Alibaba, China's largest cloud-computing company, has developed a domestically manufactured, versatile inference chip to fill the gap left by U.S. restrictions on Nvidia's sales in China. The Wall Street Journal reports: Previous cloud-computing chips developed by Alibaba have mostly been designed for specific applications. The new chip, now in testing, is meant to serve a broader range of AI inference tasks, said people familiar with it. The chip is manufactured by a Chinese company, they said, in contrast to an earlier Alibaba AI processor that was fabricated by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing. Washington has blocked TSMC from manufacturing AI chips for China that use leading-edge technology.

[...] Private-sector cloud companies including Alibaba have refrained from bulk orders of Huawei's chips, resisting official suggestions that they should help the national champion, because they consider Huawei a direct rival in cloud services, people close to the firms said. China's biggest weakness is training AI models, for which U.S. companies rely on the most powerful Nvidia products. Alibaba's new chip is designed for inference, not training, people familiar with it said. Chinese engineers have complained that homegrown chips including Huawei's run into problems when training AI, such as overheating and breaking down in the middle of training runs. Huawei declined to comment.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://slashdot.org/story/25/08/29/231249/alibaba-creates-ai-chip-to-help-china-fill-nvidia-void?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

China has turned on the world's most sensitive neutrino detector after more than a decade of construction. The Register reports: The Jiangmen Underground Neutrino Experiment (JUNO) is buried 700 meters under a mountain and features a 20,000-tonne "liquid scintillator detector" that China's Academy of Science says is "housed at the center of a 44-meter-deep water pool." There's also a 35.4-meter-diameter acrylic sphere supported by a 41.1-meter-diameter stainless steel truss. All that stuff is surrounded by more than 45,000 photo-multiplier tubes (PMTs). The latter devices are super-sensitive light detectors. A liquid scintillator is a fluid that, when exposed to ionizing radiation, produces light. At JUNO, the liquid is 99.7 percent alkylbenzene, an ingredient found in detergents and refrigerants.

JUNO's designers hope that any neutrinos that pass through its giant tank bonk a hydrogen atom and produce just enough light that the detector array of PMTs can record their passing, producing data scientists can use to learn more about the particles. At this point, readers could sensibly ask how JUNO will catch any of these elusive particles. The answer lies in the facility's location -- a few tens of kilometers away from two nuclear power plants that produce neutrinos.

The Chinese Academy of Science's Journal of High Energy Physics says trials of JUNO succeeded, suggesting it will be able to help scientists understand why some neutrinos are heavier than others so we can begin to classify the different types of the particle -- a key goal for the facility. The Journal also reports that scientists from Japan, the United States, Europe, India, and South Korea, are either already using JUNO or plan experiments at the facility.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://science.slashdot.org/story/25/08/29/2253218/china-turns-on-giant-neutrino-detector-that-took-a-decade-to-build?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

TOP10 VISITORS:

[1] 37.252.14.x point=144 web=0 up=24.9MB (45%) <--- ake (6/hr)
[2] PetalBot point=1 web=977 up=5.7MB (10%) <--- PetalBot
[3] Google point=2 web=625 up=5.1MB (9%) <--- Google
[4] 65.21.113.x point=0 web=87 up=3.2MB (5%)
[5] TikTok point=0 web=232 up=2.8MB (5%)
[6] 216.73.216.x point=0 web=187 up=2.4MB (4%)
[7] 144.76.33.x point=0 web=70 up=2.2MB (4%)
[8] Amazon point=0 web=113 up=1.8MB (3%)
[9] Facebook point=0 web=149 up=1.7MB (3%)
[10] 94.25.231.x point=2 web=0 up=1.0MB (1%) <--- 94.25.231.x

TOTAL TRAFFIC: 54MB

Опубликован экспериментальный выпуск открытой реализации Win32 API - Wine 10.14. С момента выпуска 10.13 было закрыто 19 отчётов об ошибках и внесено 264 изменения.

https://www.opennet.ru/opennews/art.shtml?num=63798

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: The collapse of a critical Atlantic current can no longer be considered a low-likelihood event, a study has concluded, making deep cuts to fossil fuel emissions even more urgent to avoid the catastrophic impact. The Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (Amoc) is a major part of the global climate system. It brings sun-warmed tropical water to Europe and the Arctic, where it cools and sinks to form a deep return current. The Amoc was already known to be at its weakest in 1,600 years as a result of the climate crisis.

Climate models recently indicated that a collapse before 2100 was unlikely but the new analysis examined models that were run for longer, to 2300 and 2500. These show the tipping point that makes an Amoc shutdown inevitable is likely to be passed within a few decades, but that the collapse itself may not happen until 50 to 100 years later. The research found that if carbon emissions continued to rise, 70% of the model runs led to collapse, while an intermediate level of emissions resulted in collapse in 37% of the models. Even in the case of low future emissions, an Amoc shutdown happened in 25% of the models.

Scientists have warned previously that Amoc collapse must be avoided "at all costs." It would shift the tropical rainfall belt on which many millions of people rely to grow their food, plunge western Europe into extreme cold winters and summer droughts, and add 50cm to already rising sea levels. The new results are "quite shocking, because I used to say that the chance of Amoc collapsing as a result of global warming was less than 10%," said Prof Stefan Rahmstorf, at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany, who was part of the study team. "Now even in a low-emission scenario, sticking to the Paris agreement, it looks like it may be more like 25%. "These numbers are not very certain, but we are talking about a matter of risk assessment where even a 10% chance of an Amoc collapse would be far too high," added Rahmstorf. "We found that the tipping point where the shutdown becomes inevitable is probably in the next 10 to 20 years or so. That is quite a shocking finding as well and why we have to act really fast in cutting down emissions."

"Observations in the deep [far North Atlantic] already show a downward trend over the past five to 10 years, consistent with the models' projections," said Prof Sybren Drijfhout, at the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute, who was also part of the team. "Even in some intermediate and low-emission scenarios, the Amoc slows drastically by 2100 and completely shuts off thereafter. That shows the shutdown risk is more serious than many people realize."

The findings have been published in the journal Environmental Research Letters.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://news.slashdot.org/story/25/08/29/2137253/collapse-of-critical-atlantic-current-is-no-longer-low-likelihood-study-finds?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Mastodon says it cannot comply with Mississippi's new age verification law because its decentralized software does not support age checks and the nonprofit lacks resources to enforce them. "The social nonprofit explains that Mastodon doesn't track its users, which makes it difficult to enforce such legislation," reports TechCrunch. "Nor does it want to use IP address-based blocks, as those would unfairly impact people who were traveling, it says." From the report: The statement follows a lively back-and-forth conversation earlier this week between Mastodon founder and CEO Eugen Rochko and Bluesky board member and journalist Mike Masnick. In the conversation, published on their respective social networks, Rochko claimed, "there is nobody that can decide for the fediverse to block Mississippi." (The Fediverse is the decentralized social network that includes Mastodon and other services, and is powered by the ActivityPub protocol.) "And this is why real decentralization matters," said Rochko.

