Tech
Universities (finally) band together, fight “unprecedented government overreach”
Last Friday, in an op-ed piece on the Trump administration's war on American universities, we called for academia to 1) band together and 2) resist coercive control over hiring and teaching, though we noted that the 3) "temperamental caution of university administrators" means that they might "have trouble finding a clear voice to speak with when they come under thundering public attacks from a government they are more used to thinking of as a funding source."
It only took billions of dollars in vindictive cuts to make it happen, but higher education has finally 1) banded together to 2) resist coercive control over its core functions. More than 230 leaders, mostly college and university presidents, have so far signed an American Association of Colleges and Universities statement that makes a thundering call gentle bleat for total resistance "constructive engagement" with the people currently trying to cripple, shutter, and/or dominate them. Clearly, 3) temperamental caution remains the watchword. Still, progress! (Even Columbia University, which has already capitulated to Trump administration pressure, signed on.)
The statement largely consists of painful pablum about how universities "provide human resources to meet the fast-changing demands of our dynamic workforce," etc, etc. As a public service, I will save you some time (and nausea) by excerpting the bits that matter:
Drunk man walks into climate change, burns the bottoms of his feet off
Climate tipping points pose grave risks to human health—and, unsurprisingly, approaching them while tipsy only makes the fallout more blistering, according to a case study in the New England Journal of Medicine.
In this week's issue, NEJM spotlights the effects of the climate crisis on clinical health with a series of case studies. One is the searing story of an inebriated gentleman who regrettably took a one-minute walk while barefoot during the unprecedented 2021 Northwest heat dome. The man walked across asphalt during the extreme weather, in which air temperatures reached as high as 42° C (108° F). That's about 21° C (38° F) above historical averages for the area.
Asphalt can absorb 95 percent of solar radiation and easily reach 40° F to 60° F above air temperatures on hot days. It's unclear how hot the asphalt was when the man walked across it, but it was clearly hot enough to melt some flesh.
OpenAI wants to buy Chrome and make it an “AI-first” experience
The remedy phase of Google's antitrust trial is underway, with the government angling to realign Google's business after the company was ruled a search monopolist. The Department of Justice is seeking a plethora of penalties, but perhaps none as severe as forcing Google to sell Chrome. But who would buy it? An OpenAI executive says his employer would be interested.
Among the DOJ's witnesses on the second day of the trial was Nick Turley, head of product for ChatGPT at OpenAI. He wasn't there to talk about Chrome exclusively—the government's proposed remedies also include forcing Google to share its search index with competitors.
OpenAI is in bed with Microsoft, but Bing's search data wasn't cutting it, Turley suggested (without naming Microsoft). "We believe having multiple partners, and in particular Google's API, would enable us to provide a better product to users," OpenAI told Google in an email revealed at trial. However, Google turned OpenAI down because it believed the deal would harm its lead in search. The companies have no ongoing partnership today, but Turley noted that forcing Google to license its search data would restore competition.
Google won’t ditch third-party cookies in Chrome after all
Google has made an unusual announcement about browser cookies, but it may not come as much of a surprise given recent events. After years spent tinkering with the Privacy Sandbox, Google has essentially called it quits. According to Anthony Chavez, VP of the company's Privacy Sandbox initiative, Google won't be rolling out a planned feature to help users disable third-party cookies. Instead, cookie support will remain in place as is, possibly forever.
Beginning in 2019, Google embarked on an effort under the Privacy Sandbox banner aimed at developing a new way to target ads that could preserve a modicum of user privacy. This approach included doing away with third-party cookies, small snippets of code that advertisers use to follow users around the web.
Google struggled to find a solution that pleased everyone. Its initial proposal for FLoC (Federated Learning of Cohorts) was widely derided as hardly any better than cookies. Google then moved on to the Topics API, but the company's plans to kill cookies have been delayed repeatedly since 2022.
Taxes and fees not included: T-Mobile’s latest price lock is nearly meaningless
T-Mobile is making another long-term price guarantee, but wireless users will rightfully be skeptical since T-Mobile refused to honor a previously offered lifetime price lock and continues to fight a lawsuit filed by customers who were harmed by that broken promise. Moreover, the new plans that come with a price guarantee will have extra fees that can be raised at any time.
