Apple unveiled new device-level age restrictions in the UK on Wednesday. "After downloading a new update, users will now have to confirm that they are 18 or older to access unrestricted features," reports Gizmodo.

"Users will be able to confirm their age with a credit card or by scanning an ID." For those underage or who have not confirmed their age, Apple will turn on Web Content Filter and Communication Safety, which will not only restrict access to certain apps or websites, but will also monitor messages, shared photo albums, AirDrop, and FaceTime calls for nudity. Apple didn't specify exactly which services and features are banned for under-18 users, but it will likely be in compliance with UK legislation...

The British government does not require Apple and other OS providers to institute device-level age checks, but it does restrict minor access to online pornography under the Online Safety Act, which passed in 2023. So far, that restriction has only been implemented at the website level, but UK officials have been worried about easy loopholes to evade the age restrictions, like VPNs.

The broader tech industry has been campaigning for some time to use device-level age checks instead in response to the rising tide of under-16 social media and internet bans around the world. Last month, in a landmark social media trial in California, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg also supported this idea, saying that conducting age verification "at the level of the phone is just a lot clearer than having every single app out there have to do this separately." Pornhub-operator Aylo had advocated for device-level restrictions in the UK as well, and even sent out letters to Apple, Google, and Microsoft in November asking for OS-level age verification...

The most obvious question: Could this be brought stateside?

It's FOSS interviewed a software engineer whose long-running open source contributions include Python code for the Arch Linux installer and maintaining packages for NixOS. But "a recent change he made to systemd has pushed him into the spotlight" after he'd added the optional birthDate field for systemd's user database: Critics saw it not merely as a technical addition, but as a symbolic capitulation to government overreach. A crack in the philosophical foundation of freedom that Linux is built on. What followed went far beyond civil disagreement. Dylan revealed that he faced harassment, doxxing, death threats, and a flood of hate mail. He was forced to disable issues and pull request tabs across his GitHub repositories...


Q: Should FOSS projects adapt to laws they fundamentally disagree with? Because these kinds of laws are certainly in conflict with what a lot of Linux users believe in.

A. Unfortunately, in a lot of cases, the answer is yes — at least for any distribution with corporate backing. The small independent distributions are much more flexible to refuse as a protest.

If we ignore regulations entirely, we risk Linux being something that companies are not willing to contribute to, and Linux may be shipped on less hardware. I'm talking about things like Valve and System76 (despite them very vocally hating these laws). That does not help us; it just lowers the quality of software contributions due to less investment in the platform and makes Linux less accessible to the average person. We need Linux and other free operating systems to remain a viable alternative to closed systems.

Q. Do you think regulations like these will reshape desktop Linux in the next 5-10 years where we might have "compliant Linux" and "Freedom-first Linux"?

A. Unfortunately, yes, to some degree this is likely. I imagine the split will be mostly along the lines of independent distributions and those with corporate backing.

We're already seeing it as far as which distributions plan on implementing some sort of age verification and which ones are not, and that sucks. I'd rather nobody have to deal with this mess at all, but this is the reality of things now. As I said in the previous response, the corporate-backed distributions really have no choice in the matter. Companies are notoriously risk-adverse, but something like Artix or Devuan? Those are small and independent enough where the individual maintainers may be willing to take on more risk.

I was actually thinking about what this would look like if we added it to [Linux system installer] Calamares and chatting about that with the maintainers before that thread got brigaded by bad actors posting personal information and throwing around insults. I completely support the freedom for the distro maintainers to choose their risk tolerance. If the distribution is based out of Ireland or something (like Linux Mint) without these silly laws in the jurisdiction the developer operates in, I think that we should leave it up to them to make a choice here.
They think the installer should have a date picker with a flag to disable it, and "We can even default it to off, and corporate distributions using Calamares or those not willing to take the risk could flip it on if they need to. That way if maintainers of the distributions do not wish to collect the birth date, they won't have to, and no forking is required to patch it out."

Google has moved up its post-quantum encryption migration target to 2029. "This new timeline reflects migration needs for the PQC era in light of progress on quantum computing hardware development, quantum error correction, and quantum factoring resource estimates," said vice president of security engineering Heather Adkins and senior staff cryptology engineer Sophie Schmieg in a blog post. CyberScoop reports: Google is replacing outdated encryption across their devices, systems and data with new algorithms vetted by the National Institute for Standards and Technology. Those algorithms, developed over a decade by NIST and independent cryptologists, are designed to protect against future attacks from quantum computers. While Google has said it is on track to migrate its own systems ahead of the 2035 timeline provided in NIST guidelines, last month leaders at the company teased an updated timeline for migration and called on private businesses and other entities to act more urgently to prepare.

