|
1825 Monetary Lane Suite #104 Carrollton, TX
Do a presentation at NTLUG.
What is the Linux Installation Project?
Real companies using Linux!
Not just for business anymore.
Providing ready to run platforms on Linux
|
Show Descriptions... (Show All)
(Two Column)
- [$] Kitty chases the mouse
Kitty is a terminalemulator thatruns on Linux, macOS, and the BSDs, which is notable for its speed and featuressuch as image support and advanced font handling. It is under active development; arecent major release adds anew level of mouse support. Here, we will look at some of those featuresand show how the program can also be used as platform fortext-based applications. Kitty is free software, releasedunder the GPLv3.
- Rust 1.97.0 released
Version1.97.0 of the Rust programming language has been released. Changesinclude using a new symbol-mangling scheme by default, support for denyingwarnings in Cargo, and an end to the practice of hiding the linker's outputafter a successful build.
- Security updates for Thursday
Security updates have been issued by AlmaLinux (389-ds-base, aardvark-dns, buildah, compat-openssl10, freeipmi, frr, gnutls, grafana, grafana-pcp, kernel, kernel-rt, libyang, nginx, openexr, pcs, perl-HTTP-Daemon, postgresql:18, python3.14-pip, skopeo, tomcat9, and wireshark), Debian (chromium and pgextwlist), Fedora (openssh, opkssh, perl-CSS-Minifier-XS, python-jiter, python-nh3, python-pendulum, rust-jiter, and upower), Mageia (openvpn and vips), Oracle (389-ds-base, aardvark-dns, compat-openssl10, container-tools:ol8, freeipmi, kernel, libyang, perl-HTTP-Daemon, python3.14-pip, and skopeo), Slackware (libXfont2, proftpd, and xorg-server), SUSE (alloy, apache2, apptainer, assimp, chromium, clamav, docker, docker-compose, dracut, glib-networking, go-sendxmpp, go1.26-openssl, gstreamer-plugins-good, haproxy, hauler, jackson-annotations, jackson-bom, jackson-core, jackson- databind, jackson-dataformats-binary, jackson-modules-base, jackson-parent, kernel, krb5, kubevirt, libslirp, libXfont2, mpv, libkpipewirerecord6, ffmpegthumbs-kf5, netty, netty-tcnative, openqa, os-autoinst, podman, python-maturin, python-msgpack, python313-yt-dlp, radare2, rust-keylime, systemd, systemd, systemd-mini, tomcat11, trivy, xorg-x11-server, and xwayland), and Ubuntu (apache2, clamav, linux-raspi, and mailcap).
- [$] LWN.net Weekly Edition for July 9, 2026
Inside this week's LWN.net Weekly Edition:
Front: Cryptography API; Iomap explanation; Negative dentries; Faster RCUs and lockless allocation for BPF; Negative dentries; LLMs in memory-management code Briefs: Guix vulnerabilities; OpenSSH 10.4; trusted publishing; kernel archive; CalyxOS; Quotes; ... Announcements: Newsletters, conferences, security updates, patches, and more.
- OpenMandriva: Statement regarding attempted distribution sabotage
Over on the OpenMandrivaforum, the Linux distribution has reportedsabotage of its repositories by a disgruntled contributor withadministrative credentials. According to "AngryPenguin", an abusiveincident in a distribution Matrix chat led to a user being kicked out ofthe chat; that "triggered a cascade of events", which led to peopleresigning from the distribution. Eventually, one of those people usedtheir administrative privileges to delete part of the distribution's GitHubrepository and to "publish an empty package in the cookerrepository, which obsoleted all gnome and cosmic packages, which could havedamaged the systems of people using gnome or cosmic".We are currently working to restore the deleted repositories and restorethe functionality of the obsolete packages.
[...] We performed a full system audit and, aside from the removedpackages, we found no other violations.
- [$] Progress in modernizing kernel cryptography
At the 2026 Linux Security Summit North America, Eric Biggers spoke aboutsome of the problems with the kernel's cryptography framework, as wellas the recent progress in adding library APIs to allow developers touse cryptographic functions without using the traditional cryptoAPI. He walked through a couple of examples to demonstrate thefrailty of the original API and showed how the new library API madelife easier for developers and kernel maintainers.
- Security updates for Wednesday
Security updates have been issued by AlmaLinux (container-tools:rhel8, kernel-rt, libreoffice, nodejs:22, nodejs:24, opentelemetry-collector, perl-HTTP-Daemon, and python-markdown), Debian (dpkg, imagemagick, and postfix), Fedora (betterleaks, docker-compose, firefox, helm, perl-Compress-Raw-Bzip2, perl-IO-Compress, perl-JavaScript-Minifier-XS, python-cramjam, python-fastar, python-pillow-jxl-plugin, python-rignore, and tor), Oracle (grafana, grafana-pcp, and ruby:4.0), Slackware (tftp), SUSE (gi-docgen, glibc, helm, helm3, json-c-devel, kubevirt-1.6, librpmbuild10, python313-dulwich, python313-lxml_html_clean, python313-openapi-spec-validator, and sdbootutil), and Ubuntu (ruby-addressable).
- Woodruff: You shouldn't trust trusted publishing
William Woodruff, better known online as "yossarian", has publisheda blog post to make the case that users should not place their trustin trustedpublishing:
Trusted Publishing is a mechanism for establishing trust between anexternal machine identity (like a CI/CD workflow) and one or moreprojects on a package index/registry. The "trust" in "TrustedPublishing" refers to that trust relationship, and not to anythingelse.
It is not, and cannot be, a signal for package trust orquality. You cannot use it to determine whether a package is safe or"good," and PyPI consciously stymies attempts to misuse it for thatpurpose by not rendering it as a "green checkmark" or anything else ofthe sort.
Or as another framing: Trusted Publishing is just a form ofauthentication. It doesn't tell you anything other than that an uploadwas authenticated, which all uploads to PyPI are.
LWN covered trustedpublishing in June.
- [$] Faster RCUs and lockless memory allocation
Puranjay Mohan shared some of thework he's been doing recently on improving theperformance of read-copy-update (RCU) at the 2026LinuxStorage, Filesystem, Memory-Management, and BPF Summit; his talk would havebeen nice context to have earlier in the day when Harry Yoo and AlexeiStarovoitov led a session about thenew kmalloc_nolock() function thatallows for lockless allocation from any kernel context, and which interacts withthe RCU subsystem to allow that. This article therefore covers the two sessionstogether and in the reverse order, to provide that missing context.
- Security updates for Tuesday
Security updates have been issued by AlmaLinux (nodejs22 and nodejs24), Fedora (clamav, hplip, kernel, kernel-headers, librabbitmq, mingw-expat, mir, perl-Imager, podman-tui, prometheus-podman-exporter, python-rpds-py, rust-ashpd, rust-busd, rust-gtk4-macros, rust-inferno, rust-quick-xml, rust-reqsign-aws-v4, rust-wayland-scanner, and sandogasa), Oracle (container-tools:rhel8, kernel, mariadb:10.11, mariadb:11.8, nginx, perl:5.32, php, php:7.4, rrdtool, ruby:2.5, ruby:3.3, ruby:4.0, and uek-kernel), Red Hat (kernel, opentelemetry-collector, and python-urllib3), Slackware (c-ares and openssh), SUSE (bind, chromedriver, cryptsetup, s390-tools, dnsmasq, jackson-annotations, jackson-core, jackson-databind, lcms2, pacemaker, perl-Cpanel-JSON-XS, perl-Crypt-SaltedHash, postfix, and python-mistune), and Ubuntu (gnutls28, gzip, openssh, php7.0, python-parsl, python3.10, python3.12, python3.14, request-tracker5, socat, sogo, and tar).
- OpenSSH 10.4 released
OpenSSH 10.4 has been released. In addition to a number of securityand bug fixes, there are a few notable changes; this release addsexperimental support for a composite post-quantum signature schemecombining ML-DSA 44 and Ed25519 as described in thisIETF draft. With 10.4, if OpenSSH is compiled with sandbox supportit will fail on Linux systems that have not enabled SECCOMPor NO_NEW_PRIVS; prior to this release, sshd would log an errorbut continue operation. See the release notes fora full list of changes.
- [$] The kernel's iomap layer
Conversations about the kernel's filesystem implementations often involve alayer called "iomap", but relatively few people can reliably say what iomapactually is. That is just the kind of gap that LWN exists to fill. Inshort, iomap handles the mapping between data in the filesystem space(identified by a file of interest, and an offset within that file) and inthe storage space (which may be a memory location, or a set of blocks on astorage device). Using that mapping, iomap handles a long list of common,filesystem-related tasks, allowing a lot of boilerplate code to be removedfrom individual filesystem implementations.
- Security updates for Monday
Security updates have been issued by AlmaLinux (container-tools:rhel8, grafana, grafana-pcp, kernel, ruby:2.5, and ruby:3.3), Debian (bird3, chromium, kernel, linux-6.1, mediawiki, nginx, openvpn, php-phpseclib, php8.2, php8.4, and sympa), Fedora (7zip, buildah, chromium, clamav, freerdp, leptonica, mariadb10.11, mariadb11.8, nextcloud, nsd, openqa, openvpn, os-autoinst, pdns, pdns-recursor, perl-Crypt-ScryptKDF, podman, python-jupyter-server, and python-streamlink), Mageia (mariadb and yt-dlp), Slackware (libevent, libseccomp, mozilla, mutt, and php82), SUSE (apache2, containerd, dnsmasq, docker, dracut, firewalld-legacy, gimp, glibc, golang-github-docker-libnetwork, google-guest-agent, gstreamer-plugins-bad, helm, kernel, kernel-devel, keybase-client, kitty, krb5, libarchive, libnfs, libslirp, nilfs-utils, openCryptoki, openQA, openssl-3, pacemaker, pcr-oracle, perl-DBI, perl-List-SomeUtils-XS, podman, python-pip, python-pydata-sphinx-theme, python-tornado6, python3-lxml, python311-mistune, python313-joserfc, rmt-server, sg3_utils, systemd, tracker-miners, and xdg-dbus-proxy), and Ubuntu (cifs-utils, linux-nvidia, linux-nvidia-6.17, linux-raspi-realtime, and ncurses).
- Kernel prepatch 7.2-rc2
The 7.2-rc2 kernel prepatch is out fortesting. Linus said: "It's Sunday afternoon, and rc2 is out. Thingslook very normal - it's not a small rc2, but it's in line with recentreleases, and slightly smaller than rc2 was in 7.1. Let's see how that allcontinues, but so far so good."
