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Italy Fines Cloudflare 14 Million Euros For Refusing To Filter Pirate Sites On Public 1.1.1.1 DNS
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2026-01-10 02:22:02


An anonymous reader quotes a report from TorrentFreak: Italy's communications regulator AGCOM imposed a record-breaking 14.2 million-euro fine on Cloudflare after the company failed to implement the required piracy blocking measures. Cloudflare argued that filtering its global 1.1.1.1 DNS resolver would be "impossible" without hurting overall performance. AGCOM disagreed, noting that Cloudflare is not necessarily a neutral intermediary either.... [ Read it >> ]

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Microsoft Windows Media Player Stops Serving Up CD Album Info
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2026-01-10 02:22:02


An anonymous reader shares a report: Microsoft is celebrating the resurgence of interest in physical media in the only way it knows how... by halting the Windows Media Player metadata service. Readers of a certain vintage will remember inserting a CD into their PC and watching Windows Media Player populate with track listings and album artwork. No more. ... [ Read it >> ]

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Identity and Ideology in the School Boardroom
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2026-01-10 01:22:01


The abstract of a paper on NBER: School boards have statutory authority over most elementary and secondary education policies, but receive little attention compared to other actors in education systems. A fundamental challenge to understanding the importance of boards is the absence of data on the policy goals of board members -- i.e., their ideologies -- forcing researchers to conduct tests based on demographic and professional characteristics -- i.e., identities -- with which ideology is presumed to correlate. ... [ Read it >> ]

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The Golden Age of Vaccine Development
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2026-01-10 00:22:01


Microbiology had its golden age in the late nineteenth century, when researchers identified the bacterial causes of tuberculosis, cholera, typhoid, and a dozen other diseases in rapid succession. Antibiotics had theirs in the mid-twentieth century. Both booms eventually slowed. Vaccine development, by contrast, appears to be speeding up -- and the most productive era may still lie ahead, Works in Progress writes in a story. ... [ Read it >> ]

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America Is Falling Out of Love With Pizza
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2026-01-10 00:22:01


The restaurant industry is trying to figure out whether America has hit peak pizza. From a report: Once the second-most common U.S. restaurant type, pizzerias are now outnumbered by coffee shops and Mexican food eateries, according to industry data. Sales growth at pizza restaurants has lagged behind the broader fast-food market for years, and the outlook ahead isn't much brighter. ... [ Read it >> ]

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Amazon's New Manager Dashboard Flags 'Low-Time Badgers' and 'Zero Badgers'
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2026-01-09 23:22:01


Amazon has begun equipping managers with a dashboard that tracks not just whether corporate employees show up to the office but how long they stay once they're there, according to an internal document obtained by Business Insider. The system, which started rolling out in December, flags "Low-Time Badgers" who average less than four hours daily over an eight-week period and "Zero Badgers" who don't badge into any building during that span.... [ Read it >> ]

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Torvalds Tells Kernel Devs To Stop Debating AI Slop - Bad Actors Won't Follow the Rules Anyway
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2026-01-09 22:22:01


Linus Torvalds has weighed in on an ongoing debate within the Linux kernel development community about whether documentation should explicitly address AI-generated code contributions, and his position is characteristically blunt: stop making it an issue. The Linux creator was responding to Oracle-affiliated kernel developer Lorenzo Stoakes, who had argued that treating LLMs as "just another tool" ignores the threat they pose to kernel quality. "Thinking LLMs are 'just another tool' is to say effectively that the kernel is immune from this," Stoakes wrote. ... [ Read it >> ]

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Craigslist at 30: No Algorithms, No Ads, No Problem
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2026-01-09 22:22:01


Craigslist, the 30-year-old classifieds site that looks virtually unchanged since the dial-up era, continues to draw more than 105 million monthly users and remains enormously profitable despite never spending a cent on advertising or marketing. The site ranks as the 40th most popular website in the United States, according to Internet data company Similarweb. ... [ Read it >> ]

