The dream of quantum computers has been hampered by the challenge of error correction, writes the Harvard Gazette, since qubits "are inherently susceptible to slipping out of their quantum states and losing their encoded information."

But in a newly-published paper, a research team "combined various methods to create complex circuits with dozens of error correction layers" that "suppresses errors below a critical threshold — the point where adding qubits further reduces errors rather than increasing them."

"For the first time, we combined all essential elements for a scalable, error-corrected quantum computation in an integrated architecture," said Mikhail Lukin, co-director of the Quantum Science and Engineering Initiative, Joshua and Beth Friedman University Professor, and senior author of the new paper. "These experiments — by several measures the most advanced that have been done on any quantum platform to date — create the scientific foundation for practical large-scale quantum computation..."

"There are still a lot of technical challenges remaining to get to very large-scale computer with millions of qubits, but this is the first time we have an architecture that is conceptually scalable," said lead author Dolev Bluvstein, Ph.D. '25, who did the research during his graduate studies at Harvard and is now an assistant professor at Caltech. "It's going to take a lot of effort and technical development, but it's becoming clear that we can build fault-tolerant quantum computers...."

Hartmut Neven, vice president of engineering at the Google Quantum AI team, said the new paper came amid an "incredibly exciting" race between qubit platforms. "This work represents a significant advance toward our shared goal of building a large-scale, useful quantum computer," he said... With recent advances, Lukin believes the core elements for building quantum computers are falling into place. "This big dream that many of us had for several decades, for the first time, is really in direct sight," he said. ... [>>>]

A new "cold war" between America and China is "pushing leaders to sideline concerns about the dangers of powerful AI models," reports the Wall Street Journal, "including the spread of disinformation and other harmful content, and the development of superintelligent AI systems misaligned with human values..."

"Both countries are driven as much by fear as by hope of progress. "

In Washington and Silicon Valley, warnings abound that China's
"authoritarian AI," left unchecked, will erode American tech
supremacy. Beijing is gripped by the conviction that a failure to
keep
pace in AI will make it easier for the U.S. to cut short China's
resurgence as a global power. Both countries believe market share
for their companies across the world is up for grabs — and with it,
the potential to influence large swaths of the global population.

The U.S. still has a clear lead, producing the most powerful AI
models. China can't match it in advanced
chips and has no answer for the financial firepower of private
American investors, who funded AI startups to the tune of $104
billion in the first half of 2025, and are gearing
up for more. But it has a massive population of capable
engineers, lower costs and a state-led development model that often
moves faster than the U.S., all of which Beijing is working to
harness to tip the contest in its direction. A new "whole of
society" campaign looks to accelerate the construction of computing
clusters in areas like Inner Mongolia, where vast solar and wind
farms provide plentiful cheap energy, and connect hundreds of data
centers to create a shared compute pool — some describe it as a
"national cloud" — by 2028. China is also funneling hundreds of
billions of dollars into its power grid to support AI training and
adoption...

"Our lead is probably in the 'months but not years' realm,"
said Chris McGuire, who helped design U.S. export controls on AI
chips while serving on the National Security Council under the Biden ... [>>>]

"Media headlines suggesting some slowdown in EV sales are simply incorrect," writes the site Electrek, "and leave out the bigger picture that gas car sales actually are dropping..."

Over the course of
the last two years or so, sales of battery electric vehicles, while
continuing to grow, have posted lower year-over-year percentage
growth rates than they had in years prior. EV sales used to grow at
50%+ per year, but for the last couple years, they have grown closer
to ~25% per year. This alone is not particularly remarkable — it
is inevitable that any growing product or category will show slower
percentage growth rates as sales rise, particularly one that has been
growing at such a fast rate for so long. In some recent years, we
had even seen year-over-year
doublings in EV market share (though one of those was 2020->2021,
which was anomalous). To expect improvement at that level perpetually
would be close to impossible — after 3 years of doubling
market share from 2023's 18% number, EVs would account for more
than 100% of the global automotive market, which cannot happen...

We have seen a global EV sales growth rate of 23% in the first 10
months of this year, according to a report just released by Rho
Motion (recently acquired by Benchmark Mineral Intelligence). That
includes a +32% bump in Europe, +22% bump in China, +4% in North
America, and a big +48% bump in the "rest of the world." Notably,
this 23% global growth rate is higher than last year's YTD growth
rate, which was 22%
at this time...

In covering these trends, some journalists have attempted to use
the less-wrong phrase "slower growth," showing that EV sales are
still growing, but at a lower percentage change than previously seen.
But for the first ten months of this year, that isn't true — EV
sales are up more in 2025 than in 2024 by a percentage basis. They
are also up in raw sales numbers — in 2024, EV
sales grew by a larger number than in 2023. And the same is true ... [>>>]

From the personal blog of interface expert Bruce Ediger:

Early in March 2025, I noticed that a web crawler with a user
agent string of

meta-externalagent/1.1 (+https://developers.facebook.com/docs/sharing/webmasters/crawler)

was hitting my blog's machine at an unreasonable rate.

I followed the URL and discovered this is what Meta uses to gather premium,
human-generated content to train its LLMs. I found the rate of
requests to be annoying.

I already have a PHP program that creates the illusion of an infinite website. I decided to answer any HTTP request that had
"meta-externalagent" in its user agent string with the contents
of a bork.php generated file...

This worked
brilliantly. Meta ramped up to requesting 270,000 URLs on May 30 and
31, 2025...

After about 3 months, I got scared that Meta's insatiable
consumption of Super Great Pages about condiments, underwear and
circa 2010 C-List celebs would start costing me money. So I switched
to giving "meta-externalagent" a 404 status code. I decided to
see how long it would take one of the highest valued companies in the
world to decide to go away.

The answer is 5 months.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/11/15/2023242/while-meta-crawls-the-web-for-ai-training-data-bruce-ediger-pranks-them-with-endless-bad-data?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader shared this post from the gaming news site Aftermath:

Concord, Sony Interactive Entertainment and Firewalk Studios' Overwatch-like shooter, was live for just two weeks before it was pulled offline. Though Concord certainly had some dedicated players, it didn't have many — which is why it may be surprising to hear that a group of players are reverse-engineering the game and its servers to bring it back to life.

Publisher Sony removed Concord from stores and digital marketplaces, automatically refunded some, and, later, shut down Firewalk Studios. Two hundred or so people were laid off, and any hopes of Concord's return were dashed. Poor sales — estimated to be under 25,000 copies sold — and low player numbers marred the release. Firewalk Studios' game director Ryan Ellis said in a blog post that pieces of the game "resonated with players," but "other aspects of the game and [Concord's] initial launch didn't land the way [Firewalk Studios] intended."

