E-bike batteries are, for the most part, a collection of 18650 batteries, packaged together and welded in series and parallel, attached to a battery management system (BMS). A "dead" e-bike battery may only have two or three truly dead cells inside, while the remainder work fine. This is useful knowledge that, for the most part, very few e-bike owners can really use. Arc welders are not a common tool to own, and most e-bike batteries are not designed to be opened, safely or otherwise.

French firm Gouach, essentially a three-person company, is pitching its Infinite Battery as the opposite of this status quo. It's a durable, fireproof casing into which you can place and replace 18650 batteries using only a screwdriver. It keeps you updated on the status of cell performance and heat through a Bluetooth-connected app. And it's designed for compatibility with "90% of existing e-bike brands," or you can upgrade an existing "acoustic" model.

Credit: Gouach

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Researchers have found malicious software that received more than 6,000 downloads from the NPM repository over a two-year span, in yet another discovery showing the hidden threats users of such open source archives face.

Eight packages using names that closely mimicked those of widely used legitimate packages contained destructive payloads designed to corrupt or delete important data and crash systems, Kush Pandya, a researcher at security firm Socket, reported Thursday. The packages have been available for download for more than two years and accrued roughly 6,200 downloads over that time.

A diversity of attack vectors

“What makes this campaign particularly concerning is the diversity of attack vectors—from subtle data corruption to aggressive system shutdowns and file deletion,” Pandya wrote. “The packages were designed to target different parts of the JavaScript ecosystem with varied tactics.”

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VMware's business model under Broadcom is "legally and ethically flawed," a group of cloud service provider (CSP) customers and partners alleged in a report released today.

The report (PDF) comes from the European Cloud Competition Observatory (ECCO), which describes itself as "independent monitoring body" composed of members of the Cloud Infrastructure Services Providers in Europe (CISPE) trade association, "with the support—acting as observers—of European customer organizations." ECCO says its goals include "highlighting ongoing or new unfair software licensing practices from any software vendors in the cloud sector," and it has previously written similar reports about Broadcom and Microsoft.

In its announcement of the report, ECCO said that CISPE members have met with Broadcom once about the changes it has made to VMware's business model, which is now built around subscriptions of bundled products, but didn't see any changes.

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On Thursday, Anthropic released Claude Opus 4 and Claude Sonnet 4, marking the company's return to larger model releases after primarily focusing on mid-range Sonnet variants since June of last year. The new models represent what the company calls its most capable coding models yet, with Opus 4 designed for complex, long-running tasks that can operate autonomously for hours.

Alex Albert, Anthropic's head of Claude Relations, told Ars Technica that the company chose to revive the Opus line because of growing demand for agentic AI applications. "Across all the companies out there that are building things, there's a really large wave of these agentic applications springing up, and a very high demand and premium being placed on intelligence," Albert said. "I think Opus is going to fit that groove perfectly."

Before we go further, a brief refresher on Claude's three AI model "size" names (introduced in March 2024) is probably warranted. Haiku, Sonnet, and Opus offer a tradeoff between price (in the API), speed, and capability.

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A consortium of global law enforcement agencies and tech companies announced on Wednesday that they have disrupted the infostealer malware known as Lumma. One of the most popular infostealers worldwide, Lumma has been used by hundreds of what Microsoft calls “cyber threat actors” to steal passwords, credit card and banking information, and cryptocurrency wallet details. The tool, which officials say is developed in Russia, has provided cybercriminals with the information and credentials they needed to drain bank accounts, disrupt services, and carry out data extortion attacks against schools, among other things.

Microsoft’s Digital Crimes Unit (DCU) obtained an order from a United States district court last week to seize and take down about 2,300 domains underpinning Lumma’s infrastructure. At the same time, the US Department of Justice seized Lumma’s command and control infrastructure and disrupted cybercriminal marketplaces that sold the Lumma malware. All of this was coordinated, too, with the disruption of regional Lumma infrastructure by Europol’s European Cybercrime Center and Japan’s Cybercrime Control Center.

