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The second of three KDE point releases planned for 2025 is here, with more tiling options, accessibility improvements, and much more.…

Swiss Re has identified extreme heat as a significant insurance threat in its latest annual report on emerging risks with the Zurich-based reinsurer noting that up to half a million people globally die from extreme heat effects each year. The death toll exceeds the combined impact of floods, earthquakes and hurricanes. Heat waves contributed to conditions that generated $78.5 billion in insured wildfire losses globally from 2015-2024, Swiss Re reported. The Los Angeles wildfires this year could add up to $45 billion in insured losses, according to UCLA Anderson School of Business estimates. The insurance industry has historically underestimated heat-related costs because damages spread across multiple policy types rather than appearing as a single category. Construction firms face rising medical insurance and workers compensation claims when outdoor workers suffer heat injuries, plus potential liability for inadequate cooling breaks.

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The UK Information Commissioner's Office has issued its first guidance demanding manufacturers of air fryers, smart speakers, fertility trackers, and smart TVs respect users' privacy rights after reports of excessive data collection in homes. The regulator requires companies to ensure data security, provide transparency to consumers, and regularly delete collected information. Stephen Almond, the ICO's executive director for regulatory risk, said smart products know who users live with, their music preferences, and medication details. The guidance addresses "internet of things" devices, including fertility trackers that record menstrual dates and body temperature before sending data to manufacturer servers. Additionally, smart speakers that monitor family members and visitors must allow users to configure settings that minimize personal information collection. The ICO warned manufacturers it stands ready to take enforcement action in the event of noncompliance.

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Are they using it to death then locking it in a drawer? Schemes needed as shipments of refurbed kit dips

Less than a third of European consumers trade in or sell their old phones, limiting the supply of secondhand devices that might otherwise stimulate a more environmentally friendly alternative to buying brand new.…

Nature will automatically publish peer review reports and author responses alongside all newly submitted research papers starting this week. The flagship scientific journal previously offered transparent peer review as an optional service since 2020, while Nature Communications has required it since 2016. All exchanges between authors and anonymous reviewers will become publicly accessible (reviewer identities remain confidential unless they choose disclosure). Nature aims to open what it calls the "black box" of science by revealing the months-long conversations that shape research papers before publication.

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Starting in summer 2026, Netflix subscribers in France will be able to watch commercially broadcast TV content "without ever having to leave the service." The Verge adds: The streaming giant has announced a distribution deal with French media company TF1 Group to make TF1's free-to-air live TV channels and on-demand TF1 Plus streaming content available to French Netflix users as part of their existing subscription plan.

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Such rules could be tricky to enforce in the Fediverse, though

Mastodon is the latest platform to push back against AI training, updating its terms and conditions to ban the use of user content for large language models (LLMs).…

U.S. public companies have cut their white-collar workforces by 3.5% over the past three years, marking a fundamental shift in corporate philosophy that views fewer employees as a path to faster growth. One in five S&P 500 companies now employ fewer people than they did a decade ago, according to employment data-provider Live Data Technologies. The reductions extend beyond typical cost-cutting measures and coincide with record corporate profits at the end of last year. Amazon CEO Andy Jassy told employees Tuesday that AI will eliminate certain jobs in coming years, while Procter & Gamble announced plans to cut 7,000 positions to create "broader roles and smaller teams." Bank of America reduced its workforce from 285,000 in 2010 to 213,000 today while revenues climbed 18% over the past decade. Managers have faced particularly steep cuts, with their ranks falling 6.1% between May 2022 and May 2025. Companies are flattening organizational structures and pushing remaining employees to handle larger workloads as executives track revenue per employee more closely.

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Version 13 can’t come soon enough

Veeam Backup & Replication users are urged to apply the latest patches that fix another critical bug leading to remote code execution (RCE) on backup servers.…

DC Studios co-head James Gunn argues that the movie industry is "dying" primarily because productions begin before screenplays are complete, while also delivering a sharp critique of his former employer Marvel Studios, which he claims Disney has "killed" through output mandates. Gunn dismissed common explanations for Hollywood's struggles like declining theater attendance or improved home viewing experiences, telling Rolling Stone that "the number one reason is because people are making movies without a finished screenplay." The filmmaker has implemented a strict rule at DC Studios requiring finished scripts before production starts, recently scrapping a project because its screenplay wasn't ready. The director, who previously helmed three "Guardians of the Galaxy" films for Marvel, said Disney's corporate directive to increase output destroyed the studio's creative process. "They were under a corporate mandate, yeah. That wasn't fair. It wasn't right. And it killed them," Gunn said, referring to Marvel's mandated production quotas for movies and television shows. By contrast, Gunn said DC Studios operates without numerical mandates. "We don't have the mandate to have a certain amount of movies and TV shows every year. So we're going to put out everything that we think is of the highest quality," he explained.

