Rubin Observatory Spots an Asteroid That Spins Fast Enough To Set a Record
Astronomers using the Vera C. Rubin Observatory have discovered a record-setting asteroid, known as 2025 MN45, nearly half a mile wide and spinning once every 1.88 minutes – the fastest known rotation for an object of its size. “This is now the fastest-spinning asteroid that we know of, larger than 500 meters,” said Sarah … ⌘ Read more

How Bright Headlights Escaped Regulation
Longtime Slashdot reader schwit1 shares a report from Autoblog: … the problem is that the federal brightness standards for automotive headlights have not changed for decades. The Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard No. 108 hasn’t had significant updates since 1986, with an addition allowing Adaptive Driving Beam (ADB) headlights coming only in 2022. The NHTSA last investigated (PDF) the is … ⌘ Read more

Japan’s Nuclear Watchdog Halts Plant’s Reactor Safety Screening Over Falsified Data
An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Associated Press: Japan’s nuclear watchdog said Wednesday it is scrapping the safety screening for two reactors at the Hamaoka nuclear power plant in central Japan, after its operator was found to have fabricated data about earthquake risks. It was a setback to Japan’s at … ⌘ Read more

@shinyoukai@neko.laidback.moe

Work kills the soul

it sure can! 🤣

@prologic@twtxt.net ultimately anyone can be at their 100% if left to their own devices

Work kills the soul

Make it so number one !

@movq@www.uninformativ.de What’s Email?! 😂

AI Chip Frenzy To Wallop DRAM Prices With 70% Hike
Samsung Electronics and SK hynix are projected to raise server memory prices by up to 70% in early 2026, according to Korea Economic Daily. “Combined with 50 percent increases in 2025, this could nearly double prices by mid-2026,” reports the Register. From the report: The two Korean giants, alongside US-based Micron, dominate global memory production. All three are realloca … ⌘ Read more

FEX 2601 Brings Various Fixes, Improvements For Wine & DXVK/VKD3D-Proton
FEX, the open-source emulator for running x86 and x86_64 binaries on AArch64 (ARM64) Linux and that is sponsored by Valve and to be used by the Steam Frame, is out with a new monthly feature release… ⌘ Read more

Google and Character.AI Agree To Settle Lawsuits Over Teen Suicides
Google and Character.AI have agreed to settle multiple lawsuits from families alleging the chatbot encouraged self-harm and suicide among teens. “The settlements would mark the first resolutions in the wave of lawsuits against tech companies whose AI chatbots encouraged teens to hurt or kill themselves,” notes Axios. From the report: Families … ⌘ Read more

OpenAI Launches ChatGPT Health, Encouraging Users To Connect Their Medical Records
OpenAI has unveiled ChatGPT Health, a sandboxed health-focused mode that lets users connect medical records and wellness apps for more personalized guidance. The company makes sure to note that ChatGPT Health is “not intended for diagnosis or treatment.” The Verge reports: The company is encouraging users to … ⌘ Read more

California Lawmaker Proposes a Four-Year Ban On AI Chatbots In Kids’ Toys
An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Senator Steve Padilla (D-CA) introduced a bill [dubbed SB 867] on Monday that would place a four-year ban on the sale and manufacture of toys with AI chatbot capabilities for kids under 18. The goal is to give safety regulators time to develop regulations to protect children f … ⌘ Read more

JPMorgan Chase Reaches a Deal To Take Over the Apple Credit Card
According to the Wall Street Journal (paywalled), Goldman Sachs is transferring Apple Card and Apple Savings to JPMorgan Chase. “It was clear in 2023 that Goldman Sachs would exit the consumer credit game, abandoning its Apple Card partnership with it,” reports AppleInsider. “However, it has taken 26 months to reach a point where it can finally h … ⌘ Read more

Bose Open-Sources Its SoundTouch Home Theater Smart Speakers Ahead of End-of-Life
Bose is end-of-lifing its SoundTouch smart speakers but softened the blow by open-sourcing the SoundTouch API and preserving limited local features, AirPlay, and Spotify Connect. Ars Technica reports: In October, Bose announced that its SoundTouch Wi-Fi speakers and soundbars would become dumb speakers on Februar … ⌘ Read more