Unlike the federal government, there is no mandate for private businesses to migrate to quantum-resistant encryption, or even that they do so at all. Adkins and Schmieg said the hope is that other businesses will view Google's aggressive timeframe as a signal to follow suit. "As a pioneer in both quantum and PQC, it's our responsibility to lead by example and share an ambitious timeline," they wrote. "By doing this, we hope to provide the clarity and urgency needed to accelerate digital transitions not only for Google, but also across the industry."

A workplace-device study says Windows PCs crash significantly more often than Macs, lag further behind on patching and encryption in some sectors, and are typically replaced sooner. TechSpot reports: Omnissa's 2026 State of Digital Workspace report outlines the IT challenges that various organizations face from the growing use of AI and the heterogeneous deployment of enterprise devices. The relative instability of Windows and Android is a recurring theme throughout the report. The company gathered telemetry from clients located across the globe in retail, healthcare, finance, education, government, and other sectors throughout 2025. The data suggests that IT administrators face frustrating security gaps due to inconsistent patching across a diverse mosaic of devices and operating systems.

Employee workflow disruption, often due to software issues, is one area of concern. The report found that Windows devices were forced to shut down 3.1 times more often than Macs. Windows programs also froze 7.5 times more often than macOS apps and needed to be restarted more than twice as often. Certain industries were also alarmingly lax in securing Windows and Android devices. More than half of Windows and Android devices in healthcare and pharma were five major operating system updates behind, likely leaving them more vulnerable to errors and malware. More than half of the desktops and mobile devices used for education were also unencrypted, putting students' privacy at risk.

Macs also last longer, being replaced every five years on average, compared to every three years for Windows PCs. Despite a recent backlash against Windows, driven by a push for digital sovereignty in countries such as Germany, Windows use on government devices actually doubled last year. Meanwhile, Macs using Apple's M-series chips showcase a significant thermal advantage, with an average temperature of 40.1 degrees Celsius, while Intel processors run at 65.2 degrees.

Austria plans to restrict under-14s from using social media platforms over concerns about addictive algorithms and harmful content. The government says draft legislation should be ready by the end of June, though details around enforcement and age verification have yet to be finalized. The BBC reports: Announcing the plans, Vice-Chancellor Andreas Babler of the Social Democrats said the government could not stand by and watch as social media made children "addicted and also often ill." He said it was the responsibility of politicians to protect children and argued that the issue should be treated no different to alcohol or tobacco: "There must be clear rules in the digital world too." In future, said Babler, children under 14 would be protected from algorithms that were addictive. "Other information providers have clear rules to protect young people from harmful content." These, he said, should now be implemented in the digital space. Yesterday, juries in two separate cases found social media giants liable for harming young people's mental health. The verdicts are being hailed as social media's Big Tobacco moment.

Further reading: California Bill Would Require Parent Bloggers To Delete Content of Minors On Social Media

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: Iran-linked hackers have broken into FBI Director Kash Patel's personal email inbox, publishing photographs of the director and other documents to the internet, the hackers and the bureau said on Friday. On their website, the hacker group Handala Hack Team said Patel "will now find his name among the list of successfully hacked victims." The hackers published a series of personal photographs of Patel sniffing and smoking cigars, riding in an antique convertible, and making a face while taking a picture of himself in the mirror with a large bottle of rum.

The FBI confirmed that Patel's emails had been targeted. In a statement, bureau spokesman Ben Williamson said, "we have taken all necessary steps to mitigate potential risks associated with this activity" and that the data involved was "historical in nature and involves no government information." Handala, which presents itself as a group of pro-Palestinian vigilante hackers, is considered by Western researchers to be one of several personas used by Iranian government cyberintelligence units. [...] Alongside the photographs of Patel, the hackers published a sample of more than 300 emails, which appear to show a mix of personal and work correspondence dating between 2010 and 2019.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNN: A federal judge in California has indefinitely blocked the Pentagon's effort to "punish" Anthropic by labeling it a supply chain risk and attempting to sever government ties with the AI company, ruling that those measures ran roughshod over its constitutional rights. "Nothing in the governing statute supports the Orwellian notion that an American company may be branded a potential adversary and saboteur of the U.S. for expressing disagreement with the government," US District Judge Rita Lin wrote in a stinging 43-page ruling.

