Pushed by trackmobile railcar movers, the Atlas V rocket rolled to the launch pad last week with a full load of 27 satellites for Amazon's Kuiper internet megaconstellation. Credit: United Launch Alliance

Last week, the first operational satellites for Amazon's Project Kuiper broadband network were minutes from launch at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida.

These spacecraft, buttoned up on top of a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket, are the first of more than 3,200 mass-produced satellites Amazon plans to launch over the rest of the decade to deploy the first direct US competitor to SpaceX's Starlink internet network.

However, as is often the case on Florida's Space Coast, bad weather prevented the satellites from launching April 9. No big deal, right? Anyone who pays close attention to the launch industry knows delays are part of the business. A broken component on the rocket, a summertime thunderstorm, or high winds can thwart a launch attempt. Launch companies know this, and the answer is usually to try again the next day.

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The wholesale American cannibalism of one of its own crucial appendages—the world-famous university system—has begun in earnest. The campaign is predictably Trumpian, built on a flagrantly pretextual basis and executed with the sort of vicious but chaotic idiocy that has always been a hallmark of the authoritarian mind.

At a moment when the administration is systematically waging war on diversity initiatives of every kind, it has simultaneously discovered that it is really concerned about both "viewpoint diversity" and "antisemitism" on college campuses—and it is using the two issues as a club to beat on the US university system until it either dies or conforms to MAGA ideology.

Reaching this conclusion does not require reading any tea leaves or consulting any oracles; one need only listen to people like Vice President JD Vance, who in 2021 gave a speech called "The Universities are the Enemy" to signal that, like every authoritarian revolutionary, he intended to go after the educated.

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On Monday, a developer using the popular AI-powered code editor Cursor noticed something strange: Switching between machines instantly logged them out, breaking a common workflow for programmers who use multiple devices. When the user contacted Cursor support, an agent named "Sam" told them it was expected behavior under a new policy. But no such policy existed, and Sam was a bot. The AI model made the policy up, sparking a wave of complaints and cancellation threats documented on Hacker News and Reddit.

This marks the latest instance of AI confabulations (also called "hallucinations") causing potential business damage. Confabulations are a type of "creative gap-filling" response where AI models invent plausible-sounding but false information. Instead of admitting uncertainty, AI models often prioritize creating plausible, confident responses, even when that means manufacturing information from scratch.

For companies deploying these systems in customer-facing roles without human oversight, the consequences can be immediate and costly: frustrated customers, damaged trust, and, in Cursor's case, potentially canceled subscriptions.

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Kevin Hall, a prominent nutrition expert who led influential studies on ultra-processed foods, has resigned from his long-held position at the National Institutes of Health, alleging censorship of his research by top aides of health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

In a post on LinkedIn, Hall claimed that he "experienced censorship in the reporting of our research because of agency concerns that it did not appear to fully support preconceived narratives of my agency’s leadership about ultra-processed food addiction."

In comments to CBS News, Hall said the censorship was over a study he and his colleagues recently published in the journal Cell Metabolism, which showed that ultra-processed foods did not produce the same large dopamine responses in the brain that are seen with use of addictive drugs. The finding suggests that the mechanism leading people to overconsume ultra-processed foods may be more complex than the studied mechanisms in addiction. This appears to slightly conflict with the beliefs of Kennedy Jr., who has claimed that food companies use additives to make ultra-processed foods addictive.

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The Meta monopoly trial has raised a question that Meta hopes the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) can't effectively answer: How important is it to use social media to connect with friends and family today?

Connecting with friends was, of course, Facebook's primary use case as it became the rare social network to hit 1 billion users—not by being acquired by a Big Tech company but based on the strength of its clean interface and the network effects that kept users locked in simply because all the important people in their life chose to be there.

According to the FTC, Meta took advantage of Facebook's early popularity, and it has since bought out rivals and otherwise cornered the market on personal social networks. Only Snapchat and MeWe (a privacy-focused Facebook alternative) are competitors to Meta platforms, the FTC argues, and social networks like TikTok or YouTube aren't interchangeable, because those aren't destinations focused on connecting friends and family.

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HP Inc. has agreed to pay a $4 million settlement to customers after being accused of “false advertising” of computers and peripherals on its website.

