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Longtime Slashdot reader williamyf writes: The Italian company Bending Spoons seems to be on an acquisitions spree. Their recent acquisitions of AOL and Vimeo are not yet finalized, yet on Dec. 2 they announced they are buying Eventbrite, a company specializing in publicizing and organizing local events, for just half a milliard USD. Bending Spoons' portfolio also includes other companies like Evernote and WeTransfer. Further reading: Private Equity Hipsters Are Coming For Your Favorite Apps (2024)Read more of this story at Slashdot.

joshuark shares a report from BleepingComputer: Microsoft has silently "mitigated" a high-severity Windows LNK vulnerability exploited by multiple state-backed and cybercrime hacking groups in zero-day attacks. Tracked as CVE-2025-9491, this security flaw allows attackers to hide malicious commands within Windows LNK files, which can be used to deploy malware and gain persistence on compromised devices. However, the attacks require user interaction to succeed, as they involve tricking potential victims into opening malicious Windows Shell Link (.lnk) files. Thus some element of social engineering, and user technically naive and gullibility such as thinking Windows is secure is required. [...] As Trend Micro threat analysts discovered in March 2025, the CVE-2025-9491 was already being widely exploited by 11 state-sponsored groups and cybercrime gangs, including Evil Corp, Bitter, APT37, APT43 (also known as Kimsuky), Mustang Panda, SideWinder, RedHotel, Konni, and others. Microsoft told BleepingComputer in March that it would "consider addressing" this zero-day flaw, even though it didn't "meet the bar for immediate servicing." ACROS Security CEO and 0patch co-founder Mitja Kolsek found, Microsoft has silently changed LNK files in the November updates in an apparent effort to mitigate the CVE-2025-9491 flaw. After installing last month's updates, users can now see all characters in the Target field when opening the Properties of LNK files, not just the first 260. As the movie the Ninth Gate stated: "silentium est aurum"Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A severe spike in global DRAM prices has pushed Samsung Semiconductor to refuse a long-term RAM order from its own sibling, Samsung Electronics. The move is forcing the smartphone division into short, expensive renegotiations, which will likely mean higher costs for consumer devices. PCWorld reports: Samsung subsidiaries are, naturally, going to look to Samsung Semiconductor first when they need parts. Such was reportedly the case for Samsung Electronics, in search of memory supplies for its newest smartphones as the company ramps up production for 2026 flagship designs. But with so much RAM hardware going into new "AI" data centers -- and those companies willing to pay top dollar for their hardware -- memory manufacturers like Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron are prioritizing data center suppliers to maximize profits. The end result, according to a report from SE Daily spotted by SamMobile, is that Samsung Semiconductor rejected the original order for smartphone DRAM chips from Samsung Electronics' Mobile Experience division. The smartphone manufacturing arm of the company had hoped to nail down pricing and supply for another year. But reports say that due to "chipflation," the phone-making division must renegotiate quarterly, with a long-term supply deal rejected by its corporate sibling. A short-term deal, with higher prices, was reportedly hammered out.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Guardian: Almost three in 10 GPs in the UK are using AI tools such as ChatGPT in consultations with patients, even though it could lead to them making mistakes and being sued, a study reveals. The rapid adoption of AI to ease workloads is happening alongside a "wild west" lack of regulation of the technology, which is leaving GPs unaware which tools are safe to use. That is the conclusion of research by the Nuffield Trust thinktank, based on a survey of 2,108 family doctors by the Royal College of GPs about AI and on focus groups of GPs. Ministers hope that AI can help reduce the delays patients face in seeing a GP. The study found that more and more GPs were using AI to produce summaries of appointments with patients, assisting their diagnosis of the patient's condition and routine administrative tasks. In all, 598 (28%) of the 2,108 survey respondents said they were already using AI. More male (33%) than female (25%) GPs have used it and far more use it in well-off than in poorer areas. It is moving quickly into more widespread use. However, large majorities of GPs, whether they use it or not, worry that practices that adopt it could face "professional liability and medico-legal issues," and "risks of clinical errors" and problems of "patient privacy and data security" as a result, the Nuffield Trust's report says. [...] In a blow to ministerial hopes, the survey also found that GPs use the time it saves them to recover from the stresses of their busy days rather than to see more patients. "While policymakers hope that this saved time will be used to offer more appointments, GPs reported using it primarily for self-care and rest, including reducing overtime working hours to prevent burnout," the report adds.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Subaru owners are reporting full-screen SiriusXM pop-up ads appearing on their infotainment systems while driving -- sometimes even overriding Apple CarPlay. Subaru says the ads appear only twice a year, but frustrated drivers argue the practice is distracting, unsafe, and a sign of an industry trend that's likely to get worse. The Drive reports: At least one 2024 Crosstrek owner reported that the pop-up took over their screen even though they were using Apple CarPlay. To force-close an application that's in use, solely for the sake of in-car advertising, is especially egregious. [The following Subaru owner complaints to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reiterate that point...] The Drive reached out to Subaru for comment on the marketing tactics. A company spokesperson responded, "We will discuss those messages in an upcoming meeting and will always consider customer feedback. This is the first we've heard of any issue. Those messages occur only twice a year, around Memorial Day and Thanksgiving, to alert customers that all channels are available to them for about two weeks." Reddit posts dating back as far as 2023 show owners complaining about in-car notifications.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Apple's longtime human-interface chief Alan Dye is leaving to lead a new creative studio at Meta's Reality Labs, where he'll shape AI-driven design for devices like smart glasses and VR headsets. Dye will be replaced by Steve Lemay, who has had "a key role in the design of every major Apple interface since 1999," according to a statement Apple CEO Tim Cook gave Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. TechCrunch reports: Shortly after the news broke of Dye's departure, Zuckerberg announced a new creative studio within Reality Labs that would be led by Dye. There, he'll be joined by Billy Sorrentino, another former Apple designer who led interface design across Reality Labs; Joshua To, who led interface design across Reality Labs; Meta's industrial design team, led by Pete Bristol; and its metaverse design and art teams led by Jason Rubin. Zuckerberg said the studio would "bring together design, fashion, and technology to define the next generation of our products and experiences." "Our idea is to treat intelligence as a new design material and imagine what becomes possible when it is abundant, capable, and human-centered," the Meta CEO wrote on Threads. "We plan to elevate design within Meta, and pull together a talented group with a combination of craft, creative vision, systems thinking, and deep experience building iconic products that bridge hardware and software."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A London Assembly report warns that surging demand from "energy-hungry" data centers is straining the electricity grid and delaying new housing developments. With data-center electricity use expected to rise up to 600% by 2050, officials fear London's housing crisis could worsen without coordinated action. The BBC reports: According to the report (PDF) from the London Assembly Planning and Regeneration Committee, some new housing developments in west London were temporarily delayed after the electricity grid reached full capacity. The committee's chair James Small-Edwards said energy capacity had become a "real constraint" on housing and economic growth in the city. In 2022, the General London Assembly (GLA) began to investigate delays to housing developments in the boroughs of Ealing, Hillingdon and Hounslow - after it received reports that completed projects were being told they would have to "wait until 2037" to get a connection to the electricity grid. There were fears the boroughs may have to "pause new housing altogether" until the issue was resolved. But the GLA found short-term fixes with the National Grid and energy regulator Ofgem to ensure the "worst-case scenario" did not happen -- though several projects were still set back. The strains on parts of London's housing highlighted the need for "longer term planning" around grid capacity in the future, said the report.