Analysis of JWST Data Finds - Old Galaxies in a Young Universe?
Two astrophysicists at Spain’s Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias analyzed data from the James Webb Space Telescope — the most powerful telescope available — on 31 galaxies with an average redshift of 7.3 (when the universe was 700 million years old, according to the standard model). “We found that they are on average ~600 million years old old … ⌘ Read more

Vim 9.2 Released
“More than two years after the last major 9.1 release, the Vim project has announced Vim 9.2,” reports the blog Linuxiac:

A big part of this update focuses on improving Vim9 Script as Vim 9.2 adds support for enums, generic functions, and tuple types.

On top of that, you can now use built-in functions as methods, and class handling includes features like protected constructors with _new(). The :defcompile command has also been impro … ⌘ Read more

Apple Patches Decade-Old IOS Zero-Day, Possibly Exploited By Commercial Spyware
This week Apple patched iOS and macOS against what it called “an extremely sophisticated attack against specific targeted individuals.”

Security Week reports that the bugs “could be exploited for information exposure, denial-of-service (DoS), arbitrary file write, privilege escalation, network traffic interception, … ⌘ Read more

Additional Benefits For Brain, Heart, and Lungs Found for Drugs Like Viagra and Cialis
“Research published in the World Journal of Men’s Health found evidence that drugs such as Viagra and Cialis may also help with heart disease, stroke risk and diabetes,” reports the Telegraph, “as well as enlarged prostate and urinary problems.”

Researchers found evidence that the same mechanism may b … ⌘ Read more

Your Friends Could Be Sharing Your Phone Number with ChatGPT
“ChatGPT is getting more social,” reports PC Magazine, “with a new feature that allows you to sync your contacts to see if any of your friends are using the chatbot or any other OpenAI product…”

It’s “completely optional,” [OpenAI] says. However, even if you don’t opt in, anyone with your number who syncs their contacts are giving OpenAI your digits. … ⌘ Read more

ByteDance’s Seedance 2 Criticized Over AI-Generated Video of Tom Cruise Fighting Brad Pitt
1.5 million people have now viewed a slick 15-second video imagining Tom Cruise fighting Brad Pitt that was generated by ByteDance’s new AI video generation tool Seedance 2.0.
But while ByteDance gushes their tool “delivers cinematic output aligned with industry standards,” the cinema industry isn’t h … ⌘ Read more

Are CDs Making a Comeback? A Statistical Analysis
Reports of the compact disc’s death may have been slightly premature, according to a new analysis from Stat Significant that finds CD sales as a share of U.S. music industry revenue have quietly stabilized after years of steep decline. RIAA data shows CD revenue share fell from 7.15% in 2018 to 3.04% in 2022 but has since flatlined at roughly 3%, coming in at 3.14% in 2023 … ⌘ Read more

HP Now Rents Gaming Laptops
HP has quietly launched a gaming laptop subscription service called the OMEN Gaming Subscription that lets customers pay a monthly fee to use one of several gaming laptops but never actually own the hardware, even after paying well past the machine’s retail price.

The service ranges from $50 a month for an HP Victus 15-inch laptop with an RTX 4050 to $130 a month for an Omen Max 16 with an RTX 5080. At current sale prices, … ⌘ Read more

Microsoft Begins the First-Ever Secure Boot Certificate Swap Across Windows Ecosystem
Microsoft has begun automatically replacing the original Secure Boot security certificates on Windows devices through regular monthly updates, a necessary move given that the 15-year-old certificates first issued in 2011 are set to expire between late June and October 2026.

Secure Boot, which verifies th … ⌘ Read more

Neocities Founder Stuck in Chatbot Hell After Bing Blocked 1.5 Million Sites
Neocities founder Kyle Drake has spent weeks trapped in Microsoft’s automated support loop after discovering that Bing quietly blocked all 1.5 million websites hosted on his platform, a free web-hosting service that has kept the spirit of 1990s GeoCities alive since 2013.

