Author name: Paul Patrick

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Even Linus Torvalds is trying his hand at vibe coding (but just a little)

AI, coding, GitHub, Google Antigravity, Linus Torvalds, llm, Open Source, Programming, Tech, vibe coding, Windsurf / /

Linux and Git creator Linus Torvalds’ latest project contains code that was “basically written by vibe coding,” but you shouldn’t read that to mean that Torvalds is embracing that approach for anything and everything.

Torvalds sometimes works on a small hobby projects over holiday breaks. Last year, he made guitar pedals. This year, he did some work on AudioNoise, which he calls “another silly guitar-pedal-related repo.” It creates random digital audio effects.

Torvalds revealed that he had used an AI coding tool in the README for the repo:

Also note that the python visualizer tool has been basically written by vibe-coding. I know more about analog filters—and that’s not saying much—than I do about python. It started out as my typical “google and do the monkey-see-monkey-do” kind of programming, but then I cut out the middle-man—me—and just used Google Antigravity to do the audio sample visualizer.

Google’s Antigravity is a fork of the AI-focused IDE Windsurf. He didn’t specify which model he used, but using Antigravity suggests (but does not prove) that it was some version of Google’s Gemini.

Torvalds’ past public comments on using large language model-based tools for programming have been more nuanced than many online discussions about it.

He has touted AI primarily as “a tool to help maintain code, including automated patch checking and code review,” citing examples of tools that found problems he had missed.

On the other hand, he has also said he is generally “much less interested in AI for writing code,” and has publicly said that he’s not anti-AI in principle, but he’s very much anti-hype around AI.

Even Linus Torvalds is trying his hand at vibe coding (but just a little) Read More »

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Google removes some AI health summaries after investigation finds “dangerous” flaws

AI, AI hallucination, ai overviews, Biz & IT, generative ai, Google, health, machine learning, misinformation, search engines, the guardian / /

Why AI Overviews produces errors

The recurring problems with AI Overviews stem from a design flaw in how the system works. As we reported in May 2024, Google built AI Overviews to show information backed up by top web results from its page ranking system. The company designed the feature this way based on the assumption that highly ranked pages contain accurate information.

However, Google’s page ranking algorithm has long struggled with SEO-gamed content and spam. The system now feeds these unreliable results to its AI model, which then summarizes them with an authoritative tone that can mislead users. Even when the AI draws from accurate sources, the language model can still draw incorrect conclusions from the data, producing flawed summaries of otherwise reliable information.

The technology does not inherently provide factual accuracy. Instead, it reflects whatever inaccuracies exist on the websites Google’s algorithm ranks highly, presenting the facts with an authority that makes errors appear trustworthy.

Other examples remain active

The Guardian found that typing slight variations of the original queries into Google, such as “lft reference range” or “lft test reference range,” still prompted AI Overviews. Hebditch said this was a big worry and that the AI Overviews present a list of tests in bold, making it very easy for readers to miss that these numbers might not even be the right ones for their test.

AI Overviews still appear for other examples that The Guardian originally highlighted to Google. When asked why these AI Overviews had not also been removed, Google said they linked to well-known and reputable sources and informed people when it was important to seek out expert advice.

Google said AI Overviews only appear for queries where it has high confidence in the quality of the responses. The company constantly measures and reviews the quality of its summaries across many different categories of information, it added.

This is not the first controversy for AI Overviews. The feature has previously told people to put glue on pizza and eat rocks. It has proven unpopular enough that users have discovered that inserting curse words into search queries disables AI Overviews entirely.

Google removes some AI health summaries after investigation finds “dangerous” flaws Read More »

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ESA considers righting the wrongs of Ariane 6 by turning it into a Franken-rocket

ariane 6, ArianeGroup, Arianespace, european space agency, launch, reusable rockets, Space / /

Bruno Le Maire, the former French finance minister, said in 2021 that the Ariane 6 was a “bad strategic choice.” More recently, in October of last year, the head of ESA said the continent’s space industry must “catch up” with international competitors like SpaceX and develop a reusable launcher “relatively fast.”

In its submission to ESA’s BEST! initiative, ArianeGroup proposes replacing the Ariane 6 rocket’s solid-fueled side boosters with new liquid-fueled boosters. The boosters would be developed by MaiaSpace, a French subsidiary of ArianeGroup working on its own partially reusable small satellite launcher. MaiaSpace and ArianeGroup would convert the Maia rocket’s methane-fueled booster for use on the Ariane 6.

