Record numbers of plastic industry lobbyists are attending global talks that are the last chance to hammer out a treaty to cut plastic pollution around the world. From a report: The key issue at the conference will be whether caps on global plastic production will be included in the final UN treaty. Lobbyists and leading national producers are furiously arguing against any attempt to restrain the amount that can be produced, leaving the talks on a knife-edge.

New analysis by the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL) shows 220 fossil fuel and chemical industry representatives -- more plastic producers than ever -- are represented at the UN talks in Busan, South Korea. Taken as a group, they would be the biggest delegation at the talks, with more plastic industry lobbyists than representatives from the EU and each of its member states, (191) or the host country, South Korea (140), according to the Centre for International Environmental Law. Their numbers overwhelm the 89 delegates from the Pacific small island developing states (PSIDs), countries that are among those suffering the most from plastic pollution.

Sixteen lobbyists from the plastics industry are at the talks as part of country delegations. China, the Dominican Republic, Egypt, Finland, Iran, Kazakhstan and Malaysia all have industry vested interests within their delegations, the analysis shows. The plastic producer representatives outnumber delegates from the Scientists' Coalition for an Effective Plastics Treaty by three to one. Approximately 460m tonnes of plastics are produced annually, and production is set to triple by 2060 under business-as-usual growth rates.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://news.slashdot.org/story/24/11/28/1454234/plastics-lobbyists-make-up-biggest-group-at-vital-un-treaty-talks?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Central bank support for digital currencies appears to have fallen sharply, with only 13% of central bankers surveyed by OMFIF Digital Monetary Institute backing CBDCs as a cross-border payment solution, down from 31% in 2023.

The survey found just 10% of respondents are actively developing CBDCs, compared with 21% last year. The decline comes despite major initiatives including the Bank for International Settlements' Project Agora and China's Project mBridge. The BIS recently withdrew from mBridge, creating a potential split between Western and emerging market payment systems. Nearly half of surveyed bankers favor improving existing instant payment infrastructure over CBDCs.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://news.slashdot.org/story/24/11/28/168214/even-central-banks-are-losing-faith-in-cbdcs?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

A Paris court order to block porn website xHamster in France over insufficient age verification has resulted in an unintended loophole. The ruling only restricted "fr[dot]xhamster[dot]com" subdomain following nonprofits' complaint, leaving the main site accessible despite the DNS-level block by internet providers.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://it.slashdot.org/story/24/11/28/1712216/french-porn-block-fails-on-site-url-detail?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Доступен выпуск проекта fheroes2 1.1.4, который воссоздаёт движок игры Heroes of Might and Magic II с нуля. Код проекта написан на C++ и распространяется под лицензией GPLv2. Для запуска игры требуются файлы с игровыми ресурсами, которые можно получить из оригинальной игры Heroes of Might and Magic II.

https://www.opennet.ru/opennews/art.shtml?num=62306

Представлен релиз специализированного дистрибутива Tails 6.10 (The Amnesic Incognito Live System), развиваемого в составе проекта Tor. Дистрибутив основан на пакетной базе Debian 12, поставляется с рабочим столом GNOME 43 и предназначен для анонимного выхода в сеть при помощи инструментария Tor. Все соединения, кроме трафика через сеть Tor, по умолчанию блокируются пакетным фильтром. Для хранения пользовательских данных в режиме сохранения пользовательских данных между запусками применяется шифрование. Для загрузки подготовлен iso-образ, способный работать в Live-режиме, размером 1 ГБ.

https://www.opennet.ru/opennews/art.shtml?num=62309

После того, как в ноутбуке Framework Laptop 13 появилась возможность замены материнской платы на базе Intel на материнскую плату RISC-V, компания DeepComputing (которая производит ноутбук DC-ROMA II на базе Ubuntu и планшет Pad II) запустила программу раннего доступа для своей материнской платы DC-ROMA RISC-V для него.

Материнская плата также совместима с корпусами Framework и Cooler Master, которые позволяют использовать материнские платы в качестве настольного ПК, а основана на SoC RISC-V StarFive JH7110 с ядрами SiFive U74. Этот чип используется в одноплатнике Milk-V Mars, который также работает на Ubuntu.

Программа раннего доступа открыта только для корпоративных и бизнес-клиентов, но не для разработчиков RISC-V из сообщества Linux (хотя существуют и другие варианты для них, включая упомянутые устройства и многие продукты от Pine64), поскольку в настоящее время RISC-V не обеспечивает производительность или совместимость с программным обеспечением, которую ожидают обычные пользователи или энтузиасты.

Поддерживаются системы Ubuntu 24.04 и Fedora Workstation 41.

Материнская плата DeepComputing RISC-V стоит от 199$. Это базовая цена, в которую входит сама материнская плата, корпус Coolmaster для использования в качестве мини-ПК, 2 карты расширения USB-C и карта памяти SD на 64 ГБ (на самой плате нет встроенной памяти).

