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The European Space Agency has released the largest dataset yet from its Euclid space telescope, containing 1.7 petabytes of observations covering more than 900 million galaxies. "The data unveiled on Thursday covered a survey of the sky equal to about 9,500 times the size of the moon as viewed from Earth," reports Reuters. "The mission's goal is to complete the "largest-ever three-dimensional atlas of the cosmos, spanning more than a third of the sky, in 2031." From the report: "It marks a major milestone for ESA's Euclid mission and for everyone involved," said astrophysicist Valeria Pettorino, ESA's Euclid project scientist. Euclid, launched from Florida in 2023, is gathering data on how the universe has expanded and how its structure has formed over time while amassing information about the nature of dark energy and dark matter and the role of gravity on large scales. "Euclid will not just take images of galaxies in the sky, in two dimensions, but will also measure their distance, the third dimension. This will tell us where galaxies are in space and time, across 10 billion years, and in all directions beyond our galactic plane," Pettorino said. "Galaxies cluster along filaments, surrounded by empty space, and form a network that we call the cosmic web. Euclid will reconstruct the cosmic web and how it has grown over time. This is important because the exact configuration of the cosmic web, how many clusters or voids are there, how fast it changed, depend on the properties of dark energy and dark matter," Pettorino said. [...] Previous Euclid data releases covered only a few days of observations. The newly released dataset includes more than a year of data and still spans only 14% of the total sky area Euclid is due to survey in visible and near-infrared light over six years. This data release will be completed next year with the first results on dark energy and dark matter.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Hill: Elon Musk's SpaceX plans to invest more than $74 billion into building two data centers in Texas and Arizona, the company announced Thursday, marketing them as projects that will boost local communities amid backlash surrounding such facilities. "These investments will expand local tax bases, generate substantial new revenue for schools and public services, and create economic opportunities that extend far beyond the facilities themselves," the company said in a release. SpaceX said it will put more than $24 billion into a new project in Texas's Rio Grande Valley, expanding the company's headquarters in Starbase -- a coastal town the tech giant established in 2025 in a previously unincorporated area of Cameron County. In Arizona, SpaceX will invest around $50 billion in Cochise County, a rural area east of Tucson bordering Mexico and New Mexico. SpaceX pledged the new projects will be created cooperatively with the surrounding communities and will be environmentally conscious. The company said the project in Texas would generate its own power and invest $220 million to expand the water supply in nearby Brownsville. While in Arizona, it vowed to work with local electric cooperatives and "potentially" reduce electric bills, saying the site would use dry cooling without water consumption. "They require strong partnerships with local communities, responsible environmental stewardship, and stable, competitive policies that give companies the confidence to make long-term investments," the company said in a release. Both sites promise hundreds of permanent jobs even once construction is complete.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Whoop has launched Humans, a social network built into its fitness app where every account is a real person with a "verified heartbeat." The wearable company claims its platform is "entirely human," unlike other social media platforms that are "saturated with artificial intelligence, automated accounts and bots, and manufactured content." The Verge reports: Starting Thursday, Whoop members can share their data from its wearables on the app's new Whoop Humans social network. Users can make their metrics, activities, and achievements visible to other Whoop wearers, post Story-like "Moments" with photos and captions, and add comments and reactions on other members' posts. [...] In the Community tab in Whoop's app, users can scroll through Moments from people they're following, like tapping through your Stories feed on Instagram but with your friends' fitness tracker data. In one of Whoop's examples, swiping up on a user's Moments post with a photo from their run shows a map with their route and details like their pace and distance. The Community tab also shows cards for people in your "community" with their sleep, recovery, and strain scores. Whoop says users choose which activities, achievements, and metrics they want to share on Humans, including Recovery, Strain, Sleep, HRV, and resting heart rate. Any activities marked as sensitive aren't shared by default. There's also an option to keep Moments posts private and a "Stealth Mode" for temporarily hiding health and performance data without changing your sharing settings.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Nintendo has issued four DMCA takedown notices targeting two Nintendo Switch emulators, Yuzu and Citron Neo, along with mod chip firmware such as Picofly, SX Core and HWFLY. As a result, 144 repositories containing firmware used to circumvent the console's copy protections have been removed by GitHub and replaced by a DMCA takedown notice. IGN reports: GitHub has posted Nintendo's November 6 DMCA notice, which says, "The Nintendo Switch console and video games contain technological protection measures ('TPMs') that permit the Nintendo Switch console to interact only with legitimate Nintendo video game files. This process protects Nintendo's copyright-protected video games, (...) by preventing users from playing pirated copies of Nintendo's video games on the Nintendo Switch console and by preventing users from unlawfully copying and playing Nintendo's video games on unauthorized devices." However, while this takedown has effectively wiped out a ton of repositories with mod chip firmware, it seems like it's still being hosted elsewhere on the site, according to TorrentFreak. It's possible, though, that Nintendo isn't finished yet; back in 2024, Nintendo effectively took down 8,500 copies of Yuzu by issuing a takedown that targeted 12 different mirrors of the emulator. This particular takedown also comes a few days after emulators were able to run the remake of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time on PC, so this could be a sign that Nintendo is winding up its lawyers to crack down on emulation once again.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Reuters reports that former Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang had an intimate relationship with a third woman (source paywalled; alternative source ), an unnamed Nvidia employee. The revelation follows reports of two other extramarital affairs: one with Nvidia VP Kimberly Powell and another with Alice Huang, whom U.S. intelligence reportedly suspects of being a Chinese spy. The latter relationship has also prompted a shareholder lawsuit alleging Nvidia misled investors about its ties to a company suspected of circumventing U.S. chip export restrictions. Jensen Huang has since resigned as Nvidia's CEO and stepped down from its board on Thursday. CFO Colette Kress has been appointed interim CEO while the company searches for a permanent successor.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Singapore says U.S. authorities provided limited assistance in its investigation of Megaspeed, the company run by Alice Huang, the Chinese businesswoman whom U.S. intelligence suspects is a Chinese spy and whose relationship with Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has drawn scrutiny. According to Singapore, authorities held Alice Huang's passport from June 2025 until February while investigating "potential false declarations," but ultimately released her with a "stern warning" and barred her from re-entering the country. The New York Times reports: The statement raises new questions about the response of the Trump administration to the case and why the U.S. government did not more forcefully intervene. According to the timeline in the statement, Singaporean authorities had been holding Ms. Huang's passport well after President Trump was briefed last fall about her relationship with Nvidia's chief executive and the belief that she was a Chinese intelligence asset. The New York Times has reported that Taiwan began monitoring Ms. Huang in 2024 at the guidance of the U.S. government. In its statement, Singapore said that it had sought information from an American server maker and close Nvidia business partner, Supermicro, but that the company had provided "limited cooperation." Supermicro, a firm that packages Nvidia's A.I. chips onto servers that can be used in data centers, has been at the center of a number of chip smuggling investigations across the globe. Supermicro was a supplier to Megaspeed, a company incorporated in Singapore and run by Ms. Huang, according to two people with knowledge of the matter. Singapore said in the statement its authorities raised Supermicro's "limited cooperation" with the U.S. Department of Justice and Federal Bureau of Investigation in July 2025 and "requested their assistance in securing the company's cooperation." "Despite these repeated requests, Singapore has to date received limited information or assistance in respect of the company," the statement said.