slashdot 

feeds.twtxt.net

Slashdot: News for nerds, stuff that matters

OpenAI Fights Order To Turn Over Millions of ChatGPT Conversations
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: OpenAI asked a federal judge in New York on Wednesday to reverse an order that required it to turn over 20 million anonymized ChatGPT chat logs amid a copyright infringement lawsuit by the New York Times and other news outlets, saying it would expose users’ private conversations. The artificial … ⌘ Read more

⤋ Read More

OpenAI’s GPT-5.1 Brings Smarter Reasoning and More Personality Presets To ChatGPT
OpenAI today released GPT-5.1, an update to its flagship model line. The update includes two versions: GPT-5.1 Instant, which OpenAI says adds adaptive reasoning capabilities and improved instruction following, and GPT-5.1 Thinking, which adjusts its processing time based on query complexity.

The Thinking model respond … ⌘ Read more

⤋ Read More

Valve Enters the Console Wars
Valve has unveiled a new Steam Machine console, taking a second shot at living room gaming a decade after its 2015 Steam Machine initiative failed. The 6-inch cube runs Linux-based SteamOS but plays Windows games through Proton, a compatibility layer built on Wine that translates Microsoft graphical APIs.

Valve spent over a decade working on SteamOS and ways to run Windows games on Linux after the original Steam … ⌘ Read more

⤋ Read More

Microsoft Is Offering Rewards Points for Using Edge Instead of Google Chrome
An anonymous reader shares a report: Microsoft employs various schemes to stop Edge users from switching to Chrome, and the latest includes financial rewards for sticking with the browser. As spotted by Windows Latest, select users who search on Bing within Microsoft Edge for a link to download Google Chrome are now shown an … ⌘ Read more

⤋ Read More

US Ends Penny-Making Run After More Than 230 Years
The US is set to make its final penny. The Philadelphia Mint will strike its last batch of one-cent coins on Thursday, after more than 230 years of production. From a report: The coins will remain in circulation but the phase-out has already prompted businesses to start adjusting prices, as they say pennies are becoming harder to find. The government says the move will save … ⌘ Read more

⤋ Read More

UC San Diego Reports ‘Steep Decline’ in Student Academic Preparation
The University of California, San Diego has documented a steep decline in the academic preparation of its entering freshmen over the past five years, according to a report [PDF] released this month by the campus’s Senate-Administration Working Group on Admissions. Between 2020 and 2025, the number of students whose math skills fall below … ⌘ Read more

⤋ Read More

Apple Study Finds Mandated Fee Reductions Never Reached European Consumers
Apple said Wednesday that European Union developers pocketed the savings from mandated commission reductions rather than lowering prices for consumers. The iPhone maker commissioned Analysis Group to study pricing behavior [PDF] after the Digital Markets Act forced Apple to cut its App Store fees from up to 30% to an average … ⌘ Read more

⤋ Read More

Synopsys Plans 10% Job Cuts After Ansys Deal Closure
An anonymous reader shares a report: Synopsys will lay off about 10% of its workforce, or roughly 2,000 employees, as the chip-design software maker looks to redirect investment towards growth opportunities, according to a regulatory filing on Wednesday. The move comes after the company completed its $35 billion cash-and-stock acquisition of engineering design firm Ansys earl … ⌘ Read more

⤋ Read More

Amazon Steps Up Attempts To Block Illegal Sports Streaming Via Fire TV Sticks
Amazon is rolling out a tougher approach to combat illegal streaming, with the United States-based tech company aiming to block apps loaded onto all its Fire TV Stick devices that are identified as providing pirated content. From a report: Exclusive data provided to The Athletic from researchers YouGov Sport highlighted t … ⌘ Read more

⤋ Read More

Google Relaunches Cameyo To Entice Businesses From Windows To ChromeOS
After acquiring software virtualization company Cameyo last year, Google has relaunched a version of the service that makes it easier for Windows-based organizations to migrate over to ChromeOS. From a report: Now called “Cameyo by Google,” the Virtual App Delivery (VAD) solution allows users to run legacy Windows apps in the Chrome br … ⌘ Read more