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iOS 26 Shows Unusually Slow Adoption Months After Release
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2026-01-09 22:22:01


Apple's iOS 26 appears to be witnessing the slowest adoption rate in recent memory, with third-party analytics from StatCounter indicating that only 15 to 16% of active iPhones worldwide are running the operating system nearly four months after its September release. The figures stand in stark contrast to iOS 18, which had reached approximately 63% adoption by January 2025, and iOS 17, which hit 54% by January 2024. iOS 16 had surpassed 60% by January 2023. ... [ Read it >> ]

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Amazon Wants To Know What Every Corporate Employee Accomplished Last Year
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2026-01-09 22:22:01


Amazon is now requiring its corporate employees to submit a list of three to five accomplishments that represent their best work as part of an overhauled performance review process, according to Business Insider, which cites internal documents.

The company's internal Forte review system previously asked employees softer questions like "When you're at your best, how do you contribute?" but the new standards place greater emphasis on individual productivity and specific deliverables. Amazon's roughly 350,000 corporate employees must also outline actions they plan to take to continue growing at the company.... [ Read it >> ]

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Send To Kindle from Microsoft Word is Discontinued
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2026-01-09 20:22:01


Microsoft is discontinuing its Send to Kindle integration in Word, ending a feature that allowed Microsoft 365 subscribers to send documents directly to their Kindle e-readers and preserve complex formatting through fixed layouts.

The company updated its documentation to announce that beginning February 9th, 2026, the Send to Kindle feature will no longer work across Web, Win32, and Mac platforms. Microsoft has not disclosed why it's killing the integration but recommends users switch to Amazon's official Send to Kindle app. The feature launched in 2023 and was particularly valued by Kindle Scribe owners who could annotate the transferred documents.... [ Read it >> ]

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Why Care About Debt-to-GDP?
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2026-01-09 19:22:02


Abstract of a paper on NBER: We construct an international panel data set comprising three distinct yet plausible measures of government indebtedness: the debt-to-GDP, the interest-to-GDP, and the debt-to-equity ratios. Our analysis reveals that these measures yield differing conclusions about recent trends in government indebtedness. While the debt-to-GDP ratio has reached historically high levels, the other two indicators show either no clear trend or a declining pattern over recent decades. We argue for the development of stronger theoretical foundations for the measures employed in the literature, suggesting that, without such grounding, assertions about debt (un)sustainability may be premature.... [ Read it >> ]

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Record Ocean Heat is Intensifying Climate Disasters, Data Shows
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2026-01-09 18:22:01


The world's oceans absorbed yet another record-breaking amount of heat in 2025, continuing an almost unbroken streak of annual records since the start of the millennium and fueling increasingly extreme weather events around the globe. More than 90% of the heat trapped by humanity's carbon emissions ends up in the oceans, making ocean heat content one of the clearest indicators of the climate crisis's trajectory. ... [ Read it >> ]

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Fusion Physicists Found a Way Around a Long-Standing Density Limit
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2026-01-09 14:22:02


alternative_right shares a report from ScienceAlert: At the Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST), physicists successfully exceeded what is known as the Greenwald limit, a practical density boundary beyond which plasmas tend to violently destabilize, often damaging reactor components. For a long time, the Greenwald limit was accepted as a given and incorporated into fusion reactor engineering. The new work shows that precise control over how the plasma is created and interacts with the reactor walls can push it beyond this limit into what physicists call a 'density-free' regime.... [ Read it >> ]

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Ultimate Camouflage Tech Mimics Octopus In Scientific First
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2026-01-09 11:22:01


