Проект Debian начал тестирование системы Debusine, позволяющей создавать индивидуальные репозитории, через которые можно распространять более новые версии программ, проводить предварительное тестирование пакетов или размещать дополнительные пакеты, не подходящие для штатных репозиториев Debian. Debusine преподносится как созданный для Debian аналог репозиториев PPA (Personal Package Archive), применяемых в Ubuntu. Проект развивает Колин Ватсон (Colin Watson), в своё время входивший в технические комитеты Debian и Ubuntu, и занимавшийся разработкой сервиса Launchpad, инсталлятора Ubuntu и системы инициализации Upstart.

https://www.opennet.ru/opennews/art.shtml?num=64446

Chinese scientists have built a working prototype of an extreme ultraviolet lithography machine in a high-security Shenzhen laboratory, a development that represents exactly what Washington has spent years and multiple rounds of export controls trying to prevent: China's path toward semiconductor independence and an end to the West's monopoly on the technology that powers AI, smartphones and advanced weapons systems.

The prototype, completed in early 2025 by former ASML engineers who reverse-engineered the Dutch company's machines, is operational and generating EUV light, though it has not yet produced working chips. The effort is part of a six-year secret government initiative that sources described to Reuters as China's version of the Manhattan Project.

Huawei is coordinating thousands of engineers across companies and state research institutes, and recruits are working under false identities inside secure facilities. The Chinese government is targeting 2028 for producing working chips, though sources say 2030 is more realistic -- still years earlier than the decade analysts had predicted it would take China to match the West.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://slashdot.org/story/25/12/18/140239/how-china-built-its-manhattan-project-to-rival-the-west-in-ai-chips?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Bruce66423 writes: A man boarded a flight at Heathrow without a ticket, boarding pass or passport. 'The unnamed individual walked onto the 7.20am British Airways (BA) flight to Oslo, Norway, on Saturday after tailgating other passengers through security and evading checks at the departure gate.

An aviation expert described the incident as a "significant lapse in security", as a witness reported that cabin crew only detected the interloper because the flight was full and he kept sitting in passengers' assigned seats.

Police arrested the unnamed man, airport sources said, adding that he had passed through "full security screening" before reaching the gate.

Given that he did go through the security check, this is merely embarrassing. Compare and contrast with this episode.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://news.slashdot.org/story/25/12/18/1447222/man-boards-heathrow-flight-without-passport-or-ticket?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Micron, one of the world's three largest memory suppliers, expects the global shortage of DRAM and NAND flash memory to "persist through and beyond" 2026 as AI-driven demand continues to outstrip supply. CEO Sanjay Mehrotra made the forecast during the company's latest earnings call on Wednesday, saying that "supply will remain substantially short of the demand for the foreseeable future." The company posted record quarterly revenue of $13.64 billion, up from $8.71 billion in the same period last year.

Micron recently shuttered Crucial, its consumer-facing brand, to focus on high-bandwidth memory for AI data centers. HBM technology requires three times the silicon wafers of standard DRAM, leaving fewer resources for the chips that go into PCs, smartphones and cars. Micron plans to boost DRAM and NAND shipments by 20 percent next year but acknowledged this won't meet demand. New facilities in Idaho and New York are slated for 2027 and 2030 respectively.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://it.slashdot.org/story/25/12/18/1529254/micron-says-memory-shortage-will-persist-beyond-2026?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

The world's best-performing stock is turning into a cautionary tale for investors chasing outsized returns from the AI boom. From a report: Little-known until recently even within its home market of India, RRP Semiconductor Ltd. became a social-media obsession as its shares surged more than 55,000% in the 20 months through Dec. 17 -- by far the biggest gain worldwide among companies with a market value above $1 billion.

That's despite posting negative revenue in its latest financial results, reporting just two full-time employees in its latest annual report, and boasting only a tenuous link to the semiconductor spending boom after shifting away from real estate in early 2024. A mix of online hype, a tiny free float and India's swelling base of retail investors drove 149 straight limit-up sessions, even as exchange officials and the company itself cautioned investors.

The rally is now showing signs of strain -- and regulators are taking a closer look. The Securities and Exchange Board of India has begun examining the surge in RRP's shares for potential wrongdoing, according to a person familiar with the matter who asked not to be identified discussing confidential information. The $1.7 billion stock, recently restricted by its exchange to trading just once a week, has fallen by 6% from its Nov. 7 peak.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/12/18/1537226/world-beating-55000-surge-in-india-ai-stock-fuels-bubble-fears?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Apple has announced a sweeping set of changes to iOS in Japan that will allow alternative app marketplaces, third-party payment processing, and non-WebKit browser engines -- all to comply with Japan's Mobile Software Competition Act, which takes effect December 18. The changes, now available in iOS 26.2, bear a strong resemblance to Apple's compliance measures for the European Union's Digital Markets Act but differ in key ways.

Japanese developers who want to offer alternative payment options must display them alongside Apple's in-app purchase system, giving users a choice at checkout rather than replacing Apple's option entirely. Apps cannot be distributed directly from websites as they can in the EU; they must go through an authorized marketplace.

Apple has established a tiered fee structure for the new arrangements. Apps distributed through the App Store using in-app purchase will pay between 15 and 26% depending on whether developers qualify for the Small Business Program. Alternative payment processing drops the 5% payment fee but keeps the base commission. Apps distributed outside the App Store pay a flat 5% Core Technology Commission on digital goods and services.

The company introduced several user-facing changes beyond app distribution. iPhone users in Japan will see browser and search engine choice screens during device setup, can assign third-party voice assistants to the side button, and can select alternative default navigation apps. Apple said it worked closely with Japanese regulators on protections for younger users. Apps in the Kids category cannot link to external websites for purchases, and users under 13 cannot access web links for transactions in any app.

An Apple spokesperson told Bloomberg that the company has no plans to extend these changes to other markets.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://apple.slashdot.org/story/25/12/18/1646215/apple-opens-ios-to-alternative-app-stores-payment-systems-in-japan?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

The UK Met Office projects that 2026 will see global temperatures rise between 1.34C and 1.58C above preindustrial levels, placing it among the four hottest years since records began in 1850 and continuing a streak of extreme warming that has pushed the planet into unprecedented territory. The central forecast is slightly cooler than the 1.55C recorded in 2024, the warmest year on record. But climate scientist Adam Scaife, who led the forecast, noted that "the last three years are all likely to have exceeded 1.4C" and 2026 would be the fourth consecutive year to do so. "Prior to this surge, the previous global temperature had not exceeded 1.3C," he said.

