After finalizing loan terms with the IMF, El Salvador's Legislative Assembly approved changes to the country's Bitcoin Law last week by a 55-2 vote, "effectively removing bitcoin's status as legal currency," reports Reason.

Under the new rules, bitcoin is no longer considered "currency," though it remains "legal tender." Another change makes using bitcoin entirely voluntary. (Previously, the law mandated that businesses accept bitcoin for any goods or services they provided.) Additionally, bitcoin can no longer be used to pay taxes or settle government debts. The government is also stepping back from its involvement in Chivo Wallet, the state-backed digital wallet...

The reforms come as part of a broader financial agreement between Bukele and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). One of the conditions for a proposed $1.4 billion Extended Fund Facility loan was that El Salvador mitigate "potential risks of the Bitcoin project." The IMF has been critical of the country's crypto policies since Bukele made bitcoin legal tender in 2021. "There are large risks associated with using Bitcoin as legal tender, especially given the high volatility of its price. We don't recommend it," the organization said in 2022.

Despite these changes, the administration insists it remains committed to bitcoin. Milena Mayorga, El Salvador's ambassador to the United States, has said that El Salvador is still a "bitcoin country" and will maintain — and even expand — its bitcoin reserves. "You have to adapt to the current situation and this is the decision that was taken in the Assembly, but that does not mean that the country will stop having a bitcoin reserve," she explained.
Government data suggests El Salvador now holds 6,072 Bitcoin worth $586,888.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://yro.slashdot.org/story/25/02/08/2344254/el-salvador-congress-votes-to-revoke-bitcoins-legal-currency-status?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

"Open source can be something of an illusion," writes TechCrunch. "A lack of real independence can mean a lack of agency for those who would like to properly get involved in a project."

Their article makes the case that the "spirit" of open source means more than a license...

"Android, in a license sense, is perhaps the most well-documented, perfectly open 'thing' that there is," Luis Villa, co-founder and general counsel at Tidelift, said in a panel discussion at the State of Open Con25 in London this week. "All the licenses are exactly as you want them — but good luck getting a patch into that, and good luck figuring out when the next release even is...."

"If you think about the practical accessibility of open source, it goes beyond the license, right?" Peter Zaitsev, founder of open source database services company Percona, said in the panel discussion. "Governance is very important, because if it's a single corporation, they can change a license like 'that.'" These sentiments were echoed in a separate talk by Dotan Horovits, open source evangelist at the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF), where he mused about open source "turning to the dark side." He noted that in most cases, issues arise when a single-vendor project decides to make changes based on its own business needs among other pressures. "Which begs the question, is vendor-owned open source an oxymoron?" Horovits said. "I've been asking this question for a good few years, and in 2025 this question is more relevant than ever."
The article adds that in 2025, "These debates won't be going anywhere anytime soon, as open source has emerged as a major focal point in the AI realm." And it includes this quote from Tidelift's co-founder.
"I have my quibbles and concerns about the open source AI definition, but it's really clear that what Llama is doing isn't open source," Villa said.

Emily Omier, a consultant for open source businesses and host of the Business of Open Source podcast, added that such attempts to "corrupt" the meaning behind "open source" is testament to its inherent power.

Much of this may be for regulatory reasons, however. The EU AI Act has a special carve-out for "free and open source" AI systems (aside from those deemed to pose an "unacceptable risk"). And Villa says this goes some way toward explaining why a company might want to rewrite the rulebook on what "open source" actually means. "There are plenty of actors right now who, because of the brand equity [of open source] and the regulatory implications, want to change the definition, and that's terrible," Villa said.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://news.slashdot.org/story/25/02/09/0039235/does-the-spirit-of-open-source-mean-much-more-than-a-license?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

The tech startup "purported to make smart home and business products," writes America's Justice Department — products that were "meant to stop package theft, prevent weather damage to packages, and make it easier for emergency responders and delivery services to find homes and businesses." Royce Newcomb "developed prototypes of his products and received local and national media attention for them. For example, Time Magazine included his eLiT Address Box & Security System, which used mobile networks to pinpoint home and business locations, on its Best Inventions of 2021 list."

