10 января, после более года разработки, состоялся выпуск 1.15 библиотеки парсинга XML [ pugixml ]( https://pugixml.org ) , написанной на языке C++ и распространяемой по лицензии MIT.

Библиотека предоставляет богатый DOM-подобный интерфейс с широкими возможностями обхода и изменения узлов документа. Также поддерживается XPath 1.0 и полная поддержка Юникода, с автоматическим преобразованием кодировок.

pugixml может быть сконфигурирована для использования без std и исключений C++ и поддерживает header-only вариант.

( [ читать дальше... ]( https://www.linux.org.ru/news/development/17848053#cut ) )

The U.S. Justice Department said on Tuesday that it has deleted malware planted on more than 4,200 computers by a group of criminal hackers who were backed by the People's Republic of China. From a report: The malware, known as "PlugX," affected thousands of computers around the globe and was used to infect and steal information, the department said. Investigators said the malware was installed by a band of hackers who are known by the names "Mustang Panda" and "Twill Typhoon."

[ Read more of this story ]( https://news.slashdot.org/story/25/01/14/1550232/us-removes-malware-allegedly-planted-on-computers-by-chinese-backed-hackers?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Academia is in a credibility crisis. A record-breaking 10,000 scientific papers were retracted in 2023 because of scientific misconduct, and academic journals are overwhelmed by AI-generated images, data, and texts. To understand the roots of this problem, we must look at the role of metrics in evaluating the academic performance of individuals and institutions.

To gauge research quality, we count papers, citations, and calculate impact factors. The higher the scores, the better. Academic performance is often expressed in numbers. Why? Quantification reduces complexity, makes academia manageable, allows easy comparisons among scholars and institutions, and provides administrators with a feeling of grip on reality. Besides, numbers seem objective and fair, which is why we use them to allocate status, tenure, attention, and funding to those who score well on these indicators.

The result of this? Quantity is often valued over quality. In The Quantified Society I coin the term "indicatorism": a blind focus on enhancing indicators in spreadsheets, while losing sight of what really matters. It seems we're sometimes busier with "scoring" and "producing" than with "understanding." As a result, some started gaming the system. The rector of one of the world's oldest universities, for one, set up citation cartels to boost his citation scores, while others reportedly buy(!) bogus citations. Even top-ranked institutions seem to play the indicator game by submitting false data to improve their position on university rankings!

[ Read more of this story ]( https://science.slashdot.org/story/25/01/14/0848204/how-research-credibility-suffers-in-a-quantified-society?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Gizmodo: Texas has sued (PDF) one of the nation's largest car insurance providers alleging that it violated the state's privacy laws by surreptitiously collecting detailed location data on millions of drivers and using that information to justify raising insurance premiums. The state's attorney general, Ken Paxton, said the lawsuit against Allstate and its subsidiary Arity is the first enforcement action ever filed by a state attorney general to enforce a data privacy law. It also follows a deceptive business practice lawsuit he filed against General Motors accusing the car manufacturer of misleading customers by collecting and selling driver data.

In 2015, Allstate developed the Arity Driving Engine software development kit (SDK), a package of code that the company allegedly paid mobile app developers to install in their products in order to collect a variety of sensitive data from consumers' phones. The SDK gathered phone geolocation data, accelerometer, and gyroscopic data, details about where phone owners started and ended their trips, and information about "driving behavior," such as whether phone owners appeared to be speeding or driving while distracted, according to the lawsuit. The apps that installed the SDK included GasBuddy, Fuel Rewards, and Life360, a popular family monitoring app, according to the lawsuit.

Paxton's complaint said that Allstate and Arity used the data collected by its SDK to develop and sell products to other insurers like Drivesight, an algorithmic model that assigned a driving risk score to individuals, and ArityIQ, which allowed other insurers to "[a]ccess actual driving behavior collected from mobile phones and connected vehicles to use at time of quote to more precisely price nearly any driver." Allstate and Arity marketed the products as providing "driver behavior" data but because the information was collected via mobile phones the companies had no way of determining whether the owner was actually driving, according to the lawsuit. "For example, if a person was a passenger in a bus, a taxi, or in a friend's car, and that vehicle's driver sped, hard braked, or made a sharp turn, Defendants would conclude that the passenger, not the actual driver, engaged in 'bad' driving behavior," the suit states. Neither Allstate and Arity nor the app developers properly informed customers in their privacy policies about what data the SDK was collecting or how it would be used, according to the lawsuit. The lawsuit violates Texas' Data Privacy and Security Act (DPSA) and insurance code by failing to address violations within the required 30-day cure period. "In its complaint, filed in federal court, Texas requested that Allstate be ordered to pay a penalty of $7,500 per violation of the state's data privacy law and $10,000 per violation of the state's insurance code, which would likely amount to millions of dollars given the number of consumers allegedly affected," adds the report.

"The lawsuit also asks the court to make Allstate delete all the data it obtained through actions that allegedly violated the privacy law and to make full restitution to customers harmed by the companies' actions."

[ Read more of this story ]( https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/01/14/2042251/texas-sues-allstate-for-collecting-driver-data-to-raise-premiums?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

ChatGPT can now schedule reminders and recurring tasks -- but only if you're a ChatGPT Plus, Team, or Pro subscriber. TechCrunch reports: With tasks, users can set simple reminders with ChatGPT such as, "Remind me when my passport expires in six months," and the AI assistant will follow up with a push notification on whatever platform you have tasks enabled. Users can also now set recurring requests to ChatGPT, such as, "Every Friday, give me a weekend plan based on my location and the weather forecast," or "Give me a news briefing every day at 7 a.m." [...]

Users can access tasks by selecting "4o with scheduled tasks" from a dropdown menu in ChatGPT. From there, they can send ChatGPT a message telling the AI assistant what reminder or action they want to create. At times, OpenAI says ChatGPT may suggest certain tasks based on chats. Users can set and manage tasks by chatting with the AI assistant on any platform, or through a dedicated tasks manager tab that's only available on the web app.

