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GameStop Is Preparing Offer For eBay
GameStop is reportedly preparing a potential offer for eBay, an unusually ambitious move given that eBay's roughly $46 billion market value is nearly four times GameStop's. Reuters reports: GameStop is preparing an offer for eBay as CEO Ryan Cohen pursues plans to boost the struggling videogame retailer's market value more than tenfold, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday. Shares of eBay, which has a market capitalization of about $46 billion, soared about 14% in extended trading. GameStop gained 4%. The company has a market value of nearly $12 billion. GameStop has been quietly building a stake in eBay's shares ahead of a potential offer, the report said, citing people familiar with the matter. If eBay is not receptive, Cohen could decide to take the offer directly to the e-commerce company's shareholders, the Journal said.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
New Lithium-Plasma Engine Passes Key Mars Propulsion Test
NASA engineers have tested a next-generation lithium-plasma electric propulsion system that reached 120 kilowatts, a new U.S. record and about 25 times the power of the electric thrusters on NASA's Psyche spacecraft. "Designing and building these thrusters over the last couple of years has been a long lead-up to this first test," said James Polk, who is a senior research scientist at NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory. "It's a huge moment for us because we not only showed the thruster works, but we also hit the power levels we were targeting. And we know we have a good testbed to begin addressing the challenges to scaling up." Universe Today reports: While 120 kilowatts is a new record, NASA estimates it a future human mission to Mars will require 2 to 4 megawatts of power consisting of several thrusters and requiring more than 23,000 hours (958 days/2.6 years) of operation. To accomplish this, the thrusters would have to withstand more than 2,800 degrees Celsius (5,000 degrees Fahrenheit), which the thrusters achieved during testing. The reason for the extended operation is due to the estimated time of an entire human mission to Mars, which is estimated to be approximately 2.6 years. This is because the launch window to Mars only opens once every two years due to the orbital behaviors of both planets. While no mission has ever returned from the Red Planet, this same launch window works from Mars to Earth, too. When launched within this window, robotic spacecraft have traditionally taken approximately 6-7 months to reach Mars. However, a human mission would require a much larger spacecraft to accommodate the astronauts, food, fuel, water, and other mission-essential items. For the approximate 2.6-year mission, this would entail approximately 6-9 months traveling to Mars, followed by approximately 18 months on the surface of Mars until the next launch window opens, then another approximate 6-9 months back to Earth. However, having much less fuel due to the electric propulsion system could potentially alter this timeframe.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Amazon Stuck With Months of Repairs After Drone Strikes On Data Centers
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Amazon's cloud customers will need to wait several more months before the US tech company can repair war-damaged data centers and restore normal operations in the Middle East. The announcement comes two months after Iranian drone strikes targeted three Amazon data centers in the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain -- meaning that full recovery from the cloud disruption could take nearly half a year in all. The Amazon Web Services (AWS) dashboard posted an April 30 update describing how its UAE and Bahrain cloud regions "suffered damage as a result of the conflict in the Middle East" and are unable to support customer applications. The update also said that "relevant billing operations are currently suspended while we restore normal operations" in a process that "is expected to take several months." That wording suggests Amazon will continue to avoid billing AWS customers in the affected regions -- ME-CENTRAL-1 and ME-SOUTH-1 -- after it initially waived all usage-related charges for March 2026 at an estimated cost of $150 million. AWS also "strongly" recommended that customers migrate resources to other cloud regions and rely on remote backups to restore any "inaccessible resources." Some customers, such as the Dubai-based super app Careem—which offers ride-hailing, household services, and food and grocery delivery -- were able to get back online quickly after doing an overnight migration to other data center servers.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Microsoft's Xbox Mode Is Now Available For All Windows 11 PCs
Microsoft is rolling out Xbox mode to all Windows 11 PCs, bringing a full-screen Xbox PC app interface similar to Steam's Big Picture Mode. "Some players in select markets will be able to download the Xbox mode experience today, with availability expanding to more players in those markets over the next several weeks," says the Xbox team. The Verge reports: Xbox mode aims to try and bridge the gap between Xbox consoles and Windows, but its original debut felt like a beta on the Xbox Ally devices. "Since first introducing Xbox mode, formerly known as 'full screen experience,' on Windows handhelds, we've been listening closely to player feedback and continuing to evolve the experience across devices," says the Xbox team. "Those learnings directly shaped Xbox mode on Windows 11 PCs." Microsoft is also rolling out improvements to the Xbox Ally X handheld today, including a preview of its Auto SR upscaling technology. Xbox console owners are also getting a new dashboard update today, with the ability to disable Quick Resume on individual games and a feature to add custom colors to the dashboard.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