Warner Bros Rejects Revised Paramount Bid, Sticks With Netflix
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: Warner Bros Discovery’s board unanimously turned down Paramount Skydance’s latest attempt to acquire the studio, saying its revised $108.4 billion hostile bid amounted to a risky leveraged buyout that investors should reject. In a letter to shareholders on Wednesday, Warner Bros’ board said Paramount’s … ⌘ Read more

Power Bank Feature Creep is Out of Control
The humble power bank has transformed from a simple pocket-sized battery into a feature-laden gadget that now sometimes includes screensavers, Bluetooth connectivity and built-in Wi-Fi hotspots. The Verge’s Thomas Ricker highlighted the $270 EcoFlow Rapid Pro X Power Bank 27k at CES 2026 as a prime offender – a device he declared “too expensive, too big, too slow, and too heavy.” Its … ⌘ Read more

AMD Linux GPU Driver Improvement Coming For DP-HDMI Dongles
For those using a DisplayPort to HDMI dongle currently with the AMDGPU Linux kernel graphics driver may find some higher resolutions / modes unavailable. Fortunately, a fix is on the way for dealing with this situation due to an oversight in the kernel driver… ⌘ Read more

@zvava@twtxt.net and the year of the Linux desktop, I swear! No more procrastination, this year is it.

New Dietary Guidelines Abandon Longstanding Advice on Alcohol
An anonymous reader shares a report: Ever since the federal government began issuing the Dietary Guidelines in 1980, it has told Americans to limit themselves to one or two standard alcoholic drinks a day. Over time, the official advice morphed to no more than two drinks a day for men, and no more than one for women. No longer [non-paywalled source]. … ⌘ Read more

Vacation: Doing crazy things like C on DOS, lots of Rust, bare-metal assembly code, everything is fine.

Back at work: How the fuck do I move an email in this web mail program? Am I stupid? 😮‍💨

@rrraksamam@twtxt.net down, boy! :-D

Samsung’s Rolling Ballie Robot Indefinitely Shelved After Delays
Samsung Electronics has once again sidelined Ballie, a long-anticipated robot that was first announced six years ago but never released. Bloomberg News: The device – designed to roll and roam throughout the home – is completely absent from this week’s CES, the biggest electronics trade show. And though Samsung said last year that Ballie was … ⌘ Read more

The Inevitable Rise of the Art TV
Several years after Samsung introduced the Frame TV in 2017 – a television designed to display fine art and resemble a framed painting when switched off – competitors are finally catching up in meaningful numbers. Amazon announced the Ember Artline TV at CES 2026 this week, a $899 model that can display one of 2,000 works of art for free and includes an Alexa AI tool to recommend pieces suited to … ⌘ Read more

Intel FSP Improvements With Core Ultra Series 3 “Panther Lake”
While for years open-source firmware enthusiasts have been after an open-source Firmware Support Package “FSP” for Intel CPUs and back during Raja Koduri’s tenure at Intel it sounded like it might happen, it has yet to happen. But at least with the forthcoming Intel Core Ultra Series 3 “Panther Lake” there are some FSP improvements… ⌘ Read more

How Aviation Emissions Could Be Halved Without Cutting Journeys
Climate-heating emissions from aviation could be slashed in half – without reducing passenger journeys – by getting rid of premium seats, ensuring flights are near full and using the most efficient aircraft, according to analysis. The Guardian: These efficiency measures could be far more effective in tackling the fast-growing carbon footprint of … ⌘ Read more

Microsoft Cancels Plans To Rate Limit Exchange Online Bulk Emails
Microsoft has canceled plans to impose a daily limit of 2,000 external recipients on Exchange Online bulk email senders. From a report: The change was announced in April 2024, when Microsoft said that it would add new External Recipient Rate (ERR) limits starting January 2025 to fight spam, with plans to begin enforcing the limit on cloud-hosted … ⌘ Read more

Dell Pro Max GB10 vs. AMD Ryzen AI Max+ Framework Desktop For Llama.cpp, OpenCL & Vulkan Compute
Over the past number of weeks the Dell Pro Max with GB10 has been undergoing a lot of testing at Phoronix. This NVIDIA GB10 powered mini PC with its 20 Arm cores (10 x Cortex-X925, 10 x Cortex-A725) and Blackwell GPU offers a lot of combined compute potential for AI and other workloads. In this article is a look at how the Dell Pro Max with GB10 competes with AMD’s Ryzen AI Max+ 395 “Strix Halo” within the Framew … ⌘ Read more

