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Electric vehicles dominated Norway's new car sales in 2024, capturing 88.9% market share versus 82.4% in 2023, the Norwegian Road Federation said. Tesla led sales, followed by Volkswagen and Toyota, as the Nordic nation approaches its 2025 goal of selling only zero-emission vehicles.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Leading monitor manufacturers Asus, Samsung, and MSI unveiled the world's first 27-inch 4K OLED gaming monitors with 240Hz refresh rates, all featuring Samsung Display's fourth-generation QD-OLED panel technology. Asus ROG Swift OLED PG27UCDM and MSI MPG 272URX QD-OLED models include DisplayPort 2.1a support, enabling 4K resolution at 240Hz without compression. Both offer DisplayHDR True Black 400 certification and three-year burn-in protection warranties. Samsung's Odyssey OLED G8 specifications remain partially undisclosed. All monitors feature 0.03ms response times and pixel density exceeding 160PPI. Release dates and pricing details have not been announced.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Bruce66423 writes: A few hours before the ball dropped on New Year's Eve, the computer dispatch system for the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department crashed, rendering all patrol car computers nearly useless and forcing deputies to handle all calls by radio, according to officials and sources in the department. Department leaders first learned of the problem around 8 p.m., when deputies at several sheriff's stations began having trouble logging onto their patrol car computers, officials told The Times in a statement. The department said it eventually determined its computer-aided dispatch program -- known as CAD -- was "not allowing personnel to log on with the new year, making the CAD inoperable." It's not clear how long it will take to fix the problem, but in the meantime deputies and dispatchers are handling everything old-school -- using their radios instead of patrol car computers. "It's our own little Y2K," a deputy who was working Wednesday morning told The Times. The deputy, along with three other department sources who spoke to The Times about the problem, asked not to be named because they were not authorized to speak on the record and feared retaliation.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Studies using new brain-mapping and wearable devices have shown that unstimulating urban architecture can harm residents' health, leading to increased rates of depression, cancer and diabetes. Research projects across Europe and North America, including the EU-funded eMOTIONAL Cities project and studies at the University of Waterloo's Urban Realities Laboratory, are measuring people's physiological responses to their surroundings. The findings are pushing architects and city planners to prioritize human wellbeing in design, with some cities like London's Newham borough now including happiness metrics in economic planning.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Apple is offering rare discounts of up to 500 yuan ($68.50) on its latest iPhone models in China, as the U.S. tech giant moves to defend its market share against rising competition from domestic rivals like Huawei. From a report: The four-day promotion, running from Jan. 4-7, applies to several iPhone models when purchased using specific payment methods, according to its website. The flagship iPhone 16 Pro with a starting price of 7,999 yuan and the iPhone 16 Pro Max with a starting price of 9,999 yuan will see the highest discount of 500 yuan. The iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Plus will receive a 400 yuan reduction. The discounts come as consumers remain cautious with spending amid China's slowing economy and deflationary pressures, with the country's consumer inflation hitting a five-month low in November.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The number of active venture capital investors, firms that invest in startups, has dropped more than a quarter from a peak in 2021 [non-paywalled source], as risk-averse financial institutions focus their money on the biggest firms in Silicon Valley. From a report: The tally of VCs investing in US-headquartered companies dropped to 6,175 in 2024 -- meaning more than 2,000 have fallen dormant since a peak of 8,315 in 2021, according to data provider PitchBook. The trend has concentrated power among a small group of mega-firms and has left smaller VCs in a fight for survival. It has also skewed the dynamics of the US venture market, enabling start-ups such as SpaceX, OpenAI, Databricks and Stripe to stay private for far longer, while thinning out funding options for smaller companies. More than half of the $71bn raised by US VCs in 2024 was pulled in by just nine firms, according to PitchBook. General Catalyst, Andreessen Horowitz, Iconiq Growth and Thrive Capital raised more than $25bn in 2024. Many firms threw in the towel in 2024.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Exercise is the most potent medical intervention known, according to Stanford University researchers who mapped its molecular effects across body tissues. In a study examining sedentary and exercising rats over eight weeks, scientists found comprehensive changes in every tissue examined, from fat cells to mitochondria, with exercise often reversing disease-related molecular changes. The findings explain how exercise reduces heart disease and cancer risks by 50%.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

MIT scientists have pinpointed the origin of a fast radio burst (FRB) to within 10,000 kilometers of a neutron star, settling a long-standing debate about these cosmic phenomena. Using a novel technique analyzing signal scintillation, researchers determined that FRB 20221022A, detected in 2022 from a galaxy 200 million light-years away, emerged from the star's turbulent magnetosphere rather than from a distant shockwave. The findings, published in Nature, provide the first conclusive evidence that FRBs can originate in the extreme magnetic environment immediately surrounding these ultra-compact objects.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

SvarDOS, a compact open-source operating system derived from DR-DOS, has switched to using the EDRDOS kernel, marking a shift from its FreeDOS distribution roots. The change allows the operating system to fit on a single 1.4MB floppy disk while offering a network-capable package manager that can fetch from a repository of over 400 packages. Unlike its rival FreeDOS, SvarDOS can run Microsoft Windows 3.1 natively, though the capability currently requires additional configuration. The system maintains compatibility with legacy DOS applications while providing modern features like FAT32 support and network connectivity.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader writes: Guillermo Rauch, CEO of Vercel, a frontend-as-a-service product, just used the company's AI site builder to come up with a new twist on CAPTCHAs, one that invites users to play the classic single-player game DOOM and killing at least three monsters. You can check it out here.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

AI is unlocking ancient texts previously thought unreadable, potentially revolutionizing historical research, according to a Nature article. Neural networks have successfully decoded burned Roman scrolls from Herculaneum, deciphered ancient Chinese oracle bones, and translated vast Korean royal archives. In a breakthrough achievement, researchers used AI to reveal 16 columns of Greek philosophical text from a charred Herculaneum scroll that had been unreadable for 2,000 years. The technology could help scholars access hundreds more unopened scrolls from Herculaneum and other historical collections worldwide.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Belgium has become the EU first country to ban the sale of disposable vapes in an effort to stop young people from becoming addicted to nicotine and to protect the environment. From a report: The sale of disposable electronic cigarettes is banned in Belgium on health and environmental grounds from 1 January. A ban on outdoor smoking in Milan came into force on the same day, as EU countries discuss tighter controls on tobacco. Announcing the ban last year, Belgium's health minister, Frank Vandenbroucke, described electronic cigarettes as an "extremely harmful" product that damages society and the environment. "Disposable e-cigarettes is a new product simply designed to attract new consumers," he told the Associated Press. "E-cigarettes often contain nicotine. Nicotine makes you addicted to nicotine. Nicotine is bad for your health."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

