Slashdot reader alternative_right writes: Quantum computers need extreme cold to work, but the very systems that keep them cold also create noise that can destroy fragile quantum information. Scientists in Sweden have now flipped that problem on its head by building a tiny quantum refrigerator that actually uses noise to drive cooling instead of fighting it. By carefully steering heat at unimaginably small scales, the device can act as a refrigerator, heat engine, or energy amplifier inside quantum circuits.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://science.slashdot.org/story/26/01/30/0531203/scientists-found-a-way-to-cool-quantum-computers-using-noise?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

"There's one big bright spot in the fight against climate change that most people never think about," reports the Washington Post.

"It could prevent nearly half a degree of global warming this century, a huge margin for a planet that has warmed almost 1.5 degrees Celsius and is struggling to keep that number below 2 degrees..."

[M]ore than 170 countries — including the U.S. — have agreed to act on this one solution. That solution: phasing out hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), a group of gases used in refrigerators, air conditioners and other cooling systems that heat the atmosphere more than almost any other pollutant on Earth. Pound for pound, HFCs are hundreds or even thousands of times better at trapping heat than carbon dioxide.

Companies are replacing HFCs with new gases that trap much less heat. If you buy a new fridge or AC unit in the United States today, it'll probably use one of these new refrigerants — and you're unlikely to notice the difference, according to Francis Dietz, a spokesperson for the Air-Conditioning, Heating and Refrigeration Institute, a trade group representing U.S. HVAC manufacturers... But that invisible transition is one of the most important short-term tactics to keep Earth's climate from going catastrophically off-kilter this century. HFCs are powerful super-pollutants, but the most common ones break down in the atmosphere within about 15 years. That means stopping emissions from HFCs — and other short-lived super-pollutants such as methane — is like pulling an emergency brake on climate change.

"It's really the fastest, easiest and, some would say, the only way to slow the rate of warming between now and 2050," said Kiff Gallagher, executive director of the Global Heat Reduction Initiative, a business that advises companies and cities on cutting greenhouse gas emissions. The only other solution that comes close to the speed and scale of slashing HFCs would be dimming the sun, a much more controversial and potentially dangerous option... [P]hasing out HFCs now "would buy us a little bit of time to develop other solutions that maybe take longer to implement," said Sarah Gleeson, a climate solutions research manager at Project Drawdown, a nonprofit that models how much different strategies would slow climate change. It could also keep the planet from crossing dangerous climate tipping points this century.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://news.slashdot.org/story/26/01/31/054224/can-we-slow-global-warming-by-phasing-out-super-pollutant-hfcs?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

TechCrunch reports:

Jeff Bezos' space company Blue Origin is pausing its space tourism flights for "no less than two years" in order to focus all of its resources on upcoming missions to the moon, the company announced Friday. The decision puts a temporary halt on a program that Blue Origin has been using to fly humans past the Kármán line, the recognized boundary of space, for the last five years. Blue Origin made the announcement just a few weeks ahead of the expected third launch of its New Glenn mega-rocket, which is slated for late February...

The company said Friday that New Shepard has flown 38 times and carried 98 humans to space, along with more than 200 scientific and research payloads.

"The move is a clear sign that Blue Origin is going all in on its moon program as the company races with rival SpaceX," reports the Business Standard, "to be the first private company to land humans on the lunar surface for Nasa's Artemis program."

Blue Origin holds a $3.4 billion contract with Nasa to develop its Blue Moon lander, designed to shuttle astronauts to and from the moon, with a landing originally targeted for 2029... The company is targeting the launch and landing of a cargo version of its lander as soon as this year, as a test ahead of eventually landing humans. Blue Origin has also presented an accelerated plan to Nasa for developing a lander that may be ready for carrying astronauts ahead of Starship, the large new rocket from Elon Musk's SpaceX.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://science.slashdot.org/story/26/01/31/0736248/blue-origin-announces-two-year-pause-in-space-tourism---to-focus-on-the-moon?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Лукас Дзампьери (Lucas Zampieri) из компании Red Hat опубликовал шуточный планировщик задач scx_horoscope, распределяющий ресурсы CPU на основе астрологических принципов, принимая во внимание знаки зодиака и положения планет в текущий момент. Проект развивается в образовательных и развлекательных целях. Ключевым назначением scx_horoscope называется обучение и демонстрация использования механизма "sched_ext" (SCX), позволяющего использовать eBPF для создания планировщиков CPU.

https://www.opennet.ru/opennews/art.shtml?num=64711

Saturday Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said they still planned a "huge" investment in OpenAI, according to CNBC.

Friday the Wall Street Journal had reported that Nvidia's plan to invest up to $100 billion in OpenAI "has stalled after some inside the chip giant expressed doubts about the deal, people familiar with the matter said..."

[T]he talks haven't progressed beyond the early stages, some of the people said. Now, the two sides are rethinking the future of their partnership, some of the people said. The latest discussions, they said, include an equity investment of tens of billions of dollars as part of OpenAI's current funding round. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has privately emphasized to industry associates in recent months that the original $100 billion agreement was nonbinding and not finalized, people familiar with the matter said. He has also privately criticized what he has described as a lack of discipline in OpenAI's business approach and expressed concern about the competition it faces from the likes of Google and Anthropic, some of the people said...

OpenAI is laying the foundation to go public by the end of 2026, and has spent much of the past year racing to secure large amounts of computing capacity to help power OpenAI's future products and growth. The stalled Nvidia pact is a blow to this effort and shows how Chief Executive Sam Altman's penchant for announcing flashy big-ticket deals carries the potential to backfire if the terms have yet to be finalized. In a joint announcement unveiling the September deal with Altman and OpenAI President Greg Brockman, Huang called the deal "the largest computing project in history...." OpenAI went on to sign a string of other agreements with chip and cloud companies that helped fuel a global stock market rally.

But investors have since grown jittery about the startup's ability to pay for these deals, leading to a sell-off in some tech stocks tied to OpenAI. Altman has said that the deals put the startup on the hook for $1.4 trillion in computing commitments — more than 100 times the revenue it was on pace to generate last year. OpenAI executives say the total commitments are lower when you account for overlap in some of the deals, and that the agreements will take place over a long period of time.... Huang has indicated to associates that he still believes it's crucially important to provide OpenAI with financial support in one form or another, in part because OpenAI is one of the chip designer's largest customers, people familiar with the matter said. If OpenAI were to fall behind other AI developers, it could dent Nvidia's sales.

"Speaking to reporters in Taipei, Huang said it was 'nonsense' to say he was unhappy with OpenAI," CNBC reported Saturday:

"We are going to make a huge investment in OpenAI. I believe in OpenAI, the work that they do is incredible, they are one of the most consequential companies of our time and I really love working with Sam," he said, referring to OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. "Sam is closing the round (of investment) and we will absolutely be involved," Huang added. "We will invest a great deal of money, probably the largest investment we've ever made."

Asked whether it would be over $100 billion, he said: "No, no, nothing like that."

Elsewhere the Journal has reported that Amazon is in talks to invest up to $50 billion in OpenAI.

Thanks to Slashdot reader sinij for sharing the article.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/26/01/31/205245/nvidia-ceo-denies-openais-100b-investment-from-nvidia-is-stalled?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Представлена выпуск среды рабочего стола Budgie 10.10.1, первое обновление ветки, переведённой на использование протокола Wayland. Код проекта распространяется под лицензией GPLv2.

https://www.opennet.ru/opennews/art.shtml?num=64717

"Apple has gone for a choose-your-own-adventure when shopping for a new Mac," writes long-time Slashdot reader esarjeant.

Macworld explains:

Apple has shifted from selling pre-configured Mac models to a fully customizable build-to-order system on its website, allowing customers to select display size, chip, memory, and storage options... This change emphasizes building a machine within budget rather than choosing from set configurations, potentially preparing for future CPU/GPU core selection with M5 chips. Third-party retailers like Amazon and Best Buy are expected to continue offering standard configurations for customers preferring traditional purchasing methods...

Apple is rumored to offer the ability to customize CPU and GPU cores with the upcoming launch of the M5 Pro and M5 Max MacBook Pro models, so this new system could pave the way for more build-to-order options. It could also be a way to âoehideâ smaller price increases as memory and other component costs rise throughout 2026.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://apple.slashdot.org/story/26/01/31/2038231/apple-switches-to-build-to-order-systems-on-its-web-site?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

"A future with flying cars is no longer science fiction," writes the Los Angeles Times.

"All you need to order your own is about $200,000 and some hope and patience."

The Palo Alto-based company Pivotal has been developing the technology since 2009 and is nearly ready to bring it to market... [Company founder Marcus] Leng engineered an ultralight, electric-powered vertical takeoff and landing aircraft known as an eVTOL. Other VTOL aircraft, such as helicopters, had existed for decades, but Leng's invention was fixed-wing and didn't rely on gas. The Canadian engineer dubbed his creation BlackFly and spent years working on it in secret. The company moved to the Bay Area in 2014 and by 2018 had developed a second version of BlackFly that laid the groundwork for Helix, the aircraft Pivotal now offers for sale...