Through the tasks feature, ChatGPT can now browse the web on a set schedule, but it will not run continuous searches in the background or make purchases. For example, you could instruct ChatGPT to check once a month for concert tickets to see your favorite artist in your area, but you can neither tell the AI assistant to alert you the moment the tickets go live, nor can ChatGPT buy tickets for you. That said, it's a step toward those [agentic] systems.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://slashdot.org/story/25/01/14/2111248/chatgpt-now-lets-you-schedule-reminders-and-recurring-tasks?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

A week after announcing performance-based job cuts similar to those at Meta, Microsoft said it also plans to pause hiring in part of its consulting unit. CNBC reports: The changes by the U.S. consulting division are meant to align with a policy by the Microsoft Customer and Partner Solutions organization, which has about 60,000 employees, according to a page on Microsoft's website. The changes are in place through the remainder of the 2025 fiscal year ending in June. To reduce costs, Microsoft's consulting division will hold off on hiring new employees and back-filling roles, consulting executive Derek Danois told employees in the memo. Careful management of costs is of utmost importance, Danois wrote.

The memo also instructs employees to not expense travel for any internal meetings and use remote sessions instead. Additionally, executives will have to authorize trips to customers' sites to ensure spending is being used on the right customers, Danois wrote. Additionally, the group will cut its marketing and non-billable external resource spend by 35%, the memo says. Further reading: Companies Deploy AI To Curb Hiring as 'Cost Avoidance' Gains Ground

[ Read more of this story ]( https://slashdot.org/story/25/01/14/2056246/microsoft-pauses-hiring-in-us-consulting-unit?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: The Biden administration finalized a new rule that would effectively ban all Chinese vehicles from the US under the auspices of blocking the "sale or import" of connected vehicle software from "countries of concern." The rule could have wide-ranging effects on big automakers, like Ford and GM, as well as smaller manufacturers like Polestar -- and even companies that don't produce cars, like Waymo. The rule covers everything that connects a vehicle to the outside world, such as Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, cellular, and satellite components. It also addresses concerns that technology like cameras, sensors, and onboard computers could be exploited by foreign adversaries to collect sensitive data about US citizens and infrastructure. And it would ban China from testing its self-driving cars on US soil.

"Cars today have cameras, microphones, GPS tracking, and other technologies connected to the internet," US Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo said in a statement. "It doesn't take much imagination to understand how a foreign adversary with access to this information could pose a serious risk to both our national security and the privacy of U.S. citizens. To address these national security concerns, the Commerce Department is taking targeted, proactive steps to keep [People's Republic of China] and Russian-manufactured technologies off American roads." The rules for prohibited software go into effect for model year 2027 vehicles, while the ban on hardware from China waits until model year 2030 vehicles. According to Reuters, the rules were updated from the original proposal to exempt vehicles weighing over 10,000 pounds, which would allow companies like BYD to continue to assemble electric buses in California. The Biden administration published a fact sheet with more information about this rule.

"[F]oreign adversary involvement in the supply chains of connected vehicles poses a significant threat in most cars on the road today, granting malign actors unfettered access to these connected systems and the data they collect," the White House said. "As PRC automakers aggressively seek to increase their presence in American and global automotive markets, through this final rule, President Biden is delivering on his commitment to secure critical American supply chains and protect our national security."

[ Read more of this story ]( https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/01/14/216250/us-finalizes-rule-to-effectively-ban-chinese-vehicles?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

OpenAI's "reasoning" AI model, o1, has exhibited a puzzling behavior of "thinking" in Chinese, Persian, or some other language -- "even when asked a question in English," reports TechCrunch. While the exact cause remains unclear, as OpenAI has yet to provide an explanation, AI experts have proposed a few theories. From the report: Several on X, including Hugging Face CEO Clement Delangue, alluded to the fact that reasoning models like o1 are trained on datasets containing a lot of Chinese characters. Ted Xiao, a researcher at Google DeepMind, claimed that companies including OpenAI use third-party Chinese data labeling services, and that o1 switching to Chinese is an example of "Chinese linguistic influence on reasoning."

"[Labs like] OpenAI and Anthropic utilize [third-party] data labeling services for PhD-level reasoning data for science, math, and coding," Xiao wrote in a post on X. "[F]or expert labor availability and cost reasons, many of these data providers are based in China." [...] Other experts don't buy the o1 Chinese data labeling hypothesis, however. They point out that o1 is just as likely to switch to Hindi, Thai, or a language other than Chinese while teasing out a solution.

Other experts don't buy the o1 Chinese data labeling hypothesis, however. They point out that o1 is just as likely to switch to Hindi, Thai, or a language other than Chinese while teasing out a solution. Rather, these experts say, o1 and other reasoning models might simply be using languages they find most efficient to achieve an objective (or hallucinating). "The model doesn't know what language is, or that languages are different," Matthew Guzdial, an AI researcher and assistant professor at the University of Alberta, told TechCrunch. "It's all just text to it."

Tiezhen Wang, a software engineer at AI startup Hugging Face, agrees with Guzdial that reasoning models' language inconsistencies may be explained by associations the models made during training. "By embracing every linguistic nuance, we expand the model's worldview and allow it to learn from the full spectrum of human knowledge," Wang wrote in a post on X. "For example, I prefer doing math in Chinese because each digit is just one syllable, which makes calculations crisp and efficient. But when it comes to topics like unconscious bias, I automatically switch to English, mainly because that's where I first learned and absorbed those ideas."

[...] Luca Soldaini, a research scientist at the nonprofit Allen Institute for AI, cautioned that we can't know for certain. "This type of observation on a deployed AI system is impossible to back up due to how opaque these models are," they told TechCrunch. "It's one of the many cases for why transparency in how AI systems are built is fundamental."

[ Read more of this story ]( https://slashdot.org/story/25/01/14/239246/openais-ai-reasoning-model-thinks-in-chinese-sometimes-no-one-really-knows-why?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Pixelfed has launched its mobile app for iOS and Android, solidifying its position as a viable alternative to Instagram. The move also comes at a pivotal moment, as a potential Supreme Court ban on TikTok could drive users to explore other social media platforms. Pixelfed is ad-free, open source, decentralized, defaults to chronological feeds and doesn't share user data with third parties. Engadget reports: The platform launched in 2018, but was only available on the web or through third-party app clients. The Android app debuted on January 9 and the iOS app released today. Creator Daniel Supernault posted on Mastodon Monday evening that the platform had 11,000 users join over the preceding 24 hours and that more than 78,000 posts have been shared to Pixelfed to date. The platform runs on ActivityPub, the same protocol that powers several other decentralized social networks in the fediverse, such as Mastodon and Flipboard. The iOS and Android apps are available at their respective links.

