Technology News

The news follows the breakout success of DeepSeek and growing pressure from rivals like Meta.

Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has gained access "to a payroll system that processes salaries for about 276,000 federal employees across dozens of agencies," despite "objections from senior IT staff who feared it could compromise highly sensitive government personnel information" and lead to cyberattacks, The New York Times reported today.

The system at the Interior Department gives DOGE "visibility into sensitive employee information, such as Social Security numbers, and the ability to more easily hire and fire workers," the NYT wrote, citing people familiar with the matter. DOGE workers had been trying to get access to the Federal Personnel and Payroll System for about two weeks and succeeded over the weekend, the report said.

"The dispute came to a head on Saturday, as the DOGE workers obtained the access and then placed two of the IT officials who had resisted them on administrative leave and under investigation, the people said," according to the NYT report. The agency's CIO and CISO are reportedly under investigation for their "workplace behavior."

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It's a regrettable reality that there is never time to cover all the interesting scientific stories we come across each month. In the past, we've featured year-end roundups of cool science stories we (almost) missed. This year, we're experimenting with a monthly collection of such stories. March's list includes fascinating papers on such topics as how the brain responds to speaking Klingon (or Dothraki, or Navi), the discovery of creepy preclassic Salvadoran puppets, the effectiveness of "dazzle camouflage," and how male blue-lined octopuses manage not to be cannibalized by their chosen mates.

Wind Cave’s rocks fluoresce under black light Several fluorescence measurements of a zebra calcite in Wind Cave were taken using portable spectrometers. Credit: Joshua Sebree

South Dakota's Wind Cave gets its name from the flow of air moving continually through its many passages and equalizing the atmospheric pressure between the air inside and outside—almost like the cave is "breathing." Its rock and mineral formations also boast a unique chemistry that fluoresces when exposed to black light, according to talks presented at the spring meeting of the American Chemical Society in San Diego. That fluorescence could shed light on how life can thrive in extreme environments, including that of Jupiter's moon, Europa.

University of Northern Iowa astrobiologist Joshua Sebree and several students have been mapping new areas of Wind Cave (as well as other caves in the US), recording the passages, rock formations, minerals, and lifeforms they encounter in the process. They noticed that under UV light, certain parts of Wind Cave took on otherworldly hues, thanks to different concentrations of organic and inorganic fossilized chemical compounds. Those areas seem to indicate where water once flowed, carrying minerals into the cave from the surface 10,000 to 20,000 years ago, according to their analysis of the fluorescent spectra. Sebree et al. found that Wind Cave was likely carved out by waters rich in manganese, producing zebra stripes that glow pink under UV light, revealing the calcites that grew within as a result of those waters.

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Xiaofeng Wang, a longtime computer science professor at Indiana University, has disappeared along with his wife, and their profiles on the school's website were wiped ahead of recent FBI raids.

2024 was "a year of growth," according to fire-suppression company Fire Rover, but that's not an entirely good thing.

The company, which offers fire detection and suppression systems based on thermal and optical imaging, smoke analytics, and human verification, releases annual reports on waste and recycling facility fires in the US and Canada to select industry and media. In 2024, Fire Rover, based on its fire identifications, saw 2,910 incidents, a 60 percent increase from the 1,809 in 2023, and more than double the 1,409 fires confirmed in 2022.

Publicly reported fire incidents at waste and recycling facilities also hit 398, a new high since Fire Rover began compiling its report eight years ago, when that number was closer to 275.

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Back in December, Elon Musk accused the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) of launching a purely politically motivated probe into his Twitter purchase. In a letter from his lawyer, Alex Spiro, Musk alleged that the SEC gave him 48 hours to accept a settlement or face fraud charges. Musk refused to pay the fine, demanding to know "who directed these actions," suspecting either former SEC Chair Gary Gensler or Joe Biden's White House.

Once the SEC lawsuit was filed in January, Musk's condemnation of the settlement was echoed in his claims that the SEC was "totally broken." These comments seemed to further his feud with the agency following a contentious 2018 Tesla settlement over Musk's tweets that resulted in the Supreme Court declining to hear Musk's arguments against his tweets being monitored by the SEC.

But after Donald Trump issued a February executive order declaring sweeping powers over independent agencies—including the SEC, which was accused of launching politically motivated investigations—it appeared that Musk might instead have been setting up the narrative to possibly get the probe squashed.

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The Natal Conference, which costs up to $10,000 to attend, features multiple matchmaking strategy sessions and onsite ministers so attendees can get married, WIRED has learned.

After weeks of “Tesla Takedown” protests, extremist groups are showing up to back Elon Musk’s beleaguered car company.

iOS 18.4 adds a few fresh capabilities to Apple’s mobile operating system. Here’s what’s new and how to download the update.

France's competition regulator fined Apple €150 million, saying the iPhone maker went overboard in its implementation of pop-up messages that let users consent to or reject tracking that third-party applications use for targeted advertising.

The App Tracking Transparency (ATT) framework used by Apple on iPhones and iPads since 2021 makes the use of third-party applications too complex and hurts small companies that rely on advertising revenue, said a press release today by the Autorité de la concurrence (Competition Authority). The system harms "smaller publishers in particular since, unlike the main vertically integrated platforms, they depend to a large extent on third-party data collection to finance their business," the agency said.