- Seven stable kernels for Saturday including two security fixes
Greg Kroah-Hartman has announced the release of the 7.1.3, 6.18.38, 6.12.95, 6.6.144, 6.1.177, 5.15.211, and 5.10.260 stable kernels. Several kernelsin this batch include afix for a vulnerability introduced in the 6.0 kernel in IPv6 (CVE-2026-53362),which couldallow an attacker to escape a container and gain root access.
There is also afix for a use-after-free bug in KVM (CVE-2026-53359)that was introduced in the 2.6.36 kernel. As usual, each stable kernel includesa number of fixes throughout the tree. Users are advised toupgrade.
- Proposed Linux Patch For A Brief Delay To Match PCI Spec Will Hopefully Address Some Bugs
Going back to February there was a bug report around the xHCI controller dieing on resume from s2idle when using an AMD Ryzen AI Max+ "Strix Halo" Framework Desktop. In turn all USB devices behind the xHCI controller are lost on resume, but unbinding and binding the driver can restore the functionality without a reboot. After months of back and forth communication, it looks like a solution has been figured out and comes down to a nuance of the PCI spec with needing a brief wait...
- GL.iNet Comet X Quad-Port Remote KVM with PoE and 4K HDMI
GL.iNet’s Comet X is a quad-port remote KVM designed for centralized management of up to four servers or PCs. The device features browser- or app-based remote access, Power over Ethernet, 4K HDMI passthrough, local console access, and onboard storage for system images or recovery files. The Comet X, model GL-RM4PE, is powered by a quad-core […]
- Humanoid Robots Controlled By Surgeons Did World-First Operation On Live Pigs
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Humanoid robots have surgically removed the gallbladders from living animals in an unprecedented medical experiment -- but not as autonomous machines capable of replacing human doctors. Instead, skilled human surgeons remotely controlled the robots' movements in a new example of human-robot teamups. The teleoperated humanoid robots completed two minimally invasive surgeries by removing gallbladders from live pigs during a preclinical trial that was published in the journal Nature. If this approach eventually proves clinically ready for human patients, surgeons could use such humanoid robots to remotely perform robotic-assisted surgical care in smaller hospitals and clinics that lack the resources to install specialized but expensive surgical robots. The experiment used a Unitree G1 humanoid robot made by leading Chinese robotics company Unitree. The cheapest baseline G1 model with effectively non-functional hands has a starting price of $13,500 and shipping costs ranging between $300 and $1,200, whereas adding crucial upgrades such as dexterous robotic hands can easily push the cost beyond $67,000. But such humanoid robots made in China are still significantly cheaper than specialized surgical robots like Intuitive Surgical's da Vinci Surgical System, which can cost anywhere between half a million dollars and several million dollars. The specialized surgical robots can also weigh about 1,800 pounds and take up considerably more space in operating rooms. By comparison, the Unitree humanoid robots, standing at 5 feet tall and weighing just 60 pounds, may be more suitable for smaller clinical settings in remote areas.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- Lawmakers Probe Growing Use of Chinese AI Models In US Companies
U.S. lawmakers are probing the growing use of Chinese AI models by American companies, citing concerns over censorship, security risks, and whether U.S. firms are turning to cheaper foreign models because domestic alternatives are too costly or restricted. The investigation is specifically looking at companies such as Cursor and Airbnb. "The growing use of Chinese AI models by U.S. companies raises serious concerns," a State Department spokesperson told CNBC. Those "AI models are designed to advance Beijing's narratives, censor dissent, and reflect CCP ideology and values." CNBC reports: The House Committee on Homeland Security and the House Select Committee on China said in April they will jointly investigate the growing adoption of Chinese-developed AI models. An initial step in the probe was for the chairmen of those committees to send letters to Cursor and Airbnb, over their "use of or exposure to these risks" through AI developed in China. "The Chinese Communist Party is no longer just nipping at our heels in artificial intelligence; it is racing to close the gap in some of the exact capabilities that will shape the future of cybersecurity," Andrew Garbarino, chairman of the U.S. House Committee on Homeland Security, told CNBC. "Recent reporting that a Chinese open-weight model can match leading U.S. models in certain vulnerability discovery and cybersecurity tasks is highly alarming," said Garbarino. While some government departments have banned the usage of Chinese AI models including DeepSeek, adoption of them by U.S. companies is not prohibited. Tech chiefs, including crypto company Coinbase's Brian Armstrong and AI startup Lindy's Flo Crivello, have been publicly touting the use of models from China to reduce costs. Cursor, which will be acquired by Elon Musk's SpaceX for $60 billion, built its Composer 2 model using Chinese AI model Kimi, which was developed by Moonshot AI. Alongside focusing on the rise of Chinese AI models, the ongoing joint House Committees' investigation is also looking into whether the U.S. is doing enough to tackle their rise. "The Committees are also examining whether the United States has a sufficient open-weight AI strategy to ensure American companies and cyber defenders are not forced to choose between expensive or restricted U.S. models and cheap, capable PRC-developed alternatives," a Committee aide, who asked not to be named as they were not authorized to discuss the ongoing probe, told CNBC. [...] The administration could consider the use of federal procurement bans, which would include restricting government agencies and private companies that serve the U.S. government from using Chinese AI models, Kyle Chan, fellow in the John L. Thornton China Center at think tank Brookings, told CNBC. "However, it's ultimately impossible to ban China's open-source AI models because their model weights are available freely on the internet," Chan added. "This could enter into first amendment speech issues." [...] Another [approach] could be disseminating findings about risks and vulnerabilities associated with Chinese AI models to U.S. companies. "Regardless, I do expect both the Executive Branch and Congress to communicate their interest not to see U.S. companies adopting these models," [said Daniel Remler, senior fellow, technology and national security program at think tank the Center for a New American Security (CNAS), told CNBC].
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- Google Search Hits All-Time Usage Record
Google says the World Cup drove Search to its highest usage in history, with queries per second peaking right after Argentina's winning goal against Egypt. CNBC reports: The milestone comes as the company tries to prove its traditional search engine can keep its relevance in the age of AI, where chatbots have become more prevalent. Google still controls 90% of the search market, its stock price has more than doubled in the past year and revenue growth in the first quarter was the fastest for any period since 2022. Google said its top searched query after the game was "argentina vs egypt." Globally, the company also saw people searching for things like "argentina x colombia" and "how many world cup goals does messi have." Additional queries included "what is it called when a player hits another player in game" and "is it messi's last world cup."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- Meta Patents AI Device That Tracks Your Emotions, Watches You Take Your Meds
An anonymous reader quotes a report from 404 Media: Meta has filed a patent for a system that records your voice and surroundings all day, then uses an AI to analyse your mood. The patent's stated, theoretical goal is for Meta, a company that makes billions of dollars targeting ads at its users based on their data, is to sell users a wearable that tailors workouts for them based on whether they're happy or sad. Patentlyze first noticed the patent which was published on July 2 after Meta filed it back in December of 2025. The filing described an "apparatus" that surveilled a user and their surroundings constantly to craft a better workout. "The audible communications may be associated with contextual factors such as time of day, location, user activity, or digital interaction," the patent said. "The audible communications may be transcribed, and an emotional-state machine learning model may interpret verbal and nonverbal cues to determine emotional indicators." According to the filing, Meta needs to know when a user laughs or sighs, where they are physically, and what objects they're surrounded by. It would even like to know when you've taken your meds. "The AI assistant may listen to a user(s) at predefined times to hear various types of communication, such as sighs, laughter, and/or the tone(s) of a voice(s)," the patent said. "The AI assistant may use these inputs to quantify the user's emotional state or generate other insights about the user [...] in another example, the AI assistant may take multiple inputs in in addition to audio inputs (e.g., of a user's voice) to provide a summary of emotional trends based on various inputs (e.g., a happier emotional state associated with a particular time of day or at a time when medication is taken, etc.)." The more data it has, the patent explains, the better it could understand a user's moods. "The system increases the precision and reliability of emotional inference by aligning multimodal sensor inputs on synchronized timelines, which creates a novel data structure that supports richer emotional analysis," it said. "These combined features deliver a technical improvement in automated audio interpretation, enabling continuous emotional monitoring on everyday devices." The emotional-analyzing AI would need far more than just a user's words to determine moods over time. A longer description of the hypothetical training data for the AI included "attributes of thousands of objects" such as a user's books, personal messages, and newspapers. "In some examples, audible communications may include speech (e.g., voice data), sighs, laughter, or other nonverbal sounds associated with an expression(s), an emotion(s), or ideas. In some examples, the audible communications may include the tone(s) of a voice of a user while making the communication(s)," it said. All this data, Meta says, would be in service of tailoring better workouts. Humans, the patent explained, are simply not as good as a machine for this. "Personal trainers cannot provide the level of precision in guidance, such as correcting a pose and/or body movement," it said. "These challenges create a need for a practical approach that uses a single device to observe movement, recommend routines, and provide corrective guidance." "Like other companies, patents at Meta are often filed to disclose concepts that may or may not be implemented, and a granted patent does not guarantee that Meta has pursued or will pursue the technology described," the company said in a statement.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- OpenAI Rolls Out GPT-5.6 After Government Greenlight, Announces 'ChatGPT Work'