Further reading: Meta Is Blocking Links to Decentralized Instagram Competitor Pixelfed

[ Read more of this story ]( https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/01/14/2329222/pixelfed-instagrams-decentralized-competitor-is-now-on-ios-and-android?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

The Australian Open has introduced a project called AO Animated -- "near-live, commentated coverage of the Australian Open, free to anyone across the world via YouTube, enhanced via a stream of comments from a like-minded online community," reports The Guardian. Blending real-world data with virtual avatars, the animated coverage has garnered significant viewer interest, especially among gamers and tech enthusiasts. From the report: [I]t's no surprise a project called AO Animated has taken off at this year's grand slam tournament at Melbourne Park. The catch? The players, ball and court are all computer-generated. That hasn't dissuaded hundreds of thousands of viewers from tuning into this vision of the Australian Open, featuring video game-like avatars but using real-world data in an emerging category of sports broadcasting helping tennis reach new fans.

The loophole allows the Australian Open to show a version of live events at the tournament on its own channels, despite having sold lucrative exclusive broadcast rights to partners across the globe. The technology made its debut at the grand slam last year and audiences peaked for the men's final, the recording of which has attracted almost 800,000 views on YouTube. Interest appears to be trending up this year and the matches are attracting roughly four times as many viewers than the equivalent time in 2024.

The director of innovation at Tennis Australia, Machar Reid, said although the technology was far from polished it was developing quickly. "Limb tracking is complex, you've got 12 cameras trying to process the silhouette of the human in real time, and stitch that together across 29 points in the skeleton," he said. "It's not as seamless as it could be -- we don't have fingers -- but in time you can begin to imagine a world where that comes." The data from sensors on the court is ingested and fed into a system that can produce the graphic reproduction with a two-minute delay. The same commentary and arena noises that would otherwise be heard on the television -- as well as interstitial vision direct from the broadcast -- are synced with the virtual representation of the match.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://slashdot.org/story/25/01/14/2353202/australian-open-avatars-helping-tennis-reach-new-audience?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Hill: The number of deaths in the U.S. is expected to exceed the number of births by 2033, according to the Congressional Budget Office's (CBO) annual 30-year projection of the U.S. population released on Monday. That estimation comes seven years earlier than what the CBO estimated in its 30-year population outlook released last year. At that time, in January 2024, the CBO projected deaths to outpace births by 2040. The CBO's 2025 report projected lower population growth over the next three decades than it did in its 2024 demographic outlook.

The CBO's population estimate for 2025 is 350 million, a slight increase from the 346 million it predicted for 2025 last year. But its projection for 2054 -- 372 million people -- has decreased since last year, when the CBO projected the population would be 383 million in 2054. The rate of growth projected over the next three decades -- 0.2 percent -- is significantly slower than the rate seen in the prior five decades, from 1975 to 2024, when the population grew at 0.9 percent. The growth rate over the next three decades is also expected to slow. From 2025 to 2035, the population is expected to grow an average of 0.4 percent a year. From 2036 to 2055, however, the growth rate is projected to be 0.1 percent. The CBO attributes this projected slow rate of growth to a variety of factors, including lower fertility, an aging population and lower immigration.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://news.slashdot.org/story/25/01/14/2357240/us-deaths-expected-to-outpace-births-within-the-decade?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Вчера, 14 января 2025 года на [ сайте ]( http://stolyarov.info/ ) автора был [ опубликован ]( http://stolyarov.info/books/programming_intro/2_9 ) первый том нового издания известной книги «Программирование: введение в профессию» за авторством Андрея Викторовича Столярова, известного на данном портале как /img/tuxlor.png [ Croco ]( https://www.linux.org.ru/people/Croco/profile ) .

По причине отсутствия у автора возможности издавать и печатать книги в России новое издание имеет номер 2,9, а не 3. Третье издание планируется к изданию на бумаге по восстановлении такой возможности.

https://www.linux.org.ru/news/doc/17848385

После месяца разработки состоялся выпуск 3.48.0 компактной встраиваемой СУБД [ SQLite ]( https://sqlite.org ) , написанной на языке C и распространяемой, как общественное достояние.

( [ читать дальше... ]( https://www.linux.org.ru/news/opensource/17848327#cut ) )

Parallels Desktop now supports running 64-bit x86 operating systems on Apple Silicon Macs through its proprietary emulation engine, enabling users to run traditional Windows and Linux distributions. However, performance is said to be "really slow." How-To Geek reports: The latest Parallels Desktop 20.2 update adds early support for x86 emulation on Apple Silicon, allowing traditional x86 PC operating systems to work on newer Mac computers. There were already apps like UTM that could do it (most of them are based on QEMU), but this feature uses Parallels' "proprietary emulation engine" paired with Apple's built-in hypervisor. [...] Parallels on Apple Silicon can now "run existing x86_64 Windows 10, Windows 11*, Windows Server 2019/2022, and some Linux distributives with UEFI BIOS via Parallels Emulator." You can also create new Windows 10 21H2 and Windows Server 2022 virtual machines if needed.

There are some big limitations. You can only run 64-bit x86 operating systems -- sorry, FreeDOS fans -- but those 64-bit operating systems can run 32-bit applications. There's also no support for USB devices, nested virtualization (so WSL2 won't work), or the Parallels hypervisor. Performance will also be "really slow," since x86 instructions have to be translated to ARM. The company said, "Windows boot time is about 2-7 minutes, depending on your hardware. Windows operating system responsiveness is also low."

[ Read more of this story ]( https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/01/15/0216248/parallels-can-now-run-x86-windows-and-linux-on-apple-silicon-mac?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Линус Торвальдс намеревался опубликовать релиз ядра Linux 6.13 в это воскресенье, но скорее всего тестирование ветки 6.13 будет продлено на неделю из-за проблем со стабильностью в изменениях, подготовленных сотрудником Microsoft и принятых в ветку 6.13 в ноябре. Дополнительно отмечается, что патч, ставший причиной сбоя, был подан нестандартно - но был принят, хотя не получил ни одного подтверждения (ACK) от мэйнтайнеров архитектуры x86, что является нарушением общепринятых практик.

https://www.opennet.ru/opennews/art.shtml?num=62555

Разработчики Linux Mint анонсировали релиз версии 22.1 под кодовым названием «Xia». Система имеет статус LTS (Long Term Support) с поддержкой до 2029 года. Дистрибутив основан на Ubuntu 24.04 и работает на ядре Linux 6.8.

( [ читать дальше... ]( https://www.linux.org.ru/news/linux-general/17848364#cut ) )

Обновлена утилита для синхронизации файлов Rsync с устранением 6 достаточно критичных уязвимостей. Для совершения атаки с применением некоторых их них достаточно анонимного подключения к серверу Rsync с доступом на чтение.