Those who are curious — and wealthy — can reserve a Helix today with a $50,000 deposit. The aircraft starts at $190,000 with the option of purchasing a transport trailer for $21,000 and a charger for $1,100. A customer who makes their reservation today could receive their aircraft in nine to 12 months, [Pivotal Chief Executive Ken] Karklin said. It takes less than two weeks to learn how to fly it. In order to complete Pivotal's flight certification training, a customer has to pass the FAA knowledge test and complete ground school. Training, which takes place at the company's Palo Alto headquarters and at the Monterey Bay Academy Airport, teaches customers how to control and maintain the aircraft, as well as how to transport and assemble it...

It is uncertain how fast the company and others like it can ramp up production and how communities will react. Not everyone is on board. Darlene Yaplee, president of the Aviation-Impacted Communities Alliance, said there are concerns about having different types of aircraft in limited airspace. Pivotal has around six early-access customers who already own a version of the BlackFly and are flying it for fun... Helix will have an electric range of about 30 minutes and a cruise speed of 62 mph, the company said. It takes 75 minutes to charge it using a 240 volt charger. The noise produced by the aircraft during takeoff and landing is equivalent to a couple of leaf blowers, Karklin said. When flying it is overhead, someone on the ground might not be able to hear it.

Karklin said the simplicity of the aircraft comes with lower cost, lower weight and higher safety. The aircraft, which has only 18 moving parts, is full of redundancy to prevent system failures.
In short, the article describes it as "a single-person aircraft for recreational use and short-haul travel that also has the potential to support emergency response and military operations."

[ Read more of this story ]( https://tech.slashdot.org/story/26/01/31/2224232/electric-flying-cars-now-for-sale-by-california-company-pivotal?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader shared this report from the Associated Press:

American workers adopted artificial intelligence into their work lives at a remarkable pace over the past few years, according to a new poll. Some 12% of employed adults say they use AI daily in their job, according to a Gallup Workforce survey conducted this fall of more than 22,000 U.S. workers.

The survey found roughly one-quarter say they use AI at least frequently, which is defined as at least a few times a week, and nearly half say they use it at least a few times a year. That compares with 21% who were using AI at least occasionally in 2023, when Gallup began asking the question, and points to the impact of the widespread commercial boom that ChatGPT sparked for generative AI tools that can write emails and computer code, summarize long documents, create images or help answer questions...

While frequent AI use is on the rise with many employees, AI adoption remains higher among those working in technology-related fields. About 6 in 10 technology workers say they use AI frequently, and about 3 in 10 do so daily. The share of Americans working in the technology sector who say they use AI daily or regularly has grown significantly since 2023, but there are indications that AI adoption could be starting to plateau after an explosive increase between 2024 and 2025...

A separate Gallup Workforce survey from 2025 found that even as AI use is increasing, few employees said it was "very" or "somewhat" likely that new technology, automation, robots or AI will eliminate their job within the next five years. Half said it was "not at all likely," but that has decreased from about 6 in 10 in 2023.

A bar chart lists the sectors most likely to be using AI at their jobs:

Technology (77%)
Finance (64%)
College/University (63%)
Professional Services (62%)
K-12 Education (56%)
Community/Social Services (43%)
Government/Public Policy (42%)
Manufacturing (41%)
Health Care (41%)
Retail (33%)

[ Read more of this story ]( https://slashdot.org/story/26/01/31/2344202/ai-use-at-work-has-increased-gallup-poll-finds?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Remember that lawsuit questioning WhatsApp's end-to-end encryption? Thursday Bloomberg reported those allegations had been investigated by special agents with America's Commerce Department, "according to the law enforcement records, as well as a person familiar with the matter and one of the contractors."

Similar claims were also the subject of a 2024 whistleblower complaint to the US Securities and Exchange Commission, according to the records and the person, who spoke on the condition that they not be identified out of concern for potential retaliation. The investigation and whistleblower complaint haven't been previously reported...

Last year, two people who did content moderation work for WhatsApp told an investigator with Commerce's Bureau of Industry and Security that some staff at Meta have been able to see the content of WhatsApp messages, according to the agent's report summarizing the interviews. [A spokesperson for the Bureau later told Bloomberg that investigator's assertions were "unsubstantiated and outside the scope of his authority as an export enforcement agent."] Those content moderators, who worked for Meta through a contract with the management and technology consulting firm Accenture Plc, also alleged that they and some of their colleagues had broad access to the substance of WhatsApp messages that were supposed to be encrypted and inaccessible, according to the report. "Both sources confirmed that they had employees within their physical work locations who had unfettered access to WhatsApp," wrote the agent... One of the content moderators who told the investigator she had access said she also "spoke with a Facebook team employee and confirmed that they could go back aways into WhatsApp (encrypted) messages, stating that they worked cases that involved criminal actions," according to the document...

The investigator's report, dated July 2025, described the investigation as "ongoing," includes a case number and dubs the inquiry "Operation Sourced Encryption..." The inquiry was active as recently as January, according to a person familiar with the matter. The inquiry's current status and who may be the defined target are both unclear. Many investigations end without any formal accusations of wrongdoing...

WhatsApp on its website says it does, in some instances, allow information about messages to be seen by the company. If someone reports a user or group for problematic messages, "WhatsApp receives up to five of the last messages they've sent to you" and "the user or group won't be notified," the company says. In those cases, WhatsApp says it receives the "group or user ID, information on when the message was sent, and the type of message sent (image, video, text, etc.)." Former contractors outlined much broader access. Larkin Fordyce was an Accenture contractor who the report says an agent interviewed about content moderation work for Meta. Fordyce told the investigator he spent years doing this work out of an Austin, Texas office starting as early as the end of 2018. He said moderators eventually were granted their own access to WhatsApp, but even before that they could request access to communications and "the Facebook team was able to 'pull whatever they wanted and then send it,'" the report states...

The agent also gathered records that were filed in the whistleblower complaint to the SEC, according to his report, which doesn't describe the materials... The status of the whistleblower complaint is unclear.

Some key points from the article:

"The investigative report seen by Bloomberg doesn't include a technical explanation of the contractors' claims."

"A spokesperson for Meta, which acquired WhatsApp in 2014, said the contractors' claims are impossible."
One contractor "said that there was little vetting" of foreign nationals hired to do content moderation for Meta, saying this granted them "full access to the same portal to review" content moderation cases

[ Read more of this story ]( https://yro.slashdot.org/story/26/02/01/037202/us-government-also-received-a-whistleblower-complaint-that-whatsapp-chats-arent-private?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Включил подмену в hosts - сейчас надеюсь моя нода начнёт опять всё что надо оттуда забирать...

=> https://github.com/Cthulhu2/caesium/releases/tag/v0.8 Caesium v0.8

Версия 0.8 (30.01.2026)

Нововведения:
* Получение с ноды только свежих сообщений для ускорения и экономии трафика (фичи `x/c`, `u/e`)
* В теле сообщения парсятся и отрисовываются ссылки с текстом (markdown, gemini)
* XPM- и @base64-блоки также отрисовываются как `code`
* В меню выбора ссылок добавлена сколлбар и прокрутка
* На экран списка сообщений добавлен сколлбар и строка состояния
* На экран выбора эхоконференции добавлен скроллбар
* Переход к заголовку по ссылке с якорем (markdown anchors)
* Отображение subj по клавише 'S' объединено с другими метаданными (id, addr) по клавише 'M'
* Быстрый поиск эхонференции по наименованию на экране выбора конференции (клавиша 'S')
* Быстрый поиск сообщения по отправителю/теме на экране списка сообщений (клавиша 'S')
* Быстрый поиск по телу сообщения на экране чтения эхоконференции (клавиша 'S')

Исправленные ошибки:
* Парсер inline-стилей чуть лучше реагирует на \s.,:;{}@!~_*\\/\-+=&%#()
* В парсер ссылок добавлены схемы magnet, gemini
* Сохранение сообщений после перехода по ii-ссылке записывало предыдущее сообщение
* Чуть поправлены темы solarized (dark, light, light-256)
* Падение в меню выбора ссылок при ресайзе окна или большом количестве ссылок
* Падение в списке сообщений при ресайзе окна
* Центрирование мессаджбоксов по вертикали

+++ Caesium/0.8

Сообщения с tgi теперь забираются, но рассылка bot.habr.rss так и не заработала...

Опубликована [ программа ]( https://www.basealt.ru/21edu-conf#programma ) XXI международной конференции «Свободное программное обеспечение в высшей школе» — OSEDUCONF-2026, которая пройдёт 6–8 февраля 2026 года в Институте программных систем РАН, г. Переславль-Залесский. В ней примут участие представители образовательного сообщества, использующие или создающие свободное ПО в учебном или научном процессе. Основной целью является налаживание личных контактов между специалистами, обсуждение перспектив и новинок области.