But then he told investors he'd also received a grant by the National Science Foundation — one of "several false representations to his investors to deceive and cheat them out of their money... Newcomb used the money to pay for gambling, a Mercedes and Jaguar, and a mansion."
He also used the money to pay for refunds to other investors who wanted out, and to pay for new, unrelated projects without the investors' authorization. During this period, Newcomb also received a fraudulent COVID-19 loan for more than $70,000 from the Small Business Administration and fraudulent loans for more than $190,000 from private lenders. He lied about Strategic Innovations having hundreds of thousands and even millions in revenue to get these loans.
Newcomb was previously convicted federally in 2011 for running a real estate fraud scheme in Sacramento. He was sentenced to more than five years in prison for that offense, and he was on federal supervised release for that offense when he committed the offenses charged in this case... Newcomb faces maximum statutory penalties of 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine for the wire fraud charge, and 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine for the money laundering charge...
This effort is part of a California COVID-19 Fraud Enforcement Strike Force operation, one of five interagency COVID-19 fraud strike force teams established by the U.S. Department of Justice.

SFGate writes that "Despite receiving significant funding, his startup, Strategic Innovations, never made a dime or released any products to market, according to legal documents."

The owner of a California tech startup has pleaded guilty to stealing over $4 million from investors, private lenders and the U.S. government in order to live a luxurious lifestyle, the United States Attorney's Office announced Monday... When investors asked about product delays and when they'd be paid back, Newcomb made excuses and provided conflicting info, telling them that there were supply chain issues or software problems, according to the indictment. In reality, federal prosecutors said, he was using the money to travel and continue to make these lavish personal expenses.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://yro.slashdot.org/story/25/02/09/029241/california-tech-founder-admits-to-defrauding-4m-for-his-luxury-lifestyle?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

I just saw an ad for TikTok on a YouTube video. But at the same time YouTube is running ads on TikTok, reports Bloomberg, targeting TikTok content creators in "an effort to lure these valuable users to the Google-owned rival and capitalize on TikTok's uncertain future."

One of YouTube's ads even received over a thousand likes, with Bloomberg calling it that TikTok "is willing to accept ad dollars from one of its fiercest competitors promoting a message aimed at undercutting its business."

YouTube is the latest TikTok competitor to try to capitalize on the app's looming US ban, which could go into effect in early April. Meta Platforms Inc.'s Instagram announced a new video editing tool in January, and X also teased a new video tab as part of an effort to win over TikTok's content creators...

Google would be one of the biggest beneficiaries of a ban in the US. Both its flagship video service YouTube and its TikTok copycat, YouTube Shorts, would likely see an uptick in traffic if TikTok goes away. Google also plays an unusual role in TikTok's potential ban because it runs one of two mobile app stores controlling whether people in the US can download the video app. It has blocked TikTok from its Google Play store since the divest-or-ban law went into effect January 19.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/02/09/0540227/while-tiktok-buys-ads-on-youtube-youtube-is-buying-ads-on-tiktok?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Friday the Orlando Sentinel covered NASA's 2024 mission-safety report from the Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel (formed in 1968). The report "commended the agency's handling of last year's beleaguered Boeing's Starliner mission [prioritizing astronaut safety], but revealed yet another issue found during the flight and questioned the agency's needs for the spacecraft in the future..."

[The report] stated that it was unclear how a decision was made to waive a failure tolerance requirement on some of the thrusters without flight or qualification data to justify the decision. "These examples illustrate the panel's concern that, absent role clarity, risk management choices could unintentionally devolve to contractors, whose interests may not fully align with NASA's," the report warned...

