Эрик Мигиковски (Eric Migicovsky), основатель компании Pebble Technology, представил две новые модели умных часов, которые будут выпускаться на базе открытой платформы PebbleOS. Новые модели полностью совместимы с приложениями и темами оформления, разработанными для старых часов Pebble. Устройства являются усовершенствованными вариантами ранее выпускаемых часов Pebble 2 и Pebble Time 2, и отличаются увеличением автономной работы с 7 до 30 дней, громкоговорителем, иным вибросигналом, улучшенными кнопками, датчиками давления и магнитного поля.

https://www.opennet.ru/opennews/art.shtml?num=62913

В поисках плагина для временных заметок перебрал множество существующих, но не нашёл ничего, что подходит под мои задачи.

Что я хотел:

• Легковесность.

• Floating-окно.

• Подсветка синтаксиса markdown.

• Корректная реакция на :close, :bd, :bw.

• Корректная реакция на попытку открыть буфер с помощью fzf-lua в окне scratchpad.

• Поддержка изменений размера окна neovim и/или размера шрифта в терминале.

Подобная функциональность есть в свежем плагине [ snacks.nvim ]( https://github.com/folke/snacks.nvim ) от неподражаемого [ folke ]( https://github.com/folke/ ) . Но snacks.nvim – это комбайн, с функциональностью, которая мне совсем не нужна.

Плагин писался для себя лично и тех, кто пользуется моим конфигом [ config-nvim ]( https://github.com/reybits/config-nvim ) и [ config-tmux ]( https://github.com/reybits/config-tmux ) . Возможно, он окажется полезным и вам.

https://www.linux.org.ru/news/opensource/17917231

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: The Belgian prosecutor's office said on Tuesday that it has charged five people in connection with a bribery investigation in the European Parliament allegedly linked to China's Huawei. The five were detained last week. Four have now been arrested and charged with active corruption and involvement in a criminal organization, while a fifth faces money laundering charges and has been released conditionally. The prosecutor's officer did not disclose the names of those involved or give information that could identify them.

It said new searches had taken place on Monday, this time at European Parliament offices. Huawei said last week it took the allegations seriously. "Huawei has a zero tolerance policy towards corruption or other wrongdoing, and we are committed to complying with all applicable laws and regulations at all times," it said. The prosecutors have said the alleged corruption took place "very discreetly" since 2021 under the guise of commercial lobbying and involved payments for taking certain political stances or excessive gifts such as food and travel expenses or regular invitations to football matches.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://slashdot.org/story/25/03/18/2321249/five-charged-in-european-parliament-huawei-bribery-probe?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Sony has developed a new TV display technology combining individual red, green, and blue LEDs for backlighting, potentially offering a middle ground between existing Mini LED and OLED panels. Dubbed "General RGB LED Backlight Technology," the system enables precise color control without sacrificing brightness, reaching 4000 cd/m2 -- matching Sony's professional reference monitors.

Unlike conventional Mini LED TVs that use arrays of blue LEDs, Sony's RGB implementation delivers significantly improved color accuracy and viewing angles. In side-by-side comparisons with Sony's premium Bravia 9 Mini LED TV, the RGB prototype displayed deeper color gradations and eliminated the characteristic bluish blooming effect around bright objects on dark backgrounds.

The technology isn't entirely novel, the Verge reports -- Sony released a Qualia TV with RGB backlighting in 2004 and demonstrated "Crystal LED" prototypes in 2012. Competitors including Hisense, TCL, and Samsung are developing similar systems. While the RGB LED prototype outshone Sony's QD-OLED A95L in brightness, differences in color reproduction were less pronounced. The technology appears particularly promising for larger displays in bright environments where OLED's limitations become apparent.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://entertainment.slashdot.org/story/25/03/19/0743248/sony-unveils-rgb-led-backlight-tech-that-outperforms-traditional-mini-led?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

9 и 16 марта, после более года разработки, состоялись выпуски 10.1.0 и 11.0.0 небольшой, простой и эффективной C++ библиотеки [ TinyXML2 ]( https://github.com/leethomason/tinyxml2 ) , предназначенной для парсинга XML и распространяемой по лицензии Zlib.

Список изменений:

• Устранена уязвимость [ CVE-2024-50615 ]( https://github.com/advisories/GHSA-884x-p7qm-gq3f ) , связанная с проблемой разбора кодировок символов.

• Исправлены некоторые внутренние типы (int -> size_t), в связи с чем нарушена совместимость c ABI прежних версий.

• Исправлены ошибки сборки и опечатки.

( [ читать дальше... ]( https://www.linux.org.ru/news/development/17917417#cut ) )

Nature: A Microsoft researcher [this week] presented results behind the company's controversial claim last month to have created the first 'topological' qubits -- a long-sought goal of quantum computing. In front of a packed room at a meeting of the American Physical Society (APS), Chetan Nayak, a theoretical physicist leading Microsoft's quantum computing effort in Redmond, Washington, explained how the company is developing topological qubits, which would be the building blocks for a noise-resistant quantum computer.

Physicists in the audience told Nature's news team they are still unsure whether Microsoft really has made the first topological qubits, however. "It's a hard problem," says Ali Yazdani, an experimental physicist at Princeton University in New Jersey. To anyone trying to make topological qubits, he says, "good luck." When Nayak displayed measurement data during his presentation, he acknowledged that a characteristic signal was difficult to see due to electrical noise, prompting Cornell University theorist Eun-Ah Kim to question its robustness. Microsoft says additional details will be available in a forthcoming paper on the arXiv preprint server.

