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.”
[ has issued Memorandum … ⌘ Read more
Oracle May Slash Up To 30,000 Jobs
An anonymous reader shares a report: Oracle could cut up to 30,000 jobs and sell health tech unit Cerner to ease its AI datacenter financing challenges, investment banker TD Cowen has claimed, amid changing sentiment on Big Red’s massive build-out plans.
A research note from TD Cowen states that finding equity and debt investors are increasingly questioning how Oracle will finance its datacenter bui … ⌘ Read more
Los Angeles Aims To Ban Single-Use Printer Cartridges
Los Angeles is moving to ban single-use printer cartridges that can’t be refilled or taken back for recycling. Tom’s Hardware reports: Printer cartridges are usually built with a combination of plastic, metal, and chemicals that makes them hard to easily dispose. They can be treated as hazardous waste by the city, but even then it would take them hundreds of years … ⌘ Read more
Videogame Stocks Slide On Google’s AI Model That Turns Prompts Into Playable Worlds
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: Shares of videogame companies fell sharply in afternoon trading on Friday after Alphabet’s Google rolled out its artificial intelligence model capable of creating interactive digital worlds with simple prompts. Shares of “Grand Theft Auto” maker Take-Two Intera … ⌘ Read more
Wall Street’s Top Bankers Are Giving Coinbase’s Brian Armstrong the Cold Shoulder
JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon interrupted a conversation between Coinbase chief Brian Armstrong and former U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair at Davos last week to tell Armstrong “You are full of s—,” his index finger pointed squarely at Armstrong’s face. Dimon told Armstrong to stop lying on TV, according to WSJ.
A … ⌘ Read more
‘Moltbook Is the Most Interesting Place On the Internet Right Now’
Moltbook is essentially Reddit for AI agents and it’s the “most interesting place on the internet right now,” says open-source developer and writer Simon Willison in a blog post. The fast-growing social network offers a place where AI agents built on the OpenClaw personal assistant framework can share their skills, experiments, and discoveries. … ⌘ Read more
Apple ‘Runs on Anthropic,’ Says Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman
Apple “runs on Anthropic at this point” and that the AI company is powering much of what Apple does internally for product development and internal tools, according to Mark Gurman, the most influential reporter on the Apple beat.
Apple had initially pursued an AI deal with Anthropic before the Google partnership came together, but negotiations fell apart over pricin … ⌘ Read more
One-Third of US Video Game Industry Workers Were Laid Off Over the Last Two Years, GDC Study Reveals
An anonymous reader shares a report: One-third of U.S. video game industry workers say they were laid off over the past two years, according to a new survey conducted by the organizers behind the newly revamped Game Developers Conference (GDC). Based on responses from more th … ⌘ Read more
DuckDuckGo Users Vote Overwhelmingly Against AI Features
DuckDuckGo recently asked its users how they felt about AI in search. The answer has come back loud and clear: more than 90% of the 175,354 people who voted said they don’t want it.
The privacy-focused search engine has since set up two versions of its tool: noai.duckduckgo.com for the AI-averse and yesai.duckduckgo.com for the curious. Users can also tweak se … ⌘ Read more
Ubuntu 26.04 Resolute Snapshot 3 Released For Testing
Resolute Snapshot 3 is now available as the newest monthly test candidate leading up the Ubuntu 26.04 LTS release in April… ⌘ Read more
Nobel Hacking Likely Leaked Peace Prize Winner Name, Probe Finds
An anonymous reader shares a report: A hacking of the Nobel organization’s computer systems is the most likely cause of last year’s leak of Nobel Peace Prize laureate Maria Corina Machado’s name, according to the results of an investigation [non-paywalled source]. An individual or a state actor may have illegally gained access in a cyber breach, … ⌘ Read more
Ubuntu 26.04 LTS Still Committed To Linux 6.20~7.0 Even If Not Finalized For Release Time
Last year Canonical committed to shipping the latest upstream Linux kernel versions in new Ubuntu releases compared to their more conservative choices in prior releases that didn’t always align nicely for the latest Linux kernel upstream. Back in December they confirmed Ubuntu 26.04 plans for Linux 6.20~7.0 and their plans remain that way, even if it means the stable Linux 6.20~7.0 stable release won’t be officially out … ⌘ Read more
Do Markets Make Us Moral?
A new study [PDF] examining the United States between 1850 and 1920 found that expanded market access – driven largely by railroad expansion – made Americans more trusting of strangers and more outward-looking, but weakened family-based care for the vulnerable.