Microsoft lawyers wrote on Wednesday that Lumma, which is also known as LummaC2, has spread so broadly because it is “easy to distribute, difficult to detect, and can be programmed to bypass certain security defenses.” Steven Masada, assistant general counsel at Microsoft’s DCU, says in a blog post that Lumma is a “go-to tool,” including for the notorious Scattered Spider cybercriminal gang. Attackers distribute the malware using targeted phishing attacks that typically impersonate established companies and services, like Microsoft itself, to trick victims.

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• The House on Thursday morning passed what Trump has been calling his "big beautiful bill."
• It includes a repeal of student loan forgiveness and an increase in the child tax credit.
• The tax bill is headed to the Senate, where it's subject to change.

From taxes to student loan forgiveness, provisions in President Donald Trump's "big beautiful bill" are one step closer to affecting Americans' wallets.

On Thursday morning, the House passed the tax bill — an expansive piece of legislation that would extend the president's 2017 tax cuts and make key changes to the tax system, along with implementing significant changes to Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.

The bill is now headed to the Senate, where it's subject to change.

"Now, it's time for our friends in the United States Senate to get to work, and send this Bill to my desk AS SOON AS POSSIBLE!" Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social on Thursday morning. "There is no time to waste."

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has said that the tax bill in its current form would increase the US deficit. Moody's Analytics downgraded the US's credit rating last week, saying Trump's tax bill could add $4 trillion to the federal deficit over the next decade. This could lead to higher interest rates on mortgages, auto loans, and more down the road.

Here are four other key ways the tax bill could affect Americans' finances.

A slew of tax policies

Many of Trump's campaign promises are included in the tax bill.

The legislation would allow workers who typically receive tips and overtime wages to claim a tax deduction on those amounts. The bill also has a measure for a $4,000 tax deduction for older people making less than $75,000 a year. Those two provisions would extend until 2029.

The bill would also raise the child tax credit from $2,000 to $2,500 through 2028. Additionally, it would eliminate electric vehicle tax credits and establish a $250 annual registration fee for electric vehicle owners.

The bill would also make Trump's 2017 tax cuts permanent and increase the state and local tax deduction, known as SALT, from $10,000 to $40,000.

Student loan forgiveness repealed

Under Trump's tax bill, millions of student loan borrowers would see their repayment options change. The legislation proposes eliminating income-driven repayment plans and replacing them with two options: the Repayment Assistance Plan and a standard repayment plan.

The Repayment Assistance Plan would allow for loan forgiveness after 360 qualifying payments based on the borrowers' income, while the standard repayment plan would require a fixed monthly payment over a period set by the servicer.

The bill also would repeal former President Joe Biden's SAVE plan, an income-driven repayment plan that promised cheaper monthly payments and a shorter timeline for debt relief. The plan is blocked in court pending a final legal decision.

'Trump accounts'

If the bill passes, parents could get extra money for their kids down the line. The tax bill includes a "Trump account," previously called a "money account for growth and advancement," or MAGA account. The government would put $1,000 into accounts for babies born after December 31, 2024, and before January 1, 2029. The baby would be required to have been born in the US and have a Social Security number to receive the cash.

The accounts would have tax incentives; earnings would be tax-deferred, meaning taxes on the accounts would not need to be paid right away. Withdrawals from the accounts would also be taxed at the long-term capital-gains rate, which is dependent on income and typically lower than the regular income tax rate.

Work requirements for Medicaid and SNAP

Lower-income Americans could face bigger healthcare costs or lose federal assistance benefits. The tax bill would mean significant changes for the millions who rely on Medicaid and SNAP. The legislation would mandate that states implement an 80-hour-a-month work requirement by the end of 2026 for childless adults on Medicaid without a disability.

