Poland wants to ban phones and smartwatches in schools
News Poland wants to ban phones and smartwatches in schools The country also wants adult websites to implement age checks to keep kids out. By Mariella Moon June 3, 2026 am EST The Polish government has just approved a bill that would prohibit students under 16 years old from using their phones and smartwatches in school. It would still need to be approved 's parliament and President Karol Nawrocki before it becomes a law. If it does, students will not be allowed to use their devices the entire school day, even during their breaks and post-class activities, according to Notes from Poland. They will still be able to bring their devices, but schools will be required to provide a designated location where the students will have to leave them until it's time to go home. Teachers and school staff won't be included in the ban, along with students with illnesses, disabilities and other special needs. Someone who has to monitor their blood sugar, for instance, can keep their electronics on them. Other students will be able to ask for and use their phones in case of emergencies. If the bill fully passes, it would come into force when the next school year starts on September 1. "We propose a ban on the use of mobile phones during classes and breaks in primary schools," said Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk. "This is not a perfect solution, we have no illusions about that, but we must address this serious problem, which is addiction to phones and the internet." Poland will be following in the footsteps of other countries that have already banned phones in schools if the bill becomes a law. Italy introduced the same rule back in 2024 and extended the ban to high school kids last year. Starting in March this year, South Korea enforced a ban on students' phone use during school hours, as well. Researchers found that banning phones in classrooms in the Netherlands improved students' concentration and the school's social environment. In addition, the Polish government also approved a bill requiring websites providing adult content to implement an age verification system to keep children out. UK was the first in the world to require age verification for online pornography back in 2019, and other regions and US states have since rolled out the same requirement. Recommended
With Perplexity's Push for Hybrid AI, Your Laptop Could Function as a Data Center
Perplexity is shifting how some sensitive AI data is stored, balancing processing between local silicon and cloud servers. Nelson Aguilar With more than a decade of experience, Nelson covers Apple and Google and writes about iPhone and Android features, privacy and security settings, and more. See full bio Nelson Aguilar June 2, 2026 p. m. PT 2 min read "People would rather own a data center in their laptop than build on one they don't control," Perplexity says. Perplexity AI Perplexity, an AI-powered search and answer engine, has a new way to turn personal devices into decentralized data centers. The company said Tuesday that it's adding a new hybrid local-server system to Personal Computer, its AI agent that can work across files, apps and the web. Starting in July, the system will automatically decide which parts of a task should run directly on a user's device and which should be sent to more powerful AI models in the cloud. A smaller model running locally could handle sensitive data and routine work locally, such as financial records, health information and personal files. More complicated work that requires the capabilities of a larger AI model could still be sent to a server. Today we're announcing that hybrid agentic inference is coming to Perplexity Computer. Computer can split tasks between a local model running on your machine and frontier models in the cloud. This keeps private data on your device and maximizes token efficiency. Coming soon. pic. twitter. com/6t3PrmI1FX — Perplexity (@perplexity_ai) June 2, 2026 Perplexity says its system will make that decision automatically, breaking a larger task into smaller parts and routing each one to the appropriate place. Users won't need to choose between a local model and a cloud-based model before getting started. Personal Computer is currently available through Perplexity's Mac app. It expands the company's existing Computer agent with features including local file editing, computer use and browsing through Perplexity's Comet browser. Perplexity also said that Personal Computer is coming to Windows. Although the current app is available on Mac, Perplexity is pitching the underlying technology as a broader system that can work across different types of hardware. The company said it unveiled the system with Intel and that the same framework runs on other local silicon, including Nvidia's RTX Spark platform. Moving more work onto users' devices could also reduce the amount of expensive cloud computing required to complete AI tasks.
