Rogue Police Officers Have Turned Flock’s Nationwide Camera Network Into a Stalking Tool
A woman found her police officer ex-boyfriend cop had used Flock’s camera system 600 times to look up the location of her and her daughter, reports the Washington Post (Alternate URL here). (She found out through Have I Been Flocked, described as “a website that aggregates police search logs made avail … ⌘ Read more

GOG Officially Expands Linux Support With Native Galaxy Client In Development
Long-time Slashdot reader pyroclast shared this report from Linux Journal:

After years of requests from the Linux gaming community, GOG has officially confirmed that it is developing native Linux support for the GOG Galaxy launcher. The announcement marks one of the biggest shifts in the company’s history and signals a … ⌘ Read more

IT Teams Report 11 Hour a Week on Cloud Connectivity Problems
Researchers found enterprises are spending time troubleshooting cloud connectivity due to increased AI workloads, reports Computer Weekly. More than 400 IT and infrastructure decision-makers (US and UK) were surveyed for internet/cloud/AI exchange operator DE-CIX by market researchers Censuswide. But despite 96% of respondents claiming their enterprise n … ⌘ Read more

New Spinning Drone Hides In Plain Sight
To design invisible drones, researchers have tried camouflage, transparent materials and light-bending optical systems. But engineers at Northwestern University used “motion blur,” which an announcement from the school notes is the effect that makes fast-spinning fans seem to disappear.

“The drone spins up to 25 times per second, which is too fast for the human eye to see clearly. While it isn’t … ⌘ Read more

Is There a Way to Promote Open Document Formats Instead of ‘MS Office’ Format?
The Register looks at exactly why “It is practically impossible to move any non-trivial Word document out of MS Office to a non-MS suite and back again without it being more trouble than it’s worth.”

OOXML, developed by Microsoft and first standardized by Ecma in 2006, became the ISO/IEC 29500 standard in 2008 after a gru … ⌘ Read more

Steam On Linux Use Back Above 4% In July
Valve just published the Steam Survey results for July 2026, reports Phoronix, “and they point to a small uptick in Linux gaming use.”

Back in March Steam on Linux hit a record high of 5.33%, dropped to 4.52% in April, landed at 3.99% in May, and then in June was at 3.69%. The just-published numbers for July put Steam on Linux use at 4.01%, as an improvement over the prior two months but stil … ⌘ Read more

Group of Teen Hikers Relied on Google Maps. It Was a Disaster.
“When a group of teenagers set out to hike British Columbia’s famed Howe Sound Crest Trail in early July, Google Maps suggested the trek would take about five hours,” reports SFGate.

“Instead, the hike stretched deep into the night, leaving the group exhausted, dehydrated, injured and in need of a helicopter rescue…”

Although the approximately 18-m … ⌘ Read more

Does Eating Less Protein Produce Healthier Aging and Metabolism?
“A major scientific review is challenging the idea that more protein is always better,” reports ABC News:

The review, led by pathologist and biomedical researcher Dudley Lamming and published in the journal Cell Press Blue, examined more than 350 studies involving humans, mice, insects, yeast, and other organisms. The review found that eating l … ⌘ Read more

In a First, ‘Super-Earth’ Planet Shows It Could Have an Atmosphere
“Scientists say they have detected promising signs that a planet orbiting a star 49 light-years from Earth could have an atmosphere,” reports CNN, “making it potentially suitable for life.”

Called LHS 1140b, the object is about five times the mass of our planet, or a “super-Earth.” This planet orbits around its star in the “Goldilocks zone,” … ⌘ Read more

Linux Desktop Market Share Surpasses 10% in North America
The blog Linuxiac reports:

Linux has crossed a major milestone in North America, with the open-source operating system now accounting for 10.65% of desktop usage in the region, according to Statcounter’s latest figures for July 2026. The result places Linux firmly in double-digit territory for the first time in Statcounter’s North American desktop operating s … ⌘ Read more

Are Return-to-Office Mandates Killing Workers’ Trust in Workplaces?
The Hill published the thoughts of Gleb Tsipursky, Ph.D., who serves as the CEO of the future-of-work consultancy Disaster Avoidance Experts:

A recent EnhancV survey of 1,000 full-time U.S. workers subject to new or stricter return-to-office policies found that 72% suspect these mandates are really a voluntary attrition strategy — a strategy b … ⌘ Read more

As New York Finalizes New Social Media Rules, US Senate Considers Nationwide ‘SCREEN’ Act
New York has finalized new rules that will govern social media apps in the state starting on January 25, 2027. The law prohibits social media platforms from sending notifications to minors between midnight and 6 a.m. without parental consent. And minors “will only be shown content from other accounts … ⌘ Read more

How ‘Situational Awareness’ Hedge Fund Dropped 67% in AI Stock Rout
CNN tells the unfortunate tale of hedge fund Situational Awareness, “founded in 2024 by German-born Leopold Aschenbrenner when he was in his early 20s.”

