ollama 0.14 Can Make Use Of Bash For Letting AI/LLMs Run Commands On Your System
The ollama 0.14-rc2 release is available today and it introduces new functionality with ollama run –experimental for in this experimental mode to run an agent loop so that LLMs can use tools like bash and web searching on your system. It’s opt-in for letting ollama/LLMs make use of bash on your local system and there are at least some safeguards in place… ⌘ Read more

Microsoft May Soon Allow IT Admins To Uninstall Copilot
Microsoft is testing a new Windows policy that lets IT administrators uninstall Microsoft Copilot from managed devices. The change rolls out via Windows Insider builds and works through standard management tools like Intune and SCCM. BleepingComputer reports: The new policy will apply to devices where the Microsoft 365 Copilot and Microsoft Copilot are both installe … ⌘ Read more

Google Is Adding an ‘AI Inbox’ To Gmail That Summarizes Emails
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Wired: Google is putting even more generative AI tools into Gmail as part of its goal to further personalize user inboxes and streamline searches. On Thursday, the company announced a new “AI Inbox” tab, currently in a beta testing phase, that reads every message in a user’s Gmail and suggests a list of to-dos a … ⌘ Read more

Microsoft Turns Copilot Chats Into a Checkout Lane
Microsoft is embedding full e-commerce checkout directly into Copilot chats, letting users buy products without ever visiting a retailer’s website. “If checkout happens inside AI conversations, retailers risk losing direct customer relationships – while platforms like Microsoft gain leverage,” reports Axios. From the report: Microsoft unveiled new agentic AI tools for retailers … ⌘ Read more

‘The Downside To Using AI for All Those Boring Tasks at Work’
The promise of AI-powered workplace tools that sort emails, take meeting notes, and file expense reports is finally delivering meaningful productivity gains – one software startup reported a 20% boost around mid-2025 – but companies are discovering an unexpected tradeoff: employees are burning out from the relentless pace of high-level cognitive work.

Roge … ⌘ Read more

The Inevitable Rise of the Art TV
Several years after Samsung introduced the Frame TV in 2017 – a television designed to display fine art and resemble a framed painting when switched off – competitors are finally catching up in meaningful numbers. Amazon announced the Ember Artline TV at CES 2026 this week, a $899 model that can display one of 2,000 works of art for free and includes an Alexa AI tool to recommend pieces suited to … ⌘ Read more

GNU ddrescue 1.30 “Orders of Magnitude” Better In Recovery From Drives With A Dead Head
GNU ddrescue as the free software data recovery tool from files or block devices is out today with a big feature release. The new GNU ddrescue 1.30 is improved by “orders of magnitude” for the automatic recovery from drives with a dead head… ⌘ Read more

Microsoft CEO: Time To Move ‘Beyond the Arguments of Slop vs Sophistication’
The tech industry needs to move “beyond the arguments of slop vs sophistication” and develop a new “theory of the mind” that accounts for humans now equipped with “cognitive amplifier tools,” Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella wrote in a year-end reflection blog. The post frames 2026 as yet another “pivotal year for AI” – but one that “ … ⌘ Read more

Aeryn OS Continuing To Focus On Tooling & Infrastructure In 2026
The Aeryn OS Linux distribution formerly known as Serpent OS has published a 2025 retrospective to recap the project changes over the past year as well as a look ahead to 2026… ⌘ Read more

mu (µ) now has builtin code formatting and linting tools, making µ far more useful and useable as a general purpose programming language. Mu now includes:

• An interpreter for quick “scriptinog”
  
• A native code compiler for building native executables (Darwin / macOS only for now)
  
• A builtin set of developer tools, currently: fmt (-fmt), check (-check) and test (-test).

VC Sees AI-generated Video Gutting the Creator Economy
AI-generated video tools like OpenAI’s Sora will make individual content creators “far, far, far less valuable” as social media platforms shift toward algorithmically generated content tailored to each viewer, according to Michael Mignano, a partner at venture capital firm Lightspeed and who cofounded the podcasting platform Anchor before Spotify acquired it.

