Longtime Slashdot reader hackingbear writes: Following U.S. lawmakers' call on Tuesday for broader bans on the export of chipmaking equipment to China, China dramatically expanded its rare earths export controls on Thursday, adding five new elements, dozens of pieces of refining technology, and extra scrutiny for semiconductor users as Beijing tightens control over the sector ahead of talks between Presidents Donald Trump and Xi Jinping. The new rules expands controls Beijing announced in April that caused shortages around the world, before a series of deals with Europe and the U.S. eased the supply crunch.

China produces over 90% of the world's processed rare earths and rare earth magnets. The 17 rare earth elements are vital materials in products ranging from electric vehicles to aircraft engines and military radars. Foreign companies producing some of the rare earths and related magnets on the list will now also need a Chinese export license if the final product contains or is made with Chinese equipment or material, even if the transaction includes no Chinese companies, mimicking rules the U.S. has implemented to restrict other countries' exports of semiconductor-related products to China.

Developing mining and processing capabilities requires a long-term effort, meaning the United States will be on the back foot for the foreseeable future. The Commerce Ministry also added to its "unreliable entity list" 14 foreign organizations, which are mostly based in the United States, restricting their ability to carry out commercial activities within the world's second-largest economy for carrying out military and technological cooperation with Taiwan, or "made malicious remarks about China, and assisted foreign governments in suppressing Chinese companies," it said in a separate statement, referring to TechInsights, a prominent Canadian tech research firm, and nine of its subsidiaries including Strategy Analytics which were among those blacklisted.

An anonymous reader shares a report: China's giant solar parks aren't just changing the power mix -- they may be changing the ground beneath them. Fresh field data point to cooler soils, extra moisture, and pockets of greening, though lasting ecological shifts will hinge on design and long-term care.

[...] A team studying one of the largest photovoltaic parks in China, the Gonghe project in the Talatan Desert, found a striking difference between what was happening under the panels and what lay just beyond. They used a detailed framework measuring dozens of indicators -- everything from soil chemistry to microbial life -- and discovered that the micro-environment beneath the panels was noticeably healthier. The reasons track with physics: shade cools the surface and slows evaporation, letting scarce soil moisture linger longer; field experiments in western China report measurable soil-moisture gains beneath shaded arrays.

Simple shade from panel rows can create a gentler microclimate at ground level, cutting wind stress and helping fragile seedlings establish. In other desert locations like Gansu and the Gobi, year-round field data tell a similar story. Soil temperatures beneath arrays tend to be cooler during the day and a bit warmer at night than surrounding ground, with humidity patterns shifting in tandem -- conditions that can make harsh surfaces more habitable when paired with basic land care. Even small shifts like these can help re-establish vegetation -- if combined with erosion control and water management. These aren't wildflowers blooming overnight, but they are signs that utility-scale solar can double as a modest micro-restorer.

AmiMoJo shares a report from the BBC: Renewable energy overtook coal as the world's leading source of electricity in the first half of this year -- a historic first, according to new data from the global energy think tank Ember. Electricity demand is growing around the world but the growth in solar and wind was so strong it met 100% of the extra electricity demand, even helping drive a slight decline in coal and gas use. However, Ember says the headlines mask a mixed global picture.

Developing countries, especially China, led the clean energy charge but richer nations including the US and EU relied more than before on planet-warming fossil fuels for electricity generation. This divide is likely to get more pronounced, according to a separate report from the International Energy Agency (IEA). It predicts renewables will grow much less strongly than forecast in the US as a result of the policies of President Donald Trump's administration. Coal, a major contributor to global warming, was still the world's largest individual source of energy generation in 2024, a position it has held for more than 50 years, according to the IEA.

Longtime Slashdot reader schwit1 shares a report from Reuters: OpenAI said on Tuesday it has banned several ChatGPT accounts with suspected links to the Chinese government entities after the users asked for proposals to monitor social media conversations. In its latest public threat report (PDF), OpenAI said some individuals had asked its chatbot to outline social media 'listening' tools and other monitoring concepts, violating the startup's national security policy.

The San Francisco-based firm's report raises safety concerns over potential misuse of generative AI amid growing competition between the U.S. and China to shape the technology's development and rules. OpenAI said it also banned several Chinese-language accounts that used ChatGPT to assist phishing and malware campaigns and asked the model to research additional automation that could be achieved through China's DeepSeek. It also banned accounts tied to suspected Russian-speaking criminal groups that used the chatbot to help develop certain malware, OpenAI said.