Concord wasn't a bad game, but it just didn't generate enough interest with enough players. Now, a group of three hobbyist reverse-engineers, who go by real, Red, and gwog online, are trying to make it playable again... "Sometimes there's enough of the server left in the game, that we can 'activate' that code and make the game believe it's a server," Red said. "We do pretty much always need to fill in the gaps though..." Concord used an anti-tamper software to keep people from cheating, which also creates a problem for people reverse engineering. It's "nearly impossible" to crack, Red said, so the group didn't — they found an exploit to "forcefully decrypt the game's code" to "restore the game and start working on servers...."

It's not open to the public, but people can sign up for future tests. Even former Firewalk Studios employees have joined the server. They're excited to see Concord come back to life, too, the developers said.

"Friday morning, a video of the playtest was posted to the Concord Reddit page," according to the article. (Though ironically by Friday night YouTube had had removed the video "due to a copyright claim by MarkScan Enforcement." ... [>>>]

Long-time Slashdot reader schwit1 shares a Substack post by economist/entrepreneur Skander Garroum:

You know that feeling when you're waiting for the cable guy, and they said 'between 8am and 6pm, and you waste your entire day, and they never show up? Now imagine that, except the cable guy is 'electricity,' the day is '50 years,' and you're one of 600 million people. At some point, you stop waiting and figure it out yourself.

What's happening across Sub-Saharan Africa right now is the most ambitious infrastructure project in human history, except it's not being built by governments or utilities or World Bank consortiums. It's being built by startups selling solar panels to farmers on payment plans. And it's working. Over 30 million solar products sold in 2024. 400,000 new solar installations every month across Africa. 50% market share captured by companies that didn't exist 15 years ago. Carbon credits subsidizing the cost. IoT chips in every device. 90%+ repayment rates on loans to people earning $2/day.
And if you understand what's happening in Africa, you understand the template for how infrastructure will get built everywhere else for the next 50 years.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://news.slashdot.org/story/25/11/15/0433216/why-solarpunk-is-already-happening-in-africa?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

It was the first allegation of a crime committed in space — back in 2019. But by 2020 it had led to
charges of lying to federal authorities.

And now a former Air Force intelligence officer "has pleaded guilty to lying to a federal agent," reports CNBC, "by falsely claiming that her estranged astronaut wife illegally accessed her bank account while aboard the International Space Station for six months, prosecutors in Houston, Texas, said Friday."

The guilty plea by Summer Worden, 50, on Thursday comes more than five years after she was indicted in the space case for lying about actions by her wife, Anne McClain, a U.S. Army colonel, West Point graduate and Iraq war combat veteran, while they were in the midst of a divorce. The claim came at a time when Worden said that the couple was engaged in a custody battle over what Worden's then-6-year-old son, who had been conceived through in vitro fertilizationand carried by a surrogate...

McClain was aboard the Space Station from December 2018 through June 2019. She recently commanded the SpaceX Crew-10 crew mission to the Space Station from March this year until August.

Worden, who remains free on bond, is scheduled to be sentenced on February 12. She faces a maximum possible sentence of up to five years in prison.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://yro.slashdot.org/story/25/11/15/0547207/woman-pleads-guilty-to-lying-about-astronaut-accessing-bank-account-from-international-space-station?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

"The International Energy Agency's latest outlook signals that oil demand could keep growing through to the middle of the century," reports CNBC, "reflecting a sharp tonal shift from the world's energy watchdog and raising further questions about the future of fossil fuels."

In its flagship World Energy Outlook, the Paris-based agency on Wednesday laid out a scenario in which demand for oil climbs to 113 million barrels per day by 2050, up 13% from 2024 levels. The IEA had previously estimated a peak in global fossil fuel demand before the end of this decade and said that, in order to reach net-zero emissions by 2050, there should be no new investments in coal, oil and gas projects... The IEA's end-of-decade peak oil forecast kick-started a long-running war of words with OPEC, an influential group of oil exporting countries, which accused the IEA of fearmongering and risking the destabilization of the global economy.

The IEA's latest forecast of increasing oil demand was outlined in its "Current Policies Scenario" — one of a number of scenarios outlined by the IEA. This one assumes no new policies or regulations beyond those already in place. The CPS was dropped five years ago amid energy market turmoil during the coronavirus pandemic, and its reintroduction follows pressure from the Trump administration... Gregory Brew, an analyst at Eurasia Group's Energy, Climate and Resources team, said the IEA's retreat on peak oil demand signified "a major shift" from the group's position over the last five years. "The justifications offered for the shift include policy changes in the U.S., where slow EV penetration indicates robust oil [consumption], but is also tied to expected increases in petrochemical and aviation fuel in East and Southeast Asia," Brew told CNBC by email. "It's unlikely the agency is adjusting based on political pressure — though there has been some of that, with the Trump administration criticizing the group's supposed bias in favor of renewable energy — and the shift reflects a broader skepticism that oil demand is set to peak any time soon," he added... ... [>>>]

schwit1 shares a report from the Business Times: General Motors (GM) has directed several thousand of its suppliers to scrub their supply chains of parts from China, four people familiar with the matter said, reflecting automakers' growing frustration over geopolitical disruptions to their operations. GM executives have been telling suppliers they should find alternatives to China for their raw materials and parts, with the goal of eventually moving their supply chains out of the country entirely, the people said. The automaker has set a 2027 deadline for some suppliers to dissolve their China sourcing ties, some of the sources said. GM approached some suppliers with the directive in late 2024, but the effort took on fresh urgency this past spring, during the early days of an escalating US-China trade battle, the sources said.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/11/15/0040214/gm-wants-parts-makers-to-pull-supply-chains-from-china?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

alternative_right shares a report from ScienceAlert: A thorough investigation published in May 2023 found that the inner core of the Moon is, in fact, a solid ball with a density similar to that of iron. To figure it out once and for all, [astronomer Arthur Briaud of the French National Centre for Scientific Research in France] and his colleagues collected data from space missions and lunar laser-ranging experiments to compile a profile of various lunar characteristics. These include the degree of its deformation by its gravitational interaction with Earth, the variation in its distance from Earth, and its density.