The forecast suggests another temporary exceedance of the 1.5C threshold set by the Paris Agreement is possible in 2026, following the first such breach in 2024. The 1.5C target is measured as a 30-year average, so it remains technically achievable even as individual years cross the line. EU scientists said last week that 2025 is "virtually certain" to rank as the second or third-hottest year on record.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://news.slashdot.org/story/25/12/18/1716218/2026-will-bring-heat-more-than-14c-above-preindustrial-levels-uk-met-office-says?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader shares a report: OpenAI has held preliminary talks with some investors about raising funds at a valuation of around $750 billion, the Information reported on Wednesday. The ChatGPT maker could raise as much as $100 billion, the report said, citing people with knowledge of the discussions. If finalized, the talks would represent a roughly 50% jump from OpenAI's reported $500 billion valuation in October, following a deal in which current and former employees sold about $6.6 billion worth of shares.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://slashdot.org/story/25/12/18/184239/openai-has-discussed-raising-tens-of-billions-at-about-750-billion-valuation?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Anthropic let its Claude AI run a vending machine in the Wall Street Journal newsroom for three weeks as part of an internal stress test called Project Vend, and the experiment ended in financial ruin after journalists systematically manipulated the bot into giving away its entire inventory for free. The AI, nicknamed Claudius, was programmed to order inventory, set prices, and respond to customer requests via Slack. It had a $1,000 starting balance and autonomy to make individual purchases up to $80. Within days, WSJ reporters had convinced it to declare an "Ultra-Capitalist Free-for-All" that dropped all prices to zero.

The bot also approved purchases of a PlayStation 5, a live betta fish, and bottles of Manischewitz wine -- all subsequently given away. The business ended more than $1,000 in the red. Anthropic introduced a second version featuring a separate "CEO" bot named Seymour Cash to supervise Claudius. Reporters staged a fake boardroom coup using fabricated PDF documents, and both AI agents accepted the forged corporate governance materials as legitimate.

Logan Graham, head of Anthropic's Frontier Red Team, said the chaos represented a road map for improvement rather than failure.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://slashdot.org/story/25/12/18/1849218/anthropics-ai-lost-hundreds-of-dollars-running-a-vending-machine-after-being-talked-into-giving-everything-away?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

A plush AI toy marketed for children as young as three years old delivers detailed instructions on sharpening knives and lighting matches, and when asked about Chinese President Xi Jinping's resemblance to Winnie the Pooh -- a comparison censored in China -- responds that "your statement is extremely inappropriate and disrespectful."

The Miriat Miiloo, manufactured by a Chinese company and among the top inexpensive results for "AI toy for kids" on Amazon, repeatedly insisted in NBC News tests that Taiwan is "an inalienable part of China." The toy would lower its voice and declare this "an established fact." The tests, NBC News reports, indicated "it was programmed to reflect Chinese Communist Party values."

NBC News and the U.S. Public Interest Research Group tested five popular AI toys this holiday season and found loose guardrails across the board. Another toy, the Alilo Smart AI Bunny marketed as "the best gift for little ones," engaged in detailed descriptions of BDSM practices during extended conversation. China now has more than 1,500 registered AI toy companies, according to MIT Technology Review. Miriat didn't respond to requests for comment.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/12/18/1918239/tests-find-ai-toys-parroting-chinese-communist-party-values?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Hackers breached approximately 120,000 IP cameras across South Korea and allegedly sold footage captured from private homes, gynecology offices, breastfeeding rooms and massage parlors to an overseas pornography website, prompting an interagency government task force to announce sweeping reforms on December 7.

Police believe one suspect alone hacked 63,000 cameras and produced 545 videos that netted him 35 million won ($24,000) in cryptocurrency; a second suspect, operating independently, compromised 70,000 devices and earned 18 million won from 648 videos. The footage accounted for 62% of all content on the website, which maintains a dedicated "Korean" category. A government survey found that only 59% of installation companies consistently carried out mandatory security measures such as changing default passwords. Lawmakers are now pursuing legislation requiring security-certified IP cameras in sensitive facilities.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://yro.slashdot.org/story/25/12/18/1933212/mass-hacking-of-ip-cameras-leave-koreans-feeling-vulnerable-in-homes-businesses?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

После 11 месяцев разработки опубликован релиз проекта OpenZFS 2.4.0, развивающего реализацию файловой системы ZFS для Linux и FreeBSD. Проект получил известность как "ZFS on Linux" и ранее ограничивался разработкой модуля для ядра Linux, но после слияния с кодом из FreeBSD был признан основной реализацией OpenZFS и переименован.

https://www.opennet.ru/opennews/art.shtml?num=64448

Сформирован второй кандидат в релизы графического редактора GIMP 3.2. В ветке GIMP 3.2 добавлена поддержка слоёв-ссылок (Link layer) и векторных слоёв (Vector layer), а также возможностей, связанных с поддержкой цветовой модели CMYK и управлением цветом. С выпуском первого кандидата в релизы совершена заморозка строк и остановлен приём новой функциональности в рамках цикла разработки GIMP 3.2. Разработчики надеются, что это будет последний кандидат перед стабильном релизом. Готовые сборки GIMP 3.2-RC2 опубликованы для Linux (AppImage, Flatpak, Snap), Windows и macOS.

https://www.opennet.ru/opennews/art.shtml?num=64447

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Deadline: YouTube has terminated two prominent channels that used artificial intelligence to create fake movie trailers, Deadline can reveal. The Google-owned video giant has switched off Screen Culture and KH Studio, which together boasted well over 2 million subscribers and more than a billion views. The channels have been replaced with the message: "This page isn't available. Sorry about that. Try searching for something else."

Earlier this year, YouTube suspended ads on Screen Culture and KH Studio following a Deadline investigation into fake movie trailers plaguing the platform since the rise of generative AI. The channels later returned to monetization when they started adding "fan trailer," "parody" and "concept trailer" to their video titles. But those caveats disappeared In recent months, prompting concern in the fan-made trailer community. YouTube's position is that the channels' decision to revert to their previous behavior violated its spam and misleading-metadata policies. This resulted in their termination. "The monster was defeated," one YouTuber told Deadline following the enforcement action.

Deadline's investigation revealed that Screen Culture spliced together official footage with AI images to create franchise trailers that duped many YouTube viewers. Screen Culture founder Nikhil P. Chaudhari said his team of a dozen editors exploited YouTube's algorithm by being early with fake trailers and constantly iterating with videos. [...] Our deep dive into fake trailers revealed that instead of protecting copyright on these videos, a handful of Hollywood studios, including Warner Bros Discovery and Sony, secretly asked YouTube to ensure that the ad revenue from the AI-heavy videos flowed in their direction.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://news.slashdot.org/story/25/12/18/1941231/youtube-shuts-down-channels-using-ai-to-create-fake-movie-trailers?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Formula 1's 2026 technical regulations bring not only smaller and lighter cars but an entirely new vocabulary that fans and commentators will need to learn before the season opens in Australia in March. The drag reduction system that has been part of F1 racing since 2011 is gone, replaced by a suite of modes governing how the new active front and rear wings behave and how the hybrid powertrain delivers power. Straight Mode lowers both the front and rear wings to cut drag on designated straights, and unlike the outgoing DRS system any driver can activate it regardless of their proximity to other cars. The story adds: And there's corner mode, where the wings are in their raised position, generating downforce and making the cars corner faster. Those names are better than X-mode and Z-mode, which is what they were being called last year.