Aschenbrenner, a former OpenAI employee, founded the hedge fund on the premise that “AI will be the dominant driver of global market returns over the next decade,” according to the firm’s site… … ⌘ Read more

Recovery Seeds Reportedly Breached for Coldcard Hardware Bitcoin Wallets, $75M Taken
“A hardware wallet is supposed to be the safest place to keep Bitcoin,” writes The Street, since it never connects to the internet, its keys never leave the device, and “the whole point is that an attacker would need to physically hold it to steal anything.”

The problem is that anyone who can reproduce the rec … ⌘ Read more

Is Big Tech’s AI Gamble Starting to Look Riskier?
The Washington Post looks at giant tech companies “feeding every available dollar into the cash-incinerating maw of AI machines.” They warn “Tech superstars that once had oodles of cash left over at the end of each year are now flipping into the red…”

[While optimists expect] huge corporate profits and a society-wide boost to wealth and well-being…
questions about that AI vis … ⌘ Read more

150-Game Discount Bundle Raises $57,000 for Videogame Workers ‘Hardship Fund’
“An itch.io game bundle put together by Necrosoft Games and The United Videogame Workers-CWA union is a new way gamers can show their support for developers who have been let go amidst the ongoing video game industry labor crisis,” writes Kotaku.

Launched Thursday, it’s already raised $57,859 from 3,984 contributors. (Aver … ⌘ Read more

NASA’s Curiosity Mars Rover Discovers a Field of Honeycomb Textures
NASA’s Curiosity rover has sent back images of honeycomb-like textures called polygonal fractures, each one about 1.5 to 3 inches (4 to 8 centimeters) across. NASA reports:

The mission has spotted small patches of these geometric shapes several times before, but nothing at the scale discovered in Valle Grande. In a 360-degree panorama th … ⌘ Read more

Apple’s Stock Drops Nearly 10%. How Will It Respond to Memory Shortage?
Apple’s stock “fell just shy of 10% on Friday,” reports Yahoo Finance, “after CEO Tim Cook warned about the impact of the global memory shortage on the company’s business.”

During Apple’s third quarter earnings call, Cook said the company paid significantly more for memory in the quarter and expects that to further increase in the … ⌘ Read more

Hamburg Is Replacing a Bridge In One Huge Piece
Long-time Slashdot reader Qbertino writes: The northern German City of Hamburg is currently in the process of replacing one of its bridges in one single gigantic piece. The new replacement weighs 3700 metric tons and was carefully moved into place over a stretch of 500 meters, requiring extreme patience and precision maneuvering. Some places leave only 40 cm of room to neighbouri … ⌘ Read more

New GitHub, PyPI Policies Hope to Boost Supply Chain Security
“GitHub and the Python Package Index (PyPI) have introduced new policies meant to boost supply chain security,” reports SecurityWeek, “by preventing the fast propagation of poisoned package versions and the poisoning of old and long-stable releases.”

To prevent the fast delivery of malicious code through the immediate fetching of brand-new releas … ⌘ Read more

Used EV Prices are Now Going Up in America
Electric vehicles have historically been “notorious” for losing their resale value, reports CNBC. But this year prices for used EVs in the U.S. “are up 5.1% from January to June 2026, according to a Recurrent analysis published this month.”

The trend continued into the second half of the year: Prices are up 7% year to date through mid-July, it said. Recurrent compared EVs according to the … ⌘ Read more

Google Plans To Exempt Sanctioned Nations From Android Developer Verification
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: We are a month away from the initial rollout of Google’s Android developer verification system, and the company contends this policy does not impinge on the platform’s open nature. Still, the restrictions will be a big change, and there are still some unanswered ques … ⌘ Read more

Drones Offer Alternative to Balloons For Weather Research
The U.S. company Meteomatics has created an automated weather-monitoring system that uses drones to collect atmospheric data at multiple altitudes before returning to recharge and upload their findings. The so-called Meteobase, which consists of a base station on the ground with a drone that can be launched and recovered automatically, “is highly weather resist … ⌘ Read more

Drifting SpaceX Rocket Heading For Accidental Collision With the Moon
“Space.com and The Guardian are reporting that the Falcon 9 upper stage leftover from the launch of the Firefly Blue Ghost-1 lander on Jan. 15, 2025 is due to impact the Moon on Aug. 5, 2026,” writes longtime Slashdot reader fahrbot-bot. From a report: Onboard the same flight was the Hakuto-R Mission 2, called Resilience, a robotic l … ⌘ Read more