The Congressional Budget Office previously estimated that work requirements on Medicaid could strip coverage from over 8 million Americans over the next decade.

Additionally, the bill would extend the age range of adults subject to work requirements to receive SNAP to include adults ages 55 to 64. Currently, adults ages 18 to 54 without children can receive SNAP benefits only if they work at least 20 hours a week.

• Bridges to Prosperity helps build trail bridges in rural communities.
• The nonprofit is using AI to map these areas and identify prospective bridge locations.
• This article is part of "Build IT: Connectivity," a series about tech powering better business.

Not all maps are created equal. Huge swaths of land lack basic geographical data, including details as vital as the locations of rivers or roads.

To Bridges to Prosperity, a nongovernmental organization that helps build bridges in isolated rural communities, this data gap meant missing infrastructure.

Since its launch in 2001, the NGO has built or supported the construction of over 600 trail bridges in 21 countries, creating safe, accessible routes to medical clinics, schools, and markets. But building bridges is expensive, so in 2020, it pivoted from independently building bridges to partnering with governments to support their infrastructure efforts. Still, figuring out where bridges were needed was difficult.

Many rural waterways, especially the smaller streams and rivers that isolate entire villages during the rainy season, had not yet been mapped by governments or businesses. After analyzing 5,000 waterways around the world, the organization found that 38% of streams and rivers weren't on any existing maps.

"The rivers that are preventing them from getting to school, getting to markets, getting to clinics, to churches, to visit friends, that literally stops them from doing all those things, is not even a blue line on that map," Nivi Sharma, Bridges to Prosperity's CEO, told Business Insider.

"There is huge data inequity on how much we spend, how much investment we do in mapping certain populations, and how little we do for others," she added.

Bridges to Prosperity turned to artificial intelligence to fill the data gap. First, it built Fika Map, an AI tool that identifies locations where bridges could be built and estimates construction costs, among other capabilities. "Fika" means "to arrive" in Swahili.

The NGO also teamed up with Better Planet Laboratory to create WaterNet, an AI model that maps the world's waterways. They used satellite data to detect elevation and vegetation patterns, which the AI model then analyzed to approximate the location of waterways.

Bridges to Prosperity is using these programs with governments in Rwanda, Ethiopia, Uganda, and Zambia to help plan bridge construction and improve infrastructure across the countries.

Layering the data

Bridges to Prosperity had already been producing maps for areas where it had built bridges. This gave the NGO a starting database of geographical data that it could use and add to in order to build these programs.

"It's really easy to map where communities live by looking at satellite data, and most governments have schools, health clinics, markets, and critical destinations already mapped," Sharma said. "And so we started layering all this information together."

It also used data from less conventional sources, like the fitness tracking app Strava, to calculate travel times over uneven terrain.

But it still struggled to identify smaller rivers and streams.

"High-resolution satellite images are needed for the mapping of waterways in remote areas," said Marouane Temimi, an associate professor in the Department of Civil, Environmental and Ocean Engineering at the Stevens Institute of Technology.

Temimi said there are two types of satellite data. For optical satellite data, cameras capture images of the Earth's surface. Clouds can disrupt this, blocking out target areas. Radar satellite imagery, on the other hand, uses radio waves, which means it can create images even when clouds are in the way. But it can be affected by wind.

The two types of data can be combined to build accurate maps — but they come with a cost. Temimi said that satellite data is usually collected by commercial sensors, so getting the information can be expensive.

Sharma said the NGO had to balance getting quality data with making sure both programs were affordable, scalable, and global.

"The whole argument around AI and its inclusiveness — it's not built with enough good training data," Sharma said. "It often overlooks the entire Global South, which is obviously what we're trying not to do. But that's the expensive part."

A tool for change

Bridges to Prosperity and Better Planet Laboratory measured the impact of the dataset by assessing the number of waterways identified. Previously, they estimated that there were 54 million kilometers of mapped waterways around the globe. The WaterNet database mapped another 124 million kilometers, or 77 million miles, which more than tripled the number of known waterways worldwide.