Стандартный вариант вариант поставки за 299$ включает больше карт расширения (USB-A, HDMI, Wi-Fi + антенны). Профессиональный вариант за 368$ заменяет корпус Coolmaster на полноценный ноутбук Framework Laptop 13. Корпоративный вариант помимо остального предлагает 2 материнские платы, ноутбук и корпус для ПК.

https://www.linux.org.ru/news/hardware/17805890

Компания Proxmox, известная разработкой продуктов Proxmox Virtual Environment и Proxmox Mail Gateway, опубликовала выпуск дистрибутива Proxmox Backup Server 3.3, который преподносится как готовое решение для резервного копирования и восстановления виртуальных окружений, контейнеров и начинки серверов. Установочный ISO-образ доступен для свободной загрузки. Специфичные для дистрибутива компоненты открыты под лицензией AGPLv3. Для установки обновлений доступен как платный репозиторий Enterprise, так и два бесплатных репозитория, которые отличаются уровнем стабилизации обновлений.

https://www.opennet.ru/opennews/art.shtml?num=62308

An anonymous reader shares a report: Coffee beans hit their highest price in 47 years, driven by bad weather in Vietnam and Brazil, the biggest producers of robusta and arabica beans respectively.

Brazil saw its worst drought in 70 years this year followed by heavy rains, raising fears that next season's output will drop, further pinching already tight global supplies. Vietnam has itself had three years of low output.

Arabica beans hit $3.18 a pound on Wednesday, leading Nestle, the world's biggest coffee company, to increase prices. As well as climate concerns, future prices are being raised by worries about tariffs: Roasters "will try to import now, because otherwise you will be paying tariffs later," one trade analyst told the Financial Times.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://news.slashdot.org/story/24/11/28/1831249/coffee-at-highest-price-in-47-years?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

После 6 месяцев разработки сформирован релиз среды рабочего стола Cinnamon 6.4, в рамках которой сообществом разработчиков дистрибутива Linux Mint развивается форк оболочки GNOME Shell, файлового менеджера Nautilus и оконного менеджера Mutter, нацеленный на предоставление окружения в классическом стиле GNOME 2 с поддержкой удачных элементов взаимодействия из GNOME Shell. Cinnamon основывается на компонентах GNOME, но эти компоненты поставляются как периодически синхронизируемый форк, не связанный внешними зависимостями с GNOME. Новый выпуск Cinnamon будет предложен в дистрибутиве Linux Mint 22.1, который планируется выпустить во второй половине декабря.

https://www.opennet.ru/opennews/art.shtml?num=62310

Canada's Competition Bureau is suing Alphabet's Google over alleged anti-competitive conduct in online advertising, the antitrust watchdog said on Thursday. From a report: The Competition Bureau, in a statement, said it had filed an application with the Competition Tribunal seeking an order that, among other things, requires Google to sell two of its ad tech tools. It is also seeking a penalty from Google to promote compliance with Canada's competition laws, the statement said.

Google said the complaint "ignores the intense competition where ad buyers and sellers have plenty of choice and we look forward to making our case in court." [...] "Our advertising technology tools help websites and apps fund their content, and enable businesses of all sizes to effectively reach new customers," Dan Taylor, VP of Global Ads, Google said in a statement.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://news.slashdot.org/story/24/11/28/2239218/canadas-antitrust-watchdog-sues-google-alleging-anti-competitive-conduct-in-advertising?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

The ongoing cybersecurity incident affecting a North West England NHS group has forced sites to fall back on pen-and-paper operations. From a report: The Wirral University Teaching Hospital NHS Trust updated its official line on the incident on Wednesday evening, revealing new details about the case, but remains coy about the true nature of the attack.

"After detecting suspicious activity, as a precaution, we isolated our systems to ensure that the problem did not spread. This resulted in some IT systems being offline," the updated statement said.

"We have reverted to our business continuity processes and are using paper rather than digital in the areas affected. We are working closely with the national cybersecurity services and we are planning to return to normal services at the earliest opportunity."

[ Read more of this story ]( https://news.slashdot.org/story/24/11/28/2251215/nhs-major-cyber-incident-forces-hospitals-to-use-pen-and-paper?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Alphabet's Chrome browser could go for as much as $20 billion if a judge agrees to a Justice Department proposal to sell the business, in what would be a historic crackdown on one of the world's biggest tech companies. From a report: The department will ask the judge, who ruled in August that Google illegally monopolized the search market, to require measures related to artificial intelligence and its Android smartphone operating system, according to people familiar with the plans.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://tech.slashdot.org/story/24/11/29/029254/googles-chrome-worth-up-to-20-billion-if-judge-orders-sale?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

A million and a half years ago, amid giant storks and the ancestors of antelopes, two extinct relatives of humans walked along the same muddy lakeshore in what is today northern Kenya, new research suggests. From a report: An excavation team uncovered four sets of footprints preserved in the mud at the Turkana Basin, a site that has led to important breakthroughs in understanding human evolution. The discovery, announced on Thursday in a paper in the journal Science, is direct evidence that different kinds of human relatives, with distinct anatomies and gaits, inhabited the same place at the same time, the paper's authors say. It also raises questions about the extent of the species' interactions with each other.

