[$] LWN.net Weekly Edition for April 30, 2026
Inside this week’s LWN.net Weekly Edition:
Front: Famfs; Python packaging council; Zig concurrency; pages and folios; Strawberry music manager; 7.1 merge window.
Briefs: GnuPG 2.5.19; Copy Fail; Plasma security; Fedora 44; Ubuntu 26.04; Niri 26.04; pip 26.1; RIP Seth Nickell; RIP Tomáš Kalibera; Quotes; …
Announcements: Newsletters, conferences, security updates, patc … ⌘ Read more
New Sam Bankman-Fried Trial Would Be Huge Waste of Court’s Time, Judge Says
A federal judge denied Sam Bankman-Fried’s request for a new trial, calling his claims of DOJ witness intimidation “wildly conspiratorial” and unsupported by the record. Judge Lewis Kaplan said (PDF) the FTX founder’s motion appeared tied to a pre-indictment plan to recast himself as a Republican victim of Biden’s DOJ in hopes … ⌘ Read more
Ubuntu’s AI Plans Have Linux Users Looking For a ‘Kill Switch’
Canonical’s plan to add AI features to Ubuntu has sparked pushback from users who are concerned it could follow Windows 11’s AI-heavy direction. “After Canonical’s announcement earlier this week that it’s bringing AI features to Ubuntu, replies included requests for an AI ‘kill switch’ or a way to disable the upcoming features,” reports The Verge. Canoni … ⌘ Read more
Joby Demos Its Air Taxi In NYC
Joby Aviation has completed demonstration flights of its electric air taxi over New York City, testing real routes between JFK and Manhattan helipads as it prepares for a future commercial service. The company says its eVTOL could turn a 60- to 120-minute airport trip into a flight of under 10 minutes, though commercial launch still depends on FAA certification. Electrive reports: To launch operations in New York … ⌘ Read more
Apple Gives Up On the Vision Pro After M5 Refresh Flop
MacRumors reports that Apple has effectively paused work on Vision Pro after the M5 refresh failed to revive demand. The team has reportedly been reassigned and the company is now shifting focus toward smart glasses instead. From the report: The Vision Pro has been criticized for its high price tag and its uncomfortable weight. The device is over 1.3 pounds, and ev … ⌘ Read more
California High-Speed Rail Price Tag Jumps To $231 Billion
Longtime Slashdot reader schwit1 writes: California’s long-delayed high-speed rail project is now facing renewed scrutiny after state leaders revealed a dramatically higher price tag, now estimated at roughly $231 billion, nearly seven times the original $33 billion projection approved by voters in 2008. The revised figures have reignited talks in Sacramento … ⌘ Read more
Colorado’s Anti-Repair Bill Is Dead
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Wired: A controversial bill in Colorado that would have undone some repair protections in the state has failed. The bill had been the target of right-to-repair advocates, who saw it as a bellwether for how tech companies might try to undo repair legislation more broadly in the US. Colorado’s landmark 2024 repair law, the Consumer Right to Repair Digital Electronic … ⌘ Read more
GitHub ‘No Longer a Place For Serious Work’, Says Hashicorp Co-Founder
Hashicorp co-founder Mitchell Hashimoto says GitHub’s frequent outages have made it “no longer a place for serious work,” prompting him to move his Ghostty terminal emulator project elsewhere after 18 years on the platform. The Register reports: “I’ve been angry about it. I’ve hurt people’s feelings. I’ve been lashing out. Because GitHub … ⌘ Read more
Should Schools Get Rid of Homework?
