Ник Велнхофер (Nick Wellnhofer) удалил себя из списка сопровождающих библиотеку libxml2 и официально отошёл от дел. Изначально Ник объявил об уходе с поста сопровождающего в сентябре, но до сих пор намерение было лишь на словах. После ухода Ника о желании подхватить эстафету сопровождения объявили Daniel Garcia Moreno (сотрудник компании SUSE) и Iván Chavero (основатель компании NorTK и бывший сотрудник Red Hat, работавший над платформами OpenStack и OpenShift), которые не упоминаются в списке участников, ранее передававших изменения в libxml2. Несколько часов назад данные разработчики были добавлены в список сопровождающих, а обсуждение нахождения проекта без сопровождения закрыто как решённый вопрос.

https://www.opennet.ru/opennews/art.shtml?num=64406

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Tuesday ordered diplomats to return to using Times New Roman font in official communications, calling his predecessor Antony Blinken's decision to adopt Calibri a "wasteful" diversity move, according to an internal department cable seen by Reuters. The department under Blinken in early January 2023 had switched to Calibri, a modern sans-serif font, saying this was a more accessible font for people with disabilities because it did not have the decorative angular features and was the default in Microsoft products.

A cable dated December 9 sent to all U.S. diplomatic posts said that typography shapes the professionalism of an official document and Calibri is informal compared to serif typefaces.
"To restore decorum and professionalism to the Department's written work products and abolish yet another wasteful DEIA program, the Department is returning to Times New Roman as its standard typeface," the cable said. "This formatting standard aligns with the President's One Voice for America's Foreign Relations directive, underscoring the Department's responsibility to present a unified, professional voice in all communications," it added.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://yro.slashdot.org/story/25/12/10/0059236/rubio-orders-diplomats-to-return-to-using-times-new-roman-font?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

McDonald's has pulled an AI-generated Christmas commercial from YouTube after viewers pushed back on what they called a distasteful, "AI slop"-filled take on the holidays. The 45-second ad, titled "It's the most terrible time of the year," was a satirical look at holiday chaos -- people tripping while carrying overloaded gift bags, getting tangled in lights, burning homemade cookies, starting kitchen fires -- and ended with a suggestion to ditch the madness and hide out at McDonald's until January.

The ad was created for McDonald's Netherlands by agency TBWA\NEBOKO and production company Sweetshop, whose Los Angeles-based directing duo Mark Potoka and Matt Spicer shot the film. After the backlash, Sweetshop said it used AI as a tool but emphasized human effort in shaping the final product. "We generated what felt like dailies -- thousands of takes -- then shaped them in the edit just as we would on any high-craft production," the company said. "This wasn't an AI trick. It was a film."

[ Read more of this story ]( https://slashdot.org/story/25/12/10/137237/ai-slop-ad-backfires-for-mcdonalds?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Nvidia has developed location verification technology that could determine which country its AI chips are operating in, Reuters reports, citing a source, a capability that may help address ongoing concerns about the smuggling of advanced semiconductors to restricted markets like China. The feature, which Nvidia has demonstrated privately in recent months but has not released, would be an optional software tool that customers install. It taps into the confidential computing capabilities of Nvidia's GPUs and uses the time delay in communicating with Nvidia-run servers to approximate a chip's location.

The technology will first be available on Nvidia's newest Blackwell chips, though the company is examining options for its older Hopper and Ampere generations. U.S. lawmakers and the White House have pushed for location verification measures as the Department of Justice has brought criminal cases against smuggling rings allegedly attempting to move more than $160 million worth of Nvidia chips to China.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/12/10/1448224/nvidia-builds-location-verification-tech-that-could-track-where-its-ai-chips-end-up?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

A study this week has found that shoppers using Instacart are often charged different prices for identical products at the same store at the same time, even when selecting in-store pickup rather than delivery. The Groundwork Collaborative, a progressive policy group, and Consumer Reports organized nearly 200 volunteers across four cities to simultaneously check prices on 20 grocery items. Price differences appeared on nearly three-quarters of the items tested. In one test, more than 40 participants selected the same Safeway in Washington, D.C. and the same brand of eggs. Prices ranged from $3.99 to $4.79 -- a 20% spread. At a Target in North Canton, Ohio, Skippy peanut butter was $2.99 for some shoppers and $3.59 for others. The full 20-item basket varied by about 7% within each store.

