Linux fréttir

Another week, another protest over budget proposals

A letter protesting the imminent demise of US research vessel and icebreaker the Nathaniel B. Palmer was this week sent to the National Science Foundation (NSF) amid proposed funding reductions.…

The Airbus A380, the world's largest commercial passenger jet, faces mounting maintenance challenges as regulatory authorities issue an increasing number of safety directives. The European Union Aviation Safety Agency has listed 95 airworthiness directives for the A380 since January 2020, approximately double the number issued for large Boeing aircraft during the same period. The directives address problems including leaking escape slides, cracked seals, and a ruptured landing-gear axle. A comprehensive maintenance check of the massive plane requires 60,000 hours of labor, according to aircraft repairer Lufthansa Technik. Airlines remain committed to operating the twin-deck aircraft due to limited large-capacity alternatives, with Boeing's 777X years behind schedule and Airbus unable to produce long-haul A350s quickly enough. British Airways plans to overhaul A380 cabins starting next year, while Emirates intends to keep flying the aircraft until the end of the next decade.

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Some users keen while others point out pile of unresolved bugs in core product

The open source Blender 3D editing suite may be adapted to run on Apple's iPad and other tablets, despite concern from one contributor that the team is already stretched with "thousands of bugs languishing in the tracker."…

schwit1 writes: The Apple Manufacturing Academy will be located in downtown Detroit and will be administered by Michigan State University. The academy will offer workshops on manufacturing and artificial intelligence to small and medium-sized businesses, Apple said. Trump has called for Apple to move iPhone production to the U.S. and is implementing tariffs that will likely raise the company's costs.

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Mostly minor changes under the hood – a lot of them

Over the weekend, the world's most famous Finn pushed out the latest version of the Linux kernel – and warned of upcoming disruption.…

India has overtaken China to become the top source of smartphones sold in the US, after Apple shifted to assemble more of its iPhones in the South Asian country. From a report: In the quarter through June, India was the largest manufacturer of smartphones shipped to the US for the first time, accounting for 44% of the market, according to Canalys data. Vietnam, home to much of Samsung's production, came in second. China fell from having more than 60% of all estimated shipments a year ago to just 25%. The stark change comes as Apple ramped up its production in India and smartphone makers "frontload device inventories amid tariff concerns," Canalys researchers wrote. The volume of made-in-India devices more than tripled in the past quarter from a year earlier. Apple's iPhone shipments to the US declined by 11%, reflecting distortions to its usual pattern due to unusually high shipments to stockpile units earlier in the year.

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Bumper's 1950 liftoff paved way for thousands of missions from iconic spaceport

It is 75 years since the first rocket launch from Cape Canaveral: a two-stage rocket consisting of a German V-2 missile and a US sounding rocket.…

Utilities across the U.S. are demanding tech companies pay larger shares of electricity infrastructure costs as AI drives unprecedented data center construction, creating tensions over who bears the financial burden of grid upgrades. Virginia utility Dominion Energy received requests from data center developers requiring 40 gigawatts of electricity by the end of 2024, enough to power at least 10 million homes, and proposed measures requiring longer-term contracts and guaranteed payments. Ohio became one of the first states to mandate companies pay more connection costs after receiving power requests exceeding 50 times existing data center usage. Tech giants Microsoft, Google, and Amazon plan to spend $80 billion, $85 billion, and $100 billion respectively this year on AI infrastructure, while utilities worry that grid upgrade costs will increase rates for residential customers. Further reading: The AI explosion means millions are paying more for electricity

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5 V-tolerant GPIO opens the way to some intriguing retro-nerdery

The Raspberry Pi team has released an update to the RP2350 microcontroller with bug fixes, hardening, and a GPIO tweak that will delight retro hardware enthusiasts.…

An anonymous reader quotes a report from SFGATE: During the 2010s' boom in on-demand services such as Uber and DoorDash, Wag staked a claim to the market for dog walking. It became a buzzy, high-flying company, at one point gaining a valuation of around $650 million, and grew to offer a whole range of tech products for pet care. But as the years passed, struggles mounted and profits remained elusive. On July 21, Wag filed (PDF) for bankruptcy. To stay alive, the San Francisco-headquartered company is now using bankruptcy court to restructure in what's known as a Chapter 11 process. Its lines of business -- including gig-work dog walking and sitting, pet insurance, and the veterinary tool "Furscription" -- will remain open, according to a news release. If a judge approves Wag's restructuring plan, it will take the company off the public markets and into the private hands of a company called Retriever. On the same day of the bankruptcy filing, Wag's chief financial officer, Alec Davidian, submitted a document (PDF) supporting and explaining the move. He wrote that Wag's "monthly revenues declined rapidly after March 2020 as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic" and pointed to $69.5 million in losses from 2022 through 2024. The losses weren't Wag's only problem. The company had taken out debt in 2022 when it went public, and in that loan agreement, it had set a minimum level of cash Wag would need to have on hand at all times. This year, Wag dropped below that amount, Davidian wrote. Wag also failed to find a third-party deal to get more money, the CFO noted, and its debt obligations are set to mature in August, meaning the company was "facing a dire liquidity crisis." So, Wag opted for the bankruptcy proceeding, in which it plans to eliminate the 2022 debt, which is currently held by Retriever. "Through the Restructuring," Davidian wrote, "[Wag] will emerge from these Chapter 11 Cases a stronger company, with a more sustainable capital structure that is better aligned with [Wag's] present and future operating prospects."

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Changes enacted in Trump's budget cover cost of penalty

Electronic design biz Cadence has agreed to plead guilty and pay more than $140 million in fines over charges that it unlawfully sold semiconductor design tools to a university linked with the Chinese military.…