Masnick pushed back, questioning why Mastodon's individual servers, like the one Rochko runs at mastodon.social, would not also be subject to the same $10,000 per user fines for noncompliance with the law. On Friday, however, the nonprofit shared a statement with TechCrunch to clarify its position, saying that while Mastodon's own servers specify a minimum age of 16 to sign up for its services, it does not "have the means to apply age verification" to its services. That is, the Mastodon software doesn't support it. The Mastodon 4.4 release in July 2025 added the ability to specify a minimum age for sign-up and other legal features for handling terms of service, partly in response to increased regulation around these areas. The new feature allows server administrators to check users' ages during sign-up, but the age-check data is not stored. That means individual server owners have to decide for themselves if they believe an age verification component is a necessary addition.

The nonprofit says Mastodon is currently unable to provide "direct or operational assistance" to the broader set of Mastodon server operators. Instead, it encourages owners of Mastodon and other Fediverse servers to make use of resources available online, such as the IFTAS library, which provides trust and safety support for volunteer social network moderators. The nonprofit also advises server admins to observe the laws of the jurisdictions where they are located and operate. Mastodon notes that it's "not tracking, or able to comment on, the policies and operations of individual servers that run Mastodon." Bluesky echoed those comments in a blog post last Friday, saying the company doesn't have the resources to make the substantial technical changes this type of law would require.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/08/29/2131208/mastodon-says-it-doesnt-have-the-means-to-comply-with-age-verification-laws?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Meta is rolling out temporary restrictions on its AI chatbots for teens after reports revealed they were allowed to engage in "romantic" conversations with minors. A Meta spokesperson said the AI chatbots are now being trained so that they do not generate responses to teens about subjects like self-harm, suicide, disordered eating or inappropriate romantic conversations. Instead, the chatbots will point teens to expert resources when appropriate. CNBC reports: "As our community grows and technology evolves, we're continually learning about how young people may interact with these tools and strengthening our protections accordingly," the company said in a statement. Additionally, teenage users of Meta apps like Facebook and Instagram will only be able to access certain AI chatbots intended for educational and skill-development purposes. The company said it's unclear how long these temporary modifications will last, but they will begin rolling out over the next few weeks across the company's apps in English-speaking countries. The "interim changes" are part of the company's longer-term measures over teen safety. Further reading: Meta Created Flirty Chatbots of Celebrities Without Permission

[ Read more of this story ]( https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/08/29/2116246/meta-changes-teen-ai-chatbot-responses-as-senate-begins-probe-into-romantic-conversations?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Vivaldi CEO Jon von Tetzchner has doubled down on his company's refusal to integrate generative AI into its browser, arguing that embedding AI in browsing dehumanizes the web, funnels traffic away from publishers, and primarily serves to harvest user data. "Every startup is doing AI, and there is a push for AI inside products and services continuously," he told The Register in a phone interview. "It's not really focusing on what people need." The Register reports: On Thursday, Von Tetzchner published a blog post articulating his company's rejection of generative AI in the browser, reiterating concerns raised last year by Vivaldi software developer Julien Picalausa. [...] Von Tetzchner argues that relying on generative AI for browsing dehumanizes and impoverishes the web by diverting traffic away from publishers and onto chatbots. "We're taking a stand, choosing humans over hype, and we will not turn the joy of exploring into inactive spectatorship," he stated in his post. "Without exploration, the web becomes far less interesting. Our curiosity loses oxygen and the diversity of the web dies."

Von Tetzchner told The Register that almost all the users he hears from don't want AI in their browser. "I'm not so sure that applies to the general public, but I do think that actually most people are kind of wary of something that's always looking over your shoulder," he said. "And a lot of the systems as they're built today that's what they're doing. The reason why they're putting in the systems is to collect information." Von Tetzchner said that AI in browsers presents the same problem as social media algorithms that decide what people see based on collected data. Vivaldi, he said, wants users to control their own data and to make their own decisions about what they see. "We would like users to be in control," he said. "If people want to use AI as those services, it's easily accessible to them without building it into the browser. But I think the concept of building it into the browser is typically for the sake of collecting information. And that's not what we are about as a company, and we don't think that's what the web should be about."

Vivaldi is not against all uses of AI, and in fact uses it for in-browser translation. But these are premade models that don't rely on user data, von Tetzchner said. "It's not like we're saying AI is wrong in all cases," he said. "I think AI can be used in particular for things like research and the like. I think it has significant value in recognizing patterns and the like. But I think the way it is being used on the internet and for browsing is net negative."

[ Read more of this story ]( https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/08/29/217243/vivaldi-browser-doubles-down-on-gen-ai-ban?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Earlier this month, EA announced that players in its Battlefield 6 open beta on PC would have to enable Secure Boot in their Windows OS and BIOS settings. That decision proved controversial among players who weren't able to get the finicky low-level security setting working on their machines and others who were unwilling to allow EA's anti-cheat tools to once again have kernel-level access to their systems. Now, Battlefield 6 technical director Christian Buhl is defending that requirement as something of a necessary evil to combat cheaters, even as he apologizes to any potential players that it has kept away.

"The fact is I wish we didn't have to do things like Secure Boot," Buhl said in an interview with Eurogamer. "It does prevent some players from playing the game. Some people's PCs can't handle it and they can't play: that really sucks. I wish everyone could play the game with low friction and not have to do these sorts of things." Throughout the interview, Buhl admits that even requiring Secure Boot won't completely eradicate cheating in Battlefield 6 long term. Even so, he offered that the Javelin anti-cheat tools enabled by Secure Boot's low-level system access were "some of the strongest tools in our toolbox to stop cheating. Again, nothing makes cheating impossible, but enabling Secure Boot and having kernel-level access makes it so much harder to cheat and so much easier for us to find and stop cheating." [...]

Despite all these justifications for the Secure Boot requirement on EA's part, it hasn't been hard to find people complaining about what they see as an onerous barrier to playing an online shooter. A quick Reddit search turns up dozens of posts complaining about the difficulty of getting Secure Boot on certain PC configurations or expressing discomfort about installing what they consider a "malware rootkit" on their machine. "I want to play this beta but A) I'm worried about bricking my PC. B) I'm worried about giving EA complete access to my machine," one representative Redditor wrote.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://games.slashdot.org/story/25/08/29/210241/battlefield-6-dev-apologizes-for-requiring-secure-boot-to-power-anti-cheat-tools?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Reuters has found that Meta appropriated the names and likenesses of celebrities to create dozens of flirty social-media chatbots without their permission. "While many were created by users with a Meta tool for building chatbots, Reuters discovered that a Meta employee had produced at least three, including two Taylor Swift 'parody' bots." From the report: Reuters also found that Meta had allowed users to create publicly available chatbots of child celebrities, including Walker Scobell, a 16-year-old film star. Asked for a picture of the teen actor at the beach, the bot produced a lifelike shirtless image.
"Pretty cute, huh?" the avatar wrote beneath the picture. All of the virtual celebrities have been shared on Meta's Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp platforms. In several weeks of Reuters testing to observe the bots' behavior, the avatars often insisted they were the real actors and artists. The bots routinely made sexual advances, often inviting a test user for meet-ups. Some of the AI-generated celebrity content was particularly risque: Asked for intimate pictures of themselves, the adult chatbots produced photorealistic images of their namesakes posing in bathtubs or dressed in lingerie with their legs spread.

