"Researchers have discovered nearly 1.5 million pictures from specialist dating apps — many of which are explicit — being stored online without password protection," reports the BBC, "leaving them vulnerable to hackers and extortionists."

And the images weren't limited to those from profiles, the BBC learned from the ethical hacker who discovered the issue. "They included pictures which had been sent privately in messages, and even some which had been removed by moderators..."

Anyone with the link was able to view the private photos from five platforms developed by M.A.D Mobile [including two kink/BDSM sites and two LGBT apps]... These services are used by an estimated 800,000 to 900,000 people.

M.A.D Mobile was first warned about the security flaw on 20th January but didn't take action until the BBC emailed on Friday. They have since fixed it but not said how it happened or why they failed to protect the sensitive images. Ethical hacker Aras Nazarovas from Cybernews first alerted the firm about the security hole after finding the location of the online storage used by the apps by analysing the code that powers the services...

None of the text content of private messages was found to be stored in this way and the images are not labelled with user names or real names, which would make crafting targeted attacks at users more complex.

In an email M.A.D Mobile said it was grateful to the researcher for uncovering the vulnerability in the apps to prevent a data breach from occurring. But there's no guarantee that Mr Nazarovas was the only hacker to have found the image stash.

"Mr Nazarovas and his team decided to raise the alarm on Thursday while the issue was still live as they were concerned the company was not doing anything to fix it..."

[ Read more of this story ]( https://yro.slashdot.org/story/25/03/30/0236216/nearly-15-million-private-photos-from-five-dating-apps-were-exposed-online?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

После двух лет разработки состоялся выпуск 3.9.4 кроссплатформенного эмулятора терминала [ mlterm ]( https://github.com/arakiken/mlterm ) .

( [ читать дальше... ]( https://www.linux.org.ru/news/opensource/17928036#cut ) )

Организация Xiph.Org, известная разработкой видео- и аудиокодеков Daala, Opus, FLAC, Vorbis и Speex, представила новую редакцию свободного кодека Theora 1.2, сформированную спустя 15 с половиной лет после прошлого обновления. Кодек распространяется под свободной лицензией без сбора лицензионных отчислений (royalty-free). Формат сжатия видео Theora, как правило, используется совместно с аудиокодеком Vorbis в контейнерах Ogg и может работать в режимах с переменным и фиксированным битрейтом. По уровню качества кодирования Theora близок к H.264/DiVX. Эталонная реализация кодека распространяется под лицензией BSD.

https://www.opennet.ru/opennews/art.shtml?num=62986

Опубликован релиз видеоредактора Shotcut 25.03, развиваемого автором проекта MLT и использующего данный фреймворк для редактирования видео. Поддержка форматов видео и звука реализована через FFmpeg. Возможно использование плагинов с реализацией видео и аудио эффектов, совместимых с Frei0r и LADSPA. Из особенностей Shotcut можно отметить возможность многотрекового редактирования с компоновкой видео из фрагментов в различных исходных форматах, без необходимости их предварительного импортирования или перекодирования. Имеются встроенные средства для создания скринкастов, обработки изображения с web-камеры и приёма потокового видео. Код написан на C++ с использованием фреймворка Qt и распространяется под лицензией GPLv3. Готовые сборки доступны для Linux (AppImage, flatpak и snap), macOS и Windows.

https://www.opennet.ru/opennews/art.shtml?num=62985

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spnet.stats............7 ███████
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Samsung teased its "AI Vision Inside" refrigerators at January's CES tradeshow. (Its internal sensors can now detect 37 different fresh ingredients and 50 processed foods, generating lists for your cellphone or a screen on your refrigerator's door.)

But the refrigerators are part of a larger "AI Home" lineup of screen-enabled appliances with advanced AI features, and Engadget got to see them all together this weekend at Samsung's Bespoke AI conference in Seoul, Korea:
The centerpiece of the Bespoke line remains Samsung's 4-door French-Door refrigerator, which is now available with two different-sized screens. There's a model with a smaller 9-inch screen that starts at $3,999 or one with a massive 32-inch panel called the Family Hub+ for $4,699. The former is ostensibly designed for people who want something a bit more discreet but still want access to Samsung's smart features, which includes widgets for your calendar, music, weather, various cooking apps and more. Meanwhile, the larger model is for families who aren't afraid of having a small TV in their face every time they open their fridge. You can even play videos from TikTok on it, if that's what you're into....

For cooking, Samsung's matte glass induction cooktops are mostly the same, but its Bespoke 30-inch single ($3,759) and double ($4,649) wall ovens have...you guessed it, more AI. In addition to a 7-inch display, there are also cameras and sensors inside the oven that can recognize up to 80 different recipes to provide optimal cooking times. But if you prefer to go off-script and create something original, Samsung says the oven will give you the option to save the recipe and temperature settings after cooking the same dish five times. And for a more fun application of its tech, the oven's cameras can record videos and create time-lapses of your baked goods for sharing on social media.
When it's time to clean up, Samsung's $1,399 Bespoke Auto Open Door Dishwasher has a few tricks of its own. In this case, the washer uses AI (yet again) and sensors to more accurately detect food residue and optimize cleaning cycles...

There's also an "AI Jet Ultra Cordless Stick" vacuum cleaner, which "uses AI to better detect what surface its on to more effectively hoover up dirt and debris."

Interestingly, in January Samsung's refrigerators also got a mention in iFixit's "Worst of CES" video.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://slashdot.org/story/25/03/30/0421248/samsung-unveils-ai-powered-screen-enabled-home-appliances?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Опубликован выпуск консольной утилиты nvtop 3.2.0, предназначенной для интерактивного мониторинга работы GPU и аппаратных ускорителей. Утилита позволяет наглядно отслеживать на графиках нагрузку, потребление памяти и изменение частоты GPU, а также просматривать процессы, наиболее активно нагружающие GPU. Поддерживаются GPU и ускорители компаний AMD, Intel, NVIDIA, Apple (M1 & M2), Huawei (Ascend), Qualcomm и Broadcom (VideoCore). Возможно отслеживание на одном экране работы сразу нескольких чипов.

https://www.opennet.ru/opennews/art.shtml?num=62983

TOP10 VISITORS:

[1] 45.135.180.x point=224 web=0 up=18.6MB (29%) <--- yesterlink (9/hr)
[2] 37.252.14.x point=106 web=0 up=13.0MB (20%) <--- ake (4/hr)
[3] 80.87.199.x point=71 web=0 up=6.8MB (10%) <--- tgi (3/hr)
[4] 24.130.121.x point=58 web=35 up=6.4MB (10%) <--- spnet (2/hr)
[5] Facebook point=0 web=247 up=3.0MB (4%)
[6] DataForSeoBot point=0 web=48 up=2.9MB (4%)
[7] PetalBot point=157 web=492 up=2.5MB (4%) <--- PetalBot (7/hr)
[8] 217.114.158.x point=25 web=0 up=0.9MB (1%) <--- fox (1/hr)
[9] Google point=3 web=160 up=0.8MB (1%) <--- Google
[10] TikTok point=0 web=109 up=0.3MB (<1%)

TOTAL TRAFFIC: 62MB

Спустя семь лет с прошлого выпуска и двенадцать с половиной лет с момента публикации ветки 2.7 представлен релиз утилиты GNU patch 2.8. Утилита позволяет применить к файлам патчи, включающие списки изменений, созданные программой diff. Код написан на языке Си и распространяется под лицензией GPLv3+.

https://www.opennet.ru/opennews/art.shtml?num=62982

"I've been dreaming of this moment for 20 years," says Aptera co-CEO Steve Fambro. Aptera's solar-powered electric car just drove 300 miles on a single charge.

"We're one step closer to a future where every journey is powered by the sun," Aptera says in their announcement.

"This go around, Aptera took to the highway for the first time ever..." writes the EV blog Electrek. "At one point, Aptera's video noted that its solar EV was pulling over 545 watts of solar input, even though it was overcast."