( [ читать дальше... ]( https://www.linux.org.ru/news/opensource/17848386#cut ) )

Разработчики проекта GNOME приняли минималистичный музыкальный проигрыватель Decibels в основной состав среды рабочего стола GNOME. Decibels начнёт поставляться в весеннем выпуске GNOME 48 под именем "Audio Player". В прошлом году проигрыватель уже был принят в базовую поставку дистрибутива Endless OS, а также был включён по умолчанию в GNOME-редакции дистрибутива для смартфонов postmarketOS. Код Decibels написан на языке TypeScript с использованием JavaScript-обвязок над GStreamer, Libadwaita, Gio, GObject и GTK4, и распространяется под лицензией AGPLv3. Готовые пакеты сформированы в формате Flatpak.

https://www.opennet.ru/opennews/art.shtml?num=62560

hackingbear shares a report from the Associated Press: As the threat of a TikTok ban looms, U.S. TikTok users are flocking to the Chinese social media app Xiaohongshu -- making it the top downloaded app in the U.S. Xiaohongshu, which in English means "Little Red Book" is a Chinese social media app that combines e-commerce, short video and posting functions, enticing mostly Chinese young women from mainland China and regions with with a Chinese diaspora such as Malaysia and Taiwan who use it as a de-facto search engine for product, travel and restaurant recommendations, as well as makeup and skincare tutorials. After the justices seemed inclined to let the law stand, masses of TikTok users began creating accounts on Xiaohongshu, including hashtags such as #tiktokrefugee or #tiktok to their posts. "

I like your makeup," a Xiaohongshu user from Beijing comments one of the posts by Alexis Garman, a 21-year-old TikTok user in Oklahoma with nearly 20,000 followers, and Garman thanks them in a reply. A user from the southwestern province of Sichuan commented "I am your Chinese spy please surrender your personal information or the photographs of your cat (or dog)." "TikTok possibly getting banned doesn't just take away an app, it takes away jobs, friends and community," Garman said. "Personally, the friends and bond I have with my followers will now be gone." Xiaohongshu doesn't even have an English user interface. Reuters reports:
In only two days, more than 700,000 new users joined Xiaohongshu, a person close to the company told Reuters. Xiaohongshu [which was founded in 2013 and is backed by investors such as Alibaba, Tencent and Sequoia], did not immediately respond to a request for comment. U.S. downloads of RedNote were up more than 200% year-over-year this week, and 194% from the week prior, according to estimates from app data research firm Sensor Tower. The second most-popular free app on Apple's App Store list on Tuesday, Lemon8, another social media app owned by ByteDance, experienced a similar surge last month, with downloads jumping by 190% in December to about 3.4 million.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/01/15/0729235/tiktok-users-flocks-to-chinese-social-app-xiaohongshu?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Опубликованы корректирующие выпуски распределённой системы управления исходным кодом Git 2.41.3, 2.42.4, 2.43.6, 2.44.3, 2.45.3, 2.46.3, v2.47.2 и 2.48.1, в которых устранены две уязвимости.

https://www.opennet.ru/opennews/art.shtml?num=62561

An anonymous reader quotes a report from CoinTelegraph: Social media platform Meta has confirmed that its fact-checking feature on Facebook, Instagram and Threads will only be removed in the US for now, according to a Jan. 13 letter sent to Brazil's government. "Meta has already clarified that, at this time, it is terminating its independent Fact-Checking Program only in the United States, where we will test and refine the community notes [feature] before expanding to other countries," Meta told Brazil's Attorney General of the Union (AGU) in a Portuguese-translated letter.

Meta's letter followed a 72-hour deadline Brazil's AGU set for Meta to clarify to whom the removal of the third-party fact verification feature would apply. [...] Brazil has expressed dissatisfaction with Meta's removal of its fact check feature, Brazil Attorney-General Jorge Messias said on Jan. 10. "Brazil has rigorous legislation to protect children and adolescents, vulnerable populations, and the business environment, and we will not allow these networks to transform the environment into digital carnage or barbarity." Last Tuesday, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced an end to fact-checking on Facebook and Instagram -- a move he described as an attempt to restore free expression on its platforms. He likened his company's fact-checking process to a George Orwell novel, saying it "something out of 1984" and let to a broad belief that Meta fact-checkers "were too biased."

[ Read more of this story ]( https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/01/15/0741212/meta-says-it-isnt-ending-fact-checks-outside-us-at-this-time?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Microsoft is relaunching its free Copilot for businesses as Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat today, complete with the ability to use AI agents. From a report: Copilot Chat is Microsoft's latest attempt to get people used to using AI at work and relying on it enough to tempt them into paying $30 per month to get the full Microsoft 365 Copilot.

Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat is essentially a rebranding of what was once Bing Chat Enterprise before Microsoft rebranded it to just Copilot. It crucially now includes access to Copilot AI agents right within the chat interface -- which was previously only available in the full Microsoft 365 Copilot experience -- requiring a $30 per user per month subscription. These agents are designed to work like virtual colleagues and can do things like monitor email inboxes or automate a series of tasks.

You'll be able to create and use agents using Copilot Studio, use agents that rely on web data, and even use agents grounded on work data through the Microsoft graph. The usage of agents with Copilot Chat will be priced through the Copilot Studio meter in Azure or through a pay-as-you-go option.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://slashdot.org/story/25/01/15/1430238/microsoft-relaunches-copilot-for-business-with-free-ai-chat-and-pay-as-you-go-agents?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Google is bundling its AI features into Workspace at no extra charge while raising the base subscription price by $2 to $14 per user monthly, the company said Wednesday. The move eliminates the previous $20 monthly fee for Gemini Business plan that was required to access AI tools in Gmail, Docs and other Workspace apps.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/01/15/1444200/google-is-making-ai-in-gmail-and-docs-free---but-raising-the-price-of-workspace?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Nearly a quarter of Harvard Business School's 2024 M.B.A. graduates remained jobless three months after graduation, highlighting deepening employment challenges at elite U.S. business schools. The unemployment rate for Harvard M.B.A.s rose to 23% from 20% a year earlier, more than double the 10% rate in 2022.