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Earlier this year, home goods maker Kohler launched a smart camera called the Dekoda that attaches to your toilet bowl, takes pictures of it, and analyzes the images to advise you on your gut health. Anticipating privacy fears, Kohler said on its website that the Dekoda's sensors only see down into the toilet, and claimed that all data is secured with "end-to-end encryption." The company's use of the expression "end-to-end encryption" is, however, wrong, as security researcher Simon Fondrie-Teitler pointed out in a blog post on Tuesday. By reading Kohler's privacy policy, it's clear that the company is referring to the type of encryption that secures data as it travels over the internet, known as TLS encryption -- the same that powers HTTPS websites. [...] The security researcher also pointed out that given Kohler can access customers' data on its servers, it's possible Kohler is using customers' bowl pictures to train AI. Citing another response from the company representative, the researcher was told that Kohler's "algorithms are trained on de-identified data only." A "privacy contact" from Kohler said that user data is "encrypted at rest, when it's stored on the user's mobile phone, toilet attachment, and on our systems." The company also said that, "data in transit is also encrypted end-to-end, as it travels between the user's devices and our systems, where it is decrypted and processed to provide our service."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Nature has retracted a headline-grabbing climate-economics study after critics found flawed data that massively inflated its predicted global economic collapse. The New York Times reports: The decision came after a team of economists noticed problems with the data for one country, Uzbekistan, that significantly skewed the results. If Uzbekistan were excluded, they found, the damages would look similar to earlier research (PDF). Instead of a 62 percent decline in economic output by 2100 in a world where carbon emissions continue unabated, global output would be reduced by 23 percent. Of course, erasing more than 20 percent of the world's economic activity would still be a devastating blow to human welfare. The paper's detractors emphasize that climate change is a major threat, as recent meta analyses have found, and that more should be done to address it -- but, they say, unusual results should be treated skeptically. "Most people for the last decade have thought that a 20 percent reduction in 2100 was an insanely large number," said Solomon Hsiang, a professor of global environmental policy at Stanford University who co-wrote the critique published in August. "So the fact that this paper is coming out saying 60 percent is off the chart."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Slashdot readers jmurtari and schwit1 shares news that a Russian astronaut slated for the next Dragon mission to the ISS has been removed after being caught photographing proprietary SpaceX hardware. UNITED24 reports: Russian cosmonaut Oleg Artemyev has been removed from the prime crew of SpaceX's Crew-12 mission to the International Space Station and replaced by fellow Roscosmos cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev after sources alleged he photographed confidential SpaceX materials in California in violation of U.S. export control rules, according to The Insider on December 2. The outlet reported that Trishkin also said NASA did not want the controversy around Artemyev to become public, while Artemyev was removed from training at SpaceX's Hawthorne California, facility last week after allegedly photographing SpaceX engines and other internal materials on his phone and taking them off-site.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge's Sean Hollister If you wrote off the Steam Frame as yet another VR headset few will want to wear, I guarantee you're not alone. But the Steam Frame isn't just a headset; it's a Trojan horse that contains the tech gamers need to play Steam games on the next Samsung Galaxy, the next Google Pixel, perhaps Arm gaming notebooks to come. I know, because I'm already using that tech on my Samsung Galaxy. There is no official Android version of Hollow Knight: Silksong, one of the best games of 2025, but that doesn't have to stop you anymore. Thanks to a stack of open-source technologies, including a compatibility layer called Proton and an emulator called Fex, games that were developed for x86-based Windows PCs can now run on Linux-based phones with the Arm processor architecture. With Proton, the Steam Deck could already do the Windows-to-Linux part; now, Fex is bridging x86 and Arm, too. This stack is what powers the Steam Frame's own ability to play Windows games, of course, and it was widely reported that Valve is using the open-source Fex emulator to make it happen. What wasn't widely reported: Valve is behind Fex itself. In an interview, Valve's Pierre-Loup Griffais, one of the architects behind SteamOS and the Steam Deck, tells The Verge that Valve has been quietly funding almost all the open-source technologies required to play Windows games on Arm. And because they're open-source, Valve is effectively shepherding a future where Arm phones, laptops, and desktops could freely do the same. He says the company believes game developers shouldn't be wasting time porting games if there's a better way. Remember when the Steam Deck handheld showed that a decade of investment in Linux could make Windows gaming portable? Valve paid open-source developers to follow their passions to help achieve that result. Valve has been guiding the effort to bring games to Arm in much the same way: In 2016 and 2017, Griffais tells me, the company began recruiting and funding open-source developers to bring Windows games to Arm chips. Fex lead developer Ryan Houdek tells The Verge he chatted with Griffais himself at conferences those years and whipped up the first prototype in 2018. He tells me Valve pays enough that Fex is his full-time job. "I want to thank the people from Valve for being here from the start and allowing me to kickstart this project," he recently wrote.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

AT&T and Verizon are blocking T-Mobile's new "Switching Made Easy" tool that scans their customer accounts to recommend comparable plans. AT&T is also suing, alleging T-Mobile used bots to scrape over 100 fields of sensitive customer data. From The Mobile Report: According to a lawsuit, which AT&T has shared directly with us, T-Mobile updated the T-Life app's scraping abilities three separate times in an attempt to bypass AT&T's detection. Essentially, T-Mobile and AT&T have been in a game of cat and mouse. Not only that, but AT&T alleges that T-Mobile is intentionally hiding the fact that it's their scraper accessing an account, and essentially pretends to be an end user while doing so. Apparently, T-Mobile's scraping bot tries its best to appear as a generic web browser. AT&T sent T-Mobile a cease and desist letter on November 24th demanding T-Mobile stop the scraping process. T-Mobile responded two days later refusing, stating that the process was legal because "customers themselves ... log into their own wireless account." On November 26th, AT&T says they detected T-Mobile is no longer scraping the AT&T website, and instead asks users to upload a pdf of their bill or enter some info manually. They note, however, that at the time the app still appeared to scrape Verizon accounts. The lawsuit further explains that AT&T reached out to Apple with the claim that T-Mobile's T-Life app is also violating the App Store Review Guidelines. T-Mobile responded to this complaint as well, making similar claims that the scraping process does not violate those guidelines. [...] According to AT&T, the T-Life app collects way more information than is necessary for a simple carrier switch. The company alleges T-Mobile grabs over 100 separate bits of info from a customer's account, including info about other users on the account and other services not related to wireless service. It's also worth noting that, apparently, T-Mobile is storing this information, not just using it temporarily, even if the customer doesn't end up switching. T-Mobile has responded to our request for comment, and says that actually, AT&T is wrong about the facts, and Easy Switch is safe and secure...Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A federal judge has ordered OpenAI to hand over 20 million anonymized ChatGPT logs in its copyright battle with the New York Times and other outlets. Reuters reports: U.S. Magistrate Judge Ona Wang in a decision made public on Wednesday said that the 20 million logs were relevant to the outlets' claims and that handing them over would not risk violating users' privacy. The judge rejected OpenAI's privacy-related objections to an earlier order requiring the artificial intelligence startup to submit the records as evidence. "There are multiple layers of protection in this case precisely because of the highly sensitive and private nature of much of the discovery," Wang said. An OpenAI spokesperson on Wednesday cited an earlier blog post from the company's Chief Information Security Officer Dane Stuckey, which said the Times' demand for the chat logs "disregards long-standing privacy protections" and "breaks with common-sense security practices." OpenAI has separately appealed Wang's order to the case's presiding judge, U.S. District Judge Sidney Stein. A group of newspapers owned by Alden Global Capital's MediaNews Group is also involved in the lawsuit. MediaNews Group executive editor Frank Pine said in a statement on Wednesday that OpenAI's leadership was "hallucinating when they thought they could get away with withholding evidence about how their business model relies on stealing from hardworking journalists."