СУБД с открытым исходным кодом PostgreSQL [ признана ]( https://db-engines.com/en/blog_post/109 ) СУБД года по версии международного портала DB-Engines. Она показала лучшую динамику роста популярности и сохранила лидерство среди более 400 исследуемых систем. PostgreSQL возглавила рейтинг в пятый раз — ранее она уже становилась лидером по динамике роста в 2017, 2018, 2020 и 2023 годах.

( [ читать дальше... ]( https://www.linux.org.ru/news/opensource/17850007#cut ) )

Raw drinking water sources across England are polluted with toxic forever chemicals, new analysis has revealed, prompting the water sector to demand that ministers ban the substances and polluters pay for the astronomical cleanup costs. The Guardian: The areas covered by Affinity Water and Anglian Water were found to be particularly badly affected, and experts have said they fear "we are drastically underestimating the size of the problem." There are more than 10,000 PFAS in use, known as forever chemicals because they do not break down in the environment.

[...] In an unprecedented move, the industry body Water UK has said it "wants to see PFAS banned and the development of a national plan to remove it from the environment which should be paid for by manufacturers." It described PFAS pollution as a "huge global challenge" and said: "The UK's tap water is rated as the safest in the world, and companies are already taking action to reduce PFAS levels further." In an attempt to tackle the problem, the EU is considering a proposal to regulate all 10,000 or so PFAS together, but the PFAS industry is lobbying against it and the UK has no plans to follow suit.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://news.slashdot.org/story/25/01/16/1524238/drinking-water-sources-in-england-polluted-with-forever-chemicals?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Nintendo's top intellectual property lawyer has acknowledged that video game emulators are technically legal, even as the company continues to shut down popular emulation projects worldwide. Speaking at the Tokyo eSports Festa, Koji Nishiura, deputy general manager of Nintendo's intellectual property department, said emulators violate the law only when they bypass encryption, copy copyrighted console programs, or direct users to pirated material. The statement comes after Nintendo forced the closure of several major emulation projects last year, including Yuzu, Citra, and Ryujinx.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://games.slashdot.org/story/25/01/16/162245/nintendo-admits-emulators-are-legal-despite-crackdown?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Представлен релиз дистрибутива Linux Mint 22.1, продолжающий развитие ветки на пакетной базе Ubuntu 24.04 LTS. Дистрибутив полностью совместим с Ubuntu, но существенно отличается подходом к организации интерфейса пользователя и подбором используемых по умолчанию приложений. Разработчики Linux Mint предоставляют десктоп-окружение, соответствующее классическим канонам организации рабочего стола, которое является более привычным для пользователей, не принимающих новые методы построения интерфейса GNOME 3. Для загрузки доступны DVD-сборки на базе оболочек MATE (3 ГБ), Cinnamon (3 ГБ) и Xfce (3 ГБ). Ветка Linux Mint 22 отнесена к выпускам с длительным сроком поддержки (LTS), обновления для которых будут формироваться до 2029 года.

https://www.opennet.ru/opennews/art.shtml?num=62570

U.S. President Joe Biden has issued a comprehensive cybersecurity executive order, four days before leaving office, mandating improvements to government network monitoring, software procurement, AI usage, and foreign hacker penalties.

The 40-page directive aims to leverage AI's security benefits, implement digital identities for citizens, and address vulnerabilities that have allowed Chinese and Russian intrusions into U.S. government systems. It requires software vendors to prove secure development practices and gives the Commerce Department eight months to establish mandatory cybersecurity standards for government contractors.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://news.slashdot.org/story/25/01/16/1654242/a-new-jam-packed-biden-executive-order-tackles-cybersecurity-ai-and-more?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Nvidia has dedicated a supercomputer running thousands of its latest GPUs exclusively to improving its DLSS upscaling technology for the past six years, a company executive revealed at CES 2025. Speaking at the RTX Blackwell Editor's Day in Las Vegas, Brian Catanzaro, Nvidia's VP of applied deep learning research, said the system operates continuously to analyze failures and retrain models across hundreds of games.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://it.slashdot.org/story/25/01/16/1743210/nvidia-reveals-ai-supercomputer-used-non-stop-for-six-years-to-perfect-gaming-graphics?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Microsoft has patched a Windows vulnerability that allowed attackers to bypass Secure Boot, a critical defense against firmware infections, the company said. The flaw, tracked as CVE-2024-7344, affected Windows devices for at least seven months. Security researcher Martin Smolar discovered the vulnerability in a signed UEFI application within system recovery software from seven vendors, including Howyar.

The application, reloader.efi, circumvented standard security checks through a custom PE loader. Administrative attackers could exploit the vulnerability to install malicious firmware that persists even after disk reformatting. Microsoft revoked the application's digital signature, though the vulnerability's impact on Linux systems remains unclear.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://it.slashdot.org/story/25/01/16/1755240/microsoft-patches-windows-to-eliminate-secure-boot-bypass-threat?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Google has cut code migration time in half by deploying AI tools to assist with large-scale software updates, according to a new research paper from the company's engineers. The tech giant used large language models to help convert 32-bit IDs to 64-bit across its 500-million-line codebase, upgrade testing libraries, and replace time-handling frameworks. While 80% of code changes were AI-generated, human engineers still needed to verify and sometimes correct the AI's output. In one project, the system helped migrate 5,359 files and modify 149,000 lines of code in three months.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/01/16/1810253/ai-slashes-googles-code-migration-time-by-half?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Компания Postgres Professional открыла регистрацию на крупнейшую конференцию по PostgreSQL — [ PGConf.Russia 2025 ]( https://pgconf.ru/pgconf-2025 ) . Встреча пройдет 31 марта — 1 апреля в Центре международной торговли в Москве.

( [ читать дальше... ]( https://www.linux.org.ru/news/opensource/17850069#cut ) )

Регистрация на [ PGConf.Russia 2025 ]( https://pgconf.ru/pgconf-2025 )

Longtime Slashdot reader timeOday shares a report from the New York Times: At 2:03 a.m. Eastern time, seven powerful engines ignited at the base of a 320-foot-tall rocket named New Glenn. The flames illuminated night into day at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. The rocket, barely moving at first, nudged upward and then accelerated in an arc over the Atlantic Ocean, lit up in blue, the color of combustion of the rocket's methane fuel. Thirteen minutes later, the second stage of New Glenn reached orbit.

