Boston Dynamics has integrated Google DeepMind into its robotic dog Spot, giving it more autonomous reasoning for industrial inspections like spotting spills and reading gauges. Spot can also now recognize when to call on other AI tools. IEEE Spectrum reports: Boston Dynamics is one of the few companies to commercially deploy legged robots at any appreciable scale; there are now several thousand hard at work. Today the company is announcing that its quadruped robot Spot is now equipped with Google DeepMind's Gemini Robotics-ER 1.6, a high-level embodied reasoning model that brings usability and intelligence to complex tasks.

[T]he focus of this partnership is on one of the very few applications where legged robots have proven themselves to be commercially viable: inspection. That is, wandering around industrial facilities, checking to make sure that nothing is imminently exploding. With the new AI onboard, Spot is now able to autonomously look for dangerous debris or spills, read complex gauges and sight glasses, and call on tools like vision-language-action models when it needs help understanding what's going on in the environment around it. "Advances like Gemini Robotics-ER 1.6 mark an important step toward robots that can better understand and operate in the physical world," Marco da Silva, vice president and general manager of Spot at Boston Dynamics, says in a press release. "Capabilities like instrument reading and more reliable task reasoning will enable Spot to see, understand, and react to real-world challenges completely autonomously."

You can watch a demo of Spot's new capabilities on YouTube.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

In an interview with Fox News, Ford CEO Jim Farley warned that allowing Chinese vehicle imports could put nearly a million U.S. jobs at risk. He said China's heavily subsidized auto industry has enough excess capacity to supply the entire U.S. market, while also raising serious cybersecurity concerns given how much data modern connected cars collect. Ars Technica reports: "First of all, the Chinese have huge direct support for their auto companies," Farley said, while noting that China has the ability to build an additional 21 million vehicles a year on top of the 29 million that are expected to roll off Chinese production lines in 2026. "They have enough capacity in China to cover all the manufacturing, all the vehicle sales in the United States," Farley said.

"Manufacturing is the heart and soul of our country, and for us to lose those exports would be devastating for our country," he continued, before pointing out the cybersecurity worries about Chinese cars. "All the vehicles have 10 cameras. They can collect a lot of data," he said.

Farley has praised Chinese EVs like the Xiaomi SU7, even going on podcasts to sing its praises. But he believes Ford's forthcoming affordable Kentucky-built EVs, due to start hitting dealerships next year, have what it takes to be competitive. When asked about new car prices rising an average of 2 percent last year, Farley repeatedly said that Ford had "worked with the administration" so that there's "essentially no big impact" of the Trump tariffs. The CEO justified the rising costs by pointing to the F-150's sales as proof of its value.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Cal is moving its flagship scheduling software from open source to a proprietary license, arguing that AI coding tools now make it much easier for attackers to scan public codebases for vulnerabilities. "Open source security always relied on people to find and fix any problems," said Peer Richelsen, co-founder of Cal. "Now AI attackers are flaunting that transparency." CEO Bailey Pumfleet added: "Open-source code is basically like handing out the blueprint to a bank vault. And now there are 100x more hackers studying the blueprint." The company says it still supports open source and is releasing a separate Cal.diy version for hobbyists, but doesn't want to risk customer booking data in its commercial product. ZDNet reports: When Cal was founded in 2022, Bailey Pumfleet, the CEO and co-founder, wrote, "Cal.com would be an open-source project [because] limitations of existing scheduling products could only be solved by open source." Since Cal was successful and now claims to be the largest Next.js project, he was on to something. Today, however, Pumfleet tells me that AI programs such as "Claude Opus can scour the code to find vulnerabilities," so the company is moving the project from the GNU Affero General Public License (AGPL) to a proprietary license to defend the program's security.

[...] Cal also quoted Huzaifa Ahmad, CEO of Hex Security, "Open-source applications are 5-10x easier to exploit than closed-source ones. The result, where Cal sits, is a fundamental shift in the software economy. Companies with open code will be forced to risk customer data or close public access to their code." "We are committed to protecting sensitive data," Pumfleet said. "We want to be a scheduling company, not a cybersecurity company." He added, "Cal.com handles sensitive booking data for our users. We won't risk that for our love of open source."