Major employers including McKinsey, Amazon, Google, and Microsoft have scaled back M.B.A. recruitment, with McKinsey cutting its hires at University of Chicago's Booth School to 33 from 71. "We're not immune to the difficulties of the job market," said Kristen Fitzpatrick, who oversees career development at Harvard Business School. "Going to Harvard is not going to be a differentiator. You have to have the skills." Columbia Business School was the only top program to improve its placement rate in 2024. Median starting salaries for employed M.B.A.s remain around $175,000.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://news.slashdot.org/story/25/01/15/1512208/even-harvard-mbas-are-struggling-to-land-jobs?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Microsoft will stop supporting its Microsoft 365 (formerly known as Office 365) desktop applications on Windows 10 after October 14, the day the company is retiring the old operating system, it said.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://it.slashdot.org/story/25/01/15/1541203/microsoft-will-not-support-office-on-windows-10-after-october-14?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader shares a report: U.S. school districts affected by the recent cyberattack on edtech giant PowerSchool have told TechCrunch that hackers accessed "all" of their historical student and teacher data stored in their student information systems. PowerSchool, whose school records software is used to support more than 50 million students across the United States, was hit by an intrusion in December that compromised the company's customer support portal with stolen credentials, allowing access to reams of personal data belonging to students and teachers in K-12 schools.

The attack has not yet been publicly attributed to a specific hacker or group. PowerSchool hasn't said how many of its school customers are affected. However, two sources at affected school districts -- who asked not to be named -- told TechCrunch that the hackers accessed troves of personal data belonging to both current and former students and teachers. Further reading: Lawsuit Accuses PowerSchool of Selling Student Data To 3rd Parties.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://yro.slashdot.org/story/25/01/15/1456240/powerschool-data-breach-victims-say-hackers-stole-all-historical-student-and-teacher-data?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Chinese drone maker DJI has removed software restrictions that previously prevented its drones from flying over sensitive areas in the United States, including airports, wildfires, and government buildings like the White House, replacing them with dismissible warnings.

The policy shift comes amid rising U.S. distrust of Chinese drones and follows a recent incident where a DJI drone disrupted firefighting efforts in Los Angeles. The company defended the change, saying drone regulations have matured with the FAA's new Remote ID tracking requirement, which functions like a digital license plate.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/01/15/1614246/dji-removes-us-drone-flight-restrictions-over-airports-wildfires?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Executives and researchers leading Meta's AI efforts obsessed over beating OpenAI's GPT-4 model while developing Llama 3, according to internal messages unsealed by a court in one of the company's ongoing AI copyright cases, Kadrey v. Meta. From a report: "Honestly... Our goal needs to be GPT-4," said Meta's VP of Generative AI, Ahmad Al-Dahle, in an October 2023 message to Meta researcher Hugo Touvron. "We have 64k GPUs coming! We need to learn how to build frontier and win this race."

Though Meta releases open AI models, the company's AI leaders were far more focused on beating competitors that don't typically release their model's weights, like Anthropic and OpenAI, and instead gate them behind an API. Meta's execs and researchers held up Anthropic's Claude and OpenAI's GPT-4 as a gold standard to work toward. The French AI startup Mistral, one of the biggest open competitors to Meta, was mentioned several times in the internal messages, but the tone was dismissive. "Mistral is peanuts for us," Al-Dahle said in a message. "We should be able to do better," he said later.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/01/15/1715239/mistral-is-peanuts-for-us-meta-execs-obsessed-over-beating-openais-gpt-4-internally-court-filings-reveal?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission sued Deere & Co on Wednesday for allegedly monopolizing the repair market for its farm equipment by forcing farmers to use authorized dealers, driving up costs and causing service delays.

The lawsuit, joined by Illinois and Minnesota, claims Deere maintains complete control over equipment repairs by restricting access to essential software to its dealer network. The action seeks to make repair tools available to equipment owners and independent mechanics. FTC Chair Lina Khan said repair restrictions can be "devastating for farmers" who depend on timely repairs during harvest.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://yro.slashdot.org/story/25/01/15/1820204/ftc-sues-deere-over-farm-equipment-repair-restrictions?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Опубликован выпуск кроссплатформенного свободного редактора кода CudaText 1.220.6, написанного с использованием Free Pascal и Lazarus. Редактор поддерживает расширения на Python, и имеет ряд преимуществ над Sublime Text. Присутствуют некоторые возможности интегрированной среды разработки, реализованные в виде плагинов. Для программистов подготовлено более 300 синтаксических лексеров. Код распространяется под лицензией MPL 2.0. Сборки доступны для платформ Linux, Windows, macOS, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD, DragonflyBSD, Solaris и Haiku.

https://www.opennet.ru/opennews/art.shtml?num=62563

New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy called for a statewide ban on cellphones in K-12 classrooms during his State of the State address on Tuesday, citing concerns over student distraction and mental health. The Democratic governor, in his final year in office, also proposed full salary payments for state workers using parental leave and expanded full-day pre-K programs across the state.

The cellphone initiative follows similar restrictions in seven other states, including California and Florida. A Pew Research poll showed 68% of U.S. adults support classroom phone bans, with 72% of teachers calling the devices a major distraction. "Mobile devices are fueling a rise in cyberbullying and making it incredibly difficult for our kids to learn," Murphy told state legislators.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://news.slashdot.org/story/25/01/15/1834242/new-jersey-governor-pushes-phone-ban-in-schools?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

LinkedIn has unveiled an AI-powered "Job Match" feature to discourage users from applying to positions they aren't qualified for, aiming to address recruitment inefficiencies in a tight job market. The tool, the Microsoft-owned firm said, analyzes users' experience against job requirements to provide detailed qualification summaries, going beyond basic keyword matching. Premium subscribers will receive more granular match data.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://slashdot.org/story/25/01/15/1858257/linkedin-wants-you-to-apply-for-fewer-jobs?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Change Healthcare has hidden its data breach notification webpage from search engines using "noindex" code, TechCrunch found, making it difficult for affected individuals to find information about the massive healthcare data breach that compromised over 100 million people's medical records last year.

The UnitedHealth subsidiary said Tuesday it had "substantially" completed notifying victims of the February 2024 ransomware attack. The cyberattack caused months of healthcare disruptions and marked the largest known U.S. medical data theft.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://it.slashdot.org/story/25/01/15/198236/unitedhealth-hid-its-change-healthcare-data-breach-notice-for-months?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TorrentFreak: In 'piracy' associated circles, Z-Library has one of the most followed Telegram channels of all. The shadow library's official channel amassed over 630,000 subscribers over the years, who were among the first to read site announcements and other key updates. Z-Library previously had some of its messages removed due to copyright infringement. While it didn't upload or directly link to infringing material on Telegram, rightsholders allegedly complained about the links that were posted to the Z-Library website. In response, Z-Library chose to no longer include links to its own homepage on Telegram. Instead, it referred users to Wikipedia and Reddit, where the links were still available. The same copyright awareness was visible at Anna's Archive, a popular shadow library search engine. This channel was also careful not to post direct links to infringing material. After all, sharing or uploading copyrighted books would undoubtedly lead to trouble.