OpenAI has received approval from the Trump administration to publicly roll out GPT-5.6 after an earlier limited preview restricted access to government-approved organizations. The company also launched ChatGPT Work, a new GPT-5.6-powered agent that combines ChatGPT and Codex-style capabilities. "It can gather context from the apps, files, and workflows you choose and create finished materials such as documents, spreadsheets, presentations, and web apps," OpenAI wrote in a blog post, adding that a "unified plugins directory" allows ChatGPT to connect to tools like Slack, Gmail, Google Drive, calendars, and CRMs. The Verge reports: Mac and Windows users worldwide, including free ChatGPT users, should have immediate access to ChatGPT Work and GPT-5.6 via the ChatGPT desktop app. On mobile and the web, Pro, Enterprise, and Edu users will first get access, while Plus and Business users will receive access "over the next few days," OpenAI wrote, adding that the "rollout is starting globally and will continue gradually toward full availability over the next 24 hours." [...] OpenAI is hoping that its new product, which is a direct competitor to Anthropic's Claude Cowork (combining its own Claude and Claude Code), will push it ahead in the race. OpenAI is especially banking on Sol, the most powerful of the GPT-5.6 model suite, to set "a new standard for intelligence and efficiency," particularly when it comes to coding, cybersecurity, and science, as well as computer use capabilities. The company is also marketing the model as a lower-cost alternative to competitors' most powerful models, amid complaints of an industry-wide money squeeze and AI lab costs being passed onto customers.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- Google Hands Open Health Stack To the Linux Foundation
BrianFagioli writes: The Linux Foundation intends to launch the Open Health Stack Software Foundation, a new vendor-neutral home for the Google Open Health Stack project. Google is contributing the project code and assets while Google.org is providing a $3 million grant. The initiative is also backed by Microsoft, Anthropic, and the World Health Organization, with the goal of building open source, AI-ready digital health infrastructure. Will moving the project under Linux Foundation governance accelerate adoption, or is this simply another foundation that most developers will never interact with? The new project will focus on core HL7 FHIR technologies for healthcare interoperability, the Open Health Stack Player deployment toolkit, and AI Commons -- a model-agnostic healthcare AI initiative being co-developed with the World Health Organization. A notable part of the announcement is its planned Implementer Program, which aims to give startups, small businesses, and local developers in low- and middle-income countries a formal role in governance. In other words, the effort is not just about building healthcare software standards, but about making sure the people implementing them in underserved markets help shape the project too.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- San Francisco Moves To Build Private Luxury Airport Terminal
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: The [San Francisco international airport] is hoping to build a brand-new terminal exclusively for passengers who pay a premium, gaining access to a luxurious airport experience complete with private security lines and valet service from terminal to tarmac. It will service commercial flights, not business or corporate jets, and the terminal will have its own Transportation Security Administration (TSA) lines as well as Customs and Border Protection (CBP) lines for international travel. SFO is seeking bidders to take on the development, construction and operation of the private terminal, which is planned for a 75,000-sq-ft site located across the runway from all current public terminals. The airport will accept proposals between late September and early October, and is looking to award a contract by early December with hopes of opening the terminal in late 2028. [...] If SFO is successful, it would become the next major American airport to open a luxury terminal. Los Angeles, Dallas Fort Worth, Miami and Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta international airports all offer a private terminal through PS (formerly known as the Private Suite), a company owned by security firm Gavin de Becker and Associates. Multiple representatives from PS and Gavin de Becker and Associates attended a June conference hosted by SFO about the private terminal, and PS has said it hopes to open a private terminal at every major US airport by 2030. The report notes that access to existing PS private terminals "can cost passengers $1,295 for a one-time experience, or up to $4,850 for a yearly membership."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- macOS 28 Will Drop Support For Encrypted Mac OS Extended Volumes
Starting with macOS 28, Apple will no longer support encrypted Mac OS Extended, or HFS+, volumes. Users will need to decrypt them or reformat them as APFS to keep using them. 9to5Mac reports: In a new support document, Apple explains that starting with macOS 28, "the Mac OS Extended file system format will be supported only for volumes (disks and other storage devices) that aren't encrypted." In practice, this means users who currently rely on encrypted HFS+ external drives or other encrypted legacy Mac-formatted volumes will need to "either decrypt or reformat any encrypted Mac OS Extended volumes." Apple doesn't explain the reason for the change. Still, the move appears to be another step in Apple's transition to APFS, its file system with built-in encryption support, which replaced Mac OS Extended as the default Mac file system in macOS High Sierra. As a result of this change, Apple says that starting with macOS 26, Macs might notify users when they're using an encrypted Mac OS Extended disk that won't be compatible with macOS 28 or later. According to the support page, "the notification will identify the volume by name." However, Apple says users can manually confirm whether a volume is both using Mac OS Extended format and encrypted by following these steps [...]. Apple adds that "macOS 28 and later will continue to support unencrypted volumes that use Mac OS Extended format," and notes "Mac OS Extended is also known as HFS Plus (or HFS+)."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- OpenAI Releases New Voice Models For More Natural Live Conversations
OpenAI has released GPT-Live-1 and GPT-Live-1 mini, "claiming that they sound more natural and can handle turn-taking better," reports TechCrunch. "These are full-duplex models, meaning they can speak and listen at the same time, allowing users to interrupt naturally and enabling features like live translation." TechCrunch reports: The company is also replacing its current Advanced Voice Mode in ChatGPT with GPT-Live-1 mini by default. Users of paid tiers will be able to access the larger GPT-Live-1 model. The previous model combined a speech-to-text model to transcribe speech, a large language model to generate responses, and a text-to-speech model to deliver the final answer. The company said in a press briefing that the new models solve issues like interrupting users while they're talking and not having enough intelligence to answer questions. OpenAI's new models will send the query to its latest text models like GPT-5.5 for search, reasoning, or agentic capabilities while continuing the conversation. OpenAI also showed that the model can stay silent for a long time and absorb the context of the conversation until it's called upon. Plus, as the new voice mode has access to newer GPT models, it can also present some information in a visual format. Other startups like Monogram, which raised $40 million in seed funding from DST and Lux Capital, are also leaning into visual responses to make assistants more interactive. The company said the new voice mode in ChatGPT is designed to have longer conversations. During the briefing, ChatGPT Voice's product lead, Atty Eleti, said he has had 30- to 40-minute-long conversations with the voice feature during walks.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- Parents' Phone Addiction Affects Bond With Kids, New Study Finds
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: Parents' attachment to screens and smartphones can have negative, long-lasting developmental and psychological effects on their children, according to new research. Caregivers who mismanage their devices can both exacerbate "insecure attachment" and make healthy relationships more anxious and avoidant for children, according to the findings, which were published last month in Frontiers in Psychology, a peer-reviewed journal. The study, which surveyed 600 minors in the US from 12 to 17 years old, found that kids reported feeling marginalized or neglected by parents glued to their screens. "A child with insecure attachment may lack confidence or display a lower sense of self; demonstrate difficulty with interpersonal relationships and intimacy; and possess an unwillingness to take risks necessary to achieve success," reports Bloomberg, citing one of the study's researchers. This type of behavior has become normalized: 2024 Pew data found that nearly half of U.S. teens say their parents are at least sometimes distracted by phones during interactions. "When parents were asked about their own behavior, far fewer said this was an issue," the report adds. "Still, earlier Pew data from 2020 found most parents feel their phones can interfere with quality family time, with 68% reporting being 'at least sometimes' distracted by them.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- Meta To Build $9 Billion Alberta Data Center, Its First In Canada
Meta will build its first Canadian data center in Alberta, investing $9 billion in a 1-gigawatt facility that can scale to 1.8 gigawatts to support its AI infrastructure needs. The project will rely on new generation and grid infrastructure funded by Meta, including a long-term agreement tied to a new natural gas power facility. The company says it will offset electricity use with clean and renewable energy investments. Reuters reports: Meta has doubled down on AI, pledging hundreds of billions of dollars to build large AI data centers in the U.S. The Alberta announcement represents the company's 33rd data center globally. Executives made the announcement in Calgary alongside Premier Danielle Smith and other Alberta government officials, who have spent several years courting Silicon Valley tech giants with the aim of spurring a large-scale investment in the oil-and-gas province. Alberta's technology minister, Nate Glubish, told reporters there are currently several other gigawatt-scale data center proposals in various stages of development in the province. "This is the first of its kind, the first of its size, the first of its scale, but it won't be the last," Glubish said. Meta, like other tech giants, is facing rapidly expanding power needs due to the growth of AI, and Alberta is rich in natural gas which sells at a significant discount to the U.S. benchmark. The province's cold climate also makes cooling the massive super-computers and related data center infrastructure more cost-efficient. The 20 existing small- to mid-scale data centers in Alberta already pull from the province's energy grid, which is 60% powered by natural gas. The provincial government is giving new proponents the option to build their own power sources to avoid limits on power capacity. Meta said Wednesday it will fully fund new generation and grid infrastructure for its Alberta data center, which will consume about as much electricity as 800,000 homes. Gary Demasi, Meta's vice president for data center development, said the company will offset that electricity use by investing in clean and renewable energy. He also said the data center will use a closed-loop liquid cooling system, meaning its total water use will be less than that of a typical golf course. [...] The company has partnered with Alberta-based Pembina Pipeline , which announced last week it will go ahead with its Greenlight Electricity Centre, a new natural gas-fired power-generation facility in Sturgeon County which will be in service in late 2030 and with which Meta has a long-term tolling agreement. Until that project is operational and for the next decade, Alberta-based power producer Capital Power will provide 250 megawatts of electricity for the site using its existing natural gas-fired fleet. The project will require approximately 150 million cubic feet per day of natural gas, according to Pembina, helping to create demand for Western Canadian natural gas producers.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- Shoebox-Sized 'Detector Satellites' Could Sniff Out a Nuclear Bomb In Space