Lin, an appointee of former President Joe Biden, said she would delay implementation of her ruling for one week to allow the government to appeal. But in her ruling, she made it clear she disapproved of the government's actions, which she said violated the company's First Amendment and due process rights. [...] "These broad measures do not appear to be directed at the government's stated national security interests," she wrote. "The Department of War's records show that it designated Anthropic as a supply chain risk because of its 'hostile manner through the press.'" "Punishing Anthropic for bringing public scrutiny to the government's contracting position is classic illegal First Amendment retaliation," she added. "We're grateful to the court for moving swiftly, and pleased they agree Anthropic is likely to succeed on the merits," an Anthropic spokesperson said after the ruling. "While this case was necessary to protect Anthropic, our customers, and our partners, our focus remains on working productively with the government to ensure all Americans benefit from safe, reliable AI."

Reddit is rolling out human-verification checks for accounts that show signs of bot-like behavior, while also labeling approved automated accounts that provide useful services. The social media company stressed that these checks will only happen if something appears "fishy," and that it is "not conducting sitewide human verification." TechCrunch reports: To identify potential bots, Reddit is using specialized tooling that looks at account-level signals and other factors -- like how quickly the account is attempting to write or post content. Using AI to write posts or comments, however, is not against its policies (though community moderators may set their own rules).

To verify an account is human, Reddit will leverage third-party tools like passkeys from Apple, Google, YubiKey, and other third-party biometric services, like Face ID or even Sam Altman's World ID -- or, in some countries, the use of government IDs. Reddit notes this last category may be required in some countries like the U.K. and Australia and some U.S. states, because of local regulations on age verification, but it's not the company's preferred method. "If we need to verify an account is human, we'll do it in a privacy-first way," Reddit co-founder and CEO Steve Huffman wrote in the announcement Wednesday. "Our aim is to confirm there is a person behind the account, not who that person is. The goal is to increase transparency of what is what on Reddit while preserving the anonymity that makes Reddit unique. You shouldn't have to sacrifice one for the other."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the BBC: Hong Kong police can now demand phone or computer passwords from those who are suspected of breaching the wide-ranging National Security Law (NSL). Those who refuse could face up to a year in jail and a fine of up to $12,700, and individuals who provide "false or misleading information" could face up to three years in jail. It comes as part of new amendments to a bylaw under the NSL that the government gazetted on Monday.

The NSL was introduced in Hong Kong in 2020, in wake of massive pro-democracy protests the year before. Authorities say the laws, which target acts like terrorism and secession, are necessary for stability -- but critics say they are tools to quash dissent. The new amendments also give customs officials the power to seize items that they deem to "have seditious intention."

Monday's amendments ensure that "activities endangering national security can be effectively prevented, suppressed and punished, and at the same time the lawful rights and interests of individuals and organizations are adequately protected," Hong Kong authorities said on Monday. Changes to the bylaw was announced by the city's leader, John Lee, bypassing the city's legislative council. The NSL also allows for some trials to be heard behind closed doors.

Many U.S. consumers are increasingly interested in lower-cost Chinese electric vehicles but steep tariffs and political resistance are keeping them out of the market. A recent survey from Cox Automotive found that 40% of respondents support allowing Chinese auto brands into the U.S. market. Reuters reports: While Chinese autos hit the highways of Europe, Latin America and even Canada, the U.S. government has effectively banned the cars with tariffs exceeding 100%, out of concerns over data security and protecting American jobs. In places like Europe, a number of Chinese EVs sell at prices under $30,000. Some of those cars include amenities like advanced driving assistance software, a built-in mini fridge, and the option to sing karaoke with your fellow passengers. "The technology they offer for those lower price tags was astounding," said Clint Simone, senior features editor for car-shopping website Edmunds, who drove several Chinese vehicles while at the CES trade show earlier this year. [...]