While its commercial program is no longer open source, Cal has released Cal.diy. This is a fully open-source version of its platform for hobbyists. The open project will enable experimentation outside the closed application that handles high-stakes data. Pumfleet concluded, "This decision is entirely around the vulnerability that open source introduces. We still firmly love open source, and if the situation were to change, we'd open source again. It's just that right now, we can't risk the customer data."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A Manhattan federal jury found that Live Nation and Ticketmaster illegally maintained monopoly power in the ticketing market. The findings follow an antitrust case brought by states after a separate DOJ settlement. CNN reports: The verdict was reached following a lengthy trial in New York federal court that included testimony from top executives in the music and entertainment industries. Jurors began deliberating on Friday. The Justice Department and 39 state attorneys general, including California and New York, and Washington, DC, sued Live Nation in 2024 alleging its combination with Ticketmaster and control of "virtually every aspect of the live music ecosystem" have harmed fans, artists, and venues.

During the second week of trial, in a move that surprised even the judge, the Justice Department reached a secret settlement with Live Nation. A handful of states signed onto the deal, but more than two dozen proceeded to trial. Under the DOJ deal, Live Nation agreed to allow competitors, like SeatGeek or StubHub, to offer tickets to its events, cap ticketing service fees at 15%, and divest exclusive booking agreements with 13 amphitheaters. The deal includes a $280 million settlement fund for state damages claims for the handful of states that signed onto the deal. The DOJ settlement requires the judge's approval.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TorrentFreak: Spotify and several major record labels, including UMG, Sony, and Warner, secured a $322 million default judgment against the unknown operators of Anna's Archive. The shadow library failed to appear in court and briefly released millions of tracks that were scraped from Spotify via BitTorrent. In addition to the monetary penalty, a permanent injunction required domain registrars and other parties to suspend the site's domain names. [...]

The music labels get the statutory maximum of $150,000 in damages for around 50 works. Spotify adds a DMCA circumvention claim of $2,500 for 120,000 music files, bringing the total to more than $322 million. The plaintiff previously described their damages request as "extremely conservative." The DMCA claim is based only on the 120,000 files, not the full 2.8 million that were released. Had they applied the $2,500 rate to all released files, the damages figure would exceed $7 billion. Anna's Archive did not show up in court, and the operators of the site remain unidentified. The judgment attempts to address this directly, by ordering Anna's Archive to file a compliance report within ten business days, under penalty of perjury, that includes valid contact information for the site and its managing agents.

Whether the site will comply with this order is highly uncertain. For now, the monetary judgment is mostly a victory on paper, as recouping money from an unknown entity is impossible. For this reason, the music companies also requested a permanent injunction. In addition to the damages award, [Judge Jed Rakoff] entered a permanent worldwide injunction covering ten Anna's Archive domains: annas-archive.org, .li, .se, .in, .pm, .gl, .ch, .pk, .gd, and .vg. Domain registries and registrars of record, along with hosting and internet service providers, are ordered to permanently disable access to those domains, disable authoritative nameservers, cease hosting services, and preserve evidence that could identify the site's operators.

The judgment names specific third parties bound by those obligations, including Public Interest Registry, Cloudflare, Switch Foundation, The Swedish Internet Foundation, Njalla SRL, IQWeb FZ-LLC, Immaterialism Ltd., Hosting Concepts B.V., Tucows Domains Inc., and OwnRegistrar, Inc. Anna's Archive is also ordered to destroy all copies of works scraped from Spotify and to file a compliance report within ten business days, under penalty of perjury, including valid contact information for the site and its managing agents. That last requirement could prove significant, given that the identity of the site's operators remains unknown.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Weer voor Rotterdam ☁️ - 16-04-2026 01:15 CEST

In één oogopslag:
• 13.4°C · Bewolkt ☁️ | Min 9.9°C / Max 19.7°C | Kans op neerslag 6%

Verwachting voor vandaag:
• Min 9.9°C, Max 19.7°C (Lichte motregen) 🌦️, Neerslag 0.1 mm, Kans op neerslag 6%, 🧭 1020.4 hPa ↗️ +1.9 hPa/24h, Windsnelheid: 17.3 km/u (4.8 m/s), richting: ↑ 193°

Uurlijkse voorspelling voor de komende 12 uur:

• 02:00: 13.1°C (Helder) 🌕, Kans op neerslag 25%, 🧭 1018.5 hPa ➡️ 0.0 hPa/1h, Windsnelheid: 13.3 km/u (3.7 m/s), richting: ↗ 227°
• 03:00: 12.6°C (Helder) 🌕, Kans op neerslag 18%, 🧭 1018.6 hPa ➡️ 0.0 hPa/1h, Windsnelheid: 14.8 km/u (4.1 m/s), richting: ↗ 237°
• 04:00: 12.0°C (Helder) 🌕, Kans op neerslag 8%, 🧭 1018.6 hPa ➡️ 0.0 hPa/1h, Windsnelheid: 15.8 km/u (4.4 m/s), richting: ↗ 226°
• 05:00: 11.6°C (Licht bewolkt) 🌕, 🧭 1018.8 hPa ➡️ 0.0 hPa/1h, Windsnelheid: 15.5 km/u (4.3 m/s), richting: ↗ 229°
• 06:00: 11.2°C (Bewolkt) ☁️, 🧭 1019.0 hPa ➡️ 0.0 hPa/1h, Windsnelheid: 14.8 km/u (4.1 m/s), richting: ↗ 235°
• 07:00: 11.1°C (Bewolkt) ☁️, 🧭 1019.2 hPa ➡️ 0.0 hPa/1h, Windsnelheid: 14.4 km/u (4.0 m/s), richting: ↗ 231°
• 08:00: 11.6°C (Zonnig) ☀️, 🧭 1019.6 hPa ➡️ 0.0 hPa/1h, Windsnelheid: 14.4 km/u (4.0 m/s), richting: ↗ 229°
• 09:00: 12.6°C (Zonnig) ☀️, 🧭 1019.9 hPa ➡️ 0.0 hPa/1h, Windsnelheid: 16.6 km/u (4.6 m/s), richting: ↗ 242°
• 10:00: 13.6°C (Zonnig) ☀️, 🧭 1020.5 hPa ↗️ +0.6 hPa/1h, Windsnelheid: 17.6 km/u (4.9 m/s), richting: ↗ 245°
• 11:00: 14.1°C (Zonnig) ☀️, 🧭 1020.8 hPa ➡️ 0.0 hPa/1h, Windsnelheid: 18.4 km/u (5.1 m/s), richting: → 252°
• 12:00: 14.8°C (Zonnig) ☀️, Kans op neerslag 1%, 🧭 1021.1 hPa ➡️ 0.0 hPa/1h, Windsnelheid: 15.5 km/u (4.3 m/s), richting: ↗ 244°
• 13:00: 15.8°C (Zonnig) ☀️, Kans op neerslag 3%, 🧭 1021.3 hPa ➡️ 0.0 hPa/1h, Windsnelheid: 15.1 km/u (4.2 m/s), richting: ↗ 246°

Voorspelling voor de komende dagen:

• vrijdag 17 april: Min 11.1°C, Max 17.5°C (Bewolkt) ☁️, Kans op neerslag 3%, 🧭 1021.6 hPa ↗️ +1.2 hPa/24h, Windsnelheid: 18.4 km/u (5.1 m/s), richting: ↗ 243°
• zaterdag 18 april: Min 12.7°C, Max 18.8°C (Bewolkt) ☁️, Kans op neerslag 2%, 🧭 1022.0 hPa ➡️ 0.0 hPa/24h, Windsnelheid: 11.2 km/u (3.1 m/s), richting: ↑ 190°
• zondag 19 april: Min 7.8°C, Max 15.9°C (Matige motregen) 🌦️, Neerslag 1.6 mm, Kans op neerslag 13%, 🧭 1024.4 hPa ↗️ +2.4 hPa/24h, Windsnelheid: 12.6 km/u (3.5 m/s), richting: → 270°
• maandag 20 april: Min 7.1°C, Max 14.5°C (Lichte motregen) 🌦️, Neerslag 0.3 mm, Kans op neerslag 13%, 🧭 1025.6 hPa ↗️ +1.2 hPa/24h, Windsnelheid: 14.0 km/u (3.9 m/s), richting: ↓ 346°
• dinsdag 21 april: Min 6.6°C, Max 11.1°C (Lichte motregen) 🌦️, Neerslag 0.9 mm, Kans op neerslag 22%, 🧭 1022.6 hPa ↘️ -3.0 hPa/24h, Windsnelheid: 15.9 km/u (4.4 m/s), richting: ↓ 7°
• woensdag 22 april: Min 5.1°C, Max 12.6°C (Bewolkt) ☁️, Kans op neerslag 8%, 🧭 1020.6 hPa ↘️ -2.0 hPa/24h, Windsnelheid: 15.4 km/u (4.3 m/s), richting: ↙ 36°