⤋ Read More

Airbnb Rival Sonder Abruptly Shuts Down, Orders Guests To Leave
Sonder, a short-term rental company and former Airbnb rival, abruptly went out of business after Marriott ended its licensing deal on Nov. 9 – leaving guests scrambling as they were told to vacate their rooms immediately. From a report: Paul Strack, 63, visiting Boston from Little Rock, Arkansas, told CBS News he received an email from Marriott on Sunda … ⌘ Read more

⤋ Read More

AI Bubble Is Ignoring Michael Burry’s Fears
An anonymous reader shares a report: Costing tens of thousands of dollars each, Nvidia’s pioneering AI chips make up a hefty chunk of the $400 billion that Big Tech plans to invest this year – a bill expected to hit $3 trillion by 2029. But unlike 19th-century railroads, or the Dotcom boom’s fiber-optic cables, the GPUs fueling today’s AI mania are short-lived assets with a shelf life of perh … ⌘ Read more

⤋ Read More

Researchers Surprised That With AI, Toxicity is Harder To Fake Than Intelligence
Researchers from four universities have released a study revealing that AI models remain easily detectable in social media conversations despite optimization attempts. The team tested nine language models across Twitter/X, Bluesky and Reddit, developing classifiers that identified AI-generated replies at 70 to 80% ac … ⌘ Read more

⤋ Read More

Ryanair Tries Forcing App Downloads By Eliminating Paper Boarding Passes
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Ryanair is trying to force users to download its mobile app by eliminating paper boarding passes, starting on November 12. As announced in February and subsequently delayed from earlier start dates, Europe’s biggest airline is moving to digital-only boarding passes, meaning cu … ⌘ Read more

⤋ Read More

Meta Chief AI Scientist Yann LeCun Plans To Exit To Launch Startup
According to the Financial Times (paywalled), Meta’s Chief AI Scientist Yann LeCun, a deep-learning pioneer and Turing Award winner, is reportedly leaving the company to launch his own startup. Reuters reports: The owner of Facebook and Instagram has significantly increased its investments in artificial intelligence, with CEO Mark Zuckerberg r … ⌘ Read more

⤋ Read More

Sun Unleashes Strongest Solar Flare of 2025
New submitter UsRanger175 shares a report from Space.com: The sun erupted in spectacular fashion this morning (Nov. 11), unleashing a major X5.1-class solar flare, the strongest of 2025 so far and the most intense since October 2024. The eruption peaked at 5 a.m. EST (1000 GMT) from sunspot AR4274, which has been bursting with activity in recent days. The blast triggered strong (R3-level … ⌘ Read more

⤋ Read More

China’s EV Market Is Imploding
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Atlantic: In China, you can buy a heavily discounted “used” electric car that has never, in fact, been used. Chinese automakers, desperate to meet their sales targets in a bitterly competitive market, sell cars to dealerships, which register them as “sold,” even though no actual customer has bought them. Dealers, stuck with officially sold cars, then offload them as “us … ⌘ Read more

⤋ Read More

Google Is Introducing Its Own Version of Apple’s Private AI Cloud Compute
Google has unveiled Private AI Compute, a cloud platform designed to deliver advanced AI capabilities while preserving user privacy. As The Verge notes, the feature is “virtually identical to Apple’s Private Cloud Compute.” From the report: Many Google products run AI features like translation, audio summaries, and chatbot assist … ⌘ Read more

⤋ Read More

YouTube TV Blackout Is Costing Disney an Estimated $4.3 Million Per Day In Lost Revenue
Disney is losing an estimated $4.3 million per day (about $30 million per week) from the ongoing YouTube TV blackout of ESPN, ABC, and other networks amid a contract dispute over carriage fees. Of course, YouTube is also feeling financial pressure from users who have already canceled or intend to cancel … ⌘ Read more