Consumers have some concerns over allowing Chinese car imports, though, including over data security and protecting U.S. businesses, survey results from The Harris Poll as well as Cox show. Rhett Ricart, an Ohio car dealer who sells several brands, including Ford, Chevrolet and Hyundai, said he has no doubt customers would snap up Chinese models if they became available. He and other dealers don't want that to happen yet, according to a recent Cox Automotive survey, which found that just 15% of dealers supported the entry of Chinese auto brands into the U.S., and just 26% trust that they would comply with U.S. safety standards.

Not meeting U.S. safety standards is one reason Chinese EVs cannot yet be owned permanently in the U.S. But those obstacles haven't quieted the buzz. The Cox survey polled 802 U.S. consumers who expect to buy a car in the next two years. Nearly half -- 49% -- rated Chinese cars as having very good or excellent value, and 40% say they support the idea of Chinese auto brands in the U.S. market. Rich Benoit, a car enthusiast whose YouTube videos reviewing Chinese models garner millions of views, said the most compelling feature is the price. "That's what a lot of people are looking for: efficient, quiet and low cost," he said. "They want to 'get to work-- not everyone is a car enthusiast." He's considering buying a BYD model in Mexico and driving it across the border. "That's the only way to get one," Benoit said. "They've been selling in Mexico for years... "I want to own a Chinese EV in America."

China's orbital outpost Tiangong was completed in 2022 and is hosting up to three astronauts at a time, reports CNN.

But meanwhile U.S. lawmakers are now signaling there's not time to develop and launch a replacement for the International Space Station — considered the signal most expensive object ever built — before its deorbiting in 2030. A recent Senate bill calls for the U.S. to continue funding it as late as 2032, but that bill still awaits approval from the U.S. Senate and the House.

But some private space companies are already building their alternatives: Private companies that are in the early design and mockup phase of developing these space stations are still waiting on NASA for guidance — and money... [NASA's "Requests for Proposals"] were delayed, in part because it took all of 2025 to cinch a confirmation for Trump's on-again-off-again pick for NASA administrator, Jared Isaacman [confirmed in December]... Similarly, 2025 saw a 45-day government shutdown, the longest in history — adding another hiccup in the space agency's plans to begin formally soliciting proposals from the private sector. Companies now expect that NASA will issue its Request for Proposals in late March or early April, one CEO told CNN...

Several commercial outfits have recently announced big funding influxes aimed at speeding up the development and launch of new orbiting outposts. Houston-based Axiom Space announced a $350 million funding round last month. Its California-based competitor Vast then notched a $500 million raise in early March. Vast is determined to launch a bare-bones station to orbit as soon as possible, with or without federal input, according to the company. "Our approach is to actually not wait for (NASA) and get going and build a minimum viable product, single-module space station called Haven-1, which we're launching into orbit next year," Vast CEO Max Haot told CNN in a phone interview earlier this month. Similarly, Axiom Space is working toward a 2028 launch date for a module that it plans to initially attach to the ISS before breaking off to orbit on its own. A spokesperson told CNN that it the company is "committed" to winning the NASA contract money and may continue pursing such goals even without contract awards.

Still, there's lingering doubt that any of the companies pursuing space stations will be able to stay afloat without securing a coveted NASA contract or at least cinching significant business from the public sector.
The article includes "Another complicating fact: Russia, the United States' primary partner on the ISS, has not pledged to keep operating its half of the space station past 2028." NASA will eventually evaluate proposals for an ISS alternative from Vast, Axiom Space, Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin, Max Space and several competitors including Voyager Technologies, CNN notes, ultimately handing out an estimated $1.5 billion in contracts between 2026 and 2031.

And while those companies may wait decades before a return on their investment, the article includes this quotes from the cofounder/general partner of Balerion Space Ventures, which led the fundraising for Vast. " What's obvious to us is you're going to have multiple vehicles with myriad companies go into space. You're going to have vehicles leaving from celestial bodies, like the moon. And we need a habitat."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: Britain plans to consider requiring labels on AI-generated content to protect consumers from disinformation and deepfakes, the government said on Wednesday, as it outlined other areas of focus to tackle the evolving global challenge. Technology minister Liz Kendall stressed the need to strike the right balance between protecting the creative industries and allowing the AI sector to innovate, saying in a statement that the government would take time to "get this right."