It also revealed that in addition to the thruster and leak issues on the propulsion module driving the decision to fly home without astronauts, Starliner had a new issue as it made its way back to Earth. "Overall, Starliner performed well across all major systems in the undock, deorbit, and landing sequences; however, an additional mono propellant thruster failure was discovered in the crew module — distinct from the failures in the service module experienced during orbit," the report stated. "Had the crew been aboard, this would have significantly increased the risk during reentry, confirming the wisdom of the decision."

As far as Starliner's path to certification, the ASAP report said it would continue to monitor several unresolved issues with thrusters and seek information on how NASA and Boeing plan to get the spacecraft certified. "While the thruster issues have received considerable attention, the panel has previously noted other Starliner issues that require resolution prior to certification," it stated. That includes a battery redesign and work to strengthen the landing airbag apparatus. "Beyond these technical matters, schedule and budget pose substantial challenges to Starliner certification," the report added...
"Until the Starliner certification plan is well understood, it remains unclear as to whether a second provider will be available prior to the end of the ISS's operational life [in 2030]," the report stated.

The report "also suggested that NASA immediately adapt next-generation extravehicular mobility units, or EVUs," reports ExecutiveGov, "as current space suits astronauts use for operations outside the ISS are now beyond their design life."

[ Read more of this story ]( https://science.slashdot.org/story/25/02/09/0322226/boeings-starliner-also-experienced-an-issue-on-its-return-to-earth?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

"It is now 45+ years since C++ was first conceived," writes 74-year-old C++ creator Bjarne Stroustrup in an article this week for Communications of the ACM. But he complains that many developers "use C++ as if it was still the previous millennium," in an article titled 21st Century C++ that promises "the key concepts on which performant, type safe, and flexible C++ software can be built: resource management, life-time management, error-handling, modularity, and generic programming...

"At the end, I present ways to ensure that code is contemporary, rather than relying on outdated, unsafe, and hard-to-maintain techniques: guidelines and profiles."

To help developers focus on effective use of contemporary C++ and avoid outdated "dark corners" of the language, sets of guidelines have been developed. Here I focus on the C++ Core guidelines that I consider the most ambitious... My principal aim is a type-safe and resource-safe use of ISO standard C++. That is:

- Every object is exclusively used according to its definition
- No resource is leaked
This encompasses what people refer to as memory safety and much more. It is not a new goal for C++. Obviously, it cannot be achieved for every use of C++, but by now we have years of experience showing that it can be done for modern code, though so far enforcement has been incomplete... When thinking about C++, it is important to remember that C++ is not just a language but part of an ecosystem consisting of implementations, libraries, tools, teaching, and more.
WG21 (and others) are working on "profiles" to enforce guidelines (though they're "not yet available, except for experimental and partial versions"). But Stroustrup writes that the C++ Core Guidelines "use a strategy known as subset-of-superset."

First: extend the language with a few library abstractions: use parts of the standard library and add a tiny library to make use of the guidelines convenient and efficient (the Guidelines Support Library, GSL).
Next: subset: ban the use of low-level, inefficient, and error-prone features.
What we get is "C++ on steroids": Something simple, safe, flexible, and fast; rather than an impoverished subset or something relying on massive run-time checking. Nor do we create a language with novel and/or incompatible features. The result is 100% ISO standard C++. Messy, dangerous, low-level features can still be enabled and used when needed.
Stroustrup writes that the C++ Core Guidelines focus on rules "we hope that everyone eventually could benefit from."

No uninitialized variables
No range or nullptr violations
No resource leaks
No dangling pointers
No type violations
No invalidation

Bjarne Stroustrup answered questions from Slashdot readers in 2014...

[ Read more of this story ]( https://developers.slashdot.org/story/25/02/09/0636247/c-on-steroids-bjarne-stroustrup-presents-guideline-enforcing-profiles-for-resource-and-type-safety?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Google's Super Bowl ad about a Gouda cheese seller appears to be using fake AI output, writes the Verge:

The text portrayed as generated by AI has been available on the business's website since at least August 2020, as shown on this archived webpage. Google didn't launch Gemini until 2023, meaning Gemini couldn't have generated the website description as depicted in the ad.

