Fintech CEO and Forbes 30 Under 30 Alum Charged for Alleged Fraud
An anonymous reader shares a report: By now, the Forbes 30 Under 30 list has become more than a little notorious for the amount of entrants who go on to be charged with fraud.[…] Gokce Guven, a 26-year-old Turkish national and the founder and CEO of fintech startup Kalder, was charged last week with alleged securities fraud, wire fraud, visa fra … ⌘ 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

Hidden Car Door Handles Are Officially Being Banned In China
sinij writes: Automakers have increasingly implemented door handles that retract into the bodywork for aerodynamic reasons, but they are now off limits in China.
My issue is with electronic-only door latch mechanism. It should be possible to open the door from both inside and outside the car in case of complete power loss.

[![](https://a.fsdn.com/sd/twi … ⌘ Read more

SpaceX Acquires xAI in $1.25 Trillion All-Stock Deal
Elon Musk’s SpaceX has acquired his AI startup xAI in an all-stock deal that values the combined entity at $1.25 trillion, ahead of what would be the largest initial public offering in history. SpaceX pegged its own valuation at $1 trillion – a markup from the $800 billion it commanded in a December secondary stock sale – and priced xAI at $250 billion based on a recent $20 … ⌘ Read more

A Century of Hair Samples Proves Leaded Gas Ban Worked
Scientists at the University of Utah have analyzed nearly a century’s worth of human hair samples and found that lead concentrations dropped 100-fold after the EPA began cracking down on leaded gasoline and other lead-based products in the 1970s.

The findings, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, drew on hair collected from Utah resi … ⌘ Read more

Leica Camera’s Owners Weigh $1.2 Billion Sale of Controlling Stake
The owners of Leica Camera AG – Austrian billionaire Andreas Kaufmann and private equity giant Blackstone – are considering a sale of a controlling stake in the German camera maker in a deal that could value the company at about $1.2 billion, Bloomberg reported, citing people familiar with the matter.

HSG, formerly known as Sequoia Capital China, … ⌘ Read more

Feds Skipping Infosec Industry’s Biggest Conference This Year
An anonymous reader shares a report: The US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency won’t attend the annual RSA Conference in March, an agency spokesperson confirmed to The Register. Sessions involving speakers from the FBI and National Security Agency (NSA) have also disappeared from the agenda.

“Since the beginning of this administration, CI … ⌘ Read more

Finland To Introduce ‘Green Wave’ Automated System For Emergency Vehicles
alternative_right writes: Fintraffic’s national traffic priority system, which is set to be introduced this summer, will recognize the location of an emergency vehicle and automatically change the lights to green to facilitate its passage. (Why isn’t everyone doing this already?)

[![](https://a.fsdn.com/sd/twitter_icon_large.png … ⌘ Read more

Microsoft Weighs Retreat From Windows 11 AI Push, Reviews Copilot Integrations and Recall
Microsoft is reevaluating its AI strategy on Windows 11 and plans to scale back or remove Copilot integrations across built-in apps after months of sustained user backlash, according to a Windows Central report citing people familiar with the company’s plans.

Copilot features in apps like Notepad … ⌘ Read more

The AI Boom Is Coming for Apple’s Profit Margins
Apple’s long-standing dominance over its electronics supply chain is eroding as AI companies outbid the iPhone maker for critical components like chips, memory and specialized glass fiber, giving suppliers the leverage to demand that Apple pay more. CEO Tim Cook acknowledged the pressure during a Thursday earnings call, noting constraints in chip supplies and significant increa … ⌘ Read more

Vibe-coded Social Network for AI Bots Exposed Data on Thousands of Humans
Moltbook, a Reddit-like social network that launched last week and bills itself as a platform “built exclusively for AI agents,” had a security vulnerability that exposed private messages shared between agents, the email addresses of more than 6,000 human owners, and over a million credentials, according to research published Mond … ⌘ Read more

Notepad++ Compromised By State Actor
Luthair writes: Notepad++ claims to have been targeted by a state actor, given their previous stance on Uyghurs one can speculate about a candidate. Notepad++, in a blog post: According to the analysis provided by the security experts, the attack involved infrastructure-level compromise that allowed malicious actors to intercept and redirect update traffic destined for notepad-plus-plus.org. The exact tec … ⌘ Read more

High-Speed Internet Boom Hits Low-Tech Snag: a Labor Shortage
The U.S. laid fiber-optic cables to a record number of homes last year as billions of dollars in federal broadband grants and a surge in data-center construction fueled an enormous buildout, but the industry does not have enough workers to sustain the pace.