Samsung, Hisense, TCL and Sony presented RGB LED TVs at IFA in Berlin last month. The technology replaces each standard LED backlight with a trio of red, green and blue LEDs to expand the range of colors a screen can display. Each manufacturer is using different name for the technology: Hisense has called it RGB-MiniLED, Samsung named it Micro RGB, Sony introduced Sony RGB Technology, and TCL branded it RGB Micro LED. The companies previously tried other monikers at CES.

Avi Greengart of Techsponential told PCMag the difference in color fidelity was not subtle when he viewed Samsung's version. PCMag found the Hisense 116UX the brightest TV with the widest color range he had evaluated. Both the 116-inch Hisense and Samsung's 115-inch model list at $30,000. TCL introduced RGB sets in China at prices starting at the equivalent of $1,150 for a 65-inch model. Greengart cautioned that it remained unclear whether the technology would rapidly decline in price or stay expensive like MicroLED.

If we could remove the 50 most concerning pieces of space debris in low-Earth orbit, there'd be a 50% reduction in the overall debris-generating potential, reports Ars Technica. That's according to Darren McKnight, lead author of a paper presented Friday at the International Astronautical Congress in Sydney, which calculated the objects most likely to collide with other fragments and create more debris. (Russia and the Soviet Union lead with 34 objects, followed by China with 10, the U.S. with three, Europe with two, and Japan with one.) Even just the top 10 were removed, the debris-generating potential drops by 30%.

"The things left before 2000 are still the majority of the problem," he points out, and "76% of the objects in the top 50 were deposited last century." 88% of the objects are post-mission rocket bodies left behind to hurtle through space. "The bad news is, since January 1, 2024, we've had 26 rocket bodies abandoned in low-Earth orbit that will stay in orbit for more than 25 years," McKnight told Ars... China launched 21 of the 26 hazardous new rocket bodies over the last 21 months, each averaging more than 4 metric tons (8,800 pounds). Two more came from US launchers, one from Russia, one from India, and one from Iran. This trend is likely to continue as China steps up deployment of two megaconstellations — Guowang and Thousand Sails — with thousands of communications satellites in low-Earth orbit.

Launches of these constellations began last year. The Guowang and Thousand Sails satellites are relatively small and likely capable of maneuvering out of the way of space debris, although China has not disclosed their exact capabilities. However, most of the rockets used for Guowang and Thousand Sails launches have left their upper stages in orbit. McKnight said nine upper stages China has abandoned after launching Guowang and Thousand Sails satellites will stay in orbit for more than 25 years, violating the international guidelines.

It will take hundreds of rockets to fully populate China's two major megaconstellations. The prospect of so much new space debris is worrisome, McKnight said. "In the next few years, if they continue the same trend, they're going to leave well over 100 rocket bodies over the 25-year rule if they continue to deploy these constellations," he said. "So, the trend is not good...." Since 2000, China has accumulated more dead rocket mass in long-lived orbits than the rest of the world combined, according to McKnight. "But now we're at a point where it's actually kind of accelerating in the last two years as these constellations are getting deployed."
A deputy head of China's national space agency recently said China is "currently researching" how to remove space debris from orbit, according to the article. ("One of the missions China claims is testing space debris mitigation techniques has docked with multiple spacecraft in orbit, but U.S. officials see it as a military threat. The same basic technologies needed for space debris cleanup — rendezvous and docking systems, robotic arms, and onboard automation — could be used to latch on to an adversary's satellite.")

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: Indonesia has suspended TikTok's registration to provide electronic systems after it failed to hand over all data relating to the use of its live stream feature, a government official said on Friday. The suspension could in theory prevent access to TikTok, which has more than 100 million accounts based in Indonesia.

Alexander Sabar, an official at Indonesia's communications and digital ministry, said in a statement some accounts with ties to online gambling activities used TikTok's live stream feature during national protests. [...] Sabar said the government had asked the company for its traffic, streaming and monetization data. The company, owned by China's ByteDance, did not provide complete data, citing its internal procedures, Sabar said without giving further detail.

