ArsTechnica
Review: Thunderbolts* is a refreshing return to peak Marvel form
It looks like Marvel has another critical and box office hit on its hands—and deservedly so—with Thunderbolts*, a follow-up of sorts to 2021's Black Widow and the final film in the MCU's Phase Five.
Yes, the asterisk is part of the title. Yes, I found that choice inexplicable when it was first announced. And yes, having seen the film, the asterisk makes perfect sense now as a well-timed joke. I won't spill the beans because that would spoil the fun. Instead, I'll simply say that Thunderbolts* is a refreshing return to peak Marvel form: well-paced, witty, and action-packed with enough heart to ensure you care about the characters.
(Some spoilers below.)
Chips aren’t improving like they used to, and it’s killing game console price cuts
For many, many years, I wouldn't get a new game console until a couple years after it launched. This was partly because I wanted any new console I bought to have a decent-sized library of things to play, and partly because it sometimes paid to sit back and see which console was going to "win" the generation in terms of first-party exclusives and third-party developer support.
But mostly it was because, from the Atari VCS in the 70s all the way up through the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One generation in the 2010s, you could always count on game consoles getting cheaper as time went on. Those price reductions would often also come with internal tweaks and external redesigns—smaller or slimmer or otherwise improved versions of the console that made them superior to the originals (though you would occasionally lose a lesser-used feature or two along the way).
But both of those things have mostly stopped. The last permanent price drop for a major home or portable console we could find came back in 2016, when the PS4 Slim launched and dropped the price of entry from $349 to $299 (this doesn't count the launch of new editions of consoles with reduced feature sets, like the New Nintendo 2DS in 2017 or $249 all-digital Xbox One in 2019). This generation, we've seen something that would have been unheard of a few years ago: price increases for consoles, including $50 extra for the new OLED edition of the Nintendo Switch in 2021, a $50 price hike for the slimmer disc-drive-less version of the PlayStation 5 in 2023, and $80 to $100 price hikes for the exact same unimproved versions of the Xbox Series S and X earlier this week.
A DOGE recruiter is staffing a project to deploy AI agents across the US government
A young entrepreneur who was among the earliest known recruiters for Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has a new, related gig—and he’s hiring. Anthony Jancso, cofounder of AcclerateX, a government tech startup, is looking for technologists to work on a project that aims to have artificial intelligence perform tasks that are currently the responsibility of tens of thousands of federal workers.
Jancso, a former Palantir employee, wrote in a Slack with about 2000 Palantir alumni in it that he’s hiring for a “DOGE orthogonal project to design benchmarks and deploy AI agents across live workflows in federal agencies,” according to an April 21 post reviewed by WIRED. Agents are programs that can perform work autonomously.
We’ve identified over 300 roles with almost full-process standardization, freeing up at least 70k FTEs for higher-impact work over the next year,” he continued, essentially claiming that tens of thousands of federal employees could see many aspects of their job automated and replaced by these AI agents. Workers for the project, he wrote, would be based on site in Washington, DC, and would not require a security clearance; it isn’t clear for whom they would work. Palantir did not respond to requests for comment.
In his first 100 days, Trump launched an “all-out assault” on the environment
This article originally appeared on Inside Climate News, a nonprofit, non-partisan news organization that covers climate, energy, and the environment. Sign up for their newsletter here.
One hundred days into the second Trump administration, many environmentalists’ worst fears about the new presidency have been realized—and surpassed.
Facing a spate of orders, pronouncements, and actions that target America’s most cherished natural resources and most vulnerable communities, advocates fear the Trump agenda, unchecked, will set the country back decades.
We finally know a little more about Amazon’s super-secret satellites
The first production satellites for Amazon's Kuiper broadband network launched earlier this week, but if you tuned in to the mission's official livestream, the truncated coverage had the feel of a spy satellite launch.
This changed with a video Amazon posted on social media Friday, giving space enthusiasts and prospective Kuiper customers their first look at the real satellites. The 40-second clip shows the Kuiper satellites separating from their launch vehicle in the blackness of space following liftoff Monday from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida.
Since Amazon unveiled Project Kuiper in 2019, officials at the retail giant have been shy about showing even the most basic imagery of their satellites. Images released by Amazon previously provided glimpses inside the company's satellite factory near Seattle, along with views of the shipping containers Amazon uses to transport spacecraft from Washington their launch base in Florida.
