Supreme Court rejects Sony's attempt to kick music pirates off the Internet

Supreme Court rejects Sony's attempt to kick music pirates off the Internet

fivenewscrypto    mars 26, 2026   

The Supreme Court today decided that Internet service providers cannot be held liable for their customers' copyright infringement unless they take specific steps that cause users to violate copyrights. The court ruled unanimously in favor of Internet provider Cox Communications, though two justices did not agree with the majority's reasoning.

The ruling effectively means that ISPs do not have to conduct mass terminations of Internet users accused of illegally downloading or uploading pirated files. If the court had ruled otherwise, ISPs could have been compelled to strictly police their networks for piracy in order to avoid billion-dollar court verdicts under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).

The long-running case is Cox Communications v. Sony Music Entertainment. Cox was hit with a $1 billion verdict for music piracy in 2019. Although the damages award was overturned in 2024, a federal appeals court still found that Cox was liable for willful contributory infringement.

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Antibiotic resistance among germs swells during droughts, study suggests

Antibiotic resistance among germs swells during droughts, study suggests

fivenewscrypto    mars 26, 2026   

For as long as we've known that soil bacteria manufacture molecular weapons to fight each other, we've been swiping their battle plans. In clinics and hospitals, those turf-war weapons have become miraculous drugs of modern medicine—antibiotics—that blow away otherwise deadly infections.

But, of course, there's a dark side of mimicking microbial munitions—bacteria have defenses, too, namely antibiotic resistance. You're probably aware that we're facing a rising threat of drug resistance among disease-causing bacteria, one that is rendering much of our stolen weaponry obsolete and making infections harder to defeat.

Often, this growing crisis is framed as a clinical failure: We're overusing and misusing antibiotics, hastening our bacterial foes' natural ability to develop and spread resistance. While this is certainly true, a new study in Nature Microbiology this week identifies a potentially new driver of rising antibiotic resistance—and we're at least partly to blame for this one, too.

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Disney cancels $1 billion OpenAI partnership amid Sora shutdown plans

Disney cancels $1 billion OpenAI partnership amid Sora shutdown plans

fivenewscrypto    mars 26, 2026   

OpenAI's recently announced plans to shutter its Sora video-generating app have also scuttled the company's planned $1 billion licensing partnership with Disney, according to multiple press reports.

"As the nascent AI field advances rapidly, we respect OpenAI’s decision to exit the video generation business and to shift its priorities elsewhere," Disney said in a statement provided to media outlets. "We appreciate the constructive collaboration between our teams and what we learned from it, and we will continue to engage with AI platforms to find new ways to meet fans where they are while responsibly embracing new technologies that respect IP and the rights of creators."

Disney and OpenAI announced the blockbuster three-year licensing deal in December, saying that over 200 Disney-owned characters would be available for use in Sora-generated videos. At the same time, Disney said it would be making a $1 billion equity investment in the AI company.

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So long, farewell: Saying goodbye to Audi's best car, the 2026 RS6 Avant

So long, farewell: Saying goodbye to Audi's best car, the 2026 RS6 Avant

fivenewscrypto    mars 26, 2026   

By the time you read this, the Audi RS6 Avant is dead. Production at the factory in Neckarsulm, Germany, has already switched over to new models; any unsold wagons at dealerships will be the last of their kind. Time moves on, leaving the unelectrified 2026 RS6 Avant Performance as a relic from a bygone age where people didn't care quite so much about melting glaciers. In this regard progress is good and climate catastrophe is bad, but there are other things to like about the RS6 Avant, and much that Audi could and should bring to its other cars.

The car was always something of a unicorn here in the US. As the SUV became ascendant, the station wagon suffered a corresponding decline with the general public, and automakers like Audi responded by not importing them anymore. The economics, we were told, didn't add up: wagon sales would just cannibalize SUV sales but at too small a rate to make the imported wagons profitable. But with smaller volumes, the math made more sense, which is why in 2019 the car maker buckled to pressure and said fine, we'll import the RS6 Avant. And with a starting price of $130,700, you can understand why this is a low-volume model.

