New research suggests that Prototaxites, once believed to be a giant fungus, may actually represent an entirely extinct and previously unknown branch of complex life, distinct from fungi, plants, animals, and protists. Live Science reports: The researchers studied the fossilized remains of one Prototaxites species named Prototaxites taiti, found preserved in the Rhynie chert, a sedimentary deposit of exceptionally well-preserved fossils of early land plants and animals in Scotland. This species was much smaller than many other species of Prototaxites, only growing up to a few inches tall, but it is still the largest Prototaxites specimen found in this region. Upon examining the internal structure of the fossilized Prototaxites, the researchers found that its interior was made up of a series of tubes, similar to those within a fungus. But these tubes branched off and reconnected in ways very unlike those seen in modern fungi. "We report that Prototaxites taiti was the largest organism in the Rhynie ecosystem and its anatomy was fundamentally distinct from all known extant or extinct fungi," the researchers wrote in the paper. "We therefore conclude that Prototaxites was not a fungus, and instead propose it is best assigned to a now entirely extinct terrestrial lineage."

True fungi from the same period have also been preserved in the Rhynie chert, enabling the researchers to chemically compare them to Prototaxites. In addition to their unique structural characteristics, the team found that the Prototaxites fossils left completely different chemical signatures to the fungi fossils, indicating that the Prototaxites did not contain chitin, a major building block of fungal cell walls and a hallmark of the fungal kingdom. The Prototaxites fossils instead appeared to contain chemicals similar to lignin, which is found in the wood and bark of plants. "We conclude that the morphology and molecular fingerprint of P. taiti is clearly distinct from that of the fungi and other organism preserved alongside it in the Rhynie chert, and we suggest that it is best considered a member of a previously undescribed, entirely extinct group of eukaryotes," the researchers wrote. The research has been published on the preprint server bioRxiv.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://science.slashdot.org/story/25/03/28/238210/giant-fungus-like-organism-may-be-completely-unknown-branch-of-life?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) says banks no longer need prior approval before engaging in crypto-related activities, such as holding digital currency assets or partnering with companies in the industry. Axios reports: After publishing a general caution against banks participating in the industry just two years ago, the FDIC is the latest Trump administration regulator to change its tune entirely amid the president's warm embrace of crypto. "With today's action, the FDIC is turning the page on the flawed approach of the past three years," FDIC acting chairman Travis Hill said in a statement.

The OCC was the first of those regulators to revise their guidance, telling banks it supervises earlier this month that they no longer need permission to engage in certain common cryptocurrency-related activities. The Fed as of Friday had not issued any update, though chair Jerome Powell told lawmakers during a congressional hearing last month that the central bank would take a fresh look at the guidance. The new policy clarifies that "FDIC-supervised institutions may engage in permissible activities, including ... digital assets, provided that they adequately manage the associated risks."

[ Read more of this story ]( https://slashdot.org/story/25/03/28/2252217/fdic-rescinds-guidance-around-banks-and-crypto?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Imagine working with special cameras that capture light your eyes can't even see -- ultraviolet rays that cause sunburn, infrared heat signatures that reveal hidden writing, or specific wavelengths that plants use for photosynthesis. Or perhaps using a special camera designed to distinguish the subtle visible differences that make paint colors appear just right under specific lighting. Scientists and engineers do this every day, and they're drowning in the resulting data. A new compression format called Spectral JPEG XL might finally solve this growing problem in scientific visualization and computer graphics. Researchers Alban Fichet and Christoph Peters of Intel Corporation detailed the format in a recent paper published in the Journal of Computer Graphics Techniques (JCGT). It tackles a serious bottleneck for industries working with these specialized images. These spectral files can contain 30, 100, or more data points per pixel, causing file sizes to balloon into multi-gigabyte territory -- making them unwieldy to store and analyze.

[...] The current standard format for storing this kind of data, OpenEXR, wasn't designed with these massive spectral requirements in mind. Even with built-in lossless compression methods like ZIP, the files remain unwieldy for practical work as these methods struggle with the large number of spectral channels. Spectral JPEG XL utilizes a technique used with human-visible images, a math trick called a discrete cosine transform (DCT), to make these massive files smaller. Instead of storing the exact light intensity at every single wavelength (which creates huge files), it transforms this information into a different form. [...]

According to the researchers, the massive file sizes of spectral images have reportedly been a real barrier to adoption in industries that would benefit from their accuracy. Smaller files mean faster transfer times, reduced storage costs, and the ability to work with these images more interactively without specialized hardware. The results reported by the researchers seem impressive -- with their technique, spectral image files shrink by 10 to 60 times compared to standard OpenEXR lossless compression, bringing them down to sizes comparable to regular high-quality photos. They also preserve key OpenEXR features like metadata and high dynamic range support. The report notes that broader adoption "hinges on the continued development and refinement of the software tools that handle JPEG XL encoding and decoding."

Some scientific applications may also see JPEG XL's lossy approach as a drawback. "Some researchers working with spectral data might readily accept the trade-off for the practical benefits of smaller files and faster processing," reports Ars. "Others handling particularly sensitive measurements might need to seek alternative methods of storage."

[ Read more of this story ]( https://science.slashdot.org/story/25/03/28/232215/a-new-image-file-format-efficiently-stores-invisible-light-data?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Longtime Slashdot reader frank_adrian314159 writes: According to an article in Wired, Elon Musk has appointed a team of technologists from DOGE to "rewrite the code that runs the SSA in months." This codebase has over 60 million lines of COBOL and handles record keeping for all American workers and payments for all Social Security recipients. Given that the code has to track the byzantine regulations dealing with Social Security, it's no wonder that the codebase is this large. What is in question though is whether a small team can rewrite this code "in months." After all, what could possibly go wrong? "The project is being organized by Elon Musk lieutenant Steve Davis ... and aims to migrate all SSA systems off COBOL ... and onto a more modern replacement like Java within a scheduled tight timeframe of a few months," notes Wired.

"Under any circumstances, a migration of this size and scale would be a massive undertaking, experts tell WIRED, but the expedited deadline runs the risk of obstructing payments to the more than 65 million people in the US currently receiving Social Security benefits."

