EA Is Now Officially Privately Owned
Longtime Slashdot reader neoRUR shares a report from Game Developer: EA Sports FC and Battlefield publisher EA has been taken private by an investor consortium led by Saudi Arabia’s sovereign Public Investment Fund (PIF). The move means the U.S. juggernaut is no longer a publicly-traded entity and is now majority owned by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia through its PIF investment arm. Other investors incl … ⌘ Read more

Apple Limits Bug Bounty Submissions After Flood of AI Slop
Apple has capped the number of open bug-bounty reports researchers can submit after being flooded with low-quality and sometimes entirely fabricated vulnerabilities generated by AI. MacRumors reports: The Financial Times learned of the limit after cybersecurity startup Bynario used ChatGPT to locate more than 50 macOS bugs in three weeks. Bynario found a privi … ⌘ Read more

Bending Spoons to Buy Airtable For $1.28 Billion
Bending Spoons has made its first acquisition since going public last month at an $18 billion valuation, agreeing to buy spreadsheet and database startup Airtable for $1.28 billion in cash. Airtable joins a growing portfolio of notable brands owned by the Italian app developer, including Evernote, WeTransfer, EventBrite, and Vimeo. TechCrunch reports: Founded in 2013, Airtable has so … ⌘ Read more

Microsoft Tells Engineers ‘Tokenmaxxing Is Not What We Are Optimizing For’
Microsoft is introducing AI token budgets for employees, making the cheaper GPT-5.6 its default internal model and telling engineers to focus on business results rather than maximizing AI usage. 404 Media reports: “As we accelerate our use of GitHub Copilot to deliver on our goals, we all need to be aware of how we consume tokens,” J … ⌘ Read more

Trump Begins Selling $100,000 Monthly Subscription Service to Wall Street
Trump Media has officially launched its $100,000-per-month data feed giving trading firms machine-readable access to Truth Social posts milliseconds before the public. According to Fortune, five Wall Street firms have already signed up for the service, which “would generate about $500,000 in monthly revenue, or $6 million annually … ⌘ Read more

Trump Administration Drafting Ban On Chinese Data Center Devices
Longtime Slashdot reader schwit1 shares a report from Reuters: The Federal Communications Commission, which oversees the U.S. telecom industry, is working on the measure to bar imports of new Chinese optical transceivers, which allow data to travel over fiber-optic cables at the speed of light within data centers. Officials hope to publish it this … ⌘ Read more

Apple Says More Ex-Employees May Have Taken Confidential Data to OpenAI
Apple is now seeking a preliminary injunction to prevent OpenAI and Jony Ive’s io startup from developing AI hardware allegedly based on stolen Apple trade secrets. “The iPhone maker also claims that more of its former employees may be involved with the trade secrets theft,” reports TechCrunch. From the report: In a new filing, Apple … ⌘ Read more

Apple Launches Legal Challenge Against UK Demand To Access Encrypted User Data
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: Apple has launched a new legal challenge against a UK government demand to access its customers’ highly encrypted data, a year after the Home Office agreed to abandon its previous request. The US tech company launched the legal complaint last month at the Investigato … ⌘ Read more

Sandisk and SK Hynix Publish First Open High Bandwidth Flash Standard
BrianFagioli writes: Sandisk and SK hynix have published the first open technical specification for High Bandwidth Flash (HBF) through the Open Compute Project. HBF is designed to create a new memory tier between High Bandwidth Memory and traditional SSD storage, giving AI inference systems more near compute capacity without relying … ⌘ Read more

Russia-Linked ‘Midnight Blizzard’ Group Hijacks Hotel Wi-Fi With CaptiveCrunch
A Russia-linked group tracked as Midnight Blizzard has compromised hotel and conference Wi-Fi portals worldwide, redirecting guests to phishing pages and fake software updates that steal credentials, session tokens, and other sensitive data. Microsoft says the campaign, dubbed CaptiveCrunch, “targets traveling employees g … ⌘ Read more

Spain Offers $1.14 Billion To Get Thirty Meter Telescope Moved To Canary Islands
Longtime Slashdot reader schwit1 shares a report from Behind the Black: In a new bid to get the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) to move from Hawaii, which has blocked its construction for more than a decade, the Spanish government has put together a $1.14 billion package that would not only pay for construction on th … ⌘ Read more

OpenAI’s Astra Solved Decades-Old Math Problems For $2,000
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Forbes: The cost of producing new results on ten longstanding mathematical problems just fell to $2,000, according to OpenAI, which says its Astra model generated machine-checkable proofs for questions that had resisted human progress for decades. OpenAI published the work on August 1 and used it to give its next majo … ⌘ Read more