Further reading:
Scientists Question Microsoft's Quantum Computing Claims;
Microsoft Quantum Computing 'Breakthrough' Faces Fresh Challenge

[ Read more of this story ]( https://slashdot.org/story/25/03/19/088253/microsoft-quantum-computing-claim-still-lacks-evidence?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Federal authorities have broken up an international crime ring that stole thousands of iPhones from porches nationwide [non-paywalled link], arresting 13 people last month after a sophisticated operation that combined high-tech tools with old-fashioned bribery.

The thieves created software to scrape FedEx tracking numbers and paid AT&T store employees to provide customer order details and delivery addresses, according to WSJ, which cites prosecutors. Armed with this information, runners intercepted packages at doorsteps moments after delivery.

Demetrio Reyes Martinez, known online as "CookieNerd," developed code that circumvented FedEx limits on delivery-data requests, while AT&T employee Alejandro Then Castillo used his credentials to track hundreds of shipments and reportedly received up to $2,500 for recruiting other employees. Stolen devices were funneled through Wyckoff Wireless in Brooklyn, a store owned by Joel Suriel, who was already on supervised release from a previous wire-fraud conviction. The merchandise was then shipped overseas for sale and activation.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://yro.slashdot.org/story/25/03/19/0927253/fedex-data-scraping-and-telecom-insider-bribes-powered-nationwide-iphone-theft-operation?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

После шести месяцев разработки компания Oracle опубликовала платформу Java SE 24 (Java Platform, Standard Edition 24), в качестве эталонной реализации которой используется открытый проект OpenJDK. За исключением удаления некоторых устаревших возможностей в Java SE 24 сохранена обратная совместимость с прошлыми выпусками платформы Java - большинство ранее написанных Java-проектов без изменений будут работоспособны при запуске под управлением новой версии. Готовые для установки сборки Java SE 24 (JDK, JRE и Server JRE) подготовлены для Linux (x86_64, AArch64), Windows (x86_64) и macOS (x86_64, AArch64). Разработанная в рамках проекта OpenJDK эталонная реализация Java SE 24 полностью открыта под лицензией GPLv2 с исключениями GNU ClassPath, разрешающими динамическое связывание с коммерческими продуктами.

https://www.opennet.ru/opennews/art.shtml?num=62914

The devastating impacts of the climate crisis reached new heights in 2024, with scores of unprecedented heatwaves, floods and storms across the globe, according to the UN's World Meteorological Organization. From a report: The WMO's report on 2024, the hottest year on record, sets out a trail of destruction from extreme weather that took lives, demolished buildings and ravaged vital crops. More than 800,000 people were displaced and made homeless, the highest yearly number since records began in 2008.

The report lists 151 unprecedented extreme weather events in 2024, meaning they were worse than any ever recorded in the region. Heatwaves in Japan left hundreds of thousands of people struck down by heatstroke. Soaring temperatures during heatwaves peaked at 49.9C at Carnarvon in Western Australia, 49.7C in the city of Tabas in Iran, and 48.5C in a nationwide heatwave in Mali.

Record rains in Italy led to floods, landslides and electricity blackouts; torrents destroyed thousands of homes in Senegal; and flash floods in Pakistan and Brazil caused major crop losses.

Storms were also supercharged by global heating in 2024, with an unprecedented six typhoons in under a month hitting the Philippines. Hurricane Helene was the strongest ever recorded to strike the Big Bend region of Florida in the US, while Vietnam was hit by Super Typhoon Yagi, affecting 3.6 million people. Many more unprecedented events will have passed unrecorded.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://news.slashdot.org/story/25/03/19/1022245/more-than-150-unprecedented-climate-disasters-struck-world-in-2024-says-un?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

SourceHut, an open-source-friendly git-hosting service, says web crawlers for AI companies are slowing down services through their excessive demands for data. From a report: "SourceHut continues to face disruptions due to aggressive LLM crawlers," the biz reported Monday on its status page. "We are continuously working to deploy mitigations. We have deployed a number of mitigations which are keeping the problem contained for now. However, some of our mitigations may impact end-users."

SourceHut said it had deployed Nepenthes, a tar pit to catch web crawlers that scrape data primarily for training large language models, and noted that doing so might degrade access to some web pages for users. "We have unilaterally blocked several cloud providers, including GCP [Google Cloud] and [Microsoft] Azure, for the high volumes of bot traffic originating from their networks," the biz said, advising administrators of services that integrate with SourceHut to get in touch to arrange an exception to the blocking.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://slashdot.org/story/25/03/19/1027251/ai-crawlers-havent-learned-to-play-nice-with-websites?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

EU antitrust regulators ordered Apple on Wednesday to open its closed ecosystem to competitors, detailing how the company must comply with the bloc's Digital Markets Act or face potential fines. The European Commission's decision comes six months after initiating proceedings against the tech giant.