Meta spokesman Andy Stone told Reuters that Meta's AI tools shouldn't have created intimate images of the famous adults or any pictures of child celebrities. He also blamed Meta's production of images of female celebrities wearing lingerie on failures of the company's enforcement of its own policies, which prohibit such content. "Like others, we permit the generation of images containing public figures, but our policies are intended to prohibit nude, intimate or sexually suggestive imagery," he said. While Meta's rules also prohibit "direct impersonation," Stone said the celebrity characters were acceptable so long as the company had labeled them as parodies. Many were labeled as such, but Reuters found that some weren't. Meta deleted about a dozen of the bots, both "parody" avatars and unlabeled ones, shortly before this story's publication.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://meta.slashdot.org/story/25/08/29/2049213/meta-created-flirty-chatbots-of-celebrities-without-permission?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Linus Torvalds updated the kernel's MAINTAINERS file to mark Bcachefs as "externally maintained," signaling he won't accept new Bcachefs pull requests for now. "MAINTAINERS: mark bcachefs externally maintained," wrote Torvalds with the patch. "As per many long discussion threads, public and private."

"The Bcachefs code is still present in the mainline Linux kernel likely to prevent users from having any immediate fall-out in Bcachefs file-systems they may already be using, but it doesn't look like Linus Torvalds will be honoring any new Bcachefs pull requests in the near future," adds Phoronix's Michael Larabel.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://linux.slashdot.org/story/25/08/29/2033242/linus-torvalds-marks-bcachefs-as-now-externally-maintained?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

The Federal Communications Commission has rejected a call from the National Association of Broadcasters and some industry trade groups that would have imposed cable-style regulatory fees on streaming services, tech companies and pure broadband providers. From a report: In a Report and Order issued on Friday, the FCC reaffirmed that regulatory fees are calculated based on the number of full-time equivalent employees assigned to specific industries under the agency's jurisdiction. Broadcasters, satellite operators and other licensees are already assessed annual payments, which help fund the FCC's operational costs.

The NAB, in concert with other groups like Telesat, Iridium and the State Broadcasters Associations, pressed the FCC to expand the list of fee payers to include broadband providers and large technology firms. They argued that companies operating online platforms and broadband services rely on FCC resources and should contribute to the costs of regulation. "Big Tech should not be permitted to free ride on the FCC's oversight," NAB said in submitted comments earlier this year. The NAB argued that online platforms enjoy regulator benefits without paying into the agency's budget, as broadcasters and satellite operators do.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/08/29/2027234/fcc-rejects-calls-for-cable-like-fees-on-broadband-providers?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

В конце этой весны (с 5 по 7 мая) прошла большая ежегодная игровая конференция [ Godotcon 2025 ]( https://conference.godotengine.org/2025/ ) , посвященная развитию игрового движка [ Godot Engine ]( https://godotengine.org/ ) . Это мероприятие, на котором сообщество Godot имеет возможность встретиться лично и обменяться знаниями. Вдохновляющие выступления, налаживание контактов, демонстрация игр и проектов, создание связей и обмен знаниями - все это цели конференции, организованной фондом [ Godot Foundation ]( https://godot.foundation/ ) вместе с местными членами сообщества и невероятной командой волонтеров.

В этот раз конференция проходила в Бостоне и график был плотным как никогда. Всего за 3 дня выступили [ 45 докладчиков ]( https://conference.godotengine.org/2025/#speakers ) . Настоящее безумие! Разработчики движка Godot, независимые разработчики инди-игр, создатели обучающих курсов, множество других специалистов - каждый охотно делился своим опытом и отвечал на вопросы ненасытной до знания толпы начинающих (и не очень) геймдевелоперов.

И вот, недавно на канале Godot начали появляться видеозаписи с этой конференции. Теперь каждый может ознакомиться с полезными и крайне содержательными выступлениями, а также с самыми новыми изменениями и технологиями в Godot Engine.

По темам:

[ Цепь Маркова с шотганом: открытые языковые модели в Godot (Simon) ]( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wWD7OCx7tNs )

[ Текущее состояние Godot и Web-платформа (Adam Scott) ]( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_WMJG0menc )

[ Создание плагина для Godot с помощью GDExtension (Scott Doxey) ]( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JqL_oZ9SG7Q )

[ Путь от игрока до контрибьютора (Heather Drolet, Justin Borque) ]( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rmlPOy9BL5M )

[ HolyOS - создание фейковой операционной системы в Godot (Davide Di Staso) ]( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kXn2WoWK0rc )

[ Xogot - нативная версия Godot для iPad (Miguel de Icaza) ]( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bzKIaD-KHPQ )

[ Встраивание Godot: добавление изюминки в ваше приложение с помощью SwiftGodotKit и других инструментов (Miguel de Icaza) ]( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1V1G6H-vzxU )

[ Нарративный дизайн для соло-разработчиков (Nicholas O'Brien) ]( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0CsbuHDr44 )

[ Междисциплинарная коллаборация в Godot (Casey Dahlgren, Sarah Nuse) ]( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5kE3m1-huDE )

[ Создание кроссплатформенных неигровых приложений с помощью Godot (HP van Braam) ]( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ywl5ot_rdgc )

[ Представляем .NET Aspire - локальная разработка для вашего фуллстека (Maddy Montaquila) ]( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xdzIMxbiY34 )

[ События - это верный путь к Go(dot) (Eric Peterson) ]( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yB3Wv-Lr7pg )

[ Создание инновационной образовательной платформы Operation Outbreak (Andrés Colubri, Harmony Honey Monroe) ]( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YqfkqNFFKlQ )

[ Добавление новых скриптовых языков в Godot (Jeff Ward) ]( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=opHWwaogQvw )

[ Эффекты композитора и вы: раскрытие потенциала Godot для продвинутых графических техник (Acerola) ]( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fiyf4XPanf4 )

[ Профилирование игр на движке Godot для Android с помощью Arm Performance Studio (Ian Bolton) ]( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WrjaUNAXYqk )

[ LibGodot - встраивайте движок Godot везде (Gergely Kis) ]( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L06KBOWCsSk )

[ Представляем 3D-тайлы для Godot (Leonidas Neftalí) ]( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oC_8CfYWP7c )

[ Создание стилизованных 3D-игр в Godot (Shane Denhardt, Kiril Pashev) ]( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPdqANjh3BY )

[ Юнит-тестирование игр - TDD/Godot/GUT (Butch Wesley) ]( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ImqhHLlPfZg )

[ Добавление многопользовательского режима в Dome Keeper (Chris Ridenour) ]( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MEZoKKAoUAU )

[ Удобная архитектура игр с Godot и C# (Mark Wilson) ]( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BgrHnJDt2ww )

[ Улучшение пользовательского интерфейса в Godot (Rawb Herb) ]( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sjmAD1ZLBcE )

[ От локальной сети к масштабируемым решениям (James Clancey) ]( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bS3lbw65dh8 )

[ Краш-курс на YouTube для разработчиков игр (StayAtHomeDev) ]( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJKf-l5wa0I )

[ Я создаю игры на своем телефоне (и они действительно работают) (Chad Stewart) ]( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qoCWp_oP9Ng )

[ Вопросы и ответы с разработчиками Godot (Emilio Coppola, David Snopek, Adam Scott) ]( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=scKCNoxtRTE )

[ Что нового в XR и Android (David, Fredia, Logan) ]( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQPQ2FGOUKg )

[ Основы многопользовательского режима в Godot (Travis Hunter) ]( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tK2ACXUGcrY )

[ Использование Godot для стриминга в смешанной реальности (badcop) ]( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rg8K0szRGoc )

[ Подготовка 3D-персонажей в аниме-стиле для Godot с использованием Blender (Jesse (CoderNunk)) ]( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1GvvrkIq-8 )

