Cryptographers Cancel Election Results After Losing Decryption Key
The International Association of Cryptologic Research (IACR) was forced to cancel its leadership election after a trustee lost their portion of the Helios voting system’s decryption key, making it impossible to reveal or verify the final results. Ars Technica reports: The IACR said Friday that the votes were submitted and tallied using Helios, … ⌘ Read more

Nautilus File Manager In GNOME 50 Will Load Thumbnails Much Faster
Just last week GNOME’s Nautilus file manager “GNOME Files” made headlines for finally supporting Ctrl+INsert and Shift+Insert while this week there is more activity worth pointing out. Nautilus in GNOME 50 will be loading thumbnail images much faster than in prior versions… ⌘ Read more

Google Starts Testing Ads In AI Mode
Google has begun testing sponsored ads inside its Gemini-powered AI Mode, placing labeled “sponsored” links at the bottom of AI-generated responses. Engadget reports: [A] Google spokesperson says the result shown is akin to similar tests it’s been running this year. “People seeing ads in AI Mode in the wild is simply part of Google’s ongoing tests, which we’ve been running for several months,” the … ⌘ Read more

SEC Dismisses Case Against SolarWinds, Top Security Officer
The SEC has officially dismissed its high-profile case against SolarWinds and its CISO that was tied to a Russia-linked cyberattack involving the software company. Reuters reports: The landmark case, which SEC brought in late 2023, rattled the cybersecurity community and later faced scrutiny from a judge who dismissed many of the charges. The SEC had said So … ⌘ Read more

Malaysia’s Palm Oil Estates Are Turning Into Data Centers
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: Malaysia’s palm oil giants, long-blamed for razing rainforests, fueling toxic haze and driving orangutans to the brink of extinction, are recasting themselves as unlikely champions in a different, potentially greener race: the quest to lure the world’s AI data centers to the Southeast Asian country (source paywalle … ⌘ Read more

Firefox 147 Will Support The XDG Base Directory Specification
Phoronix’s Michael Larabel reports: A 21 year old bug report requesting support of the XDG Base Directory specification is finally being addressed by Firefox. The Firefox 147 release should respect this XDG specification around where files should be positioned within Linux users’ home directory.

The XDG Base Directory specification lays out where applic … ⌘ Read more

Google Must Double AI Serving Capacity Every 6 Months To Meet Demand
Google’s AI infrastructure chief told employees the company must double its AI serving capacity every six months in order to meet demand. In a presentation earlier this month, Amin Vahdat, a vice president at Google Cloud, gave a presentation titled “AI Infrastructure.” It included a slide on “AI compute demand” that said: “Now we must dou … ⌘ Read more

NVIDIA 580.94.11 Linux Driver Brings HDR Metadata Support
NVIDIA today issued the 580.94.11 driver release as their newest Vulkan beta driver for Linux customers. Most notable with this beta driver update is adding VK_EXT_hdr_metadata support… ⌘ Read more

Tech Company CTO and Others Indicted For Exporting Nvidia Chips To China
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: The US crackdown on chip exports to China has continued with the arrests of four people accused of a conspiracy to illegally export Nvidia chips. Two US citizens and two nationals of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), all of whom live in the US, were charged in an indictment … ⌘ Read more

British Army Will Use Call of Duty To Train Soldiers
British soldiers are using computer games such as Call of Duty to sharpen their “war-fighting readiness,” an Army chief has said. From a report: General Sir Tom Copinger-Symes, the deputy commander of Cyber and Specialist Operations Command, said the war in Ukraine, where remote-operated drones have become crucial on the battlefield, proved the worth of having soldiers s … ⌘ Read more

Japan Says World’s Largest Nuclear Plant To Restart
The Japanese government said that the world’s biggest nuclear plant would restart operations. Semafor: The Kashiwazaki-Kariwa site closed in 2012, as Japan – which previously generated 30% of its electricity from nuclear power – shuttered most of its fleet in the wake of the Fukushima meltdown. But like much of the world, it is looking once again to nuclear power for reliable … ⌘ Read more

Google Says Hackers Stole Data From Over 200 Companies Following Gainsight Breach
Google confirmed in a statement Friday that hackers have stolen the Salesforce-stored data of more than 200 companies in a large-scale supply chain hack. TechCrunch reports: On Thursday, Salesforce disclosed a breach of “certain customers’ Salesforce data” – without naming affected companies – that was stolen v … ⌘ Read more

Steam Frame Using Mesa’s Turnip Vulkan Open-Source Driver
In addition to Valve contributing to the open-source Radeon Vulkan driver for enhancing the Linux gaming experience and their AMD-powered Steam Deck, the upcoming Steam Frame VR headset is making use of Mesa’s open-source “Turnip” Vulkan driver for Qualcomm Adreno graphics… ⌘ Read more

Microsoft Finally Admits Almost All Major Windows 11 Core Features Are Broken
Microsoft has acknowledged in a support article that major Windows 11 core features including the Start Menu, Taskbar, File Explorer and System Settings break after applying monthly cumulative updates released on or after July 2025.