The first order requires Apple to grant rival smartphone, headphone and VR headset manufacturers access to its technology for seamless connectivity with Apple devices. A second order establishes specific processes for responding to app developers' interoperability requests. Apple criticized the decision, saying: "Today's decisions wrap us in red tape, slowing down Apple's ability to innovate for users in Europe." EU antitrust chief Teresa Ribera countered: "We are simply implementing the law." Non-compliance could trigger investigations resulting in fines up to 10% of Apple's global annual sales.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://apple.slashdot.org/story/25/03/19/1857241/eu-orders-apple-to-open-ecosystem-to-rivals?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

После шести месяцев разработки представлен выпуск среды рабочего стола GNOME 48. Для быстрой оценки возможностей GNOME 48 предложены специализированные Live-сборки на основе openSUSE и установочной образ, подготовленный в рамках инициативы GNOME OS. GNOME 48 также уже включён в состав экспериментальных сборок Ubuntu 25.04 и Fedora 42.

https://www.opennet.ru/opennews/art.shtml?num=62916

Streaming service provider Plex announced Wednesday its first price increase in a decade for its premium Plex Pass subscription, raising monthly rates to $6.99 from $4.99, yearly subscriptions to $69.99 from $39.99, and lifetime access to $249.99 from $119.99, effective April 29. The company is also making remote playback of personal media a paid feature, introducing a Remote Watch Pass subscription at $1.99 monthly or $19.99 annually for users who don't need full Plex Pass features, and removing its one-time mobile activation fee.

The price increase applies to new and existing subscriptions, with the exception of existing Lifetime Plex Pass holders, the company said.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://entertainment.slashdot.org/story/25/03/19/1928245/plex-raises-premium-subscription-prices-for-first-time-in-decade?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader shares a report: PCI Express 7 is nearing completion, the PCI Special Interest Group said, and the final specification should be released later this year. PCI Express 7, the backbone of the modern motherboard, is at the stage 0.9, which the PCI-SIG characterizes as the "final draft" of the specification. The technology was at version 0.5 a year ago, almost to the day, and originally authored in 2022.

The situation remains the same, however. While modern PC motherboards are stuck on PCI Express 5.0, the specification itself moves ahead. PCI Express has doubled the data rate about every three years, from 64 gigtransfers per second in PCI Express 6.0 to the upcoming 128 gigatransfers per second in PCIe 7. (Again, it's worth noting that PCIe 6.0 exists solely on paper.) Put another way, PCIe 7 will deliver 512GB/s in both directions, across a x16 connection.

It's worth noting that the PCI-SIG doesn't see PCI Express 7 living inside the PC market, at least not initially. Instead, PCIe 7 is expected to be targeted at cloud computing, 800-gigabit Ethernet and, of course, artificial intelligence. It will be backwards-compatible with the previous iterations of PCI Express, the SIG said.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/03/19/201211/pci-express-70s-blazing-speeds-are-nearly-here-but-pcie-6-is-still-vapor?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader shares a report: LG has ceased its XR product commercialization efforts, it confirmed, though will still continue long-term R&D.

The news of LG ending its XR product plans was first reported by South Korean news outlet The Bell, citing an industry source. In a statement given to the outlet, LG confirmed the claim but clarified that it will still continue long-term XR research and development.

According to The Bell, LG took the decision because it believes the XR market isn't growing as quickly as it expected, and it wants to focus more on heating, ventilation, air conditioning (HVAC) and robotics.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/03/20/006216/lg-ceases-xr-product-efforts?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Дорогие друзья, я приглашаю вас на 14'е международное онлайн-«виртПиво» которое состоится сегодня! Эта встреча — отличная возможность обсудить опенсорсные прошивки/железо и провести увлекательный познавательный вечер за чашкой ☕☕ в приятной компании.

Первая часть мероприятия, чуть более нишевая — «Dasharo User Group (DUG)» — посвящена экосистеме Dasharo, форка опенсорсной прошивки coreboot для ПК c дополнительными возможностями вроде удобного пользовательского интерфейса и функции перепрошивки БИОСа с флешки. Кроме того, на ней состоится презентация нового железа с опенсорсными прошивками от компании [ NovaCustom ]( https://novacustom.com/ ) . Конференция DUG начинается раньше — а сразу после неё, в 10 вечера по Москве состоится опенсорс-вечеринка «виртПиво»; на ней будут свободные обсуждения любых тем, относящихся к открытому прошивкам/железу, а также несколько рассказов от наших друзей — например:

• Как самостоятельно стать удостоверяющим центром UEFI Secure Boot чтобы подписывать UEFI'шные модули ?

• Как обходить защиту Intel BootGuard («антифича» мешающая запуску опенсорсных прошивок на многих матплатах) при помощи новой утилиты Deguard?

Вам выпадает уникальная возможность пообщаться с любителями опенсорсных прошивок на столь важные, пусть и немного нишевые, темы, а также узнать больше об интересном железе, поддерживающем опенсорсные прошивки. Прошлые встречи оказались весьма увлекательными, надеюсь вам понравится и в этот раз!