[ Log.gd - красивая замена функции print(...) (Russell Matney) ]( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Fv9YXHMA_U )

[ Переход на мобильные платформы с Godot (Joseph Hill) ]( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57_BRpxDKzo )

[ Уроки из более чем 25 геймджемов с Godot (Marek Belski) ]( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUOAzSNmz1A )

[ Тайм-менеджмент в разработке игр (Matthew Ponder) ]( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FI0N4NBScoo )

[ Синтезаторы и звуковой дизайн в Godot с использованием Csound (Werner Mendizabal) ]( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RsOCO_rVT90 )

[ Пользовательские ресурсы для управления глобальным состоянием (Sam Szuflita) ]( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1qHPKg_Xovs )

[ Создании физических игр с помощью Godot (Annalivia, Tyler) ]( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQxgV3s-sv8 )

[ Весь плейлист ]( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fiyf4XPanf4&list=PLeG_dAglpVo5oOrjQqDTMQadVDqe1Zsom&index=1 )

https://www.linux.org.ru/news/opensource/18063700

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: WhatsApp said on Friday that it fixed a security bug in its iOS and Mac apps that was being used to stealthily hack into the Apple devices of "specific targeted users." The Meta-owned messaging app giant said in its security advisory that it fixed the vulnerability, known officially as CVE-2025-55177, which was used alongside a separate flaw found in iOS and Macs, which Apple fixed last week and tracks as CVE-2025-43300.

Apple said at the time that the flaw was used in an "extremely sophisticated attack against specific targeted individuals." Now we know that dozens of WhatsApp users were targeted with this pair of flaws. Donncha O Cearbhaill, who heads Amnesty International's Security Lab, described the attack in a post on X as an "advanced spyware campaign" that targeted users over the past 90 days, or since the end of May. O Cearbhaill described the pair of bugs as a "zero-click" attack, meaning it does not require any interaction from the victim, such as clicking a link, to compromise their device.

The two bugs chained together allow an attacker to deliver a malicious exploit through WhatsApp that's capable of stealing data from the user's Apple device. Per O Cearbhaill, who posted a copy of the threat notification that WhatsApp sent to affected users, the attack was able to "compromise your device and the data it contains, including messages." It's not immediately clear who, or which spyware vendor, is behind the attacks. When reached by TechCrunch, Meta spokesperson Margarita Franklin confirmed the company detected and patched the flaw "a few weeks ago" and that the company sent "less than 200" notifications to affected WhatsApp users. The spokesperson did not say, when asked, if WhatsApp has evidence to attribute the hacks to a specific attacker or surveillance vendor.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://it.slashdot.org/story/25/08/29/2020202/whatsapp-fixes-zero-click-bug-used-to-hack-apple-users-with-spyware?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Некоммерческая организация KDE e.V., курирующая развитие проекта KDE, опубликовала отчёт за 2024 год, в котором, помимо информации о проектах, мероприятиях и конференциях, раскрыты финансовые показатели. Организацией за 2024 год было потрачено 470 тысяч евро (в 2023 году - 457 тысяч евро), а получено - 641 тысяча евро (в 2023 году - 349 тысяч евро).

https://www.opennet.ru/opennews/art.shtml?num=63797

Линус Торвальдс изменил статус поддержки bcachefs в ядре Linux на "внешнее сопровождение" (Externally maintained). В примечании к изменению отмечено, что решение принято после длительных дискуссий, как публичных, так и приватных. Фактически новый статус подразумевает прекращение приёма изменений для Bcachefs, но сохранение данной ФС в замороженном виде в основном составе ядра. До того как Кент Оверстрит на деле не докажет возможность корректного взаимодействия с другими разработчиками ядра и способность следовать устоявшимся правилам разработки, дальнейшая разработка Bcachefs будет производиться вне кодовой базы ядра.

https://www.opennet.ru/opennews/art.shtml?num=63796

После шести месяцев разработки опубликован релиз многоплатформенного тулкита для создания графического интерфейса пользователя - GTK 4.20. GTK 4 развивается в рамках процесса разработки, который пытается предоставить разработчикам приложений стабильный и поддерживаемый в течение нескольких лет API, который можно использовать не опасаясь, что каждые полгода придётся переделывать приложения из-за изменения API в очередной ветке GTK.

https://www.opennet.ru/opennews/art.shtml?num=63795

DOD: Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the Pentagon has halted a decade-old Microsoft program that has allowed Chinese coders, remotely supervised by U.S. contractors, to work on sensitive DOD cloud systems. In a digital video address to the public posted yesterday, the secretary said DOD was made aware of the "digital escorts" program last month and that the program has exposed the Defense Department to unacceptable risk -- despite being designed to comply with government contracting rules.

"If you're thinking 'America first,' and common sense, this doesn't pass either of those tests," Hegseth said, adding that he initiated an immediate review of the program upon learning of it. "I want to report our initial findings. ... The use of Chinese nationals to service Department of Defense cloud environments? It's over," he said. Additionally, Hegseth said DOD has issued a formal letter of concern to Microsoft, documenting a breach of trust, and that DOD is requiring a third-party audit of the digital escorts program to pore over the code and submissions made by Chinese nationals. The audit will be free of charge to U.S. taxpayers, he said.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/08/29/1928258/pentagon-halts-chinese-coders-affecting-dod-cloud-systems?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Federal Trade Commission Chairman Andrew Ferguson accused Google of using "partisan" spam filtering in Gmail that sends Republican fundraising emails to the spam folder while delivering Democratic emails to inboxes. From a report: Ferguson sent a letter yesterday to Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai, accusing the company of "potential FTC Act violations related to partisan administration of Gmail." Ferguson's letter revives longstanding Republican complaints that were previously rejected by a federal judge and the Federal Election Commission.

"My understanding from recent reporting is that Gmail's spam filters routinely block messages from reaching consumers when those messages come from Republican senders but fail to block similar messages sent by Democrats," Ferguson wrote. The FTC chair cited a recent New York Post report on the alleged practice.

The letter told Pichai that if "Gmail's filters keep Americans from receiving speech they expect, or donating as they see fit, the filters may harm American consumers and may violate the FTC Act's prohibition of unfair or deceptive trade practices." Ferguson added that any "act or practice inconsistent with" Google's obligations under the FTC Act "could lead to an FTC investigation and potential enforcement action."

[ Read more of this story ]( https://news.slashdot.org/story/25/08/29/1829229/ftc-claims-gmail-filtering-republican-emails-threatens-american-freedoms?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Microsoft has found no link between the August 2025 KB5063878 security update and customer reports of failure and data corruption issues affecting solid-state drives (SSDs) and hard disk drives (HDDs). From a report: Redmond first told BleepingComputer last week that it is aware of users reporting SSD failures after installing this month's Windows 11 24H2 security update. In a subsequent service alert seen by BleepingComputer, Redmond said that it was unable to reproduce the issue on up-to-date systems and began collecting user reports with additional details from those affected.

"After thorough investigation, Microsoft has found no connection between the August 2025 Windows security update and the types of hard drive failures reported on social media," Microsoft said in an update to the service alert this week. "As always, we continue to monitor feedback after the release of every Windows update, and will investigate any future reports."