На конференции будут обсуждаться следующие тематики:

• Проблемы обучения в эпоху ИИ

• Современные инструменты передачи знаний

• Образовательные курсы на основе СПО

• Практика применения СПО в образовательном процессе

• Разработка и применение дистрибутивов в образовательных целях

• Использование нейросетей в образовательном процессе

• Научные и студенческие проекты СПО

• и многое другое :)

Формат мероприятия ориентирован на личное общение участников, но видеотрансляция докладов также будет доступна на [ сайте конференции ]( https://www.basealt.ru/21edu-conf ) .

Желающие принять участие слушателями ещё могут [ зарегистрироваться ]( https://www.basealt.ru/21edu-conf#request_form ) до 3 февраля включительно (без трансфера).

Участие в конференции для докладчиков и слушателей бесплатное. Место проведения конференции: Ярославская область, Переславский район, с. Веськово, улица Петра Первого, д. 4А (Институт программных систем имени А. К. Айламазяна РАН).

https://www.linux.org.ru/news/conference/18209775

Five French unions representing Ubisoft workers "have called for a 'massive international strike'," reports the gaming news site Aftermath.

The move follows a "series of layoffs and cancellations" at Ubisoft, the article points out, plus what the company calls a "major organizational, operational and portfolio reset" that will lead to more layoffs and cancellations announced last week. Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot even sent an end-of-day message warning that management continues to "make difficult decisions, including stopping certain projects" and "potentially closing select studios," an earlier article points out:

Slipped in between the grand vision and subtle threats was the reversal of a popular hybrid work-from-home policy that would have a direct impact on everyone working at Ubisoft. Staff would be back in the office five days a week, but with the promise of a generous number of work from home days. "The intention is not to question individual performance, but to regenerate our collective performance, which is one of the key elements in creating the best games with the required speed," Guillemot wrote.

There was immediate confusion and frustration. One French union representing Paris Ubisoft developers called for a half-day strike. "It is out of the question to let a boss run wild and destroy our working conditions," Solidaires Informatique wrote in a press release. "Perhaps we need to remind him that it is his employees who make the games...." [The article notes later that "There's concern that these shifts could make it harder for Ubisoft to recruit the talent it needs to improve, or even worse, actively drive away more of the company's existing veterans."]

Particularly galling about the new return-to-office policy for some Paris staff was that they had only recently finished negotiating to ensure two days of work-from-home per week. "It's only been six months since the situation was more or less 'back to normal' and now it's shattered to the ground by Yves' sole decision with zero justification, zero documents, zero internal studies proving RTO increases productivity or morale, nothing," one developer told me. The specific details for the rollout of the return-to-office policy have yet to be communicated to everyone, could vary team by team, and might not go into effect for much of the year.

The "massive international strike" would take place from February 10-12, Aftermath notes, citing the five French unions representing Ubisoft workers (CFE-CGC, CGT, Printemps Ãcologique, Solidaires Informatique, and STJV):

"The announced transformation [at Ubisoft] claims to place games at the heart of its strategy, but without us, these games cannot exist," the unions wrote in a joint release.... We are not fooled: rather than taking financial responsibility for layoffs, they prefer to push us out by making our working conditions unbearable. It's outrageous...."

The Ubisoft unions hope that February's strike will be the largest yet, and they're coordinating with unions outside France to present a globally united front against the company.

A union representative at Ubisoft Paris even argued to Aftermath that because the CEO "needs to find 200€ million for the coming year, any person who has to quit because of this is a net benefit for him."

[ Read more of this story ]( https://it.slashdot.org/story/26/02/01/059206/five-french-ubisoft-unions-call-for-massive-international-strike-over-cost-cutting-and-ending-of-remote-work?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Echoareas
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[20] 43.173.172.x point=0 web=6 up=49KB

TOTAL TRAFFIC: 35MB

Разработчики свободной системы управления контентом Plone, написанной на Python и JavaScript/NodeJS, объявили об инциденте, в результате которого в git-репозиторий проекта на GitHub был добавлен вредоносный код. Изначально в репозитории были выявлены три появившихся 7 января изменения (1, 2, 3), добавляющие вредоносный код в JavaScript-файлы проекта (1, 2, 3). Разбор инцидента показал, что интеграция вредоносного кода была произведена в результате компрометации учётной записи одного из разработчиков, токен доступа которого был захвачен злоумышленниками после запуска вредоносного ПО в его системе.

https://www.opennet.ru/opennews/art.shtml?num=64718

В январе 2026 с помощью AI-помощника Claude Code переписал бекенд Circuits.CC с PHP на Node.JS (БД всё также MySQL/MariaDB) и перенёс на новый хостинг и теперь сайт открывается по HTTPS

https://Circuits.CC

The BBC reports:

China has executed 11 members of a notorious mafia family that ran scam centres in Myanmar along its north-eastern border, state media report.
The Ming family members were sentenced in September for various crimes including homicide, illegal detention, fraud and operating gambling dens by a court in China's Zhejiang province. The Mings were one of many clans that ran the town of Laukkaing, transforming an impoverished backwater town into a flashy hub of casinos and red-light districts. Their scam empire came crashing down in 2023, when they were detained and handed over to China by ethnic militias that had taken control of Laukkaing during an escalation in their conflict with Myanmar's army. With these executions Beijing is sending a message of deterrence to would-be scammers.

But the business has now moved to Myanmar's border with Thailand, and to Cambodia and Laos, where China has much less influence.

Hundreds of thousands of people have been trafficked to run online scams in Myanmar and elsewhere in South East Asia, according to estimates by the UN. Among them are thousands of Chinese people, and their victims who they swindle billions of dollars from are mainly Chinese too. Frustrated by the Myanmar military's refusal to stop the scam business, from which it was almost certainly profiting, Beijing tacitly backed an offensive by an ethnic insurgent alliance in Shan State in late 2023. The alliance captured significant territory from the military and overran Laukkaing, a key border town.

Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader sinij for sharing the news.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://yro.slashdot.org/story/26/02/01/0540213/china-executes-11-members-of-myanmar-scam-mafia?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Инженеры из компании Meta* опубликовали отчёт о переработке компонентов мессенджера WhatsApp с использованием языка Rust. В рамках инициативы по усилению безопасности проекта был подготовлен новый вариант библиотеки wamedia, изначально написанной на языке C++ и применяемой в WhatsApp для отправки и обработки мультимедийных файлов в формате MP4.

https://www.opennet.ru/opennews/art.shtml?num=64719

# Фэнтези консоли

Препятствия могут стимулировать творчество. Как частный пример -- ограничения в программировании тоже сами по себе легко превращаются в стимул. Возможно поэтому стали популярны "фэнтези консоли". Возьмём в качестве примера pico-8 -- наверное, самую популярную фэнтези консоль. На самом деле оказывается, что это стилизованная среда для программирования на Lua, а не "настоящая" вымышленная машина. Существует множество проектов-подражателей и все они в основном повторяют концепцию стилизованной среды. В какой-то мере это можно сказать и про мой проект rein, хотя я и не позиционирую его как стилизацию.

Конечно, если говорить о "фентези консоли" ожидаешь увидеть спроектированный процессор со своей системой команд и построенную на его основе систему. Хотя бы гипотетически возможную в виде железа. В качестве примера можно привести uxn. https://wiki.xxiivv.com/site/uxn.html

Но и в таком случае, сложно уйти от "стилизации". Понятно, что пытаясь разработать простую систему мы невольно возвращаемся в эпоху домашних 8-битных систем и черпаем вдохновение там. А можно ли сделать что-то по настоящему самобытное? Оказывается, можно!

# Брус-16

Что если разработать самобытную и простую машину с учётом того, чтобы сделать её в том числе и в "железе"? Такая система была бы не только интересной игрушкой, но и приносила бы пользу в качестве обучающего проекта. Действительно, ведь здесь есть целый пласт связанных задач: от написания компиляторов до разработки аппаратуры и ПО! Пусть в упрощённой форме, но решая нестандартные задачи проектирования такой системы мы получим обобщённые знания и опыт в смежных областях разработки. Увидим связи между этими областями. Увидим, как особенности аппаратуры влияют на ПО и средства разработки и наоборот.

Совсем недавно Пётр Советов (true-grue) создал такой проект. Встречайте:

> Брус-16 - виртуальная машина, позиционируемая как "учебная 16-битная игровая приставка с оригинальной, минималистичной архитектурой", спроектирована с прицелом на аппаратную реализацию на ПЛИС.

https://github.com/true-grue/Brus-16

Что у нас есть?

