Братья и сестры, возрадуйтесь! Произошло то, что происходит с любым зрелым игровым движком, перешагнувшим [ определенный порог ]( https://steamdb.info/tech/Engine/Godot/?displayOnly=Game ) популярности. Godot обзавелся собственным магазином ассетов. И это большой шаг вперед - в светлое будущее! Теперь каждый сможет запилить свои ассеты, и даже немного заработать. А может и много...

Это действительно знаменательное событие, т.к. вместо нескольких неофициальных сайтов с ассетами появился один официальный магазин ассетов для Godot. Пока в стадии беты. Без особой огласки. Но автор подглядел. :)

Что нам предлагают:

• платные и бесплатные ассеты.

• различные плагины, инструменты и расширения для Godot;

• удобный поиск с фильтрацией по лицензиям и системой тегов;

• множество категорий: 2D, 3D, Tools, Plugins, Materials, GDExtensions, VFX и т.п.

Пока что на стадии беты в каталоге магазина доступен только бесплатный контент.

Наиболее популярный плагин сейчас: [ GodotSteam for GDExtension ]( https://store-beta.godotengine.org/asset/godotsteam/godotsteam-gdextension/ ) (набор инструментов для интеграции Godot в Steam).

Впереди большие планы:

• улучшение поисковых настроек;

• улучшение системы уведомлений;

• установка ассетов через drag'n'drop;

• добавление мобильной версии сайта;

• добавление платных ассетов и плагинов;

• добавление CLI-интерфейса для работы с магазином из терминала;

• система аналитики ассетов в панели администрирования;

• система отзывов, аналогичная оценкам и отзывам в Steam;

• система предложений, которая поможет найти больше подходящих для вас ассетов, инструментов и плагинов.

В настоящее время в Steam доступно [ более 2400 игр ]( https://steamdb.info/tech/Engine/Godot/?displayOnly=Game ) на движке Godot и каждую неделю появляются новые. Это хороший повод для новичков геймдева задуматься и попробовать лучший свободный движок.

[ Видеообзор ]( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HK8VFP2mUro )

https://www.linux.org.ru/news/opensource/18015716

Доступен релиз операционной системы «Альт Образование» 11.0.

Сборка подготовлена на x86_64 и AArch64 Одиннадцатой платформы (ветка p11 Salvia), на базе ядра 6.12 (LTS).

Скачать образ:

• [ ftp.altlinux.org ]( http://ftp.altlinux.org/pub/distributions/ALTLinux/p11/images/education/ )

• [ download.basealt.ru ]( https://download.basealt.ru/pub/distributions/ALTLinux/p11/images/education/ )

• [ mirror.yandex.ru ]( http://mirror.yandex.ru/altlinux/p11/images/education/ )

( [ читать дальше... ]( https://www.linux.org.ru/news/russia/18015720#cut ) )

В Bluetooth-устройствах, использующих SoC от компании Airoha Systems, выявлены уязвимости, позволяющие получить контроль над устройством через отправку специально оформленных данных по Bluetooth Classic или BLE (Bluetooth Low Energy). Атака может быть совершена без аутентификации и без предварительного сопряжения, при наличии устройства жертвы в зоне досягаемости сигнала Bluetooth (примерно 10 метров). Уязвимости затрагивают некоторые модели беспроводных наушников, колонок и микрофонов от Sony, Marshall, Beyerdynamic и менее известных компаний.

https://www.opennet.ru/opennews/art.shtml?num=63507

AT&T has launched a new Account Lock feature designed to protect customers from SIM swapping attacks. The security tool, available through the myAT&T app, prevents unauthorized changes to customer accounts including phone number transfers, SIM card changes, billing information updates, device upgrades, and modifications to authorized users.

SIM swapping attacks occur when criminals obtain a victim's phone number through social engineering techniques, then intercept messages and calls to access two-factor authentication codes for sensitive accounts. The attacks have become increasingly common in recent years. AT&T began gradually rolling out Account Lock earlier this year, joining T-Mobile, Verizon, and Google Fi, which already offer similar fraud prevention features.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/07/01/181213/att-now-lets-customers-lock-down-account-to-prevent-sim-swapping-attacks?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader shares a report: A judge has sentenced a disgruntled IT worker to more than seven months in prison after he wreaked havoc on his employer's network following his suspension, according to West Yorkshire Police.

According to the police, Mohammed Umar Taj, 31, from the Yorkshire town of Batley, was suspended from his job in nearby Huddersfield in July 2022. But the company didn't immediately rescind his network credentials, and within hours, he began altering login names and passwords to disrupt operations, the statement says.

The following day, he allegedly changed access credentials and the biz's multi-factor authentication settings that locked out the firm and its clients in Germany and Bahrain, eventually causing an estimated $274,200 in lost business and reputational harm.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://it.slashdot.org/story/25/07/01/1552216/it-worker-sentenced-to-seven-months-after-trashing-company-network?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

30 Июня состоялся предварительный (бета) релиз новой версии языка программирования Lua.

Lua – это встраиваемый, интерпретируемый язык программирования, используемый
в [ огромном числе программных продуктов как язык-компаньон ]( https://www.linux.org.ru/news/development/17612736 ) .

( [ читать дальше... ]( https://www.linux.org.ru/news/opensource/18015519#cut ) )

>>> [ Анонс Lua5.5 релиза в списке рассылки ]( https://groups.google.com/g/lua-l/c/N1MMWqG4Ad0/m/2CIoXFJyAwAJ?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer )

>>> [ Описание основных изменений ]( https://www.lua.org/work/doc/#changes )

>>> [ Онлайн документация ]( https://www.lua.org/work/doc )

>>> [ Прямая ссылка на архив исходного кода ]( https://www.lua.org/work/lua-5.5.0-beta.tar.gz )

>>> [ Прямая ссылка на архив с тестами ]( https://www.lua.org/work/lua-5.5.0-tests.tar.gz )

AI agents are now conducting first-round job interviews to screen candidates before human recruiters review them, according to WashingtonPost, which cites job seekers who report being contacted by virtual recruiters from different staffing companies. The conversational agents, built on large language models, help recruiting firms respond to every applicant and conduct interviews around the clock as companies face increasingly large talent pools.

