Do Emergency Microsoft, Oracle Patches Point to Wider Issues?
“Emergency out-of-band fixes issued by enterprise IT giants Microsoft and Oracle have shone a spotlight on issues around both update cycles and patching,” reports Computer Weekly:

Microsoft’s emergency update, KB5085516, addresses an issue that arose after installing the mandatory cumulative updates pushed live on Patch Tuesday earlier this month. Accordi … ⌘ Read more

MacOS 26.4 Adds Warnings For ClickFix Attacks to Its Terminal App
An anonymous Slashdot reader writes: ClickFix attacks are ramping up. These attacks have users copy and paste a string to something that can execute a command line — like the Windows Run dialog, or a shell prompt.

But MacRumors reports that macOS 26.4 Tahoe (updated earlier this week) introduces a new feature to its Terminal app where it will … ⌘ Read more

SystemD Contributor Harassed Over Optional Age Verification Field, Suggests Installer-Level Disabling
It’s FOSS interviewed a software engineer whose long-running open source contributions include Python code for the Arch Linux installer and maintaining packages for NixOS. But “a recent change he made to systemd has pushed him into the spotlight” after he’d added the optiona … ⌘ Read more

IBM Quantum Computer Simulates Real Magnetic Materials and Matches Lab Data
“IBM says its quantum computer can now simulate real magnetic materials and match actual lab experiment results,” writes Slashdot reader BrianFagioli, “which is something people have been waiting years to see.”

Instead of just theoretical output, the system reproduced neutron scattering data from a known material, meaning it lin … ⌘ Read more

Sony is Raising PlayStation 5 Prices Again, Between $100 and $150
Memory and storage shortages and price hikes have “steadily rippled outward across all kinds of consumer tech,” reports Ars Technica.

“Today’s bad news comes from Sony, which is raising prices for PlayStation 5 consoles in the US just eight months after their last price hike.”

The drive-less Digital Edition will increase from $500 to $600; the … ⌘ Read more

GIMP 3.2.2 Released With Minor UI/UX Updates & Bug Fixes
It was just two weeks ago that GIMP 3.2 released, one year after the big GIMP 3.0 debut. Out today is GIMP 3.2.2 with various bug fixes, plug-in / file format handling updates, and some minor UI/UX work… ⌘ Read more

Thousands of Americans Treated With Psilocybin in 2025
In a new 4,000-word article, CNN tells the story of a retired appellate paralegal and grandmother in her early 70s who was treated for depression with psilocybin. CNN notes there’s now retreats featuring psilocybin in a few countries — and while psilocybin is illegal under United States federal law, “In Oregon, 5,935 clients received psilocybin services through O … ⌘ Read more

Linux Maintainer Greg Kroah-Hartman Says AI Tools Now Useful, Finding Real Bugs
Linux kernel maintainer Greg Kroah-Hartman tells The Register that AI-driven code review has “really jumped” for Linux. “There must have been some inflection point somewhere with the tools…”

“Something happened a month ago, and the world switched. Now we have real reports.” It’s not just Linux, he continued. “All … ⌘ Read more

NASA’s First Nuclear-Powered Interplanetary Spacecraft Will Send Helicopters to Mars in 2028
After decades of studying, this week NASA announced “a major step forward in bringing nuclear power and propulsion from the lab to space.”
NASA will launch the Space Reactor-1 Freedom, the first nuclear powered interplanetary spacecraft, to Mars before the end of 2028, demonstrating advanc … ⌘ Read more

‘Ads Are Popping Up On the Fridge and It Isn’t Going Over Well’
The Wall Street Journal reports:
Walking into his kitchen, Tim Yoder recoiled at a message on his refrigerator door: “Shop Samsung water filters.” Yoder, a supply-chain manager in Chicago, owns a Samsung Electronics Family Hub fridge. He paid $1,400 for an appliance that came with a 32-inch screen on the door that allows him to control other Samsung gadget … ⌘ Read more

Transporting Antimatter On a Truck Is Tricky…
Long-time Slashdot reader Qbertino writes: … but the CERN Project “Antimatter in motion” just did it. For the first time in history researchers at CERN have transported 92 antiprotons on a truck in a specially designed magnetic enclosure. The test-drive went so well that the researchers spontaneously decided to go another round… The purpose of the experiment was to test the f … ⌘ Read more

AMD Introduces GAIA Agent UI For Privacy-First Web App For Local AI Agents
AMD’s GAIA AI agent framework (that previously stood for “Generative AI Is Awesome” albeit they seemed to have dropped promoting it as that name) for Ryzen AI hardware is out with a new version. AMD GAIA 0.17 introduces Agent UI as a new privacy-first web application for local AI agents… ⌘ Read more

People are Using AI-Powered Services to Find Lost Pets
A dog missing for two months was found at an animal shelter — and its owner received an email from an artificial intelligence service that identified it, according to the Washington Post.

