Why Sam Altman Was Booted From OpenAI, According To New Testimony
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: What did Ilya see?” Two years ago, it was the meme seen ‘round the world (or at least ‘round the tech industry). OpenAI CEO Sam Altman had been briefly ousted in November 2023 by members of the company’s board of directors, including his longtime collaborator and fellow cofounder Ilya Sutskever. … ⌘ Read more
Microsoft Forms Superintelligence Team Under AI Chief Suleyman ‘To Serve Humanity’
Microsoft is launching a new MAI Superintelligence Team under Mustafa Suleyman to build practical, controllable AI aimed at digital companions, medical diagnostics, and renewable-energy modeling. “We are doing this to solve real concrete problems and do it in such a way that it remains grounded and controllable,” Sule … ⌘ Read more
iOS 26.2 to Allow Third-Party App Stores in Japan Ahead of Regulatory Deadline
Japan’s new competition rules are forcing Apple to open the iPhone to third-party app stores, and iOS 26.2 will quietly flip that switch ahead of the December deadline. MacRumors reports: According to a post shared on X by @Tzzlala, iPhones running the beta in Japan are able to install alternative app stores like AltStore PA … ⌘ Read more
Cloudflare Tells US Govt That Foreign Site Blocking Efforts Are Digital Trade Barriers
An anonymous reader quotes a report from TorrentFreak: In a submission for the 2026 National Trade Estimate Report (PDF), Cloudflare warns the U.S. government that site blocking efforts cause widespread disruption to legitimate services. The complaint points to Italy’s automated Piracy Shield system, whi … ⌘ Read more
Amazon is Testing an AI Tool That Automatically Translates Books Into Other Languages
An anonymous reader shares a report: Amazon just introduced an AI tool that will automatically translate books into other languages. The appropriately-named Kindle Translate is being advertised as a resource for authors that self publish on the platform.
The company says the tool can translate entire boo … ⌘ Read more
Google Plans Secret AI Military Outpost on Tiny Island Overrun By Crabs
An anonymous reader shares a report: On Wednesday, Reuters reported that Google is planning to build a large AI data center on Christmas Island, a 52-square-mile Australian territory in the Indian Ocean, following a cloud computing deal with Australia’s military. The previously undisclosed project will reportedly position advanced A … ⌘ Read more
FBI Subpoenas Registrar for Details on Anonymous Archiving Site Owner
The FBI has subpoenaed popular Canadian domain registrar Tucows, demanding information about the owner of archive[dot]today, a popular archiving site used to bypass paywalls and avoid sending traffic to original publishers. The subpoena states it relates to a federal criminal investigation but provides no details about the alleged cri … ⌘ Read more
Trump AI Czar Says ‘No Federal Bailout For AI’ After OpenAI CFO’s Comments
Venture capitalist David Sacks, who is serving as President Donald Trump’s AI and crypto czar, said Thursday that there will be “no federal bailout for AI.” From a report: “The U.S. has at least 5 major frontier model companies. If one fails, others will take its place,” Sacks wrote in a post on X. Sacks’ comments came after Open … ⌘ Read more
Archinstall 3.0.13 Adds WiFi Connection Menu To Arch Linux Installer
Just days after the Archinstall 3.0.12 release for this text-based Arch Linux installer, Archinstall 3.0.13 is now available to deliver a new feature. That new feature is a text-based interface for being able to connect to a WiFi network within Archinstall… ⌘ Read more
A New White-Collar Gig Economy: Training AI To Take Over
AI labs are paying skilled professionals hundreds of dollars per hour to train their models in specialized fields. Companies like Mercor, Surge AI, Scale AI and Turing recruit bankers, lawyers, engineers and doctors to improve the accuracy of AI systems in professional settings. Mercor advertises roles for medical secretaries, movie directors and private detectives at … ⌘ Read more
Why Manufacturing’s Last Boom Will Be Hard To Repeat
American manufacturing’s postwar boom from the 1940s through the 1970s resulted from conditions that cannot be recreated, a story on WSJ argues. Global competitors had been destroyed by war. Energy was cheap. Unions could demand concessions without fearing job losses to foreign rivals.
Strikes were frequent in steel, auto, trucking, rubber and coal mining. That relentle … ⌘ Read more
Automattic Inc. Claims It Owns the Word ‘Automatic’
An anonymous reader shares a report: Automattic, the company that owns WordPress.com, is asking Automatic.CSS – a company that provides a CSS framework for WordPress page builders – to change its name amid public spats between Automattic founder Matt Mullenweg and Automatic.CSS creator Kevin Geary. Automattic has two T’s as a nod to Matt.