The next phase of the government's work on copyright and AI would also look at the harms posed by digital replicas without consent, ways for creators to control their work online and support for independent creative organizations, she said. [...] Louise Popple, a copyright expert at law firm Taylor Wessing, noted that the government had not ruled out a broad exception that would allow AI developers to train on copyright works. "That's a subtle difference of approach and could be interpreted to mean that everything is still up for grabs" she said. "It feels very much like the hard issues are being kicked down the road by the government."

In 2024, Britain proposed easing copyright rules to let developers train models on lawfully accessed material, with creators able to reserve their rights. On Wednesday, Kendall said that having engaged with creatives, AI firms, industry bodies, unions and academics, the government had concluded it "no longer has a preferred option." "We will help creatives control how their work is used. This sits at the heart of our ambition for creatives – including independent and smaller creative organizations -- to be paid fairly," she said.

ProPublica reports that federal cybersecurity reviewers had serious, yearslong concerns about Microsoft's GCC High cloud offering, yet they approved it anyway because the product was already deeply embedded across government. As one member of the team put it: "The package is a pile of shit." From the report: In late 2024, the federal government's cybersecurity evaluators rendered a troubling verdict on one of Microsoft's biggest cloud computing offerings. The tech giant's "lack of proper detailed security documentation" left reviewers with a "lack of confidence in assessing the system's overall security posture," according to an internal government report reviewed by ProPublica. For years, reviewers said, Microsoft had tried and failed to fully explain how it protects sensitive information in the cloud as it hops from server to server across the digital terrain. Given that and other unknowns, government experts couldn't vouch for the technology's security.

Such judgments would be damning for any company seeking to sell its wares to the U.S. government, but it should have been particularly devastating for Microsoft. The tech giant's products had been at the heart of two major cybersecurity attacks against the U.S. in three years. In one, Russian hackers exploited a weakness to steal sensitive data from a number of federal agencies, including the National Nuclear Security Administration. In the other, Chinese hackers infiltrated the email accounts of a Cabinet member and other senior government officials. The federal government could be further exposed if it couldn't verify the cybersecurity of Microsoft's Government Community Cloud High, a suite of cloud-based services intended to safeguard some of the nation's most sensitive information.

Yet, in a highly unusual move that still reverberates across Washington, the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program, or FedRAMP, authorized the product anyway, bestowing what amounts to the federal government's cybersecurity seal of approval. FedRAMP's ruling -- which included a kind of "buyer beware" notice to any federal agency considering GCC High -- helped Microsoft expand a government business empire worth billions of dollars. "BOOM SHAKA LAKA," Richard Wakeman, one of the company's chief security architects, boasted in an online forum, celebrating the milestone with a meme of Leonardo DiCaprio in "The Wolf of Wall Street."

It was not the type of outcome that federal policymakers envisioned a decade and a half ago when they embraced the cloud revolution and created FedRAMP to help safeguard the government's cybersecurity. The program's layers of review, which included an assessment by outside experts, were supposed to ensure that service providers like Microsoft could be entrusted with the government's secrets. But ProPublica's investigation -- drawn from internal FedRAMP memos, logs, emails, meeting minutes, and interviews with seven former and current government employees and contractors -- found breakdowns at every juncture of that process. It also found a remarkable deference to Microsoft, even as the company's products and practices were central to two of the most damaging cyberattacks ever carried out against the government.

Starting in September, even Android developers not in Google's Play Store will still be required to register with Google to distribute their apps in Brazil, Singapore, Indonesia, and Thailand, with Google continuing "to roll out these requirements globally" four months later. Even developers distributing Android apps on the web for sideloading will be required to register, pay Google a $25 fee, and provide a government ID.

But there's a new theory on what's secretly been motivating Google from an unnamed source in the "Keep Android Open" movement, writes long-time Slashdot reader destinyland: "You can't separate this really from their ongoing interactions with Epic and the settlement that they came to," they argue. Twelve days ago Epic Games and Google announced a new proposal for settling their long-running dispute over the legality of alternative app stores on Android phones. (Rather than agreeing to let third-party app stores into their Play Store, Google wants them to continue being sideloaded, promising in a blog post last week that they'll even offer a "more streamlined" and "simplified" sideloading alternative for rival app stores. "This Registered App Store program will begin outside of the US first, and we intend to bring it to the US as well, subject to court approval.")