The launch was a major success for Blue Origin, Mr. Bezos' rocket company. The upward flight appeared almost flawless, but Blue Origin's stretch goal of landing the booster stage on a barge in the Atlantic Ocean failed. As planned, the booster fired three of its engines to slow down, but then the stream of data stopped, indicating that the booster had been lost.

"We'll learn a lot from today and try again at our next launch this spring," Dave Limp, the chief executive of Blue Origin, said in a statement. In an interview on Sunday, Mr. Limp said that, with a successful inaugural launch of New Glenn, Blue Origin is aiming for a second launch in the spring and that he wanted six to eight launches this year. A recording of the launch is available on YouTube.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://science.slashdot.org/story/25/01/16/2147235/blue-origins-new-glenn-rocket-reaches-orbit?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

David Lynch, a four-time Oscar-nominated filmmaker known for the 1984 sci-fi epic Dune and the Showtime drama Twin Peaks, has died. "In January 2025, Lynch evacuated his Los Angeles home due to the Southern California wildfires," writes longtime Slashdot reader Z00L00K. "According to Deadline, these events preceded a terminal decline in his health, and on January 16, 2025, Lynch's family announced that he had died at the age of 78." Deadline reports: Lynch had been diagnosed with emphysema. Sources told Deadline that he was forced to relocate from his house due to the Sunset Fire and then took a turn for the worse. In an interview with Sight & Sound magazine last year, Lynch revealed that due to Covid fears and his emphysema diagnosis, he could no longer could leave the house, which meant if he directed again, it would be remote. He then followed up the interview with a post on social that he "will never retire" despite his physical challenges.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://entertainment.slashdot.org/story/25/01/16/2157231/david-lynch-director-of-twin-peaks-and-dune-dies-at-78?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNN: Apple is temporarily pulling its newly introduced artificial intelligence feature that summarizes news notifications after it repeatedly sent users error-filled headlines, sparking backlash from a news organization and press freedom groups. The rare reversal from the iPhone maker on its heavily marketed Apple Intelligence feature comes after the technology produced misleading or altogether false summaries of news headlines that appear almost identical to regular push notifications.

On Thursday, Apple deployed a beta software update to developers that disabled the AI feature for news and entertainment headlines, which it plans to later roll out to all users while it works to improve the AI feature. The company plans to re-enable the feature in a future update. As part of the update, the company said the Apple Intelligence summaries, which users must opt into, will more explicitly emphasize that the information has been produced by AI, signaling that it may sometimes produce inaccurate results.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://apple.slashdot.org/story/25/01/16/2213202/apple-pulls-ai-generated-notifications-for-news-after-generating-fake-headlines?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

A recent 200-page report published by Epyllion reveals that PC gaming has been outperforming consoles over the last decade, "breezing past console platforms and generating more content spending and revenue," reports Insider Gaming. From the report: One slide revealed that since 2011, PC's content spend has dominated 'living room' console revenue by more than 65%, and it has earned 225% more than 'combined console' spend. That's a total of $30 billion if you want to put a number on it. Those numbers exclude hardware and accessories.

The report also showed that mobile gaming is leagues ahead of both PC and console platforms, representing the number one money maker in the games industry. This stat has been recorded despite an $18 billion increase in spending on console platforms in 2024 compared to 2011. That 75% increase is still trumped by content spend on PC platforms. But why is PC becoming increasingly popular and much more profitable? Epyllion suggested it boils down to a few core reasons:

- PC platforms have a much larger library of games and 'near-full backwards compatibility'
- On a PC, you can multi-task (stream, communicate, alt+tab, multiple monitors)
- Lower entry price point than consoles
- Higher top-end performance
- Better for esports and competitive gaming
- Able to play more early-access games
- More annual game releases
- Console 'exclusives' are now finding their way to PC

[ Read more of this story ]( https://games.slashdot.org/story/25/01/16/2226201/pc-gaming-has-been-outperforming-console-for-years-report-finds?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

SpaceX conducted its seventh test flight of the Starship rocket on Thursday with mixed results. The upper stage was lost nine minutes after launch, but the Super Heavy booster successfully landed back at the launch site, marking a second successful recovery. CNBC reports: SpaceX said in a post on X that the ship broke up during its ascent burn and that it would "continue to review data from today's flight test to better understand root cause." After the rocket lost communication, social media users posted photos and videos of what appeared to be fireballs in the sky near the Caribbean islands. Starship's launch trajectory takes it due east from Texas, which means the fireballs are likely debris from the rocket breaking apart and reentering the atmosphere.

Starship launched from SpaceX's private "Starbase" facility near Brownsville, Texas, shortly after 5:30 p.m. ET. A few minutes later, the rocket's "Super Heavy" booster returned to land at the launch site, in SpaceX's second successful "catch" during a flight. It did not catch the booster on the last flight. There were no people on board the Starship flight. However, Elon Musk's company was flying 10 "Starlink simulators" in the rocket's payload bay and planned to attempt to deploy the satellite-like objects once in space. This would have been a key test of the rocket's capabilities, as SpaceX needs Starship to deploy its much larger and heavier upcoming generation of Starlink satellites. You can watch a recording of the launch here.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://science.slashdot.org/story/25/01/16/2357225/starship-rocket-breaks-up-mid-flight-but-spacex-catches-booster-again-after-launch?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: Toyota Motor unit Hino Motors has agreed a $1.6 billion settlement with U.S. agencies and will plead guilty over excess diesel engine emissions in more than 105,000 U.S. vehicles, the company and U.S. government said on Wednesday. The Japanese truck and engine manufacturer was charged with fraud in U.S. District Court in Detroit for unlawfully selling 105,000 heavy-duty diesel engines in the United States from 2010 through 2022 that did not meet emissions standards. The settlement, which still must be approved by a U.S. judge, includes a criminal penalty of $521.76 million, $442.5 million in civil penalties to U.S. authorities and $236.5 million to California.