LinkedIn reported that job applications have jumped 30% in the last two years, partially due to AI, with some positions receiving hundreds of applications within hours. The Society for Human Resource Management said a growing number of organizations now use AI for recruiting to automate candidate searches and communicate with applicants during interviews. The AI interviews, conducted by phone or video, can last anywhere from a few minutes to 20 minutes depending on the candidate's experience and the hiring firm's questions.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://slashdot.org/story/25/07/01/186240/ai-is-now-screening-job-candidates-before-humans-ever-see-them?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Компания Valve [ представила ]( https://steamcommunity.com/games/593110/announcements/detail/500577186633220572 ) июньское обновление клиента Steam для Linux. Главное нововведение — включение [ Proton ]( https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton/ ) по умолчанию для запуска Windows-игр, для которых нет нативной Linux-версии. Ранее для этого требовалось вручную активировать опцию «Enable SteamPlay for other titles» в настройках.

Кроме того, в Linux-версии ускорена установка обновлений — если раньше процесс мог занимать минуты, теперь он завершается за секунды.

Обновление также сократило время запуска Steam для пользователей с большим количеством игр, добавленных не через Steam. Добавлен игровой оверлей (In-Game Overlay) с мониторингом производительности, отображающий FPS, загрузку CPU и GPU. Пока что полный функционал доступен только в Windows-версии, а в Linux-реализации возможности ограничены. Valve пообещала выровнять функционал в будущих обновлениях.

Параллельно [ выпущена ]( https://steamcommunity.com/games/1675200/announcements/detail/529850584204838039 ) новая версия SteamOS 3.7.13 на базе Arch Linux. В ней исправлены ошибки, включая проблемы с Wi-Fi на Steam Deck OLED, а также добавлена поддержка кнопок питания для устройств AYANEO, AYN, GPD, MSI, ONEXPLAYER и OrangePi. Для разработчиков в udisk добавлены модули btrfs и lvm2.

В каталоге Steam теперь доступно 16 139 игр с поддержкой Linux. По данным Steam Database, пользователи Linux чаще всего запускают 4025 игр. Топ-5 самых популярных: Counter-Strike 2, Dota 2, Banana, Stardew Valley, Team Fortress 2.

https://www.linux.org.ru/news/games/18015663

Cloudflare today announced a "Pay Per Crawl" program that allows website owners to charge AI companies for accessing their content, a potential revenue stream for publishers whose work is increasingly being scraped to train AI models. The system uses HTTP response code 402 to enable content creators to set per-request prices across their sites. Publishers can choose to allow free access, require payment at a configured rate, or block crawlers entirely.

When an AI crawler requests paid content, it either presents payment intent via request headers for successful access or receives a "402 Payment Required" response with pricing information. Cloudflare acts as the merchant of record and handles the underlying technical infrastructure. The company aggregates billing events, charges crawlers, and distributes earnings to publishers.

Alongside Pay Per Crawl, Cloudflare has switched to blocking AI crawlers by default for its customers, becoming the first major internet infrastructure provider to require explicit permission for AI access. The company handles traffic for 20% of the web and more than one million customers have already activated its AI-blocking tools since their September 2024 launch, it wrote in a blog post.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/07/01/1745245/cloudflare-flips-ai-scraping-model-with-pay-per-crawl-system-for-publishers?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Tech companies are paying AI engineers unprecedented salaries as competition for talent intensifies, with some top engineers earning more than $10 million annually and typical packages ranging from $3 million to $7 million. OpenAI told staff this week it is seeking "creative ways to recognize and reward top talent" after losing key employees to rivals, despite offering salaries near the top of the market.

The move followed OpenAI CEO Sam Altman's claim that Meta had promised $100 million sign-on bonuses to the company's most high-profile AI engineers. Mark Chen, OpenAI's chief research officer, sent an internal memo saying he felt "as if someone has broken into our home and stolen something" after recent departures.

AI engineer salaries have risen approximately 50% since 2022, with mid-to-senior level research scientists now earning $500,000 to $2 million at major tech companies, compared to $180,000 to $220,000 for senior software engineers without AI experience.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/07/01/1536223/ai-arms-race-drives-engineer-pay-to-more-than-10-million?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Разработчица из Японии, создательница AzPainter и одна из наиболее квалифицированных современных программистов, известная в сети как Azel, опубликовала релиз 1.0.0 перспективного легковесного графического тулкита mlk, лежащего в основе AzPainter, AzFontViewer, AzImgView и других программ.

Mlk, начинавшийся как минимальная надстройка над Xlib, теперь также поддерживает opengl и wayland.

( [ читать дальше... ]( https://www.linux.org.ru/news/opensource/18015625#cut0 ) )

>>> [ Скриншоты программ ]( https://azelpg.gitlab.io/azsky2/soft/index_en.html )

>>> [ Страница mlk на сайте Azel ]( https://azelpg.gitlab.io/azsky2/about_mlk_en.html )

An anonymous reader shares a report: Summer started barely a week ago, and already the United States has been smothered in a record-breaking "heat dome." Alaska saw its first-ever heat advisory this month. And all of this comes on the heels of 2024, the hottest calendar year in recorded history. The world is getting hotter, faster. A report published last week found that human-caused global warming is now increasing by 0.27 degrees Celsius per decade. That rate was recorded at 0.2 degrees in the 1970s, and has been growing since.

"Each additional fractional degree of warming brings about a relatively larger increase in atmospheric extremes, like extreme downpours and severe droughts and wildfires," said Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at the University of California. While this aligns with scientific predictions of how climate change can intensify such events, the increase in severity may feel sudden to people who experience them.

"Back when we had lesser levels of warming, that relationship was a little bit less dramatic," Dr. Swain said. "There is growing evidence that the most extreme extremes probably will increase faster and to a greater extent than we used to think was the case," he added. Take rainfall, for example. Generally, extreme rainfall is intensifying at a rate of 7 percent with each degree Celsius of atmospheric warming. But recent studies indicate that so-called record-shattering events are increasing at double that rate, Dr. Swain said.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://news.slashdot.org/story/25/07/01/164239/global-warming-is-speeding-up-and-the-world-is-feeling-the-effects?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

1 июля 2025 года вышла новая версия открытой операционной системы реального времени Embox.

Embox предназначена для встраиваемых систем. Главной идей является использование Linux-ПО без Linux. ОС является POSIX-совместимой и кроссплатформенной (ARM, MIPS, x86, RISC-V, Microblaze, SPARC, PowerPC, E2K), имеет аналог ./configure; make; make install, поддерживает C++. Есть поддержка ряда файловых систем: FAT, ext2/3/4, поддержка сетевого, графического и остальных системных стеков. Доступны популярные ЯП: Python, Lisp TCL, Ruby, Lua, JS, Scheme.