“As you know, our client owns and … ⌘ Read more
CachyOS Continues Delivering Leading Performance Over Ubuntu 25.10, Fedora Workstation 43
With Intel having sunset Clear Linux, when it comes to aggressive out-of-the-box Linux performance there is the Arch Linux based CachyOS as the leading contender. Given the recent releases of Ubuntu 25.10 and Fedora Workstation 43, if you are curious about the out-of-the-box performance here are some fresh benchmarks of all three using the Framework Desktop. ⌘ Read more
Intel ANV Vulkan Driver Finally Exposes Pipeline Binary “VK_KHR_pipeline_binary”
Introduced back in August of 2024 with Vulkan 1.3.294 was VK_KHR_pipeline_binary as a pipeline binary extension to retrieve binary data associated with individual pipelines. The focus of this is to bypass the Vulkan pipeline caching mechanism and so applications can manage caches themselves. Finally today for Mesa 26.0-devel the Intel “ANV” open-source Vulkan driver has enabled this extension… ⌘ Read more
OpenAI CFO Says Company Isn’t Seeking Government Backstop, Clarifying Prior Comment
OpenAI CFO Sarah Friar said late Wednesday that the AI startup is not seeking a government backstop for its infrastructure commitments, clarifying previous comments she made on stage during the Wall Street Journal’s Tech Live event. From a report: At the event, Friar said OpenAI is looking to create an ecosyste … ⌘ Read more
US Software Firm SAS Exits China After 25 Years
An anonymous reader shares a report: US software company SAS Institute has withdrawn from mainland China and dismissed its local staff, according to a Beijing-based employee affected by the move, as the analytics specialist ended more than two decades of operations amid intense domestic competition and geopolitical tensions. The company on Thursday announced the lay-offs via an e … ⌘ Read more
Thousands of Flights in Danger of Cancellation as FAA Announces Major Cuts
The government shutdown-spurred airport chaos is about to get a whole lot worse. From a report: The Federal Aviation Administration said Wednesday it will reduce flight volumes by 10 percent across 40 major airports in response, a move that could threaten 3,000 to 4,500 flights daily. The cuts will affect “high volume” markets … ⌘ Read more
CodeWeavers Launches CrossOver Preview For Linux ARM64
CodeWeavers announced this morning a new CrossOver Preview that includes Linux ARM64 support for the first time. This commercial software built atop Wine is now comfortable with the state of running Windows x86/x64 apps on Linux ARM64 and even the ability ro enjoy many Windows games on ARM64 Linux devices like the System76 Thelio Astra… ⌘ Read more
Cloudflare Makes Open-Source The Rust Code To Tokio-Quiche
Cloudflare announced today they have open-sourced the code to Tokio-Quiche as their async QUIC library that combines their previously-open-sourced Quiche QUIC implementation with Rust’s Tokio async runtime… ⌘ Read more
‘Grand Theft Auto’ Studio Says Fired Employees Were Leaking Information
Rockstar Games, the company behind the hit Grand Theft Auto franchise, said that the dozens of employees it fired last week were leaking company secrets, disputing allegations by labor leaders that it was disrupting workers’ attempt to unionize. From a report: The employees had been sharing company information in a forum that include … ⌘ Read more
RadeonSI + ACO Brings Some Performance Gains For Radeon Workstation Graphics
Last week Mesa 26.0-devel enabled the ACO back-end by default within the RadeonSI Gallium3D driver for all supported Radeon graphics cards by this open-source Linux driver. This move was done in the name of better performance, faster shader compilation times, and ACO being all-around better than the AMDGPU LLVM back-end these days for both OpenGL and Vulkan use. It was also noted that RadeonSI has “slightly better” viewperf performance w … ⌘ Read more
Nvidia’s Jensen Huang Says China ‘Will Win’ AI Race With US
Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang has warned that China will beat the US in the AI race, thanks to lower energy costs and looser regulations. From a report: In the starkest comments yet from the head of the world’s most valuable company, Huang told the FT: “China is going to win the AI race.” Huang’s remarks come after the Trump administration maintained a ban o … ⌘ Read more
Manufacturer Bricks Smart Vacuum After Engineer Blocks It From Collecting Data
A curious engineer discovered that his iLife A11 smart vacuum was remotely “killed” after he blocked it from sending data to the manufacturer’s servers. By reverse-engineering it with custom hardware and Python scripts, he managed to revive the device to run fully offline. Tom’s Hardware reports: An engineer got cu … ⌘ Read more
FreeDesktop.org Adopts The Filesystem Hierarchy Standard
Adding to the array of software projects and specifications under the FreeDesktop.org umbrella, the Filesystem Hierarchy Standard “FHS” has been adopted by these desktop-focused open-source developers… ⌘ Read more
Linux 6.18 Lands Electronic Privacy Screen Hotkey Handling For Some Dell Laptops
Merged yesterday to the mainline Linux 6.18 development kernel were the latest round of x86 platform driver fixes. Mostly some small fixes but standing out is electronic privacy screen hotkey support for some Dell laptops… ⌘ Read more