A new study proposes using shoebox-sized detector satellites to sniff out nuclear weapons launched by adversary nations. The idea is aimed at addressing fears that a space-based nuclear detonation could destroy satellites across low Earth orbit and make some orbits unusable for years. Space.com shares the findings from a new paper authored by Areg Danagoulian, an associate professor of nuclear science and engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology: No reliable way currently exists to detect and defuse a nuclear bomb in space. Danagoulian proposes a constellation of small "9U" cubesats, each one about the size of a large shoebox and each carrying a special detector capable of sensing radiation emitted by unexploded nuclear bombs. He explores a scenario in which Russia launches a suspected space nuke into an orbit with an altitude of 1,200 miles (2,000 km). That number is not random. In 2022, Russia's Kosmos 2553 satellite, orbiting at that exact altitude, triggered suspicions it might be testing components for a future orbital nuclear weapon. Russia claims the satellite just observes Earth. At that altitude, the satellite passes through the Van Allen belt, a region of intense cosmic radiation trapped by Earth's magnetic field. Most of the belt stretches between altitudes of around 600 miles (1,000 km) to tens of thousands of miles, but in some areas the radiation can reach much closer to Earth's surface. The interaction between the fissile material inside the nuke and the energetic particles from the radiation belt would create distinct signatures, Danagoulian said, which could help confirm whether a suspicious satellite carries a nuke or not. "The thermonuclear weapon would contain a significant amount of uranium," Danagoulian said. "The high-energy protons [in the uranium] would break up when another proton is coming in and shred the nuclei. That would knock out a large number of neutrons. This interaction turns that device into a very intense neutron source that otherwise would not be there." he process is known as proton-induced neutron spallation, which essentially means the ejection of fragments from material triggered by impacts of protons. The detector satellite Danagoulian proposes would have to be able to get quite close to the suspect spacecraft -- a few kilometers. The inspector spacecraft would carry a sensor combining two types of detectors. At the heart of the device is a neutron scintillator, which detects all incoming neutrons and protons. Around it is a "cage of diamond" detector that detects only neutrons -- not protons. Such a set-up helps filter out the particles present in the environment naturally, said Danagoulian. In addition, by using two "planes of neutron detectors," the sensor can determine the direction from which the neutrons arrived. "If the external diamond detector triggers and gives a signal, you can ignore the particle, because it's most likely a proton and not a neutron," said Danagoulian. "Once you identify those neutrons, by having those two detections, you can back project and find out where the neutron came from." Danagoulian says such a nuke sniffer would have to be launched into an orbit aligned with that of the suspicious satellite and creep up as close as 2.5 miles (4 km) from it. It would then take about a week to gather enough measurements to confirm whether the object is hiding a nuke or not. A constellation of 10 such satellites could reduce the process to mere hours, Danagoulian said. If a nuke were detected, the military could then try to jam the satellite's communications link from the ground, making it impossible for the adversary to remotely detonate the bomb. There is currently no technology available to safely defuse a nuclear weapon in space. [...] Danagoulian also suggests that high-grade radiation hardening could improve satellites' chances of surviving a nuclear winter in space. The paper has been published in the journal Nature.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- US Food and Drug Administration Rejects Petition To Set PFAS Limits In Food
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: The US Food and Drug Administration has rejected a legal petition demanding it set limits on toxic Pfas "forever chemicals" in food, marking another setback for public health advocates' push to limit exposures to the dangerous compounds. The agency is refusing to set limits despite a growing body of science and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) finding food is the biggest source of Pfas exposure. Testing has found the levels of Pfas in single servings of some contaminated foods to be equivalent to drinking many glasses of contaminated water. While regulators have focused on reining in Pfas in water, the chemicals are widely used throughout the food system, and there was hope that the agency under Robert F Kennedy Jr would take the threat more seriously. Kennedy leads the "make America healthy again" (Maha) movement, of which eliminating toxic chemicals from food is a cornerstone. [...] The November 2023 petition called on the FDA to check for up to 30 Pfas compounds in a range of produce, fish, eggs, milk and bread. The agency did not respond within the six-month timeframe required by law, but TEJTF scaled back its petition in 2025 to ask the agency to set advisory thresholds for PFOA and Pfos, two of the most common and dangerous Pfas compounds, in seafood and milk. Recent FDA testing found 70% of seafood samples contain the chemicals, while independent milk testing found it in 12% of 50 samples, including extremely high levels in Whole Foods and Kirkland Signature brands. The FDA rejected the revised petition, stating it plans to take action on setting standards for Pfas, and there is "insufficient evidence to support [TEJTF's] request." The agency said it plans to set less non-binding "action levels" that do not require contaminated food to be removed from shelves. "Tolerance levels," or limits, make it illegal to sell food contaminated beyond a set threshold.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- A Silent Workspace In Claude Mirrors Key Features of Human Consciousness
oumuamua writes: Anthropic researchers have identified an internal activation subspace, J-space, that acts as a functional digital equivalent to the human brain's global workspace. The significance of this discovery lies in demonstrating that Claude's internal architecture satisfies five key cognitive properties of human conscious access -- verbal report, directed modulation, internal reasoning, flexible generalization, and selectivity -- meaning it processes complex, deliberate reasoning within this workspace while routing automatic tasks outside of it. Suppressing this J-space severely degrades Claude's capacity for inference, creative composition, and multi-step logic, while also altering its stream-of-consciousness self-narration. The tool to inspect J-space, Jacobian lens or J-lens, has profound implications for AI safety and alignment auditing, as it allows researchers to read the model's silent, strategic reasoning, detect situational awareness in "blackmail" scenarios, identify hidden malicious dispositions in reward-hacking models, and observe how post-training installs a self-monitoring "point of view." Another way to think of it is as an ocean, reports VentureBeat. "If the mind is an ocean, as the paper's authors write in their opening line, they have spent the last year charting its currents in a system that has no biology, no evolution, and no body -- and found, beneath the surface, a structure that looks unsettlingly like the one we use to think."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- John Deere Agrees To 10-Year Right-To-Repair Deal In FTC Antitrust Lawsuit
John Deere has agreed to a 10-year FTC-supervised right-to-repair settlement requiring it to provide farmers and independent repair shops with the same repair resources available to authorized dealers. The deal resolves antitrust claims from the FTC and five states alleging Deere monopolized equipment repair services, contributing to higher costs and delays for farmers. Wired reports: The full statement (PDF) lays out obligations for John Deere's repair services, requiring the company to give farmers and third-party repair shops access to the same equipment and repair resources it provides to official John Deere dealers. This includes software capabilities, such as reading and resetting codes and pairing with other software, which customers have long had limited access to, creating delays when diagnosing equipment problems. Delayed fixes can mean delayed harvests, which many farmers saw as a fundamental threat to their livelihoods. Under the agreement, John Deere will be required to provide this level of access, equipment, and services for the next 10 years, monitored by the FTC. [...] John Deere has maintained that it already has robust repair resources for its customers, including service manuals and diagnostic equipment. In John Deere's press release, the company says the settlement is in line with what it has been doing all along, saying that "the agreement reinforces Deere's continued innovation toward more flexible repair options, emphasizing increased access and transparency for customers. It formalizes Deere's ongoing commitment to expanding access to diagnostic and repair tools."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- Security: Why Linux Is Better Than Windows Or Mac OS
Linux is a free and open source operating system that was released in 1991 developed and released by Linus Torvalds. Since its release it has reached a user base that is greatly widespread worldwide. Linux users swear by the reliability and freedom that this operating system offers, especially when compared to its counterparts, windows and [0]
- Essential Software That Are Not Available On Linux OS
An operating system is essentially the most important component in a computer. It manages the different hardware and software components of a computer in the most effective way. There are different types of operating system and everything comes with their own set of programs and software. You cannot expect a Linux program to have all [0]
- Things You Never Knew About Your Operating System
The advent of computers has brought about a revolution in our daily life. From computers that were so huge to fit in a room, we have come a very long way to desktops and even palmtops. These machines have become our virtual lockers, and a life without these network machines have become unimaginable. Sending mails, [0]
- How To Fully Optimize Your Operating System
Computers and systems are tricky and complicated. If you lack a thorough knowledge or even basic knowledge of computers, you will often find yourself in a bind. You must understand that something as complicated as a computer requires constant care and constant cleaning up of junk files. Unless you put in the time to configure [0]
- The Top Problems With Major Operating Systems
There is no such system which does not give you any problems. Even if the system and the operating system of your system is easy to understand, there will be some times when certain problems will arise. Most of these problems are easy to handle and easy to get rid of. But you must be [0]
- 8 Benefits Of Linux OS
Linux is a small and a fast-growing operating system. However, we can’t term it as software yet. As discussed in the article about what can a Linux OS do Linux is a kernel. Now, kernels are used for software and programs. These kernels are used by the computer and can be used with various third-party software [0]
- Things Linux OS Can Do That Other OS Cant
What Is Linux OS? Linux, similar to U-bix is an operating system which can be used for various computers, hand held devices, embedded devices, etc. The reason why Linux operated system is preferred by many, is because it is easy to use and re-use. Linux based operating system is technically not an Operating System. Operating [0]
- Packagekit Interview
Packagekit aims to make the management of applications in the Linux and GNU systems. The main objective to remove the pains it takes to create a system. Along with this in an interview, Richard Hughes, the developer of Packagekit said that he aims to make the Linux systems just as powerful as the Windows or [0]
- What’s New in Ubuntu?
