Alterslash

the unofficial Slashdot digest
 

Contents

  1. Epic Games Announces Lore Open-Source Version Control System
  2. Hacking Group Claims Major Hack of Novo Nordisk, Attempted $25 Million Extortion
  3. OpenAI Losses Increased Nearly 8X In 2025, With Spending Hitting $34 Billion
  4. Stop Killing Games Fails To Secure EU Law Despite 1.3 Million Signatures
  5. AI and Brain-Computer Interface Allow Speechless ALS Patient To Work a Full-Time Job
  6. HPE Tempts VMware Users, Partners With Year of Free Virtualization Software
  7. Commodore’s Callback 8020 Is a $499 Flip Phone That Blocks Social Media and Browsers
  8. Binance Set To Lose Permission To Operate In EU
  9. France To Stop Certifying Products Without Quantum-Safe Encryption
  10. Mobileye Is Entering the US Robotaxi Market With Standalone Service
  11. Snap’s First Consumer AI Glasses Are Coming This Fall For $2,195
  12. SpaceX To Acquire AI Coding Startup Cursor For $60 Billion
  13. The US Government’s Anthropic Models Ban Was Never About an AI Jailbreak
  14. Russian Spam and Profanities Are Now Plaguing the Arch Linux AUR
  15. Firefox 152 Adds JPEG XL Support, Redesigned Settings

Alterslash picks up to the best 5 comments from each of the day’s Slashdot stories, and presents them on a single page for easy reading.

Epic Games Announces Lore Open-Source Version Control System

Posted by BeauHD View on SlashDot Skip
Epic Games has released Lore, an MIT-licensed version control system written in Rust and designed specifically for “games and entertainment purposes with large file sizes,” reports Phoronix. From the report:
While there is Git LFS for large file storage with Git, Epic Games has crated Lore as a version control system designed entirely around the large file needs of modern game development as well as multimedia/entertainment purposes. Lore is designed to be fast and efficient for large files including binary files, and be easy-to-use including for 3D artists and more.

The Lore documentation elaborates more on its differences and motivation for development compared to Git: “No existing system was designed for the combination of constraints that large game and entertainment projects require: arbitrary content types, multi-axis scale, multi-tenant safety, and a fully open specification and license. […] Lore is designed to combine what works in each (Git’s content-addressed revision graph and centralized systems): a centralized server-of-record for durability, access control, and conflict resolution; content-addressed storage with fragment-level deduplication that is as effective on a multi-gigabyte binary as on a kilobyte of text; sparse, lazy working copies that materialize only what you need; free branching; and a fully open, publicly versioned specification and MIT license. Normal editing operations — staging, committing, branching, diffing — never require a network round trip.”
You can learn more at Lore.org. All the code is available on GitHub.

Storing ‘Data’

By bill_mcgonigle • Score: 3 Thread

It’s all well and good until Lore steals Data’s emotion chip.

Hacking Group Claims Major Hack of Novo Nordisk, Attempted $25 Million Extortion

Posted by BeauHD View on SlashDot Skip
Reuters reports a cyber extortion group has claimed responsibility for breaching Novo Nordisk’s network, stealing roughly 1.3 terabytes of data, including source code, drug research, clinical-trial records, employee and physician information, production-system details, and internal AI model data. The group says it’s exploring selling parts of the data after unsuccessfully demanding $25 million from the company. From the report:
FulcrumSec, a cyber extortion group that emerged in October 2025, said in a long message posted to its website that it spent more than two months in Novo Nordisk’s networks stealing data. It said that data included company source code, proprietary information on released and unreleased drugs, trial data, employee, doctor and patient data, information related to company processing facilities and internal AI model information.

[…] FulcrumSec told Reuters in an email that Novo Nordisk representatives contacted the group on June 3, roughly 48 hours after the group’s initial contact to unnamed company executives. The company used a random Proton Mail email address sent to email addresses that FulcrumSec used in its initial outreach, and confirmed it was the company by requesting specific files for verification only the company would know about.