Earlier this month, Judge P. Casey Pitts for the US District Court of the San Jose Division of the Northern District of California granted preliminary approval [PDF] of a settlement agreement regarding a class-action complaint first filed against HP on October 13, 2021. The complaint accused HP's website of showing "misleading" original pricing for various computers, mice, and keyboards that was higher than how the products were recently and typically priced.

Per the settlement agreement [PDF], HP will contribute $4 million to a "non-reversionary common fund, which shall be used to pay the (i) Settlement Class members’ claims; (ii) court-approved Notice and Settlement Administration Costs; (iii) court-approved Settlement Class Representatives’ Service Award; and (iv) court-approved Settlement Class Counsel Attorneys’ Fees and Costs Award. All residual funds will be distributed pro rata to Settlement Class members who submitted valid claims and cashed checks.”

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Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr accused Comcast of "news distortion" because its subsidiary NBC isn't parroting the Trump administration narrative on the deportation of Kilmar Abrego Garcia.

"Comcast knows that federal law requires its licensed operations to serve the public interest. News distortion doesn't cut it," Carr wrote in a post on X yesterday.

Carr's use of the phrase "news distortion" is significant because he has been invoking the FCC's rarely enforced news distortion policy to pressure licensed broadcasters that he perceives as being biased against President Trump. For a detailed look at Carr's fight against media, read our feature: "The speech police: Chairman Brendan Carr and the FCC's news distortion policy."

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On Thursday, Norwegian company Equinor announced that it was suspending the construction of a planned 800 MW-capacity offshore wind farm currently being built in the waters off New York. The reason? An order from US Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum, who alleged that the project was rushed through review.

The move comes as the US's nascent offshore wind industry is facing uncertainty, with all future leases placed on hold by an executive order issued on the day of Trump's inauguration. The hold was ostensibly put in place to allow time to review the permitting process. But Burgum's move comes the same week a report from the Government Accountability Office, done in response to the executive order, found only minor issues with the existing permitting process.

On hold

The Equnior project, termed Empire Wind, is a key part of New York's plans to meet its climate goals. Combined with a second phase that's currently in planning, Empire Wind would have a rated capacity of two gigawatts, or over 20 percent of the state's planned offshore wind capacity. The initial construction, combined with the development of shore facilities, already has an estimated value of $2.5 billion, Equinor estimates, and is currently employing roughly 1,500 people. Construction was expected to be complete in 2027, although energy production from a subset of the 54 planned 15 MW turbines could have begun before then.

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Google's Gemini AI may have had a slow start, but it has been anything but in 2025. Barely a week goes by that another model doesn't arrive in the Gemini app or developer tools like AI Studio, and there's a major release coming to the app today. Google has announced that its faster, more efficient Gemini 2.5 Flash model is rolling out widely in preview. At the same time, developers can begin building with 2.5 Flash using the company's newly announced API pricing, which Google says is much lower than competing products.

A gaggle of Gemini

The model dropdown in the Gemini app is a bit convoluted, particularly as we see products like Veo 2 and Personalization popping up there. Google has been releasing so many preview models and new ways of using Gemini that it can be hard to know which option to choose for a given task. In fairness, Google is far from the only major AI player with this problem.

Tulsee Doshi is Google's director of product management for Gemini, which means she leads the team building these models. We asked Doshi what version of Gemini she finds herself using, and unsurprisingly, she likes the more powerful option. "Typically right now, I have been using 2.5 Pro," says Doshi. "I use Gemini throughout the day for my work in a few key areas, like creating documents or slides. That's either for internal consumption or actually sharing externally, and I've found 2.5 Pro to be really helpful for the creative writing element."

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Synology, maker of network-attached storage (NAS) devices, will seemingly remove advanced features from its Plus devices that are not using hard drives provided by, or certified by, Synology itself, starting with its 2025 lineup.

A report on the German site HardwareLuxx (translated by Google) and a press release on Synology's German-language website appear to confirm Synology's strategy. The company, which sees "significant benefits" to its "proprietary hard drive solution" (also per Google's translation), will be "expanding [its] integrated ecosystem to the Plus series." For those Plus series models released in 2025, only Synology's own hard drives, and third-party drives certified by Synology, will offer "the full range of functions and support." Synology's release states that it can provide the "highest levels of security and performance, while also offering significantly more efficient support."