T-Mobile today announced new plans with more hotspot data and a five-year price guarantee, saying that "T-Mobile and Metro customers can rest assured that the price of their talk, text and data stays the same for five whole years, from the time they sign up." The promise applies to the T-Mobile "Experience More" and "Experience Beyond" plans that will be offered starting tomorrow. The plans cost $85 or $100 for a single line after the autopay discount, which requires a debit card or bank account.
The price-lock promise also applies to four new Metro by T-Mobile plans that launch on Thursday. T-Mobile's announcement came three weeks after Verizon announced a three-year price lock.
Harvard sues to block government funding cuts
On Monday, Harvard University filed a lawsuit that it hopes will end the federal government's hold on over $2 billion of research funds destined for the university's faculty. The suit claims that the government's demands for input on Harvard's hiring and admissions violate the university's First Amendment rights, and that the funding freeze hasn't followed the procedures laid out in federal law.
Earlier in April, the government sent a letter to Harvard demanding various changes, from altering university governance to enforcing a completely undefined "viewpoint diversity" on hiring and admissions. Failing to agree, the government suggested, would place the financial relationship between the government and Harvard at risk. Harvard responded with a strongly worded refusal and, by the end of the day, saw the government put over $2 billion in research funding on hold. Harvard was not told how long the hold would last or what exactly was needed to lift it.
The lawsuit seeks to reverse the hold. Harvard argues that there are two reasons the court should restore the flow of research money.
Man buys racetrack, ends up launching the Netflix of grassroots motorsports
In 2019, Garrett Mitchell was already an Internet success. His YouTube channel, Cleetus McFarland, had over a million followers. If you perused the channel at that time, you would’ve found a range of grassroots motorsports videos with the type of vehicular shenanigans that earn truckloads of views. Some of those older videos include "BLEW BY A COP AT 120+mph! OOPS!," "THERE'S A T-REX ON THE TRACK!," and "Manual Transmission With Paddle Shifters!?!."
Those videos made Mitchell, aka Cleetus McFarland, a known personality among automotive enthusiasts. But the YouTuber wanted more financial independence beyond the Google platform and firms willing to sponsor his channel.
“… after my YouTube was growing and some of my antics [were] getting videos de-monetized, I realized I needed a playground,” Mitchell told Ars Technica in an email.
12-year-old Doom 2 challenge map finally beaten after six-hour, 23K-demon grind
Over 12 years ago, a reclusive DoomWorld forum member going by the handle Okuplok released what he called "a slaughter map" for Doom 2. Packed to the gills with 23,211 enemies (often in extremely claustrophobic corridors), the level quickly gained a reputation in the classic Doom player community as being one of the hardest ever constructed.
That reputation didn't stop classic FPS streamer Coincident, who has been grinding away at the "Okuplok slaughter map" in some form or another for years. And over the weekend, Coincident became the first player to defeat every enemy and complete the map in a single segment during a livestreamed marathon run that clocked in at just over six hours.
You can play the Unreal-powered The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion remaster today
The worst-kept secret in the gaming industry in 2025 is no longer a secret: Bethesda Game Studios' 2006 RPG The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion has been remastered, and that remaster has already been released on all supported platforms today.
A livestream featuring developer sound bites and gameplay footage ran on Twitch and YouTube today, making it official after years of leaks.
Oblivion was the immediate precursor to The Elder Scrolls V: Skryim, which became one of the most popular games of all time—but Oblivion was pretty popular in its time, too, and it was the first game in the franchise that would end up feeling at all modern by today's standards. (I personally will always love The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, though.)
Google Messages can now blur unwanted nudes, remind people not to send them
Google announced last year that it would deploy safety tools in Google Messages to help users avoid unwanted nudes by automatically blurring the content. Now, that feature is finally beginning to roll out. Spicy image-blurring may be enabled by default on some devices, but others will need to turn it on manually. If you don't see the option yet, don't fret. Sensitive Content Warnings will arrive on most of the world's Android phones soon enough.
If you're an adult using an unrestricted phone, Sensitive Content Warnings will be disabled by default. For teenagers using unsupervised phones, the feature is enabled but can be disabled in the Messages settings. On supervised kids' phones, the feature is enabled and cannot be disabled on-device. Only the Family Link administrator can do that. For everyone else, the settings are available in the Messages app settings under Protection and Safety.
To make the feature sufficiently private, all the detection happens on the device. As a result, there was some consternation among Android users when the necessary components began rolling out over the last few months. For people who carefully control the software installed on their mobile devices, the sudden appearance of a package called SafetyCore was an affront to the sanctity of their phones. While you can remove the app (it's listed under "Android System SafetyCore"), it doesn't take up much space and won't be active unless you enable Sensitive Content Warnings.
