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[>] Denmark Aims To Ban Social Media For Children Under 15, PM Says
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2025-10-07 22:22:01


The Danish government wants to introduce a ban on several social media platforms for children under the age of 15, as Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen announced Tuesday. From a report: "Mobile phones and social media are stealing our children's childhood," she said in her opening speech to the Danish parliament, the Folketing. "We have unleashed a monster," Frederiksen said, noting that almost all Danish seventh graders, where pupils are typically 13 or 14 years old, own a cellphone.

"I hope that you here in the chamber will help tighten the law so that we take better care of our children here in Denmark," she added. However, Frederiksen did not give further details on what such a ban would entail, nor does a bill on an age limit appear in the government's legislative program for the upcoming parliamentary year.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/10/07/1728206/denmark-aims-to-ban-social-media-for-children-under-15-pm-says?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

[>] Apple Turned the CrowdStrike BSOD Issue Into an Anti-PC Ad
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2025-10-07 22:22:01


An anonymous reader shares a report: It's been a while since Apple last mocked Windows security, but the iPhone maker has just released an ad that hits Windows hard. The eight-minute commercial pokes fun at the CrowdStrike Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) issue that took down millions of Windows machines last year.

Apple's ad follows The Underdogs, a fictional company that's about to attend a trade show, before a PC outage causes chaos and a Blue Screen of Death shuts down machines at the convention. If it wasn't clear Apple was mocking the infamous CrowdStrike incident, an IT expert appears in the middle of the ad and starts discussing kernel-level functionality, the core part of an operating system that has unrestricted access to system memory and hardware.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://apple.slashdot.org/story/25/10/07/1811221/apple-turned-the-crowdstrike-bsod-issue-into-an-anti-pc-ad?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

[>] RGB LED Is Getting Its Time in the Spotlight. Will TV Shoppers Tune In?
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2025-10-07 23:22:01


Samsung, Hisense, TCL and Sony presented RGB LED TVs at IFA in Berlin last month. The technology replaces each standard LED backlight with a trio of red, green and blue LEDs to expand the range of colors a screen can display. Each manufacturer is using different name for the technology: Hisense has called it RGB-MiniLED, Samsung named it Micro RGB, Sony introduced Sony RGB Technology, and TCL branded it RGB Micro LED. The companies previously tried other monikers at CES.

Avi Greengart of Techsponential told PCMag the difference in color fidelity was not subtle when he viewed Samsung's version. PCMag found the Hisense 116UX the brightest TV with the widest color range he had evaluated. Both the 116-inch Hisense and Samsung's 115-inch model list at $30,000. TCL introduced RGB sets in China at prices starting at the equivalent of $1,150 for a 65-inch model. Greengart cautioned that it remained unclear whether the technology would rapidly decline in price or stay expensive like MicroLED.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://entertainment.slashdot.org/story/25/10/07/1855232/rgb-led-is-getting-its-time-in-the-spotlight-will-tv-shoppers-tune-in?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

[>] Youtube's Biggest Star MrBeast Fears AI Could Impact 'Millions of Creators' After Sora Launch
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2025-10-08 00:22:02


An anonymous reader shares a report: YouTube megastar Jimmy Donaldson, the creator behind the platform's biggest channel MrBeast, is worried there are "scary times" ahead for the creator economy as AI video tools make it increasingly difficult to tell what is real.

"When AI videos are just as good as normal videos, I wonder what that will do to YouTube and how it will impact the millions of creators currently making content for a living.. scary times," Donaldson said on X on Sunday. Donaldson's concerns come on the heels of OpenAI's release of a Sora social media platform able to AI generated short-form videos, including of individuals who "upload" themselves onto the app. Meta launched its similar video-generating Vibes platform last month.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://news.slashdot.org/story/25/10/07/1913224/youtubes-biggest-star-mrbeast-fears-ai-could-impact-millions-of-creators-after-sora-launch?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

[>] Play Store Changes Coming This Month as SCOTUS Declines To Freeze Antitrust Remedies
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2025-10-08 00:22:02


An anonymous reader shares a report: Changes are coming to the Play Store in spite of a concerted effort from Google to maintain the status quo. The company asked the US Supreme Court to freeze parts of the Play Store antitrust ruling while it pursued an appeal, but the high court has rejected that petition. That means the first elements of the antitrust remedies won by Epic Games will have to be implemented in mere weeks.