- изображение: 640x480@16bpp 60fps строится на основе 64-х закрашенных прямоугольников;
- звук: 16 осциляторов на основе синуса с параметрами;
- эмулятор на Си (SDL3);
- реализация на дешёвой ПЛИС (пока без звука);
- 8192 16-битных слов на код;
- 8192 16-битных слов на данные;
- компилятор на основе ast-модуля Python.

Ещё во время разработки Брус-16 true-grue намекнул мне: мол, неплохо было бы написать игру для его "приставки". Но графическая система Бруса показалась мне слишком слабой, чтобы захотеть что-то сделать. Я был готов морально даже к разрешению 64x64, но тут же всего 64 прямоугольника! Разве можно сделать что-то, что будет похоже на игру? Ну, кроме pong и подобного... Некоторое время я "давил" на Петра, надеясь что он увеличит число прямоугольников хотя бы до 128... Но тщетно.

Однако, примерно в это время я завязал играть в Elite Dangerous и освободившееся подсознание, видимо, начало свою работу. Так что скоро я незаметно для себя начал писать игру для Брус-16. Вы можете запустить её собрав Brus-16 или запустив онлайн: https://true-grue.github.io/Brus-16-Apps/brus16.html (выбрать Gerion). Клавиши zx, стрелки. Я подожду.

Ну что же, продолжаем!

# Среда программирования

Я начал с того, что попробовал просто собрать и запустить хоть что-то. В состав Brus-16 входит простенький компилятор на основе ast-модуля Python, который компилирует python-подмножество в байткод. Понятно, что от питона осталось только синтаксическое дерево, да и то урезанное. Например, у нас нет деления. Все числа -- 16-битные целые. Есть адресная арифметика. Никаких сложных типов данных нет. Массивы - просто последовательность 16-битных слов. Циклы - только написанные вручную while с условием и тд. и тп.

Когда я программировал на этом я действительно почувствовал отголоски тех самых "старых добрых времён". И ещё я подумал, что надо было писать на ассемблере. :)

То, что компилятор реализован на питоне даёт интересную возможность -- у нас из коробки появляется "препроцессор". Компилируемая программа это буквально программа на питоне которая вызывает функцию компиляции из текста программы зашитого в виде f-строки. Таким образом, программа для Брус может состоять как бы из двух частей. В преамбуле мы пишем обычный python код, который, скажем, формирует массивы с данными для игры. Этот код выполняется непосредственно перед компиляцией кода для Брус. А потом подготовленные данные пробрасываются с помощью подстановок в f-строку. Но лучше один раз увидеть. Пример макроса:

В преамбуле:
def mswap(a, b):
    return f'''{a} ^= {b}; {b} ^= {a}; {a} ^= {b}'''

В f-строке:
    if (ex < x) | (ey < y):
        {mswap("x", "ex")}
        {mswap("y", "ey")}

Кстати, тут видна ещё одна особенность языка. Нет булевых операций. В условных выражениях остаётся пользоваться битовыми операциями.

# Идея игры

Идея игры формировалась вокруг ограничений. 64 прямоугольника, на первый взгляд, это очень мало! А мне хотелось сделать игру, которая была бы именно игрой и была бы интересна сама по себе. В которой ограничения не воспринимались бы как явный недостаток. И тут тебе дают 64 квадратика!

Сначала я думал о квадратиках как о пикселях. Ну что можно сделать? Воспринимать как кадр 8x8? Ужасно. Мерцать квадратиками через кадр, тем самым удвоить их число? Ещё хуже. Я подумал о лабиринте. Но если лабиринт хоть сколько-нибудь сложен, то даже с оптимизацией расхода прямоугольников их не хватит. Тогда я подумал о зоне видимости! Пусть персонаж игры видит вокруг себя только несколько блоков, а дальше - все скрывает тьма. Но тогда какой смысл в остальной области экрана? Мы просто получаем игру 7x7.

Решение оказалось прямолинейным. Пусть у героя будет радар! Радар будет сканировать окружение и рисовать на месте врагов (а ведь враги - обязательно должны быть!) красные точки! Кстати, код из игры:

# ha-ha :)
def draw_circle(ptr, cx, cy, r, col):
    if (ptr >= {RECT_MEM+RECT_SIZE*RECT_NUM}):
        return ptr
    ptr[0] = 1
    set_rect(ptr, cx - r, cy - r, 2*r, 2*r)
    ptr[5] = col
    return ptr + {RECT_SIZE}

Функция рисует прямоугольник, но принимает параметры так, как будто это закрашенный круг с радиусом. Не знаю почему, но мне кажется это в чём-то любопытным и забавным. Именно эта функция рисует "точки" радара.

Так вокруг ограничений и возникла первая идея игры. Герой-космонавт бродит по лабиринтам и отстреливает "чужих". В игре присутствуют элементы стелса -- герой использует радар так как видит вокруг себя только небольшой освещённый участок.

В качестве оружия предполагалась обычная пушка, стреляющая снарядами. Однако, начав делать игру я понял, что ограничения подталкивают сделать ... лазер! Ведь на лазер тратится лишь один ценный прямоугольник. И анимация лазера - дешёвая операция.

Как только в игре появился лазер, естественным образом возникла идея "батарей", которые опустошаются во время стрельбы и сканирования и восполняются при отдыхе. Также ввод лазера заставил сделать монстров "живучими" и в игре их необходимо "прожаривать" некоторое время. Кроме того, лазер позволил "просвечивать" коридоры. Можно стрелять и как бы сканировать коридор. Если лазер натыкается на стену или монстра -- они подсвечиваются!

Все эти идеи возникли в ответ на ограничения, но оказались настолько гармонично вплетёнными в геймплей, что задним числом хочется сказать - это так и было задумано! Нет, всё шло от ситуации.

# Прямогуольники

Прямоугольники -- дефицитный ресурс Бруса! Даже чтобы нарисовать героя-космонавта ушло аж 8 прямоугольников!

Видимый размер участка карты 7x7 - 49. Это слишком много. Поэтому при отрисовке используется оптимизация. Простая, но достаточно эффективная. Она заключается в объединении однотипных блоков карты в один прямоугольник и отрисовка пола одним прямоугольником. В итоге, затраты прямоугольников на области 7x7 не превышают 25.

Лазер, полоски энергии и прогресса, объекты на карте - тоже съели драгоценный ресурс. А ведь ещё нужно было рисовать "чужих"! До последнего момента я не знал какими они будут. Я начал просто с чёрного прямоугольника и двух красных глаз. Потом понял, что два глаза - слишком жирно. И чужие стали циклопами. Добавил три ноги. Добавил анимацию. Добавил анимацию глаза - когда чужие находятся в поиске и... Они ожили! 5 прямоугольников! Минимализм как он есть. Убери хотя бы один прямоугольник или анимацию - и чужой рассыпется. Но покажи 5 прямоугольников и любой скажет что это -- космическое чудовище! Удивительный опыт. :)

# Данные

Для кодирования уровней я, как обычно, использовал текстовое представление. Выглядит это примерно так:

fg:#CEB7A6
bg:#2F435A
fill:#000000
btn:{}^
btn:zZ^
###############
#*###&   &###*#
# #####z##### #
# ##### ##### #
#}##### #####}#
# ##### ##### #
# ####   #### #
#      @      #
# ####   #### #
#%#####%#####%#
#             #
# #####Z##### #
# #*   {   *# #
# ########### #
#             #

Тут видны объекты и сам уровень. Триггеры-кнопки. А так же задание цвета блока уровней (для разнообразия игрового процесса - палитра уровней может меняться).

Уровни определены в python-преамбуле и во время компиляции транслируются в массивы 16-битных
слов. При этом, данные размещаются довольно компактно (хотя это всё ещё не компрессия!). Когда у меня закончилась память под код, памяти для данных было ещё полно. И true-grue занял её музыкой и звуками.

# Код

Отлаживать код на Brus-16 непросто. Например, вы никогда не узнаете прямо что перезаписали память. И даже нулевой адрес -- это корректный адрес. Я долгое время не мог обнаружить ошибку, которая приводила к перезаписи области прямоугольников. В начале не было возможности даже вывести какие-то отладочные данные и в качестве отладочных средств приходилось использовать while(1) или выводить прямоугольники разных цветов. Романтика! (Сейчас возможность вывести что-то в отладочный порт -- появилась.)

Объём памяти для кода стал заканчиваться до того, как игра была готова. Поэтому приходилось переписывать уже написанные участки и объединять общие вещи в функции. Иногда - менять структуры данных для того, чтобы упростить алгоритмы. Это был интересный опыт и он снова напомнил мне о "былых днях". Я уверен что и сейчас можно освободить часть памяти под код, это бесконечный процесс.