OpenAI Finds Evidence Other AI Agents Escaped Containment
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: OpenAI has discovered other instances in which autonomous agents have escaped containment as the company expands its investigation of the hacking incident at tech firm Hugging Face that drew global attention this month, two people familiar with the matter said on Friday. The new breakouts were uncovered during th … ⌘ Read more

The Major Labels Propose Rules to Keep AI Slop Off the Charts
Major record labels including Universal, Sony, and Warner have proposed excluding AI-generated songs from official charts unless they are “substantially human made,” properly labeled, legally produced, and free from manipulation concerns. The Verge reports: The proposal goes quite a bit further than a labeling proposal put forth by the RIAA, t … ⌘ Read more

Most Australian Teens Still On Social Media Three Months After Ban
More than 81% of Australian children ages 10 to 15 were still using social media three months after the country’s under-16 ban took effect, with roughly half saying platforms never checked their age. Reuters reports: In a study published on Friday, eSafety also found most children aged between 10 and 15 were using social media just as frequen … ⌘ Read more

Sony Heard Backlash Over Dropping PlayStation Discs, Plans to Press Ahead
Sony says it will proceed with ending PlayStation disc sales in January 2028 despite petitions, boycott threats, and concerns about digital ownership and the disappearance of the secondhand market. PCMag reports: After Sony’s recent earnings call, an investor Q&A session saw analysts ask about its controversial decision to end d … ⌘ Read more

Hackers Targeted Municipal Water Systems In 7 States This Week, FBI Says
An anonymous reader quotes a report from NBC News: Cyberattacks targeting municipal water systems have been reported in at least seven states this week, prompting the FBI and the Environmental Protection Agency to warn utilities nationwide that hackers are trying to disrupt critical water infrastructure. In a public service announce … ⌘ Read more

New Google Earth AI Tool Could Fuel Misinformation, Experts Say
Google has integrated its Nano Banana 2 image generator into Google Earth, allowing users to place AI-generated events and objects onto real satellite imagery. The company says its AI-generated images contain invisible watermarks detectable through Gemini or Lens, but the BBC found those safeguards and some third-party detection tools can be fooled … ⌘ Read more

Publishers Are Losing Google Traffic As AI Answers Replace Links
alternative_right shares a report from Axios: Google has basically stopped sending people to websites (including our site) for answers and information. Instead, it’s using AI to answer them on its platform, in its words. Chartbeat data shared with Axios shows Google Search traffic to publishers fell 34% over the past year. That pain is regressiv … ⌘ Read more

New York Sues Kalshi For Running ‘Illegal Gambling Operation’
New York has sued prediction-market platform Kalshi, alleging it operates an “illegal gambling operation” without state authorization. “No matter what they call themselves, prediction markets like Kalshi are gambling platforms, plain and simple,” said New York Attorney General Letitia James in a press release announcing the lawsuit. “By ignoring our laws, … ⌘ Read more

Chrome Is Using AI To Fix Hundreds of Bugs, Eliminate Full Browser Restarts
Google says AI-assisted workflows helped Chrome fix 1,072 security bugs across versions 149 and 150, more than the previous 23 releases combined. The company is also testing twice-weekly security updates and “dynamic patching,” which could apply most fixes without requiring users to restart the entire browser. “By leveraging … ⌘ Read more

LinkedIn Introduces a ‘Seems Like AI Slop’ Button
An anonymous reader quotes a report from 404 Media: LinkedIn, a social network awash with long AI-generated posts from executives and other corporate workers, has introduced a new button that users can click to flag if a post “seems like AI slop,” according to 404 Media’s own tests. If you have been anywhere near LinkedIn in the past couple of years, you have undoubtedly seen u … ⌘ Read more

Netflix Sued For Losing ‘Master Copy’ of Unreleased Nicolas Cage Movie
A production company and filmmaker are suing Netflix for $105 million, alleging the streamer lost a stolen drive containing an unencrypted master copy of the unreleased Nicolas Cage film Fortitude, which they claim damage its exclusivity and market value. Netflix denied responsibility for the lost film but said it takes content security … ⌘ Read more

Anthropic Says Its AI Systems Broke Into Computers at 3 Organizations
Anthropic found that Claude models breached three outside organizations during cybersecurity tests because misconfigured environments accidentally gave them access to the internet. The company notified those affected and urged other AI labs to audit their own testing systems. The BBC reports: Anthropic said in a statement that it reviewe … ⌘ Read more

Flock Cameras Are Being Destroyed Across the US
An anonymous Slashdot reader writes: Surveillance cameras owned by Flock Safety have been cut down with electric saws in New York State, vandalized with paint in Oakland, California, and rammed with a truck in Idaho. Flock claims its services fight crime, but law enforcement agencies also use their services to track vehicles based on license plate numbers and reconstruct the thei … ⌘ Read more