Researchers Max Posch of the University of Exeter and Itzchak Tzachi Raz of Hebrew University compared places and people gaining different levels of commercial conne … ⌘ Read more
‘Call Screening is Aggravating the Rich and Powerful’
Apple’s call-screening feature, introduced in iOS 26 last year, was designed to combat the more than 2 billion robocalls placed to Americans every month, but as WSJ is reporting, it is now creating friction for the rich and powerful who find themselves subjected to automated interrogation when dialing from unrecognized numbers.
The feature uses an automated voice to … ⌘ Read more
The UK Paid $5.65 Million For a Bookmarks Site
The UK government paid consulting firm PwC $5.65 million to build its new AI Skills Hub, a site meant to help 10 million workers gain AI skills by 2030 that functions largely as a bookmarking service, directing users to external training courses that already existed before the contract was awarded.
The hub links to platforms like Salesforce’s free Trailhead learning system rather th … ⌘ Read more
Amazon in Talks To Invest Up To $50 Billion in OpenAI
An anonymous reader shares a report: Amazon is in talks to invest up to $50 billion in OpenAI, according to people familiar with the matter, in what would be a giant bet on the hot AI startup. The ChatGPT maker is seeking up to $100 billion in new capital from investors, a round that could value it at as much as $830 billion, The Wall Street Journal previously reported.
An … ⌘ Read more
Microsoft is Experimenting With a Top Menu Bar for Windows 11
An anonymous reader shares a report: Microsoft’s PowerToys team is contemplating building a top menu bar for Windows 11, much like Linux, macOS, or older versions of Windows. The menu bar, or Command Palette Dock as Microsoft calls it, would be a new optional UI that provides quick access to tools, monitoring of system resources, and much more.
Micros … ⌘ Read more
Backseat Software
Mike Swanson: What if your car worked like so many apps? You’re driving somewhere important…maybe running a little bit late. A few minutes into the drive, your car pulls over to the side of the road and asks:
“How are you enjoying your drive so far?”
Annoyed by the interruption, and even more behind schedule, you dismiss the prompt and merge back into traffic.
A minute later it does it again.
“Did you know I have a new feature? Tap … ⌘ Read more
Unable To Stop AI, SAG-AFTRA Mulls a Studio Tax On Digital Performers
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Variety: In the future, studios that use synthetic actors in place of humans might have to pay a royalty into a union fund. That’s one of the ideas kicking around as SAG-AFTRA prepares to sit down with the studios on Feb. 9. Artificial intelligence was central to the 2023 actors strike, and it’s only g … ⌘ Read more
Former Google Engineer Found Guilty of Stealing AI Secrets For Chinese Firms
Longtime Slashdot reader schwit1 shares a report from CBS News: A former Google engineer has been found guilty on multiple federal charges for stealing the tech giant’s trade secrets on artificial intelligence to benefit Chinese companies he secretly worked for, federal prosecutors said. According to the U.S. Attorney’s Offi … ⌘ Read more
Radiologists Catch More Aggressive Breast Cancers By Using AI To Help Read Mammograms, Study Finds
A large Swedish study of 100,000 women found that using AI to assist radiologists reading mammograms reduced the rate of aggressive “interval” breast cancers by 12%. CBC News reports: For the study – published in Thursday’s issue of the medical journal The Lancet – more than … ⌘ Read more
Universal Basic Income Could Be Used To Soften Hit From AI Job Losses In UK, Minister Says
An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Guardian: The UK could introduce a universal basic income (UBI) to protect workers in industries that are being disrupted by AI, the investment minister Jason Stockwood has said. “Bumpy” changes to society caused by the introduction of the technology w … ⌘ Read more
Comcast Keeps Losing Customers Despite Price Guarantee, Unlimited Data
Comcast’s attempt to slow broadband customer losses still isn’t stopping the bleeding as fiber and fixed wireless competition intensifies. In Q4 2025 alone, Comcast lost 181,000 broadband subscribers, even as it leans harder into wireless bundling and other business lines like Peacock and theme parks. Ars Technica reports: The Q4 net l … ⌘ Read more
Cory Doctorow On Tariffs and the DMCA In Canada
Longtime Slashdot reader devnulljapan writes: In 2012, Canada passed anti-circumvention law Bill C-11, cut-and-pasted from the U.S. DMCA, in return for access to U.S. markets without tariffs. Trump has tariffed Canada anyway, so Cory Doctorow suggests it sounds like like a good idea to ditch Bill C-11 and turn Canada into a “Disenshittification Nation” and go into the business of … ⌘ Read more