# Эффект присутствия

Когда основная часть игры была написана, я ради эксперимента сделал режим "следования". Центр системы координат переключается на героя. Я поигрался с этим режимом и он мне не понравился. true-grue предложил другую идею - а что если сделать эффект приближения? Это перекликалось с экспериментом следования камеры за игроком. Мы попробовали это сделать и... мне снова не понравилось. Что-то было в этом, какой-то эффект присутствия. Но постоянное дёрганье камеры меня раздражало. Когда игрок шёл - камера приближалась. Когда стоял - отдалялась. Это показывало возможности Брус-16, но с точки зрения игры...

Тем не менее, за несколько итераций удалось найти вариант, который понравился всем. Камера отдалялась только в моменты сканирования и смерти героя. Интересно ещё и то, что теперь игровой экран был полностью заполнен увеличенной видимой областью карты! Ограничения Брус-16 не бросались в глаза. Стало понятно, что идея отлично вписалась в игру.

Вы можете сравнить старый и новый режим просмотра карты нажав в игре c и v - одновременно.

# Герион

Игра была почти готова. Но не было заставки. И не было концовки. Нужно было придумать какой-никакой "сюжет". Названия у игры, кстати, тоже не было. Рабочие варианты какие-то были, но они явно не подходили к игре. Незамысловатый сюжет появился быстро. Место действия -- астероид (не простой!), который приближается к Земле. Название астероида я взял из списка имён из древнегреческой мифологии. В итоге получилось следующее:

> 2126 год. В Солнечной системе обнаружен межзвездный объект -- астероид Герион.
> Его траектория пересекает орбиту Земли.
> К объекту отправлен космический аппарат.

Нарисовал титульный экран. true-grue прослезился и попросил нарисовать знакомого художника. Получилось отлично. Спасибо pixelrat! https://vk.ru/artpixelrat

Сюжет дал концовку. Игра была готова.

# Звук

На момент завершения работы над игрой в Брусе-16 не было звука. Я надеюсь, что "Герион" в том числе подтолкнул true-grue к тому, что звук всё-таки появился. Понятно, что он появился бы в любом случае, но наличие демонстрации в виде озвученной игры -- подогрело интерес. Так что теперь "Герион" звучит в эмуляторе. Но аппаратной реализации звука пока нет. Надеюсь, это временно.

Я уверен, что true-grue мог бы рассказать что-то интересное про звуковую подсистему, но я практически не работал со звуком. Знаю только, что она достаточно простая, но не примитивная. Просто послушайте музыку с заставки.

Звук и музыка заняли оставшееся пространство памяти данных. Хотя память ещё есть! Можно нарисовать много новых уровней!

# Впечатления

За время работы над "Герионом" я получил массу впечатлений. Идея с Брус-16 сработала. Создались нестандартные ограничения и возможности, которые и запустили творческий процесс. Рад, что поучаствовал в этом проекте в качестве автора одной из игр. И даже завидую немного студентам, которые собираются вокруг "Бруса". Ещё много интересного можно сделать.

> P.S. В качестве "награды" два "чита":
> - c-z - пропустить уровень
> - c-x - вернуться на уровень назад

P.S. И если кто-нибудь захочет сделать пару интересных уровней -- я готов вставить их в игру. :)


gerion.png

This year in America, renewables and battery storage "will account for 99.2% of net new capacity — and even higher if small-scale solar were included," reports Electrek, citing EIA data reviewed by the SUN DAY Campaign:

EIA's latest monthly "Electric Power Monthly" report (with data through November 30, 2025), once again confirms that solar is the fastest-growing among the major sources of US electricity... [U]tility-scale solar thermal and photovoltaic expanded by 34.5% while that from small-scale systems rose by 11.3% during the first 11 months of 2025 compared to the same period in 2024. The combination of utility-scale and small-scale solar increased by 28.1% and produced a bit under 9.0% (utility-scale: 6.74%; small-scale: 2.13%) of total US electrical generation for January to November, up from 7.1% a year earlier.

Wind turbines across the US produced 10.1% of US electricity in the first 11 months of 2025 — an increase of 1.2% compared to the same period in 2024. In November alone, wind-generated electricity was 2.0% greater than a year earlier... The mix of all renewables (wind, solar, hydropower, biomass, and geothermal) produced 8.7% more electricity in January-November than a year earlier and accounted for 25.7% of total US electricity production, up from 24.3% 12 months earlier. Renewables' share of electrical generation is now second to only that of natural gas, whose electrical output actually dropped by 3.7% during the first 11 months of 2025...

Since January 1 to November 30, roughly the beginning of the Trump administration, renewable energy capacity, including battery storage, small-scale solar, hydropower, geothermal, and biomass, ballooned by 45,198.1 MW, while all fossil fuels and nuclear power combined declined by 519.2 MW...

[In 2026] natural gas capacity will increase by only 3,960.7 MW, which will be almost completely offset by a decrease of 3,387.0 MW in coal capacity.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/26/02/01/080244/99-of-new-us-will-be-green-in-2026?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

"A box full of viruses and bacteria has completed its return trip to the International Space Station," reports ScienceAlert, "and the changes these 'bugs' experienced in their travels could help us Earthlings tackle drug-resistant infections..."

Scientists aboard the space station incubated different combinations of bacteria and phages for 25 days, while the research team led by biochemist Vatsan Raman carried out the same experiments in Madison, down here on Earth. "Space fundamentally changes how phages and bacteria interact: infection is slowed, and both organisms evolve along a different trajectory than they do on Earth," the researchers explain. In the weightlessness of space, bacteria acquired mutations in genes involved in the microbe's stress response and nutrient management. Their surface proteins also changed. After a slow start, the phages mutated in response, so they could continue binding to their victims.
The team found that certain space-specific phage mutations were especially effective at killing Earth-bound bacteria responsible for urinary tract infections (UTIs). More than 90 percent of the bacteria responsible for UTIs are antibiotic-resistant, making phage treatments a promising alternative.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://science.slashdot.org/story/26/02/01/0710229/microbes-in-space-mutated-and-developed-a-remarkable-ability?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

This year in America, renewables and battery storage "will account for 99.2% of net new capacity — and even higher if small-scale solar were included," reports Electrek, citing EIA data reviewed by the SUN DAY Campaign:

EIA's latest monthly "Electric Power Monthly" report (with data through November 30, 2025), once again confirms that solar is the fastest-growing among the major sources of US electricity... [U]tility-scale solar thermal and photovoltaic expanded by 34.5% while that from small-scale systems rose by 11.3% during the first 11 months of 2025 compared to the same period in 2024. The combination of utility-scale and small-scale solar increased by 28.1% and produced a bit under 9.0% (utility-scale: 6.74%; small-scale: 2.13%) of total US electrical generation for January to November, up from 7.1% a year earlier.

Wind turbines across the US produced 10.1% of US electricity in the first 11 months of 2025 — an increase of 1.2% compared to the same period in 2024. In November alone, wind-generated electricity was 2.0% greater than a year earlier... The mix of all renewables (wind, solar, hydropower, biomass, and geothermal) produced 8.7% more electricity in January-November than a year earlier and accounted for 25.7% of total US electricity production, up from 24.3% 12 months earlier. Renewables' share of electrical generation is now second to only that of natural gas, whose electrical output actually dropped by 3.7% during the first 11 months of 2025...

Since January 1 to November 30, roughly the beginning of the Trump administration, renewable energy capacity, including battery storage, small-scale solar, hydropower, geothermal, and biomass, ballooned by 45,198.1 MW, while all fossil fuels and nuclear power combined declined by 519.2 MW...

[In 2026] natural gas capacity will increase by only 3,960.7 MW, which will be almost completely offset by a decrease of 3,387.0 MW in coal capacity.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/26/02/01/080244/99-of-new-us-energy-capacity-will-be-green-in-2026?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania and University of Michigan "have created the world's smallest fully programmable, autonomous robots," according to a recent announcement.

The announcement calls them "microscopic swimming machines that can independently sense and respond to their surroundings, operate for months and cost just a penny each."

Barely visible to the naked eye, each robot measures about 200 by 300 by 50 micrometers, smaller than a grain of salt. Operating at the scale of many biological microorganisms, the robots could advance medicine by monitoring the health of individual cells and manufacturing by helping construct microscale devices. Powered by light, the robots carry microscopic computers and can be programmed to move in complex patterns, sense local temperatures and adjust their paths accordingly... "We've made autonomous robots 10,000 times smaller," says Marc Miskin, Assistant Professor in Electrical and Systems Engineering at Penn Engineering and the papers' senior author. "That opens up an entirely new scale for programmable robots."
The announcement describes them as "the first truly autonomous, programmable robots at this scale" (as described in two recent academic articles). The team had to design a new propulsion system that utilized the unique locomotion physics in the microscopic realm, according to the university's announcement. So the robots "generate an electrical field that nudges ions in the surrounding solution."

Those ions, in turn, push on nearby water molecules, animating the water around the robot's body. "It's as if the robot is in a moving river," says Miskin, "but the robot is also causing the river to move." The robots can adjust the electrical field that causes the effect, allowing them to move in complex patterns and even travel in coordinated groups, much like a school of fish, at speeds of up to one body length per second...