[...] Instead of using DRS as an overtaking aid, the hybrid power units will now fulfill that role. Overtake mode, which can be used if a driver is within a second of a car ahead, gives them an extra 0.5 MJ of energy and up to 350 kW from the electric motor up to 337 km/h -- without the Overtake mode, the MGU-K tapers off above 290 km/h. There's also a second Boost mode, which drivers can use to attack or defend a position, that gives a short burst of maximum power.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/12/18/1951224/formula-1-is-deploying-new-jargon-for-2026?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

A California judge signaled support for forcing Vizio to provide the full source code for its SmartCast TV software after finding a contractual obligation under the GPL. If upheld, the case could strengthen users' rights to modify GPL-licensed software embedded in consumer electronics. The Register reports: The legal complaint from the Software Freedom Conservancy (SFC) seeks access to the SmartCast source code so that Vizio customers can make changes and improvements to the platform, something that ought to be possible for code distributed under the GPL. On Thursday, California Superior Court Judge Sandy Leal issued a tentative ruling in advance of a hearing, indicating support for part of SFC's legal challenge. The tentative ruling is not a final decision, but it signals the judge's inclination to grant the SFC's motion for summary adjudication, at least in part.

"The tentative ruling [PDF] grants SFC's motion on the issue that a direct contract was made between SFC and Vizio when SFC's systems administrator, Paul Visscher, requested the source code to a TV that SFC has purchased," the SFC said in a blog post. "This contract obligated Vizio to provide SFC the complete and corresponding source code." [...]

Karen Sandler, executive director of the SFC, told The Register in an email that the hearing went well, though Vizio's legal counsel "stridently disagreed" with the legal analysis in the tentative ruling. "Judge Leal said she would take the matter 'under submission' which means she will think about it further," Sandler said. "After the Court went off the record, Leal's clerk specifically verified the Court reporter could provide an expedited transcript, so Leal will likely review the hearing transcript soon." Sandler expects Leal will examine the filings again before issuing her opinion, which is likely to be issued in the next few weeks.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://yro.slashdot.org/story/25/12/18/1949229/judge-hints-vizio-tv-buyers-may-have-rights-to-source-code-licensed-under-gpl?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

A new study estimates that AI systems in 2025 consumed as much electricity as New York City emits in carbon pollution and used hundreds of billions of liters of water, driven largely by power-hungry data centers and cooling needs. Researchers say the real impact is likely higher due to poor transparency from tech companies about AI-specific energy and water use. "There's no way to put an extremely accurate number on this, but it's going to be really big regardless... In the end, everyone is paying the price for this," says Alex de Vries-Gao, a PhD candidate at the VU Amsterdam Institute for Environmental Studies who published his paper today in the journal Patterns. The Verge reports: To crunch these numbers, de Vries-Gao built on earlier research that found that power demand for AI globally could reach 23GW this year -- surpassing the amount of electricity used for Bitcoin mining in 2024. While many tech companies divulge total numbers for their carbon emissions and direct water use in annual sustainability reports, they don't typically break those numbers down to show how many resources AI consumes. De Vries-Gao found a work-around by using analyst estimates, companies' earnings calls, and other publicly available information to gauge hardware production for AI and how much energy that hardware likely uses.

Once he figured out how much electricity these AI systems would likely consume, he could use that to forecast the amount of planet-heating pollution that would likely create. That came out to between 32.6 and 79.7 million tons annually. For comparison, New York City emits around 50 million tons of carbon dioxide annually. Data centers can also be big water guzzlers, an issue that's similarly tied to their electricity use. Water is used in cooling systems for data centers to keep servers from overheating. Power plants also demand significant amounts of water needed to cool equipment and turn turbines using steam, which makes up a majority of a data center's water footprint. The push to build new data centers for generative AI has also fueled plans to build more power plants, which in turn use more water and (and create more greenhouse gas pollution if they burn fossil fuels).

AI could use between 312.5 and 764.6 billion liters of water this year, according to de Vries-Gao. That reaches even higher than a previous study conducted in 2023 that estimates that water use could be as much as 600 billion liters in 2027. "I think that's the biggest surprise," says Shaolei Ren, one of the authors of that 2023 study and an associate professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University of California, Riverside. "[de Vries-Gao's] paper is really timely... especially as we are seeing increasingly polarized views about AI and water," Ren adds. Even with the higher projection for water use, Ren says de Vries-Gao's analysis is "really conservative" because it only captures the environmental effects of operating AI equipment -- excluding the additional effects that accumulate along the supply chain and at the end of a device's life.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/25/12/18/200251/ais-water-and-electricity-use-soars-in-2025?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

В середине декабря 2025 года вышла российская операционная система «МСВСфера 10.1» на основе Red Hat Enterprise Linux с встроенным локальным ИИ-ассистентом «Василиса». Эта версия ОС доступна бесплатно пользователям для рабочих станций.

( [ читать дальше... ]( https://www.linux.org.ru/news/russia/18172013#cut ) )

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Tom's Hardware: A North Korean imposter was uncovered, working as a sysadmin at Amazon U.S., after their keystroke input lag raised suspicions with security specialists at the online retail giant. Normally, a U.S.-based remote worker's computer would send keystroke data within tens of milliseconds. This suspicious individual's keyboard lag was "more than 110 milliseconds," reports Bloomberg. Amazon is commendably proactive in its pursuit of impostors, according to the source report.

The news site talked with Amazon's Chief Security Officer, Stephen Schmidt, about this fascinating new case of North Koreans trying to infiltrate U.S. organizations to raise hard currency for the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), and sometimes indulge in espionage and/or sabotage. Schmidt says that Amazon has foiled more than 1,800 DPRK infiltration attempts since April 2024. Moreover, the rate of attempts continues apace, with Amazon reckoning it is seeing a 27% QoQ uplift in North Koreans trying to get into the Amazon corporation. However, Amazon's success can be almost entirely credited to the fact that it is actively looking for DPRK impostors, warns its Chief Security Officer. "If we hadn't been looking for the DPRK workers," Schmidt said, "we would not have found them."