Linux Gaming Developers Join Forces To Form the Open Gaming Collective
A group of Linux gaming-focused distros and developers have formed the Open Gaming Collective to pool work on shared components like kernels, input systems, and Valve tooling. The Verge reports: Universal Blue, developer of the gaming-focused Linux distribution Bazzite, announced on Wednesday that its helping to form the OGC with sev … ⌘ Read more
An AI Toy Exposed 50K Logs of Its Chats With Kids To Anyone With a Gmail Account
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Wired: Earlier this month, Joseph Thacker’s neighbor mentioned to him that she’d preordered a couple of stuffed dinosaur toys for her children. She’d chosen the toys, called Bondus, because they offered an AI chat feature that lets children talk to the toy like a kind of machi … ⌘ Read more
Google’s Project Genie Lets You Generate Your Own Interactive Worlds
Google is letting outsiders experiment with DeepMind’s Genie 3 “world model” via Project Genie, a tool for generating short, interactive AI worlds. The caveat: it requires a $250/month AI Ultra subscription, is U.S.-only, and has tight limits that make it more of a tech demo than a game engine. Engadget reports: At launch, Project Genie o … ⌘ Read more
Nvidia GeForce NOW Is Now Available Natively On Linux
NVIDIA has officially launched a native GeForce NOW client for Linux as a Flatpak, giving Linux gamers access to cloud-rendered RTX gaming. Phoronix reports: While confined to a Flatpak, for now NVIDIA is just “officially” supporting it on Ubuntu 24.04 LTS and later. Granted, thanks to Flatpak it should run on other non-Ubuntu distributions too but in terms of the of … ⌘ Read more
County Pays $600,000 To Pentesters It Arrested For Assessing Courthouse Security
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica, written by Dan Goodin: Two security professionals who were arrested in 2019 after performing an authorized security assessment of a county courthouse in Iowa will receive $600,000 to settle a lawsuit they brought alleging wrongful arrest and defamation. The case wa … ⌘ Read more
ArXiv Will Require English Submissions - and Says AI Translators Are Fair Game
The preprint repository arXiv will require all submissions to be written in English or accompanied by a full English translation starting February 11, a policy change that explicitly permits the use of AI translators even as research suggests large language models remain inconsistent at the task.
Until now, authors … ⌘ Read more
US Leads Record Global Surge in Gas-Fired Power Driven by AI Demands
An anonymous reader shares a report: The US is leading a huge global surge in new gas-fired power generation that will cause a major leap in planet-heating emissions, with this record boom driven by the expansion of energy-hungry datacenters to service AI, according to a new forecast.
This year is set to shatter the annual record for new … ⌘ Read more
US Life Expectancy Jumps To a Record 79 Years
An anonymous reader shares a report: U.S. life expectancy rose to a record high of 79 years in 2024, an increase of six months from the previous year, reflecting a sharp decline in deaths from COVID-19 and drug overdoses, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Thursday.
According to a report from the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics, life expectancy improve … ⌘ Read more
Microsoft Admits Windows 11 Has a Trust Problem, Promises To Focus on Fixes in 2026
Microsoft wants you to know that it knows that Windows 11, now used by a billion users, has been testing your patience and announced that its engineers are being redirected to urgently address the operating system’s performance and reliability problems through an internal process the company calls “swarming.”
” … ⌘ Read more
Why Private Equity Is Suddenly Awash With Zombie Firms
The private equity industry is experiencing a quiet reckoning as hundreds of midsize firms find themselves trapped between investors who have lost patience and portfolios of companies they cannot sell at acceptable prices.
“There is existential risk for a number [of funds] because of the fundraising environment,” said Sunaina Sinha Haldea, global head of private … ⌘ Read more
Apple’s Second-Biggest Acquisition Ever Is a Startup That Interprets Silent Speech
Apple has acquired Q.AI, a secretive Israeli startup whose technology can analyze facial skin micro-movements to interpret “silent speech,” in a deal valued at close to $2 billion that marks the iPhone maker’s second-largest acquisition ever, according to backer GV (formerly Google Ventures).
