After a four-year hiatus, 2025 will see the return of the International Obfuscated C Code Contest. Started in 1984 (and inspired partly by a bug in the classic Bourne shell), it's "the Internet's oldest contest," acording to their official social media account on Mastodon.

The contest enters its "pending" state today at 2024-12-29 23:58 UTC — meaning an opening date for submissions has been officially scheduled (for January 31st) as well as a closing date roughly eight weeks later on April 1st, 2025. That's according to the newly-released (proposed and tentative) rules and guidelines, listing contest goals like "show the importance of programming style, in an ironic way" and "stress C compilers with unusual code." And the contest's home page adds an additional goal: "to have fun with C!" ... [ Read it >> ]

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An anonymous reader shared this report from the Washington Post:

Archer is aiming to launch its first commercially operated [and electrically-powered] flights with a pilot and passengers within a year in Abu Dhabi. A competitor, Joby Aviation, says it is aiming to launch passenger service in Dubai as soon as late 2025. Advancements in batteries and other technologies required for the futuristic tilt-rotor craft are moving so fast that they could soon move beyond the novelty stage and into broader commercial use in a matter of years. Both companies are laying plans to operate at the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles... ... [ Read it >> ]

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While microplastics seem to be everywhere, CNN reports that scientists in China "have come up with a possible solution: a biodegradable sponge made of squid bones and cotton" (which contain two organic compounds "known for eliminating pollution from wastewater...")

They then tested the sponge in four different water samples, taken from irrigation water, pond water, lake water and sea water, and found it removed up to 99.9% of microplastics, according to a study published last month in Science Advances... The sponge created by the Wuhan researchers was able to absorb microplastics both by physically intercepting them and through electromagnetic attraction, the study said. ... [ Read it >> ]

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A 9-year-old girl born without a left hand had "started asking for a robotic arm to help her feel more confident," her mother told the Washington Post. So her parents met with a consultant from Open Bionics, which fits people with lightweight, 3D-printed prostheses that function more like a natural arm and hand — known as Hero Arms.... [ Read it >> ]

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"Over the course of 2024, Python has proven again and again why it's one of the most popular, useful, and promising programming languages out there," writes InfoWorld:

The latest version of the language pushes the envelope further for speed and power, sheds many of Python's most decrepit elements, and broadens its appeal with developers worldwide. Here's a look back at the year in Python. ... [ Read it >> ]

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It had a 4.8-inch display. Introduced in 1991, Hewlett-Packard's (DOS-based) HP 95LX Palmtop PC — a collaboration with Lotus — was finally discontinued back in 2003.

But one found its way to long-time Slashdot reader Shayde (who in November repaired a 48-year-old handheld videogame console from Mattel). "I really wanted to get this HP95LX talking to the internet at large," they told Slashdot, " but network stacks for DOS in 1991 were pretty limited, and this machine didn't even have the hardware for a network connection. ... [ Read it >> ]

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"Dating apps are on the cusp of a major transformation," argues CNN, suggesting AI-powered possibilities like "personalized chatbots dating other chatbots on your behalf," as well as "AI concierges fielding questions about potential matches," and "advanced algorithms predicting compatibility better than ever before."... [ Read it >> ]

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Long-time Slashdot reader schwit1 writes: The Dubai-based startup LEAP71, focused on using AI software to quickly develop rocket engine designs it can then 3D print, has successfully test fired a prototype aerospike engine on December 18, 2024 during a static fire test campaign conducted in the United Kingdom. ... [ Read it >> ]

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Long-time Slashdot reader theodp writes:

Back in January, Rice University professor and former CACM Editor-in-Chief Moshe Y. Vardi wrote of the unintended consequences of social media and mobile computing in "Computing, You Have Blood on Your Hands!" To close out the year, Vardi addresses the role tech workers play in enabling dubious Big Tech business models — including now-powered-by-AI Big Tech Surveillance Capitalism — in an opinion piece titled "I Was Wrong about the Ethics Crisis." Vardi writes: "The belief in the magical power of the free market always to serve the public good has no theoretical basis. In fact, our current climate crisis is a demonstrated market failure. To take an extreme example, Big Tobacco surely does not support the public good, and most of us would agree that it is unethical to work for Big Tobacco. The question, thus, is whether Big Tech is supporting the public good, and if not, what should Big Tech workers do about it. Of course, there is no simple answer to such a question, and the only reasonable answer to the question of whether it is ethical to work for Big Tech is, 'It depends.' [...] It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it, said the writer and political activist Upton Sinclair. By and large, Big Tech workers do not seem to be asking themselves hard questions, I believe, hence my conclusion that we do indeed suffer from an ethics crisis."... [ Read it >> ]