Researchers at Stanford University have created a programmable synthetic "skin" that can independently change color and texture, "a feat previously only available within the animal kingdom," reports the Register. From the report: The technique employs electron beams to write patterns and add optical layers that create color effects. When exposed to water, the film swells to reveal texture and colors independently, depending on which side of the material is exposed, according to a paper published in the scientific journal Nature this week. In an accompanying article, University of Stuttgart's Benjamin Renz and Na Liu said the researchers' "most striking achievement was a photonic skin in which color and texture could be independently controlled, mirroring the separate regulation... in octopuses."... [ Read it >> ]

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Some Super-Smart Dogs Can Learn New Words Just By Eavesdropping
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2026-01-09 08:22:01


An anonymous reader quotes a report from NPR: [I]t turns out that some genius dogs can learn a brand new word, like the name of an unfamiliar toy, by just overhearing brief interactions between two people. What's more, these "gifted" dogs can learn the name of a new toy even if they first hear this word when the toy is out of sight -- as long as their favorite human is looking at the spot where the toy is hidden. That's according to a new study in the journal Science. "What we found in this study is that the dogs are using social communication. They're using these social cues to understand what the owners are talking about," says cognitive scientist Shany Dror of Eotvos Lorand University and the University of Veterinary Medicine, Vienna. "This tells us that the ability to use social information is actually something that humans probably had before they had language," she says, "and language was kind of hitchhiking on these social abilities."... [ Read it >> ]

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YouTube Will Now Let You Filter Shorts Out of Search Results
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2026-01-09 06:22:01


YouTube is updating search filters so users can explicitly choose between Shorts and long-form videos. The change also replaces view-count sorting with a new "Popularity" filter and removes underperforming options like "Sort by Rating." The Verge reports: Right now, a filter-less search shows a mix of longform and short form videos, which can be annoying if you just want to see videos in one format or the other. But in the new search filters, among other options, you can pick to see "Videos," which in my testing has only showed a list of longform videos, or "Shorts," which just shows Shorts.... [ Read it >> ]

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Lawsuit Over OpenAI For-Profit Conversion Can Head To Trial, US Judge Says
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2026-01-09 06:22:01


Longtime Slashdot reader schwit1 shares a report from Reuters: Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk persuaded a judge on Wednesday to allow a jury trial on his allegations that ChatGPT maker OpenAI violated its founding mission in its high-profile restructuring to a for-profit entity. Musk was a cofounder of OpenAI in 2015 but left in 2018 and now runs an AI company that competes with it.... [ Read it >> ]

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Illinois Health Department Exposed Over 700,000 Residents' Personal Data For Years
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2026-01-09 05:22:02


Illinois Department of Human Services disclosed that a misconfigured internal mapping website exposed sensitive personal data for more than 700,000 Illinois residents for over four years, from April 2021 to September 2025. Officials say they can't confirm whether the publicly accessible data was ever viewed. TechCrunch reports: Officials said the exposed data included personal information on 672,616 individuals who are Medicaid and Medicare Savings Program recipients. The data included their addresses, case numbers, and demographic data -- but not individuals' names. The exposed data also included names, addresses, case statuses, and other information relating to 32,401 individuals in receipt of services from the department's Division of Rehabilitation Services.... [ Read it >> ]

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Google Is Adding an 'AI Inbox' To Gmail That Summarizes Emails
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2026-01-09 04:22:01


An anonymous reader quotes a report from Wired: Google is putting even more generative AI tools into Gmail as part of its goal to further personalize user inboxes and streamline searches. On Thursday, the company announced a new "AI Inbox" tab, currently in a beta testing phase, that reads every message in a user's Gmail and suggests a list of to-dos and key topics, based on what it summarizes. In Google's example of what this AI Inbox could look like in Gmail, the new tab takes context from a user's messages and suggests they reschedule their dentist appointment, reply to a request from their child's sports coach, and pay an upcoming fee before the deadline. Also under the AI Inbox tab is a list of important topics worth browsing, nestled beneath the action items at the top. Each suggested to-do and topic links back to the original email for more context and for verification.... [ Read it >> ]

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French Court Orders Google DNS to Block Pirate Sites, Dismisses 'Cloudflare-First' Defense
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2026-01-09 04:22:01