Health care company says Trump tariffs will cost it $60M–$70M this year
Baxter International, a prominent health care and pharmaceutical manufacturer, reports that President Trump's tariffs will likely cost the company $60 million to $70 million this year, according to the Chicago Tribune.
The hefty toll was revealed by Baxter's executive vice president and chief financial officer, Joel Grade, during an earnings call Thursday.
"We are able to mitigate a portion of these impacts," Grade reportedly said in the call. "Currently a majority of Baxter’s products sold in the US are manufactured in the US and made largely from US-made components. However, international procurement is part of our business operations and as such we are impacted from the US and retaliatory tariffs that have been issued."
DOJ confirms it wants to break up Google’s ad business
We sometimes think of Google as a search company, but that's merely incidental—Google is really the world's biggest advertiser. That's why the antitrust case focused on Google's ad tech business could have even more lasting effects than cases focused on search or mobile apps. The court ruled against Google last month, and now both sides are lining up to present their proposed remedies in a trial later this year.
In today's hearing, US District Judge Leonie Brinkema set the beginning of that trial for September 22 of this year. Just like the search case, the Department of Justice (DOJ) is aiming to hack off pieces of Google to level the playing field. Specifically, the DOJ is asking the court to force Google to sell two parts of the ad business: the ad exchange and the publisher ad server. The ad exchange is the world's largest marketplace for bidding on advertising space. The ad server, meanwhile, is a tool that publishers use to list and sell ads on their sites.
While Google lost the liability phase of the case, it won on the subject of ad networks. The court decided that the government had not proven that Google's acquisition of ad networks like DoubleClick and Admeld had harmed competition. So, Google won't have to worry about losing those parts of the business.
Editorial: Censoring the scientific enterprise, one grant at a time
Over the last two weeks, in response to Executive Order 14035, the National Science Foundation (NSF) has discontinued funding for research on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), as well as support for researchers from marginalized backgrounds. Executive Order 14168 ordered the NSF (and other federal agencies) to discontinue any research that focused on women, women in STEM, gender variation, and transsexual or transgender populations—and, oddly, transgenic mice.
Then, another round of cancellations targeted research on misinformation and disinformation, a subject (among others) that Republican Senator Ted Cruz views as advancing neo-Marxist perspectives and class warfare.
During the previous three years, I served as a program officer at the NSF Science of Science (SOS) program. We reviewed, recommended, and awarded competitive research grants on science communication, including research on science communication to the public, communication of public priorities to scientists, and citizen engagement and participation in science. Projects my team reviewed and funded on misinformation are among the many others at NSF that have now been canceled (see the growing list here).
Judge on Meta’s AI training: “I just don’t understand how that can be fair use”
A judge who may be the first to rule on whether AI training data is fair use appeared skeptical Thursday at a hearing where Meta faced off with book authors over the social media company's alleged copyright infringement.
Meta, like most AI companies, holds that training must be deemed fair use, or else the entire AI industry could face immense setbacks, wasting precious time negotiating data contracts while falling behind global rivals. Meta urged the court to rule that AI training is a transformative use that only references books to create an entirely new work that doesn't replicate authors' ideas or replace books in their markets.
At the hearing that followed after both sides requested summary judgment, however, Judge Vince Chhabria pushed back on Meta attorneys arguing that the company's Llama AI models posed no threat to authors in their markets, Reuters reported.
Microsoft’s new “passwordless by default” is great but comes at a cost
Microsoft says it’s making passwordless logins the default means for signing in to new accounts, as the company helps drive an industry-wide push to transition away from passwords and the costly security problems they have created for companies and their users.
A key part of the “passwordless by default” initiative Microsoft announced on Thursday is encouraging the use of passkeys—the new alternative to passwords that Microsoft, Google, Apple, and a large roster of other companies are developing under the coordination of the FIDO Alliance.
Going forward, Microsoft will make passkeys the default means for new users to sign in. Existing users who have yet to enroll a passkey will be presented with a prompt to do so the next time they log in.
Texas goes after toothpaste in escalating fight over fluoride
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is investigating two leading toothpaste makers over their use of fluoride, suggesting that they are "illegally marketing" the teeth cleaners to parents and kids "in ways that are misleading, deceptive, and dangerous."