The site Futurism calls the situation "beyond bizarre," asking why Google doesn't seem to trust its own technology.
Either Google faked the ad entirely, or prompted its AI to generate the web page's existing copy word-for-word, or the AI was prompted to come up with original copy and instead copied the old version. In the publishing industry, that's referred to as "plagiarism."

And ironically if Gemini did plagiarize that text, the text that it plagiarized is also inaccurate.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/02/09/0717232/did-google-fake-gemini-ais-output-for-its-super-bowl-ad?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

"Can you skydive continuously without landing...?" asks Red Bull. Imagine jumping out of a helicopter, "only to latch onto a speeding plane in mid-air and soar back up into the sky."

Harnessing the plane's momentum, [skydiver Max Manow] soared out of the canyon, embarking on what he calls his "endless skydive", a manoeuvre that potentially could be done continuously without him ever needing to land...

After exiting a helicopter, he manoeuvred his wingsuit to close the gap with a nosediving Cessna 182, piloted by Luke Aikins. Precision was key: Manow attached himself to a hook on the aircraft as the plane descended, allowing him to ascend back to a safe altitude of 2,500 feet before releasing into another freefall... Manow spent five months training, including sessions in a Stockholm wind tunnel, to master the techniques needed for mid-air connection. Meanwhile, Aikins modified his aircraft to ensure the feat was safe and repeatable.
Skydiver Max Manow's goal was to develop a manoeuvre that could potentially be repeated an infinite number of times without ever having to land. Manow's mid-air manoeuvre opens the door to a new vision of skydiving, where athletes could remain airborne without ever needing to land. Reflecting on the experience, Manow said: "Who knows where this will take the future of the sport?"

"If that wasn't enough adrenaline for you," writes New Atlas, "a previous bonkers wingsuit stunt from 2017 is equally jaw dropping, in which a pair of skydivers BASE-jumped off a mountain summit, and entered a passing airplane."

[ Read more of this story ]( https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/02/09/048253/skydiver-hooks-plane-in-mid-air-gets-towed-up-for-another-skydive?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Keynotes at this year's FOSDEM included free AI models and systemd, reports Heise.de — and also a progress report from Miguel Ojeda, supervisor of the Rust integration in the Linux kernel.

Only eight people remain in the core team around Rust for Linux... Miguel Ojeda therefore launched a survey among kernel developers, including those outside the Rust community, and presented some of the more important voices in his FOSDEM talk. The overall mood towards Rust remains favorable, especially as Linus Torvalds and Greg Kroah-Hartman are convinced of the necessity of Rust integration. This is less about rapid progress and more about finding new talent for kernel development in the future.
The reaction was mostly positive, judging by Ojeda's slides:

- "2025 will be the year of Rust GPU drivers..." — Daniel Almedia

- "I think the introduction of Rust in the kernel is one of the most exciting development experiments we've seen in a long time." — Andrea Righi

- "[T]he project faces unique challenges. Rust's biggest weakness, as a language, is that relatively few people speak it. Indeed, Rust is not a language for beginners, and systems-level development complicates things even more. That said, the Linux kernel project has historically attracted developers who love challenging software — if there's an open source group willing to put the extra effort for a better OS, it's the kernel devs." — Carlos Bilbao

- "I played a little with [Rust] in user space, and I just absolutely hate the cargo concept... I hate having to pull down other code that I do not trust. At least with shared libraries, I can trust a third party to have done the build and all that... [While Rust should continue to grow in the kernel], if a subset of C becomes as safe as Rust, it may make Rust obsolete..." Steven Rostedt

Rostedt wasn't sure if Rust would attract more kernel contributors, but did venture this opinion. "I feel Rust is more of a language that younger developers want to learn, and C is their dad's language."

