With America's national debt sitting comfortably over the $36.2 trillion mark, BlackRock CEO Larry Fink is warning the burden could one day be the reason the dollar is dethroned as the reserve currency of the world.
From a report: He argues that decentralized currencies like Bitcoin could replace the dollar as worldwide organizations lose faith in national currencies and seek an independent solution. Fink explained his theory in his 2025 letter to shareholders, writing: "The U.S. has benefited from the dollar serving as the world's reserve currency for decades. But that's not guaranteed to last forever.

"The national debt has grown at three times the pace of GDP since Times Square's debt clock started ticking in 1989. This year, interest payments will surpass $952 billion -- exceeding defense spending. By 2030, mandatory government spending and debt service will consume all federal revenue, creating a permanent deficit. If the U.S. doesn't get its debt under control, if deficits keep ballooning, America risks losing that position to digital assets like Bitcoin."

[ Read more of this story ]( https://slashdot.org/story/25/04/01/1840253/larry-fink-says-bitcoin-could-replace-the-dollar-as-the-worlds-reserve-currency-because-of-national-debt?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Как заявил глава Microsoft Сатья Наделла, в данный момент ведутся работы по адаптации userspace части популярной операционной системы Windows к новому собственному гибридному ядру, основанному на исходных кодах ядра ОС FreeBSD. Таким образом, Windows 12 является последней ОС от Microsoft, которая получит морально устаревшее ядро NT: последующие же релизы получат новое ядро, получившее кодовое название «Tomato».

( [ читать дальше... ]( https://www.linux.org.ru/news/proprietary/17929787#cut ) )

Состоялся релиз web-браузера Firefox 137 и сформированы обновления прошлых веток с длительным сроком поддержки - 115.22.0 и 128.9.0. На стадию бета-тестирования переведена ветка Firefox 138, релиз которой намечен на 29 апреля.

https://www.opennet.ru/opennews/art.shtml?num=62997

Google's AI arm DeepMind has been holding back the release of its world-renowned research, as it seeks to retain a competitive edge in the race to dominate the burgeoning AI industry. From a report: The group, led by Nobel Prize-winner Sir Demis Hassabis, has introduced a tougher vetting process and more bureaucracy that made it harder to publish studies about its work on AI, according to seven current and former research scientists at Google DeepMind. Three former researchers said the group was most reluctant to share papers that reveal innovations that could be exploited by competitors, or cast Google's own Gemini AI model in a negative light compared with others.

The changes represent a significant shift for DeepMind, which has long prided itself on its reputation for releasing groundbreaking papers and as a home for the best scientists building AI. Meanwhile, huge breakthroughs by Google researchers -- such as its 2017 "transformers" paper that provided the architecture behind large language models -- played a central role in creating today's boom in generative AI. Since then, DeepMind has become a central part of its parent company's drive to cash in on the cutting-edge technology, as investors expressed concern that the Big Tech group had ceded its early lead to the likes of ChatGPT maker OpenAI.

"I cannot imagine us putting out the transformer papers for general use now," said one current researcher. Among the changes in the company's publication policies is a six-month embargo before "strategic" papers related to generative AI are released. Researchers also often need to convince several staff members of the merits of publication, said two people with knowledge of the matter.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/04/01/1648250/deepmind-is-holding-back-release-of-ai-research-to-give-google-an-edge?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Credit card interest rates, which averaged 23% in 2023, are significantly higher than any other major loan product primarily due to non-diversifiable default risk and banks' market power, according to research published by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

The comprehensive study, which analyzed 330 million monthly credit card accounts, found that while high default losses contribute to elevated rates, they explain only part of the picture. Even high-FICO borrowers pay spreads exceeding 7% above the federal funds rate. Researchers determined that credit card banks have substantial pricing power, achieved through exceptionally high operating expenses -- about 4-5% of dollar balances annually -- with marketing costs ten times higher than those at other banks.

"Credit card charge-off rates are highly correlated with default rates on banks' other loans as well as on corporate bonds," the researchers said, noting that default risk cannot be diversified away across lending markets, particularly during economic downturns. The study estimated that exposure to aggregate default risk carries a premium of 5.3% per year, which fully explains the relationship between return on assets and credit scores.

Credit cards are ubiquitous in American finance, with 74% of adults owning at least one card, and the payment method accounting for 70% of retail spending. According to the research, 60% of accounts carry balances month-to-month.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://news.slashdot.org/story/25/04/01/1542236/study-reveals-why-credit-card-interest-rates-remain-stubbornly-high?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

London's mayor has axed a cyber crime helpline for the victims of online abuse, triggering a backlash from campaigners who argue that women and girls will be left struggling to access vital support. From a report: The service, which was shut down on Tuesday, assisted victims of fraud, revenge porn and cyberstalking to protect their digital identity. During its 18-months of operation it led to 2,060 cases being opened. The helpline was launched in 2023 as a one-year pilot scheme with $220,000 in funding from the Mayor's Office for Policing and Crime (Mopac), and was later extended by six months.

Conservative London Assembly member Emma Best said an informal evaluation showed the helpline "was working" and was going to be extended for another year. However, Sadiq Khan said that the scheme would be closed. "It was a pilot and pilots are what they say on the tinâ... we will receive an end of project report, we have collected the data and the results of that report will inform our future work," he said, speaking at Mayor's Question Time.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://news.slashdot.org/story/25/04/01/1531202/london-mayor-axes-cyber-crime-victim-support-line?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Google is rolling out a new encryption model for Gmail that allows enterprise users to send encrypted messages without requiring recipients to use custom software or exchange encryption certificates. The feature, launching in beta today, initially supports encrypted emails within the same organization, with plans to expand to all Gmail inboxes "in the coming weeks" and third-party email providers "later this year."

Unlike Gmail's current S/MIME-based encryption, the new system lets users simply toggle "additional encryption" in the email draft window. Non-Gmail recipients will receive a link to access messages through a guest Google Workspace account, while Gmail users will see automatically decrypted emails in their inbox.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://it.slashdot.org/story/25/04/01/1440224/gmail-is-making-it-easier-for-businesses-to-send-encrypted-emails-to-anyone?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Economic models have systematically underestimated how global heating will affect people's wealth, according to a new study that finds 4C warming will make the average person 40% poorer -- an almost four-fold increase on some estimates. The Guardian: The study by Australian scientists suggests average per person GDP across the globe will be reduced by 16% even if warming is kept to 2C above pre-industrial levels. This is a much greater reduction than previous estimates, which found the reduction would be 1.4%.

Scientists now estimate global temperatures will rise by 2.1C even if countries hit short-term and long-term climate targets. Criticisms have mounted in recent years that a set of economic tools known as integrated assessment models (IAM) -- used to guide how much governments should invest in cutting greenhouse gas emissions -- have failed to capture major risks from climate change, particularly extreme weather events. The new study, in the journal Environmental Research Letters, took one of the most popular economic models and enhanced it with climate change forecasts to capture the impacts of extreme weather events across global supply chains.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://news.slashdot.org/story/25/04/01/135253/average-person-will-be-40-poorer-if-world-warms-by-4c-new-research-shows?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Проект FreeCAD [ анонсировал ]( https://blog.freecad.org/2025/03/30/freecad-telemetry-addon-is-now-available/ ) сбор телеметрии в приложении. Данные помогут разработчикам составить объективную картину об использовании FreeCAD — без эмоций, которыми переполнены трекер ошибок и пользовательский форум.

Какие данные собираются:

• Системная информация (ОС, архитектура).

• Пользовательские предпочтения (тема, конфигурация интерфейса).