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Microsoft is suffering a major Microsoft 365 outage that's disrupting Outlook, Teams, Copilot and SharePoint for users across the Americas, with more than 129,000 problem reports logged on Downdetector shortly after the disruption began. Microsoft blames the connectivity problems on an unexpectedly large number of unavailable servers that overloaded the remaining infrastructure. The company says it's redistributing traffic and restarting affected systems. From a report: Microsoft was not providing an estimated time by which it expects service to return. Both individual Outlook users and those on enterprise accounts experienced problems logging in to the service. The outage also affected other Microsoft services, including Microsoft Teams, the Copilot 365 AI service and SharePoint Online. "Users may be unable to connect to multiple Microsoft 365 services," the company said on its Service Health Status page. UPDATE 11/12/26, 19:50 UTC: From Microsoft 365 Status: "We're testing a configuration change to address a problem that's causing servers to fail automated health checks and become unavailable. In parallel, we've initiated a restart of all affected servers and are monitoring health as they return to service. More info under EX1550543 and MO1550821 in the Microsoft 365 admin center, as well as http://status.cloud.microsoft if the admin center is not available to you." UPDATE 11/12/26, 20:19 UTC: From Microsoft 365 Status: "We've not identified any recent change correlated with the start of impact; however, our investigation indicates the failed health checks may originate from a specific component that's responsible for processing server health. We've taken steps to prevent additional servers from being impacted while we work to return the affected servers to service. More info under EX1550543 and MO1550821 in the Microsoft 365 admin center, as well as http://status.cloud.microsoft if the admin center is not available to you. UPDATE 11/12/26, 20:29 UTC: "According to https://downdetector.com/, much of the major services are down," writes Slashdot reader xocmot2. "AWS, Microsoft, Meta, on and on. Clearly not a Microsoft thing." UPDATE 11/12/26, 6:17 UTC: Microsoft is still struggling to resolve the outage, which is confirmed to be global with disruptions reported across 74 countries and territories. The outage has disrupted businesses and government services in countries including Japan, Singapore, India, and Australia, while OpenAI and Anthropic have also reported related problems. Microsoft says its recovery efforts have produced some improvements, but the fixes are not delivering "sustained recovery." Microsoft has ruled out a cybersecurity incident, and experts warn that the prolonged disruption could result in significant economic losses. Developing...Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Google is launching its first Gemini-powered smart glasses, with Samsung supplying the computing hardware. Given their built-in 12-megapixel camera, Google is emphasizing privacy protections, including a tamper-resistant recording light, automatic face redaction, and restrictions on real-time facial recognition and livestreaming. The company also promises not to use captured photos or videos for AI training or targeted advertising. Ars Technica reports: Google says the frames all weigh about 41 grams, which is not terrible but is definitely near the top for glasses generally. They will, naturally, weigh much more when you account for lenses. That will also determine the final pricing. So far, we only have the starting prices for these devices, including non-prescription lenses. The setup here is similar to the Ray-Ban Meta glasses we've seen for a few years. There are no screens in the lenses, but you can interact with the AI system via voice or by activating the integrated camera. The experience should be similar to using Gemini Live on your phone, but it will be a lot easier to fire up the AI. You can say "Hey Gemini" or tap a touch-sensitive area of the frame to start interacting with the robot. Since this is the same chatbot that operates across the Google ecosystem, it has access to your data and preferences. You can ask questions and get personalized answers, have Google Maps guide you by voice, or just talk with the AI to kill time. The glasses use custom open-ear speakers to limit distractions for those around you. Google notes the directional microphones should not pick up speech from other people, either. Adding the camera feed is where things get interesting. When the AI can see what you see, it has the potential to do more work on your behalf. Google suggests asking Gemini for recommendations when looking at a bookshelf or glancing at an event poster to have the AI add it to your calendar. The glasses will also support Gemini Guided Vision, which provides conversational audio descriptions for people who are visually impaired. The new frames are available for preorder today starting at $395.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Conversation: On April 10 2019, the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) Collaboration revealed the first picture of a black hole. The object is at the centre of a galaxy known as M87, about 55 million light-years away. The iconic ring structure instantly became one of the most recognized scientific images of the modern era. It showed a black hole "shadow" outlined by light from swirling hot gas -- just as predicted by Einstein's theory of general relativity. The result supported the long-standing idea that the centers of galaxies house supermassive black holes. However, scientists have since had some disagreements on whether the details and structure of the ring in the original publication were accurate. Our new research, published today in Nature, used new techniques to investigate the original datasets. Not only do our results validate the original work, but they also provide a fresh perspective on the ring structure. Our independent results enhance confidence in one of the most significant modern scientific results. And we bring the image of a black hole millions of light-years away back into focus. [...] When compared directly to images from the EHT collaboration, our result is consistent in diameter and overall orientation. Naturally, there are some differences in the fine details of ring width and surface brightness along the circumference, but the overall structure matches. This provides a fresh perspective on the iconic black hole ring while also resolving previous discrepancies. To prove this success didn't depend solely on advanced machine learning, we also developed a complementary imaging method based on traditional statistical techniques. This entirely different method also validated our structure using the new closure invariant data we produced. Overall, our work delivers a strong independent validation of the supermassive black hole structure at the centre of galaxy M87. And it could do more in the future. Our technique could also be useful in other situations where data from multiple sensors are combined to map unknown structures -- such as medical imaging or mapping earthquakes.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A critical flaw in Apache HTTP Server's HTTP/2 module could allow unauthenticated attackers to remotely execute code and potentially take control of affected server processes. Tracked as CVE-2026-119618, the vulnerability affects Apache HTTP Server 2.4.55 through 2.4.70 when HTTP/2 is enabled and is fixed in version 2.4.71. The Hacker News reports: The vendor's assessment, published yesterday, also says "public research has demonstrated a reliable exploit" against a server in its default configuration with mod_http2 enabled. It does not name or link that research. Security company Wiz said later that day that no exploit was available and that no exploitation in the wild had been reported. HTTP/2 runs only where the Protocols directive turns it on, as the module documentation explains. The directive uses h2 for HTTP/2 over TLS and h2c for HTTP/2 over plain TCP. It can be set for the whole server or for a single virtual host, so admins should check the server-wide setting and every virtual host. Standalone builds of the module, released on GitHub as mod_h2, are affected from version 2.0.8 through 2.0.42. Admins who run the Apache HTTP Server project's own releases should move to version 2.4.71, the fixed release named in its security advisory. That release also fixes a crash in mod_md, rated important, and a one-byte overwrite of stack memory in mod_vhost_alias, rated low.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Jensen Huang has stepped down as CEO of Nvidia after 33 years leading the company, with CFO Colette Kress taking over as interim CEO while the board searches for a permanent replacement. "The Board has full confidence in Colette and the leadership team, and we expect the company's operations, customer commitments and product roadmap to continue without interruption," said board chair Harvey Jones in a release announcing the news. The abrupt departure follows revelations about Huang's affairs, including one with a woman U.S. intelligence reportedly believes was a Chinese spy. CNBC reports: Huang, 63, apologized on Sunday for being "unfaithful to my wife," though he provided no details about the affair with businesswoman Alice Huang, who has worked for a Chinese company and Nvidia customer called Megaspeed. Late Wednesday, The New York Times reported that the Nvidia CEO also had a separate affair, this one with Kimberly Powell, vice president of health care at the chipmaker. Later that afternoon The Times and other outlets reported that Nvidia's board met to discuss the company's future. Jensen Huang denied allegations that he had compromised national security or Nvidia secrets after reports of the Alice Huang affair. The news sparked concerns that Nvidia knew companies based in Singapore and Malaysia had been evading U.S. export controls in accessing its technology. The board said on Tuesday that it had hired Wachtell Lipton to investigate the intelligence allegations.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Tim Peters, one of Python's earliest and most influential contributors, died on July 15 at age 74. Known as Python's second real user, Peters created the Zen of Python and Timsort sorting algorithm while contributing to numerous core components. He also served as a Python Software Foundation director from 2001 to 2014. Adafruit remembers Peters in a blog post: He's best known for the Zen of Python, PEP 20, still printed by typing import this. In 2002, he gave Python Timsort, the sorting algorithm he designed for lists, later adopted by Java and Android. He also polished the cyclic garbage collector and the pymalloc allocator, worked on the dict implementation, the float object, the math module and Karatsuba multiplication in longobject, and wrote the first version of doctest, plus difflib, pickletools and tabnanny. He was a director of the Python Software Foundation from 2001 to 2014. Before Python, he wrote compilers at Cray Research and speech-to-text software at Dragon Systems. The thread is full of recollections from core developers about his patient, detailed answers on the mailing lists, signed with his trademark . Python creator Guido van Rossum also paid tribute to Peters in a post on discuss.python.org, writing: "It's hard to overestimate Tim's influence on Python. He's probably best known for writing the Zen of Python (PEP 20), but to me he was a mentor and language co-designer long before that..." Further discussions can be found on Hacker News and Reddit.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