“As controversial as AI is right now, this is one of those areas where it’s a real win,” according to the chief executive at the nonprofit animal welfare organization Best Friends Anim … ⌘ Read more

Linux 7.0-rc6 Bringing A Lot Of Audio Quirks / Fixes
The Linux 7.0-rc6 kernel due for release tomorrow has a lot of audio fixes/quirks to correct a wide variety of different hardware issues, mostly different problematic laptops for their speakers and/or microphone behavior under Linux… ⌘ Read more

Gedit Aims For More Frequent Releases, Bans AI / LLM Contributions
Following the release of GNOME 50, Gedit 50 was released on Friday as the newest version of this graphical text editor aligned with the GNOME desktop. Moving forward the Gedit developers are banning AI / large language model (LLM) driven developments and aim to ship more releases faster… ⌘ Read more

OpenAI’s US Ad Pilot Exceeds $100 Million In Annualized Revenue In Six Weeks
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: OpenAI’s ChatGPT ads pilot in the United States has crossed the $100 million annualized revenue mark within six weeks of launch, a company spokesperson said on Thursday, pointing to robust early demand for the AI startup’s nascent advertising business. […] While roughly 8 … ⌘ Read more

Fish 4.6 Shell Brings Support For Recent systemd Environment Variables
Fish 4.6 released today as the newest version of this Rust-based interactive shell for Linux and other platforms… ⌘ Read more

KDE Plasma 6.7 Addresses 5 Year Old Request For Easier Microphone Testing
It’s been another busy week in the KDE space as Plasma developers continue working on new feature activity for the big Plasma 6.7 release… ⌘ Read more

UK Startup Ignites Plasma Inside Nuclear Fusion Rocket
UK startup Pulsar Fusion says it has achieved the first plasma ignition inside a nuclear fusion rocket engine prototype – a huge step for space travel that could cut missions to Mars “from months-long journeys to just a few weeks,” reports Euronews. From the report: Pulsar Fusion revealed the milestone during a live stream at Amazon’s MARS Conference, hosted by … ⌘ Read more

AV1’s Open, Royalty-Free Promise In Question As Dolby Sues Snapchat Over Codec
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: AOMedia Video 1 (AV1) was invented by a group of technology companies to be an open, royalty-free alternative to other video codecs, like HEVC/H.265. But a lawsuit that Dolby Laboratories Inc. filed this week against Snap Inc. calls all that into question with claims … ⌘ Read more

DRBD Driver Working To Land ~15 Years Worth Of Changes Into The Linux Kernel
Developers behind the Distributed Replicated Block Device “DRBD” for mirroring block devices between multiple host systems are working to resync the upstream Linux kernel DRBD support with the out-of-tree DRBD code they have been maintaining for the past ~15 years out-of-sync. It’s a big undertaking but they have begun staging patches for review and testing to get this massive set of changes up to par for mainline… ⌘ Read more

Google Moves Post-Quantum Encryption Timeline Up To 2029
Google has moved up its post-quantum encryption migration target to 2029. “This new timeline reflects migration needs for the PQC era in light of progress on quantum computing hardware development, quantum error correction, and quantum factoring resource estimates,” said vice president of security engineering Heather Adkins and senior staff cryptology engineer Sop … ⌘ Read more

European Commission Investigating Breach After Amazon Cloud Account Hack
The European Commission is investigating a breach after a threat actor allegedly accessed at least one of its AWS cloud accounts and claimed to have stolen more than 350 GB of data, including databases and employee-related information. AWS says its own services were not breached. BleepingComputer reports: Sources familiar with the i … ⌘ Read more

Windows PCs Crash Three Times As Often As Macs, Report Says
A workplace-device study says Windows PCs crash significantly more often than Macs, lag further behind on patching and encryption in some sectors, and are typically replaced sooner. TechSpot reports: Omnissa’s 2026 State of Digital Workspace report outlines the IT challenges that various organizations face from the growing use of AI and the heterogeneous d … ⌘ Read more

Framework Computer Steps Up Their Support For KDE
Framework Computer as the company behind the modular Framework laptops and incredible Ryzen AI Max “Strix Halo” Framework Desktop has stepped up their support for the KDE community… ⌘ Read more