The FulcrumSec representative also said that the group would prefer not to sell data, “as open sourcing it is a more effective deterrent for future companies to avoid paying.” […] FulcrumSec said it would not share some of the data it stole, including information on thousands of company employees and physicians, and roughly 11,500 pseudonymized clinical trial patients. The group said it also would withhold data related to operational technology and software used to interact with sensors and machinery at Novo Nordisk production facilities as part of its “harm-reduction strategy.”
A Novo Nordisk spokesperson said in an email that the company “is aware of claims that data allegedly copied externally without authorization from our systems has been published online. We take this matter seriously and maintain continued operations of our main platforms. We are in contact with the relevant authorities.”

OpenAI Losses Increased Nearly 8X In 2025, With Spending Hitting $34 Billion

Posted by BeauHD View on SlashDot Skip
An anonymous reader quotes a report from independent journalist Ed Zitron:
Today, I can exclusively report, based on audited financial documents viewed by this publication that have been independently verified by the Financial Times, that OpenAI lost around $38.5 billion in 2025, as well as other crucial details about the financial condition of the company. […] At the end of the year, OpenAI had just over $50 billion in assets, with almost half of that in cash. […] The financial condition of OpenAI is deeply concerning. $38.53 billion in losses are astronomical, and far higher than most believed it would be. Losses also appear to be mounting year-over-year at a dramatic rate, and I’m not sure how this company finds a way toward any kind of sustainability or profitability. As discussed, I have not editorialized much today. I believe the best thing I can do for the general public is to deliver this news as plainly as possible.
Ars Technica’s Kyle Orland offers a more editorial take, writing:
All told, OpenAI’s day-to-day “loss from operations” increased from $8.78 billion in 2024 to $20.92 billion in 2025, a concerning direction for a company that is telling investors it hopes to be profitable by 2030. But measured as a percentage of revenues, the company’s operating losses slightly improved year to year, from 237 percent in 2024 to 160 percent in 2025.

Operating numbers aside, OpenAI’s headline “net loss” number of just over $5 billion in 2024 ballooned to nearly $39 billion in 2025. But the 2025 number includes a significant accounting charge related to investor valuations that shifted amid the company’s 2025 conversion to a for-profit structure. The Financial Times cites “a person familiar with the matter” in reporting that this non-recurring charge was approximately $30 billion and that OpenAI’s 2025 net loss amounted to a more reasonable-looking $8 billion without it.

The cost of force

By karmawarrior • Score: 4, Interesting Thread

So you have something that nobody is asking for (not in the way genAI is anyway), and you decide, of all things, rather than making a case for it, you force people to use it, in the hope they get addicted, think they can’t do without it, and continue using it after you start pricing it at profitable levels.

This is the business model. Why are they not making a case for it? Why are they, instead, pretending it’s something it isn’t? Because nobody would take it seriously if they did the latter. The only way they can get people to use it is via force, and that means persuading idiot CEOs with a FOMO issue, while pricing it well below cost.

The question isn’t “Will they make a profit”, that’s not something you or I should care about. Who gives a crap if a bunch of vulture capitalists get busted? The question is “How much damage will they do with this particular con job”.

The end game of this, remember, is to get companies dependent upon genAI companies. To make them unable to function any more without handing over control of their systems to the genAI people. And idiot FOMO CEOs who have gotten the dopamine rush from using genAI tools are making sure their companies will be run that way, despite the obvious dangers.

So the answer to “How much damage” is, so far, a crazy amount. So far. There are now many, many, companies that have lost control and knowledge of how their own businesses run. And it’s getting worse.

Good Luck With the IPO

By 0xG • Score: 5, Funny Thread

Good luck with the IPO, this might put a damper on things.

Spending 3X your revenue

By OrangeTide • Score: 5, Informative Thread

Spending more than your revenue with no answer to when it turns around is a recipe for a bubble.
Yet OpenAI is not the worst offender by a long shot.
ref: Is AI Profitable Yet?