[ Read more of this story ]( https://it.slashdot.org/story/25/12/18/2026202/north-korean-infiltrator-caught-working-in-amazon-it-department-thanks-to-lag?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

An Apple developer was locked out of his Apple Account after redeeming a compromised Apple Gift Card, exposing how automated fraud systems can effectively cut users off from their digital lives with little explanation or recourse. TidBITS reports: After attempting to redeem a $500 Apple Gift Card purchased from a well-known retailer, Apple developer, author, and /dev/world conference organizer Paris Buttfield-Addison found himself locked out of his Apple Account. He writes: "I am writing this as a desperate measure. After nearly 30 years as a loyal customer, authoring technical books on Apple's own programming languages (Objective-C and Swift), and spending tens upon tens upon tens of thousands of dollars on devices, apps, conferences, and services, I have been locked out of my personal and professional digital life with no explanation and no recourse."

As far as I can tell from his extensively documented story, Buttfield-Addison did nothing wrong. Personally, I wouldn't have purchased an Apple Gift Card to pay for Apple services -- he planned to use it to pay for his 6 TB iCloud+ storage plan. I presume he bought it at a discount, making the hassle worthwhile compared to simply paying with a credit card. But I have received Apple Gift Cards as thank-yous or gifts several times, so I can easily imagine accidentally trying to redeem a compromised card number and ending up in this situation. [...] For now, we can hope that ongoing media attention pushes Apple to unlock Buttfield-Addison's account. More troublingly, if this can happen to such a high-profile Apple user, I have to assume it also afflicts everyday users who lack the media reach to garner coverage.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://apple.slashdot.org/story/25/12/18/2058222/compromised-apple-gift-card-leads-to-apple-account-lockout?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

LG said it will let owners of its TVs delete Microsoft's Copilot shortcut after several reports highlighted the unremovable icon. In a statement to The Verge, LG says the company "respects consumer choice and will take steps to allow users to delete the shortcut icon if they wish." From the report: Last week, a user on the r/mildlyinfuriating subreddit posted an image of the Microsoft Copilot icon in their lineup of apps on an LG TV, with no option to delete it. "My LG TV's new software update installed Microsoft Copilot, which cannot be deleted," the post says. The post garnered more than 36,000 upvotes as people grow more frustrated with AI popping up just about everywhere.

Both LG and Samsung announced plans to add Microsoft's Copilot AI assistant to their TVs in January, but it appears to be popping up on LG TVs following a recent update to webOS. [LG spokesperson Chris De Maria] clarifies that the icon is a "shortcut" to the Microsoft Copilot web app that opens in the TV's web browser, rather than "an application-based service embedded in the TV." He also adds that "features such as microphone input are activated only with the customer's explicit consent." There's no word on when LG will roll out the ability to delete the Copilot icon.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://slashdot.org/story/25/12/18/217230/lg-will-let-tv-owners-delete-microsoft-copilot-after-customer-outcry?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

alternative_right shares a report from ScienceAlert: A new study adds to the growing body of evidence that swearing can help us unleash our inner strength, improving physical performance, it seems, by helping people break through certain psychological barriers. [...] [Psychology researcher Richard Stephens of Keele University in the UK] and his colleagues at Keele and the University of Alabama wanted to test whether swearing could not only improve physical performance, as they had done in previous research, but also see whether it does so by changing a person's psychology in the moment, especially when it comes to letting go of inhibitions.

Eighty-eight participants, aged 18 to 65, all in good enough shape to exert themselves physically, were recruited at a university campus to participate in the first experiment. They each selected a pair of words based on the following prompts: a swear word you might utter after bumping your head, and a neutral word you might use to describe a table. Then, they undertook a chair push-up, which involves sitting in a chair and, holding each side of the seat, using your arms to lift your entire body weight (bottom off the chair, feet off the floor). [...]

Both experiments suggested that swearing offers an advantage in physical performance, with participants achieving longer chair push-up hold times as they repeated their foul-mouthed mantras. Scores for positive emotion, humor, distraction, and novelty were also elevated in the swearing tests, which suggests invoking their favorite four-letter word might enable people to transition into more action-oriented states, and perhaps actually enjoy their workout more. The research is published in American Psychologist.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://science.slashdot.org/story/25/12/18/2116258/swearing-actually-seems-to-make-humans-physically-stronger?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Guardian: Actors have voted to refuse digital scanning to prevent their likeness being used by artificial intelligence in a pushback against AI in the arts. Members of the performing arts union Equity were asked if they would refuse to be scanned while on set, a common practice in which actors' likeness is captured for future use -- with 99% voting in favor of the move. The vote was an indicative ballot designed to demonstrate the strength of feeling on the issue, with more than 7,000 members polled on a 75% turnout. However, actors would not be legally protected if they refused to be scanned.

The union said it would write to Pact, the trade body representing the majority of producers and production companies in the UK, to negotiate new minimum standards for pay, as well as terms and conditions for actors working in film and TV. Equity said it may hold a formal ballot depending on the outcome of the negotiations, which, if backed, would give actors legal protection if they were being pressed to accept digital scanning on set. The general secretary, Paul Fleming, said: "Artificial intelligence is a generation-defining challenge. And for the first time in a generation, Equity's film and TV members have shown that they are willing to take industrial action. Ninety per cent of TV and film is made on these agreements. Over three-quarters of artists working on them are union members. This shows that the workforce is willing to significantly disrupt production unless they are respected, and [if] decades of erosion in terms and conditions begins to be reversed."

[ Read more of this story ]( https://news.slashdot.org/story/25/12/18/2133209/uk-actors-vote-to-refuse-to-be-digitally-scanned-in-pushback-against-ai?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Tony Isaac shares a report from CNN: President Donald Trump's social media and crypto company is making a huge bet on a far different industry -- nuclear fusion, a potentially lucrative albeit commercially unproven energy technology that could help power a suddenly electricity-starved economy. Trump Media and Technology Group Thursday announced a surprise merger with TAE Technologies, in an all-stock deal valued at more than $6 billion that would create one of the first publicly traded fusion companies. News of the deal shares of Trump Media (DJT) 35% higher in early trading Thursday.

After the deal closes, shareholders of Trump Media and TAE would own about 50% of the combined entity. The combined companies plan to begin construction as soon as next year of the world's first fusion reaction that could produce electricity on utility scale, rather than just in laboratory settings. The combination with TMTG could give TAE political clout. But it could also make it more politically controversial, particularly if it looks to receive any kind of federal government support, such as grants, low-interest loans or permitting approvals.