... they found that the lunar core is very similar to that of Earth â" with an outer fluid layer and a solid inner core. According to their modeling, the outer core has a radius of about 362 kilometers (225 miles), and the inner core has a radius of about 258 kilometers (160 miles). That's about 15 percent of the entire radius of the Moon. The inner core, the team found, also has a density of about 7,822 kilograms per cubic meter. That's very close to the density of iron. [...] The research has been published in Nature.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://science.slashdot.org/story/25/11/15/0037256/scientists-confirmed-what-is-inside-our-moon?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Washington Post: Winning the lottery isn't what brought Carrie Edwards her 15 minutes of fame. It was giving it all away. Standing alone in her kitchen one day in September, the Virginia woman was thunderstruck to discover she had won $150,000 in a Powerball drawing. As she was absorbing her windfall, she said, "I just heard as loud as you can hear God or whoever you believe in the universe just say, this is -- it's not your money." Then came a decision: She would donate it all to her three most cherished charities (source paywalled; alternative source). [...] Her journey to the lucky prize started when she walked into a 7-Eleven with a friend who wanted to buy two Powerball tickets. The jackpot for the Sept. 6 drawing was topping $1.7 billion, the second-largest amount ever. Edwards, 68, hardly ever played the lottery, but her friend was an active player who gave her two pieces of advice: Always buy a paper ticket, rather than getting them online. And the Powerball multiplier is a scam, don't do it. She ignored him on both accounts.

She created a Virginia Lottery account on her phone. Then, instead of the typical strategies of using family birthdays and lucky numbers, she went to ChatGPT -- which she had only recently started using for research -- and asked, "Do you have any winning numbers for me?" "Luck is luck," replied the chatbot. Then it gave numbers that she plugged in -- paying the extra dollar for the Power Play to multiply anything she might win. She initially thought luck wasn't on her side when she didn't win the massive jackpot. But what she didn't realize is that she'd picked the "draw two" option, meaning her numbers were reentered for the next drawing. When she got a notification on her phone that she had won, she said, she thought it was a scam, or maybe she'd won something small, like $10. Just to satisfy her curiosity, she logged into her account and saw that she had matched four of the five numbers plus the Powerball in that second drawing. It would have been a $50,000 payout, but the multiplier tripled her winnings. ... [>>>]

YouTube TV and Disney have ended their two-week carriage standoff, restoring ESPN, ABC, and other Disney networks under a new multiyear deal. Variety reports: Under the new agreement, ESPN's full lineup of sports -- including content from ESPN Unlimited -- will be made available on YouTube TV to base-plan subscribers at no additional cost by the end of 2026. In addition, access to a selection of live and on-demand programming from ESPN Unlimited will be available inside YouTube TV.

The deal also lets YouTube include the Disney+ and Hulu bundle as part of "select YouTube offerings." According to Disney, "select networks" will be included in various genre-specific packages that YouTube TV expects to launch in the future. [...] The deal supersedes their prior distribution agreement, inked in December 2021 after a two-day blackout.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://entertainment.slashdot.org/story/25/11/15/019213/youtube-tv-and-disney-reach-deal-ending-two-week-blackout-of-espn-abc?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Apple's limited-edition "iPhone Pocket" sold out almost instantly worldwide despite its $150-$230 price tag. Appleinsider reports: Longtime Apple users immediately saw the resemblance with the old iPod socks, and everyone saw the price. Apple and Japan's Issey Miyake fashion house partnered to create a limited edition iPhone Pocket, a stretched sock-like bag or shoulder strap.

There was no denying that an iPhone in this Pocket looked snuggly. There was definitely no denying that the accessory was well designed. There's also no question that it was about as goofy as the iPod Sock from back the in the day. But there was every denying of the price. The iPhone Pocket came in a short version for $150, and a longer one for $230.

For comparison, the Apple Watch SE starts at $250. As ever, though, if you liked it, if you had a use for it, and if you had the budget, there was no reason left not to buy. But if you have hesitated because of the cost, you are now out of luck. There are none left in the US.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://apple.slashdot.org/story/25/11/15/0011232/apples-230-iphone-pocket-sells-out-nearly-immediately?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

"Within the past year, stories have been posted on Slashdot about people helping North Koreans get remote IT jobs at U.S. corporations, companies knowingly assisting them, how not to hire a North Korean for a remote IT job, and how a simple question tripped up a North Korean applying for a remote IT job," writes longtime Slashdot reader smooth wombat. "The FBI is even warning companies that North Koreans working remotely can steal source code and extort money from the company -- money that goes to fund the North Korean government. Now, five more people have plead guilty to knowingly helping North Koreans infiltrate U.S. companies as remote IT workers." TechCrunch reports: The five people are accused of working as "facilitators" who helped North Koreans get jobs by providing their own real identities, or false and stolen identities of more than a dozen U.S. nationals. The facilitators also hosted company-provided laptops in their homes across the U.S. to make it look like the North Korean workers lived locally, according to the DOJ press release. These actions affected 136 U.S. companies and netted Kim Jong Un's regime $2.2 million in revenue, said the DOJ. Three of the people -- U.S. nationals Audricus Phagnasay, Jason Salazar, and Alexander Paul Travis -- each pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud conspiracy.

Prosecutors accused the three of helping North Koreans posing as legitimate IT workers, whom they knew worked outside of the United States, to use their own identities to obtain employment, helped them remotely access their company-issued laptops set up in their homes, and also helped the North Koreans pass vetting procedures, such as drug tests. The fourth U.S. national who pleaded guilty is Erick Ntekereze Prince, who ran a company called Taggcar, which supplied to U.S. companies allegedly "certified" IT workers but whom he knew worked outside of the country and were using stolen or fake identities. Prince also hosted laptops with remote access software at several residences in Florida, and earned more than $89,000 for his work, the DOJ said. ... [>>>]

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Record: Russian telecom operators have begun cutting mobile internet access for 24 hours for citizens returning to the country from abroad, in what officials say is an effort to prevent Ukrainian drones from using domestic SIM cards for navigation. "When a SIM card enters Russia from abroad, the user has to confirm that it's being used by a person -- not installed in a drone," the Digital Development Ministry said in a statement earlier this week.

Users can restore access sooner by solving a captcha or calling their operator for identification. Authorities said the temporary blackout is meant to "ensure the safety of Russian citizens" and prevent SIM cards from being embedded in "enemy drones." The new rule has led to unexpected outages for residents in border regions, whose phones can automatically connect to foreign carriers. Officials advised users to switch to manual network selection to avoid being cut off.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/11/14/2153236/russia-imposes-24-hour-mobile-internet-blackout-for-travelers-returning-home?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

BrianFagioli writes: Logitech has confirmed a cybersecurity breach after an intruder exploited a zero-day in a third-party software platform and copied internal data. The company says the incident did not affect its products, manufacturing or business operations, and it does not believe sensitive personal information like national ID numbers or credit card data were stored in the impacted system. The attacker still managed to pull limited information tied to employees, consumers, customers and suppliers, raising fair questions about how long the zero-day existed before being patched.