Sharma said that Fika Map and WaterNet could help governments complete surveying work for bridge construction in months, rather than years.

"It's a decision-making tool. It's an advocacy tool. It's a planning tool," she said. "It really tells the full story of rural livelihoods and what needs to be done to improve that development."

• Alexis Ohanian said he "wholeheartedly wants" his 7-year-old to use AI every day.
• "I want her to understand that this is a superpower that she should have," the Reddit cofounder said.
• Not every tech exec shares the investor's enthusiasm about tech for kids.

Reddit cofounder Alexis Ohanian says he's all in on AI — especially when it comes to his 7-year-old daughter, Alexis Olympia Ohanian Jr.

"I wholeheartedly want Olympia using it every day," he said on an episode of the podcast "Possible" published Wednesday. "I genuinely am so awed by the fact that super intelligence will be a commodity for her," he added.

Ohanian, who is married to tennis superstar Serena Williams, described how he's already using AI to fuel their daughter's creativity. The investor and entrepreneur dug up some of his own childhood pencil sketches — even half-finished ones — and ran them through ChatGPT with Olympia to bring them to life.

The AI turned his drawings into "full-color illustrations."

"It was just so wild to see her reaction to it," said Ohanian. He and Williams also have a one-year-old daughter, Adira River Ohanian.

Olympia still draws the old-fashioned way — with markers on paper — but now, they can "level up" that art together using AI. The pair can "make it fly through space," he said.

"I want her to understand that this is a superpower that she should have," he added.

The founder of VC firm Seven Seven Six also said he encourages parents to use educational AI tools like Synthesis to help with homework, which has been "going pretty well" for Olympia.

"I still need her to know the fundamentals of reading and writing and arithmetic," he said. "But I want her to know that the raw intelligence part has been solved for her."

"Now, it's going to be about her agency and her grit and her creativity," he added.

Ohanian did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

AI for children

Not every tech exec shares Ohanian's tech enthusiasm for their kids.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, for one, has said he doesn't want his baby son to form a best-friend bond with an AI chatbot. He said earlier this month that children should have "a much higher level of protection" than adults when it comes to using AI tools.

Ex-Google CEO Eric Schmidt also said last year that AI could shape a child's identity and culture. He called on tech leaders to set safety standards.

Meta's CEO Mark Zuckerberg, meanwhile, has said he doesn't want his three young kids "sitting in front of a TV or a computer for a long period of time."

Still, AI is quickly becoming part of everyday life — even for children.

Companies are rushing to add AI chat elements to their consumer apps and services, including ones for kids and teens.

Tech giants like OpenAI, Microsoft, and Google have also promoted how their AI tools can support learning. Some educators told Business Insider last year that they welcome the use of AI in classrooms.

"Children in the future will only know a world with AI in it," Altman said in January.

Signal Messenger is warning the users of its Windows Desktop version that the privacy of their messages is under threat by Recall, the AI tool rolling out in Windows 11 that will screenshot, index, and store almost everything a user does every three seconds.

Effective immediately, Signal for Windows will by default block the ability of Windows to screenshot the app. Signal users who want to disable the block—for instance to preserve a conversation for their records or make use of accessibility features for sight-impaired users—will have to change settings inside their desktop version to enable screenshots.

My kingdom for an API

“Although Microsoft made several adjustments over the past twelve months in response to critical feedback, the revamped version of Recall still places any content that’s displayed within privacy-preserving apps like Signal at risk,” Signal officials wrote Wednesday. “As a result, we are enabling an extra layer of protection by default on Windows 11 in order to help maintain the security of Signal Desktop on that platform even though it introduces some usability trade-offs. Microsoft has simply given us no other option.”