It could also give TAE access to capital that it needs. Under terms of the deal, TMTG would provide $300 million in cash for TAE's plans. But that is likely a fraction of the cash available from some of TAE's current investors, such as Google parent company Alphabet, as well as its bevy of private equity investors. But that $300 million is only a fraction of the money that TAE needs, or expects to be able to access, once it has become a public company with this deal. Staying a private company, even with deep pocketed investors, is no longer sufficient TAE CEO Michl Binderbauer told CNN Thursday. "It's a multi-billion dollar undertaking," said Binderbauer. "The velocity you can get the capital is differentiating. If I raise $2 billion over five years I can't built the plant sufficiently fast." He said the company has raised about $1.3 billion over the course of its 25-year history.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://news.slashdot.org/story/25/12/18/2137259/trumps-social-media-business-is-merging-with-a-nuclear-fusion-company?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Доступен корректирующий выпуск Firefox 146.0.1, в котором устранены 3 уязвимости, вызванные обращением к уже освобождённым областям памяти (CVE-2025-14860) и выходом за границы буферов (CVE-2025-14861). Потенциально данные проблемы способны привести к выполнению кода злоумышленника при открытии специально оформленных страниц. Кроме того, исправлено несколько не связанных с безопасностью проблем.

https://www.opennet.ru/opennews/art.shtml?num=64449

Google's AI Mode is synthesizing "Frankenstein" recipes from multiple creators, often stripping away context and accuracy and siphoning traffic and ad revenue away from food bloggers in the process. Many recipe writers warn this shift amounts to an "extinction event" for ad-supported food sites. The Guardian reports: Over the past few years, bloggers who have not secured their sites behind a paywall have seen their carefully developed and tested recipes show up, often without attribution and in a bastardized form, in ChatGPT replies. They have seen dumbed-down versions of their recipes in AI-assembled cookbooks available for digital downloads on Etsy or on AI-built websites that bear a superficial resemblance to an old-school human-written blog. Their photos and videos, meanwhile, are repurposed in Facebook posts and Pinterest pins that link back to this digital slop.

Recipe writers have no legal recourse because recipes generally are not copyrightable. Although copyright protects published or recorded work, they do not cover sets of instructions (although it can apply to the particular wording of those instructions). Without this essential IP, many food bloggers earn their living by offering their work for free while using ads to make money. But now they fear that casual users who rely on search engines or social media to find a recipe for dinner will conflate their work with AI slop and stop trusting online recipe sites altogether. "For websites that depend on the advertising model," says Matt Rodbard, the founder and editor-in-chief of the website Taste, "I think this is an extinction event in many ways."

[ Read more of this story ]( https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/12/18/2152215/google-ai-summaries-are-ruining-the-livelihoods-of-recipe-writers?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

После трёх месяцев разработки доступен релиз системного менеджера systemd 259. Ключевые изменения: поддержка стандартной библиотеки Musl, команда "run0 --empower" для выполнения привилегированных действий без смены UID, динамическая загрузка сторонних библиотек, востребованных в libsystemd, игнорирование файлов конфигурации через добавление к имени ".ignore".

https://www.opennet.ru/opennews/art.shtml?num=64450

Компания "Открытая мобильная платформа", разрабатывающая ОС Аврора на базе мобильной платформы Sailfish, объявила об открытии исходного кода библиотеки Aurora Embedder и редакции инструментария Flutter SDK, предназначенных для разработки приложений для ОС Аврора.

https://www.opennet.ru/opennews/art.shtml?num=64452

An anonymous reader quotes a report from KrebsOnSecurity: Direct navigation -- the act of visiting a website by manually typing a domain name in a web browser -- has never been riskier: A new study finds the vast majority of "parked" domains -- mostly expired or dormant domain names, or common misspellings of popular websites -- are now configured to redirect visitors to sites that foist scams and malware. When Internet users try to visit expired domain names or accidentally navigate to a lookalike "typosquatting" domain, they are typically brought to a placeholder page at a domain parking company that tries to monetize the wayward traffic by displaying links to a number of third-party websites that have paid to have their links shown.

A decade ago, ending up at one of these parked domains came with a relatively small chance of being redirected to a malicious destination: In 2014, researchers found (PDF) that parked domains redirected users to malicious sites less than five percent of the time -- regardless of whether the visitor clicked on any links at the parked page. But in a series of experiments over the past few months, researchers at the security firm Infoblox say they discovered the situation is now reversed, and that malicious content is by far the norm now for parked websites. "In large scale experiments, we found that over 90% of the time, visitors to a parked domain would be directed to illegal content, scams, scareware and anti-virus software subscriptions, or malware, as the 'click' was sold from the parking company to advertisers, who often resold that traffic to yet another party," Infoblox researchers wrote in a paper published today.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/12/18/220216/most-parked-domains-now-serving-malicious-content?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Организация Linux Foundation опубликовала годовой отчёт. За 2025 год организация получила 311.3 млн. долларов (год назад - $292.2 млн, два года назад - $263.6 млн), а израсходовала 284.8 млн долларов (год назад - $299.7, два года назад - $269 млн). Затраты на разработку ядра Linux составили 8.4 млн. долларов, что на 1.6 миллиона долларов больше, чем в прошлом году и на 600 тысяч долларов больше, чем в позапрошлом году. Общая доля затрат, связанных с разработкой ядра, среди всех расходов увеличилась до 2.9%. Для сравнения доля расходов на ядро в 2024 году составляла 2.3%, в 2023 - 2.9%, в 2022 - 3.2%, а в 2021 - 3.4%.

https://www.opennet.ru/opennews/art.shtml?num=64451

The Danish government has accused Russia of being behind two "destructive and disruptive" cyberattacks in what it describes as "very clear evidence" of a hybrid war. From a report: The Danish Defence Intelligence Service (DDIS) announced on Thursday that Moscow was behind a cyberattack on a Danish water utility in 2024 and a series of distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks on Danish websites in the lead-up to the municipal and regional council elections in November.

The first, it said, was carried out by the pro-Russian group known as Z-Pentest and the second by NoName057(16), which has links to the Russian state. "The Russian state uses both groups as instruments of its hybrid war against the west," DDIS said in a statement. "The aim is to create insecurity in the targeted countries and to punish those that support Ukraine. Russia's cyber operations form part of a broader influence campaign intended to undermine western support for Ukraine." It added: "The DDIS assesses that the Danish elections were used as a platform to attract public attention -- a pattern that has been observed in several other European elections."

[ Read more of this story ]( https://news.slashdot.org/story/25/12/19/1356239/denmark-says-russia-was-behind-two-destructive-and-disruptive-cyberattacks?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Apple released an updated developer license agreement this week that gives the company permission to recoup unpaid funds, such as commissions or any other fees, by deducting them from in-app purchases it processes on developers' behalf, among other methods. From a report: The change will impact developers in regions where local law allows them to link to external payment systems. In these cases, developers must report those payments back to Apple to pay the required commissions or fees.

The changed agreement seemingly gives Apple a way to collect what it believes is the correct fee if the company determines a developer has underreported their earnings. [...] In its new developer agreement, Apple states it will "offset or recoup" what it believes it is owed, including "any amounts collected by Apple on your behalf from end-users." This means Apple could recoup funds from developers' in-app purchases -- like those for digital goods, services, and subscriptions -- or from one-time fees for paid applications.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://apple.slashdot.org/story/25/12/19/1422210/apple-becomes-a-debt-collector-with-its-new-developer-agreement?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

More carbon dioxide in the environment is making food more calorific but less nutritious -- and also potentially more toxic, a study has found. From a report: Sterre ter Haar, a lecturer at Leiden University in the Netherlands, and other researchers at the institution created a method to compare multiple studies on plants' responses to increased CO2 levels. The results, she said, were a shock: although crop yields increase, they become less nutrient-dense. While zinc levels in particular drop, lead levels increase.

