Wood Burning Is Reintroducing Lead Pollution Into the Air, Scientists Find
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: Wood heating is reintroducing lead into the air of local communities and homes, a systematic investigation by academics has found. Overwhelming evidence of lead’s neurotoxicity meant the metal was banned as an additive in petrol more than 25 years ago. The research by acade … ⌘ Read more

Kioxia and Dell Cram Nearly 10PB Into a Single 2U Server
BrianFagioli writes: Kioxia and Dell Technologies say they have built a 2U server configuration capable of scaling to 9.8PB of flash storage, which is the sort of density that would have sounded impossible just a few years ago. The setup combines a Dell PowerEdge R7725xd Server with 40 Kioxia LC9 Series 245.76TB NVMe SSDs and AMD EPYC processors. According t … ⌘ Read more

AMD Is Bringing Improved FSR 4 Upscaling To Its Older GPUs
AMD says FSR 4.1 will finally bring its newer hardware-accelerated upscaling technology to older Radeon GPUs. “The rollout will begin in July with RDNA3- and 3.5-based GPUs, which include the Radeon RX 7000 series, as well as integrated GPUs like the Radeon 890M and Radeon 8060S,” reports Ars Technica. “In ‘early 2027,’ support will also be extended to t … ⌘ Read more

Bitwarden Scrubs ‘Always Free’ and ‘Inclusion’ Values From Its Website
Bitwarden appears to be undergoing a quiet shift in leadership and messaging. Its longtime CEO and CFO have stepped down, while the company has removed “Always free” from a prominent password-manager page and replaced “Inclusion” and “Transparency” in its GRIT values with “Innovation” and “Trust.” Fast Company reports: In February, longtime … ⌘ Read more

The Era of 15GB Free Gmail Storage Is Ending
Google has confirmed it is testing a 5GB storage limit for some new Gmail accounts, with users able to unlock the standard 15GB by adding a phone number. Android Authority reports: While the company didn’t mention which regions are impacted, user reports from yesterday were mostly from African countries. That said, if Google’s tests prove successful, this could possibly become the norm … ⌘ Read more

Bill To Block Publishers From Killing Online Games Advances In California
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: A bill focused on maintaining long-term playable access to online games has passed out of the California Assembly’s appropriations committee, setting up a floor vote by the full legislative body. The advancement is a major win for Stop Killing Games’ grassroots game preserv … ⌘ Read more

OpenAI Now Wants ChatGPT To Access Your Bank Accounts
OpenAI is previewing a feature that lets ChatGPT Pro users connect bank and investment accounts through Plaid, allowing the chatbot to analyze spending, subscriptions, balances, portfolios, debt, and major financial decisions. “More than 200 million people are already going to ChatGPT every month with finance questions – from budgeting to tips on how to cut back on s … ⌘ Read more

ArXiv to Ban Researchers for a Year if They Submit AI Slop
ArXiv says it will ban authors for one year if they submit papers containing AI-generated slop, such as hallucinated citations, placeholder text, or chatbot meta-comments left in the manuscript.

“If generative AI tools generate inappropriate language, plagiarized content, biased content, errors, mistakes, incorrect references, or misleading content, and that out … ⌘ Read more

Congress Introduces Bill To Permanently Block Chinese Vehicles From US
Longtime Slashdot reader sinij shares a report from Car and Driver: A group of Michigan lawmakers has introduced a bill in Congress that would effectively place a permanent ban on Chinese connected vehicles from being sold in the United States. While an executive order signed by Joe Biden in early 2025 already imposed heavy restrictio … ⌘ Read more

Honda Retreats To Hybrids After Failed EV Bet Triggers Record $9 Billion Loss
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Electrek: Honda is waving the white flag. The Japanese automaker previewed two new hybrids set to launch by 2028 after taking an over $9 billion hit over its failed EV bet, leading to its biggest loss in company history. Honda admitted it was “unable to deliver products that offer … ⌘ Read more