Re:They don’t care

By machineghost • Score: 4, Insightful Thread

What BS: just be born as rich as Musk and with a little work you too can be just like him!

Re:They don’t care

By ArchieBunker • Score: 4, Interesting Thread

Your father didn’t own an emerald mine and drive you to school in a Rolls Royce too? https://www.ndtv.com/world-new…

Stop Killing Games Fails To Secure EU Law Despite 1.3 Million Signatures

Posted by BeauHD View on SlashDot Skip
The European Commission has declined (PDF) to propose a law requiring publishers to keep discontinued video games playable, despite the Stop Killing Games initiative collecting nearly 1.3 million verified signatures. Instead, it plans to develop a voluntary industry code covering end-of-life transparency and preservation. Dextero reports:
The Commission’s full communication said a legal obligation to keep games playable, as requested by the initiative, “would not be proportionate.” It cited concerns about intellectual property rights, confidential business information, publisher costs, and potential cybersecurity or safety risks once games are no longer supported. The code of conduct could include more transparent storefront labeling about possible game discontinuation, along with more partnerships between publishers and cultural heritage institutions to preserve games. However, it would not legally require publishers to provide offline patches, private server tools, or other methods for players to continue accessing games after official support ends. The Commission also argued that existing EU consumer law already provides some safeguards, including requirements around transparency, contract duration, termination conditions, and possible refunds if a shutdown conflicts with the agreement or a consumer’s reasonable expectations.

[…] Despite the setback, Stop Killing Games has said it is not ending its push for legislation. In a response posted after the Commission’s decision, the official Stop Killing Games account said the outcome was “not unexpected” and claimed the campaign had already prepared for the result. The group said it is now pushing for members of the European Parliament to amend Stop Killing Games into the Digital Fairness Act instead. “We can move on without the Commission and their non-decision,” the group said, referencing earlier comments from Accursed Farms creator Ross Scott.

Re: online petitions mean shit

By AmiMoJo • Score: 5, Informative Thread

The European Commission is the EU’s civil service. Petitioning it was always a long shot, because for them to act you have to convince them that there is a good case within existing EU rules. They aren’t there to make new rules, they are there to enforce the existing ones.

They have effectively said that existing consumer protection rules don’t extend far enough to force publishers to make offline patches and server code available, but in their opinion do offer some of the things being asked for already and so the petitioners should contact their state consumer rights body.

To get a change in the rules, it needs to go through the European Parliament and the elected MEPs. That’s how democracy works. Elected officials make the rules, civil servants enforce them.

Copyrigh

By MeNeXT • Score: 5, Insightful Thread

was created so artists would release their work to the public and be compensated. So why do we offer copyrights on stuff that is not made available or removed from the market.

How about we change the law into something that removes copyright when it’s not available, or no longer available.

We need to change the laws that allow lock in, or that change the terms after purchase.

Re: Instead, it plans to develop a voluntary indus

By Sloppy • Score: 4, Insightful Thread

When it’s codified into the highest law of the land and doesn’t work, and suggestions to do so voluntarily can’t work to the point of being laughable, what options do we have left?

There’s always Nancy Reagan’s catchphrase: Just Say No.

Any particular game is expendable. You won’t miss out on anything. Games don’t even have the network effects and lockin that you get with other types of software; it’s a part of the economy where Just Saying No is easiest of all.

Don’t like the quality? Don’t spend your money. They have no power over us except what we give them. Stop being so selflessly altruistic when it comes to actively supporting your own abuse.

It’s so damn easy, and there’s already hundreds of years worth of hassle-free game-playing available to spend the few remaining seconds of your life on.

Re: Instead, it plans to develop a voluntary indus

By thegarbz • Score: 5, Informative Thread

Has any voluntary industry code and self regulation EVER worked?

Yes. Good examples can be found the world over: Media advertising standards, financial standards, heck the entire engineering profession is self regulated by its own industry. Many reporting standards are as well. As are quite a few product safety standards (the overall “don’t kill people” is law, but how to achieve that is mostly driven by industry self-regulation in many parts of the world).

