Switching from one smartphone to another is mostly a smooth procedure. You log into your accounts and your apps, preferences, and contacts should sync to the new hardware. But in the world of robotics, swapping an old robotic arm for a newer model has meant setting everything up from scratch. To fix that, a team of researchers at the Swiss École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) has devel

With the circumlunar flight of Artemis II, and the prospect of landing astronauts on the lunar surface within a few years, humanity is preempting an era where the imprint of visiting the Moon would be erased from living memory. There are five men still alive who flew to the Moon on NASA’s Apollo missions. All are now in their 90s. Between 1968 and 1972, 24 astronauts visited the Moon, and 12 of t

It took just a few months of President Donald Trump’s second term for Palantir employees to question their company’s commitments to civil liberties . Last fall, Palantir seemed to become the technological backbone of Trump’s immigration enforcement machinery, providing software identifying, tracking, and helping deport immigrants on behalf of the Department of Homeland Security, when current and

The US Space Force released a list Friday of a dozen companies working on Space-Based Interceptors for the Pentagon’s Golden Dome initiative, a multilayer defense system to shield US territory from drones and ballistic, hypersonic, and cruise missile attacks. The roster of Golden Dome Space-Based Interceptor (SBI) contractors, some of which were previously reported, includes Anduril Industries, B

Google will invest at least $10 billion in Anthropic, and that amount could rise to $40 billion if Anthropic meets certain performance targets, Bloomberg reports . The investment follows Amazon’s $5 billion initial investment in Anthropic a few days ago; the Amazon deal also leaves the door open to further investment based on performance. Both investments value Anthropic at $350 billion. Anthropi

Moderna’s mRNA-based combination vaccine against both flu and COVID-19 has gotten the green light in Europe—but it continues to be shelved in the US, where it was developed. This week, the European Commission authorized Moderna to market the vaccine, mRNA-1083 or mCOMBRIAX, making it the world’s first authorized combination shot for the two respiratory viruses. The decision follows a positive rev

The Federal Communications Commission clarified this week that its sweeping ban on foreign-made consumer routers also affects portable hotspot devices. The FCC added a new section to an FAQ titled, “Is my device a consumer-grade router under the National Security Determination?” The new FAQ section says this category includes “consumer-grade portable or mobile MiFi Wi-Fi or hotspot devices for re

Websites for some of the world’s most prestigious universities are serving explicit porn and malicious content after scammers exploited the shoddy record-keeping of the site administrators, a researcher found recently. The sites included berkeley.edu, columbia.edu, and washu.edu, the official domains for the University of California, Berkeley, Columbia University, and Washington University in St.

Those who suffered through chickenpox as kids likely remember the agony of its itchy rash. Oven mitts or snow gloves may have been used to prevent you from inadvertently clawing your skin off, while dips in oatmeal may have offered some temporary relief. But in the end, you just had to endure the full cycle of the rash—from the breakout of the first raised, itchy papules that inflate into fluid-f

A US Army soldier was arrested for insider trading after being accused of making prediction-market wagers on the timing of the military’s capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. Army soldier Gannon Ken Van Dyke made a profit of nearly $410,000 by making bets on Polymarket, and he was indicted on charges of unlawful use of confidential government information for personal gain, theft of non

Some 80 million years ago, the late Cretaceous oceans were patrolled by 17-meter mosasaurs, long-necked plesiosaurs, and massive, predatory sharks. For decades, the paleontological consensus was that this was the age of vertebrates; anything without a backbone was lunch. However, a new Science paper argues there was another apex predator lurking in the depths, and it didn’t have a single bone in

Selling smartphones used to be easy—everyone wanted one, and every new phone was a lot better than the one that came before. Things are different now that smartphones are mature products. Plenty of manufacturers have thrown in the towel, leaving big players like Samsung to sell a new phone every couple of years. But even Samsung may find it tough to turn a profit in 2026 due to the ongoing race t

A 40-year-old man was arrested after using artificial intelligence to generate a fake image of a runaway wolf that South Korean authorities said obstructed an urgent investigation, the BBC reported . AI-generated image of Neukgu. After Neukgu, a 2-year-old wolf, burrowed out of a zoo in Daejeon city, officials launched an all-out effort to bring him back. The third-generation descendant’s safe re

For a decade, NASA promoted the idea of building a space station around the Moon known as the Lunar Gateway. It touted the facility as both a platform for exploring the lunar environment and testing the technology needed for deep-space habitation. Like many major space projects, it faced delays. Originally, the first component of the space station was due to launch in 2022 . Later, it was decided

A new chapter in the Bugatti story begins today. Twenty-eight years after bringing the storied luxury brand back from the dead, Volkswagen Group no longer counts Bugatti among its stable of brands. Porsche, which became the VW Group steward of Bugatti in 2021 , is selling its stake to a consortium of investors. Bugatti dates back to 1909, when its eponymous founder Ettore Bugatti started making c