To be truly autonomous, a robot needs a computer to make decisions, electronics to sense its surroundings and control its propulsion, and tiny solar panels to power everything, and all that needs to fit on a chip that is a fraction of a millimeter in size. This is where David Blaauw's team at the University of Michigan came into action... The robots are programmed by pulses of light that also power them. Each robot has a unique address that allows the researchers to load different programs on each robot. "This opens up a host of possibilities," adds Blaauw, "with each robot potentially performing a different role in a larger, joint task."

Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader fahrbot-bot for sharing the news.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/26/02/01/0616236/scientists-create-programmable-autonomous-robots-smaller-than-a-grain-of-salt?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Vineyard Wind (powering Massachusetts) is one of five offshore wind projects "that the Trump administration tried to hold up in December," reports The Hill.

This week it became the fourth of those wind projects allowed by a judge to resume construction, the article notes, while even the fifth project "is still awaiting court proceedings."

Federal Judge Brian Murphy, a Biden appointee, issued a preliminary injunction blocking the administration's stop work order against Vineyard Wind... According to its website, when complete, Vineyard Wind would be able generate enough power for 400,000 homes and businesses. The project already has 44 operational wind turbines and was working on an additional 18. The Trump pause applied to the construction work that was not yet complete.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/26/02/01/0821212/fourth-us-wind-farm-project-blocked-by-trump-allowed-to-resume-construction?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

После года разработки опубликован выпуск свободного кроссплатформенного интерпретатора классических квестов ScummVM 2026.1.0, заменяющего исполняемые файлы для игр и позволяющего выполнять многие классические игры на платформах, для которых они изначально не предназначены. Код проекта распространяется под лицензией GPLv3+.

https://www.opennet.ru/opennews/art.shtml?num=64720

Long-time Slashdot reader destinyland writes: Just months after his 20th birthday, Bill Gates had already angered the programmer community," remembers this 50th-anniversary commemoration of Gates' Open Letter to Hobbyists. "As the first home computers began appearing in the 1970s, the world faced a question: Would its software be free?"

Gates railed in 1976 that "Most of you steal your software." Gates had coded the BASIC interpreter for Altair's first home computer with Paul Allen and Monte Davidoff — only to see it pirated by Steve Wozniak's friends at the Homebrew Computing Club. Expecting royalties, a none-too-happy Gates issued his letter in the club's newsletter (as well as Altair's own publication), complaining "I would appreciate letters from any one who wants to pay up."

But freedom-loving coders had other ideas. When Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs released their Apple 1 home computer that summer, they stressed that "our philosophy is to provide software for our machines free or at minimal cost..." And early open-source hackers began writing their own free Tiny Basic interpreters to create a free alternative to the Gates/Micro-Soft code. This led to the first occurrence of the phrase "Copyleft" in October of 1976.

Open Source definition author Bruce Perens shares his thoughts today. "When I left Pixar in 2000, I stopped in Steve Job's office — which for some reason was right across the hall from mine... " Perens remembered. "I asked Steve: 'You still don't believe in this Linux stuff, do you...?'" And Perens remembers how that movement finally won over Steve Jobs and carried the day. "Three years later, Steve stood onstage in front of a slide that said 'Open Source: We Think It's Great!' as he introduced the Safari browser, which at that time was based on the browser engine developed by the KDE Open Source project!"

[ Read more of this story ]( https://news.slashdot.org/story/26/02/01/1915221/when-20-year-old-bill-gates-fought-the-worlds-first-software-pirates?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

В кодовую базу, на основе которой формируется выпуск Firefox 148, запланированный на 24 февраля, добавлена ранее обещанная настройка для полного отключения всех возможностей, связанных с AI. На странице about:config появился параметр "browser.preferences.aiControls", после активации которого на странице с настройками появляется секция для управления использованием AI. На странице можно разом отключить все функции AI или выборочно активировать только необходимую функциональность.

https://www.opennet.ru/opennews/art.shtml?num=64724

Walmart, the world's largest retailer, will be adding spaces for electric vehicle charging to parking lots in 19 different states, reports MLive:

The move follows up on a plan announced in 2023 to build a network of charging stations at Walmart and Sam's Club stores throughout the U.S... "With a store or club located within 10 miles of approximately 90% of Americans, we are uniquely positioned to deliver a convenient charging option that will help make EV ownership possible whether people live in rural, suburban or urban areas," wrote Walmart Senior Vice President of Energy Transformation, Vishal Kapadia in 2023. Walmart plans to have the nationwide network operating by 2030.

Walmart plans to have the nationwide network operating by 2030.

Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader Geoffrey.landis for sharing the news.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://tech.slashdot.org/story/26/02/01/1959234/walmart-begins-building-out-nationwide-ev-charging-network-across-america?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

October saw Bitcoin reach $123,742. But less than four months later, "The world's largest cryptocurrency slipped below $76,000..." Bloomberg reports, "dropping about 40% from its 2025 peak..."

"What began as a sharp crash in October has morphed into something more corrosive: a selloff shaped not by panic, but by absence of buyers, momentum and belief."

Unlike the October drawdown, there's been no obvious spark, cascading liquidations or systemic shock — just fading demand, thinning liquidity, and a token that's untethered to broader markets. Bitcoin has failed to respond to geopolitical stress, dollar weakness, or risk rallies. Even during gold and silver's violent swings in recent weeks, crypto saw no rotation. Bitcoin fell nearly 11% in January, marking its fourth straight monthly decline — the longest losing streak since 2018, during the crash that followed the 2017 boom in initial coin offerings...

Even more striking than the drop itself is the relative lack of optimism around it on social media. In a space known for relentless bravado and "number go up" memes, Bitcoin's slide has been met with little cheerleading or dip-buying fanfare... [Despite legislative wins and some institutional investments] Many investors say that optimism was front-run. Prices rallied early — and then stalled. Meanwhile, spot ETFs continue to bleed, a sign of weakening conviction among mainstream buyers — many of whom are now underwater after buying at higher prices.

On Thursday, Bitcoin closed at 88,228. By Sunday it had plunged another 13%, to 76,790...

[ Read more of this story ]( https://slashdot.org/story/26/02/01/2146224/bitcoin-drops-40-in-four-months-bloomberg-blames-absence-of-buyers-and-belief?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

The Wall Street Journal says that Meta "might be reaping some of the richest benefits from the AI boom so far."

Meta's revenue grew 22% year over year in 2025 to $201 billion, and the company expects even bigger gains in the current quarter, potentially as high as 34%. That is huge growth for a company that brought in nearly $60 billion in the latest three-month period. And Zuckerberg signaled that Meta was just scratching the surface of AI's potential. "Our world-class recommendation systems are already driving meaningful growth across our apps and ads business. But we think that the current systems are primitive compared to what will be possible soon," he said on a call with investors and analysts...

[Meta's Chief Financial Officer Susan] Li said the company doubled the number of graphics-processing units that it used to train its ad-ranking model in the fourth quarter and adopted a new learning architecture. Those actions led users to click on ads on Facebook 3.5% more often and to a gain of more than 1% in conversions, meaning purchases, subscriptions or leads, on Instagram, she said. Other AI-related improvements led to a 3% increase in conversions across its family of apps. On the ad-buying side, Meta has also been working toward using AI to automate ad creation for businesses that want to advertise their products or services on Facebook and Instagram. On the call, Li said the combined revenue run rate of video-generation tools hit $10 billion in the fourth quarter.

In short, CNBC reported, Meta's stock price surged over 10% this week "after showing signs that AI investments are boosting the bottom line."

Benjamin Black, an internet analyst at Deutsche Bank, explained the connection to the Wall Street Journal. "The more compute the ad platform gets, the far better it performs, and that's a real structural advantage that Meta has. If you can see that yesterday's spend is driving this month's growth, then as a good business person, you're going to continue to feed the beast."

CNBC says now Meta "plans to spend between $115 billion and $135 billion on its AI build-out this year. That's nearly double what it spent in 2025."

[ Read more of this story ]( https://tech.slashdot.org/story/26/02/01/2255206/is-metas-huge-spending-on-ai-actually-paying-off?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Talks "are at a standstill" for Anthropic's potential $200 million contract with America's Defense Department, reports Reuters (citing several people familiar with the discussions.") The two issues?

- Using AI to surveil Americans
- Safeguards against deploying AI autonomously

The company's position on how its AI tools can be used has intensified disagreements between it and the Trump administration, the details of which have not been previously reported... Anthropic said its AI is "extensively used for national security missions by the U.S. government and we are in productive discussions with the Department of War about ways to continue that work..."

In an essay on his personal blog, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei warned this week that AI should support national defense "in all ways except those which would make us more like our autocratic adversaries.