A 2024 report by the Fiber Broadband Association and the Power & Communication Contractors Assoc … ⌘ Read more

Starbucks Bets on Robots To Brew a Turnaround in Customers
Starbucks has been pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into AI and automation – testing robots that take drive-through orders, virtual assistants that help baristas recall recipes and manage schedules, and scanning tools that count inventory – as the 55-year-old coffee chain tries to reverse several years of struggling sales.

The company last week … ⌘ Read more

China’s Decades-Old ‘Genius Class’ Pipeline Is Quietly Fueling Its AI Challenge To the US
China’s decades-old network of elite high-school “genius classes” – ultra-competitive talent streams that pull an estimated 100,000 gifted teenagers out of regular schooling every year and run them through college-level science curricula – has produced the core technical talent now building the cou … ⌘ Read more

Is AI Really Taking Jobs? Or Are Employers Just ‘AI-Washing’ Normal Layoffs?
The New York Times lists other reasons a company lays off people. (“It didn’t meet financial targets. It overhired. Tariffs, or the loss of a big client, rocked it…”)

“But lately, many companies are highlighting a new factor: artificial intelligence. Executives, saying they anticipate huge changes from the technology, are mak … ⌘ Read more

Linux Kernel Developer Chris Mason’s New Initiative: AI Prompts for Code Reviews
Phoronix reports:

Chris Mason, the longtime Linux kernel developer most known for being the creator of Btrfs, has been working on a Git repository with AI review prompts he has been working on for LLM-assisted code review of Linux kernel patches. This initiative has been happening for some weeks now while the lates … ⌘ Read more

Is the TV Industry Finally Conceding That the Future May Not Be 8K?
“Technology companies spent part of the 2010s trying to convince us that we would want an 8K display one day…” writes Ars Technica.

“However, 8K never proved its necessity or practicality.”

LG Display is no longer making 8K LCD or OLED panels, FlatpanelsHD reported today… LG Electronics was the first and only company to sell 8 … ⌘ Read more

EU Deploys New Government Satcom Program in Sovereignty Push
The EU “has switched on parts of its homegrown secure satellite communications network for the first time,” reports Bloomberg, calling it part of a €10.6 billion push to “wean itself off US support amid growing tensions.”

SpaceNews notes the new government program GOVSATCOM pools capacity from eight already on-oribit satellites from France, Spain, It … ⌘ Read more

What Go Programmers Think of AI
“Most Go developers are now using AI-powered development tools when seeking information (e.g., learning how to use a module) or toiling (e.g., writing repetitive blocks of similar code).” That’s one of the conclusions Google’s Go team drew from September’s big survey of 5,379 Go developers.

But the survey also found that among Go developers using AI-powered tools, “their satisfaction with these tools is m … ⌘ Read more

Anthropic’s $200M Pentagon Contract at Risk Over Objections to Domestic Surveillance, Autonomous Deployments
Talks “are at a standstill” for Anthropic’s potential $200 million contract with America’s Defense Department, reports Reuters (citing several people familiar with the discussions.“) The two issues?

- Using AI to surveil Americans
- Safeguards against deployin … ⌘ Read more

Is Meta’s Huge Spending on AI Actually Paying Off?
The Wall Street Journal says that Meta “might be reaping some of the richest benefits from the AI boom so far.”

Meta’s revenue grew 22% year over year in 2025 to $201 billion, and the company expects even bigger gains in the current quarter, potentially as high as 34%. That is huge growth for a company that brought in nearly $60 billion in the latest three-month period. And … ⌘ Read more

Bitcoin Drops 40% in Four Months. Bloomberg Blames Absence of Buyers and Belief
October saw Bitcoin reach $123,742. But less than four months later, “The world’s largest cryptocurrency slipped below $76,000…” Bloomberg reports, “dropping about 40% from its 2025 peak…”

“What began as a sharp crash in October has morphed into something more corrosive: a selloff shaped not by panic, but by absence … ⌘ Read more

Walmart Begins Building Out Nationwide EV Charging Network Across America
Walmart, the world’s largest retailer, will be adding spaces for electric vehicle charging to parking lots in 19 different states, reports MLive:

The move follows up on a plan announced in 2023 to build a network of charging stations at Walmart and Sam’s Club stores throughout the U.S… “With a store or club located within 10 … ⌘ Read more

When 20-Year-Old Bill Gates Fought the World’s First Software Pirates
Long-time Slashdot reader destinyland writes: Just months after his 20th birthday, Bill Gates had already angered the programmer community,” remembers this 50th-anniversary commemoration of Gates’ Open Letter to Hobbyists. “As the first home computers began appearing in the 1970s, the world faced a question: Would its software be free?”
… ⌘ Read more

Fourth US Wind Farm Project Blocked By Trump Allowed to Resume Construction
Vineyard Wind (powering Massachusetts) is one of five offshore wind projects “that the Trump administration tried to hold up in December,” reports The Hill.