Logitech brought in outside cybersecurity firms, notified regulators and says the incident will not materially affect its financial results. The company expects its cybersecurity insurance policy to cover investigation costs and any potential legal or regulatory issues. Still, with zero-day attacks increasing across the tech world, even established hardware brands are being forced to acknowledge uncomfortable weaknesses in their internal systems.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://yro.slashdot.org/story/25/11/14/2140205/logitech-reports-data-breach-from-zero-day-software-vulnerability?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

According to CNBC, JPMorgan Chase has secured deals ensuring it will get paid by the fintech firms responsible for nearly all the data requests made by third-party apps connected to customer bank accounts. From the report: The bank has signed updated contracts with the fintech middlemen that make up more than 95% of the data pulls on its systems, including Plaid, Yodlee, Morningstar and Akoya, according to JPMorgan spokesman Drew Pusateri. "We've come to agreements that will make the open banking ecosystem safer and more sustainable and allow customers to continue reliably and securely accessing their favorite financial products," Pusateri said in a statement. "The free market worked."

The milestone is the latest twist in a long-running dispute between traditional banks and the fintech industry over access to customer accounts. For years, middlemen like Plaid paid nothing to tap bank systems when a customer wanted to use a fintech app like Robinhood to draw funds or check balances. [...] After weeks of negotiations between JPMorgan and the middlemen, the bank agreed to lower pricing than it originally proposed, and the fintech middlemen won concessions regarding the servicing of data requests, according to people with knowledge of the talks.

Fintech firms preferred the certainty of locking in data-sharing rates because it is unclear whether the current CFPB, which is in the process of revising the open-banking rule, will favor banks or fintech companies, according to a venture capital investor who asked for anonymity to discuss his portfolio companies. The bank and the fintech firms declined to disclose details about their contracts, including how much the middlemen agreed to pay and how long the deals are in force.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://news.slashdot.org/story/25/11/14/2135239/jpmorgan-chase-wins-fight-with-fintech-firms-over-fees-to-access-customer-data?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot. ... [>>>]

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: On Thursday evening, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman posted on X that ChatGPT has started following custom instructions to avoid using em dashes. "Small-but-happy win: If you tell ChatGPT not to use em-dashes in your custom instructions, it finally does what it's supposed to do!" he wrote.

The post, which came two days after the release of OpenAI's new GPT-5.1 AI model, received mixed reactions from users who have struggled for years with getting the chatbot to follow specific formatting preferences. And this "small win" raises a very big question: If the world's most valuable AI company has struggled with controlling something as simple as punctuation use after years of trying, perhaps what people call artificial general intelligence (AGI) is farther off than some in the industry claim. "The fact that it's been 3 years since ChatGPT first launched, and you've only just now managed to make it obey this simple requirement, says a lot about how little control you have over it, and your understanding of its inner workings," wrote one X user in a reply. "Not a good sign for the future."

[ Read more of this story ]( https://slashdot.org/story/25/11/14/2129248/sam-altman-celebrates-chatgpt-finally-following-em-dash-formatting-rules?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Executives are turning to a novel structure to fund crypto accumulation vehicles as investor appetite thins. They're called in-kind contributions, and they now account for a growing share of digital-asset treasury, or DAT, deals. Instead of raising cash to buy tokens in the open market, DAT sponsors contribute large slugs of their own crypto, often unlisted and hard to value.

Digital-asset treasuries are a new breed of public company built to hold concentrated crypto positions. The structure surged in 2025 as small-cap firms, especially in biotech and mining, reinvented themselves as digital-asset proxies. Sponsors provide tokens or raise money to buy them, and the stock then trades as a kind of listed bet on crypto. For insiders, it's a shortcut to liquidity. For investors, a wager on upside. But not all DATs carry the same level of risk. Earlier deals raised money to buy tokens through regular markets, which offered at least some independent price check. In-kind contributions skip that step -- letting insiders decide what their tokens are worth, sometimes before the token even trades publicly. That shift means pricing and trading risks land more squarely on shareholders, many of them retail investors.

Investor faith is already wobbling. Many DATs that once traded above the value of their holdings now trade below it. As insiders supply the tokens and set their price, it's becoming harder for investors to tell what these deals are really worth, or when to get out. The in-kind structure was on full display in a recent $545 million private placement by Tharimmune Inc., a biotech firm-turned-crypto proxy, to set up a buyer of Canton Coins. About 80% of the raise came in the form of unlisted Canton tokens, priced at 20 cents each, according to an investor presentation seen by Bloomberg News. The token began trading on exchanges Nov. 10 and is now around 11 cents, CoinGecko data show.

More deals are following the same template. In these placements, insiders contribute tokens -- sometimes illiquid or unlisted -- to form a treasury, lock in valuations and seed the perception of market demand. But when tokens list below deal price, public shareholders absorb the difference. [...] Then there's Flora Growth Corp., a Nasdaq-listed company that announced a $401 million deal to start acquiring Zero Gravity tokens in September. On closer inspection, the firm had raised just $35 million in cash to pair with a $366 million in-kind contribution of then-unlisted 0G tokens. Those tokens were priced at around $3 a piece; they subsequently listed, and are now trading at about $1.20. ... [>>>]

Pay television penetration in American households fell to 50.2% in the third quarter and is projected to drop to 50% or lower by December, according to Madison and Wall, a technology and media advisory firm. Fifteen years ago, nearly nine in ten households subscribed to pay television services.

The decline has prompted major media companies to shed cable assets. Comcast, Warner Bros. Discovery, and A&E are seeking to sell or spin off their cable television operations. Paramount stated it would not divest its cable channels but acknowledged that "each quarter is accelerating decline."

[ Read more of this story ]( https://entertainment.slashdot.org/story/25/11/14/1715240/only-half-the-homes-in-america-have-cable-tv-anymore?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

TV manufacturers are abandoning their attempts to turn TVs into interactive social devices through smart cameras. Sky announced this month that it will discontinue Sky Live, a camera accessory for its Sky Glass televisions that brought video calls, body-tracked workouts, and motion games to the living room. The device will stop working at the beginning of December. Sky will brick the cameras and reimburse customers. Sky launched the product in mid-2023 as part of an effort to transform televisions from passive viewing devices into interactive platforms.

That vision has not materialized across the industry. LG's Smart Cam, released in 2023, is out of stock at major retailers and appears discontinued. TCL's smart TV camera is no longer available. Samsung stopped integrating cameras directly into its television sets, though it still sells an external camera accessory.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://entertainment.slashdot.org/story/25/11/14/1648232/where-have-all-the-tv-cameras-gone?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Cryptocurrency companies and fintech startups are applying to open banks in the United States. Ripple, Coinbase and the UK payments company Wise have submitted applications for national trust charters this year. Trust banks cannot take deposits or make loans but charge fees for safekeeping customer assets and are not FDIC insured. The applications have reached 12 so far this year, more than any of the preceding eight years, according to data compiled by Klaros Group.

