Australia Poised for Desalination Boom as Water Shortages Loom
Australia is on track for a significant expansion of desalination capacity – converting seawater to freshwater – to meet the needs of a swelling population at a time of declining average rainfall. From a report: The world’s driest inhabited continent is projected to build or expand 11 desalination plants worth more than A$23 billion ($15 billion) over t … ⌘ Read more

US Blocks All Offshore Wind Construction, Says Reason Is Classified
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: On Monday, the US Department of the Interior announced that it was pausing the leases on all five offshore wind sites currently under construction in the US. The move comes despite the fact that these projects already have installed significant hardware in the water and on land; one of t … ⌘ Read more

Intel Releases GenAI Examples v1.5 - While Validating This AI Showcase On Old Xeon CPUs
Intel engineers as part of the OPEA Project today released the Generative AI Examples v1.5 update. This “GenAIExamples” open-source project is a collection of GenAI examples as part of showing the capabilities of the Open Platform for Enterprise AI (OPEA) and also highlighting Intel’s hardware strengths for generative AI… ⌘ Read more

Trump Admin to Hire 1,000 for New ‘Tech Force’ to Build AI Infrastructure
An anonymous reader shared this report from CNBC:

The Trump administration on Monday unveiled a new initiative dubbed the “U.S. Tech Force,” comprising about 1,000 engineers and other specialists who will work on artificial intelligence infrastructure and other technology projects throughout the federal government.

Participants wi … ⌘ Read more

Cloud Hypervisor 50 Released With QCOW2 Compression, Performance Improvements
Cloud Hypervisor 50.0 is out today for this cloud-minded, security-focused and Rust-based hypervisor. Cloud Hypervsior began as an open-source Intel project while in more recent times has shifted to being largely maintained by Microsoft, Crusoe, Cyberus Tech, Rivos, and others… ⌘ Read more

Anthropic’s AI Lost Hundreds of Dollars Running a Vending Machine After Being Talked Into Giving Everything Away
Anthropic let its Claude AI run a vending machine in the Wall Street Journal newsroom for three weeks as part of an internal stress test called Project Vend, and the experiment ended in financial ruin after journalists systematically manipulated the bot into … ⌘ Read more

2026 Will Bring Heat More Than 1.4C Above Preindustrial Levels, UK Met Office Says
The UK Met Office projects that 2026 will see global temperatures rise between 1.34C and 1.58C above preindustrial levels, placing it among the four hottest years since records began in 1850 and continuing a streak of extreme warming that has pushed the planet into unprecedented territory. The central forecast is … ⌘ Read more

How China Built Its ‘Manhattan Project’ To Rival the West in AI Chips
Chinese scientists have built a working prototype of an extreme ultraviolet lithography machine in a high-security Shenzhen laboratory, a development that represents exactly what Washington has spent years and multiple rounds of export controls trying to prevent: China’s path toward semiconductor independence and an end to the West’s monopoly o … ⌘ Read more

Asahi Linux Gets Microphone Working For M2 Pro/Max, Eyes Installer Improvements
The Asahi Linux project is out with their latest status report to highlight upstream improvements made for the newly-minted Linux 6.18 kernel as well as some of their efforts going on downstream within Asahi Linux itself… ⌘ Read more

If your very popular project with lots of stars on GitHub is over 10 years old, and you’re still at a pre-1.0 version because you’re using SemVer and a 1.0 would mean making some kind of commitment and that’s somehow not desirable for you, then I think you’re doing something wrong. 🤔

Dual-PCB Linux Computer With 843 Components Designed By AI Boots On First Attempt
Quilter says its AI designed a complex Linux single-board computer in just one week, booting Debian on first power-up. “Holy crap, it’s working,” exclaimed one of the engineers. Tom’s Hardware reports: LA-based startup Quilter has outlined Project Speedrun, which marks a milestone in computer design by AI. The … ⌘ Read more

Utah Leaders Hinder Efforts To Develop Solar Energy Supply
Utah Gov. Spencer Cox signed two bills this year that ended solar development tax credits and imposed a new tax on solar generation despite solar power accounting for two-thirds of the new projects waiting to connect to the state’s power grid. The legislation passed by the Republican-controlled Legislature has already had an impact.

Since May, when the … ⌘ Read more

Racks of AI Chips Are Too Damn Heavy
The weight of AI server racks has reached a point where legacy data centers cannot accommodate them even with significant retrofitting efforts, The Verge reports. Chris Brown, chief technical officer at Uptime Institute, said most retrofitting attempts would require “bulldozing the building and starting over from scratch.”