Americans Would Rather Have a Nuclear Plant In Their Backyard Than a Datacenter
A new Gallup survey found that 71% of Americans oppose having an AI data center built near them, making the facilities even less popular than nearby nuclear plants, which 53% oppose. The Register reports: When it comes to the reasons for opposing AI campuses, half of all respondents cite the effect on resources, with … ⌘ Read more

SpaceX Unveils Sweeping Starship V3 Upgrades
SpaceX has detailed major Starship V3 upgrades ahead of a launch targeted as early as May 19. The changes are meant to move Starship closer to its core goals: rapid reuse, Starlink deployment, orbital refueling, and eventually Moon and Mars missions. Longtime Slashdot reader schwit1 shares a report from Teslarati: Here is an explicit, broken-down list of the key changes, first start … ⌘ Read more

Musk Accused of ‘Selective Amnesia’, Altman of Lying As OpenAI Trial Nears End
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: A lawyer for Elon Musk hammered at the credibility of OpenAI CEO Sam Altman on Thursday, near the end of a trial over whether to hold the ChatGPT maker and its leaders responsible for allegedly transforming the nonprofit into a vehicle to enrich themselves. OpenAI’s lawyers … ⌘ Read more

GCC 16 Produces Faster Binaries Than GCC 15, Competitive Race With LLVM Clang 22
GCC 16.1 released at the end of April as the latest major, annual feature release to the GNU Compiler Collection. Early benchmarks showed some nice leads for GCC 16 over GCC 15. Continued testing of the new GCC 16 compiler has continued to show overall better performance of the resulting binaries than using GCC 15 on the same hardware and same compiler flags. That led many to wonder about the GCC 16 performance up against the latest LLVM … ⌘ Read more

NetBSD 11.0-RC4 Comes As Hopefully The Last Release Candidate
In addition to FreeBSD 15.1 releasing in the coming weeks, NetBSD 11.0 is also just around the corner as another prominent and major BSD update. NetBSD 11.0-RC4 is now available for last minute testing with this hoping to be the final release candidate… ⌘ Read more

FreeBSD 15.2 Will Aim For The Nice KDE Desktop Installation Experience
FreeBSD 15.0 had aimed to provide a KDE desktop install option from its text-based OS installer to make for a more compelling FreeBSD out-of-the-box desktop experience. That was then delayed to FreeBSD 15.1 but that didn’t end up materializing. Now the KDE desktop install option is diverted to FreeBSD 15.2… ⌘ Read more

Ford’s Electrified Vehicle Sales Dropped 31% in April From One Year Ago
Ford’s sales of electrified vehicles — including hybrids and all-electric models — dropped 31% from April 2025, reports Electrek. “Hybrid sales fell 32% to 15,758 vehicles, while EV sales continued to crash with just 3,655 all-electric models sold last month, 25% fewer than in the year prior.”

After discontinuing the F-150 Lightning i … ⌘ Read more

Why Some US Schools Are Cutting Back On the Technology They Spent Billions On
America’s school districts “spent billions on technology during the pandemic,” reports the Washington Post.

“But now some states are limiting in-school screen time because of concerns about its impact on children.”

Nationwide [U.S.] schools invested at least $15 billion and possibly as much as $35 billion from federal … ⌘ Read more

FreeBSD 15.1 Beta 2 Brings Updated Zstd, Bug Fixes
FreeBSD 15.1 continues working its way toward a stable release in June. Out today is FreeBSD 15.1 Beta 2… ⌘ Read more

LinkedIn Profile Visitor Lists Belong to the People, Says Noyb
A LinkedIn user in the EU is challenging Microsoft’s refusal to provide a full list of profile visitors under GDPR Article 15, arguing that the data should be available for free because LinkedIn processes it and sells a more complete version to Premium users. Privacy group Noyb says the case could set a broader precedent over whether companies can mone … ⌘ Read more