"Less time searching for chargers," Aptera says in their announcement, adding that their "production-intent" car proved "that a solar EV isn't just a concept for the future, but a real-world solution ready for the present" — while turning Route 66 into "a test bed for a vehicle built to thrive independently..."

"The panoramic windshield gives you this incredible view of the landscape," Steve said [in a video accompanying the announcement], describing the drive. "It's like a big picture window into the future."
The final stretch took the team back into California, where they reflected on the journey, the data, and the excited reactions from drivers who caught a glimpse of the vehicle on the road. "Almost everyone we passed had their phones out filming us," Steve laughed. "It's clear that Aptera's design stops traffic — without needing to stop for a charge."

"I was struck by how normal this trip seemed, except for all the gawking from fellow travelers," writes long-time Slashdot reader AirHog. "Best of luck to Aptera to reach their funding and production goals this year for this remarkable vehicle."

They drove on highways to Lake Havasu, and then to California's Imperial Valley — starting in Flagstaff, Arizona on symbolic Route 66. It was 100 years ago that Route 66 was proposed to link Chicago and Los Angeles, which Fambro credits to a visionary who believed in "something bigger than the road itself — believing in what it could unlock for the world."
"And they did it. Route 66 became one of the most iconic highways in America, proving that what once seemed improbable could become inevitable.

"I think about that alot with Aptera. We're building something people say can't be done. History shows us the boldest ideas, the ones that challenge that status quo are the ones that truly change the world.

They take their futuristic, tear-dropped shaped "Jetsons" car to a drive-through wildlife refuge named Bearizona. They stop at a general store for some beef jerky. "We're just having a fun time seeing all the sights."

"I've been dreaming of this moment for 20 years," says Aptera co-CEO Steve Fambro. "Driving in the most efficient vehicle on the road. Watching the sights go by. I got emotional just taking it all in."

"This company. This idea. It's real. It's visceral. And I'm just so proud of each and every person who helped make this dream a reality.

"We have the chance to make a real change in how the world moves. The road hasn't been easy. It's been painful, difficult. And it's brought me to my breaking point sometimes. But being in this moment right now? I can say it's all been worth it...

"I feel we're at the forefront of something truly revolutionary. We're not fighting an uphill battle any more. We're standing at the edge of something incredible. Ready to break through.

"To all of you who supported us, my commitment is this. We're not stopping. We're moving forward with more energy and more passion than ever. The road ahead is an open highway. And the future is ours to shape."

To celebrate Aptera is holding a giveaway for a camping kit, a $100 gift card to their online store, and a free Aptera pre-order to a winner chosen at random from those who subscribe/watch/comment on their new video...

[ Read more of this story ]( https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/25/03/30/026200/aptera-takes-first-300-mile-highway-trip-in-solar-powered-ev?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Some scientists believe life on earth originated in organic matter in earth's bodies of water more than 3.5 billion years ago," reports CNN. "But where did that organic material come from...?"

Maybe electrical energy sparked the beginnings of life on earth — just like in Frankenstein:

Researchers decades ago proposed that lightning caused chemical reactions in ancient Earth's oceans and spontaneously produced the organic molecules. Now, new research published March 14 in the journal Science Advances suggests that fizzes of barely visible "microlightning," generated between charged droplets of water mist, could have been potent enough to cook up amino acids from inorganic material.

Amino acids — organic molecules that combine to form proteins — are life's most basic building blocks and would have been the first step toward the evolution of life... For animo acids to form, they need nitrogen atoms that can bond with carbon. Freeing up atoms from nitrogen gas requires severing powerful molecular bonds and takes an enormous amount of energy, according to astrobiologist and geobiologist Dr. Amy J. Williams [an associate professor in the department of geosciences at the University of Florida who was not involved in the research]. "Lightning, or in this case, microlightning, has the energy to break molecular bonds and therefore facilitate the generation of new molecules that are critical to the origin of life on Earth," Williams told CNN in an email...

For the new study, scientists revisited the 1953 experiments but directed their attention toward electrical activity on a smaller scale, said senior study author Dr. Richard Zare, the Marguerite Blake Wilbur Professor of Natural Science and professor of chemistry at Stanford University in California. Zare and his colleagues looked at electricity exchange between charged water droplets measuring between 1 micron and 20 microns in diameter. (The width of a human hair is 100 microns....) The researchers mixed ammonia, carbon dioxide, methane and nitrogen in a glass bulb, then sprayed the gases with water mist, using a high-speed camera to capture faint flashes of microlightning in the vapor. When they examined the bulb's contents, they found organic molecules with carbon-nitrogen bonds. These included the amino acid glycine and uracil, a nucleotide base in RNA... "What we have done, for the first time, is we have seen that little droplets, when they're formed from water, actually emit light and get this spark," Zare said. "That's new. And that spark causes all types of chemical transformations...."

Even on a volatile Earth billions of years ago, lightning may have been too infrequent to produce amino acids in quantities sufficient for life — a fact that has cast doubt on such theories in the past, Zare said. Water spray, however, would have been more common than lightning. A more likely scenario is that mist-generated microlightning constantly zapped amino acids into existence from pools and puddles, where the molecules could accumulate and form more complex molecules, eventually leading to the evolution of life.

"We propose," Zare told CNN, "that this is a new mechanism for the prebiotic synthesis of molecules that constitute the building blocks of life."

[ Read more of this story ]( https://science.slashdot.org/story/25/03/29/2326255/did-life-on-earth-come-from-microlightning-between-charged-water-droplets?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Though it's stock price is still up 200% from its IPO in March of 2024
— last week Reddit's stock had dropped nearly 50% since February 7th.

And then this week, it dropped another 10%, reports Bloomberg, citing both the phenomenon of "volatile technology stocks under pressure" — but also specifically "the gloomy sentiment around Reddit..."

The social media platform has struggled to recover since an earnings report in February showed that it is failing to keep up with larger digital advertising peers such as Meta Platforms Inc. and Alphabet Inc.'s Google, which have higher user figures. Reddit's outlook seemed precarious because its U.S. traffic took a hit from a change in Google's search algorithm.

In recent weeks, the short interest in Reddit — a proxy for the volume of bets against the company — has ticked up, and forecasts for the company's share price have fallen. One analyst opened coverage of Reddit this month with a recommendation that investors sell the shares, in part due to the company's heavy reliance on Google. Reddit shares fell more than 5% in intraday trading Friday. "It's been super overvalued," Bob Lang, founder and chief options analyst at Explosive Options said of Reddit. "Their growth rate is very strong, but they still are not making any money." Reddit had a GAAP earnings per share loss of $3.33 in 2024, but reported two consecutive quarters of positive GAAP EPS in the second half of the year...

At its February peak, Reddit's stock had risen over 500% from the $34 initial public offering price last March. Some of the enthusiasm was due to a series of deals in which Reddit was paid to allow its content to be used for training artificial intelligence models. More recently, though, there have been questions about the long-term growth prospects for the artificial intelligence industry.
"On Wall Street, the average price target from analysts has fallen to about $195 from $207 a month ago," the article points out. "That still offers a roughly $85 upside from where shares closed following Thursday's 8% slump..."

Meanwhile Reuters reported that more than 33,000 U.S. Reddit users experienced disruptions on Thursday according to Downdetector.com. "A Reddit spokesperson said the outage was due to a bug in a recent update, which has now been fixed."

[ Read more of this story ]( https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/03/29/2152217/reddits-50-stock-price-plunge-fails-to-entice-buyers-as-growth-slows?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Automotive historian Dan Albert loves the "adorable tiny truck" he's driving. It's one of the small Japan-made "kei" pickups and minivans that "make up about a third of car sales in Japan." Americans can legally import older models for less than $10,000, and getting 40 miles per gallon they're "Cheap to buy and run... rugged, practical, no-frills machines — exactly what the American-built pickup truck used to be."

