Month: May 2025

The Department of Health and Human Services—under the control of anti-vaccine advocate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.—has canceled millions of dollars in federal funding awarded to Moderna to produce an mRNA vaccine against influenza viruses with pandemic potential, including the H5N1 bird flu currently sweeping US poultry and dairy cows.

Last July, the Biden administration's HHS awarded Moderna $176 million to "accelerate the development of mRNA-based pandemic influenza vaccines." In the administration's final days in January, HHS awarded the vaccine maker an additional $590 million to support "late-stage development and licensure of pre-pandemic mRNA-based vaccines." The funding would also go to the development of five additional subtypes of pandemic influenza.

On Wednesday, as news broke that the Trump administration was reneging on the contract, Moderna reported positive results from an early trial of a vaccine targeting H5 influenza viruses. In a preliminary trial of 300 healthy adults, the vaccine candidate appeared safe and boosted antibody levels against the virus by 44.5-fold.

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There may never be an iOS 19 or a macOS 16, according to reporting from Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. At its Worldwide Developers Conference next month, Apple reportedly plans to shift toward version numbers based on years rather than the current numbering system. This is intended to unify the company's current maze of version numbers; instead of iOS 19, iPadOS 19, macOS 16, tvOS 19, watchOS 11, and visionOS 3, we'll get iOS, iPadOS, macOS, tvOS, watchOS, and visionOS 26.

The last time Apple changed its version numbering convention for any of its operating systems was back in 2020, when it shifted from "macOS X" to macOS 11. Note that the numbering will be based not on the year of the software's release but on the year after; this makes a certain amount of sense since iOS 26 would be Apple's most-current version of iOS for roughly nine months of 2026 and just three months of 2025.

The update to the version numbering system will be accompanied by what Gurman describes as "fresh user interfaces across the operating systems," a visual overhaul that will bring Apple's iPhone, Mac, watch, and TV software more in line with some of the design conventions introduced in Apple's visionOS software in 2024. Among the changes and additions will be another crack at "Mac-like" multitasking for the iPad.

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The Trump administration has told US companies that offer software used to design semiconductors to stop selling their services to Chinese groups, in the latest attempt to make it harder for China to develop advanced chips.

Several people familiar with the move said the US Department of Commerce had told so-called electronic design automation groups—which include Cadence, Synopsys, and Siemens EDA—to stop supplying their technology to China.

The Bureau of Industry and Security, the arm of the US commerce department that oversees export controls, issued the directive to the companies via letters, according to the people. It was unclear if every US EDA company had received a letter.

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Pawel Durow hat eine Kooperation mit xAI angekündigt, für die Telegram einen dreistelligen Millionenbetrag erhält. (Telegram, Instant Messenger)

Einfach immer weiter größere LLMs zu bauen, wird nicht zu einer allgemeinem KI führen, sagen Forscher. Der Weg sei vielmehr eine Sackgasse. (KI, Studien)

Wie zuvor das Landgericht Köln hat auch das Landgericht München I gegen die Einbindung in das Streamingangebot Joyn entschieden. (Streaming, ARD)

Wie zuvor das Landgericht Köln hat auch das Landgericht München I gegen die Einbindung in das Streamingangebot Joyn entschieden. (Streaming, ARD)

Die USA reagieren mit drastischen Maßnahmen auf die internationale Regulierung amerikanischer Online-Aktivitäten. (Soziales Netz, Politik)

Die USA reagieren mit drastischen Maßnahmen auf die internationale Regulierung amerikanischer Online-Aktivitäten. (Soziales Netz, Politik)

Im Zuge der Verwaltungsmodernisierung sollen Bürger und Unternehmen in Deutschland ihre Daten nur noch ein einziges Mal angeben müssen. (Digitalisierung, Politik)