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Business Insider reports:

The lead researcher for Sam Altman's basic-income study says guaranteed no-strings payments are not a silver bullet for issues facing lower-income Americans. Elizabeth Rhodes, the research director for the Basic Income Project at Open Research, told Business Insider that while basic-income payments are "beneficial in many ways," the programs also have "clear limitations...." ... [ Read it >> ]

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A Linux Foundation project focused on understanding the health of the open source community just studied the outcomes for three projects that switched to "more restrictive" licenses and then faced community forks.

The data science director for the project — known as Community Health Analytics in Open Source Software (or CHAOSS) — is also an OpenUK board member, and describes the outcomes for OpenSearch, Redis with fork Valkey, and Terraform:... [ Read it >> ]

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Magnus Carlsen quit the World Rapid Chess Championship on Friday, reports CNN, "after he refused to change out of the jeans he was wearing..."

"Carlsen, the world champion from 2013 until 2023, allegedly replied, 'I'm out, f*** you,' after being informed that he would not be permitted to continue," reports the Hindustan Times. ... [ Read it >> ]

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Thursday New York's governor signed new legislation "to hold polluters responsible for the damage done to our environment" by establishing a Climate Superfund that's paid for by big fossil-fuel companies.

The money will be used for "climate change adaptation," according to New York state senator Liz Krueger, who notes that the legislation follows "the polluter-pays model" used in America's already-existing federal and state superfund laws. Spread out over 25 years, the legislation collects an average of $3 billion each year — or $75 billion — "from the parties most responsible for causing the climate crisis — big oil and gas companies." ... [ Read it >> ]

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Slashdot reader DevNull127 writes: This year the London Stock Exchange got a new listing for "Raspberry Pi Holdings plc." It's the computer-making commercial subsidiary of their larger educational charity, the Raspberry Pi Foundation. "Access to the public market will enable us to build more of the products you love, faster," explained CEO Eben Upton in June. And in May Foundation head Philip Colligan added that beyond the $50 million already donated to their educational charity by the commercial subsidiary, the IPO would allow the conversion of some stock sales to "an endowment that we will use to fund our educational programmes... The Foundation will use any funds that we raise through the sale of shares at the IPO — or subsequently — to advance our ambitious global strategy to enable every young person to realise their full potential through the power of computing and digital technologies." ... [ Read it >> ]

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ewhac (Slashdot reader #5,844) writes:

Retraction Watch is reporting that the entire editorial staff (save one) for the Journal of Human Evolution has resigned in protest over creeping harmful changes imposed by its publisher, Elsevier.

In an open letter posted to social media, the editors recount Elsevier's changes to their journal's scientific and editorial processes (inserting itself into those processes) — along with staff and budget reductions negatively impacting their ability to review and publish submissions. The letter alleges that when the editorial board complained of Elsevier's eliminating support for a copy editor, Elsevier responded that the editors shouldn't be paying attention to language, grammar, readability, consistency, or accuracy of proper nomenclature or formatting. When the editors fiercely protested Elsevier's ending of JHE's dual-editor model, Elsevier allegedly responded that it would support a dual-editor model by cutting the compensation rate by half.... [ Read it >> ]

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Valerie Warner is 71 years old — and owes $268,000 in student loans.