Paris Judicial Court ordered Google to block additional pirate sports-streaming domains at the DNS level, rejecting Google's argument that enforcement should target upstream providers like Cloudflare first. "The blockade was requested by Canal+ and aims to stop pirate streams of Champions League games," notes TorrentFreak. From the report: Most recently, Google was compelled to take action following a complaint from French broadcaster Canal+ and its subsidiaries regarding Champions League piracy.. Like previous blocking cases, the request is grounded in Article L. 333-10 of the French Sports Code, which enables rightsholders to seek court orders against any entity that can help to stop 'serious and repeated' sports piracy. After reviewing the evidence and hearing arguments from both sides, the Paris Court granted the blocking request, ordering Google to block nineteen domain names, including antenashop.site, daddylive3.com, livetv860.me, streamysport.org and vavoo.to.... [ Read it >> ]

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Microsoft Turns Copilot Chats Into a Checkout Lane
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2026-01-09 03:22:01


Microsoft is embedding full e-commerce checkout directly into Copilot chats, letting users buy products without ever visiting a retailer's website. "If checkout happens inside AI conversations, retailers risk losing direct customer relationships -- while platforms like Microsoft gain leverage," reports Axios. From the report: Microsoft unveiled new agentic AI tools for retailers at the NRF 2026 retail conference, including Copilot Checkout, which lets shoppers complete purchases inside Copilot without being redirected to a retailer's website. The checkout feature is live in the U.S. with Shopify, PayPal, Stripe and Etsy integrations.... [ Read it >> ]

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Wi-Fi Advocates Get Win From FCC With Vote To Allow Higher-Power Devices
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2026-01-09 02:22:01


An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: The Federal Communications Commission plans to authorize a new category of wireless devices in the 6 GHz Wi-Fi band that will be permitted to operate at higher power levels than currently allowed. The FCC will also consider authorizing higher power levels for certain wireless devices that are only allowed to operate indoors. The FCC said it scheduled a vote for its January 29 meeting on an order "to create a new category of unlicensed devices... that can operate outdoors and at higher power than previously authorized devices." These so-called Geofenced variable power (GVP) devices operating on the 6 GHz band will "support high data rates suitable for AR/VR, short-range hotspots, automation, and indoor navigation," and "overcome limitations of previous device classes by allowing higher power and outdoor mobility," the FCC said. They will be required to work with geofencing systems to avoid interference with fixed microwave links and radio astronomy observatories.... [ Read it >> ]

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The Gap Between Premium and Budget TV Brands is Quickly Closing
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2026-01-09 02:22:01


The long-standing hierarchy in the TV market -- Sony, Samsung and LG at the top, TCL and Hisense fighting it out in the midrange -- is eroding as the budget brands close the performance gap and increasingly lead on technology innovation, The Verge writes. Hisense debuted the first RGB LED TV last year, and TCL's X11L announced at CES 2026 is the first TV to use reformulated quantum dots and a new color filter. TCL's QM9K release last year was "a pretty clear statement that they're ready to fight with the big boys." ... [ Read it >> ]

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Iran in 'Digital Blackout' as Tehran Throttles Mobile Internet Access
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2026-01-09 01:22:01


An anonymous reader shares a report: Internet access available through mobile devices in Iran appears to be limited, according to several social media accounts that routinely track such developments. Cloudflare Radar, which monitors internet traffic on behalf of the internet infrastructure firm Cloudflare, said on Thursday that IPv6 (Internet Protocol version 6), a standard widely used for mobile infrastructure, was affected. ... [ Read it >> ]

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'The Downside To Using AI for All Those Boring Tasks at Work'
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2026-01-09 00:22:01


The promise of AI-powered workplace tools that sort emails, take meeting notes, and file expense reports is finally delivering meaningful productivity gains -- one software startup reported a 20% boost around mid-2025 -- but companies are discovering an unexpected tradeoff: employees are burning out from the relentless pace of high-level cognitive work. ... [ Read it >> ]