"They might have walked by one another," said Kevin Hatala, an evolutionary anthropologist at Chatham University in Pittsburgh who led the study. "They might have looked up in the distance and seen another member of a closely related species, occupying the same landscape." Based on skeletal remains found in the region, Dr. Hatala's team attributed the footprints to Paranthropus boisei and Homo erectus, two types of hominins, the group consisting of our human lineage and closely related species. Paranthropus boisei had smaller brains along with wide, flat faces and massive teeth and chewing muscles; Homo erectus more closely resembled modern human proportions and are thought to be our direct ancestors.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://science.slashdot.org/story/24/11/29/030230/footprints-suggest-different-human-relatives-lived-alongside-one-another?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Опубликован выпуск инструментария для управления пакетами APT 2.9.15 (Advanced Package Tool). Ветка 2.9.x является экспериментальной и используется для разработки функциональности будущей стабильной версии APT 3.0, которая после стабилизации будет интегрирована в Debian Testing и войдёт в следующий значительный релиз Debian, а также будет добавлена в пакетную базу Ubuntu.

https://www.opennet.ru/opennews/art.shtml?num=62312

Intel must maintain majority control of its foundries as a condition of receiving $7.86 billion in U.S. CHIPS Act funding, according to terms disclosed in a regulatory filing [PDF]. The semiconductor giant will need to keep at least 50.1% ownership if the foundry unit is spun off privately, while no single shareholder can hold more than 35% of shares if it goes public unless Intel remains the largest stakeholder. The restrictions, which also require Intel to remain a customer, come as the company struggles financially and recently restructured its foundry business as an independent unit.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://news.slashdot.org/story/24/11/29/0529245/intel-required-to-keep-control-of-foundries-under-79-billion-chips-act-deal?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Кит Паккард (Keith Packard), активный разработчик Debian, лидер проекта X.Org и создатель множества X-расширений, включая XRender, XComposite и XRandR, опубликовал новый выпуск языка программирования Snek 1.10, позиционируемого как упрощённый вариант языка Python, адаптированный для использования на встраиваемых системах, на которых недостаточно ресурсов для использования MicroPython и CircuitPython. Snek не претендует на полноценную поддержку языка Python, но может использоваться на чипах, имеющих всего 2КБ ОЗУ, 32 КБ Flash-памяти и 1КБ EEPROM. Код проекта распространяется под лицензией GPLv3. Сборки подготовлены для Linux, Windows и macOS.

https://www.opennet.ru/opennews/art.shtml?num=62315

Доступен выпуск проекта OpenMoHAA 0.80.0, воссоздающего движок для игры "Medal of Honor: Allied Assault", используя в качестве основы открытый движок ioquake3. Для вывода графики задействован бэкенд на базе библиотеки SDL2, а для вывода звука поддерживается OpenAL или SDL. Код проекта распространяется под лицензией GPLv2. Готовые сборки сформированы для платформ Linux и Windows.

https://www.opennet.ru/opennews/art.shtml?num=62313

Panasonic has created an AI clone of its late founder Konosuke Matsushita based on his writings, speeches, and over 3,000 voice recordings. From a local media report: Known as Japan's "god of management," the Panasonic icon is one of the most respected by the Japanese business community, and comes back to life in digital form to impart wisdom directly to those he never met in person.

"As the number of people who received training directly from Matsushita has been on the decline, we decided to use generative AI technology to pass down our group's founding vision to the next generation," the company said in a statement. Codeveloped with the University of Tokyo-affiliated Matsuo Institute, the model can reproduce how a person thinks or talks. The company aims to further develop the digital clone to help make business decisions in the future.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://slashdot.org/story/24/11/29/0739217/japans-god-of-management-comes-back-to-life-as-an-ai-model?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Опубликован релиз языка программирования общего назначения Rust 1.83, основанного проектом Mozilla, но ныне развиваемого под покровительством независимой некоммерческой организации Rust Foundation. Язык сфокусирован на безопасной работе с памятью и предоставляет средства для достижения высокого параллелизма выполнения заданий, при этом обходясь без использования сборщика мусора и runtime (runtime сводится к базовой инициализации и сопровождению стандартной библиотеки).

https://www.opennet.ru/opennews/art.shtml?num=62317

Проект UBports, который взял в свои руки разработку мобильной платформы Ubuntu Touch, после того как от неё отстранилась компания Canonical, представил прошивку OTA-7 Focal (over-the-air). Это седьмой выпуск Ubuntu Touch, основанный на пакетной базе Ubuntu 20.04. Проектом также развивается экспериментальный порт рабочего стола Unity 8, который переименован в Lomiri. Обновление Ubuntu Touch OTA-7 Focal в ближайшие дни будет сформировано для устройств.

https://www.opennet.ru/opennews/art.shtml?num=62319

An anonymous reader shares a report: Datacenters have been trending toward denser, more power-hungry systems for years. In case you missed it, 19-inch racks are now pushing power demands beyond 120 kilowatts in high-density configurations, with many making the switch to direct liquid cooling to tame the heat. Much of this trend has been driven by a need to support ever larger AI models.

According to researchers at Fujitsu, the number of parameters in AI systems is growing 32-fold approximately every three years. To support these models, chip designers like Nvidia use extremely high-speed interconnects -- on the order of 1.8 terabytes a second -- to make eight or more GPUs look and behave like a single device.

The problem though, is that the faster you shuffle data across a wire, the shorter the distance at which the signal can be maintained. At those speeds, you're limited to about a meter or two over copper cables. The alternative is to use optics, which can maintain a signal over a much larger distance. In fact, optics are already employed in many rack-to-rack scale-out fabrics like those used in AI model training. Unfortunately, in their current form, pluggable optics aren't particularly efficient or particularly fast.