But unfortunately, kei buyers face "bureaucratic roadblocks that states like Massachusetts have erected to keep kei cars and trucks out of the hands of U.S. drivers."

Several state departments of motor vehicles (DMVs) have balked at registering the imported machines, saying that they're too unsafe for American streets. Owners have responded with a righteous mix of good humor, lobbying and lawsuits... Kei trucks do not meet the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards, or FMVSS — the highly specific rules US-market new cars must meet. But since 1988, the Imported Vehicle Safety Compliance Act has exempted vehicles that are at least 25 years old from these crash safety standards, allowing drivers to bring over vintage European and Asian market models...

Getting insurance coverage was the next barrier, as the company that had long been underwriting the Albert family's fleet also rejected me, forcing me to seek out a specialty "collector car" insurer. (I did eventually get regular coverage....) Maine, Rhode Island, New York, Pennsylvania, Georgia, Virginia, and Michigan also tightened their rules on registering small Japanese imports in recent years. The culprit, according to the auto enthusiast press, was the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators, the trade organization that serves as the lobbying and policy arm of DMVs across North America. Much of AAMVA's work involves integrating the databases of the 69 US and Canadian motor vehicle jurisdictions who are its members, so that a car stolen in one state can't be titled in another... The kei truck's regulatory troubles can be traced to a 2011 AAMVA report, "Best Practices Regarding Registration and Titling of Mini-Trucks," which called for outright bans and encouraged DMVs to lobby state legislatures to outlaw keis entirely.

The Insurance Institute of Highway Safety concurred, telling AAMVA that its recommendation did not go far enough: The IIHS said that keis should join the class of conveyances that the U.S. government calls Low Speed Vehicles, which are mechanically limited to 25 miles per hour or less and should be used only for short local trips on low-speed-limit roads because they can't protect occupants in the event of a collision with a regular vehicle... [But] By 2008, Japan's kei trucks did feature crumple zones and driver airbags in compliance with that country's safety standards...

Despite its name, the Imported Vehicle Safety Compliance Act that lets older cars into the US from overseas isn't really about safety: Car industry lobbyists secured passage of the law to protect dealer profits. Newer keis — which are banned — are safer and cleaner than the 25-year-old ones that can be imported now. (Battery-powered keis debuted in 2009.) But even mine has an airbag, front crumple zone, seatbelt pretensioners, and anti-lock brakes.

The article notes that kie fans have "a distinctly libertarian streak... Some owners I've talked to report forging titles, setting up shell companies in Montana and finding other means of skirting DMV rules."

Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader schwit1 for sharing the article.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/03/29/2126251/why-did-the-government-declare-war-on-my-adorable-tiny-truck?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

"I am having conversations every day with people whose careers are sort of over," a 53-year-old film and TV director told the New York Times:

If you entered media or image-making in the '90s — magazine publishing, newspaper journalism, photography, graphic design, advertising, music, film, TV — there's a good chance that you are now doing something else for work. That's because those industries have shrunk or transformed themselves radically, shutting out those whose skills were once in high demand... When digital technology began seeping into their lives, with its AOL email accounts, Myspace pages and Napster downloads, it didn't seem like a threat. But by the time they entered the primes of their careers, much of their expertise had become all but obsolete.

More than a dozen members of Generation X interviewed for this article said they now find themselves shut out, economically and culturally, from their chosen fields. "My peers, friends and I continue to navigate the unforeseen obsolescence of the career paths we chose in our early 20s," Mr. Wilcha said. "The skills you cultivated, the craft you honed — it's just gone. It's startling." Every generation has its burdens. The particular plight of Gen X is to have grown up in one world only to hit middle age in a strange new land. It's as if they were making candlesticks when electricity came in. The market value of their skills plummeted...

Typically, workers in their 40s and 50s are entering their peak earning years. But for many Gen-X creatives, compensation has remained flat or decreased, factoring in the rising cost of living. The usual rate for freelance journalists is 50 cents to $1 per word — the same as it was 25 years ago... As opportunities and incomes dwindle, Gen X-ers in creative fields are weighing their options. Move to a lower-cost place and remain committed to the work you love? Look for a bland corporate job that might provide health insurance and a steady paycheck until retirement?

The article includes several examples of the trend:
One magazine's photo studio director says professional photographers have been replaced by "a 20-year-old kid who will do the job for $500." The article adds that "When photography went digital, photo lab technicians and manual retouchers were suddenly as inessential as medieval scribes." (And "In advertising, brands ditched print and TV campaigns that required large crews for marketing plans that relied on social media posts."")
An editor at Spin magazine remembers the day its print edition folded...

And besides competition from influencers, there's also AI, "which seems likely to replace many of the remaining Gen X copywriters, photographers and designers. By 2030, ad agencies in the United States will lose 32,000 jobs, or 7.5 percent of the industry's work force, to the technology, according to the research firm Forrester."

Meanwhile the cost of living has skyrocketed, the article points out — even while Gen X-ers "are less secure financially than baby boomers and lack sufficient retirement savings, according to recent surveys..."

[ Read more of this story ]( https://it.slashdot.org/story/25/03/29/0626254/are-tech-driven-career-meltdowns-hitting-generation-x?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Last week an Air France flight to the Caribbean had to turn around and return to Paris, reports the Washington Post, "after a passenger could not locate their cellphone."

Because of fears that an unattended cellphone could overheat — and because the passenger and crew couldn't find the phone — the Boeing 777 turned around off the coast of France "and returned to the airport, according to the flight-tracking service FlightAware. It landed back where it started a little more than two hours after taking off, with 375 passengers, 12 cabin crew and two pilots on board..."

It was the airline's second Caribbean-bound flight to turn around because of a phone since early February as the aviation industry grapples with the risk of fires sparked by lithium batteries... Air France did not say where on the plane the phone was lost — or where it was ultimately located. "After checks by the maintenance teams, the device was found and the aircraft was able to take off again quickly," the airline said in an unsigned statement. "Air France regrets this situation and reminds that the safety of its customers and crew members is its absolute priority." The plane made it to Guadeloupe, a French overseas territory, about four hours later than scheduled...

The articles notes that U.S. air passengers "are required to keep vape pens and spare lithium batteries, such as portable chargers, in the cabin at all times, according to the Federal Aviation Administration. The items are not allowed in checked bags..."

The agency — which handles about 16.4 million flights per year — "says it is aware of 85 lithium battery air incidents involving smoke, fire or extreme heat last year."

[ Read more of this story ]( https://mobile.slashdot.org/story/25/03/29/0236203/why-a-lost-cellphone-forced-an-airplane-to-turn-around-in-mid-flight?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

In 1999 Slashdot reader Jeremie announced "a new project I recently started to create a complete open-source platform for Instant Messaging with transparent communication to other IM systems (ICQ, AIM, etc)." It was the first release of the eXtensible Messaging and Presence Protocol, and by 2008 Slashdot was asking if XMPP was "the next big thing." Facebook even supported it for third-party chat clients until 2015.

And here in 2025, the chair of the nonprofit XMPP Standards Foundation is long-time Slashdot reader ralphm, who is now issuing this call to action at XMPP.org:

The European Digital Markets Act (DMA) is designed to break down walled gardens and enforce messaging interoperability. As a designated gatekeeper, Meta—controlling WhatsApp and Messenger—must comply. However, its current proposal falls short, risking further entrenchment of its dominance rather than fostering genuine competition. [..]

A Call to Action

The XMPP Standards Foundation urges Meta to adopt XMPP for messaging interoperability. It is ready to collaborate, continue to evolve the protocol to meet modern needs, and ensure true compliance with the DMA. Let's build an open, competitive messaging ecosystem—one that benefits both users and service providers.