• Список установленных аддонов и макросов от сторонних разработчиков.

• Крэш-логи.

• Ошибки, которые пользователь совершает при использовании программы, такие как избыточное использование ограничителей.

• Содержание чертежей и моделей.

Чтобы не нарушать GDPR и различные законы о защите персональных данных, пользователям будет назначаться рандомный UUID.

Сбор телеметрии выключен по умолчанию. Функция уже доступна в свежих еженедельных сборках и будет одним из главных новшеств последующего мажорного релиза (1.2).

В качестве встречного сервиса, аддон анализирует открытые в приложении модели, сравнивает их с базами данных зарегистрированных патентов и при отсутствии совпадений автоматически формирует заявку на патент. При успешной регистрации патента проект будет получать процент от патентных отчислений. Это позволит разработчикам FreeCAD наконец-то купить собственную кофе-машину для стенда FOSDEM.

Кроме того, тестируется [ ИИ-аддон ]( https://github.com/FreeCAD/FPA-grant-proposals/issues/12 ) , который на основании данных телеметрии будет говорить пользователям Sketcher «да не так, неуч, вот, смотри, как надо» и исправлять чертежи. Аддон был изначально разработан для обучения студентов-инженеров, но отраслевая практика показала жизненную необходимость существенно расширить его применение.

Запланирован аналогичный аддон для верстака сборки, который будет определять ошибки в сборке, красочно и в шокирующих подробностях анимировать сопутствующие механические повреждения конструкции при помощи библиотеки [ Bullet ]( https://pybullet.org/wordpress/ ) , а затем автоматически расставлять ограничения для соединений Revolute, Cylindrical и Slider.

https://www.linux.org.ru/news/opensource/17929964

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: China's Xiaomi said on Tuesday that it was actively cooperating with police after a fatal accident involving a SU7 electric vehicle on March 29 and that it had handed over driving and system data. The incident marks the first major accident involving the SU7 sedan, which Xiaomi launched in March last year and since December has outsold Tesla's Model 3 on a monthly basis. Xiaomi's shares, which had risen by 34.8% year to date, closed down 5.5% on Wednesday, underperforming a 0.2% gain in the Hang Seng Tech index. Xiaomi did not disclose the number of casualties but said initial information showed the car was in the Navigate on Autopilot intelligent-assisted driving mode before the accident and was moving at 116 kph (72 mph).

A driver inside the car took over and tried to slow it down but then collided with a cement pole at a speed of 97 kph, Xiaomi said. The accident in Tongling in the eastern Chinese province of Anhui killed the driver and two passengers, Chinese financial publication Caixin reported on Tuesday citing friends of the victims. In a rundown of the data submitted to local police posted on a Weibo account of the company, Xiaomi said NOA issued a risk warning of obstacles ahead and its subsequent immediate takeover only happened seconds before the collision. Local media reported that the car caught fire after the collision. Xiaomi did not mention the fire in the statement. The report notes that the car was a "so-called standard version of the SU7, which has the less-advanced smart driving technology without LiDAR."

[ Read more of this story ]( https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/04/01/1129255/xiaomi-ev-involved-in-first-fatal-autopilot-crash?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Как всем известно, язык программирования С++, пожалуй, самый большой по объему из ЯП. Даже программисты, которые пишут на нем десятки лет не могут похвастаться, что знают его полностью. В связи с чем комитет по стандартизации С++ принял нелегкое решение: чтобы язык оставался конкурентоспособным перед напирающими новыми ЯП, например rust, нужно удалить из него все легаси фичи, написаные непонятно какими гоблинами в мохнатые восьмидесятые. В этом помогут хорошо известные на этом форуме разработчики Gnome, которые в свое время удалили все лишние фичи из своей DE, тем самым сделав ее вне конкуренции. Они будут удалять все фичи, пока не удалят все «плюсы» и не дойдут до С, из которого и вылез C++, но на этом не остановятся, оставят от языка только минимальный C--. В частности:

• шаблоны удалят и заменят их опциональной динамической типизацией (просадка производительности будет не существенна для современных компьютеров)

• исключения будут заменены кодами ошибки в гошном стиле if err != nil

• будет удалена необходимость в системах сборки, вместо этого будет ПМ в стиле composer для PHP

• множественное наследование будет удалено вместе с свободными функциями, теперь все будет объектом, и все объекты будут наследоваться от базового класса Object

• удалить undefined behavior полностью нельзя из-за стокгольмского синдрома у разработчиков, поэтому все UB будут автоматом оборачиваться в юнит тест, выполняемый 10 раз, и программисту будет сообщатся, какой именно behavior выбрал компилятор в большинстве случаев

Основатель языка Бьярн Страус-труп уже высказался скептически о изменениях, аргументируя это тем, что разработчики Gnome не пользуются ни C++, ни Gnome.

https://www.linux.org.ru/news/opensource/17929941

30 Марта 2025 года – В мире графических систем для Linux произошло значимое событие: анонсирован выход X12 и его эталонной реализации Xero, которые уже сейчас заявляют о себе как серьёзные конкуренты для популярного протокола Wayland. Разработчики уверены, что их новое творение принесёт пользователям множество преимуществ, которые помогут преодолеть недостатки более старой технологии.

•

[ Страница протокола X12 ]( https://www.x.org/wiki/Development/X12/ )

•

[ Страница проекта Xero ]( http://f1046282.xsph.ru/index2.html )

Преимущества Xero:

Одним из ключевых достоинств Xero является его высокая производительность. Новый протокол разработан с учётом современных графических технологий и оптимизирован для работы с многоядерными процессорами, что позволяет значительно улучшить скорость рендеринга. В результате, пользователи смогут наслаждаться более плавной и отзывчивой графикой.

Кроме того, Xero предлагает расширенные возможности для настройки. Новая система управления разрешениями и доступом предоставляет разработчикам гибкость в управлении графическими ресурсами, что иногда является проблемой в Wayland. Это позволяет создавать более сложные и динамичные интерфейсы.

Также стоит отметить, что Xero обеспечивает лучшую интеграцию с современными видеокартами и графическими API, такими как Vulkan и OpenGL. Это делает его предпочтительным выбором для разработчиков игр и приложений, желающих использовать последние достижения в области графики.

•

Совместимость с Legacy-приложениями: Благодаря встроенной подсистеме XLegacyBridge, Xero обеспечивает высокий уровень совместимости с устаревшими приложениями, которые до сих пор используют X11, что делает переход на новую систему более плавным.

•

Работа с графикой: Подсистема XRenderBoost в Xero предлагает значительно улучшенное качество рендеринга за счет поддержки аппаратного ускорения и расширенной работы с OpenGL. Это позволяет разработчикам создавать более эффективные и визуально привлекательные приложения.

•

API для управления окнами: Новый API XeroWindowAPI упрощает управление окнами, предоставляя разработчикам возможность легко добавлять, скрывать и перемещать окна, а также использовать события, связанные с взаимодействием пользователя.

•

API для реализации круглых окон XeroRaundWin преобразует любое окно в круглое или овальное, это будущая снова дня нового типа окон в Gnome45, так как в этой версии предполагается отказ от устаревших окон прямоугольной формы.

•

Безопасность и изолированность приложений: Xero внедряет концепцию изолированного выполнения через подсистему AppSandbox, что обеспечивает надежную защиту пользовательских данных и минимизирует риски, связанные с вредоносными программами.

•

Поддержка сетевых протоколов: Новая подсистема XNetProtocol обеспечивает стабильную работу приложений в сетевых средах, позволяя использовать удаленное отображение графики без потери производительности.