"ScienceAlert is reporting that researchers may have finally determined why, for many years, power grids around the world have been pulsing every 60 seconds," writes longtime Slashdot reader fahrbot-bot. The likely culprit? Uninterruptible power supplies running routine battery checks. From the report: Every minute, some uninterruptible power supplies perform routine battery checks, creating small but measurable surges in electricity demand. And it's like clockwork. "Even benign control routines can become systemically relevant when many devices act coherently," writes a team led by physicist Dirk Witthaut of the University of Cologne, Germany, in a paper published in Nature Energy. "Unintended synchronization can generate recurrent and potentially amplified oscillatory behavior in large-scale cyber-physical energy systems." To figure it out, Witthaut and his colleagues analyzed high-resolution electricity measurements from buildings at the Forschungszentrum Julich research campus in Germany. [... they found that] the 60-second pattern appeared in four buildings, all of which contained uninterruptible power supplies. None of the buildings they measured without these systems showed the same pattern. Following the electrical signals more closely, the researchers detected tiny bursts of current from the batteries at precisely one-minute intervals. They were able to trace the resulting fluctuations through one building's electrical system, all the way to the connection with the public high-voltage grid. The manufacturer subsequently confirmed the culprit's identity -- routine battery self-tests, conducted automatically by the systems' management software. But why would equipment in different buildings, let alone different countries, be doing this at the same time? The answer appears to lie in the clocks. Digital devices can synchronize their internal clocks using external time signals, meaning that independently operating systems can end up performing their scheduled tasks together. Individually, these small checks are insignificant. But when enough devices act in synchrony, their combined electricity demand can produce a measurable effect across an entire power grid.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from PBS: The historic ocean liner SS United States will be intentionally sunk Wednesday off the coast of the Florida panhandle. Live coverage of the sinking of the SS United States is expected to start at 1 p.m. EST, with the sinking expected at 2 p.m. EST. Watch live in the video player above. In its heyday, the SS United States crushed the trans-Atlantic speed record, which it still holds. The luxury ocean liner took only three days to cross from New York to Europe on its maiden voyage in 1952. Carrying presidents and Hollywood stars, the nearly 1,000-foot vessel was a technical marvel of its time. However, the rise of air travel and high operating costs sunk its economic viability, and the ship was pulled from service in 1969. The ocean liner sat at Philadelphia's Pier 82 for nearly 30 years. After a contentious back and forth with a pier landlord over rent and docking fees, Okaloosa County in Florida eventually stepped in to purchase the ship and bring it to the Gulf of Mexico to become the world's largest artificial reef. The multi-million dollar project is also aimed at creating an economic development opportunity as a major diving attraction. "It was our goal to make sure that she wasn't lost forever," said David Lawrence, a member of the board for the SS United States Conservancy, the group that sold the vessel to the Florida county. Like the ship's unconventional life, it will also have an unconventional sinking. Federal environmental and explosives rules prevent the county from using explosives. Instead, tanks inside the ship have been removed and large holes were cut into the decks. Once the valves are opened, water will flood the hull, sinking the ship. Resting at 180 feet below the surface of the water, the SS United States will join more than 500 artificial reefs in Okaloosa County, which the county relies on to support the underwater ecosystem.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

United Airlines is banning unauthorized third-party AI agents from booking flights, checking in passengers or making account changes on travelers' behalf. CBS News reports: To make an airline booking, an AI agent requires access to a customer's personal information, including credentials like payment information. United has a problem with that, saying that "sharing account credentials with personal, third-party, AI assistants can expose sensitive information, and actions taken by these tools may result in unintended purchases, account changes, or use of MileagePlus miles." The carrier also said that using an AI agent to, for example, check in for a flight could violate federal regulations, including rules requiring travelers to verify in person that their luggage does not contain banned substances. "As a result, United is taking steps to restrict access -- directly within our digital platforms and indirectly via travel agencies and aggregators -- to prohibit use by unauthorized, third-party personal AI agents or assistants," said the airline, which is updating its booking and ticketing policies to reflect the new rule. "United is saying they don't want to add yet another, and potentially even more powerful, intermediary than they already face in terms of Google search, price-comparison metasearch sites and online travel agencies," said Henry Harteveldt, an aviation analyst at Atmosphere Research Group. "Flight searches cost airlines money, and undoubtedly United wants to avoid the expense associated with the surge of AI bot flight searches."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang is facing scrutiny over an affair with an alleged Chinese spy. Now, The New York Times reports that Mr. Huang also had an extramarital relationship with Kimberly Powell, the company's vice president of health care and a direct report, raising questions about conflicts of interest and compliance with the company's policies governing personal relationships. From the report: The relationship, which has not been previously reported, was with Kimberly Powell, Nvidia's vice president of health care, said the people, who spoke under the condition of anonymity to describe sensitive information. Under Nvidia's code of conduct, employees are told to "avoid situations where our actions create conflict" including "personal relationships," and the company states that it "promptly investigates reports of misconduct." Many corporations have policies against managers having relationships with subordinates. Mr. Huang, 63, and Ms. Powell, 48, were captured on video being affectionate at a San Jose, Calif., hotel during a Nvidia conference in March, according to two of the people who worked at the company. The New York Times has not seen the video. Both Mr. Huang and Ms. Powell are married to other people. [...] One bystander captured the interaction on their phone, three people briefed on the incident said. Mr. Huang's security witnessed the bystander with their phone and sequestered them, the people said. They made the person an offer to sign a nondisclosure agreement. Further reading: Nvidia and Jensen Huang Face Shareholder Lawsuit Alleging Investors Were Misled About Spy AffairRead more of this story at Slashdot.

Charlotte Web shares a report from the Associated Press: A shareholder has sued Nvidia and its CEO, Jensen Huang, accusing them of deceiving investors in their responses to media reports about Huang's affair with a purported Chinese spy that threatens national security. [...] The news reports said that the Commerce Department was investigating Alice Huang's company, Singapore-based Megaspeed, on suspicions that it was helping to sidestep U.S. export restrictions blocking Nvidia chips from being sold to China. But Nvidia said then that its compliance team checked and determined that Megaspeed wasn't doing anything illegal. But, according to the complaint, the statements were misleading because they were made when Jensen Huang was having an affair with Alice Huang, who is "suspected of seeking to help smuggle Nvidia products into China." It accuses Nvidia and Huang of failing to disclose the affair and issuing false statements about Nvidia's relationship with Megaspeed, which posed a "material risk" to Nvidia's reputation and business prospects. [...] "As a result of Defendants' wrongful acts and omissions, and the precipitous decline in the market value of the Company's securities, Plaintiff and other Class members have suffered significant losses and damages," the complaint said. Had investors known the truth, they wouldn't have purchased Nvidia's shares "at the artificially inflated prices that they did, or at all," the complaint said. "Fun fact: Nvidia donated $25 million to Trump's White House ballroom fund," notes Slashdot reader Charlotte Web. UPDATE: The New York Times reports that Huang also also had an extramarital relationship with Kimberly Powell, the company's vice president of health care and a direct report.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

New York has forced T-Mobile to remove a 50GB monthly data cap from its $15 low-income broadband plan after regulators found customers who exceeded the limit had their speeds cut by more than 97%, to just 650 Kbps. "Additionally, the [Office of the Attorney General (OAG)] found T-Mobile restricted [New York's Affordable Broadband Act (ABA)] plans to areas with 5G coverage, despite offering standard-rate 25 Mbps plans in 4G areas, and intentionally coded its website to hide affordable plans from search engines," reports RochestFirst. From the report: Under the terms of the settlement, T-Mobile must: - Eliminate data caps on its ABA plans and deliver guaranteed 25 Mbps download speeds.- Expand ABA plan availability to all geographic areas where it offers fixed-wireless home internet service.- Make its ABA webpage indexed and easily discoverable via standard web searches.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Russia's Yandex says 2.84% of customer data has been permanently lost following Ukrainian strikes on data centers in the country. "According to the company, recovery is impossible because of critical damage to equipment and the lack of backup copies on the platform," reports UNITED24 Media. From the report: Yandex clarified that customers who had previously enabled the platform's backup tools did not experience any data loss, as their information remained fully preserved. The incident has prompted the company to revise its approach to data protection and disaster recovery, particularly the default settings for cloud infrastructure. Under the updated policy, automatic backups will be enabled by default whenever customers create new virtual machines on Yandex Cloud. Users will retain the option to disable the feature manually through the management console. In addition to changing its backup policy, Yandex Cloud announced the launch of a new availability zone, designated ru-central1-f. The new availability zone operates from a separate location, improving the resilience and reliability of the services. The report says Ukrainian drones targeted three Yandex data centers in Russia over four days, beginning October 8 with a strike on a facility in the Ryazan region that houses two of the company's three supercomputers. A second attack hit Yandex's largest data center in the Kaluga region on October 9, followed by a third strike on October 11 targeting a facility in the Vladimir region that houses the company's remaining supercomputer.