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On Wednesday, OpenAI announced that former Apple design chief Jony Ive and his design firm LoveFrom will take over creative and design control at OpenAI. The deal makes Ive responsible for shaping the future look and feel of AI products at the chatbot creator, extending across all of the company's ventures, including ChatGPT.

Ive was Apple's chief design officer for nearly three decades, where he led the design of iconic products including the iPhone, iPad, MacBook, and Apple Watch, earning numerous industry awards and helping transform Apple into the world's most valuable company through his minimalist design philosophy.

"Thrilled to be partnering with jony, imo the greatest designer in the world," tweeted OpenAI CEO Sam Altman while sharing a 9-minute promotional video touting the personal and professional relationship between Ive and Altman.

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• A United Airlines passenger says she was injured when a suitcase fell on her.
• The lawsuit says the flight crew should have intervened or assisted so that it was stowed properly.
• Eugenia Lyashenko has suffered from stress and depression since the incident, it adds.

A passenger is suing United Airlines, saying flight attendants should have helped put heavy luggage in the overhead bin.

Eugenia Lyashenko was flying from Boston to London in June 2023, per the lawsuit filed last Friday in the Massachusetts US District Court.

She was sitting in an aisle seat when another passenger's "heavy roller suitcase" fell from the open overhead bin, the suit says.

The lawsuit alleged that Lyashenko suffered serious head, neck, and back injuries after being struck by the suitcase.

"United should not have allowed other passengers to struggle with stowing heavy roller suitcases in the overhead bins without intervening to ensure that it was done properly and safely," it stated.

It added that the crew's failure to assist in storing the luggage contributed to Lyashenko's injuries.

As a result of the incident, she has since been unable to sit or stand for extended periods, and "suffered great pain, agony and mental anguish, stress, depression," the complaint says.

United Airlines did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Lyashenko's attorneys sought unspecified compensatory damages under the Montreal Convention.

The treaty stipulated that airlines are liable for any passenger injuries on board an aircraft, or while boarding or deplaning, unless they can prove the passenger was negligent.

It says damages can be as high as about $175,000.

The Montreal Convention is often cited in airline lawsuits, such as when a Ryanair passenger broke her leg after falling down the aircraft's steps. She was awarded $33,000 in compensation.

And last year, a Delta Air Lines passenger said he broke a rib after his armrest collapsed when he leaned on it.

• Daliana Liu was a data scientist at Amazon and a startup before leaving to start her own business.
• She now works as a coach for data scientists looking to accelerate their careers and brand.
• Liu said she still gets cold DMs from recruiters at Meta and OpenAI because of her online presence.

This as-told-to-essay is based on a conversation with Daliana Liu, a data scientist and career coach. Business Insider has verified Liu's employment with documents. It's been edited for length and clarity.

After finishing my undergraduate math degree at a college in China, I moved to California to get my Master's in Statistics at the University of California, Irvine.

In January 2014, I started working at a startup, before being recruited by Amazon a little over a year later as a business intelligence engineer.

I started at Amazon in Seattle, working on an A/B testing platform for their retail website. I created various statistical analyses and reports and supported product managers.

I trained employees on how to use A/B testing to make better product decisions, eventually starting my own newsletter for Amazon employees to share experiment insights from across teams.

An internal Amazon newsletter was my first content creation

The newsletter was my initial content creation. I learned to create engaging titles and make my writing concise and interesting.

During that time, I began writing on Medium about technical data science. Once, I wrote a viral post about saving money by picking the right month to start renting an apartment. It was exciting to help people make better decisions using data.

I started posting to LinkedIn in 2019. I wanted to share the unfiltered truth about being a data scientist and getting a job at Amazon, after seeing misleading posts about the industry. A couple of my posts blew up, but the majority of my following was organic from posting regularly. I now have nearly 300,000 followers on LinkedIn.

I then started a public newsletter. I've always wanted to be an entrepreneur and thought having public channels would help me find investors in the future.

