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An anonymous reader writes: Kaisen Linux, a Debian-based distro packed with tools for sysadmins, system rescue, and network diagnostics, is shutting down. This comes not long after Intel's Clear Linux also reached the end of the road. Kaisen offered multiple desktop environments like KDE Plasma, LXQt, MATE, and Xfce, plus a "toram" mode that could load the whole OS into RAM so you could free up your USB port. The final release, Rolling 3.0, updates the base to Debian 13, defaults to KDE Plasma 6, replaces LightDM with SDDM, drops some packages like neofetch and hping3, and adds things like faster BTRFS snapshot restores, full ZFS support, and safer partitioning behavior. Unlike Clear Linux, Kaisen will still get security updates for the next two years, giving current users time to migrate without rushing.

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When one GPU translates into three to five of the fastest switch ports money can buy, can you blame them?

Nvidia is expected to ship somewhere north of 5 million Blackwell GPUs in 2025. But before those GPUs can train the next GPT, Gemini, or Llama, they need to be networked — and that's quickly becoming big business for Ethernet switch vendors like Cisco, Arista, HPE ... and Nvidia itself.…

New research suggests exposure to some common Pfas or "forever chemical" compounds causes changes to gene activity, and those changes are linked to health problems including multiple cancers, neurological disorders and autoimmune disease. From a report: The findings are a major step toward determining the mechanism by which the chemicals cause disease and could help doctors identify, detect and treat health problems for those exposed to Pfas before the issues advance. The research may also point toward other diseases potentially caused by Pfas that have not yet been identified, the authors said. The study is among the first to examine how Pfas chemicals impact gene activity, called epigenetics. "This gives us a hint as to which genes and which Pfas might be important," said Melissa Furlong, a University of Arizona College of Public Health Pfas researcher and study lead author.

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A large and unfortunate mistake in the kernel development management process is underway

comment The first release candidate of Linux 6.17 is out, without any bcachefs changes… but not for any technical reasons. This is bad.…

alternative_right writes: A team of researchers at Columbia University, funded in part by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, have developed "machines that can grow by consuming other machines." Video of the experiment shows tubular robots that move by extending their shafts to inch along the ground. As the tubes gather, they connect and form into more complex shapes like triangles and tetrahedrons. With each piece consumed, the whole moves faster and with more elegance. "AI systems need bodies to move beyond current limitations. Physical embodiment brings the AI into the messy, constraint-rich real world -- and that's where true generalization has to happen," Phillipe Martin Wyder, lead researcher on the project, told 404 Media.

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Proton has begun relocating infrastructure outside Switzerland ahead of proposed surveillance legislation requiring VPNs and messaging services with over 5,000 users to identify customers and retain data for six months. The company's AI chatbot Lumo became the first product hosted on German servers rather than Swiss infrastructure. CEO Andy Yen confirmed the decision and a spokesperson told TechRadar that the company isn't fully exiting Switzerland. In a blog post about the launch of Lumo last month, Proton's Head of Anti-Abuse and Account Security, Eamonn Maguire, explained that the company had decided to invest outside Switzerland for fear of the looming legal changes. He wrote: "Because of legal uncertainty around Swiss government proposals to introduce mass surveillance -- proposals that have been outlawed in the EU -- Proton is moving most of its physical infrastructure out of Switzerland. Lumo will be the first product to move." The proposed amendments to Switzerland's Ordinance on the Surveillance of Correspondence by Post and Telecommunications would also mandate decryption capabilities for providers holding encryption keys. Proton is developing additional facilities in Norway.

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Switchzilla's summer of perfect 10s

Cisco has issued a patch for a maximum-severity bug in its Secure Firewall Management Center (FMC) software that could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to inject arbitrary shell commands on vulnerable systems.…

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman told reporters that AI investments have entered bubble territory. His remarks: "Are we in a phase where investors as a whole are overexcited about AI? My opinion is yes." "When bubbles happen, smart people get overexcited about a kernel of truth. If you look at most of the bubbles in history, like the tech bubble, there was a real thing. Tech was really important. The internet was a really big deal. People got overexcited." He added that he thinks it's "insane" that some AI startups with "three people and an idea" are receiving funding at such high valuations. "That's not rational behavior," Altman said. "Someone's gonna get burned there, I think. Someone is going to lose a phenomenal amount of money."

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Microsoft is updating its pricing approach for Online Services in Enterprise Agreements in the name of consistency and transparency, but could leave some customers paying more. From a report: Many customers, particularly larger ones, enjoy substantial discounts via volume licensing and the change, which will bring the Online Services pricing model into line with those already rolled out for services like Azure, "reflects our ongoing commitment to greater transparency and alignment across all purchasing channels." Online Services include products such as Dynamics 365 and Windows 365. Exactly how big a discount customers enjoyed depends on the deal they scored. The change will mean that "pricing will align with the pricing published on Microsoft.com." According to Microsoft, "This change reduces licensing complexity, enabling partners to invest less time evaluating Microsoft pricing and programs and more time working with customers on their business needs. With simplified and standardized prices, partners can shift their focus to delivering unique services that will propel their customers' growth." The changes will take effect on November 1.