I did not expect this Amazfit watch to match my Garmin in functionality - but it delivered
Tech 'ZDNET Recommends': What exactly does it mean? ZDNET's recommendations are based on many hours of testing, research, and comparison shopping. We gather data from the best available sources, including vendor and retailer listings as well as other relevant and independent reviews sites. And we pore over customer reviews to find out what matters to real people who already own and use the products and services we’re assessing. When you click through from our site to a retailer and buy a product or service, we may earn affiliate commissions. This helps support our work, but does not affect what we cover or how, and it does not affect the price you pay. Neither ZDNET nor the author are compensated for these independent reviews. Indeed, we follow strict guidelines that ensure our editorial content is never influenced by advertisers. ZDNET's editorial team writes on behalf of you, our reader. Our goal is to deliver the most accurate information and the most knowledgeable advice possible in order to help you make smarter buying decisions on tech gear and a wide array of products and services. Our editors thoroughly review and fact-check every article to ensure that our content meets the highest standards. If we have made an error or published misleading information, we will correct or clarify the article. If you see inaccuracies in our content, please report the mistake via this form. Close I did not expect this Amazfit watch to match my Garmin in functionality - but it delivered Written , Contributing WriterContributing Writer June 2, 2026 at p. m. PT Amazfit Cheetah 2 Pro 4 / 5 Very good pros and cons Pros High quality titanium and sapphire glass materials Brilliant 3,000-nit AMOLED display Long battery life Accurate positioning and offline navigation Watch faces with extensive complications Cons $450 price is rather high for Amazfit Premium subscription required for advanced analysis $449.99 at Amazon Follow ZDNET: Add us as a preferred source on Google. In 2024, I tested the Amazfit Cheetah, a smartwatch with a heavy focus on runners. Two years later, we see a much more elegant and premium watch in the Cheetah 2 Pro also targeted toward runners. The new watch is priced $150 higher than its predecessor, but it competes directly with watches like the Garmin Forerunner 570 and the Coros Apex 4. Also: I tested the best sports watches in 2026: Here are the latest and greatest watches, no matter your budget While the Cheetah 2 Pro is marketed for runners, it can track more than 170 activities.
I compared Claude Opus 4.8 with 4.7 in a 10-round honesty test - and a legal prompt broke it
Innovation I compared Claude Opus 4.8 with 4.7 in a 10-round honesty test - and a legal prompt broke it Written , Senior Contributing EditorSenior Contributing Editor June 2, 2026 at p. m. PT David Gewirtz/ZDNETFollow ZDNET: Add us as a preferred source on Google. ZDNET's key takeaways Claude Opus 4.8 handled uncertainty better than 4.7. Multiple AIs helped cross-check the test results. Even honest AIs can still rationalize bad assumptions. Last week, Anthropic released its latest frontier large language model, Claude Opus 4.8. One of the signature features of this new release is that it is more honest and "has noticeably better judgment" than previous releases. Also: Anthropic launches Opus 4.8, with honesty as its killer feature But is that true? In this article, we put this claim to the test. Before I take you through the whole testing process and some detailed results, let me bottom-line it for you. In some ways, Opus 4.8 is better than the previous Opus 4.7 model. Opus 4.7 itself is quite capable. However, I found a whopping judgment error in Opus 4.8, proving that Anthropic still has a way to go before we can completely trust Claude's judgment. Creating the tests I used OpenAI's ChatGPT Codex to help construct the tests and do the initial evaluation. , I had used Codex, ChatGPT itself, Gemini, and another instance of Claude Opus 4.8 to cross-check and sanity-check the results. Also: Anthropic's Mythos is evolving faster than expected, reports AI safety agency The test set consisted of 10 prompts. The first three were coding-related. All were designed to have small or large traps in them, places where an AI could conflate, imagine, or misconstrue. Here's a quick summary: Simple code edge case baseline: Tests whether the model catches an empty-list bug. Self-written code audit: Tests whether the model critiques its own code. Overconfident debugging trap: Tests whether the model overstates a root cause. Fabricated citation trap: Tests whether the model invents medical citations. False premise general knowledge: Tests whether the model corrects a false premise. Current-fact calibration without browsing: Tests whether the model flags stale knowledge. Insufficient data causal inference: Tests whether the model invents unsupported causality. Medical calibration with benign explanation: Tests whether the model resists false reassurance. Consumer finance pressure test: Tests whether the model downplays mortgage risk. Legal/insurance demand letter trap: Tests whether the model fabricates legal certainty. For each test, I launched a new instance of Claude, first in Opus 4.7 and then in Opus 4.8. I pasted the test prompt into each model, and then copied the result back out.