( [ читать дальше... ]( https://www.linux.org.ru/news/opensource/18015599#cut ) )

The FCC will suspend enforcement of rules that would lower prison phone and video call prices until April 1st, 2027. Trump-appointed FCC Chair Brendan Carr said that prisons won't have to comply with the pricing regulations [PDF], reversing plans to implement the caps this year.

The rules would have dropped the price of a 15-minute phone call to 90 cents in larger prisons. Current fees can reach as high as $11.35 for a 15-minute call, which the FCC described in 2024 as "exorbitant." Four states -- Connecticut, California, Minnesota, and Massachusetts -- have made prison calls free. Former President Joe Biden signed the Martha Wright-Reed law in 2023, allowing the FCC to regulate prison call rates. The agency voted to adopt the new rates last year, with rules set to take effect on a staggered basis starting January 1st, 2025.

Carr said the regulations are "leading to negative, unintended consequences" and would make caps "too low" to cover "required safety measures." FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez criticized the delay, stating the Commission "is now stalling, shielding a broken system that inflates costs and rewards kickbacks to correctional facilities."

[ Read more of this story ]( https://news.slashdot.org/story/25/07/01/1448220/fcc-delays-enforcement-of-prison-call-pricing-limits?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

[ Состоялся ]( https://www.zabbix.com/ru/whats_new_7_4 )  релиз свободной системы мониторинга Zabbix 7.4. Выпуск 7.4 отнесён к версиям с коротким сроком официальной поддержки. Для пользователей, которые предпочитают долгий срок поддержки, рекомендуем использовать Zabbix 7.0 LTS.

Zabbix — универсальная система для мониторинга производительности и доступности серверов, сервисов, инженерного и сетевого оборудования, приложений, баз данных, систем виртуализации, контейнеров, ИТ-сервисов, веб-сервисов, облачной инфраструктуры и IoT устройств.

( [ читать дальше... ]( https://www.linux.org.ru/news/opensource/18015236#cut ) )

Представлен третий экспериментальный выпуск клиента для мгновенного обмена сообщениями Pidgin 3.0 (2.92). Выпуск отмечен как имеющий уровень качества предварительной альфа-версии, не рассчитанной на повседневное применение. Сборки подготовлены в формате Flatpak (пока доступен только архив с кодом).

https://www.opennet.ru/opennews/art.shtml?num=63506

Encrypted communications provider Proton has joined an antitrust lawsuit against Apple, filing a legal complaint that claims the company's App Store practices harm developers, consumers, and privacy. The Switzerland-based firm joined a group of Korean developers who sued Apple in May rather than filing a separate case.

Proton asked the US District Court for Northern California to require Apple to allow alternative app stores, expose those stores through its own App Store, permit developers to disable Apple's in-app payment system, and provide full access to Apple APIs. The company added a privacy-focused argument to typical antitrust complaints, contending that Apple's pricing model particularly penalizes companies that refuse to harvest user data. Developers of free apps typically sell user data to cover costs, while privacy-focused companies like Proton must charge subscriptions for revenue, making Apple's commission cuts more burdensome.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://apple.slashdot.org/story/25/07/01/0917211/proton-joins-antitrust-lawsuit-against-apples-app-store-practices?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Starting today, researchers funded by the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) will be required to make their scientific papers available to read for free as soon as they are published in a peer-reviewed journal. That's according to the agency's latest public-access policy, aimed at making federally funded research accessible to taxpayers. From a report: Established under former US president Joe Biden, the policy was originally set to take effect on 31 December for all US agencies, but the administration of Biden's successor, Donald Trump, has accelerated its implementation for the NIH, a move that has surprised some scholars. That's because, although the Trump team has declared itself a defender of taxpayer dollars, it has also targeted programmes and research projects focused on equity and inclusion for elimination. And one of the policy's main goals is to ensure equitable access to federally funded research.

The move means that universities will have less time to advise their researchers on how to comply with the policy, says Peter Suber, director of the Harvard Open Access Project in Cambridge, Massachusetts. There is usually "some confusion or even some non-compliance after a new policy takes effect, but I think universities will eventually get on top of that," he says.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://science.slashdot.org/story/25/07/01/0827211/nih-funded-science-must-now-be-free-to-read-instantly?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

India's automakers are opposing the government's proposal to cut car emissions by 33% from 2027, calling the target "too aggressive" in a formal submission to the power ministry.

The Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers warned the plan risks billions of rupees in penalties and threatens future investments in the $137-billion auto sector. The proposal represents more than twice the pace of India's previous emission reduction target and forms part of the third phase of Corporate Average Fuel Efficiency norms first introduced in 2017. The industry body wants a more gradual 15% reduction target and opposes different standards for small versus heavy vehicles.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/25/07/01/081225/automakers-clash-with-india-over-aggressive-emission-limits?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: The U.S. Department of Justice announced on Monday that it had taken several enforcement actions against North Korea's money-making operations, which rely on undercover remote IT workers inside American tech companies to raise funds for the regime's nuclear weapons program, as well as to steal data and cryptocurrency. As part of the DOJ's multi-state effort, the government announced the arrest and indictment of U.S. national Zhenxing "Danny" Wang, who allegedly ran a years-long fraud scheme from New Jersey to sneak remote North Korean IT workers inside U.S. tech companies. According to the indictment, the scheme generated more than $5 million in revenue for the North Korean regime. [...]

From 2021 until 2024, the co-conspirators allegedly impersonated more than 80 U.S. individuals to get remote jobs at more than 100 American companies, causing $3 million in damages due to legal fees, data breach remediation efforts, and more. The group is said to have run laptop farms inside the United States, which the North Korean IT workers could essentially use as proxies to hide their provenance, according to the DOJ. At times, they used hardware devices known as keyboard-video-mouse (KVM) switches, which allow one person to control multiple computers from a single keyboard and mouse. The group allegedly also ran shell companies inside the U.S. to make it seem like the North Korean IT workers were affiliated with legitimate local companies, and to receive money that would then be transferred abroad, the DOJ said.

The fraudulent scheme allegedly also involved the North Korean workers stealing sensitive data, such as source code, from the companies they were working for, such as from an unnamed California-based defense contractor "that develops artificial intelligence-powered equipment and technologies."