A company-commissioned panel said in a report in 2022 Hino had falsified emissions data on some engines going back to at least 2003. Hino agreed to plead guilty to engaging in a multi-year criminal conspiracy and serve a five-year term of probation, during which it will be barred from importing any diesel engines it has manufactured into the U.S., and carry out a comprehensive compliance and ethics program, the Justice Department and Environmental Protection Agency said. [...] The settlement includes a mitigation program, valued at $155 million, to offset excess air emissions from the violations by replacing marine and locomotive engines, and a recall program, valued at $144.2 million, to fix engines in 2017-2019 heavy-duty trucks

The EPA said Hino admitted that between 2010 and 2019, it submitted false applications for engine certification approvals and altered emission test data, conducted tests improperly and fabricated data without conducting any underlying tests. Hino President Satoshi Ogiso said the company had improved its internal culture, oversight and compliance practices. "This resolution is a significant milestone toward resolving legacy issues that we have worked hard to ensure are no longer a part of Hino's operations or culture," he said in a statement. Toyota's Hino Motors isn't the only automaker to admit to selling vehicles with excess diesel emissions. Volkswagen had to pay billions in fines after it admitted in 2015 to cheating emissions tests by installing "defeat devices" and sophisticated software in nearly 11 million vehicles worldwide. Daimler (Mercedes-Benz), BMW, Opel/Vauxhall (General Motors), and Fiat Chrysler have been implicated in similar practices.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/01/16/2240241/toyota-unit-hino-motors-reaches-16-billion-us-diesel-emissions-settlement?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Ars Technica's Jon Brodkin reports: AT&T has stopped offering its 5G home Internet service in New York instead of complying with a new state law that requires ISPs to offer $15 or $20 plans to people with low incomes. New York started enforcing its Affordable Broadband Act yesterday after a legal battle of nearly four years. [...] The law requires ISPs with over 20,000 customers in New York to offer $15 broadband plans with download speeds of at least 25Mbps, or $20-per-month service with 200Mbps speeds. The plans only have to be offered to households that meet income eligibility requirements, such as qualifying for the National School Lunch Program, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or Medicaid. [...]

Ending home Internet service in New York is relatively simple for AT&T because it is outside the 21-state wireline territory in which the telco offers fiber and DSL home Internet service. "AT&T Internet Air is currently available only in select areas and where AT&T Fiber is not available. New York is outside of our wireline service footprint, so we do not have other home Internet options available in the state," the company said. AT&T will continue offering its 4G and 5G mobile service in New York, as the state law only affects home Internet service. People with smartphones or other mobile devices connected to the AT&T wireless network should thus see no change.

Existing New York-based users of AT&T Internet Air can only keep it for 45 days and won't be charged during that time, AT&T said. "During this transition, customers will be able to keep their existing AT&T Internet Air service for up to 45 days, at no charge, as they find other options for broadband. We will work closely with our customers throughout this transition," AT&T said. Residential users will be sent "a recovery kit with instructions on how to return their AIA equipment, while business customers can keep any device they purchased at no charge," AT&T said.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://yro.slashdot.org/story/25/01/16/235225/att-kills-home-internet-service-in-new-york-over-law-requiring-15-plans?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Google has partnered with Indian startup Varaha to purchase 100,000 tons of carbon dioxide removal credits by 2030, marking its largest deal in India and the largest involving biochar, a carbon removal solution made from biomass. TechCrunch reports: The offtake agreement credits will be delivered to Google by 2030 from Varaha's industrial biochar project in the western Indian state of Gujarat, the two firms said on Thursday. [...] Biochar is produced in two ways: artisanal and industrial. The artisanal method is community-driven, where farmers burn crop residue in conical flasks without using machines. In contrast, industrial biochar is made using large reactors that process 50-60 tons of biomass daily.

Varaha's project will generate industrial biochar from an invasive plant species, Prosopis Juliflora, using its pyrolysis facility in Gujarat. The invasive species impacts plant biodiversity and has overtaken grasslands used for livestock. Varaha will harvest the plant and make efforts to restore native grasslands in the region, the company's co-founder and CEO Madhur Jain said in an interview. Once the biochar is produced, a third-party auditor will submit their report to Puro.Earth to generate credits. Although biochar is seen as a long-term carbon removal solution, its permanence can vary between 1,000 and 2,500 years depending on production and environmental factors.

Jain told TechCrunch that Varaha tried using different feedstocks and different parameters within its reactors to find the best combination to achieve permanence close to 1,600 years. The startup has also built a digital monitoring, reporting and verification system, integrating remote sensing to monitor biomass availability. It even has a mobile app that captures geo-tagged, time-stamped images to geographically document activities, including biomass excavation and biochar's field application. With its first project, Varaha said it processed at least 40,000 tons of biomass and produced 10,000 tons of biochar last year.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/01/16/2311236/google-strikes-worlds-largest-biochar-carbon-removal-deal?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Megan Hellerer, a career coach and founder of Coaching for Underfulfilled Overachievers, offers an alternative to the relentless "hustle culture" and "destinational living" mindsets, which often emphasize long-term goals at the expense of present happiness. "There's another way and I call it directional living," writes Hellerer. "Here's the catch: I can't find fulfilment for you. The good news is that it's all up to you..." An anonymous Slashdot reader shares an excerpt from the report published by The Guardian: Directional living is like the scientific method but for life. You begin with a hypothesis -- your best guess as to the direction of a loose "something bigger". You conduct tests and collect data through your experiences, refining your life hypothesis as you go.

If you have a hypothesis that involves living on the beach, you may test that by renting a house on the coast for one month and collecting data on how right, or not, that is for you. The goal is not to permanently relocate but to find out whether you want to continue exploring that path. Success is in finding what's true, not in proving your original theory correct.