Motherboard Sales ‘Collapse’ By More Than 25%
Motherboard sales are sharply declining as AI demand drives shortages and price hikes for memory, storage, CPUs, and other PC components. “Because of this, users who don’t have deep pockets are putting off upgrading their PCs and holding on to their current devices longer,” reports Tom’s Hardware. From the report: Asus, which sold 15 million motherboards in 2025, has only shipped a … ⌘ Read more

Apple Agrees To Pay iPhone Owners $250 Million For Not Delivering AI Siri
Apple has agreed to a proposed $250 million settlement over claims that it misled iPhone buyers about the availability of Apple Intelligence and its upgraded Siri features. The settlement would cover U.S. buyers of the iPhone 16 lineup and iPhone 15 Pro models between June 10, 2024, and March 29, 2025. The Verge reports: The settl … ⌘ Read more

VS Code Update Added Copilot As Default Co-Author To Git Commits
Longtime Slashdot reader UnknowingFool writes: On April 15, 2026, a Microsoft employee made a change to Visual Studio Code and pushed it within 8 hours without review, notification, or documentation. The change added “Co-authored-by: Copilot” by default to the end of commit messages in Git when Copilot was used in creating the code. However, the imple … ⌘ Read more

Anthropic Nears $1.5 Billion AI Joint Venture With Wall Street Firms
Anthropic is reportedly nearing a roughly $1.5 billion joint venture with Blackstone, Goldman Sachs, Hellman & Friedman, and other Wall Street firms to sell AI tools to private-equity-backed companies. “The investors aim to create a company that acts as a consulting arm for Anthropic and helps teach businesses – including the private-equit … ⌘ Read more

GCC 16 Compiler Delivering Some Decent Performance Gains Over GCC 15
With the GCC 16.1 compiler released last Thursday, I have begun running more compiler benchmarks on this first GCC 16 stable feature release. GCC 16 comes heavy on new changes in being the annual feature release and delivering changes from AMD Zen 6 and Arm AGI CPU support to new C++ features and even the Algol 68 programming language front-end. It’s also looking quite good in the performance department relative to the GCC 15 compiler from last year. ⌘ Read more

CachyOS Switches Python To Using Tail-Call Interpreter For 5~15% Better Performance
CachyOS is a very fast out-of-the-box Linux distribution and for those concerned about Python performance, the newest updates to this Arch Linux based distribution will provide even better performance… ⌘ Read more

16% of Parents Help Their Children Bypass Online Age Checks, Study Finds. One 15-Year-Old Just Uses a Fake Moustache
The Independent reports that “more than a third of children in the UK have found a way around age verification measures” for social media sites and other online platforms. And new research from online safety organisation Internet Matters “suggests … ⌘ Read more

@movq@www.uninformativ.de Oh, nice! I never was brave enough to try to move the OS to a different machine, always reinstalled from scratch. :-S

A mate also had this or a very similar white Samsung netbook. I remember typing on that thing was no fun at all for me, never hit the single right key. :-D

I’m not a fan of netbooks, there’s not remotely enough screen space for my taste. I always had 15 inch notebook. Sure, they are way heavier, but I can actually get work with them done. And yes, glared screens are an invention right from the devil himself. Completely stupid.

FreeBSD 15.1 Beta Released For Early Testing
Following last year’s release of FreeBSD 15.0, FreeBSD 15.1 is working its way toward release release in June. For kicking off the release dance, FreeBSD 15.1 Beta 1 is available today for testing… ⌘ Read more

French Prosecutors Link 15-Year-Old To Mega-Breach At State’s Secure Document Agency
French prosecutors say police detained a 15-year-old suspected of using the alias “breach3d” in connection with a cyberattack on France Titres (ANTS), the state agency that handles passports, ID cards, and other secure documents. The breach allegedly involved 12 million to 18 million lines of data offered for … ⌘ Read more