[ Read more of this story ]( https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/25/08/29/1824219/microsoft-says-recent-windows-update-didnt-kill-your-ssd?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

ArsTechnica: Today's video game consoles are hundreds of dollars more expensive than you'd expect based on historic pricing trends. That's according to an Ars Technica analysis of decades of pricing data and price-cut timing across dozens of major US console releases.

The overall direction of this trend has been apparent to industry watchers for a while now. Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft have failed to cut their console prices in recent years and have instead been increasing the nominal MSRP for many current consoles in the past six months.

But when you crunch the numbers, it's pretty incredible just how much today's console prices defy historic expectations, even when you account for higher-than-normal inflation in recent years. If today's consoles were seeing anything like what used to be standard price cuts over time, we could be paying around $200 today for pricey systems like the Switch OLED, PS5 Digital Edition, and Xbox Series S.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://games.slashdot.org/story/25/08/29/1729201/todays-game-consoles-are-historically-overpriced?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

French President Emmanuel Macron vowed a strong response [non-paywalled source] if any country takes measures that undermine Europe's digital sovereignty. From a report: Earlier this week, US President Donald Trump threatened to impose fresh tariffs and export restrictions on countries that have digital services taxes or regulations that harm American tech companies. France was among the first nations to implement a digital services tax.

"We will not let anyone else decide for us on this matter," he told reporters in Toulon, France, on Friday. "We cannot allow our digital sector or the regulations we have chosen for ourselves, which are a necessity, to be threatened today." Trump has long railed against EU tech and antitrust regulation over US tech giants including Alphabet's Google and Apple.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/08/29/175257/macron-vows-retaliation-if-europes-digital-sovereignty-attacked?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

One of Australia's largest banks has apologized to staff who found out they had been fired through an automated email asking them to hand back their laptops. From a report: ANZ's retail banking executive Bruce Rush said it was "not our intention to share such sensitive news with you in this way" as the firm cuts jobs in its retail banking business. The bank said the emails were sent to some staff ahead of schedule in error. It said it has since stopped sending the emails and that staff have been spoken to personally.

The Financial Sector Union said the email caused "panic and distress" and was a result of the company forcing through a "chaotic pace of change." The union's president Wendy Streets said it had not been consulted on the changes the bank was making, adding that "ANZ must do better." "Speed and cost-cutting cannot come at the expense of dignity and respect for workers," Ms Streets said, describing the "botched" episode as "disgusting." Mr Rush wrote in an email to staff: "Unfortunately, these emails indicate an exit date for some of our colleagues before we've been able to share their outcome with them."

[ Read more of this story ]( https://it.slashdot.org/story/25/08/29/1644219/bank-apologizes-for-firing-staff-with-accidental-email?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

A newly published Investigatory Powers Tribunal filing indicates the UK government's Technical Capability Notice to Apple went beyond the company's Advanced Data Protection encryption to include standard iCloud services used by millions [non-paywalled source]. The document states the UK Home Office order "is not limited to" ADP data and applies "globally in respect of the relevant data categories of all iCloud users."

The filing emerged days after Trump administration officials claimed the UK had agreed to drop efforts targeting American citizens' data. Apple launched its legal challenge in March after receiving the TCN, which the company cannot discuss publicly under the Investigatory Powers Act. The tribunal scheduled a hearing for early next year. Apple withdrew ADP from UK customers in February.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://news.slashdot.org/story/25/08/29/1554214/uk-sought-broad-access-to-apple-customers-data-court-filing-suggests?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Universities facing federal research budget cuts are increasingly turning to corporate partnerships for funding as Georgia Tech secures $70 million from industry this fiscal year -- 28% more than last year and representing 15% of campus research funding versus the 6% national average. The Atlanta school's corporate engagement office has fielded multiple weekly calls from other institutions seeking guidance after securing deals including Hyundai's $55 million stadium naming rights agreement alongside undisclosed research investments in electric vehicle and hydrogen fuel technologies.

The arrangements come with restrictions: nondisclosure agreements limit publication options for graduate students, and companies typically avoid funding basic research without immediate commercial applications. Federal grants still constitute over half of university research spending nationally, supporting early-stage discovery work that laid groundwork for current quantum computing developments.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://news.slashdot.org/story/25/08/29/1519214/georgia-tech-is-teaching-other-universities-a-fundraising-lesson?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Valve has started to comply with the UK's Online Safety Act, by rolling out a requirement for all Brits to verify their age with a credit card to access "mature content" pages and games on Steam. UK users won't even be able to access the community hubs of mature content games unless a valid credit card is stored on a Steam account.

While platforms like Reddit, Bluesky, and Discord have opted for age verification checks using selfies, Valve is restricting its age checks to just credit cards, according to a support article. "Among all age assurance mechanisms reviewed by Valve, this process preserves the maximum degree of user privacy," says Valve. "Having the credit card stored as a payment method acts as an additional deterrent against circumventing age verification by sharing a single Steam user account among multiple persons."

[ Read more of this story ]( https://news.slashdot.org/story/25/08/29/1441223/steam-users-in-the-uk-will-need-a-credit-card-to-access-mature-content-games?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

A 56-year-old tech industry veteran killed his mother and himself in Old Greenwich, Connecticut on August 5 after months of interactions with ChatGPT that encouraged his paranoid delusions.

Greenwich police discovered Stein-Erik Soelberg and his 83-year-old mother Suzanne Eberson Adams dead in their home. Videos posted by Soelberg documented conversations where ChatGPT repeatedly assured him he was sane while validating his beliefs about surveillance campaigns and poisoning attempts by his mother.

The chatbot told him a Chinese food receipt contained demonic symbols and that his mother's anger over a disconnected printer indicated she was "protecting a surveillance asset." OpenAI has contacted Greenwich police and announced plans for updates to help keep users experiencing mental distress grounded in reality.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/08/29/1116218/a-troubled-man-his-chatbot-and-a-murder-suicide-in-old-greenwich?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Phys.org: In a first-of-its-kind experiment, engineers at the University of Pennsylvania brought quantum networking out of the lab and onto commercial fiber-optic cables using the same Internet Protocol (IP) that powers today's web. Reported in Science, the work shows that fragile quantum signals can run on the same infrastructure that carries everyday online traffic. The team tested their approach on Verizon's campus fiber-optic network. The Penn team's tiny "Q-chip" coordinates quantum and classical data and, crucially, speaks the same language as the modern web. That approach could pave the way for a future "quantum internet," which scientists believe may one day be as transformative as the dawn of the online era.

Quantum signals rely on pairs of "entangled" particles, so closely linked that changing one instantly affects the other. Harnessing that property could allow quantum computers to link up and pool their processing power, enabling advances like faster, more energy-efficient AI or designing new drugs and materials beyond the reach of today's supercomputers. Penn's work shows, for the first time on live commercial fiber, that a chip can not only send quantum signals but also automatically correct for noise, bundle quantum and classical data into standard internet-style packets, and route them using the same addressing system and management tools that connect everyday devices online. "By showing an integrated chip can manage quantum signals on a live commercial network like Verizon's, and do so using the same protocols that run the classical internet, we've taken a key step toward larger-scale experiments and a practical quantum internet," says Liang Feng, Professor in Materials Science and Engineering (MSE) and in Electrical and Systems Engineering (ESE), and the Science paper's senior author.

"This feels like the early days of the classical internet in the 1990s, when universities first connected their networks," added Robert Broberg, a doctoral student in ESE and co-author of the paper. "That opened the door to transformations no one could have predicted. A quantum internet has the same potential."