AI racks are projected to reach 5,000 pounds compared to the 400 to 600 pounds … ⌘ Read more

Tech Giants Can’t Agree On What To Call Their AI-Powered Glasses
The glasses-shaped face computers that tech companies have been building for years now face an identity crisis, and their makers can’t agree on what to call them. Meta has asked a journalist to refer to its Ray-Ban glasses as “AI glasses” to distinguish them from Google Glass. Google, whose Project Aura is a collaboration with Xreal, calls the pro … ⌘ Read more

ZLUDA For CUDA On Non-NVIDIA GPUs Enables AMD ROCm 7 Support
The ZLUDA open-source project that has been through several incarnations but ultimately about getting CUDA software up and running on non-NVIDIA GPUs now supports the AMD ROCm 7 series… ⌘ Read more

Fedora 44 Could Work Nicely “Out Of The Box” On Snapdragon-Powered Windows ARM Laptops
Longtime Red Hat engineer Hans de Goede who worked on many Intel/AMD laptop enhancements over the years left Red Hat and ended up joining Qualcomm. Now it turns out one of his projects at Qualcomm is enhancing the Fedora Linux support for running nicely out-of-the-box on Snapdragon-powered Windows on ARM laptops… ⌘ Read more

CEOS Plan to Spend More on AI in 2026 - Despite Spotty Returns
The Wall Street Journal reports that 68% of CEOs “plan to spend even more on AI in 2026, according to an annual survey of more than 350 public-company CEOs from advisory firm Teneo.”

And yet “less than half of current AI projects had generated more in returns than they had cost, respondents said.”

They reported the most success using AI in marketing … ⌘ Read more

Trump Ban on Wind Energy Permits ‘Unlawful’, Court Rules
A January order blocking wind energy projects in America has now been vacated by a U.S. judge and declared unlawful, reports the Associated Press:

[Judge Saris of the U.S. district court for the district of Massachusetts] ruled in favor of a coalition of state attorneys general from 17 states and Washington DC, led by Letitia James, New York’s attorney gener … ⌘ Read more

D7VK 1.0 Released For “Production Ready” Direct3D 7 On Vulkan
The D7VK project recently started as the Direct3D 7 API implemented atop the Vulkan API akin to DXVK and VKD3D-Proton with newer versions of Microsoft Direct3D. Today marks the D7VK 1.0 release for this project in now declaring itself “production ready” for Linux gamers… ⌘ 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

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

Rust-Based Project Aims To Provide Modern Thumbnails For Audio/Video Files On GNOME
Since Showtime replaced Totem as the default video player of GNOME, the desktop has lacked thumbnail capabilities for audio and video files. But to address that defect, the Rust-based gst-thumbnailers project has been in development to leverage GStreamer and paired with Rust to provide safe thumbnail generation capabilities for audio and video content… ⌘ Read more

Social Media’s Relentless Shopping Machine Has Created an Army of Debt-Laden Buyers
The influencer economy that Goldman Sachs projects will reach nearly half a trillion dollars by 2027 depends on a less-examined population: the influenced, millions of people who find themselves accumulating debt and clutter after years of exposure to what amounts to a 24/7 digital infomercial.

Antoinette Hocb … ⌘ Read more

When will construction begin on the Hobart stadium?
That and other questions answered now that the $1.13 billion stadium project has passed Tasmania’s parliament. ⌘ Read more

AGL latest company to abandon Victorian offshore wind project
Energy giant AGL has become the third company this year to abandon plans to develop an offshore wind farm in Victoria’s east. ⌘ Read more

Chevron’s Gorgon stage 3 backfill development gets $3b go-ahead
The works will connect gas fields in the Greater Gorgon Area to existing infrastructure on Barrow Island. ⌘ Read more

The XMPP Standards Foundation: The XMPP Newsletter November 2025

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XMPP Newsletter Banner

Welcome to the XMPP Newsletter, great to have you here again!
This issue covers the month of November 2025.

The XMPP Newsletter is brought to you by the XSF Communication Team.

Just like any other product or project by the XSF, the Newsletter is th … ⌘ Read more

Queensland government raking in billions as land tax net widens
Thousands more properties have fallen under Queensland’s land tax regime, as the state is projected to raise hundreds of millions in extra revenue each year from the charge. ⌘ Read more

Former Intel Open-Source Project SVT-VP9 Sees First Update In 5 Years
The open-source SVT-VP9 project started by Intel as a high performance VP9 video encoder has seen its first new release in five years… ⌘ Read more

Zlib-rs 0.5.3 Expands AVX-512 Usage For Faster Performance
The Trifecta Tech Foundation today released zlib-rs 0.5.3 as the newest version of this Zlib implementation written in the Rust programming language for better memory safety. Zlib-rs is advertised as “a safer Zlib” for use by both C and Rust projects while delivering competitive performance to the C-based zlib-ng… ⌘ Read more

Live: Hobart’s stadium debate continues, with project unofficially approved
The Hobart stadium is unofficially approved after securing enough yes votes, but the $1.13 billion project is still being scrutinised in the Tasmanian parliament. Follow the debate live. ⌘ Read more

@lyse@lyse.isobeef.org no wonder I picked that cake (albeit coincidentally), I adore almonds, and hazelnuts! Your teammates are absolutely amazing, dude! A very nice project farewell! On leaving places I have a small anecdote.