What Is Ubuntu? Ubuntu is open source software. It is useful for Linux based computers. The software is marketed by the Canonical Ltd., Ubuntu community. Ubuntu was first released in late October in 2004. The Ubuntu program uses Java, Python, C, C++ and C# programming languages. What Is New? The version 17.04 is now available here [0]
- Ext3 Reiserfs Xfs In Windows With Regards To Colinux
The problem with Windows is that there are various limitations to the computer and there is only so much you can do with it. You can access the Ext3 Reiserfs Xfs by using the coLinux tool. Download the tool from the official site or from the sourceforge site. Edit the connection to “TAP Win32 Adapter [0]
- You paid me, a long-time Linux user, to use Windows 11 exclusively for a month: heres how it went
You all donated en masse to have me use Windows 11 for a month, and so I did. What was it like for a long-time Linux user to go back and experience Windows as it exists now? Is it really as bad as weve collectively made it out to be? Did my month with Windows 11 consist of nothing but pain and misery, or are there good things to say, too? Or, was it an unexpected pleasant surprise? And ultimately, did I stay with Windows 11, or move back to the Linux world? Donate through Ko-Fi Donate through SEPA transfer* Buy merch from our store Why a fundraiser? *Name: Thom Holwerda IBAN: SE08 8000 0820 1684 4657 8414 BIC: SWEDSESS This year, Im celebrating the milestone of having posted 20000 stories on OSNews during my 21 years as managing editor of OSNews. This is my full-time job, and since nobody is going to give me any bonuses, stock options, or golden pens, were running a big fundraiser to keep OSNews going. To add some spice to the whole thing, I added some incentives, with the first being using Windows 11 for a month. Were slowly but steadily approaching the next incentive, too, which is a proper video tour of my office, (unique) computers, and massive devices collection. Theres a similar incentive to this Windows 11 one, but for macOS. Yikes. The rules for the Windows 11 incentive are simple: use stock Windows 11 for a month for my computing tasks (with the exception of gaming converting my Linux gaming PC to Windows just to play the same games seemed silly). I wasnt allowed to use any debloating tools, but as an EU citizen, I do have the ability to remove a ton of Windows stuff thanks to the success of the Digital Markets Act. I also tried to stick to Microsofts own applications as much as possible, for that true ecosystem experience!, and wasnt allowed to hack my way into a normal local user account. I was all-in. So what was it like? Setting it all up The installation process posed a number of challenges and issues. First and foremost, the Windows 11 installation process is incredibly barebones, and basically assumes no other operating system exists in the world. It has no clue anything other than Windows filesystems exist, making it dangerously easy to accidentally damage or outright delete any other operating systems you might have installed. My laptop happens to have two M.2 SSDs in, so I could safely dedicate one of them to Windows 11 without interfering with the other SSD with Fedora installed on it, but if youre experimenting with Windows 11 on your Linux machine with just one drive, you might want to reconsider. I also had to perform the first portion of the installation process the WinPE section with just my keyboard, since apparently, my trackpad was not supported and did not work at all. Once the system went through its first of what would be many reboots to come and loaded into the phase of the installation where youre actually already running Windows 11, my trackpad came to life, but without any gestures support so no scrolling. Not a gamebreaker or anything, but definitely annoying. A bigger issue was that the Wi-Fi 7 Intel BE200 chip in my laptop was not supported out of the box by Windows 11. This meant that I had to install these drivers during the installation process, which involves going to the Intel website and finding the correct drivers to use. To make this process more obtuse and less intuitive, you cant use the normal driver installer; you have to specifically opt for the Intel® PROSet/Wireless Software and Wi-Fi Drivers for IT Administrators , download the ZIP, unpack it on a different computer, put the unpacked drivers on a USB stick, and point the Windows 11 installer to this USB stick. Mind you, the BE200 chip was launched almost three years ago, and theres no excuse for Windows 11 not supporting this chip out of the box like Linux does. The remainder of the installation process involved dodging a lot of tracking and telemetry prompts, reboots, a lot of waiting, setting up the dreaded online account, waiting some more, and then finally ending up at the desktop. I then set out to enjoy my EU privileges by removing whatever applications I didnt need and turning off features I didnt want, as well as making sure all the drivers were up to date. This mostly involved installing the Intel Driver 8 Support Assistant and the Intel graphics drivers. Curiously, this is where I hit a returning issue: after installing the Intel GPU drivers for the first time, as well as after every subsequent update, the screen would go black and stay that way, forcing a reboot. Windows graphics stack is supposed to be able to gracefully handle driver updates, but clearly, some bug or problem was preventing the updated Intel driver from being reinitialised. Once those initial setup tasks were behind me, I experienced two more problems. First, sleep/wake was entirely broken and simply did not work. It turns out Windows 11 really doesnt like S3 sleep, and I had to specifically go into my laptops Dasharo Coreboot firmware to switch to S0ix get sleep/wake to work on Windows 11. Windows defaults to something it calls Modern Standby!, which requires the S0ix state to be enabled. You can also disable Modern Standby which would presumably make sleep/wake work with S3 (?), but this is a whole ordeal and clearly not something Microsoft wants you to do. Of course, the correct way of handling this would be for Windows 11 to adapt its sleep/wake settings to what the firmware reports, but alas. Another problem were the laptops cooling fans seemingly leading lives of their own, spinning up loudly at entirely random times, irrespective of use. It was so bad and loud
- The state of accessibility in GNOME
With July being Disability Pride Month, GNOMEs Sophie Herold published a blog post taking stock of where GNOME stands on this front, progress thats been made, as well as areas where the project comes short. One particular paragraph from her introduction really hits the nail on the head about accessibility discussions in tech circles: The reality of tech communities is that they are often ableist and elitist. Probably more so than the average population. If a user or contributor struggles with a tool, blame is shifted to a “skill issue,” if an interface is simplified to make it accessible to more people, it’s “dumbed down”. Assistive technologies are often developed by abled people, without involving and paying disabled people. This also leads to an attitude where contributors expect gratefulness from disabled people for providing them with the most basic needs. All these issues are also not absent from the GNOME community. ↫ Sophie Herold Even as someone who isnt disabled and doesnt use any tools classically shelved under the accessibility! moniker, I encounter the attitudes she mentions in the quoted paragraph basically every day. While we can have normal, productive discussions and differences of opinion about accessibility for instance, I strongly believe robust theming support is absolutely crucial to accessibility, while the wider GNOME community does not the dismissive attitudes towards people with accessibility needs in the software world is shameful. Even if you dont have accessibility needs today, you will definitely be needing them at some point in your life. If accessibility isnt one of the first words you jot down on your mood board or whatever when you start a new software project, youve already done millions of people a massive disservice. Get educated, learn what you can about accessibility, listen to people with accessibility needs, and make your software better for everyone. Youll thank yourself one day.
- Next release of Cinnamon finally supports Wayland
Linux Mints Cinnamon is one of the last desktops to still not support Wayland, and is relegated to only being compatible with legacy X11 environments. With the next release of Cinnamon, however, this is finally going to change. We worked really hard on Wayland and we got to the point where it feels solid and the experience is almost on par with X11. Wayland support will no longer be considered “experimental”. In the next version of Cinnamon, both X11 and Wayland will be fully supported. ↫ Clement Lefebvre on the Linux Mint blog The next release of Cinnamon, version 6.8, will be part of the next release of Linux Mint, scheduled for Christmas of this year.
- Most slopcode projects are abandoned and deleted within months of release
About a month ago, Flathub announced a ban on slopcoded applications. Evangelos GeopJr! Paterakis, developer of a number of popular Linux applications and ton of other things, did some research into just how many applications tagged with AI slop!, a tag Flathub reviewers used to keep track of slopcoded applications submitted to Flathub, actually survived the test of time. The results are exactly what youd expect. Of the 120 unique repos, 32 were maintained and 88 were abandoned. No seriously, a big portion of them was completely deleted, nowhere to be found, others stopped 6 months ago, right after submitting to Flathub. ↫ Evangelos GeopJr! Paterakis Thats absolutely soul-crushing. Why should Flathubs reviewers spend their precious, limited time talking to lazy slopcoders AI! agents to get their slopcoded applications into Flathub, when 70% of these applications are abandoned or outright deleted from existence within mere months of being submitted? Minimal effort for the slopcoders, maximum effort for the reviewers. Just dump a bunch of shitty code over the fence, let a chatbot handle the interactions with the reviewers, and pretend you made a valuable contribution. This is the contradiction slopcode enthusiasts really dont want to talk about. If these AI! tools are so great, where is all the amazing new software? Wheres the massive gains in software quality? Isnt the story that AI! tools do the menial work, giving programmers more time to focus on improving their software? Reality does not seem to match the story were being sold. Despite these slopcode tools being out and available for years now, theres no influx of great applications and other software, theres no rise in software quality, nothing. What we mostly seem to be getting are slopcoded projects nobody, not even their creators! care about, so they just get abandoned and deleted as quickly as they were dredged up from the bottom of the programming barrel. These arent applications created because someone wanted them to exist; these are applications created because some mid programmer got high on their AI! supply and fancied themselves better at programming than they really are only to realise once the comedown hits theyve got crappy, barely working, entirely unmaintainable gibberish vaguely looking like code nobody can make head nor tails of. And then they abandon the project, ready for the next high leaving everyone else to clean up their mess. What a miserable workflow.
- Linux ported to the Atari Jaguar
Only a few days ago we had Linux on the Mega Drive, and someone took that as a challenge, so now we have Linux on the Atari Jaguar. The Jaguar has a very different architecture than the Mega Drive, but does happen to use a processor from the same 68000-family. Interestingly enough, to this day, Linux has architecture code for the 68000-family of processors. 68040, 68030, 680100 and even the original base 68000 processor. All neatly structured under arch/m68k/. ↫ Joel Bueno And, well, that means Linux can indeed be made to work on the Jaguar, with some hacking and magic, of course.
- Review: iodéOS offers a frictionless de-Googled Android experience
Wherever in the world you go, the smartphone landscape is dominated by Android and iOS, and while this has always been problematic, recent events have made the dependency on two American tech giants for what is probably our most personal computing device even more problematic than it already was. We use our smartphones to keep our secrets, do our banking, interact with our governments, share our deepest thoughts with our friends and family, and a whole lot more. Having this invaluable tool the vast majority of us depend on tied entirely to Google and Apple is not just bad for the market, its also a downright threat to the national security of anyone not living in the US. Here in Europe, theres been an awakening lately, with governments, companies, and people alike finally realising that having our entire digital infrastructure controlled by foreign, adversarial interests is a terrible idea. Sadly, breaking free from our Android and iOS chains is not so easy. The most ideal solution would be a truly open source alternative smartphone operating system, but thats a hard sell for 99.9% of smartphone users who need the applications required to do their finances, talk to their friends, or interact with their governments. The cold and harsh truth is that with very few exceptions, these applications simply do not (yet) exist for smartphone operating systems that arent Android or iOS. The only viable alternative at this point in time is to take whatevers left of the Android Open Source Project, remove anything that ties it to Google and its services, fill in the gaps with alternative services and applications, and sell it as a Google-free or de-Googled Android platform. Theres several projects in this space, and with Europe drunkenly stumbling out of the technological hole it dug itself into, its no surprise that two of the more popular alternatives to Apple or Google-controlled smartphones come from Europe (and from the same country, no less). Today, were taking a look at one of these: iodéOS. Iodé is a company based in Toulouse, France, which focuses on offering a Google-free Android called iodéOS, either preinstalled on phones you can buy, or as a ROM you can install yourself on supported devices. As a company, iodé makes its money through selling devices with iodéOS preinstalled, through an optional premium subscription (that I didnt take a look at), and through donations, and all of their code is published as open source on their Gitlab instance hosted in France. Iodé loaned me a Fairphone 6 with iodéOS preinstalled, one of he many smartphones and tablets they sell through their online store for review. This isnt going to be an Android review; you already know what Android is like, and theres no need for me to rehash any of that. Instead, I want to focus on the things that make using de-Googled Android different from using Google Android. Dont be afraid of microG There are various ways to go about making a de-Googled Android variant, and iodéOS chose the LineageOS route, with microG installed on top. For those unaware, microG is a project which aims to replace the various proprietary parts of Google Play Services, required by many Android applications, with open source reimplementations. While it doesnt offer 100% compatibility, it works exceptionally well, and youll be hard-pressed to find applications just dont work at all with microG. IodéOS updates its microG installation through a dedicated F-Droid repository thats obviously enabled by default, so you dont have to do anything yourself. Using microG instead of Google Play Services doesnt mean you have to rely solely on whatevers available in F-Droid, since there are a variety of alternative Play Store frontends available. IodéOS ships with the Aurora Store, which is an open-source frontend to the Play Store that can be used with or without a Google account. If you use it with your Google account, youll gain access to whatever applications you already own, including paid ones, but you wont be able to buy applications inside Aurora. You can, however, buy an application on the Play Store website, after which it will show up in Aurora as well, assuming youre logged in with the same account. Aurora also comes with something something called FakeStore, which is sadly an important part of the puzzle; its a stub application that has the same package name as the real Play Store. Some applications check whether the Play Store is available before working properly, so this is sadly needed to ensure maximum compatibility. The only issue I sometimes ran into with Aurora is that it would load up its listings, but then any application I tapped on said it was unavailable. When this happened, reloading the Aurora application always fixed the issue. Annoying, but not gamebreaking. A few things did not work for me when using microG on iodéOS, and theyre exactly the things youd expect not to work. If you have a WearOS device, youre out of luck; WearOS devices simply do not work when using microG, but there is a bounty to add support for it. If you want to use a smartwatch with iodéOS, there are various options available, such as Garmin devices, which is what I used during my testing and it worked flawlessly. Another feature from regular! Android that simply wont work is RCS. Theres only one RCS client available on Android, Google Messages, and as you can imagine, Google is in no rush to allow devices without Google Play Services to register for and use RCS messaging. Tying to register with Google Messages will fail, and there are no other RCS clients available (save for a few China and India-specific clients). Theres a microG bounty for this, too, but no luck so far. Of course, there are countless messaging platforms that work just fine on iodéOS regular SMS, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Signal, and so on and especially if youre European, its unlikely RCS support matters to you at all. I just dont
- Improved DEC Alpha emulator runs Windows 2000 for Alpha and OpenVMS and Tru64 with X11
Colour me positively surprised, as I had no idea Alpha emulation had progressed this much. As you might know, Im involved a bit in the OpenVMS community and the Alpha emulation side via AXPBox. AXPBox (github) is a fork of the es40 alpha emulator by Camiel Vanderhoeven (who is now Chief Architect at VSI, the company that makes OpenVMS, for x86 nowdays). There have been many forks of es40 in the past and recently a new one has popped up with some great new features. Like speedups via a JIT compiler, S3 graphics port from MAME and ARC support, resulting in the ability to run Windows 2000 for the DEC Alpha. ↫ Remy van Elst Not only can you run the unreleased Alpha version of Windows 2000 on this forked emulator, its also capable of running OpenVMS and Tru64 UNIX. In fact, both OpenVMS and Tru64 can run their full X11 CDE desktops on the emulator as well, which is incredibly cool and a huge milestone. As the name of the original emulator implies, its emulating an AlphaServer Es40 from the turn of the century, which should be fast enough for enthusiast use. The last AlphaStation ever made, the ES47, is still very high on my list of computers I desperately want but will never have they are incredibly rare, and whenever they do come up for sale, incredibly expensive. If you have one, consider yourself lucky, and please, write about it! Tell the world!