The problems stem from XAML component issues that affect updates beginning with July’s P … ⌘ Read more

Thunderbird Pro Enters Production Testing Ahead of $9/Month Launch
Thunderbird Pro has moved its Thundermail email service into production testing as the open-source email client’s subscription bundle of additional services prepares for an Early Bird beta launch at $9 per month that will include email hosting, encrypted file sharing through Send, and scheduling via Appointment.

Internal team members are now tes … ⌘ Read more

TUXEDO Computers Drops Snapdragon X1 Elite Linux Laptop Plans
Back in mid-2024, the Bavarian Linux PC vendor TUXEDO Computers teased plans for developing a Snapdragon X Elite Linux laptop. Initially they hoped to have it out by Christmas 2024. That didn’t happen and now approaching Christmas 2025 they confirmed they have stopped their plans for shipping a Snapdragon X1 Elite laptop for Linux customers… ⌘ Read more

How Two Janitors Made One of the Year’s Most Charming RPGs
Adam Marshall spent more than a decade developing Kingdoms of the Dump while working as a custodian at a school in suburban Philadelphia, cleaning floors and hauling trash bags from 3 PM to 11 PM before coming home to work on his turn-based role-playing game until 5 or 6 AM. The game, which Bloomberg has called “one of the year’s most charming RPGs,” came out … ⌘ Read more

AI Nutrition Tracking Stinks
AI nutrition tracking features in popular fitness apps are producing wildly inaccurate calorie and macro counts despite promises to simplify food logging through automated photo analysis. The Verge tested AI-powered nutrition tools in Ladder, Oura Advisor, January and MyFitnessPal. Ladder’s AI estimated the outlet’s carefully measured 355-calorie breakfast at 780 calories and got the macro breakdown wrong even after the r … ⌘ Read more

Amazon Cut Thousands of Engineers in Its Record Layoffs, Despite Saying It Needs To Innovate Faster
Amazon’s 14,000-plus layoffs announced last month touched almost every piece of the company’s sprawling business, from cloud computing and devices to advertising, retail and grocery stores. But one job category bore the brunt of cuts more than others: engineers. CNBC: Documents filed … ⌘ Read more

@thecanine@twtxt.net @movq@www.uninformativ.de Unfortunately, yes.

Meta Enters Power Trading To Support Its AI Energy Needs
Meta is venturing into the complex world of electricity trading, betting it can accelerate the construction of new US power plants that are vital to its AI ambitions. From a report: The foray into power trading comes after Meta heard from investors and plant developers that too few power buyers were willing to make the early, long-term commitments required t … ⌘ Read more

Clang 21 Delivering Nice Performance Gains On AMD EPYC Zen 4 With HBM3
One of the areas I’ve been meaning to run more benchmarks on this season has been for the recently released Clang 21 compiler. Back in September when LLVM Clang 21 was debuting I ran some initial benchmarks and found it to deliver some nice performance gains on AMD EPYC Zen 5 but then have been busy with other benchmarks/articles for expanding that testing. Recently with having some spare cycles and gratis access still to the Microsoft A … ⌘ Read more

Sovereign Tech Fund Hiring A New Leader For Driving Open-Source Funding
Germany’s Sovereign Tech Fund / Sovereign Tech Agency has been a godsend the past few years for the open-source community. This funding from the German government has led to significant funding for dozens of prominent open-source infrastructure projects to provide more resources for enhancing security, enabling new features, and more. As the Sovereign Tech Fund prepares for the next phase of growth, they are hiring a new head to lead the efforts.. … ⌘ Read more

Microsoft’s AI-Powered Copy and Paste Can Now Use On-Device AI
An anonymous reader shares a report: Microsoft is upgrading its Advanced Paste tool in PowerToys for Windows 11, allowing you to use an on-device AI model to power some of its features. With the 0.96 update, you can route requests through Microsoft’s Foundry Local tool or the open-source Ollama, both of which run AI models on your device’s neural proces … ⌘ Read more

@thecanine@twtxt.net That image is correct.