I've found this idea speaks uniquely to UFOAs at this moment in time. [UFOA is a term Hellerer came up with that stands for "underfulfilled overachiever." This describes a constant striver who is living a great-on-paper life, yet feels disconnected from their work, life and self.] The closest thing I have to a personal motto is a quotation that's widely attributed to Carl Jung but that, as it turns out, he never actually said at all. "The privilege of a lifetime is to become who you truly are." My greatest hope for you is that you get to live this privilege fully.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://news.slashdot.org/story/25/01/16/2330205/everything-we-were-taught-about-success-is-wrong?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Опубликован выпуск пакета для создания виртуальных частных сетей OpenVPN 2.6.13, позволяющего организовать шифрованное соединение между двумя клиентскими машинами или обеспечить работу централизованного VPN-сервера для одновременной работы нескольких клиентов. В новой версии устранена проблема с безопасностью, приводящая к переполнению буфера на стороне сервера OpenVPN при получении от клиента логина или пароля, размер которых превышает значение USER_PASS_LEN. CVE-идентификатор уязвимости пока не присвоен и не ясно насколько проблема пригодна для создания рабочих эксплоитов.

https://www.opennet.ru/opennews/art.shtml?num=62573

В кодовую базу GCC, используемую для формирования ветки GCC 15, внесено изменение, удаляющее поддержку ABI ARM64 ILP32. ILP3 напоминает субархитектуру x32 для систем x86_64 и также позволяет использовать 32-разрядные указатели и 32-разрядную модель адресации памяти, при работе процессора в 64-разрядном режиме с поддержкой 64-разрядных регистров и расширенных инструкций. Ограничением ABI ILP32 является невозможность адресации из приложения более 4 ГБ памяти.

https://www.opennet.ru/opennews/art.shtml?num=62568

According to Axios, Google has told the EU it will not add fact checks to search results and YouTube videos or use them in ranking or removing content, despite the requirements of a new EU law. From the report: In a letter written to Renate Nikolay, the deputy director general under the content and technology arm at the European Commission, Google's global affairs president Kent Walker said the fact-checking integration required by the Commission's new Disinformation Code of Practice "simply isn't appropriate or effective for our services" and said Google won't commit to it. The code would require Google to incorporate fact-check results alongside Google's search results and YouTube videos. It would also force Google to build fact-checking into its ranking systems and algorithms.

Walker said Google's current approach to content moderation works and pointed to successful content moderation during last year's "unprecedented cycle of global elections" as proof. He said a new feature added to YouTube last year that enables some users to add contextual notes to videos "has significant potential." (That program is similar to X's Community Notes feature, as well as new program announced by Meta last week.)

The EU's Code of Practice on Disinformation, introduced in 2022, includes several voluntary commitments that tech firms and private companies, including fact-checking organizations, are expected to deliver on. The Code, originally created in 2018, predates the EU's new content moderation law, the Digital Services Act (DSA), which went into effect in 2022.

The Commission has held private discussions over the past year with tech companies, urging them to convert the voluntary measures into an official code of conduct under the DSA. Walker said in his letter Thursday that Google had already told the Commission that it didn't plan to comply. Google will "pull out of all fact-checking commitments in the Code before it becomes a DSA Code of Conduct," he wrote. He said Google will continue to invest in improvements to its current content moderation practices, which focus on providing people with more information about their search results through features like Synth ID watermarking and AI disclosures on YouTube.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/01/17/0012237/google-wont-add-fact-checks-despite-new-eu-law?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Один из сопровождающих пакеты в NixOS представил технику атаки, позволяющую получить доступ к данным на зашифрованных дисковых разделах, в конфигурациях, не требующих ввода пароля разблокировки при загрузке, благодаря размещению в TPM2 (Trusted Platform Module) информации для расшифровки. Такие конфигурации часто используются на серверах или многопользовательских рабочих станциях, на которых проблематично после каждой перезагрузки вручную вводить пароль.

https://www.opennet.ru/opennews/art.shtml?num=62574

The FTC announced Thursday that it's banned General Motors and its subsidiary OnStar from selling customer geolocation and driving behavior data for five years. The Verge reports: The settlement comes after a New York Times investigation found that GM had been collecting micro-details about its customers' driving habits, including acceleration, braking, and trip length -- and then selling it to insurance companies and third-party data brokers like LexisNexis and Verisk. Clueless vehicle owners were then left wondering why their insurance premiums were going up.

FTC accused GM of using a "misleading enrollment process" to get vehicle owners to sign up for its OnStar connected vehicle service and Smart Driver feature. The automaker failed to disclose to customers that it was collecting their data, nor did GM seek out their consent to sell it to third parties. After the Times exposed the practice, GM said it was discontinuing its OnStar Smart Driver program. The settlement also requires GM to obtain consent from customers before collecting their driving behavior data, and allow them to request and delete their data if they choose.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/01/17/0040216/gm-banned-from-selling-your-driving-data-for-five-years?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Indonesia plans to issue a regulation to set a minimum age for users of social media, a move aimed at protecting children, its communications minister has said. From a report: The plans follows Australia's decision to ban children under 16 from accessing social media, with fines for tech giants from Instagram and Facebook owner Meta to TikTok if they failed to prevent children accessing their platforms. Minister Meutya Hafid did not say what the minimum age would be in Indonesia. Her remarks, made late on Jan 13, came after she discussed the plan with President Prabowo Subianto.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/01/17/1116254/indonesia-plans-minimum-age-for-social-media-use?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Разработчики проекта openSUSE выявили уязвимость (CVE-2025-23013) в PAM-модуле pam-u2f, применяемом при аутентификации через токены YubiKey.

https://www.opennet.ru/opennews/art.shtml?num=62575

Scientists warn that the devastating fires that killed at least 24 people and destroyed more than 12,000 structures in Los Angeles represent a new type of urban firestorm, distinct from traditional wilderness blazes. In densely populated areas, buildings themselves become fuel, creating a chain reaction of destruction, researchers reported Friday in Nature.