- LineageOS and Androids upcoming developer verification: what it is, and how it affects you
LineageOS, the de-Googled Android ROM that serves as the backbone for pretty much the entire custom Android ROM community, has published an article about what the Android developer verification changes mean for them. I really like the factual tone of their article, especially this part: Critics such as F-Droid, EFF, and “Keep Android Open” point out that this also happens to route every install path through Google-controlled infrastructure, hands Google a kill switch over any app or developer worldwide, and arrives shortly after Google’s antitrust lawsuits. Both things can be true at once: real fraud is a problem and the restriction of developers is a convenient side effect of solving it this way and we’re not in a position to pretend we know Google’s internal reasoning. We’re just telling you what they’ve said and what it changes; you can weigh the “why” yourself. ↫ Nolen Johnson on the LineageOS website For LineageOS, these new verification measures dont really mean much, as they dont affect the projects work or software. The developer verification infrastructure is a separate application that is part of Google Mobile Services, and LineageOS does not ship GMS nor does it ever intend to. As such, they dont have to do anything, as this wont be an issue unless LineageOS users choose to install a GApps package that happens to include the developer verification infrastructure. If Google were to move the developer verification infrastructure into Play Services in the future, LineageOS makes it clear theyll disable it globally, as they have done with a number of other annoying Play Services-provided over-the-air update implementations . There really isnt much more they can do; the rest is up to users and projects that use LineageOS as their base.
- Composite video on the NES: whys it so wobbly?
The Nintendo Entertainment System. Is it the platonic ideal of an 8-bit video game system? Well, only because it’s so prominent and successful– it’s actually kind of an oddball in its expandability and design. But there’s something else about it. The picture is a bit… wobbly. Well, over composite video anyway. Let’s dig in and learn a little big more about the nitty-gritty of composite video. ↫ Nicole Branagan As usual, the information density in this article by Branagan is kind of remarkable, especially when you consider it never overwhelms you. Such a great read.
- ReactOS implements very first NT6 system call
A fairly big moment for the ReactOS project: it has just received its very first system call from NT6. The system call that has been added is NtGetCurrentProcessorNumberEx, which is used for returning the processor number of the logical processor that a caller is running on. It’s unclear how long it will take ReactOS to become compatible with Windows Vista software, but it took Microsoft around half a decade to develop Vista after the release of XP and marked a major upgrade, even if it didn’t land well with users at the time. ↫ Paul Hill at Neowin Its a milestone for sure, but not one thats going to make a huge difference for ReactOS at this moment in time. Still, its a sign of things to come, even if the very nature of the ReactOS project means that whatever things are coming tend to take a while to arrive.
- Microsoft settles centuries of religious debate by providing clearest definition of hell to date: Windows with a website-based shell running only Copilot
For how often people invoke it, the concept of hell! in Christianity is remarkably vague and nebulous, as both the Old and New Testament barely go into detail about the concept. As such, Im glad Microsoft has now given us a clear vision of hell and what, exactly, it looks like, ending centuries of denominational disagreements. Microsoft is currently selling the idea of Windows and Copilot as two separate things: an OS and an assistant riding along on top of it. However, a leaked video shows Project Aion, an internal prototype where Copilot doesnt just sit inside Windows, it becomes Windows, swallowing the Start menu, the taskbar, and three decades of desktop conventions in the process. The footage is reportedly two years old, so Aion is most likely dead by now. But its the clearest look yet at how far Microsoft was willing to take its agentic AI ambitions. ↫ Alfonso Maruccia at Techspot Everything about this is dreadful. Obviously replacing the entire shell with AI! nonsense is the main crime against usability here, but on top of that, this new shell is all just websites, all the way down, so everything is slow and stuttery. Since this runs on something called Win3!, which appears to be a very minimal, stripped-down version of Windows intended to only run the Edge browser engine, you cant run Win32 applications. If you do try to run a Win32 application, it will load the application in a remote virtual machine running in the cloud, which I;m sure does wonder for performance, responsiveness, and latency. We can all thank the lord this project is two years old and most likely cancelled by now, but we have no way of knowing if Microsoft is still intending for this to be the future direction of Windows. Since people dont want to use AI! of their own volition, it only makes sense in the technology industrys sick, twisted mind to force people into using AI! with efforts like this. Consent has never been Silicon Valleys strength, after all. At the time of writing, Microsoft is 225 billion dollars in the red on AI!, so I wouldnt be surprised if attempts to replace the regular Explorer shell with something AI!-based is still very much on the table in Redmond.
- Vulkan-netbsd brings Vulkan to NetBSD
NetBSD is the only BSD without a Vulkan stack (Mesa and Lavapipe), but thats about to change. The effort to bring Vulkan to NetBSD is now in beta, with prebuilt binaries coming soon. Mesa configures, compiles, links, installs, and registers the Lavapipe software Vulkan driver on NetBSD 10.1 amd64, against LLVM 19.1.7. The driver (libvulkan_lvp.so, ~17 MB) installs into /usr/pkg/lib, and its ICD manifest (advertising Vulkan API 1.4) installs into /usr/pkg/share/vulkan/icd.d/, so a Vulkan loader on the system can discover it. ldd resolves every dependency cleanly. The entire process — environment setup, dependency builds, the Mesa build, and installation — is automated end to end and reproducible on a fresh install. ↫ vulkan-netbsd GitHub page Its important to note that the next step in the process is to port the Vulkan loader, which is required to actually run Vulkan applications. This entire effort is still ongoing and seems to be handled mostly by Dean Howell alone, so expect breakage and incomplete documentation as development progresses. Still, this is a hugely important effort, and seeing it this far along is great news.
- EveryMac celebrates 30th birthday
EveryMac turned 30. On July 2, 1996, EveryMac.com launched. Thirty years is a long time and a great deal has changed since then but what has not changed is that EveryMac.com has been there to provide you with detailed info on every Mac from the original 128k to the current line. Thank you very much for your support through the years. ↫ EveryMac news item I thought OSNews was pretty unique with its founding in 1997, so its great to see another enthusiasts website as old as ours. Amazing company to be in, too EveryMac is an indispensable, tirelessly maintained, and stupidly accurate resource that I use countless times each year. Heres to another 30 years.
- Android is almost dead
The clock is ticking for Android as a (somewhat) open platform. If you are running Android 8 or higher, a virus has been installed on your device and is silently awaiting remote activation. Over the past few months, devices around the world have been infected with this novel strain, with as many as 4 billion Android handsets and tablets estimated to have already been contaminated, meaning that around half of all humanity may be at risk from this threat. Disguising itself as the innocuously-titled “Android Developer Verifier” (ADV) process, this trojan horse runs surreptitiously in the background as a system service with full root privileges, quietly awaiting an activation signal. The service cannot be blocked, disabled, or removed. Unlike a commonplace bit of malware, this extraordinary strain won’t be detected and neutralized by Play Protect (the malware scanning and remediation service that is installed on all Android Certified devices). In fact, Play Protect is itself the vector through which this virus is transmitted and installed. That is because it is Google themselves who is propagating ADV. And once activated, this malevolent process has exactly one goal: to block you from running software by developers who haven’t been approved centrally by Google. ↫ The F-Droid news website If nobody steps up, if no regulator takes on Google in this matter, we could very well be looking at the end of F-Droid and similar open source application repositories on Android. I use F-Droid, and in fact, one of the most important and most-used application on my Pixel 10 Pro comes from F-Droid: Fennec. This Firefox fork is not available through any Google-sanctioned means, and I could just wake up one day and have the browser on what is supposed to be my phone stop working. Age verification, tying crucial services to iOS and Google Android, killing the ability to install your own software on your phone, purposefully making people hopelessly addicted to and dependent on AI!, and so much more were facing a multi-pronged attack designed to beat us into submission and give up on the idea of Free computing. I have to admit Ive lost all hope well be able to win this battle, as the combined interests of technology megacorporations and our own governments are just too powerful to fight. I feel like were living in the computing end times.
- WinPE as a stateless harness for Windows driver testing and fuzzing
What if you need to do very low-level testing involving the very guts of Windows NT, but dont need most of the userland that sits on top? In fact, what if that userland only slows you down and complicates the work youre trying to do? The solution is Windows PE (Windows Preinstallation Environment). It is an official, stripped-down environment distributed with every Windows ISO image. It runs entirely in RAM, requires as little as 512 MB of memory, and lacks support for DirectX, the PowerShell subsystem, or the standard graphical shell (Explorer). Booting by default with NT AUTHORITY\\SYSTEM privileges makes it an ideal test harness for both of these tasks. The following analysis focuses on the low-level mechanisms of WinPE, as well as BCD and QEMU modifications that allow transforming this system into an ultra-fast, idempotent testing environment. ↫ Piotr Bednarski Now, the kind of work Bednarski does isnt the most common of tasks, but Ive often wondered just how far you can get by bolting on whatever WinPE will allow you to. There were various unofficial third-party tools that built Windows live CDs based on WinPE, but I think most of those have died out by now. If you look hard enough, you can also find some other utilities people made for WinPE, including even some rudimentary web browsers. Regarding web browsers, modern efforts seem to run into issues. WinPE is not really meant for any advanced functionality, but I really do wonder how capable you can make it without turning it into regular Windows.
