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The biggest trees in the Amazon are growing larger and more numerous, according to a new study that shows how an intact rainforest can help draw carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and sequester it in bark, trunk, branch and root. From a report: Scientists said the paper, published in Nature Plants on Thursday, was welcome confirmation that big trees are proving more climate resilient than previously believed, and undisturbed tropical vegetation continues to act as an effective carbon sink despite rising temperatures and strong droughts. However, the authors warned this vital role was increasingly at risk from fires, fragmentation and land clearance caused by the expansion of roads and farms. "It is good news but it is qualified good news," said Prof Oliver Phillips from the University of Leeds. "Our results apply only to intact, mature forests, which is where we are watching closely. They suggest the Amazon forest is remarkably resilient to climate change. My fear is that may count for little, unless we can stop the deforestation itself."

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Study finds microgrids with wind, solar, and batteries can be built years sooner and at lower cost than SMRs

Renewable energy sources could power datacenters at a lower cost than relying on nuclear generation from small modular reactors (SMRs), claims a recently revealed study.…

Upgraded nasty slips into Xcode builds, steals crypto, and disables macOS defenses

The long-running XCSSET malware strain has evolved again, with Microsoft warning of a new macOS variant that expands its bag of tricks while continuing to target developers.…

Raspberry Pi has launched the Raspberry Pi 500 Plus for $200, more than doubling the $90 price of the standard model. The keyboard computer now includes an M.2 2280 SSD socket alongside the SD card slot, 256GB of storage and 16GB of LPDDR4x-4267 RAM instead of 8GB. The company added Gateron KS-33 Blue mechanical switches, replaceable low-profile keycaps finished to allow RGB lighting to shine through and an RP2040 microcontroller running QMK firmware. The 500 Plus retains Wi-Fi 5, Bluetooth, gigabit Ethernet, two micro HDMI ports, three USB-A ports, and USB-C power from the base model. A $220 Desktop Kit bundles necessary cables, power supply, and mouse.

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CRM giant denies security shortcomings as claims allege stolen data used for ID theft

Salesforce is facing a wave of lawsuits in the wake of a cyberattack that exposed customer data.…

Move comes as Snowflake and Databricks chase the same all-in-one analytics dream

Google is promising a single notebook environment for machine learning and data analytics, integrating SQL, Python, and Apache Spark in one place.…

Meta has rolled out Vibes, an endless feed of AI-generated videos within its Meta AI app and meta.ai website. Users can create short-form synthetic videos from scratch or remix existing AI content from the feed, adding music and adjusting styles before redistributing the artificial output to Instagram, Facebook Stories and Reels. The feed promises to become "more personalized over time" as it learns user preferences for machine-generated content. Meta positioned the feature as part of its broader AI video strategy, adding another stream of synthetic media to platforms already saturated with algorithmic content. The company says additional AI creation tools are coming.

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Researchers say tens of thousands of instances remain publicly reachable

Security researchers have confirmed that threat actors have exploited the maximum-severity vulnerability affecting Fortra's GoAnywhere managed file transfer (MFT), and chastised the vendor for a lack of transparency.…

Operation Cronos didn’t kill LockBit – it just came back meaner

Trend Micro has sounded the alarm over the new LockBit 5.0 ransomware strain, which it warns is "significantly more dangerous" than past versions due to its newfound ability to simultaneously target Windows, Linux, and VMware ESXi environments. …

Digital ID will be mandatory in order to work in the UK, as part of plans to tackle illegal migration. From a report: Sir Keir Starmer said the new digital ID scheme would make it tougher to work in the UK illegally and offer "countless benefits" to citizens. However, opposition parties argued the proposals would not stop people crossing the Channel in small boats. The prime minister set out his plans in a broader speech to a gathering of world leaders, in which he said it had been "too easy" for people to work illegally in the UK because the centre-left had been "squeamish" about saying things that were "clearly true." Addressing the Global Progressive Action Conference in London - attended by politicians including Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney - Sir Keir said it was time to "look ourselves in the mirror and recognise where we've allowed our parties to shy away from people's concerns." "It is not compassionate left-wing politics to rely on labour that exploits foreign workers and undercuts fair wages," he said. "The simple fact is that every nation needs to have control over its borders. We do need to know who is in our country."