Logitech Caused Its Mice To Freak Out By Not Renewing a Certificate
An anonymous reader shares a report: If you’re among the macOS users experiencing some weird issues with your Logitech mouse, then good news: Logitech has now released a fix. This comes after multiple Reddit users reported yesterday that Logi Options Plus – the app required to manage and configure the controls on Logitech accessories – had … ⌘ Read more

Dell Walks Back AI-First Messaging After Learning Consumers Don’t Care
Dell’s CES 2026 product briefing, PC Gamer writes, stood out from the relentless AI-focused presentations that have dominated tech events for years, as the company explicitly chose to downplay its AI messaging when announcing a refreshed XPS laptop lineup, new ultraslim and entry-level Alienware laptops, Area-51 desktop refreshes and s … ⌘ Read more

Next-Gen AMD Server SoCs To Enjoy Firmware-Agnostic Platform Configuration Approach
Next-generation AMD server SoCs – presumably the AMD EPYC “Venice” on Zen 6 – is poised to introduce a firmware-agnostic platform configuration platform configuration change method/format. This is This aims to improve server platform interoperability and eliminate redundant configuration efforts for different firmware solutions… ⌘ Read more

‘Everyone Hates OneDrive, Microsoft’s Cloud App That Steals Then Deletes All Your Files’
Microsoft’s OneDrive cloud storage service has drawn renewed criticism for a particularly frustrating behavior pattern that can leave users without access to their local files after the service automatically activates during Windows updates.

Author Jason Pargin recently outlined the problem: Windows updat … ⌘ Read more

Polymarket Refuses To Pay Bets That US Would ‘Invade’ Venezuela
Polymarket is disputing that the mission to capture Nicolas Maduro constituted an invasion and said it will only settle a prediction contract if the US military takes control of Venezuelan territory. From a report: The decision by the prediction market has angered gamblers and added to the controversy surrounding a successful wager on the timing of M … ⌘ Read more

South Korea’s President Identifies a New Enemy: Baldness
South Korea’s President Lee Jae Myung asked at a televised policy meeting last month whether the country’s state-run healthcare plan could cover hair-loss treatment, framing it as a question about whether hair loss qualifies as a disease. The health minister told Lee that baldness is generally considered an aesthetic problem and therefore covered out-of-po … ⌘ Read more

Founder of Spyware Maker PcTattletale Pleads Guilty To Hacking, Advertising Surveillance Software
An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: The founder of a U.S.-based spyware company, whose surveillance products allowed customers to spy on the phones and computers of unsuspecting victims, pleaded guilty to federal charges linked to his long-running operation. pcTattle … ⌘ Read more

Radeon RADV Vulkan Driver Is On The Verge Of Another Big Ray-Tracing Performance Gain
Natalie Vock as one of the open-source developers on Valve’s Linux graphics team has been spearheading another big ray-tracing performance improvement for the AMD Radeon Vulkan driver. RADV ray-tracing performance improved a lot in 2025 but it’s looking like 2026 could be even more exciting… ⌘ Read more

Compiler-Based Context & Locking Analysis On Deck For Linux 7.0 Paired With Clang 22+
A new feature in the queue for likely introduction with the next version of the Linux kernel (Linux 6.20~7.0) is compiler-based context and locking analysis. This kernel code depends on the yet-to-be-released LLVM Clang 22 compiler but can provide some powerful insights to kernel developers… ⌘ Read more

Acer Laptop Battery Control Driver Looks Toward The Upstream Linux Kernel
For those with Acer laptops running Linux on GitHub there has been an out-of-tree driver providing an experimental “acer-wmi-battery” kernel module to allow controlling battery-related features. Now a cleaned-up version of that driver is working on getting into the mainline Linux kernel… ⌘ Read more

DRM Splash Screen Updated To Simply Drawing A Colored Background, Displaying A BMP Image
Back in October was an initial proposal for a DRM splash screen client for the Linux kernel that would be primarily useful for embedded systems for rendering a simple “splash screen” when updating the system firmware/software, early display activation at boot, during system recovery, or similar processes. Sent out today was a second revision to the DRM splash screen code… ⌘ Read more