I moved up the ranks at Amazon and started a podcast

In December 2020, I moved to San Francisco to work for Amazon Web Services as a machine learning engineer. I got promoted to senior data scientist in 2021 and had to work with a lot of external customers.

I read books about communication and influencing stakeholders. I wanted learn good communication for my own leadership within the company, as well as our clients.

In 2021, I launched a podcast interviewing data scientists on their day-to-day work, how they tackle technical problems, and their career journeys.

One of the guests I interviewed invited me to a dinner with his CEO, who offered me a job to work as a data scientist for his startup, Predibase. I quit Amazon in June 2022 to work at the startup.

During the year I worked at Predibase, I continued to experiment with my podcast while also creating a career course for data scientists, teaching them essential communication and influencing skills.

Between 2021 and 2023, when I posted weekly episodes, my podcast had 50,000 subscribers across platforms. My startup job supported me in pursuing a side business, and I started making income from sponsorship and events through the podcast. I started getting sponsorship in March 2023.

I quit Big Tech to start my own business

As much as I loved working in tech, I always wanted to do something of my own. Once I got to the point I had business contracts in place for my podcast, a plan for my course, and some savings, I decided to quit my job and start my own business in September 2023.

Around the time I quit the startup, a VC firm tried to recruit me for a platform community growth role because they like my content and the podcast I built. I didn't take the job because I wanted to focus on my own business.

I now have a career accelerator course teaching data scientists communication skills, how to get promoted, and how to build their brands.

Being a thought leader opens job opportunties

While working for Amazon and the startup, I had recruiters from top companies like Apple and Netflix getting in touch. Even after leaving Big Tech, I still get messages from people at companies like OpenAI and Meta trying to recruit me.

They mention they like my experience in data science which they can see from my LinkedIn. They can also see my Medium blog and my podcast. I was able to get jobs through my podcast and recruiters often reference my content creation when they've reached out.

It's very important in this job market to be a builder, and a great way to demonstrate that is to publish blog posts or create a demo for recruiters to stand out.

I think Big Tech companies value my technical skills and industry thought leadership, which I post about on blogs and LinkedIn. Having a large following makes it easier for these recruiters to find and trust me.

Startups and VC funds seem to value both my technical skills and content creation skills, also that I've built a community.

By publishing my thoughts, I've opened myself up to data science roles, as well as developed transferable skills. If my path as a thought leader doesn't work out, I think it would be easy for me to find a job in data science, marketing, or a community role.

I'm not tempted to return to tech or startups. There's uncertainty as an entrepreneur, but I get to choose my clients and projects. I can take time off and travel. I'm not married or a parent yet, but when that time comes, I want the freedom to be fully present.

Microsoft is updating Windows 11 with a set of new encryption algorithms that can withstand future attacks from quantum computers in a move aimed at jump-starting what’s likely to be the most formidable and important technology transition in modern history.

Computers that are based on the physics of quantum mechanics don’t yet exist outside of sophisticated labs, but it’s well-established science that they eventually will. Instead of processing data in the binary state of zeros and ones, quantum computers run on qubits, which encompass myriad states all at once. This new capability promises to bring about new discoveries of unprecedented scale in a host of fields, including metallurgy, chemistry, drug discovery, and financial modeling.

Averting the cryptopocalypse

One of the most disruptive changes quantum computing will bring is the breaking of some of the most common forms of encryption, specifically, the RSA cryptosystem and those based on elliptic curves. These systems are the workhorses that banks, governments, and online services around the world have relied on for more than four decades to keep their most sensitive data confidential. RSA and elliptic curve encryption keys securing web connections would require millions of years to be cracked using today’s computers. A quantum computer could crack the same keys in a matter of hours or minutes.

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• More than 2,500 ships pass through the Freeport of Riga every year.
• The port is rolling out a private 5G network to power technology like autonomous sea drones.
• This article is part of "Build IT: Connectivity," a series about tech powering better business.