Last month, federal investigators said they dismantled a China-linked plot that aimed to cripple New York City's telecommunications system by overloading cell towers, jamming 911 calls, and disrupting communications. According to law enforcement sources, the plot was even bigger than first thought. "Agents from Homeland Security Investigations found an additional 200,000 SIM cards at a location in New Jersey," according to ABC News. "That's double the 100,000 SIM cards, along with hundreds of servers, that were recently seized at five other vacant offices and apartments in and around the city." From the report: Investigators secured each of those locations, seized the electronics, and are now trying to track down who rented the spaces and filled them with shelves full of gear capable of sending 30 million anonymous text messages every minute, overloading communications and blacking out cellular service in a city that relies on it for emergency response and counterterrorism.

According to sources, the investigation began after several high-level people, including at least one with direct access to President Donald Trump, were targeted not only by swatters but also with actual threats received on their private phones. "The potential threat these data centers pose to the public could include shutting down critical resources that the public needs, like the 911 system, or potentially impacting the public's ability to communicate everything, including business transactions," said Don Mihalek, an ABC News contributor who was formerly with the Secret Service.

Air pollution increases the likelihood of people becoming frail in middle and old age, according to an international review of studies. The Guardian: The review team found 10 studies that looked at outdoor air pollution and frailty. The people studied came from 11 countries including China, the UK, Sweden, South Africa and Mexico. Two of the studies showed that men were more vulnerable than woman, with a stronger association between particle pollution and frailty. The risk of frailty increased with outdoor particle pollution. For the UK, this could mean about 10-20% of frailty cases are attributable to air pollution.

Exposure to secondhand smoking was the environmental factor that presented the greatest risk of frailty. The risk of frailty was increased by about 60% for people who breathed other people's smoke at home. Using solid fuels for cooking or home heating also carried an extra risk of frailty. This was about half the risk of living with a smoker, based on studies from six countries.

"Your AMD chips may have Intel Inside soon," writes longtime Slashdot reader DesScorp. "Discussions are underway between the two companies to move an undisclosed amount of AMD's chip business to Intel foundries. (AMD currently does their production through TSMC.) The talks come hot on the heels of a flurry of other Intel investments." Tom's Hardware reports: In the past several weeks, Intel has seen a flurry of activity and investments. The United States announced a 9.9% ownership stake in Intel, while Softbank bought $2 billion worth of shares. Alongside Nvidia, Intel announced new x86 chips using Nvidia graphics technology, with the graphics giant also purchasing $5 billion in Intel shares. There have also been reports that Intel and Apple have been exploring ways to work together. The article notes that there is a trade/political dimension to an AMD-Intel deal as well: It makes sense for Intel's former rivals -- especially American companies -- to consider coming to the table. The White House is pushing for 50% of chips bound for America to be built domestically, and tariffs on chips aren't off the table. Additionally, doing business with Intel could make the US government, Intel's largest shareholder, happy, which can be good for business. AMD faced export restrictions on its GPUs earlier this year as the US attempted to throttle China's AI business.

AI has run out of training data, according to Neema Raphael, Goldman Sachs' chief data officer and head of data engineering. "We've already run out of data," Raphael said on the bank's podcast. He said this shortage is already shaping how developers build new AI systems. China's DeepSeek may have kept costs down by training on outputs from existing models instead of fresh data. The web has been tapped out.

Developers have been using synthetic data -- machine-generated material that offers unlimited supply but carries quality risks. Raphael said he doesn't think the lack of fresh data will be a massive constraint. "From an enterprise perspective, I think there's still a lot of juice I'd say to be squeezed in that," he said. Proprietary datasets held by corporations could make AI tools far more valuable. The challenge is "understanding the data, understanding the business context of the data, and then being able to normalize it."

An anonymous reader shares a report: Immigration anxieties and a challenging job market have sparked an online backlash over China's latest attempt at attracting global talent -- a new visa program announced in August. The program, which was rolled out on Wednesday with the aim of attracting foreign professionals, will also test how China balances its immigration policy with its pursuit of technological ambitions.

Under the new rules, young graduates -- in the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics or STEM -- no longer need backing from a local employer and can enjoy more flexibility in terms for entry frequency and duration of stay. The keyword "K-visa" -- as China's new visa category is called -- was among the top searches on social media site Weibo for days, before chatter about National Day traffic jams pushed it off the charts as millions hit the road for a week-long holiday.