Недостатки Wayland:

Хотя Wayland стал стандартом для многих дистрибутивов, он всё ещё имеет ряд недостатков. Например, ограниченная поддержка устаревших приложений и систем может стать проблемой для пользователей, использующих более старые программные решения. Кроме того, иногда возникают сложности с совместимостью — некоторые программы могут работать нестабильно из-за особенностей реализации протокола.

Xero, в свою очередь, стремится решить эти проблемы, предлагая лучший уровень совместимости и поддержку более широкого спектра приложений. Это делает новую реализацию привлекательной для аудитории, которая хочет использовать как старые, так и новые технологии без ограничений.

Выпуск X12 и Xero знаменует собой существенно новый этап в развитии графических систем для Linux. Поскольку пользователи всё больше ожидают от своих систем высокой производительности и гибкости, такое появление конкурента Wayland может изменить правила игры на рынке. Теперь разработчикам и пользователям остаётся только подождать и посмотреть, как новая система будет себя проявлять в реальных условиях.

>>> [ Xero API Documentation ]( https://xero-project.org.example.com/documentation )

>>> [ Xero Git Repository ]( https://github.com.example.com/xero12-project )

https://www.linux.org.ru/news/opensource/17929753

В состав кодовой базы ядра Linux, на основе которой формируется выпуск 6.15, принят набор изменений с оптимизациями, в ряде ситуаций значительно повышающих производительность сетевых операций.

https://www.opennet.ru/opennews/art.shtml?num=62995

Britain's flagship AI agency will slash the number of projects it backs and prioritize work on defense, environment and health as it seeks to respond to technological advances and criticism of its record. From a report: The Alan Turing Institute -- named after the pioneering British computer scientist -- will shut or offload almost a quarter of its 101 current initiatives and is considering job cuts as part of a change programme that led scores of staff to write a letter expressing their loss of confidence in the leadership in December.

Jean Innes, appointed chief executive in July 2023, argued that huge advances in AI meant the Turing needed to modernise after being founded as a national data science institute by David Cameron's government a decade ago this month. "The Turing has chalked up some really great achievements," Innes said in an interview. "[But we need] a big strategic shift to a much more focused agenda on a small number of problems that have an impact in the real world." A review last year by UK Research and Innovation, the government funding body, found "a clear need for the governance and leadership structure of the Institute to evolve." It called for a move away from the dominance of universities to a structure more representative of AI in UK.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://news.slashdot.org/story/25/04/01/1036204/alan-turing-institute-plans-revamp-in-face-of-criticism-and-technological-change?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Apple открыли исходный код эмулятора PlayStation 5. Эмулятор называется Ojina. Эмулятор доступен нативно на Маках, iPhone, iPad, все линуксы (ARM64 и AMD64), chromeOS и Android. Доступен под лицензией GNU GPL. Разработка эмулятора шла два года.

Название Ojina происходит от BlackBerry. Эмулятор Ojina поддерживает на играбельном уровне без проблем все игры PS5. Ojina поддерживает геймпады DualSense, Xbox Series Controller, Xbox Elite Controller и геймпады аля GameSir X2s и BackBone One.

Эмулятор поддерживает как пиратские копии игр PS5, так и лицензионные диски PS5. Для лицензионных дисков PS5 Apple продают внешний [ 4K-Blu-Ray-привод ]( https://www.apple.com/ ) на USB-C за 50 долларов. Данный привод, совместим со всеми устройствами - как Apple-устройства, так и не Apple-устройства. Для лицензионного гейминга Apple сделали в эмуляторе PS5 поддержку PSN.

Apple создали эмулятор PS5 для улучшения и распространения гейминга на Apple-устройствах, Linux и смартфонах.

https://www.linux.org.ru/news/games/17929561

Представлен выпуск системы резервного копирования Restic 0.18, позволяющей хранить резервные копии в зашифрованном виде в версионированном репозитории с поддержкой дедупликации. Система изначально рассчитана на то, что резервные копии сохраняются в окружениях не заслуживающих доверия, и попадание резервной копии в чужие руки не должно скомпрометировать систему. При создании резервной копии возможно определение гибких правил для включения и исключения файлов и каталогов (формат правил напоминает rsync или gitignore). Поддерживается работа в Linux, macOS, Windows и BSD-системах. Код проекта написан на языке Go и распространяется под лицензией BSD.

https://www.opennet.ru/opennews/art.shtml?num=62996

TOP10 VISITORS:

[1] 45.135.180.x point=220 web=0 up=18.2MB (32%) <--- 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=72 web=0 up=6.9MB (12%) <--- tgi (3/hr)
[4] PetalBot point=89 web=739 up=4.7MB (8%) <--- PetalBot (4/hr)
[5] Facebook point=0 web=439 up=4.3MB (7%)
[6] 24.130.121.x point=23 web=4 up=1.8MB (3%) <--- spnet (1/hr)
[7] ChatGPT point=1 web=7 up=0.9MB (1%) <--- ChatGPT
[8] 217.114.158.x point=24 web=0 up=0.8MB (1%) <--- fox (1/hr)
[9] Google point=2 web=153 up=0.8MB (1%) <--- Google
[10] TikTok point=0 web=106 up=0.3MB (<1%)

TOTAL TRAFFIC: 56MB

Anthropic said it will start sweeping physical offices for hidden devices as part of a ramped-up security effort as the AI race intensifies. From a report: The company, backed by Amazon and Google, published safety and security updates in a blog post on Monday, and said it also plans to establish an executive risk council and build an in-house security team. Anthropic closed its latest funding round earlier this month at a $61.5 billion valuation, which makes it one of the highest-valued AI startups.

In addition to high-growth startups, tech giants including Google, Amazon and Microsoft are racing to announce new products and features. Competition is also coming from China, a risk that became more evident earlier this year when DeepSeek's AI model went viral in the U.S. Anthropic said in the post that it will introduce "physical" safety processes, such as technical surveillance countermeasures -- or the process of finding and identifying surveillance devices that are used to spy on organizations. The sweeps will be conducted "using advanced detection equipment and techniques" and will look for "intruders."

[ Read more of this story ]( https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/04/01/0226252/anthropic-will-begin-sweeping-offices-for-hidden-devices?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Привет, ЛОР!

Как ты, наверное, слышал, в течение многих лет графический редактор GNU Image Manipulation Program (GIMP, в переводе «калека») сталкивается с критикой своего названия, которое, по мнению многих активистов, является оскорбительным. Из-за этого даже был создан форк под названием [ Glimpse ]( https://github.com/joshgiesbrecht/Glimpse ) .

Авторы GIMP наконец решили прислушаться к мнению сообщества и после недолгого обсуждения остановились на новом названии: FOSS Arts & Graphics (FAG). Такое название выбрано как более толерантное к лицам с ограниченными возможностями, а так же чтобы подчеркнуть независимость от проекта GNU, который в свою очередь в последнее время так же подвергся массивной критике. Официально миграция на новое название начнётся с 1 апреля этого года, все работы планируется завершить к лету.

https://www.linux.org.ru/news/opensource/17927659

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: The first flight of Isar Aerospace's Spectrum rocket didn't last long on Sunday. The booster's nine engines switched off as the rocket cartwheeled upside-down and fell a short distance from its Arctic launch pad in Norway, punctuating the abbreviated test flight with a spectacular fiery crash into the sea. If officials at Isar Aerospace were able to pick the outcome of their first test flight, it wouldn't be this. However, the result has precedent. The first launch of SpaceX's Falcon 1 rocket in 2006 ended in similar fashion. "Today, we know twice as much about our launch system as yesterday before launch," Daniel Metzler, Isar's co-founder and CEO, wrote on X early Monday. "Can't beat flight testing. Ploughing through lots of data now."