Earlier in 2024 at GTC, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said that if the company had used optics as opposed to copper to stitch together the 72 GPUs that make up its NVL72 rack systems, it would have required an additional 20 kilowatts of power.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://tech.slashdot.org/story/24/11/29/1128242/ai-ambition-is-pushing-copper-to-its-breaking-point?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Опубликованы результаты тестирования потребления памяти при выполнении кода, создающего миллион параллельно выполняемых сопрограмм. Тестирование проведено для типовой программы, реализованной на языках программирования Rust, C#, Go, Java, Python и JavaScript.

https://www.opennet.ru/opennews/art.shtml?num=62314

LWN: The long-awaited release of the GNU Image Manipulation Program (GIMP) 3.0 is on the way, marking the first major update since version 2.10 was released in April 2018. It now features a GTK 3 user interface and GIMP 3.0 introduces significant changes to the core platform and plugins. This release also brings performance and usability improvements, as well as more compatibility with Wayland and complex input sources.

GIMP 3.0 is the first release to use GTK 3, a more modern foundation than the GTK 2 base of prior releases. GTK 4 has been available for a few years now, and is on the project's radar, but the plan was always to finish the GTK 3 work first. Moving to GTK 3 brings initial Wayland compatibility and HiDPI scaling. In addition, this allows for GIMP users to take advantage of multi-touch input, bringing pinch-to-zoom gestures to the program, and offering a better experience when working with complex peripherals, such as advanced drawing tablets. These features were not previously possible due to the limitations of GTK 2.

A secondary result of the transition to GTK 3 is a refreshed user interface (UI), now with support for CSS themes included. In this release, four themes are available by default, including light, dark, and gray themes, along with a high-contrast theme for users with visual impairments. Additionally, this release has transitioned to using GTK's header bar component, typically used to combine an application's toolbar and title bar into one unit. To maintain familiarity with previous releases, however, GIMP 3.0 still supports the traditional menu interface.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://tech.slashdot.org/story/24/11/29/134239/gimp-30---a-milestone-for-open-source-image-editing?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Crypto entrepreneur Justin Sun consumed Maurizio Cattelan's "Comedian" artwork -- a banana taped to a wall -- during an event in Hong Kong on Friday, declaring "the real value is the concept itself." Sun, founder of cryptocurrency platform Tron, purchased the piece for $6.2 million at Sotheby's last week, significantly above its $1-1.5 million estimate.

The acquisition included only a certificate of authenticity and assembly instructions, not the physical banana or tape. The Chinese-born entrepreneur, who faces SEC charges over fraud and securities violations, made the payment in cryptocurrency.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://news.slashdot.org/story/24/11/29/1323218/crypto-entrepreneur-eats-6-million-banana-on-stage?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Major technology companies criticized Australia's new law banning social media access for users under 16, which passed parliament on Thursday with bipartisan support. The legislation threatens fines up to $32 million for platforms failing to block minors. TikTok warned the ban could drive young users to riskier online spaces, while Meta called it a "predetermined process," questioning the rushed parliamentary review that gave stakeholders only 24 hours for submissions. Reuters adds: Snapchat parent Snap said it leaves many questions unanswered. [...] Sunita Bose, managing director of Digital Industry Group, which has most social media companies as members, said no one can confidently explain how the law will work in practice. "The community and platforms are in the dark about what exactly is required of them," she said.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://slashdot.org/story/24/11/29/1315219/big-tech-slams-australias-youth-social-media-ban?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Major academic publishers including Elsevier and Springer Nature are grappling with a sophisticated new journal hijacking scam that precisely mimics their websites to deceive researchers.

The fraudulent operation, reported by Retraction Watch, has cloned at least 13 legitimate journals through fake domains, according to Crossref data. The scam, the publication reports, features high-quality website clones that replicate even cookie consent popups. The operation assigns its own DOI prefix to published papers and offers paper-writing and peer review services typical of paper mills.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://science.slashdot.org/story/24/11/29/1534212/journal-scam-targets-top-science-publishers?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Состоялся выпуск 4.3 малопопулярной (580 ☆ на GitHub) программы [ Bforartists ]( https://www.bforartists.de ) – значительно модифицированного форка [ Blender ]( https://www.blender.org ) .

( [ читать дальше... ]( https://www.linux.org.ru/news/opensource/17806575#cut ) )

[ Cinnamon ]( https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinnamon ) — ос­но­ван­ная на GNOME сре­да ра­бо­че­го сто­ла, раз­ви­ва­емая ра­зра­бот­чи­ка­ми ди­стри­бу­ти­ва [ Linux Mint ]( https://www.linuxmint.com/ ) , и пре­до­ста­вля­ющая поль­зо­ва­те­лю клас­си­че­ский ин­тер­фейс, по­доб­ный GNOME 2 и Windows.

( [ читать дальше... ]( https://www.linux.org.ru/news/opensource/17806579#cut ) )

Доступно обновление операционной системы «Альт Образование» 10.4. Сборка подготовлена для архитектур x86_64, i586, aarch64, Эльбрус.