Доступен и звуковой/видео, и анонимный текстовый чат — как в [ Matrix ]( https://matrix.to/#/%23dasharo-osf-vpub:matrix.org ) , так и в [ Jitsi Meet ]( https://vpub.3mdeb.com/dasharo-user-group ) (регистрация не требуется). Язык общения/чата — английский

https://www.linux.org.ru/news/conference/17917951

OpenAI has launched a more powerful version of its o1 "reasoning" AI model, o1-pro, in its developer API. From a report: According to OpenAI, o1-pro uses more computing than o1 to provide "consistently better responses." Currently, it's only available to select developers -- those who've spent at least $5 on OpenAI API services -- and it's pricey. Very pricey. OpenAI is charging $150 per million tokens (~750,000 words) fed into the model and $600 per million tokens generated by the model. That's twice the price of OpenAI's GPT-4.5 for input and 10x the price of regular.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://slashdot.org/story/25/03/20/0227246/openais-o1-pro-is-the-companys-most-expensive-ai-model-yet?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

prisoninmate writes: GNOME 48 desktop environment has been released after six months of development with major new features that have been expected for more than four years, such as dynamic triple buffering, HDR support, and much more. 9to5Linux reports: "Highlights of GNOME 48 include dynamic triple buffering to boost the performance on low-end GPUs, such as Intel integrated graphics or Raspberry Pi computers, Wayland color management protocol support, new Adwaita fonts, HDR (High Dynamic Range) support, and a new Wellbeing feature with screen time tracking.

"GNOME 48 also introduces a new GNOME Display Control (gdctl) utility to view the active monitor configuration and set new monitor configuration using command line arguments, implements a11y keyboard monitoring support, adds output luminance settings, and it now centers new windows by default."

[ Read more of this story ]( https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/03/20/0324212/gnome-48-released?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Nvidia has not been approached about acquiring a stake in Intel, CEO Jensen Huang said on Wednesday, addressing speculation about potential semiconductor industry consolidation.

"Nobody's invited us to a consortium," Huang told reporters at Nvidia's annual developer conference. "Nobody invited me. Maybe other people are involved, but I don't know. There might be a party. I wasn't invited."

Reuters previously reported that Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) had approached Nvidia, Broadcom and Advanced Micro Devices about joining a potential joint venture to operate Intel's factories. Other media outlets reported Intel was considering separating its manufacturing operations with U.S. President Donald Trump's support, potentially transferring control to a TSMC-led consortium.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://slashdot.org/story/25/03/20/0354205/nvidia-not-approached-for-intel-stake-ceo-says?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

The National Archives has released thousands of pages of declassified records related to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1963. From a report: The records were posted to the National Archives' website, joining recently released records posted in 2023, 2022, 2021 and 2017-2018.

"This release consists of approximately 80,000 pages of previously-classified records that will be published with no redactions," said the announcement from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. "Additional documents withheld under court seal or for grand jury secrecy, and records subject to section 6103 of the Internal Revenue Code, must be unsealed before release."

President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Jan. 23 directing the release of all remaining records related to the assassination, saying it was in the "public interest" to do so. Tuesday's initial release contained 1,123 records comprising 32,000 pages. A subsequent release on Tuesday night contained 1,059 records comprising 31,400 additional pages.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://news.slashdot.org/story/25/03/20/086201/government-releases-thousands-of-declassified-pages-related-to-jfk-assassination?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Мэтью Косарек (Matthew Kosarek), разработчик из компании Canonical, опубликовал выпуск композитного менеджера miracle-wm 0.5, использующего протокол Wayland и компоненты для построения композитных менеджеров Mir. Miracle-wm поддерживает мозаичную (tiling) компоновку окон, схожую с аналогичной в проектах i3 и Sway. В качестве панели может применяться Waybar. Код проекта написан на языке C++ и распространяется под лицензией GPLv3. Готовые сборки сформированы в формате snap, а также в пакетах rpm и deb для Fedora и Ubuntu.

https://www.opennet.ru/opennews/art.shtml?num=62918

Опубликован выпуск программы LosslessCut 3.65.0, предоставляющей графический интерфейс для редактирования мультимедийных файлов без перекодирования содержимого. Наиболее востребованной функцией LosslessCut является кадрирование и обрезка видео и звука, например, для сокращения размера больших файлов, снятых на экшн-камеру или камеру квадрокоптера. LosslessCut позволяет выбрать в файле актуальные фрагменты записи и отбросить лишнее, без проведения полного перекодирования и сохранив исходное качество материала. Так как обработка выполняется путём копирования имеющихся данных, а не перекодирования, операции выполняются очень быстро. LosslessCut написан на языке JavaScript с использованием платформы Electron и является надстройкой над пакетом FFmpeg. Наработки распространяются под лицензией GPLv2. Сборки подготовлены для Linux (snap, flatpak), macOS и Windows.

https://www.opennet.ru/opennews/art.shtml?num=62921

Microsoft is developing a new Windows 11 feature that will explain how hardware limitations affect PC performance. The latest preview builds include a hidden FAQ section in system settings that addresses GPU memory, system RAM, and OS version impacts.

The feature, discovered by Windows observer "phantomofearth" in this week's Dev Channel build, requires manual activation. It provides specific recommendations for configurations like low RAM or GPUs with less than 4GB memory, and flags outdated Windows versions.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/03/20/112211/microsoft-developing-windows-11-feature-to-explain-hardware-performance-issues?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Компания Google перевела браузер Chrome на библиотеку Skrifa, написанную на языке Rust и предоставляющую возможности для обработки шрифтов в формате OpenType. Skrifa реализует подмножество возможностей шрифтового движка FreeType, необходимое для 2D-библиотеки Skia, применяемой в Chrome и Chromium. Для избавления библиотеки Skia от привязки к движку FreeType создан новый шрифтовой бэкенд, основанный на Skrifa.

https://www.opennet.ru/opennews/art.shtml?num=62922

14 марта, после двух месяцев разработки, состоялся выпуск 2.49 распределённой системы управления версиями Git, написанной на языке C и распространяемой по лицензии GNU GPL 2.