So "developer verification" could be Google's fallback plan if U.S. courts fail to approve this. "If the Google Play Store has to allow any third-party repository app store, Google essentially has given up all control of the apps. But if they're able to claw back that control by requiring that all developers, no matter how they distribute their apps, have to register with Google — have to agree to their Terms & Conditions, pay them money, provide identification — then they have a large degree of indirect control over any app that can be developed for the entire platform."
But that plan threatens millions of people using the alternative F/OSS app distributor F-Droid, since Google also wants to have only one signature attached to Android apps. Marc Prud'hommeaux, a member of F-Droid's board of directors, says that "all of a sudden breaks all those versions of the application distributed through F-Droid or any other app store!"

Prud'hommeaux says they've told Google's Android team "You know perfectly well that you're killing F-Droid!" creating an "existential" threat to an app distributor "that has existed happily for over 10 years." But good things started happening when he created the website Keep Android Open: There's now a "huge backlog" of signers for an Open Letter that already includes EFF, the Software Freedom Conservancy, and the Free Software Foundation. He believes Android's existing Play Protect security "is completely sufficient to handle the particular scenarios they claim that developer verification is meant to address"...

The Keep Android Open site urges developers not to sign up for Android's early access program when it launches next week. (Instead, they're asking developers to respond to invites with an email about their concerns — and to spread the word to other developers and organizations in forums and social media posts.) There's also a petition at Change.org currently signed by 64,000 developers — adding 20,000 new signatures in the last 10 days. And "If you have an Android device, try installing F-Droid!" he adds. Google tracks how many people install these alternative app repositories, and a larger user base means greater consequences from any Android policy changes.

Plus, installing F-Droid "might be refreshing!" Prud'hommeaux says. "You don't see all the advertisements and promotions and scam and crapware stuff that you see in the commercial app stores!"

The UK's science minister is announcing details of a five-year, £2.5 billion investment in nuclear fusion, reports the Times of London, "including building one of the world's first prototype fusion power plants in Nottinghamshire and developing a UK sector projected to employ 10,000 people by 2030." Despite the potentially transformative impact of fusion, which in theory could provide limitless clean energy and create a £12 trillion global market, no country has managed to use this fledgling technology to generate useable electricity... [T]he UK is backing a spherical tokamak design... investing an initial £1.3 billion into a prototype fusion power plant called Step (Spherical Tokamak for Energy Production) on the site of a decommissioned coal-fired power station at West Burton in Nottinghamshire. Paul Methven, chief executive of the government-owned UK Industrial Fusion Solutions, which is delivering the Step project, said the aim is to get the reactor operating early in the 2040s. "It's quite an aggressive programme," he said. "We need to show that we can achieve genuine 'wall socket' energy — which has not been done before."

On Monday, [science minister] Vallance will also announce £180 million for a facility in Culham, Oxfordshire, to manufacture tritium fuel and £50 million for training 2,000 scientists and engineers in fusion-related disciplines. The government is also buying a £45 million fusion-dedicated AI supercomputer called Sunrise to model plasma physics. Scientists at the UK Atomic Energy Authority last year developed an AI model that can rapidly simulate how the ultra-hot fuel in a fusion power plant will behave, cutting calculations that previously took days down to seconds...

Vallance will also announce new support and collaboration for the many fusion, robotics, engineering and AI start-ups working in Britain, to develop a strong supply chain for a new fusion sector. One of those companies, Tokamak Energy, which spun out from the UK Atomic Energy Authority in 2009, has already built a smaller reactor that has informed the Step design. In March 2022, it became the first private organisation in the world to surpass 100 million degrees Celsius in its reactor.

Europe's EV sales for January and February spiked 21% from last year, according to new data from Benchmark Mineral Intelligence. Electrek reports that just in those two months over 600,000 EVs were sold in Europe.

And figures for "rest of world" (which excludes Europe, North America, and China) are up a whopping 84% — with 370,000 EVs sold in January and February. (EVs now represent more than 30% of the vehicles sold in South Korea.)

But for the same period China's sales are down 26% from last year, with 1.1 million vehicles sold. And North America showed an even larger drop of 36% from the January/February figures in 2025, now selling just 170,000 electric vehicles, while Canada's EV sales were down 23%. EV sales seem heavily influenced by government incentives, with Germany and France leading Europe's growth: EV sales in Germany are up 26% so far this year, following the country's introduction of a new subsidy program at the start of 2026. France's market is up 30%, supported by its existing incentive program.

