The Republican Plan to Reform the Census Could Put Everyone's Privacy at Risk A little-known algorithmic process called "differential privacy" helps keep census data anonymous. President Donald Trump and the Republican Party have spent the better part of the president's second term radically reshaping the federal government. But in recent weeks, the GOP has set its sights on taking another run at an old target: the US census. Since the first Trump administration, the right has sought to add a question to the census that captures a respondent's immigration status and to exclude noncitizens from the tallies that determine how seats in Congress are distributed. In 2019, the Supreme Court struck down an attempt by the first Trump administration to add a citizenship question to the census. But now, a little-known algorithmic process called "differential privacy," created to keep census data from being used to identify individual respondents, has become the right's latest focus.

If you want to secure your home, Google's Nest range is one of the smartest and easiest ways. All products featured on WIRED are independently selected by our editors. However, we may receive compensation from retailers and/or from purchases of products through these links. There's no need for an expensive, professionally installed home security system for a little peace of mind. You can keep tabs on your home when you're away, check in on your kids or pets, and discourage intruders with a few well-placed security cameras and connected devices.

'Every user has to make a choice of actually wanting to download Firefox and use it.' 'Every user has to make a choice of actually wanting to download Firefox and use it.' Do you need an assistant for your online activities? Multiple major players in artificial intelligence are moving on from chatbots like ChatGPT and are now focusing their efforts on new browsers with deep AI integrations. Those could take the form of an agent that shops for you or an omnipresent chatbot that follows you around and summarizes what you're seeing, looks up related stuff, or answers related questions.

This Is the Nuclear-Powered Ship Deployed in Trump's War on Drug Boats The USS is a $13 billion aircraft carrier sailing to the Caribbean with nuclear propulsion, an electromagnetic plane launcher, and 90 aircraft onboard. The Pentagon has deployed the USS Gerald R. Ford in an anti-drug trafficking mission in the Caribbean. The USS, the US Navy's most advanced aircraft carrier, is heading to the Caribbean Sea as part of a Pentagon strategy it says is meant to strengthen the fight against drug trafficking in South America. The news was confirmed late last week by Sean Parnell, assistant secretary of defense for public affairs, through his social networks . In his message, he explained that the deployment of the "will strengthen the United States' ability to detect, monitor and dismantle illicit actors and activities that compromise the security and prosperity of US territory, as well as our stability in the Western Hemisphere."

Men with suspected prostate cancer will be able to get a diagnosis from the NHS within a day, under a new trial hailed as a potential game changer for identifying and treating the disease. The 15 hospitals taking part will use AI technology to interpret MRI scans and spot areas of abnormal tissue within minutes, according to NHS England. Scans showing a high-cancer risk will be triaged as priority review for a radiologist and patients will be booked for a same-day biopsy. Around one in eight men will develop prostate cancer in their lives, according to Prostate Cancer UK, with research showing it has overtaken breast cancer as the most commonly diagnosed form of the disease in the UK. But unlike breast cancer, there is currently no national screening programme for prostate cancer.

Amazon is planning major job cuts among its corporate workers as soon as this week, multiple media outlets have reported. The online retail giant plans to lay off as many as 30,000 employees as part of cost-cutting measures led by chief executive Andy Jassy, according to the Wall Street Journal and Reuters. Each cited sources stating the same number of layoffs. Amazon declined to comment when contacted by the BBC. If confirmed, the layoffs could be one of the largest seen in recent months.

Doctors are more like machines': my mother's worrying reliance on AI for health advice Tired of a two-day commute to see her overworked doctor, my mother turned to tech for help with her kidney disease. E very few months, my mother, a 57-year-old kidney transplant patient who lives in a small city in eastern China, embarks on a two-day journey to see her doctor. She fills her backpack with a change of clothes, a stack of medical reports and a few boiled eggs to snack on. Then, she takes a 90-minute ride on a high-speed train and checks into a hotel in the eastern metropolis of Hangzhou. At 7am the next day, she lines up with hundreds of others to get her blood taken in a long hospital hall that buzzes like a crowded marketplace. In the afternoon, when the lab results arrive, she makes her way to a specialist's clinic. She gets about three minutes with the doctor. Then, my mother packs up and starts the long commute home. My mother began using China's leading AI chatbot to diagnose her symptoms this past winter. She would lie down on her couch and open the app on her iPhone. "Hi," she said in her first message to the chatbot, on 2 February. How can I assist you today?" the system responded instantly, adding a smiley emoji.

BEIJING/SINGAPORE - Chinese state-owned defense giant Norinco in February unveiled a military vehicle capable of autonomously conducting combat-support operations at 50 kilometers per hour. It was powered by DeepSeek, the company whose artificial intelligence model is the pride of China's tech sector. The Norinco P60's release was touted by Communist Party officials in press statements as an early showcase of how Beijing is using DeepSeek and AI to catch up in its arms race with the United States, at a time when leaders in both countries have urged their militaries to prepare for conflict. A review of hundreds of research papers, patents and procurement records gives a snapshot of the systematic effort by Beijing to harness AI for military advantage. In a time of both misinformation and too much information, quality journalism is more crucial than ever.

Qualcomm has not fared as well, partly because the smartphone market has not been growing much lately. But Cristiano Amon, the company's chief executive, has laid out several initiatives to diversify the business. Qualcomm helped invent core technology used in cellular networks, selling modem chips that phones use to communicate. The company later combined that ability with basic computing functions, using technology licensed from the British company Arm Holdings. More recently, Qualcomm has targeted phones and personal computers with chips tailored to handle machine learning, performing the mathematical calculations used for many A.I. functions.

Is London ready for driverless taxis? Autonomous cabs are a staple in some US cities - but how will they cope with London's streets? Will ghost taxis put a whole workforce out of a job? Will British passengers behave themselves without a human driver in the front seat - and can the technology really be trusted to keep people safe?