BBC One has adapted William Golding's classic 1954 novel Lord of the Flies into a new miniseries and just dropped the first trailer. The book has been adapted for film three times since its publication and also inspired the Emmy-nominated TV series Yellowjackets (renewed for its fourth and final season this year). This BBC miniseries apparently has the support of the Golding family and is expected to hew quite closely to the novel.

(Spoilers for t he 1954 novel below.)

Golding was inspired to write Lord of the Flies by a popular, pro-colonialism children's novel called The Coral Island , whose central theme was the civilizing influence of British colonial efforts and Christianity on a "savage" people. Golding wanted to write a book about children on an island who "behave the way children really would behave."

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SpaceX has made a new set of demands on state governments that would ensure Starlink receives federal grant money even when residents don't purchase Starlink broadband service.

SpaceX said it will provide "all necessary equipment" to receive broadband "at no cost to subscribers requesting service," which will apparently eliminate the up-front hardware fee for Starlink equipment. But SpaceX isn't promising lower-than-usual monthly prices to consumers in those subsidized areas. SpaceX pledged to make broadband available for $80 or less a month, plus taxes and fees, to people with low incomes in the subsidized areas. For comparison, the normal Starlink residential prices advertised on its website range from $50 to $120 a month.

SpaceX's demands would also guarantee that it gets paid by the government even if it doesn't reserve "large portions" of Starlink network capacity for homes in the areas that are supposed to receive government-subsidized Internet service. Moreover, SpaceX would not be responsible for ensuring that Starlink equipment is installed correctly at each customer location.

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A federal judge in Virginia ruled Tuesday that the City of Norfolk’s use of nearly 200 automated license plate readers (ALPRs) from Flock is constitutional and can continue, dismissing the entire case just days before a bench trial was set to begin.

The case, Schmidt v. City of Norfolk , was originally filed in October 2024 by two Virginians who claimed that their rights were violated when the Flock network of cameras captured their cars hundreds of times, calling the entire setup a “dragnet surveillance program.”

However, in a 51-page ruling , US District Court Judge Mark S. Davis disagreed, finding that the “...plaintiffs are unable to demonstrate that Defendants’ ALPR system is capable of tracking the whole of a person’s movements.”

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Alarming critics, the acting director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), Madhu Gottumukkala, accidentally uploaded sensitive information to a public version of ChatGPT last summer, Politico reported.

According to "four Department of Homeland Security officials with knowledge of the incident," Gottumukkala's uploads of sensitive CISA contracting documents triggered multiple internal cybersecurity warnings designed to "stop the theft or unintentional disclosure of government material from federal networks."

Gottumukkala's uploads happened soon after he joined the agency and sought special permission to use OpenAI's popular chatbot, which most DHS staffers are blocked from accessing, DHS confirmed to Ars. Instead, DHS staffers use approved AI-powered tools, like the agency's DHSChat, which "are configured to prevent queries or documents input into them from leaving federal networks," Politico reported.

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On January 12, EA shut down the official servers for Anthem , making Bioware's multiplayer sci-fi adventure completely unplayable for the first time since its troubled 2019 launch . Last week, though, the Anthem community woke up to a new video showing the game at least partially loading on what appears to be a simulated background server.

The people behind that video—and the Anthem revival project that made it possible—told Ars they were optimistic about their efforts to coerce EA's temperamental Frostbite engine into running the game without access to EA's servers. That said, the team also wants to temper expectations that may have risen a bit too high in the wake of what is just a proof-of-concept video.

"People are getting excited [about the video], and naturally people are going to get their hopes up," project administrator Laurie told Ars. "I don't want to be the person that's going to have to deal with the aftermath if it turns out that we can't actually get anywhere."

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Forty years ago, a stack of bright red tags shared a physical connection with what would become NASA's first space shuttle disaster. The small tags, however, were collected before the ill-fated launch of Challenger , as was instructed in bold "Remove Before Flight" lettering on the front of each.

What happened to the tags after that is largely unknown.

This is an attempt to learn more about where those "Remove Before Flight" tags went after they were detached from the space shuttle and before they arrived on my doorstep. If their history can be better documented, they can be provided to museums, educational centers, and astronautical archives for their preservation and display.

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Google began stuffing Gemini into its dominant Chrome browser several months ago, and today the AI is expanding its capabilities considerably. Google says the chatbot will be easier to access and connect to more Google services, but the biggest change is the addition of Google's autonomous browsing agent, which it has dubbed Auto Browse. Similar to tools like OpenAI Atlas , Auto Browse can handle tedious tasks in Chrome so you don't have to.

The newly unveiled Gemini features in Chrome are accessible from the omnipresent AI button that has been lurking at the top of the window for the last few months. Initially, that button only opened Gemini in a pop-up window, but Google now says it will default to a split-screen or "Sidepanel" view. Google confirmed the update began rolling out over the past week, so you may already have it.

You can still pop Gemini out into a floating window, but the split-view gives Gemini more room to breathe while manipulating a page with AI. This is also helpful when calling other apps in the Chrome implementation of Gemini. The chatbot can now access Gmail, Calendar, YouTube, Maps, Google Shopping, and Google Flights right from the Chrome window. Google technically added this feature around the middle of January, but it's only talking about it now.

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Meta has started blocking its users from sharing links to ICE List , a website that has compiled the names of what it claims are Department of Homeland Security employees, a project the creators say is designed to hold those employees accountable.

Dominick Skinner, the creator of ICE List, tells WIRED that links to the website have been shared without issue on Meta’s platforms for more than six months.

“I think it's no surprise that a company run by a man who sat behind Trump at his inauguration, and donated to the destruction of the White House, has taken a stance that helps ICE agents retain anonymity,” says Skinner.

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On Wednesday, China approved imports of Nvidia's H200 artificial intelligence chips for three of its largest technology companies, Reuters reported . ByteDance, Alibaba, and Tencent received approval to purchase more than 400,000 H200 chips in total, marking a shift in Beijing's stance after weeks of holding up shipments despite US export clearance.

The move follows Beijing's temporary halt to H200 shipments earlier this month after Washington cleared exports on January 13. Chinese customs authorities had told agents that the H200 chips were not permitted to enter China, Reuters reported earlier this month, even as Chinese technology companies placed orders for more than two million of the chips.

The H200, Nvidia's second most powerful AI chip after the B200 , delivers roughly six times the performance of the company's H20 chip, which was previously the most capable chip Nvidia could sell to China. While Chinese companies such as Huawei now have products that rival the H20's performance, they still lag far behind the H200.

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