Isar Aerospace’s concept for a reusable first stage booster (left) and ArianeGroup’s proposal for an Ariane 6 rocket with reusable strap-on boosters (right).

Credit: ESA/Isar Aerospace/ArianeGroup

Isar Aerospace’s concept for a reusable first stage booster (left) and ArianeGroup’s proposal for an Ariane 6 rocket with reusable strap-on boosters (right). Credit: ESA/Isar Aerospace/ArianeGroup

ArianeGroup’s proposal was first reported by European Spaceflight, which said the concept presented to ESA is similar to an ArianeGroup proposal from 2022, when the company described the liquid reusable boosters as a “plug-and-play” alternative to Ariane 6’s solid-fueled boosters, helping reduce operating costs and increase launch rates.

The details of ArianeGroup’s newest proposal have not been published, but the concept was summarized in a paper presented at the European Conference for Aeronautics and Space Sciences in 2025.

Isar Aerospace, a German rocket startup, won a separate BEST! contract from ESA to study a demonstrator for a reusable first stage based on the company’s light-class Spectrum rocket. The Spectrum rocket’s initial design is expendable. Its first test flight last year ended in failure, and Isar is readying the second Spectrum rocket for another launch attempt later this month.

ESA asked ArianeGroup and Isar Aerospace to assess the feasibility of their proposals, develop technology and system development plans, and define plans and costs for a “major flight demonstration.”

MaiaSpace’s rocket won’t launch until 2027, at the earliest, and it’s unlikely any decision to use it as the basis for new Ariane 6 boosters will bear fruit until long after Maia flies on its own. Even if ESA and ArianeGroup take this route, the Ariane 6 rocket would still be predominantly expendable.

ESA considers righting the wrongs of Ariane 6 by turning it into a Franken-rocket Read More »

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US Black Hawk helicopter trespasses on private Montana ranch to grab elk antlers

antlers, culture / /

The three servicemen on the chopper were eventually charged in Sweet Grass County Court with trespassing. They all pleaded not guilty. This week, pilot Deni Draper changed his plea to “no contest,” allowing sentencing to go forward without a trial (but without actually admitting guilt).

According to local reporting, prosecutors had evidence that “no trespassing signs were posted on McMullen’s property” and that “Draper admitted to Montana game warden Austin Kassner that he piloted the helicopter and decided to land it.” In addition to the neighbor’s testimony, “helicopter tire indentations and exhaust marks in the grass” were present at the site of the alleged landing.

The judge has accepted the change of plea and hit Draper with a $500 fine—the maximum penalty. So long as Draper stays out of trouble for the next six months, he will avoid further fines and jail time.

As for the antlers themselves, they are currently held by Montana Fish, Wildlife, and Parks but could go back to McMullen once cases against the other two servicemembers are resolved.

Update: According to a report this week in the Livingston Enterprise, this is not the first time Montana National Guard aircraft have stopped to take antlers.

“By way of a thorough inquiry, we can confirm isolated incidents of collecting antlers (with a military aircraft) have occurred previously,” Lt. Col. Thomas Figarelle of the Montana National Guard told the paper.

Figarelle added that the Guard has now explicitly banned this kind of activity. “(The Montana Army National Guard) issued clear directives no antler collecting of any type is authorized,” he added. “This is misuse of government property inconsistent with our standards. We are not going to tolerate it.”

US Black Hawk helicopter trespasses on private Montana ranch to grab elk antlers Read More »

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High RAM prices mean record-setting profits for Samsung and other memory makers

RAM, samsung, SSD, Tech / /

Supply shortages and big price increases for RAM and storage have been a major drag for enthusiasts and PC builders in recent months. And while we haven’t yet seen large, widespread price increases for memory-dependent products like pre-built laptop PCs, smartphones, and graphics cards, most companies expect that to change this year if shortages continue.

In the meantime, memory manufacturers are riding high demand and high prices to record profits.

In revenue guidance released this week, Samsung Electronics predicts it will make between 19.9 and 20.1 trillion Korean won in operating profit (roughly $13.8 billion USD) in Q4 2025, compared to just 6.49 trillion won in Q4 of 2024.