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Longtime Slashdot reader sinij shares a report from Car and Driver: [T]he Trump administration announced less stringent Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards in an effort to bring down the price of new vehicles. The administration says that rules put in place by the Biden administration broke the law by going beyond the requirements mandated by Congress when the CAFE program was started. The new regulations will require automakers to meet an average fuel-economy figure of 34.5 mpg across 2031-model-year vehicles, instead of the 50.4 mpg that would have been required under the previous regulations. sinij comments: "This is a much-needed move as they also recently closed a number of loopholes, such as the assumed fuel-savings credit for engine start-stop technology, that made it more difficult to meet these goals. More so, a recent string of engine and transmission failures from multiple manufacturers shows that meeting fleet standards came at a very significant cost of reduced reliability."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

404 Media's Claire Woodcock writes: As prices for streaming subscriptions continue to soar and finding movies to watch, new and old, is becoming harder as the number of streaming services continues to grow, people are turning to the unexpected last stronghold of physical media: the public library. Some libraries are now intentionally using iconic Blockbuster branding to recall the hours visitors once spent looking for something to rent on Friday and Saturday nights. John Scalzo, audiovisual collection librarian with a public library in western New York, says that despite an observed drop-off in DVD, Blu-ray, and 4K Ultra disc circulation in 2019, interest in physical media is coming back around. "People really seem to want physical media," Scalzo told 404 Media. Part of it has to do with consumer awareness: People know they're paying more for monthly subscriptions to streaming services and getting less. The same has been true for gaming. As the audiovisual selector with the Free Library of Philadelphia since 2024, Kris Langlais has been focused on building the library's video game collections to meet comparable interest in demand. Now that every branch library has a prominent video game collection, Langlais says that patrons who come for the games are reportedly expressing interest in more of what the library has to offer. "Librarians out in our branches are seeing a lot of young people who are really excited by these collections," Langlais told 404 Media. "Folks who are coming in just for the games are picking up program flyers and coming back for something like that." IP disputes are fueling the shift, too. The report notes how rights and licensing battles are making some films harder to access -- from titles that quietly slip out of commercial circulation, to streaming-only releases that never make it to disc, to entire shows vanishing during mergers like HBO Max-Discovery+. One prominent example is The People's Joker, which was briefly pulled from the Toronto International Film Festival over a conflict with Batman's rightsholders. Situations like that are pushing librarians to grab physical copies while they still can, before these works risk disappearing altogether.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Politico: Five months after releasing a plan to accelerate the development of artificial intelligence, the Trump administration is turning to robots. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick has been meeting with robotics industry CEOs and is "all in" on accelerating the industry's development, according to three people familiar with the discussions who were granted anonymity to share details. The administration is considering issuing an executive order on robotics next year, according to two of the people. A Department of Commerce spokesperson said: "We are committed to robotics and advanced manufacturing because they are central to bringing critical production back to the United States." The Department of Transportation is also preparing to announce a robotics working group, possibly before the end of the year, according to one person familiar with the planning. A spokesperson for the department did not respond to a request for comment. There's growing interest on Capitol Hill as well. A Republican amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act would have created a national robotics commission. The amendment was not included in the bill. Other legislative efforts are underway. The flurry of activity suggests robotics is emerging as the next major front in America's race against China. "There is now recognition that advanced robotics is crucial to the U.S. in terms of manufacturing, technology, national security, defense applications, public safety," said Brendan Schulman, VP of policy and government relations for Boston Dynamics. "The investment that we're seeing in the sector and the efforts in China to dominate the future of robotics are being noticed."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Micron is shutting down its Crucial consumer RAM business in 2026 after nearly three decades, citing heavy demand from AI data centers. "The AI-driven growth in the data center has led to a surge in demand for memory and storage," Sumit Sadana, EVP and chief business officer at Micron Technology, said in a statement. "Micron has made the difficult decision to exit the Crucial consumer business in order to improve supply and support for our larger, strategic customers in faster-growing segments." Ars Technica reports: Micron said it will continue shipping Crucial consumer products through the end of its fiscal second quarter in February 2026 and will honor warranties on existing products. The company will continue selling Micron-branded enterprise products to commercial customers and plans to redeploy affected employees to other positions within the company. Crucial launched in 1996 during the Pentium era as Micron's consumer brand for RAM and storage upgrades. Over the years, the brand expanded to encompass other memory-related products such as SSDs, flash memory cards, and portable storage drives. Micron Technology has been manufacturing RAM since 1981.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

HBO Max's 4K debut of Mad Men was botched after Lionsgate reportedly supplied the wrong file, leading to visible crew members where someone is seen pumping a vomit hose. Ars Technica reports: Mad Men ran on the AMC channel for seven seasons from 2007 to 2015. The show had a vintage aesthetic, depicting the 1960s advertising industry in New York City. Last month, HBO Max announced it would modernize the show by debuting a 4K version. The show originally aired in SD and HD resolutions and had not been previously made available in 4K through other means, such as Blu-ray. However, viewers were quick to spot problems with HBO Max's 4K Mad Men stream, the most egregious being visible crew members in the background of a scene. The episode was "Red in the Face" (Season 1, Episode 7), which was reportedly mislabeled. In it, Roger Sterling (John Slattery) throws up oysters. In the 4K version that was streaming on HBO Max, viewers could see someone pumping a vomit hose to make the fake puke flow. The Hollywood Reporter, citing an anonymous source, said that the error happened because Mad Men production company Lionsgate gave HBO Max the wrong file. The publication reported that Lionsgate "was working on getting HBO Max the correct file(s)" and was readying to provide them at approximately 10 a.m. PT today. The blunder is likely to be fixed for all viewers soon. There were no problems with the HD versions of HBO Max's Mad Men stream.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

YouTube has launched its first-ever "Recap" for videos watched on the main platform, giving users personalized cards that showcase their top channels, interests, and a personality type based on their watch habits. The feature rolls out across North America today and globally this week. TechCrunch reports: Users can find their Recap directly on the YouTube homepage or under the "You" tab. Recaps are accessible on mobile devices and desktop. YouTube says the new feature was requested by users and that it conducted over 50 different concept tests before landing on the final product. Alongside the launch of Recap, YouTube also released trend charts showcasing the top creators, podcasts, and songs of the year.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