Now there’s plenty of examples where it also didn’t work, and those often get followed up with actual laws, but there are still plenty of examples in industry where industry codes self regulated. For example when America shat itself in 2008 Australia was largely insulated from the same problems due to the Australian Banking Association’s (industry body) governance code that effectively banned the kind of sub-prime finance dumb-fuckery in the country years earlier.

Want another example? It’s not legally required in most of Europe to label vegan products, yet industry has adopted ISO 23662 despite it not being required by any law to do so. And while we’re talking about standards, the harmonisation of electrical standards in the EU was almost entirely industry driven, and except for subtleties of specific wiring rules for examples in houses, most electrical standards maintained by CENELEC are entirely voluntary yet followed throughout all industry.

Re: Instead, it plans to develop a voluntary indus

By almitydave • Score: 4, Insightful Thread

When it’s codified into the highest law of the land and doesn’t work, and suggestions to do so voluntarily can’t work to the point of being laughable, what options do we have left?

There’s always Nancy Reagan’s catchphrase: Just Say No.

Any particular game is expendable. You won’t miss out on anything. Games don’t even have the network effects and lockin that you get with other types of software; it’s a part of the economy where Just Saying No is easiest of all.

Except when it’s not. It’s not always clear at the time of purchase that the publisher has the ability to shut down the game at some unspecified future date. So “just saying no” requires some knowledge of the future that may not be available. In addition, on platforms like Steam, publishers can push updates that you *must* install to continue playing which remove features or add an online requirement that didn’t exist when you purchased it, leading to it being disabled remotely when the publisher eventually shuts down the servers. The TOS/EULA generally require that you agree to all future updates to the TOS/EULA without notice or ability to opt out, so the consumer really doesn’t have any actual rights to the games they “purchase” in this system.

Even if the outcome of Stop Killing Games isn’t legislation that requires publishers to create tools or release code, an acceptable outcome (IMHO) would be regulation that requires transparency, labeling, and prohibits what’s effectively sabotage so the consumer can make an informed decision and have some guarantee they get what they actually paid for. If a digital storefront carried a disclaimer that said “This game requires an online connection to the publisher’s server to run. The publisher has not guaranteed the server’s operability for any length of time” then a user would at least have the opportunity to consider that risk when purchasing. Additionally, if a regulation prevented publishers from deploying an end-of-life update (a “time-bomb”) that didn’t exist when purchased, that would also protect consumers without harming publishers. So there are some easy approaches here which don’t burden publishers.

Personally, I’d like to see a law that stipulates that any digital good to which your access can be removed by the publisher must be described as either a “rental” or “subscription”, with the length of the term clearly spelled out, with penalties for revoking access before the end of the term. That way, you can know exactly what you’re getting, for how long, and can count on it being there; and publishers can’t trick you into thinking you’re “purchasing” something you aren’t. As much as I love Steam, I’m aware this would include the entire Steam library. The most obvious downside to me is that this would likely lead to the normalization of the idea that you don’t own your video games in general.

AI and Brain-Computer Interface Allow Speechless ALS Patient To Work a Full-Time Job

Posted by BeauHD View on SlashDot Skip
UC Davis researchers say an implanted brain-computer interface has allowed Casey Harrell, an ALS patient who cannot speak, to synthesize sentences from brain activity with 99% accuracy in controlled tests and about 92% accuracy in everyday use. The Register reports that the system has remained usable at home since 2023, helping Harrell communicate naturally, control a computer, and return to full-time work without researchers needing to supervise each session. The Register reports:
A team of scientists from the University of California, Davis, published a paper Monday detailing a years-long study of a brain computer interface (BCI) system implanted in a patient with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease), which destroys motor neurons and causes loss of motor control and eventual paralysis. According to the team, their patient, Casey Harrell, has been living with BCI implants since 2023 that are still working today, giving him the ability not only to control a computer cursor with his thoughts, but also to speak. […] Davis neurosurgeon David Brandman, co-principal investigator and co-senior author of the paper published Monday, as well as the surgeon who placed Harrell’s implant, described the results his team published as the crossing of a threshold in BCI technology: Not only has Harrell’s implant been working well with daily use since 2023, but it’s also incredibly accurate.