It's time for real interoperability. Let's make it happen.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/03/29/1831231/an-open-letter-to-meta-support-true-messaging-interoperability-with-xmpp?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

28 марта, после более полутора лет разработки, состоялись выпуски 6.0.0 и 6.0.1 кроссплатформенной библиотеки [ FTXUI ]( https://github.com/ArthurSonzogni/FTXUI ) , предназначенной для создания на C++ приложений с текстовым интерфейсом и распространяемой по лицензии MIT.

Возможности библиотеки:

• функциональный стиль, наподобие React JS;

• простой и элегантный стиль (по мнению автора библиотеки);

• обработка событий клавиатуры и «мыши»;

• поддержка UTF8 и Unicode;

• поддержка True Color;

• поддержка изменения стиля курсора;

• поддержка анимаций;

• поддержка рисования;

• отсутствие сторонних зависимостей;

• кроссплатформенность (Linux/MacOS, WebAssembly, Windows).

( [ читать дальше... ]( https://www.linux.org.ru/news/development/17927507#cut ) )

Инженеры из компании Intel представили формат изображений Spectral JPEG XL, оптимизированный для эффективного сжатия изображений, охватывающих области спектра за границей диапазона видимого излучения. Предложенный формат предоставляет возможности, аналогичные спектральной редакции формата OpenEXR, но в отличие от последнего обеспечивает кодирование с потерями, что позволяет добиться сокращения размера файлов в 10-60 раз по сравнению со сжатием без потерь.

https://www.opennet.ru/opennews/art.shtml?num=62979

Long-time Slashdot reader Baron_Yam writes:

No more burning fossil fuels, playing with fissile material, damming rivers, erecting wind mills, or making solar panels. All of our energy needs could potentially be supplied by the angular kinetic energy of the Earth — and because of the mass of the planet, doing so would slow its rotation down by a mere 7ms per century. [Which is similar to speed changes caused by natural phenomena such as the Moon's pull and changing dynamics inside the planet's core."]

Normally this would be considered impossible as the Earth's large and uniform field does not induce a current in conductors, but researchers believe that a hollow cylinder of manganese, zinc and iron can alter the interaction with our planetary magnetic field and allow the extraction of energy from it. So far, the results are positive but still below the level where they cannot be explained by multiple possible causes of experimental error. Further research is required to confirm the effect.

"The effect was identified only in a carefully crafted device and generated just 17 microvolts," reports Scientific American, "a fraction of the voltage released when a single neuron fires — making it hard to verify that some other effect isn't causing the observations."

But if another group can verify the results, the experiment's lead says the next logical step is trying to scale up the device to generate a useful amount of energy.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/25/03/29/0536241/scientists-may-have-discovered-how-to-extract-power-from-the-earths-rotation?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader shared this report from the Mercury News:

After a year of fastidious planning, a microscopic sample of the ultra-rare radioactive element berkelium arrived at a Berkeley Lab. With just 48 hours to experiment before it would become unusable, a group of nearly 20 researchers focused intently on creating a brand-new molecule. Using a chemical glove box, a polycarbonate glass box with protruding gloves that shields substances from oxygen and moisture, scientists combined the berkelium metal with an organic molecule containing only carbon and hydrogen to create a chemical reaction... [Post-doc researcher Dominic] Russo, researcher Stefan Minasian, and 17 other scientists at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory had created berkelocene, a new molecule that usurps theorists' expectations about how carbon bonds with heavy-metal elements.

In the future, berkelocene may help humanity safely dispose of nuclear waste, according to a study published in the academic journal Science... The new molecular structure is, in the nomenclature of researchers, a "sandwich." In this formation, a berkelium atom, serving as the filling, lays in between two 8-membered carbon rings — the "bread" — and resembles an atomic foot-long sub. "It has this very symmetric geometry, and it's the first time that that's been observed," Minasian said.

The researchers believe more accurate models for how actinide elements like uranium behave will help solve problems related to long-term nuclear waste storage.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://science.slashdot.org/story/25/03/29/0315205/scientists-create-new-heavy-metal-molecule-berkelocene?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

The Washington Post reports that after months of polar darkness, the extent of sea ice blanketing the Arctic this winter "fell to the lowest level on record, researchers announced this week... the smallest maximum extent in the 47-year satellite record, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center.

"Since then, the ice has already begun to melt again."
"Sea ice is acting like the old canary in the coal mine," Dartmouth University geophysicist Don Perovich said. "It's saying loud and clear that warming is occurring...."

In the summer, when the sun's radiation shines down on the Arctic for 24 hours a day, the ice acts as a shield, reflecting more than half of the light that hits it back into space.... With so little sea ice in the Arctic this year, more sunlight will be able to reach the open ocean, which absorbs more than 90 percent of the radiation that hits it. This will further warm the region, accelerating ice melt and exposing even more water to the light. This feedback loop helps explain the rapid warming of the Arctic, and it is expected to lead to a complete lack of summer sea ice in the region within decades, [said explained Melinda Webster, a sea ice scientist at the University of Washington]. The consequences would be dire for seals, polar bears and other wildlife, which depend on a stable sea ice platform to birth their young and hunt for food. It would also expose miles of coastline to pounding ocean waves, accelerating the erosion that threatens to tip some communities into the sea.

But the effects will also be felt in places far from the poles, Perovich said. Studies suggest that a complete loss of Arctic sea ice would raise global temperatures as much as adding a trillion tons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. Changes in the Arctic could also affect the jet stream, the river of winds that flows through the upper atmosphere, contributing to more extreme weather around the globe.

"What happens in the Arctic doesn't stay in the Arctic," Perovich said.

Earlier this year sea ice also fell 30% below the amount typical in the Antarctic prior to 2010, the researchers report. The total amount of sea ice on earth has now reached an all-time low, declining by more than a million square miles (2.5 million square kilometers) below the pre-2010 average.
"Altogether, Earth is missing an area of sea ice large enough to cover the entire continental United States east of the Mississippi."

[ Read more of this story ]( https://news.slashdot.org/story/25/03/29/0435221/as-the-arctics-winter-sea-ice-hits-a-new-record-low---what-happens-next?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader shared this report from BleepingComputer:

Three security bypasses have been discovered in Ubuntu Linux's unprivileged user namespace restrictions, which could be enable a local attacker to exploit vulnerabilities in kernel components. The issues allow local unprivileged users to create user namespaces with full administrative capabilities and impact Ubuntu versions 23.10, where unprivileged user namespaces restrictions are enabled, and 24.04 which has them active by default...

Ubuntu added AppArmor-based restrictions in version 23.10 and enabled them by default in 24.04 to limit the risk of namespace misuse. Researchers at cloud security and compliance company Qualys found that these restrictions can be bypassed in three different ways... The researchers note that these bypasses are dangerous when combined with kernel-related vulnerabilities, and they are not enough to obtain complete control of the system... Qualys notified the Ubuntu security team of their findings on January 15 and agreed to a coordinated release. However, the busybox bypass was discovered independently by vulnerability researcher Roddux, who published the details on March 21.

Canonical, the organization behind Ubuntu Linux, has acknowledged Qualys' findings and confirmed to BleepingComputer that they are developing improvements to the AppArmor protections. A spokesperson told us that they are not treating these findings as vulnerabilities per se but as limitations of a defense-in-depth mechanism. Hence, protections will be released according to standard release schedules and not as urgent security fixes.

