Ten Mistakes Marred Firewall Upgrade At Australian Telco, Contributing To Two Deaths
An independent review found that at least ten technical and process failures during a routine firewall upgrade at Australia’s Optus prevented emergency calls from reaching Triple Zero for 14 hours, during which 455 calls failed and two callers died. The Register reports: On Thursday, Optus published an indepen … ⌘ Read more

‘Investors in Limbo’. Will the TikTok Deal’s Deadline Be Extended Again?
An anonymous reader shared this report from the BBC:

A billionaire investor keen on buying TikTok’s US operations has told the BBC he has been left in limbo as the latest deadline for the app’s sale looms.
The US has repeatedly delayed the date by which the platform’s Chinese owner, Bytedance, must sell or be blocked for American use … ⌘ Read more

Podcast Industry Under Siege as AI Bot Flood Airways with Thousands of Programs
An anonymous reader shared this report from the Los Angeles Times:

Popular podcast host Steven Bartlett has used an AI clone to launch a new kind of content aimed at the 13 million followers of his podcast “Diary of a CEO.” On YouTube, his clone narrates “100 CEOs With Steven Bartlett,” which adds AI-generated animation … ⌘ Read more

Entry-Level Tech Workers Confront an AI-Fueled Jobpocalypse
AI “has gutted entry-level roles in the tech industry,” reports Rest of World.

One student at a high-ranking engineering college in India tells them that among his 400 classmates, “fewer than 25% have secured job offers… there’s a sense of panic on the campus.”

Students at engineering colleges in India, China, Dubai, and Kenya are facing a “jobpo … ⌘ Read more

Polar Bears are Rewiring Their Own Genetics to Survive a Warming Climate
“Polar bears are still sadly expected to go extinct this century,” with two-thirds of the population gone by 2050,” says the lead researcher on a new study from the University of East Anglia in Britain.

But their research also suggests polar bears “are rapidly rewiring their own genetics in a bid to survive,” reports NBC News, in … ⌘ Read more

Purdue University Approves New AI Requirement For All Undergrads
Nonprofit Code.org released its 2025 State of AI & Computer Science Education report this week with a state-by-state analysis of school policies complaining that “0 out of 50 states require AI+CS for graduation.”

But meanwhile, at the college level, “Purdue University will begin requiring that all of its undergraduate students demonstrate basic … ⌘ Read more

Repeal Section 230 and Its Platform Protections, Urges New Bipartisan US Bill
U.S. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse said Friday he was moving to file a bipartisan bill to repeal Section 230 of America’s Communications Decency Act.

“The law prevents most civil suits against users or services that are based on what others say,” explains an EFF blog post.

“Experts argue that a repeal of Section 230 could … ⌘ Read more

Time Magazine’s ‘Person of the Year’: the Architects of AI
Time magazine used its 98th annual “Person of the Year” cover to “recognize a force that has dominated the year’s headlines, for better or for worse. For delivering the age of thinking machines, for wowing and worrying humanity, for transforming the present and transcending the possible, the Architects of AI are TIME’s 2025 Person of the Year.”

One cover illustr … ⌘ Read more

New Rule Forbids GNOME Shell Extensions Made Using AI-Generated Code
An anonymous reader shared this report from Phoronix:

Due to the growing number of GNOME Shell extensions looking to appear on extensions.gnome.org that were generated using AI, it’s now prohibited. The new rule in their guidelines note that AI-generated code will be explicitly rejected:

“Extensions must not be AI-generated

While it i … ⌘ Read more

Is the R Programming Language Surging in Popularity?
The R programming language “is sometimes frowned upon by ‘traditional’ software engineers,” says the CEO of software quality services vendor Tiobe, “due to its unconventional syntax and limited scalability for large production systems.” But he says it “continues to thrive at universities and in research-driven industries, and “for domain experts, it remains a power … ⌘ Read more

System76 Launches First Stable Release of COSMIC Desktop and Pop!_OS 24.04 LTS
This week System76 launched the first stable release of its Rust-based COSMIC desktop environment, reports 9to5Linux.