In 2017, SSA announced a plan to modernize its core systems with a timeline of around five years. However, the work was "pivoted away" because of the pandemic.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://developers.slashdot.org/story/25/03/28/2148205/doge-to-rewrite-ssa-codebase-in-months?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

A breach of legacy Cerner servers at Oracle Health exposed patient data from multiple U.S. hospitals and healthcare organizations, with threat actors using compromised customer credentials to steal the data before it had been migrated to Oracle Cloud. Despite confirming the breach privately, Oracle Health has yet to publicly acknowledge the incident. BleepingComputer reports: Oracle Health, formerly known as Cerner, is a healthcare software-as-a-service (SaaS) company offering Electronic Health Records (EHR) and business operations systems to hospitals and healthcare organizations. After being acquired by Oracle in 2022, Cerner was merged into Oracle Health, with its systems migrated to Oracle Cloud. In a notice sent to impacted customers and seen by BleepingComputer, Oracle Health said it became aware of a breach of legacy Cerner data migration servers on February 20, 2025.

"We are writing to inform you that, on or around February 20, 2025, we became aware of a cybersecurity event involving unauthorized access to some amount of your Cerner data that was on an old legacy server not yet migrated to the Oracle Cloud," reads a notification sent to impacted Oracle Health customers. Oracle says that the threat actor used compromised customer credentials to breach the servers sometime after January 22, 2025, and copied data to a remote server. This stolen data "may" have included patient information from electronic health records. However, multiple sources told BleepingComputer that it was confirmed that patient data was stolen during the attack.

Oracle Health is also telling hospitals that they will not notify patients directly and that it is their responsibility to determine if the stolen data violates HIPAA laws and whether they are required to send notifications. However, the company says they will help identify impacted individuals and provide templates to help with notifications.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://developers.slashdot.org/story/25/03/28/2025251/oracle-health-breach-compromises-patient-data-at-us-hospitals?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Elon Musk says its xAI company has acquired the social media platform X in an all-stock transaction. "The combination values xAI at $80 billion and X at $33 billion ($45 billion less $12 billion debt)," said Musk. He writes on X: Since its founding two years ago, xAI has rapidly become one of the leading AI labs in the world, building models and data centers at unprecedented speed and scale. X is the digital town square where more than 600M active users go to find the real-time source of ground truth and, in the last two years, has been transformed into one of the most efficient companies in the world, positioning it to deliver scalable future growth.

xAI and X's futures are intertwined. Today, we officially take the step to combine the data, models, compute, distribution and talent. This combination will unlock immense potential by blending xAI's advanced AI capability and expertise with X's massive reach. The combined company will deliver smarter, more meaningful experiences to billions of people while staying true to our core mission of seeking truth and advancing knowledge. This will allow us to build a platform that doesn't just reflect the world but actively accelerates human progress.

I would like to recognize the hardcore dedication of everyone at xAI and X that has brought us to this point. This is just the beginning. Thank you for your continued partnership and support.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/03/28/2156237/xai-acquires-x?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: Trevor Milton, the founder of electric vehicle start-up Nikola who was sentenced to prison last year, was pardoned by Donald Trump late on Thursday, the White House confirmed on Friday. The pardon of Milton, who was sentenced to four years in prison for exaggerating the potential of his technology, could wipe out hundreds of millions of dollars in restitution that prosecutors were seeking for defrauded investors. Milton and his wife donated more than $1.8 million to a Trump re-election campaign fund less than a month before the November election, according to the Federal Election Commission.

At Milton's trial, prosecutors say a company video of a prototype truck appearing to be driven down a desert highway was actually a video of a non-functioning Nikola that had been rolled down a hill. Milton had not been incarcerated pending an appeal. Milton said late on Thursday on social media and via a press release that he had been pardoned by Trump. "I am incredibly grateful to President Trump for his courage in standing up for what is right and for granting me this sacred pardon of innocence," Milton said.
Here's a timeline of notable events surrounding Nikola:

June, 2016: Nikola Motor Receives Over 7,000 Preorders Worth Over $2.3 Billion For Its Electric Truck
December, 2016: Nikola Motor Company Reveals Hydrogen Fuel Cell Truck With Range of 1,200 Miles
February, 2020: Nikola Motors Unveils Hybrid Fuel-Cell Concept Truck With 600-Mile Range
June, 2020: Nikola Founder Exaggerated the Capability of His Debut Truck
September, 2020: Nikola Motors Accused of Massive Fraud, Ocean of Lies
September, 2020: Nikola Admits Prototype Was Rolling Downhill In Promo Video
September, 2020: Nikola Founder Trevor Milton Steps Down as Chairman in Battle With Short Seller
October, 2020: Nikola Stock Falls 14 Percent After CEO Downplays Badger Truck Plans
November, 2020: Nikola Stock Plunges As Company Cancels Badger Pickup Truck
July, 2021: Nikola Founder Trevor Milton Indicted on Three Counts of Fraud
December, 2021: EV Startup Nikola Agrees To $125 Million Settlement
September, 2022: Nikola Founder Lied To Investors About Tech, Prosecutor Says in Fraud Trial

December, 2023: Nikola Founder Trevor Milton Sentenced To 4 Years For Securities Fraud
February 19, 2025: Nikola Files for Bankruptcy With Plans To Sell Assets, Wind Down

[ Read more of this story ]( https://yro.slashdot.org/story/25/03/28/2041200/trump-pardons-founder-of-electric-vehicle-start-up-nikola-trevor-milton?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader shares a report: New data recently released by the Environmental Protection Agency indicate that more than 158 million people across the U.S. have drinking water contaminated by toxic "forever chemicals," scientifically known as perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS).

"Drinking water is a major source of PFAS exposure. The sheer number of contaminated sites shows that these chemicals are likely present in most of the U.S. water supply," said David Andrews, deputy director of investigations and a senior scientist at the Environmental Working Group (EWG), a nonprofit advocacy organization, in a recent press release.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://science.slashdot.org/story/25/03/28/1959225/nearly-half-of-people-in-the-us-have-toxic-pfas-in-their-drinking-water?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Smart TV platforms are increasingly monitoring what appears on users' screens through Automatic Content Recognition (ACR) technology, building detailed viewer profiles for targeted advertising.

Roku, which transitioned from a hardware company to an advertising powerhouse, reported $3.5 billion in annual ad revenue for 2024 -- representing 85% of its total income. The company has aggressively acquired ACR-related firms, with Roku-owned technology winning an Emmy in 2023 for advancements in the field.