Samsung is way more than just a memory business, of course, but its fortunes often rise and fall along with its memory division; Samsung’s profits were dropping dramatically in 2023 partly because of an oversupply of memory that made its memory division lose billions of dollars.

Less-diversified companies that primarily make memory are also raking in money lately. SK Hynix posted its “highest-ever quarterly performance” in Q3 of 2025 with 11.38 trillion Korean won (about $7.8 billion) in operating profit, up from 7.03 trillion in Q3 of 2024, and an operating margin that increased from 40 percent to 47 percent. SK Hynix credits “expanding investments in AI infrastructure” and “surging demand for AI servers” for its performance.

Micron—which recently decided to exit the consumer RAM and storage markets but is still selling its products to other businesses—also reported a big boost to net income year over year, from $1.87 billion in Q1 2025 to $5.24 billion in Q1 2026. This has generated the company’s “highest ever free cash flow.”

“Total company revenue, DRAM and NAND revenue, as well as HBM and data center revenue and revenue in each of our business units, also reached new records [in fiscal Q1],” wrote Micron CEO Sanjay Mehrotra.

Why is RAM so expensive right now?

Reading these upbeat earnings reports and forecasts will be cold comfort to people trying to build or upgrade a PC, who have seen the price of a 32GB kit of DDR5-6000 increase from $80 in August 2025 to $340 today. And if the current AI boom continues, it’s unlikely to improve in the near term.

High RAM prices mean record-setting profits for Samsung and other memory makers Read More »

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ChatGPT Health lets you connect medical records to an AI that makes things up

AI, AI assistants, AI confabulation, AI hallucination, AI health, Biz & IT, chatgpt, confabulations, Fidji Simo, healthcare, machine learning, medical advice, openai, sam altman, SFGate / /

But despite OpenAI’s talk of supporting health goals, the company’s terms of service directly state that ChatGPT and other OpenAI services “are not intended for use in the diagnosis or treatment of any health condition.”

It appears that policy is not changing with ChatGPT Health. OpenAI writes in its announcement, “Health is designed to support, not replace, medical care. It is not intended for diagnosis or treatment. Instead, it helps you navigate everyday questions and understand patterns over time—not just moments of illness—so you can feel more informed and prepared for important medical conversations.”

A cautionary tale

The SFGate report on Sam Nelson’s death illustrates why maintaining that disclaimer legally matters. According to chat logs reviewed by the publication, Nelson first asked ChatGPT about recreational drug dosing in November 2023. The AI assistant initially refused and directed him to health care professionals. But over 18 months of conversations, ChatGPT’s responses reportedly shifted. Eventually, the chatbot told him things like “Hell yes—let’s go full trippy mode” and recommended he double his cough syrup intake. His mother found him dead from an overdose the day after he began addiction treatment.

While Nelson’s case did not involve the analysis of doctor-sanctioned health care instructions like the type ChatGPT Health will link to, his case is not unique, as many people have been misled by chatbots that provide inaccurate information or encourage dangerous behavior, as we have covered in the past.

That’s because AI language models can easily confabulate, generating plausible but false information in a way that makes it difficult for some users to distinguish fact from fiction. The AI models that services like ChatGPT use statistical relationships in training data (like the text from books, YouTube transcripts, and websites) to produce plausible responses rather than necessarily accurate ones. Moreover, ChatGPT’s outputs can vary widely depending on who is using the chatbot and what has previously taken place in the user’s chat history (including notes about previous chats).

ChatGPT Health lets you connect medical records to an AI that makes things up Read More »

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Former Google CEO plans to singlehandedly fund a Hubble telescope replacement

eric schmitt, Space, telescopes / /

Prior to World War II the vast majority of telescopes built around the world were funded by wealthy people with an interest in the heavens above.

However, after the war, two significant developments in the mid-20th century caused the burden of funding large astronomical instruments to largely shift to the government and academic institutions. First, as mirrors became larger and larger to see deeper into the universe, their costs grew exponentially. And then, with the advent of spaceflight, the expense of space-based telescopes expanded even further.

But now the tide may be turning again.

On Wednesday evening, former Google CEO Eric Schmidt and his wife, Wendy, announced a major investment in not just one telescope project, but four. Each of these new telescopes brings a novel capability online; however, the most intriguing new instrument is a space-based telescope named Lazuli. This spacecraft, if successfully launched and deployed, would offer astronomers a more capable and modern version of the Hubble Space Telescope, which is now three decades old.