Chinese social media users argue that the new visa tilts the playing field toward foreign graduates at the expense of those educated in China. Others on Weibo warned that without employer sponsorship, the program could invite fraudulent applications and open the door to a surge in arrivals from developing countries, piling pressure on an already strained labor market.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the BBC: A Chinese national has been convicted following an international fraud investigation which resulted in what's believed to be the single largest cryptocurrency seizure in the world. The Metropolitan Police says it recovered 61,000 bitcoin worth more than $6.7 billion in current prices. Zhimin Qian, also known as Yadi Zhang, pleaded guilty on Monday at Southwark Crown Court of illegally acquiring and possessing the cryptocurrency. A second person appeared in court on Tuesday to admit to their role in the scheme.

Malaysian national Seng Hok Ling, of Matlock, Derbyshire, pleaded guilty at Southwark Crown Court of entering into a money laundering arrangement on or before April 23, 2024. According to the charge, he had been dealing in cryptocurrency on Qian's behalf, "knowing or suspecting his actions would facilitate the acquisition or control of criminal property by another." Between 2014 and 2017 Qian led a large-scale scam in China which involved cheating more than 128,000 victims and storing the stolen funds in bitcoin assets, the Met said in a statement.

It said the 47-year-old's guilty plea followed a seven-year probe into a global money laundering web which began when it got a tipoff about the transfer of criminal assets. Qian had been "evading justice" for five years up to her arrest, which required a complex investigation involving multiple jurisdictions, said Detective Sergeant Isabella Grotto, who led the Met's investigation. She fled China using false documents and entered the UK, where she attempted to launder the stolen money by buying property, said the Met. "By pleading guilty today, Ms Zhang hopes to bring some comfort to investors who have waited since 2017 for compensation, and to reassure them that the significant rise in cryptocurrency values means there are more than sufficient funds available to repay their losses," said Qian's solicitor Roger Sahota, of Berkeley Square Solicitors.

"Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are increasingly being used by organised criminals to disguise and transfer assets, so that fraudsters may enjoy the benefits of their criminal conduct," added deputy chief Crown prosecutor, Robin Weyell. "This case, involving the largest cryptocurrency seizure in the UK, illustrates the scale of criminal proceeds available to those fraudsters."

Chinese hackers breached email servers of foreign ministers as part of a years-long effort targeting the communications of diplomats around the world, according to researchers at the cybersecurity firm Palo Alto Networks. From a report: Attackers accessed Microsoft Exchange email servers, gaining the ability to search for information at some foreign ministries, said the team at Unit 42, the threat intelligence division of Palo Alto Networks, which has been tracking the group for nearly three years.

Hackers specifically searched in the email servers for key terms related to a China-Arab summit in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, in 2022, said Lior Rochberger, senior researcher at the company. They also searched for names such as including Chinese President Xi Jinping and his wife, Peng Liyuan, in the context of that summit, the researchers said. The researchers declined to specifically identify which countries had their systems breached in the hacking campaign, but wrote in the report that the group's targeting patterns "align consistently with the People's Republic of China (PRC) economic and geopolitical interests."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Politico: California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a first-in-the-nation law on Monday that will force major AI companies to reveal their safety protocols -- marking the end of a lobbying battle with big tech companies like ChatGPT maker OpenAI and Meta and setting the groundwork for a potential national standard.

The proposal was the second attempt by the author, ambitious San Francisco Democrat state Sen. Scott Wiener, to pass such legislation after Newsom vetoed a broader measure last year that set off an international debate. It is already being watched in Congress and other states as an example to follow as lawmakers seek to rein in an emerging technology that has been embraced by the Trump administration in the race against China, but which has also prompted concerns for its potential to create harms.

The world's highest bridge opened in China on Sunday, taking the crown from another bridge in the same province. From a report: The Huajiang Grand Canyon Bridge soars about 2,050 feet above a river and gorge in the southern Chinese province of Guizhou. It is more than twice as high as the Royal Gorge Bridge, which is suspended 956 feet above the Arkansas River in Colorado and is the highest in the United States.

According to Chinese state media, the new Guizhou bridge also sets a record as the world's longest bridge in a mountainous region, spanning 4,600 feet across. Hailed as China's latest "infrastructure miracle," the bridge is designed to spur tourism and economic growth in one of the country's least developed regions.

The BBC reports that a million-year-old human skull found in China suggests that the human species "began to emerge at least half a million years earlier than we thought, researchers are claiming in a new study." It also shows that we co-existed with other sister species, including Neanderthals, for much longer than we've come to believe, they say.