Congressman Introduces Legislation To Criminalize Insider Trading On Prediction Markets
Ritchie Torres has introduced a bill to ban government officials from using insider information to trade on political prediction markets like Polymarket. The bill was prompted by reports that traders on Polymarket made large profits betting on Nicolas Maduro’s removal, raising suspicions that some wage … ⌘ Read more

An AI-Generated NWS Map Invented Fake Towns In Idaho
National Weather Service pulled an AI-generated forecast graphic after it hallucinated fake town names in Idaho. “The blunder – not the first of its kind to be posted by the NWS in the past year – comes as the agency experiments with a wide range of AI uses, from advanced forecasting to graphic design,” reports the Washington Post. “Experts worry that without properly … ⌘ Read more

Creator of Claude Code Reveals His Workflow
Boris Cherny, the creator of Claude Code at Anthropic, revealed a deceptively simple workflow that uses parallel AI agents, verification loops, and shared memory to let one developer operate with the output of an entire engineering team. “I run 5 Claudes in parallel in my terminal,” Cherny wrote. “I number my tabs 1-5, and use system notifications to know when a Claude needs input. … ⌘ Read more

Discord Files Confidentially For IPO
According to Bloomberg, Discord has confidentially filed for a U.S. IPO. Reuters reports: The U.S. IPO market regained momentum in 2025 after nearly three years of sluggish activity, but hopes for a stronger rebound were tempered by tariff-driven volatility, a prolonged government shutdown and a late-year selloff in artificial intelligence stocks. Discord, which was founded in 2015, offers voice, video … ⌘ Read more

Linux’s Old Mount API Code On The Chopping Block For The 7.0 Kernel
The Linux kernel’s “new mount API” that has been in the kernel since 2019 and recently made rounds for taking 6+ years to land the man page documentation on it will soon be the the only mount API internally within the kernel. Removing the “old” Linux kernel mount API internals is a candidate for the upcoming Linux 7.0 kernel cycle… ⌘ Read more

@kiwu@twtxt.net better now, with you around! 🙈

NYC Wegmans Is Storing Biometric Data On Shoppers’ Eyes, Voices and Faces
schwit1 shares a report from Gothamist: Wegmans in New York City has begun collecting biometric data from anyone who enters its supermarkets, according to new signage posted at the chain’s Manhattan and Brooklyn locations earlier this month. Anyone entering the store could have data on their face, eyes and voices collected and stor … ⌘ Read more

Utah Allows AI To Renew Medical Prescriptions
sinij shares a news release from the Utah Department of Commerce: The state of Utah, through the Utah Department of Commerce’s Office of Artificial Intelligence Policy, today announced a first-of-its-kind partnership with Doctronic, the AI-native health platform, to give patients with chronic conditions a faster, automated way to renew medications. This agreement marks the first s … ⌘ Read more

Nvidia Details New AI Chips and Autonomous Car Project With Mercedes
An anonymous reader quotes a report from the New York Times: On Monday, [Jensen Huang, the chief executive of the chip-making giant Nvidia] said the company would begin shipping a new A.I. chip later this year, one that can do more computing with less power than previous generations of chips could. Known as the Vera Rubin, the chip has b … ⌘ Read more

Google Will Now Only Release Android Source Code Twice a Year
Google will begin releasing Android Open Source Project (AOSP) source code only twice a year starting in 2026. “In the past, Google would release the source code for every quarterly Android release, of which there are four each year,” notes Android Authority. From the report: Google told Android Authority that, effective 2026, Google will publish new s … ⌘ Read more

Gentoo Linux Made Progress On RISC-V, WSL, & More While Pulling In Just $12k USD
The Gentoo Linux project published their 2025 retrospective this week with their many accomplishments, including the recruitment of four more developers and now being up to 31,663 ebuilds and a total of 89GB worth of x86_64 binary packages on mirrors… ⌘ Read more

Vietnam Bans Unskippable Ads
Vietnam will begin enforcing new online advertising rules in February 2026 that ban forced video ads longer than five seconds and must allow users to close ads with just one tap. “Furthermore, platforms must provide clear icons and instructions for users to report advertisements that violate the law, and allow them to opt out, turn off, or stop viewing inappropriate ads,” reports a local news outlet (translated to Eng … ⌘ Read more