Roughly 40 years ago she went to law school, but was only able to find work as a legal aid and later work in the public school system, which the Washington Post calls "a rewarding job but one that didn't pay enough to wipe out her loans." Later she earned a masters of education degree:... [ Read it >> ]

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Lyft is suing the city of San Francisco, claiming the city unfairly charged the ride-hailing company over $100 million in taxes, Bloomberg reports. The lawsuit alleges that, over the course of five years, San Francisco unfairly labeled money earned by Lyft drivers as company revenue. In the complaint, Lyft maintains that its drivers are its customers, not employees. "Accordingly, Lyft recognizes revenue from rideshare as being comprised of fees paid to Lyft by drivers, not charges paid by riders to drivers," the complaint reads.... [ Read it >> ]

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A new report reveals that the VW Group left sensitive data for 800,000 electric vehicles from Audi, VW, Seat, and Skoda poorly secured on an Amazon cloud, exposing precise GPS locations, battery statuses, and user habits for months. Carscoops reports: It gets worse. A more tech-savvy user could reportedly connect vehicles to their owners' personal credentials, thanks to additional data accessible through VW Group's online services Crucially, in 466,000 of the 800,000 cases, the location data was so precise that anyone with access could create a detailed profile of each owner's daily habits. As reported by Spiegel, the massive list of affected owners isn't just a who's-who of regular folks. It includes German politicians, entrepreneurs, Hamburg police officers (the entire EV fleet, no less), and even suspected intelligence service employees. Yes, even spies may have been caught up in this digital debacle.... [ Read it >> ]

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Accidental missile attacks on commercial airliners have become the leading cause of aviation fatalities in recent years (Warning: source paywalled; alternative source), driven by rising global conflicts and the proliferation of advanced antiaircraft weaponry. Despite improvements in aviation safety overall, inconsistent risk assessments, political complexities, and rapid military escalations make protecting civilian flights in conflict zones increasingly difficult. The Wall Street Journal reports: The crash Wednesday of an Azerbaijan Airlines jetliner in Kazakhstan, if officially confirmed as a midair attack, would be the third major fatal downing of a passenger jet linked to armed conflict since 2014, according to the Flight Safety Foundation's Aviation Safety Network, a global database of accidents and incidents. The tally would bring to more than 500 the number of deaths from such attacks during that period. Preliminary results of Azerbaijan's investigation into the crash indicate the plane was hit by a Russian antiaircraft missile, or shrapnel from it, said people briefed on the probe.... [ Read it >> ]

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Independent: The two professions associated with the lowest levels of death due to Alzheimer's disease may be surprising. Taxi and ambulance drivers were found to have the lowest proportion of deaths of more than 440 occupations that were considered in a new observation-based study from Massachusetts physicians. Alzheimer's disease is a type of dementia that affects memory, thinking, and behavior. It impacts millions of Americans and is one of the top 10 causes of death in the US.... [ Read it >> ]

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BrianFagioli shares a report from BetaNews: It might sound unbelievable, but the human brain processes information at just 10 bits per second! Yes, folks, that's slower than the internet speeds many of us endured during the early days of dial-up. While our senses take in billions of bits of data every second, our brain intelligently sifts through the chaos, letting through only what's important.... [ Read it >> ]

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jjslash shares a report from TechSpot: A Valve employee recently provided PC Gamer with a rough calculation of the company's per-employee income, revealing that Valve generates more money per person than several of the world's largest companies. While the data is a few years old and doesn't account for some significant recent trends in the tech sector, Valve's ranking in this metric likely hasn't shifted much over that time. Exact figures for Valve's per-hour and per-employee net income remain redacted. However, a chart from 2018 confirms that Valve's per-employee income exceeded that of companies like Facebook, Apple, Netflix, Alphabet/Google, Microsoft, Intel, and Amazon. Facebook ranks second with a high revenue per employee of $780,400 annually, or $89 per hour, surpassing competitors like Apple and Microsoft due to its relatively smaller workforce of under 70,000. Amazon, by contrast, with over 1.5 million employees, earns significantly less per employee at $15,892 annually, or $1.81 per hour.... [ Read it >> ]

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The implementation of the Corporate Transparency Act -- a law aimed at getting shell companies to disclose their true ownership -- was paused again just days before a reporting deadline was set to take effect, as a federal appeals court handed the case to a panel for further consideration. From a report: In a court filing late Thursday, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals vacated a stay on a national injunction the court had issued Monday that reinstated the Jan. 1 reporting deadline for millions of companies. The lifting of the stay means the January filing deadline will be postponed once again and bars the government and the Treasury Department from enforcing the law, pending oral arguments before the court's so-called merits panel, a group of judges tasked with considering appeals. ... [ Read it >> ]