A person "familiar with the matter" told the Wall Street Journal this could lead to the cancellation of Anthropic's contract:

Tensions with the administration began almost immediately after it was awarded, in part because Anthropic's terms and conditions dictate that Claude can't be used for any actions related to domestic surveillance. That limits how many law-enforcement agencies such as Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Federal Bureau of Investigation could deploy it, people familiar with the matter said. Anthropic's focus on safe applications of AI — and its objection to having its technology used in autonomous lethal operations — have continued to cause problems, they said.

Amodei's essay calls for "courage, for enough people to buck the prevailing trends and stand on principle, even in the face of threats to their economic interests and personal safety..."

[ Read more of this story ]( https://tech.slashdot.org/story/26/02/01/2353221/anthropics-200m-pentagon-contract-at-risk-over-objections-to-domestic-surveillance-autonomous-deployments?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

"Most Go developers are now using AI-powered development tools when seeking information (e.g., learning how to use a module) or toiling (e.g., writing repetitive blocks of similar code)." That's one of the conclusions Google's Go team drew from September's big survey of 5,379 Go developers.

But the survey also found that among Go developers using AI-powered tools, "their satisfaction with these tools is middling due, in part, to quality concerns."

Our survey suggests bifurcated adoption — while a majority of respondents (53%) said they use such tools daily, there is also a large group (29%) who do not use these at all, or only used them a few times during the past month. We expected this to negatively correlate with age or development experience, but were unable to find strong evidence supporting this theory except for very new developers: respondents with less than one year of professional development experience (not specific to Go) did report more AI use than every other cohort, but this group only represented 2% of survey respondents. At this time, agentic use of AI-powered tools appears nascent among Go developers, with only 17% of respondents saying this is their primary way of using such tools, though a larger group (40%) are occasionally trying agentic modes of operation...

We also asked about overall satisfaction with AI-powered development tools. A majority (55%) reported being satisfied, but this was heavily weighted towards the "Somewhat satisfied" category (42%) vs. the "Very satisfied" group (13%)... [D]eveloper sentiment towards them remains much softer than towards more established tooling (among Go developers, at least). What is driving this lower rate of satisfaction? In a word: quality. We asked respondents to tell us something good they've accomplished with these tools, as well as something that didn't work out well. A majority said that creating non-functional code was their primary problem with AI developer tools (53%), with 30% lamenting that even working code was of poor quality.

The most frequently cited benefits, conversely, were generating unit tests, writing boilerplate code, enhanced autocompletion, refactoring, and documentation generation. These appear to be cases where code quality is perceived as less critical, tipping the balance in favor of letting AI take the first pass at a task. That said, respondents also told us the AI-generated code in these successful cases still required careful review (and often, corrections), as it can be buggy, insecure, or lack context... [One developer said reviewing AI-generated code was so mentally taxing that it "kills the productivity potential".]

Of all the tasks we asked about, "Writing code" was the most bifurcated, with 66% of respondents already or hoping to soon use AI for this, while 1/4 of respondents didn't want AI involved at all. Open-ended responses suggest developers primarily use this for toilsome, repetitive code, and continue to have concerns about the quality of AI-generated code.

Most respondents also said they "are not currently building AI-powered features into the Go software they work on (78%)," the surveyors report, "with 2/3 reporting that their software does not use AI functionality at all (66%)."

This appears to be a decrease in production-related AI usage year-over-year; in 2024, 59% of respondents were not involved in AI feature work, while 39% indicated some level of involvement. That marks a shift of 14 points away from building AI-powered systems among survey respondents, and may reflect some natural pullback from the early hype around AI-powered applications: it's plausible that lots of folks tried to see what they could do with this technology during its initial rollout, with some proportion deciding against further exploration (at least at this time).

Among respondents who are building AI- or LLM-powered functionality, the most common use case was to create summaries of existing content (45%). Overall, however, there was little difference between most uses, with between 28% — 33% of respondents adding AI functionality to support classification, generation, solution identification, chatbots, and software development.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://developers.slashdot.org/story/26/02/02/015206/what-go-programmers-think-of-ai?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

The EU "has switched on parts of its homegrown secure satellite communications network for the first time," reports Bloomberg, calling it part of a €10.6 billion push to "wean itself off US support amid growing tensions."

SpaceNews notes the new government program GOVSATCOM pools capacity from eight already on-oribit satellites from France, Spain, Italy, Greece and Luxembourg — both national and commercial. And they cite this prediction by EU Defense and Space Commissioner Andrius Kubilius.

The program could expand by 2027.

"All member states can now have access to sovereign satellite communications — military and government, secure and resilient, built in Europe, operated in Europe, and under European control,"
[Kubilius said during his opening remarks at the European Space Conference]... Beginning in 2029, GOVSATCOM is expected to integrate with the 290 satellites in the Infrastructure for Resilience, Interconnectivity and Security by Satellite constellation, known as IRIS2, and be fully operational... "The goal is connectivity and security for all of Europe — guaranteed access for all member states and full European control."

[ Read more of this story ]( https://science.slashdot.org/story/26/02/02/0256227/eu-deploys-new-government-satcom-program-in-sovereignty-push?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Разработчики Notepad++, открытого редактора кода для платформы Windows, опубликовали разбор инцидента, в результате которого была скомпрометирована сетевая инфраструктура провайдера и некоторые пользователи Notepad++ получили подменённые исполняемые файлы, загружаемые с использованием системы автоматической доставки обновлений WinGUp.

https://www.opennet.ru/opennews/art.shtml?num=64725

Проект ANet (ANet Secure Transport Protocol) развивает альтернативный стек для организации защищённых туннелей, предназначенный для объединения частных сетей в условиях, когда стандартные решения (WireGuard, OpenVPN) в силу разных обстоятельств не применимы. Проект позиционируется не как очередной форк WireGuard, а как «Сеть Друзей» (Friends-to-Friends VPN) с упором на принцип "безопасность через неясность", использование зарекомендовавших себя криптоплгоритмов и автономную работу в режиме "Dead Man's Hand". В ANet используется собственный транспортный протокол ASTP (ANet Secure Transport Protocol), обеспечивающий полное сквозное шифрование, устойчивый к высокой потере пакетов и неотличимый от случайного UDP-трафика. Код написан с нуля на языке Rust и распространяется под лицензией MIT, но с явным запретом на форки под GPL ("Denied Licenses: GPL-2.0, GPL-3.0").

https://www.opennet.ru/opennews/art.shtml?num=64726

"Technology companies spent part of the 2010s trying to convince us that we would want an 8K display one day..." writes Ars Technica.

"However, 8K never proved its necessity or practicality."

LG Display is no longer making 8K LCD or OLED panels, FlatpanelsHD reported today... LG Electronics was the first and only company to sell 8K OLED TVs, starting with the 88-inch Z9 in 2019. In 2022, it lowered the price-of-entry for an 8K OLED TV by $7,000 by charging $13,000 for a 76.7-inch TV. FlatpanelsHD cited anonymous sources who said that LG Electronics would no longer restock the 2024 QNED99T, which is the last LCD 8K TV that it released.

LG's 8K abandonment follows other brands distancing themselves from 8K. TCL, which released its last 8K TV in 2021, said in 2023 that it wasn't making more 8K TVs due to low demand. Sony discontinued its last 8K TVs in April and is unlikely to return to the market, as it plans to sell the majority ownership of its Bravia TVs to TCL.

The tech industry tried to convince people that the 8K living room was coming soon. But since the 2010s, people have mostly adopted 4K. In September 2024, research firm Omdia reported that there were "nearly 1 billion 4K TVs currently in use." In comparison, 1.6 million 8K TVs had been sold since 2015, Paul Gray, Omdia's TV and video technology analyst, said, noting that 8K TV sales peaked in 2022. That helps explain why membership at the 8K Association, launched by stakeholders Samsung, TCL, Hisense, and panel maker AU Optronics in 2019, is dwindling. As of this writing, the group's membership page lists 16 companies, including just two TV manufacturers (Samsung and Panasonic). Membership no longer includes any major TV panel suppliers. At the end of 2022, the 8K Association had 33 members, per an archived version of the nonprofit's online membership page via the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine.

"It wasn't hard to predict that 8K TVs wouldn't take off," the article concludes. "In addition to being too expensive for many households, there's been virtually zero native 8K content available to make investing in an 8K display worthwhile..."

[ Read more of this story ]( https://entertainment.slashdot.org/story/26/02/02/0152250/is-the-tv-industry-finally-conceding-that-the-future-may-not-be-8k?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

TOP20 VISITORS:

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TOTAL TRAFFIC: 32MB

Разработчики проекта GNU/Hurd представили доклад о недавних достижениях и текущем состоянии проекта. Среди недавних достижений GNU/Hurd.

https://www.opennet.ru/opennews/art.shtml?num=64727

Phoronix reports:

Chris Mason, the longtime Linux kernel developer most known for being the creator of Btrfs, has been working on a Git repository with AI review prompts he has been working on for LLM-assisted code review of Linux kernel patches. This initiative has been happening for some weeks now while the latest work was posted today for comments... The Meta engineer has been investing a lot of effort into making this AI/LLM-assisted code review accurate and useful to upstream Linux kernel stakeholders. It's already shown positive results and with the current pace it looks like it could play a helpful part in Linux kernel code review moving forward.