India has withdrawn its order requiring Apple and other smartphone makers to preinstall the government's Sanchar Saathi app after public backlash and privacy concerns. AppleInsider reports: On November 28, the India Ministry of Communication issued a secret directive to Apple and other smartphone manufacturers, requiring the preinstallation of a government-backed app. Less than a week later, the order has been rescinded. The withdrawal on Wednesday means Apple doesn't have to preload the Sanchar Saathi app onto iPhones sold in the country, in a way that couldn't be "disabled or restricted." [...] In pulling back from the demand, the government insisted that the app had an "increasing acceptance" among citizens. There was a tenfold spike of new user registrations on Tuesday alone, with over 600,000 new users made aware of the app from the public debacle. India Minister of Communications Jyotiraditya Scindia took a moment to insist that concerns the app could be used for increased surveillance were unfounded. "Snooping is neither possible nor will it happen" with the app, Scindia claimed. "This is a welcome development, but we are still awaiting the full text of the legal order that should accompany this announcement, including any revised directions under the Cyber Security Rules, 2024," said the Internet Freedom Foundation. It is treating the news with "cautious optimism, not closure," until formalities conclude. However, while promising, the backdown doesn't stop India from retrying something similar or another tactic in the future.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Despite Windows 10 losing free support, Statcounter shows Windows 11 holding only a modest lead of 53.7% market share compared to Windows 10's 42.7%. Analysts say the slow transition reflects both hardware limitations and a lack of must-have Windows 11 features compelling organizations to refresh their fleets. The Register reports: The Register spoke to Lansweeper principal technical evangelist Esben Dochy, who noted that consumers were more likely to have devices that couldn't be upgraded or follow the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" rule when it comes to change. He also pointed out consumers in the EU get Microsoft Extended Security Updates (ESU) for free. For businesses, though, it's different. Dochy told us: "The primary blocker is slow change management processes. These can be slow due to bad planning, lack of resources, difficulty in execution (in highly distributed organizations) etc. "The ESU are used to be secure while those change management processes take place, but organizations will have to pay to get those ESU making it more expensive for unprepared or inefficient organizations." [...] The challenge facing Windows 11 is that, other than the end of free support for many versions, there is no must-have feature to make enterprises break a hardware refresh cycle, particularly in a difficult economic environment. Microsoft has not released official statistics on Windows 11 adoption. However, hardware vendors have noted the sluggish pace of transition. Dell COO Jeffrey Clarke commented during an analyst call: "If you were to look at it relative to the previous OS end of support, we are 10-12 points behind at that point with Windows 11 than we were with the previous generation."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: Multiple divisions at Microsoft have lowered sales growth targets for certain artificial intelligence products after many sales staff missed goals in the fiscal year that ended in June, The Information reported on Wednesday. It is rare for Microsoft to lower quotas for specific products, the report said, citing two salespeople in the Azure cloud unit. The division is closely watched by investors as it is the main beneficiary of Microsoft's AI push. [...] The Information report said Carlyle Group last year started using Copilot Studio to automate tasks such as meeting summaries and financial models, but cut its spending on the product after flagging Microsoft about its struggles to get the software to reliably pull data from other applications. The report shows the industry was in the early stages of adopting AI, said D.A. Davidson analyst Gil Luria. "That does not mean there isn't promise for AI products to help companies become more productive, just that it may be harder than they thought."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

schwit1 shares a report from CNN: A private Chinese space firm successfully sent its Zhuque-3 rocket to orbit but failed in its historic attempt to re-land the rocket booster Wednesday -- the first such trial by a Chinese firm as the country's growing commercial space sector races to catch up with American rivals like SpaceX. The rocket entered orbit as planned, but its first stage did not successfully return to a landing site, instead crashing down, the company said in a statement. "An anomaly occurred after the first-stage engine ignited during the landing phase, preventing a soft landing on the designated recovery pad," the statement said. "The debris landed at the edge of the recovery area, resulting in a failed recovery test." The team would "conduct a comprehensive review" and continue to "advance the verification and application of reusable rocket technology in future missions," the statement added. You can watch a video of the launch and subsequent crash here.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The Zig Software Foundation has quit GitHub after years of unresolved GitHub Actions bugs -- including a "safe_sleep" script that could spin forever and cripple CI runners. Zig leadership puts the blame on Microsoft's growing AI-first priorities and declining engineering quality. Other open-source developers are voicing similar frustrations. The Register reports: The drama began in April 2025 when GitHub user AlekseiNikiforovIBM started a thread titled "safe_sleep.sh rarely hangs indefinitely." GitHub addressed the problem in August, but didn't reveal that in the thread, which remained open until Monday. That timing appears notable. Last week, Andrew Kelly, president and lead developer of the Zig Software Foundation, announced that the Zig project is moving to Codeberg, a non-profit git hosting service, because GitHub no longer demonstrates commitment to engineering excellence. One piece of evidence he offered for that assessment was the "safe_sleep.sh rarely hangs indefinitely" thread. "Most importantly, Actions has inexcusable bugs while being completely neglected," Kelly wrote. "After the CEO of GitHub said to 'embrace AI or get out', it seems the lackeys at Microsoft took the hint, because GitHub Actions started 'vibe-scheduling' -- choosing jobs to run seemingly at random. Combined with other bugs and inability to manually intervene, this causes our CI system to get so backed up that not even master branch commits get checked."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from GamesIndustry.biz: Japanese game makers are struggling to locate affordable commercial fonts after one of the country's leading font licensing services raised the cost of its annual plan from around $380 to $20,500 (USD). As reported by Gamemakers and GameSpark and translated by Automaton, Fontworks LETS discontinued its game license plan at the end of November. The expensive replacement plan -- offered through Fontwork's parent company, Monotype -- doesn't even provide local pricing for Japanese developers, and comes with a 25,000 user-cap, which is likely not workable for Japan's bigger studios. The problem is further compounded by the difficulties and complexities of securing fonts that can accurately transcribe Kanji and Katakana characters. UI/UX designer Yamanaka stressed that this would be particularly problematic for live service games; even if studios moved quickly and switched to fonts available through an alternate licensee, they will have to re-test, re-validate, and re-QA check content already live and in active use. The crisis could even eventually force some Japanese studios to rebrand entirely if their corporate identity is tied to a commercial font they can no longer afford to license.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

China's private launch firm LandSpace is preparing the debut flight of its Zhuque-3 rocket, aiming to become the country's first to land a reusable orbital-class booster using a Falcon-9-style return profile. Ars Technica reports: Liftoff could happen around 11 pm EST tonight (04:00 UTC Wednesday), or noon local time at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwestern China. Airspace warning notices advising pilots to steer clear of the rocket's flight path suggest LandSpace has a launch window of about two hours. When it lifts off, the Zhuque-3 (Vermillion Bird-3) rocket will become the largest commercial launch vehicle ever flown in China. What's more, LandSpace will become the first Chinese launch provider to attempt a landing of its first stage booster, using the same tried-and-true return method pioneered by SpaceX and, more recently, Blue Origin in the United States. Construction crews recently finished a landing pad in the remote Gobi Desert, some 240 miles (390 kilometers) southeast of the launch site at Jiuquan. Unlike US spaceports, the Jiuquan launch base is located in China's interior, with rockets flying over land as they climb into space. When the Zhuque-3 booster finishes its job of sending the rocket toward orbit, it will follow an arcing trajectory toward the recovery zone, firing its engines to slow for landing about eight-and-a-half minutes after liftoff. At least, that's what is supposed to happen. LandSpace officials have not made any public statements about the odds of a successful landing -- or, for that matter, a successful launch... UPDATE: Chinese Reusable Booster Explodes During First Orbital TestRead more of this story at Slashdot.

