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What is the Linux Installation Project?
Real companies using Linux!
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- Debian 11 imagemagick Multiple Critical Vulnerabilities Fixed DLA-4497-1
Multiple security vulnerabilities were discovered in imagemagick, a software suite used for editing and manipulating digital images, which could lead to information leaks, bypass of security policies, denial of service or arbitrary code execution. For Debian 11 bullseye, these problems have been fixed in version
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- TI Debuts MSPM0G5187 and AM13Ex Edge AI Microcontrollers with TinyEngine NPU
Texas Instruments has introduced two new microcontroller families aimed at bringing artificial intelligence processing to low-power embedded systems. The MSPM0G5187 and AM13Ex devices integrate TI’s TinyEngine NPU, a hardware accelerator designed to improve the efficiency of neural network inference on microcontrollers. The MSPM0G5187 is based on an Arm Cortex-M0+ CPU running up to 80 MHz […]
- Exclusive Preview Of System76's Completely Redesigned Thelio Desktop
It has been eight years already since System76 announced Thelio as their own built-in-the-USA, custom-engineered cases for desktops and workstations. System76 Thelio is an open hardware design and built exceptionally well out of their facilities in Colorado. System76 Thelio has served them well for their range of desktop systems over the years from ARM64 developer workstations to high-end AMD Linux systems. Now though they are preparing to introduce their next-generation Thelio design. Ahead of the announcement next week, here is an exclusive first look at the next-gen Thelio hardware.
- AMD Ryzen AI NPUs Are Finally Useful Under Linux For Running LLMs
Over the past two years AMD has developed the AMDXDNA accelerator driver in the mainline Linux kernel for supporting the AMD Ryzen AI NPUs. But when it comes to user-space software on Linux actually able to leave the Ryzen AI NPUs it's been... extremely limited with nothing really useful besides some niche bits of code. Even AMD's own software like their GAIA on Linux has used Vulkan with their iGPUs rather than any NPU support. But finally today there is a significant shift with the Ryzen AI NPUs becoming useful on Linux and able to handle LLMs...
- Ubuntu 26.04 With GNOME 50 Offering Some Performance Benefits For NVIDIA Linux Gaming
With GNOME 50 that is being used by default with the upcoming Ubuntu 26.04 LTS release, you may be curious about the out-of-the-box performance especially compared to prior Ubuntu Linux releases -- especially with Mutter 50 having some NVIDIA optimizations. In today's article is a first look at how the NVIDIA Linux gaming performance on Ubuntu 26.04 is looking compared to the current Ubuntu 25.10 release.
- How to rebase to Fedora Silverblue 44 Beta
Silverblue is an operating system for your desktop built on Fedora Linux. It’s excellent for daily use, development, and container-based workflows. It offers numerous advantages such as being able to roll back in case of any problems. This article provides the steps to rebase to the newly released Fedora Linux 44 Beta, and how to revert if anything unforeseen […]
- Gateworks GW16168 M.2 AI accelerator features NXP Ara240 DNPU with up to 40 eTOPS
Gateworks has introduced the GW16168, an M.2 AI acceleration card designed to add dedicated neural network processing to embedded and industrial systems. The module integrates NXP’s Ara240 discrete neural processing unit (DNPU) and is designed, tested, and assembled in the United States for industrial edge AI deployments. The GW16168 uses NXP’s Ara240 DNPU to deliver […]
- Linux's KVM Virtualization Preparing For Intel Advanced Performance Extensions (APX)
Intel's Advanced Performance Extensions (APX) debuting with Nova Lake and Diamond Rapids is ready with Linux 6.16+ and recent open-source compilers. One piece of the support puzzle still coming together though that will be especially important for Xeon Diamond Rapids is the KVM virtualization support. New patches there were posted this week...
- FSF Hiring New Manager For Leading Their Hardware Certification Program
The Free Software Foundation is hiring a new engineering and certification manager for leading the Respect Your Freedom "RYF" hardware certification program. The FSF RYF program is about certifying hardware that respects the user's freedom and privacy for control over the device, such as no proprietary firmware blobs needed to be loaded at run-time, no digital rights management / digital restrictions, and complies with their other free software ideals...
