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The Fedora Council has approved a new policy allowing AI-assisted code contributions, provided contributors fully disclose and take responsibility for any AI-generated work. Phoronix reports: AI-assisted code contributions can be used but the contributor must take responsibility for that contribution, it must be transparent in disclosing the use of AI such as with the "Assisted-by" tag, and that AI can help in assisting human reviewers/evaluation but must not be the sole or final arbiter. This AI policy also doesn't cover large-scale initiatives which will need to be handled individually with the Fedora Council. [...] The Fedora Council does expect that this policy will need to be updated over time for staying current with AI technologies.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

You didn't have plans, did you?

Microsoft has released an out-of-band update to patch a critical vulnerability in Windows Server Update Services (WSUS).…

Failure at primary datacenter leaves planes parked and passengers angry, second incident since July

Timing is everything — except when it isn't. US carrier Alaska Airlines has grounded its fleet once again due to a mystery IT issue.…

Starmer rebrands unpopular scheme as convenience tool after backlash

UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer has relaunched his digital ID scheme as something that will make people's lives easier, less than four weeks after announcing it as a measure to tackle illegal working.…

11 years of filing feedback and all we got was a bloody... not even a T-shirt?

Microsoft is celebrating 11 years of the Windows Insider Program with custom desktops and maybe a secret hint for users wondering which operating system to consider.…

Airbus, Leonardo, and Thales are merging their space divisions into a new France-based company that aims to create a "leading European player in space." The joint venture, expected to launch operations by 2027 pending regulatory approval, will pool R&D resources to accelerate satellite development and strengthen Europe's technological sovereignty in space. Engadget reports: The companies Airbus, Leonardo and Thales have finalized this deal. The new unnamed entity will be based in France and will employ around 25,000 people. Airbus will own 35 percent, while the other two companies will each own 32.5 percent. Executives are hoping this company will better serve Europe's need for "sovereignty" in space and help it create a rival to SpaceX's Starlink communications network. Increasing a presence in space is also seen as a good thing for security and defense. This isn't just bluster. Thales and Airbus have long been rivals in the satellite market, but it looks like they are friends now. Leonardo is known for space systems and services. Combining all three could actually give SpaceX a run for its money, but we will have to wait and see. There are no planned site closures, as the companies say that each home country will keep its existing capabilities. This will be a standalone company, so think of it as an extremely well-financed startup. The first task for the upstart? Reporting indicates it'll be to find more efficient ways to develop and manufacture satellites.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Google Gemini worst offender with 76% error rate

Four of the most popular AI chatbots routinely serve up inaccurate or misleading news content to users, according to a wide-reaching investigation.…

Request For Ideas: How would you move a retired orbiter across the US?

The White House's Office of Management and Budget is grappling with how to transport Space Shuttle Discovery from the Smithsonian Museum in Virginia to Space Center Houston. How would you do it?…

Runways? Where we're going, we don't need runways

US defense technology biz Shield AI claims it can build a jet-powered vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) autonomous fighter drone that doesn't need a runway to operate.…

OpenAI sweetens the deal with data residency

OpenAI has signed up the UK's Ministry of Justice as the latest public sector customer for ChatGPT Enterprise.…

An Icelandic programmer successfully ran Doom on the European Space Agency's OPS-SAT satellite, proving that the iconic 1993 shooter can now run not just everywhere on Earth -- but in orbit. ZDNet reports: Olafur Waage, a senior software developer from Iceland who now works in Norway, explained at Ubuntu Summit 25.10 how he, a self-described "professional keyboard typist" and maker of funny videos, ended up making what is perhaps the game's most outlandish port yet: Doom running on a real satellite in orbit, the European Space Agency (ESA) OPS-SAT satellite. OPS-SAT, a "flying laboratory" for testing novel onboard computing techniques, was equipped with an experimental computer approximately 10 times more powerful than the norm for spacecraft. Waag explained, "OPS-SAT was the first of its kind, devoted to demonstrating drastically improved mission control capabilities when satellites can fly more powerful onboard computers. The point was to break the curse of being too risk-averse with multi-million-dollar spacecraft." (The satellite was decommissioned in 2024.) [...] Running Doom in orbit was partly a challenge of portability and partly a challenge of the limitations of space hardware and mission control. The on-board ARM dual-core Cortex-A9 processor, while hot stuff for space computing hardware (which tends to be low-powered and radiation-hardened), was slow even by Earth-bound standards. Waage chose Chocolate Doom 2.3, a popular open-source version of Doom, for its compatibility with the Ubuntu 18.04 Long Term Support (LTS) distro, which was already running on OPS-SAT. Besides, Waage noted, "We picked Chocolate Doom 2.3 because of the libraries available for 18.04 -- that was the last one that would actually build. Updating software in orbit is extremely difficult, so relatively little code would have to be uploaded. As Waage said, "Doom is relatively straightforward C with a few external dependencies." In other words, it's easy to port. [...] The only sign that Doom was running in space at first was a lone log entry. So, the team used the satellite's camera to snap real-time images of the Earth, then swapped Doom's Mars skybox for actual satellite photos. "The idea was to take a screenshot from the satellite and use that as the sky, all rendered in software using the game's restricted 256-color palette," explained Waage. Even this posed unexpected difficulties: "Trying to draw all of these beautiful colors with those colors," said Waage, "it's probably not going to work right off. But we tried gradient tests, NASA demo photos. It took quite a bit of tweaking." Eventually, instead of a fantasy Mars as the sky background, they got a good-looking, real Earth in the game's sky. The game itself ran flawlessly. After all, Waage said, "It ran beautifully. It's on Ubuntu."

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Techie summoned at 02:00 AM to sort things out sent another 2 billion trying to fix it

On Call Welcome to another instalment of On Call, The Register's weekly wander through your tales of tech support.…

Group-IB says Tehran-linked crew used hijacked mailbox and VPN to sling phishing emails across Middle East

Iran's favorite muddy-footed cyberespionage crew is at it again, this time breaching more than 100 government entities across the Middle East and North Africa, according to researchers at Group-IB.…

Mystery customer wants an upgrade that will take some time

Supermicro has revised its revenue forecast downwards by a couple of billion dollars, but insisted it’s nothing to worry about.…