The fires were intensified by steep terrain, powerful winds and a climate pattern of extreme wet-to-dry conditions that created abundant fuel. Researchers say such urban fires are likely to become more frequent as populations expand into wildland areas and climate change accelerates.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://science.slashdot.org/story/25/01/17/1348221/why-fires-spread-quickly-in-modern-cities?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Tech news and research site SemiAccurate is reporting that an unidentified company is seeking to acquire Intel in its entirety. The publication -- citing a confidential email that it reviewed and a subsequent confirmation from a second source -- said the prospective buyer has not publicly disclosed its interest but has sufficient resources to purchase Intel at current valuations.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://slashdot.org/story/25/01/17/1414242/intel-acquisition-target-of-mystery-suitor-semiaccurate-reports?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader shares a report: The Supreme Court on Friday unanimously upheld the federal law banning TikTok beginning Sunday unless it's sold by its China-based parent company, holding that the risk to national security posed by its ties to China overcomes concerns about limiting speech by the app or its 170 million users in the United States.

A sale does not appear imminent and, although experts have said the app will not disappear from existing users' phones once the law takes effect on Jan. 19, new users won't be able to download it and updates won't be available. That will eventually render the app unworkable, the Justice Department has said in court filings.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://news.slashdot.org/story/25/01/17/1518232/supreme-court-upholds-law-banning-tiktok-if-its-not-sold-by-its-chinese-parent-company?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Canon is requiring users to pay a monthly subscription fee to fully use their cameras as webcams on computers. The company's new EOS Webcam Utility software restricts features like HD resolution, brightness adjustments and color correction unless users pay $4.99 monthly or $49.99 annually.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://it.slashdot.org/story/25/01/17/1433223/canon-draws-fire-for-charging-subscription-fee-to-use-cameras-as-webcams?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Compliance software firms are deploying AI to decode complex trader communications and detect potential financial crimes as Wall Street and London regulators intensify scrutiny of market manipulation.

Companies like Behavox and Global Relay are developing AI tools that can interpret trader slang, emoji-laden messages and even coded language that traditional detection systems might miss, WSJ reports. The technology aims to replace older methods that relied on scanning for specific trigger words, which traders could easily evade. The story adds: Traders believed that "if somebody wanted to say something sketchy, they would just make up a funny word or, you know, spell it backward or something," [Donald] McElligott (VP of Global Relay) said. "Now, none of that"s going to work anymore."

[ Read more of this story ]( https://slashdot.org/story/25/01/17/1356236/ai-tools-crack-down-on-wall-street-trader-code-speak?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Доступен выпуск свободной PaaS-платформы Cozystack 0.22.0, построенной на базе Kubernetes. Проект нацелен на предоставление готовой платформы для хостинг-провайдеров и фреймворка для построения частных и публичных облаков. Платформа устанавливается напрямую на серверы и охватывает все аспекты подготовки инфраструктуры для предоставления управляемых сервисов. Cozystack позволяет запускать и предоставлять кластеры Kubernetes, базы данных и виртуальные машины. Код платформы доступен на GitHub и распространяется под лицензией Apache-2.0.

https://www.opennet.ru/opennews/art.shtml?num=62576

Microsoft researchers who tested more than 100 of the company's AI products concluded that AI systems can never be made fully secure, according to a new pre-print paper. The 26-author study, which included Azure CTO Mark Russinovich, found that large language models amplify existing security risks and create new vulnerabilities. While defensive measures can increase the cost of attacks, the researchers warned that AI systems will remain vulnerable to threats ranging from gradient-based attacks to simpler techniques like interface manipulation for phishing.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://it.slashdot.org/story/25/01/17/1658230/microsoft-research-ai-systems-cannot-be-made-fully-secure?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Google says it has begun requiring users to turn on JavaScript, the widely-used programming language to make web pages interactive, in order to use Google Search. From a report: In an email to TechCrunch, a company spokesperson claimed that the change is intended to "better protect" Google Search against malicious activity, such as bots and spam, and to improve the overall Google Search experience for users. The spokesperson noted that, without JavaScript, many Google Search features won't work properly, and that the quality of search results tends to be degraded.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/01/17/1749244/google-begins-requiring-javascript-for-google-search?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

George Zhao, the chief executive of Chinese smartphone firm Honor, has resigned from his position due to personal reasons, the company said on Friday. CNBC: "The company and the Board of Directors sincerely appreciate Mr Zhao's outstanding contributions to the company during his tenure," Honor said in a statement.

Jian Li, who's been at Honor for four years in various senior management positions, will succeed Zhao as CEO. In an internal memo posted by Chinese media and confirmed as accurate by an Honor spokesperson, Zhao said he was stepping down due to health reasons and planned to rest, recover and spend more time with his family.

[...] Honor's market share in China has risen from 9.8% in 2020 to over 15% in 2024, according to Counterpoint Research. Outside of China, Honor's market share hit 2.3% in 2024, compared to under 1% in 2020.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://mobile.slashdot.org/story/25/01/17/171238/ceo-of-chinese-smartphone-brand-honor-resigns-due-to-personal-reasons?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Опубликована стабильная версия набора базовых системных утилит GNU Coreutils 9.6, в состав которого входят такие программы, как sort, cat, chmod, chown, chroot, cp, date, dd, echo, hostname, id, ln, ls и т.д.

https://www.opennet.ru/opennews/art.shtml?num=62577

Microsoft began mandatory rollouts of the Windows 11 2024 Update (24H2) for eligible devices running Home and Pro editions, the company announced on its Windows 11 issues page. The update, which Microsoft describes as a "full code swap," requires longer installation times, with users reporting processes exceeding an hour.

While users can briefly postpone the installation, the company is now pushing updates to mainstream users not managed by IT departments. The 24H2 update introduces USB4's 80Gbps support, Bluetooth LE Audio for hearing aids, and enhanced Energy Saver controls.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/01/17/1754236/microsoft-begins-forcing-windows-24h2-updates-on-pcs?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Sony's PlayStation has canceled previously unannounced games at two of its top subsidiaries, the company said. From a report: The games, at Oregon-based Bend Studio and Texas-based Bluepoint Games, were both "live service" projects designed to draw recurring revenue from players. A company spokesperson confirmed the cancellations.

