Linux fréttir

Stop us if you've heard this one before

A legal claim has been brought against Microsoft over alleged licensing practices that could result in a multibillion-pound payout for UK customers.…

Linux creator Linus Torvalds has abandoned his six-month experiment with a quieter low-profile keyboard in favor of his old mechanical one with Cherry MX Blue switches. In a post about Linux 6.15-rc6 on LKML.org, Torvalds explained that his typing accuracy suffered without the tactile feedback. "It seems I need the audible (or perhaps tactile) feedback to avoid the typing mistakes that I just kept doing," Torvalds wrote. The famously outspoken developer couldn't recall why he initially switched to the quieter keyboard, as he doesn't work in a shared office where the noise would disturb others. After the failed experiment with the unnamed quiet keyboard, Torvalds has now returned to what he describes as a "noisy clackety-clack" input device. He joked that since he can no longer blame his keyboard for typos, "going forward, I will now conveniently blame autocorrect."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Microsoft is laying off 3% of employees across all levels and geographies, the company said Tuesday. "We continue to implement organizational changes necessary to best position the company for success in a dynamic marketplace," a spokesperson told CNBC. Microsoft had 228,000 employees worldwide at the end of June, meaning that the move will affect thousands of employees.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Both agencies seem unbothered despite tech world's clear concerns for US infoseccers

CYBERUK The top brass from the UK's cyber agency say everything is business as usual when it comes to the GCHQ arm's relationship with CISA, amid growing unease about the current administration's treatment of its US equivalent.…

Gaming pioneer John Carmack believes we're not nearly as dependent on cutting-edge silicon as most assume -- we just lack the economic incentive to prove it. Responding to a "CPU apocalypse" thought experiment on X, the id Software founder and former Oculus CTO suggested that software inefficiency, not hardware limitations, is our greatest vulnerability. "More of the world than many might imagine could run on outdated hardware if software optimization was truly a priority," Carmack wrote, arguing that market pressures would drive dramatic efficiency improvements if new chips stopped arriving. His solution? "Rebuild all the interpreted microservice based products into monolithic native codebases!" -- essentially abandoning modern development patterns for the more efficient approaches of earlier computing eras. The veteran programmer noted that such changes would come with significant tradeoffs: "Innovative new products would get much rarer without super cheap and scalable compute."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The House of Zen’s low-end enterprise strategy is badge engineering at its best

AMD on Tuesday revealed its latest chips to get a Zen 5 refresh with the launch of its itty bitty Epyc 4005-series CPUs.…

Research flags rise in one-dimensional health research fueled by large language models

A report from a British university warns that scientific knowledge itself is under threat from a flood of low-quality AI-generated research papers.…

Apple is embracing the world of brain computer interfaces, unveiling a new technology that one day could revolutionize how humans interact with their devices. From a report: The company is taking early steps to enable people to control their iPhones with neural signals captured by a new generation of brain implants. It could make Apple devices more accessible to tens of thousands of people who can't use their hands because of severe spinal cord injuries or diseases such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS. [...] Historically, humans interacted with their computers mechanically, using keyboards and mice. Smartphones introduced touch, a behavioral input, but still an observable physical movement. The new capability means Apple devices won't need to see the user make specific movements, the devices can detect user intentions from decoded brain signals. Apple has worked on the new standard with Synchron, which makes a stent-like device that is implanted in a vein atop the brain's motor cortex. The device called the Stentrode has electrodes that read brain signals. It translates the signals into selecting icons on a screen.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The Soviet Union aimed for Venus, but hit the Indian Ocean instead

The odyssey of the Soviet Union's failed attempt to reach Venus came to an end over the weekend with the probe either disintegrating during reentry or what remained of it splashing harmlessly into the ocean.…

Market cap down by more than £1BN since April 22

Marks & Spencer has confirmed that customer data was stolen as part of its cyberattack, fueling conjecture that ransomware was involved.…

EUVD comes into play not a moment too soon

The European Vulnerability Database (EUVD) is now fully operational, offering a streamlined platform to monitor critical and actively exploited security flaws amid the US struggles with budget cuts, delayed disclosures, and confusion around the future of its own tracking systems.…