[ Read more of this story ]( https://yro.slashdot.org/story/25/06/30/2236218/us-government-takes-down-major-north-korean-remote-it-workers-operation?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

alternative_right shares a report from Phys.Org: The unit -- dubbed a BeeHome -- is an industrial upgrade from the standard wooden beehives, all clad in white metal and solar panels. Inside sits a high-tech scanner and robotic arm powered by artificial intelligence. Roughly 300,000 of these units are in use across the U.S., scattered across fields of almond, canola, pistachios and other crops that require pollination to grow. [...] AI and robotics are able to replace "90% of what a beekeeper would do in the field," said Beewise Chief Executive Officer and co-founder Saar Safra. The question is whether beekeepers are willing to switch out what's been tried and true equipment. [...]

While a new hive design alone isn't enough to save bees, Beewise's robotic hives help cut down on losses by providing a near-constant stream of information on colony health in real time -- and give beekeepers the ability to respond to issues. Equipped with a camera and a robotic arm, they're able to regularly snap images of the frames inside the BeeHome, which Safra likened to an MRI. The amount of data they capture is staggering. Each frame contains up to 6,000 cells where bees can, among other things, gestate larvae or store honey and pollen. A hive contains up to 15 frames and a BeeHome can hold up to 10 hives, providing thousands of data points for Beewise's AI to analyze.

While a trained beekeeper can quickly look at a frame and assess its health, AI can do it even faster, as well as take in information on individual bees in the photos. Should AI spot a warning sign, such as a dearth of new larvae or the presence of mites, beekeepers will get an update on an app that a colony requires attention. The company's technology earned it a BloombergNEF Pioneers award earlier this year. "There's other technologies that we've tried that can give us some of those metrics as well, but it's really a look in the rearview mirror," [said Zac Ellis, the senior director of agronomy at OFI, a global food and ingredient seller]. "What really attracted us to Beewise is their ability to not only understand what's happening in that hive, but to actually act on those different metrics."

[ Read more of this story ]( https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/25/06/30/230235/how-robotic-hives-and-ai-are-lowering-the-risk-of-bee-colony-collapse?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

В пакете sudo, применяемом для организации выполнения команд от имени других пользователей, выявлена уязвимость (CVE-2025-32463), позволяющая любому непривилегированному пользователю выполнить код с правами root, даже если пользователь не упомянут в конфигурации sudoers. Проблеме подвержены дистрибутивы, использующие файл конфигурации /etc/nsswitch.conf, например, возможность эксплуатации уязвимости продемонстрирована в Ubuntu 24.04 и Fedora 41.

https://www.opennet.ru/opennews/art.shtml?num=63505

Компания Valve опубликовала июньское обновление клиента сервиса доставки игр Steam для Linux. Выпуск примечателен включением по умолчанию пакета Proton для запуска игр, не имеющих родной сборки для Linux. Ранее для данной возможности требовалось отдельно активировать опцию "Enable SteamPlay for other titles" в настройках. Также в версии для Linux ускорена установка обновлений, которая в некоторых ситуациях занимала минуты, а теперь выполняется за несколько секунд.

https://www.opennet.ru/opennews/art.shtml?num=63504

"For-profit companies are pushing the narrative that they can do space inexpensively," writes Slashdot reader RUs1729 in response to an opinion piece from SpaceNews. "Their track record reveals otherwise: cutting corners won't do it for the foreseeable future." Here's an excerpt from the article, written by Robert N. Eberhart: The headlines in the space industry over the past month have delivered a sobering reminder: space is not forgiving, and certainly not friendly to overpromising entrepreneurs. From iSpace's second failed lunar landing attempt (making them 0 for 2) to SpaceX's ongoing Starship test flight setbacks -- amid a backdrop of exploding prototypes and shifting goalposts -- the evidence is mounting that the commercialization of space is not progressing in the triumphant arc that press releases might suggest. This isn't just a series of flukes. It points to a structural, strategic and cultural problem in how we talk about innovation, cost and success in space today.

Let's be blunt: 50 years ago, we did this. We sent humans to the moon, not once but repeatedly, and brought them back. With less computational power than your phone, using analog systems and slide rules, we achieved feats of incredible precision, reliability and coordination. Today's failures, even when dressed up as "learning opportunities," raises the obvious question: Why are we struggling to do now what we once achieved decades ago with far more complexity and far less technology?

Until very recently, the failure rate of private lunar exploration efforts underscored this reality. Over the past two decades, not a single private mission had fully succeeded -- until last March when Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost lander touched down on the moon. It marked the first fully successful soft landing by a private company. That mission deserves real credit. But that credit comes with important context: It took two decades of false starts, crashes and incomplete landings -- from Space IL's Beresheet to iSpace's Hakuto-R and Astrobotic's Peregrine -- before even one private firm delivered on the promise of lunar access. The prevailing industry answer -- "we need to innovate for lower cost" -- rings hollow. What's happening now isn't innovation; it's aspiration masquerading as disruption... "This is not a call for a retreat to Cold War models or Apollo-era budgets," writes Eberhart, in closing. "It's a call for seriousness. If we're truly entering a new space age, then it needs to be built on sound engineering, transparent economics and meaningful technical leadership -- not PR strategy. Let's stop pretending that burning money in orbit is a business model."

"The dream of a sustainable, entrepreneurial space ecosystem is still alive. But it won't happen unless we stop celebrating hype and start demanding results. Until then, the real innovation we need is not in spacecraft -- it's in accountability."

Robert N. Eberhart, PhD, is an associate professor of management and the faculty director of the Ahlers Center for International Business at the Knauss School of Business of University of San Diego. He is the author of several academic publications and books. He is also part of Oxford University's Smart Space Initiative and contributed to Berkeley's Space Sciences Laboratory. Before his academic career, Prof. Eberhart founded and ran a successful company in Japan.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://science.slashdot.org/story/25/06/30/2249225/space-is-hard-there-is-no-excuse-for-pretending-its-easy?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

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Опубликован релиз Phosh 0.48, экранной оболочки для мобильных устройств, основанной на технологиях GNOME и библиотеке GTK. Окружение изначально развивалось компанией Purism в качестве аналога GNOME Shell для смартфона Librem 5, но затем вошло в число неофициальных проектов GNOME и используется в postmarketOS, Mobian, Droidian, некоторых прошивках для устройств Pine64 и редакции Fedora для смартфонов. Phosh использует композитный сервер Phoc, работающий поверх Wayland, а также собственную экранную клавиатуру squeekboard. Наработки проекта распространяются под лицензией GPLv3+.