Speaki … ⌘ Read more

@lyse@lyse.isobeef.org I can tell you this right now, writing assembly / machine code is fucking hard work™ 😓 I’m sure @movq@www.uninformativ.de can affirm 🤣 And when it all goes to shit™ (which it does often), man is debugging fucking hard as hell! Without debug symbols I can’t use the regular tools like lldb or gdb 😂

Ubuntu’s Rust Infatuation, New Optimizations & Other Ubuntu Linux 2025 Highlights
It was a very interesting year for Ubuntu Linux. Ahead of the important Ubuntu 26.04 LTS release due out this coming April, Ubuntu Linux this year was expeditiously migrating to new Rust-based system tools like sudo-rs and Rust Coreutils, new performance optimizations continued to be explored for bettering the out-of-the-box Ubuntu performance, better ARM64 support with its desktop ISO, and enhancing the Snapdragon X Elite laptop supp … ⌘ Read more

Fake MAS Windows Activation Domain Used To Spread PowerShell Malware
An anonymous reader shares a report: A typosquatted domain impersonating the Microsoft Activation Scripts (MAS) tool was used to distribute malicious PowerShell scripts that infect Windows systems with the ‘Cosmali Loader’. BleepingComputer has found that multiple MAS users began reporting on Reddit yesterday that they received pop-up warni … ⌘ Read more

Google Looks To Upstream Its Propeller Tool To LLVM For More Performance
Google’s Propeller is a profile-guided, reflinking optimizer for large codebases. Propeller is built atop LLVM and can allow for whole-program optimizations. Google compiler engineers are now hoping to bring the Propeller tool into the upstream LLVM codebase… ⌘ Read more

New repository: aquilax/nfo-tools - Tools for managing kodi nfo files

‘Fragmented’ Microsoft Tools Undercut Efficiency at Amazon and Whole Foods, Internal Deloitte Review Finds
An anonymous reader shares a report: It’s been more than eight years since Amazon bought Whole Foods, but the two companies still haven’t aligned their setup for the Microsoft software their employees use. That disconnect was flagged in an 8-week Deloitte review of W … ⌘ Read more

LLVM Considering An AI Tool Policy, AI Bot For Fixing Build System Breakage Proposed
Last week a request for comments (RFC) was issued around establishing an LLVM AI Tool Use Policy. The proposed policy would allow AI-assisted contributions to be made to this open-source compiler codebase but that there would need to be a “human in the loop” and the contributor versed enough to be able to answer questions during code review. Separately, yesterday a proposal was sent out for creating an AI-assisted fixer bot to hel … ⌘ Read more

@prologic@twtxt.net I’ve been awake at that time, didn’t notice anything. 🤔 Where was that BGP analyzer again … 😅 There’s a tool that keeps track of these things, right? I forgot what it was.

State of Play: Who Holds the Power in the Video Games Industry in 2025?
The video games industry in 2025 finds itself caught between the familiar forces of consolidation and job losses that have plagued creative industries, and a newer development: governments and the ultra-wealthy have begun treating games as tools of political influence. Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund closed a $55 billion deal fo … ⌘ Read more

Bell Labs ‘Unix’ Tape from 1974 Successfully Dumped to a Tarball
Archive.org now has a page with “the raw analog waveform and the reconstructed digital tape image (analog.tap), read at the Computer History Museum’s Shustek Research Archives on 19 December 2025 by Al Kossow using a modified tape reader and analyzed with Len Shustek’s readtape tool.” A Berlin-based retrocomputing enthusiast has created a page with … ⌘ Read more

Does AI Really Make Coders Faster?
One developer tells MIT Technology Review that AI tools weaken the coding instincts he used to have. And beyond that, “It’s just not fun sitting there with my work being done for me.”