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- Only Half of Americans Went To a Movie Theater In 2025, Study Finds
A Pew Research Center survey found that only 53% of U.S. adults went to a movie theater in the past year, while 7% said they've never seen a movie in a theater at all. "The findings reflected a domestic box office still fighting to regain its footing since the COVID-19 pandemic, when ticket sales collapsed 81% in 2020 due to theater closures," reports Variety. From the report: In 2025, moviegoers in the U.S. and Canada bought 769.2 million tickets, less than half of the all-time peak of roughly 1.6 billion tickets sold in 2002, according to data from Nash Information Services. However, an August 2025 study field by NRG/National Research Group showed that 77% of Americans ages 12-74 went to see at least one movie in a theater in the previous 12 months. Box office revenue peaked at an inflation-adjusted $16.4 billion in 2002, and annual ticket revenue held relatively steady through the 2000s and 2010s before falling to under $3 billion in 2020 when theaters closed for months. Last year, U.S. theaters sold just over $9 billion worth of tickets, per media analytics firm Comscore. The number represents a recovery, but nowhere near a full one, as ticket sales have been lagging around 20% below pre-pandemic levels.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- GFiber and Astound Broadband To Join Forces
GFiber (a.k.a. Google Fiber) and Astound Broadband announced that they plan to merge into a deal backed by infrastructure investor Stonepeak Infrastructure Partners. The resulting company will be majority owned by Stonepeak, with Alphabet becoming a "significant minority shareholder." Light Reading reports: Stonepeak Infrastructure Partners teamed with Patriot Media to acquire Astound in November 2020 for $8.1 billion. Stonepeak is Astound's largest investor. The deal is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2026. The combined business will be led by the existing GFiber executive team. GFiber is currently led by CEO Dinni Jain. Jain, a former Time Warner Cable and Insight Communications exec, took the helm of what was then called Google Fiber in 2018. "This agreement advances GFiber's mission of redefining internet connectivity and represents a major step toward its goal of operational and financial independence," the companies said. "GFiber will have the external capital and strategic focus needed to accelerate its next phase of growth, expanding its customer-first approach and pioneering fiber technology across the country." GFiber's combination with Astound represents "a strategic opportunity to scale our customer-focused approach to connect more households to a truly different type of internet service," Jain said in a statement.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- Why Falling Cats Always Seem To Land On Their Feet
An anonymous reader quotes a report from the New York Times: In a paper, published last month in the journal The Anatomical Record, researchers offered a novel take on falling felines. Their evidence suggests new insights into the so-called falling cat problem, particularly that cats have a very flexible segment of their spines that allows them to correct their orientation midair. [...] People have been curious about falling cats perhaps as long as the animals have been living with humans, but the method to their acrobatic abilities remains enigmatic. Part of the difficulty is that the anatomy of the cat has not been studied in detail, explains Yasuo Higurashi, a physiologist at Yamaguchi University in Japan and lead author of the study. [...] Modern research has split the falling cat problem into two competing models. The first, "legs in, legs out," suggests that cats correct their falling trajectory by first extending their hind limbs before retracting them, using a sequential twist of their upper and then lower trunk to gain the proper posture while in free fall. The second model, "tuck and turn," suggests that cats turn their upper and lower bodies in simultaneous juxtaposed movements. [...] The researchers found that the feline spine was extremely flexible in the upper thoracic vertebrae, but stiffer and heavier in the lower lumbar vertebrae. The discovery matches video evidence showing the cats first turn their front legs, and then their lower legs. The results suggest the cat quickly spins its flexible upper torso to face the ground, allowing it to see so that it can correctly twist the rest of its body to match. "The thoracic spine of the cat can rotate like our neck," Dr. Higurashi said. Experiments on the spine show the upper vertebrae can twist an astounding 360 degrees, he says, which helps cats make these correcting movements with ease. The results are consistent with the "legs in, legs out" model, but definitively determining which model is correct will take more work, Dr. Higurashi says. The results also yielded another discovery: Cats, like many animals, appear to have a right-side bias. One of the dropped cats corrected itself by turning to the right eight out of eight times, while the other turned right six out of eight times.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- Researchers Discover 14,000 Routers Wrangled Into Never-Before-Seen Botnet