India has once again pushed back a contentious plan to limit major technology companies' control of the nation's digital payments system, extending a regulatory uncertainty that has weighed on the sector for years. From a report: The National Payments Corporation of India said on Tuesday it would extend the deadline for implementing a 30% cap on any individual app's share of transactions on the Unified Payments Interface, or UPI, the country's ubiquitous digital payments network, to December 31, 2026. The decision provides temporary relief to Walmart-backed PhonePe and Google Pay, which together handle more than 85% of transactions on UPI. The network, which processes over 13 billion transactions monthly, has become the backbone of India's digital economy since its launch eight years ago.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Thousands of copyrighted works from 1929, including Mickey Mouse's first speaking appearance and original versions of comic characters Popeye and Tintin, entered the U.S. public domain on January 1, 2025, as their 95-year copyright terms expired. Popeye debuted in E.C. Segar's "Thimble Theatre" comic strip, while Tintin first appeared in Georges Remi's "Les Aventures de Tintin." These original character versions can now be freely used without permission or fees. Literary classics joining the public domain include William Faulkner's "The Sound and the Fury," Ernest Hemingway's "A Farewell to Arms," and Virginia Woolf's "A Room of One's Own." Musical compositions entering the public domain include George Gershwin's "An American in Paris," Maurice Ravel's "Bolero," and Fats Waller's "Ain't Misbehavin'." The original 1929 recordings remain protected until 2030 under separate copyright rules. Notable films becoming public domain include the Marx Brothers' first feature "The Cocoanuts," Alfred Hitchcock's first sound film "Blackmail," and several Mickey Mouse animations where the character debuts his white gloves and speaks his first words. Sound recordings from 1924, including performances by Marian Anderson and George Gershwin, also entered the public domain under the Music Modernization Act's 100-year term for historical recordings.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The Securities and Exchange Commission wrote off nearly $10 billion in uncollected fines over the past decade, with $1.4 billion written off in 2023 alone, WSJ reported, citing internal data. While the agency reported $4.9 billion in sanctions last year, it typically collects only two-thirds of imposed penalties. The SEC stopped disclosing collection rates in 2019. In fiscal 2024, it collected just 23% of $8.2 billion in reported sanctions, including a $4.4 billion judgment against cryptocurrency firm Terraform Labs that will likely go unpaid due to bankruptcy proceedings.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Food prices continue climbing, posing challenges for U.S. consumers and policymakers, with average food-at-home prices recording their largest annual increase in November. While some commodities like wheat and corn have seen price drops, key breakfast staples remain expensive due to global supply disruptions from disease, weather, and reduced production.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A filing in an antitrust lawsuit against some of the nation's top universities alleges the schools overcharged students by $685 million in a "price-fixing" scheme, raising serious questions about their past admission and financial aid policies. From a report: Documents and testimony from officials at Georgetown University, the University of Notre Dame, the University of Pennsylvania, MIT and other elite schools suggest they appeared to favor wealthy applicants despite their stated policy of accepting students without regard for their financial circumstances. That "need-blind" policy allowed the schools to collaborate on financial aid under federal law, but plaintiffs in the case say the colleges violated the statute by considering students' family income. Every year, according to a motion filed in federal court Monday night, Georgetown's then-president would draw up a list of about 80 applicants based on a tracking list that often included information about their parents' wealth and past donations, but not the applicants' transcripts, teacher recommendations or personal essays. "Please Admit," was often written at the top of the list, the lawsuit contends -- and almost all of the applicants were. Former students accuse 17 elite schools, including most of the Ivy League, of colluding to limit the financial aid packages of working- and middle-class students. The claimed damages of $685 million, which were detailed in the court filing Monday night, would automatically triple to more than $2 billion under U.S. antitrust laws.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Fast Company: Insurance companies that stopped providing home coverage to hundreds of thousands of Californians in recent years as wildfires became more destructive will have to again provide policies in fire-prone areas if they want to keep doing business in California under a state regulation announced Monday. The rule will require home insurers to offer coverage in high-risk areas, something the state has never done, Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara's office said in a statement. Insurers will have to start increasing their coverage by 5% every two years until they hit the equivalent of 85% of their market share. That means if an insurer writes 20 out of every 100 state policies, they'd need to write 17 in a high-risk area, Lara's office said. Major insurers like State Farm and Allstate have stopped writing new policies in California due to fears of massive losses from wildfires and other natural disasters. In exchange for increasing coverage, the state will let insurance companies pass on the costs of reinsurance to California consumers. Insurance companies typically buy reinsurance to avoid huge payouts in case of natural disasters or catastrophic loss. California is the only state that doesn't already allow the cost of reinsurance to be borne by policy holders, according to Lara's office. [...] The requirement is under review by the Office of Administrative Law before it takes effect within 30 days. "Californians deserve a reliable insurance market that doesn't retreat from communities most vulnerable to wildfires and climate change," Lara said in a statement. "This is a historic moment for California." Opponents of the rule say that could hike premiums by 40% and doesn't require new policies to be written at a fast enough pace. The state did not provide a cost analysis for potential impact on consumers. "This plan is of the insurance industry, by the insurance industry, and for the industry," Jamie Court, president of Consumer Watchdog, said in a statement.