Subtly swollen

A look down its flanks reveals wheel arches that bulge to accommodate larger wheels, part of Audi Sport's RS transformation applied to the sedate A6 starting point. Larger wheels provide clearance for larger brakes, which in turn help stop it from prodigious velocities—if you have a long enough runway or the right stretch of German Autobahn, top speed for this version, the Performance, tops out at 190 mph (305 km/h). Under the hood, hidden from view by plastic paneling, lies a twin-turbocharged 4.0 L V8 engine, which generates 621 hp (463 kW) and 627 lb-ft (850 Nm), sending power to all four wheels via an eight-speed ZF automatic transmission.

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How chemists turned bourbon waste into supercapacitors

How chemists turned bourbon waste into supercapacitors

fivenewscrypto    mars 26, 2026   

Bourbon is a multi-billion-dollar market, but the American barrel-aged whiskey also produces a lot of wasted grain at distilleries. Chemists at the University of Kentucky developed a method to transform that stillage into electrodes and used those electrodes to build supercapacitors with energy storage capacity on par with existing commercial devices. They presented their work at a meeting of the American Chemical Society in Atlanta, Georgia.

US distillers began making bourbon in the 18th century, particularly in Kentucky, but it really took off commercially, in terms of consumption and exports, after World War II. Legally, a whiskey can only be sold as bourbon if its mash is composed of at least 51 percent corn, with any other cereal grain (usually rye and barley) making up the remainder.

The grain is ground up and mixed with water, and mash from a previous distillation is added to create a sour mash. The addition of yeast launches fermentation, after which the mash is distilled to a clear spirit called "white dog." That spirit is poured into charred new oak barrels for aging of at least two years. It's the caramelized sugars and vanillin in the charred wood that give bourbon its distinctive dark color and flavor. The barrels are never reused for bourbon, typically being recycled for making barrel-aged beer, wine, and even barbecue and hot sauces.

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"The last straw"—RFK Jr.'s anti-vaccine ally angrily quits CDC panel after spat

"The last straw"—RFK Jr.'s anti-vaccine ally angrily quits CDC panel after spat

fivenewscrypto    mars 26, 2026   

One of the federal vaccine advisors hand-selected by anti-vaccine Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has angrily resigned from his position, complaining of "drama" amid a spat with a spokesperson. Robert Malone—a former researcher turned outspoken anti-vaccine activist and conspiracy theorist—confirmed he was stepping down Tuesday afternoon to CQ Roll Call, which first reported the news.

He told the outlet that his decision to quit came after a "miscommunication" about the fate of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP). Kennedy had populated ACIP with anti-vaccine allies including Malone, who served as vice chair, after summarily firing all 17 experts on the panel last June. Last week, a federal judge temporarily blocked Kennedy's ACIP appointments, including Malone. He also stayed the changes that its members had made to federal vaccine guidance, as well as the dramatic overhaul of the childhood vaccine schedule Kennedy made without them. The judge ruled all the moves were likely illegal.

On Thursday, Malone claimed on social media that the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) had disbanded ACIP and planned to completely reconstitute it (again), without appealing the judge's ruling or defending Kennedy's ACIP picks from the judge's claims that they were unqualified. But soon after, Malone retracted his claim, saying it was a miscommunication and that disbanding ACIP was merely one of the "options being considered."

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Final analysis of 2025 Iberian blackout: Policies left Spain at risk

Final analysis of 2025 Iberian blackout: Policies left Spain at risk

fivenewscrypto    mars 25, 2026   

Roughly a year ago, Spain and Portugal went dark when the electrical grid of the entire Iberian Peninsula failed. While the grid operators did a heroic job of restarting the grid quickly, there were obvious questions about what had led to the blackout in the first place. A preliminary report suggested that a combination of grid-level voltage oscillations and early disconnections was the main factor.

Over the weekend, the European grid coordinator, ENTSO-e, released its final, detailed report on the event. While it's largely consistent with the preliminary conclusions, the report provides much more detail about what went wrong and, more significantly, offers a clear picture of how the Iberian grid operators could make changes to prevent a similar event in the future.

Oscillations

The expert committee that prepared the report had access to a wealth of data, including status logs from most of the major hardware on the Spanish and Portuguese grid, often recorded with sub-second precision. There's also data from the two major interchanges between the Spanish grid and those in France and Morocco. The group even obtained data from two manufacturers of the small inverters used for rooftop solar about the performance of their hardware on the day in question.

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