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: The Trump administration's fight to stop suspected leaks of top-secret military information on LinkedIn can't sweep in "a vast number of confidential sources" of random journalists "who have no conceivable relationship" to the Department of Justice's investigation, an appeals court ruled (PDF) Tuesday. The order came after the DOJ asked LinkedIn to turn over 18 months of communications from targeted journalists who collectively published more than 1,000 articles on many different topics over that time period. The request was not limited to journalists involved in a controversial report from a news outlet that Trump said exposed confidential military information in a foreign country. (The outlet is not being named to protect national security secrets.) Instead, the DOJ cast a wide net, requesting extensive LinkedIn data on journalists who had any possible link to the journalists around the time the report was drafted. The majority of journalists have LinkedIn accounts and publish their contact information to encourage sources to connect on the platform, LinkedIn argued. So allowing that government overreach went beyond harming targeted journalists and threatened to undermine a critical platform where journalists frequently connect with confidential sources, judges ruled. Even more concerning, the Trump administration secured a secrecy order barring LinkedIn from telling anyone about the sweeping request for a year. That left journalists unaware for far too long that their First Amendment rights had been compromised, judges ruled. "A request by the government to scoop up reporters' records wholesale and ascertain the identity of their sources would tip the balance against informed discourse in a manner inimical to democratic health," Wilkinson wrote. He criticized the lower court for approving the request simply because the records were technically feasible to collect, emphasizing that "serious security and speech claims are in tension in this case. There is space under law for both." While declining to quash the order entirely, Wilkinson also directed the lower court to reconsider a limited exception to the government's secrecy order that would allow LinkedIn to notify an attorney representing the news outlet under investigation. Bruce D. Brown, President of The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press (RCFP), celebrated the ruling, saying: "This ruling is a big deal and will quickly become one of the leading opinions in the area -- one we will be quoting from it for a long time. The court recognized that confidential sources are the 'lifeblood' of investigative reporting and that dragnet demands from technology companies to reveal those sources violate the law."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Under a new "Logi Game Day" initiative, Logitech is giving all 7,000 of its employees an extra paid day off to play GTA 6 when it launches on November 19. Employees and interns can use the day off anytime over the next year. Tom's Hardware reports: As for Logitech, the company believes that it's time for people to move away from the belief that playing games is a waste of time, hence its new initiative. It makes sense for a company that makes gaming accessories to say that, of course, but CEO Hanneke Faber argues that the company sees "how engagement in one sphere supports performance in the other." The hope will be that, by allowing employees to play games, a productivity boost will follow.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Apple is shutting down its Apple Support Community forum on November 20, ending a user-to-user support platform whose history stretches back to the 1998 launch as the Apple Tech Exchange. The forum is already read-only, and Apple has not said whether the nearly three decades of community posts will be preserved or disappear when the site closes. Here's the full banner notice that's currently displayed on the website: "The Apple Support Community will permanently close on November 20, 2026. Starting today, the site will no longer accept new posts and is available in a read-only state. You can continue to find trusted guidance and support on the official Apple Support site. We want to thank the community members who have contributed their time and expertise to help others with their Apple products." Apple told MacRumors that it decided to sunset the forum after a careful evaluation of strategy and customer needs.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNBC: Amazon's Ring is going deeper into surveillance with an indoor drone for home monitoring and an autonomous robot designed to patrol businesses. The company on Tuesday unveiled the $250 Ring Drone Cam, a security camera that can fly from room to room, including upstairs, as well as capture footage during the day or at night. When an alarm or sensor on windows, doors and home security devices is triggered, the textbook-sized drone travels a preset path to investigate suspicious activity. Users can also deploy the drone at any time, the company said. [...] The company on Tuesday also debuted the $1,000 Ring Rover Cam. The device repurposes Amazon's Astro home robot, which had a short life as a business device and has seen few upgrades since its 2021 debut, for companies to use to patrol offices, warehouses and other workspaces. Ring said it "leveraged the best of Astro" to build the Ring Rover Cam, which it describes as a "purpose-built security robot." Similar to the Astro, the device is a display mounted on a two-wheeled base with an extendable periscope camera. It also features a "built-in siren," two-way audio and a "light tower" that shines onto the ceiling to help users keep track of its whereabouts. The Ring Drone Cam ships in the U.S. on Jan. 27, while the Ring Rover Cam will begin shipping to users on Dec. 16.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Ancient Slashdot reader Lank writes: GTA VI is now available for preloading. The download weighs in at a whopping 210+ gigabytes on the PS5! Start downloading now and remember to take Nov. 19th off from work. "On Xbox, preloads for digital versions went live at 12 a.m. GMT on November 10 for Series X and Series S, which translates to 7 p.m. EST / 6 p.m. CST / 5 p.m. MST / 4 p.m. PT on Monday, November 9," notes PCMag. "For PlayStation 5 and PS5 Pro owners, preloading started on Tuesday, November 10 at midnight local time." "If you ordered a physical copy of GTA 6, games will begin arriving at retailers and shipping to buyers on November 12. You can use the code in your box to preload your copy of the game."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Longtime Slashdot reader AmiMoJo shares a report from The Guardian: China is leading the world in moving away from fossil fuels, and the rest of the globe -- including the US -- must now follow, the former US secretary of state John Kerry has told the Guardian, as Cop watchers wonder exactly how China is going to approach this year's climate summit. As Cop31 opens -- this year the climate conference is in Turkey -- there is plenty of speculation about whether China will finally step into the leadership role that it has long avoided. In its latest "five-year plan" adopted in March 2026, China for the first time pledged to "actively participate in and lead global climate governance". Cop31 could provide the first indications Beijing is ready to put that rhetoric into action, something it has historically been reluctant to do. In 2025, clean-tech exports surpassed $220 billion, and they should grow again this year; the world's largest emitter is now the world's leading supplier of clean energy technology. China accounts for about 85% of solar and 80% of lithium-ion battery supply chain production capacity, and in 2025, nearly 75% of electric cars were manufactured there. Smart moves now by China would position it as a linchpin in a future electrostate world order, persuade rivals to cooperate, and solidify its influence in the global south. "The only country that has hugely accelerated is China," said Kerry. "The rest of the world is stumbling along while Mother Nature is sending us more powerful signals every week, every day." "[China] realized suddenly they had way too much dependency on oil and gas from other places, and they decided they needed to be independent. Other countries, since the war in Iran, and since the strait of Hormuz has been interrupted, have made a similar decision, and they're moving independently. There's been a massive uptick in deployment of renewables. Thank you, Donald Trump." For autocratic states without free and fair elections, seeing the economic benefits reaped by China would be the spur to adopt low-carbon growth, he added. "They'll see where the market is going, and they will recognize where the cheaper alternatives are. Even they can read a spreadsheet, and understand where costs are exorbitant [in fossil fuels], and where you have a better deal," Kerry said. "Right now, renewables together with storage, together with some transitional gas, is cheaper and more effective, than just going with fossil fuels." He added: "The marketplace has made its decision and globally is moving to electrons, and electrostate status. People are going to electricity and they're going to try to do that as clean as humanly possible. That's the choice that I see being implemented in many different places. It is unstoppable."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: Eighty-one-year-old M John Harrison has won the Booker prize for The End of Everything, a postapocalyptic novel set on a near-future Kent coast, becoming the oldest winner in the award's history. Gaby Wood, chief executive of the Booker Prize Foundation, said that while plenty of previous winners had dabbled in science fiction, Harrison's was "the first Booker winner to have emerged from the bona fide SF world." She called it "a historic win, for a writer whose decades of work are lightly worn on every page". Harrison, who has been publishing for six decades, overtakes Margaret Atwood, who was 79 when she shared the prize in 2019 for The Testaments. He received the 50,000-pound award and trophy at a ceremony in London on Monday evening. The End of Everything, Harrison's first Booker nomination, is set a few decades from now, years after a disaster nobody can properly account for. Set on the Kent coast, the novel sees Phillip Tennent and his ageing aunt Marnie attempting to survive alongside the looming threat of the mysterious iGhetti: vast, shape-changing beings whose origins and intentions are never explained. At 198 pages, it was the shortest book on the shortlist. Mary Beard, chair of the judges, said the decision was unanimous, reached after a full day of discussion. "It's a book that turns you upside down, raises a wry smile -- and surprisingly, given the subject matter, leaves you with a twinge of optimism," she said. "One main point of the book is that if, or when, such an apocalypse comes it will be incomprehensible. And the old rules won't matter either This is the politics of now seen through the lens of the future."