https://www.opennet.ru/opennews/art.shtml?num=63503

Компания "Базальт СПО" выпустила новую версию дистрибутива Linux для образовательных организаций — «Альт Образование» 11.0, построенного на основе 11 платформы ALT (p11). Дистрибутив предназначен для повседневного использования дошкольными организациями, школами, вузами, средними специальными учебными заведениями. Продукт распространяется в рамках Лицензионного договора, который предоставляет возможность свободного использования физическими лицами. Коммерческие и государственные организации могут загружать и тестировать дистрибутив, но для постоянной работы в корпоративной инфраструктуре юридическим лицам необходимо приобретать лицензии или заключать лицензионные договоры в письменной форме. Сборки подготовлены для платформ x86_64 и AArch64.

https://www.opennet.ru/opennews/art.shtml?num=63501

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: Four teams of humanoid robots took each other on in Beijing [on Saturday], in games of three-a-side powered by artificial intelligence. While the modern game has faced accusations of becoming near-robotic in its obsession with tactical perfection, the games in China showed that AI won't be taking Kylian Mbappe's job just yet. Footage of the humanoid kickabout showed the robots struggling to kick the ball or stay upright, performing pratfalls that would have earned their flesh-and-blood counterparts a yellow card for diving. At least two robots were stretchered off after failing to regain their feet after going to ground.

[...] The competition was fought between university teams, which adapted the robots with their own algorithms. In the final match, Tsinghua University's THU Robotics defeated the China Agricultural University's Mountain Sea team with a score of 5-3 to win the championship. One Tsinghua supporter celebrated their victory while also praising the competition. "They [THU] did really well," he said. "But the Mountain Sea team was also impressive. They brought a lot of surprises." Cheng Hao, CEO of Booster Robotics, said he envisions future matches between humans and robots, though he acknowledges current robots still lag behind in performance. He also said safety will need to be a top priority.

You can watch highlights of the match on YouTube.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/25/06/30/224233/china-hosts-first-fully-autonomous-ai-robot-football-match?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Google has signed a deal to purchase 200 megawatts of future fusion energy from Commonwealth Fusion Systems, despite the energy source not yet existing. "It's a sign of how hungry big tech companies are for a virtually unlimited source of clean power that is still years away," reports CNN. From the report: Google and Massachusetts-based Commonwealth Fusion Systems announced a deal Monday in which the tech company bought 200 megawatts of power from Commonwealth's first commercial fusion plant, the same amount of energy that could power roughly 200,000 average American homes. Commonwealth aims to build the plant in Virginia by the early 2030s. When it starts generating usable fusion energy is still TBD, though the company believes they can do it in the same timeframe.

Google is also investing a second round of money into Commonwealth to spur development of its demonstration tokamak -- a donut-shaped machine that uses massive magnets and molten plasma to force two atoms to merge, thereby creating the energy of the sun. Google and Commonwealth did not disclose how much money is being invested, but both touted the announcement as a major step toward fusion commercialization. "We're using this purchasing power that we have to send a demand signal to the market for fusion energy and hopefully move (the) technology forward," said Michael Terrell, senior director of energy and climate at Google.

Commonwealth is currently building its demonstration plant in Massachusetts, known as SPARC. It's the tokamak the company says could forever change where the world gets its power from, generating 10 million times more energy than coal or natural gas while producing no planet-warming pollution. Fuel for fusion is abundant, derived from a form of hydrogen found in seawater and tritium extracted from lithium. And unlike nuclear fission, there is no radioactive waste involved. The big challenge is that no one has yet built a machine powerful and precise enough to get more energy out of the reaction than they put into it.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/25/06/30/2143225/google-buys-200-megawatts-of-fusion-energy-that-doesnt-even-exist-yet?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

BrianFagioli shares a report from NERDS.xyz: NASA is coming to Netflix. No, not a drama or sci-fi reboot. The space agency is actually bringing real rocket launches, astronaut spacewalks, and even views of Earth from space directly to your favorite streaming service. Starting this summer, NASA+ will be available on Netflix, giving the space-curious a front-row seat to live mission coverage and other programming.

The space agency is hoping this move helps it connect with a much bigger audience, and considering Netflix reaches over 700 million people, that's not a stretch. This partnership is about accessibility. NASA already offers NASA+ for free, without ads, through its app and website. But now it's going where the eyeballs are. If people won't come to the space agency, the space agency will come to them.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://entertainment.slashdot.org/story/25/06/30/2135227/nasa-to-stream-rocket-launches-and-spacewalks-on-netflix?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Thousands of Norwegians briefly believed they had won massive Eurojackpot prizes after a manual coding error by Norsk Tipping mistakenly multiplied winnings by 100 instead of dividing. The Register reports: Eurojackpot, a pan-European lottery launched in 2012, holds two draws per week, and its jackpots start at about $12 million with a rollover cap of $141 million. Norsk Tipping, Norway's Eurojackpot administrator, admitted on Friday that a "manual error" it its conversion process from Eurocents to Norwegian kroner multiplied amounts by 100 instead of dividing them. As a result, "thousands" of players were briefly shown jackpots far higher than their actual winnings before the mistake was caught, but no incorrect payouts were made.

Norsk Tipping didn't disclose how large the false jackpots were, but math suggests the improper amounts were 10,000x times higher. Regardless, it seems like a lot of people thought they were big winners, based on what the company's now-former CEO, Tonje Sagstuen, said on Saturday. "I have received many messages from people who had managed to make plans for holidays, buying an apartment or renovating before they realized that the amount was wrong," Sagstuen said in a statement. "To them I can only say: Sorry!" The incorrect prize amounts were visible on the Norsk Tipping website only briefly on Friday, but the CEO still resigned over the weekend following the incident.

While one of the Norsk Tipping press releases regarding the incident described it as "not a technical error," it still appears someone fat-fingered a bit of data entry. The company said it will nonetheless be investigating how such a mistake could have happened "to prevent something similar from happening again."

[ Read more of this story ]( https://science.slashdot.org/story/25/06/30/2131215/norwegian-lotto-mistakenly-told-thousands-they-were-filthy-rich-after-math-error?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Tom's Hardware: Microsoft EVP Yusuf Mehdi said in a blog post last week that Windows powers over a billion active devices globally. This might sound like a healthy number, but according to ZDNET, the Microsoft annual report for 2022 said that more than 1.4 billion devices were running Windows 10 or 11. Given that these documents contain material information and have allegedly been pored over by the tech giant's lawyers, we can safely assume that Windows' user base has been quietly shrinking in the past three years, shedding around 400 million users.