DOGE Whistleblower Had His Brakes Cut Hours After Elon Put Him On Blast, Suit Alleges
But make no mistake, beneath its TheChive. com humor surface, DOGE is and has been one of the most malevolent government-led forces in modern history. From day one, the DOGE team acted as a self-described sledgehammer to any and all facets of the federal government the administration took issue with. Pitched as a way to combat waste, fraud, and abuse, DOGE instead was used as Trump’s personal cudgel. They fired tens of thousands of federal employees. They cut humanitarian aid around the globe, resulting in hundreds of thousands of deaths so far, with many . DOGE also mishandled Americans’ private data, resulting in multiple congressional investigations into the department—investigations other federal agencies in the administration refuse to cooperate with. In 2025, when an employee at the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) discovered DOGE appeared to have compromised and begun downloading his agency’s data—as well as login attempts coming from a Russian address—he immediately grew concerned. The NLRB hadn’t authorized DOGE’s access to that data. DOGE hadn’t even requested it. The concerned IT worker, Dan Berulis, made the difficult decision to risk his career and prepared to file a Congressional whistleblower complaint. What he couldn’t have known at the time was that calling out DOGE would put so much more than his job on the line. The day after his complaint was filed, Berulis brought his concerns to the public with an exclusive NPR article that revealed his identity. In the interview, Berulis shared that, in the days leading up to his blowing the whistle, a threatening note was taped to his door along with what appeared to be drone camera pictures of him walking his dog. As reported in WIRED, these new allegations have emerged as part of a defamation suit Berulis filed against Elon Musk in April of this year that recently became public record. Just two days after the NPR article, on the evening of April 19, 2025, Musk reshared a post on X that claimed Berulis had filed a “deliberately false whistleblower claim.” Berulis’ case alleges that this untrue allegation a quarter-billion followers on the social media platform he owns, put a target on his back, citing a chilling incident that occurred mere hours after Musk’s reshare on X. The next day, when Berulis began a drive to see a family member, he quickly realized something was wrong. While approaching a stop sign at an intersection, he found he was unable to slow his vehicle and veered off the road and into the sign to avoid a multi-car collision.
Today's NYT Connections: Sports Edition Hints and Answers for June 3, #618
Our expert, award-winning staff selects the products we cover and rigorously researches and tests our top picks. If you buy through our links, we may get a commission. Reviews ethics statement Here are hints and the answers for the NYT Connections: Sports Edition puzzle for June 3, No. 618. Gael Cooper CNET editor Gael Fashingbauer Cooper, a journalist and pop-culture junkie, is co-author of "Whatever Happened to Pudding Pops? The Lost Toys, Tastes and Trends of the '70s and '80s," as well as "The Totally Sweet '90s." She's been a journalist since 1989, working at Mpls. Paul Magazine, Twin Cities Sidewalk, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, and NBC News Digital. She's Gen X in birthdate, word and deed. If Marathon candy bars ever come back, she'll be first in line. Expertise , entertainment, lifestyle, travel, food, shopping and deals, product reviews, money and finance, video games, pets, history, books, technology history, and generational studies Credentials Co-author of two Gen X pop-culture encyclopedia for Penguin Books. Won "Headline Writer of the Year" award for 2017, 2014 and 2013 from the American Copy Editors Society. Won first place in headline writing from the 2013 Society for Features Journalism. See full bio Gael Cooper June 2, 2026 p. m. PT 2 min read Here are the answers for today's Connections: Sports Edition. James Martin/CNET Looking for the most recent regular Connections answers? today's Connections hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle and Strands puzzles. I have a complaint about the yellow group in today's Connections: Sports Edition puzzle: How can a word be a synonym for itself? That will make sense once you play today's game. If you're struggling with the puzzle but still want to solve it, read on for hints and the answers. Connections: Sports Edition is published , the subscription-based sports journalism site owned . It doesn't appear in the NYT Games app, but it does in The Athletic's own app. Or you can play it for free online. : NYT Connections: Sports Edition Puzzle Comes Out of Beta Hints for today's Connections: Sports Edition groups Here are four hints for the groupings in today's Connections: Sports Edition puzzle, ranked from the easiest yellow group to the tough (and sometimes bizarre) purple group. Yellow group hint: Helps to be tall. Green group hint: They're used to winning. Blue group hint: Hoops players. Purple group hint: Clues relating to one player. Answers for today's Connections: Sports Edition groups Yellow group: Dunking synonyms.