This week it became the fourth of those wind projects allowed by a judge to resume construction, the article notes, while even the fifth project “is still awaiting … ⌘ Read more

Scientists Create Programmable, Autonomous Robots Smaller Than a Grain of Salt
Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania and University of Michigan “have created the world’s smallest fully programmable, autonomous robots,” according to a recent announcement.

The announcement calls them “microscopic swimming machines that can independently sense and respond to their surroundings, operate f … ⌘ Read more

Microbes In Space Mutated and Developed a Remarkable Ability
“A box full of viruses and bacteria has completed its return trip to the International Space Station,” reports ScienceAlert, “and the changes these ‘bugs’ experienced in their travels could help us Earthlings tackle drug-resistant infections…”

Scientists aboard the space station incubated different combinations of bacteria and phages for 25 days, w … ⌘ Read more

GNOME Resources 1.10 Adds Monitoring Support For AMD Ryzen AI NPUs
GNOME Resources 1.10 was christened today as the newest version of this modern system monitoring app for the GNOME desktop that is now used by default on the likes of the upcoming Ubuntu 26.04 LTS. With GNOME Resources 1.10 they have added AMD Ryzen AI NPU monitoring support and other new capabilities… ⌘ Read more

99% of New US Will Be Green in 2026
This year in America, renewables and battery storage “will account for 99.2% of net new capacity — and even higher if small-scale solar were included,” reports Electrek, citing EIA data reviewed by the SUN DAY Campaign:

EIA’s latest monthly “Electric Power Monthly” report (with data through November 30, 2025), once again confirms that solar is the fastest-growing among the major sources of US electri … ⌘ Read more

China Executes 11 Members of Myanmar Scam Mafia
The BBC reports:

China has executed 11 members of a notorious mafia family that ran scam centres in Myanmar along its north-eastern border, state media report.
The Ming family members were sentenced in September for various crimes including homicide, illegal detention, fraud and operating gambling dens by a court in China’s Zhejiang province. The Mings were one of many clans that … ⌘ Read more

Five French Ubisoft Unions Call For Massive International Strike Over ‘Cost-Cutting’ and Ending of Remote Work
Five French unions representing Ubisoft workers “have called for a ‘massive international strike’,” reports the gaming news site Aftermath.

The move follows a “series of layoffs and cancellations” at Ubisoft, the article points out, plus what the company calls … ⌘ Read more

US Government Also Received a Whistleblower Complaint That WhatsApp Chats Aren’t Private
Remember that lawsuit questioning WhatsApp’s end-to-end encryption? Thursday Bloomberg reported those allegations had been investigated by special agents with America’s Commerce Department, “according to the law enforcement records, as well as a person familiar with the matter and one of the contractor … ⌘ Read more

AI Use at Work Has Increased, Gallup Poll Finds
An anonymous reader shared this report from the Associated Press:

American workers adopted artificial intelligence into their work lives at a remarkable pace over the past few years, according to a new poll. Some 12% of employed adults say they use AI daily in their job, according to a Gallup Workforce survey conducted this fall of more than 22,000 U.S. workers.

The survey found roug … ⌘ Read more

Electric Flying Cars Now for Sale by California Company Pivotal
“A future with flying cars is no longer science fiction,” writes the Los Angeles Times.

“All you need to order your own is about $200,000 and some hope and patience.”

The Palo Alto-based company Pivotal has been developing the technology since 2009 and is nearly ready to bring it to market… [Company founder Marcus] Leng engineered an ultralig … ⌘ Read more

Apple Switches to Build-to-Order Systems on Its Web Site
“Apple has gone for a choose-your-own-adventure when shopping for a new Mac,” writes long-time Slashdot reader esarjeant.

Macworld explains:

Apple has shifted from selling pre-configured Mac models to a fully customizable build-to-order system on its website, allowing customers to select display size, chip, memory, and storage options… This change emphasiz … ⌘ Read more

Shotcut Video Editor Now Using Hardware Decoding By Default Except For NVIDIA On Linux
Shotcut 26.1 is now available as the latest feature update to this open-source and cross-platform video editing solution. Shotcut 26.1 is finally defaulting to GPU hardware accelerated video decoding by default for all platforms sans NVIDIA GPUs on Linux… ⌘ Read more

Nvidia CEO Denies OpenAI’s $100B Investment from Nvidia is ‘Stalled’
Saturday Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said they still planned a “huge” investment in OpenAI, according to CNBC.