According to market research firm Antenna, 43% of all streaming subscriptions in the United States were ad-supported by late 2024, showing the industry's shift toward advertising-based models. Most users unknowingly consent to this monitoring when setting up their devices. Though consumers can technically disable ACR in their TV settings, doing so often restricts functionality.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://entertainment.slashdot.org/story/25/03/28/1944230/smart-tvs-are-employing-screen-monitoring-tech-to-harvest-user-data?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Stanford University researchers have proposed creating "bodyoids" -- ethically sourced human bodies grown from stem cells without neural components for consciousness or pain sensation -- to revolutionize medical research and address organ shortages. In a new opinion piece published in MIT Technology Review, scientists Carsten T. Charlesworth, Henry T. Greely, and Hiromitsu Nakauchi argue that recent advances in biotechnology make this concept increasingly plausible. The approach would combine pluripotent stem cells, artificial uterus technology, and genetic techniques to inhibit brain development.

The researchers point to persistent shortages of human biological materials as a major bottleneck in medical progress. More than 100,000 patients currently await solid organ transplants in the US alone, while less than 15% of drugs entering clinical trials receive regulatory approval. These lab-grown bodies could potentially generate patient-specific organs that are perfect immunological matches, eliminate the need for lifelong immunosuppression, and provide personalized drug screening models.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://science.slashdot.org/story/25/03/28/1933234/scientists-propose-bodyoids-to-address-medical-research-and-organ-shortage-challenges?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Доступен выпуск дистрибутива Rescuezilla 2.6, предназначенного для резервного копирования, восстановления систем после сбоев и диагностики различных аппаратных проблем. Дистрибутив построен на пакетной базе Ubuntu и продолжает развитие проекта "Redo Backup & Rescue", разработка которого была прекращена в 2012 году. Для загрузки предлагаются live-сборки для 32- и 64-разрядных систем x86 (1.3 ГБ) и deb-пакет для установки в Ubuntu.

https://www.opennet.ru/opennews/art.shtml?num=62971

An anonymous reader shares a report: Amnesty International published a new report this week detailing attempted hacks against two Serbian journalists, allegedly carried out with NSO Group's spyware Pegasus. The two journalists, who work for the Serbia-based Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN), received suspicious text messages including a link -- basically a phishing attack, according to the nonprofit. In one case, Amnesty said its researchers were able to click on the link in a safe environment and see that it led to a domain that they had previously identified as belonging to NSO Group's infrastructure.

"Amnesty International has spent years tracking NSO Group Pegasus spyware and how it has been used to target activists and journalists," Donncha O Cearbhaill, the head of Amnesty's Security Lab, told TechCrunch. "This technical research has allowed Amnesty to identify malicious websites used to deliver the Pegasus spyware, including the specific Pegasus domain used in this campaign."

To his point, security researchers like O Cearbhaill who have been keeping tabs on NSO's activities for years are now so good at spotting signs of the company's spyware that sometimes all researchers have to do is quickly look at a domain involved in an attack. In other words, NSO Group and its customers are losing their battle to stay in the shadows. "NSO has a basic problem: They are not as good at hiding as their customers think," John Scott-Railton, a senior researcher at The Citizen Lab, a human rights organization that has investigated spyware abuses since 2012, told TechCrunch.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://yro.slashdot.org/story/25/03/28/1915238/again-and-again-nso-groups-customers-keep-getting-their-spyware-operations-caught?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader shares a report: A former director of data science at the UK prime minister's office has told MPs that people working with data in government are not typically technical and would be unlikely to get a similar job in the private sector.

In a hearing designed to illuminate the challenges facing the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) as it strives to become the digital centre for government, MPs quizzed Laura Gilbert, head of AI for Government, at the Ellison Institute and former director of data science at 10 Downing Street, the prime ministers' office.

Members of the House of Common's Science, Innovation and Technology Committee wanted to know about the performance of the Government Digital Service, which in January was moved from the Cabinet Office to DSIT and merged with Central Digital and Data Office (CDDO), the Incubator for AI (i.AI). Gilbert, a particle physicist who has worked in a number of tech industry roles, said one of the challenges was understanding the level of tech skills in the civil service in central government.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://news.slashdot.org/story/25/03/28/184236/uk-govt-data-people-not-technical-says-ex-downing-st-data-science-head?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Fake movie trailers created with AI are proliferating across YouTube, with some garnering more views than official studio releases -- and Hollywood studios are quietly profiting from the phenomenon rather than shutting it down. Instead of enforcing copyright on these unauthorized videos, Warner Bros. Discovery, Sony Pictures, and Paramount are claiming monetization rights, directing ad revenue from fake trailers for films like "Superman" and "Gladiator II" into studio coffers, according to a Deadline investigation published Friday.

YouTube channels like Screen Culture, which has amassed 1.4 billion views, merge official footage with AI-generated imagery to create convincing trailer mockups that frequently rank higher in search results than legitimate studio releases. "Monetizing unauthorized, unwanted, and subpar uses of human-centered IP is a race to the bottom," SAG-AFTRA told Deadline, condemning studios for profiting from content that exploits performers without permission.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://entertainment.slashdot.org/story/25/03/28/1757237/inside-youtubes-weird-world-of-fake-movie-trailers?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Компания GitHub объявила о введении ограничения в 100 тысяч репозиториев для одной учётной записи пользователя или организации. Ограничение вступит в силу 28 апреля. После преодоления рубежа в 50 тысяч репозиториев владельцу начнёт выводиться баннер с предупреждением, а на email администратора будет направлено уведомление. Изменение призвано недопустить замедления работы учётных записей с очень большим числом репозиториев, а также исключить их негативное влияние на инфраструктуру.

https://www.opennet.ru/opennews/art.shtml?num=62969

The College Board, described as a $2 billion nonprofit, functions as the primary gatekeeper for academic success within American higher education, according to an analysis by Bloomberg. The organization significantly shapes university admissions by controlling not only who gains entry to college but also influencing what students know upon arrival.

This central role in managing and defining higher education admissions positions the Board uniquely. The story adds: The College Board writes the curriculum for 40 AP courses, administers and grades the exams, oversees the PSAT and SAT, and offers a variety of free and paid resources to help prepare for the courses and tests. Many students will wind up paying the company north of $1,000 over the course of their high school career. "If the same people can create the content and create the tests, that's a really great business model where you've got the whole public secondary education system wrapped up in one little company," says Jon Boeckenstedt, the vice provost of enrollment management at Oregon State University and a prominent critic of the College Board.