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Research from Zhejiang Agriculture and Forestry University reveals a concerning correlation between micro and nanoplastic (MNP) concentrations in damaged human tissues and various health conditions, including inflammatory bowel disease, thrombosis, and cancer. Phys.Org reports: In the study, "Mapping micro(nano)plastics in various organ systems: Their emerging links to human diseases?" published in TrAC Trends in Analytical Chemistry, investigators collected 61 available research articles for MNP detection in human tissues, plus 840 articles on MNP toxicological mechanisms. Data came from spectroscopy, microscopy, and pyrolysis-gas chromatography/mass spectrometry investigations to identify polymer types in different tissues. Toxicological studies employed cell models and animal experiments to examine oxidative stress, inflammatory responses, and related signaling pathways. The studies documented particles detected in skin, arteries, veins, thrombi, bone marrow, testes, semen, uterus, and placenta. MNPs were found in the digestive system, from saliva to feces, liver, and gallstones. Within the respiratory system, MNPs were everywhere, including lung tissue, with microscopic fibers common in bronchoalveolar lavage fluid and sputum. Positive correlations emerged between particle abundance and specific disorders, such as inflammatory bowel disease, thrombosis, cervical cancer, and uterine fibroids. Toxicological tests showed possible MNP-triggered oxidative stress, mitochondrial dysfunction, inflammatory responses, and apoptosis in various cell types, along with organ-level concerns like neurodegenerative disease onset when crossing the blood-brain barrier. A critically important signal in the metadata discovered by the researchers was that measured levels of MNPs tended to be higher in tissues with lesions than in non-lesioned tissues. These included inflamed intestines, fibrotic lungs, or cancerous growths, suggesting a potential link between MNP buildup and local pathology. There is an intriguing "what came first, the chicken or the egg" problem with lesions having higher concentrations of MNPs. [...] In the case of "what came first, the lesion or the microplastic," it is possible that MNPs contribute to inflammation, oxidative stress, and cellular damage, which can cause or worsen tissue lesions. But it is also possible that these lesions accumulate more MNPs in already damaged tissue areas. While the current findings do not provide a direct cause-and-effect relationship, they offer good targets for further study.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Tom's Hardware reports that NATO is developing an advanced system to address the growing number of undersea cable disruptions observed in recent years. Known as HEIST (Hybrid Space-Submarine Architecture Ensuring Infosec of Telecommunications), the project is designed to significantly enhance the resilience of undersea communication networks. HEIST will enable damage detection with an accuracy of one meter, facilitate rapid data rerouting through satellite networks when disruptions occur, and establish open-source protocols to foster global collaboration. From the report: Satellites are the primary backups to undersea cables, but their bandwidth is far behind physical connections. For example, Google's latest fiber-optic lines can hit 340 terabits per second. In contrast, the frequency used by most satellites -- 12 to 18GHz -- can only handle about 5 gigabits per second or about 0.0015% of the maximum throughput of Google's fiber connection. Work is underway to upgrade satellites from radio transmissions to lasers, increasing the speed by about 40 times to 200 Gbps. Starlink already uses this technology to communicate between its satellites, while Amazon is also developing it for its own Project Kuiper. However, it still faces challenges, like poor visibility and targeting precision between the satellite and ground station. Because this is a major NATO project, the alliance plans to open-source part of the process. Making it public would allow anyone interested to find holes and make many iterations. Gregory Falco, the NATO Country Director for HEIST, believes that this is the fastest way for the project to achieve its goals and help prevent any catastrophic loss of data transmission in case of deliberate attacks against these underwater infrastructures in international waters.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: When the scientist and inventor Prof Archibald Montgomery Low predicted "a day in the life of a man of the future" one century ago, his prophecies were sometimes dismissed as "ruthlessly imaginative." They included, reported the London Daily News in 1925, "such horrors" as being woken by radio alarm clock; communications "by personal radio set"; breakfasting "with loudspeaker news and television glimpses of events"; shopping by moving stairways and moving pavements. One hundred years after Low's publication of his book The Future some of his forecasts were spot on. Others, including his prophecy that everyone would be wearing synthetic felt one-piece suits and hats, less so. Researchers from the online genealogy service Findmypast, have excavated accounts of Low's predictions from its extensive digital archive of historical newspapers available to the public and included them in a collection on its website of forecasts made for 2025 by people a century ago. Low, born in 1888, was an engineer, research physicist, inventor and author. A pioneer in many fields, he invented the first powered drone, worked on the development of television, was known as the "father of radio guidance systems" for his work on planes, torpedo boats and guided rockets and reportedly attracted at least two unsuccessful assassination attempts by the Germans. "It's amazing that a century ago, one visionary scientist could predict how emerging technology -- in its infancy at the time -- could have changed the world by 2025," said Jen Baldwin, a research specialist at Findmypast. "It makes you stop to wonder how the advancements we see around us today will be experienced by our own descendants."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Generation Beta, starting in 2025 and lasting until around 2039, will grow up deeply immersed in AI and smart technology, facing pressing societal challenges like climate change and global shifts while potentially being shielded from excessive screen time by tech-savvy Gen Z parents. NBC News reports: Start and end dates of generations can be murky, but Generation Beta will keep being born until around 2039. Before them, Gen Alpha stretched from 2010 to 2024, Gen Z from around 1996 to 2010, and millennials from 1981 to 1996. The upcoming generation "will inherit a world grappling with major societal challenges," wrote demographer and futurist Mark McCrindle in a blog post. "With climate change, global population shifts, and rapid urbanisation at the forefront, sustainability will not just be a preference but an expectation." [...] Just like Gen Z and Gen Alpha, Gen Beta will grow up with social media, though it's still unknown how those mediums will evolve in the next decade-plus. But other experts predict that Gen Z parents might choose to shield their kids from being chronically online, a stereotype that has come to define Gen Alpha. While older millennial parents tend to integrate technology into their Gen Alpha kids' lives, McCrindle wrote that Gen Z parents might take a different approach with their future Gen Beta children. "Generation Z know more about both the positives and challenges that come with social media use from a young age," McCrindle wrote. "As the most technologically savvy generation of parents, Gen Z see the benefits of technology and screen time, but equally they see the downsides of it and are pushing back on technology and the age at which their children access and engage with it."