A billionaire with a keen interest in science and technology, Schmidt and his wife did not disclose the size of his investment in the four telescopes, which collectively will be known as the Schmidt Observatory System. However, it likely is worth half a billion dollars, at a minimum.

“For 20 years, Eric and I have pursued philanthropy to seek new frontiers, whether in the deep sea or in the profound connections that link people and our planet, committing our resources to novel research that reaches beyond what might be funded by governments or the private sector,” Wendy Schmidt said in a statement to Ars. “With the Schmidt Observatory System, we’re enabling multiple approaches to understanding the vast universe where we find ourselves stewards of a living planet.”

Essentially the Schmidts have taken innovative telescope concepts that scientists have proposed for government funding and will provide the money needed to build them. Their gift has enormous potential to advance the study of astronomy and astrophysics.

Former Google CEO plans to singlehandedly fund a Hubble telescope replacement Read More »

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In-car AI assistant coming to Fords and Lincolns in 2027

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The annual Consumer Electronics Show is currently raging in Las Vegas, and as has become traditional over the past decade, automakers and their suppliers now use the conference to announce their technology plans. Tonight it was Ford’s turn, and it is very on-trend for 2026. If you guessed that means AI is coming to the Ford in-car experience, congratulations, you guessed right.

Even though the company owes everything to mass-producing identical vehicles, it says that it wants AI to personalize your car to you. “Our vision for the customer is simple, but not elementary: a seamless layer of intelligence that travels with you between your phone and your vehicle,” said Doug Field, Ford’s chief EV, design, and digital officer.

“Not generic intelligence—many people can do that better than we can. What customers need is intelligence that understands where you are, what you’re doing, and what your vehicle is capable of, and then makes the next decision simpler,” Field wrote in a blog post Ford shared ahead of time with Ars.

As an example, Field suggests you could take a photo of something you want to load onto your truck, upload it to the AI, and find out whether it will fit in the bed.

At first, Ford’s AI assistant will just show up in the Ford and Lincoln smartphone apps. Expect that rollout to happen starting early this year. From 2027, the AI assistant will become a native experience as new or refreshed models are able to include it, possibly starting with the cheap electric truck that the automaker tells us is due next year, but also gas models like the Expedition and Navigator.

In-car AI assistant coming to Fords and Lincolns in 2027 Read More »

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Samsung’s Ballie home robot, once promised for summer 2025, gets grim update

CES 2026, Robots, samsung, Smart Home, Tech / /

CES 2025: Samsung’s new AI robot assistant Ballie

“Available to consumers this summer, Ballie will be able to engage in natural, conversational interactions to help users manage home environments, including adjusting lighting, greeting people at the door, personalizing schedules, setting reminders, and more,” the press release said, pointing to the robot’s implementation of Google Gemini.

It’s now 2026, and Ballie still hasn’t come out. Bloomberg reported today that the device has been “indefinitely shelved.” The publication noted that a company spokesperson called Ballie an “active innovation platform” for internal use, which is noticeably different from referring to it as a gadget that people will eventually be able to buy.

“After multiple years of real-world testing, it continues to inform how Samsung designs spatially aware, context-driven experiences, particularly in areas like smart home intelligence, ambient AI and privacy-by-design,” a Samsung spokesperson said in a statement to Bloomberg.

The website for registering to “get the chance to be the first to meet Ballie” is still up, and it’s possible that Samsung could still release Ballie.

But for now, Samsung may not be confident that Ballie will consistently deliver its advertised features over a long period and/or drum up enough interest from people who can pay the likely high price for a home robot. With many technology companies rethinking their approaches to chatbots, AI in smart speakers, and home robots, Samsung may have decided it was more prudent to extract features from Ballie for use in other products. Ballie likely requires deeper exploration around how it can be more useful and reliable before Samsung goes to market—if it ever does.

Samsung’s Ballie home robot, once promised for summer 2025, gets grim update Read More »

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Expired certificate completely breaks macOS Logitech apps, user customizations

Apple, Logitech, macOS, Tech / /

If you’re a Mac user with Logitech accessories and you’ve noticed that your settings and customizations seem to have gone away this week, you’re not alone.

The company’s Logi Options+ and G Hub apps for macOS abruptly stopped functioning on Monday, refusing to launch and reverting all accessories’ settings to their built-in defaults.