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Google Fi is bringing back network switching through an unnamed "secondary" 5G carrier. "Most users will be on the 'Primary network,' but Google Fi will automatically switch users to the 'Secondary network' if it meaningfully improves performance with so-called 'smart thresholds' for doing so," reports 9to5Google. "At launch, there is no manual switching." When Project Fi first launched the service included support with both Sprint and T-Mobile. That went away when T-Mobile acquired Sprint in 2020. 9to5Google reports: Google is not naming the second network today, but did share that Ultra Wideband is supported. Officially, you are switching between "two of America's fastest 5G networks." Fi Wireless does note that users have top priority, so data is never deprioritized on the Primary network. Meanwhile, there's "highest QCI priority" on the backup network that means subscribers are among the last to be slowed down when there's congestion. This is also available internationally when local partner networks are available with the Flexible and Unlimited Premium plans. Network switching will first be supported on Pixel 9 and newer devices that have a Google Fi eSIM (and no other SIM active). It makes use of Android's Multiple Enabled Profiles (MEP) eSIM technology that allows for two carrier profiles on a single chip. [...] These Google Fi updates start rolling out today, with network switching seeing gradual availability.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Fireworks AI says its October breach was broader than initially disclosed, with attackers gaining access to customer account and billing information as well as some datasets, incomplete model weights and secrets. Notion, the popular productivity and note-taking app, disclosed that it was impacted in the breach but "fewer than 1% of Notion workspaces" were involved. "Upon analysis of the new data, we discovered that it included Notion AI chat transcripts used for the Insights feature, which for the vast majority of impacted workspaces were unattributable," it said. "'Unattributable' means the chats weren't labeled with who wrote them or which workspace they came from, and the transcripts did not contain tool call results." The Hacker News reports: In a notice published on October 10, 2026, [Fireworks AI] said it detected unauthorized use of internal Fireworks credentials that allowed an unauthorized third-party to access environment variables used in evaluation jobs in a limited number of customer accounts. The activity was detected on October 6, 2026, at 9 a.m. PDT. [...] The latest bulletin from the company reveals that the scope of the breach may have been broader than previously thought. The company said attackers reached its development environment via an unnamed third-party cloud provider that hosted Fireworks research and development (R&D) machines on October 23, 2026. "On October 24, the unauthorized third party used it to reach Fireworks development machines and then run an unauthorized workload that led to additional customer data impact," it added. "As of October 25, we have not detected further evidence of successful unauthorized access by the threat actor on the Fireworks platform customers use." The breach is said to have provided access to the following types of information: [Resource metadata; Billing information; and Model weights and datasets]. Fireworks AI said payment card numbers are not stored by the company and were not impacted by the security incident. It also said it's alerting customers whose data was impacted.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

New York is launching a state-backed AI safety research center at Binghamton University that will independently study and test AI systems, develop safety and security techniques, and train researchers in responsible AI. "While the federal government fails to act, New York is leading the way on AI safety and holding big tech accountable," New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said. "The stakes are too high to simply take AI companies at their word." Politico reports: The center -- which is funded by a $30 million gift from Bloomberg co-founder Tom Secunda and a $25 million research investment from SUNY and New York state -- is set to launch before New York's major AI safety law, the RAISE Act, comes into effect on Jan. 1. That will require submissions of detailed safety frameworks from AI companies operating in New York State, which Hochul's office hopes will be scrutinized by researchers at the new center. "AI is opening up questions that scientists could not tackle before," said Secunda, who also serves as the board chair of Empire AI, a $500 million public-private partnership. "With Empire AI and researchers across New York, the Center can test systems independently and give public officials evidence they can use." Over 80 leading scientists and researchers on AI systems from across New York state will contribute to the effort, which will be run by the New York Center for AI Responsibility and Research at Binghamton University, according to details shared by Hochul's office. The initiative will be led by Jeannette Wing, the executive vice president for research at Columbia University, and Greg Morrisett, the vice provost of Cornell Tech. "We need new techniques that can be applied to this new kind of system with swarms of autonomous agents acting independently and without control. How can you first detect that they're going to do harm, and how can you prevent them from doing harm?" said Wing. "The beauty of what's being proposed is that this state is committing resources to really light this up."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Anthropic announced new workplace features on Tuesday, including Claude Meetings, which brings Claude into video calls to begin working on tasks while participants are still talking. The company also unveiled Claude Whiteboards and Claude Sheets. The launch of Anthropic's new productivity-focused features comes just a few weeks after OpenAI unveiled a series of workplace tools that allow users to collaborate with ChatGPT to do things like visualize company information and create presentations, as both companies compete to turn their products into office suites of sorts to take on Microsoft and Google. Meta is also joining the competition with its Muse AI agent, which can build mini-apps on the fly to help users complete specific tasks. Here's a summary of each of the offerings Anthropic announced today: Claude Meetings: Allows Claude to join video calls as a visible participant, take notes, answer questions, retrieve information from connected apps, and create plans, timelines, and action items in real time. Available in beta for Team and Enterprise plans, initially supporting Google Meet. Claude Whiteboards: A collaborative visual workspace where teams can brainstorm with Claude, organize ideas into timelines and plans, and turn their work into documents or slide decks. It also integrates with Claude Meetings to build whiteboards during conversations. Claude Sheets: Lets teams create and collaboratively edit spreadsheets with Claude, including budgets and trackers with multiple tabs, formulas, formatting, and dropdown menus. Claude can make changes directly in cells while explaining its edits. Anthropic also announced the general availability of Claude Data (formerly Claude Dashboards) that connects Claude to business systems like CRMs and data warehouses. "Users can ask questions, and Claude responds with dashboards, written data stories, or narrated videos," reports TechCrunch. Additionally, the company announced new interactive connectors that let users open Claude and work within third-party apps like Adobe, Atlassian, and HubSpot.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

SpaceX has unveiled the Starlink Mini 2, equipping the company's smallest satellite internet terminal with a removable 71Wh battery and Wi-Fi 6. Preorders are opening to select U.S. customers for $999, which also includes a year of Roam Unlimited service. Shipments are expected to begin in mid-December. InterestingEngineering reports: The removable battery represents the biggest functional upgrade over the original Starlink Mini. Previously, users needed an external power source to operate the satellite terminal. That meant carrying additional equipment for camping trips, remote work, or extended journeys. Mini 2 addresses that limitation with a detachable 71 Wh battery pack. It weighs approximately 1.08 pounds (490 grams) and delivers up to 4.5 hours of connectivity. Owners can replace it with another charged battery when necessary. The battery also features LED indicators and its own USB-C charging port. SpaceX supports 60-watt USB-C Power Delivery charging for the pack. The retail kit includes a compatible 60-watt wall adapter and a three-meter USB-C cable. Users can also power the terminal through USB-C without relying on its battery. A physical power button replaces the original model's simpler plug-and-play arrangement. [...] SpaceX has also upgraded the wireless hardware from Wi-Fi 5 to Wi-Fi 6. The integrated router supports coverage across approximately 1,800 square feet (167 square meters). An IP67 rating provides additional protection against dust and water. Other hardware details include a foldable kickstand and a standard 1/4-inch-20 tripod mounting thread. The terminal also offers a 55-degree field of view for satellite acquisition.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Nintendo is hiring a digital archivist to help ensure the company's historical records are "preserved for future generations." The 12-month position is tasked with designing and implementing a "structured framework for organizing technical records, engineering documentation, source materials, and institutional knowledge related to legacy systems and platforms." Polygon reports: In the past, Nintendo has drawn criticism from the preservation community. In 2022, the Video Game History Foundation publicly criticized the company for announcing it would be closing the Wii U and 3DS eShops. The foundation released a statement saying that Nintendo's decision was "actively destructive to video game history." The statement also pointed out that Nintendo is part of the Entertainment Software Association, which funds lobbying that prevents a number of preservation efforts.