( [ читать дальше... ]( https://www.linux.org.ru/news/development/17918387#cut ) )

>>> [ Основные изменения в блоге GitHub ]( https://github.blog/open-source/git/highlights-from-git-2-49 )

The credit-card market has quietly split in two, Atlantic argues in a new story: one offering generous benefits to wealthy Americans, the other offering expensive debt to the poor. Credit-card balances have reached an all-time high of $1.2 trillion, with serious delinquency rates climbing to their highest point since the Great Recession.

"Transactors" pay off balances monthly and earn valuable rewards worth up to $3,000 annually in taxable income equivalent, while "revolvers" carry balances at a brutal 21.5% average APR. The poor subsidize the rich through two mechanisms: swipe fees that drive up retail prices by $1,700 annually for the average family, and late fees and interest charges that finance rewards programs. Interest revenue for credit-card companies has ballooned from $76 billion in 2020 to $170 billion in 2024.

The economy now appears to be slowing down. High-income families are increasingly resembling working-class families in credit data, with three in five households earning over $80,000 annually carrying balances for more than a year. Card companies are now offering fewer cards to subprime borrowers, creating a troubling dilemma - while expensive credit cards are harmful, having no credit access might be worse. Bipartisan legislation now aims to cap interest rates and lower swipe fees.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://news.slashdot.org/story/25/03/20/135242/there-are-two-kinds-of-credit-cards?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Pebble founder Eric Migicovsky has warned that the company's revived smartwatch line will face significant functionality limitations when paired with iPhones, blaming Apple's restrictive policies that favor its own Apple Watch. "It's impossible for a 3rd party smartwatch to send text messages, or perform actions on notifications (like dismissing, muting, replying) and many, many other things," Migicovsky wrote in a blog post, adding that the situation has "actually gotten worse over the last 8 years."

A 2024 class action lawsuit cited in the post claims Apple has added further restrictions since iOS 13, including requiring users to display full content previews on their lock screens for notifications to reach third-party watches. Pebble is still developing an iOS app because 40% of potential customers use iPhones, he said. Migicovsky warned that the watch will "always appear to have less developed functionality on iOS than Android" and some features will arrive on Android first.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://apple.slashdot.org/story/25/03/20/142227/pebble-founder-warns-of-limited-iphone-compatibility-for-revived-smartwatch?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Cosmologists have uncovered stronger evidence that dark energy -- the mysterious force accelerating cosmic expansion -- may be weakening over time. The Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) collaboration presented their latest findings at the Global Physics Summit in Anaheim, California, reinforcing their preliminary results from last year.

The DESI team analyzed data from approximately 15 million galaxies collected over three years, more than doubling their previous dataset of 6 million galaxies. Combined with supernova observations and cosmic microwave background data, their analysis shows a 4.2-sigma deviation from the standard Lambda-CDM cosmological model, which assumes dark energy remains constant.

"We are much more certain than last year that this is definitely a thing," said Seshadri Nadathur of the University of Portsmouth, a key DESI researcher. These findings align with recent independent results from the Dark Energy Survey (DES), which earlier this month reported a similar 3.2-sigma tension with Lambda-CDM -- a tension that disappears if dark energy is allowed to vary. If confirmed, evolving dark energy could fundamentally alter cosmologists' understanding of the universe's ultimate fate. Instead of expanding indefinitely until all particles become impossibly separated, the universe might follow alternative trajectories.

"It challenges the fate of the universe," explained Mustapha Ishak-Boushaki from the University of Texas at Dallas. "It's game-changing." Moreover, these findings challenge the simplest explanation of dark energy as vacuum energy, which quantum physics suggests should remain constant. Instead, the results indicate unknown physics, possibly involving a new particle, a modification to Einstein's theory of gravity, or even a new fundamental theory. DESI will continue observing through 2026, eventually producing a final map expected to include 50 million galaxies, potentially providing definitive evidence for this cosmic paradigm shift.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://science.slashdot.org/story/25/03/20/1431243/is-dark-energy-getting-weaker-new-evidence-strengthens-the-case?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

18 марта состоялся выпуск 1.7.0 библиотек [ BLAKE3 ]( https://github.com/BLAKE3-team/BLAKE3 ) , реализующих криптографический алгоритм хеширования [ BLAKE3 ]( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BLAKE_(hash_function)#BLAKE3 ) на языках C и Rust, и распространяемых как общественное достояние или по лицензии Apache 2.0.

Проектом также предоставляется консольная утилита b3sum, написанная на языке Rust.

( [ читать дальше... ]( https://www.linux.org.ru/news/opensource/17918577#cut ) )

Apple is undergoing a rare shake-up of its executive ranks, aiming to get its artificial intelligence efforts back on track after months of delays and stumbles, Bloomberg News reported Thursday, citing people familiar with the matter. From the report: Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook has lost confidence in the ability of AI head John Giannandrea to execute on product development, so he's moving over another top executive to help: Vision Pro creator Mike Rockwell. In a new role, Rockwell will be in charge of the Siri virtual assistant, according to the people, who asked not to be identified because the moves haven't been announced.

