Chrome 146 Now In Beta With WebNN Origin Trial For Neural Networks In The Browser
Following yesterday’s Chrome 145 release with JPEG-XL support, Chrome 146 today was promoted to the beta channel to help facilitate broader testing of the next round of Chrome/Chromium browser improvements… ⌘ Read more

AMD ROCm TheRock 7.11 Released, Ubuntu Making Progress On Shipping ROCm Packages
Two useful bits of ROCm news today for those interested in AMD’s open-source GPU compute stack… ⌘ Read more

Linux Mint Developing New Wayland-Compatible Screensaver
The Linux Mint developers have been hard at work continuing to develop new features following their recent Mint 22.3 release. There is continued enhancements around keyboard support, a new administration tool for users, and there are also considerations being made around moving to a longer development cycle between Linux Mint releases… ⌘ Read more

Intel Releases New Compute Runtime, Upstreams More SYCL Code To LLVM
Intel today released a new version of their Compute Runtime stack and IGC graphics compiler for Level Zero and OpenCL usage with their integrated and discrete graphics. Separately they also upstreamed more SYCL code this week into mainline LLVM… ⌘ Read more

ByteDance Suspends Seedance 2 Feature That Turns Facial Photos Into Personal Voices Over Potential Risks
hackingbear writes: China’s Bytedance has released Seedance 2.0, an AI video generator which handles up to four types of input at once: images, videos, audio, and text. Users can combine up to nine images, three videos, and three audio files, up to a total of twelve fi … ⌘ Read more

Google Chrome 145 Released With JPEG-XL Image Support
Back in 2022 Google deprecated and then removed JPEG-XL image support from the Chrome/Chromium browser codebase and now in 2026 it’s back. Last month I wrote about JPEG-XL decoding merged back to Chromium/Chrome and that has rolled out today as part of today’s Chrome 145 stable debut… ⌘ Read more

Go 1.26 Introduces Two Language Changes, New Performance Improvements
For programmers fond of the Go programming language, Go 1.26 is out today with two language changes, performance improvements, and other alterations to this Google-backed programming language… ⌘ Read more

The US Is Flirting With Its First-Ever Population Decline
The U.S., whose population the Census Bureau did not expect to start shrinking until 2081, may record its first-ever decline as early as this year because of the Trump administration’s accelerating immigration crackdown. Census data released in late January showed US population growth slowed to just 0.5% in the year prior to July 2025 – the lowest rate since t … ⌘ Read more

Intel CPU Microcode 20260210 Brings Security Updates & Functional Fixes
Intel today for Patch Tuesday released several generations worth of CPU microcode updates for addressing multiple security issues and functional issues… ⌘ Read more

CrossOver 26 Released - Powered By Wine 11.0 For Windows Apps/Games On Linux + macOS
CodeWeavers just announced CrossOver 26, the newest version of their commercial software built atop Wine for running Windows games and applications under Apple macOS and Linux… ⌘ Read more

Redis 8.6 Released With “Substantial” Performance Improvements & Memory Reduction
The open-source Redis 8.6 release is now available and this GA release has brought “substantial” performance improvements and to memory reduction too. Plus various new features like TLS certificate-based automatic client authentication, time series enhancements, and new eviction policies… ⌘ Read more

Microsoft’s Azure Linux Adds 6.12 HWE Kernel, ARM64 Kernel Tuning For More Performance
Microsoft overnight released Azure Linux 3.0.20260204 as the latest release of their in-house Linux distribution widely used within their Azure environment and elsewhere… ⌘ Read more

MythTV 36 Released With Web App Improvements & FFmpeg 8 Support
MythTV 36 is now available for this long-time open-source digital video recorder “DVR” software that has been around now for more than two decades as the leading choice for those wishing to watch and/or record live TV under Linux especially as an HTPC… ⌘ Read more