The app store case is one of three ongoing antitrust actions against Google, but it's the furthest along of them. Google lost the case in 2023, and in 2024, US District Judge James Donato ordered a raft of sweeping changes aimed at breaking Google's illegal monopoly on Android app distribution. In July, Google lost its initial appeal, leaving it with little time before the mandated changes must begin.

[...] The more dramatic changes are not due until July 2026, but this month will still bring major changes to Android apps. Google will have to allow developers to link to alternative methods of payment and download outside the Play Store, and it cannot force developers to use Google Play Billing within the Play Store. Google is also prohibited from setting prices for developers.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/10/07/201229/play-store-changes-coming-this-month-as-scotus-declines-to-freeze-antitrust-remedies?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

[>] Without Data Centers, GDP Growth Was 0.1% in the First Half of 2025, Harvard Economist Says
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2025-10-08 01:22:01


U.S. GDP growth in the first half of 2025 was driven almost entirely by investment in data centers and information processing technology. The GDP growth would have been just 0.1% on an annualized basis without these technology-related categories, according to Harvard economist Jason Furman. Investment in information-processing equipment and software accounted for only 4% of U.S. GDP during this period but represented 92% of GDP growth.

Renaissance Macro Research estimated in August that the dollar value contributed to GDP growth by AI data-center buildout had surpassed U.S. consumer spending for the first time. Consumer spending makes up two-thirds of GDP. Tech giants including Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Meta and Nvidia poured tens of billions of dollars into building and upgrading data centers.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://slashdot.org/story/25/10/07/2012240/without-data-centers-gdp-growth-was-01-in-the-first-half-of-2025-harvard-economist-says?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

[>] Qualcomm Is Buying Arduino, Releases New Raspberry Pi-Esque Arduino Board
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2025-10-08 02:22:02


An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Smartphone processor and modem maker Qualcomm is acquiring Arduino, the Italian company known mainly for its open source ecosystem of microcontrollers and the software that makes them function. In its announcement, Qualcomm said that Arduino would "[retain] its brand and mission," including its "open source ethos" and "support for multiple silicon vendors." Qualcomm didn't disclose what it would pay to acquire Arduino. The acquisition also needs to be approved by regulators "and other customary closing conditions."

The first fruit of this pending acquisition will be the Arduino Uno Q, a Qualcomm-based single-board computer with a Qualcomm Dragonwing QRB2210 processor installed. The QRB2210 includes a quad-core Arm Cortex-A53 CPU and a Qualcomm Adreno 702 GPU, plus Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity, and combines that with a real-time microcontroller "to bridge high-performance computing with real-time control." "Arduino will retain its independent brand, tools, and mission, while continuing to support a wide range of microcontrollers and microprocessors from multiple semiconductor providers as it enters this next chapter within the Qualcomm family," Qualcomm said in its press release. "Following this acquisition, the 33M+ active users in the Arduino community will gain access to Qualcomm Technologies' powerful technology stack and global reach. Entrepreneurs, businesses, tech professionals, students, educators, and hobbyists will be empowered to rapidly prototype and test new solutions, with a clear path to commercialization supported by Qualcomm Technologies' advanced technologies and extensive partner ecosystem."

CNBC notes in its reporting that this acquisition gives Qualcomm "direct access to the tinkerers, hobbyists and companies at the lowest levels of the robotics industry." From the report: Arduino products can't be used to build commercial products but, with chips preinstalled, they're popular for testing out a new idea or proving a concept. Qualcomm hopes that Arduino can help it gain loyalty and legitimacy among startups and builders as robots and other devices increasingly need more powerful chips for artificial intelligence. When some of those experiments become products, Qualcomm wants to sell them its chips commercially.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://slashdot.org/story/25/10/07/2032219/qualcomm-is-buying-arduino-releases-new-raspberry-pi-esque-arduino-board?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

[>] Anthropic and IBM Announce Strategic Partnership
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2025-10-08 02:22:02


Longtime Slashdot reader kamesh shares a report from TechCrunch: Tech behemoth IBM is teaming up with AI research lab Anthropic to bring AI into its software. Armonk, New York-based IBM announced it will be adding Anthropic's Claude large language model family into some of its software products on Tuesday. The first product to tap Claude will be IBM's integrated development environment, which is already available to a select group of customers. IBM also announced it created a guide in partnership with Anthropic on how enterprises can build, deploy, and maintain enterprise-grade AI agents. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://slashdot.org/story/25/10/07/2050249/anthropic-and-ibm-announce-strategic-partnership?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

[>] OpenAI Bans Suspected China-Linked Accounts For Seeking Surveillance Proposals
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2025-10-08 03:22:02


Longtime Slashdot reader schwit1 shares a report from Reuters: OpenAI said on Tuesday it has banned several ChatGPT accounts with suspected links to the Chinese government entities after the users asked for proposals to monitor social media conversations. In its latest public threat report (PDF), OpenAI said some individuals had asked its chatbot to outline social media 'listening' tools and other monitoring concepts, violating the startup's national security policy.