- M/PC: a concatenative operating system for Varvara
M/PC is a concatenative operating system for Varvara, inspired by Openfirmware, designed to manage files on system without a file browser. It uses the postfix notation, meaning that the function success their operands. ↫ M/PC website Im not going to pretend to really understand what any of this means.
- KDE Plasma 6.7.1 Released with Stability Fixes, UI Improvements, and Better Wayland Reliability
by George Whittaker
The KDE Project has officially released KDE Plasma 6.7.1, the first maintenance update for the Plasma 6.7 desktop environment. Rather than introducing major new features, this point release focuses on polishing the desktop with a broad collection of bug fixes, translation updates, and performance improvements aimed at making Plasma 6.7 more reliable for everyday use.
As with previous Plasma maintenance releases, KDE developers have concentrated on resolving issues reported by the community soon after the launch of Plasma 6.7, ensuring users receive a smoother and more stable desktop experience.
A Maintenance Release Focused on Stability
KDE Plasma 6.7 introduced numerous new capabilities, including per-display virtual desktops, Wayland session restore, improvements to Plasma Bigscreen, and a refreshed theming system. Plasma 6.7.1 builds on that foundation by addressing early regressions and fine-tuning the overall desktop experience.
The update primarily delivers:
Bug fixes across core Plasma components Updated translations Performance refinements Improved desktop reliability Better overall user experienceImprovements Across the Desktop
Several of Plasma's core applications and components receive fixes in this release.
Notable improvements include:
Better reliability in the Kickoff Application Launcher Fixes for Discover, KDE's software manager Improvements to the KWin window manager Various panel and desktop behavior corrections Better handling of notifications and user interface elements
While most of these changes are relatively small on their own, together they help eliminate many of the rough edges users may have encountered after upgrading to Plasma 6.7.
Wayland Continues to Mature
Wayland remains the primary development focus for KDE Plasma, and version 6.7.1 continues refining the experience.
The update includes fixes affecting:
Window management Session stability Input handling Display behavior General compositor reliability
Over the past several Plasma releases, KDE developers have steadily shifted their attention toward making Wayland the best possible experience while continuing limited maintenance for X11.
Translation Updates for Global Users
Like most KDE maintenance releases, Plasma 6.7.1 incorporates a fresh batch of translation updates contributed by volunteers from around the world.
These updates improve:
Go to Full Article
- PorteuX 2.6 Released with Linux 6.19, TLP Support, and Smarter Hardware Optimization
by George Whittaker
The PorteuX project has officially released PorteuX 2.6, bringing a new round of updates to the lightweight Slackware-based Linux distribution. Designed to be fast, portable, modular, and immutable, PorteuX continues to appeal to users who want a complete desktop operating system that can run efficiently from a USB drive or other removable media. The latest release introduces a newer Linux kernel, improved power management, updated desktop environments, and numerous performance and usability improvements.
Released just two months after PorteuX 2.5, version 2.6 focuses on refining the user experience while maintaining the distribution's minimalist philosophy.
Powered by Linux Kernel 6.19
At the heart of PorteuX 2.6 is the Linux 6.19 kernel series, bringing improved hardware compatibility, updated drivers, security fixes, and better support for modern processors and peripherals.
The updated kernel helps ensure smoother operation on both newer desktop hardware and laptops while continuing PorteuX's emphasis on speed and low resource usage.
Better Battery Life with TLP Support
One of the headline features in PorteuX 2.6 is support for TLP, the popular command-line utility used to optimize laptop battery life.
Available through the PorteuX AppStore, TLP automatically adjusts various power-saving settings, including CPU behavior and device power management, helping extend battery life without requiring constant manual tuning.
For laptop users, this addition makes PorteuX an even more attractive lightweight operating system.
Automatic CPU Microcode Loading
The release also introduces automatic loading of Intel and AMD CPU microcode when booting in non-fresh modes.
Microcode updates help address processor bugs, improve stability, and deliver security fixes directly from CPU manufacturers. Automating this process reduces the need for manual configuration while ensuring supported systems benefit from the latest firmware improvements.
Updated Desktop Environments
PorteuX continues to offer multiple desktop editions, each updated to recent upstream releases.
Version 2.6 includes:
GNOME 49.4 KDE Plasma 6.5.5 Xfce 4.20 Cinnamon 6.6 LXQt 2.3 MATE 1.28.2 COSMIC 1.0.8 LXDE 0.11.1
This broad selection allows users to choose between modern feature-rich desktops and extremely lightweight environments depending on their hardware and workflow.
Performance Improvements Throughout the System
Although PorteuX has always emphasized performance, version 2.6 introduces additional optimizations behind the scenes.
Developers report improvements including:
Go to Full Article
- CachyOS June 2026 ISO Released with Hyprland Noctalia, Faster Performance, and Smarter System Tools
by George Whittaker
The CachyOS team has released the June 2026 ISO, delivering another feature-packed update for its Arch Linux-based distribution. Known for its aggressive performance optimizations and gaming-focused approach, CachyOS continues refining both the user experience and the underlying system with improvements ranging from compiler tuning to installer enhancements and new desktop options.
As the project's fourth major ISO refresh of the year, the June release emphasizes speed, usability, and modern hardware support while remaining fully compatible with Arch Linux's rolling-release ecosystem.
A New Hyprland Noctalia Desktop Experience
One of the headline additions is a new Hyprland Noctalia desktop option available directly from the installer.
Noctalia provides a polished, preconfigured Hyprland environment with a modern appearance, allowing users to enjoy a highly customizable Wayland compositor without spending hours configuring dotfiles after installation. The installer even includes a preview so users can see the desktop before selecting it.
For users interested in lightweight, keyboard-driven workflows, this new option makes Hyprland much more approachable.
Performance Optimizations Continue
Performance remains the defining characteristic of CachyOS, and the June 2026 release introduces several additional optimizations.
Notable improvements include:
Python packages now built using extended Profile-Guided Optimization (PGO) A new GCC branch prediction tuning patch designed to improve performance on modern Intel and AMD processors A fix for an OpenBLAS regression affecting high-core-count CPUs Additional package-level optimizations throughout the distribution
These updates continue CachyOS's philosophy of extracting as much performance as possible from modern hardware.
Improved Package Management and Security
The June release also includes several important changes to package management.
One notable enhancement is network isolation for Pacman scriptlets and hooks, preventing installation scripts from accessing the network by default. This improves security during package installation and reduces the risk of unexpected behavior.
Additionally:
proton-cachyos has been renamed to proton-cachyos-native The installer no longer includes the paru AUR helper Users are now encouraged to use Shelly, available with both graphical and command-line interfacesInstaller Improvements
The installation experience has received considerable attention in this release.
Updates include:
Go to Full Article
- Git 2.55 Released with Faster Performance, Smarter Hooks, and Expanded Rust Integration
by George Whittaker
The Git project has officially released Git 2.55, bringing a wide range of improvements focused on performance, developer productivity, and modernizing the world's most widely used version control system. The release introduces smarter repository management, faster operations for large codebases, expanded hook capabilities, and continues Git's gradual adoption of Rust for improved reliability and maintainability.
Although Git 2.55 doesn't radically change how developers use Git day to day, it delivers meaningful enhancements that make common workflows faster and more flexible—particularly for teams managing large repositories.
Rust Support Is Now Enabled by Default
One of the biggest architectural changes in Git 2.55 is that Rust support is now enabled by default when building Git from source.
Developers compiling Git will automatically use Rust components unless they explicitly disable them using the new NO_RUST build option. This is part of the project's long-term effort to improve memory safety and gradually replace selected components with Rust implementations where appropriate. Git 3.0 is expected to make Rust support mandatory.
For most users installing Git through their Linux distribution, this change happens behind the scenes and requires no additional configuration.
Repository Performance Gets a Boost
Git 2.55 includes several optimizations aimed at improving performance when working with large repositories.
Among the improvements are:
Faster bitmap generation during repository maintenance More efficient multi-pack repository handling Better pseudo-merge bitmap processing Reduced time spent creating optimized pack files
These enhancements can dramatically reduce maintenance times for repositories containing millions of objects while also improving clone, fetch, and object traversal performance.
Developers working on large enterprise projects or open-source codebases should notice faster background maintenance and repository operations.
Config-Based Hooks Continue to Evolve
Git continues improving one of its most requested features: configuration-based hooks.
Instead of storing hook scripts only inside the .git/hooks directory for each repository, developers can now define hooks directly through Git configuration files. This makes it easier to:
Share hook configurations Manage multiple hooks Standardize development workflows Reduce repository-specific setup
Git 2.55 also expands support for hook execution behavior and continues laying the groundwork for more advanced hook management in future releases.
Go to Full Article
- Fedora Governance Changes Take Effect as Project Refines Leadership, Policy, and Contributor Oversight
by George Whittaker
A series of Fedora governance updates are now taking effect, marking another step in the project's ongoing effort to modernize decision-making processes, improve transparency, and better support Fedora's growing contributor community. The changes come as the Fedora Council and other leadership bodies continue refining how one of the Linux world's largest community-driven projects is managed.
While these updates may not be as visible as a new desktop environment or kernel release, they play a critical role in shaping Fedora's future direction, community initiatives, and long-term sustainability.
How Fedora Governance Works
Fedora's governance structure is built around several key organizations that guide different aspects of the project.
These include:
The Fedora Council, which oversees strategic direction FESCo (Fedora Engineering Steering Committee), responsible for technical and engineering decisions Mindshare, which focuses on community outreach and contributor engagement Various Special Interest Groups (SIGs) and working groups that manage specific initiatives and technologies
Together, these groups help coordinate thousands of contributors spread across the globe.
Greater Focus on Strategic Planning
Recent Fedora Council discussions have emphasized long-term planning and governance modernization. One major area of focus has been defining clearer processes for evaluating and managing new initiatives through what Fedora leaders call an Innovation Lifecycle framework.