Linux 7.0 Kernel Confirmed By Linus Torvalds, Expected In Mid-April 2026
An anonymous reader writes: Linus Torvalds has confirmed the next major kernel series as Linux 7.0, reports Linux news website 9to5Linux.com: “So there you have it, the Linux 6.x era has ended with today’s Linux 6.19 kernel release, and a new one will begin with Linux 7.0, which is expected in mid-April 2026. The merge window for L … ⌘ Read more

Romance Publishing Has an AI Problem and Most Readers Don’t Know It Yet
The romance genre – long the publishing industry’s earliest adopter of technological shifts, from e-books to self-publishing to serial releases – has become the front line for AI-generated fiction, and the results as you can imagine are messy. Coral Hart, a Cape Town-based novelist previously published by Harlequin and Mills & Boon, … ⌘ Read more

Blender 5.1 Lands Raycast Nodes, Blender Adjusting Release Cycle Moving Forward
Two interesting bits of Blender news this week for those fond of this leading open-source 3D modeling software… ⌘ Read more

GNU Linux-Libre 6.19 Deals With More Firmware Blobs In Intel Xe, IWLWIFI & NVIDIA Nova
Building off yesterday’s Linux 6.19 release is now the GNU Linux-libre 6.19-gnu downstream release that strips out support for open-source drivers dependent upon binary-only microcode/firmware and other elements deemed against free software standards, removing the ability to load non-open-source kernel modules, and similar restrictions in the name of software freedom… ⌘ Read more

GNU Binutils 2.46 Released With AMD Zen 6 Support, SFrame Version 3
Following last week’s release of GNU Coreutils 9.10, released today is GNU Binutils 2.46 for these commonly used GNU binary utilities on Linux systems and elsewhere… ⌘ Read more

Linus Torvalds Confirms The Next Kernel Is Linux 7.0
Following Linus Torvalds releasing Linux 6.19 stable, Linus Torvalds is now out with his customary release announcement. Notably he officially confirmed that the next kernel version is Linux 7.0 as the successor to Linux 6.19… ⌘ Read more

Linux 6.19 Released With Better Support For Older AMD GPUs, DRM Color Pipeline API
As anticipated due to the extra week for the cycle given end of year holidays, Linus Torvalds today released the Linux 6.19 stable kernel as the first major release of 2026. There is a lot in store with this early 2026 kernel release… ⌘ Read more

D7VK 1.3 Brings Support For Direct3D 5 On Vulkan
D7VK is a fork of the DXVK project that is an important part of Valve’s Steam Play (Proton) for Direct3D 8 / 9 / 10 / 11 support atop Vulkan. With D7VK the original goal was a Direct3D 7 implementation on Vulkan. D7VK 1.1 brought experimental Direct3D 6 support and now with today’s release of D7VK 1.3 is support for Direct3D 5… ⌘ Read more

A Lot Of Exciting Changes To Look Forward To With Linux 6.20 – Or Linux 7.0
With Linux 6.19 due for release later today it then opens up the next kernel merge window. It could be Linux 6.20 but more than likely the next kernel version will be called Linux 7.0 with Linus Torvalds’ past tradition of bumping the major version number after X.19. Whatever it ends up being called, here is a look at various “-next” changes that have been queuing up ahead of the merge window… ⌘ Read more

Wine-Staging 11.2 Brings More Patches To Help Adobe Photoshop On Linux
Building off Friday’s release of Wine 11.2 is now Wine-Staging 11.2 as this experimental/testing version of Wine with hundreds of extra patches that have yet to be introduced in upstream proper for this open-source software enabling Windows games and applications on Linux. Notable in this bi-weekly update are more patches for continuing to improve the Adobe Photoshop installer support on Linux… ⌘ Read more

Intel Releases QATlib 26.02 With New APIs For Zero-Copy DMA
Of Intel’s different CPU accelerator IPs, the arguably most useful and with the greatest customer interest remains around QuickAssist Technology (QAT). Intel QAT allows offloading various compression and encryption tasks for better performance. Intel this week released QATlib 26.02 as the newest version of their user-space library for leveraging QuickAssist Technology on capable hardware… ⌘ Read more