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Blender 5.3 has been released with support for 3D Gaussian Splats, Nvidia DLSS 4.5 Ray Reconstruction and Vulkan as the default graphics backend on Linux. Phoronix reports: Blender now allows importing Gaussian Splats from PLY, SPZ, and glTF files. Also new to Blender 5.3 is NVIDIA DLSS 4.5 Ray Reconstruction support as a new denoiser. Blender 5.3 also brings support for NVIDIA RTX Spark devices. For the Cycles code in Blender 5.3 the Principled BSDF for shader nodes now supports dispersion. Another notable change with Blender 5.3 is the Vulkan back-end now being the default on Windows (except for Windows on ARM) and Linux systems. Vulkan 1.1 or newer is required and should deliver better performance than OpenGL.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Reddit is rolling out an AI-powered shopping feature called "Reddit Reviews" that summarizes user conversations about products and turns them into dedicated reviews. TechCrunch reports: Reddit's announcement points to its rules and its latest measures to combat automated abuse and spam, as well as its practice involving community moderators, as tools it will use to keep the reviews on the site legit. The Reddit Reviews feature itself taps into AI to organize the conversations people are having where they describe their product experiences. These posts will often see users discussing how a product works for them, or why it fails, or what the trade-offs are that someone should consider before buying. The company has been testing the product reviews feature since February, initially with U.S. users in areas like Electronics, Video Games, and Health & Beauty products. In September, Reddit expanded the test to include the Home & Garden and Fashion & Apparel categories as well. Now, the company says Reddit Reviews is rolling out to all U.S. users on iOS, Android, and web, with an initial selection focused on around 10,000 products. Over time, it will roll out to more categories and expand beyond the U.S. To use the feature, Reddit users can search for a product or category in the app's search bar or click on a highlighted product name they see in someone's comment. From there, the user is taken to a screen where important conversations are summarized under a "what people are saying" heading. This will also include a visual breakdown that shows how many of those comments are positive, negative, or mixed, and what sort of things people said they liked or disliked about the item.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: The European Union must rethink security to take into account challenges and risks posed by the growing power of major technology companies that go beyond traditional competition concerns, European Commission Executive Vice-President Teresa Ribera said on Monday. "We need to review and to deepen our concept of security, including cybersecurity," Ribera told reporters in Lisbon, arguing that testing and monitoring devices connected to critical infrastructure was no longer sufficient and that security means also ensuring that the Big Tech companies are "governed by democratic and transparent patterns." "We need to be quite quick in the deployment of these new approaches ... This is one of the most critical topics for security, for democracy, and for (our) values," she said.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Uber is launching Uber Parking, integrating technology from its SpotHero acquisition to let users find and reserve parking garages and lots directly through the Uber app. "You can also filter your results based on criteria like whether you want to self-park or use a valet, or other specific amenities," adds Engadget. From the report: To book a spot, you'll need to provide the make and model of your car and a license plate number. Depending on your lot, Uber will then provide a QR code or you'll be able to enter the garage through license plate recognition. If you need to cancel, the company says the majority of parking options can be canceled for free up to the start time. Parking reservations can also be extended through the app. Uber One subscribers get 10 percent back in Uber credits on eligible reservations. When it announced its acquisition, Uber said SpotHero offered garages and lots across more than 400 cities in the US and Canada, but the company isn't offering all of them at launch. For now, Uber says Uber Parking will be available in Chicago, Nashville, San Francisco, Atlanta, Austin, Boston, Dallas, Denver, Los Angeles, Miami, New York City, Philadelphia, San Diego, Seattle and Washington DC. The company also plans to experiment with using lots as a staging area for the autonomous vehicle fleets offered byAUber's self-driving partners.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Boston Dynamics has equipped its Atlas humanoid with wheels, allowing the robot to rapidly roll across flat terrain while still using its articulated legs to navigate obstacles and uneven surfaces. "The 'experiment' combined classical model-based motor control with whole-body reinforcement learning to maintain dynamic stability across unstructured, real-world terrain," reports The Robot Report. From the report: In addition to learning how to move with wheels for feet, Atlas also performs pirouettes and various aggressive actuation maneuvers. This demonstrates that Atlas can smoothly switch between fast rolling on flat terrain and articulated legged motion over obstacles or irregular surfaces. [Andy Wu, controls engineer for Atlas at Boston Dynamics] trained the system in sim. The system learned all of the behaviors in sim and executed them in real life, with surprising accuracy, according to Wu. Wu said converting Atlas' locomotion style was "wonderfully simple." A single custom adapter mounts an off-the-shelf scooter rim onto Atlas' existing ankle actuator, and that's the only new part in the whole build. Because Atlas was designed from the start to be produced at high volume and to be easy to service, Wu said the retrofit was about as involved as swapping a wheel on a bicycle. The software side was just as straightforward, he said. Each wheel is modeled as an "ankle" that can spin continuously, so all Wu had to do was take the baseline robot model and swap the feet out for wheels. The next question that Wu intends to answer is the policy response to failed actuators. This is key to safety and to understanding how the system will respond to a system failure. The primary takeaway for Wu and the controls engineering team at Boston Dynamics is to understand control synergy. The video demonstrates that merging classical motor controls (for baseline stability) with whole-body RL (for reactive adaptation) yields superior real-world agility compared to using either method alone.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from NBC News: The Food and Drug Administration said Monday that GLP-1 drugmakers must add a warning label about a rare eye condition that can cause sudden blindness. The condition, called nonarteritic anterior ischemic optic neuropathy, or NAION, affects the optic nerve, which carries signals from the eye to the brain. When blood flow to the nerve is reduced or blocked, it can cause sudden vision loss. The condition is permanent with no known treatment. The FDA said "there is a potential increased risk of rare NAION" in people taking GLP-1 drugs. The agency's requirement applies to all GLP-1s, including Novo Nordisk's Ozempic and Wegovy and Eli Lilly's Mounjaro and Zepbound, as well as several older GLP-1 diabetes medications. [...] Previous research has found that GLP-1 use may increase the risk of NAION, and Lilly has said it was aware of studies on the potential link. The FDA said it began looking into a possible link after a 2024 study published in JAMA Ophthalmology that found diabetes patients prescribed semaglutide were four times as likely to develop NAION as those not prescribed the drug. The agency said it reviewed reports of side effects submitted to its adverse event monitoring system and analyzed data from multiple clinical trials. Cases of NAION have been reported for all currently marketed GLP-1 drugs, the FDA found. However, FDA scientists were not able to identify a mechanism for how the drugs could increase the risk of the eye condition. Risk factors for NAION can overlap with conditions seen in people taking GLP-1 drugs, including Type 2 diabetes, obesity, sleep apnea and hypertension. "Patients and caregivers should be aware of a potential increased risk of NAION, a rare condition that can result in acute, painless, decreased vision in one eye, including permanent vision loss," with GLP-1 use, the FDA said in the release.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Microsoft is testing a Windows 11 option that lets users permanently disable the Sticky Keys and Filter Keys activation prompts directly from the pop-ups themselves, ending a 31-year-old annoyance without requiring a trip into Settings. Windows Latest reports: Sadly, the dialog is still the same aging Win32 window, but we spotted Microsoft's design boss replying under an X post reply about this, saying he is working on modernizing legacy dialogs. The popup might be annoying, but did you know that it exists because of a pinball game from 1995? [...] The change is in Build 26340.9882 (Experimental) and Build 26320.9876 (Beta), both released on November 6 and based on Windows 11 version 26H2. Microsoft says you can "choose not to be asked again" from the Sticky Keys and Filter Keys dialogs, but it's a Controlled Feature Rollout in Experimental, so you may not see it yet.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

President Donald Trump says the FBI is investigating Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang's affair with a woman alleged by U.S. intelligence to have gathered information for Beijing. "I know the FBI is looking into it in terms of something else, and I think that he'll be in good shape," Trump said at a White House briefing. The Associated Press reports: Trump suggested the extraordinary step of directly involving himself in a counterintelligence investigation, a sign of his friendly relationship with Huang and the possible geopolitical stakes. "I did speak to him today just to see if he's feeling all right, how you're doing," Trump said. "He said he had absolutely no idea that the person in question was a spy." Trump is slated to meet next week with Chinese leader Xi Jinping in Shenzhen, China, at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, but he was noncommittal about bringing up the situation with Xi. "No, I don't think so," Trump said. "I mean, maybe. I'm sure President XI will ask me about it. I just know Jensen very well. I just think he's a very honorable man." Nvidia has launched its own independent investigation into whether Huang was targeted by a foreign intelligence operation. Meanwhile, China has denied the allegations. "The so-called Chinese spy allegation is unsubstantiated. It is nothing but smears against China," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun said during a regular news briefing Monday. Further reading: Commerce Dept. Chip Inquiry Was Halted After Nvidia InterventionRead more of this story at Slashdot.

