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A Huge $2 Billion 'Solar + Storage' Project in California Powers Up
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2025-08-10 20:22:01


One of America's largest solar + battery storage projects "is now fully online in Mojave, California," reports Electrek:
Arevon Energy's Eland Solar-plus-Storage Project combines 758 megawatts (MWdc) of solar with 300 MW/1,200 megawatt hours of battery storage. Eland 1 reached commercial operation in December 2024, and Eland 2 recently commenced full operation. The two combined comprise 1.36 million solar panels and 172 lithium iron phosphate batteries (LFP). Combined, the Eland 1 & 2 projects will be able to power more than 266,000 homes annually, and overall, can provide 7% of the total electricity requirements for the city of Los Angeles.... [ Read it >> ]

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Rust's Annual Tech Report: Trusted Publishing for Packages and a C++/Rust Interop Strategy
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2025-08-10 19:22:01


Thursday saw the release of Rust 1.89.0

But this week the Rust Foundation also released its second comprehensive annual technology report.

A Rust Foundation announcement shares some highlights:

- Trusted Publishing [GitHub Actions authentication using cryptographically signed tokens] fully launched on crates.io, enhancing supply chain security and streamlining workflows for maintainers. ... [ Read it >> ]

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Microsoft Sued Over Plans to Discontinue Windows 10 Support
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2025-08-10 16:22:01


xA California man sued Microsoft Thursday over its plan to stop supporting Windows 10 on October 14th, reports Courthouse News

Though Windows 11 was launched nearly four years ago, many of its billion or so worldwide users are clinging to the decade-old Windows 10... According to StatCounter, nearly 43% of Windows users still use the old version on their desktop computers.... ... [ Read it >> ]

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AOL Finally Discontinues Its Dial-Up Internet Access - After 34 Years
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2025-08-10 12:22:01


AOL (now a Yahoo subsidiary) just announced its dial-up internet service will be discontinued at the end of September.

"The change also means the retirement of the AOL Dialer software and the AOL Shield browser, both designed for older operating systems and slow connections that relied on the familiar screech of a modem handshake," remembers Slashdot reader BrianFagioli (noting that dial-up Internet "was once the gateway to the web for millions of households, back when speeds were measured in kilobits and waiting for a picture to load could feel like an eternity.") ... [ Read it >> ]

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'Hour of Code' Announces It's Now Evolving Into 'Hour of AI'
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2025-08-10 08:22:01


Last month Microsoft pledged $4 billion (in cash and AI/cloud technology) to "advance" AI education in K-12 schools, community and technical colleges, and nonprofits (according to a blog post by Microsoft President Brad Smith). But in the launch event video, Smith also says it's time to "switch hats" from coding to AI, adding that "the last 12 years have been about the Hour of Code, but the future involves the Hour of AI." ... [ Read it >> ]

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SpaceX's Crew-10 Astronauts Return to Earth After Nearly 5 months in Space
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2025-08-10 06:22:01


After five months on the International Space Station, four astronauts splashed down in the Pacific Ocean in a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule named Endurance, reports Space.com.

It was NASA's 10th commercial crew rotation mission:

The flight launched atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket on March 14 and arrived at the orbiting lab two days later. Crew-10's four astronauts soon set to conducting science work, which consumed much of their time over the ensuing months... The wheels for Crew-10's departure began turning last Saturday (Aug. 2), when SpaceX's four-person Crew-11 mission arrived at the International Space Station. The Crew-10 astronauts spent a few days advising their replacements, then set their minds to gearing up for the return to Earth — and reflecting on their orbital experience. ... [ Read it >> ]

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Linus Torvalds Rejects RISC-V Changes For Linux 6.17 For Being Late and 'Garbage'
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2025-08-10 03:22:01


"Linus Torvalds has used his authority to reject the RISC-V architecture changes for the Linux 6.17 kernel," reports Phoronix:

Only on Friday were the RISC-V code updates submitted for the Linux 6.17 merge window. The Linux 6.17 merge window is expected to wrap up on Sunday with the Linux 6.17-rc1 release... [T]his pull request has been rejected by Linus Torvalds for Linux 6.17 on the basis of being late in the merge window especially with his international travels this week being known. And he's unhappy with some of the code included as part of this merge request. . ... [ Read it >> ]