Comptroller of the Currency Jonathan Gould said last month that cryptocurrency activity should be done within the banking system if legally permissible and safe. His agency regulates nationally-chartered U.S. banks. The Bank Policy Institute and the Independent Community Bankers of America oppose the applications. BPI sent letters urging the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency to reject the Ripple, Wise, and Sony applications. The group said approving Coinbase could significantly increase risks to the U.S. financial system.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://news.slashdot.org/story/25/11/14/1233226/why-every-company-suddenly-wants-to-become-a-bank?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader shares a report: In October, PUBG and Subnautica 2 publisher Krafton announced that it would be undergoing a "complete reorganization" to become an "AI-first" company, planning to invest over 130 billion won ($88 million) in agentic AI infrastructure and deployment beginning in 2026. This week, as it boasts record-breaking quarterly profits, the Korean publisher has followed that strategic shift by launching a voluntary resignation program for its domestic employees, according to Business Korea reporting.

The program, announced internally, offers substantial buyouts for domestic Krafton employees based on their length of employment at the publisher. Severance packages range from 6 months' salary for employees with one year or less of service to 36 months' salary for employees who've worked at Krafton for over 11 years. The voluntary resignation program follows a November 4 earnings call in which Krafton announced a record quarterly profit of $717 million. During the call, Krafton CFO Bae Dong-geun indicated that Krafton had also halted hiring for new positions, telling investors that "excluding organizations developing original intellectual property and AI-related personnel, we have frozen hiring company-wide."

[ Read more of this story ]( https://slashdot.org/story/25/11/14/1118241/krafton-launches-voluntary-resignation-program-weeks-after-declaring-ai-first-company-future?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

One of the most common viruses in the world could be the cause of lupus, an autoimmune disease with wide-ranging symptoms, according to a new study. From a report: Until now, lupus was somewhat mysterious: No single root cause of the disease had been found, and while there is no cure, there are medications that can treat it.

The research, published in the journal Science Translational Medicine, suggests that Epstein-Barr virus -- which 95% of people acquire at some point in life -- could cause lupus by driving the body to attack its own healthy cells.

It adds to mounting evidence that Epstein-Barr is associated with multiple long-term health issues, including other autoimmune conditions. As this evidence stacks up, scientists have accelerated calls for a vaccine that targets the virus.

"If we now better understand how this fastidious virus is responsible for autoimmune diseases, I think it's time to figure out how to prevent it," said Dr. Anca Askanase, clinical director of the Lupus Center at Columbia University, who wasn't involved in the new research.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://science.slashdot.org/story/25/11/14/0836231/all-lupus-cases-may-be-linked-to-a-common-virus-study-finds?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Abstract of a working paper [PDF] published by NBER: This paper examines the impact of the UK's decision to leave the European Union (Brexit) in 2016. Using almost a decade of data since the referendum, we combine simulations based on macro data with estimates derived from micro data collected through our Decision Maker Panel survey. These estimates suggest that by 2025, Brexit had reduced UK GDP by 6% to 8%, with the impact accumulating gradually over time.

We estimate that investment was reduced by between 12% and 18%, employment by 3% to 4% and productivity by 3% to 4%. These large negative impacts reflect a combination of elevated uncertainty, reduced demand, diverted management time, and increased misallocation of resources from a protracted Brexit process. Comparing these with contemporary forecasts -- providing a rare macro example to complement the burgeoning micro-literature of social science predictions -- shows that these forecasts were accurate over a 5-year horizon, but they underestimated the impact over a decade.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://news.slashdot.org/story/25/11/14/080207/the-economic-impact-of-brexit?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: Singapore's central bank will hold trials to issue tokenized MAS bills next year and bring in laws to regulate stablecoins as it presses forward with plans to build a scalable and secure tokenised financial ecosystem, the bank's top official said on Thursday. "Tokenization has lifted off the ground. But have asset-backed tokens achieved escape velocity? Not yet," said Chia Der Jiun, Managing Director of the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), a keynote address at the Singapore FinTech Festival.

He said MAS has been working on the details of its stablecoin regulatory regime and will prepare draft legislation, with the emphasis on "sound reserve backing and redemption reliability."
MAS is also supporting trials under the BLOOM initiative, which explores the use of tokenized bank liabilities and regulated stablecoins for settlement, he added. "In the CBDC space, I am pleased to announce that the three Singapore banks, DBS, OCBC, and UOB, have successfully conducted interbank overnight lending transactions using the first live trial issuance of Singapore dollar wholesale CBDC," he said. MAS will expand trials to include tokenized MAS bills settled with CBDC, he added.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://yro.slashdot.org/story/25/11/14/0412216/singapore-to-trial-tokenized-bills-bring-in-stablecoin-laws?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

According to Car and Driver, Hyundai has suffered a data breach that leaked the personal data of up to 2.7 million customers. The leak reportedly took place in February from Hyundai AutoEver, the company's IT affiliate. It includes customer names, driver's license numbers, and social security numbers. Longtime Slashdot reader sinij writes: Thanks to tracking modules plaguing most modern cars, that data likely includes the times and locations of customers' vehicles. These repeated breaches make it clear that, unlike smartphone manufacturers that are inherently tech companies, car manufacturers collecting your data are going to keep getting breached and leaking it.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://yro.slashdot.org/story/25/11/14/0424237/hyundai-data-breach-may-have-leaked-drivers-personal-information?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Amazon announced that its satellite broadband project called Project Kuiper will now be known as Amazon Leo. GeekWire reports: Leo is a nod to "low Earth orbit," where Amazon has so far launched more than 150 satellites as part of a constellation that will eventually include more than 3,200. In a blog post, Amazon said the 7-year-old Project Kuiper began "with a handful of engineers and a few designs on paper" and like most early Amazon projects "the program needed a code name." The team was inspired by the Kuiper Belt, a ring of asteroids in the outer solar system.

A new website for Amazon Leo proclaims "a new era of internet is coming," as Amazon says its satellites can help serve "billions of people on the planet who lack high-speed internet access, and millions of businesses, governments, and other organizations operating in places without reliable connectivity." Amazon said it will begin rolling out service once it's added more coverage and capacity to the network. Details about pricing and availability haven't been announced.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/11/14/0416257/amazon-renames-project-kuiper-satellite-internet-venture-to-leo?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Guardian: The world is still on track for a catastrophic 2.6C increase in temperature as countries have not made sufficiently strong climate pledges, while emissions from fossil fuels have hit a record high, two major reports have found. Despite their promises, governments' new emission-cutting plans submitted for the Cop30 climate talks taking place in Brazil have done little to avert dangerous global heating for the fourth consecutive year, according to the Climate Action Tracker update (PDF).