FTC sues Uber over difficulty of canceling subscriptions, “false” claims
The US Federal Trade Commission has sued ride-hailing app Uber, saying it made “false or misleading” claims about its subscription service, in the latest sign that Donald Trump’s administration is embracing an aggressive stance against Big Tech groups.
The regulator alleged the company’s Uber One service failed to deliver promised savings and proved difficult to “cancel anytime” as promised, according to a complaint filed in a California court on Monday.
“Americans are tired of getting signed up for unwanted subscriptions that seem impossible to cancel,” said FTC chair Andrew Ferguson. “Uber not only deceived consumers about their subscriptions, but also made it unreasonably difficult for customers to cancel.”
2025 Chevrolet Blazer EV SS first drive: A big ride and handling upgrade
CHARLOTTE, North Carolina — Before letting us loose on the freshly laid tarmac of Ten Tenths Motor Club, Chevrolet was at pains to tell us that the new Blazer SS "is not a track car." Sure, there's a "competitive mode" to the suite of electronic settings and the fastest 0–60 mph time of any SS-badged Chevy to date. The upgrades have been focused on making the Blazer EV "stop, go, and turn" better, and you don't need to be driving hard to appreciate the benefits.
The Blazer EV had a rocky start. When we first drove it at the end of 2023, it felt a little unfinished, and a few days later unreliable software stranded another journalist and led to a nationwide stop-sale on the then-new EV. By last March, the software was fixed and the Blazer EV was back on sale, now cheaper than before.
Watts new?While other Blazer EVs are available with front- or rear-wheel powertrains or with a smaller battery pack, the SS only comes with all-wheel drive and the larger 102 kWh battery pack. Nominal power output is 515 hp (384 kW) and 450 lb-ft (610 Nm), which jumps to 615 hp (458 kW) and 650 lb-ft (880 Nm) if you engage the "Wide Open Watts" mode.
Tuesday Telescope: A rare glimpse of one of the smallest known moons
I'll bet you don't spend a ton of time thinking about Deimos, the smaller of the two Martian moons, which is named after the Ancient Greek god that personified dread.
And who could blame you? Of the two Martian moons, Phobos gets more attention, including as a possible waystation for human missions to Mars. Phobos is larger than Deimos, with a radius of 11 km, and closer to the Martian surface, a little more than 9,000 km away.
By contrast, Deimos is tiny, with a radius of 6 km, and quite a bit further out, more than 23,000 km from the surface. It is so small that, on the surface of Mars, Deimos would only appear about as bright in the night sky as Venus does from Earth.
A Chinese-born crypto tycoon—of all people—changed the way I think of space
For a quarter-century, dating back to my time as a budding space enthusiast, I've watched with a keen eye each time people have ventured into space.
That's 162 human spaceflight missions since the beginning of 2000, ranging from Space Shuttle flights to Russian Soyuz missions, Chinese astronauts' first forays into orbit, and commercial expeditions on SpaceX's Dragon capsule. Yes, I'm also counting privately funded suborbital hops launched by Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic.
Last week, Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin captured headlines—though not purely positive—with the launch of six women, including pop star Katy Perry, to an altitude of 66 miles (106 kilometers). The capsule returned to the ground 10 minutes and 21 seconds later. It was the first all-female flight to space since Russian cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova's solo mission in 1963.
Controversial doc gets measles while treating unvaccinated kids—keeps working
A controversial doctor providing unproven measles treatments to unvaccinated children in West Texas recently contracted the highly infectious virus himself amid the mushrooming outbreak—and he continued treating patients while visibly ill with the virus.
The doctor's infection was revealed in a video posted online by Children's Health Defense (CHD), the rabid anti-vaccine advocacy organization founded and previously run by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a long-time anti-vaccine advocate who is now the US secretary of health. Kennedy headed CHD until January, when he stepped down in anticipation of his Senate confirmation.
In the video, the doctor, Ben Edwards, can be seen with mild spots on his face. Someone asks him if he caught measles himself, and he responds, "Yeah," saying he was "pretty achy yesterday." He went on to say that he had developed the rash the day before but woke up that day feeling "pretty good." The video was posted by CHD on March 31, and the Associated Press was the first to report it.
Are these chimps having a fruity booze-up in the wild?