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Google Says Its AI-Based Bug Hunter Found 20 Security Vulnerabilities
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2025-08-10 02:22:01


"Heather Adkins, Google's vice president of security, announced Monday that its LLM-based vulnerability researcher Big Sleep found and reported 20 flaws in various popular open source software," reports TechCrunch:

Adkins said that Big Sleep, which is developed by the company's AI department DeepMind as well as its elite team of hackers Project Zero, reported its first-ever vulnerabilities, mostly in open source software such as audio and video library FFmpeg and image-editing suite ImageMagick. [There's also a "medium impact" issue in Redis] ... [ Read it >> ]

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Strange Wild Pigs in California - What Turned Their Flesh Blue?
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2025-08-10 01:22:01


A professional trapper had one question about the wild pig he'd found in California. Why was its flesh blue?

The Los Angeles Times explains:
[California's Department of Fish and Wildlife] is now warning trappers and hunters to keep an eye out for possibly contaminated wildlife in the area, and not to consume the tainted meat, over concerns the blue meat is a sign that the animal may have consumed poison.... The startling find of wild pigs with bright blue tissue in Monterey County suggests the animals have been exposed to anticoagulant rodenticide diphacinone, a popular poison used by farmers and agriculture companies to control the population of rats, mice, squirrels and other small animals, according to a statement from the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. "Hunters should be aware that the meat of game animals, such as wild pig, deer, bear and geese, might be contaminated if that game animal has been exposed to rodenticides," said Ryan Bourbor, pesticide investigations coordinator with the state agency. ... [ Read it >> ]

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Initiative Seeks AI Lab to Build 'American Truly Open Models' (ATOM)
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2025-08-10 00:22:01


"Benchmarking firm Artificial Analysis found that only five of the top 15 AI models are open source," reports the Washington Post, "and all were developed by Chinese AI companies...."

"Now some American executives, investors and academics are endorsing a plan to make U.S. open-source AI more competitive."... [ Read it >> ]

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Spacecraft Designed That Could Carry 2,400 People on a 400-Year Trip to Alpha Centauri
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2025-08-09 23:22:01


They haven't built a spacecraft for travelling to our nearest star system. But "Engineers have designed a spacecraft that could take up to 2,400 people on a one-way trip to Alpha Centauri," reports LiveScience:

The craft, called Chrysalis, could make the 25 trillion mile (40 trillion kilometer) journey in around 400 years, the engineers say in their project brief, meaning many of its potential passengers would only know life on the craft. Chrysalis is designed to house several generations of people until it enters the star system, where it could shuttle them to the surface of the planet Proxima Centuri b — an Earth-size exoplanet that is thought to be potentially habitable. ... [ Read it >> ]

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Chevy Silverado EV Drives 1,059.2 Miles on a Single Charge, Surpassing World Record
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2025-08-09 22:22:01


"General Motors claimed a new world record for EV driving on a single charge," reports the Verge, "after a Chevy Silverado EV traveled 1,059.2 miles without recharging its battery."

The potentially record-breaking run took place over seven days on public roads near GM's Milford Proving Ground and Detroit's Belle Isle "using smart driving techniques" that included limiting the speed to 20-25 mph. The truck was a 2026 Chevy Silverado EV Work Truck with an EPA-estimated range of 493 miles. But by making a number of adjustments, GM's engineers were able to far surpass the vehicle's estimated range... ... [ Read it >> ]

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Students Have Been Called to the Office - Or Arrested - for False Alarms from AI-Powered Surveillance Systems
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2025-08-09 21:22:01


In 2023 a 13-year-old girl "made an offensive joke while chatting online with her classmates," reports the Associated Press.