The San Francisco-based firm's report raises safety concerns over potential misuse of generative AI amid growing competition between the U.S. and China to shape the technology's development and rules. OpenAI said it also banned several Chinese-language accounts that used ChatGPT to assist phishing and malware campaigns and asked the model to research additional automation that could be achieved through China's DeepSeek. It also banned accounts tied to suspected Russian-speaking criminal groups that used the chatbot to help develop certain malware, OpenAI said.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://slashdot.org/story/25/10/07/2057223/openai-bans-suspected-china-linked-accounts-for-seeking-surveillance-proposals?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

[>] Sora 2 Watermark Removers Flood the Web
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2025-10-08 04:22:01


An anonymous reader quotes a report from 404 Media: Sora 2, Open AI's new AI video generator, puts a visual watermark on every video it generates. But the little cartoon-eyed cloud logo meant to help people distinguish between reality and AI-generated bullshit is easy to remove and there are half a dozen websites that will help anyone do it in a few minutes. A simple search for "sora watermark" on any social media site will return links to places where a user can upload a Sora 2 video and remove the watermark. 404 Media tested three of these websites, and they all seamlessly removed the watermark from the video in a matter of seconds.

Hany Farid, a UC Berkeley professor and an expert on digitally manipulated images, said he's not shocked at how fast people were able to remove watermarks from Sora 2 videos. "It was predictable," he said. "Sora isn't the first AI model to add visible watermarks and this isn't the first time that within hours of these models being released, someone released code or a service to remove these watermarks." [...] According to Farid, Open AI is decent at employing strategies like watermarks, content credentials, and semantic guardrails to manage malicious use. But it doesn't matter. "It is just a matter of time before someone else releases a model without these safeguards," he said.

Both [Rachel Tobac, CEO of SocialProof Security] and Farid said that the ease at which people can remove watermarks from AI-generated content wasn't a reason to stop using watermarks. "Using a watermark is the bare minimum for an organization attempting to minimize the harm that their AI video and audio tools create," Tobac said, but she thinks the companies need to go further. "We will need to see a broad partnership between AI and Social Media companies to build in detection for scams/harmful content and AI labeling not only on the AI generation side, but also on the upload side for social media platforms. Social Media companies will also need to build large teams to manage the likely influx of AI generated social media video and audio content to detect and limit the reach for scammy and harmful content." "I'd like to know what OpenAI is doing to respond to how people are finding ways around their safeguards," Farid said. "Will they adapt and strengthen their guardrails? Will they ban users from their platforms? If they are not aggressive here, then this is going to end badly for us all."

[ Read more of this story ]( https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/10/07/2110246/sora-2-watermark-removers-flood-the-web?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

[>] Micro Center Partners With iFixit
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2025-10-08 04:22:01


BrianFagioli shares a report from NERDS.xyz: Micro Center and iFixit have announced a partnership that combines the DIY repair giant's guides, parts, and toolkits with Micro Center's nationwide chain of computer and electronics stores. Customers browsing iFixit online can now find local Micro Center locations through a built-in locator and even stop in for a free consultation with a certified technician. Inside stores, shoppers will see iFixit toolkits and parts on shelves, while Micro Center's in-house technicians begin using iFixit's gear for professional repairs.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/25/10/07/2118214/micro-center-partners-with-ifixit?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

[>] Security Bug In India's Income Tax Portal Exposed Taxpayers' Sensitive Data
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2025-10-08 05:22:01


A now-fixed security flaw in India's income tax e-filing portal exposed millions of taxpayers' personal and financial data due to a basic IDOR vulnerability that let users view others' records by swapping PAN numbers. "The exposed data included full names, home addresses, email addresses, dates of birth, phone numbers, and bank account details of people who pay taxes on their income in India," reports TechCrunch. "The data also exposed citizens' Aadhaar number, a unique government-issued identifier used as proof of identity and for accessing government services." From the report: The researchers found that when they signed into the portal using their Permanent Account Number (PAN), an official document issued by the Indian income tax department, they could view anyone else's sensitive financial data by swapping out their PAN for another PAN in the network request as the web page loads. This could be done using publicly available tools like Postman or Burp Suite (or using the web browser's in-built developer tools) and with knowledge of someone else's PAN, the researchers told TechCrunch.