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On Christmas Day, the social media app Bluesky added a list of Trending topics to its mobile app, allowing users to see which subjects are popular among its community. The Verge reports: The new feature can be found by selecting the search icon (the magnifying glass), which appears at the bottom of the screen on the mobile app and on the left sidebar on the web. Lists of Trending and Recommended subjects now appear below the search bar. Tap on any topic, and you will be able to access the associated posts. [...] According to the announcement, the new feature is "V1" (it is marked as a Beta on the app) and "we will be iterating with your feedback."... [ Read it >> ]

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: Despite having an endless amount of music to pair with their short, scrollable videos, TikTok users have been raiding the back catalogues of artists from yesteryear including Bronski Beat and Sade to soundtrack their posts. This year set a new high for use of old tracks on British TikTok posts, with tunes more than five years old accounting for 19 out of its 50 top tracks this year. It is the highest proportion since TikTok started monitoring the trend in 2021, when just 8 out of the 50 tracks were from back catalogues. The trend is also global, with 20 out of the top 50 tracks worldwide coming from back catalogues, led by 80s hit Forever Young by German synth-pop band Alphaville. Here are the top back catalogue tracks (must be more than five years old) on TikTok this year:... [ Read it >> ]

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There's been an explosion of interest among senior executives -- including C-suite leaders -- in going gig, or "fractional." From a report: "People don't want to go back to pre-COVID -- [they] want control, more work-life-balance, and a say over who they work with and how they work," Karina Mikhli, founder of Fractionals United, a 13,000-member community group, tells Axios in an email. ... [ Read it >> ]

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Hackers have compromised several different companies' Chrome browser extensions in a series of intrusions dating back to mid-December, according to one of the victims and experts who have examined the campaign. From a report: Among the victims was the California-based Cyberhaven, a data protection company that confirmed the breach in a statement to Reuters on Friday. "Cyberhaven can confirm that a malicious cyberattack occurred on Christmas Eve, affecting our Chrome extension," the statement said. ... [ Read it >> ]

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President Biden on Monday signed the SHARE IT Act (H.R. 9566) into law, mandating federal agencies share custom-developed code with each other to prevent duplicative software development contracts and reduce the $12 billion annual government software expenditure. The law requires agencies to publicly list metadata about custom code, establish sharing policies, and align development with best practices while exempting classified, national security, and privacy-sensitive code. FedScoop reports: Under the law, agency chief information officers are required to develop policies within 180 days of enactment that implement the act. Those policies need to ensure that custom-developed code aligns with best practices, establish a process for making the metadata for custom code publicly available, and outline a standardized reporting process. Per the new law, metadata includes information about whether custom code was developed under a contract or shared in a repository, the contract number, and a hyperlink to the repository where the code was shared. The legislation also has industry support. Stan Shepard, Atlassian's general counsel, said that the company shares "the belief that greater collaboration and sharing of custom code will promote openness, efficiency, and innovation across the federal enterprise."... [ Read it >> ]

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Montenegro has approved the extradition of cryptocurrency entrepreneur Do Kwon to the United States over his role in the collapse of TerraUSD and Luna tokens, which wiped out $40 billion from investors and destabilized global crypto markets. The BBC reports: "The Minister of Justice, Bojan Bozovic, issued a decision approving the extradition of the accused, Kwon Do Hyung, to the United States of America," the Ministry of Justice announced said in a statement. "It was concluded that the majority of the criteria prescribed by law favor the extradition request from the competent authorities of the United States of America," the statement said. It added that Kwon had consented to be extradited to both South Korea and the United States.... [ Read it >> ]

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Apparently Hertz's purging of electric vehicles from its fleet isn't going fast enough for the car rental giant. A Reddit user posted an offer they received from Hertz to buy the 2023 Tesla Model 3 they had been renting for $17,913. Hertz originally went strong into EVs, announcing a plan to buy 100,000 Model 3s for its fleet by the end of 2021, but 16 months later had acquired only half that amount. The company found that repair costs -- especially for Teslas, which averaged 20 percent more than other EVs -- were cutting into its profit margins. Customer demand was also not what Hertz had hoped for; last January, it announced plans to sell off 20,000 EVs.... [ Read it >> ]

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A ninth U.S. telecommunications company has been compromised in a Chinese espionage campaign that targeted private communications, particularly around Washington D.C., White House Deputy National Security Adviser Anne Neuberger said Friday.