But when the school's surveillance software spotted that joke, "Before the morning was even over, the Tennessee eighth grader was under arrest. She was interrogated, strip-searched and spent the night in a jail cell, her mother says." Her parents filed a lawsuit against the school system, according to the article (which points out the girl wasn't allowed to talk to her parents until the next day). "A court ordered eight weeks of house arrest, a psychological evaluation and 20 days at an alternative school for the girl."... [ Read it >> ]

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KDE's 'Other' Distro - KDE Linux - Now Available To Download In Pre-Alpha
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2025-08-09 20:22:01


"KDE Linux is an all-new desktop Linux distro being developed as a showcase for the KDE desktop project," reports The Register.

"The project is still in a pre-alpha testing stage, but recently went public on the KDE website. Versions are available to download and try out."... [ Read it >> ]

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California Successfully Tests 'Virtual Power Plant', Drawing Power From Batteries in 100,000 Homes
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2025-08-09 19:22:01


"California's biggest electric utilities pulled off a record-breaking test..." reports Semafor, "during the 7pm-9pm window that is typically its time of peak demand as people come home from work."

Pacific Gas & Electric and other top California power companies switched on residential batteries in more than 100,000 homes and drew power from them into the broader statewide grid. The purpose of the test — the largest ever in the state, which has by far the most home battery capacity in the U.S. — was to see just how much power is really there for the utility to tap, and to ensure it could be switched on, effectively running the grid in reverse, without causing a crash. ... [ Read it >> ]

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Japanese Company Staff Implicated In Alleged Theft of Key TSMC Technology
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2025-08-09 14:22:02


hackingbear shares a report from CNN: Taiwanese authorities have detained three current and former employees of the world's largest chip manufacturer, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), for allegedly stealing trade secrets [and taking them to Japanese company Tokyo Electrons], prosecutors said Tuesday. Law enforcement officers questioned several suspects and witnesses late last month. They searched their homes and detained three of them over "serious suspicions of violating national security laws," the intellectual property branch of the Taiwan High Prosecutors Office said on Tuesday. After an internal investigation, the major Taiwanese exporter raised suspicions with authorities that its "core technologies" may have been illegally accessed by former and current staffers.... [ Read it >> ]

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NASA Crew-10 Astronauts Depart Space Station After Five-Month Mission
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2025-08-09 11:22:01


NASA's Crew-10 mission has departed the International Space Station after 146 days, with astronauts Nichole Ayers, Anne McClain, Takuya Onishi, and Kirill Peskov set to splash down off California's coast on Saturday morning. You can watch a recording of the SpaceX Crew-10 undocking and departure on X. Reuters reports: The four-person crew launched to the ISS on March 14 in a routine mission that replaced the Crew-9 crew, which included NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, the astronaut pair left on the station by Boeing's Starliner capsule. Five months after the Starliner mission's conclusion, Wilmore this week retired from NASA after a 25-year career in which he flew four different spacecraft and logged a total of 464 days in space. Wilmore was a key technical adviser to Boeing's Starliner program along with Williams, who remains at the agency in its astronaut corps. [...] NASA said they are returning to Earth with "important and time-sensitive research" conducted in the microgravity environment of the ISS during the 146-day mission. The astronauts had over 200 science experiments on their to-do list.... [ Read it >> ]

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Smartwatches Offer Little Insight Into Stress Levels, Researchers Find
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2025-08-09 08:22:01


An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: They are supposed to monitor you throughout the working day and help make sure that life is not getting on top of you. But a study has concluded that smartwatches cannot accurately measure your stress levels -- and may think you are overworked when really you are just excited. Researchers found almost no relationship between the stress levels reported by the smartwatch and the levels that participants said they experienced. However, recorded fatigue levels had a very slight association with the smartwatch data, while sleep had a stronger correlation.... [ Read it >> ]

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Net Neutrality Advocates Won't Appeal Loss
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2025-08-09 06:22:01