Housing so many parts of the high school experience under one roof has made the New York-based organization immensely wealthy, with more than $1 billion in annual revenue -- on which it pays no taxes as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit. But mere money isn't the biggest source of the College Board's might. Twelve decades after its creation, it's now the closest thing the fragmented American educational system has to a central governing body, with a huge amount of authority over what students are expected to know when they get to college. Higher education is arguably the most important driver of social mobility, as well as the most powerful force in selecting which members of the next generation will set the political and cultural agenda. By controlling who gets in and what they know when they get there, the College Board has become the chief gatekeeper of academic success in America.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://news.slashdot.org/story/25/03/28/1657245/want-to-go-to-college-pay-the-college-board?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Staff at the Federal Trade Commission have been instructed to no longer refer to the agency as "independent" in complaints, according to an email obtained by The Verge.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://news.slashdot.org/story/25/03/28/1557221/ftc-tells-staff-to-stop-calling-the-agency-independent-in-complaints?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

A Nature survey has found that three-quarters of responding U.S. scientists are considering leaving the nation following disruptions to science under the Trump administration.

Out of 1,608 respondents, 75.3% said they were contemplating leaving the country. Scientists cited concerns over research funding and the general treatment of science as contributing factors for their reasoning. Europe and Canada were mentioned as potential destinations for those looking for opportunities abroad.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://science.slashdot.org/story/25/03/28/1526209/75-of-scientists-in-nature-poll-weigh-leaving-us?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

theodp writes: "As I prepared for a White House meeting last fall on the nation's electricity needs," begins Microsoft President Brad Smith in The Country Needs More Electricity --And More Electricians, a Fox Business op-ed. "I met with the leaders at Microsoft who are building our AI infrastructure across the country. During our discussion, I asked them to identify the single biggest challenge for data center expansion in the U.S. I expected they would mention slow permitting, delays in bringing more power online or supply chain constraints -- all significant challenges. But instead, they highlighted a national shortage of people. Electricians, to be precise."

Much as Smith has done in the past as he declared crisis-level shortages of Computer Science, cybersecurity, and AI talent, he's calling for the nation's politicians and educators to step up to the plate and deliver students trained to address the data center expansion plans of Microsoft and Big Tech.

"How many new electricians must the U.S. recruit and train over the next decade?" Smith asks. "Probably half a million. [...] The good news is that these are good jobs. The bad news is that we don't have a national strategy to recruit and train the people to fill these jobs. Given the Trump administration's commitment to supporting American workers, American jobs and American innovation, we believe that recruiting and training more electricians should rise to its list of priorities. There are several ways to address this issue, and they deserve consideration. For example, we need to do more as a nation to revitalize the industrial arts and shop classes in American high schools. [...] This should be a priority for local school boards, state governors and appropriate federal support. [..] We must also adopt a broad perspective on where new technology is taking us. The tech sector is most often focused on computer and data science -- people who code. But the future will also be built in critical ways by a new generation of engineers, electricians, plumbers, pipefitters, iron workers, carpenters and other skilled trades. So, is 'Learn to Wire' the new 'Learn to Code'?

[ Read more of this story ]( https://news.slashdot.org/story/25/03/28/1447203/microsoft-president-calls-for-a-national-talent-strategy-for-electricians?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

SoftBank Group plans to create industrial parks for AI across the US and is considering an investment of more than $1 trillion, Nikkei reported. From a report: Founder and Chief Executive Officer Masayoshi Son is expected to visit the US to discuss his ideas for such industrial parks, the newspaper said. The factories would likely use AI-equipped robots that would operate autonomously because of labor shortages in the country, according to the report.

Son teamed up with OpenAI and Oracle in January to unveil a $100 billion joint venture to fund AI infrastructure in the US, one of the first such pledges after Donald Trump became president. They said at the time they would deploy $100 billion immediately with the goal of increasing that to at least $500 billion for data centers and physical campuses.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://slashdot.org/story/25/03/28/1335217/softbank-may-pledge-more-than-1-trillion-for-ai-effort-in-us-nikkei-says?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

uninet writes: The same year Apple launched the iPhone, it unveiled a massive upgrade to Mac OS X known as Leopard, sporting "300 New Features." Two years later, it did something almost unheard of: it released Snow Leopard, an upgrade all about how little it added and how much it took away. Apple needs to make it snow again. Current releases of MacOS Sequoia and iOS/iPadOS 18 are riddled with easily reproducible bugs in high-traffic areas, the author argues, suggesting Apple's engineers aren't using their own software. Messages can't reliably copy text, email connections randomly fail, and Safari frequently jams up. Even worse are the baffling design decisions, like burying display arrangement settings and redesigning Photos with needless margins and inconsistent navigation.

Apple's focus on the Vision Pro while AI advances raced ahead has left them scrambling to catch up, the author argues, with Apple Intelligence features now indefinitely delayed. The author insists that Apple's products still remain better than Windows or Android alternatives -- but "least bad" isn't the premium experience Apple loyalists expect. With its enormous resources, Apple could easily have teams focus on cleaning up existing software while simultaneously developing AI features.

Further reading: 'Something Is Rotten in the State of Cupertino' .

[ Read more of this story ]( https://apple.slashdot.org/story/25/03/28/0634230/apple-needs-a-snow-sequoia?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Исследователи безопасности из компании Qualys выявили три способа обхода применяемых в Ubuntu ограничений доступа к пространству имён идентификаторов пользователя (user namespace). Начиная с выпуска 23.10 в Ubuntu применяется дополнительный слой изоляции, не позволяющий обычным непривилегированным пользователям создавать "user namespace". Сам по себе доступ к "user namespace" не является уязвимостью и многие дистрибутивы предоставляют его из коробки, так как он требуется в системах контейнерной изоляции и используется для sendbox-ограничений (например применяется для sandbox-изоляции браузеров).

https://www.opennet.ru/opennews/art.shtml?num=62970

Проект Organic Maps, развивающий мобильное приложение для автономной навигации с картографическими данными из OpenStreetMap, объявил о переносе разработки с GitHub на платформу Forgejo, развёрнутую на собственном сервере. Перенос выполнен после того, как администрация GitHub принудительно перевела GitHub-репозиторий в архивный режим из-за санкций в отношении одного из разработчиков. Добиться снятия блокировки удалось только вчера, т.е. спустя две недели с момента инцидента.

https://www.opennet.ru/opennews/art.shtml?num=62967

The Register: Following our report last week on IBM's ongoing layoffs, current and former employees got in touch to confirm what many suspected: The US cuts run deeper than reported, and the jobs are heading to India. IBM's own careers site numbers back that up. On January 7, 2024, Big Blue listed just 173 open positions in India. On November 23, 2024, there were 2,946 jobs available in the nation. At the time of writing, the IT titan listed 3,866 roles in India.