The world is now anticipated to heat up by 2.6C above preindustrial times by the end of the century -- the same temperature rise forecast last year. This level of heating easily breaches the thresholds set out in the Paris climate pact, which every country agreed to, and would set the world spiraling into a catastrophic new era of extreme weather and severe hardships. A separate report found the fossil fuel emissions driving the climate crisis will rise by about 1% this year to hit a record high, but that the rate of rise has more than halved in recent years. The past decade has seen emissions from coal, oil and gas rise by 0.8% a year compared with 2.0% a year during the decade before. The accelerating rollout of renewable energy is now close to supplying the annual rise in the world's demand for energy, but has yet to surpass it. [...]

The new analyses also show a worrying weakening of the planet's natural carbon sinks. The scientists said the combined effects of global heating and the felling of trees have turned tropical forests in southeast Asia and large parts of South America from overall CO2 sinks into sources of the climate-heating gas. [...] The report projects that the level of CO2 in the atmosphere will reach 425ppm (parts per million) in 2025, compared with 280ppm in the preindustrial era. It would have been 8ppm lower if the carbon sinks had not been weakened. The GCP projection for 2025 is based on monthly data up to September and has proven accurate in the previous 19 annual reports. ... [>>>]

Netflix is launching a new slate of TV-streamed party games that are all playable using your phone as the controller. The Verge reports: To start, Netflix is offering Boggle Party, Party Crasher: Fool Your Friends, Lego Party, Pictionary: Game Night, and Tetris Time Warp. A social deduction game based on the Knives Out series, Dead Man's Party: A Knives Out Game, is also part of this new slate but will launch at a later time. The streaming platform's approach to gaming has been unfocused, with the company bouncing between being a boutique development studio while also being a platform for premium and exclusive mobile gaming experiences. Offering party games on your TV seems like a better fit -- one that could allow Netflix to finally find its gaming footing.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://games.slashdot.org/story/25/11/13/2333224/netflixs-new-era-of-tv-games-starts-now?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Xpeng's flying-car subsidiary Aridge has begun trial production at the world's first dedicated flying-car factory in Guangzhou. Euronews reports: The 120,000-square-meter facility has produced its first detachable eVTOL aircraft for the modular "Land Aircraft Carrier." With an annual capacity of up to 10,000 modules, the factory will eventually assemble one aircraft every 30 minutes. Trial operations focus on process verification, equipment testing, and producing prototypes for airworthiness certification before moving into mass production.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/11/13/2315231/worlds-first-flying-car-factory-begins-production-in-china?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: As generative AI content starts to fill our social apps, a project to bring back Vine's six-second looping videos is launching with Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey's backing. On Thursday, a new app called diVine will give access to more than 100,000 archived Vine videos, restored from an older backup that was created before Vine's shutdown. The app won't just exist as a walk down memory lane; it will also allow users to create profiles and upload their own new Vine videos. However, unlike on traditional social media, where AI content is often haphazardly labeled, diVine will flag suspected generative AI content and prevent it from being posted. According to TechCrunch, a volunteer preservation group called the Archive Team saved Vine's content when it shut down in 2016. The only problem was that everything was stored in massive 40-50 GB binary blob files that were basically unusable for casual viewing.

Evan Henshaw-Plath (who goes by the name Rabble), an early Twitter employee and member of Jack Dorsey's nonprofit "and Other Stuff," dug into those backup files to try and salvage as much as he could. He spent months writing big-data extraction scripts, reverse-engineering how the archived binaries were structured, and reconstructing the original video files, old user info, view counts, and more. "I wasn't able to get all of them out, but I was able to get a lot out and basically reconstruct these Vines and these Vine users, and give each person a new user [profile] on this open network," he said.

Rabble estimates that through this process he was able to successfully recover 150,000-200,000 Vine videos from around 60,000 creators. diVine then rebuilt user profiles on top of the decentralized Nostr protocol so creators can reclaim their accounts, request takedowns, or upload missing videos.

You can check out the app for yourself at diVine.video. It's available in beta form on both iOS and Android.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/11/13/2247206/jack-dorsey-funds-divine-a-vine-reboot-that-includes-vines-video-archive?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot. ... [>>>]

Longtime Slashdot reader dskoll shares a press release from Apple: Issey Miyake and Apple today unveiled iPhone Pocket. Inspired by the concept of "a piece of cloth," its singular 3D-knitted construction is designed to fit any iPhone as well as all pocketable items. When stretched, the open textile subtly reveals its contents and allows users to peek at their iPhone display. iPhone Pocket can be worn in a variety of ways -- handheld, tied onto bags, or worn directly on the body. Featuring a playful color palette, the short strap design is available in eight colors, and the long strap design in three colors. The "Long" sock variant comes in at only $229.95 and is available in three elegant colors: sapphire, cinnamon, and black. What do Slashdotters think of this very real product?

[ Read more of this story ]( https://entertainment.slashdot.org/story/25/11/13/2259255/apple-tries-selling-230-iphone-pocket-sock?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Apple is cutting its App Store fee from 30% to 15% for developers who join a new Mini Apps Partner Program, which requires using more of Apple's built-in technology to power lightweight "mini apps." "This includes using Apple software to register a user's purchase history, verify user ages and to process in-app purchases," reports CNBC. From the report: A "mini app" is a lightweight piece of software inside a third-party app store, like that of Discord's. These apps uses are built using web technology like HTML or Javascript. [...] Apple has argued that both developers and users are better off when using its technology and rules, instead of eschewing them to try to avoid fees. "This program is designed to help developers who host mini apps grow their business and further the availability of mini apps on the App Store -- all while providing a great customer experience," the company said in its announcement. [...] Participants in the new program will still have to provide Apple with information for each specific mini-app experience they offer.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://news.slashdot.org/story/25/11/13/2231251/apple-cuts-app-store-fee-in-half-for-mini-apps?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