Amazon's decade-old acquisition of Annapurna Labs has emerged as a pivotal element in its AI strategy, with the once-secretive Israeli chip design startup now powering AWS infrastructure. The $350 million deal, struck in 2015 after initial talks between Annapurna co-founder Nafea Bshara and Amazon executive James Hamilton, has equipped the tech giant with custom silicon capabilities critical to its cloud computing dominance. Annapurna's chips, particularly the Trainium processor for AI model training and Graviton for general-purpose computing, now form the foundation of Amazon's AI infrastructure. The company is deploying hundreds of thousands of Trainium chips in its Project Rainier supercomputer being delivered to AI startup Anthropic this year. Amazon CEO Andy Jassy, who led AWS when the acquisition occurred, described it as "one of the most important moments" in AWS history.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Labour health secretary’s vision for one record to rule 'em all, for each patient, set to come to market

The state health service for England has asked tech suppliers to submit ideas to help it build an online service for a single health record, as promised by the country's Health Minister last year.…

Claims policy change is really just a way to squeeze out competition

Exclusive European cloud vendor Nextcloud has accused Google of deliberately crippling its Android Files application, which it says has more than 800,000 users.…

'MarbledDust' gang has honed the skills it uses to assist Ankara

Turkish spies exploited a zero-day bug in a messaging app to collect info on the Kurdish army in Iraq, according to Microsoft, which says the attacks began more than a year ago.…

Dutch researchers have recalculated the timeline for cosmic decay via Hawking-like radiation and found that the universe may end much sooner than previously thought -- around 10^78 years, rather than 10^1100. Phys.Org reports: The research by black hole expert Heino Falcke, quantum physicist Michael Wondrak, and mathematician Walter van Suijlekom (all from Radboud University, Nijmegen, the Netherlands) is a follow-up to a 2023 paper by the same trio. In that paper, they showed that not only black holes, but also other objects such as neutron stars, can "evaporate" via a process akin to Hawking radiation. After that publication, the researchers received many questions from inside and outside the scientific community about how long the process would take. They have now answered this question in the new article. The researchers calculated that the end of the universe is about 1078 years away, if only Hawking-like radiation is taken into account. This is the time it takes for white dwarf stars, the most persistent celestial bodies, to decay via Hawking-like radiation. Previous studies, which did not take this effect into account, put the lifetime of white dwarfs at 101100 years. Lead author Heino Falcke said, "So the ultimate end of the universe comes much sooner than expected, but fortunately it still takes a very long time." The findings have been published in the Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

CEO Sam Altman has no master plan but imagines custom models built on everything you’ve ever said or read

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman says his company doesn’t have a master plan but does hope to develop a product that’s akin to a subscription operating system, but for AI, and models that ingest every experience you have in your life…

Over 400 prominent UK media and arts figures -- including Paul McCartney, Elton John, and Ian McKellen -- have urged the prime minister to support an amendment to the Data Bill that would require AI companies to disclose which copyrighted works they use for training. The Register reports: The UK government proposes to allow exceptions to copyright rules in the case of text and data mining needed for AI training, with an opt-out option for content producers. "Government amendments requiring an economic impact assessment and reports on the feasibility of an 'opt-out' copyright regime and transparency requirements do not meet the moment, but simply leave creators open to years of copyright theft," the letter says. The group -- which also includes Kate Bush, Robbie Williams, Tom Stoppard, and Russell T Davies -- said the amendments tabled for the Lords debate would create a requirement for AI firms to tell copyright owners which individual works they have ingested. "Copyright law is not broken, but you can't enforce the law if you can't see the crime taking place. Transparency requirements would make the risk of infringement too great for AI firms to continue to break the law," the letter states. Baroness Kidron, who proposed the amendment, said: "How AI is developed and who it benefits are two of the most important questions of our time. The UK creative industries reflect our national stories, drive tourism, create wealth for the nation, and provide 2.4 million jobs across our four nations. They must not be sacrificed to the interests of a handful of US tech companies." Baroness Kidron added: "The UK is in a unique position to take its place as a global player in the international AI supply chain, but to grasp that opportunity requires the transparency provided for in my amendments, which are essential to create a vibrant licensing market." The letter was also signed by a number of media organizations, including the Financial Times, the Daily Mail, and the National Union of Journalists.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Linux 6.15 is coming along nicely too, unless autocorrect messes things up

Linux kernel project boss Linus Torvalds has re-joined the ranks of full-size mechanical keyboard aficionados.…

Chinese and Australian boffins ask what else could be slowing down seismic waves as they pass through the Red Planet?

Mars may still be home to oceanic quantities of liquid water, according to a recent paper published by the National Science Review.…