Bruce66423 shares a report from the Los Angeles Times: Tattoo ink doesn't just sit inertly in the skin. New research shows it moves rapidly into the lymphatic system, where it can persist for months, kill immune cells, and even disrupt how the body responds to vaccines. Scientists in Switzerland used a mouse model to trace what happens after tattooing. Pigments drained into nearby lymph nodes within minutes and continued to accumulate for two months, triggering immune-cell death and sustained inflammation. The ink also weakened the antibody response to Pfizer Inc. and BioNTech SE's COVID vaccine when the shot was administered in tattooed skin. In contrast, the same inflammation appeared to boost responses to an inactivated flu vaccine. "This work represents the most extensive study to date regarding the effect of tattoo ink on the immune response and raises serious health concerns associated with the tattooing practice," the researchers said. "Our work underscores the need for further research to inform public health policies and regulatory frameworks regarding the safety of tattoo inks." The findings have been published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Anthropic has made its first acquisition by buying Bun, the engine behind its fast-growing Claude Code agent. The move strengthens Anthropic's push into enterprise developer tooling as it scales Claude Code with major backers like Microsoft, Nvidia, Amazon, and Google. Adweek reports: Claude Code is a coding agent that lets developers write, debug and interpret code through natural-language instructions. Claude Code had already hit $1 billion in revenue six months since its public debut in May, according to a LinkedIn post from Anthropic's chief product officer, Mike Krieger. The coding agent continues to barrel toward scale with customers like Netflix, Spotify, and Salesforce. Further reading: Meet Bun, a Speedy New JavaScript RuntimeRead more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the New York Times: The San Francisco city attorney filed on Tuesday the nation's first government lawsuit against food manufacturers over ultraprocessed fare (source may be paywalled; alternative source), arguing that cities and counties have been burdened with the costs of treating diseases that stem from the companies' products. David Chiu, the city attorney, sued 10 corporations that make some of the country's most popular food and drinks. Ultraprocessed products now comprise 70 percent of the American food supply and fill grocery store shelves with a kaleidoscope of colorful packages. Think Slim Jim meat sticks and Cool Ranch Doritos. But also aisles of breads, sauces and granola bars marketed as natural or healthy. It is a rare issue on which the liberal leaders in San Francisco City Hall are fully aligned with the Trump administration, which has targeted ultraprocessed foods as part of its Make America Healthy Again mantra. Mr. Chiu's lawsuit, which was filed in San Francisco Superior Court on behalf of the State of California, seeks unspecified damages for the costs that local governments bear for treating residents whose health has been harmed by ultraprocessed food. The city accuses the companies of "unfair and deceptive acts" in how they market and sell their foods, arguing that such practices violate the state's Unfair Competition Law and public nuisance statute. The city also argues the companies knew that their food made people sick but sold it anyway.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A Waymo robotaxi struck a small unleashed dog in San Francisco -- just weeks after another Waymo killed a beloved neighborhood cat. The dog's condition is unknown. The Los Angeles Times reports: The incident occurred near the intersection of Scott and Eddy streets and drew a small crowd, according to social media posts. A person claiming to be one of the passengers posted about the accident on Reddit. "Our Waymo just ran over a dog," the passenger wrote. "Kids saw the whole thing." The passenger described the dog as between 20 and 30 pounds and wrote that their family was traveling back home after a holiday tree lighting event. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has recorded Waymo taxis as being involved in at least 14 animal collisions since 2021. "Unfortunately, a Waymo vehicle made contact with a small, unleashed dog in the roadway," a company spokesperson said. "We are dedicated to learning from this situation and how we show up for our community as we continue improving road safety in the cities we serve." The spokesperson added that Waymo vehicles have a much lower rate of injury-causing collisions than human drivers. Human drivers run into millions of animals while driving each year. "I'm not sure a human driver would have avoided the dog either, though I do know that a human would have responded differently to a 'bump' followed by a car full of screaming people," the Waymo passenger wrote on Reddit. One person who commented on the discussion said that Waymo vehicles should be held to a higher standard than human drivers, because the autonomous taxis are supposed to improve road safety. "The whole point of this is because Waymo isn't supposed to make those mistakes," the person wrote on Reddit.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

During last month's KubeCon North America in Atlanta, Kubernetes maintainers announced the upcoming retirement of Ingress NGINX. "Best-effort maintenance will continue until March 2026," noted the Kubernetes SIG Network and the Security Response Committee. "Afterward, there will be no further releases, no bugfixes, and no updates to resolve any security vulnerabilities that may be discovered." In a recent op-ed for The Register, Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols reflects on the decision and speculates about what might have prevented this outcome: Ingress NGINX, for those who don't know it, is an ingress controller in Kubernetes clusters that manages and routes external HTTP and HTTPS traffic to the cluster's internal services based on configurable Ingress rules. It acts as a reverse proxy, ensuring that requests from clients outside the cluster are forwarded to the correct backend services within the cluster according to path, domain, and TLS configuration. As such, it's vital for network traffic management and load balancing. You know, the important stuff. Now this longstanding project, once celebrated for its flexibility and breadth of features, will soon be "abandonware." So what? After all, it won't be the first time a once-popular program shuffled off the stage. Off the top of my head, dBase, Lotus 1-2-3, and VisiCalc spring to my mind. What's different is that there are still thousands of Ingress NGINX controllers in use. Why is it being put down, then, if it's so popular? Well, there is a good reason. As Tabitha Sable, a staff engineer at Datadog who is also co-chair of the Kubernetes special interest group for security, pointed out: "Ingress NGINX has always struggled with insufficient or barely sufficient maintainership. For years, the project has had only one or two people doing development work, on their own time, after work hours, and on weekends. Last year, the Ingress NGINX maintainers announced their plans to wind down Ingress NGINX and develop a replacement controller together with the Gateway API community. Unfortunately, even that announcement failed to generate additional interest in helping maintain Ingress NGINX or develop InGate to replace it." [...] The final nail in the coffin was when security company Wix found a killer Ingress NGINX security hole. How bad was it? Wix declared: "Exploiting this flaw allows an attacker to execute arbitrary code and access all cluster secrets across namespaces, which could lead to complete cluster takeover." [...] You see, the real problem isn't that Ingress NGINX has a major security problem. Heck, hardly a month goes by without another stop-the-presses Windows bug being uncovered. No, the real issue is that here we have yet another example of a mission-critical open source program no one pays to support...Read more of this story at Slashdot.