Linux 6.19 To Add Support For The Realtek RTL8125K
The upcoming Linux 6.19 kernel cycle is set to introduce support for the Realtek RTL8125K as a forthcoming Ethernet ASIC… ⌘ Read more

Intel Linux Driver Working To Enable “CMTG” Feature For Lunar Lake Onwards
With Lunar Lake and newer Intel graphics there is a new feature called the Common Mode Timing Generator (CMTG) that so far hasn’t been enabled by the open-source Intel Linux graphics driver. But patches being worked on are enabling this CMTG feature that will unlock other functionality moving forward… ⌘ Read more

Google’s Recent Progress in AI Could ‘Create Some Temporary Economic Headwinds’ For OpenAI, Altman Warns Employees
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman told colleagues last month that Google’s recent progress in AI could “create some temporary economic headwinds for our company,” though he added that OpenAI would emerge ahead, The Information reports [non-paywalled source]. Fro … ⌘ Read more

Homeschooling Hits Record Numbers
An anonymous reader shares a report: “In the 2024-2025 school year, homeschooling continued to grow across the United States, increasing at an average rate of 5.4%,” Angela Watson of the Johns Hopkins University School of Education’s Homeschool Hub wrote earlier this month. “This is nearly three times the pre-pandemic homeschooling growth rate of around 2%.” She added that more than a third of the states fr … ⌘ Read more

HP and Dell Disable HEVC Support Built Into Their Laptops’ CPUs
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Some Dell and HP laptop owners have been befuddled by their machines’ inability to play HEVC/H.265 content in web browsers, despite their machines’ processors having integrated decoding support. Laptops with sixth-generation Intel Core and later processors have built-in hardware support for … ⌘ Read more

@xuu@txt.sour.is when it is extremely important to be the very best at everything, nothing can be left behind. Not even a piss drinking contest!

Intel Continues Working On Dynamic PAMT To Reduce Memory Overhead For TDX
One of the improvements that Intel software engineers have been working on for the Linux kernel around their Trust Domain Extensions (TDX) functionality for confidential computing VMs is reducing the memory use. That work is under the Dynamic PAMT umbrella and this week brought the latest iteration of patches to help lower RAM use when engaging TDX for confidential VMs… ⌘ Read more

ASUS Armoury Driver Set To Be Introduced In Linux 6.19
Expected to be introduced in the upcoming Linux 6.19 kernel cycle is the ASUS Armoury “asus-armoury” driver for enhancing support for the ASUS ROG Ally gaming handhelds and other ASUS enthusiast/gaming devices under Linux… ⌘ Read more

Servo Announces Sponsorship Tiers To Get More Organizations Backing This Browser Engine
The Servo open-source web browser engine has been making good progress in recent times. Long outside the confines of Mozilla and working as a Linux Foundation Europe project, Servo has been advancing thanks to Igalia and other open-source developers while getting by on around ~$5.7k USD per month thanks mostly to donations from individuals. Servo has now announced sponsorship tiers in hopefully to solicit more donations from la … ⌘ Read more

CERN Can Now Produce Antihydrogen Atoms Eight Times Faster Than Before
fahrbot-bot shares a report from Phys.org: Physicists from Swansea University have played the leading role in a scientific breakthrough at CERN, developing an innovative technique that increases the antihydrogen trapping rate by a factor of ten. The advancement, achieved as part of the international Antihydrogen Laser Physics Appara … ⌘ Read more

Moss Spores Survive 9 Months Outside ISS
alternative_right shares a report from Phys.org: Inspired by moss’s resilience, researchers sent moss sporophytes – reproductive structures that encase spores – to the most extreme environment yet: space. Their results, published in the journal iScience on November 20, show that more than 80% of the spores survived nine months outside of the International Space Station (ISS) and made it … ⌘ Read more

Advocacy Groups Urge Parents To Avoid AI Toys This Holiday Season
An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Associated Press: They’re cute, even cuddly, and promise learning and companionship – but artificial intelligence toys are not safe for kids, according to children’s and consumer advocacy groups urging parents not to buy them during the holiday season. These toys, marketed to kids as young as 2 years old … ⌘ Read more

Great things happening over at the Xhitter.