Announced in 2021, it’s designed for all GNU/Linux distributions — and it shipping with Pop!_OS 24.04 LTS (based on Ubuntu 24.04 LTS):

Previous Pop!_OS releases used a version of the COSMIC desktop tha … ⌘ Read more

‘Free Software Awards’ Winners Announced: Andy Wingo, Alx Sa, Govdirectory
This week the Free Software Foundation honored Andy Wingo, Alx Sa, and Govdirectory with this year’s annual Free Software Awards (given to community members and groups making
“significant” contributions to software freedom):

Andy Wingo is one of the co-maintainers of GNU Guile,
the official extension language of the GNU operating … ⌘ Read more

AMD GAIA 0.14 Released With Native Support For Linux & macOS
Early this year AMD announced the open-source GAIA project for “Generative AI Is Awesome” as a showcase of AI support atop their Ryzen AI NPUs and other hardware. That began as a Windows-only project but in September AMD added Linux support to GAIA but only using Vulkan acceleration for AI on Radeon GPUs. Now today GAIA 0.14 is available with “native” support for both macOS and Linux… ⌘ Read more

Sperm Donor With Cancer-Causing Gene Fathered Nearly 200 Children Across Europe
schwit1 shares a report from CBS News: perm from a donor who unknowingly carried a cancer-causing gene has been used to conceive nearly 200 babies across Europe, an investigation by 14 European public service broadcasters, including CBS News’ partner network BBC News, has revealed. Some children conceived using th … ⌘ Read more

Watch Charlie Brown Christmas for Free on December 13 & 14 with Apple TV
The Christmas classic movie “A Charlie Brown Christmas” will be free to watch on the Apple TV service on this coming weekend of December 13 and 14. The classic cartoon follows a child who is upset about the commercialization of Christmas, and features the entire Snoopy gang. It’s a family favorite, and many people have … [Read More](https://osxdaily.com/2025/12/10/watch-charlie-brown-ch … ⌘ Read more

FreeBSD 15.0 vs. Ubuntu Linux For AMD EPYC Server Performance
Given the recent release of FreeBSD 15, I started off my testing in looking at how FreeBSD 15.0 improves performance versus FreeBSD 14.3. Now it’s onto the next important question: how is FreeBSD 15.0 performing relative to Linux on servers? Here are some benchmarks exploring that topic today. ⌘ Read more

Family of teenager killed in e-bike collision pay tribute to ‘beautiful’ 14-year-old
The family of a teenager killed in a collision in Melbourne’s north-east has paid tribute to their “beautiful” 14-year-old son. ⌘ 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

Men jailed for gang rapes at bucks weekend have convictions quashed
Marius Hawell, his brother and a friend have had their convictions thrown out on grounds of appeal, after being handed jail sentences of between nine and 14 years. ⌘ Read more

Iced 0.14 Released For Popular Rust Cross-Platform GUI LIbrary
Released today is a new version of Iced, the popular cross-platform GUI library for the Rust programming language. Iced is notably used by the COSMIC desktop environment and a growing variety of different Rust apps… ⌘ Read more

Syrians scrape by as cautious celebrations mark one year of ’liberation’
Today marks one year since the Assad dictatorship in Syria was toppled by Islamist rebels, bringing an end to nearly 14 years of civil war. Some are celebrating, while others continue to struggle. ⌘ Read more

New Jolla Phone Now Available for Pre-Order as an Independent Linux Phone
Jolla is “trying again with a new crowd-funded smartphone,” reports Phoronix:

Finnish company Jolla started out 14 years ago where Nokia left off with MeeGo and developed Sailfish OS as a new Linux smartphone platform. Jolla released their first smartphone in 2013 after crowdfunding but ultimately the Sailfish OS focus the pa … ⌘ Read more

Teen seriously injured in e-bike crash in Perth’s western suburbs
A 14-year-old boy suffers serious injuries in an e-bike crash in Perth’s western suburbs, just two days after a parliamentary inquiry into WA’s e-rideable laws made 33 recommendations in a bid to make the devices safer. ⌘ Read more

Critics choice nominations 2026: Sinner, One Battle After Another
The gothic vampire period drama Sinners has topped the Critic Choice Awards, securing 17 nods, followed by One Battle After Another with 14. ⌘ Read more