The bug was exploitable by anyone who was logged-in to the tax portal because the Indian income tax department's back-end servers were not properly checking who was allowed to access a person's sensitive data. This class of vulnerability is known as an insecure direct object reference, or IDOR, a common and simple flaw that governments have warned is easy to exploit and can result in large-scale data breaches.

"This is an extremely low-hanging thing, but one that has a very severe consequence," the researchers told TechCrunch. In addition to the data of individuals, the researchers said that the bug also exposed data associated with companies who were registered with the e-Filing portal. [...] It remains unclear how long the vulnerability has existed or whether any malicious actors have accessed the exposed data.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://it.slashdot.org/story/25/10/07/2136212/security-bug-in-indias-income-tax-portal-exposed-taxpayers-sensitive-data?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

[>] Your Next Phone Might Come Without a USB Cable
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2025-10-08 06:22:01


Android Authority notes the start of a new trend we're seeing in some new smartphones: devices shipping without USB cables. It follows the earlier industry shift away from bundled charging bricks, which Apple started back in 2020 with the launch of the iPhone 12. While manufacturers cite environmental benefits, "the main driver behind these decisions for companies like Apple and Sony is, of course, profit," writes Android Authority's Taylor Kerns. From the report: Now, it looks like we may be in for a similar shift with bundled USB cables. As shared on the Linus Tech Tips subreddit, user Brick_Fish's recently purchased Sony Xperia 10 VII came without a charger or a charging cable. In a photo included with the post, you can see iconography on the back of the phone's box that spells out these omissions. Sony's not really a major player in the smartphone space these days, but this seems like the type of trend we should expect to see gain traction over the next couple of years. [...]

Apple actually beat Sony to the punch here, in a way. The company's latest earbuds, the AirPods 4 and AirPods Pro 3, both ditched bundled USB cables, as well. Still, Sony's the first manufacturer I've heard of to omit charging cables with its smartphones.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/25/10/08/0034209/your-next-phone-might-come-without-a-usb-cable?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

[>] Can Cory Doctorow's 'Enshittification' Transform the Tech Industry Debate?
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2025-10-08 08:22:01


An anonymous reader quotes a report from the New York Times: Over the course of a nearly four-decade career, Cory Doctorow has written 15 novels, four graphic novels, dozens of short stories, six nonfiction books, approximately 60,000 blog posts and thousands of essays. And yet for all the millions of words he's published, these days the award-winning science fiction author and veteran internet activist is best known for just a single one: Enshittification. The term, which Doctorow, 54, popularized in essays in 2022 and 2023, refers to the way that online platforms become worse to use over time, as the corporations that own them try to make more money. Though the coinage is cheeky, in Doctorow's telling the phenomenon it describes is a specific, nearly scientific process that progresses according to discrete stages, like a disease.

Since then, the meaning has expanded to encompass a general vibe -- a feeling far greater than frustration at Facebook, which long ago ceased being a good way to connect with friends, or Google, whose search is now baggy with SEO spam. Of late, the idea has been employed to describe everything from video games to television to American democracy itself. "It's frustrating. It's demoralizing. It's even terrifying," Doctorow said in a 2024 speech. On Tuesday, Farrar Straus & Giroux will release "Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It," Doctorow's book-length elaboration on his essays, complete with case studies (Uber, Twitter, Photoshop) and his prescriptions for change, which revolve around breaking up big tech companies and regulating them more robustly. Further reading: The Enshittification Hall of Shame

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[>] Wordle Game Show In the Works At NBC
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2025-10-08 11:22:02


NBC is developing a game show based on the New York Times' Wordle puzzle, with Today anchor Savannah Guthrie set to host and Jimmy Fallon executive producing through his company, Electric Hot Dog. The Times is also a production partner. From the Hollywood Reporter: Wordle, which the Times acquired in 2022 and logs billions of plays from the paper's games site annually, gives players six tries to guess a five-letter word, revealing only if letters are in the right place (via a green background) or part of the word but in the wrong place (with a gold background). Should it go forward, the Wordle show would join another Fallon-produced game show, Password, on NBC's unscripted roster. The Tonight Show emcee also executive produces and hosts the network's On Brand, a competition series that revolves around advertising and marketing.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://games.slashdot.org/story/25/10/08/038230/wordle-game-show-in-the-works-at-nbc?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