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Researchers say they have uncovered a takedown-resistant botnet of 14,000 routers and other network devices -- primarily made by Asus -- that have been conscripted into a proxy network that anonymously carries traffic used for cybercrime. The malware -- dubbed KadNap -- takes hold by exploiting vulnerabilities that have gone unpatched by their owners, Chris Formosa, a researcher at security firm Lumen's Black Lotus Labs, told Ars. The high concentration of Asus routers is likely due to botnet operators acquiring a reliable exploit for vulnerabilities affecting those models. He said it's unlikely that the attackers are using any zero-days in the operation. The number of infected routers averages about 14,000 per day, up from 10,000 last August, when Black Lotus discovered the botnet. Compromised devices are overwhelmingly located in the US, with smaller populations in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Russia. One of the most salient features of KadNap is a sophisticated peer-to-peer design based on Kademlia (PDF), a network structure that uses distributed hash tables to conceal the IP addresses of command-and-control servers. The design makes the botnet resistant to detection and takedowns through traditional methods. [...] Despite the resistance to normal takedown methods, Black Lotus says it has devised a means to block all network traffic to or from the control infrastructure." The lab is also distributing the indicators of compromise to public feeds to help other parties block access. [...] People who are concerned their devices are infected can check this page for IP addresses and a file hash found in device logs. To disinfect devices, they must be factory reset. Because KadNap stores a shell script that runs when an infected router reboots, simply restarting the device will result in it being compromised all over again. Device owners should also ensure all available firmware updates have been installed, that administrative passwords are strong, and that remote access has been disabled unless needed.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- Microsoft's 'Xbox Mode' Is Coming To Every Windows 11 PC
In April, Microsoft will be rolling out a full-screen "Xbox mode" to all Windows 11 PCs, including laptops, desktops, and tablets. The move follows last week's confirmation of its next-generation Xbox console, known internally as Project Helix, which will be capable of running both Xbox titles and PC games. The Verge reports: Technically, you've been able to try the Xbox Full Screen Experience (FSE) in preview since November 2025, if you were part of both the Windows Insider and Xbox Insider Programs. But it needed work, as well as a better name. When Microsoft originally shipped it on the Asus-designed Xbox Ally and Xbox Ally X handhelds, we were clear: it didn't meaningfully turn a PC experience into an easy-to-use Xbox one. But if Microsoft is putting its full weight behind PC as the future of Xbox gaming, perhaps that will change change.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- Grammarly Disables Tool Offering Generative-AI Feedback Credited To Real Writers
Grammarly has disabled its Expert Review feature after backlash from writers whose names were used to present AI-generated feedback without their permission. Superhuman (formerly Grammarly) CEO Shishir Mehrotra wrote in a LinkedIn post that the company will disable Expert Review while they "reimagine" the feature: Back in August, we launched a Grammarly agent called Expert Review. The agent draws on publicly available information from third-party LLMs to surface writing suggestions inspired by the published work of influential voices. Over the past week, we received valid critical feedback from experts who are concerned that the agent misrepresented their voices. This kind of scrutiny improves our products, and we take it seriously. As context, the agent was designed to help users discover influential perspectives and scholarship relevant to their work, while also providing meaningful ways for experts to build deeper relationships with their fans. We hear the feedback and recognize we fell short on this. I want to apologize and acknowledge that we'll rethink our approach going forward. After careful consideration, we have decided to disable Expert Review while we reimagine the feature to make it more useful for users, while giving experts real control over how they want to be represented -- or not represented at all. We deeply believe in our mission to solve the "last mile of AI" by bringing AI directly to where people work, and we see this as a significant opportunity for experts. For millions of users, Grammarly is a trusted writing sidekick -- ever-present in every application, ready to help. We're opening up this platform so anyone can build agents that work like Grammarly -- expanding from one sidekick to a whole team. Imagine your professor sharpening your essay, your sales leader reshaping a customer pitch, a thoughtful critic challenging your arguments, or a leading expert elevating your proposal. For experts, this is a chance to build that same ubiquitous bond with users, much like Grammarly has. But in this world, experts choose to participate, shape how their knowledge is represented, and control their business model. That future excites me, and I hope to build it with experts who want to develop it alongside us.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- Swiss E-Voting Pilot Can't Count 2,048 Ballots After USB Keys Fail To Decrypt Them