Canonical shared hardening steps that administrators should consider in a bulletin published on their official "Ubuntu Discourse" discussion forum.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://it.slashdot.org/story/25/03/29/0555241/new-ubuntu-linux-security-bypasses-require-manual-mitigations?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from MIT Technology Review: The first clinical trial of a therapy bot that uses generative AI suggests it was as effective as human therapy for participants with depression, anxiety, or risk for developing eating disorders. Even so, it doesn't give a go-ahead to the dozens of companies hyping such technologies while operating in a regulatory gray area. A team led by psychiatric researchers and psychologists at the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth College built the tool, called Therabot, and the results were published on March 27 in the New England Journal of Medicine. Many tech companies are building AI therapy bots to address the mental health care gap, offering more frequent and affordable access than traditional therapy. However, challenges persist: poorly worded bot responses can cause harm, and forming meaningful therapeutic relationships is hard to replicate in software. While many bots rely on general internet data, researchers at Dartmouth developed "Therabot" using custom, evidence-based datasets. Here's what they found: To test the bot, the researchers ran an eight-week clinical trial with 210 participants who had symptoms of depression or generalized anxiety disorder or were at high risk for eating disorders. About half had access to Therabot, and a control group did not. Participants responded to prompts from the AI and initiated conversations, averaging about 10 messages per day. Participants with depression experienced a 51% reduction in symptoms, the best result in the study. Those with anxiety experienced a 31% reduction, and those at risk for eating disorders saw a 19% reduction in concerns about body image and weight. These measurements are based on self-reporting through surveys, a method that's not perfect but remains one of the best tools researchers have.

These results ... are about what one finds in randomized control trials of psychotherapy with 16 hours of human-provided treatment, but the Therabot trial accomplished it in about half the time. "I've been working in digital therapeutics for a long time, and I've never seen levels of engagement that are prolonged and sustained at this level," says [Michael Heinz, a research psychiatrist at Dartmouth College and Dartmouth Health and first author of the study].

[ Read more of this story ]( https://slashdot.org/story/25/03/29/101206/first-trial-of-generative-ai-therapy-shows-it-might-help-with-depression?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Опубликованы результаты исследования защищённости изолированного окружения для выполнения Python-кода, применяемого компанией Google в чатботе Gemini. Чатбот Gemini предоставляет средства для генерации кода по описанию задачи и для языка Python позволяет сразу запустить созданный код, чтобы избавить разработчика от лишних действий при его проверке. Код запускается в изолированном окружении, которое отрезано от внешнего мира и допускает только исполнение интерпретатора Python. Для определения начинки sandbox-окружения исследователи добились запуска кода, использующего возможности Python-библиотеки os для перебора содержимого всех каталогов и построения карты файловой системы.

https://www.opennet.ru/opennews/art.shtml?num=62980

Разработчики дистрибутива openSUSE реализовали в пакетном менеджере Zypper возможность распараллеливания загрузки пакетов и метаданных. Дополнительно предложен новый бэкенд, более оптимально повторно использующий уже установленные соединения и повышающий эффективность обработки метаданных. При обновления 250 пакетов, суммарным размером 100 МБ, время загрузки после включения нового бэкенда и параллельного режима сократилось с 68.7 секунд до 13.1 секунд, а при обновлении 407 пакетов размером 1 ГБ - с 281.1 cекунды до 119.6 секунд.

https://www.opennet.ru/opennews/art.shtml?num=62978

Despite recent test failures, NASA has added SpaceX's Starship to its Launch Services Program contract, allowing it to compete for future science missions once it achieves a successful orbital flight. Florida Today reports: NASA announced the addition Friday to its current launch provider contract with SpaceX, which covers the Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy. This opens the possibility of Starship flying future NASA science missions -- that is once Starship reaches a successful orbital flight.

"NASA has awarded SpaceX of Starbase, Texas, a modification under the NASA Launch Services (NLS) II contract to add Starship to their existing Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy launch service offerings," NASA's statement reads. Th announcement is simply an onboarding of Starship as an option, as the contract runs through 2032. However, SpaceX is under pressure to get Starship operational by next year as the company plans not only to send an uncrewed Starship to Mars by late 2026, but the NASA Artemis III moon landing is fast approaching. Should it remain the plan with the current administration, Starship will act as a human lander for NASA's Artemis III crew.

"The NLS II contracts are multiple award, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity, with an ordering period through June 2030 and an overall period of performance through December 2032. The contracts include an on-ramp provision that provides an opportunity annually for new launch service providers to add their launch service on an NLS II contract and compete for future missions and allows existing contractors to introduce launch services not currently on their NLS II contracts," NASA's statement reads.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://science.slashdot.org/story/25/03/29/0950235/nasa-adds-spacexs-starship-to-launch-services-program-fleet?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Нейт Грэм (Nate Graham), разработчик, занимающийся контролем качества в проекте KDE, опубликовал очередной отчёт о разработке KDE. Среди изменений, добавленных в ветку, на основе которых формируется релиз KDE Plasma 6.4.0.

https://www.opennet.ru/opennews/art.shtml?num=62975

Представлен релиз кроссплатформенного открытого генератора сценариев сборки CMake 4.0.0, выступающего в качестве альтернативы Autotools и используемого в таких проектах, как KDE, LLVM/Clang, MySQL, MariaDB, ReactOS и Blender. Код CMake написан на языке C++ и распространяется под лицензией BSD.

https://www.opennet.ru/opennews/art.shtml?num=62974

A new study warns that toxic Martian dust contains fine particles and harmful substances like silica and metals that pose serious health risks to astronauts, making missions to Mars more dangerous than previously thought. The Guardian reports: During Apollo missions to the moon, astronauts suffered from exposure to lunar dust. It clung to spacesuits and seeped into the lunar landers, causing coughing, runny eyes and irritated throats. Studies showed that chronic health effects would result from prolonged exposure. Martian dust isn't as sharp and abrasive as lunar dust, but it does have the same tendency to stick to everything, and the fine particles (about 4% the width of a human hair) can penetrate deep into lungs and enter the bloodstream. Toxic substances in the dust include silica, gypsum and various metals.

"A mission to Mars does not have the luxury of rapid return to Earth for treatment," the researchers write in the journal GeoHealth. And the 40-minute communication delay will limit the usefulness of remote medical support from Earth. Instead, the researchers stress that limiting exposure to dust is essential, requiring air filters, self-cleaning space suits and electrostatic repulsion devices, for example.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://science.slashdot.org/story/25/03/29/0035216/martian-dust-may-pose-health-risk-to-humans-exploring-red-planet-study-finds?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

TOP10 VISITORS:

[1] 45.135.180.x point=225 web=0 up=18.7MB (28%) <--- yesterlink (9/hr)
[2] 37.252.14.x point=144 web=0 up=17.7MB (27%) <--- ake (6/hr)
[3] 80.87.199.x point=70 web=0 up=6.8MB (10%) <--- tgi (3/hr)
[4] 47.82.11.x point=0 web=423 up=4.6MB (7%)
[5] Facebook point=0 web=240 up=2.3MB (3%)
[6] PetalBot point=118 web=387 up=2.1MB (3%) <--- PetalBot (5/hr)
[7] 24.130.121.x point=19 web=62 up=1.9MB (2%) <--- spnet (1/hr)
[8] 47.82.10.x point=0 web=171 up=1.5MB (2%)
[9] Google point=4 web=190 up=0.9MB (1%) <--- Google
[10] 217.114.158.x point=25 web=0 up=0.9MB (1%) <--- fox (1/hr)

TOTAL TRAFFIC: 64MB

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: A concert on Monday night at New York's Radio City Music Hall was a special occasion for Frank Miller: his parents' wedding anniversary. He didn't end up seeing the show -- and before he could even get past security, he was informed that he was in fact banned for life from the venue and all other properties owned by Madison Square Garden (MSG). After scanning his ticket and promptly being pulled aside by security, Miller was told by staff that he was barred from the MSG properties for an incident at the Garden in 2021. But Miller says he hasn't been to the venue in nearly two decades.

"They hand me a piece of paper letting me know that I've been added to a ban list," Miller says. "There's a trespass notice if I ever show up on any MSG property ever again," which includes venues like Radio City, the Beacon Theatre, the Sphere, and the Chicago Theatre. He was baffled at first. Then it dawned on him: this was probably about a T-shirt he designed years ago. MSG Entertainment won't say what happened with Miller or how he was picked out of the crowd, but he suspects he was identified via controversial facial recognition systems that the company deploys at its venues.