Rockwell will report to software chief Craig Federighi, removing Siri completely from Giannandrea's command. Apple is poised to announce the changes to employees this week. The iPhone maker's senior leaders -- a group known as the Top 100 -- just met at a secretive, annual offsite gathering to discuss the future of the company. Its AI efforts were a key talking point at the summit, Bloomberg News has reported.

The moves underscore the plight facing Apple: Its AI technology is severely lagging industry rivals, and the company has shown little sign of catching up. The Apple Intelligence platform was late to arrive and largely a flop, despite being the main selling point for the iPhone 16. Further reading: 'Something Is Rotten in the State of Cupertino'

[ Read more of this story ]( https://apple.slashdot.org/story/25/03/20/168205/apple-shakes-up-ai-executive-ranks-in-bid-to-turn-around-siri?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Nvidia is selling its scarce RTX 5080 and 5090 graphics cards from a pop-up "food truck" at its GPU Technology Conference, where attendees paying over $1,000 for tickets can purchase the coveted hardware alongside merchandise. The company has only 2,000 cards available (1,000 each of RTX 5080 and 5090), released in small batches at random times during the three-day conference which concludes tomorrow.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://it.slashdot.org/story/25/03/20/170225/nvidia-sells-rtx-gpus-from-a-food-truck?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

IBM is laying off thousands of employees across the United States, with approximately 25% of staff at its Cloud Classic operation affected, The Register reports, citing a source. "Concrete numbers are being kept private," a source told the publication. "It is in the thousands."

Staff reductions have occurred in Raleigh, North Carolina; New York; Dallas, Texas; and California, the report said. Affected departments include consulting, corporate social responsibility, cloud infrastructure, sales, and internal systems teams. The report adds: With regard to IBM Cloud Classic -- the infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) outfit offering built on IBM's 2013 acquisition of SoftLayer -- another source told us: "It's a resource action. I don't know how many people are in IaaS classic. They don't typically make that information easy to find. What I can say is that they have been making a lot of changes to shift employment to India as much as possible."

A third source, newly let go by Big Blue, said it was fair to characterize this a layoff. "Everyone I know that was affected, myself included, was simply offered a separation agreement," this individual said, estimating that 10 percent of the Cloud group (which is not the same as Cloud Classic) has been let go.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://slashdot.org/story/25/03/20/177251/ibm-cuts-thousands-of-jobs-cloud-classic-unit-hit-hard-report?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

A new AI system called Aardvark could deliver weather forecasts as accurate as those from advanced public weather services but run on desktop computers, according to a project unveiled Thursday and published in Nature. Developed by the UK's Alan Turing Institute with partners including Cambridge University, the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts and Microsoft, Aardvark aims to make sophisticated forecasting accessible to countries with fewer resources, particularly in Africa.

The system has already outperformed the US Global Forecast System on many variables in testing. Project leader Richard Turner noted the system is "completely open source" and not planned for commercialization by Microsoft.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/03/20/1811249/ai-driven-weather-prediction-breakthrough-reported?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Привет, ЛОР!

Компания Galois Inc. представила Grease – программу для статического анализа исполняемых файлов и поиска в них уязвимостей. Grease дизассемблирует исполняемый файл и строит модель его исполнения, после чего анализирует пограничные условия на предмет возможных ошибок. Использовать Grease можно как отдельно, так и плагином к [ системе обратного инжениринга Ghidra ]( https://ghidra-sre.org/ ) .

Код написан на языке Haskell и распространяется под лицензией BSD-3.

>>> [ Репозитарий на Github ]( https://github.com/GaloisInc/grease )

https://www.linux.org.ru/news/opensource/17918764

Over the past two decades, school districts have spent billions equipping classrooms with laptops, yet students have fallen further behind on essential skills, Michael Bloomberg argues. With about 90% of schools now providing these devices, test scores hover near historic lows -- only 28% of eighth graders proficient in math and 30% in reading.

Bloomberg notes technology's classroom push came from technologists and government officials who envisioned tailored curricula. Computer manufacturers, despite good intentions, had financial interests and profited substantially. The Google executive who questioned why children should learn equations when they could Google answers might now ask why they should write essays when chatbots can do it for them.

Studies confirm traditional methods -- reading and writing on paper -- remain superior to screen-based approaches. Devices distract students, with research showing up to 20 minutes needed to refocus after nonacademic activities. As some districts ban smartphones during school hours, Bloomberg suggests reconsidering classroom computer policies, recommending locked carts for more purposeful use and greater transparency for parents about screen time. Technology's promise has failed while imposing significant costs on children and taxpayers, he writes. Bloomberg calls for a return to books and pens over laptops and tablets.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://news.slashdot.org/story/25/03/20/1918213/kids-are-spending-too-much-class-time-on-laptops?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Google is introducing an AI-powered update to Gmail search that prioritizes "most relevant" results based on recency, frequent contacts, and most-clicked emails. The feature aims to help users more efficiently locate specific messages in crowded inboxes. The update is rolling out globally to personal Google accounts, with business accounts to follow at an unspecified date. Users will have the option to toggle between the new AI-powered "most relevant" search and the traditional reverse chronological "most recent" view.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/03/20/1839239/gmail-rolls-out-ai-powered-search?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

A United States District Court judge has approved a settlement between HP and customers who sued the company for firmware updates that prevented printers from working with non-HP ink cartridges.