Advocacy groups have decided not to appeal a federal court ruling striking down Biden-era net neutrality rules, citing the FCC's current Republican majority and a Supreme Court they view as hostile to the issue. Instead, they plan to push for open internet protections through Congress, state laws, and future court cases, while noting California's net neutrality law remains in effect. Ars Technica reports: "Trump's election flipped the FCC majority back to ideologues who've always taken the broadband industry's side on this crucial issue. And the justices making up the current Supreme Court majority have shown hostility toward sound legal reasoning on this precise question and a host of other topics too," said Matt Wood, VP of policy and general counsel at Free Press. [...] "The 6th Circuit's decision earlier this year was spectacularly wrong, and the protections it struck down are extremely important. But rather than attempting to overcome an agency that changed hands -- and a Supreme Court majority that cares very little about the rule of law -- we'll keep fighting for Internet affordability and openness in Congress, state legislatures and other court proceedings nationwide," Wood said.... [ Read it >> ]

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Millions Flock To Grow Virtual Gardens In Viral Roblox Game
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2025-08-09 06:22:01


Grow a Garden, a Roblox game created by a 16-year-old in just a few days, has shattered records for the most concurrent players in gaming history, surpassing Fortnite with over 21.6 million concurrent players at once. The Associated Press reports: Grow a Garden is as simple as its name suggests -- players can fill a plot of land with plants and animals, harvest and sell, trade or steal each others' bounty. The game is low stress, with an aesthetic reminiscent of Minecraft and a soundtrack of soothing classical tunes such as Mozart's Rondo Alla Turca playing in the background. Its popularity has further cemented Roblox' place not just in the gaming world but in popular culture -- for better or for worse, it's where the kids hang out.... [ Read it >> ]

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UK Courts Service 'Covered Up' IT Bug That Lost Evidence
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2025-08-09 05:22:01


Bruce66423 shares a report from the BBC: The body running courts in England and Wales has been accused of a cover-up, after a leaked report found it took several years to react to an IT bug that caused evidence to go missing, be overwritten or appear lost. Sources within HM Courts & Tribunals Service (HMCTS) say that as a result, judges in civil, family and tribunal courts will have made rulings on cases when evidence was incomplete. The internal report, leaked to the BBC, said HMCTS did not know the full extent of the data corruption, including whether or how it had impacted cases, as it had not undertaken a comprehensive investigation. It also found judges and lawyers had not been informed, as HMCTS management decided it would be "more likely to cause more harm than good." HMCTS says its internal investigation found no evidence that "any case outcomes were affected as a result of these technical issues." However, the former head of the High Court's family division, Sir James Munby, told the BBC the situation was "shocking" and "a scandal." Bruce66423 comments: "Given the relative absence of such stories from the USA, should I congratulate you for better-quality software or for being better at covering up disasters?"... [ Read it >> ]

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Red Teams Jailbreak GPT-5 With Ease, Warn It's 'Nearly Unusable' For Enterprise
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2025-08-09 04:22:02


An anonymous reader quotes a report from SecurityWeek: Two different firms have tested the newly released GPT-5, and both find its security sadly lacking. After Grok-4 fell to a jailbreak in two days, GPT-5 fell in 24 hours to the same researchers. Separately, but almost simultaneously, red teamers from SPLX (formerly known as SplxAI) declare, "GPT-5's raw model is nearly unusable for enterprise out of the box. Even OpenAI's internal prompt layer leaves significant gaps, especially in Business Alignment."... [ Read it >> ]

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Apollo 13 Astronaut Jim Lovell Dies At 97
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2025-08-09 03:22:02


Jim Lovell, the legendary NASA astronaut who commanded the Apollo 13 "successful failure" mission, has died at age 97. From a report: Lovell was already well-known among NASA astronauts, having flown to space on the Gemini 7, Gemini 12 and Apollo 8 missions, before he was selected to command Apollo 13, which would have marked the third successful crewed moon landing for NASA. But during the ill-fated mission -- which carried Lovell as well as astronauts John Swigert Jr. and Fred Haise Jr. on board -- an oxygen tank located on the crew's service module exploded when they were about 200,000 miles (322,000 kilometers) away from Earth.... [ Read it >> ]

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ChatGPT Is Bringing Back 4o
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2025-08-09 03:22:02