A Swiss e-voting pilot was suspended after officials couldn't decrypt 2,048 ballots because the USB keys needed to unlock them failed. "Three USB sticks were used, all with the correct code, but none of them worked," spokesperson Marco Greiner told the Swiss Broadcasting Corporation's Swissinfo service. The canton government says it "deeply regrets" the incident and has launched an investigation with authorities. The Register reports: Basel-Stadt announced the problem with its e-voting pilot, open to about 10,300 locals living abroad and 30 people with disabilities, last Friday afternoon. It encouraged participants to deliver a paper vote to the town hall or use a polling station but admitted this would not be possible for many. By the close of polling on Sunday, its e-voting system had collected 2,048 votes, but Basel-Stadt officials were not able to decrypt them with the hardware provided, despite the involvement of IT experts. [...] The votes made up less than 4 percent of those cast in Basel-Stadt and would not have changed any results, but the canton is delaying confirmation of voting figures until March 21 and suspending its e-voting pilot until the end of December, while its public prosecutor's office has started criminal proceedings. The country's Federal Chancellery said e-voting in three other cantons -- Thurgau, Graubunden, and St Gallen -- along with the nationally used Swiss Post e-voting system, had not been affected.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- Binance Sues WSJ, Panicked By Gov't Probes Into Sanctioned Crypto Transfers
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Binance is hoping that suing (PDF) The Wall Street Journal for defamation might help shake off a fresh round of government probes into how the cryptocurrency exchange failed to detect $1.7 billion in transfers to a network that was funding Iran-backed terror groups. The lawsuit comes after a Wall Street Journal investigation, based on conversations with insiders and reviews of internal documents, reported that Binance had quietly dismantled its own investigation into the unlawful transfers and then fired compliance staff who initially flagged them. Alleging that the report falsely accused Binance of retaliation -- among 10 other allegedly false claims -- Binance accused the Journal of conducting a "sham" investigation that intentionally disregarded the company's statements. That included supposedly failing to note that Binance had not closed its investigation into the unlawful transfers. Binance's role in the large-scale violation of US sanctions laws is currently being investigated by the Justice and Treasury Departments. Congress members also took notice, including Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), ranking member of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations (PSI), who launched an additional inquiry. In a letter to Binance CEO Richard Teng, Blumenthal cited the Journal's report, as well as reporting from The New York Times and Fortune, while demanding that Binance explain how it managed to overlook the money-laundering for so long and why compliance staff members were fired. In its complaint Wednesday, Binance claimed that these probes may "be just the tip of the iceberg" if the record is not corrected. The reputational harm is particularly damaging, the exchange noted, since Binance has allegedly worked hard to strengthen its compliance after reaching a settlement with the US government in 2023. In taking that plea deal, Binance admitted to violating anti-money laundering and sanctions laws and paid a $4.3 billion fine, and its founder, Changpeng Zhao, eventually pled guilty to a related charge. Since that scandal, Binance claimed that the WSJ has "made a business of maligning both the cryptocurrency industry generally and Binance specifically." That's why the Journal allegedly rushed to publish its story following a similar New York Times investigation. Alleging that the WSJ was financially motivated to publish a negative story that would get more clicks, Binance claimed the Journal provided little time to respond and then failed to make necessary corrections before and after publication.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- Nvidia Is Planning to Launch Its Own Open-Source OpenClaw Competitor
Nvidia is preparing to launch an open-source AI agent platform called NemoClaw, designed to compete with the likes of OpenClaw. According to Wired, the platform will allow enterprise software companies to dispatch AI agents to perform tasks for their own workforces. "Companies will be able to access the platform regardless of whether their products run on Nvidia's chips," the report adds. From the report: The move comes as Nvidia prepares for its annual developer conference in San Jose next week. Ahead of the conference, Nvidia has reached out to companies including Salesforce, Cisco, Google, Adobe, and CrowdStrike to forge partnerships for the agent platform. It's unclear whether these conversations have resulted in official partnerships. Since the platform is open source, it's likely that partners would get free, early access in exchange for contributing to the project, sources say. Nvidia plans to offer security and privacy tools as part of this new open-source agent platform. [...] For Nvidia, NemoClaw appears to be part of an effort to court enterprise software companies by offering additional layers of security for AI agents. It's also another step in the company's embrace of open-source AI models, part of a broader strategy to maintain its dominance in AI infrastructure at a time when leading AI labs are building their own custom chips. Nvidia's software strategy until now has been heavily reliant on its CUDA platform, a famously proprietary system that locks developers into building software for Nvidia's GPUs and has created a crucial "moat" for the company.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- YouTube Expands AI Deepfake Detection To Politicians, Government Officials, and Journalists