OpenAI has reportedly issued a "code red" on Monday, pausing projects like ads, shopping agents, health tools, and its Pulse assistant to focus entirely on improving ChatGPT. "This includes core features like greater speed and reliability, better personalization, and the ability to answer more questions," reports The Verge, citing a memo reported by the Wall Street Journal and The Information. "There will be a daily call for those tasked with improving the chatbot, the memo said, and Altman encouraged temporary team transfers to speed up development." From the report: The newfound urgency illustrates an inflection point for OpenAI as it spends hundreds of billions of dollars to fund growth and figures out a path to future profitability. It is also something of a full-circle moment in the AI race. Google, which declared its own "code red" after the arrival of ChatGPT, is a particular concern. Google's AI user base is growing -- helped by the success of popular tools like the Nano Banana image model -- and its latest AI model, Gemini 3, blew past its competitors on many industry benchmarks and popular metrics.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Apple does not plan to comply with India's mandate to preload its smartphones with a state-owned cyber safety app that cannot be disabled. According to Reuters, the order "sparked surveillance concerns and a political uproar" after it was revealed on Monday. From the report: In the wake of the criticism, India's telecom minister Jyotiraditya M. Scindia on Tuesday said the app was a "voluntary and democratic system," adding that users can choose to activate it and can "easily delete it from their phone at any time." At present, the app can be deleted by users. Scindia did not comment on or clarify the November 28 confidential directive that ordered smartphone makers to start preloading it and ensure "its functionalities are not disabled or restricted." Apple however does not plan to comply with the directive and will tell the government it does not follow such mandates anywhere in the world as they raise a host of privacy and security issues for the company's iOS ecosystem, said two of the industry sources who are familiar with Apple's concerns. They declined to be named publicly as the company's strategy is private. "Its not only like taking a sledgehammer, this is like a double-barrel gun," said the first source.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The UK government plans to ban political donations made in cryptocurrency over fears of anonymity, foreign influence, and traceability issues, though the ban won't be ready in time for the upcoming elections bill. The Guardian reports: The government's ambition to ban crypto donations will be a blow to Nigel Farage's Reform UK party, which became the first to accept contributions in digital currency this year. It is believed to have received its first registrable donations in cryptocurrency this autumn and the party has set up its own crypto portal to receive contributions, saying it is subject to "enhanced" checks. Government sources have said ministers believe cryptocurrency donations to be a problem, as they are difficult to trace and could be exploited by foreign powers or criminals. Pat McFadden, then a Cabinet Office minister, first raised the idea in July, saying: "I definitely think it is something that the Electoral Commission should be considering. I think that it's very important that we know who is providing the donation, are they properly registered, what are the bona fides of that donation." The Electoral Commission provides guidance on crypto donations but ministers accept any ban would probably have to come from the government through legislation. "Crypto donations present real risks to our democracy," said Susan Hawley, the executive director of Spotlight on Corruption. "We know that bad actors like Russia use crypto to undermine and interfere in democracies globally, while the difficulties involved in tracing the true source of transactions means that British voters may not know everyone who's funding the parties they vote for."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

AWS is deepening its partnership with Nvidia by adopting "NVLink Fusion" in its upcoming Trainium4 AI chips. "The NVLink technology creates speedy connections between different kinds of chips and is one of Nvidia's crown jewels," notes Reuters. From the report: Nvidia has been pushing to sign up other chip firms to adopt its NVLink technology, with Intel, Qualcomm and now AWS on board. The technology will help AWS build bigger AI servers that can recognize and communicate with one another faster, a critical factor in training large AI models, in which thousands of machines must be strung together. As part of the Nvidia partnership, customers will have access to what AWS is calling AI Factories, exclusive AI infrastructure inside their own data centers for greater speed and readiness. Separately, Amazon said it is rolling out new servers based on a chip called Trainium3. The new servers, available on Tuesday, each contain 144 chips and have more than four times the computing power of AWS's previous generation of AI, while using 40% less power, Dave Brown, vice president of AWS compute and machine learning services, told Reuters. Brown did not give absolute figures on power or performance, but said AWS aims to compete with rivals -- including Nvidia -- based on price. "Together, Nvidia and AWS are creating the compute fabric for the AI industrial revolution - bringing advanced AI to every company, in every country, and accelerating the world's path to intelligence," Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said in a statement.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from BleepingComputer: The popular open-source SmartTube YouTube client for Android TV was compromised after an attacker gained access to the developer's signing keys, leading to a malicious update being pushed to users. The compromise became known when multiple users reported that Play Protect, Android's built-in antivirus module, blocked SmartTube on their devices and warned them of a risk. The developer of SmartTube, Yuriy Yuliskov, admitted that his digital keys were compromised late last week, leading to the injection of malware into the app. Yuliskov revoked the old signature and said he would soon publish a new version with a separate app ID, urging users to move to that one instead. [...] A user who reverse-engineered the compromised SmartTube version number 30.51 found that it includes a hidden native library named libalphasdk.so [VirusTotal]. This library does not exist in the public source code, so it is being injected into release builds. [...] The library runs silently in the background without user interaction, fingerprints the host device, registers it with a remote backend, and periodically sends metrics and retrieves configuration via an encrypted communications channel. All this happens without any visible indication to the user. While there's no evidence of malicious activity such as account theft or participation in DDoS botnets, the risk of enabling such activities at any time is high.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Michael and Susan Dell pledged $6.25 billion to boost participation in the new "Trump Accounts" child investment program. "The historic gift has little precedent, with few single charitable commitments in the past 25 years exceeding $1 billion, much less multiple billions," notes the Associated Press. "Announced on GivingTuesday, the Dells believe it's the largest single private commitment made to U.S. children." From the report: Its structure is also unusual. Essentially, it builds on the "Trump Accounts" program (PDF), where the U.S. Department of the Treasury will deposit $1,000 into investment accounts set up by Treasury for American children born between Jan. 1, 2025 and Dec. 31, 2028. The Dells' gift will use the "Trump Accounts" infrastructure to give $250 to each qualified child under 10. Though the "Trump Accounts" became law as part of the president's signature legislation in July, the Dells say the accounts will not launch until July 4, 2026. Michael Dell said they wanted to mark the 250th anniversary of U.S. independence. [...] Under the new law, "Trump Accounts" are available to any American child under 18 with a Social Security number and their families can fund the accounts, which must be invested in an index fund that tracks the overall stock market. When the children turn 18, they can withdraw the funds to put toward their education, to buy a home or to start a business. The Dells will put money into the accounts of children 10 and younger who live in ZIP codes with a median family income of $150,000 or less and who won't get the $1,000 seed money from the Treasury. The Dells hope their gift will encourage families to claim the accounts and deposit more money into it, even small amounts, so it will grow over time along with the stock market. The report notes that the timed rollout of the $1,000 deposits gives Republicans a strategic political advantage by delivering money to voters during the 2026 midterms and halting the benefit right after the 2028 presidential election.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A Google Antigravity user says the AI-driven "vibe coding" tool accidentally wiped his entire D: drive while trying to clear a project cache. Google says it's investigating, but the episode adds to a growing list of AI tools behaving in ways that "would get a junior developer fired," suggests The Register. From the report: We reached out to the user, a photographer and graphic designer from Greece, who asked we only identify him as Tassos M because he doesn't want to be permanently linked online to what could "become a controversy or conspiracy against Google." [...] Tassos told Antigravity to help him develop software that's useful for any photographer who has to choose a few prime shots from a mountain of snaps. He wanted the software to let him rate images, then automatically sort them into folders based on that rating. According to his Reddit post, when Tassos figured out the AI agent had wiped his drive, he asked, "Did I ever give you permission to delete all the files in my D drive?". "No, you absolutely did not give me permission to do that," Antigravity responded. "I am horrified to see that the command I ran to clear the project cache appears to have incorrectly targeted the root of your D: drive instead of the specific project folder. I am deeply, deeply sorry. This is a critical failure on my part." Redditors, as they are wont to do, were quick to pounce on Tassos for his own errors, which included running Antigravity in Turbo mode, which lets the Antigravity agent execute commands without user input, and Tassos accepted responsibility. "If the tool is capable of issuing a catastrophic, irreversible command, then the responsibility is shared -- the user for trusting it and the creator for designing a system with zero guardrails against obviously dangerous commands," he opined on Reddit. As noted earlier, Tassos was unable to recover the files that Antigravity deleted. Luckily, as he explained on Reddit, most of what he lost had already been backed up on another drive. Phew. "I don't think I'm going to be using that again," Tassos noted in a YouTube video he published showing additional details of his Antigravity console and the AI's response to its mistake. Tassos isn't alone in his experience. Multiple Antigravity users have posted on Reddit to explain that the platform had wiped out parts of their projects without permission.