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TV Makers Are Taking AI Too Far
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2026-01-09 00:22:01


TV manufacturers at CES 2026 in Las Vegas this week unveiled a wave of AI features that frequently consume significant screen space and take considerable time to deliver results -- all while global TV shipments declined 0.6% year over year in Q3, according to Omdia. Google demonstrated Veo generating video from a photo on a television, a process that took about two minutes to produce eight seconds of footage, The Verge writes in a column. Samsung presented a future where viewers ask their sets for sports predictions and recipes to share with kitchen displays. Hisense showed an AI agent that displays real-time stats for every soccer player on screen, a feature requiring so much space the company built a prototype 21:9 aspect ratio display to accommodate it. ... [ Read it >> ]

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Former Google CEO Plans To Singlehandedly Fund a Hubble Telescope Replacement
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2026-01-08 23:22:01


An anonymous reader shares a report: Prior to World War II the vast majority of telescopes built around the world were funded by wealthy people with an interest in the heavens above.

However, after the war, two significant developments in the mid-20th century caused the burden of funding large astronomical instruments to largely shift to the government and academic institutions. First, as mirrors became larger and larger to see deeper into the universe, their costs grew exponentially. And then, with the advent of spaceflight, the expense of space-based telescopes expanded even further. ... [ Read it >> ]

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Tailwind CSS Lets Go 75% Of Engineers After 40% Traffic Drop From Google
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2026-01-08 22:22:01


Adam Wathan, the creator of the popular CSS framework Tailwind CSS, has let go of 75% of his engineering team -- reducing it from four people to one -- because AI-generated search answers have decimated traffic to the project's documentation pages.

Traffic to Tailwind's documentation has fallen roughly 40% since early 2023 despite the framework being more popular than ever, Wathan wrote in a post. The documentation is the primary channel through which developers discover Tailwind's commercial products, and without that traffic the business has struggled to sustain itself; revenue has dropped close to 80%. ... [ Read it >> ]

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Samsung Hit with Restraining Order Over Smart TV Surveillance Tech in Texas
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2026-01-08 22:22:01


Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has secured a temporary restraining order against Samsung, blocking the company from continuing to collect data through its smart TVs' Automated Content Recognition technology.

The ACR system captured screenshots of what users were watching every 500 milliseconds, according to the state's lawsuit, and did so without consumer knowledge or consent. The District Court found good cause to believe Samsung's actions violated the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act. The TRO prohibits Samsung and any parties working in concert with the company from using, selling, transferring, collecting, or sharing ACR data tied to Texas consumers. ... [ Read it >> ]

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Germany's Dying Forests Are Losing Their Ability To Absorb CO2
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2026-01-08 21:22:01


Germany's Harz mountains, once known for their verdant spruce forests, have become a graveyard of skeletal trunks after a bark beetle outbreak ravaged the region starting in 2018 -- an infestation made possible by successive droughts and heatwaves that fatally weakened the trees. Between 2018 and 2021, Germany lost half a million hectares of forest, nearly 5% of the country's total. ... [ Read it >> ]

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China Hacked Email Systems of US Congressional Committee Staff
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2026-01-08 20:22:02


China has hacked the emails used by congressional staff on powerful committees in the US House of Representatives, as part of a massive cyber espionage campaign known as Salt Typhoon. An anonymous reader shares a report: Chinese intelligence accessed email systems used by some staffers [non-paywalled source] on the House China committee in addition to aides on the foreign affairs committee, intelligence committee and armed services committee, according to people familiar with the attack. The intrusions were detected in December. ... [ Read it >> ]

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How Did TVs Get So Cheap?
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2026-01-08 20:22:02