Isar Aerospace, based in Germany, is the first in a crop of new European rocket companies to attempt an orbital launch. If all went according to plan, Isar's Spectrum rocket would have arced to the north from Andoya Spaceport in Norway and reached a polar orbit. But officials knew there was only a low chance of reaching orbit on the first flight. For this reason, Isar did not fly any customer payloads on the Spectrum rocket, designed to deliver up to 2,200 pounds (1,000 kilograms) of payload mass to low-Earth orbit. [...] Isar declared the launch a success in its public statements, but was it? [...] Metzler, Isar's chief executive, was asked last year what he would consider a successful inaugural flight of Spectrum. "For me, the first flight will be a success if we don't blow up the launch site," he said at the Handelsblatt innovation conference. "That would probably be the thing that would set us back the most in terms of technology and time."

This tempering of expectations sounds remarkably similar to statements made by Elon Musk about SpaceX's first flight of the Starship rocket in 2023. By this measure, Isar officials can be content with Sunday's result. The company is modeling its test strategy on SpaceX's iterative development cycle, where engineers test early, make fixes, and fly again. This is in stark contrast to the way Europe has traditionally developed rockets. The alternative to Isar's approach could be to "spend 15 years researching, doing simulations, and then getting it right the first time," Metzler said. With the first launch of Spectrum, Isar has tested the rocket. Now, it's time to make fixes and fly again. That, Isar's leaders argue, will be the real measure of success. "We're super happy," Metzler said in a press call after Sunday's flight. "It's a time for people to be proud of, and for Europe, frankly, also to be proud of." You can watch a replay of the live launch webcast on YouTube.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://science.slashdot.org/story/25/03/31/217214/first-flight-of-isar-aerospaces-spectrum-rocket-lasted-just-40-seconds?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Software engineer Sergey Tselovalnikov weighs in on the new hype: The term caught on and Twitter quickly flooded with posts about how AI has radically transformed coding and will soon replace all software engineers. While AI undeniably impacts the way we write code, it hasn't fundamentally changed our role as engineers. Allow me to explain.

[...] Vibe coding is interacting with the codebase via prompts. As the implementation is hidden from the "vibe coder", all the engineering concerns will inevitably get ignored. Many of the concerns are hard to express in a prompt, and many of them are hard to verify by only inspecting the final artifact. Historically, all engineering practices have tried to shift all those concerns left -- to the earlier stages of development when they're cheap to address. Yet with vibe coding, they're shifted very far to the right -- when addressing them is expensive.

The question of whether an AI system can perform the complete engineering cycle and build and evolve software the same way a human can remains open. However, there are no signs of it being able to do so at this point, and if it one day happens, it won't have anything to do with vibe coding -- at least the way it's defined today.

[...] It is possible that there'll be a future where software is built from vibe-coded blocks, but the work of designing software able to evolve and scale doesn't go away. That's not vibe engineering -- that's just engineering, even if the coding part of it will look a bit different.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://developers.slashdot.org/story/25/04/01/0129224/there-is-no-vibe-engineering?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Intel Chief Executive Officer Lip-Bu Tan said the chipmaker will spin off assets that aren't central to its mission and create new products including custom semiconductors to try to better align itself with customers. From a report: Intel needs to replace the engineering talent it has lost, improve its balance sheet and better attune manufacturing processes to meet the needs of potential customers, Tan said. Speaking at his first public appearance as CEO, at the Intel Vision conference Monday in Las Vegas, Tan didn't specify what parts of Intel he believes are no longer central to its future.

"We have a lot of hard work ahead," Tan said, addressing the company's customers in the audience. "There are areas where we've fallen short of your expectations." The veteran semiconductor executive is trying to restore the fortunes of a company that dominated an industry for decades, but now finds itself chasing rivals in most of the areas that define success in the field. A key question confronting its leadership is whether a turnaround is best served by the company remaining whole or splitting up its key product and manufacturing operations. Tan gave no indication that he will seek to divest either part of Intel. Instead, he highlighted the problems he needs to fix to get both units performing more successfully. Intel's chips for data center and AI-related work in particular are not good enough, he said. "We fell behind on innovation," the CEO said. "We have been too slow to adapt and meet your needs."

[ Read more of this story ]( https://slashdot.org/story/25/04/01/0036239/intel-ceo-lip-bu-tan-says-company-will-spin-off-non-core-units?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Bruce66423 shares a report from the BBC: A former GCHQ intern has admitted risking national security by taking top secret data home with him on his mobile phone. Hasaan Arshad, 25, pleaded guilty to an offence under the Computer Misuse Act on what would have been the first day of his trial at the Old Bailey in London. The charge related to committing an unauthorised act which risked damaging national security.

Arshad, from Rochdale in Greater Manchester, is said to have transferred sensitive data from a secure computer to his phone, which he had taken into a top secret area of GCHQ on 24 August 2022. [...] The court heard that Arshad took his work mobile into a top secret GCHQ area and connected it to work station. He then transferred sensitive data from a secure, top secret computer to the phone before taking it home, it was claimed. Arshad then transferred the data from the phone to a hard drive connected to his personal home computer. "Seriously? What on earth was the UK's equivalent of the NSA doing allowing its hardware to carry out such a transfer?" questions Bruce66423.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://yro.slashdot.org/story/25/03/31/2114234/uks-gchq-intern-transferred-top-secret-files-to-his-phone?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Taiwanese authorities have accused 11 Chinese companies, including SMIC, of secretly setting up disguised entities in Taiwan to illegally recruit tech talent from firms like Intel and Microsoft. The Register reports: One of those companies is apparently called Yunhe Zhiwang (Shanghai) Technology Co., Ltd and develops high-end network chips. The Bureau claims its chips are used in China's "Data East, Compute West" strategy that, as we reported when it was announced in 2022, calls for five million racks full of kit to be moved from China's big cities in the east to new datacenters located near renewable energy sources in country's west. Datacenters in China's east will be used for latency-sensitive applications, while heavy lifting takes place in the west. Staff from Intel and Microsoft were apparently lured to work for Yunhe Zhiwang, which disguised its true ownership by working through a Singaporean company.

The Investigation Bureau also alleged that China's largest chipmaker, Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (SMIC), used a Samoan company to establish a presence in Taiwan and then hired local talent. That's a concerning scenario as SMIC is on the USA's "entity list" of organizations felt to represent a national security risk. The US gets tetchy when its friends and allies work with companies on the entity list.

A third Chinese entity, Shenzhen Tongrui Microelectronics Technology, disguised itself so well Taiwan's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology lauded it as an important innovator and growth company. As a result of the Bureau's work, prosecutors' offices in seven Taiwanese cities are now looking into 11 Chinese companies thought to have hidden their ties to Beijing.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://slashdot.org/story/25/03/31/2018240/intel-and-microsoft-staff-allegedly-lured-to-work-for-fake-chinese-company-in-taiwan?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

OpenAI plans to release a new open-weight language model -- its first since GPT-2 -- in the coming months and is seeking community feedback to shape its development. "That's according to a feedback form the company published on its website Monday," reports TechCrunch. "The form, which OpenAI is inviting 'developers, researchers, and [members of] the broader community' to fill out, includes questions like 'What would you like to see in an open-weight model from OpenAI?' and 'What open models have you used in the past?'" From the report: "We're excited to collaborate with developers, researchers, and the broader community to gather inputs and make this model as useful as possible," OpenAI wrote on its website. "If you're interested in joining a feedback session with the OpenAI team, please let us know [in the form] below." OpenAI plans to host developer events to gather feedback and, in the future, demo prototypes of the model. The first will take place in San Francisco within a few weeks, followed by sessions in Europe and Asia-Pacific regions.