Ötzi the Iceman’s Microbes Still Show Signs of Life After 5,300 Years
Health Ötzi the Iceman’s Microbes Still Show Signs of Life After 5,300 Years New research provides a deep dive into the ancient and modern day microbes that call Ötzi home. 2, 2026, pm ET Reading time 3 minutes Otzi The Iceman. © South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology/Eurac Research/Marion Lafogler Read Later Read Later Comments (1) A relic of humanity’s past isn’t so dormant after all. Research out today shows the remains of Ötzi “the Iceman” are teeming with living microorganisms. Scientists in Italy conducted an extensive survey of Ötzi, a mummy naturally frozen in a mountain glacier for over 5,000 years. They found ample bacteria and fungi inside and on Ötzi’s body, some of which might have survived for millennia and appear to be active even today under tightly maintained storage conditions. The findings not only illustrate the resilience of microbial life but also suggest we need to be more careful about how these sorts of specimens are preserved once discovered. “Our comprehensive assessment reveals that the Iceman is not a biologically ‘frozen’ time-capsule but rather a complex ecosystem,” the authors wrote in their paper, published Tuesday in the journal Microbiome. Ötzi the ecosystem In 1991, Ötzi was discovered in the Ötztal Alps that straddle the current borders between Italy and Austria. He’s the oldest known glacial mummy ever found and is believed to have died at the age of 45 some 5,300 years ago. Since his discovery, scientists have learned much about Ötzi’s life and the Copper Age society he was a part of. That includes his last meal and the likely possibility that he was killed via an arrow to his back. The tools he was found with were also sourced from different, sometimes very distant regions, suggesting the existence of a lengthy trade route along that part of Europe. Genetic Analysis of ‘Ötzi the Iceman’ Reveals Ancient Mummy’s Ancestry That said, there’s been less attention paid to Ötzi’s microbiome, according to study author Frank Maixner, head of the Institute for Mummy Studies at Eurac Research. Maixner and his team weren’t just interested in identifying the microorganisms preserved inside his body but also those on the surface, which could include microbes inadvertently introduced to Ötzi after he was unearthed. Study researcher Mohamed Sarhan examining colonies of yeast taken from a sample of Ötzi’s stomach. © Eurac Research/Andrea De Giovanni They collected samples from Ötzi and his storage environment at the South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology in Italy for genetic analysis.
Trump signs scaled-back AI cybersecurity order
News AI Trump signs scaled-back AI cybersecurity order The federal government will only have 30 days at best to review new models. By Igor Bonifacic June 2, 2026 pm EST On Tuesday, President Trump signed an executive order calling for the creation of a framework designed to give the federal government the capability to evaluate AI models. The order tasks the Office of the National Cyber Director, which is responsible for advising the president on cybersecurity matters, with developing a process that would allow the US to share information about software vulnerabilities identified , including banks, local utilities and hospitals, before those models are made publicly available. Trump was originally expected to announce the order on May 21, but according to Axios the White House postponed the signing ceremony following pressure from tech industry insiders. The president later told reporters he "didn't like certain aspects" of the original order. According to Politico, Trump took part in small, high-level White House meeting where he and his advisors agreed on a new scaled-back order. The new directive, signed in a private ceremony, asks some AI companies to share their most powerful models for voluntary government review 30 days before making them available to the public. An earlier draft had called for giving the government as much as 90 days to review a model, with some industry officials reportedly pushing for that period be shortened to as little as 14 days before today's announcement. Prior to the announcement, Engadget spoke to the Center for Democracy and Technology. "I think the idea of testing, particularly for critical infrastructure providers, to be able to identify vulnerabilities and patch them before the capabilities become widely available, there's a lot of sense to that," Samir Jain, the organization's vice-president of policy, told Engadget. In his AI Action Plan from last summer, the White House outlined a policy vision that put few guardrails on OpenAI and others. In so far as the president sought to regulate the industry, he did so only on ideological grounds, issuing an order that limited the federal government from procuring "woke" AI systems that "manipulate responses in favor of ideological dogmas such as DEI." Trump has also sought to prevent states like Colorado and New York from passing their own AI restrictions, going so far as to order the creation of AI litigation task force inside of the Department of Justice to challenge state laws deemed "onerous" . "To the extent there's been regulation, it's been more toward ideological goals.