Italy is also seeing rapid growth. EV sales there jumped 23% month-over-month in February, making it the country's strongest month ever for EV sales. The Italian market is now up 98% year to date. That surge follows the Italian government's October 2025 launch of a new subsidy program, funded by the EU's Recovery and Resilience Facility, to increase EV adoption. Households can receive up to €11,000 ($12,700) in incentives, while smaller businesses can get up to €20,000 ($23,200)...

[T]he global EV transition isn't slowing, but it's becoming much more uneven depending on policy, incentives, and trade rules.

NBC News investigates North Korea's "wide-ranging effort to place remote workers at U.S. companies in order to funnel money back to its coffers and, in some cases, steal sensitive information."

And working with the FBI, one corporate security/investigations company decided to knowingly hire one of North Korea's remote workers — then "ship him a laptop and gain as much information as possible" about this "sprawling international employment scheme that is estimated to include hundreds of American companies, thousands of people and hundreds of millions of dollars per year." It worked.... Over a roughly three-month investigation, Nisos uncovered an apparent network of at least 20 North Korean operatives including "Jo" who had collectively applied to at least 160,000 roles. During that time, workers in the network — which some evidence showed were based in China — were employed by five U.S.-based companies and allegedly helped by an American citizen operating out of two nondescript suburban homes in Florida...

Nisos estimated that in about a year, "Jo", who was likely a newer member of the team, applied to about 5,000 jobs... "They attended interviews all day every day, and then once they secured a job, they would collect paychecks until they were terminated," [according to Jared Hudson, Nisos' chief technology officer]... With the ability to see which other U.S. companies Jo and his team were working for — all remote technology roles — Nisos' CEO, Ryan LaSalle, began making calls to their security teams to alert them of the fraud. "Most of the companies weren't aware of it, even if they had pretty robust security teams," LaSalle said. "It wasn't really high on the radar."
NBC News describes North Korea's 10-year effort — and its educational pipeline that steers promising students into "computer science and hacking training before being placed into cyberunits under military and state agencies, according to a recent report by DTEX, a risk-adaptive security and behavioral intelligence firm that tracks North Korea's cybercrime." In one case, a North Korean worker stole sensitive information related to U.S. military technology, according to the Justice Department. In another, an American accomplice obtained an ID that enabled access to government facilities, networks and systems. At least three organizations have been extorted and suffered hundreds of thousands of dollars in damages after proprietary information was posted online by IT workers... Analysts warn that North Korean IT workers are targeting larger organizations, increasing extortion attempts and seeking out employers that pay salaries in cryptocurrency. More recently, security researchers have uncovered fake job application platforms impersonating major U.S. cryptocurrency and AI firms, including Anthropic, designed to infect legitimate applicants' networks with malware to be utilized once hired. The global cybersecurity company CrowdStrike identified a 220% rise in 2025 in instances of North Koreans gaining fraudulent employment at Western companies to work remotely as developers...

The payoff flowing back to Pyongyang from these schemes is enormous. Some North Korean IT workers earn more than $300,000 per year, far more than they'd be able to earn domestically, with as much as 90% of their wages directed back to the regime, according to congressional testimony from Bruce Klinger, a former CIA deputy division chief for Korea. The United Nations estimates the schemes, which proliferated after the pandemic when more companies' workforces went remote, generate as much as $600 million annually, while a U.S. State Department-led sanctions monitoring assessment placed earnings for 2024 as high as $800 million... So far, at least 10 alleged U.S.-based facilitators have been federally charged, including one active-duty member of the U.S. Army, for their alleged roles in hosting laptop farms, laundering payments and moving proceeds through shell companies. At least six other alleged U.S. facilitators have been identified in court documents but not named...

"We believe there are many more hundreds of people out there who are participating in these schemes," said Rozhavsky, the FBI assistant director. "They could never pull this off if they didn't have willing facilitators in the U.S. helping them...." The scheme itself is also becoming more complex. North Korean IT teams are now subcontracting work to developers in Pakistan, Nigeria and India, expanding into fields like customer service, financial processing, insurance and translation services — roles far less scrutinized than software development.