Ars has contacted Synology's US offices for comment and will update this post with any response.

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On Wednesday, news broke that researchers had found the most compelling evidence yet of a "biosignature"—a chemical present at levels that are only consistent with life—on a distant exoplanet. It didn't take much time for some less-than-reliable news sources to go from there to talk of a planet that "could be 'teeming with life'" and the obvious follow-up, "Scientists reveal what aliens could REALLY look like on exoplanet K2-18b."

Even in the best of circumstances, however, talk of a biosignature is an invitation to scientists to think of alternative chemistries that could explain the results without needing biological activity. And these are not the best of circumstances, as astronomers are pointing to earlier papers that give a range of reasons to be skeptical of the new results; in fact, an astronomer named Chris Glein emailed me to alert me of potential issues the day before the news broke.

To help you understand the controversy, we're going to look at the data that is being presented as evidence of a biosignature and then go through all the reasons that confirming a biosignature is so difficult.

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Chris Krebs, the former Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) director who was fired by President Trump in 2020 and targeted in a Trump order last week, said he left his job at a security company in order to focus on fighting back against the Trump administration.

Trump fired Krebs in November 2020 when the then-CISA chief disputed Trump's baseless claims that the 2020 election was rigged against him. Krebs was until this week the chief intelligence and public policy officer for security vendor SentinelOne. Krebs and SentinelOne were both targeted by Trump in an April 9 presidential memorandum titled, "Addressing Risks from Chris Krebs and Government Censorship."

The Trump order called Krebs "a significant bad-faith actor who weaponized and abused his Government authority" and whose "misconduct involved the censorship of disfavored speech implicating the 2020 election and COVID-19 pandemic."

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Google CEO Sundar Pichai has reportedly set a goal for the company to reach 500 million Gemini users before the end of 2025. Rolling out new models may help the company get there, but you know what else helps? Giving away premium features for free. Google has announced today that it's giving all US college students free access to Gemini Advanced, and not just for a month or two—the offer is good for a full year of service.

With Gemini Advanced, you get access to the more capable Pro models, as well as unlimited use of the Deep Research tool based on it. Subscribers also get a smattering of other AI tools, like the Veo 2 video generator, NotebookLM, and Gemini Live. The offer is for the Google One AI Premium plan, so it includes more than premium AI models, like Gemini features in Google Drive and 2TB of Drive storage.

Google has a new landing page for the deal, allowing eligible students to sign up for their free Google One AI Premium plan. The offer is valid from now until June 30. Anyone who takes Google up on it will enjoy the free plan through spring 2026. The company hasn't specified an end date, but we would wager it will be June of next year. Google's intention is to give students an entire school year of Gemini Advanced from now through finals next year. At the end of the term, you can bet Google will try to convert students to paying subscribers.

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The verdict is in, and Google has been found to illegally hold online ad tech monopolies.

For over a decade, "Google has willfully engaged in a series of anticompetitive acts to acquire and maintain monopoly power in the publisher ad server and ad exchange markets for open-web display advertising," tying its publisher ad server and ad exchange together "to establish and protect its monopoly power in these two markets," the ruling said.

At trial, the DOJ argued that Google's ad business expanded to choke out competitors and benefit only Google. They argued that Google "rigged" ad auctions, allegedly controlling "multiple parts" of services used to place ads all over the Internet, unfairly advantaging itself in various markets.

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The critically acclaimed 2002 film 28 Days Later is often credited with sparking the 21st-century revival of the zombie genre. Director Danny Boyle is back with more zombie-virus dystopian horror in his new film set in the same fictional world, 28 Years Later—not so much a direct sequel but the start of a new planned trilogy.

(Some spoilers for 28 Days Later and 28 Weeks Later below.)

In 28 Days Later, a highly contagious "Rage Virus" is accidentally released from a lab in Cambridge, England. Those infected turn into violent, mindless monsters who brutally attack the uninfected—so-called "fast zombies." Transmitted by bites, scratches, or even just by getting a drop of infected blood in one's mouth, the virus spreads rapidly, effectively collapsing society. A bicycle courier named Jim (Cillian Murphy) awakens from a coma 28 days later to find London mostly deserted, apart from a handful of survivors fleeing the infected hordes, and joins them in the pursuit of safety. Jim (barely) survives, and we see zombies dying of starvation in the streets during the denouement.