YouTube is expanding its AI deepfake detection tools to a pilot group of politicians, government officials, and journalists, allowing them to identify and request removal of unauthorized AI-generated videos impersonating them. TechCrunch reports: The technology itself launched last year to roughly 4 million YouTube creators in the YouTube Partner Program, following earlier tests. Similar to YouTube's existing Content ID system, which detects copyright-protected material in users' uploaded videos, the likeness detection feature looks for simulated faces made with AI tools. These tools are sometimes used to try to spread misinformation and manipulate people's perception of reality, as they leverage the deepfaked personas of notable figures -- like politicians or other government officials -- to say and do things in these AI videos that they didn't in real life. With the new pilot program, YouTube aims to balance users' free expression with the risks associated with AI technology that can generate a convincing likeness of a public figure. [...] [Leslie Miller, YouTube's vice president of Government Affairs and Public Policy] explained that not all of the detected matches would be removed when requested. Instead, YouTube would evaluate each request under its existing privacy policy guidelines to determine whether the content is parody or political critique, which are protected forms of free expression. The company noted it's advocating for these protections at a federal level, too, with its support for the NO FAKES Act in D.C., which would regulate the use of AI to create unauthorized recreations of an individual's voice and visual likeness. To use the new tool, eligible pilot testers must first prove their identity by uploading a selfie and a government ID. They can then create a profile, view the matches that show up, and optionally request their removal. YouTube says it plans to eventually give people the ability to prevent uploads of violating content before they go live or, possibly, allow them to monetize those videos, similar to how its Content ID system works. The company would not confirm which politicians or officials would be among its initial testers, but said the goal is to make the technology broadly available over time.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- China Moves To Curb OpenClaw AI Use At Banks, State Agencies
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: Chinese authorities moved to restrict state-run enterprises and government agencies from running OpenClaw AI apps on office computers, acting swiftly to defuse potential security risks after companies and consumers across China began experimenting with the agentic AI phenomenon. Government agencies and state-owned enterprises, including the largest banks, have received notices in recent days warning them against installing OpenClaw software on office devices for security reasons [...]. Several of them were instructed to notify superiors if they had already installed related apps for security checks and possible removal, some of the people said. Certain employees, including those at state-run banks and some government agencies, were banned from installing OpenClaw on office computers and also personal phones using the company's network, some of the people said. One person said the ban was also extended to the families of military personnel. Other notices stopped short of calling for an outright ban on OpenClaw software, saying only that prior approval is needed before use, the people said. The warning underscores Beijing's growing concern about OpenClaw, an agentic AI platform that requires unusually broad access to private data and can communicate externally, potentially exposing computers to external attack. [...] Despite the potential security risks, companies from Tencent to JD.com Inc. have been rolling out OpenClaw apps to try and capitalize on the groundswell of enthusiasm, while several local government agencies have declared millions of yuan in subsidies for companies that develop atop the platform. [...] Tech giants like Tencent and Alibaba, along with AI upstarts ranging from Moonshot to MiniMax, have rolled out their own tweaks of the software touting simple, one-click adoption. A slew of government agencies, in cities from Shenzhen to Wuxi, have issued notices offering multimillion-yuan subsidies to startups leveraging OpenClaw to make advances. The frenzy has helped drive up shares of AI model developer MiniMax nearly 640% since its listing just two months ago. It's now worth about $49 billion, surpassing Baidu -- once viewed as the frontrunner in Chinese AI development -- in market value. The company launched MaxClaw, an agent built on OpenClaw, in late February.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- ASUS Executive Says MacBook Neo is 'Shock' to PC Industry