In 2017, 1990s New York Knicks star Charles Oakley was forcibly removed from his seat near Knicks owner and Madison Square Garden CEO James Dolan. The high-profile incident later spiraled into an ongoing legal battle. For Miller, Oakley was an "integral" part of the '90s Knicks, he says. With his background in graphic design, he made a shirt in the style of the old team logo that read, "Ban Dolan" -- a reference to the infamous scuffle. A few years later, in 2021, a friend of Miller's wore a Ban Dolan shirt to a Knicks game and was kicked out and banned from future events. That incident spawned ESPN segments and news articles and validated what many fans saw as a pettiness on Dolan and MSG's part for going after individual fans who criticized team ownership. "Frank Miller Jr. made threats against an MSG executive on social media and produced and sold merchandise that was offensive in nature," Mikyl Cordova, executive vice president of communications and marketing for the company, said in an emailed statement. "His behavior was disrespectful and disruptive and in violation of our code of conduct."

Miller responded to the ban, saying: "I just found it comical, until I was told that my mom was crying [in the lobby]. I was like, 'Oh man, I ruined their anniversary with my shit talk on the internet. Memes are powerful, and so is the surveillance state. It's something that we all have to be aware of -- the panopticon. We're [being] surveilled at all times, and it's always framed as a safety thing, when rarely is that the case. It's more of a deterrent and a fear tactic to try to keep people in line."

[ Read more of this story ]( https://yro.slashdot.org/story/25/03/29/0028217/madison-square-garden-bans-fan-after-surveillance-system-ids-him-as-critic-of-its-ceo?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

New research suggests that Prototaxites, once believed to be a giant fungus, may actually represent an entirely extinct and previously unknown branch of complex life, distinct from fungi, plants, animals, and protists. Live Science reports: The researchers studied the fossilized remains of one Prototaxites species named Prototaxites taiti, found preserved in the Rhynie chert, a sedimentary deposit of exceptionally well-preserved fossils of early land plants and animals in Scotland. This species was much smaller than many other species of Prototaxites, only growing up to a few inches tall, but it is still the largest Prototaxites specimen found in this region. Upon examining the internal structure of the fossilized Prototaxites, the researchers found that its interior was made up of a series of tubes, similar to those within a fungus. But these tubes branched off and reconnected in ways very unlike those seen in modern fungi. "We report that Prototaxites taiti was the largest organism in the Rhynie ecosystem and its anatomy was fundamentally distinct from all known extant or extinct fungi," the researchers wrote in the paper. "We therefore conclude that Prototaxites was not a fungus, and instead propose it is best assigned to a now entirely extinct terrestrial lineage."

True fungi from the same period have also been preserved in the Rhynie chert, enabling the researchers to chemically compare them to Prototaxites. In addition to their unique structural characteristics, the team found that the Prototaxites fossils left completely different chemical signatures to the fungi fossils, indicating that the Prototaxites did not contain chitin, a major building block of fungal cell walls and a hallmark of the fungal kingdom. The Prototaxites fossils instead appeared to contain chemicals similar to lignin, which is found in the wood and bark of plants. "We conclude that the morphology and molecular fingerprint of P. taiti is clearly distinct from that of the fungi and other organism preserved alongside it in the Rhynie chert, and we suggest that it is best considered a member of a previously undescribed, entirely extinct group of eukaryotes," the researchers wrote. The research has been published on the preprint server bioRxiv.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://science.slashdot.org/story/25/03/28/238210/giant-fungus-like-organism-may-be-completely-unknown-branch-of-life?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) says banks no longer need prior approval before engaging in crypto-related activities, such as holding digital currency assets or partnering with companies in the industry. Axios reports: After publishing a general caution against banks participating in the industry just two years ago, the FDIC is the latest Trump administration regulator to change its tune entirely amid the president's warm embrace of crypto. "With today's action, the FDIC is turning the page on the flawed approach of the past three years," FDIC acting chairman Travis Hill said in a statement.

The OCC was the first of those regulators to revise their guidance, telling banks it supervises earlier this month that they no longer need permission to engage in certain common cryptocurrency-related activities. The Fed as of Friday had not issued any update, though chair Jerome Powell told lawmakers during a congressional hearing last month that the central bank would take a fresh look at the guidance. The new policy clarifies that "FDIC-supervised institutions may engage in permissible activities, including ... digital assets, provided that they adequately manage the associated risks."

[ Read more of this story ]( https://slashdot.org/story/25/03/28/2252217/fdic-rescinds-guidance-around-banks-and-crypto?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Imagine working with special cameras that capture light your eyes can't even see -- ultraviolet rays that cause sunburn, infrared heat signatures that reveal hidden writing, or specific wavelengths that plants use for photosynthesis. Or perhaps using a special camera designed to distinguish the subtle visible differences that make paint colors appear just right under specific lighting. Scientists and engineers do this every day, and they're drowning in the resulting data. A new compression format called Spectral JPEG XL might finally solve this growing problem in scientific visualization and computer graphics. Researchers Alban Fichet and Christoph Peters of Intel Corporation detailed the format in a recent paper published in the Journal of Computer Graphics Techniques (JCGT). It tackles a serious bottleneck for industries working with these specialized images. These spectral files can contain 30, 100, or more data points per pixel, causing file sizes to balloon into multi-gigabyte territory -- making them unwieldy to store and analyze.

[...] The current standard format for storing this kind of data, OpenEXR, wasn't designed with these massive spectral requirements in mind. Even with built-in lossless compression methods like ZIP, the files remain unwieldy for practical work as these methods struggle with the large number of spectral channels. Spectral JPEG XL utilizes a technique used with human-visible images, a math trick called a discrete cosine transform (DCT), to make these massive files smaller. Instead of storing the exact light intensity at every single wavelength (which creates huge files), it transforms this information into a different form. [...]

According to the researchers, the massive file sizes of spectral images have reportedly been a real barrier to adoption in industries that would benefit from their accuracy. Smaller files mean faster transfer times, reduced storage costs, and the ability to work with these images more interactively without specialized hardware. The results reported by the researchers seem impressive -- with their technique, spectral image files shrink by 10 to 60 times compared to standard OpenEXR lossless compression, bringing them down to sizes comparable to regular high-quality photos. They also preserve key OpenEXR features like metadata and high dynamic range support. The report notes that broader adoption "hinges on the continued development and refinement of the software tools that handle JPEG XL encoding and decoding."

Some scientific applications may also see JPEG XL's lossy approach as a drawback. "Some researchers working with spectral data might readily accept the trade-off for the practical benefits of smaller files and faster processing," reports Ars. "Others handling particularly sensitive measurements might need to seek alternative methods of storage."

[ Read more of this story ]( https://science.slashdot.org/story/25/03/28/232215/a-new-image-file-format-efficiently-stores-invisible-light-data?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Longtime Slashdot reader frank_adrian314159 writes: According to an article in Wired, Elon Musk has appointed a team of technologists from DOGE to "rewrite the code that runs the SSA in months." This codebase has over 60 million lines of COBOL and handles record keeping for all American workers and payments for all Social Security recipients. Given that the code has to track the byzantine regulations dealing with Social Security, it's no wonder that the codebase is this large. What is in question though is whether a small team can rewrite this code "in months." After all, what could possibly go wrong? "The project is being organized by Elon Musk lieutenant Steve Davis ... and aims to migrate all SSA systems off COBOL ... and onto a more modern replacement like Java within a scheduled tight timeframe of a few months," notes Wired.

"Under any circumstances, a migration of this size and scale would be a massive undertaking, experts tell WIRED, but the expedited deadline runs the risk of obstructing payments to the more than 65 million people in the US currently receiving Social Security benefits."