Microsoft On QEMU 10.2’s New MSHV Accelerator For Hyper-V Guests
With QEMU 10.2 that released at the end of last year is the new “MSHV” accelerator for allowing VMs to be created from a Microsoft Hyper-V guest without using nested virtualization. Last weekend at FOSDEM 2026 was a presentation on this MSHV accelerator for those interested… ⌘ Read more

Linux 6.19 Features Include Many Benefits For Intel & AMD Users
With the Linux 6.19 stable kernel expected to be released tomorrow (8 February), here is a reminder about the top features to expect from this next version of the Linux kernel… ⌘ Read more

NetBSD 11.0-RC1 Available For Testing With Enhanced Linux Emulation
The first release candidate of the big NetBSD 11.0 release is now available for testing… ⌘ Read more

KDE Linux To Provide Better Hardware Support & Better Performance
Following the September release of the KDE LInux reference distribution for the KDE desktop in alpha form, KDE Linux developers have been working toward the beta release with more improvements to this open-source desktop distro… ⌘ Read more

Linux 6.19 Sees Last Minute Scheduler Regression Fixes
Ahead of the planned Linux 6.19 stable kernel release tomorrow, there have been some last-minute fixes submitted for the scheduler code, including for performance regressions… ⌘ Read more

Mesa 25.3.5 Brings Vulkan Driver Fixes & Other Minor Changes – Even For Old The R600g
While Mesa 26.0 stable will be out soon, the belated Mesa 25.3.5 point release is now available for serving as the current latest stable point release… ⌘ Read more

KDE Plasma 6.6 Fixing Significant Issues With Fingerprint Authentication
There is less than two weeks to go until the official KDE Plasma 6.6 desktop release. Plasma 6.6 is still seeing bug fixes in this final stretch of development while KDE developers are also busy already on Plasma 6.7 feature work… ⌘ Read more

Wine 11.2 Released With More Improvements & 32 Bug Fixes
Wine 11.2 is out as the latest bi-weekly development release in the road toward the Wine 12.0 stable release next January… ⌘ Read more

VRR Improvements Merged To GNOME 50 For Lower Latency, Wayland Commit Timing
While just missing out on the recent Mutter 50 beta release, merged today to Mutter Git ahead of next month’s GNOME 50 desktop release are some improvements to the Variable Refresh Rate (VRR) support… ⌘ Read more

Europe Accuses TikTok of ‘Addictive Design’ and Pushes for Change
TikTok’s endless scroll of irresistible content, tailored for each person’s tastes by a well-honed algorithm, has helped the service become one of the world’s most popular apps. Now European Union regulators say those same features that made TikTok so successful are likely illegal. From a report: On Friday, the regulators released a preliminary d … ⌘ Read more

GNU Nettle 4.0 Released With SLH-DSA Support
The GNU Nettle cryptographic library is out with a major new update that introduces support for SLH-DSA, the post-quantum signature scheme selected by NIST for the FIPS 205 standard… ⌘ Read more

Ardour 9.0 Audio Workstation Released With Multi-Touch GUI, Many New Features
Ardour 9.0 is out today as the latest major feature release to this leading open-source digital audio workstation (DAW) software for musicians, recording engineers, and other audio editing needs… ⌘ Read more

Automattic and the Internet Archive Team Up To Fight Link Rot
Automattic and the Internet Archive have released a free, open-source WordPress plugin that automatically detects broken outbound links on a site and redirects visitors to archived Wayback Machine copies instead of serving them a 404 error.

The Internet Archive Wayback Machine Link Fixer, which launched last fall and is available on WordPress.org, run … ⌘ Read more

Anthropic Launches Claude Opus 4.6 as Its AI Tools Rattle Software Markets
Anthropic on Thursday released Claude Opus 4.6, its most capable model yet, at a moment when the company’s AI tools have already spooked markets over fears that they are disrupting traditional software development and other sectors.