A 50-inch TV that would have set you back $1,100 at Best Buy during Black Friday 2001 now costs less than $200, and the price per area-pixel -- a metric accounting for both screen size and resolution -- has dropped by more than 90% over the past 25 years. The story behind this decline is largely one of liquid crystal display technology maturing from a niche product to a mass-manufactured commodity. ... [ Read it >> ]

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Disney+ To Add Vertical Videos In Push To Boost Daily Engagement
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2026-01-08 19:22:01


Disney+, which is looking to catch up with some streaming and digital rivals in terms of daily engagement, is adding vertical videos to the service. From a report: The arrival of the new format later this year was one of several advertising-oriented announcements the company made Wednesday at its Tech + Data Showcase at CES in Las Vegas. Other new offerings include a new "brand impact" metric and a new video generation tool that helps advertisers create high-quality connected-TV-ready commercials using existing assets and guidelines. ... [ Read it >> ]

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LEGO Says Smart Brick Won't Replace Traditional Play After CES Backlash
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2026-01-08 18:22:01


LEGO has responded to concerns that its newly announced Smart Brick technology represents a departure from the company's foundation in physical, non-digital play, a day after the official reveal at CES drew criticism from child development advocates. Federico Begher, SVP of Product, New Business, told IGN the sensor-packed bricks are "an addition, a complementary evolution" and emphasized that the company would "still very much nurture and innovate and keep doing our core experience." ... [ Read it >> ]

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SteamOS Continues Its Slow Spread Across the PC Gaming Landscape
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2026-01-08 17:22:02


An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: SteamOS's slow march across the Windows-dominated PC gaming landscape is continuing to creep along. At CES this week, Lenovo announced it will launch a version of last year's high-priced, high-powered Legion Go 2 handheld with Valve's gaming-focused, Linux-based OS pre-installed starting in June. And there are some intriguing signs from Valve that SteamOS could come to non-AMD devices in the not-too-distant future as well. [...] Valve has also been working behind the scenes to expand SteamOS's footprint beyond its own hardware. After rolling out the SteamOS Compatible software label last May, SteamOS version 3.7 offered support for manual installation on AMD-powered handhelds like the ROG Ally and the original Legion Go.... [ Read it >> ]

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Rubin Observatory Spots an Asteroid That Spins Fast Enough To Set a Record
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2026-01-08 14:22:01


Astronomers using the Vera C. Rubin Observatory have discovered a record-setting asteroid, known as 2025 MN45, nearly half a mile wide and spinning once every 1.88 minutes -- the fastest known rotation for an object of its size. "This is now the fastest-spinning asteroid that we know of, larger than 500 meters," said Sarah Greenstreet, University of Washington astronomer and lead author of the study. The findings have been published in the The Astrophysical Journal Letters. GeekWire reports: 2025 MN45 is one of more than 2,100 solar system objects that were detected during the observatory's commissioning phase. Over time, the LSST Camera tracked variations in the light reflected by those objects. Greenstreet and her colleagues analyzed those variations to determine the size, distance, composition and rate of rotation for 76 asteroids, all but one of which are in the main asteroid belt between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. (The other asteroid is a near-Earth object.)... [ Read it >> ]

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How Bright Headlights Escaped Regulation
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2026-01-08 11:22:02


Longtime Slashdot reader schwit1 shares a report from Autoblog: ... the problem is that the federal brightness standards for automotive headlights have not changed for decades. The Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard No. 108 hasn't had significant updates since 1986, with an addition allowing Adaptive Driving Beam (ADB) headlights coming only in 2022. The NHTSA last investigated (PDF) the issue of headlamp glare in 2003. The current standards include huge loopholes for auto manufacturers to emit as much light as desired, as long as the manufacturer meets the requirements of the other parts of the regulation.... [ Read it >> ]

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Japan's Nuclear Watchdog Halts Plant's Reactor Safety Screening Over Falsified Data
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2026-01-08 08:22:02