An AI-Supervised Remote Exam Went So Badly That 58,000 Students Must Retake It
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Earlier this summer, nearly 160,000 applicants took the entrance exam for UNAM, Mexico’s largest university. For the first time, they did it completely remotely, using a “lockdown” browser and AI-powered webcam proctoring software, over several weeks from late May th … ⌘ Read more

Schools Are Ditching Chromebooks For MacBooks By the Thousands
Apple says its lower-cost MacBook Neo is beginning to displace Windows laptops and Chromebooks in K-12 schools, with several districts purchasing thousands of units. According to the company’s latest earnings call, nearly half of the large MacBook Neo purchases made by U.S. educational institutions last quarter reportedly replaced competing platform … ⌘ Read more

Microsoft Is Bringing Xbox 360 Games to PC
Microsoft reportedly plans to let developers bring Xbox 360 games to PC and next-generation Xbox devices, with a gradual rollout expected between 2027 and 2028. A separate disc-to-digital program would also give players transferable digital licenses tied to their physical Xbox discs, preserving the ability to resell or trade them. The Verge reports: With 360 games, developers can opt into … ⌘ Read more

Microsoft CEO Touts His Own DIY AI Project To Wall Street and His 20 Million Followers
theodp writes: During Microsoft’s 2026Q4 earnings call, CEO Microsoft Satya Nadella took time to tout a dashboard he personally created using AI from a Morgan Stanley analyst’s PDF research report, which suggested a rosy payback for the so-called MAG7’s (‘Magnificent 7’ companies) massive capital expenditure … ⌘ Read more

Apple’s iCloud File Sharing Left Ex-Employees With Access to Secret Documents
Apple’s practice of mixing employees’ work files with personal iCloud accounts reportedly left some former staff with continued access to confidential documents, messages, and even new updates after leaving the company. “The former employees said many Apple files they had been shared on over their careers at the company - … ⌘ Read more

Samsung Bans Smart TV Apps That Share Users’ Internet Connections
An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Several popular Samsung smart TV apps contain code that share the owner’s internet connection with strangers, potentially putting millions of Samsung smart TVs at risk of hijacking, according to new security research published on Monday. Some of these apps claim to have been installed … ⌘ Read more

As Reddit Stock Falls, CEO Questions Value of Google’s AI Overviews
Reddit CEO Steve Huffman criticized Google’s AI Overviews for summarizing publishers’ content without delivering the traffic benefits of traditional search, arguing that users increasingly value Reddit’s human perspectives and firsthand experiences. Ars Technica reports: First, there was a letter to investors (PDF), wherein Huffman spun his n … ⌘ Read more

South Korea Records Its Highest Ever Temperature
South Korea recorded its highest temperature since modern observations began in 1904, with the city of Yangsan reaching 42.5C as temperatures exceeded 40C for a fifth consecutive day. Authorities warned residents to “immediately stop all outdoor activities.” The Guardian reports: More than 20 localities in South Korea were under emergency heatwave alerts on Sunday – a new warn … ⌘ Read more

Company Offering Printed Books To Train AI Stops After 404 Media Coverage
An anonymous reader quotes a report from 404 Media: Following 404 Media’s reporting that book database company ISBNdb claimed to source printed books to then sell to AI companies for AI training, the company deleted the part of its website offering the service and walked back claims that it would train AI models, and instead cal … ⌘ Read more

‘AI’s Decimation of Call Center Jobs Has Begun’
“AI’s decimation of call center jobs has begun,” reports Bloomberg:

Companies including the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, Microsoft Corp., Uber Technologies Inc. and Hyatt Hotels Corp. are using automated chat and phone systems to handle work that previously required humans. In some cases, they’ve already wiped out sizable chunks of their customer service operations, together repres … ⌘ Read more

Massive Debian 13 Linux Kernel Security Update Patches 68 Vulnerabilities
Slashdot reader prisoninmate shares this report from 9to5Linux:

Coming ten days after the previous Linux kernel security update, which only fixed 12 vulnerabilities that may lead to a privilege escalation, denial of service, or information leaks, the new Debian 13 Linux kernel security update is a massive one, and it patches n … ⌘ Read more

Hollywood Fights AI In Public While Quietly Building It Into Movies
Even as Hollywood performers protest and Hollywood studios sue “in their war on AI,” reports the Los Angeles Times, “the entertainment industry is deepening its dependence on it.”

Among hundreds of job postings in late June, more than one in 10 was likely connected to AI. The top studios’ public postings suggest they have been rec … ⌘ Read more

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