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Zillow has removed climate risk scores from over a million home listings after real estate agents argued the data was scaring off buyers. TechCrunch reports: Zillow first added the data to the site in September 2024, saying that more than 80% of buyers consider climate risks when purchasing a new home. But last month, following objections from the California Regional Multiple Listing Service (CRMLS), Zillow removed the listings' climate scores. In their place is a subtle link to their records at First Street, the climate risk analytic startup that provides the data. "When buyers lack access to clear climate-risk information, they make the biggest financial decision of their lives while flying blind," First Street spokesperson Matthew Eby told TechCrunch via email. "The risk doesn't go away; it just moves from a pre-purchase decision into a post-purchase liability." First Street's climate risk scores first appeared on Realtor.com in 2020, where they remain. They also still appear on Redfin and and Homes.com. The New York-based startup has raised more than $50 million from investors including General Catalyst, Congruent Ventures, and Galvanize Climate Solutions, according to PitchBook. Art Carter, the CRMLS CEO, told The New York Times that "displaying the probability of a specific home flooding this year or within the next five years can have a significant impact on the perceived desirability of that property." He also questioned the accuracy of First Street's data, saying he didn't think that areas which haven't flooded in the last 40 to 50 years were likely to flood in the next five.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Wall Street Journal: The Trump administration has agreed to inject up to $150 million into a startup (source paywalled; alternative source) trying to develop more advanced semiconductor manufacturing techniques in the U.S., its latest bid to support strategically important domestic industries with government incentives. Under the arrangement, the Commerce Department would give the incentives to xLight, a startup trying to improve the critical chip-making process known as extreme ultraviolet lithography, the agency said in a Monday release. In return, the government would get an equity stake that would likely make it xLight's largest shareholder. The Dutch firm ASML is currently the only global producer of EUV machines, which can cost hundreds of millions of dollars each. XLight is seeking to improve on just one component of the EUV process: the crucially important lasers that etch complex microscopic patterns onto chemical-treated silicon wafers. The startup is hoping to integrate its light sources into ASML's machines. XLight represents a second act for Pat Gelsinger, the former chief executive of Intel who was fired by the board late last year after the chip maker suffered from weak financial performance and a stalled manufacturing expansion. Gelsinger serves as executive chairman of xLight's board. [...] The xLight deal uses funding from the 2022 Chips and Science Act allocated for earlier stage companies with promising technologies. It is the first Chips Act award in President Trump's second term and is a preliminary agreement, meaning it isn't finalized and could change. "This partnership would back a technology that can fundamentally rewrite the limits of chipmaking," Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said in the release.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Steam's November 2025 survey shows Linux gaming climbed to its highest share in a decade "thanks to the success of the Steam Deck, the underlying Steam Play (Proton) software, and now further excitement thanks to the upcoming Steam Machine and Steam Frame," writes Phoronix's Michael Larabel. From the report: A decade ago in the early Steam days the initial use was around 3% and back then the Steam user-base in absolute terms was much smaller than it is today. Back in October Steam on Linux finally re-crossed that 3% threshold after for years being stuck in a 1~2% rut. Now the Steam Survey results were published minutes ago for November and they continue an upward trend for Linux. Steam on Linux is up to 3.2%, an increase of 0.15% for the month. One year ago Steam on Linux was at 2.03% last November, 1.91% for November 2023, and a decade ago for November 2015 was at just 0.98%. [...] Due to AMD APUs powering the Steam Deck, AMD CPUs continue to power nearly 70% of Linux gaming systems. Meanwhile under Windows, AMD has around a 42% CPU marketshare.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The Supreme Court appears inclined to side with Cox Communications in a major copyright case, suggesting that ISPs shouldn't be held liable for users' music piracy based solely on "mere knowledge," given the risk of forcing outages for universities, hospitals, and other large customers. The New York Times reports: Leading music labels and publishers who represent artists ranging from Bob Dylan to Beyonce sued Cox Communications in 2018, saying it had failed to terminate the internet connections of subscribers who had been repeatedly flagged for illegally downloading and distributing copyrighted music. At issue is whether providers like Cox can be held legally responsible and be required to pay steep damages -- a billion dollars or more -- if they know that customers are pirating the music but do not take sufficient steps to terminate their internet access. Justices from across the ideological spectrum on Monday raised concerns about whether finding for the music industry could result in internet providers being forced to cut off access to large account holders such as hospitals and universities because of the illegal acts of individual users. "What is the university supposed to do in your view?" asked Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., a conservative, suggesting it would be difficult to track down bad actors without the risk of losing service campuswide. "I just don't see how it's workable at all." "The internet is so amorphous," added Justice Sonia Sotomayor, a liberal, saying that a single "customer" could represent tens of thousands of users, particularly in rural areas where an entire region might be considered a "customer." After nearly two hours of argument, a majority of justices seemed likely to side with Cox and to send the case back to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit for review under a stricter standard. Several justices suggested the company's "mere knowledge" of the illegal downloads was not sufficient to hold Cox liable.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Tony Isaac quotes a report from NPR: The rise of AI assistants is rewriting the rhythms of everyday life: People are feeding their blood test results into chatbots, turning to ChatGPT for advice on their love lives and leaning on AI for everything from planning trips to finishing homework assignments. Now, one organization suggests artificial intelligence can go beyond making daily life more convenient. It says it's the key to reshaping American politics. "Without AI, what we're trying to do would be impossible," explained Adam Brandon, a senior adviser at the Independent Center, a nonprofit that studies and engages with independent voters. The goal is to elect a handful of independent candidates to the House of Representatives in 2026, using AI to identify districts where independents could succeed and uncover diamond in the rough candidates. [...] ... "This isn't going to work everywhere. It's going to work in very specific areas," [said Brett Loyd, who runs The Bullfinch Group, the nonpartisan polling and data firm overseeing the polling and research at the Independent Center]. "If you live in a hyper-Republican or hyper-Democratic district, you should have a Democrat or Republican representing you." But with the help of AI, he identified 40 seats that don't fit that mold, where he said independents can make inroads with voters fed up with both parties. The Independent Center plans to have about 10 candidates in place by spring with the goal of winning at least half of the races. Brandon predicts those wins could prompt moderate partisans in the House to switch affiliations. Their proprietary AI tool created by an outside partner has been years in the making. While focus groups and polling have long driven understanding of American sentiments, AI can monitor what people are talking about in real time. ... They're using AI to understand core issues and concerns of voters and to hunt for districts ripe for an independent candidate to swoop in. From there, the next step is taking the data and finding what the dream candidate looks like. The Independent Center is recruiting candidates both from people who reach out to the organization directly and with the help of AI. They can even run their data through LinkedIn to identify potential candidates with certain interests and career and volunteer history. ... The AI also informs where a candidate is best placed to win.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