But still "contention exists within the kernel development community between those pro-Rust and -C camps," argues The New Stack, citing the latest remarks from kernel maintainer Christoph Hellwig (who had earlier likened the mixing of Rust and C to cancer). Three days later Hellwig reiterated his position again on the Linux kernel mailing list:

"Every additional bit that another language creeps in drastically reduces the maintainability of the kernel as an integrated project. The only reason Linux managed to survive so long is by not having internal boundaries, and adding another language completely breaks this. You might not like my answer, but I will do everything I can do to stop this. This is NOT because I hate Rust. While not my favourite language it's definitively one of the best new ones and I encourage people to use it for new projects where it fits. I do not want it anywhere near a huge C code base that I need to maintain."

But the article also notes that Google "has been a staunch supporter of adding Rust to the kernel for Linux running in its Android phones."
The use of Rust in the kernel is seen as a way to avoid memory vulnerabilities associated with C and C++ code and to add more stability to the Android OS. "Google's wanting to replace C code with Rust represents a small piece of the kernel but it would have a huge impact since we are talking about billions of phones," Ojeda told me after his talk.

In addition to Google, Rust adoption and enthusiasm for it is increasing as Rust gets more architectural support and as "maintainers become more comfortable with it," Ojeda told me. "Maintainers have already told me that if they could, then they would start writing Rust now," Ojeda said. "If they could drop C, they would do it...."

Amid the controversy, there has been a steady stream of vocal support for Ojeda. Much of his discussion also covered statements given by advocates for Rust in the kernel, ranging from lead developers of the kernel and including Linux creator Linus Torvalds himself to technology leads from Red Hat, Samsung, Google, Microsoft and others.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://developers.slashdot.org/story/25/02/08/0455231/what-do-linux-kernel-developers-think-of-rust?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Long-time Slashdot reader Shayde once restored a 1986 DEC PDP-11 minicomputer, and even ran Turbo Pascal on a 40-year-old Apple II clone.

Now he's exploring a 27-year-old Macintosh PowerBook G3 — with 64 megabytes memory and 4 gigabytes of disk space. "The year is 1997, and Apple is in big trouble." (Apple's market share had dropped from 16% in 1980 to somewhere below 4%...)

Turns out this was one of the first machines able to run OS X, and was built during the transition period for Apple after Steve Jobs came back in to rescue the company from bankruptcy.

It's clearly old technology. There's even a SCSI connector, PCMCIA sockets, a modem port for your phone/landline cable, and a CD-ROM drive. There's also Apple's proprietary ports for LocalTalk and an Apple Desktop Bus port ("used for keyboards, mice, and stuff like that"). And its lithium-ion batteries "were meant to be replaced and moved around, so you could carry spare batteries with you."

So what's it like using a 27-year-old laptop? "The first thing I had to note was this thing weighs a ton! This thing could be used as a projectile weapon! I can't imagine hauling these things around doing business..." And it's a good thing it had vents, because "This thing runs hot!" (The moment he plugs it in he can hear its ancient fan running...) It seems to take more than two minutes to boot up. ("The drive is rattling away...") But soon he's looking at a glorious desktop from 1998 desktop. ("Applications installed... Oh look! Adobe Acrobat Reader! I betcha that's going to need an update...")

After plugging in a network cable, a pop-up prompts him to "Set up your .Mac membership." ("I have so little interest in doing this.") He does find an old version of Safari, but it refuses to launch-- though "While puttering around in the application folder, I did notice that we had Internet Explorer installed. But that pretty much went as well as expected." In the end it seems like he ends up "on the network, but we have no browser." Although at least he does find a Terminal program — and successfully pings Google.

The thing that would drive me crazy is when opening the laptop, Apple's logo is upside-down!