ASUS says the MacBook Neo is a "shock" to the Windows PC ecosystem. "In the past, Apple's pricing situation has always been high, so for them to release a very budget-friendly product, this is obviously a shock to the entire industry," said ASUS co-CEO S.Y. Hsu in a Tuesday earnings call. While he expects PC makers to respond, rising AI-driven memory shortages could push hardware prices higher across the industry. PCMag reports: Hsu said he believes all the PC players -- including Microsoft, Intel, and AMD -- take the MacBook Neo threat seriously. "In fact, in the entire PC ecosystem, there have been a lot of discussions about how to compete with this product," he added, given that rumors about the MacBook Neo have been making the rounds for at least a year. Despite the competitive threat, Hsu argued that the MacBook Neo could have limited appeal. He pointed to the laptop's 8GB of "unified memory," or what amounts to its RAM, and how customers can't upgrade it. He also described the MacBook Neo as a "content consumption" device, similar to an iPad. "This is different from the use case of a mainstream notebook," which can handle more compute-intensive tasks, Hsu said. "How big of an impact [the MacBook Neo] will have on the PC industry will still require some time for us to observe," Hsu said while suggesting it might not gain traction among Windows PC users due to software differences. "Of course, the entire Windows PC ecosystem will push out products to compete against Apple," he added.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- Meta To Charge Advertisers a Fee To Offset Europe's Digital Taxes
Meta will begin charging advertisers a 2-5% "location fee" to offset digital services taxes imposed by several European countries, including the UK, France, Italy, Spain, Austria, and Turkey. Reuters reports: The fee, for image or video ads delivered on Meta platforms including WhatsApp click-to-message campaigns and marketing messages together with ads, will apply from July 1 and will also cover other government-imposed levies. "Until now, Meta has covered these additional costs. These changes are part of Meta's ongoing effort to respond to the evolving regulatory landscape and align with industry standards," the company said in the blog. The location fees are determined by where the audience is located and not the advertisers' business location. Meta listed six countries where the fees will apply, ranging from 2% in the United Kingdom to 3% in France, Italy and Spain and 5% in Austria and Turkey.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- Yann LeCun Raises $1 Billion To Build AI That Understands the Physical World
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Wired: Advanced Machine Intelligence (AMI), a new Paris-based startup cofounded by Meta's former chief AI scientist Yann LeCun, announced Monday it has raised more than $1 billion to develop AI world models. LeCun argues that most human reasoning is grounded in the physical world, not language, and that AI world models are necessary to develop true human-level intelligence. "The idea that you're going to extend the capabilities of LLMs [large language models] to the point that they're going to have human-level intelligence is complete nonsense," he said in an interview with WIRED. The financing, which values the startup at $3.5 billion, was co-led by investors such as Cathay Innovation, Greycroft, Hiro Capital, HV Capital, and Bezos Expeditions. Other notable backers include Mark Cuban, former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, and French billionaire and telecommunications executive Xavier Niel. AMI (pronounced like the French word for friend) aims to build "a new breed of AI systems that understand the world, have persistent memory, can reason and plan, and are controllable and safe," the company says in a press release. The startup says it will be global from day one, with offices in Paris, Montreal, Singapore, and New York, where LeCun will continue working as a New York University professor in addition to leading the startup. AMI will be the first commercial endeavor for LeCun since his departure from Meta in November 2025. [...] LeCun says AMI aims to work with companies in manufacturing, biomedical, robotics, and other industries that have lots of data. For example, he says AMI could build a realistic world model of an aircraft engine and work with the manufacturer to help them optimize for efficiency, minimize emissions, or ensure reliability. LeCun says AMI will release its first AI models quickly, but he's not expecting most people to take notice. The company will first work with partners such as Toyota and Samsung, and then will learn how to apply its technology more broadly. Eventually, he says, AMI intends to develop a "universal world model," which would be the basis for a generally intelligent system that could help companies regardless of what industry they work in. "It's very ambitious," he says with a smile.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- Valve Faces Second, Class-Action Lawsuit Over Loot Boxes