But is AI making coders faster? “After speaking to more than 30 developers, technology executives, analysts, and researchers, MIT Technology Review found that the picture is not as straightforward as it might seem…”
… ⌘ Read more

Stanford Computer Science Grads Find Their Degrees No Longer Guarantee Jobs
Elite computer science degrees are no longer a guaranteed on-ramp to tech jobs, as AI-driven coding tools slash demand for entry-level engineers and concentrate hiring around a small pool of already “elite” or AI-savvy developers. The Los Angeles Times reports: “Stanford computer science graduates are struggling to find … ⌘ Read more

@lyse@lyse.isobeef.org Yeah, well, given that I didn’t need this for such a long time, it’s probably not an essential tool. 😅

I’ve often wanted to have an outline of text documents, though, and tagbar/ctags can do that as well:

This isn’t as powerful as the “Navigator” tool in StarOffice/LibreOffice (which can be used to rearrange the document), but still pretty useful:

https://www.uninformativ.de/blog/postings/2024-05-23/0/so31.mp4

Uber is Hiring More Engineers Because AI is Making Them More Valuable, CEO Says
Uber is hiring more engineers rather than fewer because AI tools have made them “superhumans,” CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said, pushing back against the industry trend of using productivity gains to justify headcount cuts. Speaking on the “On with Kara Swisher” podcast, Khosrowshahi noted that other tech executives see AI … ⌘ Read more

Google To Retire ‘Dark Web Report’ Tool That Scanned for Leaked User Data
Google has decided to retire its free dark web monitoring tool, saying it wasn’t as helpful as the company hoped. From a report: In a support page, Google announced the discontinuation of the “dark web report” tool, two years after offering it as a free perk to Gmail users before expanding it more broadly. The feature worked by sca … ⌘ Read more

Disney Says Google AI Infringes Copyright ‘On a Massive Scale’
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: The Wild West of copyrighted characters in AI may be coming to an end. There has been legal wrangling over the role of copyright in the AI era, but the mother of all legal teams may now be gearing up for a fight. Disney has sent a cease and desist to Google, alleging the company’s AI tools are infr … ⌘ Read more

Disney and OpenAI have made a surprise deal – what happens next?
In a stunning reversal, Disney has changed tack with regard to safeguarding its copyrighted characters from incorporation into AI tools – perhaps a sign that no one can stem the tide of AI ⌘ Read more

AI Hackers Are Coming Dangerously Close to Beating Humans
Stanford researchers spent much of the past year building an AI bot called Artemis that scans networks for software vulnerabilities, and when they pitted it against ten professional penetration testers on the university’s own engineering network, the bot outperformed nine of them. The experiment offers a window into how rapidly AI hacking tools have improved aft … ⌘ Read more

2025 was chock full of exciting discoveries in human evolution
From an incredible series of revelations about the ancient humans called Denisovans to surprising discoveries about tool making, this year has given us a clearer picture of how and why humans evolved to be so different from other primates ⌘ Read more

Microsoft Excel Turns 40, Remains Stubbornly Unkillable
Microsoft Excel, the 40-year-old spreadsheet application that helped establish personal computers as essential workplace tools and contributed to Microsoft’s current valuation of nearly $4 trillion, has weathered both the rise of cloud computing and the current AI boom largely unscathed. In its most recent quarter, commercial revenue for Microsoft 365 – the bundle i … ⌘ Read more

Bug-Catching “Smatch” Static Analysis On The Linux Kernel Under Threat Due To Funding Gap
For the past 15 years the Smatch static analysis tool has been routinely run for uncovering countless bugs within the Linux kernel. Dan Carpenter who authored Smatch and has been routinely analyzing the Linux kernel with it has authored more than 5,568 patches over the years to become one of the top bug fixers for the kernel. But his funding at Linaro has been cut and the project’s future now in question… ⌘ Read more

How a Cryptocurrency Helps Criminals Launder Money and Evade Sanctions
An investigation has revealed how stablecoins – cryptocurrencies pegged to the US dollar that exist largely beyond traditional financial oversight – have become a practical tool for criminals and sanctioned individuals to move funds across borders almost instantly and convert them back into spendable money, often without detection.
… ⌘ Read more

Amazon Pitches AI Tools as Co-Workers While Axing Jobs
Amazon used its annual re:Invent cloud conference in Las Vegas to pitch a vision of the workplace where AI agents serve not as tools but as “co-workers” and “teammates,” even as the company proceeds with eliminating roughly 14,000 corporate jobs in its second major workforce reduction in recent years.