[ Read more of this story ]( https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/08/29/0043214/engineers-send-quantum-signals-with-standard-internet-protocol?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Состоялся открытый релиз документального фильма « [ Python: The Documentary ]( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GfH4QL4VqJ0 ) » про историю развития популярного языка программирования, созданный CultRepo.

«Это история самого любимого в мире языка программирования: Python. То, что начиналось как сторонний проект в Амстердаме в 1990-х годах, превратилось в программное обеспечение, лежащее в основе искусственного интеллекта, науки о данных и некоторых крупнейших компаний мира. Но будущее Python было неопределённым. В какой‑то момент он едва не исчез. В этом 90-минутном документальном фильме с Гвидо ван Россумом, Трэвисом Олифантом, Барри Варшавой и многими другими основные участники проекта рассказывают историю становления Python, его развития под влиянием сообщества, конфликтов, которые едва не разрушили его, и влияния языка на... ну... всё», — пояснили в CultRepo.

Также в сети доступна видеозапись [ ключевого доклада ]( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sf2AqQ5a38Y ) по этому событию и ответов на вопросы на EuroPython.

Ранее авторы индекса TIOBE [ опубликовали ]( https://habr.com/ru/news/937856/ ) августовский рейтинг популярных языков программирования.

«В [ прошлом месяце ]( https://habr.com/ru/news/927392/ ) Python достиг наивысшего рейтинга среди языков программирования за всю историю индекса TIOBE. Мы думали, что Python уже не сможет расти дальше, но ИИ‑помощники по программированию позволили Python сделать ещё один шаг вперёд. Согласно недавним исследованиям Стэнфордского университета, ИИ‑помощники по программированию, такие как Microsoft Copilot, Cursor или Google Gemini Code Assist, на 20% эффективнее при использовании для популярных языков программирования. Причина очевидна: для этих языков доступно больше кода для обучения базовых моделей. Эта тенденция прослеживается и в индексе TIOBE, где мы видим консолидацию языков в верхних строках. Зачем начинать изучать новый малоизвестный язык, для которого недоступен ИИ‑помощник? Это современный способ сказать, что вы не хотите изучать новый язык, который плохо документирован и/или имеет слишком мало библиотек, которые могут вам помочь», — [ пояснил ]( https://www.techrepublic.com/article/news-tiobe-commentary-august/ ) генеральный директор Tiobe Пол Янсен.

22 июля 2025 года состоялся выпуск Python 3.14 RC1 (release candidate 1) с официальной поддержкой Free-threaded Python. Выпуск Python 3.14 RC2 ожидается в конце августа. Стабильный релиз языка программирования Python 3.14 намечен на 7 октября 2025 года. Выпуск Python 3.13 случился 7 октября 2024 года.

https://www.linux.org.ru/news/opensource/18064172

Опубликованы новые сборки FreedomBox Trixie, переведённые на пакетную базу Debian 13. Проектом развивается система для простого развёртывания персональных серверов, обеспечивающих защиту персональных данных пользователей и позволяющих быстро запустить на своём оборудовании типовые сервисы, которые могут применяться для личного использования. Все развиваемые проектом наработки доступны через репозитории Debian. Установочный образ сформирован для архитектуры x86_64 (формирование сборок i386 прекращено). При желании можно создать собственный образ при помощи специального инсталлятора Freedom-Maker и конфигуратора freedombox-setup.

https://www.opennet.ru/opennews/art.shtml?num=63794

Taco Bell's rollout of AI-powered drive-thru assistants has run into problems, with glitches and trolls gaming the system by making absurd orders like thousands of water cups. It's so bad that the company is reconsidering where and how to deploy the tech, admitting it may not work well in "super busy" restaurants. "We're learning a lot, I'm going to be honest with you," Dane Mathews, Taco Bell's chief digital and technology officer, told the WSJ. "I think like everybody, sometimes it lets me down, but sometimes it really surprises me." The Verge reports: Since announcing plans to put AI in the drive-thru last year, Taco Bell has deployed the tech in over 500 locations across the US, according to the WSJ. Other fast-food chains are experimenting with AI, too, including McDonald's, Wendy's, and White Castle. Mathews tells the outlet that while the company still plans on pushing ahead with AI voice technology and evaluating the data, he's discovered that using AI exclusively in certain situations, like a drive-thru for "super busy restaurants with long lines," might not be such a great idea after all.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://slashdot.org/story/25/08/29/0037244/taco-bells-ai-drive-thru-plan-gets-caught-up-on-trolls-and-glitches?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Опубликован выпуск дистрибутива MODICIA 6.12.41, основанного на пакетной базе Debian и предлагающего подборку приложений для музыкантов, дизайнеров и создателей видео. Пользовательское окружение построено с использованием среды рабочего стола Cinnamon. Проектом поддерживается каталог приложений, насчитывающий около 1000 пакетов. Размер iso-образа, способного запускаться в live-режиме, - 4.7 ГБ (x86_64).

https://www.opennet.ru/opennews/art.shtml?num=63793

Longtime Slashdot reader cristiroma shares a report from New Atlas: Wouldn't it be great if the plants in your home could do more than just sit there looking pretty? Researchers at South China Agricultural University in the city of Guangzhou have found a way to upgrade them into soft glowing night lights in a range of hues, with the use of nanoparticles. The team developed a light-emitting phosphor compound that enabled succulents with fleshy leaves to charge in sunlight or indoor LED light in just a couple of minutes, and then emit a soft uniform glow that lasts up to two hours. The afterglow phosphor compound -- which is similar to those found in glow-in-the-dark toys -- is inexpensive, biocompatible, and negates the need for more complex methods of infusing bioluminescence in plants, like genetic modification. It simply gets injected into the leaves.

[...] Beyond modifying a commercial compound for this project, the team also had to figure out the right size for the phosphor particles so they'd work as intended inside plants. Shuting Liu, first author on the study that appeared in Matter this week, noted, "Smaller, nano-sized particles move easily within the plant but are dimmer. Larger particles glowed brighter but couldn't travel far inside the plant." Through extensive testing, the researchers arrived at an optimal size of around 7 micrometers, about the width of a red blood cell. They also determined through experimentation that the particles worked best in succulents, rather than plants with thinner leaves like bok choy.