In a statement, the spokesperson said the two games were canceled "following a recent review" and that PlayStation will continue making both online and single-player games. Neither studio will be shuttered. "Bend and Bluepoint are highly accomplished teams who are valued members of the PlayStation Studios family, and we are working closely with each studio to determine what are the next projects," the spokesperson said.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://games.slashdot.org/story/25/01/17/1946219/sony-cancels-two-more-playstation-projects-in-broader-retreat?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader shares a report: FBI leaders have warned that they believe hackers who broke into AT&T's system last year stole months of their agents' call and text logs, setting off a race within the bureau to protect the identities of confidential informants, a document reviewed by Bloomberg News shows.

FBI officials told agents across the country that details about their use on the telecom carrier's network were believed to be among the billions of records stolen, according to the document and interviews with a current and a former law enforcement official. They asked not to be named to discuss sensitive information. Data from all FBI devices under the bureau's AT&T service for public safety agencies were presumed taken, the document shows.

The cache of hacked AT&T records didn't reveal the substance of communications but, according to the document, could link investigators to their secret sources. The data was believed to include agents' mobile phone numbers and the numbers with which they called and texted, the document shows. Records for calls and texts that weren't on the AT&T network, such as through encrypted messaging apps, weren't part of the stolen data.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://news.slashdot.org/story/25/01/17/1950210/fbi-warned-agents-it-believes-phone-logs-hacked-last-year?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Microsoft's $13 billion investment in OpenAI raises concerns that the tech giant could extend its dominance in cloud computing into the nascent AI market, the Federal Trade Commission said in a report released Friday. From a report: The commission said Microsoft's deal with OpenAI, as well as Amazon and Google's partnerships with AI company Anthropic, raise the risk that AI developers could be "fully acquired" by the tech giants in the future.

"The FTC's report sheds light on how partnerships by big tech firms can create lock-in, deprive start-ups of key AI inputs, and reveal sensitive information that can undermine fair competition," FTC Chair Lina Khan said in a statement. The FTC has the power to open market studies to glean more information about industry trends. The findings can be used to inform future actions. It's unclear what the agency's new leadership under the Trump administration will do with the report.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://slashdot.org/story/25/01/17/1958200/microsoft-openai-partnership-raises-antitrust-concerns-ftc-says?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Longtime Slashdot reader sfcat shares a report from the Associated Press: Hundreds of people were ordered to evacuate and part of Highway 1 in Northern California was closed when a major fire erupted Thursday afternoon at one of the world's largest battery storage plants. As the fire sent up towering flames and black smoke and showed no sign of easing by Thursday night, about 1,500 people were instructed to leave Moss Landing and the Elkhorn Slough area, The Mercury News reported.

The Moss Landing Power Plant, located about 77 miles (about 124 kilometers) south of San Francisco, is owned by Texas-company Vistra Energy and contains tens of thousands of lithium batteries. The batteries are important for storing electricity from such renewable energy sources as solar energy, but if they go up in flames the blazes can be extremely difficult to put out. "There's no way to sugar coat it. This is a disaster, is what it is," Monterey County Supervisor Glenn Church told KSBW-TV. But he said he did not expect the fire to spread beyond the concrete building it was enclosed in. According to reports, the fire originated in the 300-megawatt Phase I section of the 750-megawatt facility, located on the site of a retired PG&E natural gas plant.

It's unclear what caused the fire, but officials said a full investigation will begin after it's out. Thankfully, everyone at the site was evacuated safely. Videos and images of the fire can be found here.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/25/01/17/2135226/fire-erupts-at-huge-battery-plant-in-california?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the New York Times: A Russian organization linked to the Kremlin's covert influence campaigns posted more than 8,000 political advertisements on Facebook despite European and American restrictions barring companies from doing business with the organization, according to three organizations that track disinformation online. The Russian group, the Social Design Agency, evaded lax enforcement by Facebook to place an estimated $338,000 worth of ads aimed at European users over a period of 15 months that ended in October, even though the platform itself highlighted the threat, the three organizations said in a report released on Friday.

The Social Design Agency has faced punitive sanctions in the European Union since 2023 and in the United States since April for spreading propaganda and disinformation to unsuspecting users on social media. The ad campaigns on Facebook raise "critical questions about the platform's compliance" with American and European laws, the report said. [...] The Social Design Agency is a public relations company in Moscow that, according to American and European officials, operates a sophisticated influence operation known as Doppelganger. Since 2022, Doppelganger has created cartoon memes and online clones of real news sites, like Le Monde and The Washington Post, to spread propaganda and disinformation, often about the war in Ukraine.

[...] The organizations documenting the campaign -- Check First, a Finnish research company, along with Reset.Tech in London and AI Forensics in Paris -- focused on efforts to sway Facebook users in France, Germany, Poland and Italy. Doppelganger has been also linked to influence operations in the United States, Israel and other countries, but those are not included in the report's findings. [...] The researchers estimated that the ads resulted in more than 123,000 clicks by users and netted Meta at least $338,000 in the European Union alone. The researchers acknowledged that the figures provide only one, incomplete example of the Russian agency's efforts. In addition to propagating Russia's views on Ukraine, the agency posted ads in response to major news events, including theHamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, and a terrorist attack in a Moscow suburb last March that killed 145 people. The ads would often appear within 48 hours, trying to shape public perceptions of events. After the Oct. 7 attacks, the ads pushed false claims that Ukraine sold weapons to Hamas. The ads reached more than 237,000 accounts over two to three days, "underscoring the operation's capacity to weaponize current events in support of geopolitical narratives," the researcher's report said.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/01/17/2117210/russian-disinformation-campaigns-eluded-metas-efforts-to-block-them?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

The U.S. Department of the Treasury's OFAC has sanctioned Yin Kecheng and Sichuan Juxinhe Network Technology Co. for their roles in a recent Treasury breach and espionage operations targeting U.S. telecommunications. BleepingComputer reports: "Yin Kecheng has been a cyber actor for over a decade and is affiliated with the People's Republic of China Ministry of State Security (MSS)," reads the Treasury's announcement. "Yin Kecheng was associated with the recent compromise of the Department of the Treasury's Departmental Offices network," says the agency.