The scientists claim their analysis "totally changes" our understanding of human evolution and, if correct, it would certainly rewrite a key early chapter in our history. But other experts in a field where disagreement over our emergence on the planet is rife, say that the new study's conclusions are plausible but far from certain.

The discovery, published in the leading scientific journal Science, shocked the research team, which included scientists from a university in China and the UK's Natural History Museum. "From the very beginning, when we got the result, we thought it was unbelievable. How could that be so deep into the past?" said Prof Xijun Ni of Fudan University, who co-led the analysis. "But we tested it again and again to test all the models, use all the methods, and we are now confident about the result, and we're actually very excited."
Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader sinij for sharing the article.

An anonymous reader shared this report from Computer Weekly: Policing data hosted in Microsoft's hyperscale cloud infrastructure could be processed in more than 100 countries, but the tech giant is obfuscating this information from its customers, Computer Weekly can reveal. According to documents released by the Scottish Police Authority (SPA) under freedom of information (FoI) rules, Microsoft refused to hand over crucial information about its international data flows to the SPA and Police Scotland when asked...

The tech giant also refused to disclose its own risk assessments into the transfer of UK policing data to other jurisdictions, including China and others deemed "hostile" in the DPIA documents. This means Police Scotland and the SPA — which are jointly rolling out Office 365 — are unable to satisfy the law enforcement-specific data protection rules laid out in Part Three of the Data Protection Act 2018 (DPA18), which places strict limits on the transfer of policing data outside the UK. The same documents also contain an admission from Microsoft — given while simultaneously refusing to divulge key information about data flows — that it is unable to guarantee the sovereignty of policing data held and processed within its O365 infrastructure. This echoes the statements senior Microsoft representatives made to the French senate in June 2025, in which they admitted the company cannot guarantee the sovereignty of European data stored and processed in its services generally.

The revelation that Microsoft may access customer data from more than 100 countries is a result of the correspondence previously disclosed under Freedom of Information and reported on by Computer Weekly... All in all, an analysis of Microsoft's distributed documentation — conducted by independent security consultant Owen Sayers and shared with Computer Weekly — suggests that Microsoft personnel or contractors can remotely access the data from 105 different countries, using 148 different sub-processors. Despite technically being public, Sayers highlighted how this information is not transparently laid out for Microsoft customers, and is distributed across different documents contained in non-indexed webpages.... "[A]ny normal amount of due diligence — even if it is conducted by skilled persons will likely fail to see the full scope of offshoring in play," he said...

Microsoft did not contest the accuracy of the remote access location figures cited by Computer Weekly in this story.

Electric powertrains allow for "crazy fast acceleration figures," reports Car and Driver, as well as "huge power numbers." And now a Chinese luxury electric car brand owned by BYD Auto "just hit a top speed of 308.4 mph, making it not only the fastest electric car on the planet, but the fastest car. Period."

Engadget reports that the U9 Xtreme "is packed with four motors that produce just under 3,000 horsepower. The electric hypercar also runs on one of the world's first 1,200V platforms, which offers better performance and efficiency, along with some weight reduction." And Car and Driver adds that "Other changes to achieve the speed include dropping the wheel size from 21 to 20 inches, narrowing the front track, and adding wider, semi-slick track tires at the front of the car." One small caveat that doesn't lessen the impressiveness of the feat is that while the U9 Xtreme does classify as a production model, it barely does. That's because BYD is planning to limit production of the top-speed version of the U9 to no more than 30 units.
The car hit its "facemelting" top speed during a livestream at Germany's Automotive Testing Papenburg, reports Engadget.

Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader hackingbear for sharing the news.

DJI has lost its lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Defense, failing to remove its designation as a Chinese Military Company. US District Court Judge Paul Friedman ruled the Pentagon has broad discretion to make such designations, finding sufficient evidence that DJI qualifies as a "military-civil fusion contributor" based on its recognition by China's National Development and Reform Commission as a National Enterprise Technology Center. The designation provides DJI substantial government benefits including cash subsidies, special financial support and tax benefits.

The judge rejected several of the DoD's other claims for insufficient evidence and noted the department confused two different Chinese industrial zones when attempting to prove DJI's factories were in state-sponsored areas. DJI faces a total import ban on new products this December and US customs has already stopped many consumer drone shipments. The company says it is evaluating legal options.