An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Associated Press: Japan's nuclear watchdog said Wednesday it is scrapping the safety screening for two reactors at the Hamaoka nuclear power plant in central Japan, after its operator was found to have fabricated data about earthquake risks. It was a setback to Japan's attempts to accelerate nuclear reactor restarts. Less than a quarter of commercial nuclear reactors are operational in the wake of the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi meltdowns, but rising energy costs and pressure to reduce carbon emissions have pushed the government to prioritize nuclear power.... [ Read it >> ]

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AI Chip Frenzy To Wallop DRAM Prices With 70% Hike
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2026-01-08 06:22:01


Samsung Electronics and SK hynix are projected to raise server memory prices by up to 70% in early 2026, according to Korea Economic Daily. "Combined with 50 percent increases in 2025, this could nearly double prices by mid-2026," reports the Register. From the report: The two Korean giants, alongside US-based Micron, dominate global memory production. All three are reallocating advanced manufacturing capacity to high-margin server DRAM and HBM chips for AI infrastructure, squeezing supply for PCs and smartphones. Financial analysts have raised their earnings forecasts for the firms in response, as they look to benefit from the AI infrastructure boom that is driving up prices for everyone else. Taiwan-based market watcher TrendForce reports that conventional DRAM prices already jumped 55-60 percent in a single quarter.... [ Read it >> ]

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Google and Character.AI Agree To Settle Lawsuits Over Teen Suicides
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2026-01-08 05:22:01


Google and Character.AI have agreed to settle multiple lawsuits from families alleging the chatbot encouraged self-harm and suicide among teens. "The settlements would mark the first resolutions in the wave of lawsuits against tech companies whose AI chatbots encouraged teens to hurt or kill themselves," notes Axios. From the report: Families allege that Character.AI's chatbot encouraged their children to cut their arms, suggested murdering their parents, wrote sexually explicit messages and did not discourage suicide, per lawsuits and congressional testimony. "Parties have agreed to a mediated settlement in principle to resolve all claims between them in the above-referenced matter," one document filed in U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida reads.... [ Read it >> ]

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OpenAI Launches ChatGPT Health, Encouraging Users To Connect Their Medical Records
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2026-01-08 04:22:01


OpenAI has unveiled ChatGPT Health, a sandboxed health-focused mode that lets users connect medical records and wellness apps for more personalized guidance. The company makes sure to note that ChatGPT Health is "not intended for diagnosis or treatment." The Verge reports: The company is encouraging users to connect their personal medical records and wellness apps, such as Apple Health, Peloton, MyFitnessPal,Weight Watchers, and Function, "to get more personalized, grounded responses to their questions." It suggests connecting medical records so that ChatGPT can analyze lab results, visit summaries, and clinical history; MyFitnessPal and Weight Watchers for food guidance; Apple Health for health and fitness data, including movement, sleep, and activity patterns"; and Function for insights into lab tests.... [ Read it >> ]

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California Lawmaker Proposes a Four-Year Ban On AI Chatbots In Kids' Toys
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2026-01-08 04:22:01


An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Senator Steve Padilla (D-CA) introduced a bill [dubbed SB 867] on Monday that would place a four-year ban on the sale and manufacture of toys with AI chatbot capabilities for kids under 18. The goal is to give safety regulators time to develop regulations to protect children from "dangerous AI interactions."... [ Read it >> ]

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JPMorgan Chase Reaches a Deal To Take Over the Apple Credit Card
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2026-01-08 03:22:01


According to the Wall Street Journal (paywalled), Goldman Sachs is transferring Apple Card and Apple Savings to JPMorgan Chase. "It was clear in 2023 that Goldman Sachs would exit the consumer credit game, abandoning its Apple Card partnership with it," reports AppleInsider. "However, it has taken 26 months to reach a point where it can finally hand over issuing control to another bank." From the report: Goldman Sachs is reportedly expected to hand over the $20 billion of outstanding balances at a $1 billion discount. Such discounts are rare, and allegedly reflect the higher-than-average delinquency rate found with Apple Card holders. JPMorgan will have to issue new Apple Cards to existing users, but it may be some time before that is done. A new Apple Savings will be opened by JPMorgan as well, but users will be given the option to move or stay.... [ Read it >> ]