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Alibaba is cutting prices on its large language models by up to 85% to attract more enterprise users and strengthen its position in China's competitive AI market. CNBC reports: The Hangzhou-based e-commerce firm's cloud computing division, Alibaba Cloud, said in a WeChat post that it's offering the price cuts on its visual language model, Qwen-VL, which is designed to perceive and understand both texts and images. [...] Major Chinese tech firms including Alibaba, Tencent, Baidu, JD.com, Huawei and TikTok parent company Bytedance have all launched their own large language models over the past 18 months, looking to capitalize on the hype around the technology. It's not the first time Alibaba has announced price cuts to incentivize businesses to use its AI products. In February, the company announced price reductions of as much as 55% on a wide range of core cloud products. More recently, in May, the company reduced prices on its Qwen AI model by as much as 97% in a bid to boost demand. [...] In Alibaba's case, the company is focusing its LLM efforts on the enterprise segment rather than launching a consumer AI chatbot like OpenAI's ChatGPT. In May, the company said its Qwen models have been deployed by over 90,000 enterprise users.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Venezuela's Supreme Court on Monday fined TikTok $10 million for failing to prevent viral challenges allegedly linked to the deaths of three children. It also ordered the platform to establish a local office to oversee content compliance with national laws. The Associated Press reports: Judge Tania D'Amelio said TikTok had acted in a negligent manner and gave it eight days to pay the fine [...]. The judge did not explain how Venezuela would force TikTok, whose parent company is based in China, to pay the fine. Venezuela has blocked dozens of websites in previous years for not complying with regulations set by its telecommunications commission. In November, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro blamed TikTok for the death of a 12-year-old girl who allegedly died after participating in a TikTok challenge that involved taking tranquilizer pills and not falling asleep. Venezuela's Education Minister Hector Rodriguez also said last month that a 14-year-old died after taking part in a TikTok challenge that involved sniffing substances. And on Nov. 21, Venezuela's attorney general blamed video challenges on TikTok for the death of a third child.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Electrek: A new study published in the journal Renewable Energy (PDF) uses data from the state of California to demonstrate that no blackouts occurred when wind-water-solar electricity supply exceeded 100% of demand on the state's main grid for a record 98 of 116 days from late winter to early summer 2024 for an average (maximum) of 4.84 (10.1) hours per day. Compared to the same period in 2023, solar output in California is up 31%, wind power is up 8%, and batteries are up a staggering 105%. Batteries supplied up to 12% of nighttime demand by storing and redistributing excess solar energy. And here's the kicker: California's high electricity prices aren't because of wind, water, and solar energy. (That issue is primarily caused (PDF) by utilities recovering the cost of wildfire mitigation, transmission and distribution investments, and net energy metering.) In fact, researchers from Stanford, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and the University of California, Berkeley found that states with higher shares of renewable energy tend to see lower electricity prices. The takeaway -- and the data backs it up -- is that a large grid dominated by wind, water, and solar is not only feasible, it's also reliable.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority has announced plans to retire its iconic R46 subway cars, triggering nostalgia among New Yorkers who cherished their distinctive seating arrangement. The fleet -- which has served A, C, N, R, Q, and W lines for five decades -- will be replaced by R211 cars expected for delivery in 2027. The R46's perpendicular seating configuration, designed for comfort during long trips to destinations like Coney Island, encouraged social interaction among passengers, according to New York Transit Museum director Concetta Bencivenga. The new R211 cars will feature longitudinal seating to improve passenger flow and reduce platform waiting times. Currently, 696 of the original 754 R46 cars remain in service. The replacement R211 cars will include security cameras, wider seats, improved signage, and better lighting.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

AI ethicists are cautioning that the rise of AI may bring with it the commodification of even one's motivations. From a report: Researchers from the University of Cambridge's Leverhulme Center for the Future of Intelligence say -- in a paper published Monday in the Harvard Data Science Review journal -- the rise of generative AI, such as chatbots and virtual assistants, comes with the increasing opportunity for persuasive technologies to gain a strong foothold. "Tremendous resources are being expended to position AI assistants in every area of life, which should raise the question of whose interests and purposes these so-called assistants are designed to serve," Yaqub Chaudhary, a visiting scholar at the Center for Future of Intelligence, said in a statement. When interacting even causally with AI chatbots -- which can range from digital tutors to assistants to even romantic partners -- users share intimate information that gives the technology access to personal "intentions" like psychological and behavioral data, the researcher said. "What people say when conversing, how they say it, and the type of inferences that can be made in real-time as a result, are far more intimate than just records of online interactions," Chaudhary added. In fact, AI is already subtly manipulating and influencing motivations by mimicking the way a user talks or anticipating the way they are likely to respond, the authors argue. Those conversations, as innocuous as they may seem, leave the door open for the technology to forecast and influence decisions before they are made. "We caution that AI tools are already being developed to elicit, infer, collect, record, understand, forecast, and ultimately manipulate and commodify human plans and purposes," Chaudhary said.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Earlier this year, Russia President Vladimir Putin called on the government to develop its own domestically produced gaming consoles with proprietary operating systems and cloud-based platforms. "With Russia heavily sanctioned and looking to promote its own products, one of its in-development consoles is powered by the Elbrus processor," notes TechSpot. However, the processor is "designed primarily for domestic applications in critical infrastructure, defense, and other sensitive areas" and "can't match high-end CPUs from Intel, AMD, and Arm." From the report: The Russian government admits that this device isn't going to be on the same level as current-gen machines. "I hope my colleagues will approach this task with full responsibility and come up with something truly groundbreaking," said Anton Gorelkin, Deputy Chairman of the State Duma Committee on Information Policy. "It is obvious to everyone: Elbrus processors are not yet at the level required to compete equally with the PS5 and Xbox, which means the solution must be unconventional." Gorelkin said that Russian consoles aren't being designed only to play ports of hundreds of old, less-demanding games. He added that they should primarily serve the purpose of promoting and popularizing domestic video game products. Another organization following Putin's instructions is Russian telecommunications firm MTS. Its console (above) will use the company's cloud-based gaming platform, called Fog Play. It allows owners of high-end PCs to rent out their computing power to those with less-powerful equipment, charging an hourly price. Those with more powerful PCs can access games on the service and use their own hardware to play them. MTS' device is expected to cost no more than $45 and come with an Xbox-like controller, suggesting it's unlikely to appeal to those who enjoy current-gen console games.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

