Technology

EU rules on common chargers apply to laptops from today. It means that all new laptops sold in the European Union must now support USB-C charging.

In December 2024, the rules came into force for mobile phones, tablets, digital cameras, headphones, videogame consoles, and portable speakers.

Laptop manufacturers were given a longer lead in time to allow for redesign and transition to the common charging system.

Academy Awards organisers issued new rules on ​Friday to clarify that acting and writing must be performed by humans and not artificial intelligence ​to be ‌eligible for Oscars. The new rules also include changes to the international film category, expanding eligibility to include films that won top awards from prestigious festivals like Cannes, Venice and Toronto.

The War Department has entered into agreements with eight of the world's leading frontier artificial intelligence companies, SpaceX, OpenAI, Google, NVIDIA, Reflection, Microsoft, Amazon Web Services, and Oracle to deploy their advanced AI capabilities on the Department's classified networks for lawful operational use. These agreements accelerate the transformation toward establishing the United States military as an AI-first fighting force and will strengthen our warfighters' ability to maintain decision superiority across all domains of warfare.

Integrating secure frontier AI capabilities into the Department's Impact Level 6 (IL6) and Impact Level 7 (IL7) network environments will streamline data synthesis, elevate situational understanding, and augment warfighter decision-making in complex operational environments. SpaceX, OpenAI, Google, NVIDIA, Reflection, Microsoft, Amazon Web Services, and Oracle will provide resources to deploy their capabilities on both IL6 and IL7 environments. This effort supports the Department's AI Acceleration Strategy by enabling new capabilities across its three core tenets of warfighting, intelligence, and enterprise operations.

Hacker News.

Reality Labs isn’t doing well either.

Archived version: https://archive.is/20260430114208/https://www.theverge.com/tech/921089/meta-earnings-q1-2026-user-decline-ai-investments

The move escalates tensions in the long-running clash over national security and Huawei's products.

All roads lead back to the iPhone.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman might have hinted at this user experience change. In an X post shared before Kuo’s report, Altman said that it “feels like a good time to seriously rethink how operating systems and user interfaces are designed” and “(also the internet; there should be a protocol that is equally usable by people and agents).”

“Only by fully controlling both the operating system and hardware can OpenAI deliver a comprehensive AI agent service,” writes Kuo.

That comment about updating the internet's protocol really feels like a buried lede.

Framework is steadily growing with new products and availability in more regions. The company's latest notebook is the Framework Laptop 13 Pro. Framework's continued march forward has apparently attracted Dell's attention, as Dell is allegedly trying to sabotage Framework's influencer marketing on X.

Maine is not moving forward with a moratorium on AI data center construction until fall 2027.

Relevant clarification from the article:

While the bill passed both houses of the Maine's legislature on April 14, and Mills has suggested she'd support a temporary moratorium, the governor wanted a bill that would exempt an existing data center project in Jay, Maine.

Union officials said about 40,000 members participated in the protest

The union has threatened to stage an 18-day walkout starting May 21 if negotiations with management fail, and claims that such action would cost the company more than 1 trillion won ($676 million) a day.

Samsung’s union, which represents about 74,000 workers, says the company has failed to offer adequate compensation despite its strong performance. It has rejected the management’s proposal for bonuses of restricted stock and has called for removing caps on bonuses.

The rally came hours after Samsung’s cross-town rival, SK Hynix, posted an all time high in quarterly revenue Samsung, which together with SK Hynix produces about two-thirds of global memory chips, forecast earlier this month that its first-quarter operating profit would reach a record 57.2 trillion won ($38.6 billion). That would be higher than the 37.6 trillion won ($25.4 billion) posted by SK Hynix on Thursday

Hope they win

web.archive.org link here

Even strong Galaxy sales may not offset surging RAM and storage costs that now rival displays and processors

"Fluid gears" invention shows promise for improving mechanical devices.

April 27, 2026 (Mainichi Japan)

TOKYO (Kyodo) -- ChatGPT scored the highest marks in this year's entrance exams of the University of Tokyo and Kyoto University, two of Japan's top universities, surpassing those of the actual top scorers, an AI venture said Monday.

According to LifePrompt Inc., the generative AI chatbot scored 50 points higher than the top test-taker on the University of Tokyo's most competitive Natural Sciences III medical track exam and received a perfect score in mathematics. The achievement follows the AI's failure to pass all of the school's entrance exams in 2024. ……