Скачать образ:

• [ download.basealt.ru ]( https://download.basealt.ru/pub/distributions/ALTLinux/p10/images/education/ )

• [ mirror.yandex.ru ]( http://mirror.yandex.ru/altlinux/p10/images/education/ )

• [ ftp.altlinux.org ]( http://ftp.altlinux.org/pub/distributions/ALTLinux/p10/images/education/ )

( [ читать дальше... ]( https://www.linux.org.ru/news/russia/17806596#cut ) )

Climate change has intensified hurricane wind speeds by an average of 19 mph in 84% of North Atlantic hurricanes between 2019-2024, according to new research that links warming ocean temperatures to storm intensity for individual hurricanes.

This year, Hurricanes Helene and Milton slammed into Florida, breaking meteorological records and causing catastrophic damage. The study by Climate Central found that higher sea surface temperatures elevated most hurricanes by an entire category on the Saffir-Simpson scale, with three storms, including Hurricane Rafael, seeing wind speeds increase by 34 mph due to warming.

Researchers calculated storm intensity using models of pre-warming ocean temperatures. "It's really the evolution of our science on sea surface temperature attribution that has allowed this work to take place," said lead author Daniel Gilford, noting that hurricane damage increases exponentially with wind speed. For example, a storm with double the wind speed can cause 256 times as much damage. The methodology enables scientists to determine climate change impacts on hurricanes in near-real time.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://news.slashdot.org/story/24/11/29/170207/the-new-climate-math-on-hurricanes?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Вышла новая версия менеджера электронных книг с открытым исходным кодом [ Calibre 7.22 ]( https://calibre-ebook.com/ ) .

Calibre 7.22 продолжает развивать недавно добавленные функции, добавляя новую опцию для установки положения панели управления при использовании функции «Чтение вслух» в просмотрщике электронных книг. Теперь панель можно разместить в верхней или нижней части окна, чтобы избежать затенения текста.

В меню системного трея добавлена опция перезапуска Calibre (что иногда требуется при изменении определенных настроек или функций, которые необходимо инициализировать при запуске).

( [ читать дальше... ]( https://www.linux.org.ru/news/opensource/17806791#cut0 ) )

Meta plans to build a $10 billion private, "mother of all" undersea fiber-optic cable network spanning over 40,000 kilometers around the world, according to TechCrunch. The project, dubbed "W" for its shape, would run from the U.S. east coast to the west coast via India, South Africa and Australia, avoiding regions prone to cable sabotage including the Red Sea and South China Sea.

The social media giant, which co-owns 16 existing cable networks, aims to gain full control over traffic prioritization for its services. The project mirrors Google's strategy of private cable ownership. The construction could take 5-10 years to complete.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://tech.slashdot.org/story/24/11/29/1643218/meta-plans-10-billion-global-mother-of-all-subsea-cables?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

king*jojo writes: KDE and GNOME have decided that because they're not big and complicated enough already, they might work better if they have their own custom distributions underneath. What's the worst that could happen?

A talk from this year's KDE conference, Akademy 2024, looks like it's going to become real. The talk, by KDE developer Harald Sitter, was entitled An Operating System of Our Own, and the idea sounds simple enough: Sitter proposed an official KDE Linux distribution. Now the proposal is gathering steam and a plan is coming together for an official KDE Linux -- codenamed "Project Banana."

[ Read more of this story ]( https://tech.slashdot.org/story/24/11/29/2055220/both-kde-and-gnome-to-offer-official-distros?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

British members of parliament have voted to legalize assisted dying, approving a contentious proposal that would make the United Kingdom one of a small handful of nations to allow terminally ill people to end their lives. From a report: Lawmakers in the House of Commons voted by 330 to 275 to support the bill, after an hours-long debate in the chamber and a years-long campaign by high-profile figures that drew on emotional first-hand testimony.

Britain is now set to join a small club of nations to have legalized the process, and one of the largest by population to allow it. The bill must still clear the House of Lords and parliamentary committees, but Friday's vote marked the most important hurdle.

It allows people with a terminal condition and less than six months to live to take a substance to end their lives, as long as they are capable of making the decision themselves. Two doctors, and then a High Court judge, would need to sign off on the choice. Canada, New Zealand, Spain and most of Australia allow assisted dying in some form, as do several US states including Oregon, Washington and California.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://news.slashdot.org/story/24/11/29/2351208/uk-lawmakers-vote-in-support-of-assisted-dying?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

A broad coalition of Canada's major news organizations, including the Toronto Star, Metroland Media, Postmedia, The Globe and Mail, The Canadian Press and CBC, is suing tech giant OpenAI, saying the company is illegally using news articles to train its ChatGPT software. From a report: It's the first time all of a country's major news publishers have come together in litigation against OpenAI. The suit, filed in Ontario's Superior Court of Justice Friday morning, seeks punitive damages, disgorgement of any profits made by OpenAI from using the news organizations' articles, and an injunction barring OpenAI from using any of the news articles in the future.

"Journalism is in the public interest. OpenAI using other companies' journalism for their own commercial gain is not. It's illegal," said a joint statement from the media organizations, which are represented by law firm Lenczner Slaght.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://news.slashdot.org/story/24/11/29/2317259/canadas-major-news-organizations-band-together-to-sue-openai?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Riot Games has announced sweeping changes to its terms of service, expanding penalties for player misconduct beyond in-game behavior to include content creation and social media activities.

