and Taiwan, according to Wynn-Williams's testimony. Wynn-Williams also told senators Chinese officials could "potentially access" the data of American users.

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Nathan Mills discovered a heap-based buffer overflow vulnerability in the implementation of the Perl programming language when transliterating non-ASCII bytes with tr///, which may result in denial of service, or potentially the execution of arbitrary code.

https://security-tracker.debian.org/tracker/DSA-5902-1

Multiple security issues were discovered in MediaWiki, a website engine for collaborative work, which could result in information disclosure, cross-site scripting or restriction bypass.

https://security-tracker.debian.org/tracker/DSA-5901-1

Abstract of a paper on NBER: There is much disagreement about the extent to which financial incentives motivate study participants. We elicit preferences for being paid for completing a survey, including a one-in-twenty chance of winning a $100 electronic gift card, a guaranteed electronic gift card with the same expected value, and an option to refuse payment. More than twice as many participants chose the lottery as chose the guaranteed payment. Given that most people are risk averse, this pattern suggests that factors beyond risk preferences -- such as hassle costs -- influenced their decision-making. Almost 20 percent of participants actively refused payment, demonstrating low monetary motivation. We find both systematic and unobserved heterogeneity in the characteristics of who turned down payment. The propensity to refuse payment is more than four times as large among individuals 50 and older compared to younger individuals, suggesting a tradeoff between financially motivating participants and obtaining a representative sample. Overall, our results suggest that modest electronic gift card payments violate key requirements of Vernon Smith's induced value theory.

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Facebook Marketplace has emerged as the dominant feature within the social media platform, amassing 1.2 billion monthly active buyers by 2023 and overtaking eBay as a peer-to-peer selling platform. According to recent data, approximately 16 percent of Facebook's monthly active users now access the site exclusively to participate in Marketplace. The feature's growth accelerated following the pandemic's supply chain disruptions and subsequent inflation, which increased demand for used goods. Facebook reports that Marketplace is attracting younger demographics who have otherwise abandoned the platform's social features. This shift represents a fundamental transformation of Facebook's core function from "digital connector" to "digital bazaar," with the platform increasingly hosting transactions rather than social connections.

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Adobe has deleted all its posts on Twitter-alternative Bluesky after a disastrous April 8 debut that drew over 1,600 angry comments from digital creators. The software giant's innocuous first post asking "What's fueling your creativity right now?" triggered immediate criticism targeting Adobe's controversial subscription model, continual price increases, and AI implementation. "Y'all keep raising your prices for a product that keeps getting worse," wrote one user, while another referenced Adobe's "subscription model" with "I assume you'll be charging us monthly to read your posts." Recent price hikes have been substantial, with one commenter reporting a 53.88% increase from CDN$14.68 to CDN$22.59 monthly.

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An anonymous reader shares a report: The number of European travellers visiting the US has fallen sharply as political and economic tension and fears of a hostile border under President Donald Trump threaten the world's most lucrative air routes. Visitors from western Europe who stayed at least one night in the US fell by 17 per cent in March from a year ago, according to the International Trade Administration. Travel from some countries -- including Ireland, Norway and Germany -- fell by more than 20 per cent, an FT analysis of ITA data showed. The trend poses a threat to the US tourism industry, which accounts for 2.5 per cent of the country's GDP. Some airlines and hotel groups have warned of waning demand for transatlantic travel and a "bad buzz" about visiting the US. The total number of overseas visitors travelling to the US dropped by 12 per cent year-on-year in March, the steepest decline since March 2021 when the travel sector was reeling from pandemic restrictions, according to the ITA data.

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A group of ex-OpenAI employees on Friday filed a proposed amicus brief in support of Elon Musk in his lawsuit against OpenAI, opposing OpenAI's planned conversion from a nonprofit to a for-profit corporation. From a report: The brief, filed by Harvard law professor and Creative Commons founder Lawrence Lessig, names 12 former OpenAI employees: Steven Adler, Rosemary Campbell, Neil Chowdhury, Jacob Hilton, Daniel Kokotajlo, Gretchen Krueger, Todor Markov, Richard Ngo, Girish Sastry, William Saunders, Carrol Wainwright, and Jeffrey Wu. It makes the case that, if OpenAI's non-profit ceded control of the organization's business operations, it would "fundamentally violate its mission." Several of the ex-staffers have spoken out against OpenAI's practices publicly before. Krueger has called on the company to improve its accountability and transparency, while Kokotajlo and Saunders previously warned that OpenAI is in a "reckless" race for AI dominance. Wainwright has said that OpenAI "should not [be trusted] when it promises to do the right thing later."

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The International Civil Aviation Organization plans to eliminate boarding passes and check-ins within three years through a new "digital travel credential" system. Passengers will store passport data on their phones and use facial recognition to move through airports, while airlines will automatically detect arrivals via biometric scanning. The system will dynamically update "journey passes" for flight changes and delays, potentially streamlining connections. "The last upgrade of great scale was the adoption of e-ticketing in the early 2000s," said Valerie Viale from travel technology company Amadeus, who noted passenger data will be deleted within 15 seconds at each checkpoint to address privacy concerns.