Austria Plans Social Media Ban For Under-14s
Austria plans to restrict under-14s from using social media platforms over concerns about addictive algorithms and harmful content. The government says draft legislation should be ready by the end of June, though details around enforcement and age verification have yet to be finalized. The BBC reports: Announcing the plans, Vice-Chancellor Andreas Babler of the Social Democrats said th … ⌘ Read more

Iran-Linked Hackers Breach FBI Director’s Personal Email
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: Iran-linked hackers have broken into FBI Director Kash Patel’s personal email inbox, publishing photographs of the director and other documents to the internet, the hackers and the bureau said on Friday. On their website, the hacker group Handala Hack Team said Patel “will now find his name among the list of succes … ⌘ Read more

Popular LiteLLM PyPI Package Backdoored To Steal Credentials, Auth Tokens
joshuark shares a report from BleepingComputer: The TeamPCP hacking group continues its supply-chain rampage, now compromising the massively popular “LiteLLM” Python package on PyPI and claiming to have stolen data from hundreds of thousands of devices during the attack. LiteLLM is an open-source Python library that serves as a gat … ⌘ Read more

No sign of April weather today, though. The setting sun was gorgeous: https://lyse.isobeef.org/abendhimmel-2026-03-27/

April is right around the corner. Calm, wind, sunshine, rain, snow, hail, thunder, we got it all yesterday. https://lyse.isobeef.org/abendhimmel-2026-03-26/

Number of AI Chatbots Ignoring Human Instructions Increasing, Study Says
A new study found a sharp rise in real-world cases of AI chatbots and agents ignoring instructions, evading safeguards, and taking unauthorized actions such as deleting emails or delegating forbidden tasks to other agents. According to the Guardian, the study “identified nearly 700 real-world cases of AI scheming and charted a five-fold … ⌘ Read more

California Bill Would Require Parent Bloggers To Delete Content of Minors On Social Media
A California bill would let adults demand the removal of social media posts about them that were created by paid family content creators when they were minors. Supporters say Senate Bill 1247 addresses privacy, dignity, and safety harms caused when parents monetize their children’s lives online. Th … ⌘ Read more

KDE Plasma 6.6 Showing Frequent Performance Advantage Over GNOME 50 With NVIDIA R595 Driver
Earlier this week I provided benchmarks looking at KDE Plasma 6.6’s performance advantage over GNOME 50 for Linux gaming with AMD Radeon graphics. That raised the question if the same was true when using NVIDIA graphics with their official Linux graphics driver stack. Here are such benchmarks looking at the KDE Plasma 6.6 and GNOME 50 performance on Ubuntu 26.04 beta while using the new NVIDIA 595.58.03 Linux driver. ⌘ Read more

Judge Blocks Pentagon’s Effort To ‘Punish’ Anthropic With Supply Chain Risk Label
An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNN: A federal judge in California has indefinitely blocked the Pentagon’s effort to “punish” Anthropic by labeling it a supply chain risk and attempting to sever government ties with the AI company, ruling that those measures ran roughshod over its constitutional rights. “Not … ⌘ Read more

Intel Xe Driver Improves Memory Pressure / Out-Of-Memory Behavior For vRAM With Linux 7.1
Following the Intel Xe kernel graphics driver pull request landing transparent hugepages for device pages as an SVM win, another round of Intel Xe driver updates were sent out this week ahead of next month’s Linux 7.1 merge window. This latest pull request lands a new user-space API for helping the Intel Xe driver better cope with situations of video memory pressure / out-of-memory behavior for vRAM… ⌘ Read more

BPF-Based I/O Scheduler For Linux Demonstrated
With sched_ext there is support for BPF-based CPU scheduling policies for the Linux kernel while now a new initiative is working on BPF-based I/O schedulers… ⌘ Read more

OpenAI Abandons ChatGPT’s Erotic Mode
OpenAI has indefinitely paused plans for an erotic mode in ChatGPT as part of a broader strategy shift away from side projects and toward business and coding tools. TechCrunch reports: The proposed “adult mode,” which CEO Sam Altman first floated in October, had inspired considerable controversy from tech watchdog groups as well as from OpenAI’s own staff. In January, a meeting between company executives … ⌘ Read more

AMD ROCm 7.12 Tech Preview Brings More Consumer APU & GPU Support
In addition to this week’s ROCm 7.2.1 stable point release, ROCm 7.12 was also released as the newest tech preview in working toward what will presumably be called ROCm 8.0… ⌘ Read more