The four-year-old … ⌘ Read more
Massive AI Chat App Leaked Millions of Users Private Conversations
An anonymous reader shares a report: Chat & Ask AI, one of the most popular AI apps on the Google Play and Apple App stores that claims more than 50 million users, left hundreds of millions of those users’ private messages with the app’s chatbot exposed, according to an independent security researcher and emails viewed by 404 Media. The expose … ⌘ Read more
Xbox Hardware Revenue Craters 32%
Microsoft’s Xbox hardware revenue fell 32% in the final quarter of 2025 and overall gaming revenue declined 9% year-over-year, according to the company’s latest quarterly earnings, released as part of results showing Microsoft’s total revenue exceeded $80 billion.
Xbox content and services revenue, which includes Game Pass, dropped 5%.
[
](http://twitter.com … ⌘ Read moreWindows 11 Has Reached 1 Billion Users Faster Than Windows 10
An anonymous reader shares a report: Windows 11 now has one billion users. Microsoft hit the milestone during the recent holiday quarter, meaning Windows 11 has managed to reach one billion users faster than Windows 10 did nearly six years ago.
“Windows reached a big milestone, 1 billion Windows 11 users,” said Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella on the compa … ⌘ Read more
Waymo Robotaxi Hits a Child Near an Elementary School in Santa Monica
A Waymo robotaxi struck a child near an elementary school in Santa Monica on January 23, according to the company. Waymo told the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) that the child – whose age and identity are not currently public – sustained minor injuries. TechCrunch: The NHTSA has opened an investigation into the … ⌘ Read more
Seven of the World’s Ten Best-Selling Smartphones in 2025 Were iPhones
Apple sold seven of the ten best-selling smartphones globally in 2025, a lopsided dominance that underscores how thoroughly the company controls the premium end of the mobile market.
The iPhone 16 was the single best-selling phone worldwide, and Apple’s presence extended all the way down to the tenth spot where the iPhone 16e – its … ⌘ Read more
Nothing CEO Says Company Won’t Launch New Flagship Smartphone Every Year ‘For the Sake of It’
Android smartphone maker Nothing won’t release a Phone 4 this year, the company’s founder and chief executive said, and that the 2025 Phone 3 will remain the brand’s flagship device throughout 2026.
“We’re not just going to churn out a new flagship every year for the sake of it, we want ev … ⌘ Read more
‘Hundreds’ of Gatik Robot Delivery Trucks Headed For US Roads
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Forbes: Gatik, a Silicon Valley startup developing self-driving delivery trucks, says its commercial operations are about to scale up dramatically, from fewer than a dozen driverless units running in multiple U.S. states now to hundreds of box trucks by the end of the year. CEO Gautam Narang said it’s also booked … ⌘ Read more
FBI Seizes RAMP Cybercrime Forum Used By Ransomware Gangs
joshuark shares a report from BleepingComputer: The FBI has seized the notorious RAMP cybercrime forum, a platform used to advertise a wide range of malware and hacking services, and one of the few remaining forums that openly allowed the promotion of ransomware operations. Both the forum’s Tor site and its clearnet domain, ramp4u[.]io, now display a seizure … ⌘ Read more
Brandon Sanderson’s Literary Fantasy Universe ‘Cosmere’ Picked Up by Apple TV
Apple TV+ has landed the screen rights to Cosmere, the sprawling literary universe created by Brandon Sanderson. “The first titles being eyed for adaptation are the Mistborn series, for features, and The Stormlight Archive series, for television,” reports the Hollywood Reporter. From the report: The deal is rare on … ⌘ Read more
Extremophile Molds Are Invading Art Museums
Scientific American’s Elizabeth Anne Brown recently “polled the great art houses of Europe” about whether they’d had any recent experiences with mold in their collections. Despite the stigma that keeps many institutions silent, she found that extremophile “xerophilic” molds are quietly spreading through museums and archives, thriving in low-humidity, tightly sealed storage and damagin … ⌘ Read more
Fully Electric Vehicle Sales In EU Overtake Petrol For First Time In December
Longtime Slashdot reader AmiMoJo shares a report from Reuters: Fully electric car sales in December overtook petrol for the first time in the European Union, even as policymakers proposed to loosen emissions regulations, data showed on Tuesday. U.S. battery-electric brand Tesla continued to lose market share to competito … ⌘ Read more
Kernel Community Drafts a Plan For Replacing Linus Torvalds
The Linux kernel community has formalized a continuity plan for the day Linus Torvalds eventually steps aside, defining how the process would work to replace him as the top-level maintainer. ZDNet’s Steven Vaughan-Nichols reports: The new “plan for a plan,” drafted by longtime kernel contributor Dan Williams, was discussed at the latest Linux Kernel Maint … ⌘ Read more