AWS CEO Matt Garman predicted on stage that autonomous “frontier agent … ⌘ Read more

AI Led To an Increase In Radiologists, Not a Decrease
Despite predictions that AI would replace radiologists, healthcare systems worldwide are hiring more of them because AI tools enhance their work, create new oversight tasks, and increase imaging volumes rather than reducing workloads. “Put all that together with the context of an aging population and growing demand for imaging of all kinds, and you can see why Offia … ⌘ Read more

Still the #DigitalOmnibus :

Tech Policy says “What all of these changes point to is a shift away from empowering people and towards granting discretion to business. What makes the GDPR truly disruptive is that its rights-based approach puts power into the hands of data subjects, of people, and gives them tools to fight back against tech giants, powerful government agencies, and anyone else who uses their data to surveil, track or control them. In a broad sense, shifting towards a risk-based approach to digital regulation tends to allow discretion to powerful actors and creates a maze of loopholes, exemptions, and exceptions that all, ultimately, function as ways for powerful actors to avoid accountability.”

@accessnow.social@accessnow.social says “The new Commission’s decision to prioritize deregulation and securitization above all else is taking the EU in a dangerous direction; one where human rights, once seen as fundamental for the European project, are being sidelined. This will not make people’s lives easier, nor keep them safer. Rather it will transform the EU into a digital dystopia, and ultimately undermine the foundations of European democracy.”

30% of Doctors In UK Use AI Tools In Patient Consultations, Study Finds
An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Guardian: Almost three in 10 GPs in the UK are using AI tools such as ChatGPT in consultations with patients, even though it could lead to them making mistakes and being sued, a study reveals. The rapid adoption of AI to ease workloads is happening alongside a “wild west” lack of regulat … ⌘ Read more

AT&T and Verizon Are Fighting Back Against T-Mobile’s Easy Switch Tool
AT&T and Verizon are blocking T-Mobile’s new “Switching Made Easy” tool that scans their customer accounts to recommend comparable plans. AT&T is also suing, alleging T-Mobile used bots to scrape over 100 fields of sensitive customer data. From The Mobile Report: According to a lawsuit, which AT&T has shared directly with us, T-Mob … ⌘ Read more

PEP 815: Deprecate RECORD.jws and RECORD.p7s
This PEP deprecates the RECORD.jws and RECORD.p7s wheel signature files. Lack of support in tooling means that these virtually unused files do not provide the security they purport. Users looking for wheel signing should instead refer to index hosted attestations. ⌘ Read more

Alpine Linux 3.23 Released With APK Tools v3 For Package Management
Alpine Linux 3.23 is out today as the newest feature release for this lightweight Linux distribution built around musl libc and BusyBox that has become quite popular for containers and embedded uses… ⌘ Read more

Sound Open Firmware 2.14 Released With Intel Wildcat Lake & Nova Lake Support
Sound Open Firmware is one of the projects started originally by Intel but has grown into a multi-vendor initiative for open-source audio digital signal processing (DSP) firmware and development tooling for a variety of platforms under the Linux Foundation umbrella… ⌘ Read more

Anthropic Acquires Bun In First Acquisition
Anthropic has made its first acquisition by buying Bun, the engine behind its fast-growing Claude Code agent. The move strengthens Anthropic’s push into enterprise developer tooling as it scales Claude Code with major backers like Microsoft, Nvidia, Amazon, and Google. Adweek reports: Claude Code is a coding agent that lets developers write, debug and interpret code through natural … ⌘ Read more