American jobs listed for these three periods are 192, 376, and 333, respectively, though at least among those being laid off, there's doubt those roles will be filled with job seekers in the States. A current IBMer who won't be there much longer said that after being told to teach recently hired workers in India "everything I know," the reward was a resource action, or RA -- Big Blue's euphemism for a layoff. After receiving an RA notification, employees typically have a set period of time to apply for open roles elsewhere in the mega-corporation. But just because there are open positions listed in the US doesn't mean IBM is making much of an effort to fill them, we are told.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://slashdot.org/story/25/03/28/0623217/ibm-us-cuts-may-run-deeper-than-feared---and-the-jobs-are-heading-to-india?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Представлен бета-выпуск дистрибутива Ubuntu 25.04 "Plucky Puffin", после формирования которого произведена полная заморозка пакетной базы, и разработчики перешли к итоговому тестированию и исправлению ошибок. Релиз запланирован на 17 апреля и отнесён к промежуточным выпускам, обновления для которых формируются в течение 9 месяцев. Готовые тестовые образы созданы для Ubuntu, Ubuntu Server, Lubuntu, Kubuntu, Ubuntu Mate, Ubuntu Budgie, Ubuntu Studio, Xubuntu, UbuntuKylin (редакция для Китая), Ubuntu Unity, Edubuntu и Ubuntu Cinnamon.

https://www.opennet.ru/opennews/art.shtml?num=62966

As NASA faces potential budget cuts, China is unveiling an ambitious series of deep space missions -- including Mars sample returns, outer planet exploration, and a future Mars base. While some of China's plans are aspirational, their track record of successful missions lends credibility to their expanding role in space. Ars Technica reports: China created a new entity called the "Deep Space Exploration Laboratory" three years ago to strengthen the country's approach to exploring the Solar System. Located in eastern China, not far from Shanghai, the new laboratory represented a partnership between China's national space agency and a local public college, the University of Science and Technology of China.

Not much is known outside of China about the laboratory, but it has recently revealed some very ambitious plans to explore the Solar System, including the outer planets. This week, as part of a presentation, Chinese officials shared some public dates about future missions. Space journalist Andrew Jones, who tracks China's space program, shared some images with a few details. Among the planned missions are:
- 2028: Tianwen-3 mission to collect samples of Martian soil and rocks and return them to Earth
- 2029: Tianwen-4 mission to explore Jupiter and its moon Callisto
- 2030: Development of a large, ground-based habitat to simulate long-duration human spaceflight
- 2033: Mission to Venus that will return samples of its atmosphere to Earth
- 2038: Establishment of an autonomous Mars research station to study in-situ resource utilization
- 2039: Mission to Triton, Neptune's largest moon, with a subsurface explorer for its ocean

[ Read more of this story ]( https://science.slashdot.org/story/25/03/28/0720237/as-nasa-faces-cuts-china-reveals-ambitious-plans-for-planetary-exploration?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

TOP10 VISITORS:

[1] 45.135.180.x point=224 web=0 up=18.6MB (33%) <--- yesterlink (9/hr)
[2] 37.252.14.x point=144 web=0 up=17.7MB (31%) <--- ake (6/hr)
[3] 80.87.199.x point=71 web=0 up=6.9MB (12%) <--- tgi (3/hr)
[4] Facebook point=0 web=265 up=3.5MB (6%)
[5] PetalBot point=130 web=532 up=3.2MB (5%) <--- PetalBot (5/hr)
[6] Google point=4 web=243 up=1.4MB (2%) <--- Google
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[9] TikTok point=0 web=110 up=0.3MB (<1%)
[10] 194.87.14.x point=0 web=2 up=0.2MB (<1%)

TOTAL TRAFFIC: 55MB

Anthropic researchers have developed a breakthrough "cross-layer transcoder" (CLT) that functions like an fMRI for large language models, mapping how they process information internally. Testing on Claude 3.5 Haiku, researchers discovered the model performs longer-range planning for specific tasks -- such as selecting rhyming words before constructing poem sentences -- and processes multilingual concepts in a shared neural space before converting outputs to specific languages.

The team also confirmed that LLMs can fabricate reasoning chains, either to please users with incorrect hints or to justify answers they derived instantly. The CLT identifies interpretable feature sets rather than individual neurons, allowing researchers to trace entire reasoning processes through network layers.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://slashdot.org/story/25/03/28/0614200/anthropic-maps-ai-model-thought-processes?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader shares a report: For decades, India's economic promise has rested on its demographic dividend -- the competitive edge of a massive, young, and increasingly educated workforce. Economists and policymakers have routinely cited the country's population profile as its ticket to economic superpower status, with projections of reaching $10 trillion in GDP and achieving high-income status by 2047. These forecasts depend heavily on a critical assumption: that roughly 500 million Indians currently aged 5-24 will find productive employment as they enter the workforce over the next two decades. But a sobering new analysis from Bernstein suggests this fundamental premise may be crumbling under the weight of rapid advances in AI.

"The advent of AI threatens to erode all the advantages of India's rich demographic dividend," write Bernstein analysts Venugopal Garre and Nikhil Arela, who characterize their assessment as a potential "doomsday scenario" for a nation that has hitched its economic wagon to services-led growth. At stake is India's $350 billion services export sector -- a sprawling ecosystem of IT outsourcing, business process management, and offshore knowledge centers that employs over 10 million workers, mostly in jobs that place them in the top 25% of the country's income distribution.

While India's IT giants have successfully navigated previous technological shifts -- from basic call centers in the late 1980s to cloud computing and data analytics more recently -- AI poses a fundamentally different challenge. Unlike earlier transitions that required human adaptation, today's AI systems threaten to replace rather than complement the workforce. "AI subscriptions that come at a fraction of the costs of India's entry level engineers can be deployed to perform tasks at higher precision and speed," the report note.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://it.slashdot.org/story/25/03/28/0421236/labor-arbitrage-rip?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Washington Post: Virginia is set to become the first state in the country to require some reckless drivers to put devices on their cars that make it impossible to drive too fast. D.C. passed similar legislation last year. Several other states, including Maryland, are considering joining them. It's an embrace of a technological solution to a human problem: Speeding contributes to more than 10,000 deaths a year. Under the Virginia legislation, a judge can decide to order drivers to install the speed limiters in their vehicles in lieu of taking away their driving privileges or sending them to jail. It takes effect in July 2026.