[ Read more of this story ]( https://apple.slashdot.org/story/25/02/09/176246/retrocomputing-enthusiast-explores-28-year-old-powerbook-g3-apples-hope-for-redemption?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

The unemployment rate in America's information technology sector "rose from 3.9% in December to 5.7% in January," reports the Wall Street Journal. (Alternate URL here.) Meanwhile last month's overall jobless rate was just 4%, they point out, calling it "the latest sign of how automation and the increasing use of artificial intelligence are having a negative impact on the tech labor market."

Companies began implementing their annual spending cuts in January, and there were layoffs at large tech companies like Meta. But whatever the reason, "The number of unemployed IT workers rose from 98,000 in December to 152,000 last month, according to a report from consulting firm Janco Associates based on data from the U.S. Department of Labor," while the Labor Department said the overall economy added 143,000 jobs.

One management consulting firm offers this explanation:

Job losses in tech can be attributed in part to the influence of AI, according to Victor Janulaitis, chief executive of Janco Associates. The emergence of generative AI has produced massive amounts of spending by tech giants on AI infrastructure, but not necessarily new jobs in IT. "Jobs are being eliminated within the IT function which are routine and mundane, such as reporting, clerical administration," Janulaitis said. "As they start looking at AI, they're also looking at reducing the number of programmers, systems designers, hoping that AI is going to be able to provide them some value and have a good rate of return."

Increased corporate investment in AI has shown early signs of leading to future cuts in hiring, a concept some tech leaders are starting to call "cost avoidance." Rather than hiring new workers for tasks that can be more easily automated, some businesses are letting AI take on that work — and reaping potential savings. The latest IT jobs numbers come as unemployment among white-collar workers remains at its highest levels since 2020, according to Cory Stahle, an economist at hiring website Indeed. "What we've really seen, especially in the last year or so, is a bifurcation in opportunities, where white-collar knowledge worker type jobs have had far less employer demand than jobs that are more in-person, skilled labor jobs," Stahle said.
Stahle notes that job postings at Indeed.com for software developers declined 8.5% in January from a year earlier...

[ Read more of this story ]( https://it.slashdot.org/story/25/02/09/1754229/americas-it-unemployment-rises-to-57-is-ai-hitting-tech-jobs?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Slashdot has been covering Harvard's legendary introductory programming course "CS50" since it began setting attendance records in 2014.

But now long-time Slashdot reader theodp brings some news about the course's fate over at Yale. From Yale's student newspaper:

After a decade of partnership with Harvard, Yale's CS50 course will no longer be offered starting in fall 2025.... One of Yale's largest computer science courses, jointly taught with Harvard University, was canceled during a monthly faculty meeting after facing budgetary challenges. [Yale's endowment is $40+ billion]... Since Yale started offering the course in 2015, CS50 has consistently seen enrollment numbers in the hundreds and was often the department's largest class.... According to [Yale instructor Ozan] Erat, the original [anonymous] donation that made CS50 possible ended in June 2024, and the cost of employing so many undergraduate learning assistants for the course had become unsustainable.

theodp reminds us that CS50 and its progeny "will continue to live on in all their glory in-person and online at Harvard and edX."

[ Read more of this story ]( https://developers.slashdot.org/story/25/02/09/1922236/this-was-cs50-crying-poor-yale-to-stop-offering-harvards-famed-cs50-course?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Slashdot reader headlessbrick writes: Google security researchers have discovered a way to bypass AMD's security, enabling them to load unofficial microcode into its processors and modify the silicon's behaviour at will. To demonstrate this, they created a microcode patch that forces the chips to always return 4 when asked for a random number. Beyond simply allowing Google and others to customize AMD chips for both beneficial and potentially malicious purposes, this capability also undermines AMD's secure encrypted virtualization and root-of-trust security mechanisms.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://it.slashdot.org/story/25/02/09/2021244/how-to-make-any-amd-zen-cpu-always-generate-4-as-a-random-number?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.