⤋ Read More

ClickFix May Be the Biggest Security Threat Your Family Has Never Heard Of
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: ClickFix often starts with an email sent from a hotel that the target has a pending registration with and references the correct registration information. In other cases, ClickFix attacks begin with a WhatsApp message. In still other cases, the user receives the URL at the t … ⌘ Read more

⤋ Read More

PS5 Has Now Officially Outsold Every Xbox Console Ever Released
Sony reported that PlayStation 5 sales have reached 84.2 million units, officially surpassing every Xbox console ever released. IGN reports: The PlayStation 5 is now up to 84.2 million copies sold after shifting an additional 3.9 million units during the three-month period ending September 30, Sony has announced. That’s a slight increase on the 3. … ⌘ Read more

⤋ Read More

OpenAI Used Song Lyrics In Violation of Copyright Laws, German Court Says
A Munich court ruled that OpenAI violated German copyright law by training its models on lyrics from nine songs and allowing ChatGPT to reproduce them. OpenAI now faces damages as it considers an appeal. Reuters reports: The regional court in Munich found that the company trained its AI on protected content from nine German songs, … ⌘ Read more

⤋ Read More

Google Announces Even More AI In Photos App, Powered By Nano Banana
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: The Big G is finally making good on its promise to add its market-leading Nano Banana image-editing model to the app. The model powers a couple of features, and it’s not just for Google’s Android platform. Nano Banana edits are also coming to the iOS version of the app. […] The Photo … ⌘ Read more

⤋ Read More

FFmpeg To Google: Fund Us or Stop Sending Bugs
FFmpeg, the open source multimedia framework that powers video processing in Google Chrome, Firefox, YouTube and other major platforms, has called on Google to either fund the project or stop burdening its volunteer maintainers with security vulnerabilities found by the company’s AI tools. The maintainers patched a bug that Google’s AI agent discovered in code for decoding a 1995 vi … ⌘ Read more

⤋ Read More

US Senator Challenges Defense Industry on Right-to-Repair Opposition
Democratic U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren is escalating pressure on the defense industry to stop opposing military right-to-repair legislation, as House and Senate negotiators work to finalize the fiscal 2026 National Defense Authorization Act. From a report: In a sharply-worded November 5 letter to the National Defense Industrial Associat … ⌘ Read more

⤋ Read More

China’s New Scientist Visa is a ‘Serious Bid’ For the World’s Top Talent
China has introduced a visa that will allow young foreign researchers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics to move there without having to secure a job first. From a report: Before the introduction of the K visa, most foreign STEM researchers hoping to move to China had to find a job in advance and then apply for a work visa … ⌘ Read more

⤋ Read More

UK Unveils Plan To Cut Animal Testing Through Greater Use of AI
Animal testing in science would be phased out faster under a new plan to increase the use of artificial intelligence and 3D bioprinted human tissues, a UK minister has said. The Guardian: The roadmap unveiled by the science minister, Patrick Vallance, backs replacing certain animal tests that are still used where necessary to determine the safety o … ⌘ Read more

⤋ Read More

Firefox 145 Drops Support For 32-bit Linux
BrianFagioli writes: Mozilla has released Firefox 145.0, and the standout change in this version is the official end of support for 32-bit Linux systems. Users on 32-bit distributions will no longer receive updates and are being encouraged to switch to the 64-bit build to continue getting security patches and new features. While most major Linux distributions have already moved past 32-bit … ⌘ Read more

⤋ Read More

AI’s $5 Trillion Cost Needs Every Debt Market, JPMorgan Says
The furious push by AI hyperscalers to build out data centers will need about $1.5 trillion of investment-grade bonds over the next five years and extensive funding from every other corner of the market, according to an analysis by JPMorgan. From a report: “The question is not ‘which market will finance the AI-boom?’ Rather, the question is ‘how will financings … ⌘ Read more