User consent obtained via the ATA framework "authorizes the application in question to collect user data for targeted advertising purposes," the agency said. "If consent is given, the application can access the Identifier for Advertisers ('IDFA'), the identifier by which each device can be tracked through its use of third-party applications and sites." The French investigation was triggered by a complaint lodged by advertising industry associations.

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If you're still using a computer you bought during the Clinton administration, interesting news: Crystal Dew World, developers of apps like CrystalDiskInfo and CrystalDiskMark, have released an update to their CrystalMark Retro benchmark (as spotted by Tom's Hardware). The most interesting aspect of the update for retro computing enthusiasts is expanded operating system support: the app will now run on Windows 95, Windows 98, and old versions of Windows NT like 3.51 and 4.0. The previous version of the app only went as far back as Windows XP.

The app spits out benchmarking scores for five things: single-core CPU performance, multi-core CPU performance, 2D graphics performance using GDI, 3D graphics performance using OpenGL, and disk speed (broken into four sub-benchmarks for sequential and random read and write performance).

The app will also run on current systems, including 64-bit x86 and Arm-based PCs, and the results database is dominated by those modern systems. But searching by operating system allows you to zero in on those retro results, including nine (as of this writing) for Windows 95, six for Windows 98, and five for Windows NT 3.51.

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When BMW introduced the original M5 to the European motoring public in 1984, the automaker effectively established a new vehicle segment. By combining the practical and understatedly rakish E28 5-Series with the motorsport-derived six-cylinder engine from the M1 supercar, the automaker had created a “do-it-all” performance machine, a vehicle that could serve as a tasteful and luxurious sedan one moment and a charismatic sports car the next.

It’s a concept that has guided the development of not only subsequent generations of the M5 but also all of the other sports sedans that have dared to go toe to toe with it over the past forty years. For decades, it’s been the benchmark by which all big, fast four-doors have been judged, but after spending a week with the all-new $125,275 G99-generation M5 Touring, I can’t help but wonder if that era is coming to a close.

A range of factors have contributed to this seismic shift. While other automakers have been chasing the M5’s ghost around the Nürburgring, BMW has purposely started to reposition its M Division vehicles as the pinnacle representation of the brand rather than the pinnacle representation of BMW performance. It’s a move that has yielded models like the XM, a vehicle that certainly has plenty of firepower under the hood but ultimately prioritizes style over substance.

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Google released its latest and greatest Gemini AI model last week, but it was only made available to paying subscribers. Google has moved with uncharacteristic speed to release Gemini 2.5 Pro (Experimental) for free users, too. The next time you check in with Gemini, you can access most of the new AI's features without a Gemini Advanced subscription.

The Gemini 2.5 branch will eventually replace 2.0, which was only released in late 2024. It supports simulated reasoning, as all Google's models will in the future. This approach to producing an output can avoid some of the common mistakes that AI models have made in the past. We've also been impressed with Gemini 2.5's vibe, which has landed it at the top of the LMSYS Chatbot arena leaderboard.

Google says Gemini 2.5 Pro (Experimental) is ready and waiting for free users to try on the web. Simply select the model from the drop-down menu and enter your prompt to watch the "thinking" happen. The model will roll out to the mobile app for free users soon.

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Oh, ExoMars, what a long, strange trip it has been. Are you ever going to go to space?

The ExoMars mission represents Europe's third attempt to land successfully on Mars, and at a cost of more than $1.3 billion. there is a lot riding on its success. But success is far from assured for a mission that has been whipsawed by geopolitical tensions, budget cuts, and an ever-changing architecture over the last 20 years.

The latest news, announced Sunday, is that Airbus will design and build the lander that will carry the ExoMars down to the surface of Mars. The mission is scheduled to launch no earlier than 2028 on a US rocket. But there have been so many twists and turns in the ExoMars story that it's very difficult to know what will ultimately happen.

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The first flight of Isar Aerospace's Spectrum rocket didn't last long on Sunday. The booster's nine engines switched off as the rocket cartwheeled upside-down and fell a short distance from its Arctic launch pad in Norway, punctuating the abbreviated test flight with a spectacular fiery crash into the sea.

If officials at Isar Aerospace were able to pick the outcome of their first test flight, it wouldn't be this. However, the result has precedent. The first launch of SpaceX's Falcon 1 rocket in 2006 ended in similar fashion.

"Today, we know twice as much about our launch system as yesterday before launch," Daniel Metzler, Isar's co-founder and CEO, wrote on X early Monday. "Can't beat flight testing. Ploughing through lots of data now."

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Today we announced new features for Google Slides, making it easier to create visually stunning presentations. Here’s what’s new:Workspace recently announced that they’r…

Savor the sweet taste of these native and third-party Mac apps for better editing, organization, journaling, and more.

Diet-to-Go’s ready-to-eat meal delivery offers diabetic, keto, and weight-loss plans. They’re often tasty sometimes soggy.

Amazon's sale event ends tonight, so this is your last chance to save on our favorite WIRED-tested home and tech gadgets.

Soundcore’s latest take on open earbuds is an affordable winner.