The intrusion, part of the "Salt Typhoon" operation that previously hit eight telecom firms, allowed hackers to access customer call records and private messages. While the total number of affected Americans remains unclear, many targets were government officials and political figures in the Washington-Virginia area.... [ Read it >> ]

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Meta is betting that characters generated by AI will fill its social media platforms in the next few years as it looks to the fast-developing technology to drive engagement with its 3 billion users. From a report: The Silicon Valley group is rolling out a range of AI products, including one that helps users create AI characters on Instagram and Facebook [non-paywalled source], as it battles with rival tech groups to attract and retain a younger audience. ... [ Read it >> ]

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The British-Canadian computer scientist often touted as a "godfather" of artificial intelligence has shortened the odds of AI wiping out humanity over the next three decades, warning the pace of change in the technology is "much faster" than expected. From a report: Prof Geoffrey Hinton, who this year was awarded the Nobel prize in physics for his work in AI, said there was a "10 to 20" per cent chance that AI would lead to human extinction within the next three decades. ... [ Read it >> ]

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Following its record-breaking closest approach to the Sun, NASA's Parker Solar Probe has transmitted a beacon tone back to Earth indicating it's in good health and operating normally. NASA: The mission operations team at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland received the signal just before midnight EST, on the night of Dec. 26. The team was out of contact with the spacecraft during closest approach, which occurred on Dec. 24, with Parker Solar Probe zipping just 3.8 million miles from the solar surface while moving about 430,000 miles per hour. ... [ Read it >> ]

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A wave of fraudulent copyright takedowns on YouTube has exposed vulnerabilities in the platform's content moderation system, enabling anonymous users to threaten creators' channels through false legal claims, The Verge is reporting. Several gaming content creators, including a channel with 1.5 million subscribers, received takedown notices from someone impersonating Nintendo's legal team. Though YouTube acknowledged the false claims, the company declined to explain how it verifies takedown requests or detail measures to prevent abuse of its copyright system.... [ Read it >> ]

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Vacancies at open-air shopping centres in the US have dropped to historically low levels [non-paywalled source], defying forecasts of a retail apocalypse caused by the rise of ecommerce. From a report: Landlords of complexes anchored by big-box chains, discount merchants and supermarkets have gained power to raise rents as leases expire. New construction has been stymied by higher interest rates and soaring building costs. ... [ Read it >> ]

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From December 28th, a large percentage of the gadgets bought inside the EU are required to charge via USB-C. From a report: The goal for Directive 2022/2380, known colloquially as the common charging solution, is to reduce e-waste and solve market fragmentation. You may recall Apple and the EU butting heads over this a few years ago. ... [ Read it >> ]

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OpenAI plans to overhaul its corporate structure by converting its for-profit business into a Delaware public benefit corporation, seeking to raise capital from investors who want conventional equity stakes.

The Microsoft-backed AI startup will scrap its unusual hybrid model where a nonprofit controls a capped-profit entity. The restructuring aims to help OpenAI compete with tech giants pouring hundreds of billions into AI development, it said. ... [ Read it >> ]

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Facial recognition technology is poised to replace traditional passports globally, marking the biggest shift in travel documentation since World War 1. Airports across Finland, Canada, Netherlands, UAE, UK, Italy, US, and India are testing passport-free systems, with Singapore already implementing the technology for its residents and departing visitors. ... [ Read it >> ]

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Major video game studios' pursuit of ultra-realistic graphics has led to diminishing returns and industry-wide layoffs, as younger players gravitate toward simpler, more social games, New York Times is reporting.

Sony's Insomniac Games spent $300 million developing Marvel's Spider-Man 2, triple the budget of its predecessor, before laying off staff amid Sony's 900-person reduction in February. The industry has cut more than 20,000 jobs in the past two years. Meanwhile, games with basic graphics like Minecraft, Roblox and Fortnite continue to dominate, particularly among younger players. ... [ Read it >> ]

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Japanese megabank MUFG Bank says that its internet banking service has been unstable, indicating that it may have been under a cyberattack. From a report: The glitch, which occurred from 2:47 p.m., originated from "massive influx of data," the main banking unit of Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group said. There was no leakage of customer information, nor was any damage caused by computer viruses.... [ Read it >> ]

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Chinese AI startup DeepSeek has released what appears to be one of the most powerful open-source language models to date, trained at a cost of just $5.5 million using restricted Nvidia H800 GPUs.