The culprit, according to both a Logitech support page and Reddit posts from Logitech Head of Global Marketing Joe Santucci, was a security certificate that was inadvertently allowed to expire, rendering both apps non-functional.

“The certificate that expired is used to secure inter-process communications and the expiration results in the software not being able to start successfully,” wrote Santucci in one post. “We dropped the ball here,” he said in another post. “This is an inexcusable mistake. We’re extremely sorry for the inconvenience caused.”

Logitech is already offering patches for both apps that include an updated certificate. But unfortunately for users, one of the features broken by the expired certificate is the app’s built-in updater, meaning that there’s no automated way for Logitech to fix this problem. Anyone who wants their apps to work and their customizations to return will need to manually grab the patch (or updated versions of the apps, which Logitech says it is also working on). If you use both apps, each will need to be patched separately.

Expired certificate completely breaks macOS Logitech apps, user customizations Read More »

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News orgs win fight to access 20M ChatGPT logs. Now they want more.

AI, chatgpt, copilot, copyright, copyright infringement, microsoft, openai, Policy / /

Describing OpenAI’s alleged “playbook” to dodge copyright claims, news groups accused OpenAI of failing to “take any steps to suspend its routine destruction practices.” There were also “two spikes in mass deletion” that OpenAI attributed to “technical issues.”

However, OpenAI made sure to retain outputs that could help its defense, the court filing alleged, including data from accounts cited in news organizations’ complaints.

OpenAI did not take the same care to preserve chats that could be used as evidence against it, news groups alleged, citing testimony from Mike Trinh, OpenAI’s associate general counsel. “In other words, OpenAI preserved evidence of the News Plaintiffs eliciting their own works from OpenAI’s products but deleted evidence of third-party users doing so,” the filing said.

It’s unclear how much data was deleted, plaintiffs alleged, since OpenAI won’t share “the most basic information” on its deletion practices. But it’s allegedly very clear that OpenAI could have done more to preserve the data, since Microsoft apparently had no trouble doing so with Copilot, the filing said.

News plaintiffs are hoping the court will agree that OpenAI and Microsoft aren’t fighting fair by delaying sharing logs, which they said prevents them from building their strongest case.

They’ve asked the court to order Microsoft to “immediately” produce Copilot logs “in a readily searchable remotely-accessible format,” proposing a deadline of January 9 or “within a day of the Court ruling on this motion.”

Microsoft declined Ars’ request for comment.

And as for OpenAI, it wants to know if the deleted logs, including “mass deletions,” can be retrieved, perhaps bringing millions more ChatGPT conversations into the litigation that users likely expected would never see the light of day again.

On top of possible sanctions, news plaintiffs asked the court to keep in place a preservation order blocking OpenAI from permanently deleting users’ temporary and deleted chats. They also want the court to order OpenAI to explain “the full scope of destroyed output log data for all of its products at issue” in the litigation and whether those deleted chats can be restored, so that news plaintiffs can examine them as evidence, too.

News orgs win fight to access 20M ChatGPT logs. Now they want more. Read More »

orsted-seeks-injunction-against-us-government-over-project-freeze

Ørsted seeks injunction against US government over project freeze

orsted, Policy, Science, syndication, wind farm / /

In October, Ørsted raised $9 billion from investors in a rights issue after Trump’s attempts to block a rival developer’s project spooked investors.

The US government then issued a stop-work order against the company’s $1.5 billion Revolution Wind project off the coast of Rhode Island, although Ørsted has persuaded a judge to lift the order.

In November, Ørsted agreed to sell half of the world’s largest offshore wind farm to Apollo in a $6.5 billion deal. Then on December 22, the company received orders from the US government to suspend “all ongoing activities on the outer continental shelf for the next 90 days.”

According to the company, the Revolution Wind project is now about 87 percent complete, with 58 out of its 65 wind turbines installed.

While Trump has made Ørsted’s planned offshore wind projects in the US far more difficult, its troubles predate his administration.

In 2023, the company had to walk away from two large projects in the US because of rising costs that have affected the entire industry.

In a statement on Ørsted’s legal challenge, White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers said: “For years, Americans have been forced to pay billions more for the least reliable source of energy. The Trump administration has paused the construction of all large-scale offshore wind projects because our number one priority is to put America First and protect the national security of the American people.”

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