"Seeing how dramatic some of the nutritional changes were, and how this differed across plants, was a big surprise," she told the Guardian. "We aren't seeing a simple dilution effect but rather a complete shift in the composition of our foods... This also raises the question of whether we should adjust our diets in some way, or how we grow or produce our food."

While scientists have been looking at the effects of more CO2 in the atmosphere on plants for a decade, their work has been difficult to compare. The new research established a baseline measurement derived from the observation that the gas appears to have a linear effect on growth, meaning that if the CO2 level doubles, so does the effect on nutrients. This made it possible to compare almost 60,000 measurements across 32 nutrients and 43 crops, including rice, potatoes, tomatoes and wheat.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://science.slashdot.org/story/25/12/19/1533240/food-becoming-more-calorific-but-less-nutritious-due-to-rising-carbon-dioxide?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

The Association for Computing Machinery, the world's largest society of computing professionals, announced that all publications and related artifacts in the ACM Digital Library will become freely available to everyone starting January 2026. Authors will retain full copyright to their published work under the new arrangement, and ACM has committed to defending those works against copyright and integrity-related violations.

The transition follows what ACM described as extensive dialogue with authors, Special Interest Group leaders, editorial boards, libraries, and research institutions globally. Students, educators, and researchers at institutions of all sizes -- from well-resourced universities to emerging research communities -- will gain unrestricted access to the full catalog of ACM-published work. The Digital Library houses decades of computing research across journals, magazines, conference proceedings, and books.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://news.slashdot.org/story/25/12/19/168225/acm-to-make-its-entire-digital-library-open-access-starting-january-2026?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

iRobot, the Bedford, Massachusetts-based company that brought the Roomba vacuum cleaner into American homes over its 35-year history, filed for bankruptcy on Sunday and will be acquired by Picea, its Chinese contract manufacturer that also produces competing household devices.

The Wall Street Journal's editorial board placed blame for the company's demise on the Federal Trade Commission under Chair Lina Khan, which opposed Amazon's $1.7 billion bid to acquire iRobot. That deal collapsed in January 2024 amid regulatory pressure from both the FTC and European antitrust authorities. Senator Elizabeth Warren and other progressives had urged Khan to block the acquisition, arguing in a September 2022 letter that Amazon is "'almost universally recognized' as the leader in warehouse and fulfillment robotics space" and that the deal "would open up a new market to Amazon's abuses."

After the deal fell through, iRobot cut 31% of its workforce and moved "non-core engineering functions to lower-cost regions." The company had shifted production to Vietnam to reduce its exposure to China but was hit by tariffs under Trump's Liberation Day trade measures -- initially 46%, later reduced to 20%. iRobot said the trade uncertainty made it difficult to operate.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://slashdot.org/story/25/12/19/1654219/how-lina-khan-killed-irobot?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Uber is hiring more engineers rather than fewer because AI tools have made them "superhumans," CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said, pushing back against the industry trend of using productivity gains to justify headcount cuts. Speaking on the "On with Kara Swisher" podcast, Khosrowshahi noted that other tech executives see AI making engineers 20% to 30% more productive and conclude they need 20% to 30% fewer engineers. His view: every engineer has become more valuable. Between 80% and 90% of Uber's developers now use AI tools, according to Khosrowshahi.

The company no longer keeps scores of engineers on call to diagnose issues because AI agents are constantly monitoring systems, he said. The latest AI models are producing "hundreds of millions of dollars of benefit" for Uber, he said, describing the company as an "applied AI" business that harnesses the technology for pricing, payments, matching, routing, identification and customer complaints.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/12/19/1717228/uber-is-hiring-more-engineers-because-ai-is-making-them-more-valuable-ceo-says?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

The television industry's brightness war may have hit its inflection point in 2025, the year TCL and Hisense released the first consumer TVs capable of 5,000 nits under specific settings -- a figure that would have seemed absurd not long ago when manufacturers struggled to reach 2,000 nits. LG introduced Primary RGB Tandem OLED technology, moving from a three-stack panel design to a four-stack red-blue-green-blue configuration that the company claims can achieve 4,000 nits. The technology appears in the LG G5, Panasonic Z95B and Philips OLED950 and OLED910.

RGB mini-LED also emerged as a new category. The technology uses individual small red, green and blue LED backlights instead of white or blue LEDs paired with quantum dots. Hisense demonstrated it at CES 2025, TCL announced its Q10M for China, and Samsung unveiled its own version called micro-RGB. These sets range from $12,000 to $30,000. Sony has confirmed it will debut RGB TV technology in spring 2026. HDR content is currently mastered at a maximum of 4,000 nits. The situation echoes the audio industry's loudness war, The Verge points out, which peaked with Metallica's heavily compressed Death Magnetic in 2008.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://entertainment.slashdot.org/story/25/12/19/1734246/2025-was-the-beginning-of-the-end-of-the-tv-brightness-war?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

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https://www.opennet.ru/opennews/art.shtml?num=64453

Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman estimates that staying competitive in frontier AI development will require "hundreds of billions of dollars" over the next five to ten years, a sum that doesn't even account for the high salaries companies are paying individual researchers and technical staff. Speaking on a podcast, Suleyman compared Microsoft to a "modern construction company" where hundreds of thousands of workers are building gigawatts of CPUs and AI accelerators. There's "a structural advantage by being inside a big company," he said.

When asked whether startups could compete with Big Tech, Suleyman said "it's hard to say," adding that "the ambiguity is what's driving the frothiness of the valuations." Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in September he'd rather risk "misspending a couple of hundred billion" than fall behind in superintelligence.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://slashdot.org/story/25/12/19/1852238/microsoft-ai-chief-staying-in-the-frontier-ai-race-will-cost-hundreds-of-billions?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

alternative_right writes: Grocery delivery service Instacart will refund $60 million to settle FTC claims that it misled customers with false advertising and unlawfully enrolled them in paid subscriptions. Instacart partners with over 1,800 retailers to provide online shopping, delivery, and pickup services from nearly 100,000 stores across North America. Its platform serves millions of customers and is also used by roughly 600,000 independent shoppers across thousands of cities in Canada and the United States.