In 2017, SSA announced a plan to modernize its core systems with a timeline of around five years. However, the work was "pivoted away" because of the pandemic.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://developers.slashdot.org/story/25/03/28/2148205/doge-to-rewrite-ssa-codebase-in-months?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

A breach of legacy Cerner servers at Oracle Health exposed patient data from multiple U.S. hospitals and healthcare organizations, with threat actors using compromised customer credentials to steal the data before it had been migrated to Oracle Cloud. Despite confirming the breach privately, Oracle Health has yet to publicly acknowledge the incident. BleepingComputer reports: Oracle Health, formerly known as Cerner, is a healthcare software-as-a-service (SaaS) company offering Electronic Health Records (EHR) and business operations systems to hospitals and healthcare organizations. After being acquired by Oracle in 2022, Cerner was merged into Oracle Health, with its systems migrated to Oracle Cloud. In a notice sent to impacted customers and seen by BleepingComputer, Oracle Health said it became aware of a breach of legacy Cerner data migration servers on February 20, 2025.

"We are writing to inform you that, on or around February 20, 2025, we became aware of a cybersecurity event involving unauthorized access to some amount of your Cerner data that was on an old legacy server not yet migrated to the Oracle Cloud," reads a notification sent to impacted Oracle Health customers. Oracle says that the threat actor used compromised customer credentials to breach the servers sometime after January 22, 2025, and copied data to a remote server. This stolen data "may" have included patient information from electronic health records. However, multiple sources told BleepingComputer that it was confirmed that patient data was stolen during the attack.

Oracle Health is also telling hospitals that they will not notify patients directly and that it is their responsibility to determine if the stolen data violates HIPAA laws and whether they are required to send notifications. However, the company says they will help identify impacted individuals and provide templates to help with notifications.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://developers.slashdot.org/story/25/03/28/2025251/oracle-health-breach-compromises-patient-data-at-us-hospitals?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Elon Musk says its xAI company has acquired the social media platform X in an all-stock transaction. "The combination values xAI at $80 billion and X at $33 billion ($45 billion less $12 billion debt)," said Musk. He writes on X: Since its founding two years ago, xAI has rapidly become one of the leading AI labs in the world, building models and data centers at unprecedented speed and scale. X is the digital town square where more than 600M active users go to find the real-time source of ground truth and, in the last two years, has been transformed into one of the most efficient companies in the world, positioning it to deliver scalable future growth.

xAI and X's futures are intertwined. Today, we officially take the step to combine the data, models, compute, distribution and talent. This combination will unlock immense potential by blending xAI's advanced AI capability and expertise with X's massive reach. The combined company will deliver smarter, more meaningful experiences to billions of people while staying true to our core mission of seeking truth and advancing knowledge. This will allow us to build a platform that doesn't just reflect the world but actively accelerates human progress.

I would like to recognize the hardcore dedication of everyone at xAI and X that has brought us to this point. This is just the beginning. Thank you for your continued partnership and support.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/03/28/2156237/xai-acquires-x?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: Trevor Milton, the founder of electric vehicle start-up Nikola who was sentenced to prison last year, was pardoned by Donald Trump late on Thursday, the White House confirmed on Friday. The pardon of Milton, who was sentenced to four years in prison for exaggerating the potential of his technology, could wipe out hundreds of millions of dollars in restitution that prosecutors were seeking for defrauded investors. Milton and his wife donated more than $1.8 million to a Trump re-election campaign fund less than a month before the November election, according to the Federal Election Commission.

At Milton's trial, prosecutors say a company video of a prototype truck appearing to be driven down a desert highway was actually a video of a non-functioning Nikola that had been rolled down a hill. Milton had not been incarcerated pending an appeal. Milton said late on Thursday on social media and via a press release that he had been pardoned by Trump. "I am incredibly grateful to President Trump for his courage in standing up for what is right and for granting me this sacred pardon of innocence," Milton said.
Here's a timeline of notable events surrounding Nikola:

June, 2016: Nikola Motor Receives Over 7,000 Preorders Worth Over $2.3 Billion For Its Electric Truck
December, 2016: Nikola Motor Company Reveals Hydrogen Fuel Cell Truck With Range of 1,200 Miles
February, 2020: Nikola Motors Unveils Hybrid Fuel-Cell Concept Truck With 600-Mile Range
June, 2020: Nikola Founder Exaggerated the Capability of His Debut Truck
September, 2020: Nikola Motors Accused of Massive Fraud, Ocean of Lies
September, 2020: Nikola Admits Prototype Was Rolling Downhill In Promo Video
September, 2020: Nikola Founder Trevor Milton Steps Down as Chairman in Battle With Short Seller
October, 2020: Nikola Stock Falls 14 Percent After CEO Downplays Badger Truck Plans
November, 2020: Nikola Stock Plunges As Company Cancels Badger Pickup Truck
July, 2021: Nikola Founder Trevor Milton Indicted on Three Counts of Fraud
December, 2021: EV Startup Nikola Agrees To $125 Million Settlement
September, 2022: Nikola Founder Lied To Investors About Tech, Prosecutor Says in Fraud Trial

December, 2023: Nikola Founder Trevor Milton Sentenced To 4 Years For Securities Fraud
February 19, 2025: Nikola Files for Bankruptcy With Plans To Sell Assets, Wind Down

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An anonymous reader shares a report: New data recently released by the Environmental Protection Agency indicate that more than 158 million people across the U.S. have drinking water contaminated by toxic "forever chemicals," scientifically known as perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS).

"Drinking water is a major source of PFAS exposure. The sheer number of contaminated sites shows that these chemicals are likely present in most of the U.S. water supply," said David Andrews, deputy director of investigations and a senior scientist at the Environmental Working Group (EWG), a nonprofit advocacy organization, in a recent press release.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://science.slashdot.org/story/25/03/28/1959225/nearly-half-of-people-in-the-us-have-toxic-pfas-in-their-drinking-water?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Smart TV platforms are increasingly monitoring what appears on users' screens through Automatic Content Recognition (ACR) technology, building detailed viewer profiles for targeted advertising.

Roku, which transitioned from a hardware company to an advertising powerhouse, reported $3.5 billion in annual ad revenue for 2024 -- representing 85% of its total income. The company has aggressively acquired ACR-related firms, with Roku-owned technology winning an Emmy in 2023 for advancements in the field.

According to market research firm Antenna, 43% of all streaming subscriptions in the United States were ad-supported by late 2024, showing the industry's shift toward advertising-based models. Most users unknowingly consent to this monitoring when setting up their devices. Though consumers can technically disable ACR in their TV settings, doing so often restricts functionality.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://entertainment.slashdot.org/story/25/03/28/1944230/smart-tvs-are-employing-screen-monitoring-tech-to-harvest-user-data?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Stanford University researchers have proposed creating "bodyoids" -- ethically sourced human bodies grown from stem cells without neural components for consciousness or pain sensation -- to revolutionize medical research and address organ shortages. In a new opinion piece published in MIT Technology Review, scientists Carsten T. Charlesworth, Henry T. Greely, and Hiromitsu Nakauchi argue that recent advances in biotechnology make this concept increasingly plausible. The approach would combine pluripotent stem cells, artificial uterus technology, and genetic techniques to inhibit brain development.

The researchers point to persistent shortages of human biological materials as a major bottleneck in medical progress. More than 100,000 patients currently await solid organ transplants in the US alone, while less than 15% of drugs entering clinical trials receive regulatory approval. These lab-grown bodies could potentially generate patient-specific organs that are perfect immunological matches, eliminate the need for lifelong immunosuppression, and provide personalized drug screening models.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://science.slashdot.org/story/25/03/28/1933234/scientists-propose-bodyoids-to-address-medical-research-and-organ-shortage-challenges?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Доступен выпуск дистрибутива Rescuezilla 2.6, предназначенного для резервного копирования, восстановления систем после сбоев и диагностики различных аппаратных проблем. Дистрибутив построен на пакетной базе Ubuntu и продолжает развитие проекта "Redo Backup & Rescue", разработка которого была прекращена в 2012 году. Для загрузки предлагаются live-сборки для 32- и 64-разрядных систем x86 (1.3 ГБ) и deb-пакет для установки в Ubuntu.

https://www.opennet.ru/opennews/art.shtml?num=62971

An anonymous reader shares a report: Amnesty International published a new report this week detailing attempted hacks against two Serbian journalists, allegedly carried out with NSO Group's spyware Pegasus. The two journalists, who work for the Serbia-based Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN), received suspicious text messages including a link -- basically a phishing attack, according to the nonprofit. In one case, Amnesty said its researchers were able to click on the link in a safe environment and see that it led to a domain that they had previously identified as belonging to NSO Group's infrastructure.