The 671-billion-parameter DeepSeek V3, released this week under a permissive commercial license, outperformed both open and closed-source AI models in internal benchmarks, including Meta's Llama 3.1 and OpenAI's GPT-4 on coding tasks. ... [ Read it >> ]

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The Federal Trade Commission has launched a broad antitrust investigation into Microsoft's business practices, focusing on how the company bundles its Office products with cybersecurity and cloud computing services.

The probe follows ProPublica reporting that revealed Microsoft offered free temporary upgrades of federal agencies' software licenses to include advanced cybersecurity features, leading to long-term contracts once the trial period ended. The strategy helped Microsoft expand its government business while displacing competitors in both cybersecurity and cloud computing markets. ... [ Read it >> ]

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theodp writes: In 2012, now-Microsoft President Brad Smith unveiled Microsoft's National Talent Strategy, a two-pronged strategy that called for tech visa restrictions to be loosened to allow tech companies to hire non-U.S. citizens to fill jobs until more American schoolchildren could be made tech-savvy enough to pass hiring standards. Shortly thereafter, tech-backed nonprofit Code.org emerged (led by Smith's next-door neighbor Hadi Partovi with Smith as a founding Board member) with a mission to ensure that U.S. schoolchildren started receiving 'rigorous' computer science education instruction. Around the same time, Mark Zuckerberg's FWD.us PAC launched (with support from Smith, Partovi, and other tech leaders) with a mission to reform tech visa policy to meet tech's need for talent. ... [ Read it >> ]

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Microsoft is warning that Windows 11 installations using USB or CD media created with October or November 2024 security updates may be unable to receive future security patches.

The bug affects version 24H2 installations made between October 8 and November 12, but does not impact systems updated through Windows Update or the Microsoft Update Catalog. Microsoft advised users to rebuild installation media using December 2024 patches while it works on a permanent fix for the issue, which primarily affects business and education environments.... [ Read it >> ]

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U.S. biotech startup Loyal plans to launch a lifespan-extending drug for dogs in early 2024, potentially offering insights into human longevity. The San Francisco-based company has secured $125 million in funding for LOY-002, a beef-flavored daily pill designed to extend canine lifespans by at least one year. The drug works by targeting age-related metabolic changes and insulin regulation, according to Loyal CEO Celine Halioua. ... [ Read it >> ]

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Apple's $3,499 Vision Pro headset has failed to gain widespread adoption despite advanced technology, with consumers preferring discreet wearables like smartwatches. The Verge: Nearly a year from launch, though, Apple hasn't done enough to demonstrate why the Vision Pro should be a potential showcase of the future of computing. It's taking a long time to put together its immersive content library, and while those are great demonstrations of what's possible, the videos have been short and isolating. There aren't many great games, either. ... [ Read it >> ]

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OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is negotiating major changes to the company's $14 billion partnership with Microsoft. The companies have defined artificial general intelligence (AGI) as systems generating $100 billion in profits - the point at which OpenAI could end certain Microsoft agreements, The Information reports. ... [ Read it >> ]

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Data center construction is driving an unprecedented influx of electricians to central Washington state, where abundant hydropower and tax incentives have attracted major tech companies building AI infrastructure, New York Times is reporting.

Microsoft alone projects needing 2,300 electricians in coming years for facilities across three counties along the Columbia River. Union electricians earning up to $2,800 weekly after taxes are transforming agricultural communities like Quincy, where data centers now account for 75% of local tax revenue. ... [ Read it >> ]

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Microsoft has integrated its AI assistant Copilot into Microsoft 365 subscriptions in Australia and Southeast Asia, simultaneously raising prices for all users. The move forces customers to pay for AI features regardless of interest, prompting complaints about intrusive pop-ups and price hikes, WSJ reports. From the report: Some users said on social media that Copilot pop-ups reminded them of Clippy, Microsoft's widely derided Office helper from the late 1990s, that would frequently offer unsolicited help. ... [ Read it >> ]

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