Drake first noticed the issue last summer and thought … ⌘ Read more

It was so great going to the sauna again, we were looking forward to that the whole week. :-) It’s been over a year, holy cow, time flies. We definitely have to pick up on that tradition again, that’s for sure.

We attended two Aufguss sessions, the first and last one in our four hour visit. Unfortunately, we didn’t make it to the other two, because the crazy people already occupied the entire sauna 15 minutes before the start. Yeah, no.

Now, the bellies are stuffed with kebabs. Yum! Let’s see how often I wake up tonight to rehydrate.

@movq@www.uninformativ.de I see. Yeah, if you gotta have to tediously plow through, it feels deeper. And sometimes it actually is.

We had super thick fog this morning. It rolled in extremely quickly, maybe 15 minutes at most. Visibility was below 50 meters. Looked cool from inside.

OpenAI’s Lead Is Contracting as AI Competition Intensifies
OpenAI’s rivals are cutting into ChatGPT’s lead. From a report: The top chatbot’s market share fell from 69.1% to 45.3% between January 2025 and January 2026 among daily U.S. users of its mobile app. Gemini, in the same time period, rose from 14.7% to 25.1% and Grok rose from 1.6% to 15.2%.

The data, obtained by Big Technology from mobile insights firm Apptopia, … ⌘ Read more

NVIDIA VA-API Driver 0.0.15 Released With A Few Fixes
The NVIDIA-VAAPI-Driver 0.0.15 was released overnight as this VA-API driver implementation built atop NVIDIA’s NVDEC interface used by their proprietary user-space driver stack. The purpose of NVIDIA-VAAPI-Driver as this community open-source project continues to be around enabling video acceleration for NVIDIA GPUs with the Firefox web browser on Linux that supports the VA-API interface but not NVIDIA’s NVDEC… ⌘ Read more

French Lawmakers Vote To Ban Social Media Use By Under-15s
French lawmakers have voted to ban social media access for children under 15 and prohibit mobile phones in high schools, positioning France as the second country after Australia to impose sweeping age-based digital restrictions. The Guardian reports: The lower national assembly adopted the text by a vote of 130 to 21 in a lengthy overnight session from Mon … ⌘ Read more

Majorité numérique : ce fiasco qui insiste
Vite, vite, il faut bloquer les réseaux sociaux ! Pardon, il faut vérifier l’identité de ceux qui s’y connectent ! Hum, enfin, disons, il faut garantir que les moins de 15 ans n’y ont pas accès. Pour les protéger, bien sûr ! En 2023, la France avait adopté une loi fixant la « majorité numérique » à 15 ans, exigeant […] ⌘ Read more

SoundCloud Data Breach Impacts 29.8 Million Accounts
A data breach at SoundCloud exposed information tied to 29.8 million user accounts, according to Have I Been Pwned. While SoundCloud says no passwords or financial data were accessed, attackers mapped email addresses to public profile data and later attempted extortion. BleepingComputer reports: The company confirmed the breach on December 15, following widespread reports … ⌘ Read more

Pinterest Cuts Up To 15% Jobs To Redirect Resources To AI
Pinterest said on Tuesday it would trim its workforce by less than 15% and reduce office space, as the social media company looks to reallocate resources to AI-focused roles and initiatives. From a report: The announcement comes as the company competes with TikTok and Meta-owned Facebook and Instagram for digital advertising budgets, as these platforms continue to d … ⌘ Read more

How a 15,000-Person Island Stumbled Into a $70 Million AI Windfall
An anonymous reader shares a report: From Sandisk shareholders to vibe coders, AI is making – and breaking – fortunes at a rapid pace. One unlikely beneficiary has been the British Overseas Territory of Anguilla, which lucked into a future fortune when ICANN, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, gave the island the “.ai” t … ⌘ Read more