Apple CEO Tim Cook Is Stepping Down
Apple announced that Tim Cook will step down as CEO in September after 15 years in the role, handing the job to hardware chief John Ternus. Longtime Slashdot reader sinij shares the news from MarketWatch: Cook leaves an impressive legacy after growing the company to a $4 trillion market capitalization from just $300 billion 15 years ago. Over Cook’s 15-year tenure as CEO, Apple’s stock has risen 1,932%, … ⌘ Read more

GNU Coreutils 9.11 Brings New Performance Improvements: Up To 15x Faster cat
It’s not only the uutil’s Rust Coreutils project seeing performance improvements but some increased healthy competition now from GNU Coreutils. With today’s release of GNU Coreutils 9.11 the wc command is up to multiple times faster and even cat can be up to 15 times faster… ⌘ Read more

Disney Creates Its Own IMAX for ‘Avengers: Doomsday’ After Losing Screens to ‘Dune: Part 3’
Ahead of December’s release of Avengers: Doomsday, Disney has unveiled “Infinity Vision,” reports Kotaku, which they describe as “a new theater-going experience that will be certain to transform your pedestrian $15 night out into an exotic $43 one.” (Though those prices appear to be estimat … ⌘ Read more

GhostBSD 26.1 Now Based On FreeBSD 15.0, Switches to XLibre X Server
GhostBSD 26.1-R15.0p2 released today as a big upgrade for this desktop-focused, BSD operating system derived from FreeBSD… ⌘ Read more

My mate and I hiked some 16-18 kilometers to the Wasserberg. The 22°C sun was beating down hard on us. There were quite a bunch of clouds all around, but none of them casted the tiniest shade on us. Only in the second half we got a little bit luckier in that regard. Still, we were soaked before we even left town. Hardly any breeze.

Unfortunately, I left my camera at home and found it hidden behind the cettle in the kitchen after searching the entire house for some 15 odd minutes. However, a greenfinch paid me a visit this morning and I got it on camera. The sunset was crazy colored, too:

https://lyse.isobeef.org/gruenfink-2026-04-18/

Yesterday’s evening stroll: https://lyse.isobeef.org/asperg-2026-04-15/

Boston Dynamics’ Robot Dog Can Now Read Gauges, Spot Spills, and Reason
Boston Dynamics has integrated Google DeepMind into its robotic dog Spot, giving it more autonomous reasoning for industrial inspections like spotting spills and reading gauges. Spot can also now recognize when to call on other AI tools. IEEE Spectrum reports: Boston Dynamics is one of the few companies to commercially deploy legge … ⌘ Read more

US Jobs Too Important To Risk Chinese Car Imports, Says Ford CEO
In an interview with Fox News, Ford CEO Jim Farley warned that allowing Chinese vehicle imports could put nearly a million U.S. jobs at risk. He said China’s heavily subsidized auto industry has enough excess capacity to supply the entire U.S. market, while also raising serious cybersecurity concerns given how much data modern connected cars colle … ⌘ Read more

Cal.com Is Going Closed Source Because of AI
Cal is moving its flagship scheduling software from open source to a proprietary license, arguing that AI coding tools now make it much easier for attackers to scan public codebases for vulnerabilities. “Open source security always relied on people to find and fix any problems,” said Peer Richelsen, co-founder of Cal. “Now AI attackers are flaunting that transparency.” CEO Bailey Pumflee … ⌘ Read more

@movq@www.uninformativ.de LOL. I think I get the idea. I am concerned about AI too. Managers starting with “I don’t know anything about this, but here is what says”. Infuriating.