Tony Isaac shares a report from NPR: Federal survey data shows that the amount of math homework assigned to fourth and eighth grade students, in particular, has been steadily declining for the past decade. Some educators and parents say this is a good thing – students shouldn’t spend six or more hours a day at school and still have additional schoolwork to complete at home. But the research on homework … ⌘ Read more
Humanoid Robots Start Sorting Luggage In Tokyo Airport Test Amid Labor Shortage
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Humanoid robots are getting a new gig as baggage handlers and cargo loaders at Tokyo’s Haneda Airport – part of a Japan Airlines experiment to address a human labor shortage as airport visitor numbers have surged in recent years. The demonstration, set to la … ⌘ Read more
FDA Grants Quick Review For 3 Psychedelic Drug Trials
An anonymous reader quotes a report from NBC News: The Food and Drug Administration on Friday granted a quick review of three experimental psychedelic drugs meant to treat major depression and post-traumatic stress disorder. It’s the latest move by the Trump administration signaling a shift in policy toward treatments that also give users a high – coming a day aft … ⌘ Read more
Adidas Adizero Adios Pro Evo 3 Shoe Review: World Record Breaker
I ran in Sabastian Sawe’s world-record-breaking running shoe. It’s fast, but only if you can maintain your locked-in form for 26 miles. ⌘ Read more
New Report Finds Some Babies Spend Up To Eight Hours a Day on Screens
fjo3 shares a report from The Times: More than two-thirds of babies under two use screens, a report has found, and some are exposed for up to eight hours a day. Nearly a third of newborns were found to be watching screens for more than three hours a day, while almost 20 percent of infants of four to 11 months used screens for more tha … ⌘ Read more
Musk Testifies OpenAI Was Created As Nonprofit To Counter Google
Elon Musk testified on day two of his trial against OpenAI, saying he helped create the company as a nonprofit counterweight to Google and would not have backed it if the goal had been private profit. CNBC reports: Musk on Tuesday was the first witness called to testify in the trial. He spoke about his upbringing, his many companies, his role in f … ⌘ Read more
Electrical Current Might Be the Key To a Better Cup of Coffee
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: University of Oregon chemist Christopher Hendon loves his coffee – so much so that studying all the factors that go into creating the perfect cuppa constitutes a significant area of research for him. His latest project: discovering a novel means of measuring the flavor profile of coffee simp … ⌘ Read more
Apple Vision Pro Used In World-First Cataract Surgery
Apple’s Vision Pro has been used in what’s described as the world’s first cataract surgery performed with the headset. MacRumors reports: [New York opthalmologist] Dr. Eric Rosenberg of SightMD completed the initial procedure in October 2025 and has since performed hundreds of additional cases using ScopeXR, a surgical platform he co-developed for Apple’s mixed r … ⌘ Read more
Sony Rolls Out 30-Day Online DRM Check-In For PlayStation Digital Games
Sony is reportedly rolling out a 30-day online check-in requirement for some digital PS4 and PS5 games, meaning players could temporarily lose access if their console does not reconnect to renew the license. Tom’s Hardware reports: In the info page of an affected game, you’d see a new validity period and a “remaining time” deadline … ⌘ Read more
Apple Introduces a Cheaper Option For App Store Subscriptions
Apple is adding a new App Store subscription option that lets developers offer lower monthly prices in exchange for a 12-month commitment. “This model will allow developers to offer discounted rates to customers in exchange for more predictable long-term revenue,” reports TechCrunch. “This also caters to how many developers have already been marketing … ⌘ Read more
The Bloomberg Terminal Is Getting an AI Makeover
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Wired: For its famous intractability, the Bloomberg Terminal has long inspired devotion, bordering on obsession. Among traders, the ability to chart a path through the software’s dizzying scrolls of numbers and text to isolate far-flung information is the mark of a seasoned professional. But as a greater mass of data is fed into the Term … ⌘ Read more
Google and Pentagon Reportedly Agree On Deal For ‘Any Lawful’ Use of AI
Google has reportedly signed a classified agreement allowing the Pentagon to use its AI models for “any lawful government purpose.” While the deal is said to discourage domestic mass surveillance and autonomous weapons without human oversight, it apparently does not give Google the power to block how the government actually uses its m … ⌘ Read more
UAE To Leave OPEC Amid Hormuz Oil Crisis
fjo3 writes: The United Arab Emirates announced Tuesday that it would exit the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (source paywalled; alternative source), or OPEC, along with the wider group of partners known as OPEC+, effective May 1, in what could be a blow to control over prices by the group, long led in practice by Saudi Arabia. The move “reflects the UAE’s long-term strategi … ⌘ Read more
Bay Area Homeowner Offers Property In Exchange For Anthropic Stock
Bay Area homeowner and investment banker Storm Duncan is trying to swap a 13-acre Mill Valley property for Anthropic equity instead of cash. He created a LinkedIn page for the home, describing the move as a “diversification play” because he is “under-concentrated in AI investments relative to the importance of AI in the future, and over-concentrat … ⌘ Read more
Ubuntu 26.04 LTS Leads Over Windows 11 In Creator Workstation Performance
The past few weeks I have been testing out the new HP Z6 G5 A workstation desktop PC. It’s a beast in being powered by the AMD Ryzen Threadripper PRO 9975WX, eight channels of DDR5-5600 memory, and paired with a NVIDIA RTX PRO 6000 Max-Q workstation graphics card. The full review on the HP Z6 G5 A workstation will be published on Phoronix in the next week or so but given the timing and that it shipped with WIndows 11 Pro, here is a look at … ⌘ Read more
Supreme Court Hears Case On How To Label Risks of Popular Weed Killer
An anonymous reader quotes a report from NPR: A divided U.S. Supreme Court on Monday heard a dispute over labels on the popular Roundup weed killer, which thousands of people blame for their cancers. How the Supreme Court rules could have implications for tens of thousands of lawsuits against Roundup maker Monsanto, which is now owned by … ⌘ Read more
All FOSDEM 2026 videos are online
FOSDEM’s organizers have announced
that all of the video recordings “worth publishing” from FOSDEM 2026 are now available.