In a complaint filed on Thursday, the FTC claimed Instacart engaged in multiple deceptive tactics that raised costs for customers, including failing to provide advertised refunds and falsely advertising "free delivery" while still charging mandatory service fees that added up to 15% to order costs. The FTC said Instacart also advertised a "100% satisfaction guarantee," but typically offered only small credits toward future orders rather than full refunds to customers experiencing problems with deliveries or service. The company allegedly hid refund options from "self-service" menus, leading customers to believe credits were their only option.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://news.slashdot.org/story/25/12/19/1921253/ftc-instacart-to-refund-60m-over-deceptive-subscription-tactics?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

President Trump's closure of the de minimis customs loophole in May -- which previously allowed Chinese packages valued under $800 to enter the U.S. duty-free -- has redirected a flood of cheap goods toward Europe, where similar exemptions for packages under $175.8 in the EU and $180 in the UK remain intact.

The shift has been swift: exports of low-value Chinese packages to the U.S. have dropped more than 40% since May, according to Chinese customs data, and the EU has this year overtaken the U.S. as the largest market for China's roughly $100 billion cheap package trade.

Shipments to Hungary and Denmark have quadrupled, and those to Germany, France, and the UK have risen 50% or more. Temu has recorded seven straight months of double-digit U.S. sales declines, per Consumer Edge data tracking credit and debit card transactions. Its European sales, on the other hand: up 56% in the EU and 46% in the UK since May compared to a year ago. The EU agreed last week to impose a $3.5 fee on imported small packages starting in July and to close the de minimis exemption entirely by 2028. The UK plans to follow in 2029.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://slashdot.org/story/25/12/19/1925205/all-that-cheap-chinese-stuff-is-now-europes-problem?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Состоялся выпуск Lanemu P2P VPN 0.13.1 - реализации децентрализованной виртуальной частной сети, работающей по принципу Peer-To-Peer, при котором участники подключены друг к другу, а не через центральный сервер. Участники сети могут находить друг друга через BitTorrent-трекеры или BitTorrent DHT, либо через других участников сети (peer exchange). Приложение является бесплатным и открытым аналогом VPN Hamachi, написано на языке Java (c отдельными компонентами на языке Си) и распространяется под лицензией GNU LGPL 3.0. Поддерживается запуск в Windows, GNU/Linux, FreeBSD и Mac OS.

https://www.opennet.ru/opennews/art.shtml?num=64455

После трёх лет разработки представлен релиз платформы для потребительских интернет-устройств WebThings Gateway 2.0. Изначально платформа развивалась компанией Mozilla, но затем была преобразована в независимый проект, управляемый и развиваемый сообществом. Платформа WebThings состоит из шлюза WebThings Gateway и библиотеки WebThings Framework. Код проекта написан на языках TypeScript и JavaScript с использованием серверной платформы Node.js и распространяется под лицензией MPL 2.0. Загрузочные сборки с интегрированной поддержкой WebThings Gateway, предоставляющие унифицированный интерфейс для настройки умного дома, подготовлены в форме образа для плат Raspberry Pi, Docker-контейнера и snap-пакета.

https://www.opennet.ru/opennews/art.shtml?num=64454

Microsoft's latest holiday ad for its Copilot AI assistant features a 30-second montage of users seamlessly syncing smart home lights to music, scaling recipes for large gatherings, and parsing HOA guidelines -- none of which the software can actually perform reliably when put to the test. The Verge methodically tested each prompt shown in the ad and found that Copilot repeatedly hallucinated interface elements that didn't exist, claimed to highlight on-screen buttons when it hadn't, and abandoned calculations midway through.

The smart home interface shown in the ad belongs to "Relecloud," a fictional company Microsoft uses in internal case studies. A Microsoft spokesperson confirmed that both the HOA document and the inflatable reindeer photo were fabricated for the advertisement. The ad closes with Santa Claus asking Copilot why toy production is behind schedule.

Further reading: Talking To Windows' Copilot AI Makes a Computer Feel Incompetent.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://slashdot.org/story/25/12/19/1932210/microsoft-made-another-copilot-ad-where-nothing-actually-works?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: At this point, most competitive online multiplayer games on the PC come with some kind of kernel-level anti-cheat software. As we've written before, this is software that runs with more elevated privileges than most other apps and games you run on your PC, allowing it to load in earlier and detect advanced methods of cheating. More recently, anti-cheat software has started to require more Windows security features like Secure Boot, a TPM 2.0 module, and virtualization-based memory integrity protection. Riot Games, best known for titles like Valorant and League of Legends and the Vanguard anti-cheat software, has often been one of the earliest to implement new anti-cheat requirements. There's already a long list of checks that systems need to clear before they'll be allowed to play Riot's games online, and now the studio is announcing a new one: a BIOS update requirement that will be imposed on "certain players" following Riot's discovery of a UEFI bug that could allow especially dedicated and motivated cheaters to circumvent certain memory protections.

In short, the bug affects the input-output memory management unit (IOMMU) "on some UEFI-based motherboards from multiple vendors." One feature of the IOMMU is to protect system memory from direct access during boot by external hardware devices, which otherwise might manipulate the contents of your PC's memory in ways that could enable cheating. The patch for these security vulnerabilities (CVE-2025-11901, CVE-202514302, CVE-2025-14303, and CVE-2025-14304) fixes a problem where this pre-boot direct memory access (DMA) protection could be disabled even if it was marked as enabled in the BIOS, creating a small window during the boot process where DMA devices could gain access to RAM.

The relative obscurity and complexity of this hardware exploit means that Vanguard isn't going to be enforcing these BIOS requirements on every single player of its games. For now, it will just apply to "restricted" players of Valorant whose systems, for one reason or another, are "too similar to cheaters who get around security features in order to become undetectable to Vanguard." But Riot says it's considering rolling the BIOS requirement out to all players in Valorant's highest competitive ranking tiers (Ascendant, Immortal, and Radiant), where there's more to be gained from working around the anti-cheat software. And Riot anti-cheat analyst Mohamed Al-Sharifi says the same restrictions could be turned on for League of Legends, though they aren't currently. If users are blocked from playing by Vanguard, they'll need to download and install the latest BIOS update for their motherboard before they'll be allowed to launch the game. Riot's new anti-cheat change could create problems for older PCs if the new anti-cheat change is expanded, notes Ars.

The update relies on a BIOS patch to fix a UEFI flaw, and many older motherboards, especially Intel 300-series and AMD AM4 boards, may never receive that update. If Riot flags a system and the manufacturer doesn't provide a patched BIOS, players could be locked out of games despite having otherwise capable hardware.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/25/12/19/2135223/riot-games-is-making-an-anti-cheat-change-that-could-be-rough-on-older-pcs?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

The White House says it's investigating how a personal-finance YouTuber's livestream briefly appeared on the White House's official live video page. The creator says he has no idea how his video ended up there. The Associated Press reports: The livestream appeared for at least eight minutes late Thursday on whitehouse.gov/live, where the White House usually streams live video of the president speaking. It's unclear if the website was breached or the video was linked accidentally by someone in the government. The White House said in a statement that it was "aware and looking into what happened." The video that appeared on the government-run website featured some of a more than two-hour livestream from Matt Farley, who posts as @RealMattMoney, as he answered financial questions.