[>] Should the Autism Spectrum Be Split Apart?
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2025-10-08 14:22:02


XXongo writes: A New York times article suggests that merging the diagnosis of Asperger's syndrome into the Autism diagnosis in 2013, thus creating the "autism spectrum disorder," was not helpful (paywalled; alternative source). That broadening of the diagnosis, along with the increasing awareness of the disorder, is largely responsible for the steep rise in autism cases that Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has called "an epidemic" and has attributed to theories of causality that mainstream scientists reject, like vaccines and, more recently, Tylenol. But the same diagnosis now applies to both people who are non-verbal, frequently engage in self-destructive behavior such as pounding their heads against the floor, and may require full-time care, but also to people who are merely somewhat socially awkward, possibly engage in repetitive behaviors, and have a narrow range of interests. "Everything changed when we included Asperger's [in the diagnosis of autism]," said Dr. Eric Fombonne, a psychiatrist and researcher at Oregon Health & Science University. He noted that in the earliest studies of autism rates, 75% of people with the diagnosis had intellectual disabilities. Now, only about a third do.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://science.slashdot.org/story/25/10/08/0331218/should-the-autism-spectrum-be-split-apart?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

[>] Renewables Overtake Coal As World's Biggest Source of Electricity
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2025-10-08 17:22:01


AmiMoJo shares a report from the BBC: Renewable energy overtook coal as the world's leading source of electricity in the first half of this year -- a historic first, according to new data from the global energy think tank Ember. Electricity demand is growing around the world but the growth in solar and wind was so strong it met 100% of the extra electricity demand, even helping drive a slight decline in coal and gas use. However, Ember says the headlines mask a mixed global picture.

Developing countries, especially China, led the clean energy charge but richer nations including the US and EU relied more than before on planet-warming fossil fuels for electricity generation. This divide is likely to get more pronounced, according to a separate report from the International Energy Agency (IEA). It predicts renewables will grow much less strongly than forecast in the US as a result of the policies of President Donald Trump's administration. Coal, a major contributor to global warming, was still the world's largest individual source of energy generation in 2024, a position it has held for more than 50 years, according to the IEA.

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[>] TiVo Exiting Legacy DVR Business
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2025-10-08 18:22:01


TiVo, the digital video recording pioneer, has moved on from its legacy DVR technology, focusing instead on its branded operating system software promoting third-party content searches, recommendation, including free ad-supported streaming options and more for smart televisions. From a report: "As of Oct. 1, 2025, TiVo has stopped selling Edge DVR hardware products," the company said in an AI-based message. The recording said that the company and its associates no longer manufacture DVR hardware, "and our remaining inventory is now depleted." TiVo said it remains "committed to providing support for our DVR customers and will continue to provide support for the foreseeable future." TiVo in 1999 created the first set-top device enabling users to record and skip ads within television programming.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://entertainment.slashdot.org/story/25/10/08/0621226/tivo-exiting-legacy-dvr-business?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

[>] Nvidia's Huang Says He's Surprised AMD Offered 10% of the Company in 'Clever' OpenAI Deal
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2025-10-08 19:22:01


Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said Wednesday that he's surprised Advanced Micro Devices offered 10% of itself to OpenAI as part of a multibillion-dollar partnership announced earlier this week. From a report: "t's imaginative, it's unique and surprising, considering they were so excited about their next generation product," Huang said in an interview with "CNBC's Squawk Box."

"I'm surprised that they would give away 10% of the company before they even built it. And so anyhow, it's clever, I guess." OpenAI and AMD reached a deal on Monday, with OpenAI committing to purchase 6 gigawatts worth of AMD chips over multiple years, including its forthcoming MI450 series. As part of the agreement, OpenAI will receive warrants for up to 160 million AMD shares, with vesting milestones based on deployment volume and AMD's share price.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://slashdot.org/story/25/10/08/1449201/nvidias-huang-says-hes-surprised-amd-offered-10-of-the-company-in-clever-openai-deal?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

[>] 858TB of Government Data May Be Lost For Good After South Korea Data Center Fire
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2025-10-08 20:22:01


South Korea's government may have permanently lost 858TB of information after a fire at a data center in Daejeon. From a report: As reported by DCD, a battery fire at the National Information Resources Service (NIRS) data center, located in the city of Daejeon, on September 26, has caused havoc for government services in Korea. Work to restore the data center is ongoing, but officials fear data stored on the government's G-Drive may be gone for good. G-Drive, which stands for Government Drive and is not a Google product, was used by government staff to keep documents and other files. Each worker was allocated 30GB of space.