LinkedIn is rolling out an AI-powered people search tool that lets users find connections by describing what they need instead of relying on names or titles. For example, you can enter a more descriptive search, such as "Northwestern alumni who work in entertaining marketing," or even pose a question, like "Who can help me understand the US work visa system." The Verge reports: LinkedIn senior director of product management Rohan Rajiv tells The Verge that the platform will rank results based on the connections you might have with someone, as well as their relevance to your search. [...] LinkedIn is rolling out AI-powered people search to Premium users in the US starting today, but the platform plans on bringing it to all users soon.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://search.slashdot.org/story/25/11/13/2218200/linkedin-is-making-it-easier-to-search-for-people-with-ai?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin has landed the booster of its New Glenn mega-rocket on a drone ship in the Atlantic Ocean on just its second attempt -- making it the second company to perform such a feat, following Elon Musk's SpaceX. It's an accomplishment that will help the new rocket system become an option to send larger payloads to space, the Moon, and beyond. Thursday's launch wasn't just about the landing attempt, though. Roughly 34 minutes after takeoff, the upper stage of New Glenn successfully deployed the rocket's first commercial payload: twin spacecraft for NASA that will travel to Mars to study the red planet's atmosphere. The pair of achievements are remarkable for the second-ever launch of such a massive rocket system. And it could put Blue Origin in position to compete with SpaceX, which dominates the world's launch market with its Falcon 9, Falcon Heavy, and Starship rockets. You can watch a recording of the launch here.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://science.slashdot.org/story/25/11/13/2211216/blue-origin-sticks-first-new-glenn-rocket-landing-and-launches-nasa-spacecraft?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said Chinese suppliers such as Huawei will be excluded from the country's future telecommunication networks on security grounds as he pushes for more digital sovereignty. From a report: "We have decided within the government that everywhere it's possible we'll replace components, for example in the 5G network, with components we have produced ourselves," Merz told a business conference in Berlin on Thursday. "And we won't allow any components from China in the 6G network."

Europe is increasingly concerned about its reliance on foreign technology, ranging from Asian semiconductors to US artificial intelligence and cloud infrastructure, as trade and geopolitical tensions threaten critical supply chains. Germany last year ordered telecom operators to remove Huawei equipment from their core networks, citing risks to national security. Berlin is now considering using public funds to pay Deutsche Telekom AG and others to strip out Chinese gear, Bloomberg News reported last month.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/11/13/1842225/germany-to-ban-huawei-from-future-6g-network-in-sovereignty-push?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

bobthesungeek76036 writes: Beijing's proposed regulation aims to tame rapid launches by forcing cars to boot up in a restricted performance mode after every ignition.

Under a proposed update to the National Standard, every passenger car would need a default mode in which it takes no less than five seconds to reach 100 km/h (62 mph) at startup, unless the driver manually selects a quicker setting.

The draft title "Technical Specifications for Power-Driven Vehicles Operating on Roads" appears to be part of a broader safety and road behavior initiative in China. It is intended to replace the current GB 7258-2017 standard that didn't impose such restrictions.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/11/13/175228/china-plans-to-limit-how-fast-your-car-accelerates-to-62-mph-at-startup?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Michael Burry, the investor made famous for his bet against the US housing market ahead of the 2008 financial crisis, is closing his hedge fund [non-paywalled source] as he warned that market valuations had become unhinged from fundamentals. From a report: Scion Asset Management this week terminated its registration with US securities regulators, according to a Securities and Exchange Commission database. Burry told investors that he would "liquidate the funds and return capital -- but for a small audit/tax holdback -- by year's end," according to two people with direct knowledge of a letter he sent to investors.

"My estimation of value in securities is not now, and has not been for some time, in sync with the markets," said the letter, which was dated October 27. The move to close Scion comes as some investors have become concerned that markets are trading at frothy levels after years of strong returns. Those jitters flared up on Thursday, with the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite sliding nearly 2%. Still, the big gains for tech stocks this year, driven by hopes that artificial intelligence will transform business and society, have left valuations at lofty heights compared with their average in recent years.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://slashdot.org/story/25/11/13/1744254/big-short-investor-michael-burry-to-close-hedge-fund-as-he-warns-on-valuations?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

China's state-sponsored hackers used AI technology from Anthropic to automate break-ins of major corporations and foreign governments during a September hacking campaign, the company said Thursday. From a report: The effort focused on dozens of targets and involved a level of automation that Anthropic's cybersecurity investigators had not previously seen, according to Jacob Klein, the company's head of threat intelligence.

Hackers have been using AI for years now to conduct individual tasks such as crafting phishing emails or scanning the internet for vulnerable systems, but in this instance 80% to 90% of the attack was automated, with humans only intervening in a handful of decision points, Klein said.

The hackers conducted their attacks "literally with the click of a button, and then with minimal human interaction," Klein said. Anthropic disrupted the campaigns and blocked the hackers' accounts, but not before as many as four intrusions were successful. In one case, the hackers directed Anthropic's Claude AI tools to query internal databases and extract data independently.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://it.slashdot.org/story/25/11/13/1715248/chinese-hackers-used-anthropics-ai-to-automate-cyberattacks?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Robinhood Markets is betting its Gen Z and millennial clientele are as eager to send out for delivery of a wad of cash as they are to order pizza or a pint of ice cream.

The brokerage is joining with food-and-drink delivery app Gopuff to allow customers to withdraw cash from their Robinhood bank accounts and have it brought right to their door. For a $6.99 delivery fee -- or $2.99 if they have more than $100,000 in assets across their Robinhood accounts -- users can skip the ATM and have money delivered in a sealed paper bag while they are at home.

It is a new feature that Robinhood first teased in March, when Chief Executive Vlad Tenev unveiled the company's plans to roll out many traditional and -- as with its cash-delivery service -- unconventional banking services.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://news.slashdot.org/story/25/11/13/1712207/robinhood-offers-to-bring-cash-to-your-doorstep-for-a-fee?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Mozilla announced on Thursday that it is building an AI Window for Firefox, a new opt-in browsing mode that will let users interact with an AI assistant and chatbot. The feature will become one of three browsing experiences in Firefox alongside the existing classic and private windows. Users will be able to select which AI model they want to use in the AI Window, according to a post on the Mozilla Connect forum.

The company opened a waitlist for users who want to receive updates and be among the first to test the feature. Mozilla described the AI Window as an "intelligent and user-controlled space" that it is developing in the open through community feedback. Users who try the feature and decide against it can switch it off entirely.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/11/13/186229/mozilla-launches-ai-window-for-firefox?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

BrianFagioli writes: Popular privacy firm Proton is floating a plan on Reddit that should unsettle anyone who values privacy, writes Nerds.xyz. The company is considering recycling abandoned email addresses that were originally created by bots a decade ago. These addresses were never used, yet many of them are extremely common names that have silently collected misdirected emails, password reset attempts, and even entries in breach datasets. Handing those addresses to new owners today would mean that sensitive messages intended for completely different people could start landing in a stranger's inbox overnight.

Proton says it's just gathering feedback, but the fact that this made it far enough to ask the community is troubling. Releasing these long-abandoned addresses would create confusion, risk exposure of personal data, and undermine the trust users place in a privacy focused provider. It's hard to see how Proton could justify taking a gamble with other people's digital identities like this.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://yro.slashdot.org/story/25/11/13/172239/proton-might-recycle-abandoned-email-addresses?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Verizon is planning to cut roughly 15,000 jobs, looking to reduce costs as it contends with increased competition for wireless service and home internet, according to WSJ, which cites people familiar with the matter. From the report: The cuts, the largest ever for the carrier, are set to take place in the next week, the people said. The majority of the reduction is expected to be made through layoffs. Verizon also plans to transition about 200 stores into franchised operations, which will shift employees off its payroll.