Despite the reported caution, the channels of both Z-Library and Anna's Archive are no longer accessible today. Messages posted by these accounts were purged "due to copyright infringement", as shown below. Telegram didn't limit its action to removing posts; the channels are now entirely inaccessible. Those trying to access the channels in the Telegram app receive a pop-up message stating they are "unavailable due to copyright infringement." The simultaneous removal of both channels suggests they are linked to the same complaint or decision. The specific complaint and alleged copyright infringements remain unclear.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://yro.slashdot.org/story/25/01/15/1949247/telegram-shuts-down-z-library-annas-archive-channels-over-copyright-infringement?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Independent developer Sebastian Vogelsang is building a photo-sharing app for the decentralized social network Bluesky, leveraging its AT Protocol and his earlier app, Skeets. The app, called Flashes, will offer features like photo and short video posts while integrating seamlessly with Bluesky. TechCrunch reports: When launched, Flashes could tap into growing consumer demand for alternatives to Big Tech's social media monopoly. [...] To make this work, Flashes simply filters Bluesky's existing timeline for posts with photos and video posts. (In the future, Vogelsang also plans to add metadata to Flashes' posts so Bluesky users would have a way to keep their feeds on Bluesky's main app from being flooded with photo posts if that became a problem.) Flashes didn't take too long to build because it was able to reuse Skeets' existing code. The app will also be able to market to Skeets' existing user base, who have now downloaded the app some 30,500 times to date.

Vogelsang says he's now working to integrate subscription-based features from both his apps so users don't have to pay twice for the premium features, like Skeets' bookmarks, drafts, muting, rich push notifications, and others specific to Flashes. (Both apps are free to use without a subscription, we should note.) Later, Vogelsang says he wants to launch a video-only app, too, called Blue Screen.

At launch, Flashes will support photo posts of up to four images and videos of up to 1 minute in length, just like Bluesky. Users who post to Flashes will also have their posts appear on Bluesky and comments on those posts will also feed back into the app as if it were just another Bluesky client. It will also support Bluesky's direct messages. The developer expects to be able to launch Flashes to the public in a matter of weeks with a TestFlight beta arriving ahead of that. Interested users can follow Flashes' account on Bluesky for further updates. Flashes could satiate the growing demand for alternatives to Big Tech's social media monopoly, especially after Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced that he will end fact-checking on its platforms.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://news.slashdot.org/story/25/01/15/205226/bluesky-is-getting-its-own-photo-sharing-app-flashes?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

GOG.com, a European digital distribution platform known for offering DRM-free video games, announced they've joined the European Federation of Game Archives, Museums and Preservation Projects (EFGAMP). From the release: "GOG was created with video game preservation in mind," said Maciej Golebiewski, Managing Director at GOG. "Classic games and the mission to safeguard them for future generations have always been at the core of our work. Over the past decade, we've honed our expertise in this area. The GOG Preservation Program, which ensures compatibility for over 100 games and delivers hundreds of enhancements, is just one example of this commitment. We were thrilled to see the Program warmly received not only by our players but also by our partners and the gaming industry as a whole."

Golebiewski further explained that GOG's role in preservation extends beyond its platform. He highlighted, "As a European company, we feel a responsibility to lead in preserving gaming heritage. Joining EFGAMP reinforces this commitment. Our next step is to expand institutional collaboration with museums and governmental and non-governmental organizations worldwide. We hope our experience will contribute meaningfully to their efforts. We are also discussing exciting new game preservation projects, which we look forward to sharing soon."

[ Read more of this story ]( https://games.slashdot.org/story/25/01/15/2025210/gog-joins-european-federation-of-game-archives-museums-and-preservation-projects?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Lots of startups use Google's productivity suite, known as Workspace, to handle email, documents, and other back-office matters. Relatedly, lots of business-minded webapps use Google's OAuth, i.e. "Sign in with Google." It's a low-friction feedback loop -- up until the startup fails, the domain goes up for sale, and somebody forgot to close down all the Google stuff. Dylan Ayrey, of Truffle Security Co., suggests in a report that this problem is more serious than anyone, especially Google, is acknowledging. Many startups make the critical mistake of not properly closing their accounts -- on both Google and other web-based apps -- before letting their domains expire.

Given the number of people working for tech startups (6 million), the failure rate of said startups (90 percent), their usage of Google Workspaces (50 percent, all by Ayrey's numbers), and the speed at which startups tend to fall apart, there are a lot of Google-auth-connected domains up for sale at any time. That would not be an inherent problem, except that, as Ayrey shows, buying a domain allows you to re-activate the Google accounts for former employees if the site's Google account still exists.

With admin access to those accounts, you can get into many of the services they used Google's OAuth to log into, like Slack, ChatGPT, Zoom, and HR systems. Ayrey writes that he bought a defunct startup domain and got access to each of those through Google account sign-ins. He ended up with tax documents, job interview details, and direct messages, among other sensitive materials. A Google spokesperson said in a statement: "We appreciate Dylan Ayrey's help identifying the risks stemming from customers forgetting to delete third-party SaaS services as part of turning down their operation. As a best practice, we recommend customers properly close out domains following these instructions to make this type of issue impossible. Additionally, we encourage third-party apps to follow best-practices by using the unique account identifiers (sub) to mitigate this risk."

[ Read more of this story ]( https://it.slashdot.org/story/25/01/15/2031225/dead-google-apps-domains-can-be-compromised-by-new-owners?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Diamond Comic Distributors, the world's biggest English language comic book distributor, is filing for bankruptcy and scaling its business back in order to survive. The Verge reports: In a letter sent to comics retailers and publishers today, Diamond president Chuck Parker announced that the company has filed for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy and plans to sell off its Alliance Game Distributors arm to Universal in order to "protect the most vital aspects of our business."

Founded in 1982 by Stephen A. Geppi (who still serves as CEO), Diamond became a heavyweight in the comics business by securing a number of exclusive distribution agreements with various publishing houses like DC, Marvel, and Image. For decades, Diamond -- which also publishes its Previews magazine showcasing upcoming titles -- was instrumental in bringing comics to market and played a huge role in determining a book's success because of how Previews influenced retailer orders. "This decision was not made lightly, and I understand that this news may be as difficult to hear as it is for me to share," Parker said. "The Diamond leadership team and I have worked tirelessly to avoid this outcome but the financial challenges we face have left us with no other viable option."