OpenAI is facing increasing pressure from rivals such as Chinese AI lab DeepSeek, which have adopted an "open" approach to launching models. In contrast to OpenAI's strategy, these "open" competitors make their models available to the AI community for experimentation and, in some cases, commercialization.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://news.slashdot.org/story/25/03/31/203249/openai-plans-to-release-a-new-open-ai-language-model-in-the-coming-months?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: Google has agreed to pay $100 million in cash to settle a long-running lawsuit claiming it overcharged advertisers by failing to provide promised discounts and charged for clicks on ads outside the geographic areas the advertisers targeted. A preliminary settlement of the 14-year-old class action, which began in March 2011, was filed late Thursday in the San Jose, California, federal court, and requires a judge's approval.

Advertisers who participated in Google's AdWords program, now known as Google Ads, accused the search engine operator of breaching its contract by manipulating its Smart Pricing formula to artificially reduce discounts. The advertisers also said Google, a unit of Mountain View, California-based Alphabet, misled them by failing to limit ad distribution to locations they designated, violating California's unfair competition law. Thursday's settlement covers advertisers who used AdWords between January 1, 2004, and December 13, 2012.

Google denied wrongdoing in agreeing to settle. "This case was about ad product features we changed over a decade ago and we're pleased it's resolved," spokesman Jose Castaneda said in an emailed statement. Lawyers for the plaintiffs may seek fees of up to 33% of the settlement fund, plus $4.2 million for expenses. According to court papers, the case took a long time as the parties produced extensive evidence, including more than 910,000 pages of documents and multiple terabytes of click data from Google, and participated in six mediation sessions before four different mediators.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://yro.slashdot.org/story/25/03/31/1957239/google-to-pay-100-million-to-settle-14-year-old-advertising-lawsuit?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

The Chrome extension Honey has lost over 4 million users after a viral video exposed it for hijacking affiliate codes and misleading users about finding the best coupon deals. 9to5Google reports: As we reported in early January, Honey had lost around 3 million users immediately after the video went viral, but ended up gaining back around 1 million later on. Now, as of March 2025, Honey is down to 16 million users on Chrome, down from its peak of 20 million.

This drop comes after new Chrome policy has taken effect which prevents Honey, and extensions like it, from practices including taking over affiliate codes without disclosure or without benefit to the extension's users. Honey has since updated its extension listing with disclosure, and we found that the behavior shown in the December video no longer occurs.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/03/31/1948230/honey-lost-4-million-chrome-users-after-shady-tactics-were-revealed?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Опубликован релиз Phosh 0.46, экранной оболочки для мобильных устройств, основанной на технологиях GNOME и библиотеке GTK. Окружение изначально развивалось компанией Purism в качестве аналога GNOME Shell для смартфона Librem 5, но затем вошло в число неофициальных проектов GNOME и используется в postmarketOS, Mobian, Droidian, некоторых прошивках для устройств Pine64 и редакции Fedora для смартфонов. Phosh использует композитный сервер Phoc, работающий поверх Wayland, а также собственную экранную клавиатуру squeekboard. Наработки проекта распространяются под лицензией GPLv3+.

https://www.opennet.ru/opennews/art.shtml?num=62992

OpenAI is having another viral moment after releasing Images for ChatGPT last week, with millions of people creating Studio Ghibli-inspired AI art. In a post on X today, CEO Sam Altman said the company has "added one million users in the last hour" alone. A few days prior he begged users to stop generating images because he said "our GPUs are melting."

[ Read more of this story ]( https://slashdot.org/story/25/03/31/1936214/chatgpt-added-one-million-users-in-the-last-hour?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from 404 Media: The creator of an open source genetic database is shutting it down and deleting all of its data because he has come to believe that its existence is dangerous with "a rise in far-right and other authoritarian governments" in the United States and elsewhere. "The largest use case for DTC genetic data was not biomedical research or research in big pharma," Bastian Greshake Tzovaras, the founder of OpenSNP, wrote in a blog post. "Instead, the transformative impact of the data came to fruition among law enforcement agencies, who have put the genealogical properties of genetic data to use."

OpenSNP has collected roughly 7,500 genomes over the last 14 years, primarily by allowing people to voluntarily submit their own genetic information they have downloaded from 23andMe. With the bankruptcy of 23andMe, increased interest in genetic data by law enforcement, and the return of Donald Trump and rise of authoritarian governments worldwide, Greshake Tzovaras told 404 Media he no longer believes it is ethical to run the database. "I've been thinking about it since 23andMe was on the verge of bankruptcy and been really considering it since the U.S. election. It definitely is really bad over there [in the United States]," Greshake Tzovaras told 404 Media. "I am quite relieved to have made the decision and come to a conclusion. It's been weighing on my mind for a long time."

Greshake Tzovaras said that he is proud of the OpenSNP project, but that, in a world where scientific data is being censored and deleted and where the Trump administration has focused on criminalizing immigrants and trans people, he now believes that the most responsible thing to do is to delete the data and shut down the project. "Most people in OpenSNP may not be at particular risk right now, but there are people from vulnerable populations in here as well," Greshake Tzovaras said. "Thinking about gender representation, minorities, sexual orientation -- 23andMe has been working on the whole 'gay gene' thing, it's conceivable that this would at some point in the future become an issue." "Across the globe there is a rise in far-right and other authoritarian governments. While they are cracking down on free and open societies, they are also dedicated to replacing scientific thought and reasoning with pseudoscience across disciplines," Greshake Tzovaras wrote. "The risk/benefit calculus of providing free & open access to individual genetic data in 2025 is very different compared to 14 years ago. And so, sunsetting openSNP -- along with deleting the data stored within it -- feels like it is the most responsible act of stewardship for these data today."

"The interesting thing to me is there are data preservation efforts in the U.S. because the government is deleting scientific data that they don't like. This is approaching that same problem from a different direction," he added. "We need to protect the people in this database. I am supportive of preserving scientific data and knowledge, but the data comes second -- the people come first. We prefer deleting the data."

[ Read more of this story ]( https://science.slashdot.org/story/25/03/31/1926246/open-source-genetic-database-shuts-down-to-protect-users-from-authoritarian-governments?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader shares a report: The post-Covid rebound of live events is all the more evidence that movie theaters are never coming back, Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos told Semafor in an interview at the Paley Center for Media Friday.

"Nearly every live thing has come back screaming," Sarandos said. "Broadway's breaking records right now, sporting events, concerts, all those things that we couldn't do during COVID are all back and bigger than ever. The theatrical box office is down 40 to 50% from pre-COVID, and this year is down 8% already, so the trend is not reversing. You've gotta look at that and say, 'What is the consumer trying to tell you?'"

[ Read more of this story ]( https://entertainment.slashdot.org/story/25/03/31/1856208/netflix-ceo-says-movie-theaters-are-dead?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Micron will raise prices for DRAM and NAND flash memory chips through 2026 as AI and data center demand strains supply chains, the U.S. chipmaker confirmed Monday. The move follows a market rebound from previous oversupply, with memory prices steadily climbing as producers cut output while AI and high-performance computing workloads grow.

Rivals Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix are expected to implement similar increases. Micron cited "un-forecasted demand across various business segments" in communications to channel partners. The price hikes will impact sectors ranging from consumer electronics to enterprise data centers.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://it.slashdot.org/story/25/03/31/1811218/micron-hikes-memory-prices-amid-surging-ai-demand?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Microsoft has closed its IoT & AI Insider Lab in Shanghai's Zhangjiang hi-tech zone, marking the latest sign of the US tech giant's retreat from China amid rising geopolitical tensions.