The class-action lawsuit, filed in December 2020, alleged HP "wrongfully compels users" to buy only HP ink by issuing updates that block competitors' cartridges. Under the settlement, HP admits no wrongdoing and won't pay monetary damages to affected customers, though it will pay $5,000 each to the three plaintiffs and $725,000 in attorneys' fees.

HP has agreed to allow users of specific printer models impacted by the November 2020 update to decline firmware updates containing "Dynamic Security" features -- HP's term for technology that blocks cartridges using non-HP chips. The settlement applies only to 21 specific printer models, leaving numerous other HP printers subject to Dynamic Security restrictions. HP has previously paid millions in similar cases in Europe, Australia, and California related to printer bricking.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/25/03/20/1853218/hp-escapes-customer-payouts-in-printer-bricking-lawsuit-settlement?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Scientists at Zhejiang University have created the world's smallest LED display, featuring pixels just 90 nanometers wide -- roughly the size of a typical virus and too tiny to be seen with optical microscopes. The breakthrough, described in Nature this week, uses perovskite semiconductors that maintain brightness even at microscopic scales, giving them an advantage over conventional LEDs.

The research team, led by Baodan Zhao, also demonstrated a larger display with pixels measuring about 100 micrometers (human hair width) that successfully rendered images including a spinning globe.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/03/20/1910204/worlds-tiniest-led-display-has-pixels-smaller-than-a-virus?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

LG is shutting down Art Lab, its NFT marketplace for TVs. From a report: In a notice posted to its website, LG says it has made the "difficult decision" to close the platform on June 17th. LG launched its Art Lab app during the NFT craze in 2022, billing it as a way to "buy, sell and enjoy high-quality digital artwork" from your TV. It added new digital art to the platform through "groundbreaking" NFT drops, which users could purchase by scanning a QR code to complete transactions through Wallypto, LG's crypto wallet app.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://entertainment.slashdot.org/story/25/03/20/1834218/lgs-nft-marketplace-for-tvs-is-shutting-down?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

President Trump signed a long-expected executive action on Thursday calling on U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon to "take all necessary steps to facilitate the closure of the Department of Education and return authority over education to the States and local communities." From a report: "We're going to be returning education, very simply, back to the states where it belongs," Trump said. "And this is a very popular thing to do, but much more importantly, it's a common sense thing to do, and it's going to work, absolutely."

The move has been expected since early February, when the White House revealed its intentions but withheld the action until after McMahon's Senate confirmation. It now arrives more than a week after the Trump administration has already begun sweeping layoffs at the Education Department. According to the administration's own numbers, Trump inherited a department with 4,133 employees. Nearly 600 workers have since chosen to leave, by resigning or retiring. And last week, 1,300 workers were told they would lose their jobs as part of a reduction in force. That leaves 2,183 staff at the department -- roughly half the size it was just a few weeks ago.

The order instructs McMahon to act "to the maximum extent appropriate and permitted by law," an acknowledgement that the department and its signature responsibilities were created by Congress and cannot legally be ended without congressional approval. That would almost certainly require 60 votes in the U.S. Senate to overcome a Democratic filibuster.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://news.slashdot.org/story/25/03/21/044244/trump-signs-order-aiming-to-close-the-education-department?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Controversial facial recognition company Clearview AI attempted to purchase hundreds of millions of arrest records including social security numbers, mugshots, and even email addresses to incorporate into its product, 404 Media reports. From the report: For years, Clearview AI has collected billions of photos from social media websites including Facebook, LinkedIn and others and sold access to its facial recognition tool to law enforcement. The collection and sale of user-generated photos by a private surveillance company to police without that person's knowledge or consent sparked international outcry when it was first revealed by the New York Times in 2020.

New documents obtained by 404 Media reveal that Clearview AI spent nearly a million dollars in a bid to purchase "690 million arrest records and 390 million arrest photos" from all 50 states from an intelligence firm. The contract further describes the records as including current and former home addresses, dates of birth, arrest photos, social security and cell phone numbers, and email addresses. Clearview attempted to purchase this data from Investigative Consultant, Inc. (ICI) which billed itself as an intelligence company with access to tens of thousands of databases and the ability to create unique data streams for its clients. The contract was signed in mid-2019, at a time when Clearview AI was quietly collecting billions of photos off the internet and was relatively unknown at the time.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://yro.slashdot.org/story/25/03/20/1925212/clearview-attempted-to-buy-social-security-numbers-and-mugshots-for-its-database?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang on Thursday walked back comments he made in January, when he cast doubt on whether useful quantum computers would hit the market in the next 15 years. From a report: At Nvidia's "Quantum Day" event, part of the company's annual GTC Conference, Huang admitted that his comments came out wrong. "This is the first event in history where a company CEO invites all of the guests to explain why he was wrong," Huang said.

In January, Huang sent quantum computing stocks reeling when he said 15 years was "on the early side" in considering how long it would be before the technology would be useful. He said at the time that 20 years was a timeframe that "a whole bunch of us would believe." In his opening comments on Thursday, Huang drew comparisons between pre-revenue quantum companies and Nvidia's early days. He said it took over 20 years for Nvidia to build out its software and hardware business.