[ Read more of this story ]( https://slashdot.org/story/25/01/16/0012208/comics-distributor-diamond-is-filing-for-bankruptcy?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Roseltorg, Russia's main electronic trading platform for government and corporate procurement, confirmed it was targeted by a cyberattack claimed by the pro-Ukraine hacker group Yellow Drift. The group allegedly deleted 550 terabytes of data, causing significant operational delays and client concerns. The Record reports: The company initially confirmed last Thursday that its services had been temporarily suspended, without providing further details. In a recent Telegram statement, Roseltorg disclosed that it had been targeted by "an external attempt to destroy data and the entire infrastructure of electronic trading." Roseltorg stated that all data and infrastructure affected by the recent attack had been fully restored, and trading systems are expected to resume operations shortly. However, as of the time of writing, the company's website remains offline.

Last week, the previously unknown pro-Ukraine hacker group Yellow Drift claimed responsibility for the attack on Roseltorg, stating they had deleted 550 terabytes of data, including emails and backups. As proof, the hackers published screenshots from the platform's allegedly compromised infrastructure on their Telegram channel. "If you support tyranny and sponsor wars, be prepared to return to the Stone Age," the hackers said.

The cyberattack on Roseltorg is already impacting clients who rely on the platform's operations, including government agencies, state-owned companies and suppliers. Following the company's announcement, many clients expressed concerns in the comments section, complaining about potential financial losses and delays in the procurement process. Roseltorg said in a statement that once access to the trading systems is reinstated, all deadlines for procedures, including contract signings, will be automatically extended without requiring any requests from users.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://it.slashdot.org/story/25/01/16/0019201/russias-largest-platform-for-state-procurement-hit-by-cyberattack?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

The FTC is issuing refunds for 6,764 customers who purchased Razer's Zephyr face mask, which falsely advertised as meeting N95 standards. GameSpot reports: In May 2024, the FTC announced that a settlement was reached with Razer for more than $1 million. The fine occurred because Razer claimed its face mask met N95 requirements, even though it was never submitted for certification to test whether it removed 95% of airborne particles, per the FTC.

In the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic, Razer revealed the N95 face mask with RGB lighting and voice amplification at CES in January 2021. The Razer Zephyr face mask eventually launched in October 2021 for $100. However, just months later in January 2022, Razer removed the N95 claims about the face mask.

At the time of the settlement with the FTC, Razer stated that it disagreed with the agency's allegations and didn't "admit to any wrongdoing." Meanwhile, the FTC says checks must be cashed within 90 days for the Zephyr face mask refunds, while PayPal payments need to be redeemed within 30 days.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://news.slashdot.org/story/25/01/16/0025204/ftc-says-refunds-for-razers-false-n95-face-masks-are-going-out-now?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Привет, ЛОР!

Вышла новая версия замечательного проекта OpenZFS, реализующего файловую системы ZFS. Изначально ZFS была разработана компанией Sun под названием Zettabyte File System (позже название было сокращено до просто ZFS) и поставлялась в ОС Solaris начиная с 2005 года. После покупки Sun корпорацией Oracle, исходники Solaris были закрыты. Проект OpenZFS был основан как форк последней открытой версии кода от Sun. Начиная с OpenZFS 2.0, он был объединён с наработками ZFS-on-Linux и в настоящее время поддерживает системы Linux и FreeBSD. Энтузиастами также развиваются порты для ОС Windows, MacOS, Illumos и NetBSD.

( [ читать дальше... ]( https://www.linux.org.ru/news/opensource/17849322#cut ) )

An anonymous reader quotes a report from VentureBeat: Colossal BioSciences has raised $200 million in a new round of funding to bring back extinct species like the woolly mammoth. Dallas- and Boston-based Colossal is making strides in the scientific breakthroughs toward "de-extinction," or bringing back extinct species like the woolly mammoth, thylacine and the dodo. [...] Since launching in September 2021, Colossal has raised $435 million in total funding. This latest round of capital places the company at a $10.2 billion valuation. Colossal will leverage this latest infusion of capital to continue to advance its genetic engineering technologies while pioneering new revolutionary software, wetware and hardware solutions, which have applications beyond de-extinction including species preservation and human healthcare.

"Our recent successes in creating the technologies necessary for our end-to-end de-extinction toolkit have been met with enthusiasm by the investor community. TWG Global and our other partners have been bullish in their desire to help us scale as quickly and efficiently as possible," said CEO Colossal Ben Lamm, in a statement. "This funding will grow our team, support new technology development, expand our de-extinction species list, while continuing to allow us to carry forth our mission to make extinction a thing of the past." Here's a summary of the startup's progress on its efforts to bring back the woolly mammoth, thylacine and the dodo:

Woolly Mammoth De-extinction Progress
- Generated chromosome-scale reference genomes for elephants and the first de novo assembled mammoth genome
- Acquired and aligned 60+ ancient mammoth genomes and 30+ genomes of extant elephant species, improving mammoth-specific variant accuracy
- Derived pluripotent stem cells for Asian elephants, advancing reproductive technologies essential for de-extinction

Thylacine De-extinction Progress
- Created a 99.9% complete ancient genome for the thylacine using long-read and RNA sequencing
- Assembled telomere-to-telomere genomes of dasyurid species to understand evolutionary relationships and support conservation of marsupials
- Progress in genomics and reproductive technologies positions Colossal ahead of schedule on critical de-extinction steps

Dodo De-extinction Progress
- Completed high-coverage genomes for the dodo, its relatives, and the critically endangered manumea
- Developed tools for avian genome engineering, including techniques for craniofacial gene-editing and primordial germ cell cultivation
- Significant advances in avian-specific genetic techniques are driving progress toward dodo restoration and bird conservation

[ Read more of this story ]( https://science.slashdot.org/story/25/01/16/0037222/startup-raises-200-million-to-de-extinct-the-woolly-mammoth-thylacine-and-dodo?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

В выпуске Fedora 42, намеченном на конец апреля, планируется перевести все Live-сборки дистрибутива со SquashFS на файловую систему EROFS, поддержка которой в прошлом году была реализована в инструментарии для создания загрузочных образов Dracut 103. Предложение пока не утверждено комитетом FESCo (Fedora Engineering Steering Committee), отвечающим за техническую часть разработки дистрибутива Fedora.

https://www.opennet.ru/opennews/art.shtml?num=62566

Sweden has begun constructing a long-term storage facility for spent nuclear fuel in Forsmark, making it only the second country after Finland to build such a site. It is not expected to be completed until the 2080s, but once finished, it will securely house radioactive waste for up to 100,000 years. Reuters reports: The Forsmark final repository, about 150 kilometers north of Stockholm on Sweden's east coast, will consist of 60 km of tunnels buried 500 meters down in 1.9 billion year old bedrock. It will be the final home for 12,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel, encased in 5 meter long, corrosion-resistent copper capsules that will be packed in clay and buried. The facility will take its first waste in the late 2030s but will not be completed until around 2080 when the tunnels will be backfilled and closed, Sweden's Nuclear Fuel and Waste Management Company (SKB) said. [...]