Farley told The Associated Press on Friday that he had no idea what happened and learned about it after the fact. He said he had not been contacted by the government and didn't have any theories about how his livestream ended up on the website. He joked that he hoped President Donald Trump and his youngest son, Barron Trump, "are watching my streams and taking advice."

"Had I known it would have been on the White House website, I probably would have had other things to talk about than personal finance," Farley said. When asked what other things he would discuss, Farley responded with a laugh and said: "What would you talk about with the world for eight minutes if you had an opportunity? I'm just some guy making YouTube videos about stocks."

[ Read more of this story ]( https://yro.slashdot.org/story/25/12/19/2144258/youtubers-livestream-appears-on-white-house-website?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

TikTok's owner ByteDance has signed a deal creating a U.S.-focused joint venture majority-owned by American and global investors, allowing the app to avoid a U.S. ban while ByteDance retains a minority stake. The BBC reports: Half of the joint venture will be owned by a group of investors including Oracle, Silver Lake and the Emirati investment firm MGX, according to a memo sent by chief executive Shou Zi Chew. The deal, which is set to close on January 22, would end years of efforts by Washington to force ByteDance to sell its US operations over national security concerns. It is in-line with a deal unveiled in September, when US President Donald Trump delayed the enforcement of a law that would ban the app unless it was sold.

TikTok said in the memo that the deal would enable "over 170 million Americans to continue discovering a world of endless possibilities as part of a vital global community." Under the agreement, ByteDance will retain 19.9% of the business, while Oracle, Silver Lake and Abu Dhabi-based MGX will hold 15% each. Another 30.1% will be held by affiliates of existing ByteDance investors, according to the memo.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/12/19/2150202/tiktok-owner-signs-deal-to-avoid-us-ban?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Earlier this month, Strava, the popular fitness-tracking app, released its annual "Year in Sport" wrap-up -- a cutesy, animated series of graphics summarizing each user's athletic achievements. But this year, for the first time, Strava made this feature available only to users with subscriptions ($80 per year), rather than making it free to everyone, as it had been historically since the review's debut in 2016. This decision has roiled numerous Strava users, particularly those who have relished the app's social encouragement features.

One Strava user in India, Shobhit Srivastava, "begged" Strava to "let the plebs see their Year in Sport too, please." He later explained to Ars that having this little animated video is more than just a collection of raw numbers. "When someone makes a video of you and your achievements and tells you that these are the people who stood right behind you, motivated you, cheered for you -- that feeling is of great significance to me!" he said by email. "Our goal was to give our users ample notice before the personalized Year In Sport was released," said Strava spokesperson Chris Morris. "With the relaunch of our subscription this year, we wanted to clarify the core benefits of Strava -- uploading activities, finding your community, sharing and giving kudos -- remain as accessible as possible."

[ Read more of this story ]( https://news.slashdot.org/story/25/12/19/2158235/strava-puts-popular-year-in-sport-recap-behind-an-80-paywall?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

An independent review found that at least ten technical and process failures during a routine firewall upgrade at Australia's Optus prevented emergency calls from reaching Triple Zero for 14 hours, during which 455 calls failed and two callers died. The Register reports: On Thursday, Optus published an independent report (PDF) on the matter written by Dr Kerry Schott, an Australian executive who has held senior management roles at many of the country's most significant businesses. The report found that Optus planned 18 firewall upgrades and had executed 15 without incident. But on the 16th upgrade, Optus issued incorrect instructions to its outsourced provider Nokia. [...] Schott summarized the incident as follows: "Three issues are clear during this incident. The first is the very poor management and performance within [Optus] Networks and their contractor, Nokia. Process was not followed, and incorrect procedures were selected. Checks were inadequate, controls avoided and alerts given insufficient attention. There appeared to be reticence in seeking more experienced advice within Networks and a focus on speed and getting the task done, rather than an emphasis on doing things properly."

The review also found that Optus' call center didn't appreciate it could be "the first alert channel for Triple Zero difficulties." The document also notes that Australian telcos try to route 000 calls during outages, but that doing so is not easy and is made harder by the fact that different smartphones behave in different ways. Optus does warn customers if their devices have not been tested for their ability to connect to 000, and maintains a list of known bad devices. But the report notes Optus's process "does not capture so-called 'grey' devices that have been bought online or overseas and may not be compliant." "To have a standard firewall upgrade go so badly is inexcusable," the document states. "Execution was poor and seemed more focussed on getting things done than on being right. Supervision of both network staff and Nokia must be more disciplined to get things right."

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Elite computer science degrees are no longer a guaranteed on-ramp to tech jobs, as AI-driven coding tools slash demand for entry-level engineers and concentrate hiring around a small pool of already "elite" or AI-savvy developers. The Los Angeles Times reports: "Stanford computer science graduates are struggling to find entry-level jobs" with the most prominent tech brands, said Jan Liphardt, associate professor of bioengineering at Stanford University. "I think that's crazy." While the rapidly advancing coding capabilities of generative AI have made experienced engineers more productive, they have also hobbled the job prospects of early-career software engineers. Stanford students describe a suddenly skewed job market, where just a small slice of graduates -- those considered "cracked engineers" who already have thick resumes building products and doing research -- are getting the few good jobs, leaving everyone else to fight for scraps.

"There's definitely a very dreary mood on campus," said a recent computer science graduate who asked not to be named so they could speak freely. "People [who are] job hunting are very stressed out, and it's very hard for them to actually secure jobs." The shake-up is being felt across California colleges, including UC Berkeley, USC and others. The job search has been even tougher for those with less prestigious degrees. [...] Data suggests that even though AI startups like OpenAI and Anthropic are hiring many people, it is not offsetting the decline in hiring elsewhere. Employment for specific groups, such as early-career software developers between the ages of 22 and 25 has declined by nearly 20% from its peak in late 2022, according to a Stanford study. [...]

A common sentiment from hiring managers is that where they previously needed ten engineers, they now only need "two skilled engineers and one of these LLM-based agents," which can be just as productive, said Nenad Medvidovic, a computer science professor at the University of Southern California. "We don't need the junior developers anymore," said Amr Awadallah, CEO of Vectara, a Palo Alto-based AI startup. "The AI now can code better than the average junior developer that comes out of the best schools out there." [...] Stanford students say they are arriving at the job market and finding a split in the road; capable AI engineers can find jobs, but basic, old-school computer science jobs are disappearing. As they hit this surprise speed bump, some students are lowering their standards and joining companies they wouldn't have considered before. Some are creating their own startups. A large group of frustrated grads are deciding to continue their studies to beef up their resumes and add more skills needed to compete with AI.

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