Videos are linked from the individual schedule pages for the talks and
the full\ > schedule page. They are also available, organised by room, at
video.fosdem.org/2026.
LWN’s [coverage](https://lwn.net/Arc … ⌘ Read more
The Silent Frequency That Makes Old Buildings Feel Haunted
Researchers say infrasound – low-frequency vibrations from things like pipes, HVAC systems, and traffic that humans can’t consciously hear – may help explain why some old buildings feel unsettling or “haunted.” Rodney Schmaltz, senior author and professor at MacEwan, says: “Consider visiting a supposedly haunted building. Your mood shifts, you feel agit … ⌘ Read more
7-Zip 26.01 Now Allows Making Use Of Huge Pages On Linux For Faster Compression
7-Zip 26.01 was released on Monday and making this release significant are huge pages support on Linux and some users may be interested in the new options around the path generation mode for the output directory when extracting archives… ⌘ Read more
Trump Administration Will Pay More Energy Firms to Cancel Wind Farms
The Trump administration says it will reimburse energy companies $885 million to cancel two planned offshore wind farms, with the firms in turn agreeing to put money into oil and gas projects instead. “The deals are modeled after a similar agreement last month with the French energy giant TotalEnergies,” notes the New York Times. “Tota … ⌘ Read more
Elon Musk and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman Head To Court
An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Associated Press: Technology tycoons Elon Musk and Sam Altman are poised to face off in a high-stakes trial revolving around the alleged betrayal, deceit and unbridled ambition that blurred the bickering billionaires’ once-shared vision for the development of artificial intelligence. The trial, which started Monday with jury selecti … ⌘ Read more
Study Finds a Third of New Websites Are AI-Generated
alternative_right shares a report from 404 Media: Researchers working with data from the Internet Archive have discovered that a third of websites created since 2022 are AI-generated. The team of researchers – which includes people from Stanford, the Imperial College London, and the Internet Archive – published their findings online in a paper titled “The Impact of A … ⌘ Read more
EU Tells Google To Open Up AI On Android; Google Says That’s ‘Unwarranted Intervention’
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: In January, the European Commission began an initial investigation, known as a specification proceeding, into how Google has implemented AI in the Android operating system. The results are in, and the EU says Android needs to be more open, which is no … ⌘ Read more
Notepad++ Finally Lands On macOS as a Native App
BrianFagioli writes: Notepad++ has finally made its way to macOS, and this time it is not through a compatibility layer. A new community-driven port brings the long-standing Windows text editor over as a fully native Mac application, built with Cocoa and compiled for both Apple Silicon and Intel systems. Instead of relying on Wine or similar tools, the project replaces the Windo … ⌘ Read more
China Blocks Meta’s $2 Billion Takeover of AI Startup Manus
China has blocked Meta’s planned $2 billion acquisition of AI startup Manus, ordering the deal withdrawn after months of scrutiny from both Beijing and Washington. “The decision to prohibit foreign investment in Manus was made in accordance with laws and regulations,” reports CNBC, citing the National Development and Reform Commission. “It added that it has … ⌘ Read more
Supreme Court Reviews Police Use of Cell Location Data To Find Criminals
An anonymous reader quotes a report from the New York Times: When the Call Federal Credit Union outside Richmond, Va., was robbed at gunpoint in 2019, the suspect took $195,000 from the bank’s vault and fled before the police arrived. A detective interviewed witnesses and reviewed the bank’s security footage. But with no leads, the … ⌘ Read more
pip 26.1 released
Version 26.1 of
the pip package installer for Python has been released. Richard Si
has published a blog\
post that looks at some of the highlights of 26.1 including
dependency cooldowns, experimental support for pylock ( pylock.toml)
files, and [resolver\
improvements](https://ichard26.github.io/blog/2026/04/whats-new-i … ⌘ Read more
GitHub Copilot Is Moving To Usage-Based Billing
GitHub said in a blog post today that it is moving Copilot to usage-based billing starting June 1. Base subscription prices will remain the same but premium requests will be replaced with monthly AI Credits that are consumed based on token usage.