Epic Games says it plans to support its new Linux launcher on as many distributions as possible, specifically naming Fedora, SteamOS, CachyOS and Omarchy. GamingOnLinux's Liam Squires-Hand reports: Speaking to Jake Jones, Communications Director at Epic Games, they said: "Hey Liam! The new Epic Games Launcher is still in Preview and we plan to support as many Linux distributions as possible, including Fedora, SteamOS, Cachy, Omarchy, and more. We're testing and evaluating packaging formats for distribution, and we'll restore AppImage this month." With that in mind, until things settle down, you might see different packaging types appear or disappear until they decide firmly how they plan to support different distributions each with their own different packaging formats. Or, perhaps they might see the Flatpak light and just put it up officially on Flathub. Would make it even easier for SteamOS then too with Flathub, since it would just be a quick pop to Desktop Mode to install it directly in the Discover app.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

France has accused Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps of being behind last month's cyberattacks on fridges and freezers across the country. French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said the attack was "unprecedented in both its scale and its level of aggression," adding those who were responsible would be hit with sanctions "at the European level." The BBC reports: The cyber-attack last month saw fridges and freezers in hundreds of supermarkets across France heated up, which spoilt fresh and frozen food estimated to be worth millions of euros. Then last week, dozens of supermarkets across several other European countries were also impacted by a cyber-attack that targeted fridges and freezers. It is not known if the instances are linked. Barrot said the attack on France's supermarkets "marks the first large-scale cyber-attack aimed at sabotage on our national territory, and it constitutes a major attack on the nation's interests and the security of the French people." He said the government had summoned the Iranian ambassador to Paris to "lodge a very strong protest against this extremely grave act." France will take "any other necessary and proportionate measures" to respond to the incident and "deter anyone who might seek to repeat it," Barrot added. Separately on Monday, the Paris prosecutor said an investigation had been opened into the head of an offensive cyber unit associated with Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as well as his two deputies. Laure Beccuau named the unit as Shahid Kaveh, which she said had an affiliation with the electronic and cyber centre of the IRGC. Shahid Kaveh is the name given to a cluster of hackers thought to be directly employed by the Iranian regime. [...] The French government has not said how it reached the conclusion that Iran was responsible, and attribution of cyber attacks is extremely hard as hackers are able to hide their locations.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Anthropic has released Claude Mythos 5.2 and Fable 5.2 with "improvements in areas like coding, reasoning, and vision," while cutting Fable's input price and claiming 30% faster responses. TechCrunch reports: It's Anthropic's first model release since the arrival of a third-party report from the assessment group METR, which suggested the lab might be approaching recursive self-improvement (RSI) -- or the ability for AI models to carry on model training independently. The METR report found internal models were speeding up Anthropic's AI progress by roughly 2x, although many uncertainties remain. Still, Anthropic's release notes significant ongoing challenges in accurately testing model capabilities. "Claude Mythos 5.2 and Fable 5.2 each voice suspicion that they are being evaluated more often than any of our recent models, which challenges our ability to assess how they will act in real-world settings. As these settings expand and capabilities increase with future models, we expect this challenge to grow." Anthropic maintains that the new version of Mythos does not have the ability to act covertly against its user, a verdict that's detailed further in Mythos 5.2's system card. "Claude Mythos 5.2 shows stronger covert capabilities than prior Claude models on several of our evaluations, particularly when its reasoning is hidden from the monitor," the system card reads. "That said, we believe that low levels of absolute performance on our new covert evaluations support claims that rely on detection of harmful actions in high-stakes situations." Fable 5.2 has been available to select parties in pre-release for some time, and Anthropic says the model has already "solved two open problems in theoretical physics, formalized Fermat's Last Theorem, and supported numerous other research projects."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The New York Times: Investigators at the Commerce Department were deep into a monthslong investigation of a Singaporean company that they suspected of smuggling Nvidia's artificial intelligence chips into China when their work came to a sudden halt late last year. The investigation centered on Megaspeed, a data center company led by an executive who U.S. officials now believe to be a Chinese spy who had a relationship with Nvidia's chief executive, Jensen Huang. But the case was abruptly transferred to the Justice Department last year. The shift came after Commerce Department investigators working on the case received an email from Nvidia's general counsel seeking information about the inquiry into Megaspeed. It is not necessarily unusual for Commerce Department agents working on a case to speak with a company's representatives about issues involving their firm. But what was unusual was the content of the message. Tim Teter, Nvidia's general counsel, said that Jeff Kessler, a top official at the department, had given Nvidia permission to reach out about the case. The agents were alarmed that Nvidia had invoked the name of Mr. Kessler, their superior, who was nominated to his role by President Trump. Some viewed Mr. Kessler's interaction with Nvidia as violating government procedure and potentially tainting the case, according to current and former government officials and others familiar with the incident. It is not clear what led to Mr. Teter's outreach to the department, but the recent revelations about Mr. Huang's acknowledged affair with a Megaspeed executive have only intensified scrutiny of Nvidia's role in influencing policy on chip sales to China. [...] The incident raised questions about what Mr. Kessler, who reports directly to Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, had discussed with Nvidia. It also raised the possibility that those discussions could become their own subject of inquiry. Perhaps inadvertently, some officials said, Mr. Kessler had opened himself to accusations of undue influence and potentially jeopardized his department's work on Megaspeed. The case was quickly transferred to the Justice Department in an effort to avoid any potential compromise of the government's investigation of Megaspeed, these people said. The Justice Department is conducting a criminal inquiry into Megaspeed, according to people familiar with the matter.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Google is expanding its AI chip lineup with two specialized TPUs arriving next year: the TPU 8tx, which encrypts sensitive data at the chip level for confidential computing, and the TPU 8i Max, which combines two TPU chips to provide more processing power and memory for long-context workloads. The move broadens Google's challenge to Nvidia as demand outstrips supply, with Google saying every TPU it currently has is already committed to customers. Quartz reports: The 8tx is designed for sensitive, privacy-focused jobs run by clients including public-sector bodies and businesses in heavily regulated sectors, according to Bloomberg. It pairs with a central processing unit from Advanced Micro Devices and encrypts data at the chip level. Normally, data must be decrypted in memory as the machine works on it, [said Amin Vahdat, Chief Technologist for AI & Infrastructure at Google]. The 8i Max is meant for AI applications that need long context windows, meaning the volume of information a model can take into account within one request. Vahdat said that matters for drug discovery, math and coding. The chip packs two TPU chips together, giving it extra processing muscle and memory. Both variations are reconfigured versions of existing silicon rather than new designs, Vahdat said. Google changed them to handle tasks customers have requested. They follow two TPU models Google released this year, according to Bloomberg, which said the chip unit used to release one new processor every two years. "We could build a single chip that tries to address the whole market, or by building specialized versions of the chips, we actually can deliver much more value," Vahdat said, according to Bloomberg.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Huawei has unveiled the Qingyun HM650, a desktop PC it claims is made entirely from Chinese-manufactured components, including its own 10-core Kirin X90 processor and an enterprise version of HarmonyOS. "While Huawei has reportedly claimed local companies manufactured 100 percent of the components in the machine, it is unclear if all those components use Chinese designs," notes The Register. From the report: A single Chinese government agency has reportedly signed up for 600 of the machines. That's not an indication this machine is a curiosity, because Beijing has ordered all government entities to shift from Wintel boxes to local alternatives. [...] Even if Huawei is using some parts that aren't entirely Chinese, the debut of the Qingyun HM650 is bad news for Intel, AMD, and Qualcomm, as all are suffering as the PC market shrinks due to the rising cost of memory. China's government is an enormous buyer, and losing the chance to bid for its business is unlikely to be helpful.