I know someone who on 3 February 2004 left his job to go elsewhere. At the time his teammates threw a party, and gave him a very nice portable storage. Twenty days later, he returned, and jokingly they asked him for the storage, and money spent on farewell party back. I heard, from a close source, that he gave them his middle finger, but don’t quote me on that. 😂😂😂

@bender@twtxt.net That’s the best one of them. An almonds cake with hazelnut chocolate glaze. The one in front is similar, but with chocolate only. Gingerbread on the right. But it develops the best flavor and consistency only in a few weeks, right now it’s quite hard like a rock, but it will soften up.

All those years I always said that my teammates are THE VERY BEST I ever had. Fuck me, look at that, I didn’t leave the company, just changed projects and this is my farewell present: https://lyse.isobeef.org/tmp/abschiedsgeschenk-2025-12-03.jpg How absolutely beautiful is that, I’m in awe! Now I feel even worse deserting. :‘-(

This emblem is the fleur-de-lis of the world scout movement: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Organization_of_the_Scout_Movement#WOSM_emblem I reckon I must have mentioned casually that I’m a scout. ;-)

When the boss starts talking about my next project during my lunch break ⌘ 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

Hobart’s Macquarie Point stadium project set to pass Tasmanian parliament
A stadium on Hobart’s waterfront has gained enough support to pass parliament, after key independents declared on Wednesday they would support the contentious project. ⌘ Read more

A vote to approve an AFL stadium on Hobart’s waterfront will now pass
A stadium on Hobart’s waterfront has gained enough support to pass parliament, after independents Casey Hiscutt, Bec Thomas and Tania Rattray declared they would support the contentious project. ⌘ Read more

NSW government under fire after 670 trees felled for renewable energy project
The NSW government is being accused of wilfully ignoring warnings about the destruction of hundreds of native trees as part of a renewables project. ⌘ 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

Proton therapy cancer unit debacle leads to $US32m lawsuit
Seven years ago, cancer patients forced to travel overseas for proton therapy were promised an Australian-based service — but the project collapsed last year and is now at the centre of a multi-million-dollar lawsuit. ⌘ 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

Linux 6.19 Merges “klp-build” As New Livepatch Module Generation Solution
Merged as part of the objtool changes for the Linux 6.19 kernel is introducing the “klp-build” script as a new solution to generate livepatch modules using a source .patch file as the input. This klp-build effort was spearheaded by Josh Poimboeuf with ideas learned from the out-of-tree Kpatch project over the past decade… ⌘ Read more

Flag planted for Upper Eyre’s proposed $5 billion desalination plant
The long-awaited decision for a Northern Water project has arrived — but it has come with environmental contention. ⌘ Read more

Woolworths accused of exploiting affordable housing schemes to ram through projects
The retail giant is using development fast-track schemes to push ahead with new supermarket and apartment projects opposed by local councils. ⌘ Read more

AI Is Being Used To Help Modernize The Ubuntu Error Tracker
While some Linux distributions have begun establishing AI policies, we haven’t seen any communicated from the Ubuntu camp yet but will apparently be permitted at least for project infrastructure. AI is being used currently in an effort to help modernize the Ubuntu Error Tracker… ⌘ Read more

Steam Machine, Continued Open-Source Rust Usage & Linux Kernel Happenings In November
It was an eventful past month with Valve announcing the new Steam Machine, a lot of new Linux kernel activity, the continued increase of Rust programming language adoption by open-source projects, a lot of fun hardware benchmarks, and more. There were 283 original news articles on Phoronix the past month about Linux/open-source software and hardware plus another 18 featured Linux hardware reviews / multi-page benchmark articles. … ⌘ Read more

Scores of baby birds displaced by land clearing for renewables project
The NSW government’s flagship renewable energy project has come under fire after trees containing dozens of hatchlings were cut down. ⌘ Read more

Councils in wind farm information race as shift to renewables ramps up
As approvals for multi-billion-dollar projects land on agendas at country local government meetings, staff and elected representatives battle to ensure their communities are prepared to benefit. ⌘ Read more

Sylve Maturing As A FreeBSD Unified Web Management Interface
Ahead of the FreeBSD 15.0 stable release expected to be announced next week, the FreeBSD project today published their Q3-2025 status report to outline their various development accomplishments from July through September… ⌘ Read more

Hundreds of Free Software Supporters Tuned in For ‘FSF40’ Hackathon
The Free Software Foundation describes how “After months of preparation and excitement, we finally came together on November 21 for a global online hackathon to support free software projects and “put a spotlight on the difficult and often thankless work that free software hackers carry out…”

Based on how many of you dropped in over the wee … ⌘ Read more