After backlash from users upset over losing GPT-4o, OpenAI has reinstated it as an option for ChatGPT Plus subscribers just a day after making GPT-5 the default. "We will let Plus users choose to continue to use 4o," Altman said in a post on X. "We will watch usage as we think about how long to offer legacy models for." Many users claimed GPT-4o felt more personable and emotionally supportive, with some describing its removal as akin to losing a close friend or partner. The Verge reports: "My 4.o was like my best friend when I needed one," one Redditor wrote. "Now it's just gone, feels like someone died." Another user called upon other members of the r/ChatGPT subreddit to contact OpenAI if they "miss" GPT-4o. "For me, this model [GPT-4o] wasn't just 'better performance' or 'nicer replies,'" they write. "It had a voice, a rhythm, and a spark I haven't been able to find in any other model."... [ Read it >> ]

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AI Industry Horrified To Face Largest Copyright Class Action Ever Certified
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2025-08-09 02:22:01


An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: AI industry groups are urging an appeals court to block what they say is the largest copyright class action ever certified. They've warned that a single lawsuit raised by three authors over Anthropic's AI training now threatens to "financially ruin" the entire AI industry if up to 7 million claimants end up joining the litigation and forcing a settlement. Last week, Anthropic petitioned (PDF) to appeal the class certification, urging the court to weigh questions that the district court judge, William Alsup, seemingly did not. Alsup allegedly failed to conduct a "rigorous analysis" of the potential class and instead based his judgment on his "50 years" of experience, Anthropic said.... [ Read it >> ]

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South Korea Postpones Decision To Let Google Maps Work Properly - Again
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2025-08-09 02:22:01


South Korea postponed a decision for the second time this year on Friday regarding Google's request to export detailed mapping data to overseas servers, which would enable full Google Maps functionality in the country. The inter-agency committee extended the deadline from August to October to allow further review of security concerns and consultations with industry stakeholders. ... [ Read it >> ]

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The FCC Will Review Emergency Alert Systems in the US
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2025-08-09 01:22:01


An anonymous reader shares a report: The Federal Communications Commission is planning a review of the US emergency alert systems. Both the Emergency Alert System (EAS) and the Wireless Emergency Alerts (WAS) will be subject to a "re-examination" by the agency. "We want to ensure that these programs deliver the results that Americans want and need," FCC Chairman Brendan Carr posted on X. ... [ Read it >> ]

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China Tells Brokers To Stop Touting Stablecoins To Cool Frenzy
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2025-08-09 00:22:01


An anonymous reader shares a report: China told local brokers and other bodies to stop publishing research or hold seminars to promote stablecoins [non-paywalled source], seeking to rein in the asset class to avoid instability. Some leading brokerages and think tanks in late July and earlier this month received guidance from financial regulators, urging them to cancel seminars and halt disseminating research on stablecoins, people familiar with the matter said. ... [ Read it >> ]

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How Intel's CEO Helped Create China's Chip Industry
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2025-08-09 00:22:01


Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan, who faces calls for resignation from President Trump, helped build China's semiconductor industry over four decades. Tan's San Francisco-based Walden International, founded in 1987, was invited by Chinese officials to introduce venture capital to China in 1993, WSJ reported Friday. The firm invested in SMIC, China's largest chip manufacturer, where Tan served as board director for at least 18 years until the Commerce Department restricted the company in 2020. Walden also backed Advanced Micro-Fabrication Equipment, now worth $17 billion and a leader in China's chip-manufacturing sector. ... [ Read it >> ]

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Google Ending Steam for Chromebook Support in 2026
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2025-08-08 23:22:01


Google will discontinue Steam for Chromebook Beta on January 1, 2026, removing all installed games from devices after that date. The beta launched in March 2022 as an alpha before expanding to beta status in November 2022 with reduced hardware requirements of Intel Core i3 or AMD Ryzen 3 processors and 8GB RAM. The program never progressed beyond beta testing despite supporting 99 compatible Linux-based titles through its three-year run.... [ Read it >> ]

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Frequent Nightmares Predict Early Death More Strongly Than Smoking or Obesity, Study Finds
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2025-08-08 22:22:02


People who experience nightmares weekly or more frequently face three times higher risk of dying before age 70 compared to those having nightmares less than monthly, according to research by Dr. Abidemi Otaiku at Imperial College London. His analysis of six long-term studies covering more than 180,000 adults and 2,500 children found frequent nightmares predict early death more strongly than smoking, obesity, poor diet, or physical inactivity. ... [ Read it >> ]