Details:
• 🌡️ Huidige temperatuur (om 01:15): 13.4°C (Bewolkt)
• 🤚 Gevoelstemperatuur: 11.4°C (-2.0°C)
• 💨 Windsnelheid: 16.6 km/u (4.6 m/s), richting: ↗ 223°
• 🌬️ Windstoten: 32.0 km/h (8.9 m/s)
• 💧 Luchtvochtigheid: 86%
• 🧭 Luchtdruk: 1018.5 hPa ➡️ 0.0 hPa/3h
• 👁️ Zichtbaarheid: 11.2 km
• ☀️ UV-index: 0.0
• 🌅 Zonsopgang: 06:45 · 🌇 Zonsondergang: 20:39

Luchtkwaliteit:
• AQI: 59 🟡 (Matig)
• PM2.5: 9.6 μg/m³
• PM10: 13.9 μg/m³

Gegevens geleverd door Open-Meteo

#Rotterdam #Meteo #MeteoBot #MeteoNetherlands #OpenMeteo #FediMeteo

Energy crisis unfolding in Middle East has added political urgency, and more funding, to transform the solar industry in particular

In Guyang-ri, a farming village of 70 households about 90 minutes south-east of Seoul, residents gather for free communal lunches six days a week. The meals are funded by the village’s one-megawatt solar installation, which generates roughly 10m won ($6,800) in net profit each month.

“Residents eat lunch together every day, so we see each other’s faces, talk together,” says Jeon Joo-young, the village chief. “Bonds and solidarity between residents become much stronger. Life becomes more enjoyable.”

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Fundraising under way to fix uneven floor at Dry Doddington’s 14th century church as stone slabs shift

A church in the Midlands that leans more than the Tower of Pisa is in need of more than £100,000 in repairs to renovate its wonky floor.

Dry Doddington’s St James church tower in Lincolnshire is famous for its jaunty angle of 5.1 degrees, compared to the landmark in Piazza dei Miracoli, Tuscany, which has a lean of about 3.97 degrees.

Residents are trying to raise money for the Grade II-listed building, which was built in the 12th century.

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Researchers find increase in whale deaths in the Bay, largely because of collisions with vessels on busy shipping route

Gray whales have historically been a rare sight in the San Francisco Bay. They trek from the warm lagoons of Mexico’s Baja California over 10,000 miles north to the Arctic region to feast on shrimp-like animals during the summers, seldom stopping in the busy shipping corridor for prolonged periods.

But in recent years, that story has changed in a dire way. A new study, published this week in the journal Frontiers in Marine Science, has found that gray whales in the Bay have been dying at alarming rates, largely due to collisions with vessels.

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Agents detained Marie-Therese Ross in Alabama on 1 April after she overstayed her 90-day visa, according to DHS

The French government is pressing the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to release the 86-year-old French widow of a military veteran from immigration custody after she was detained earlier this month.

US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents detained Marie-Therese Ross in Alabama on 1 April after she overstayed her 90-day visa, according to DHS. Ross is now being held at a federal immigration detention facility in Louisiana.

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on the water photography has added a photo to the pool:

HOOFDDORP (ANP) - Bij een steekpartij in Hoofddorp is woensdagavond een dode gevallen, meldt de politie in een bericht op X. Volgens de politie hebben hulpdiensten nog geprobeerd het slachtoffer te redden, "maar dit mocht helaas niet meer baten".

Het incident vond om 21.40 uur plaats in een woning aan de Liesbos. De politie heeft één persoon aangehouden en doet nu verder onderzoek.

In this article, we will use Python for backtesting a relatively simple strategy, experiment with the above components, and finally present and discuss the results of our backtesting.

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Thomas Hawk posted a photo:

Thomas Hawk posted a photo:

A new F1 season means a fresh set of challenges for the drivers, with Audi pair Nico Hulkenberg and Gabriel Bortoleto the first to feature in 2026’s ‘Grid Games’ series.

Like the majority of the companies participating, it remains a mystery

Last week, Anthropic surprised the world by declaring that its latest model, Mythos, is so good at finding vulns that it would create chaos if released. Now, under the title of Project Glasswing, over 50 selected companies and orgs are allowed to test the hyped up LLM to find security holes in their own products. But just how many problems have they really discovered?…

Look through any window, Keiran Brennan Hinton