⤋ Read More

The iPad Pro at 10: a Decade of Unrealized Potential
The iPad Pro went on sale ten years ago, launching with a 12.9-inch screen that Apple believed would redefine computing through size alone. The company initially resisted making the device a laptop replacement and maintained strict limitations on multitasking, browser capabilities, and app installation. Over the past decade, Apple reversed course. The iPad Pro gained US … ⌘ Read more

⤋ Read More

Apple’s $230 iPhone Sock
Apple has launched the iPhone Pocket, a knitted bag designed to hold iPhones. The limited edition collaboration with Japanese designer Issey Miyake costs $229.95 for the crossbody version. A shorter version is priced at $149.95. Apple said the 3D-knitted design was inspired by “a piece of cloth” and was born from the idea of creating an additional pocket for any iPhone and small everyday items. Yoshiyuki Miyamae, design direc … ⌘ Read more

⤋ Read More

Sam Altman’s Worldcoin Project Struggles Toward Billion-User Ambition With 17.5 Million Sign-Ups
Sam Altman’s Tools for Humanity has verified around 17.5 million people through its iris-scanning Orb device. The company has set a goal of reaching 1 billion users, so it is less than 2% of the way there. The startup has raised $240 million from investors including Andreessen Horowitz, … ⌘ Read more

⤋ Read More

Samsung Brings Generative AI-Powered Bixby To Its TVs
Samsung is rolling out new conversational AI across its 2025 TVs that lets users ask questions about what’s on the screen and beyond it. From a report: First announced in September, the generative AI update is rolling out now with support for several languages. Vision AI Companion is based on an upgraded, generative AI-based version of Samsung’s virtual assis … ⌘ Read more

⤋ Read More

UK Signs Scaled-Back Scientific Collaboration With China
The UK and China today signed a new bilateral agreement on scientific collaboration [non-paywalled source], narrowing the scope of their partnership to exclude sensitive technologies. Lord Patrick Vallance, Britain’s science and technology minister, met his Chinese counterpart Chen Jiachang in Beijing and agreed to focus cooperation on health, climate, plan … ⌘ Read more

⤋ Read More

UK Secondary Schools Pivoting From Narrowly Focused CS Curriculum To AI Literacy
Longtime Slashdot reader theodp writes: The UK Department for Education is “replacing its narrowly focused computer science GCSE with a broader, future-facing computing GCSE [General Certificate of Secondary Education] and exploring a new qualification in data science and AI for 16-18-year-olds.” The move aims to … ⌘ Read more

⤋ Read More

China’s CO2 Emissions Have Been Flat Or Falling For Past 18 Months, Analysis Finds
China’s CO2 emissions have been flat or falling for 18 months, “adding evidence to the hope that the world’s biggest polluter has managed to hit its target of peak CO2 emissions well ahead of schedule,” reports the Guardian. From the report: Rapid increases in the deployment of solar and wind power generation – … ⌘ Read more

⤋ Read More

Saudi Arabia’s Dystopian Futuristic City Project Is Crashing and Burning
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Gizmodo: It appears that Neom – Saudi Arabia’s hugely expensive, architecturally bizarre urban development project – is floundering and close to collapse. A new report from the Financial Times cites high-level sources within the project to paint a picture of dysfunction and failure at the h … ⌘ Read more

⤋ Read More

A Jailed Hacking Kingpin Reveals All About Cybercrime Gang
Slashdot reader alternative_right shares an exclusive BBC interview with Vyacheslav “Tank” Penchukov, once a top-tier cyber-crime boss behind Jabber Zeus, IcedID, and major ransomware campaigns. His story traces the evolution of modern cybercrime from early bank-theft malware to today’s lucrative ransomware ecosystem, marked by shifting alliances, Russian sec … ⌘ Read more

⤋ Read More

EU Eyes Banning Huawei, ZTE Corp From Mobile Networks of Member Countries
The European Commission is considering turning its non-binding 2020 guidance on “high-risk vendors” into a legal requirement that would effectively force EU member states to phase out Huawei and ZTE from mobile and fixed-line networks. Bloomberg reports: Commission Vice President Henna Virkkunen wants to convert the European Co … ⌘ Read more