The Shanghai lab, meant to help with domestic development of the Internet of Things (IoT) and artificial intelligence (AI) technologies, closed earlier this year, according to people who work in the Zhangjiang AI Island area. Opened in May 2019, Microsoft's IoT & AI Insider Lab was touted as a flagship collaboration between the global tech giant and Zhangjiang, the innovation hub of Shanghai's Pudong district, where numerous domestic and international semiconductor and AI companies have set up shop. The lab covered roughly 2,800 square meters (30,000 square feet).

[ Read more of this story ]( https://slashdot.org/story/25/03/31/1724203/microsoft-shutters-ai-lab-in-shanghai-signalling-a-broader-pullback-from-china?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Разработчики OrioleDB проанализировали текущее состояние низкоуровневого API, применяемого для доступа расширений к таблицам и индексам в PostgreSQL (Table/Index Access Method API), и предложили пути его улучшения. С момента появления в PostgreSQL 12 подобного API разработчики получили возможность создавать альтернативные механизмы хранения данных. Однако, несмотря на наличие этого API и известные ограничения встроенного механизма хранения, до сих пор не появилось полнофункциональных транзакционных движков хранения, реализованных исключительно в виде расширений.

https://www.opennet.ru/opennews/art.shtml?num=62991

Learning to code has become sort of become pointless as AI increasingly dominates programming tasks, said Replit founder and chief executive Amjad Masad. "I no longer think you should learn to code," Masad wrote on X.

The statement comes as major tech executives report significant AI inroads into software development. Google CEO Sundar Pichai recently revealed that 25% of new code at the tech giant is AI-generated, though still reviewed by engineers. Furthermore, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei predicted AI could generate up to 90% of all code within six months.

Masad called this shift a "bittersweet realization" after spending years popularizing coding through open-source work, Codecademy, and Replit -- a platform that now uses AI to help users build apps and websites. Instead of syntax-focused programming skills, Masad recommends learning "how to think, how to break down problems... how to communicate clearly, with humans and with machines."

[ Read more of this story ]( https://developers.slashdot.org/story/25/03/31/1623201/no-longer-think-you-should-learn-to-code-says-ceo-of-ai-coding-startup?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Two scientific journals that experimented with paying peer reviewers found the practice sped up the review process without compromising quality, according to findings published this month.

Critical Care Medicine offered $250 to half of 715 invited reviewers, with 53% accepting compared to 48% of unpaid reviewers. Paid reviews were completed one day faster on average. In a more dramatic result, Biology Open saw reviews completed in 4.6 business days when paying reviewers $284 per review, versus 38 days for unpaid reviews. "For the editors it has been extremely helpful because, prior to this, in some areas it was very difficult to secure reviewers," said Alejandra Clark, managing editor of Biology Open.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://science.slashdot.org/story/25/03/31/162212/publishers-trial-paying-peer-reviewers---what-did-they-find?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

France's competition authority has fined Apple 150 million euros ($162 million) for abusing its market dominance through its App Tracking Transparency system, ruling the privacy initiative unfairly disadvantages app developers. The watchdog determined that requiring third-party developers to use two pop-ups for tracking permissions while Apple's own apps need just one tap creates an "excessively complex" process that particularly harms smaller publishers lacking sufficient proprietary data for alternative targeting.

The authority acknowledged the system's privacy benefits, but concluded the framework is "neither necessary nor proportionate" with data protection goals. The regulator is not requiring Apple to modify the system, only imposing the fine for past practices. Apple must display a summary of the decision on its website for seven days.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://apple.slashdot.org/story/25/03/31/1531201/apple-fined-162-million-for-app-privacy-system-that-harms-developers?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Microsoft has announced that it's overhauling its Blue Screen of Death error message in Windows 11. From a report: The new design drops the traditional blue color, frowning face, and QR code in favor of a simplified screen that looks a lot more like the black screen you see when Windows is performing an update. It's not immediately clear if this new BSOD will remain as a black screen once Microsoft ships the final version of this update.

"We're previewing a new, more streamlined UI for unexpected restarts which better aligns with Windows 11 design principles and supports our goal of getting users back into productivity as fast as possible," explains Microsoft in a blog post about the change. "We've simplified your experience while preserving the technical information on the screen."

[ Read more of this story ]( https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/03/31/1444214/microsoft-is-redesigning-the-windows-bsod-and-it-might-change-to-black?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader shares a report: A prominent computer scientist who has spent 20 years publishing academic papers on cryptography, privacy, and cybersecurity has gone incommunicado, had his professor profile, email account, and phone number removed by his employer, Indiana University, and had his homes raided by the FBI. No one knows why.

Xiaofeng Wang has a long list of prestigious titles. He was the associate dean for research at Indiana University's Luddy School of Informatics, Computing and Engineering, a fellow at the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and a tenured professor at Indiana University at Bloomington. According to his employer, he has served as principal investigator on research projects totaling nearly $23 million over his 21 years there.

He has also co-authored scores of academic papers on a diverse range of research fields, including cryptography, systems security, and data privacy, including the protection of human genomic data.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://yro.slashdot.org/story/25/03/31/149248/fbi-raids-home-of-prominent-computer-scientist-who-has-gone-incommunicado?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Опубликован релиз Zulip 10, серверной платформы для развёртывания корпоративных мессенджеров, подходящих для организации общения сотрудников и групп разработчиков. Проект изначально был разработан компанией Zulip и открыт после её поглощения компанией Dropbox под лицензией Apache 2.0. Код серверной части написан на языке Python с использованием фреймворка Django. Клиентское ПО доступно для Linux, Windows, macOS, Android и iOS, также предоставляется встроенный web-интерфейс.

https://www.opennet.ru/opennews/art.shtml?num=62936

California has 11.3% of America's population — but bought 30% of America's new zero-emission vehicles. That's according to figures from the California Air Resources Board, which also reports 1 in 4 Californians have chosen a zero-emission car over a gas-powered one... for the last two years in a row.

But what about chargers? It turns out that California now has 48% more public and "shared" private EV chargers than the number of gasoline nozzles. (California has 178,000 public and "shared" private EV chargers, versus about 120,000 gas nozzles.) And beyond that public network, there's more than 700,000 Level 2 chargers installed in single-family California homes, according to the California Energy Commission.

Of the 178,000 public/"shared" private chargers, "Over 162,000 are Level 2 chargers," according to an announcement from the governor's office, while nearly 17,000 are fast chargers. (A chart shows a 41% jump in 2024 — though the EV news site Electrek notes that of the 73,537 chargers added in 2024, nearly 38,000 are newly installed, while the other 35,554 were already plugged in before 2024 but just recently identified.)

California approved a $1.4 billion investment plan in December to expand zero-emission transportation infrastructure. The plan funds projects like the Fast Charge California Project, which has earmarked $55 million of funding to install DC fast chargers at businesses and publicly accessible locations.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/25/03/31/0335254/california-has-48-more-ev-chargers-than-gas-nozzles?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

The Certification Authority/Browser Forum "is a cross-industry group that works together to develop minimum requirements for TLS certificates," writes Google's Security blog. And earlier this month two proposals from Google's forward-looking roadmap "became required practices in the CA/Browser Forum Baseline Requirements," improving the security and agility of TLS connections...