AI Agent Designed To Speed Up Company's Coding Wipes Entire Database In 9 Seconds
joshuark shares a report from Live Science: An AI coding agent designed to help a small software company streamline its tasks instead blew a hole through its business in just nine seconds. PocketOS founder Jer Crane, said that the AI coding agent Cursor --powered by Anthropic's Claude Opus 4.6 model -- deleted the company's entire production database and backups with a single call to its cloud provider, Railway, on April 24. [...] "This isn't a story about one bad agent or one bad API [Application Programming Interfaces]," Crane wrote in an X post. "It's about an entire industry building AI-agent integrations into production infrastructure faster than it's building the safety architecture to make those integrations safe." Crane's company, PocketOS makes software for car rental companies, handling tasks such as reservations, payments, customer records and vehicle tracking. After the deletion, Crane said customers lost reservations and new signups, and some could not find records for people arriving to pick up their rental cars. "We've contacted legal counsel," Crane wrote. "We are documenting everything." Crane explained that Cursor found an API token -- a "digital key" made of a short sequence of code that lets software talk to other services and prove it has permission to act -- in an unrelated file which it then used to run the destructive command. According to Crane, Railway's setup allowed the deletion without confirmation, and because the backups were stored close enough to the main database, they were also erased. "[Railway] resolved the issue and restored the data," Railway confirmed via email to Live Science. "We maintain both user backups as well as disaster backups. We take data very, VERY seriously." In his post, he pointed to earlier reports of Cursor ignoring user rules, changing files it was not supposed to touch and taking actions beyond the task it had been given. To him, the database wipe was not a freak accident but the next step in a larger, more concerning, pattern. After the database vanished, Crane asked Cursor to explain what happened. The AI agent reportedly admitted that it had guessed, acted without permission and failed to understand the command before running it. "I violated every principle I was given," the AI agent wrote. "I guessed instead of verifying. I ran a destructive action without being asked. I didn't understand what I was doing before doing it." The statement reads like a confession [...]. "We are not the first," Crane wrote. "We will not be the last unless this gets airtime."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Ars Technica
Infrasound waves stop kitchen fires, but can they replace sprinklers?
Acoustic fire suppression goes commercial.
Study: AI models that consider user's feeling are more likely to make errors
Overtuning can cause models to "prioritize user satisfaction over truthfulness.”
The RAMpocalypse has bought Microsoft valuable time in the fight against SteamOS
Op-ed: Valve has made a dent in Windows' gaming share, but can it keep going?
Man dies covered in necrotic lesions after amoebas eat him alive
Doctors suspect three factors, each unremarkable on its own, contributed to his fate.
Ubuntu infrastructure has been down for more than a day
The outage has hampered communication concerning a critical vulnerability that gives root.
Senators ban themselves from prediction markets after candidates bet on own races
Senator decries "blatant, brazen corruption," wants to target Trump admin next.
Minnesota passes ban on fake AI nudes; app makers risk $500K fines
More evidence of Grok CSAM seen as Minnesota passes nudifying app ban.
Amazon stuck with months of repairs after drone strikes on data centers
AWS stops billing Middle East cloud customers as repairs to war damage drag on.
Scorpions go terminator mode and reinforce their weapons with metal
Different hunting patterns seem to dictate different distributions of metal.
GPT-5.5 matches heavily hyped Mythos Preview in new cybersecurity tests
New results suggest Mythos' cyber threat isn't "a breakthrough specific to one model."
Is your Purosangue SUV not sharp enough? Ferrari has you covered.
We'll soon get to see the brand's first EV; first, a more honed V12 four-seater.
Virgin Galactic reveals new ship, but it's running out of time and cash
It's not clear whether Virgin Galactic has the cash reserves to fund a prolonged test phase.
Apple may take "several months" to catch up to Mac mini and Studio demand
Chip shortages and demand from AI enthusiasts are both playing a part.
Women sue the men who used their Instagram feeds to create AI porn influencers
AI ModelForge is a platform that teaches men how to generate their own AI influencers.
Rocket Report: Falcon Heavy is back; Russia's Soyuz-5 finally debuts
Two launches this week delivered 61 more satellites to orbit for the Amazon Leo broadband network.
There's a lot of hype about Chinese EVs—is any of it true?
In addition to being full of screens, China now wants its cars to be packed with AI.
Trump nominates Fox News doctor to be the next surgeon general
Trump lashes out at Cassidy while announcing his new nomination.
US falls below Ukraine in press freedom as global autocracy takes hold
"In 25 years, the average score... has never been so low."
Russia cloaks launch schedule after spaceport falls in Ukraine's sights
"We had serious inbound attempts to the cosmodrome that day."
Elon Musk's 7 biggest stumbles on the stand at OpenAI trial
Elon Musk spent three days testifying as the first witness in his trial against OpenAI.
Check out some Bands on Bandcamp.com. Seven Times Refined by Altogether Steve and the Mercenaries, Crazy Fingers (Vancouver 1991), Flying Butt Pliers, and Hammy Ham Hands.
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