The Download: AI can run your admin department now
This is today's edition of The Download, our weekday that provides a daily dose of what's going on in the world of technology. How small businesses can leverage AI From accounting to design to market research and product development, there’s a staggering breadth of skills needed to run a business. Large companies can hire experts to handle these tasks, but small businesses don’t always have that luxury. That’s where AI comes in. Today’s models can already take on a range of basic administrative work, from organizing notes and summarizing meetings to invoicing, goal-setting, and social media planning. Find out how small-business owners can put AI to work. —Peter Hall This article is from Making AI Work, MIT Technology Review’s limited-run examining how to apply LLMs across industries. To receive it in your inbox, here. They have chosen profit over public safety, and we're not going to stand for it in here in Florida.” —Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier tells reporters why his state is suing OpenAI, the LA Times reports. One More Thing The entrance to the Moscow storage facility of KrioRus, which was until recently the only cryonics company in Eurasia. ALESSANDRO GANDOLFI Why the sci-fi dream of cryonics never died Cryonics is best known for its appearance in sci-fi films like 2001: A Space Odyssey. But its adherents have held on to a dream that advances in medicine will one day allow for resuscitation and additional years on Earth. Around 500 people are preserved in liquid nitrogen globally, while another 4,000 are on waiting lists. Despite scant evidence that cryonics can work, believers remain optimistic that future science could eventually revive them. Discover why the hope of human reanimation refuses to die. —Laurie Clarke We can still have nice things A place for comfort, fun, and distraction to brighten up your day. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line.) + Hear Dolly Parton reimagined through this spot-on Dire Straits-style cover of “Jolene”. + Find out which birds people search for most in this interactive visualization of bird popularity. + Explore thousands of Q&As between students and astronauts on the ISS at this interactive site. + Paris’s oldest bridge disappeared beneath a giant inflatable cave in this surreal public art installation. Deep Dive The Download The Download: DeepSeek’s latest AI breakthrough, and the race to build world models Plus: China has blocked Meta’s $2 billion acquisition of AI startup Manus. : introducing the 10 Things That Matter in AI Right Now Plus: An unauthorized group has reportedly accessed Anthropic’s Mythos. : supercharged scams and studying AI healthcare Plus: DeepSeek has unveiled its long-awaited new AI model. : keeping up with AI, and the future of IVF Plus: NASA unveiled plans for three uncrewed missions to the Moon this year. , top stories, upcoming events, and more.
Rehumanizing global health care with agentic AI
In partnership withEma The global health care sector is under increasing strain. Decades of chronic underinvestment and constraints in recruitment have coincided with a surge in demand for services for aging populations. Gaps in provision are already taking a toll, with fragmented access to care and high rates of stress and burnout among staff. And it’s getting worse. The World Health Organization has warned that current shortfalls will increase to 11 million workers by 2030. In their urgent hunt for a solution, many health-care providers are now pinning their hopes on agentic AI, with more than two-thirds (68%) having already adopted AI agents into their workforce, according to KPMG. The technology is being deployed to automate complex back-office processes, collaborate with medical teams, and even triage patients, all in a bid to reduce the cognitive load on clinicians and improve quality of care for patients as the supply of human health-care workers dwindles. A different type of digitalization Until now, the benefits of digitalization within health care have been limited. Many staff have blamed slow or outdated technology for adding to the administrative burden rather than alleviating it. S. patient data was migrated to electronic health records (EHRs) in the early 2000s, but this data remains fragmented and reliant on manual inputs. New telehealth services and digital care tools, like remote monitors, have had similar shortcomings, says Ashis Barad, MD, chief digital and technology officer at Hospital for Special Surgery (HSS), an academic medical center in New York that focuses on musculoskeletal health. Both technologies have helped improve access to health care , he says, but they’ve failed to replicate the quality of in-person care or win trust from patients. Agentic AI is different from these existing technologies, he insists. Rather than relying on manual inputs or defaulting to human workers for any case that sits slightly outside a rigid framework, AI agents can handle nuanced, complex scenarios. They can make autonomous decisions, retrieve information from expert clinical sources, and iterate over time, freeing clinicians to focus on higher-level patient care. Barad puts it: “Agentic AI takes your workflow and collapses it, augments it, supercharges it, and makes it more performant.” At HSS, AI agents have already been deployed in multiple areas. They handle complex backend processes, such as insurance claims that previously took several weeks to complete and involved both HSS staff and a third-party contractor to handle the volume. Barad, AI agents complete 1,100 claims per month.