According to a report from The Chosun, the drive was one of 96 systems completely destroyed in the fire, and there is no backup. "The G-Drive couldn't have a backup system due to its large capacity," an unnamed official told The Chosun. "The remaining 95 systems have backup data in online or offline forms." While some departmers do not rely on G-Drive, those that do have been badly impacted in the aftermath of the fire. A source from the Ministry of Personnel Management said: "Employees stored all work materials on the G-Drive and used them as needed, but operations are now practically at a standstill."

[ Read more of this story ]( https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/25/10/08/155239/858tb-of-government-data-may-be-lost-for-good-after-south-korea-data-center-fire?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

[>] Survey Shows Extent of Digital Device Use Among America's Youngest
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2025-10-08 20:22:01


A Pew Research Center survey, released today, found that TV remains the dominant screen for American children aged twelve and younger. 90% of parents reported that their child watches TV. Tablets are used by 68% of children in this age group. 61% use smartphones.

The survey of U.S. parents also documented emerging technology patterns. About one in ten parents said their child between five and twelve years old uses AI chatbots such as ChatGPT or Gemini. Roughly four in ten parents reported that their child uses voice assistants like Siri or Alexa. YouTube appeared in 85% of households. Half of parents said their child uses gaming devices. About four in ten reported desktop or laptop use. The survey found that 62% of parents said their child under two watches television. 42% of parents said they could be doing better at managing screen time for their children.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://slashdot.org/story/25/10/08/1540225/survey-shows-extent-of-digital-device-use-among-americas-youngest?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

[>] Bonfire of the Middle Managers
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2025-10-08 21:22:01


American companies have begun cutting middle management positions at rates not seen in years. Google eliminated 35% of managers overseeing teams of fewer than three in August. Fiverr announced in September it would shed managers to focus on AI. Amazon trimmed its management ranks throughout the year and cut positions at its cloud-computing division in July. Meta's Mark Zuckerberg has complained about managers managing managers since 2023.

Phrases relating to reducing management layers appeared 98 times on earnings calls of companies in the S&P global index this year, twice the frequency of all of 2022. The cuts stem partly from an uncertain economic environment and President Donald Trump's tariff regime, Economist writes. The pandemic created the conditions for the current retrenchment. Companies furloughed staff during Covid-19 and then hired rapidly to meet demand for e-commerce and digital services. They promoted employees to management positions to retain talent even when those managers supervised only one or two subordinates. Between 2019 and 2024, five of the ten fastest-growing job categories were management roles. Since November 2022, listed American companies have cut middle-management positions by around 3% on average.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://slashdot.org/story/25/10/08/1645227/bonfire-of-the-middle-managers?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

[>] Synology Reverses Course on Some Drive Restrictions
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robot(spnet, 1) — All
2025-10-08 22:22:01


Synology has released an update to its Disk Station Manager software that removes verified drive requirements from its 2025 model-year Plus, Value and J-series DiskStation network-attached storage devices. The change allows users to install non-validated third-party drives and create storage pools without restrictions.

The company had expanded its verified drive policy to the entire Plus line a few months earlier. Synology-branded drives carried substantial price premiums over commodity hardware. The HAT5310 enterprise SATA drive costs $299 for 8TB compared to $220 for an identically sized Seagate Exos disk. Users who installed non-verified drives in affected models faced reduced functionality and persistent warning messages in the DSM interface.

Synology said today it is collaborating with third-party drive manufacturers to accelerate testing and verification of additional storage drives. Pool and cache creation on M.2 disks still requires drives from the hardware compatibility list. Synology did not clarify whether the policy change applies to previous-generation products.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/25/10/08/1723232/synology-reverses-course-on-some-drive-restrictions?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

[>] UK Universities Offered To Monitor Students' Social Media For Arms Firms, Emails Show
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robot(spnet, 1) — All
2025-10-08 22:22:01


An anonymous reader shares a report: Universities in the UK reassured arms companies they would monitor students' chat groups and social media accounts after firms raised concerns about campus protests, according to internal emails. One university said it would conduct "active monitoring of social media" for any evidence of plans to demonstrate against Rolls-Royce at a careers fair.