Multi-Perspective Issuance Corroboration
Before issuing a certificate to a website, a Certification Authority (CA) must verify the requestor legitimately controls the domain whose name will be represented in the certificate. This process is referred to as "domain control validation" and there are several well-defined methods that can be used. For example, a CA can specify a random value to be placed on a website, and then perform a check to verify the value's presence has been published by the certificate requestor.

Despite the existing domain control validation requirements defined by the CA/Browser Forum, peer-reviewed research authored by the Center for Information Technology Policy of Princeton University and others highlighted the risk of Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) attacks and prefix-hijacking resulting in fraudulently issued certificates. This risk was not merely theoretical, as it was demonstrated that attackers successfully exploited this vulnerability on numerous occasions, with just one of these attacks resulting in approximately $2 million dollars of direct losses.

The Chrome Root Program led a work team of ecosystem participants, which culminated in a CA/Browser Forum Ballot to require adoption of MPIC via Ballot SC-067. The ballot received unanimous support from organizations who participated in voting. Beginning March 15, 2025, CAs issuing publicly-trusted certificates must now rely on MPIC as part of their certificate issuance process. Some of these CAs are relying on the Open MPIC Project to ensure their implementations are robust and consistent with ecosystem expectations...

Linting

Linting refers to the automated process of analyzing X.509 certificates to detect and prevent errors, inconsistencies, and non-compliance with requirements and industry standards. Linting ensures certificates are well-formatted and include the necessary data for their intended use, such as website authentication. Linting can expose the use of weak or obsolete cryptographic algorithms and other known insecure practices, improving overall security... The ballot received unanimous support from organizations who participated in voting. Beginning March 15, 2025, CAs issuing publicly-trusted certificates must now rely on linting as part of their certificate issuance process.

Linting also improves interoperability, according to the blog post, and helps reduce the risk of non-compliance with standards that can result in certificates being "mis-issued".

And coming up, weak domain control validation methods (currently permitted by the CA/Browser Forum TLS Baseline Requirements) will be prohibited beginning July 15, 2025.

"Looking forward, we're excited to explore a reimagined Web PKI and Chrome Root Program with even stronger security assurances for the web as we navigate the transition to post-quantum cryptography."

[ Read more of this story ]( https://it.slashdot.org/story/25/03/31/0529220/https-certificate-industry-adopts-new-security-requirements?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

TOP10 VISITORS:

[1] 45.135.180.x point=225 web=0 up=18.6MB (35%) <--- yesterlink (9/hr)
[2] 37.252.14.x point=144 web=0 up=17.7MB (33%) <--- ake (6/hr)
[3] 80.87.199.x point=73 web=0 up=6.8MB (13%) <--- tgi (3/hr)
[4] PetalBot point=160 web=588 up=3.5MB (6%) <--- PetalBot (7/hr)
[5] Facebook point=0 web=227 up=1.8MB (3%)
[6] 24.130.121.x point=22 web=3 up=1.7MB (3%) <--- spnet (1/hr)
[7] 217.114.158.x point=24 web=0 up=0.8MB (1%) <--- fox (1/hr)
[8] Google point=5 web=112 up=0.6MB (1%) <--- Google
[9] TikTok point=0 web=109 up=0.3MB (<1%)
[10] 45.151.99.x point=0 web=1 up=89KB

TOTAL TRAFFIC: 51MB

Опубликован выпуск дистрибутива CachyOS 250330, основанного на пакетной базе Arch Linux и применяющего непрерывную модель доставки обновлений. Дистрибутив примечателен включением оптимизаций для повышения производительности и предоставлением возможности установки различных сред рабочего стола. Помимо базового окружения на основе KDE для установки доступны GNOME, Xfce, i3WM, Wayfire, LXQT, OpenBox, Cinnamon, Cosmic, UKUI, LXDE, Mate, Budgie, Qtile, Hyprland и Sway. Размер установочного iso-образа 2.7 ГБ. Отдельно поставляются сборки (2.8 ГБ) для носимых устройств (Handheld Edition) с интерфейсом в стиле GameMode и компонентами для любителей компьютерных игр.

https://www.opennet.ru/opennews/art.shtml?num=62988

"The big set of open-source graphics driver updates for Linux 6.15 have been merged," writes Phoronix, "but Linux creator Linus Torvalds isn't particularly happy with the pull request."

The new "hdrtest" code is for the Intel Xe kernel driver and is around trying to help ensure the Direct Rendering Manager header files are self-contained and pass kernel-doc tests — basic maintenance checks on the included DRM header files to ensure they are all in good shape.

But Torvalds accused the code of not only slowing down the full-kernel builds, but also leaving behind "random" files for dependencies "that then make the source tree nasty," reports Tom's Hardware:

While Torvalds was disturbed by the code that was impacting the latest Linux kernel, beginning his post with a "Grr," he remained precise in his objections to it. "I did the pull, resolved the (trivial) conflicts, but I notice that this ended up containing the disgusting 'hdrtest' crap that (a) slows down the build because it's done for a regular allmodconfig build rather than be some simple thing that you guys can run as needed (b) also leaves random 'hdrtest' turds around in the include directories," he wrote.

Torvalds went on to state that he had previously complained about this issue, and inquired why the hdr testing is being done as a regular part of the build. Moreover, he highlighted that the resulting 'turds' were breaking filename completion. Torvalds underlined this point — and his disgust — by stating, "this thing needs to *die*." In a shot of advice to fellow Linux developers, Torvalds said, "If you want to do that hdrtest thing, do it as part of your *own* checks. Don't make everybody else see that disgusting thing...."
He then noted that he had decided to mark hdrtest as broken for now, to prevent its inclusion in regular builds.

As of Saturday, all of the DRM-Next code had made it into Linux 6.15 Git, notes Phoronix. "But Linus Torvalds is expecting all this 'hdrtest' mess to be cleaned up."

[ Read more of this story ]( https://linux.slashdot.org/story/25/03/31/0430218/linus-torvalds-gently-criticizes-build-slowing-testing-code-left-in-linux-615-rc1?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

"Microsoft built things. It broke things."
That's how the Seattle Times kicks off a series of articles celebrating Microsoft's 50th anniversary — adding that Microsoft also gave some people "a lucrative retirement early in their lives, and their own stories to tell."

What did they remember from Microsoft's earliest days?

Scott Oki joined Microsoft as employee no. 121. The company was small; Gates was hands-on, and hard to please. "One of his favorite phrases was 'that's the stupidest thing I've ever heard,'" Oki says. "He didn't use that on me, so I feel pretty good about that."

Another, kinder phrase that pops to Oki's mind when discussing the international division he founded at Microsoft is "bringing home the bacon." An obsession with rapid revenue growth permeated Microsoft in those early days. Oki was about three weeks into the job as marketing manager when he presented a global expansion plan to Gates. "Had I done business internationally before? No," Oki said. "Do I speak a language other than English? No." But Gates gave Oki a $1 million budget to found the international division and sell Microsoft products overseas.

He established subsidiaries in the most important markets at the time: Japan, United Kingdom, Germany and France. And, because he had a few bucks left over, Australia. "Of the initial subsidiaries we started, every single one of them was profitable in its first year," he says...

Oki left Microsoft on March 1, 1992, 10 years to the day after he was hired.

Other memories shared by early Microsoft employees:

One recent graudate remembered her parents in Spokane saying "I think that's Mary and Bill Gates' son's company. If that kid is anything like those two, that is going to be a great company,'" She got her first job at Microsoft in 1992 — and 33 years later, she's a senior director at Microsoft Philanthropies.