I came across this one today, here is a gift link: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/15/opinion/art-artificial-intelligence.html?unlocked_article_code=1.bFA.XNiu.ZukFfdNl3Al1&smid=nytcore-ios-share

Live Nation Illegally Monopolized Ticketing Market, Jury Finds
A Manhattan federal jury found that Live Nation and Ticketmaster illegally maintained monopoly power in the ticketing market. The findings follow an antitrust case brought by states after a separate DOJ settlement. CNN reports: The verdict was reached following a lengthy trial in New York federal court that included testimony from top executives in the … ⌘ Read more

Anna’s Archive Loses $322 Million Spotify Piracy Case Without a Fight
An anonymous reader quotes a report from TorrentFreak: Spotify and several major record labels, including UMG, Sony, and Warner, secured a $322 million default judgment against the unknown operators of Anna’s Archive. The shadow library failed to appear in court and briefly released millions of tracks that were scraped from Spotify via Bit … ⌘ Read more

Snapchat Blames AI As It Cuts 1,000 Jobs
Snap is laying off about 1,000 employees, or 16% of its workforce, while closing 300 open roles as it tries to cut costs and push toward profitability with more AI-driven efficiency. “While these changes are necessary to realize Snap’s long-term potential, we believe that rapid advancements in artificial intelligence enable our teams to reduce repetitive work, increase velocity, and better support o … ⌘ Read more

Struggling Shoe Retailer Allbirds Pivots To AI, Stock Explodes More Than 700%
Allbirds made a surprise announcement this morning: it’s pivoting from sustainable shoes to AI compute infrastructure, rebranding as NewBird AI after selling its brand assets and closing its U.S. full-price stores. The move sent shares soaring more than 700%. CNBC reports: The move boosted shares of the miniscule market ca … ⌘ Read more

Rivian’s Illinois Factory Will Run On Recycled EV Batteries
An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Wall Street Journal: Rivian is joining with Redwood Materials to reuse EV batteries for energy storage – the largest repurposed-battery energy storage system for an automotive manufacturer in the U.S., executives told The Wall Street Journal. Redwood Materials is a battery-recycling firm started by Tesla co- … ⌘ Read more

Norway Man Cured of HIV With Brother’s Stem Cells
A 63-year-old man in Norway appears to be cured of HIV after receiving a stem cell transplant from his brother, who turned out to have a rare mutation that makes immune cells resistant to HIV. “Four years after the transplant, and two years after the man stopped antiretroviral therapy, he still appears to be free of the infection,” reports Gizmodo. From the report: According … ⌘ Read more

Amazon Buys Globalstar For $10.8 Billion, Moving To Expand Its Satellite Internet Service
Amazon is buying satellite communications company Globalstar for $10.8 billion to expand its Leo satellite-internet network and compete more directly with SpaceX’s Starlink. The deal also includes a partnership with Apple to support satellite connectivity for iPhones and Apple Watches, with Amazon pl … ⌘ Read more

Anthropic Asks Christian Leaders for Help Steering Claude’s Spiritual Development
Anthropic recently “hosted about 15 Christian leaders from Catholic and Protestant churches, academia, and the business world” for a two-day summit , reports the Washington Post:

Anthropic staff sought advice on how to steer Claude’s moral and spiritual development as the chatbot reacts to complex and unpredictable et … ⌘ Read more

DRBD Driver Working To Land ~15 Years Worth Of Changes Into The Linux Kernel
Developers behind the Distributed Replicated Block Device “DRBD” for mirroring block devices between multiple host systems are working to resync the upstream Linux kernel DRBD support with the out-of-tree DRBD code they have been maintaining for the past ~15 years out-of-sync. It’s a big undertaking but they have begun staging patches for review and testing to get this massive set of changes up to par for mainline… ⌘ Read more

Meta Is Shutting Down VR Social Platform Horizon Worlds
Meta is shutting down its VR social platform Horizon Worlds, which was once a key piece of the pivot to the metaverse. The company said the app will be taken off the Quest store at the end of March, and fully removed from Quest headsets by June 15. After that date, it will shift to a standalone “mobile-only experience.” CNBC reports: The shift for Horizon Worlds, … ⌘ Read more