The Forsmark repository will cost around 12 billion crowns($1.08 billion) and be paid for by the nuclear industry, SKB said. It will have room to hold all the waste produced by Sweden's nuclear power plants. However, it will not hold fuel from future reactors. Sweden plans to build 10 more reactors by 2045.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://news.slashdot.org/story/25/01/16/0233234/sweden-starts-building-100000-year-storage-site-for-spent-nuclear-fuel?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Разработчики проекта Fedora опубликовали план поставки сборки со средой рабочего стола KDE в форме базовой редакции дистрибутива, идентичной по уровню поддержки со сборкой Fedora Workstation, поставляемой с GNOME. Ранее изменение статуса сборки Fedora с KDE утвердил управляющий совет проекта Fedora. Теперь реализация новой первичной редакции в выпуске Fedora 42 будет рассмотрена комитетом FESCo (Fedora Engineering Steering Committee), отвечающим за техническую часть разработки дистрибутива.

https://www.opennet.ru/opennews/art.shtml?num=62567

Компания Google опубликовала релиз web-браузера Chrome 132. Одновременно доступен стабильный выпуск свободного проекта Chromium, выступающего основой Chrome. Браузер Chrome отличается от Chromium использованием логотипов Google, наличием системы отправки уведомлений в случае краха, модулями для воспроизведения защищённого от копирования видеоконтента (DRM), системой автоматической установки обновлений, постоянным включением Sandbox-изоляции, поставкой ключей к Google API и передачей RLZ-параметров при поиске. Для тех, кому необходимо больше времени на обновление, отдельно поддерживается ветка Extended Stable, сопровождаемая 8 недель. Следующий выпуск Chrome 133 запланирован на 4 февраля.

https://www.opennet.ru/opennews/art.shtml?num=62562

A pastor in Pasco, Washington, has been indicted on 26 counts of fraud for orchestrating a cryptocurrency scam that defrauded over 1,500 investors of nearly $5.9 million between 2021 and 2023. Many of the investors were members of his congregation. BleepingComputer reports: The US Department of Justice says the pastor, Francier Obando Pinillo, 51, used his position to recruit investors into a fraudulent cryptocurrency venture called "Solano Fi," which he told them "came to him in a dream" and was a guaranteed investment. "Pinillo used his position as pastor to induce members of his congregation and others to invest their money in a cryptocurrency investment business known as Solano Fi," reads the US Department of Justice announcement. "Pinillo claimed the idea for Solano Fi had come to him in a dream and that it was a safe and guaranteed investment."

The pastor also set up a Facebook page for Solano Fi to attract more investors outside his direct sphere of influence, as well as a Telegram group named 'Multimillionarios SolanoFi,' which had 1,500 members. The indictment alleged that Pinillo promised investors they would receive guaranteed monthly investment returns of 34.9% at no risk whatsoever. The indictment further claims he directed the victims to make cryptocurrency transfers to wallets under his control, and instead of investing the funds, he diverted them for personal use. Investors were provided access to a Solano Fi web app where they could manage their funds; however, the app showed fake balances and investment returns. Those convinced by the fraud were encouraged to recruit more investors for additional returns, expanding the victims' circle. As in similar scams, when the victims attempted to withdraw money from the Solano Fi app, the transaction failed.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://yro.slashdot.org/story/25/01/16/0242200/pastor-who-saw-crypto-project-in-his-dream-indicted-for-fraud?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: On Tuesday, the United Nations Security Council held a meeting to discuss the dangers of commercial spyware, which marks the first time this type of software -- also known as government or mercenary spyware -- has been discussed at the Security Council. The goal of the meeting, according to the U.S. Mission to the UN, was to "address the implications of the proliferation and misuse of commercial spyware for the maintenance of international peace and security." The United States and 15 other countries called for the meeting. While the meeting was mostly informal and didn't end with any concrete proposals, most of the countries involved, including France, South Korea, and the United Kingdom, agreed that governments should take action to control the proliferation and abuse of commercial spyware. Russia and China, on the other hand, dismissed the concerns.

John Scott-Railton, a senior researcher at The Citizen Lab, a human rights organization that has investigated spyware abuses since 2012, gave testimony in which he sounded the alarm on the proliferation of spyware made by "a secretive global ecosystem of developers, brokers, middlemen, and boutique firms," which "is threatening international peace and security as well as human rights." Scott-Railton called Europe "an epicenter of spyware abuses" and a fertile ground for spyware companies, referencing a recent TechCrunch investigation that showed Barcelona has become a hub for spyware companies in the last few years.

Representatives of Poland and Greece, countries that had their own spyware scandals involving software made by NSO Group and Intellexa, respectively, also intervened. Poland's representative pointed at local legislative efforts to put "more control, including by the judiciary, on the relevant operational activities of the security and intelligence services," while also recognizing that spyware can be used in a legal way. "We are not saying that the use of spyware is never justified or even required," said Poland's representative. And the Greek representative pointed to the country's 2022 bill to ban the sale of spyware.

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Nintendo announced on Thursday it will unveil its next-generation Switch 2 gaming console at a digital event on April 2, marking the end of its nearly eight-year-old flagship model. The Japanese gaming giant revealed in a two-minute video that the new device maintains a similar hybrid design to the original Switch but is larger, with redesigned controllers that attach magnetically.

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Replit, an AI coding startup platform, has made a dramatic pivot away from professional programmers in a fundamental shift in how software may be created in the future. "We don't care about professional coders anymore," CEO Amjad Masad told Semafor, as the company refocuses on helping non-developers build software using AI.

The strategic shift follows the September launch of Replit's "Agent" tool, which can create working applications from simple text commands. The tool, powered by Anthropic's Claude 3.5 Sonnet AI model, has driven a five-fold revenue increase in six months. The move marks a significant departure for Replit, which built its business providing online coding tools for software developers. The company is now betting that AI will make traditional programming skills less crucial, allowing non-technical users to create software through natural language instructions.

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