Jolla Trying Again To Develop A New Sailfish OS Linux Smartphone
Finnish company Jolla started out 14 years ago where Nokia left off with MeeGo and developed Sailfish OS as a new Linux smartphone platform. Jolla released their first smartphone in 2013 after crowdfunding but ultimately the Sailfish OS focus the past number of years now has been offering their software stack for use on other smartphone devices. But now it seems they are trying again with a new crowd-funded smartphone… ⌘ Read more

Sam Konstas scores first century in 14 months
Almost a year on from his explosive Test debut, Sam Konstas has found form to hit his first century in 14 months in the New South Wales Sheffield Shield clash with Queensland. ⌘ Read more

High Court to hear appeal against teen’s sentence for Emma Lovell murder
Emma Lovell was murdered at her North Lakes home on Boxing Day in 2022 by the then 17-year-old, who was sentenced to 14 years in prison in 2024. ⌘ Read more

FreeBSD 15.0 Benchmarks Versus FreeBSD 14.3 On AMD EPYC
This week brought the official release of FreeBSD 15.0 as the latest major update to this BSD operating system. In being eager to test out this new FreeBSD release, for this first round of FreeBSD 15.0 benchmarking is seeing how it compares to the former FreeBSD 14.3 release on a Supermicro + AMD EPYC Turin server. ⌘ Read more

Aussie greats question ‘strange’ decision to axe Lyon for Gabba Test
Australia leaves Nathan Lyon out of its XI for the second Ashes Test at the Gabba, marking an almost 14-year first. ⌘ Read more

Watch Charlie Brown Christmas for Free on December 13 & 14 with Apple TV
The Christmas classic movie “A Charlie Brown Christmas” will be free to watch on the Apple TV service on the weekend of December 13 and 14. The classic cartoon follows a child who is upset about the commercialization of Christmas, and features the entire Snoopy gang. It’s a family favorite, and many people have fond … [Read More](https://osxdaily.com/2025/12/03/watch-charlie-brown-chris … ⌘ 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

WA government pledges $14.8m for domestic violence refuges across state
The WA government commits $14.8 million towards family and domestic violence refuges across the state, with one provider saying it will help support women facing “life and death” situations. ⌘ Read more

Wallabies unveil 2026 Tests as new coach begins with Japan matches
Incoming Wallabies coach Les Kiss will launch his tenure against Eddie Jones’s Japan, Australia’s 14-Test schedule for 2026 shows. ⌘ Read more

Breaking: Optus investigating ‘significant’ outage south of Melbourne
Calls to emergency services have been impacted by the outage, the telco confirmed, with more than 14,000 customers affected. ⌘ Read more

Amazon Cut Thousands of Engineers in Its Record Layoffs, Despite Saying It Needs To Innovate Faster
Amazon’s 14,000-plus layoffs announced last month touched almost every piece of the company’s sprawling business, from cloud computing and devices to advertising, retail and grocery stores. But one job category bore the brunt of cuts more than others: engineers. CNBC: Documents filed … ⌘ Read more

Apple Speeds Planning for Replacing CEO Tim Cook Next Year
From the Business Standard:

Apple has accelerated its succession plans as the company prepares for Chief Executive Tim Cook to potentially step down as early as next year, Financial Times reported. Apple’s board and senior leaders have recently increased their focus on a smooth leadership transition after Cook’s more than 14 years at the helm of the $4 tril … ⌘ Read more

FTR, I see one (two) issues with PyQt6, sadly:

1. The PyQt6 docs appear to be mostly auto-generated from the C++ docs. And they contain many errors or broken examples (due to the auto-conversion). I found this relatively unpleasent to work with.
   
2. (Until Python finally gets rid of the Global Interpreter Lock properly, it’s not really suited for GUI programs anyway – in my opinion. You can’t offload anything to a second thread, because the whole program is still single-threaded. This would have made my fractal rendering program impossible, for example.)