Is there anything more human than gathering in groups to share food and partake in a fermented beverage or two (or three, or....)? Researchers have caught wild chimpanzees on camera engaging in what appears to be similar activity: sharing fermented African breadfruit with measurable alcoholic content. According to a new paper published in the journal Current Biology, the observational data is the first evidence of the sharing of alcoholic foods among nonhuman great apes in the wild.
The fruit in question is seasonal and comes from Treculia africana trees common across the home environment of the wild chimps in Cantanhez National Park in Guinea-Bissau. Once mature, the fruits drop from the tree to the ground and slowly ripen from a hard, deep green exterior to a yellow, spongier texture. Because the chimps are unhabituated, the authors deployed camera traps at three separate locations to record their feeding and sharing behavior.
They recorded 10 instances of selective fruit sharing among 17 chimps, with the animals exhibiting a marked preference for riper fruit. Between April and July 2022, the authors measured the alcohol content of the fruit with a handy portable breathalyzer and found almost all of the fallen fruit (90 percent) contained some ethanol, with the ripest containing the highest levels—the equivalent of 0.61 percent ABV (alcohol by volume).
White House plagued by Signal controversy as Pentagon in “full-blown meltdown”
It's possible that the White House may be looking to replace Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth after critics warned that a pair of controversial Signal chats risked compromising US national security.
In March, it was revealed that Hegseth accidentally texted secret bombing plans in a Signal chat that included a reporter, raising alarms about his handling of sensitive military information. And then this weekend, The New York Times revealed that he similarly shared the attack plans, just minutes after learning of them, in a personal Signal chat that included his wife and brother.
That second revelation sparked a "full-blown meltdown" at the Pentagon, The Guardian reported, apparently prompting the Trump administration to begin "the process of looking for a new secretary of defense," a US official granted anonymity told NPR Monday.
Teen coder shuts down open source Mac app Whisky, citing harm to paid apps
Whisky, a gaming-focused front-end for Wine's Windows compatibility tools on macOS, is no longer receiving updates. As one of the most useful and well-regarded tools in a Mac gamer's toolkit, it could be seen as a great loss, but its developer hopes you'll move on with what he considers a better option: supporting CodeWeavers' CrossOver product.
Also, Whisky's creator is an 18-year-old college student, and he could use a break.
"I am 18, yes, and attending Northeastern University, so it's always a balancing act between my school work and dev work," Isaac Marovitz wrote to Ars. The Whisky project has "been more or less in this state for a few months, I posted the notice mostly to clarify and formally announce it," Marovitz said, having received "a lot of questions" about the project status.
Trump can’t keep China from getting AI chips, TSMC suggests
As the global artificial intelligence (AI) race presses on amid a US-China trade war, the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC)—a $514 billion titan that manufactures most of the world's AI chips—is warning that it may not be possible to keep its customers' most advanced technology out of China's hands.
US export controls require chipmakers to monitor shipments and know their customers to restrict China's access to AI chips. But in a recently published 2024 report, TSMC confirmed that its "role in the semiconductor supply chain inherently limits its visibility and information available to it regarding the downstream use or user of final products that incorporate semiconductors manufactured by it."
Essentially, TSMC expects that it plays too big a role in the semiconductor industry to stop all the possible unintended end-uses of the semiconductors it manufactures. Similarly, it appears impossible to track all the third parties determined to skirt sanctions. And if TSMC's hands are truly tied, that ultimately means that the US can't effectively stop the latest AI tech from trickling into China.
In depth with Windows 11 Recall—and what Microsoft has (and hasn’t) fixed
Microsoft is preparing to reintroduce Recall to Windows 11. A feature limited to Copilot+ PCs—a label that just a fraction of a fraction of Windows 11 systems even qualify for—Recall has been controversial in part because it builds an extensive database of text and screenshots that records almost everything you do on your PC.
But the main problem with the initial version of Recall—the one that was delayed at the last minute after a large-scale outcry from security researchers, reporters, and users—was not just that it recorded everything you did on your PC but that it was a rushed, enabled-by-default feature with gaping security holes that made it trivial for anyone with any kind of access to your PC to see your entire Recall database.
It made no efforts to automatically exclude sensitive data like bank information or credit card numbers, offering just a few mechanisms to users to manually exclude specific apps or websites. It had been built quickly, outside of the normal extensive Windows Insider preview and testing process. And all of this was happening at the same time that the company was pledging to prioritize security over all other considerations, following several serious and highly public breaches.