The new rules, Engadget reports, enable "Riot-wide bans" for violations across platforms where players discuss or stream Riot games. The company will not actively monitor social media but will respond to reported violations, particularly during game livestreams.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://games.slashdot.org/story/24/11/29/2346212/riot-games-is-cracking-down-on-players-off-platform-conduct?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

SpzToid writes: A Chinese commercial vessel that has been surrounded by European warships in international waters for a week is central to an investigation of suspected sabotage that threatens to test the limits of maritime law -- and heighten tensions between Beijing and European capitals.

Investigators suspect that the crew of the Yi Peng 3 bulk carrier -- 225 meters long, 32 meters wide and loaded with Russian fertilizer -- deliberately severed two critical data cables last week as its anchor was dragged along the Baltic seabed for over 100 miles.

Their probe now centers on whether the captain of the Chinese-owned ship, which departed the Russian Baltic port of Ust-Luga on Nov. 15, was induced by Russian intelligence to carry out the sabotage. It would be the latest in a series of attacks on Europe's critical infrastructure that law-enforcement and intelligence officials say have been orchestrated by Russia.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://tech.slashdot.org/story/24/11/29/2335259/ships-crew-suspected-of-deliberately-dragging-anchor-for-100-miles-to-cut-baltic-cables?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Google Cloud dangled hundreds of million of euros worth of financial incentives to ally itself with an association of European cloud providers that had lodged a complaint against Microsoft, according to confidential documents seen by The Register.

Amit Zavery, the former Vice President of Google Cloud Platform, presented to a selection of members of the Cloud Infrastructure Service Providers in Europe (CISPE) trade body, then to the board and finally to the entire organization, according to sources that asked to remain anonymous.

In the presentation, seen by us, Zavery offered to provide a Members Innovation Fund of $4.2 million, which Google described as $105,000 per member to be used as "immediate funding for projects and license fees of CISPE members to support innovation in open cloud ecosystems." CISPE actually has 36 members now, including Oxya, Leaseweb, UpCloud and AWS -- the latter being the only non-European participant. The number has grown from 27 in July. Google also offered to contribute an additional $10.6 million to the trade association, described in the presentation as "participating and membership resources."

[ Read more of this story ]( https://tech.slashdot.org/story/24/11/30/0014255/google-offered-millions-to-ally-itself-with-trade-body-fighting-microsoft?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. В кодовую базу, на основе которой будет сформирован корректирующий выпуск KDE Plasma 6.2.5, внесено изменение, нацеленное на предотвращение аварийного завершения всей оболочки в случае сбоев в отдельных виджетах. Некоторые проблемы в виджетах, из-за которых ранее происходили крахи оболочки KDE Plasma, теперь ограничиваются выводом ошибки. Кроме того, проведена работа по повышению надёжности обработки некорректно оформленных файлов с расширением ".desktop". В композитном менеджере KWin обеспечена устойчивость к крахам из-за отправки приложениями некорректных метаданных HDR.

https://www.opennet.ru/opennews/art.shtml?num=62320

Опубликован выпуск проекта Red Panda C++ 3.2, легковесной интегрированной среды разработки для языков C, C++ и GNU Assembly. Red Panda C++ продолжает развитие IDE Dev-C++, которая была переписана с Delphi на С++ с использованием библиотеки Qt. Код проекта.

https://www.opennet.ru/opennews/art.shtml?num=62322

Performance improvement plans, a controversial corporate tool for managing underperforming employees, are becoming increasingly prevalent in U.S. workplaces. HR Acuity data shows workers subject to performance actions rose from 33.4 per 1,000 in 2020 to 43.6 per 1,000 in 2023.

While companies maintain PIPs offer a path to improvement, WSJ -- citing HR executives and former employees -- describes them as primarily providing legal protection against wrongful termination lawsuits and an alternative to formal layoffs. Only 10-25% of employees survive the 30-90 day improvement plans, with most either being terminated or leaving voluntarily.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://slashdot.org/story/24/11/30/0023227/performance-improvement-plans-surge-in-us-as-companies-seek-stealth-job-cuts?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Transport for London (TfL) has dropped its investigation into how it could introduce driverless trains on the London Underground. From a report: One of the many conditions imposed on TfL during the pandemic to keep services running when most of us were stuck at home was that it would investigate how it could introduce driverless trains on the Underground. TfL was required to produce a business case for converting the Waterloo & City line and Piccadilly line to a DLR-style operation, and in September 2021, it advertised for consultancy work on the project.

It's now been confirmed that the study reached the same conclusion that every other study into the issue has already reported -- it'll cost an awful lot of money for very little benefit. Despite the claims that it would prevent strikes on the tube, the reality is that it wouldn't, as driverless trains would still have staff on board, just as the DLR does, and the DLR still has strikes.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://news.slashdot.org/story/24/11/30/0113236/tfl-abandons-plans-for-driverless-tube-trains?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

The New York Post writes that "After the COVID-19 pandemic upended mom-and-pops around the city and resulted in thousands shuttering for good, it is important — now more than ever — to shop local."