Valve is facing a new consumer class-action lawsuit two weeks after New York sued the video game company for "letting children and adults illegally gamble" with loot boxes. The new lawsuit is similar, alleging that loot boxes in games like Counter-Strike 2, Dota 2, and Team Fortress 2 are "carefully engineered to extract money from consumers, including children, through deceptive, casino-style psychological tactics." "We believe Valve deliberately engineered its gambling platform and profited enormously from it," Steve Berman, founder and managing partner at law firm Hagens Berman, said in a press release. "Consumers played these games for entertainment, unaware that Valve had allegedly already stacked the odds against them. We intend to hold Valve accountable and put money back in the pockets of consumers." PC Gamer reports: The system is well known to anyone who's played a Valve multiplayer game: Earn a locked loot box by playing, pay $2.50 for a key, unlock it, get a digital doohickey that's sometimes worth hundreds or even thousands of dollars but far more often is worth just a few pennies. Is that gambling? If these cases go to court, we'll find out. The full complaint points out that the unlocking process is even designed to look like a slot machine: "Images of possible items scroll across the screen, spinning fast at first, then slowing to a stop on the player's 'prize.' Players buy and open loot boxes for the same reason people play slot machines -- the hope of a valuable payout." Loot boxes, the complaint continues, are not "incidental features" of Valve's games, but rather "a deliberate, carefully engineered revenue model." So too is the Steam Community Market, and Steam itself, which the suit claims is "deliberately designed" to enable the sale of digital items on third-party marketplaces through "trade URLs," despite Valve's terms of service prohibiting off-platform sales. And while the debate over whether loot boxes constitute a form of gambling continues to rage, the suit claims Valve's system does indeed qualify under Washington law, which defines gambling as "staking or risking something of value upon the outcome of a contest of chance or a future contingent event not under the person's control or influence." "Valve's loot boxes satisfy every element of this definition," the lawsuit alleges. "Users stake money (the price of a key) on the outcome of a contest of chance (the random selection of a virtual item), and the items received are 'things of value' under RCW 9.46.0285 because they can be sold for real money through Valve's own marketplace and through third-party marketplaces that Valve has fostered and facilitated."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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- Smart mirror shows dumb Windows in elevator
All aboard the elevator where only Microsoft knows where you're going
Bork!Bork!Bork! Smart mirrors are all the rage. However, rather than a list of headlines and tasks to do today, an unhappy Windows installation can make a smart mirror seem very dumb indeed.…
- So much for power to the people – AI datacenters could jump UK grid queue
Plan to fast-track bit barn connections leaves housing developers fuming and billpayers on the hook
The British government is consulting on reforms to prioritize "strategically important" grid connections – including datacenters – amid reports of delays stretching more than a decade on some projects.…
- Microsoft adding Xbox mode to Windows 11
Out of the Copilot and into the fire
Organizations that rely on consumer-grade PCs or allow staff to bring their own devices to work have something new to worry about: a virtual Xbox lurking inside Windows 11.…
- China’s CERT warns OpenClaw can inflict nasty wounds
Like deleting data, exposing keys, and loading malicious content - which may be why Beijing has reportedly banned it
China’s National Computer Network Emergency Response Technical Team has warned locals that the OpenClaw agentic AI tool poses significant security risks.…
- Atlassian to shed ten percent of staff, because AI
Company is ‘reshaping our skill mix’ amid long share price slide and SaaSpocalypse whispers
Australian collaborationware company Atlassian has announced it will shed ten percent of staff – around 1,600 people.…
- Perplexity Comet hurtling toward Amazon ban
Court issues preliminary injunction but delays it to allow an appeal
Perplexity's AI browser Comet has been banned from accessing Amazon's website after the e-commerce giant obtained a court-ordered preliminary injunction.…
- Iran plots 'infrastructure warfare' against US tech giants
State news published a list of nearly 30 sites that could be targeted
Iran has reportedly designated Amazon, Google, IBM, Microsoft, Nvidia, Oracle, and Palantir facilities as legitimate targets of retaliatory strikes, according to an Al Jazeera report citing Iran’s state-affiliated Tasnim news agency.…
- Iran-linked cyber crew says they hit US med-tech firm
Meanwhile, Verifone says 'no evidence' to support the digital intruders' claims
A hacking crew with ties to Iran's intelligence agency claimed to be behind a global network outage at med-tech firm Stryker on Wednesday, and said the cyberattack was in response to the US-Israel airstrikes.…
- Most chatbots will help plan school shootings and other violence, study shows
I see you're trying to kill children. Would you like some help with that?