Microsoft 365 Endured 9+ Hours of Outages Thursday
Early Friday “there were nearly 113 incidents of people reporting issues with Microsoft 365 as of 1:05 a.m. ET,” reports Reuters. But that’s down “from over 15,890 reports at its peak a day earlier, according to Downdetector.” Reuters points out the outage affected antivirus software Microsoft Defender and data governance software Microsoft Purview, while CRN notes it also imp … ⌘ Read more

Prominent Intel Compiler Engineer Heads Off To AMD
James Brodman worked for the last 15 years at Intel on their ISPC SIMD compiler and then in more recent years on the Intel DPC++ compiler and SYCL support as part of Intel’s oneAPI initiative. Rather interestingly, this compiler expert has now joined AMD… ⌘ Read more

New Linux Patch Improved NVMe Performance +15% With CPU Cluster-Aware Handling
Intel Linux engineers have been working on enhancing the NVMe storage performance with today’s high core count processors. Due to situations where multiple CPUs could end up sharing the same NVMe IRQ(s), performance penalties can arise if the IRQ affinity and the CPU’s cluster do not align. There is a pending patch to address this situation. A 15% performance improvement was reported with the pending patch… ⌘ Read more

FreeBSD 15.1 Aims To Have KDE Desktop Installer Option
FreeBSD 15.0 had been aiming to offer a KDE desktop installation option as part of the FreeBSD OS installer. This initiative as part of the FreeBSD laptop support enhancements project didn’t pan out in time for FreeBSD 15.0 but now they are working on getting the installer option ready for FreeBSD 15.1. Adding a NVIDIA GPU driver option to the FreeBSD installer was also recently carried out… ⌘ Read more

AI Has Made Salesforce Engineers More Productive, So the Company Has Stopped Hiring Them, CEO Says
Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff said this week that his company’s software engineering headcount has remained “mostly flat” over the past year as internal AI tools have delivered substantial productivity gains.

Speaking on TBPN, Benioff said he has about 15,000 engineers who are “more p … ⌘ Read more

Study Finds Weak Evidence Linking Social Media Use to Teen Mental Health Problems
An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Guardian: Screen time spent gaming or on social media does not cause mental health problems in teenagers, according to a large-scale study. […] Researchers at the University of Manchester followed 25,000 11- to 14-year-olds over three school years, tracking their s … ⌘ Read more

Amazon Is Making a Fallout Shelter Competition Reality TV Show
Amazon is expanding the Fallout universe with Fallout Shelter, a ten-episode reality competition show where contestants face survival-style challenges and moral dilemmas for a cash prize. Engadget reports: Prime Video has greenlit a unscripted reality show titled Fallout Shelter. It will be a ten-episode run with Studio Lambert, the team beh … ⌘ Read more

New York Introduces Legislation To Crack Down On 3D Printers That Make Ghost Guns
New York Governor Kathy Hochul is proposing first-of-its-kind legislation that would require 3D printers sold in the state to include built-in software designed to block the printing of gun parts used to make “ghost guns.” The plan would also add criminal penalties for making 3D-printed firearms and hold prin … ⌘ Read more

Iran’s Internet Shutdown Is Now One of the Longest Ever
Iran has imposed one of the longest nationwide internet shutdowns in its history, cutting more than 92 million people off from connectivity for over a week as mass anti-government protests continue. TechCrunch reports: As of this writing, Iranians have not been able to access the internet for more than 170 hours. The previous longest shutdowns in the country lasted … ⌘ Read more

Astronauts Splash Down To Earth After Medical Evacuation From ISS
An anonymous reader quotes a report from the BBC: Four astronauts evacuated from the International Space Station (ISS) have landed back on Earth after their stay in space was cut short by a month due to a “serious” medical issue. The crew’s captain, Nasa astronaut Mike Fincke, exited the spacecraft first, smiling and wobbling slightly on his … ⌘ Read more