"Amnesty International has spent years tracking NSO Group Pegasus spyware and how it has been used to target activists and journalists," Donncha O Cearbhaill, the head of Amnesty's Security Lab, told TechCrunch. "This technical research has allowed Amnesty to identify malicious websites used to deliver the Pegasus spyware, including the specific Pegasus domain used in this campaign."

To his point, security researchers like O Cearbhaill who have been keeping tabs on NSO's activities for years are now so good at spotting signs of the company's spyware that sometimes all researchers have to do is quickly look at a domain involved in an attack. In other words, NSO Group and its customers are losing their battle to stay in the shadows. "NSO has a basic problem: They are not as good at hiding as their customers think," John Scott-Railton, a senior researcher at The Citizen Lab, a human rights organization that has investigated spyware abuses since 2012, told TechCrunch.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://yro.slashdot.org/story/25/03/28/1915238/again-and-again-nso-groups-customers-keep-getting-their-spyware-operations-caught?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader shares a report: A former director of data science at the UK prime minister's office has told MPs that people working with data in government are not typically technical and would be unlikely to get a similar job in the private sector.

In a hearing designed to illuminate the challenges facing the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) as it strives to become the digital centre for government, MPs quizzed Laura Gilbert, head of AI for Government, at the Ellison Institute and former director of data science at 10 Downing Street, the prime ministers' office.

Members of the House of Common's Science, Innovation and Technology Committee wanted to know about the performance of the Government Digital Service, which in January was moved from the Cabinet Office to DSIT and merged with Central Digital and Data Office (CDDO), the Incubator for AI (i.AI). Gilbert, a particle physicist who has worked in a number of tech industry roles, said one of the challenges was understanding the level of tech skills in the civil service in central government.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://news.slashdot.org/story/25/03/28/184236/uk-govt-data-people-not-technical-says-ex-downing-st-data-science-head?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Fake movie trailers created with AI are proliferating across YouTube, with some garnering more views than official studio releases -- and Hollywood studios are quietly profiting from the phenomenon rather than shutting it down. Instead of enforcing copyright on these unauthorized videos, Warner Bros. Discovery, Sony Pictures, and Paramount are claiming monetization rights, directing ad revenue from fake trailers for films like "Superman" and "Gladiator II" into studio coffers, according to a Deadline investigation published Friday.

YouTube channels like Screen Culture, which has amassed 1.4 billion views, merge official footage with AI-generated imagery to create convincing trailer mockups that frequently rank higher in search results than legitimate studio releases. "Monetizing unauthorized, unwanted, and subpar uses of human-centered IP is a race to the bottom," SAG-AFTRA told Deadline, condemning studios for profiting from content that exploits performers without permission.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://entertainment.slashdot.org/story/25/03/28/1757237/inside-youtubes-weird-world-of-fake-movie-trailers?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Компания GitHub объявила о введении ограничения в 100 тысяч репозиториев для одной учётной записи пользователя или организации. Ограничение вступит в силу 28 апреля. После преодоления рубежа в 50 тысяч репозиториев владельцу начнёт выводиться баннер с предупреждением, а на email администратора будет направлено уведомление. Изменение призвано недопустить замедления работы учётных записей с очень большим числом репозиториев, а также исключить их негативное влияние на инфраструктуру.

https://www.opennet.ru/opennews/art.shtml?num=62969

The College Board, described as a $2 billion nonprofit, functions as the primary gatekeeper for academic success within American higher education, according to an analysis by Bloomberg. The organization significantly shapes university admissions by controlling not only who gains entry to college but also influencing what students know upon arrival.

This central role in managing and defining higher education admissions positions the Board uniquely. The story adds: The College Board writes the curriculum for 40 AP courses, administers and grades the exams, oversees the PSAT and SAT, and offers a variety of free and paid resources to help prepare for the courses and tests. Many students will wind up paying the company north of $1,000 over the course of their high school career. "If the same people can create the content and create the tests, that's a really great business model where you've got the whole public secondary education system wrapped up in one little company," says Jon Boeckenstedt, the vice provost of enrollment management at Oregon State University and a prominent critic of the College Board.

Housing so many parts of the high school experience under one roof has made the New York-based organization immensely wealthy, with more than $1 billion in annual revenue -- on which it pays no taxes as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit. But mere money isn't the biggest source of the College Board's might. Twelve decades after its creation, it's now the closest thing the fragmented American educational system has to a central governing body, with a huge amount of authority over what students are expected to know when they get to college. Higher education is arguably the most important driver of social mobility, as well as the most powerful force in selecting which members of the next generation will set the political and cultural agenda. By controlling who gets in and what they know when they get there, the College Board has become the chief gatekeeper of academic success in America.

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An anonymous reader shares a report: Staff at the Federal Trade Commission have been instructed to no longer refer to the agency as "independent" in complaints, according to an email obtained by The Verge.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://news.slashdot.org/story/25/03/28/1557221/ftc-tells-staff-to-stop-calling-the-agency-independent-in-complaints?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

A Nature survey has found that three-quarters of responding U.S. scientists are considering leaving the nation following disruptions to science under the Trump administration.

Out of 1,608 respondents, 75.3% said they were contemplating leaving the country. Scientists cited concerns over research funding and the general treatment of science as contributing factors for their reasoning. Europe and Canada were mentioned as potential destinations for those looking for opportunities abroad.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://science.slashdot.org/story/25/03/28/1526209/75-of-scientists-in-nature-poll-weigh-leaving-us?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

theodp writes: "As I prepared for a White House meeting last fall on the nation's electricity needs," begins Microsoft President Brad Smith in The Country Needs More Electricity --And More Electricians, a Fox Business op-ed. "I met with the leaders at Microsoft who are building our AI infrastructure across the country. During our discussion, I asked them to identify the single biggest challenge for data center expansion in the U.S. I expected they would mention slow permitting, delays in bringing more power online or supply chain constraints -- all significant challenges. But instead, they highlighted a national shortage of people. Electricians, to be precise."

Much as Smith has done in the past as he declared crisis-level shortages of Computer Science, cybersecurity, and AI talent, he's calling for the nation's politicians and educators to step up to the plate and deliver students trained to address the data center expansion plans of Microsoft and Big Tech.

"How many new electricians must the U.S. recruit and train over the next decade?" Smith asks. "Probably half a million. [...] The good news is that these are good jobs. The bad news is that we don't have a national strategy to recruit and train the people to fill these jobs. Given the Trump administration's commitment to supporting American workers, American jobs and American innovation, we believe that recruiting and training more electricians should rise to its list of priorities. There are several ways to address this issue, and they deserve consideration. For example, we need to do more as a nation to revitalize the industrial arts and shop classes in American high schools. [...] This should be a priority for local school boards, state governors and appropriate federal support. [..] We must also adopt a broad perspective on where new technology is taking us. The tech sector is most often focused on computer and data science -- people who code. But the future will also be built in critical ways by a new generation of engineers, electricians, plumbers, pipefitters, iron workers, carpenters and other skilled trades. So, is 'Learn to Wire' the new 'Learn to Code'?

[ Read more of this story ]( https://news.slashdot.org/story/25/03/28/1447203/microsoft-president-calls-for-a-national-talent-strategy-for-electricians?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.