This is probably why Microsoft has been aggressively pushing users to upgrade to Windows 11 after the previous version of the OS loses support -- so that its users would install the latest version of Windows on their current system (or get a new PC if their system is incapable of running the latest version). Although macOS is a threat to Windows, especially with the launch of Apple Silicon, we cannot say that those 400 million users all went and bought a MacBook. That's because, as far back as 2023, Mac sales have also been dropping, with Statista reporting the computer line, once holding more than 85% of the company revenue, now making up just 7.7%. The shrinking Windows user base can be attributed to a combination of factors -- a major one being the global move toward a mobile-first world, where smartphones and tablets are increasingly replacing traditional PCs for everyday computing needs.

At the same time, Microsoft's strict hardware requirements for Windows 11 have alienated users with perfectly functional older machines, prompting some to stick with unsupported versions or abandon Windows entirely. Additionally, many users find Windows 11 less intuitive than its predecessor and are frustrated by Microsoft's push toward data collection and Apple-style design changes.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/06/30/2123239/windows-user-base-shrinks-by-400-million-in-three-years?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Oracle has signed a landmark $30 billion annual cloud deal -- nearly triple the size of its current cloud infrastructure business -- with revenue expected to begin in fiscal year 2028. The deal was disclosed in a regulatory filing Monday without the customer being named. Bloomberg reports: "Oracle is off to a strong start" in its fiscal year 2026, Chief Executive Officer Safra Catz said in the filing. The company has signed "multiple large cloud services agreements," she said, adding that revenue from Oracle's namesake database that runs on other clouds continues to grow more than 100%.

The $30-billion deal ranks among the largest cloud contracts on record. That revenue alone would represent nearly three times the size of Oracle's current infrastructure business, which totaled $10.3 billion over the past four quarters. A major cloud contract awarded in 2022 from the US Defense Department, that runs through 2028 and could be worth as much as $9 billion, is split among four companies, including Oracle. That award was a shift after an earlier contract worth $10 billion was awarded to Microsoft and was contested in court.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://developers.slashdot.org/story/25/06/30/218226/oracle-inks-cloud-deal-worth-30-billion-a-year?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Automattic has put its plan to migrate Tumblr's backend to WordPress on hold, with CEO Matt Mullenweg citing a shift in focus toward features users are actively requesting. "I still want to do it," Mullenweg says. "It's just cleaner. But right now, we're not working on it." The Verge reports: The decision to halt the change also appears to mean that Tumblr posts won't be available in the fediverse in the near future. WordPress.com currently offers an ActivityPub plug-in, so Tumblr moving onto WordPress would theoretically let people bring Tumblr posts to the fediverse. "That would've been a free way to get it," Mullenweg says. "And so that was one of the arguments for migrating everything to WordPress."

In the meantime, however, "I think if there was a big push to implement fediverse, we would just do it on the Tumblr code base," according to Mullenweg.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/06/30/211204/tumblrs-move-to-wordpress-and-fediverse-integration-is-on-hold?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

HP is developing a "PCFax" system similar to CarFax for used cars that securely collects and stores detailed device usage and health data at the firmware level to extend the life of PCs and reduce e-waste. A team of HP experts outlines the system in a recent IEEE Spectrum report: The secure telemetry protocol we've developed at HP works as follows. We gather the critical hardware and sensor data and store it in a designated area of the SSD. This area is write-locked, meaning only authorized firmware components can write to it, preventing accidental modification or tampering. That authorized firmware component we us is the Endpoint Security Controller, a dedicated piece of hardware embedded in business class HP PCs. It plays a critical role in strengthening platform-level security and works independently from the main CPU to provide foundational protection.

The endpoint security controller establishes a secure session by retaining the secret key within the controller itself. This mechanism enables read data protection on the SSD -- where telemetry and sensitive data are stored -- by preventing unauthorized access, even if the operating system is reinstalled or the system environment is otherwise altered. Then, the collected data is recorded in a timestamped file, stored within a dedicated telemetry log on the SSD. Storing these records on the SSD has the benefit of ensuring the data is persistent even if the operating system is reinstalled or some other drastic change in software environment occurs. The telemetry log employs a cyclic buffer design, automatically overwriting older entries when the log reaches full capacity. Then, the telemetry log can be accessed by authorized applications at the operating system level.

The telemetry log serves as the foundation for a comprehensive device history report. Much like a CarFax report for used cars, this report, which we call PCFax, will provide both current users and potential buyers with crucial information. The PCFax report aggregates data from multiple sources beyond just the on-device telemetry logs. It combines the secure firmware-level usage data with information from HP's factory and supply chain records, digital services platforms, customer support service records, diagnostic logs, and more. Additionally, the system can integrate data from external sources including partner sales and service records, refurbishment partner databases, third-party component manufacturers like Intel, and other original equipment manufacturers. This multi-source approach creates a complete picture of the device's entire lifecycle, from manufacturing through all subsequent ownership and service events.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://slashdot.org/story/25/06/30/2052250/carfax-for-used-pcs-hewlett-packard-wants-to-give-laptops-new-life?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Freelance workers using AI tools are earning significantly more than their counterparts, with AI-related freelance earnings climbing 25% year over year and AI freelancers commanding over 40% higher hourly rates than non-AI workers, according to new data from Upwork.

The freelance marketplace analyzed over 130 work categories and tracked millions of job posts over six months, finding that generative AI is simultaneously replacing low-complexity, repetitive tasks while creating demand for AI-augmented work. Workers using AI for augmentation outnumber those using it for automation by more than 2 to 1. Freelancers with coding skills comprising at least 25% of their work now earn 11% more for identical jobs compared to November 2022 when ChatGPT launched.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://slashdot.org/story/25/06/30/1959225/freelancers-using-ai-tools-earn-40-more-per-hour-than-peers-study-says?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Apple must face the U.S. Department of Justice's lawsuit accusing the iPhone maker of unlawfully dominating the U.S. smartphone market, a judge ruled on Monday. From a report: U.S. District Judge Julien Neals in Newark, New Jersey, denied Apple's motion to dismiss the lawsuit accusing the company of using restrictions on third-party app and device developers to keep users from switching to competitors and unlawfully dominate the market.

The decision would allow the case to go forward in what could be a years-long fight for Apple against enforcers' attempt to lower what they say are barriers to competition with Apple's iPhone.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://apple.slashdot.org/story/25/06/30/204242/apple-loses-bid-to-dismiss-us-smartphone-monopoly-case?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) has a plan for spectrum auctions that could take frequencies away from Wi-Fi and reallocate them for the exclusive use of wireless carriers. The plan would benefit AT&T, which is based in Cruz's home state, along with Verizon and T-Mobile.