Fired Techie Admits Sabotaging Ex-Employer, Causing $862K In Damage
An Ohio IT contractor pleaded guilty to breaking into his former employer’s network after being fired, impersonating another worker and using a PowerShell script to reset 2,500 passwords – an act that locked out thousands of employees and caused more than $862,000 in damage. He faces up to 10 years in prison. The Register reports: Maxwell Schu … ⌘ Read more

Intel Compute Runtime 25.44.36015.5 Brings More Performance Optimizations & Features
Released tonight was the Intel Compute Runtime 25.44.36015.5 as their roughly monthly update to this open-source GPU compute stack providing Level Zero and OpenCL support for Intel’s integrated and discrete graphics hardware… ⌘ Read more

IBM, Cisco Outline Plans For Networks of Quantum Computers By Early 2030s
IBM and Cisco plan to link quantum computers over long distances by the early 2030s, “with the goal of demonstrating the concept is workable by the end of 2030,” reports Reuters. “The move could pave the way for a quantum internet, though executives at the two companies cautioned that the networks would require technologies that … ⌘ Read more

Mozilla Says It’s Finally Done With Two-Faced Onerep
Mozilla is officially ending its partnership with Onerep after more than a year of controversy over the company’s founder secretly running people-search and data-broker sites. Monitor Plus will be discontinued by December 2025, existing subscribers will receive prorated refunds, and Mozilla says it will focus on privacy tools it fully controls. KrebsOnSecurity reports: I … ⌘ Read more

Major Music Labels Strike Deals With New AI Streaming Service
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: The world’s largest music companies have licensed their works to a music startup called Klay, which is building a streaming service that will allow users to remake songs using artificial intelligence tools. Klay is the first music AI service to reach a deal with all three major record labels, … ⌘ Read more

Roblox Blocks Children From Chatting To Adult Strangers
Roblox is rolling out mandatory facial age-verification for chat features to prevent children from communicating with adult strangers. The platform will restrict chat to verified age groups, expand parental controls, and become the first major gaming platform to require facial age checks for messaging. The BBC reports: Mandatory age checks will be introduced for … ⌘ Read more

US Employee Well-Being Hit New Low In 2024, Survey Reveals
alternative_right shares a report from Phys.org: New research from the Human Capital Development Lab at the Johns Hopkins Carey Business School analyzes the state of the American workforce in 2024 and shows an overall decline in employee well-being compared to years prior. […] The latest research confirms a decline in general employee well-being since 20 … ⌘ Read more

Dell Now Shipping Laptop With Qualcomm NPU On Linux Ahead Of Windows 11
Dell announced today that their new Pro Max 16 Plus laptop with a Qualcomm discrete NPU is now shipping… That is if you are running Ubuntu Linux while the Windows 11 pre-load option is expected in early 2026. An exciting twist with the Linux version of the Dell Pro Max 16 Plus shipping before Microsoft Windows… ⌘ Read more

Google’s New Nano Banana Pro Uses Gemini 3 Power To Generate More Realistic AI Images
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Google’s meme-friendly Nano Banana image-generation model is getting an upgrade. The new Nano Banana Pro is rolling out with improved reasoning and instruction following, giving users the ability to create more accurate images with legible text and mak … ⌘ Read more

Future Google TV Devices Might Come With a Solar-powered Remote
An anonymous reader shares a report: Epishine, a company that makes solar cells optimized for indoor lighting, has announced its technology is being used in a new remote control for Google TV devices, as spotted by 9to5Google. The remote will rely on rechargeable batteries instead of disposable ones, and thanks to the use of solar cells on both sid … ⌘ Read more

Canonical Gets Flutter Up And Running On RISC-V For Ubuntu
Canonical has been bullish on RISC-V with Ubuntu being one of the most common Linux distributions endorsed by RISC-V board vendors. Canonical also has been bullish on the Flutter toolkit for crafting their desktop installer UI and other modern UI/app interfaces. But these two together haven’t panned out with Flutter not currently supporting RISC-V. Canonical has submitted pull requests now for enabling RISC-V support with Flutter… ⌘ Read more

Microsoft Open-Sources Classic Text Adventure Zork Trilogy
Microsoft has released the source code for Zork I, II, and III under the MIT License through a collaboration with Team Xbox and Activision that involved submitting pull requests to historical source repositories maintained by digital archivist Jason Scott. Each repository now includes the original source code and accompanying documentation.

The games arrive … ⌘ Read more