The attack on Kyiv on November 14. The widow of the first victim of the Chernobyl disaster dies in hospital ⌘ Read more

Five People Plead Quilty To Helping North Koreans Infiltrate US Companies
“Within the past year, stories have been posted on Slashdot about people helping North Koreans get remote IT jobs at U.S. corporations, companies knowingly assisting them, how not to hire a North Korean for a remote IT job, and how a simple question tripped up a North Korean applying for a remote IT job,” writes longtime Slashdot … ⌘ Read more

Russia Imposes 24-Hour Mobile Internet Blackout For Travelers Returning Home
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Record: Russian telecom operators have begun cutting mobile internet access for 24 hours for citizens returning to the country from abroad, in what officials say is an effort to prevent Ukrainian drones from using domestic SIM cards for navigation. “When a SIM card enters Russia … ⌘ Read more

Logitech Reports Data Breach From Zero-Day Software Vulnerability
BrianFagioli writes: Logitech has confirmed a cybersecurity breach after an intruder exploited a zero-day in a third-party software platform and copied internal data. The company says the incident did not affect its products, manufacturing or business operations, and it does not believe sensitive personal information like national ID numbers or … ⌘ Read more

JPMorgan Chase Wins Fight With Fintech Firms Over Fees To Access Customer Data
According to CNBC, JPMorgan Chase has secured deals ensuring it will get paid by the fintech firms responsible for nearly all the data requests made by third-party apps connected to customer bank accounts. From the report: The bank has signed updated contracts with the fintech middlemen that make up more than 95% of th … ⌘ Read more

Sam Altman Celebrates ChatGPT Finally Following Em Dash Formatting Rules
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: On Thursday evening, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman posted on X that ChatGPT has started following custom instructions to avoid using em dashes. “Small-but-happy win: If you tell ChatGPT not to use em-dashes in your custom instructions, it finally does what it’s supposed to do!” he wrote.

… ⌘ Read more

Retail Traders Left Exposed in High-Stakes Crypto Treasury Deals
An anonymous reader shares a report: Executives are turning to a novel structure to fund crypto accumulation vehicles as investor appetite thins. They’re called in-kind contributions, and they now account for a growing share of digital-asset treasury, or DAT, deals. Instead of raising cash to buy tokens in the open market, DAT sponsors contribute … ⌘ Read more

Only Half the Homes in America Have Cable TV Anymore
Pay television penetration in American households fell to 50.2% in the third quarter and is projected to drop to 50% or lower by December, according to Madison and Wall, a technology and media advisory firm. Fifteen years ago, nearly nine in ten households subscribed to pay television services.

The decline has prompted major media companies to shed cable asset … ⌘ Read more

Where Have All the TV Cameras Gone?
TV manufacturers are abandoning their attempts to turn TVs into interactive social devices through smart cameras. Sky announced this month that it will discontinue Sky Live, a camera accessory for its Sky Glass televisions that brought video calls, body-tracked workouts, and motion games to the living room. The device will stop working at the beginning of December. Sky will brick the cameras and … ⌘ Read more

Why Every Company Suddenly Wants To Become a Bank
Cryptocurrency companies and fintech startups are applying to open banks in the United States. Ripple, Coinbase and the UK payments company Wise have submitted applications for national trust charters this year. Trust banks cannot take deposits or make loans but charge fees for safekeeping customer assets and are not FDIC insured. The applications have reached 12 so far this … ⌘ Read more

Apple’s 2026 Mac Plans
Most of Apple’s Macs are slated to get M5 chips across 2026, and there’s a possibility we’ll even see the first M6 chips toward the end of the year. Updates are planned for everything from the MacBook Air to the Mac Studio.

Image

The ‌MacBook Air‌ will be one o … ⌘ Read more

Krafton Launches Voluntary Resignation Program Weeks After Declaring ‘AI-First Company’ Future
An anonymous reader shares a report: In October, PUBG and Subnautica 2 publisher Krafton announced that it would be undergoing a “complete reorganization” to become an “AI-first” company, planning to invest over 130 billion won ($88 million) in agentic AI infrastructure and deployment beginning … ⌘ Read more

All Lupus Cases May Be Linked To a Common Virus, Study Finds
One of the most common viruses in the world could be the cause of lupus, an autoimmune disease with wide-ranging symptoms, according to a new study. From a report: Until now, lupus was somewhat mysterious: No single root cause of the disease had been found, and while there is no cure, there are medications that can treat it.

The research, published in … ⌘ Read more