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You have until Thursday August 21 to respond if you do

NASA's plans to put a nuclear reactor on the Moon have moved on – the agency has now put out a Request For Information (RFI) to gauge industry interest in the project.…

The Linux kernel project lacks a formal succession plan for when Linus Torvalds steps down, Register columnist Rupert Goodwins writes. Torvalds has said "there's no need for formality" and that succession will occur naturally through community trust. "The next benevolent overlord will appear naturally," Torvalds believes. Goodwins calls this approach dangerous, noting that "succession is always a time of uncertainty for those who like the way things are, and opportunity for those who do not." The kernel project faces existing tensions including overstretched maintainers doing "two jobs, the one they're paid for, and the Linux kernel work," commercial pressures from companies like Red Hat, and increasing maintenance burdens from automated bug reports. "Hope, as they say, is not a strategy," Goodwins writes.

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A Chinese storage manufacturer has developed a solid-state drive smaller than a U.S. penny that delivers sequential read speeds of 3,700 megabytes per second, according to The Verge. The "Mini SSD" by Biwin measures 15mm x 17mm x 1.4mm thick and connects via PCIe 4x2, offering 512GB to 2TB capacities. The drive inserts into devices using a SIM card-style tray mechanism and claims IP68 water resistance plus three-meter drop protection. Two gaming portables announced at ChinaJoy will include slots for the drives: GPD's Win 5 handheld and OneNetbook's OneXPlayer Super X hybrid laptop/tablet, both powered by AMD's Strix Halo processors. The Mini SSD outpaces MicroSD Express cards used in Nintendo Switch 2 by nearly four times, though full-size M.2 drives remain faster at up to 14,000MB/s.

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Sam Altman, busily planning to spend "trillions" more on datacenters, admitted yesterday that AI is a bit inflated

Sam Altman admitted we're in the midst of an AI bubble Thursday, but don't let that fool you: He still intends to rule over whatever's left after it bursts. …

China launched the World Humanoid Robot Games on Friday. The three-day event will see 280 teams from 16 countries compete in football, track and field, and table tennis alongside robot-specific challenges including medicine sorting and cleaning services. The event also features 192 university teams and 88 private enterprise teams from the U.S., Germany, Brazil and other nations as well as Chinese companies Unitree and Fourier among participants. Beijing municipal government serves as an organizing body. The Chinese robotics sector has received over $20 billion in government subsidies in the past year with Beijing planning a one trillion yuan ($137 billion) fund for AI and robotics startups. A previous Beijing humanoid robot marathon saw several competitors emit smoke and fail to complete the course.

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TeejeeTech takes Trixie, adds considerably more polish, yet comes in lighter

Teejeetech turns its attention from Ubuntu to its progenitor. The result is a refined and attractive spin of Debian with Xfce.…

An anonymous reader shares a report: Manufacturer to the stars Foxconn is building so many AI servers that they're now bringing in more cash than consumer electronics -- even counting the colossal quantity of iPhones it creates for Apple. The Taiwanese company revealed the shift in its Thursday announcement of Q2 results, which saw revenue grow 16% to NT$1.79 trillion ($59.73 billion) and operating profit rise 27% to NT$56.6 billion ($1.9 billion). CEO Kathy Yang told investors the company's Cloud and Networking Products division delivered 41% of total revenue, up nine percent compared to Q2 2024, and surpassing the company's Smart Consumer Electronics unit for the first time. The latter business includes Foxconn's work for Apple.

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Online Services price changes start November 1, aligning with Microsoft.com rates and eliminating programmatic discounts

Microsoft is updating its pricing approach for Online Services in Enterprise Agreements in the name of consistency and transparency, but could leave some customers paying more.…

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the New York Times: Margaret Boden, a British philosopher and cognitive scientist who used the language of computers to explore the nature of thought and creativity, leading her to prescient insights about the possibilities and limitations of artificial intelligence, died on July 18 in Brighton, England. She was 88. Her death, in a care home, was announced by the University of Sussex, where in the early 1970s she helped establish what is now known as the Center for Cognitive Science, bringing together psychologists, linguists, neuroscientists and philosophers to collaborate on studying the mind. Polymathic, erudite and a trailblazer in a field dominated by men, Professor Boden produced a number of books -- most notably "The Creative Mind: Myths and Mechanisms" (1990) and "Mind as Machine: A History of Cognitive Science" (2006) -- that helped shape the philosophical conversation about human and artificial intelligence for decades. "What's unique about Maggie is that she's a philosopher who has informed, inspired and shaped science," Blay Whitby, a philosopher and ethicist, said on the BBC radio show "The Life Scientific" in 2014. "It's important I emphasize that, because many modern scientists say that philosophers have got nothing to tell them, and they'd be advised to look at the work and life of Maggie Boden." Professor Boden was not adept at using computers. "I can't cope with the damn things," she once said. "I have a Mac on my desk, and if anything goes wrong, it's an absolute nightmare." Nevertheless, she viewed computing as a way to help explain the mechanisms of human thought. To her, creativity wasn't divine or a result of eureka-like magic, but rather a process that could be modeled and even simulated by computers. "It's the computational concepts that help us to understand how it's possible for someone to come up with a new idea," Professor Boden said on "The Life Scientific." "Because, at first sight, it just seems completely impossible. God must have done it." Computer science, she went on, helps us "to understand what a generative system is, how it's possible to have a set of rules -- which may be a very, very short, briefly statable set of rules -- but which has the potential to generate infinitely many different structures." She identified three types of creativity -- combinational, exploratory and transformational -- by analyzing human and artificial intelligence.

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A tiny model trained on trillions of tokens, ready for specialized tasks

Google has unveiled a pint-sized new addition to its "open" large language model lineup: Gemma 3 270M.…

Who knew zero-days could be so useful to highway speedsters?

The lingering effects of a cyberattack on the Public Prosecution Service of the Netherlands are preventing it from reactivating speed cameras across the country.…