MicroStrategy has transformed into a "bitcoin treasury company," investing billions in bitcoin through debt and equity issuance, driving its stock price up nearly 400% in 2024 despite declining software revenues and heightened financial risks. The Guardian reports: In the summer of 2020, as the Covid-19 pandemic upended economies around the world, an obscure U.S. software firm decided to diversify. MicroStrategy, whose head office is situated next to a shopping mall and metro station in Tysons Corner, Virginia, had decided the steady business of "software as a service" was not racy enough. Instead, it would branch out by investing up to $250 million in alternative assets -- "stocks, bonds, commodities such as gold, digital assets such as bitcoin or other asset types." Less than five years later, that bitcoin side hustle has gone stratospheric. MicroStrategy's share price has swollen twentyfold, lifting its market capitalization to almost $75 billion and catapulting the stock into the Nasdaq 100 index of top technology shares.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from KrebsOnSecurity: Federal authorities have arrested and indicted a 20-year-old U.S. Army soldier on suspicion of being Kiberphant0m, a cybercriminal who has been selling and leaking sensitive customer call records stolen earlier this year from AT&T and Verizon. As first reported by KrebsOnSecurity last month, the accused is a communications specialist who was recently stationed in South Korea. Cameron John Wagenius was arrested near the Army base in Fort Hood, Texas on Dec. 20, after being indicted on two criminal counts of unlawful transfer of confidential phone records. The sparse, two-page indictment (PDF) doesn't reference specific victims or hacking activity, nor does it include any personal details about the accused. But a conversation with Wagenius' mother -- Minnesota native Alicia Roen -- filled in the gaps. Roen said that prior to her son's arrest he'd acknowledged being associated with Connor Riley Moucka, a.k.a. "Judische," a prolific cybercriminal from Canada who was arrested in late October for stealing data from and extorting dozens of companies that stored data at the cloud service Snowflake. In an interview with KrebsOnSecurity, Judische said he had no interest in selling the data he'd stolen from Snowflake customers and telecom providers, and that he preferred to outsource that to Kiberphant0m and others. Meanwhile, Kiberphant0m claimed in posts on Telegram that he was responsible for hacking into at least 15 telecommunications firms, including AT&T and Verizon. On November 26, KrebsOnSecurity published a story that followed a trail of clues left behind by Kiberphantom indicating he was a U.S. Army soldier stationed in South Korea. [...] Immediately after news broke of Moucka's arrest, Kiberphant0m posted on the hacker community BreachForums what they claimed were the AT&T call logs for President-elect Donald J. Trump and for Vice President Kamala Harris. [...] On that same day, Kiberphant0m posted what they claimed was the "data schema" from the U.S. National Security Agency. On Nov. 5, Kiberphant0m offered call logs stolen from Verizon's push-to-talk (PTT) customers -- mainly U.S. government agencies and emergency first responders. On Nov. 9, Kiberphant0m posted a sales thread on BreachForums offering a "SIM-swapping" service targeting Verizon PTT customers. In a SIM-swap, fraudsters use credentials that are phished or stolen from mobile phone company employees to divert a target's phone calls and text messages to a device they control.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The long-anticipated "year of the Linux desktop" could see renewed interest in 2025 as Microsoft's planned end of support for Windows 10 approaches, potentially driving users to explore alternatives. With Windows 10 reaching end of support in October 2025, many users will face decisions about upgrading hardware for Windows 11 or considering different operating systems entirely. Linux distributions have evolved to offer increasingly polished desktop experiences, with improving hardware compatibility and familiar user interfaces. 2024 saw Linux adoption grow thanks to the Steam Deck's success, reaching a 4.04% market share in December, up from 3.85% during the same time last year. More Linux laptops, improved gaming compatibility, and growing awareness of its benefits also contributed to its steady rise.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Traditional airlines worldwide are rapidly eliminating long-standing perks from their basic fares, blurring the line between full-service and budget carriers, according to industry analysis of 90 major airlines. Air Canada's decision to ban standard carry-on luggage for its lowest-fare passengers from January 3 marks the latest rollback, joining United Airlines, Finnair, and others. Most legacy carriers, including British Airways, Air France, and Lufthansa, have already stripped checked baggage and seat selection from basic fares, signaling an industry-wide shift toward budget airline practices.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Nobel laureate Geoffrey Hinton has backed Elon Musk's legal challenge against OpenAI, criticizing the AI startup's shift from its nonprofit origins toward a for-profit model. "OpenAI was founded as an explicitly safety-focused non-profit and made various safety related promises in its charter," Hinton said in a statement through AI advocacy group Encode. "Allowing it to tear all of that up when it becomes inconvenient sends a very bad message to other actors in the ecosystem." Musk, who co-founded OpenAI in 2015 but left in 2018, filed an injunction last month to block the company's transition to a for-profit entity. OpenAI dismissed the filing as "utterly without merit." Hinton, who won the 2024 Physics Nobel Prize for his pioneering work in neural networks, has previously criticized OpenAI CEO Sam Altman in October for prioritizing profits over safety concerns.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Researchers have uncovered widespread manipulation of GitHub's star-rating system, with over 3.1 million fraudulent stars identified across 15,835 repositories, according to a new study by Socket, Carnegie Mellon University, and North Carolina State University. The research team analyzed 20TB of data from GHArchive, spanning 6 billion GitHub events from 2019 to 2024, using their "StarScout" detection tool. The tool identified 278,000 accounts engaging in coordinated inauthentic behavior to artificially boost repository rankings. GitHub uses stars, similar to social media likes, to rank projects and recommend content to users. The platform has previously encountered malicious exploitation of this system, including the "Stargazers Ghost Network" malware operation discovered last summer. Approximately 91% of flagged repositories and 62% of suspicious accounts were removed by October 2024.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Intel's market value plunged 61% in 2024, marking its worst performance since going public in 1971, while rival chipmaker Broadcom saw shares surge 111% on AI advances. Broadcom, now valued at $1.1 trillion, leverages its custom XPU chips and networking gear for major cloud providers including Google, helping companies build AI infrastructure at lower costs than Nvidia's GPUs. Further reading: Intel Weighed $20 Billion Nvidia Takeover in 2005.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The Arbor Day Foundation will plant 10 million trees across six U.S. states over four years to replace those destroyed during the devastating 2024 Atlantic hurricane season, the non-profit organization announced. The restoration program, targeting Tennessee, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia and Florida, marks the group's largest undertaking in its 50-year history. The initiative will involve state and local governments, corporate sponsors and community volunteers. The 2024 hurricane season claimed 375 lives and caused an estimated $500 billion in damage and economic losses, making it the deadliest mainland U.S. season since Hurricane Katrina in 2005.