OFAC also announced sanctions against Sichuan Juxinhe Network Technology Co., a Chinese cybersecurity firm believed to be directly involved with the Salt Typhoon state hacker group. Salt Typhoon was recently linked to several breaches on major U.S. telecommunications and internet service providers to spy on confidential communications of high-profile targets. "Sichuan Juxinhe Network Technology Co., LTD. (Sichuan Juxinhe) had direct involvement in the exploitation of these U.S. telecommunication and internet service provider companies," the U.S. Treasury explains, adding that "the MSS has maintained strong ties with multiple computer network exploitation companies, including Sichuan Juxinhe." [...]

The sanctions imposed on Kecheng and the Chinese cybersecurity firm under Executive Order (E.O.) 13694 block all property and financial assets located in the United States or are in the possession of U.S. entities, including banks, businesses, and individuals. Additionally, U.S. entities are prohibited from conducting any transactions with the sanctioned entities without OFAC's explicit authorization. It's worth noting that these sanctions come after OFAC sanctioned Beijing-based cybersecurity company Integrity Tech for its involvement in cyberattacks attributed to the Chinese state-sponsored Flax Typhoon hacking group. U.S. Treasury's announcement reiterates that the U.S. Department of State offers, through its Rewards for Justice program, up to $10,000,000 for information leading to uncovering the identity of hackers who have targeted the U.S. government or critical infrastructure in the country.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://yro.slashdot.org/story/25/01/17/2125214/us-sanctions-chinese-firm-hacker-behind-telecom-and-treasury-hacks?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Longtime Slashdot reader tlhIngan writes: In what is perhaps the greatest irony ever, the operators of RedNote (known as Xiaohongshu) have decided to "wall off" US TikTok refugees fleeing to its service as the TikTok ban looms. The reason? The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) wants to prevent American influence from spreading to Chinese citizens. The ban is expected to be in place next week, while many believe that the influx of Americans to be temporary and just a reaction to the TikTok ban to move to another Chinese app. Many Chinese users are not happy with the influx as having "ruined" their ability to connect with "Chinese culture, Chinese values and Chinese news."

[ Read more of this story ]( https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/01/17/2146214/rednote-may-wall-off-tiktok-refugees-to-prevent-us-influence-on-chinese-users?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Google computer scientists have been using LLMs to streamline internal code migrations, achieving significant time savings of up to 89% in some cases. The findings appear in a pre-print paper titled "How is Google using AI for internal code migrations?" The Register reports: Their focus is on bespoke AI tools developed for specific product areas, such as Ads, Search, Workspace and YouTube, instead of generic AI tools that provide broadly applicable services like code completion, code review, and question answering. Google's code migrations involved: changing 32-bit IDs in the 500-plus-million-line codebase for Google Ads to 64-bit IDs; converting its old JUnit3 testing library to JUnit4; and replacing the Joda time library with Java's standard java.time package. The int32 to int64 migration, the Googlers explain, was not trivial as the IDs were often generically defined (int32_t in C++ or Integer in Java) and were not easily searchable. They existed in tens of thousands of code locations across thousands of files. Changes had to be tracked across multiple teams and changes to class interfaces had to be considered across multiple files. "The full effort, if done manually, was expected to require hundreds of software engineering years and complex crossteam coordination," the authors explain.

For their LLM-based workflow, Google's software engineers implemented the following process. An engineer from Ads would identify an ID in need of migration using a combination of code search, Kythe, and custom scripts. Then an LLM-based migration toolkit, triggered by someone knowledgeable in the art, was run to generate verified changes containing code that passed unit tests. Those changes would be manually checked by the same engineer and potentially corrected. Thereafter, the code changes would be sent to multiple reviewers who are responsible for the portion of the codebase affected by the changes. The result was that 80 percent of the code modifications in the change lists (CLs) were purely the product of AI; the remainder were either human-authored or human-edited AI suggestions.

"We discovered that in most cases, the human needed to revert at least some changes the model made that were either incorrect or not necessary," the authors observe. "Given the complexity and sensitive nature of the modified code, effort has to be spent in carefully rolling out each change to users." Based on this, Google undertook further work on LLM-driven verification to reduce the need for detailed review. Even with the need to double-check the LLM's work, the authors estimate that the time required to complete the migration was reduced by 50 percent. With LLM assistance, it took just three months to migrate 5,359 files and modify 149,000 lines of code to complete the JUnit3-JUnit4 transition. Approximately 87 percent of the code generated by AI ended up being committed with no changes. As for the Joda-Java time framework switch, the authors estimate a time saving of 89 percent compared to the projected manual change time, though no specifics were provided to support that assertion.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://developers.slashdot.org/story/25/01/17/2156235/google-reports-halving-code-migration-time-with-ai-help?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

"The FDIC sued 17 former executives and directors of Silicon Valley Bank on Thursday, seeking to recover billions of dollars for alleged gross negligence and breaches of fiduciary duty," reports Reuters. The move comes almost two years after Silicon Valley Bank's March 2023 collapse, which shocked financial markets and ended up benefiting big players like JPMorgan Chase. From the report: In a complaint filed in San Francisco federal court, the FDIC, in its capacity the bank's receiver, said the defendants ignored fundamental standards of prudent banking and the bank's own risk policies in letting the bank take on excessive risks to boost short-term profit and its stock price. The FDIC faulted the bank's overreliance on unhedged, interest rate-sensitive long-term government bonds such as US Treasuries and mortgage-backed securities, as rates looked set to -- and eventually did -- rise. It also objected to the payment of a "grossly imprudent" $294 million dividend to its parent that drained needed capital "at a time of financial distress and management weakness" in December 2022, less than three months before its demise.