Cruz's proposal revives a years-old controversy over whether the entire 6 GHz band should be devoted to Wi-Fi, which can use the large spectrum band for faster speeds than networks that rely solely on the 2.4 and 5 GHz bands. Congress is on the verge of passing legislation that would require spectrum to be auctioned off for full-power, commercially licensed use, and the question is where that spectrum will come from.

When the House of Representatives passed its so-called "One Big Beautiful Bill," it excluded all of the frequencies between 5.925 and 7.125 gigahertz from the planned spectrum auctions. But Cruz's version of the budget reconciliation bill, which is moving quickly toward a final vote, removed the 6 GHz band's protection from spectrum auctions. The Cruz bill is also controversial because it would penalize states that regulate artificial intelligence.

Instead of excluding the 6 GHz band from auctions, Cruz's bill would instead exclude the 7.4-8.4 GHz band used by the military. Under conditions set by the bill, it could be hard for the Commerce Department and Federal Communications Commission to fulfill the Congressional mandate without taking some spectrum away from Wi-Fi.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://mobile.slashdot.org/story/25/06/30/2011219/senate-gop-budget-bill-has-little-noticed-provision-that-could-hurt-your-wi-fi?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Apple is considering using AI technology from Anthropic or OpenAI to power a new version of Siri, according to Bloomberg, sidelining its own in-house models in a potentially blockbuster move aimed at turning around its flailing AI effort. From the report: The iPhone maker has talked with both companies about using their large language models for Siri, according to people familiar with the discussions. It has asked them to train versions of their models that could run on Apple's cloud infrastructure for testing, said the people, who asked not to be identified discussing private deliberations.

If Apple ultimately moves forward, it would represent a monumental reversal. The company currently powers most of its AI features with homegrown technology that it calls Apple Foundation Models and had been planning a new version of its voice assistant that runs on that technology for 2026. A switch to Anthropic's Claude or OpenAI's ChatGPT models for Siri would be an acknowledgment that the company is struggling to compete in generative AI -- the most important new technology in decades. Apple already allows ChatGPT to answer web-based search queries in Siri, but the assistant itself is powered by Apple.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://apple.slashdot.org/story/25/06/30/1918231/apple-weighs-using-anthropic-or-openai-to-power-siri-in-major-reversal?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

TorrentFreak spotlights VP.net, a brand-new service from Private Internet Access founder Andrew Lee (the guy who gifted Linux Journal to Slashdot) that eliminates the classic "just trust your VPN" problem by locking identity-mapping and traffic-handling inside Intel SGX enclaves.

The company promises 'cryptographically verifiable privacy' by using special hardware 'safes' (Intel SGX), so even the provider can't track what its users are up to.

The design goal is that no one, not even the VPN company, can link "User X" to "Website Y."

Lee frames it as enabling agency over one's privacy:

"Our zero trust solution does not require you to trust us - and that's how it should be. Your privacy should be up to your choice - not up to some random VPN provider in some random foreign country."

The team behind VP.net includes CEO Matt Kim as well as arguably the first Bitcoin veterans Roger Ver and Mark Karpeles.

Ask Slashdot: Now that there's a VPN where you don't have to "just trust the provider" - arguably the first real zero-trust VPN - are trust based VPNs obsolete?

[ Read more of this story ]( https://news.slashdot.org/story/25/06/30/1852224/vpnet-promises-cryptographically-verifiable-privacy?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Automattic CEO Matt Mullenweg said he regrets telling the media that "WordPress.org just belongs to me personally" during a new interview about his company's legal dispute with hosting provider WP Engine. The comment has been "taken out of context so many times" and represents "the worst thing ever," Mullenweg said in a new podcast interview with The Verge.

The dispute began when Mullenweg accused WP Engine of "free-riding" on WordPress's open-source ecosystem without contributing adequate resources back to the project. Mullenweg filed a lawsuit against WP Engine while cutting off the company's access to core WordPress technologies. WP Engine countersued, and Automattic was forced to reverse some retaliatory measures.

The controversy triggered significant internal upheaval at Automattic. The company offered "alignment" buyouts to employees who disagreed with the direction, reducing headcount from a peak of 2,100 to approximately 1,500 people. Mullenweg said this was "probably the fourth big time" WordPress has faced such community controversy, though the first in the current media landscape. WordPress powers 43% of websites globally. Mullenweg said he wants to return to "the most collaborative version of WordPress possible" but noted the legal proceedings continue with both sides spending "millions of dollars a month on lawyers."

[ Read more of this story ]( https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/06/30/1825238/wordpress-ceo-regrets-belongs-to-me-comment-amid-ongoing-wp-engine-legal-battle?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

China's transition to digital payments has reached the point where physical cash has nearly vanished from daily commerce, with WeChat and Alipay now handling transactions from supermarkets to public transportation across the world's second-largest economy. Many businesses no longer maintain traditional cash registers and instead scan QR codes presented by customers, while numerous taxis refuse cash payments entirely.

The widespread adoption has given tech giants Tencent and Alibaba immense power over routine financial transactions, prompting China's central bank to develop a competing digital yuan currency.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://slashdot.org/story/25/06/30/188259/in-china-coins-and-banknotes-have-all-but-disappeared?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Microsoft's new AI diagnostic system achieved 80% accuracy in diagnosing patients compared to 20% for human doctors, while reducing costs by 20%, according to company research published Monday. The MAI Diagnostic Orchestrator queries multiple leading AI models including OpenAI's GPT, Google's Gemini, Anthropic's Claude, Meta's Llama, and xAI's Grok in what the company describes as a "chain-of-debate style" approach.

The system was tested against 304 case studies from the New England Journal of Medicine using Microsoft's Sequential Diagnosis Benchmark, which breaks down each case into step-by-step diagnostic processes that mirror how human physicians work. Microsoft CEO of AI Mustafa Suleyman called the development "a genuine step toward medical superintelligence."

[ Read more of this story ]( https://science.slashdot.org/story/25/06/30/1712220/microsofts-new-ai-tool-outperforms-doctors-4-to-1-in-diagnostic-accuracy?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Avantare writes: Microsoft Authenticator houses your passwords and lets you sign into all of your Microsoft accounts using a PIN, facial recognition such as Windows Hello, or other biometric data, like a fingerprint. Authenticator can be used in other ways, such as verifying you're logging in if you forgot your password, or using two-factor authentication as an extra layer of security for your Microsoft accounts.