ASUS Stops Producing Nvidia RTX 5070 Ti and 5060 Ti 16GB
Reports suggest ASUS has effectively ended production of NVIDIA’s RTX 5070 Ti and 5060 Ti 16GB GPUs due to a severe memory crunch driven by AI infrastructure demand, even as NVIDIA insists it’s still shipping all GeForce SKUs. YouTube channel Hardware Unboxed broke the news in its most recent video where it states ASUS “explicitly” told them the RTX 5070 Ti is “ … ⌘ Read more

Italy’s Privacy Watchdog, Scourge of US Big Tech, Hit By Corruption Probe
The powerful data privacy watchdog in Italy long known for aggressively policing U.S. and Chinese AI giants is under investigation for possible corruption and embezzlement. Reuters reports: Rome prosecutors are investigating the agency’s president, Pasquale Stanzione, and three other board members over alleged excessive spending and … ⌘ Read more

Oracle Trying To Lure Workers To Nashville For New ‘Global’ HQ
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: Oracle is trying – and sometimes struggling – to attract workers to Nashville, where it is developing a massive riverfront headquarters.
The company is hiring for more roles in Nashville than any other US city, with a special focus on jobs in its crucial cloud infrastructure unit. Oracle cloud … ⌘ Read more

Boeing Knew About Flaws in UPS Plane That Crashed in Louisville, NTSB Says
The National Transportation Safety Board said in a report this week that a UPS cargo plane that crashed in Louisville, Ky., last year, killing 15, had a structural flaw that the manufacturer Boeing had previously concluded would not affect flight safety. The New York Times: The N.T.S.B. has said that cracks in the assembly hold … ⌘ Read more

Raspberry Pi’s New Add-on Board Has 8GB of RAM For Running Gen AI Models
An anonymous reader shares a report: Raspberry Pi is launching a new add-on board capable of running generative AI models locally on the Raspberry Pi 5. Announced on Thursday, the $130 AI HAT+ 2 is an upgraded – and more expensive – version of the module launched last year, now offering 8GB of RAM and a Hailo 10H chip with 40 TOPS … ⌘ Read more

Why Go is Going Nowhere
Go, the ancient board game that China, Japan and South Korea all claim as part of their cultural heritage, is struggling to expand its global footprint because the three nations that dominate it cannot agree on something as basic as a common rulebook.

When Go was registered with the International Mind Sports Association alongside chess and bridge, organizers had to adopt the American Go Association’s rules because the East As … ⌘ Read more

Students Increasingly Choosing Community College or Certificates Over Four-Year Degrees
DesScorp writes: CNBC reports that new data from the National Student Clearinghouse indicates that enrollment growth in four year degree programs is slowing down, while growth in two year and certification programs is accelerating: Enrollments in undergraduate certificate and associate degree programs … ⌘ Read more

Microsoft is Closing Its Employee Library and Cutting Back on Subscriptions
An anonymous reader shares a report: Microsoft’s library of books is so heavy that it once caused a campus building to sink, according to an unproven legend among employees. Now those physical books, journals, and reports, and many of Microsoft’s digital subscriptions to leading US newspapers, are disappearing in a shift des … ⌘ Read more

Many People Who Come Off GLP-1 Drugs Regain Weight Within 2 Years, Review Suggests
Many people who stop using weight loss drugs will return to their previous weight within two years, a new review of existing research has found. CNN adds: This rate of weight regain is significantly faster than that seen in those who have lost weight by changing other lifestyle factors, such as diet and exerc … ⌘ Read more

Amazon Threatens ‘Drastic Action’ After Saks Bankruptcy
Amazon wants a federal judge to reject Saks Global’s bankruptcy financing plan, writing in court papers the beleaguered department store “burned through hundreds of millions of dollars in less than a year” and failed to hold up their agreement. From a report: When Saks acquired Neiman Marcus for $2.7 billion in December 2024, Amazon invested $475 million into the venture … ⌘ Read more

The United States Needs Fewer Bus Stops
American buses in cities like New York and San Francisco crawl along at about eight miles per hour – barely faster than a brisk walk – and one surprisingly simple fix could make them faster without requiring new infrastructure or controversial policy changes. The issue, according to a Works in Progress analysis, is that US bus stops sit far too close together.