An Instacart spokeswoman said retailers on its platform set their own prices and that some run short-term, randomized pricing tests. The company said tests were "never based on personal or behavioral characteristics." Instacart acquired Eversight, an AI-driven pricing optimization company, in 2022. A Target spokesman said the company is not affiliated with Instacart and bears no responsibility for prices on the platform. Safeway and parent company Albertson's declined to comment.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://slashdot.org/story/25/12/10/1513248/same-product-same-store-but-on-instacart-prices-might-differ?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Meta's newly recruited AI "superstars" have developed an us-versus-them mentality against the company's longtime executive leadership, creating internal friction over whether the team should focus on catching up to rivals like OpenAI and Google or improving Meta's core advertising and social media businesses. Alexandr Wang, the 28-year-old entrepreneur Mark Zuckerberg hired in June to be chief AI officer, leads a team called TBD Lab from a siloed space next to Zuckerberg's office. In meetings this fall, Wang privately told people he disagreed with chief product officer Chris Cox and chief technology officer Andrew Bosworth, according to the New York Times.

Cox and Bosworth wanted Wang's team to use Instagram and Facebook data to train Meta's new foundational AI model for improving feeds and advertising. Wang pushed back, arguing the goal should be catching up to rival models before focusing on products. TBD Lab researchers view many Meta executives as interested only in the social media business, while the lab's ambition is to create "godlike A.I. superintelligence." Bosworth was recently asked to slash $2 billion from Reality Labs' proposed budget for next year to fund Wang's team -- a claim Meta disputes.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/12/10/1528222/metas-new-ai-superstars-are-chafing-against-the-rest-of-the-company?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

New submitter emangwiro shares a report: The HDMI Forum, responsible for the HDMI specification, continues to stonewall open source. Valve's Steam Machine theoretically supports HDMI 2.1, but the mini-PC is software-limited to HDMI 2.0. As a result, more than 60 frames per second at 4K resolution are only possible with limitations. In a statement to Ars Technica, a Valve spokesperson confirmed that HDMI 2.1 support is "still a work-in-progress on the software side." "We've been working on trying to unblock things there."

The Steam Machine uses an AMD Ryzen APU with a Radeon graphics unit. Valve strictly adheres to open-source drivers, but the HDMI Forum is unwilling to disclose the 2.1 specification. According to Valve, they have validated the HDMI 2.1 hardware under Windows to ensure basic functionality.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://linux.slashdot.org/story/25/12/10/1652206/hdmi-forum-continues-to-block-hdmi-21-for-linux-valve-says?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Amazon says it will allow authors to offer their DRM-free ebooks in the EPUB and PDF formats through its self-publishing platform, Kindle Direct Publishing. Starting on January 20, 2026, authors who set their titles as DRM-free will see their books made available in these more open formats. From a report: The decision to use Digital Rights Management (DRM), a copyright protection mechanism, is set by the authors when they publish their ebooks on Amazon's platform. The company notes these changes won't impact previously published titles. If authors want to change the status of older titles, they'll have to log into the Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) author portal and change an option in the settings. (Instructions on how to make that change are on Amazon's KDP support site here.) This move may actually incentivize authors to apply DRM to their ebooks.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://news.slashdot.org/story/25/12/10/1735239/amazon-changes-how-copyright-protection-is-applied-to-kindle-directs-self-published-ebooks?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

As the battle over Warner Bros. Discovery grows, two Democratic lawmakers are warning that their party may try to block or unravel any
acquisition by Paramount when it returns to power. Semafor: In a letter to the WBD board and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent first shared with Semafor, Reps. Sam Liccardo (D-Calif.) and Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) said they were concerned about the national security risk of letting foreign entities control a large portion of the US entertainment and media industry.

They also hinted that a future Democratic Congress and administration could try to unravel any Paramount-WBD deal. "Future Congresses ... will review many of the decisions of the current Administration, and may recommend that regulators push for divestitures, which would undermine the strategic logic of this merger," they wrote. "We urge the Board to weigh these national security and regulatory liabilities in evaluating a transaction burdened by uncertain but potentially extensive mitigation obligations, foreign influence risks, or adverse regulatory action."

[ Read more of this story ]( https://politics.slashdot.org/story/25/12/10/189220/democrats-warn-their-party-may-try-to-unravel-any-paramount-warner-bros-discovery-deal?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Wells Fargo expects more job cuts and higher severance costs in this quarter that ends in three weeks, bank CEO and President Charlie Scharf said Tuesday at an investors conference in New York. He's also betting on AI to drive efficiency and, eventually, further workforce reduction.From a report: "As we've gone through the budgeting process, and even pre AI, we do expect to have less people as we go into next year," Scharf said at the Goldman Sachs Financial Services Conference in New York City.

"We'll likely have more severance in the fourth quarter." The fourth quarter runs Oct. 1 through Dec. 31 for the San Francisco-basaed bank. Wells Fargo already has shrunk from 275,000 employees to about 210,000 since Scharf joined the bank in 2019 -- about a 24% decrease. Its largest employee base remains in Charlotte, with about 27,000 workers.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://slashdot.org/story/25/12/10/1840244/wells-fargo-ceo-says-more-job-cuts-coming-at-the-bank-as-ai-prompts-efficiency?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.