NVIDIA Preparing For Hopper & Blackwell GPU Support With Open-Source Nova Driver
NVIDIA engineers continue working a lot on the open-source and upstream Nova driver for the Linux kernel. This modern, Rust-written open-source NVIDIA driver is still taking shape as an alternative to NVIDIA’s official downstream open-source driver and the aging and reverse-engineered Nouveau driver. Out on the horizon for Nova is Hopper and Blackwell GPU support… ⌘ Read more
China Delays Shenzhou-20 Crew Return After Suspected Space Debris Impact
China has delayed the return of its Shenzhou-20 crewed spacecraft after it was suspected to have been struck by space debris while docked at the Tiangong space station. “The Shenzhou-20 crewed spacecraft is suspected of being struck by a small piece of space debris, and impact analysis and risk assessment are underway,” the Chi … ⌘ Read more
Universe Expansion May Be Slowing, Not Accelerating, Study Suggests
A new study challenges the Nobel-winning theory that the universe’s expansion is accelerating, suggesting instead that it may be slowing down as dark energy weakens – potentially leading to a future “big crunch” where the cosmos collapses back in on itself. “Our study shows that the universe has already entered a phase of decelerated expa … ⌘ Read more
A New Ion-Based Quantum Computer Makes Error Correction Simpler
An anonymous reader quotes a report from MIT Technology Review: The US- and UK-based company Quantinuum today unveiled Helios, its third-generation quantum computer, which includes expanded computing power and error correction capability. Like all other existing quantum computers, Helios is not powerful enough to execute the industry’s dream money- … ⌘ Read more
FEX 2511 Delivers More Performance Improvements For Linux x86 Binaries On ARM64
FEX 2511 is out today for this open-source emulator akin to Apple’s Rosetta that allows running x86/x86+64 applications on ARM64. But in the case of FEX, for ARM64 Linux devices and akin to other open-source projects like Box64… ⌘ Read more
The Louvre’s Video Surveillance Password Was ‘Louvre’
A bungled October 18 heist that saw $102 million of crown jewels stolen from the Louvre in broad daylight has exposed years of lax security at the national art museum. From trivial passwords like ‘LOUVRE’ to decades-old, unsupported systems and easy rooftop access, the job was made surprisingly easy. PC Gamer reports: As Rogue cofounder and former Polygon arch-jester Cass … ⌘ Read more
72% of Game Developers Say Steam Is Effectively a PC Gaming Monopoly
A new survey of over 300 US and UK gaming executives found that 72% view Steam as a monopoly. “Furthermore, 88% said that at least three-quarters of their revenue came from Steam, while 37% reported that the platform accounted for 90% of their total revenue,” adds Techspot. From the report: Atomik Research conducted the recent survey on b … ⌘ Read more
Gemini AI To Transform Google Maps Into a More Conversational Experience
An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Associated Press: Google Maps is heading in a new direction with artificial intelligence sitting in the passenger’s seat. Fueled by Google’s Gemini AI technology, the world’s most popular navigation app will become a more conversational companion as part of a redesign announced Wednesda … ⌘ Read more
New Bipartisan Bill Would Require Companies To Report AI Job Losses
A new bipartisan bill introduced by Senators Mark Warner and Josh Hawley would require companies and federal agencies to report quarterly on AI-related workforce changes, including layoffs, new hires, and retraining efforts. The data from the AI-Related Job Impacts Clarity Act (PDF) would then be compiled by the Department of Labor into a public … ⌘ Read more
43% of Gen Z Prefer YouTube and TikTok To Traditional TV and Streaming
A new Activate Consulting report reveals that 43% of Gen Z now prefer YouTube and TikTok over traditional TV or paid streaming. With global media revenues surging and traditional TV viewership collapsing, the average person now spends over 13 hours a day consuming content across platforms, effectively living a “32-hour day” th … ⌘ Read more
Danish Authorities In Rush To Close Security Loophole In Chinese Electric Buses
An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Guardian: Authorities in Denmark are urgently studying how to close an apparent security loophole in hundreds of Chinese-made electric buses that enables them to be remotely deactivated. The investigation comes after transport authorities in Norway, where the Yutong buses ar … ⌘ Read more
More Intel Crescent Island Enablement Prepped For Linux 6.19
Following Intel’s disclosure less than one month ago of Crescent Island as a upcoming Xe3P graphics card with 160GB of vRAM focused on enterprise-level AI inferencing, Intel’s open-source Linux graphics driver engineers have been quick to begin plumbing the Xe kernel graphics driver for this next-generation graphics card… ⌘ Read more
T-Mobile Brings Free 911 Emergency Texting To AT&T and Verizon Customers
An anonymous reader shares a report: T-Mobile is opening up access to its Starlink-powered emergency texting service. The carrier announced on Wednesday that anyone with a compatible phone – even AT&T and Verizon customers – can sign up to text 911 over satellite for free.