Apple CEO Tim Cook announced this week that he’s stepping down from his position in September and handing the reins to John Ternus, currently the company’s senior vice president of Hardware Engineering and a 25-year employee. This change had been telegraphed pretty far in advance, both by media reports (Bloomberg’s well-connected Mark Gurman flagged Ternus as a frontrunner in May 2024, and The Ne

The Trump administration and congressional Republicans have spent the last year trying to defang the Endangered Species Act , the country’s bedrock conservation law. But one of the most aggressive and far-reaching attempts just faced a major setback—and concerns from within the party were at least part of the reason. Republicans in the US House of Representatives abruptly canceled a vote that had

Welcome to Edition 8.38 of the Rocket Report! The big news this week concerned the third launch of the New Glenn rocket. The first 15 minutes of the flight were exhilarating for Blue Origin, seeing a previously flown rocket take flight and then triumphantly land on a barge at sea. But then the highest of highs was followed by the company’s first loss of an orbital payload, the AST SpaceMobile sat

After more than 25 years of US astronauts wearing off-the-rack clothes while living in Earth orbit, a company working to launch the world’s first commercial space station has adopted a more custom approach to its crew attire. Vast has revealed its astronaut flight suit , a two-piece outfit designed to be worn both on and off the planet. The company also certified a custom-Swiss wristwatch for use

The US is preparing to crack down on China’s allegedly “industrial-scale theft of American artificial intelligence labs’ intellectual property,” the Financial Times reported Thursday. Since the launch of DeepSeek—a Chinese model that OpenAI claimed was trained using outputs from its models —other AI firms have accused global rivals of using a method called distillation to steal their IP. In Janua

Shortly after their discovery, carbon nanotubes seemed to be a material wonder. There were metallic and semiconducting forms; they were tiny and incredibly light; and they could only be broken by tearing apart chemical bonds. The ideas for using them seemed endless. But then the reality of working with them set in. It was hard to get a pure population of metallic or semiconducting forms. Synthesi

The gravitational constant, affectionally known as “Big G,” is one of the most fundamental constants of our universe. Its value describes the strength of the gravitational force acting on two masses separated by a given distance—or if you want to be relativistic about it, the amount a given mass curves space-time. Physicists have a solid ballpark figure for the value of Big G, but they’ve been tr

A relatively new ransomware family is using a novel approach to hype the strength of the encryption used to scramble files—making, or at least claiming, that it is protected against attacks by quantum computers. Kyber, as the ransomware is called, has been around since at least last September and quickly attracted attention for the claim that it used ML-KEM , short for Module Lattice-based Key En

In a Congressional hearing on Wednesday , Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) directly confronted anti-vaccine Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on his rejection of germ theory—the unquestionable scientific idea that specific pathogenic microbes cause specific diseases. After Kennedy defended his fringe view, Senator Bill Cassidy fact-checked and debunked Kennedy’s denialist arguments in real time.

It’s a good time to be in the market for a MacBook, between the affordability of the MacBook Neo , the power of the M5 Pro and M5 Max MacBook Pros , and the all-around appeal of the M5 MacBook Air . But Apple’s desktop computers are another story, and not just because they’re all about due for their own M5 upgrades. Over the last few months, the Mac mini and the Mac Studio have gradually become h

After several tests of unusual “nesting doll” satellites in low-Earth orbit, Russia is now fielding operational anti-satellite weapons with valuable US government satellites in their crosshairs, the four-star general leading US Space Command said this week. Gen. Stephen Whiting didn’t name the system, but he was almost certainly referring to a Russian military program named Nivelir, which has lau

Apple fixed a security bug that made it possible for cops to access content from deleted Signal messages. Vulnerable users hoping to evade law enforcement surveillance often use encrypted apps like Signal to communicate sensitive information. That’s why users felt blindsided when 404 Media reported that Apple was unexpectedly storing push notifications displaying parts of encrypted messages for u

GREENBELT, Md.—On Tuesday, NASA invited the press to look at the fully assembled Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, which is now ready to join the ranks of the great observatories in orbit, ahead of its September launch. The Roman Space Telescope (NGRST), named after a key figure in the planning of the Hubble Space Telescope, is notably distinct from hardware like the Hubble and Webb, as it’s des

In 1968, having achieved a modicum of stability through the introduction of its seminal Neue Klasse (or “new class”) models, BMW scaled up its styling and used the company’s M10 four-cylinder engine as the basis for a new inline-six in a larger sedan known by chassis code E3, the ancestor to today’s BMW 7 Series. History repeats itself with the latest version of BMW’s flagship sedan. The 2027 BMW

New gas projects linked to just 11 data center campuses around the US have the potential to create more greenhouse gases than the country of Morocco emitted in 2024. Emissions estimates from air permit documents examined by WIRED show that these natural gas projects—which are being built to power data centers to serve some of the US’s most powerful AI companies, including OpenAI , Meta , Microsof

Crypto scammers are targeting the thousands of ships stranded near the Strait of Hormuz—and at least one ship that faced Iranian gunfire may have been tricked into believing it had paid Iran for safe passage. The first warning of such a crypto scam came from the Greek maritime risk management company MARISKS on April 20, according to Reuters . The company alerted shipowners that scammers posing a