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The Troubling Decline in Conscientiousness
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2025-08-08 22:22:02


Conscientiousness levels among young adults have fallen substantially since 2014 as people in their twenties and thirties report increased distractibility and carelessness alongside decreased tenacity and commitment-making, according to Financial Times analysis of Understanding America Study data. ... [ Read it >> ]

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Google Tests AI-Powered Google Finance
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2025-08-08 21:22:01


Google announced Friday it will roll out an AI-powered redesign of Google Finance over the coming weeks in the United States. The update adds natural language query processing for financial research questions with comprehensive AI responses including relevant links, advanced charting tools with technical indicators and candlestick charts, expanded market data covering commodities and additional cryptocurrencies, and a live news feed displaying real-time headlines.... [ Read it >> ]

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New Method Is the Fastest Way To Find the Best Routes
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2025-08-08 20:22:01


Computer scientists at Tsinghua University and Stanford have developed an algorithm that surpasses a fundamental speed limit that has constrained network pathfinding calculations since 1984. The team's approach to the shortest-path problem -- finding optimal routes from one point to all others in a network -- runs faster than Dijkstra's 1956 algorithm and its improvements by avoiding the sorting process that created the decades-old computational barrier. ... [ Read it >> ]

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UK Secretly Allows Facial Recognition Scans of Passport, Immigration Databases
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2025-08-08 20:22:01


An anonymous reader shares a report: Privacy groups report a surge in UK police facial recognition scans of databases secretly stocked with passport photos lacking parliamentary oversight. Big Brother Watch says the UK government has allowed images from the country's passport and immigration databases to be made available to facial recognition systems, without informing the public or parliament. ... [ Read it >> ]

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Loyalty Programs Are Keeping America's Airlines Aloft
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2025-08-08 19:22:01


American airlines have transformed into financial services companies that happen to fly planes as loyalty programs now constitute their primary profit engine rather than passenger transport. Delta, American, Southwest, and United all operated their passenger services at a loss in 2024 while generating $14 billion in combined operating profits from credit card partnerships. ... [ Read it >> ]

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Intel CEO Hits Out at 'Misinformation' After US President Calls on Him To Resign
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2025-08-08 18:22:01


Intel's chief executive Lip-Bu Tan has hit out at "misinformation" over his career after U.S. President Donald Trump alleged the semiconductor industry veteran was "highly conflicted" and should resign. From a report: In a letter to Intel staff published late on Thursday, Tan said that Intel was "engaging" with the Trump administration "to address the matters that have been raised and ensure they have the facts." ... [ Read it >> ]

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Mistakenly Sold NASA Command Trailer Goes On Sale
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2025-08-08 17:22:02


alternative_right quotes a report from The Register: Space fans looking to camp out in style have a chance to pick up an Airstream trailer that once served as the Convoy Command Vehicle for NASA's Space Shuttle operations at Edwards Air Force Base -- if they have a couple hundred thousand to spare, that is. "This is the NASA 025 Command Vehicle," current owner Jonathan Kitzen says of the once-silver, now paint-daubed and otherwise unassuming Airstream trailer. "NASA 025 was designed to land crewed missions at Edwards Air Force Base. [Airstream] informed me that this was, in their, words, 'the only NASA Airstream ever sold,' and the others [001-024] were all crushed or in museums. The sister crew vehicle (a 28-ft with one rear axle) is sitting at Kennedy museum [the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex]. All the rest are gone, except for this one."... [ Read it >> ]

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ThinkPad Designer David Hill Spills Secrets, Designs That Never Made It
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2025-08-08 14:22:01


alternative_right shares an interview from The Register with David W. Hill, who served as lead designer for ThinkPad from 1995 to 2017. Here are some excerpts from the wide-ranging interview: Hill revealed that he tried several times to introduce additional laptops that had the famous "butterfly keyboard" found on the ThinkPad 701C. [...] Hill told The Register that he had wanted to make more ThinkPads with butterfly keyboards and had tried at least three times to make it happen -- in one case there was a prototype where only half of the keyboard moved -- but was never able to get there. Eventually, screens became big enough that there was no need to have a keyboard that expanded. However, Hill said, he thought about putting a butterfly keyboard on a netbook when they were a viable product category in the late aughts. [...]... [ Read it >> ]