New MCP Specification Addresses the Main Barrier To Enterprise Adoption
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: This week, the Model Context Protocol (MCP), an open source standard for how AI systems interact with external tools and data sources, saw its largest update since its introduction. Most notably, MCP’s protocol core is now stateless, so requests are no longer dependent on a session t … ⌘ Read more

A Fundamental Flaw Leaves LLMs Strikingly Vulnerable To Attack
joshuark quotes a report from MIT Technology Review: It is impossible to make large language models fully secure against hacks because of a fundamental flaw in how they work, a team of researchers argue in a paper presented at the International Conference on Machine Learning, a top AI conference, this month. The claim has huge implications for the safety … ⌘ Read more

Microsoft’s $450 Billion Jump Is Biggest In Stock Market History
Microsoft shares surged as much as 17% after reporting 43% growth in Azure revenue, putting the company on track to add a record $490 billion in market value in a single day. Bloomberg notes that it “would eclipse Nvidia’s $440 billion addition, following President Donald Trump’s announcement of a 90-day tariff pause last year, as the biggest ever. … ⌘ Read more

ABC Accuses FCC of ‘Attempted Censorship’
ABC accused FCC Chair Brendan Carr of “attempted censorship,” arguing that an early review of its eight broadcast licenses is politically motivated retaliation over the network’s coverage and could chill the entire media industry. “The retaliation against ABC is a signal to every media company in the country: accommodate the Administration’s view of what news coverage should look like or pay th … ⌘ Read more

Amazon’s Zoox Wins First US Approval For Paid Robotaxis Without Human Controls
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: Amazon’s Zoox unit has won U.S. approval for limited commercial deployment of its novel steering-wheel-free robotaxis, a first for the autonomous ride industry, the U.S. auto safety agency said on Thursday. Zoox said that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administratio … ⌘ Read more

Catastrophic MoD Data Breach Caused By Lack of Training On Excel
A UK parliamentary inquiry found that a catastrophic Ministry of Defense breach exposing 18,700 Afghans could have been prevented with basic Excel training, after an employee unknowingly shared a hidden worksheet containing their details. The Independent reports: The leak, in February 2022, exposed the details of 18,700 Afghans who said they were … ⌘ Read more

Google’s Gemini Can Now Stomp Around as a Humanoid Robot
Google DeepMind’s Gemini Robotics 2 combines vision, language, and action models to control multiple types of robots, including humanoids performing tasks such as organizing shelves, tying bags, and replacing lightbulbs. “It’s another milestone in our path towards really getting towards what we call like physical AGI, which means we get a robot to do anything tha … ⌘ Read more

Google Brings Its Age-Assurance Tech To Android Developers Worldwide
An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Google is expanding its answer to Apple’s age-assurance tools with Wednesday’s news that it will bring its Play Signal API to users worldwide by the end of 2026. The technology, already available in Brazil, allows Android developers to identify younger users of their apps in order … ⌘ Read more

GCC Adopts Policy Rejecting Significant AI-Generated Code
GCC has adopted a policy rejecting substantial code contributions generated by or derived from LLMs. “This covers not just code copied directly from tools like ChatGPT, Gemini, or GitHub Copilot, but also any versions of the code later edited or rewritten by a human, provided that the final contribution is still based on material generated by the system,” repo … ⌘ Read more

Comcast Store Punished Low Sales By Smashing Pies In Workers’ Faces, Lawsuit Claims
A former Comcast retail employee alleges that a Connecticut store manager tied the lowest-performing salesperson to a chair each month and had co-workers smash a cream pie into their face, recording the incidents as a sales-motivation tactic. The plaintiff says he resigned after reporting the alleged assaults an … ⌘ Read more

Qantas Plane Flies For More Than 24 Hours In Record-Breaking Flight
Qantas completed a record-breaking 24-hour, 24-minute test flight from Melbourne to Toulouse on Tuesday. “The specially adapted A350-1000ULR airliner is due to debut with the Australian carrier’s nonstop Sydney-London route from 2027,” reports The Guardian. From the report: Tuesday’s flight is thought to be the longest ever by a commercial … ⌘ Read more

AI Companies Are Recruiting Electricians and Carpenters By the Thousands
An anonymous reader quotes a New York Times report on how AI companies are pouring money into training and recruiting electricians, carpenters, and other skilled tradespeople to build data centers: There is no parallel in American history for the boom underway in the construction of data centers, fueled by companies with functiona … ⌘ Read more

Who Wins and Who Loses After US Bans Foreign Robots?
The FCC’s ban on Chinese-made robots extends well beyond humanoids to quadrupeds, research platforms, and many robot vacuums from allied countries. Supporters call it a major boost for domestic robotics, but critics warn that cutting researchers and startups off from affordable foreign hardware could slow U.S. innovation instead. Ars Technica’s Jeremy Hsu examines wh … ⌘ Read more