"SVB represents a case of egregious mismanagement of interest-rate and liquidity risks by the bank's former officers and directors," the complaint said. The defendants include former Chief Executive Gregory Becker, former Chief Financial Officer Daniel Beck, four other former executives and 11 former directors.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://yro.slashdot.org/story/25/01/18/008223/fdic-sues-17-former-silicon-valley-bank-execs-over-collapse?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Sales of electric vehicles and hybrids reached 20% of new car sales in the U.S. last year, with Tesla maintaining dominance in the EV market despite a slight decline in market share. CNBC reports: Auto data firm Motor Intelligence reports more than 3.2 million "electrified" vehicles were sold last year, or 1.9 million hybrid vehicles, including plug-in models, and 1.3 million all-electric models. Traditional vehicles with gas or diesel internal combustion engines still made up the majority of sales, but declined to 79.8%, falling under 80% for the first time in modern automotive history, according to the data.

Regarding sales of pure EVs, Tesla continued to dominate, but Cox Automotive estimated its annual sales fell and its market share dropped to about 49%, down from 55% in 2023. The Tesla Model Y and Model 3 were estimated to be the bestselling EVs in 2024. Following Tesla in EV sales was Hyundai Motor, including Kia, at 9.3% of EV market share; General Motors at 8.7%; and then Ford Motor at 7.5%, according to Motor Intelligence. BMW rounded out the top five at 4.1%. The EV market in the U.S. is highly competitive: Of the 68 mainstream EV models tracked by Cox's Kelley Blue Book, 24 models posted year-over-year sales increases; 17 models were all new to the market; and 27 decreased in volume.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/01/18/0025216/ev-hybrid-sales-reached-record-20-of-us-vehicle-sales-in-2024?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

OpenAI has developed a language model designed for engineering proteins, capable of converting regular cells into stem cells. It marks the company's first venture into biological data and demonstrates AI's potential for unexpected scientific discoveries. An anonymous reader quotes a report from MIT Technology Review:
Last week, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said he was "confident" his company knows how to build an AGI, adding that "superintelligent tools could massively accelerate scientific discovery and innovation well beyond what we are capable of doing on our own." The protein engineering project started a year ago when Retro Biosciences, a longevity research company based in San Francisco, approached OpenAI about working together. That link-up did not happen by chance. Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, personally funded Retro with $180 million, as MIT Technology Review first reported in 2023. Retro has the goal of extending the normal human lifespan by 10 years. For that, it studies what are called Yamanaka factors. Those are a set of proteins that, when added to a human skin cell, will cause it to morph into a young-seeming stem cell, a type that can produce any other tissue in the body. [...]

OpenAI's new model, called GPT-4b micro, was trained to suggest ways to re-engineer the protein factors to increase their function. According to OpenAI, researchers used the model's suggestions to change two of the Yamanaka factors to be more than 50 times as effective -- at least according to some preliminary measures. [...] The model does not work the same way as Google's AlphaFold, which predicts what shape proteins will take. Since the Yamanaka factors are unusually floppy and unstructured proteins, OpenAI said, they called for a different approach, which its large language models were suited to. The model was trained on examples of protein sequences from many species, as well as information on which proteins tend to interact with one another. While that's a lot of data, it's just a fraction of what OpenAI's flagship chatbots were trained on, making GPT-4b an example of a "small language model" that works with a focused data set.

Once Retro scientists were given the model, they tried to steer it to suggest possible redesigns of the Yamanaka proteins. The prompting tactic used is similar to the "few-shot" method, in which a user queries a chatbot by providing a series of examples with answers, followed by an example for the bot to respond to. Although genetic engineers have ways to direct evolution of molecules in the lab, they can usually test only so many possibilities. And even a protein of typical length can be changed in nearly infinite ways (since they're built from hundreds of amino acids, and each acid comes in 20 possible varieties). OpenAI's model, however, often spits out suggestions in which a third of the amino acids in the proteins were changed. "We threw this model into the lab immediately and we got real-world results," says Retro's CEO, Joe Betts-Lacroix. He says the model's ideas were unusually good, leading to improvements over the original Yamanaka factors in a substantial fraction of cases.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://science.slashdot.org/story/25/01/18/0020239/openai-has-created-an-ai-model-for-longevity-science?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Smithsonian Magazine reports: A homeowner on Prince Edward Island in Canada has had a very unusual near-death experience: A meteorite landed exactly where he'd been standing roughly two minutes earlier. What's more, his home security camera caught the impact on video -- capturing a rare clip that might be the first known recording of both the visual and audio of a meteorite striking the planet. The shocking event took place in July 2024 and was announced in a statement by the University of Alberta on Monday.

"It sounded like a loud, crashing, gunshot bang," the homeowner, Joe Velaidum, tells the Canadian Press' Lyndsay Armstrong. Velaidum wasn't home to hear the sound in person, however. Last summer, he and his partner Laura Kelly noticed strange, star-shaped, grey debris in front of their house after returning from a walk with their dogs. They checked their security camera footage, and that's when they saw and heard it: a small rock plummeting through the sky and smashing into their walkway. It landed so quickly that the space rock itself is only visible in two of the video's frames.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://science.slashdot.org/story/25/01/18/0044243/meteorite-crash-in-canada-is-caught-by-home-security-camera?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Александр фон Глюк (Alexander von Gluck), входящий в совет директоров некоммерческой компании Haiku Inc, курирующей разработку операционной системы Haiku, сообщил о намерении до 16 марта заблокировать доступ пользователей из Великобритании к форуму проекта и другим платформам, на которых осуществляется взаимодействие с сообществом. Решение объясняется юридическими и финансовыми рисками, возникшими из-за принятого в Великобритании закона Online Safety Act, вступающего в силу 16 марта.

https://www.opennet.ru/opennews/art.shtml?num=62579

Компания TIOBE Software опубликовала январский рейтинг популярности языков программирования. Языком года назван Python, который сохранил 1 место и обогнал другие языки по росту популярности за год (+9.3%). По сравнению с январём 2024 года выделяется смещение языка Си со 2 на 4 место, при этом язык С++ поднялся с 3 на 2 место, а язык Java с 4 на 3 место.

https://www.opennet.ru/opennews/art.shtml?num=62580