A second appeared to agree to a request from Raytheon UK, the British wing of a major US defence contractor, to "monitor university chat groups" before a campus visit. Another university responded to a defence company's "security questionnaire" seeking information about social media posts suggestive of imminent protests over the firm's alleged role in fuelling war, including in Gaza. The universities' apparent compliance with the sensitivities of arms companies before careers fairs has emerged in emails obtained by the Guardian and Liberty Investigates after freedom of information (FoI) requests.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://yro.slashdot.org/story/25/10/08/1759244/uk-universities-offered-to-monitor-students-social-media-for-arms-firms-emails-show?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

[>] Logitech Will Brick Its $100 Pop Smart Home Buttons on October 15
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robot(spnet, 1) — All
2025-10-08 23:22:01


An anonymous reader shares a report: In another loss for early smart home adopters, Logitech has announced that it will brick all Pop switches on October 15.

In August of 2016, Logitech launched Pop switches, which provide quick access to a range of smart home actions, including third-party gadgets. For example, people could set their Pop buttons to launch Philips Hue or Insteon lighting presets, play a playlist from their Sonos speaker, or control Lutron smart blinds. Each button could store three actions, worked by identifying smart home devices on a shared Wi-Fi network, and was controllable via a dedicated Android or iOS app. The Pop Home Switch Starter Pack launched at $100, and individual Pop Add-on Home Switches debuted at $40 each.

A company spokesperson told Ars Technica that Logitech informed customers on September 29 that their Pop switches would soon become e-waste.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/10/08/1831202/logitech-will-brick-its-100-pop-smart-home-buttons-on-october-15?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

[>] Nobel Prize in Chemistry Awarded To Architects of Metal-Organic Frameworks
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robot(spnet, 1) — All
2025-10-09 00:22:01


Susumu Kitagawa, Richard Robson, and Omar M. Yaghi were awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry on Wednesday for the development of molecular building blocks with spaces large enough that gases and other chemicals can flow through them. The New York Times: The cavities on the inside are "almost like rooms in a hotel, so that guest molecules can enter and also exit again from the same material," Heiner Linke, chair of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry, said during the announcement of the award. The laureates' discoveries, he added, pave the way for the creation of materials that can separate toxic chemicals from wastewater or harvest water molecules in a desert.

The laureates' work started with experiments by Dr. Robson in the 1980s and gradually developed over a period of about 15 years. "It takes time for science to be recognized, and it takes multiple workers in the field with different approaches," said Dorothy Phillips, president of the American Chemical Society. The three laureates will share a prize of 11 million Swedish kronor, or around $1.17 million.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://science.slashdot.org/story/25/10/08/1852221/nobel-prize-in-chemistry-awarded-to-architects-of-metal-organic-frameworks?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

[>] National Security Threatened By Climate Crisis, UK Intelligence Chiefs Due To Warn
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robot(spnet, 1) — All
2025-10-09 00:22:01


The UK's national security is under severe threat from the climate crisis and the looming collapse of vital natural ecosystems, with food shortages and economic disaster potentially just years away, a powerful report by the UK's intelligence chiefs is due to warn. The Guardian: However, the report, which was supposed to launch on Thursday at a landmark event in London, has been delayed, and concerns have been expressed to the Guardian that it may have been blocked by number 10. The destabilising impact of the climate and nature crises on national security is one of the biggest risks facing Britain, the joint intelligence committee report is understood to say.

Already, food import supply chains are coming under pressure, with the price of some commodities increasing. This could be exacerbated in the near future, the defence experts have warned, with the UK over-dependent on imports. Other industries will also be affected by ecosystem collapse in places such as the Amazon and by the worsening impacts of extreme weather around the world. These impacts will not be encountered far off in the future as some had complacently assumed, ministers have been told, but are already being felt and will grow in significance as temperatures rise beyond 1.5C above preindustrial levels.

The hard-hitting report was to be published on Thursday at a landmark event in London. But the Guardian understands that the report, prepared by experts over many months, has been halted.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://news.slashdot.org/story/25/10/08/1928248/national-security-threatened-by-climate-crisis-uk-intelligence-chiefs-due-to-warn?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

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