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Fedora has proposed a major change for its upcoming version 43 release that aims to achieve 99% package reproducibility, addressing growing concerns about supply-chain security. According to the change proposal announced March 31, Fedora has already reached 90% reproducibility through infrastructure changes including "clamping" file modification times and implementing a Rust-based "add-determinism" tool that standardizes metadata. The remaining 10% will require individual package maintainer involvement, treating reproducibility failures as bugs. The effort will use a public instance of rebuilderd to independently verify that binary packages can be reproduced from source code. Unlike Debian's bit-by-bit reproducibility definition, Fedora allows differences in package signatures and some metadata while requiring identical payloads. The initiative follows similar efforts by Debian and openSUSE, and comes amid heightened focus on supply-chain security after the recent XZ backdoor incident.

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Germany will get a new "super-high-tech ministry" responsible for research, technology, and aerospace, according to the coalition agreement published by the incoming government this week. From a report: The announcement is one of several nods to science in the 144-page agreement, unveiled on 9 April following weeks of negotiations between the center-right Christian Democrats (CDU) and its sister party, the Christian Social Union in Bavaria (CSU) -- who together won the most seats in February's federal elections -- and the center-left Social Democrats. The agreement is expected to be formally approved by the three parties by early May, paving the way for CDU leader Friedrich Merz to be elected chancellor. [...] The new agreement lists a number of scientific priorities for the new government, including support for artificial intelligence, quantum technologies, biotechnology, microchip development and production, and fusion energy. "Our goal is that the world's first fusion reactor should be realized in Germany," the text states. It also mentions personalized medicine, oceans research, and sustainability research as "strategic" areas. But the agreement does not include any budget estimates, and observers caution it is unclear where the money for new programs would come from. The agreement does affirm current commitments to increase the budgets of the country's main research organizations by 3% per year through 2030.

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The ubiquitous but often overlooked Wi-Fi router lies at the heart of one of Washington's biggest national security dilemmas -- and a rift between two brothers on opposite sides of the Pacific. From a report: US investigators are probing the China ties of TP-Link, the new American incarnation of a consumer Wi-Fi behemoth, following its rapid growth and a spate of cyber attacks by Chinese state-sponsored actors targeting many router brands. The inquiry is testing whether TP-Link's corporate makeover represents enough of a divorce from China to spare it from a ban in a crucial market. While TP-Link's recent restructuring split the company into separate US- and China-headquartered businesses, a Bloomberg News investigation found that the resulting American venture still has substantial operations in mainland China. If US officials conclude TP-Link's China connections pose an "unacceptable risk," they could use a powerful new authority to ban the company from the US. Such an outcome could also unravel plans by the owner of its US business, Jeffrey Chao, to start fresh in California following an estrangement from his older brother, who started the router business with him in Shenzhen nearly three decades ago. In an interview -- the first Jeffrey Chao said he has ever given -- he told Bloomberg he's quitting China. He opened a new headquarters in Irvine last year and said he will invest $700 million in the US to build a factory and jumpstart research and development on highly secure routers while awaiting the green card he said he applied for in January. He has also traded his perch in a Hong Kong skyscraper for a 1980s-era split-level near his office, joined a neighborhood evangelical church, and is now eyeing a Cadillac Escalade for road trips, he said, burnishing his American credentials. "I know the current relationship between the US and China is complex," Chao said in the interview last month. "I have chosen the US."

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Ubisoft has triggered fresh debate over digital ownership by claiming in court that customers who purchased The Crew never truly owned the game. The legal battle began when California plaintiffs sued after Ubisoft deactivated servers for the 2014 racing title, rendering it unplayable beyond a restricted demo version. Unlike most delisted games where previously purchased copies remain accessible, Ubisoft completely removed The Crew from customers' libraries. The plaintiffs, who bought physical copies years ago, contend that Ubisoft misled consumers and point to competitors who provided offline modes for end-of-life titles. Ubisoft counters that packaging clearly stated purchases only granted temporary licenses. The case has expanded to include claims about in-game currency qualifying as gift certificates under California law and activation codes promised to work until 2099.

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France is to tighten its ban on the use of mobile phones in middle schools, making pupils at the ages of 11 to 15 shut away their devices in a locker or pouch at the start of the day and access them again only as they are leaving. A report adds: The education minister told the senate she wanted children to be fully separated from their phones throughout the school day in all French middle schools from September. Elisabeth Borne said: "At a time when the use of screens is being widely questioned because of its many harmful effects, this measure is essential for our children's wellbeing and success at school." In 2018, France banned children from using mobile phones in all middle schools -- known as colleges. Phones must remain switched off in schoolbags and cannot be used anywhere in the school grounds, including at break-time. Schools have reported a positive effect, with more social interaction, more physical exercise, less bullying and better concentration. But some did report a few children would sneak into the toilets to watch videos on phones at break.

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