Del. Patrick A. Hope (D-Arlington) said various advocacy groups, including Mothers Against Drunk Driving and the National Safety Council, gave him the idea. He drove a car outfitted with the technology and was impressed. "It was easy to use, and once you're engaged it's impossible to go over the speed limit," he said. "It will make our streets safer." He thinks the device is preferable to suspending drivers' licenses, a punishment that people frequently ignore because they have no other way of getting to work or the store or taking their children to school. It's an approach similar to using an interlock device that requires a person convicted of drunken driving to pass a Breathalyzer test to start their car.

Hope wanted anyone convicted of reckless driving after going 100 mph or more to be required to use a limiter for two to six months, but Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) struck that part of the bill, leaving all use of the limiting technology up to the state courts. Hope expressed concern about the governor's amendment but will urge the General Assembly to accept it, as the legislature typically does when the bill's sponsor signals support. Drivers must pay for the speed limiters themselves. (As in D.C., indigent defendants are exempt from paying.) The limiters won't be used in Virginia on commercial vehicles. Attempting to evade the speed limiter by tampering with it or driving a different car is a misdemeanor punishable by up to a year in jail.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/03/28/0019211/virginia-will-punish-fast-drivers-with-devices-that-limit-their-speed?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Following OpenAI's viral Studio Ghibli moment, CEO Sam Altman says it has temporarily limited image generation in ChatGPT due to the overwhelming demand on its GPU infrastructure. "It's super fun seeing people love images in ChatGPT, but our GPUs are melting," he posted on X today. The Verge reports: The demand crunch already caused the artificial intelligence company to push back availability of the built-in image generator for users on ChatGPT's free tier. But apparently that measure alone wasn't enough to ease the stress on OpenAI's infrastructure. (Altman said free users will "soon" be able to generate up to three images per day.)

[ Read more of this story ]( https://slashdot.org/story/25/03/28/003227/openai-says-our-gpus-are-melting-as-it-limits-chatgpt-image-generation-requests?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

U.S. robotics companies, including Tesla and Boston Dynamics, are urging lawmakers to establish a national robotics strategy to keep pace with China's aggressive investment in AI-driven robotics. The Associated Press reports: Jeff Cardenas, co-founder and CEO of humanoid startup Apptronik, of Austin, Texas, pointed out to lawmakers that it was American carmaker General Motors that deployed the first industrial robot at a New Jersey assembly plant in 1961. But the U.S. then ceded its early lead to Japan, which remains a powerhouse of industrial robotics, along with Europe. The next robotics race will be powered by artificial intelligence and will be "anybody's to win," Cardenas said in an interview after the closed-door meeting. "I think the U.S. has a great chance of winning. We're leading in AI, and I think we're building some of the best robots in the world. But we need a national strategy if we're going to continue to build and stay ahead."

The Association for Advancing Automation said a national strategy would help U.S. companies scale production and drive the adoption of robots as the "physical manifestation" of AI. The group made it clear that China and several other countries already have a plan in place. Without that leadership, "the U.S. will not only lose the robotics race but also the AI race," the association said in a statement. The group also suggested tax incentives to help drive adoption, along with federally-funded training programs and funding for both academic research and commercial innovation. A new federal robotics office, the association argued, is necessary partly because of "the increasing global competition in the space" as well as the "growing sophistication" of the technology.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/25/03/27/2351255/us-robotics-companies-push-for-national-strategy-to-compete-with-china?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Ubisoft is launching a new subsidiary focused on Assassin's Creed, Far Cry, and Rainbow Six, backed by a 1.16 billion-euro investment from Tencent. "The as-yet-unnamed subsidiary will fold in the teams working on those three series, including Ubisoft studios in Montreal, Quebec, Sherbrooke, Saguenay, Barcelona and Sofia," reports Engadget. From the report: This new business will receive an investment of 1.16 billion-euro (roughly $1.25 billion) from its longstanding partner Tencent, granting the conglomerate a minority ownership stake. Following the transaction, Ubisoft will narrow focus to its other franchises, such as The Division and Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon. [...] There is some extra good news in the announcement. The description of the new subsidiary does specify that "it will drive further increases in quality of narrative solo experiences." So while we can expect to also see multiplayer and free-to-play offerings from the Ubisoft umbrella, they aren't giving up on single-player games. "Today Ubisoft is opening a new chapter in its history," CEO and Co-Founder Yves Guillemot said. "As we accelerate the company's transformation, this is a foundational step in changing Ubisoft's operating model that will enable us to be both agile and ambitious."

[ Read more of this story ]( https://slashdot.org/story/25/03/27/239223/ubisoft-spins-out-subsidiary-with-a-billion-dollar-investment-from-tencent?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the BBC: Fashion retailer H&M is to use artificial intelligence (AI) to create digital "twins" of 30 models. It says it will use the AI doppelgangers in some social media posts and marketing in the place of humans, if given permission by models. "We are curious to explore how to showcase our fashion in new creative ways -- and embrace the benefits of new technology -- while staying true to our commitment to personal style," said its chief creative officer Jorgen Andersson in a statement.

The initiative was first reported by industry publication Business of Fashion. H&M told the outlet that models would retain rights over their digital replicas and their use by the company and other brands for purposes such as marketing. Its images are likely to be initially used in social media posts, with watermarks that make their AI use clear, it added. H&M also said models would be compensated for use of their digital twins in a similar way to current arrangements -- which sees them paid for use of their images based on rates agreed by their agent.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/03/27/2058218/hm-to-use-digital-clones-of-models-in-ads-and-social-media?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Google is rolling out new AI-powered features across Maps, Search, and Hotels to simplify travel planning, including a screenshot-detection tool in Maps that identifies and saves locations mentioned in image text. The Verge reports: Once the new screenshot list is enabled in Maps, the Gemini-powered feature will detect places that are mentioned in text within screenshots on the device, show users the locations on the map, and allow them to review and save locations to a sharable list. The screenshot list feature will start rolling out in English this week to iOS users in the US, with Android support "coming soon."