In July, T-Mobile launched its “T-Satellite” service … ⌘ Read more
Intel Xeon 6 Performance Feature Benchmarks: Latency Optimized Mode
A new feature of Intel Xeon 6 “Birch Stream” platforms is the “Latency Optimized Mode” performance setting. The Intel Latency Optimized Mode will keep the uncore clock frequencies higher for more consistent performance but at the cost of increased power use. For those wondering about the performance and power impact, here are some comparison benchmarks of engaging this Latency Optimized Mode with Intel Xeon 6980P “Granite Rapids” server pro … ⌘ Read more
Linux Patches Updated For Snapdragon X Elite Powered TUXEDO Elite 14 Gen1 Laptop
In mid-2024, Bavarian PC vendor TUXEDO Computers began teasing a Snapdragon X Elite powered Linux laptop with hopes of having it available by Christmas 2024. As we approach Christmas 2025, there still are no immediate signs of this new ARM-based TUXEDO laptop soon shipping but there are signs of life still with new Linux kernel patches posted for enabling this Snapdragon X Elite laptop… ⌘ Read more
Fwupd 2.0.17 Released With More Hardware Support & Features
Days after the Linux Vendor Firmware Service celebrated 135 million firmware downloads, a new version of the Fwupd utility is now available for firmware updating systems and peripherals under Linux… ⌘ Read more
Linux 6.19 To Support Additional Arm Mali & Vivante Graphics Hardware
Sent out today to DRM-Next was the latest weekly batch of drm-misc-next patches for enhancing the various smaller Direct Rendering Manager drivers within the kernel. Included with this week’s update is supporting some additional Mali and Vivante hardware as well as continuing to enhance the in-kernel accelerator “accel” drivers… ⌘ Read more
LXQt 2.3 Released With Improved Wayland Support
LXQt 2.3 is out today as the newest release of this lightwight, Qt-based desktop environment… ⌘ Read more
3mdeb Achieves Good Progress Porting Coreboot+OpenSIL To AMD Turin Motherboard
Over the past few months the open-source firmware consulting firm 3mdeb has been porting Coreboot and AMD’s new openSIL silicon initialization library to the Gigabyte MZ33-AR1. The Gigabyte MZ33-AR1 is a broadly available motherboard that supports the latest-generation AMD EPYC 9005 “Turin” server processors. 3mdeb has been fairly successful in their quest and an early demonstrator for openSIL… ⌘ Read more
systemd-appd Is A New Component Being Planned By Flatpak Developers
Given this week’s release of Flatpak 1.17 for app sandboxing, open-source developer Sebastian Wick published a blog post on Tuesday around the latest Flatpak developments and a look ahead at some of the feature development planned. Arguably most significant of that is the plans for systemd-appd… ⌘ Read more
AMD Contributes BFloat16 Support To LLVM’s SPIR-V Target
AMD software engineers continue making interesting contributions to the LLVM compiler stack around SPIR-V as the IR used by Vulkan and other Khronos APIs… ⌘ Read more
Benchmarking The AMD EPYC 9V64H: Azure HBv5’s Custom AMD CPU With HBM3
Nearly one year ago Microsoft announced the HBv5 virtual machines powered by a custom-designed AMD 4th Gen EPYC processor with high bandwidth memory (HBM3). Finally today the Azure HBv5 series is reaching general availability for those with memory-intensive HPC applications and other workloads. Microsoft kindly provided Phoronix with HBv5 access in advance to begin testing these new VMs with the AMD EPYC 9V64H CPUs featuring HBM memory, so … ⌘ Read more
Rust Foundation Maintainers Fund Announced For Long-Term Support To Rust Developers
The Rust Foundation announced today the creation of the Rust Foundation Maintainers Fund as a new means of providing consistent, transparent, and long-term support for developers that make the Rust programming language possible… ⌘ Read more
Linux 6.19 Will Finally Support Intel’s Adaptive Sharpness Filter “CASF” With Lunar Lake
Going all the way back to early 2024, Intel Linux engineers have been working on supporting an Adaptive Sharpening Filter new to Lunar Lake. While Lunar Lake later launched in September 2024, the Linux patches for this feature remained under review and discussion. Besides the Intel driver implementation itself for Lunar Lake and newer, it also ushers in a new DRM sharpness property to help standardize such functionality … ⌘ Read more
Open Container Initiative “OCI” Runtime Spec v1.3 Released With FreeBSD Support
The Open Container Initiative unveiled today the OCI Runtime Specification v1.3 update for this standard around operating system process and application containers. This runtime specification continues to evolve for outlining the configuration, execution environment, and lifecycle of a container. Notable with the v1.3 revision is introducing official FreeBSD support… ⌘ Read more