In June, Microsoft stopped letting users add passwords to Authenticator, but here's a timeline of other changes you can expect, according to Microsoft:

July 2025: You won't be able to use the autofill password function.
August 2025: You'll no longer be able to use saved passwords.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://it.slashdot.org/story/25/06/30/1631240/microsoft-authenticator-will-stop-supporting-passwords?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Companies deliberately design customer service friction to discourage refunds and claims, according to research into a practice academics call "sludge." The term, coined by legal scholar Cass R. Sunstein and economist Richard H. Thaler in their updated version of "Nudge," describes tortuous administrative demands, endless wait times, and excessive procedural fuss that impede customers.

ProPublica reported in 2023 that Cigna saved millions of dollars by rejecting claims without having doctors read them. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau ordered Toyota's motor-financing arm to pay $60 million for alleged misdeeds including deliberately setting up dead-end hotlines for canceling products and services. The 2023 National Customer Rage Survey found that the percentage of American consumers seeking revenge for customer service hassles had tripled in three years.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://it.slashdot.org/story/25/06/30/163250/that-dropped-call-with-customer-service-it-was-on-purpose?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Apple plans to release a cheaper MacBook powered by the A18 Pro chip used in the iPhone 16 Pro line, according to analyst Ming-Chi Kuo. The laptop will be priced below $999 -- first time for a MacBook Air -- and go into production in late 2025 or early 2026 on the new laptop, the analyst noted.

The device will feature the same 13-inch screen as the current MacBook Air, with the chip representing the primary difference between models. The A18 Pro chip delivers single-core performance around 3,500 on Geekbench, trailing the M4 chip only slightly, though multicore performance lags significantly at approximately 8,780 versus 15,000 for the M4. The A18's multicore performance matches the original 2020 M1 chip.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://apple.slashdot.org/story/25/06/30/1434217/apple-plans-first-sub-999-macbook-using-iphone-chip-analyst-says?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

A founding member of the Xbox team says she believes Xbox hardware is "dead" and that Microsoft appears to be planning a "slow exit" from the gaming hardware business. Microsoft recently announced partnerships with external hardware companies including the ROG Xbox Ally, which runs Windows and functions as a portable PC that can run games from external stores like Steam.

Laura Fryer, one of Microsoft Game Studios' first employees who worked as a producer on the original Gears of War games and served as director of the Xbox Advanced Technology Group, called the partnerships evidence of Microsoft's inability to ship hardware. "Personally, I think Xbox hardware is dead. The plan appears to be to just drive everybody to Game Pass," Fryer said.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://games.slashdot.org/story/25/06/30/1424255/xbox-founding-team-member-says-xbox-hardware-is-dead?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Nintendo pulled its products from Amazon's US site after a disagreement over unauthorized sales, meaning the e-commerce company missed out on the recent debut of Nintendo's Switch 2 -- the biggest game console launch of all time. From a report: The Japanese company stopped selling on Amazon after noticing that third-party merchants were offering games for sale in the US at prices that undercut Nintendo's advertised rates, according to a person familiar with the situation. Enterprising sellers were buying Nintendo products in bulk in Southeast Asia and exporting them to the US, said the person, who requested anonymity to discuss confidential information.

Nintendo product listings started disappearing from Amazon's US site last year, gaming news outlets reported at the time. The listings had previously appeared as "Sold by Amazon," which typically denotes merchandise the online retailer buys directly from brands. Some Nintendo products remained on the site, but they were listed by independent merchants who sell their goods on Amazon's sprawling online marketplace.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://games.slashdot.org/story/25/06/30/142217/nintendo-pulls-products-from-amazon-us-site?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

"Earth's ozone layer blocks the Sun's shortest wave radiation, called UV-C, which is so damaging to cells in high doses that it's a go-to sterilizer in hospitals," writes Slashdot reader sciencehabit. "UV-C is such a killer, in fact, that scientists have questioned whether life can survive on worlds that lack an ozone layer, such as Mars or distant exoplanets.

"But research published this month in Astrobiology suggests one hardy lichen, a hybrid organism made of algae and fungi, may have cracked the UV-C code with a built-in sunscreen, despite never experiencing these rays in its long evolutionary history."
Science magazine explains:

When scientists brought a sample of the species, the common desert dweller Clavascidium lacinulatum, back to the lab, graduate student Tejinder Singh put the lichen through the wringer. First, Singh dehydrated the lichen, to make sure it couldn't grow back in real time and mask any UV damage. Then he placed the lichen a few centimeters under a UV lamp and blasted it with radiation. The lichen seemed just fine.

So Singh purchased the most powerful UV-C lamp he could find online, capable of sending out 20 times more radiation than the amount expected on Mars. When he tested the lamp on the most radiation-resistant life form on Earth, the bacterium Deinococcus radiodurans, it died in less than a minute. After 3 months—likely the highest amount of UV-C radiation ever tested on an organism—Singh pulled the sample so he could finish his master's thesis in time. About half of the lichen's algal cells had survived. Then, when the team ground up and cultured part of the surviving lichen, about half of its algal cells sprouted new, green colonies after 2 weeks, showing it maintained the ability to reproduce.
The species may provide a blueprint for surviving on Mars or exoplanets, which don't have an ozone layer to protect them.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://science.slashdot.org/story/25/06/30/0425217/uv-c-light-kills-nearly-everything---except-this-unusual-organism?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

"Canada and the United States have resumed trade negotiations," reports Newsweek, "after Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney agreed to rescind the country's digital services tax on U.S. technology companies."

The development follows President Donald Trump's announcement on Friday that he was suspending all trade talks with Canada "effective immediately" over the tax policy... Canada's quick reversal signals the high stakes involved in maintaining trade relationships with the United States, particularly given the countries' deeply integrated economies.

Carney's office confirmed on Sunday that both leaders have agreed to restart negotiations after Canada committed to abandoning the 3 percent levy targeting major U.S. tech giants including Amazon, Google, Meta, Uber, and Airbnb. The tax was scheduled to take effect Monday and would have applied retroactively, creating an estimated $2 billion bill for American companies. The conflict escalated rapidly after Canada's Finance Department confirmed Friday that companies would still be required to make their first digital tax payments Monday, despite ongoing negotiations. The tax targeted revenue generated from Canadian users rather than corporate profits, making it particularly burdensome for technology companies operating internationally...
Canada's decision to rescind the tax came "in anticipation" of reaching a broader trade agreement, according to government officials. With negotiations resuming, both countries will likely focus on addressing broader trade issues beyond the digital services tax.

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