Tesla published its quarterly financials ahead of an investor call this afternoon. The maker of electric vehicles has become an increasingly polarized brand but a valuable one: $1.21 trillion at the time of writing. And we knew from its delivery announcement earlier in April that the first quarter of 2026 was rather rosy, with sales growing by a little more than 6 percent compared to the same thr

Earlier this year, we committed to publishing a reader-facing explanation of how Ars Technica uses, and doesn’t use, generative AI. Translating our internal policy into a reader-facing document that meets our standards for clarity and precision took longer than I’d have liked, but I wanted to get it right rather than get it out fast. That document is now live , and you can find it below (and also

Two gamers who want tariff refunds sued Nintendo of America yesterday, alleging that the company intends to pocket refunds received from the government instead of giving money back to consumers who paid higher prices. The class action complaint seeks to represent a class including the two named plaintiffs and all other US residents who bought Nintendo products from February 2025 to February 2026.

While the Trump administration has reportedly tried to rein in Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s widely unpopular anti-vaccine agenda, the political strategy is not working when it comes to words or actions. Kennedy on Tuesday suggested he would continue to meddle with federal vaccine policy, and news broke Wednesday that his political appointees have discarded scientific data that conflic

During most of the Artemis II mission, the crew of four astronauts beamed back low-definition video, both from inside the spacecraft and from exterior views of the Moon. It was exhilarating stuff, but in a world in which we’re all watching HDTVs, it also felt a little flat. This is because Orion largely communicated with Earth via radio waves, picked up by large dishes sprinkled around the world.

Microsoft released an emergency patch for its ASP.NET Core to fix a high-severity vulnerability that allows unauthenticated attackers to gain SYSTEM privileges on devices that use the Web development framework to run Linux or macOS apps. The software maker said Tuesday evening that the vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2026-40372, affects versions 10.0.0 through 10.0.6 of the Microsoft.AspNetCore.Dat

Anthropic caused a stir among developers with what appeared to be a surprise change to its pricing plan: The company signaled that Claude Code, the popular agentic development tool, would no longer be available to subscribers on the $20-per-month Pro plan. Users took to Reddit and X to point out that Anthropic’s pricing page for Claude explicitly showed Claude Code as not supported in the Pro pla

Warner Bros.’ bizarre 2023 decision to shelve its live-action/animated film, Coyote vs. Acme , sparked outrage both in the industry and among fans online. But the film is finally being released, and Ketchup Entertainment, its new distributor, recently released the trailer. All I can say after watching that trailer is, what the heck was Warner Bros. even thinking? Granted, a killer trailer doesn’t

Most of the companies that have fully committed to building AI models are gobbling up every Nvidia AI accelerator they can get, but Google has taken a different approach. Most of its cloud AI infrastructure is based on its line of custom Tensor processing units (TPUs). After announcing the seventh-gen Ironwood TPU in 2025, the company has moved on to the eighth-gen version , but it’s not just a f

The US is investigating a possible conspiracy after at least 10 scientists connected to US nuclear secrets and rocket technology went missing or died under shadowy circumstances over the past few years. Pointing to tabloid reports from The Daily Mail and The New York Post, Republican members of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform sought information about each missing or departe

Physicists have spent the last 20 years pondering an apparent discrepancy between experimental results and theoretical predictions for the magnetic properties of the muon, the electron’s heavier cousin—a mismatch that hinted at a possible fifth force. But according to a new paper published in the journal Nature, the discrepancy is due to a calculation fluke, not exciting new physics, so the Stand

On Tuesday, the US District Court for the District of Massachusetts issued a preliminary injunction blocking the US government from applying a range of restrictions on renewable power development, at least for the parties in the suit. The ruling expands on another that was issued late last year , applying similar logic to a broader set of federal restrictions and an expanded group of renewable en

Like many medical school students, Sam was broke. The 22-year-old aspiring orthopedic surgeon from northern India got some money from his parents, but he says he spent most of it subsidizing his licensing exams, and he’s still saving up to hopefully emigrate to the US after graduation. So he started searching for ways to make additional money online. Sam, who requested a pseudonym to avoid jeopar

If charging speed is one of the major stumbling blocks preventing people from considering an electric vehicle, then ChargePoint’s new Express Solo DC fast charger is a step in the right direction. It has been designed to be compact and work with DC power, making it easy to install in tight spaces. Oh, and it maxes out at a hefty 600 kW. As we saw with yesterday’s news from CATL , EV batteries are

MONTEREY COUNTY, Calif.—Bicycles are a strange technology. While there have been some notable modifications from the dandy horse to the penny-farthing , since the advent of the “ safety bicycle ” in the 1880s, the fundamentals of bike design haven’t changed all that much. Put another way, most bike riders today could understand how to use a bike made in the 1890s. Still, for any bike fan, Sea Ott

The next Donald Trump memecoin event could very well be the last. If Democrats retake control of Congress this fall, they may succeed in quickly passing legislation banning the president and his family from