Linux Patches Posted To Fix ~2x Performance Drop For CPU Workloads On NVIDIA Vera Rubin
An important set of Linux scheduler patches were posted for review on Thursday for improving the SMT-aware asymmetric CPU capacity handling. These patches to improve the Linux kernel scheduler around CPU Simultaneous Multi-Threading (SMT) is needed after NVIDIA engineers discovered up to a ~2x performance drop for CPU-intensive workloads on their upcoming Vera Rubin platform… ⌘ Read more

AMDGPU Driver For Linux 7.1 Preps Debug Improvements, New Hardware IP
Another round of AMDGPU/AMDKFD kernel driver improvements were sent out this week as feature development for DRM-Next ahead of Linux 7.1 begins to wind down… ⌘ Read more

CERN To Host Europe’s Flagship Open Access Publishing Platform
CERN has confirmed it will host an expanded version of Open Research Europe, the EU-backed fee-free open access publishing platform that works to “keep knowledge in public hands.” Research Professional News reports: A little over a year ago, 10 European research organizations announced that they would add their support to Open Research Europe, to b … ⌘ Read more

Apple Gives FBI a User’s Real Name Hidden Behind ‘Hide My Email’ Feature
An anonymous reader quotes a report from 404 Media: Apple provided the FBI with the real iCloud email address hidden behind Apple’s ‘Hide My Email’ feature, which lets paying iCloud+ users generate anonymous email addresses, according to a recently filed court record. The move isn’t surprising but still provides uncommon insight into … ⌘ Read more

wlroots 0.20 Released,Sway 1.12-rc1 Available For Testing With Color Management
Released today was wlroots 0.20 as this Wayland support library used by some Wayland compositors for doing much of the “heavy lifting” of compositor bring-up. Following wlroots 0.20, Sway 1.12-rc1 was released for testing as this closely-aligned Wayland compositor inspired by the i3 window manager… ⌘ Read more

Ubuntu 26.04 LTS Beta Released: Powered By Linux 7.0 + GNOME 50 + Mesa 26.0
Right on schedule the beta for Ubuntu 26.04 LTS is now available for testing. This is a great opportunity to help test this release ahead of the official Long Term Support release due out on 23 April… ⌘ Read more

Apple Discontinues Mac Pro
Apple has discontinued the Mac Pro and says it has no plans for future models. “The ‘buy’ page on Apple’s website for the Mac Pro now redirects to the Mac’s homepage, where all references have been removed,” reports 9to5Mac. From the report: The Mac Pro has lived many lives over the years. Apple released the current Mac Pro industrial design in 2019 alongside the Pro Display XDR (which was also discontinued earlier th … ⌘ Read more

Senators Demand to Know How Much Energy Data Centers Use
Elizabeth Warren and Josh Hawley are pressing the Energy Information Administration (EIA) to provide better information on how much electricity data centers actually use. In a joint letter sent to the EIA on Thursday, the two senators press the agency to publicly collect “comprehensive, annual energy-use disclosures” on data centers, saying it’s “essential for ac … ⌘ Read more

KDE’s KWin Compositor Lands First Step Toward Vulkan Support
Merged today was the very first step toward implementing Vulkan support within KDE’s KWin compositor as an alternative to OpenGL rendering… ⌘ Read more

JPMorgan Starts Monitoring Investment Banker Screen Time To Prevent Burnout
JPMorgan is piloting a system that monitors junior investment bankers to avoid burnout (source paywalled; alternative source). “[T]he bank will seek to match up hours claimed by the bankers with digital activity,” reports Bloomberg. “The tool won’t be used for evaluation purposes, but is designed to provide a better estimate of … ⌘ Read more

Vizio TVs Now Require Walmart Accounts For Smart Features
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Prospective Vizio TV buyers should know there’s a good chance the set won’t work properly without a Walmart account. In an attempt to better serve advertisers, Walmart, which bought Vizio in December 2024, announced this week that select newly purchased Vizio TVs now require a Walmart account for s … ⌘ Read more

Mozilla and Mila Team Up On Open Source AI Push
BrianFagioli writes: Mozilla just teamed up with Mila, the Quebec Artificial Intelligence Institute, to push open source AI – and it feels like a direct response to Big Tech tightening its grip on the space. Instead of relying on closed models, the goal here is to build “sovereign AI” that’s more transparent, privacy-focused, and actually under the control of developers and even … ⌘ Read more