AI Overviews for Google Search are also being updated to expand travel planning tools, with itinerary-building features rolling out in English to mobile and desktop devices in the US this week that can create trip ideas for "distinct regions or entire countries." Users can use terms like "create a vacation itinerary for Greece that focuses on history" to explore reviews and photos from other users alongside a map of location recommendations, which can be saved to Google Maps or exported to Docs or Gmail.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/03/27/2052222/google-maps-can-soon-scan-your-screenshots-to-plan-your-vacation?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Columbia University has suspended the student who created an AI tool designed to help job candidates cheat on technical coding interviews, according to disciplinary documents seen by Business Insider. Chungin "Roy" Lee received a yearlong suspension for "publishing unauthorized documents" from a disciplinary hearing about his product, Interview Coder, not for creating the tool itself. Lee had signed a form agreeing not to disclose his disciplinary record or post hearing materials online.

Interview Coder, which sells for $60 monthly, is on track to generate $2 million in annual revenue, Lee said. The university initially placed him on probation after finding him responsible for "facilitation of academic dishonesty." Lee had already submitted paperwork for a leave of absence before his suspension. He told BI he plans to move to San Francisco, which "was my plan all along."

[ Read more of this story ]( https://news.slashdot.org/story/25/03/27/1958240/columbia-university-suspends-student-behind-interview-cheating-ai?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

MojoKid writes: Similar to Nvidia's recent desktop graphics launches, there are four initial GeForce RTX 50 series laptop GPUs coming to market, starting this month. At the top of the stack is the GeForce RTX 5090 laptop GPU, which is equipped with 10,496 CUDA cores and is paired to 24GB of memory. Boost clocks top out around 2,160MHz and GPU power can range from 95-150 watts, depending on the particular laptop model. GeForce RTX 50 series GPUs for both laptops and desktops feature updated shader cores with support for neural shading, in addition to 4th gen ray tracing cores and 5th gen Tensor cores with support for DLSS 4. The GeForce RTX 50 series features a native PCIe gen 5 interface, in addition to support for DisplayPort 2.1b (up to UHBR20). These GPUs are also fed by the latest high speed GDDR7 memory, which offers efficiency benefits that are pertinent to laptop designs as well. Performance-wise, NVIDIA's mobile GeForce RTX 5090 is the new king of the hill in gaming laptops, and it easily bests all other discrete mobile graphics options on the market currently.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/03/27/1923257/nvidias-geforce-rtx-5090-laptop-graphics-benchmarks-revealed?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from BleepingComputer: Despite Oracle denying a breach of its Oracle Cloud federated SSO login servers and the theft of account data for 6 million people, BleepingComputer has confirmed with multiple companies that associated data samples shared by the threat actor are valid. Last week, a person named 'rose87168' claimed to have breached Oracle Cloud servers and began selling the alleged authentication data and encrypted passwords of 6 million users. The threat actor also said that stolen SSO and LDAP passwords could be decrypted using the info in the stolen files and offered to share some of the data with anyone who could help recover them.

The threat actor released multiple text files consisting of a database, LDAP data, and a list of 140,621 domains for companies and government agencies that were allegedly impacted by the breach. It should be noted that some of the company domains look like tests, and there are multiple domains per company. In addition to the data, rose87168 shared an Archive.org URL with BleepingComputer for a text file hosted on the "login.us2.oraclecloud.com" server that contained their email address. This file indicates that the threat actor could create files on Oracle's server, indicating an actual breach. However, Oracle has denied that it suffered a breach of Oracle Cloud and has refused to respond to any further questions about the incident.

"There has been no breach of Oracle Cloud. The published credentials are not for the Oracle Cloud. No Oracle Cloud customers experienced a breach or lost any data," the company told BleepingComputer last Friday. This denial, however, contradicts findings from BleepingComputer, which received additional samples of the leaked data from the threat actor and contacted the associated companies. Representatives from these companies, all who agreed to confirm the data under the promise of anonymity, confirmed the authenticity of the information. The companies stated that the associated LDAP display names, email addresses, given names, and other identifying information were all correct and belonged to them. The threat actor also shared emails with BleepingComputer, claiming to be part of an exchange between them and Oracle.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://yro.slashdot.org/story/25/03/27/1918205/oracle-customers-confirm-data-stolen-in-alleged-cloud-breach-is-valid?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Доступен выпуск на 10 платформе (ветка p10 Aronia), «Альт Виртуализация» 10.4.

Сборка подготовлена на x86_64, AArch64, на базе ядра 6.1 LTS.

Скачать образ

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

• [ mirror.yandex.ru ]( http://mirror.yandex.ru/altlinux/p10/images/server-v/ )

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

В минорной версии 10.4 обновлена пакетная база.

Подробно в рассылках:
[ altlinux-announce-ru@ ]( https://lists.altlinux.org/pipermail/altlinux-announce-ru/2025/000053.html )
[ community@ ]( https://lists.altlinux.org/pipermail/community/2025-March/689214.html )

[ Состав дистрибутива ]( https://packages.altlinux.org/ru/p10/images/alt-server-v )

[ Сайт загрузки ]( http://getalt.ru )

https://www.linux.org.ru/news/russia/17925943

Трой Хант (Troy Hunt), известный деятель в области компьютерной безопасности, автор курсов по защите информации, создатель сервиса проверки скомпрометированных паролей "Have I Been Pwned?" и региональный директор Microsoft, раскрыл сведения об утечке базы пользователей собственного списка рассылки. История показательна тем, что даже признанные специалисты в области компьютерной безопасности могут стать жертвами типового фишинга при определённом стечении обстоятельств.

https://www.opennet.ru/opennews/art.shtml?num=62964

Представлен выпуск открытой платформы webOS Open Source Edition 2.28, которая может применяться на различных портативных устройствах, платах и автомобильных информационно-развлекательных системах. Эталонные готовые сборки сформированы для платы Raspberry Pi 4 и системы виртуализации VirtualBox. Платформа развивается в публичном репозитории под лицензией Apache 2.0, а разработку курирует сообщество, придерживаясь совместной модели управления разработкой. В новой версии осуществлён переход на платформу Yocto 5.0, обновлены браузерные компоненты Enact и задействована ветка библиотеки Qt 6.8.

https://www.opennet.ru/opennews/art.shtml?num=62965

Microsoft plans to roll out a new Windows scheduled task in May that launches automatically to help Microsoft Office apps load faster. From a report: The company says the "Startup Boost" task will launch in the background on logon, with the roll-out to start in mid-May and worldwide general availability to be reached by late May 2025. On systems where it's toggled on, users will see new Office Startup Boost and Office Startup Boost Logon tasks in the Windows Task Scheduler, which will ensure that Office apps can preload "performance enhancements."