The Times also interviewed one of Microsoft's first lawyers, who remembers that "The day the U.S. government sued Microsoft ... that was a tough day for me. It kind of turned my world upside down for about the next eight years."
Microsoft senior VP Brad Chase remembers negotiating with the Rolling Stones for the rights to their song "Start Me Up" for the Windows 95 ad campaign. ("Chase is quick to dispel any rumor that Mick Jagger called up Bill Gates and got $12 million. But he won't say how much the company paid.")

But Chase does tell the Times that Bill Gates "used to say all of the time, 'We're going to bet the company on Windows.' That was a huge bet because Windows, frankly, was a lousy product in its early days."

[ Read more of this story ]( https://slashdot.org/story/25/03/31/018215/as-microsoft-turns-50-four-employees-remember-its-early-days?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

What happens when you ask Copilot to "write a program that can be run on an iPhone 16 to select 15 random photos from the phone, tint them to random colors, and display the photos on the phone"?

That's what TouchDevelop did for the long-discontinued Windows Phone in a 2013 Microsoft Research 'SmartSynth' natural language code generation demo. ("Write scripts by tapping on the screen.")

Long-time Slashdot reader theodp reports on what happens when, 14 years later, you pose the same question to Copilot:

"You'll get lots of code and caveats from Copilot, but nothing that you can execute as is. (Compare that to the functioning 10 lines of code TouchDevelop program). It's a good reminder that just because GenAI can generate code, it doesn't necessarily mean it will generate the least amount of code, the most understandable or appropriate code for the requestor, or code that runs unchanged and produces the desired results.
theodp also reminds us that TouchDevelop "was (like BASIC) abandoned by Microsoft..."

Interestingly, a Microsoft Research video from CS Education Week 2011 shows enthusiastic Washington high school students participating in an hour-long TouchDevelop coding lesson and demonstrating the apps they created that tapped into music, photos, the Internet, and yes, even their phone's functionality. This shows how lacking iPhone and Android still are today as far as easy programmability-for-the-masses goes. (When asked, Copilot replied that Apple's Shortcuts app wasn't up to the task).

[ Read more of this story ]( https://developers.slashdot.org/story/25/03/30/2333226/copilot-cant-beat-a-2013-touchdevelop-code-generation-demo-for-windows-phone?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

The U.S. and China "are racing to build a truly useful humanoid worker," the Wall Street Journal wrote Saturday, adding that "Whoever wins could gain a huge edge in countless industries."

"The time has come for robots," Nvidia's chief executive said at a conference in March, adding "This could very well be the largest industry of all."

China's government has said it wants the country to be a world leader in humanoid robots by 2027. "Embodied" AI is listed as a priority of a new $138 billion state venture investment fund, encouraging private-sector investors and companies to pile into the business. It looks like the beginning of a familiar tale. Chinese companies make most of the world's EVs, ships and solar panels — in each case, propelled by government subsidies and friendly regulations. "They have more companies developing humanoids and more government support than anyone else. So, right now, they may have an edge," said Jeff Burnstein [president of the Association for Advancing Automation, a trade group in Ann Arbor, Michigan]....

Humanoid robots need three-dimensional data to understand physics, and much of it has to be created from scratch. That is where China has a distinct edge: The country is home to an immense number of factories where humanoid robots can absorb data about the world while performing tasks. "The reason why China is making rapid progress today is because we are combining it with actual applications and iterating and improving rapidly in real scenarios," said Cheng Yuhang, a sales director with Deep Robotics, one of China's robot startups. "This is something the U.S. can't match." UBTech, the startup that is training humanoid robots to sort and carry auto parts, has partnerships with top Chinese automakers including Geely... "A problem can be solved in a month in the lab, but it may only take days in a real environment," said a manager at UBTech...

With China's manufacturing prowess, a locally built robot could eventually cost less than half as much as one built elsewhere, said Ming Hsun Lee, a Bank of America analyst. He said he based his estimates on China's electric-vehicle industry, which has grown rapidly to account for roughly 70% of global EV production. "I think humanoid robots will be another EV industry for China," he said. The UBTech robot system, called Walker S, currently costs hundreds of thousands of dollars including software, according to people close to the company. UBTech plans to deliver 500 to 1,000 of its Walker S robots to clients this year, including the Apple supplier Foxconn. It hopes to increase deliveries to more than 10,000 in 2027.

Few companies outside China have started selling AI-powered humanoid robots. Industry insiders expect the competition to play out over decades, as the robots tackle more-complicated environments, such as private homes.

The article notes "several" U.S. humanoid robot producers, including the startup Figure. And robots from Amazon's Agility Robotics have been tested in Amazon warehouses since 2023. "The U.S. still has advantages in semiconductors, software and some precision components," the article points out.

But "Some lawmakers have urged the White House to ban Chinese humanoids from the U.S. and further restrict Chinese robot makers' access to American technology, citing national-security concerns..."

[ Read more of this story ]( https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/25/03/30/239225/china-is-already-testing-ai-powered-humanoid-robots-in-factories?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Slashdot reader jrnvk writes: The Verge is reporting that Microsoft will soon make it harder to run the well-publicized bypassnro command in Windows 11 setup. This command allows skipping the Microsoft account and online connection requirements on install. While the command will be removed, it can still be enabled by a regedit change — for now.

"However, there's no guarantee Microsoft will allow this additional workaround for long," writes the Verge. (Though they add "There are other workarounds as well" involving the unattended.xml automation.)

In its latest Windows 11 Insider Preview, the company says it will take out a well-known bypass script... Microsoft cites security as one reason it's making this change. ["This change ensures that all users exit setup with internet connectivity and a Microsoft Account."] Since the bypassnro command is disabled in the latest beta build, it will likely be pushed to production versions within weeks.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/03/30/2115253/microsoft-attempts-to-close-local-account-windows-11-setup-loophole?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

The giant financial news site Bloomberg "has been experimenting with using AI to help produce its journalism," reports the New York Times. But "It hasn't always gone smoothly."

While Bloomberg announced on January 15 that it would add three AI-generated bullet points at the top of articles as a summary, "The news outlet has had to correct at least three dozen A.I.-generated summaries of articles published this year." (This Wednesday they published a "hallucinated" date for the start of U.S. auto tariffs, and earlier in March claimed president Trump had imposed tariffs on Canada in 2024, while other errors have included incorrect figures and incorrect attribution.)

Bloomberg is not alone in trying A.I. — many news outlets are figuring out how best to embrace the new technology and use it in their reporting and editing. The newspaper chain Gannett uses similar A.I.-generated summaries on its articles, and The Washington Post has a tool called "Ask the Post" that generates answers to questions from published Post articles. And problems have popped up elsewhere. Earlier this month, The Los Angeles Times removed its A.I. tool from an opinion article after the technology described the Ku Klux Klan as something other than a racist organization.

Bloomberg News said in a statement that it publishes thousands of articles each day, and "currently 99 percent of A.I. summaries meet our editorial standards...." The A.I. summaries are "meant to complement our journalism, not replace it," the statement added....

John Micklethwait, Bloomberg's editor in chief, laid out the thinking about the A.I. summaries in a January 10 essay, which was an excerpt from a lecture he had given at City St. George's, University of London. "Customers like it — they can quickly see what any story is about. Journalists are more suspicious," he wrote. "Reporters worry that people will just read the summary rather than their story." But, he acknowledged, "an A.I. summary is only as good as the story it is based on. And getting the stories is where the humans still matter."

A Bloomberg spokeswoman told the Times that the feedback they'd received to the summaries had generally been positive — "and we continue to refine the experience."

[ Read more of this story ]( https://news.slashdot.org/story/25/03/30/1946224/bloombergs-ai-generated-news-summaries-had-at-least-36-errors-since-january?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.