In the Middle Ages, seafarers would sail down the Daugava River to take refuge from the harsh winds and waves of the Baltic Sea. They'd anchor their ships, which carried goods like corn, hide, and flax, in a small natural harbor in the city of Riga.

Today, the harbor in the Latvian capital is still a bustling port, although cargo ships and autonomous drones have replaced the sails and oars. It was designated a freeport, or free trade zone, in 2001, which means that businesses using the port may be exempt from certain taxes and tariffs. More than 2,500 ships passed through the harbor in 2024.

Ansis Zeltins, the CEO of the Freeport of Riga Authority and the chairman of the European Sea Ports Organization, said automation is one of the biggest areas of innovation in the shipping industry. For instance, uncrewed surface vehicles, sometimes known as sea drones, can perform routine tasks like ship inspections and monitor water pollution levels.

But remote and autonomous technology requires a fast, reliable connection.

"The amount of data that needs to be processed in today's ports is immense and continuously growing," Zetlins said. "Modern logistics, as well as port and maritime security solutions, require the secure exchange of data between all stakeholders in real time."

But that's not easy when connecting ships, drones, and the port across the ocean.

"Ships are moving objects," Zeltins said. "That means, technologically, there's a challenge with the signal."

The port used to rely on WiFi and 4G to connect ships and drones to the mainland, but in 2020, it teamed up with LMT, a Latvian telecoms company, to roll out 5G connections across the port.

More devices, faster speeds

5G is a wireless technology that uses radio waves to transmit data.

"For the majority of people like you and me, 5G is not that big of an upgrade from 4G or WiFi," Chris Karaplis, the CEO of Simply Embedded, a technology consulting firm, told Business Insider. "While speeds can be slightly faster, the biggest differentiator is its ability to support more devices, so your connection won't slow down when more people are on the network."

5G can support as many as 2.6 million devices per square mile.

"For industrial applications in sectors such as manufacturing, logistics, and smart cities, 5G can be a game changer," Karaplis said. "Being able to send large packets of data more reliably and faster, ultimately improving efficiencies, is a huge benefit for infrastructure or logistics-critical businesses."

At the start of the 5G rollout, LMT and Freeport of Riga built a private 5G network within the Baltic Container Terminal on the mainland. They replaced 22 WiFi access points with just one central control system and two outdoor antennas.

Under the new 5G system, Vilciņš said data transmission speeds became more than 10 times faster. This resulted in the use of other technology in port operations, such as replacing handheld radio communications with push-to-talk, a solution that allows the transmission of images and videos as well as sound.

"There were immediate improvements in business processes," Kārlis Vilciņš, the head of system integration business at LMT, told BI in an email. Vilciņš said before the switch, container reach stackers, or vehicles used to transport containers within the port, idled and waited for a stable connection to handle containers, which often caused delays.

'Multi-hop' connections

The real challenge was connecting the ships in transit. They used a "multi-hop" method, where ships serve as floating telecom base stations. One vessel connects to the mainland's 5G antenna, then passes that connection to the next ship, and so on.

LVR Flote, a port services provider based in Riga, first successfully tested the method in November 2023 using LĪVA, the first 5G-equipped ship on the Baltic Sea. This past July, the company carried out a more complex test, connecting two ships with an airborne drone that transmitted real-time seabed surveys and video footage back to the port. These hydrographic measurements are critical for safe navigation and port operations.

"5G provides an option for real-time controls," Zeltins said. "It's much safer and more responsive."

Ships using the multi-hop technique can connect up to 18 miles apart. Up to five ships can be linked up in this way, extending the total network range at sea to more than 100 miles.

"This is a major improvement because such technology has not been deployed at sea before," Arturs Lindenbergs, the head of the innovation development division at LMT, said in an email.

Looking ahead, Zeltins wants to harness the faster connection to bring new technology to the Freeport of Riga. For instance, the port is testing a Remote Operations Center platform for autonomous maritime systems.