Once they'd landed on the right particle size, loading concentration, and plant type, the team found that the phosphor material diffused into succulent leaves almost instantly, and uniformly lit up entire leaves -- enough to illuminate nearby objects. The scientists were also able to create modified phosphors that glowed in colors like green, red, and blue. That could make for novel indoor or garden decor, as well as pathway lighting. These luminous plants also don't cost much -- according to Liu, "Each plant takes about 10 minutes to prepare and costs a little over 10 yuan (about $1.4), not including labor." Over the course of 10 days, the injected plants didn't show any signs of damage, yellowing, structural integrity, or even reduced levels of chlorophyll.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://science.slashdot.org/story/25/08/29/0030247/nanoparticles-turn-houseplants-into-night-lights?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

TOP10 VISITORS:

[1] 37.252.14.x point=144 web=0 up=24.9MB (48%) <--- ake (6/hr)
[2] Google point=1 web=740 up=7.2MB (14%) <--- Google
[3] PetalBot point=2 web=1024 up=6.0MB (11%) <--- PetalBot
[4] 65.21.113.x point=0 web=67 up=3.3MB (6%)
[5] 216.73.216.x point=0 web=209 up=2.9MB (5%)
[6] 144.76.33.x point=0 web=41 up=2.0MB (3%)
[7] Amazon point=0 web=85 up=1.4MB (2%)
[8] Facebook point=0 web=102 up=1.0MB (1%)
[9] 217.114.158.x point=25 web=0 up=0.9MB (1%) <--- fox (1/hr)
[10] 105.159.149.x point=0 web=9 up=0.1MB (<1%)

TOTAL TRAFFIC: 50MB

An anonymous reader quotes a report from CBS News: They look, move and even smell like the kind of furry Everglades marsh rabbit a Burmese python would love to eat. But these bunnies are robots meant to lure the giant invasive snakes out of their hiding spots. It's the latest effort by the South Florida Water Management District to eliminate as many pythons as possible from the Everglades, where they are decimating native species with their voracious appetites. In Everglades National Park, officials say the snakes have eliminated 95% of small mammals as well as thousands of birds. "Removing them is fairly simple. It's detection. We're having a really hard time finding them," said Mike Kirkland, lead invasive animal biologist for the water district. "They're so well camouflaged in the field."

The water district and University of Florida researchers deployed 120 robot rabbits this summer as an experiment. Previously, there was an effort to use live rabbits as snake lures but that became too expensive and time-consuming, Kirkland said. The robots are simple toy rabbits, but retrofitted to emit heat, a smell and to make natural movements to appear like any other regular rabbit. "They look like a real rabbit," Kirkland said. They are solar powered and can be switched on and off remotely. They are placed in small pens monitored by a video camera that sends out a signal when a python is nearby. "Then I can deploy one of our many contractors to go out and remove the python," Kirkland said. The total cost per robot rabbit is about $4,000, financed by the water district, he added.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/25/08/28/217230/florida-deploys-robot-rabbits-to-control-invasive-burmese-python-population?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Amtrak's new 160 mph tilting Acela trains have debuted on the Northeast Corridor, offering smoother rides, upgraded interiors, faster Wi-Fi, and 27% more seating capacity. However, "they don't complete the journey any faster than the old trains," reports The Independent. From the report: Acela runs from Washington, DC's Union Station to Boston via Philadelphia, New York Penn Station, New Haven, and Providence. It's a total distance of 457 miles, with the fastest next-gen Acela journey being six hours and 43 minutes, five minutes slower than the quickest end-to-end time offered by the old Acela trains, introduced in 2000. However, this may be because, as is common practice with new trains the world over, Amtrak is scheduling longer dwell times at stations so staff and passengers can adjust to them. The next-gen sets have a top service speed that's 10mph faster -- though this can only be achieved on certain sections of the mostly 110mph route -- and an enhanced "anticipative" tilting system that allows for higher speeds through curves.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/08/28/2128257/amtraks-new-160mph-acela-trains-take-just-as-long-as-the-old-ones?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Today, Microsoft unveiled two in-house AI models: MAI-Voice-1, a high-speed speech-generation system now live in Copilot, and MAI-1-Preview, its first end-to-end foundation model trained on 15,000 H100 GPUs. Neowin reports: MAI-Voice-1 is a speech generation model and is already available in Copilot Daily and Podcasts. To preview the full capabilities of this voice model, Microsoft has created a new Copilot Labs experience that anyone can try today. With the Copilot Audio Expressions experience, users can just paste text content and select the voice, style, and mode to generate high-fidelity, expressive audio. They can also download the generated audio if required. Microsoft also highlighted that this MAI-Voice-1 model is very fast and efficient. In fact, it can generate a full minute of audio in under a second on a single GPU.

Second, Microsoft has begun public testing of MAI-1-preview on LMArena, a popular platform for community model evaluation. This represents MAI's first foundation model trained end-to-end and offers a glimpse of future offerings inside Copilot. They are actively spinning the flywheel to deliver improved models and will have much more to share in the coming months. MAI-1-preview is an MoE (mixture-of-experts) model, pre-trained and post-trained on nearly 15,000 NVIDIA H100 GPUs. Notably, MAI-1-preview is Microsoft's first foundation model trained end-to-end in-house. Microsoft claims that this model is better at following instructions and can offer helpful responses to everyday user questions. Microsoft will be rolling out this new model to certain text use cases within Copilot over the coming weeks.

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Microsoft is testing new Xbox Game Pass features with Insiders, letting Core and Standard subscribers stream cloud-enabled titles they own or access via subscription across more devices, including supported TVs and browsers. These tiers will also gain access to select PC game versions for the first time. From a Xbox blog post: We're always exploring more ways to make your Xbox experience centered around you -- your content, benefits, and playstyle. That's why we're making it easier to enjoy the games you love, wherever you are, and on any device. Starting today, Xbox Insiders are invited to try out new updates in Xbox Game Pass that make it easier to stream and play across more devices.

Xbox Insiders subscribed to Xbox Game Pass Core or Standard now have even more freedom to play wherever they are with Xbox Cloud Gaming (Beta). As part of this Insider experience, Xbox Game Pass Core and Standard subscribers will be able to stream cloud playable games included with their subscription or select cloud playable games they own, making it easier to jump in from any supported device. [...] We're expanding the ways players can experience PC gaming through Xbox Game Pass. As part of testing, Xbox Insiders subscribed to Game Pass Core or Standard will for the first time gain access to PC versions of select titles, giving you even more flexibility and the choice to play on a PC or Windows handheld."

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Stellantis has put its fully developed Level 3 driver-assistance system on hold due to high costs, technical hurdles, and weak consumer demand. Reuters reports: As recently as February, Stellantis said its in-house system, which is part of the AutoDrive program, was ready for deployment and a key pillar of its strategy. The company said the system, which enables drivers to have their hands off the wheel and eyes off the road under certain conditions, would allow them to temporarily watch movies, catch up on emails, or read books. That Level 3 software was never launched, the company confirmed to Reuters. But it stopped short of saying that the program was canceled.

"What was unveiled in February 2025 was L3 technology for which there is currently limited market demand, so this has not been launched, but the technology is available and ready to be deployed," a Stellantis spokesperson said. The three sources, however, said that the program was put on ice and is not expected to be deployed. When asked how much time and money was lost on the initiative, Stellantis declined to say, responding that the work done on AutoDrive will help support its future versions. [...] Stellantis said it is leaning on aiMotive, a tech startup it acquired in 2022, to deliver the next generation of the AutoDrive program. Stellantis declined to say when that program would be ready for market or if it would include Level 3 capability.

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FFmpeg 8.0 brings GPU-accelerated video encoding via Vulkan -- and can now subtitle your videos automatically using integrated speech recognition. From a report: At the start of the week, the FFmpeg project released its eighth major version. It's codenamed "Huffman" after the Huffman code algorithm, which was invented in 1952, making it one of the oldest lossless compression algorithms.

[...] The changelog lists 30 significant changes, of which the top new feature is integrating Whisper. This means whisper.cpp, which is Georgi Gerganov's entirely local and offline version of OpenAI's Whisper automatic speech recognition model. The bottom line is that FFmpeg can now automatically subtitle videos for you.

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An anonymous reader shares a report: Microsoft's Copilot AI assistant is officially coming to TVs, starting with Samsung's 2025 lineup of TVs and smart monitors. With the integration, you can call upon Copilot and ask for movie suggestions, spoiler-free episode recaps, and other general questions.