OpenAI Declares ‘Code Red’ As Google Catches Up In AI Race
OpenAI has reportedly issued a “code red” on Monday, pausing projects like ads, shopping agents, health tools, and its Pulse assistant to focus entirely on improving ChatGPT. “This includes core features like greater speed and reliability, better personalization, and the ability to answer more questions,” reports The Verge, citing a memo reported by the Wall S … ⌘ Read more

Google’s Vibe Coding Platform Deletes Entire Drive
A Google Antigravity user says the AI-driven “vibe coding” tool accidentally wiped his entire D: drive while trying to clear a project cache. Google says it’s investigating, but the episode adds to a growing list of AI tools behaving in ways that “would get a junior developer fired,” suggests The Register. From the report: We reached out to the user, a photographer and g … ⌘ Read more

Bitcoin slinks to shadows as crypto bros turn to new kid on the blockchain
It remains a useful tool for some nefarious operators, including global crime gangs and questionable governments, but Bitcoin’s role has been usurped by stablecoins — one in particular. ⌘ Read more

Amazon Tells Its Engineers: Use Our AI Coding Tool ‘Kiro’
“Amazon suggested its engineers eschew AI code generation tools from third-party companies in favor of its own ,” reports Reuters, “a move to bolster its proprietary Kiro service, which it released in July, according to an internal memo viewed by Reuters.”

In the memo, posted to Amazon’s internal news site, the company said, “While we continue to support ex … ⌘ Read more

AI Helps Drive Record $11.8B in Black Friday Online Spending
Earlier this month MasterCard noted that even Walmart now allows its customers to make purchases through ChatGPT. And after polling more than 4,000 consumers in the U.S., Canada, U.K., and UAE, they found “more than four in 10 consumers already use AI tools to help them shop, including 61% of Gen Z and 57% of millennials.”

Many (50% of Gen Z and 49% of millenn … ⌘ Read more

Killer abused location sharing apps before Lilie James murder
Experts on gendered violence have warned against the proliferation of everyday location sharing tools to control victim-survivors after NSW’s top coroner found Paul Thijssen used them to track Lilie James before her murder. ⌘ Read more

AI Can Technically Perform 12% of US Labor Market’s Wage Value, MIT Simulation Finds
Researchers at MIT and Oak Ridge National Laboratory have built a simulation that models all 151 million American workers and their skills, then maps those skills against the capabilities of over 13,000 AI tools currently in production to see where the two overlap. The answer, according to their analysis: 11.7 … ⌘ Read more

@prologic@twtxt.net AI is slot machines for coders:

• “Before starting tasks, developers forecast that allowing AI will reduce completion time by 24%. After completing the study, developers estimate that allowing AI reduced completion time by 20%. Surprisingly, we find that allowing AI actually increases completion time by 19%–AI tooling slowed developers down.” https://metr.org/blog/2025-07-10-early-2025-ai-experienced-os-dev-study/
  
• “Stack Overflow data reveals the hidden productivity tax of ‘almost right’ AI code”: https://venturebeat.com/ai/stack-overflow-data-reveals-the-hidden-productivity-tax-of-almost-right-ai-code
  

The same intermittent reward operant conditioning that gets people addicted to gambling and thinking that if they follow certain rituals they’ll win “next time” drives people’s beliefs that AI tools are making them more productive when they’re making them less productive. I’m going to guess that a side effect of this is that people think they’re typing less when in the longer term they’re typing the same amount or more when you factor in the productivity loss (as far as I’ve read the studies don’t measure this so I’m only guessing).

People are also being rapidly de-skilled by this technology: the more they use it, the more their actual skills atrophy. “Continuous exposure to AI might reduce the ADR (adesoma detection rate) of standard non-AI assisted colonoscopy, suggesting a negative effect on endoscopist behaviour.” (science speak for saying that radiologists get worse at seeing tumors in scans once they’ve used AI): https://www.thelancet.com/journals/langas/article/PIIS2468-1253(25)00133-5/abstract

Nobody who cares about the future should be using this stuff for anything.