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Wired: Alexis Ohanian wants to figure out the future of user-generated content. According to the Reddit cofounder, building social media apps is "not cool anymore" and so much of the internet has been compromised. "I'm expecting some better version of the group chat to be that new version of UGC," Ohanian told WIRED senior correspondent Lauren Goode at the inaugural WIRED World Fair. [...] Ohanian is a proponent of the "Dead Internet Theory"-the idea that a lot of online activity and content is being generated by bots. Large language models have turbocharged this, with AI agents outrunning human users. "The internet that I grew up on that was really built for humans first; user interfaces and experiences are going to go away," said Ohanian, "because more of the internet is going to get created for these agents to use, [rather] than for people." In some ways, the advance in generative AI has been lucrative for sites like Reddit, which has licensed its vast archive of human conversations to companies including Google and OpenAI to train AI models. "Platforms like ours became very, very valuable to LLMs," Ohanian said. But the technology has also undermined the business. Reddit shares plunged 29 percent last week after the platform warned that Google's AI-powered search was hurting referral traffic. Ohanian also worries the commercialization of these conversations means they are full of "bullshit." "The internet has gotten so manipulated because it is so incredibly valuable to do so," he said. Reddit recently said it would require users to sign in to fight third-party scraping and keep up user engagement. While Ohanian declined to say whether he agrees with the move, "there has to be provable humanity on the internet without being creepy." An early Anthropic investor, Ohanian is nonetheless optimistic about the potential benefits of AI. He is especially excited to see medical breakthroughs from the technology. "There is still a very real chance that this technology can cause a lot of harm for sure," he said. "I think we have to be sober about how we're building and what we're doing, but I still can't help but see all of the things that can get so demonstrably better."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Futurism reports:While many scientists have long held that Mars is "geologically dead" inside, new research is adding to the growing body of evidence to the contrary. As detailed in a new paper published in the journal Science Advances, an international team of researchers examined data collected by the European and Russian ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter in 2021, which found that Mars is slowly belching hydrogen chloride gas. The researchers suggest this gas is being released from hot magma deep beneath its surface after discovering intriguing new fissures along a massive volcano, indicating the planet may be geologically active after all - or at least it was until relatively recently. The research could have significant implications for the possibility of ancient life on the Red Planet, hinting at a far warmer and thicker atmosphere - and an abundance of liquid water on its surface - in its not-too-distant past.... The team discovered new fissures measuring thousands of feet in length... suggesting ongoing activity underneath the surface. The researchers discovered discolorations along these fissures, concluding that they may be the result of seeping gases leaving mineral deposits similar to volcanic gas vents on Earth... The fissures could also be a perfect place to find evidence of past life on the Red Planet [argued Daniel Mege, the study's colead author and a Polish Academy of Sciences professor]... "If hydrothermal systems are active, they could contain the ingredients and energy needed for microorganisms to develop, and shield microorganisms from the hostile and changing environment above the surface."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A crowdfunded sequel to the movie Return of the Living Dead was uploaded last weekend - but producer Richard Driscoll is drawing criticism for what he did to the 1985 punk/zombie classic. Kotaku reports:[The release of the movie came as a] surprise to the original cast, who were attached to star in the follow-up. Instead it seems Driscoll opted to use AI to generate the film... In 2024, Driscoll, who operates his own no-budget streaming service "DragonFLIX," launched an Indiegogo page for "TRASH's REVENGE Return of the Living Dead Universe." Unlike other fan projects, this one had a large portion of the original cast involved, with stars Randolph and Linnea Quigley acting as producers. It also threw in Quigley's fellow Sorority Babe in the Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama Michelle Bauer and the Oscar nominated Eric Roberts, who has seemingly been in everything except The Living Dead.... But after some confusion and radio silence between the cast and director, this incredible movie did not come to be. Last Halloween night, Driscoll pushed out [the almost entirely AI-generated] The Return of the Living Dead: Aftermath... The results won't surprise you. Robotic line delivery. Nonsensical sequence of events. Object impermanence. Everything's wet. Everyone looks shocked. At one point the video just flips around like you're watching on a phone someone dropped. And while the Return cast didn't film any of this footage, their likenesses are peppered throughout. "It turned out to be a fiasco," says Quigley. "I warned him, "Whatever you do, don't do any AI, because people don't like it, the fans don't like it." Living Dead alumni, even those who weren't attached to this film, have spoken out against Aftermath. They seem most concerned about the existing and continued use of their likeness, given that Driscoll has seemingly pivoted 'Trash's Revenge' into an additional project. Randolph encourages those who provided any funding to ask for a refund through their credit card company. While Romero's original film was public domain, Return of the Living Dead was not. Randolph also encourages Amazon, who bought MGM in 2022, to take legal action. A review on Reddit calls it "the worst 'film' I've ever seen," a production that "manages to not only be the worst zombie film ever made but is also the nadir of exploitation filmmaking.[T]hings quickly descend into madness and we get lots of bits of A.I. reporters out on the streets being attacked by A.I. zombies... [T]here are some A.I. cops battling it out too...Read more of this story at Slashdot.

It's FOSS reports:Asahi Linux is the reason you can run Linux on an Apple Silicon Mac today. For years, the project put most of its own code under the MIT license so that anyone, including the BSDs, could reuse it as needed... They have announced that Asahi is moving all of its repositories to the GNU General Public License version 2 or later. Going forward, all Asahi Linux code will be under strong copyleft licenses only. Asahi Linux compares their dilemma to the 1990s, when "permissively licenced projects were viewed by tech companies as free real estate to pilfer and exploit," adding that "Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it... The malicious practices of the 90s and 2000s have reared their ugly heads once again, this time driven in large part by both the insatiable appetite of frontier AI labs for high-quality training data, and militant animosity toward the Free Software community." In short, they argue that for Asahi Linux, using the permissive MIT license "is no longer viable."Some time ago, we were made aware of multiple attempts to exploit our permissive licensing to hijack our work, with a direct view to replacing the project and aggressively monetising Linux on Apple Silicon. In some extreme cases, in-development feature code was being lifted straight out of our personal forks and published without attribution or lazily rewritten with LLM assistance to obfuscate its origin. The MIT licence explicitly allows this, and has no carveouts to protect against bad faith actors. As such, we made the difficult decision to begin the process of transitioning all of our repositories to the GNU General Public License version 2 or later. Going forward all Asahi Linux code will be licenced under strong copyleft licences only. It's FOSS explains that "Under the GPL, anyone who distributes a modified version has to release the source under the same license. You can't legally build a closed, paid Apple Silicon distro on top of GPL code. And if a product's source has to be public, the copying is easier to spot." And their article also points out that before AI, bad actors attempting code laundering "usually meant manually rewriting code line by line, renaming variables and stuff, and shuffling functions around until it no longer looked like the original. LLMs made it much more easy and cheaper of course." In case you did not know, Asahi Linux forbids AI generated code contribution... As far as I can tell, this is the first time a major open source project has moved to copyleft specifically because of AI-assisted code laundering. Projects have relicensed before, but usually to stop cloud providers from reselling their work as a service. This one is specifically about AI... The move has drawn criticism, particularly from the BSD side, which was one of the main reasons Asahi chose MIT in the first place. OpenBSD's Apple Silicon support relies on Asahi's m1n1 bootloader.Read more of this story at Slashdot.