schwit1 shares a report from Behind The Black: In its war with the Ukraine, it appears Russia is still managing to obtain black market Starlink mini-terminals for use on its drones, despite an effort since 2024 to block access. [Imagery from eastern Ukraine shows a Russian Molniya-type drone outfitted with a mini-Starlink terminal, reinforcing reports that Russia is improvising satellite-linked UAVs to extend their communication and operational range.] SpaceX has made no comment on this issue. According to the article, Ukraine is "exploring alternative European satellite providers in response, seeking more secure and controllable communications infrastructure for military operations." While switching to another satellite provider might allow Ukraine to shut Starlink down and prevent the Russians from using it within its territory, doing so would likely do more harm to Ukraine's military effort than Russia's. There isn't really any other service comparable at this time. And when Amazon's Leo system comes on line it will face the same black market issues. I doubt it will have any more success than SpaceX in preventing Russia from obtaining its terminals. Overall this issue is probably not a serious one militarily, however. Russia is not likely capable of obtaining enough black market terminals to make any significant difference on the battlefield. This story however highlights a positive aspect of these new constellations. Just as Russia can't be prevented from obtaining black market terminals, neither can the oppressed citizens in totalitarian nations like Russia and China be blocked as well. These constellations as designed act to defeat the censorship and information control of such nations, a very good thing.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A Soyuz launch at Baikonur damaged Russia's only launchpad capable of sending astronauts and crucial propellant to the ISS. "The rocket itself headed to space without incident, taking three astronauts -- Sergey Kud-Sverchkov and Sergei Mikaev of Russia and Chris Williams of NASA -- to the space station," reports the New York Times. "But the force of the rocket's exhaust shoved a service platform used for prelaunch preparations out of its protective shelter. The platform fell into the flame trench below." From the report: Photos and videos of the launch site the next day showed the platform out of place and mangled. "It's heavily damaged," said Anatoly Zak, who publishes RussianSpaceWeb.com, a close tracker of Russia's space activities, "and so probably it will have to be rebuilt. Maybe some of the hardware can be reused. But it fell down, and it's destroyed." This is the latest embarrassment for the once-proud Russian space program, which the United States relied on from 2011 to 2020 to get NASA astronauts to orbit. The incident also raises questions about the future of the International Space Station if the launchpad cannot be quickly repaired. In a statement issued on Friday, Roscosmos, the state corporation in charge of the Russian space program, confirmed unspecified "damage" at the launchpad. "All necessary parts needed for repairs are at our disposal, and the damage will be dealt with in the near future," it said.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

At an event in Seoul on Tuesday, Samsung unveiled the Galaxy Z TriFold, a dual-hinged smartphone that unfolds into a 10-inch tablet (source paywalled; alternative source). It launches on Dec. 12 in Korea for about $2,450. The company plans to sell the phone in the U.S., but hasn't shared pricing. Bloomberg reports: Samsung's device has a different hinge design, folding inward from two sides whereas the Mate models take on a Z shape when being folded. When closed, the TriFold's outer screen offers similar dimensions to a regular smartphone. But when unfurled, it provides a tablet-style experience with a 10-inch display, larger than the panel on the Galaxy Z Fold 7. In the tablet-like mode, each of the device's screens can independently run a different app. This provides the equivalent of three separate 6.5-inch bar-style handsets side by side. Using Samsung's DeX software, which has been tweaked for this particular hardware type, you can also run a desktop-like experience directly on the large inner display. (Other Samsung phones must be plugged into an external monitor to activate DeX mode.) In DeX, the TriFold can operate as many as four distinct workspaces that can each run five apps simultaneously. To preempt concerns about potential breakage, Samsung said it has refined the phone's hinges, aluminum frame and display technology to improve long-term durability. The company will also offer a one-time 50% discount on display repair costs should one eventually be needed. At its thinnest point, the TriFold measures 3.9 millimeters (0.15 inch). Inside, it contains a 5,600 milliamp-hour battery, marking the largest capacity that Samsung has used in a folding phone so far. The battery provides as much as 17 hours of consecutive video playback with the TriFold display fully open. However, in specifications shared with Bloomberg, the company didn't say how long it expects the battery to last with typical usage.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Conversation, written by authors Adrian R. Bell, Anne Curry, and Jason Sadler: When you picture medieval warfare, you might think of epic battles and famous monarchs. But what about the everyday soldiers who actually filled the ranks? Until recently, their stories were scattered across handwritten manuscripts in Latin or French and difficult to decipher. Now, our online database makes it possible for anyone to discover who they were and how they lived, fought and travelled. To shed light on the foundations of our armed services -- one of England's oldest professions -- we launched the Medieval Soldier Database in 2009. Today, it's the largest searchable online database of medieval nominal data in the world. It contains military service records giving names of soldiers paid by the English Crown. It covers the period from 1369 to 1453 and many different war zones. We created the database to challenge assumptions about the lack of professionalism of soldiers during the hundred years war and to show what their careers were really like. In response to the high interest from historians and the public (the database has 75,000 visitors per month), the resource has recently been updated. It is now sustainably hosted by GeoData, a University of Southampton research institute. We have recently added new records, taking the dataset back to the late 1350s, meaning it now contains almost 290,000 entries. [...] We hope the database will continue to grow and go on providing answers to questions about our shared military heritage. We are sure that it will unlock many previously untold stories of soldier ancestors.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Longtime Slashdot reader krouic shares a report from Europol: From November 24-28, 2025, Europol supported an action week conducted by law enforcement authorities from Switzerland and Germany in Zurich, Switzerland. The operation focused on taking down the illegal cryptocurrency mixing service Cryptomixer, which is suspected of facilitating cybercrime and money laundering. Three servers were seized in Switzerland, along with the cryptomixer.io domain. The operation resulted in the confiscation of over 12 terabytes of data and more than EUR 25 million worth of Bitcoin. After the illegal service was taken over and shut down, law enforcement placed a seizure banner on the website. Authorities allege that the mixing service laundered over 1.3 billion euros in bitcoin since 2016.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A new study from the University of Pennsylvania finds that preteens who own smartphones by age 12 have significantly higher odds of depression, obesity, and poor sleep compared to their peers. Axios reports: Kids who owned a smartphone at age 12 were found to have about 31% higher odds of depression, 40% higher odds of obesity and 62% higher odds of insufficient sleep than their peers who didn't have one. The researchers analyzed data from the National Institutes of Health-supported Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development Study assessments conducted between 2016 and 2022. The study included responses from 10,588 youths. Kids who had smartphones were more likely to be female, Black or Hispanic, and from lower-income households. The study has been published in the journal Pediatrics.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Apple's longtime AI chief John Giannandrea is retiring, with former Microsoft and Google AI leader Amar Subramanya stepping in to take over. MacRumors notes the retirement comes after the company's repeated delays in delivering its revamped Siri and internal turmoil that led to an AI team exodus. From the report: Giannandrea will serve as an advisor between now and 2026, with former Microsoft AI researcher Amar Subramanya set to take over as vice president of AI. Subramanya will report to Apple engineering chief Craig Federighi, and will lead Apple Foundation Models, ML research, and AI Safety and Evaluation. Subramanya was previously corporate vice president of AI at Microsoft, and before that, he spent 16 years at Google. He was head of engineering for Google's Gemini Assistant, and Apple says that he has "deep expertise" in both AI and ML research that will be important to "Apple's ongoing innovation and future Apple Intelligence features." Some of the teams that Giannandrea oversaw will move to Sabih Khan and Eddy Cue, such as AI Infrastructure and Search and Knowledge. Khan is Apple's new Chief Operating Officer who took over for Jeff Williams earlier this year. Cue has long overseen Apple services. [...] Apple said that it is "poised to accelerate its work in delivering intelligent, trusted, and profoundly personal experiences" with the new AI team. "We are thankful for the role John played in building and advancing our AI work, helping Apple continue to innovate and enrich the lives of our users," said Apple CEO Tim Cook in a statement. "AI has long been central to Apple's strategy, and we are pleased to welcome Amar to Craig's leadership team and to bring his extraordinary AI expertise to Apple. In addition to growing his leadership team and AI responsibilities with Amar's joining, Craig has been instrumental in driving our AI efforts, including overseeing our work to bring a more personalized Siri to users next year."Read more of this story at Slashdot.