Month: May 2025

Amazons derzeit meistgekaufte Soundbar stammt von Bose. Kurze Zeit bietet der Onlineriese sie zum Bestpreis an. (Bose, Soundbar)

Fehlkonfigurationen in Microsoft 365 bleiben oft unentdeckt. Der Golem Expert: Microsoft 365 Compliance & Security Check identifiziert Schwachstellen und liefert konkrete Handlungsempfehlungen - inklusive Experten-Debriefing. (Golem Karrierewelt, Microsoft)

Nach Ansicht von Datenschutzbehörden darf Meta für sein KI-Training Nutzerdaten ohne Einwilligung verwenden. Verbraucherschützer sehen das anders. (Meta, Soziales Netz)

Amid the brutal cuts across the federal government under the Trump administration, perhaps one of the most gutting is the loss of experts at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention who respond to lead poisoning in children.

On April 1, the staff of the CDC's Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention Program was terminated as part of the agency's reduction in force, according to NPR. The staff included epidemiologists, statisticians, and advisors who specialized in lead exposures and responses.

The cuts were immediately consequential to health officials in Milwaukee, who are currently dealing with a lead exposure crisis in public schools. Six schools have had to close, displacing 1,800 students. In April, the city requested help from the CDC's lead experts, but the request was denied—there was no one left to help.

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In the US, many newly constructed generating facilities are brought online at the end of the year to qualify for tax incentives. Since much of the US's new generating capacity is solar power, that has led to a boom in solar production to start the year in recent years. With the first three months of data in for 2025, it's clear this year is no exception: Solar power is up a staggering 44 percent compared to the prior year.

That's the good news. The bad news is that, in contrast to China, solar's growth hasn't been enough to offset rising demand. Instead, the US also saw significant growth in coal use, which rose by 23 percent compared to the year prior, after years of steady decline.

Short-term fluctuations in demand are normal, generally driven by weather-induced demand for heating or cooling. Despite those changes, demand for electricity in the US has been largely flat for over a decade, largely thanks to gains in efficiency. But 2024 saw demand go up by nearly three percent, and the first quarter of 2025 saw another rise, this time of nearly five percent. It's a bit too early to say that we're seeing a shift to a period of rising demand, but one has been predicted for some time due to rising data center use and the increased electrification of transportation and appliances.

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Um die Antworten auf die Anfang des Jahres verschickte Massenmail an US-Beamte auszuwerten, haben Doge-Mitarbeiter das Sprachmodell von Meta eingesetzt. (KI, Politik)

Valve is releasing version 3.7 of SteamOS to the general public, and among the routine updates and changes is a big one: This is the SteamOS release that finally adds official support for some kinds of PC hardware other than Valve's own Steam Deck.

Valve mentions certain specific handhelds as having either "official" or "improved support," including the Asus ROG Ally, the Lenovo Legion Go, and the Lenovo Legion Go S. It also includes directions for configuring the original Legion Go and ROG Ally for SteamOS installation. But Valve says that only the Steam Deck and Legion Go S have fully baked SteamOS support.

The release claims to run on "other AMD powered handhelds" more broadly, implying that most third-party handheld PCs with Ryzen Z1 or Z2-series processors ought to support at least some basic functionality. Other all-AMD desktops and laptops have a decent shot at being supported, too.

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Expert advisors for the Food and Drug Administration met Thursday to discuss which virus strain this year's updated COVID-19 vaccines should target. The advisors have been meeting around this time each year for such a strain selection, a routine decision in the process of updating the life-saving vaccines.

But this year's meeting was awkward and even a little tense. Earlier this week, new FDA leaders under health secretary and anti-vaccine advocate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced a sweeping new framework that would restrict access to the shots, making them available only to people 65 and older and those with medical conditions that put them at risk of severe illness. For updated COVID-19 vaccines to be approved for healthy children and adults, vaccine makers would need to repeat large, randomized, placebo-controlled trials, which are expensive, ethically debatable at this point, and could easily take too much time to complete before the shots would need to be ready for fall vaccinations. The advisors weren't consulting on the new framework, and there is much uncertainty about its implementation.

Just thirty minutes into yesterday's nearly seven-hour meeting, one committee member broached one of the largest looming questions, saying, "If a different strain was selected for this season, would that require additional clinical trials, etc.?"

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Niederländische Verbraucherschützer reichen in Deutschland Klage gegen X ein - Nutzer können sich der Klage über ein Formular anschließen. (X, Datenschutz)

Donald Trump woke up Friday morning and threatened Apple with a 25 percent tariff on any iPhones sold in the US that are not manufactured in America.

In a Truth Social post, Trump claimed that he had "long ago" told Apple CEO Tim Cook that Apple's plan to manufacture iPhones for the US market in India was unacceptable. Only US-made iPhones should be sold here, he said.

"If that is not the case, a tariff of at least 25 percent must be paid by Apple to the US," Trump said.

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