While AI CEOs worry governments might nationalize AI, others are advocating for something similar. Canadian security professional Bruce Schneier and Harvard data scientist Nathan Sanders published this call to action in Canada's most widely-read newspaper (with a readership over 6 million): "Canada Needs Nationalized, Public AI." While there are Canadian AI companies, they remain for-profit enterprises, their interests not necessarily aligned with our collective good. The only real alternative is to be bold and invest in a wholly Canadian public AI: an AI model built and funded by Canada for Canadians, as public infrastructure. This would give Canadians access to the myriad of benefits from AI without having to depend on the U.S. or other countries. It would mean Canadian universities and public agencies building and operating AI models optimized not for global scale and corporate profit, but for practical use by Canadians...

We are already on our way to having AI become an inextricable part of society. To ensure stability and prosperity for this country, Canadian users and developers must be able to turn to AI models built, controlled, and operated publicly in Canada instead of building on corporate platforms, American or otherwise... [Switzerland's funding of a public AI model, Apertus] represents precisely the paradigm shift Canada should embrace: AI as public infrastructure, like systems for transportation, water, or electricity, rather than private commodity... Public AI systems can incorporate mechanisms for genuine public input and democratic oversight on critical ethical questions: how to handle copyrighted works in training data, how to mitigate bias, how to distribute access when demand outstrips capacity, and how to license use for sensitive applications like policing or medicine...

Canada already has many of the building blocks for public AI. The country has world-class AI research institutions, including the Vector Institute, Mila, and CIFAR, which pioneered much of the deep learning revolution. Canada's $2-billion Sovereign AI Compute Strategy provides substantial funding. What's needed now is a reorientation away from viewing this as an opportunity to attract private capital, and toward a fully open public AI model.
Long-time Slashdot reader sinij has a different opinion. "To me, this sounds dystopian, because I can also imagine AI declining your permits, renewal of license, or medication due to misalignment or 'greater good' reasons."

But the Schneier/Sanders essays argues this creates "an alternative ownership structure for AI technology" that is allocating decision-making authority and value "to national public institutions rather than foreign corporations."

It's America's first large-scale offshore wind project, reports WBUR — enough clean energy to power 400,000 homes in Massachusetts from 62 offshore wind turbines generating 800 megawatts.

But it took a while... The plant's first construction delay happened back in 2019, they point out — and then "Just three months ago, when the project was 95% complete, the U.S. Interior Department issued a stop-work order." But after successfully challenging that order in court, and "with a stretch of good weather offshore, the developers behind the $4.5 billion project managed to get over the finish line."

The Associated Press notes it was "one of five major East Coast offshore wind projects the Trump administration halted construction on days before Christmas, citing national security concerns." Developers and states sued, and federal judges allowed all five to resume construction, essentially concluding that the government did not show that the national security risk was so imminent that construction must halt. Another one of the five, Revolution Wind, began sending power for the first time to New England's electric grid on Friday and will scale up in the weeks ahead until it is fully operational.
"That project is nearly complete as well," notes WBUR, "and will eventually be capable of powering up to 350,000 homes."

The deal to take control of TikTok's U.S. business came with an unusual condition, according to people familiar with the matter. The investors — which include Oracle, Abu Dhabi investor MGX, and private-equity firm Silver Lake — "paid the Treasury Department about $2.5 billion when the deal closed in January," reports the Wall Street Journal, "and are set to make several additional payments until hitting the $10 billion total." The $10 billion payment would be nearly unprecedented for a government helping arrange a transaction, historians have said... Investment bankers advising on a typical deal receive fees of less than 1% of the transaction value, and the percentage generally gets smaller as the deal size increases. Bank of America is in line to make some $130 million for advising railroad operator Norfolk Southern on its $71.5 billion sale to Union Pacific, one of the largest fees on record for a single bank on a deal. Administration officials have said the fee is justified given Trump's role in saving TikTok in the U.S. and navigating negotiations with China to get the deal done while addressing the security concerns of lawmakers...

The TikTok fee extracted from private-sector investors is the administration's latest transaction involving the nation's largest businesses. Trump took a nearly 10% stake in semiconductor company Intel and has agreed to take a chunk of chip sales to China from Nvidia in exchange for granting export licenses. The administration has also taken equity stakes in other companies and has a say in the operations of U.S. Steel following a "golden share" agreement with Japan's Nippon Steel in its takeover.
Reuters notes earlier this month, a lawsuit was filed by investors in two of TikTok's social media rivals, seeking to reverse the approval of the deal.

Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader schwit1 for sharing the news.