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Cassandra rival releases new DBaaS relying on consensus algorithm

ScyllaDB, the wide-column database used by Comcast, Samsung, and banking giant Santander, has released a new database service it claims improves scalability and lowers cost.…

Some servers can't renew IP addresses, and there's no fix yet

Microsoft has admitted that June's Patch Tuesday updates could break the DHCP service on Windows Server.…

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman accused Meta of attempting to poach his developers with $100 million sign-on bonuses and higher compensation packages as the social media giant races to catch up in AI race. Altman said Meta, which has a $1.8 trillion market capitalization, began making the offers to his team members after falling behind in AI efforts. "I've heard that Meta thinks of us as their biggest competitor," Altman said on the Uncapped podcast [video] hosted by his brother. None of his "best people" had accepted Zuckerberg's offers, he said. Meta has been recruiting top researchers and engineers from rival companies to build a new "superintelligence" team focused on developing AGI. The Facebook parent company has struggled this year to match competitors, facing criticism over its Llama 4 language model and delaying its flagship "Behemoth" AI model.

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UK needs skills task force to get slice of $1.8 trillion pie, Lords told

The British space industry is struggling to compete for math, physics, and engineering graduates against a banking sector that can offer £90,000 ($120,000) salaries.…

For that laptop feel without the laptop

Logitech has embraced the sound of silence with its Signature Slim Wired K620 keyboard and M520 mouse combo.…

An anonymous reader shares a report: Microsoft has a long history of being criticized for coming up with clunky product names, and for changing them so often it's hard for customers to keep up. The company's own employees once joked in a viral video that the iPod would have been called the "Microsoft I-pod Pro 2005 XP Human Ear Professional Edition with Subscription" had it been created by Microsoft. The latest gripe among some employees and customers: The company's tendency to slap "Copilot" on everything AI. "There is a delusion on our marketing side where literally everything has been renamed to have Copilot it in," one employee told Business Insider late last year. "Everything is Copilot. Nothing else matters. They want a Copilot tie-in for everything." Now, an advertising watchdog is weighing in. The Better Business Bureau's National Advertising Division reviewed Microsoft's advertising for its Copilot AI tools. NAD called out Microsoft's "universal use of the product description as 'Copilot'" and said "consumers would not necessarily understand the difference," according to a recent report from the watchdog. "Microsoft is using 'Copilot' across all Microsoft Office applications and Business Chat, despite differences in functionality and the manual steps that are required for Business Chat to produce the same results as Copilot in a specific Microsoft Office app," NAD further explained in an email to BI. NAD did not mention any specific recommendations on product names. But it did say Microsoft should modify claims that Copilot works "seamlessly across all your data" because all of the company's tools with the Copilot moniker don't work together continuously in a way consumers might expect.

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Amid growing unease that US may compel cloud providers to hand over European data

Capitalizing on the new interest in sovereign cloud, UK datacenter biz Pulsant has teamed up with Nine23, a firm specializing in high-assurance managed services for users such as the government, law enforcement, and defense sectors.…

Meanwhile, next-gen script kiddies are levelling up faster thanks to agentic AI

Interview Iran's state-sponsored cyber operatives and hacktivists have all increased their activities since the military conflict with Israel erupted last week – but not necessarily in the way that Amazon chief information security officer CJ Moses expected.…

Field Notes, the analog notebook company that began as designer Aaron Draplin's side project 20 years ago, has sold over 10 million notebooks and operates in 2,000 stores worldwide, co-founder Jim Coudal told Fast Company. The Chicago-based company, which Coudal says just completed its best year for sales and revenue with 2025 tracking to exceed those numbers, has grown from selling 13 notebooks on its launch day to producing quarterly edition runs of 30,000 to 60,000 packs. The brand's subscription model, launched in 2009 with 1,500-pack print runs, now encompasses 67 limited editions and provides both predictable cash flow and regular customer engagement opportunities for the company.

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Mozilla, at least, has warmed to the Chocolate Factory's attempt to improve mic, camera, and location permissions

Google has been testing a new way for websites to ask permission to access sensitive browser controls, such as the microphone and camera, despite longstanding opposition from Mozilla and Apple. Following recent refinements to the proposal, Mozilla now appears to be warming to the changes.…