America's Small Business Administration issued their own statement urging shoppers to "champion small businesses nationwide and #ShopSmall on Saturday, linking to a site mapping small businesses in your area. (And there's also a directory listing online small businesses.)

Small Business Saturday was founded by American Express in 2010 and officially cosponsored by the U.S. Small Business Administration since 2011. It is an important part of small businesses' busiest shopping season.

- In 2023, the reported projected spending in the U.S. from those who shopped at small businesses on Small Business Saturday was around $17 billion
- Since 2010, the total reported U.S. spending at small businesses during the annual Small Business Saturday is an estimated $201 billion

"Let's keep the Shop Small tradition going," urges the American Express web site — encouraging shoppers to also use the #ShopSmall hashtag on social media.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://news.slashdot.org/story/24/11/30/0444209/to-urge-local-shopping-america-celebrates-15th-annual-small-business-saturday?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

From a new web project called IMG_0001:

Between 2009 and 2012, iPhones had a built-in "Send to YouTube" button in the Photos app. Many of these uploads kept their default IMG_XXXX filenames, creating a time capsule of raw, unedited moments from random lives. Inspired by Ben Wallace, I made a bot that crawled YouTube and found 5 million of these videos! Watch them below, ordered randomly.

The Washington Post reports that it's the same 22-year-old software engineer who created Bop Spotter — that phone on a telephone pole using the Shazam app to identify songs people play in public.

And his new site includes only videos "posted before 2015, with fewer than 150 views each and durations shorter than 150 seconds."

In about 12 hours total, Walz said, he coded a website that takes millions of these unedited, raw videos from more than nine years ago and serves them to viewers at random. The resulting project, titled IMG_0001 and hosted on his personal website, plays out like a glimpse into different worlds: Hit play and your first video may show teenagers practicing a dance in a high school hallway. That wraps up, and it rolls into footage of a dog frolicking in a snowy backyard...

Viewers were gripped by the videos' unfiltered nature, a contrast to the heavily produced and camera-aware content found on TikTok and YouTube today. Writer Ryan Broderick wrote in his newsletter Garbage Day that the project is "beautiful, haunting, funny, and sort of magical. Like staring into a security camera of the past." Mashable's Tim Marcin called it "the kind of authenticity that's all too rare online these days."

The website has more than 280,000 views and millions of video plays, Walz said — meaning plenty of viewers are sticking around to watch many of the videos.

The article includes an intesting observation from Christian Sandvig, a digital media professor at the University of Michigan. "The people who made the video might not even remember that they shared them!"

[ Read more of this story ]( https://news.slashdot.org/story/24/11/30/0411217/youtube-is-full-of-old-unseen-home-videos-now-you-can-watch-them-at-random?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

27 ноября состоялся выпуск 0.8.0 консольного генератора документации из исходного кода C++ [ doxide ]( https://github.com/lawmurray/doxide ) , написанного на языках C и C++, и распространяемого по лицензии Apache 2.0.

Исходный код C++ документируется с помощью /** комментариев */, содержащих @-команды, как в классическом инструменте [ Doxygen ]( https://doxygen.nl ) . Многие команды Doxygen уже поддерживаются. Для конфигурации используется формат YAML.

Doxide генерирует документацию в формате Markdown, и для парсинга исходного кода использует инкрементальные парсеры проекта [ tree-sitter ]( https://tree-sitter.github.io/tree-sitter ) .

( [ читать дальше... ]( https://www.linux.org.ru/news/development/17807676#cut ) )

At the start of November Threads had 275 million members. But in 30 days it's apparently increased another 12%, reports The Verge:

Threads has accrued over 35 million signups so far in November and is "going on three months with more than a million signups a day," Meta spokesperson Alec Booker told The Verge in an email today. 20 million of those signups have come since November 14th, as Axios notes...

At the same time, Bluesky has seen a surge of interest. The platform grew to 15 million users earlier this month and continued to add about a million signups per day for several days. It now sits at over 22 million users.

Dave Earley, audience editor at Guardian Australia, says that traffic to TheGuardian.com from BlueSky "is already 2x that of Threads."
[T]hat's on a straight threads.net vs bsky.app referral comparison. BUT! 75-80% of tracked referral from owned Bluesky account posts is NOT being attributed to bsky.app, so I'm certain organic traffic would be undercounting by that much as well. By which I mean, I'm pretty sure traffic from bsky.app to theguardian.com is *significantly* higher than the very obvious 2x that of Threads.
That post was in response to one by a platform VP for the Boston Globe newspaper, who'd reported that traffic from Bluesky to bostonglobe.com "is already 3x that of Threads, and we are seeing 4.5x the conversions to paying digital subscribers."

And Axios notes that Bluesky's growth "has spurred inbound interest for a new investment round, just weeks after raising $15 million in Series A funding, per Axios' Dan Primack."

In response, Threads "rolled out a series of changes over the past week in what was seen as an attempt to keep an edge over Bluesky," reports The Hill:

The changes included a new custom feed feature, which gives users the ability to build their feeds around the topics and people they are most interested in. Bluesky lets users make their own lists and feeds and set their own content moderation preferences. The platform also rolled out a few "long-overdue improvements" to its search and trending now features and its algorithm.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://tech.slashdot.org/story/24/11/30/0536237/threads-adds-35-million-more-members-in-november---but-blueskys-traffic-is-surging?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

The Washington Post reports on tens of thousands of Americans "forced to pay for medication" to prevent the HIV infections, "despite federal requirements guaranteeing free access to treatment...according to multiple studies and interviews with medical professionals, activists and patients."