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The U.S. Justice Department has filed a complaint and announced a civil enforcement action against financial technology company Dave and its CEO Jason Wilk for alleged violations of federal law. From a report: The Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission alleged the company lured users to its personal finance app by advertising cash advances of up to $500 that many never receive. The complaint, filed by the Justice Department, seeks unspecified amounts of consumer redress and monetary civil penalties from the defendants and a permanent injunction to prohibit them from engaging in future violations, the Justice Department said. The government alleges that Dave misled consumers by deceptively advertising its cash advances, charging hidden fees, misrepresenting how Dave uses customers' tips and charging recurring monthly fees without providing a simple mechanism to cancel them.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

PlayStation isn't giving up on live service games any time soon. From a report: In a recent interview with Japanese outlet Famitsu, PlayStation Co-CEO Herman Hulst said that the company still believes in the model despite recent hiccups like Concord. "The game business is constantly changing due to various factors, including technological advances, new genres and ways of playing," Hulst said via auto translation. "However, one thing that remains constant is people's desire for great entertainment experiences, and attention to games continues to grow. However, this has also created competition, and like many companies in the industry, we have had to make changes to our business to solidify a more sustainable operating base." Hulst continued by saying PlayStation will "continue to focus on developing live service titles along with the story-driven single-player titles that our players want."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader shares a report: The global smartphone market is splitting into two distinct segments, with the mid-range segment seeing its market share plummet from 35% in 2021 to a projected 23% by 2027, according to an analysis of data compiled by Goldman Sachs. The collapse of the mid-range segment -- $200-600 -- marks a stark reversal from 2021-22, when it held a steady 35% market share. "While mid-end segment used to provide balance between outstanding specifications and high performance-cost ratio, the demand has been declining due to the lack of revolutionary technology upgrades and a more conservative consumption of middle class amid macro challenges," the analysts wrote in a note reviewed by India Dispatch.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Politico: Joe Biden spent the first half of his presidency enacting plans to steer at least $1.6 trillion to transform the economy and spur a clean-energy revolution -- only to watch those programs become afterthoughts in the 2024 election. Now the core of his domestic legacy stands unfinished, with hundreds of billions of dollars left to deploy, and imperiled as Donald Trump prepares to take office. A wide-ranging examination of the Biden administration's spending and tax policies reveals signs that his efforts could leave a lasting mark, but also ways in which his agenda has yet to take hold -- after unleashing money for batteries, solar cells, computer chips and clean water; luring foreign-owned factories to U.S. soil; and turning some red-state Republicans into supporters of green energy projects. Throughout 2024, POLITICO's "Biden's Billions" series has documented the halting pace, uneven progress and genuine economic impact of a spending blueprint rivaling Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal. With just weeks left in Biden's term, it's not at all certain his legacy will endure in the same way. Much of it remains a work in progress. Solar installations have surged to record levels, but the country is not adding enough zero-carbon electricity to meet Biden's climate targets. A $42 billion expansion of broadband internet service has yet to connect a single household. Bureaucratic haggling, equipment shortages and logistical challenges mean a $7.5 billion effort to install electric vehicle chargers from coast to coast has so far yielded just 47 stations in 15 states.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

In 2025, China plans to start building a demonstration thorium-based molten-salt reactor in the Gobi Desert. IEEE Spectrum reports: The 10-megawatt reactor project, managed by the Chinese Academy of Sciences' Shanghai Institute of Applied Physics (SINAP), is scheduled to be operational by 2030, according to an environmental-impact report released by the Academy in October. The project follows a 2-MW experimental version completed in 2021 and operated since then. China's efforts put it at the forefront of both thorium-based fuel breeding and molten-salt reactors. Several companies elsewhere in the world are developing plans for this kind of fuel or reactor, but none has yet operated one. Prior to China's pilot project, the last operating molten-salt reactor was Oak Ridge National Laboratory's Molten Salt Reactor Experiment, which ran on uranium. It shut down in 1969. Thorium-232, found in igneous rocks and heavy mineral sands, is more abundant on Earth than the commonly used isotope in nuclear fuel, uranium-235. But this weakly radioactive metal isn't directly fissile -- it can't undergo fission, the splitting of atomic nuclei that produces energy. So it must first be transformed into fissile uranium-233. That's technically feasible, but whether it's economical and practical is less clear. The attraction of thorium is that it can help achieve energy self-sufficiency by reducing dependence on uranium, particularly for countries such as India with enormous thorium reserves. But China may source it in a different way: The element is a waste product of China's huge rare earth mining industry. Harnessing it would provide a practically inexhaustible supply of fuel. Already, China's Gansu province has maritime and aerospace applications in mind for this future energy supply, according to the state-run Xinhua News Agency. Scant technical details of China's reactor exist, and SINAP didn't respond to IEEE Spectrum's requests for information. The Chinese Academy of Sciences' environmental-impact report states that the molten-salt reactor core will be 3 meters in height and 2.8 meters in diameter. It will operate at 700 C and have a thermal output of 60 MW, along with 10 MW of electricity. [...] But many challenges come along with thorium use. A big one is dealing with the risk of proliferation. When thorium is transformed into uranium-233, it becomes directly usable in nuclear weapons. "It's of a quality comparable to separated plutonium and is thus very dangerous," says Edwin Lyman, director of nuclear power safety at the Union of Concerned Scientists in Washington, D.C. If the fuel is circulating in and out of the reactor core during operation, this movement introduces routes for the theft of uranium-233, he says.