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Bose Open-Sources Its SoundTouch Home Theater Smart Speakers Ahead of End-of-Life
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2026-01-08 02:22:01


Bose is end-of-lifing its SoundTouch smart speakers but softened the blow by open-sourcing the SoundTouch API and preserving limited local features, AirPlay, and Spotify Connect. Ars Technica reports: In October, Bose announced that its SoundTouch Wi-Fi speakers and soundbars would become dumb speakers on February 18. At the time, Bose said that the speakers would only work if a device was connected via AUX, HDMI, or Bluetooth (which has higher latency than Wi-Fi). After that date, the speakers would stop receiving security and software updates and lose cloud connectivity and their companion app, the Framingham, Massachusetts-based company said. Without the app, users would no longer be able to integrate the device with music services, such as Spotify, have multiple SoundTouch devices play the same audio simultaneously, or use or edit saved presets.... [ Read it >> ]

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Warner Bros Rejects Revised Paramount Bid, Sticks With Netflix
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2026-01-08 02:22:01


An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: Warner Bros Discovery's board unanimously turned down Paramount Skydance's latest attempt to acquire the studio, saying its revised $108.4 billion hostile bid amounted to a risky leveraged buyout that investors should reject. In a letter to shareholders on Wednesday, Warner Bros' board said Paramount's offer hinges on "an extraordinary amount of debt financing" that heightens the risk of closing. It reaffirmed its commitment to streaming giant Netflix's $82.7 billion deal for the film and television studio and other assets.... [ Read it >> ]

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Power Bank Feature Creep is Out of Control
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2026-01-08 01:22:01


The humble power bank has transformed from a simple pocket-sized battery into a feature-laden gadget that now sometimes includes screensavers, Bluetooth connectivity and built-in Wi-Fi hotspots. The Verge's Thomas Ricker highlighted the $270 EcoFlow Rapid Pro X Power Bank 27k at CES 2026 as a prime offender -- a device he declared "too expensive, too big, too slow, and too heavy." Its giant display takes 30 seconds to wake from sleep, plays swirly graphics and blinking eyeballs, and requires a screensaver while slowly draining the battery it's meant to preserve. ... [ Read it >> ]

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New Dietary Guidelines Abandon Longstanding Advice on Alcohol
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2026-01-08 00:22:01


An anonymous reader shares a report: Ever since the federal government began issuing the Dietary Guidelines in 1980, it has told Americans to limit themselves to one or two standard alcoholic drinks a day. Over time, the official advice morphed to no more than two drinks a day for men, and no more than one for women. No longer [non-paywalled source]. ... [ Read it >> ]

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Samsung's Rolling Ballie Robot Indefinitely Shelved After Delays
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2026-01-08 00:22:01


Samsung Electronics has once again sidelined Ballie, a long-anticipated robot that was first announced six years ago but never released. Bloomberg News: The device -- designed to roll and roam throughout the home -- is completely absent from this week's CES, the biggest electronics trade show. And though Samsung said last year that Ballie was nearly ready for a retail release, the product is now unlikely to resurface soon. ... [ Read it >> ]

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The Inevitable Rise of the Art TV
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2026-01-07 23:22:01


Several years after Samsung introduced the Frame TV in 2017 -- a television designed to display fine art and resemble a framed painting when switched off -- competitors are finally catching up in meaningful numbers. Amazon announced the Ember Artline TV at CES 2026 this week, a $899 model that can display one of 2,000 works of art for free and includes an Alexa AI tool to recommend pieces suited to your room. Hisense unveiled its CanvasTV late last year, TCL has the NXTvision model, and LG has announced the Gallery TV for later this year. ... [ Read it >> ]

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