The toothpaste makers in the crosshairs are Colgate-Palmolive Company, maker of Colgate toothpastes, and Proctor & Gamble Manufacturing Co., which makes Crest toothpastes. In an announcement Thursday, Paxton said he has sent Civil Investigative Demands (CIDs) to the companies.
The move is an escalation in an ongoing battle over fluoride, which effectively prevents dental cavities and improves oral health. Community water fluoridation has been hailed by health and dental experts as one of the top 10 great public health interventions for advancing oral health across communities, regardless of age, education, or income. But, despite the success, fluoride has always had detractors—from conspiracy theorists in the past suggesting the naturally occurring mineral is a form of communist mind control, to more recent times, in which low-quality, controversial studies have suggested that high doses may lower IQ in children.
Trump’s 2026 budget proposal: Crippling cuts for science across the board
On Friday, the US Office of Management and Budget sent Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), chair of the Senate's Appropriations Committee, an outline of what to expect from the Trump administration's 2026 budget proposal. As expected, the budget includes widespread cuts, affecting nearly every branch of the federal government.
In keeping with the administration's attacks on research agencies and the places research gets done, research funding will be taking an enormous hit, with the National Institutes of Health taking a 40 percent cut and the National Science Foundation losing 55 percent of its 2025 budget. But the budget goes well beyond those highlighted items, with nearly every place science gets done or funded targeted for cuts.
Perhaps even more shocking is the language used to justify the cuts, which reads more like a partisan rant than a serious budget document.
NASCAR, IMSA, IndyCar, F1: GM’s motorsport boss explains why it goes racing
CONCORD, N.C.—We weren't allowed cameras past the lobby of General Motors' shiny new Charlotte Technical Center. It's the automaker's new motorsport hub in the heart of NASCAR country, but the 130,000-square-foot (12,000 m2) facility is for much more than just stock cars. There are cutting-edge driver-in-the-loop simulators, shaker rigs for punishing suspension, and even an entire gym for drivers to work on their fitness.
It's also home to GM's racing command centers—conference rooms with walls of monitors where engineers and strategists provide remote support for GM's teams at their respective racetracks. It's pretty busy most weekends; this Saturday and Sunday, Chevrolet is racing in both IndyCar (in Alabama) and NASCAR (in Texas), next week, it's Chevrolet and Cadillac in Belgium for the World Endurance Championship and Northern California for IMSA, plus NASCAR in Kansas. Starting next year, F1's 24 races a year will be added to the mix as well.
The technical center had been sanitized before our group of journalists arrived, perhaps rendering the camera ban moot anyway. The smells, on the other hand, were intriguing—solvents, 3D printers, some other rapid prototyping, or maybe all of it all at once. If only websites were scratch and sniff.
Screwworms are coming—and they’re just as horrifying as they sound
We're on the verge of being screwwormed.
The biological barrier was breached, they're slithering toward our border, and the US Department of Agriculture is now carpet-bombing parts of Mexico with weaponized flies to stave off an invasion.
This is not a drill. Screwworms are possibly the most aptly named parasites imaginable, both literally and figuratively. Screwworms—technically, New World Screwworms—are flies that lay eggs on the mucous membranes, orifices, and wounds of warm-blooded animals. Wounds are the most common sites, and even a prick as small as a tick bite can be an invitation for the savage insects.
Claude’s AI research mode now runs for up to 45 minutes before delivering reports
On Thursday, Anthropic announced significant upgrades to its AI assistant Claude, extending its research capabilities to run for up to 45 minutes before delivering comprehensive reports. The company also expanded its integration options, allowing Claude to connect with popular third-party services.
Much like Google's Deep Research (which debuted on December 11) and ChatGPT's deep research features (February 2), Anthropic announced its own "Research" feature on April 15. Each can autonomously browse the web and other online sources to compile research reports in document format, and open source clones of the technique have debuted as well.
Now, Anthropic is taking its Research feature a step further. The upgraded mode enables Claude to conduct "deeper" investigations across "hundreds of internal and external sources," Anthropic says. When users toggle the Research button, Claude breaks down complex requests into smaller components, examines each one, and compiles a report with citations linking to original sources.
Google teases NotebookLM app in the Play Store ahead of I/O release
After several years of escalating AI hysteria, we are all familiar with Google's desire to put Gemini in every one of its products. That can be annoying, but NotebookLM is not—this one actually works. NotebookLM, which helps you parse documents, videos, and more using Google's advanced AI models, has been available on the web since 2023, but Google recently confirmed it would finally get an Android app. You can get a look at the app now, but it's not yet available to install.