"We are introducing a new Startup Boost task from the Microsoft Office installer to optimize performance and load-time of experiences within Office applications," Microsoft says on the Microsoft 365 message center. "After the system performs the task, the app remains in a paused state until the app launches and the sequence resumes, or the system removes the app from memory to reclaim resources. The system can perform this task for an app after a device reboot and periodically as system conditions allow."

[ Read more of this story ]( https://it.slashdot.org/story/25/03/27/1727252/new-windows-scheduled-task-will-launch-office-apps-faster?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has told employees that DeepSeek's R1 AI model has set "the new bar" for his company's AI ambitions, citing the startup's ability to reach the top of app store rankings. "What's most impressive about DeepSeek is that it's a great reminder of what 200 people can do when they come together with one thought and one play," The Verge cited Nadella as saying.

"Most importantly, not just leaving it there as a research project or an open source project, but to turn it into a product that was number one in the App Store. That's the new bar to me," he added. Microsoft quickly deployed DeepSeek's R1 on its Azure platform in January. The AI model gained recognition for its optimization below Nvidia's CUDA layer, enabling greater efficiency.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://slashdot.org/story/25/03/27/1714214/satya-nadella-says-deepseek-is-the-new-bar-for-microsofts-ai-success?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Опубликован выпуск дистрибутива Q4OS 5.8, основанного на пакетной базе Debian и поставляемого с рабочими столами KDE Plasma 5 и Trinity (продолжает развитие кодовой базы KDE 3.5.x). Оба пользовательских окружения могут одновременно сосуществовать в одной системе, и пользователь может переключаться между ними. Дистрибутив позиционируется как нетребовательный к аппаратным ресурсам и предлагающий классическое оформление рабочего стола. Размер загрузочного образа 1.5 ГБ (x86_64).

https://www.opennet.ru/opennews/art.shtml?num=62963

An anonymous reader shares a report: You can now choose WhatsApp as your iPhone's default app for calls and text messages, as noted by WABetaInfo. After updating WhatsApp to version 25.8.74, you'll see the app appear as an option in your Messaging and Calling default app settings.

Apple first announced that it would let iPhone users in the European Union change their default phone and messaging apps, but it later said that everyone would be able to do the same in iOS 18.2.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://it.slashdot.org/story/25/03/27/171213/iphone-users-can-now-set-whatsapp-as-their-default-calling-and-texting-app?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

The Metropolitan Police has confirmed its first permanent installation of live facial recognition (LFR) cameras is coming this summer and the location will be the South London suburb of Croydon. From a report: The two cameras will be installed in the city center in an effort to combat crime and will be attached to buildings and lamp posts on North End and London Road. According to the police they will only be turned on when officers are in the area and in a position to make an arrest if a criminal is spotted. The installation follows a two-year trial in the area where police vans fitted with the camera have been patrolling the streets matching passersby to its database of suspects or criminals, leading to hundreds of arrests. The Met claims the system can alert them in seconds if a wanted wrong'un is spotted, and if the person gets the all-clear, the image of their face will be deleted.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://news.slashdot.org/story/25/03/27/1556222/uks-first-permanent-facial-recognition-cameras-installed?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Nintendo has announced plans to introduce Virtual Game Cards for its Switch console in late April, allowing users to share digital games across multiple systems, the Japanese gaming company said during its Nintendo Direct event. The new feature will enable players to virtually load and eject digital games between Nintendo Switch consoles, mimicking the flexibility of physical game cartridges.

Users can play a single digital title on up to two systems, requiring only a one-time local connection between devices. The company has also confirmed that Virtual Game Cards will be compatible with both current and next-generation hardware. The system will also feature a family sharing option, allowing users to lend digital games to family members for two-week periods before automatically returning to the owner's account.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://games.slashdot.org/story/25/03/27/1525215/nintendo-unveils-digital-game-sharing?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Опубликовано: 2025-03-27T14:37:31+00:00

Как из волка получился чихуахуа? Одомашнивание и приручение — это одно и то же? Если взять домой волчонка, он одомашнится? Эволюция и одомашнивание никак не связаны?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmmd8jZ84ao

Paul Ginsparg, a physics professor at Cornell University, created arXiv nearly 35 years ago as a digital repository where researchers could share their findings before peer review. Today, the platform hosts more than 2.6 million papers, receives 20,000 new submissions monthly, and serves 5 million active users, Wired writes in a profile of the platform.

"Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in!" Ginsparg quotes from The Godfather, reflecting his inability to fully hand over the platform despite numerous attempts. If arXiv stopped functioning, scientists worldwide would face immediate disruption. "Everybody in math and physics uses it," says Scott Aaronson, a computer scientist at the University of Texas at Austin. "I scan it every night."

ArXiv revolutionized academic publishing, previously dominated by for-profit giants like Elsevier and Springer, by allowing instant and free access to research. Many significant discoveries, including the "transformers" paper that launched the modern AI boom, first appeared on the platform. Initially a collection of shell scripts on Ginsparg's NeXT machine in 1991, arXiv followed him from Los Alamos National Laboratory to Cornell, where it found an institutional home despite administrative challenges. Recent funding from the Simons Foundation has enabled a hiring spree and long-needed technical updates.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://science.slashdot.org/story/25/03/27/1456239/inside-arxiv---the-most-transformative-platform-in-all-of-science?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

China's ambitious AI infrastructure push has resulted in hundreds of idle data centers with local media reporting up to 80% of newly built computing resources remaining unused. The country announced over 500 data center projects during 2023-2024, with at least 150 completed facilities now struggling to secure customers in a rapidly changing market.

The rise of DeepSeek's open-source reasoning model R1, which matches ChatGPT o1's performance at a fraction of the cost, has fundamentally altered hardware demand. Computing needs now prioritize low-latency infrastructure for real-time reasoning rather than facilities optimized for large-scale training workloads.

Technical misalignment compounds the problem, as many centers were constructed by companies with little AI expertise, MIT Technology Review reports. The facilities, often built in remote regions to capitalize on cheaper electricity and land, now face obsolescence as AI companies require proximity to tech hubs to minimize transmission delays. GPU rental prices have collapsed, with eight-GPU Nvidia H100 server clusters now leasing for 75,000 yuan ($10,333) monthly, down from peaks of 180,000 yuan, making operations financially unsustainable for many data center operators.

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