⤋ Read More

The Linux Kernel Looks To ‘Bite the Bullet’ In Enabling Microsoft C Extensions
Linux kernel developers are moving toward enabling Microsoft C Extensions (-fms-extensions) by default in Linux 6.19, with Linus Torvalds signaling no objection. While some dislike relying on Microsoft-style behavior, the patches in kbuild-next suggest the project is ready to “bite the bullet” and adopt the extensi … ⌘ Read more

⤋ Read More

Critics Call Proposed Changes To Landmark EU Privacy Law ‘Death By a Thousand Cuts’
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: Privacy activists say proposed changes to Europe’s landmark privacy law, including making it easier for Big Tech to harvest Europeans’ personal data for AI training, would flout EU case law and gut the legislation. The changes proposed by the European Commission … ⌘ Read more

⤋ Read More

PDF Will Support JPEG XL Format As ‘Preferred Solution’
The PDF Association is adding JPEG XL (JXL) support to the PDF specification, giving the advanced image format a new path to relevance despite Google’s decision to declare it obsolete and remove it from Chromium. The Register reports: Peter Wyatt, CTO of the PDF Association, said: “We need to adopt a new image [format] that can support HDR [High Dynamic Range] c … ⌘ Read more

⤋ Read More

Meta Is Killing Off the External Facebook Like Button
Meta is retiring Facebook’s external Like and Share buttons for third-party websites on February 10, 2026, officially closing the book on a once-dominant traffic driver as usage declines and Facebook’s role within Meta continues to shrink.Engadget reports: The blog post from Meta explains that site admins shouldn’t have to take any additional steps as a result of the … ⌘ Read more

⤋ Read More

New Project Brings Strong Linux Compatibility To More Classic Windows Games
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: For years now, Valve has been slowly improving the capabilities of the Proton compatibility layer that lets thousands of Windows games work seamlessly on the Linux-based SteamOS. But Valve’s Windows-to-Linux compatibility layer generally only extends back to games writt … ⌘ Read more

⤋ Read More

Wikipedia Urges AI Companies To Use Its Paid API, and Stop Scraping
Wikipedia on Monday laid out a simple plan to ensure its website continues to be supported in the AI era, despite its declining traffic. From a report: In a blog post, the Wikimedia Foundation, the organization that runs the popular online encyclopedia, called on AI developers to use its content “responsibly” by ensuring its contributions are … ⌘ Read more

⤋ Read More

The PHP Foundation Is Seeking a New Executive Director
New submitter benramsey writes: The PHP Foundation has launched a search for its next executive director.

The Executive Director serves as the operational leader of the PHP Foundation, defining its strategic vision and translating it into reality while managing day-to-day operations and serving as the primary bridge between the Board, staff, community, and sp … ⌘ Read more

⤋ Read More

World’s First Green Fuel Levy To Add Almost $32 To Air Fares
Air passengers departing Singapore will pay a green fuel levy of as much as S$41.60 ($31.95) from next year as the city-state locks in a key step in its effort to cut the aviation industry’s emissions. From a report: Travelers flying in economy and premium economy, as well as those on short-haul routes, will be charged far less. Those customers will pay an … ⌘ Read more

⤋ Read More

Apple Delays Release of Next iPhone Air Amid Weak Sales
An anonymous reader shares a report: Apple is delaying the release of next year’s version of the iPhone Air, its thinnest smartphone, after the first model sold below expectations, according to three people involved in the project.

Although the length of the delay remains uncertain, the product won’t be released in fall 2026 as previously planned, they said. App … ⌘ Read more

⤋ Read More

How HR Took Over the World
Human-resources departments in American companies employed 1.3 million professionals in 2024, a 64% increase over ten years. Overall employment grew 14% in the same period. Professional-services and technology firms saw the number of HR workers double since 2014. Similar patterns have emerged in Australia, Britain and Germany.

Chief human-resources officers also gained ground financially. Their total compensation, which stoo … ⌘ Read more

⤋ Read More