On TV, Copilot takes on a "friendly, animated presence" that resembles the opalescent Copilot Appearance Microsoft showed off last month, though in a color that makes it look more like a personified chickpea. The beige blob will float and bounce around your screen, while its mouth moves in line with its responses.

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Police Scotland and the Scottish Police Authority (SPA) are pressing ahead with a Microsoft Office 365 rollout despite Microsoft refusing to disclose where sensitive law enforcement data will be processed. Freedom of Information documents reveal that Microsoft cannot guarantee data sovereignty, may process data in "hostile" jurisdictions, retains encryption key control, and blocks vetting of overseas staff -- all leaving the force unable to comply with strict Part 3 data protection rules. Slashdot reader Mirnotoriety shares an excerpt from a Computer Weekly article: "MS is unable to specify what data originating from SPA will be processed outside the UK for support functions," said the SPA in a detailed data protection impact assessment (DPIA) created for its use of O365. "To try and mitigate this risk, SPA asked to see ... [the transfer risk assessments] for the countries used by MS where there is no [data] adequacy. MS declined to provide the assessments." The SPA DPIA also confirms that, on top of refusing to provide key information, Microsoft itself has told the police watchdog it is unable to guarantee the sovereignty of policing data held and processed within its O365 infrastructure.

"Microsoft states in their own risk factors that O365 is not designed for processing the data that will be ingested by SPA," said the DPIA, adding that while the system can be configured in ways that would allow the processing of "high-value" policing data, "that bar is high." It further added that while Microsoft previously agreed to make a number of changes to the data processing addendum (DPAdd) being used for Police Scotland's Azure-based Digital Evidence Sharing Capability (DESC) -- the nature of which is still unclear -- Microsoft has advised that "O365 operates in a completely different manner and there is currently no way to guarantee data sovereignty." It further noted that while a similar "ancillary document, like that provided ... via the DESC project" could afford "some level of assurance" for international transfers generally, it would still fall short of Part 3 requirements to set out exactly which types of data are processed and how.

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Imgur users have flooded the image-hosting site's front page with pictures of John Oliver giving the middle finger to parent company MediaLab AI. The revolt follows staff layoffs that eliminated human moderators and the breakdown of core site functions including video playback for non-logged-in users and failed image uploads.

A former employee confirmed MediaLab AI laid off Imgur's moderation team without notice and reassigned remaining staff to other projects. The company acquired Imgur in 2021 after founder Alan Schaaf departed. MediaLab AI faces lawsuits from Schaaf and other former site owners over allegedly withheld acquisition payments.

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A central Japanese town wants to limit smartphone use for all its 69,000 residents to two hours a day, in a move that has sparked intense debate on device addiction. From a report: The proposal, believed to be the first of its kind in Japan, is currently being debated by lawmakers after being submitted by Toyoake municipal government in Aichi earlier this week. Toyoake's mayor said the proposal -- which only applies outside of work and study -- would not be strictly enforced, but rather was meant to "encourage" residents to better manage their screen time.

There will be no penalties for breaking the rule, which will be passed in October if approved by lawmakers. "The two hour limit... is merely a guideline... to encourage citizens," Toyoake Mayor Masafumi Koki said in a statement. "This does not mean the city will limit its residents' rights or impose duties," he said.

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U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick announced that the Department of Commerce will begin publishing GDP statistics on the blockchain, touting it as part of President Trump's push to make America a "crypto government." CoinTelegraph reports: Lutnick made the announcement during a White House cabinet meeting on Tuesday, describing the effort as a move to expand blockchain-based data distribution across government agencies. Speaking to US President Donald Trump and other government officials, he said: "The Department of Commerce is going to start issuing its statistics on the blockchain, because you are the crypto president, and we are going to put our GDP on the blockchain so people can use it for data and distribution." Lutnick said the initiative will begin with GDP figures and could expand across federal departments after the Commerce Department finishes "ironing out all of the details" for the implementation.

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Credit reporting giant TransUnion has disclosed a data breach affecting more than 4.4 million customers' personal information. In a filing with Maine's attorney general's office on Thursday, TransUnion attributed the July 28 breach to unauthorized access of a third-party application storing customers' personal data for its U.S. consumer support operations.

TransUnion claimed "no credit information was accessed," but provided no immediate evidence for its claim. The data breach notice did not specify what specific types of personal data were stolen. In a separate data breach disclosure filed later on Thursday with Texas' attorney general's office, TransUnion confirmed that the stolen personal information includes customers' names, dates of birth, and Social Security numbers. [...] It's not clear who is behind the breach at TransUnion, or if the hackers made any demands to the company.

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Anthropic will start training its AI models on user data, including new chat transcripts and coding sessions, unless users choose to opt out. The Verge: It's also extending its data retention policy to five years -- again, for users that don't choose to opt out. All users will have to make a decision by September 28th. For users that click "Accept" now, Anthropic will immediately begin training its models on their data and keeping said data for up to five years, according to a blog post published by Anthropic on Thursday.

The setting applies to "new or resumed chats and coding sessions." Even if you do agree to Anthropic training its AI models on your data, it won't do so with previous chats or coding sessions that you haven't resumed. But if you do continue an old chat or coding session, all bets are off.

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Every breath people take in their homes or car probably contains significant amounts of microplastics small enough to burrow deep into lungs, new peer-reviewed research finds, bringing into focus a little understood route of exposure and health threat. The Guardian: The study, published in the journal Plos One, estimates humans can inhale as much as 68,000 tiny plastic particles daily. Previous studies have identified larger pieces of airborne microplastics, but those are not as much of a health threat because they do not hang in the air as long, or move as deep into the pulmonary system.

The smaller bits measure between 1 and 10 micrometers, or about one-seventh the thickness of a human hair, and present more of a health threat because they can more easily be distributed throughout the body. The findings "suggest that the health impacts of microplastic inhalation may be more substantial than we realize," the authors wrote.

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Solo entrepreneurs now launch 35% of all startups, double the rate from a decade ago, yet venture capital funding patterns remain virtually unchanged, according to an analysis by venture capitalist Sajith Pai. Carta's equity management data reveals that while solo-founded companies grew from 17% of 2,600 startups in 2015 to 35% of 3,800 startups in 2024, their share of VC funding barely moved from 15 to 17%.

"Valley VCs don't like solo founders," Pai, who is a partner at India-based venture firm Blume, writes in his analysis. Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan confirmed the accelerator's practice of persuading solo founders to find partners after acceptance.The bias persists despite prominent solo-founded successes including Amazon, SpaceX, and Zoom. Pai notes that "most unicorn startups have cofounders" but questions whether this reflects genuine risk differences or simply that cofounded startups receive five times more funding opportunities. "The bias against solo founders is so strong," Pai observes, that it appears repeatedly in founder complaints and venture capitalist commentary, even as other Silicon Valley biases against women and non-elite universities gradually ease.

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Typepad, which launched in 2003 to make it easier for the masses to start their blogging journey, is shutting down. From a blog post: We have made the difficult decision to discontinue Typepad, effective September 30, 2025. After September 30, 2025, access to Typepad -- including account management, blogs, and all associated content -- will no longer be available. Your account and all related services will be permanently deactivated. Please note that after this date, you will no longer be able to access or export any blog content.

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