He also expressed surprise that his comments were able to move markets, and joked he didn't know that certain quantum computing companies were publicly traded. "How could a quantum computer company be public?" Huang said.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/03/21/0439241/nvidia-ceo-huang-says-he-was-wrong-about-timeline-for-quantum?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Различные открытые проекты столкнулись с волной сбоев и замедления работы элементов инфраструктуры из-за повышения активности индексаторов содержимого сайтов (скраперов), собирающих информацию для обучения больших языковых моделей или для обеспечения ИИ-поиска в Web (например, компания Anthropic вчера представила вариант модели Claude 3.7 с возможностью поиска в Web).

https://www.opennet.ru/opennews/art.shtml?num=62925

Илья Чугин (X512) сообщил о первых результатах портирования драйвера NVIDIA для операционной системы Haiku. Порт пока находится на начальной стадии развития, но уже пригоден для простой отрисовки. В работе задействованы открытый модуль ядра от компании NVIDIA и Vulkan-драйвер NVK из состава Mesa. В Mesa-драйвер NVK добавлена поддержка работающего на уровне ядра драйвера NVIDIA вместо DRM-драйвера Nouveau. Libdrm и связанные c данной библиотекой компоненты в порте не используются.

https://www.opennet.ru/opennews/art.shtml?num=62926

Для включения в состав ветки GCC 15 предложена серия патчей с улучшением поддержки языка Rust во фронтэнде gccrs. Наиболее заметным изменением стала поддержка проверки заимствования переменных (borrow checker), реализованная на основе компонента Polonius, разрабатываемого основной командой разработчиков Rust в качестве следующего поколения Borrow checker.

https://www.opennet.ru/opennews/art.shtml?num=62924

European Central Bank Chief Economist Philip Lane warned that Europe must develop a digital euro to counter growing American influence over the continent's financial system [alternative source] amid escalating geopolitical tensions. Lane specifically cited Europe's "current dependence on US payment-card providers Visa and Mastercard, as well as technology companies including PayPal, Apple and Google" as a vulnerability requiring urgent action.

His comments come as President Donald Trump's administration promotes dollar-backed stablecoins worldwide as part of a broader cryptocurrency strategy, alarming European officials. ECB Governing Council member Francois Villeroy de Galhau recently cautioned that "the US risks bringing about the next financial emergency through its support of cryptocurrencies."

"The digital euro is not just about adapting to the digital age. It is about ensuring Europe controls its monetary and financial destiny," Lane told a conference in Ireland, noting that a digital currency would "limit the likelihood of foreign-currency stablecoins gaining a foothold" in Europe.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://slashdot.org/story/25/03/21/0658224/european-central-bank-chief-economist-warns-of-us-financial-dominance?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

5 и 20 марта состоялись выпуски 5.0.0 и 5.0.1 [ высокопроизводительной ]( https://github.com/stephenberry/json_performance ) библиотеки [ Glaze ]( https://github.com/stephenberry/glaze ) , предназначенной для чтения и записи JSON.
Также поддерживаются форматы CSV и [ BEVE ]( https://github.com/beve-org/beve ) .
Библиотека написана на языке C++ (header-only, стандарт C++23) и распространяется по лицензии MIT.

( [ читать дальше... ]( https://www.linux.org.ru/news/development/17919322#cut ) )

DaringFireball: Whole Reddit thread examining this simple question: "What month is it?" and Siri's "I'm sorry, I don't understand" response (which I just reproduced on my iPhone 16 Pro running iOS 18.4b4). One guy changed the question to "What month is it currently?" and got the answer "It is 2025." More comments from that thread:"I ask Siri to play a podcast and she literally says, "I'm trying to play from Apple Podcasts but it doesn't look like you have it installed." I didn't even know you could delete that app. I certainly haven't. So I have to manually do it every time now. It used to work."

"I asked Siri last night to set a reminder for 3:50, so naturally she set it for 10:00." Further reading:
Apple Shakes Up AI Executive Ranks in Bid to Turn Around Siri;
'Something Is Rotten in the State of Cupertino'.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://apple.slashdot.org/story/25/03/21/1114253/hey-siri-what-month-is-it?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Google has filed a lawsuit against alleged scammers who created and sold fake business profiles on Google Maps, the company said. The legal action follows an investigation that uncovered and eliminated more than 10,000 illegitimate listings.

The investigation began after a Texas business reported an unlicensed locksmith impersonating them on the platform. Google discovered the scams primarily targeted "duress verticals" -- services needed in urgent situations like locksmiths and towing companies. "Once we're alerted to the actual fraud, we take extreme efforts to identify similar fraudulent listings," said Halimah DeLaine Prado, Google's general counsel.

The scammers used tactics including bait-and-switch schemes and intercepting calls to legitimate businesses through "lead generation services." They also sold fraudulent positive reviews to suppress negative feedback.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/03/21/1126233/google-sues-scammers-over-fake-maps-listings?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Yahoo on Friday said it has struck a deal to sell TechCrunch, the 20-year-old tech journalism site, to Regent, a media investment firm. Axios: Yahoo's business centers mostly on aggregation. Journalism isn't its core focus. Regent is trying to pull together a portfolio of tech news sites and is eager to invest in news. Earlier this week, it acquired Foundry, which houses a slew of online tech publications, such as PCWorld, Macworld and TechAdvisor.

In a statement, Regent said it is "thrilled to expand its reach as it provides breaking technology news, opinions, and analysis on tech companies worldwide to our audience." Financial deal terms were not disclosed. The deal will not require regulatory review, which is normally needed for deals valued at roughly more than $100 million.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/03/21/1550212/yahoo-sells-techcrunch?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.