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As exorcist convention decries AI's potential for 'necromancy'

The CEO of a software testing company told a panel at Catholic University of America that AI will not create mass unemployment – though it could make people more stupid.…

Longtime Slashdot reader hackingbear writes: President Donald Trump signed an executive order Thursday that he says will allow TikTok to continue operating in the United States in a way that meets national security concerns. Trump's order will enable an American-led of group of investors to "buy the app" (up to 80% ownership) from China's ByteDance, though the deal is not yet finalized and also requires China's approval. However, much about the deal is still unknown. So, did the U.S. successfully snatch TikTok from ByteDance? It is probably up to individual's interpretation. As with any deals between U.S. and China, the devil is in the details. According Shen Yi, an internet influencer and a professor at Shanghai's Fudan University, what the U.S. investor will eventually take control of is an entity known as TikTok U.S. Data Security Company ("USDS"), which is a subsidiary of TikTok U.S. and is exclusively responsible to handle data security in the U.S.. ByteDance will continue, through its U.S. subsidiary "ByteDance TikTok U.S. Company," to operate business and other related activities (such as e-commerce, advertising for brands, and cross-border commercial activities). It is important to stress that "Byte TikTok U.S. Company" remains 100% owned by ByteDance through its global TikTok subsidiary -- this arrangement has not changed. The TikTok algorithm remains the property of ByteDance, only licensed to USDS for use. This point was in fact explicitly clarified by a relevant official of China's Cyberspace Administration at the press conference following the Madrid talks. After reaching the TikTok deal, Beijing and Washington are now selling it to their respective domestic audience, each highlighting the part of the deal that it can characterize as a win. Shen's details are not in conflict with the widely-reported account given by Karoline Leavitt, the White House Press Secretary, who emphasized "a new board with six American directors out of seven." Observers can also find the TikTok arrangement being very similar to that of Apple's iCloud operation in China being run by GCBD (AIPO Cloud (Guizhou) Technology Co. Ltd.) while Apple retain controls of the brand and business.

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More fun with AI agents and their security holes

A now-fixed flaw in Salesforce’s Agentforce could have allowed external attackers to steal sensitive customer data via prompt injection, according to security researchers who published a proof-of-concept attack on Thursday. They were aided by an expired trusted domain that they were able to buy for a measly five bucks.…

The downstream consequences of Miljödata’s ransomware attack continue to affect major organizations

Volvo North America is the latest large organization to announce attackers accessed employee data after a ransomware attack struck its HR system provider.…

Meanwhile, Katalyst wins $30M contract to stop Swift telescope falling out of the sky

NASA has made progress with plans to boost the rapidly decaying orbit of the Swift observatory while calling an abrupt halt to an attempt to reboost the International Space Station (ISS) using SpaceX's Dragon.…

Debuted in 2007, an old feature is coming back

hands on If you're tired of staring at the same old static wallpapers in Windows 11, there's help on the way. Microsoft has just added support for animated video backgrounds in the latest Insider builds of its popular operating system, heralding their likely appearance in a production update soon.…

CISA gives feds 24 hours to patch, NCSC urges rapid action as flaws linked to ArcaneDoor spies

Cybersecurity agencies on both sides of the Atlantic are sounding the alarm over Cisco firewall vulnerabilities that are being exploited by an "advanced threat actor."…

Longtime Slashdot reader whoever57 writes: Birmingham City Council, the largest such entity in Europe, has been declared effectively bankrupt. There are a couple of reasons for this, but one of them is a disastrous project to replace the city's income management system using Oracle. The cost of this has risen to $230 million, while the initial estimate was $24 million. There was a failed rollout of the new system earlier this year. "Original plans for the replacement of SAP with Oracle Fusion set aside a 19.965 million-euro budget for three years implementation until the end of the 2021 financial year," reports The Register. "Go-live date was later put back until April 2022 and the budget increased to 40 million euros. After the council realized it would need to reimplement all of Oracle, the budget for running the old system and introducing the new one increased to 131 million euros." "In a hastily convened Audit Committee meeting this week, councilor heard how that date has now been put back until November, expressing their anger that the news hit the media before they were told." Testing failed with only a 73.3% pass rate and 10 severe deficits, "below the acceptance criteria of a 95 percent pass rate and zero severe deficits.

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Prime Minister Starmer revives controversial scheme despite past denials, sparking civil liberties backlash

The UK government plans to issue all legal residents a digital identity by the end of the current Parliament, which could run until August 2029, with its use required to get a job.…

It’s amazing the number of calls Jo, Helen, and Ian get through

The UK's data protection watchdog fined two Brit businesses with offshore call centers £550,000 (c $735,000) over illegal automated marketing calls.…