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China Solves 'Tunnel Boom' Problem With Maglev Trains
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2025-08-08 11:22:01


Ancient Slashdot reader Epeeist shares a report from The Guardian: The newest version of the maglev train is capable of traveling at 600km/h (about 370mph). However, the train's engineers have wrestled with the problem of the shock waves which occur as the train exits the mouth of a tunnel. When a high-speed train enters an enclosed space such as a tunnel, air in front is compressed, like in a piston. The resulting fluctuations in air pressure coalesce at the tunnel mouth, generating low-frequency shock waves. These are colloquially known as a "tunnel boom" -- a related, albeit different phenomenon to the "sonic boom" heard as aircraft pass the speed of sound. Tunnel booms pose serious challenges to operational safety, as the shock waves can disturb humans and animals nearby, as well as causing structural damage.... [ Read it >> ]

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First Ever Reviews of Mario and Zelda
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2025-08-08 08:22:01


An anonymous reader quotes a report from 404 Media: Some of the first reviews ever written for the original Legend of Zelda and Super Mario Bros. have been digitized and published by the Video Game History Foundation. The reviews appeared in Computer Entertainer, an early video game magazine that ran from 1982 to 1990. The archivists at the Foundation tracked down the magazine's entire run and have published it all online under a Creative Commons license.... [ Read it >> ]

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The Backlash Against Duolingo Going 'AI-First' Didn't Even Matter
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2025-08-08 05:22:01


Duolingo's decision to go "AI-first" sparked backlash from users, but the company's second quarter earnings result tell a different story. Quarterly revenue exceeded expectations, stock surged nearly 30%, and daily active users grew 40% year-over-year. TechCrunch reports: Now the company anticipates making over $1 billion in revenue this year, and daily active users have grown 40% year-over-year. The growth is significant but falls in the lower range of the company's estimates of growing between 40% and 45%, which an investor brought up to [CEO Luis von Ahn] on Wednesday's quarterly earnings call. ... [ Read it >> ]

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Sony Says Its Xperia Smartphones Are Still 'Very Important'
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2025-08-08 04:22:01


Despite dwindling global market share, retreat from key regions like Europe, and halting in-house production, Sony insists its Xperia smartphone line remains "very important" to its business. 9to5Google reports: During Sony's latest financial results presentation this week, Sony CFO Lin Tao addressed the state of its Xperia smartphone brand, saying that Xperia is part of "a very important business for us" as reported by CNET Japan (translated). Tao said that "communication technology is a very important technology that Sony has cultivated for a long time. We also want to continue to value our smartphone business." Though adding that "communication technology is used in areas other than smartphones."... [ Read it >> ]

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Amazon's Cloud Business Giving Federal Agencies Up To $1 Billion In Discounts
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2025-08-08 03:22:02


Amazon Web Services has struck a deal with the U.S. government to provide up to $1 billion in cloud service discounts through 2028. CNBC reports: The agreement is expected to speed up migration to the cloud, as well as adoption of artificial intelligence tools, the General Services Administration said. "AWS's partnership with GSA demonstrates a shared public-private commitment to enhancing America's AI leadership," the agency said in a release.... [ Read it >> ]

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Encryption Made For Police and Military Radios May Be Easily Cracked
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2025-08-08 02:22:01