The new model improves on Opus 4.5’s coding abilities, the company said – it plans more carefully, … ⌘ Read more

Krita 6.0 Beta Released - Using Qt6 & Wayland Color Management Support
The first beta release of Krita 6.0 is now available for this featureful digital painting program. Krita 6.0 is re-based against the Qt6 toolkit while Krita 5.3 Beta is also being released at the same time for those sticking to Qt5… ⌘ Read more

Intel ISPC 1.30 Released With AMX Support Added To The Standard Library
Intel ISPC 1.30 is now available as the latest feature update to their Implicit SPMD Program Compiler as a variant of the C programming language to easily target their array of CPUs and GPUs… ⌘ Read more

System76’s COSMIC Desktop Planning Vulkan Renderer, Improved Gaming Experience
Following December’s release of COSMIC Epoch 1 along with the Pop!_OS 24.04 release by System76, today they shared more of their feature plans for the next two major COSMIC desktop updates… ⌘ Read more

GNOME Shell & Mutter 50 Beta Releases Bring Stable VRR, Improved Frame Scheduling
Ahead of the imminent GNOME 50 beta release, the GNOME Shell and Mutter components have declared their “50.beta” releases to ship the latest bug fixes, memory leak fixes, and some last minute improvements ahead of the stable release in March… ⌘ Read more

Mesa 26.0-rc3 Released With More Graphics Driver Fixes
Eric Engestrom is out with another on-time Mesa release. Mesa 26.0-rc3 provides the latest week’s worth of bug fixes as we work toward the stable Mesa 26.0 release as soon as next week… ⌘ Read more

GIMP Post-3.2 Will Be Looking At Hardware Acceleration, Full CMYK & More
With GIMP 3.2 releasing soon, GIMP developer Ondřej Míchal presented at FOSDEM 2026 this past weekend on some of the feature work being eyed for post-3.2 developments… ⌘ Read more

GNU Coreutils 9.10 Released With Many Improvements
Earlier this week Rust Coreutils 0.6 released while out today is GNU Coreutils 9.10 as the de facto standard for this set of core utilities on Linux systems and other platforms… ⌘ Read more

AMD Hints the Next-Gen Xbox Console Could Launch Next Year
An anonymous reader shares a report: Speaking during an earnings call on Tuesday, CEO Lisa Su stated that its development of Microsoft’s next-gen Xbox SoC is “progressing well to support a launch in 2027.”

While the comment doesn’t outright confirm the next Xbox will release next year, it indicates that the Microsoft could be ready to launch soon.

[![](ht … ⌘ Read more

libinput 1.31 Bringing Support For Fast Three-Finger Swipes
Linux input expert Peter Hutterer of Red Hat announced today the first release candidate of libinput 1.31, the input handling library used by both modern X.Org Server and Wayland desktop environments… ⌘ Read more

Google Home Finally Adds Support For Buttons
An anonymous reader shares a report: Google Home users, your long nightmare is over. The platform has finally added support for buttons. The release notes for a February 2 update state that several new starter conditions for automations are now available, including “Switch or button pressed.”

Smart buttons are physical, programmable switches that you can press to trigger automations or … ⌘ Read more

GNOME 50 Lands Virtual Monitor / Remote Desktop Improvements - Including HiDPI
In time for next month’s GNOME 50 release are some improvements merged today for the Mutter compositor code adding HiDPI and monitor mode emulation support to the screen-casting API and DevKit… ⌘ Read more

The Switch is Now Nintendo’s Best-Selling Console of All Time
The original Switch is officially Nintendo’s best-selling console of all time after surpassing the DS handheld in lifetime sales. From a report: In its latest earnings release, Nintendo reports that the Nintendo Switch has, as of December 31, 2025, sold 155.37 million units since its launch in 2017, compared to 154.02 million units for the 2004 Nintend … ⌘ Read more