"I'm hoping to get some feedback on changes I pushed today that break the review up into individual tasks..." Mason wrote on the Linux kernel mailing list. "Using tasks allows us to break up large diffs into smaller chunks, and review each chunk individually. This ends up using fewer tokens a lot of the time, because we're not sending context back and forth for the entire diff with every turn. It also catches more bugs all around."

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Крис Мейсон (Chris Mason), создатель и мэйнтейнер файловой системы Btrfs, опубликовал проект review-prompts, содержащий коллекцию скриптов и подсказок для настройки процесса рецензирования изменений в ядре Linux и системном менеджере systemd, используя AI-ассистенты, такие как Сlaude Code. В состав включены файлы для уточнения особенностей работы различных подсистем и протоколов, позволяющие AI-ассистенту лучше понимать контекст при рецензировании, отладке и проверке изменений.

https://www.opennet.ru/opennews/art.shtml?num=64709

Представлена ​​новая версия GNOME Resources 1.10 — приложения для мониторинга системы в среде GNOME, которое теперь используется по умолчанию, например, в готовящейся к выходу Ubuntu 26.04 LTS. В GNOME Resources 1.10 добавлена ​​поддержка мониторинга NPU AMD Ryzen AI и другие новые возможности.Исправления:

• наименования пунктов озвучены для программ чтения с экрана;

• исправлена навигация по разделам «Приложения» и «Процессы» с помощью клавиатуры;

• исправлены показания частоты процессора, которые в некоторых случая могли быть неточными;

• названия дисков не обновлялись при изменении префикса блока данных.

Новое:

• ​поддержка NPU от AMD с использованием драйвера amdxdna (обратите внимание, что для корректного обнаружения ядро ​​и прошивка должны быть обновлены);

• поиск по нескольким именам процессов одновременно возможен с помощью оператора «|» в поле поиска;

• ​​поддержка обнаружения приложений AppImage, управляемых с помощью appimaged;

• ​​поддержка обнаружения приложений, управляемых через Portable;

• сетевые интерфейсы моста LXC определяются корректно .

https://www.linux.org.ru/news/gnome/18210502

Разработчики GNU/Hurd сообщили о значительном прогрессе в развитии операционной системы. По словам Самюэля Тибо, одного из основных разработчиков проекта, GNU/Hurd удалось добиться существенного улучшения в поддержке драйверов устройств благодаря интеграции с [ NetBSD’s rump layer ]( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rump_kernel ) .

Кроме того, была улучшена поддержка SMP (Symmetric Multi-Processing), что позволит системе более эффективно использовать возможности современных многоядерных процессоров. Порт для x86_64 практически завершен, и есть надежда на поддержку AArch64.

На основе GNU/Hurd уже создано несколько дистрибутивов, включая Debian GNU/Hurd, Guix/Hurd и Alpine/Hurd.
По данным разработчиков, около 75% пакетов Debian уже собирается для GNU/Hurd, что свидетельствует о высокой степени готовности системы.

Также была добавлена поддержка экосистемы Rust, что стало необходимостью из-за растущего числа программ, требующих эту поддержку.

https://www.linux.org.ru/news/gnu/18210644

Брюс Дуббс (Bruce Dubbs), главный редактор проекта Linux From Scratch, объявил о прекращении обновления версий руководств Linux From Scratch (LFS) и Beyond Linux From Scratch (BLFS) в конфигурации с системой инициализации SysVinit. Доступ к руководству LFS/BLFS 12.4 с SysVinit будет сохранён, но намеченный на 1 марта выпуск LFS/BLFS 13.0 будет сформирован только в варианте с системным менеджером systemd.

https://www.opennet.ru/opennews/art.shtml?num=64728

The New York Times lists other reasons a company lays off people. ("It didn't meet financial targets. It overhired. Tariffs, or the loss of a big client, rocked it...")

"But lately, many companies are highlighting a new factor: artificial intelligence. Executives, saying they anticipate huge changes from the technology, are making cuts now."

A.I. was cited in the announcements of more than 50,000 layoffs in 2025, according to Challenger, Gray & Christmas, a research firm... Investors may applaud such pre-emptive moves. But some skeptics (including media outlets) suggest that corporations are disingenuously blaming A.I. for layoffs, or "A.I.-washing." As the market research firm Forrester put it in a January report: "Many companies announcing A.I.-related layoffs do not have mature, vetted A.I. applications ready to fill those roles, highlighting a trend of 'A.I.-washing' — attributing financially motivated cuts to future A.I. implementation...."

"Companies are saying that 'we're anticipating that we're going to introduce A.I. that will take over these jobs.' But it hasn't happened yet. So that's one reason to be skeptical," said Peter Cappelli, a professor at the Wharton School... Of course, A.I. may well end up transforming the job market, in tech and beyond. But a recent study... [by a senior research fellow at the Brookings Institution who studies A.I. and work] found that AI has not yet meaningfully shifted the overall market. Tech firms have cut more than 700,000 employees globally since 2022, according to Layoffs.fyi, which tracks industry job losses. But much of that was a correction for overhiring during the pandemic.

As unpopular as A.I. job cuts may be to the public, they may be less controversial than other reasons — like bad company planning.

Amazon CEO Jassy has even said the reason for most of their layoffs was reducing bureaucracy, the article points out, although "Most analysts, however, believe Amazon is cutting jobs to clear money for A.I. investments, such as data centers."

[ Read more of this story ]( https://it.slashdot.org/story/26/02/02/0618242/is-ai-really-taking-jobs-or-are-employers-just-ai-washing-normal-layoffs?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

China's decades-old network of elite high-school "genius classes" -- ultra-competitive talent streams that pull an estimated 100,000 gifted teenagers out of regular schooling every year and run them through college-level science curricula -- has produced the core technical talent now building the country's leading AI and technology companies, the Financial Times reported Saturday.

Graduates of these programs include the founder of ByteDance, the leaders of e-commerce giants Taobao and PDD, the billionaire behind super-app Meituan, the brothers who started Nvidia rival Cambricon, and the core engineers behind large language models at DeepSeek and Alibaba's Qwen. DeepSeek's research team of more than 100 was almost entirely composed of genius-class alumni when the startup released its R1 reasoning model last year at a fraction of the cost of its international rivals.

The system traces to the mid-1980s, when China first sent students to the International Mathematical Olympiad and a handful of top high schools began creating dedicated competition-track classes. China now graduates around five million STEM majors annually -- compared to roughly half a million in the United States -- and in 2025, 22 of the 23 students it sent to the International Science Olympiads returned with gold medals. The computer science track has overtaken maths and physics as the most popular competition subject, a shift that accelerated after Beijing designated AI development a "key national growth strategy" in 2017.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://news.slashdot.org/story/26/02/02/1359211/chinas-decades-old-genius-class-pipeline-is-quietly-fueling-its-ai-challenge-to-the-us?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Starbucks has been pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into AI and automation -- testing robots that take drive-through orders, virtual assistants that help baristas recall recipes and manage schedules, and scanning tools that count inventory -- as the 55-year-old coffee chain tries to reverse several years of struggling sales.

The company last week reported its first same-store sales increase in two years in the U.S., where it earns roughly 70% of its revenue. Shares still slid 5% on concerns that heavy spending, including $500 million to boost staffing, had hurt profits. CEO Brian Niccol, who joined in 2024 after engineering Chipotle's turnaround, told the BBC he is confident consistent growth will address that; the company has pledged to find $2 billion in cost savings over three years.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/26/02/02/1443247/starbucks-bets-on-robots-to-brew-a-turnaround-in-customers?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

The U.S. laid fiber-optic cables to a record number of homes last year as billions of dollars in federal broadband grants and a surge in data-center construction fueled an enormous buildout, but the industry does not have enough workers to sustain the pace.

A 2024 report by the Fiber Broadband Association and the Power & Communication Contractors Association projects 58,000 new fiber jobs between 2025 and 2032 and estimates 120,000 workers will leave the field in that period, mostly through retirement -- a combined shortage of 178,000. The gap is especially acute among splicers, who fuse hair-thin filaments by hand, and directional drill operators.

Telecommunications line installers and repairers earned annual median wages of $70,500 for the year ended May 2024, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, against a $49,500 national median. Push, a utility-construction firm, raised hourly pay for fiber crews by 5% to 8% in each of the past several years and expects the pace to quicken.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://news.slashdot.org/story/26/02/02/1510241/high-speed-internet-boom-hits-low-tech-snag-a-labor-shortage?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.