“Instead of counting premium requests, every Copilot plan will include a monthly allotment of GitHub AI Credits, with the option … ⌘ Read more
Microsoft To Stop Sharing Revenue With OpenAI
Bloomberg reports that Microsoft is ending revenue-sharing payments to OpenAI (paywalled; alternative source) and making the partnership non-exclusive. “The rapid pace of innovation requires us to continue to evolve our partnership to benefit our customers and both companies,” Microsoft said Monday in a blog post. Bloomberg reports: The revised deal is meant to simplify a complicated rela … ⌘ Read more
California’s Billionaire Tax Has the Signatures to Make the Ballot
California’s proposed billionaire tax appears headed for the November ballot after backers said they gathered more than 1.5 million signatures, well above the threshold needed to qualify. SF Standard reports: Backers of the initiative announced this weekend that more than 1.5 million people signed a petition to bring the one-time, 5% wealth ta … ⌘ Read more
DeepSeek V4 Arrives With Near State-of-the-Art Intelligence At 1/6th the Cost
An anonymous reader quotes a report from VentureBeat: The whale has resurfaced. DeepSeek, the Chinese AI startup offshoot of High-Flyer Capital Management quantitative analysis firm, became a near-overnight sensation globally in January 2025 with the release of its open source R1 model that matched proprietary U.S. giants … ⌘ Read more
Niri 26.04 released
Version 26.04
of the niri scrollable-tiling Wayland compositor has been released. The most
notable change in this release, as the “most requested niri feature by far”,
is support for the blur effect using the Wayland protocol’s ext-background-effect. This
release also features optional configuration\
includes, screencasting support enhanc … ⌘ Read more
America Now Has 70% More Bookstores Than in 2020, Says Bookshop.org Founder
“There are about 70% more bookstores now than there were six years ago in the United States,” says Andy Hunter, the founder/CEO of Bookshop.org.
Fast Company checks in on his site, which gives over 80% of its profit margin to independent bookstores, structuring itself as a B Corporation (a for-profit company certified for its s … ⌘ Read more
Ubuntu Linux Will Begin Landing AI Features Throughout The Next Year
Now that Ubuntu 26.04 LTS has shipped, Canonical is opening up on their next major focus for Ubuntu development: lots of AI features… ⌘ Read more
AMD VPE 2.0 Support Merged For Mesa 26.2
Merged overnight to the latest Mesa graphics driver development code is enabling the VPE 2.0 engine to be found with future AMD Radeon GPUs… ⌘ Read more
Ubuntu Linux Will Begin Landing AI Features Throughout The Next Year
Now that Ubuntu 26.04 LTS has shipped, Canonical is opening up on their next major focus for Ubuntu development: lots of AI features… ⌘ Read more
Two Hot Climate Tech Startups Just Raised $1 Billion+ in IPOs
Public stock exchanges “appear to be warming to climate tech startups,” reports TechCrunch. “Or at least some of them.”
This week, nuclear startup X-energy went public, raising $1 billion in an upsized share offering that appears to have delivered a windfall for its investors, including Amazon [and Google]. Retail investors apparently can’t get enough … ⌘ Read more
Right-to-Repair Laws Gain Political Momentum Across America
“California, Colorado, Minnesota, New York, Connecticut, Oregon and Washington have all passed comprehensive right-to-repair regulations,” reports CNBC, “covering everything from consumer electronics and farm equipment to wheelchairs and automobiles.”
And the consumer movement “continues to gain political momentum” across America…
As of this year, advo … ⌘ Read more
Bank Robber Challenges Conviction Based on His Cellphone’s Location Data
An anonymous reader shared this report from the Associated Pres:
Okello Chatrie’s cellphone gave him away. Chatrie made off with $195,000 from the bank he robbed in suburban Richmond, Virginia, and eluded the police until they turned to a powerful technological tool that erected a virtual fence and allowed them collect the location … ⌘ Read more
Google Studies Prompt Injection Attacks Against AI Agents Browsing the Web
Are AI agents already facing Indirect Prompt Injection attacks? Google’s Threat Intelligence teams searched for known attacks that would target AI systems browsing the web, using Common Crawl’s repository of billions of pages from the public web).
We observed a number of websites that attempt to vandalize the machine of anyone … ⌘ Read more
Elon Musk Vies to Turn X Into Super App With Banking Tool Near Launch
An anonymous reader shared this report from Bloomberg:
More than three years after acquiring Twitter, Elon Musk says he’s nearing his long-stated goal of turning it into an “everything app” with a new financial services tool that he pledged to launch for the public this month… Early users testing the service have touted competitive … ⌘ Read more
Remembering The 1984 Unix PC. Why Did It Fail So Hard?
“I love these machines,” writes long-time Slashdot reader Shayde:
I was super-active in the Unix-PC Usenet groups back in the 90s… We hacked the hell out of them. They were small, sexy, and… they ran Unix!
Unfortunately, they were a commercial failure. There were so many things wrong with them — not just stuff that broke, but the baseline configuration was nigh … ⌘ Read more