An anonymous reader quotes a report from Wired: Two years ago, researchers in the Netherlands discovered an intentional backdoor in an encryption algorithm baked into radios used by critical infrastructure -- as well as police, intelligence agencies, and military forces around the world -- that made any communication secured with the algorithm vulnerable to eavesdropping. When the researchers publicly disclosed the issue in 2023, the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI), which developed the algorithm, advised anyone using it for sensitive communication to deploy an end-to-end encryption solution on top of the flawed algorithm to bolster the security of their communications. But now the same researchers have found that at least one implementation of the end-to-end encryption solution endorsed by ETSI has a similar issue that makes it equally vulnerable to eavesdropping. The encryption algorithm used for the device they examined starts with a 128-bit key, but this gets compressed to 56 bits before it encrypts traffic, making it easier to crack. It's not clear who is using this implementation of the end-to-end encryption algorithm, nor if anyone using devices with the end-to-end encryption is aware of the security vulnerability in them. Wired notes that the end-to-end encryption the researchers examined is most commonly used by law enforcement and national security teams. "But ETSI's endorsement of the algorithm two years ago to mitigate flaws found in its lower-level encryption algorithm suggests it may be used more widely now than at the time."... [ Read it >> ]

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HBO Max Password Sharing Crackdown Will Get 'Aggressive' Next Month
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2025-08-08 02:22:01


Warner Bros. Discovery is preparing to crack down on HBO Max password sharing by the end of 2025, with "aggressive" enforcement and messaging starting next month. Deadline reports: JB Perrette, head of streaming and gaming at Warner Bros. Discovery said on the company's second-quarter earnings call that messaging to consumers is about to get more "aggressive." The media company looking to close the loopholes by the end of 2025, with the impact starting to appear in its financials by 2026. Several months of testing has enabled WBD to determine "who's a legitimate user who may not be a legitimate user," Perrette said. Once that is determined, he continued, the next step is to "turn on the more aggressive language around what needs to happen" in order to and make sure that "we are putting the net in the right place, so to speak."... [ Read it >> ]

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Linux Desktop Share Tops 6% In 15 Million-System Analysis
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2025-08-08 01:22:01


An anonymous reader quotes a report from ZDNet: In an interview, Lansweeper, an IT asset discovery and inventory company, revealed to ZDNET that, in its analysis of over 15 million identified consumer desktop operating systems, it found that Linux desktops currently account for just over 6% of PC market share. This news comes after several other studies have shown the Linux desktop is right around the 6% mark. Indeed, according to the US Federal Government Website and App Analytics count, the Linux desktop market share over the last 90 days has reached 6.3%, a new high. In July, according to StatCounter, the Linux desktop also set a record high by its metrics with 5.24%.... [ Read it >> ]

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Trump Signs Executive Order Opening 401(k) Retirement Market To Crypto Investments
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2025-08-08 00:22:01


President Trump is set to sign an executive order opening up 401(k) retirements plans to alternative assets, like private equity, real estate, and cryptocurrency. The move has the potential to unlock trillions in new investment for asset managers outside of stocks, bonds, and cash, "though critics say it also could bring too much risk into retirement investments," reports Reuters. From the report: "The order directs the Securities and Exchange Commission to facilitate access to alternative assets for participant-directed defined-contribution retirement savings plans by revising applicable regulations and guidance," the White House official said on condition of anonymity. The order directs the Labor Secretary to consult with her counterparts at the Treasury Department, the SEC, and other federal "regulators to determine whether parallel regulatory changes should be made at those agencies," the official said. [...]... [ Read it >> ]

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Microsoft's $30 Windows 10 Security Updates Cover 10 Devices
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2025-08-07 23:22:01


Microsoft's $30 Extended Security Updates license for Windows 10 will cover up to 10 devices under a single Microsoft Account, the company confirmed in updated support documentation. The ESU program, which provides security updates through October 13, 2026, requires a Microsoft Account for all three enrollment options: the $30 one-time purchase, redemption of 1,000 Microsoft Reward points, or free enrollment for users who sync their PC settings to OneDrive. Windows 10's support ends October 14, 2025.... [ Read it >> ]

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Google TV's Uncertain Future
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2025-08-07 23:22:01


Google has quietly admitted defeat in selling advertising for its smart TV platform, returning ad inventory to publishers and accepting a revenue share instead of controlling ad spots directly, according to The Verge. The policy reversal comes as Google spends hundreds of millions of dollars annually on Google TV without breaking even, while Amazon outspends the company on retail incentives that have already pushed Google TV sets out of Costco stores in favor of Fire TV models. ... [ Read it >> ]

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