"Our collaborative efforts have the potential to make the port of Riga a unique test bed for next-generation maritime technologies, increase high-value-added activity at the port, and attract high-value investments and new revenue streams," he said.

On Sunday, the Chicago Sun-Times published an advertorial summer reading list containing at least 10 fake books attributed to real authors, according to multiple reports on social media. The newspaper's uncredited "Summer reading list for 2025" supplement recommended titles including "Tidewater Dreams" by Isabel Allende and "The Last Algorithm" by Andy Weir—books that don't exist and were created out of thin air by an AI system.

The creator of the list, Marco Buscaglia, confirmed to 404 Media that he used AI to generate the content. "I do use AI for background at times but always check out the material first. This time, I did not and I can't believe I missed it because it's so obvious. No excuses," Buscaglia said. "On me 100 percent and I'm completely embarrassed."

A check by Ars Technica shows that only five of the fifteen recommended books in the list actually exist, with the remainder being fabricated titles falsely attributed to well-known authors. AI assistants such as ChatGPT are well-known for creating plausible-sounding errors known as confabulations, especially when lacking detailed information on a particular topic. The problem affects everything from AI search results to lawyers citing fake cases.

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• Ray Dalio said on X that Moody's credit downgrade doesn't cover the risks of government money printing.
• Moody's downgraded US credit to Aa1, citing growing deficits and ballooning interest payments.
• A GOP tax bill could worsen US debts, with proposed tax breaks and increased defense spending.

Billionaire investor Ray Dalio thinks Moody's recent downgrade of the US sovereign credit rating doesn't capture the danger of the federal government simply printing cash to cover its bills.

"You should know that credit ratings understate credit risks because they only rate the risk of the government not paying its debt," Dalio, the founder of Bridgewater Associates, warned said on X. "They don't include the greater risk that the countries in debt will print money to pay their debts thus causing holders of the bonds to suffer losses from the decreased value of the money they're getting."

"For those who care about the value of their money, the risks for US government debt are greater than the rating agencies are conveying," Dalio added.

Dalio's comments came after Moody's, the international financial services company, downgraded the US credit from Aaa to Aa1 on Friday, citing growing deficits and surging interest payments. That makes Moody's the last of the three major credit agencies to bump America's credit off the highest rating. S&P Global Ratings downgraded the US back in 2011, and Fitch Ratings followed suit in 2023.

In response to the downgrade, stocks slipped on Monday while Treasury yields spiked. The 30-year bond yield jumped 4.995%, and the 10-year bond yield rose to 4.521%.

Adding to investor concerns, economists are sounding the alarm on a tax cut bill proposed by Republicans that could come to pass given the slim GOP majorities in both the House and the Senate.

The bill proposes tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans through a higher estate tax exemption, interest tax breaks for private equity, and a $150 billion boost in defense spending. It also plans to increase the child tax credit by $500 and eliminate taxes on tips and overtime pay.

Despite the bill also proposing spending cuts to Medicaid and SNAP and to hike taxes for immigrants, the Budget Lab at Yale, a nonpartisan policy research center, says that the GOP bill would worsen America's debt.

"The bill as currently proposed would substantially add to the deficit, even if accounting for possible tariff revenue," authors of the report wrote, "If we account for the likelihood that these provisions would become permanent, at the end of 30 years the debt-to-GDP ratio would be over 180%, even assuming substantial revenue from tariffs."

According to the report, Sudan and Japan are the only two countries with a debt-to-GDP ratio over 180%.

"Assuming temporary provisions expire, the bill's baseline cost of $3.4 trillion would make it the largest spending package in US history," the report added.

In a rare Sunday night vote on May 18, the GOP tax cut bill narrowly passed the House Budget Committee, which days before rejected the bill. The bill now heads to the House for a vote this week.

A spokesperson for Dalio did not immediately respond to a request for comment.