Insurance companies are skirting rules compelling them to pay for pre-exposure prophylaxis treatment, known as PrEP, researchers and HIV advocacy organizations say — leaving patients to shell out hundreds of dollars each year for medication co-pays, doctor visits and screenings required to stay on drugs that reduce the risk of contracting HIV through sex by 99 percent.

Under the Affordable Care Act, commercial insurers must cover certain preventive health services. This is supposed to include at least one form of oral PrEP and related health services, such as regular testing for HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases, for people at increased risk of contracting HIV, according to 2021 guidance from the Biden administration. Responding to complaints that patients were still being charged, the Biden administration in October released new guidance instructing private insurers to cover all forms of PrEP without prior authorization, including new long-acting injections.

Nearly a third of a national sample of 325 health coverage plans on government insurance marketplaces did not include PrEP on their lists of covered preventive services, according to the AIDS Institute, a New York-based nonprofit. Between 20 and 30 percent of PrEP users with commercial insurance still had to pay for it despite the coverage mandate, with an average cost of $227 for 2022, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Government regulators have been slow to crack down on insurer violations, activists say, creating a barrier to getting more at-risk Americans on the medication. The CDC estimates that only a third of the more than 1 million people who could benefit from PrEP have received a prescription, according to its most recent data.
The issue appears to be lax enforcement against insurers who break rules, a policy advocate told the newspaper. America's Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which enforces regulations for preventive care, "said it takes enforcement seriously and recently found two insurance plans in violation of coverage requirements following consumer complaints."

And the Post spoke to an official at America's Labor Department, who said they were investigating a complaint against a large insurance company, but "said the agency does not have enough staff to conduct proactive investigations and lacks the authority to sue and penalize insurers that break the rules."

[ Read more of this story ]( https://science.slashdot.org/story/24/11/30/0614247/us-insurers-are-still-charging-for-hiv-prevention-pills-that-should-be-free?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Компания Checkpoint сообщила о выявлении вредоносного ПО GodLoader, написанного на языке GDScript и использующего открытый игровой движок Godot для своего выполнения (движок Godot применяется как платформа для запуска). Написание кода на GDScript позволило распространять вредоносные программы среди любителей компьютерных игр под видом модов к играм и игровых ресурсов в формате pck, обрабатываемых движком Godot. Использование GDScript также дало возможность не зависеть от операционной системы, которая установлена у пользователя (Windows, macOS, Linux, Android и iOS).

https://www.opennet.ru/opennews/art.shtml?num=62323

Исследователи из компании ESET выявили новый буткит "Bootkitty", устанавливаемый после взлома системы вместо загрузчика GRUB и применяемый для подстановки в ядро Linux вредоносных компонентов, которые затем позволяют атакующему скрыто контролировать систему и выполнять в ней свои действия. Утверждается, что это первый UEFI-буткит, нацеленный на поражение систем Linux.

https://www.opennet.ru/opennews/art.shtml?num=62321

Сегодня, 30 ноября – последний день работы доменного регистратора 2DOMAINS.

На [ главной странице ]( https://2domains.ru/ ) показывается такой текст:

В связи с завершением работы сервиса 2DOMAINS в качестве партнера и реселлера Рег.ру, аккаунты и услуги, поставщиком которых выступал Рег.ру, 1 декабря 2024 года будут переданы на прямое обслуживание в Рег.ру.

Договор о предоставлении услуг (Договор) согласно п. 8.1. Договора действует по «30» ноября 2024 г. включительно (с учетом исключений, указанных в Договоре).

Если вы приобретали услуги Рег.ру через 2DOMAINS, ваш аккаунт будет перенесен в Рег.ру, о чем вы получите письмо с дополнительной информацией на контактный адрес электронной почты.

При возникновении вопросов можно обратиться в поддержку Рег.ру.

Обратите внимание, ООО «2ДОМЕЙНС.РУ» как регистратор доменных имен с идентификатором NAUNET продолжает оказывать услуги регистрации и продления регистрации доменных имен на основании Договора об оказании услуг регистрации.

Историческая справка

Уже 16 лет 2DOMAINS обслуживает профессионалов, готовых платить только за те опции, которые реально используют.

За эти годы мы доказали, что дешёвая регистрация доменов и надёжность — это совместимые понятия.

Тысячи вебмастеров, оптимизаторов и веб-студий доверили нам свои домены и хостинг.

В 2008 году мы выбрали тогда ещё молодого регистратора REG.RU в качестве нашего основного поставщика. Сегодня REG.RU обслуживает 37% доменов зоны .RU и 41% доменов зоны .РФ. Каждый второй домен в национальных зонах России регистрируется в REG.RU.

Компания занимает первое место в России и 21 место в мире по числу регистраций в новых доменных зонах, а на хостинге компании размещается 14% от всех сайтов с доменом .RU и 16% сайтов .РФ.

Компания 2DOMAINS также имеет статус аккредитованного регистратора доменов.

https://www.linux.org.ru/news/internet/17808013