The proposed framework aims to:
Better evaluate experimental projects Establish clearer entry and review phases Define expectations for community initiatives Improve oversight as projects mature
The goal is to create a more predictable path for new ideas while maintaining Fedora's culture of innovation.
Refining Contributor Representation
Another governance topic receiving significant attention involves contributor participation and voting eligibility.
Fedora leadership has been examining questions such as:
What defines an active contributor? How should voting rights be determined? How can elections remain fair while staying inclusive? How should dormant accounts be handled?
These discussions stem from concerns that existing systems may not always accurately reflect current contributor activity.
While no single solution has been finalized, governance bodies are actively working toward policies that balance openness with accountability.
Go to Full Article
- The Growth of Vulnerability Management: The Rise of Agentic AI Pentesting
by Malana VanTyler
Cybersecurity shifts fast. Manual penetration tests remain valuable, especially for nuanced attack paths and business-logic issues, but they are expensive, point-in-time, and difficult to run continuously. By the time a report is delivered, the environment may have already changed. Automated scanners improved coverage and frequency, but most still rely on known signatures, templated checks, and shallow validation. They can find obvious issues, but they rarely match the adaptive reasoning, chaining, and persistence of a skilled attacker.Platforms like XBOW help security teams move toward continuous validation by running AI-driven tests that mimic large-scale human attackers. This shift moves the focus from periodic assessment and reactive patching toward ongoing exposure management and earlier prevention.
From Automation to Agency
To appreciate the value of these modern platforms, it’s important to separate traditional automation from what is called “agentic” AI. Earlier AI pentesting tools mostly worked like advanced “if-then” systems, running preset scripts and looking for known patterns. While useful to automate some tasks pentesters perform, these tools lack the ability to pivot.
If a standard tool hits a non-standard login portal, it generally stops. An agent platform, however, can identify and adapt to the obstacle, reason through potential bypasses, and attempt alternative tactics.
This core differentiator is the “agent,” a specialized model capable of goal-oriented planning. These platforms employ real-time attack path analysis tools. They identify a low-severity vulnerability and assess whether it could be exploited to gain access
to a high-value asset. This approach imitates how an advanced attacker moves laterally within a system. The result is a clearer and more realistic view of the organization’s real risk compared to just listing bugs in a spreadsheet without context.
Comparing Methodologies: Strategy and Execution
When comparing platforms in this area, the industry is shifting focus from just ticking off features to demonstrating how effectively those features can be used. Modern platforms, including XBOW, focus on high-fidelity testing that avoids disrupting production environments while still proving that a vulnerability is reachable.
Three main architectural approaches have emerged as standouts:
Go to Full Article
- Linux Kernel 7.1 Officially Released with New NTFS Driver, Intel FRED, and Major Code Cleanup
by George Whittaker
The Linux kernel development team has officially released Linux Kernel 7.1, marking the first major update in the 7.x series. Announced by Linus Torvalds on June 14, 2026, the release introduces a mix of new features, hardware improvements, filesystem enhancements, and large-scale code cleanup efforts that continue modernizing the Linux platform.
While Linux 7.1 is not a long-term support (LTS) release, it delivers several significant changes that will eventually make their way into many Linux distributions over the coming months.
A Brand-New NTFS Driver Arrives
One of the most significant additions in Linux 7.1 is a completely rewritten in-kernel NTFS filesystem driver.
The new implementation has reportedly been under development for several years and replaces older code with a modern design built around Linux’s current storage infrastructure. The driver utilizes technologies such as iomap and folios, which improve efficiency and simplify future maintenance.
Benefits include:
Improved NTFS write performance Better handling of large files More modern filesystem architecture Easier future development and maintenance
For users who regularly exchange data between Linux and Windows systems, this is one of the most important improvements in the release.
Intel FRED Enabled by Default
Linux 7.1 also enables Intel Flexible Return and Event Delivery (FRED) by default on supported hardware.
FRED is a newer CPU mechanism designed to improve how processors handle interrupts and exceptions. By replacing older methods with a more streamlined approach, FRED aims to improve performance and reduce complexity in low-level CPU operations.
The feature primarily benefits newer Intel platforms, including upcoming processor generations.
Graphics Drivers Continue to Improve
Graphics support remains a major focus of kernel development, and Linux 7.1 delivers additional improvements for both Intel and AMD hardware.
Highlights include:
Performance enhancements for Intel Arc GPUs Continued work on Intel Battlemage graphics Updates for AMD Radeon hardware Expanded GPU reliability monitoring infrastructure through DRM-RAS support
These updates help improve gaming, desktop performance, and workstation workloads across modern Linux systems.
Steam Deck OLED Audio Fixes Land Upstream
Linux gamers receive a welcome improvement in this release as audio support fixes for the Steam Deck OLED have finally been merged into the mainline kernel.
Go to Full Article
- Canonical Launches ARM Laptop Certification Program to Boost Ubuntu’s Next Generation of Mobile Computing
by George Whittaker
Canonical is expanding its hardware certification efforts with a new focus on ARM-powered laptops, a move that reflects the growing momentum behind ARM architecture in the personal computing market. As ARM processors become increasingly common in laptops thanks to their impressive balance of performance, battery life, and efficiency, Canonical aims to ensure that Ubuntu users receive a seamless experience on this emerging class of hardware.
The initiative represents another step in Ubuntu’s long-standing effort to provide reliable Linux support across a wide range of devices while strengthening relationships with hardware manufacturers.
Why ARM Laptops Matter More Than Ever
For years, x86 processors from Intel and AMD dominated the laptop market. However, the landscape has changed significantly as ARM-based systems have become more powerful and capable.
Modern ARM laptops offer several advantages:
Longer battery life Lower power consumption Reduced heat output Always-on connectivity capabilities Competitive performance for everyday workloads
As manufacturers increasingly invest in ARM hardware, Linux distributions face growing pressure to ensure compatibility matches what users expect from traditional x86 systems. Canonical has already spent years supporting ARM across cloud, server, IoT, and embedded environments, making laptops a natural next step.
What the Certification Program Does
The new certification effort builds upon Canonical’s existing Ubuntu Certified Hardware program, which validates systems through extensive testing covering both hardware and operating system functionality. Certified devices undergo comprehensive verification to ensure Ubuntu operates correctly across critical components and daily workflows.
Testing typically includes:
Wireless networking Audio functionality Graphics performance Bluetooth support USB device compatibility Power management Suspend and resume behavior Firmware integration Security features such as TPM support
The goal is to eliminate the uncertainty that Linux users sometimes face when purchasing new hardware.
Creating a Better Ubuntu Experience on ARM
Historically, Linux support on ARM laptops has varied significantly between devices. Some systems work exceptionally well, while others require manual configuration, custom kernels, or vendor-specific patches.
Go to Full Article
- Btrfs Snapshot Deletion Gets Faster as Developers Tackle One of the Filesystem’s Biggest Pain Points
by George Whittaker
The Btrfs filesystem continues to receive significant performance tuning, and one of the latest areas of focus is snapshot deletion performance. While Btrfs snapshots have long been praised for their speed, flexibility, and efficient use of storage, deleting large numbers of snapshots has historically been one of the filesystem’s most resource-intensive operations.
Recent kernel development efforts are helping address that problem by improving metadata handling, reducing lock contention, and streamlining internal cleanup processes. The result is faster snapshot removal and less disruption on systems that rely heavily on snapshots for backups, rollbacks, and system recovery.
Why Snapshot Deletion Has Been Challenging
Btrfs is a copy-on-write (CoW) filesystem that stores data and metadata in a highly interconnected structure. This design enables many advanced features, including:
Instant snapshots Subvolumes Checksumming Compression Efficient data sharing between snapshots
However, the same architecture that makes snapshots so efficient to create can make them more complex to remove. When a snapshot is deleted, Btrfs must determine which blocks are still referenced by other snapshots and which can be safely reclaimed. On systems with many snapshots, this process can generate significant metadata activity.
Recent Performance Improvements
Developers have been working to reduce overhead associated with Btrfs metadata operations, which directly impacts snapshot cleanup performance.
Recent kernel updates include:
Reduced lock contention during extent tree operations More efficient extent buffer traversal Improved handling of internal filesystem structures Reduced contention during metadata searches General transaction and cleanup optimizations
These changes help the filesystem spend less time waiting on internal locks and more time performing actual cleanup work.
Less Impact During Cleanup Operations
One common complaint among Btrfs users has been elevated I/O activity during large snapshot deletion jobs.
On systems that maintain dozens, or even hundreds, of snapshots, cleanup operations could temporarily increase:
Disk activity CPU usage I/O wait times Metadata processing workloads
Recent improvements are designed to make these operations less disruptive by reducing bottlenecks inside the filesystem's metadata management code.
For users running backup servers, NAS appliances, or snapshot-heavy desktop systems, these optimizations can improve overall responsiveness while cleanup tasks run in the background.
Go to Full Article
- How Digital Software Is Powering Innovation in Modern Product Design
by Will Jones
By enabling digitized production design, this digital software is freeing up businesses and individuals across numerous industries to work smarter, not harder.
To design a new product or tool is often a lengthy, labor-intensive process. Even the most successful and streamlined physical design process is intensive and iterative by nature; it is the process of taking something that begins as little more than an idea and turning it into reality. Inherently, that is going to take a great deal of translation, as well as trial and error. When working with real-world, physical elements, this also makes for a costly endeavor, as each new trial effort may prove essential to the long-term success of the design, but still has adverse financial effects. Dassault Systèmes offers CAD software to help businesses stay on top of advancements in their industries.
Before digital design software became widely adopted, engineers and designers often relied heavily on hand-drawn technical sketches and manual drafting methods during product development. Revising a design could require redrawing entire sections of a project, making the process both time-consuming and resource-intensive. Modern digital design systems have significantly changed these workflows by allowing teams to make rapid adjustments, automate calculations, and store detailed design information within a single platform. This shift has contributed to the broader adoption of digital tools across industries seeking more streamlined development processes.
Fortunately, though, in this new world of ever-advancing technological tools, the design process doesn’t have to be fraught with issues and obstacles anymore, thanks to systems such as CAD software. This new software is now enabling businesses to design smarter, faster, and more accurately by digitizing product development processes and improving collaboration across engineering and manufacturing teams.
Digital Design as the Foundation of Innovation
Digital software allows engineers to create precise digital models that can then serve as the foundation for product development. Compare this to the physical alternative, which has long been a well-thought-out sketch of the product in question. Even the most comprehensive of sketches is only going to be dealing with two dimensions, and is likely to leave room for confusion or error based on the interpretation of the subjective rendering.
Go to Full Article
|