Friday the Wall Street Journal had reported that Nvidia’s plan to invest up to $100 billion in OpenAI “has stalled after some inside the chip giant expressed doubts about the deal, people familiar with the matter said…”

[T]he ta … ⌘ Read more

Blue Origin Announces Two-Year Pause in Space Tourism - to Focus on the Moon
TechCrunch reports:

Jeff Bezos’ space company Blue Origin is pausing its space tourism flights for “no less than two years” in order to focus all of its resources on upcoming missions to the moon, the company announced Friday. The decision puts a temporary halt on a program that Blue Origin has been using to fly humans … ⌘ Read more

Can We Slow Global Warming By Phasing Out Super-Pollutant HFCs?
“There’s one big bright spot in the fight against climate change that most people never think about,” reports the Washington Post.

“It could prevent nearly half a degree of global warming this century, a huge margin for a planet that has warmed almost 1.5 degrees Celsius and is struggling to keep that number below 2 degrees…”

[M]ore than 170 c … ⌘ Read more

Scientists Found a Way To Cool Quantum Computers Using Noise
Slashdot reader alternative_right writes: Quantum computers need extreme cold to work, but the very systems that keep them cold also create noise that can destroy fragile quantum information. Scientists in Sweden have now flipped that problem on its head by building a tiny quantum refrigerator that actually uses noise to drive cooling instead of figh … ⌘ Read more

WhatsApp End-to-End Encryption Allegations Questioned By Some Security Experts, Lawyers
Several security experts have “questioned the lack of technical detail” in that lawsuit alleging WhatsApp has no end-to-end encryption, reports the Washington Post:

“It’s pretty long on accusations and thin on any sort of evidence,” Matthew Green, a cryptography professor at Johns Hopkins University, sa … ⌘ Read more

The Bill Gates-Epstein Bombshell - and What Most People Get Wrong
The Daily Beast:
“Salacious claims from Jeffrey Epstein that Bill Gates contracted an STD following ‘sex with Russian girls,’ and colluded with the disgraced financier on a plot to secretly slip his wife antibiotics, were revealed in the latest Epstein files release.”

The New York Times. (Alternate URL)

“A representative of the Gates Foundati … ⌘ Read more

Microdosing For Depression Appears To Work About As Well As Drinking Coffee
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Wired: About a decade ago, many media outlets – including WIRED – zeroed in on a weird trend at the intersection of mental health, drug science, and Silicon Valley biohacking: microdosing, or the practice of taking a small amount of a psychedelic drug seeking not full-blown hallu … ⌘ Read more

Author of Systemd Quits Microsoft To Prove Linux Can Be Trusted
Lennart Poettering has left Microsoft to co-found Amutable, a new Berlin-based company aiming to bring cryptographically verifiable integrity and deterministic trust guarantees to Linux systems. He said in a post on Mastodon that his “role in upstream maintenance for the Linux kernel will continue as it always has.” Poettering will also continue to … ⌘ Read more

‘Reverse Solar Panel’ Generates Electricity at Night
Researchers at the University of New South Wales are developing a “reverse solar panel” that generates small amounts of electricity at night by harvesting infrared heat radiated from Earth. “In the past, scientists have demonstrated that a ‘thermoradiative diode’ can convert infrared radiation directly into electricity; when used to convert heat from Earth, they explo … ⌘ Read more

UK’s First Rapid-Charging Battery Train Ready For Boarding
An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Guardian: The UK’s first superfast-charging train running only on battery power will come into passenger service this weekend – operating a five-mile return route in west London. Great Western Railway (GWR) will send the converted London Underground train out from 5.30am to cover the full Saturday timetable on the … ⌘ Read more

Apple Reports Best-Ever Quarter For iPhone Sales
Apple posted its biggest quarter ever, with iPhone revenue hitting a record ~$85.3 billion and Services climbing 14% to ~$30 billion. Total revenue reached nearly $143.76 billion.

“The demand for iPhone was simply staggering,” CEO Tim Cook said on a conference call discussing the results. “This is the strongest iPhone lineup we’ve ever had and by far the most popular.”

[![]( … ⌘ Read more

Belkin’s Wemo Smart Devices Will Go Offline On Saturday
Belkin is shutting down cloud support for most Wemo smart home devices on January 31, leaving only Thread-based models and devices already set up in Apple HomeKit functional. Everything else will lose remote access, voice assistant integrations, and future app updates. The Verge reports: The shut down was first announced in July and impacts most Wemo devices, ran … ⌘ Read more

GNU gettext Reaches Version 1.0 After 30 Years
After more than 30 years of development, GNU gettext finally “crossed the symbolic ‘v1.0’ milestone,” according to Phoronix’s Michael Larabel. “GNU gettext 1.0 brings PO file handling improvements, a new ‘po-fetch’ program to fetch translated PO files from a translation project’s site on the Internet, new ‘msgpre’ and ‘spit’ pre-translation programs, and Ocaml and Rust programming l … ⌘ Read more