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Earlier this month, Nintendo let Ars Technica and other outlets have access to a small hands-on slice of Mario Kart World ahead of its planned June 5 launch. Today, a short livestreamed video presentation gave a bit of extra information about how exactly the full version of the free-roaming Nintendo Switch 2 launch game will work in practice.

As the name implies, Mario Kart World sets itself apart from previous games via a "vast interconnected world" that you can roam freely between the actual race courses. That open space between races will feature "hundreds of P-switches," Nintendo said, each of which activates a small mission to "hone your driving abilities." Free-roaming racers will also be able to find hidden medallions and question-mark panels, as well as "drive-thru" food items that can be used to unlock new outfits.

"Hundreds" of P-Switches like this will activate short missions throughout the game's world. Credit: Nintendo

While cruising around the Mario Kart "world," players will stumble onto new courses "inspired by their surrounding region," as well as "nostalgic courses for past titles... reimagined and spread throughout the world." When playing in Grand Prix mode, the drive between these courses will be integrated into the usual four-course cups themselves; after racing Mario Kart Circuit in the Mushroom cup, for instance, the second race "will have you covering the distance from Mario Bros. Circuit to Crown City," Nintendo said.

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Tesla is facing a new scandal that once again sees the electric automaker accused of misleading customers. In the past, it has been caught making "misleading statements" about the safety of its electric vehicles, and more recently, an investigation by Reuters found Tesla EVs exaggerated their efficiency. Now, a lawsuit filed in California alleges that the cars are also falsely exaggerating odometer readings to make warranties expire prematurely.

The lead plaintiff in the case, Nyree Hinton, bought a used Model Y with less than 37,000 miles (59,546 km) on the odometer. Within six months, it had pushed past the 50,000-mile (80,467 km) mark, at which point the car's bumper-to-bumper warranty expired. (Like virtually all EVs, Tesla powertrains have a separate warranty that lasts much longer.)

For this six-month period, Hinton says his Model Y odometer gained 13,228 miles (21,288 km). By comparison, averages of his three previous vehicles showed that with the same commute, he was only driving 6,086 miles (9,794 km) per 6 months.

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It’s one of the oldest conversations in gaming. Do you play video games because you’re looking for a challenge and want to experience the thrill and satisfaction of overcoming obstacles? Or do you turn to games to feel empowered, for the escapist fantasy of possessing incredible abilities that are often unattainable in real life?

Nowhere is this question more relevant than in the role-playing game genre. The core of the genre is developing a character (or stable of characters) over time, watching their power grow and capabilities expand. Satisfying player power fantasies is at the heart of many RPGs, where you can watch your virtual avatar grow from an unknown serf clad in rags to a living god, wielding incredible power to dominate your enemies or redeem a broken world.

That said, the thrill of power is only really exciting when leavened with a little friction. Eventually, even being omnipotent gets old.

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Rice, the world’s most consumed grain, will become increasingly toxic as the atmosphere heats and as carbon dioxide emissions rise, potentially putting billions of people at risk of cancers and other diseases, according to new research published Wednesday in The Lancet.

Eaten every day by billions of people and grown across the globe, rice is arguably the planet’s most important staple crop, with half the world’s population relying on it for the majority of its food needs, especially in developing countries.

But the way rice is grown—mostly submerged in paddies—and its highly porous texture mean it can absorb unusually high levels of arsenic, a potent carcinogenic toxin that is especially dangerous for babies.

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On Wednesday, OpenAI announced the release of two new models—o3 and o4-mini—that combine simulated reasoning capabilities with access to functions like web browsing and coding. These models mark the first time OpenAI's reasoning-focused models can use every ChatGPT tool simultaneously, including visual analysis and image generation.

OpenAI announced o3 in December, and until now, only less-capable derivative models named "o3-mini" and "03-mini-high" have been available. However, the new models replace their predecessors—o1 and o3-mini.

OpenAI is rolling out access today for ChatGPT Plus, Pro, and Team users, with Enterprise and Edu customers gaining access next week. Free users can try o4-mini by selecting the "Think" option before submitting queries. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman tweeted, "we expect to release o3-pro to the pro tier in a few weeks."

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