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Astronomers using the James Webb Space Telescope have discovered Zhulong, the most distant grand-design spiral galaxy identified so far, located at a redshift of approximately 5.2. Phys.Org reports: The galaxy was named Zhulong, after a giant red solar dragon and god in Chinese mythology. [...] Its mass was found to be comparable to that of the Milky Way, which is relatively high for a galaxy that formed within one billion years after the Big Bang, as the redshift indicates. The study found that Zhulong has a classical bulge and a large face-on stellar disk with spiral arms extending across 62,000 light years. The spectral energy distribution (SED) analysis points to a quiescent-like core and a star-forming stellar disk. Furthermore, it turned out that compared to the stellar disk, the center core of Zhulong is red and has the highest stellar mass surface densities measured among quiescent galaxies. The core is quiescent, which is consistent with the expectations of inside-out galaxy growth and quenching. The study also found that although the disk is still forming stars, Zhulong has a relatively low overall star-formation rate -- at a level of 66 solar masses per year. The baryons-to-stars conversion efficiency was calculated to be approximately 0.3, which is about 1.5 times higher than even the most efficient galaxies at later epochs. These results suggest that Zhulong must have been forming stars very efficiently and is in the transformation phase from star-forming to quiescence. In concluding remarks, the authors of the paper note that Zhulong appears to be the most distant spiral galaxy discovered to date. The properties of this galaxy seem to suggest that mature galaxies emerged much earlier than expected in the first billion years after the Big Bang. The findings have been published on the pre-print server arXiv.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica, written by Jennifer Ouellette: Over the holiday weekend, all but one member of the editorial board of Elsevier's Journal of Human Evolution (JHE) resigned "with heartfelt sadness and great regret," according to Retraction Watch, which helpfully provided an online PDF of the editors' full statement. It's the 20th mass resignation from a science journal since 2023 over various points of contention, per Retraction Watch, many in response to controversial changes in the business models used by the scientific publishing industry. "This has been an exceptionally painful decision for each of us," the board members wrote in their statement. "The editors who have stewarded the journal over the past 38 years have invested immense time and energy in making JHE the leading journal in paleoanthropological research and have remained loyal and committed to the journal and our authors long after their terms ended. The [associate editors] have been equally loyal and committed. We all care deeply about the journal, our discipline, and our academic community; however, we find we can no longer work with Elsevier in good conscience." The editorial board cited several changes made over the last ten years that it believes are counter to the journal's longstanding editorial principles. These included eliminating support for a copy editor and a special issues editor, leaving it to the editorial board to handle those duties. When the board expressed the need for a copy editor, Elsevier's response, they said, was "to maintain that the editors should not be paying attention to language, grammar, readability, consistency, or accuracy of proper nomenclature or formatting." There is also a major restructuring of the editorial board underway that aims to reduce the number of associate editors by more than half, which "will result in fewer AEs handling far more papers, and on topics well outside their areas of expertise." Furthermore, there are plans to create a third-tier editorial board that functions largely in a figurehead capacity, after Elsevier "unilaterally took full control" of the board's structure in 2023 by requiring all associate editors to renew their contracts annually -- which the board believes undermines its editorial independence and integrity. In-house production has been reduced or outsourced, and in 2023 Elsevier began using AI during production without informing the board, resulting in many style and formatting errors, as well as reversing versions of papers that had already been accepted and formatted by the editors. "This was highly embarrassing for the journal and resolution took six months and was achieved only through the persistent efforts of the editors," the editors wrote. "AI processing continues to be used and regularly reformats submitted manuscripts to change meaning and formatting and require extensive author and editor oversight during proof stage." In addition, the author page charges for JHE are significantly higher than even Elsevier's other for-profit journals, as well as broad-based open access journals like Scientific Reports. Not many of the journal's authors can afford those fees, "which runs counter to the journal's (and Elsevier's) pledge of equality and inclusivity," the editors wrote. The breaking point seems to have come in November, when Elsevier informed co-editors Mark Grabowski (Liverpool John Moores University) and Andrea Taylor (Touro University California College of Osteopathic Medicine) that it was ending the dual-editor model that has been in place since 1986. When Grabowki and Taylor protested, they were told the model could only remain if they took a 50 percent cut in their compensation.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Researchers at Cornell University have developed a set of low-cost VR goggles for lab mice. Called MouseGoggles, the VR headsets will allows scientists to provide immersive virtual environments for the mice while capturing fluorescent images of the rodents' brain activity. Phys.Org reports: The goggles -- which dwarf the tiny mice in size -- were built using low-cost, off-the-shelf components like smartwatch displays and tiny lenses, researchers said. [...] About a decade ago, researchers began rigging up clunky projector screens for mice as a means of creating virtual reality environments, but these devices frequently created so much light and noise that they spoiled experiments, researchers said. "The more immersive we can make that behavioral task, the more naturalistic of a brain function we're going to be studying," senior researcher Chris Schaffer, a professor of biomedical engineering at Cornell, said in a news release. The new VR setup, called MouseGoggles, requires a mouse to stand on a ball-shaped treadmill with its head fixed in place. The headset is attached to its head and held in place with a rod while the mouse skitters about on the treadmill. To see if the headset worked, researchers projected the image of an expanding dark blotch that appeared to be approaching the mice. "When we tried this kind of a test in the typical VR setup with big screens, the mice did not react at all," Isaacson said. "But almost every single mouse, the first time they see it with the goggles, they jump. They have a huge startle reaction. They really did seem to think they were getting attacked by a looming predator." The researchers also examined two key brain regions to make sure the VR images were working properly. Results from the primary visual cortex confirmed that the goggles form sharp, high-contrast images that mice can see, and readings from the hippocampus confirmed that mice are successfully mapping the virtual environment provided them. These VR goggles could be used to help study brain activity that occurs as mammals -- be they mice or men -- move around their environment, potentially giving researchers new insights into disorders like Alzheimer's disease, the study's authors said. The research has been published in the journal Nature Methods.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