Verizon, the largest U.S. telecommunications provider by subscriber base, faces a fierce battle for both wireless and home internet customers. It has lost crucial postpaid phone subscribers for three consecutive quarters. Last month, Verizon named its lead independent director Daniel Schulman as its new chief executive officer. Schulman, a former CEO of PayPal and Virgin Mobile USA, has said he would aggressively reduce the company's entire cost base and take steps to reverse the customer losses.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/11/13/1651220/verizon-to-cut-about-15000-jobs?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Reddit cofounder Alexis Ohanian said he had serious doubts a decade ago about sharing the platform's data with Sam Altman. Ohanian recounted on the "Brew Markets" podcast that between 2015 and 2016, Altman asked Reddit to let him "aggressively scrape" the site's content. Altman had recently helped Reddit raise $50 million in a Series B round and was launching OpenAI as a nonprofit.

Ohanian described Altman as "very smart" and "incredibly cunning" but questioned whether he was "the most philanthropically minded guy." The Reddit cofounder said he "felt in my bones" the company should refuse the request and debated internally about it against Steve Huffman. Ohanian said he "lost that debate." Reddit and OpenAI announced a formal licensing deal in 2024.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/11/13/1549226/reddit-cofounder-had-a-bad-feeling-about-giving-data-to-sam-altman?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader shares a report: France has lifted its travel ban on Telegram founder Pavel Durov, who is under investigation over illegal content on his messaging app, judicial sources close to the case said Thursday. The entrepreneur, 41, was detained in Paris in 2024 and is under formal investigation by French authorities over the platform's alleged complicity in criminal activity. Durov, who was initially banned from leaving France, had his judicial control relaxed in July, allowing him to reside in the United Arab Emirates, where Telegram is based, for a maximum of two weeks at a time.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://news.slashdot.org/story/25/11/13/1529216/france-fully-lifts-travel-ban-on-telegram-founder-durov?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader shares a report: The Chinese electric car has become a symbol of the country's seemingly unstoppable rise on the world stage. Many observers point to their growing popularity as evidence that China is winning the race to dominate new technologies. But in China, these electric cars represent something entirely different: the profound threats that Beijing's meddling in markets poses to both China and the world.

Bloated by excessive investment, distorted by government intervention, and plagued by heavy losses, China's EV industry appears destined for a crash. EV companies are locked in a cutthroat struggle for survival. Wei Jianjun, the chairman of the Chinese automaker Great Wall Motor, warned in May that China's car industry could tumble into a financial crisis; it "just hasn't erupted yet."

To bypass government censorship of bad economic news, market analysts have opted for a seemingly anodyne term to describe the Chinese car industry's downward spiral: involution, which connotes falling in on oneself. What happens in China's EV sector promises to influence the entire global automobile market. China's emergence as the world's largest manufacturer of EVs highlights the serious challenge the country poses to even the most advanced industries in the U.S., Europe, and other rich economies. Given the vital role the car industry plays in economies around the world, and the jobs, supply chains, and technologies involved, the stakes are high.

But the wobbles in China's EV sector demonstrate the downside of China's state-led economic model. China's government threw ample resources at the EV industry in the hopes of leapfrogging foreign rivals in the transition to battery-powered vehicles. The Center for Strategic and International Studies estimates that the government provided more than $230 billion of financial assistance to the EV sector from 2009 to 2023. The strategy worked: China's EV makers would likely never have grown as quickly as they have without this substantial state support. By comparison, the recent Republican-sponsored tax bill eliminated nearly all federal subsidies for EVs in the U.S. ... [>>>]

Google says it will build a new "advanced flow" to allow experienced users to install Android apps from unverified developers, easing up on restrictions it proposed in late August. The company said earlier that Android would block such installations starting next year. The new flow will include clear warnings about security risks but will give users final control over the decision.

Google said it is designing the system to resist coercion and prevent users from being tricked into bypassing safety checks. The company is currently gathering early feedback on the feature's design. Google also announced that developers who distribute apps exclusively outside the Play Store can now join an early access program for developer verification.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/11/13/146214/google-to-allow-experienced-users-to-install-unverified-android-apps?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Iceland has formally classified the potential collapse of a major Atlantic Ocean current system a national security threat, warning that a disruption could trigger a modern-day ice age in Northern Europe and destabilize global weather systems. The move elevates the risk across government and enables it to strategize for worst-case scenarios. Reuters reports: The Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, or AMOC, current brings warm water from the tropics northward toward the Arctic, and the flow of warm water helps keep Europe's winters mild. But as warming temperatures speed the thaw of Arctic ice and cause meltwater from Greenland's ice sheet to pour into the ocean, scientists warn the cold freshwater could disrupt the current's flow.

A potential collapse of AMOC could trigger a modern-day ice age, with winter temperatures across Northern Europe plummeting to new cold extremes, bringing far more snow and ice. The AMOC has collapsed in the past - notably before the last Ice Age that ended about 12,000 years ago. "It is a direct threat to our national resilience and security," Iceland Climate Minister Johann Pall Johannsson said by email. "(This) is the first time a specific climate-related phenomenon has been formally brought before the National Security Council as a potential existential threat."

Elevation of the issue means Iceland's ministries will be on alert and coordinating a response, Johannsson said. The government is assessing what further research and policies are needed, with work underway on a disaster preparedness policy. Risks being evaluated span a range of areas, from energy and food security to infrastructure and international transportation. "Sea ice could affect marine transport; extreme weather could severely affect our capabilities to maintain any agriculture and fisheries, which are central to our economy and food systems," Johannsson said. "We cannot afford to wait for definitive, long-term research before acting."

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FX has renewed Alien: Earth for a second season and signed creator Noah Hawley to a massive nine-figure overall deal with Disney Entertainment Television. Deadline reports: Inspired by Ridley Scott's sci-fi thriller film Alien, Hawley adapted the film franchise for television with the strong support of Scott Free and its president, David W. Zucker, who is an executive producer of the series. It earned a positive reaction from fans, posting a 94% Certified Fresh rating from Rotten Tomatoes and a Metacritic Must-Watch score of 85. "It has been our great privilege to work with Noah for more than a decade on some of FX's best and biggest shows, and we are thrilled to extend our partnership well into the future," said FX Chairman John Landgraf. "Noah never stops surprising us with truly original stories -- and his unique ability to bring them to vibrant life as a director and producer as well as writer makes him extraordinary. We can't wait to get to work on the next season of Alien: Earth, as well as some equally exciting future projects in advanced development."

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