Mean spacing in American cities … ⌘ Read more

Apple is Fighting for TSMC Capacity as Nvidia Takes Center Stage
Apple, which spent years as TSMC’s undisputed top customer and helped the Taiwanese foundry become the semiconductor industry’s most important manufacturer, is now fighting for production capacity as Nvidia’s AI chip orders consume an ever-larger share of the company’s leading-edge wafer supply.

TSMC CEO CC Wei visited Cupertino last August to d … ⌘ Read more

Wikipedia Signs AI Licensing Deals On Its 25th Birthday
Wikipedia turns 25 today, and the online encyclopedia is celebrating that with an announcement that it has signed new licensing deals with a slate of major AI companies – Amazon, Microsoft, Meta Platforms, Perplexity and Mistral AI. The deals allow these companies to access Wikipedia content “at a volume and speed designed specifically for their needs.” The Wikim … ⌘ Read more

Anthropic’s Index Shows Job Evolution Over Replacement
Anthropic’s fourth installment of its Economic Index, drawing on an anonymized sample of two million Claude conversations from November 2025, finds that AI is changing how people work rather than whether they work at all. The study tracked usage across the company’s consumer-facing Claude.ai platform and its API, categorizing interactions as either automation (where AI co … ⌘ Read more

‘White-Collar Workers Shouldn’t Dismiss a Blue-Collar Career Change’
White-collar workers stuck in a cycle of layoffs and stagnant wages might want to look past the traditional tech, finance and media job postings to an unexpected source of opportunity: the blue-collar sector, which faces a labor shortage and is seeing rapid transformation through private-equity investment. These jobs are generally less vulnerable … ⌘ Read more

AI Models Are Starting To Crack High-Level Math Problems
An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Over the weekend, Neel Somani, who is a software engineer, former quant researcher, and a startup founder, was testing the math skills of OpenAI’s new model when he made an unexpected discovery. After pasting the problem into ChatGPT and letting it think for 15 minutes, he came back to a full solution. He ev … ⌘ Read more

Warhammer Maker Games Workshop Bans Its Staff From Using AI In Its Content or Designs
Games Workshop, the owner and operator of a number of hugely popular tabletop war games, including Warhammer 40,000 and Age of Sigmar, has banned the use of generative AI in its content and design processes. IGN reports: Delivering the UK company’s impressive financial results, CEO Kevin Rountree address … ⌘ Read more

Britain Awards Wind Farm Contracts That Will Power 12 Million Homes
The UK government has awarded guaranteed electricity prices to offshore wind projects totaling 8.4 GW in a bid to revive wind development, attract nearly $30 billion in private investment, and stabilize energy costs. The New York Times reports: On Wednesday, the British government said that it would provide guaranteed electricity prices … ⌘ Read more

Anthropic Invests $1.5 Million in the Python Software Foundation and Open Source Security
Python Software Foundation: We are thrilled to announce that Anthropic has entered into a two-year partnership with the Python Software Foundation (PSF) to contribute a landmark total of $1.5 million to support the foundation’s work, with an emphasis on Python ecosystem security. This investme … ⌘ Read more

Meta Begins Job Cuts as It Shifts From Metaverse to AI Devices
Meta has begun laying off more than 1,000 employees from its Reality Labs division as the company redirects resources away from virtual reality and metaverse products toward AI wearables and smartphone features. The cuts amount to roughly 10% of Reality Labs’ 15,000-person workforce, according to an internal post from CTO Andrew Bosworth reviewed by … ⌘ Read more

Haiku OS Pulls In Updated Drivers From FreeBSD 15
The BeOS-inspired Haiku open-source operating system project just published a new status report to detail how they ended out the year… ⌘ Read more