President-elect Donald Trump has asked the Supreme Court to delay the upcoming TikTok ban while he works on a "political resolution." In a legal brief (PDF) on Friday, his lawyer said Trump "opposes banning TikTok" and "seeks the ability to resolve the issues at hand through political means once he takes office." The BBC reports: Trump had met with TikTok's CEO, Shou Zi Chew, at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida last week. In his court filing on Friday, Trump said the case represents "an unprecedented, novel, and difficult tension between free-speech rights on one side, and foreign policy and national security concerns on the other." While the filing said that Trump "takes no position on the underlying merits of this dispute", it added that pushing back the 19 January deadline would grant Trump "the opportunity to pursue a political resolution" to the matter without having to resort to the court. [...] Trump has publicly said he opposes the ban, despite supporting one in his first term as president. "I have a warm spot in my heart for TikTok, because I won youth by 34 points," he claimed at a press conference earlier in December, although a majority of young voters backed his opponent, Kamala Harris. "There are those that say that TikTok has something to do with that," he added. Earlier this month, TikTok asked the Supreme Court to block the ban, saying that the law violates both its First Amendment rights and those of its 170 million American users.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Traditional barcodes are set to be replaced by next-generation QR-style codes by 2027, offering enhanced functionality such as embedding sell-by dates, allergens, and recycling information. The Guardian reports: Tesco has started using them on some products, and other trials have suggested that waste of perishable food such as poultry can be cut by embedding sell-by dates in the new QR-style codes, allowing for more dynamic discounting. QR (quick response) codes will allow customers to instantly access more information about the product, including how to recycle batteries, clothes and building materials when tougher environmental regulations bite. But they will also put a greater demand on the world's cloud computing resources, where the extra data they contain will be stored -- meaning a potentially greater carbon footprint. The first barcode was read in an Ohio supermarket in June 1974 when a packet of Juicy Fruit chewing gum was rung up. It was devised by Joe Woodland, an inventor who had been implored by a retailer frustrated at losing profits, to speed up checkout queues and stocktaking. Coca-Cola has used the new generation of codes in parts of Latin America for refillable bottles, with the QR code allowing the counting of refills so that a requirement of 25 before recycling can be enforced. The Australian supermarket chain Woolworths is said to have reduced food waste by up to 40% in some areas, as the codes allow stores to better spot products approaching expiry and discount more efficiently. "We've defined an ambition that by the end of 2027 all retailers in the world will be able to read those next-generation barcodes," said Renaud de Barbuat, the president and chief executive of GS1. "We think it's doable ... It represents some investment on the part of retailers to adapt their point-of-sale systems, but it's already well under way." Anne Godfrey, the chief executive of GS1 UK, said: "This has been in the works for some time, but Covid really accelerated it. During the pandemic, everyone got used to pointing their phones at QR codes in pubs and restaurants to access the menu."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

In a press release today, Apple said their TV Plus subscription service will be free this weekend (January 3 through January 5). From the press release: Apple TV+ is ringing in the New Year by offering an all-access pass to customers all around the world. Enjoy Apple TV+ for free the first weekend of 2025 (January 3 through January 5), Apple TV+ will be free on any device where Apple TV+ is available. All you need is an Apple ID to see what all the buzz is about. "A full weekend may be enough to binge some of Apple's top shows, including Severance, which has its hotly anticipated season 2 launching on January 17th," notes The Verge's Umar Shakir. "The free days could also help potential subscribers get a taste of Apple's eclectic mix of sci-fi shows, such as the space race drama For All Mankind, postapocalyptic thriller Silo, and the Godzilla serial Monarch: Legacy of Monsters."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Americans check their phones an average of 205 times a day, a 42.3% increase from last year. Millennials are leading the charts in frequency, attachment, and anxiety over phone use, while Gen Z spends the most time daily on their devices at over six hours. PCMag reports: There's a good chance that you're currently reading this article on your phone. If you're like one of the Americans surveyed by Reviews.org, this is one of 205 times today that you'll be checking the device in your hand. To spare you opening the calculator app, that's about once every five minutes you are awake or two and a half full months out of your year. That's an alarming 42.3% rise from last year when the reviews company asked the same question and found people checked their phones 144 times per day. Some of the ways they spend those 205 moments are: - 80.6% check their phones within the first 10 minutes of waking up- 65.7% use their phone on the toilet- 53.7% have texted someone in the same room- 38.1% use or look at their phone while on a date- 27% use or look at their phone while driving And, of course, there are those many, many times when people check their notifications, with 76% checking their phones within five minutes of receiving one. Millennials are the fastest on the draw, with 89.5% of them checking within 10 minutes. Gen Z and Gen X have found common ground (finally), with 84% of each group looking at notifications shortly after receiving them. Boomers and the Silent Generation aren't as anxious to see who is trying to reach them, with 69% and 53.3%, respectively, checking their notifications within a few minutes.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: Chinese state-sponsored hackers broke into the U.S. Treasury Department earlier this month and stole documents from its workstations, according to a letter to lawmakers that was provided to Reuters on Monday. The hackers compromised a third-party cybersecurity service provider and were able to access unclassified documents, the letter said, calling it a "major incident." According to the letter, hackers "gained access to a key used by the vendor to secure a cloud-based service used to remotely provide technical support for Treasury Departmental Offices (DO) end users. With access to the stolen key, the threat actor was able override the service's security, remotely access certain Treasury DO user workstations, and access certain unclassified documents maintained by those users." After being alerted by cybersecurity provider BeyondTrust, the Treasury Department said it was working with the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and the FBI to assess the hack's impact. Developing...Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Crypto News: Power providers in the Siberian crypto mining hotspot of Irkutsk have discovered an illegal mining "farm" operating on their own property. The Irkutsk Region Prosecutor-General's Office posted on VK, explaining that an unnamed Irkutsk-based "electric grid supply organization" was "found illegally providing a plot of land" to crypto miners. The prosecutors explained that the state had set aside the plot to help provide "public utilities." Instead, however, the unnamed company leased the land to crypto miners, who built a "mining farm" on the property. The office said that it had fined the power provider 330 thousand rubles (over $3,120) and censured the firm. Prosecutors have also opened an administrative case against the power company. The report notes that Siberia's cheap electricity and cold winters have attracted crypto miners, causing grid instability and power outages in regions like Irkutsk. "Miners favor the low operating costs of crypto mining farms in Siberia," reports Crypto News. "They also favor the area's cheap power costs and famously low winter temperatures, which help reduce cooling fees." Despite temporary mining bans from Moscow, illegal operations persist, prompting local crackdowns.Read more of this story at Slashdot.