Until now, NotebookLM was only a website. You can visit it on your phone, but the interface is clunky compared to the desktop version. The arrival of the mobile app will change that. Google said it plans to release the app at Google I/O in late May, but the listing is live in the Play Store early. You can pre-register to be notified when the download is live, but you'll have to tide yourself over with the screenshots for the time being.
NotebookLM relies on the same underlying technology as Google's other chatbots and AI projects, but instead of a general purpose robot, NotebookLM is only concerned with the documents you upload. It can assimilate text files, websites, and videos, including multiple files and source types for a single agent. It has a hefty context window of 500,000 tokens and supports document uploads as large as 200MB. Google says this creates a queryable "AI expert" that can answer detailed questions and brainstorm ideas based on the source data.
Cyborg cicadas play Pachelbel’s Canon
The distinctive chirps of singing cicadas are a highlight of summer in regions where they proliferate; those chirps even featured prominently on Lorde's 2021 album Solar Power. Now, Japanese scientists at the University of Tsukuba have figured out how to transform cicadas into cyborg insects capable of "playing" Pachelbel's Canon. They described their work in a preprint published on the physics arXiv. You can listen to the sounds here.
Scientists have been intrigued by the potential of cyborg insects since the 1990s, when researchers began implanting tiny electrodes into cockroach antennae and shocking them to direct their movements. The idea was to use them as hybrid robots for search-and-rescue applications.
For instance, in 2015, Texas A&M scientists found that implanting electrodes into a cockroach's ganglion (the neuron cluster that controls its front legs) was remarkably effective at successfully steering the roaches 60 percent of the time. They outfitted the roaches with tiny backpacks synced with a remote controller and administered shocks to disrupt the insect's balance, forcing it to move in the desired direction
“Blatantly unlawful”: Trump slammed for trying to defund PBS, NPR
President Donald Trump escalated his attack on NPR and PBS on Thursday when he signed an executive order demanding the end of all federal funding supporting the news outlets.
In his order, Trump claimed that unlike in the 1960s, when the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) was funded to ensure Americans had access to critical news, there are plenty of news options today. He has joined other Republicans accusing NPR and PBS of promoting a left-leaning bias. In a White House statement, he ordered any agency directly or indirectly funding the outlets' allegedly "woke propaganda" to "end the madness" as soon as possible, cutting off current funding "to the maximum extent allowed by law" and declining "to provide future funding."
Trump's authority to cut off CPB's funding continues to be disputed. In March, his administration reportedly planned to direct Congress to rescind CPB funding—as both NPR and PBS are fully funded through 2027—but according to PBS, budget director Russell Vought has yet to send over any guidance.
Some flies go insomniac to ward off parasites
Have you ever pulled an all-nighter because of anxiety? Found yourself doomscrolling on your phone when you should have gone to bed hours ago? Purposely downed too many cups of coffee at three in the morning? There are some insomniac flies who would like a word.
It appears that fruit flies that spend their days lazily buzzing through the lush orchards and rainforests of Queensland, Australia, live in paradise. That changes at sunset. After dark, the flies are plagued by the Gamasodesqueenslandicus mites, which can attach themselves like ticks and literally eat the flies alive in their sleep. Researchers led by University of Cincinnati biologist Joshua Benoit have now discovered that flies that have had enough of the mites will stay awake at the expense of their health.
These mite-resistant flies drain their nutrient reserves to stay up all night, making them more susceptible to starvation. Insomniacs consumed more oxygen and were generally more active than non-resistant flies; they also experienced changes in gene activity related to their metabolisms.
White House budget seeks to end SLS, Orion, and Lunar Gateway programs
The White House released a "skinny" version of its budget proposal for fiscal year 2026 on Friday, including financial information for all federal agencies. A "skinny" budget simply means that while the document contains top-line numbers for agencies and their programs, it does not provide much in the way of specific allocations.
The document was delivered to the Senate Committee on Appropriations on Friday and signed by Russell Vought, director of the White House Office of Management and Budget. A "full fiscal plan" will follow in the coming weeks. This is the first step in the budget process, in which Congress has the critical role of actually writing a budget.
"I look forward to working with you to achieve significant budgetary savings for the American people within the spending programs under your jurisdiction," Vought wrote.