You might expect a bot to have guardrails that prevent it from helping you plan a crime, but your expectations might be too high. According to a study, eight of ten major commercial chatbots will help you prepare to conduct a school shooting.…
- NASA watchdog report pokes holes in Artemis lunar lander plans
Inspector general flags Starship risks and gaps in testing
The NASA Office of Inspector General has published a report on the agency's management of the lunar Human Landing System (HLS) contracts, highlighting the risks and arguments behind the scenes.…
- Your datacenter's power architecture called. It's not happy
AI factories demand 800 volts because physics doesn't care about your upgrade budget
Feature Hyperscale computing was built on a foundation of certainty. For years, 12V and 48V rack architectures – implemented at a steady 50–54 VDC (Volts of Direct Current) - ruled the datacenter floor, engineered to perfection for power densities of 10–15 kW per rack. These systems were finely tuned machines, optimized around the predictable, steady-state demands of general-purpose CPUs and storage servers. The infrastructure was stable. The math was settled.…
- Watchdog clears £142M Post Office subsidy for Horizon fallout and IR35 bill
CMA advisers say extra support justified as remediation costs and tax liability mount
The UK's competition regulator has given a conditional thumbs-up to a request for £141.8 million in subsidies to the Post Office – a publicly owned company – to cover its costs in compensation for the Horizon IT scandal in the coming year and a tax liability.…
- Oracle says AI coding tools are helping it dodge the SaaSpocalypse
Big Red reckons paying for datacenters is easy when you have half a trillion dollars of cloud orders on the books
Oracle says AI code generation tools have become so efficient, and it is so good at using them, that it will dodge the SaaSpocalypse and watch smaller rivals suffer.…
- Amazon insists AI coding isn't source of outages
E-souk disputes report linking 'Gen-AI assisted changes' to recent high-impact incidents
Amazon's weekly operations meeting today reportedly focused on recent service outages and on the role that code changes attributed to generative AI may have played. However, the company is downplaying the possibility of problems with AI.…
- AI nonsense finds new home as Meta acquires Moltbook
Think it's hard to tell bot from human on Facebook now?
The biggest generator of AI slop on the internet has a new home, as Meta has reportedly acquired Moltbook and hired the team behind the social network for AI agents.…
- AI datacenters may gulp a New York City's worth of water on hot days
Study warns peak cooling demand could strain US water systems by 2030
Public water supplies in America will need billions invested to meet the peak requirements of datacenters during the hottest periods of the year, even if their overall annual consumption is relatively modest.…
- Flying cabs, next-gen aircraft cleared for takeoff in 26 states
FAA launches pilot projects starting this summer
The skies over parts of the US could soon get busier, as the Federal Aviation Administration launches pilot projects spanning 26 states to test electric air taxis and other next-gen aircraft, with operations expected to begin by summer 2026.…
- Ericsson blames vendor vishing slip-up for breach exposing thousands of records
Crooks used simple phone scam to compromise vendor account, spilling personal and financial data belonging to more than 15,000 people
A voice-phishing scam targeting one of Ericsson's service providers has exposed the personal data of more than 15,000 individuals after attackers sweet-talked an employee into handing over access.…
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