In controlled tests, the system managed to synthesize sentences from Harrell’s brain activity with 99 percent accuracy; outside of the lab in daily use, Harrell still assessed it as being accurate 92 percent of the time. “The key thing to me is that it’s enabling everyday communication for a guy who wants to talk but can’t,” Brandman told The Register in an interview. “Despite being paralyzed [Harrell] has gone back to work full time and has meaningful conversations with his daughter who’s never heard the sound of his voice.”

Prior work in the BCI space, Brandman told us, has either required researchers to be in a patient’s home whenever they’re using the tech, or for the patient to come to the researchers. That’s not the case here, with the system allowing Harrell’s home care team to hook him up to the system themselves, enabling him to use the device for more than 3,800 hours in the past few years. Based on the time the study was filed (It published Monday but went into peer review in July 2025) that would mean Harrell was using the device for more than five hours a day, on average. “It is a life that is more full of dynamic action and with friends and family, with colleagues, and it is something that allows me to communicate more in my natural way of communicating than any other technology that I have experienced,” Harrell told UC Davis via his BCI system.

Dystopian framing

By BrightCandle • Score: 4, Insightful Thread
Its a pretty dystopian framing that its enabled him to work instead of being able to speak to his family and friends and do more with their time. Work isn’t the purpose of life but its a marker of the times that this is how this is framed.

Worst practical joke hack of all time

By hyades1 • Score: 3 Thread

A person with hacking experience and an appalling sense of humour could modify the speech output into something like this…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=grA5XmBRC6g

Re:Dystopian framing

By Tony Isaac • Score: 4, Insightful Thread

There is something at the core of being human, that needs to do something productive. This is not unhealthy. We have evolved to be compelled to work not because we are somehow “slaves to the system” but because for all of human history, survival literally required work. Work is not a “necessary evil”—work is, in itself, an important part of who we are. This is not dystopian, this is to be celebrated.

Re:Dystopian framing

By nugatory78 • Score: 4, Interesting Thread
While I don’t have ALS, nor anyone in my family, I do have (at times) debilitating health issues that make me bed ridden. During those times, I would have given a LOT to be able to continue to work. While being stuck in bed unable to do anything except watch TV, I usually feel completely useless. Having the ability to work would have help my mental state immensely.

I also see, that if they can work, it shows how far the tech has gone. If he can work, he certainly can use a computer and talk to anyone for enjoyment.

Plot twist

By sinkskinkshrieks • Score: 3 Thread
The job is as a Walmart greeter to meet new SSA and Medicare work requirements. Meanwhile, all other able-bodied adults are now required to work regardless of disability because past disabilities were “woke” and so only some physical disabilities will now be recognized. /s

HPE Tempts VMware Users, Partners With Year of Free Virtualization Software

Posted by BeauHD View on SlashDot Skip
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica:
Hewlett Packard Enterprise’s (HPE) new virtualization software promotion will likely pique the interest of end users and resellers who are unhappy with Broadcom’s pricing of VMware. During its HPE Discover event in Las Vegas this week, HPE announced that customers could use its “HPE Morpheus Software — VM Essentials” offering for free for “up to one year,” per a press release. HPE’s website describes its virtualization platform as a “VMware alternative.” It includes a hardware virtual machine (HVM) hypervisor and unified management and lets users “manage VMware ESXi and HVM clusters from one console and migrate when you’re ready,” HPE’s website says. “New VM Essentials customers can receive up to one free year of licenses for VM Essentials, a year of HPE Zerto for $1 to support non-disruptive migration to HPE virtual machines, and 0 percent interest on software through HPE Financial Services,” HPE’s announcement reads, referring to HPE’s group for helping IT teams manage funding.

Free for a year is cheaper than what Broadcom has charged for VMware vSphere since taking over. VMware prices have skyrocketed due to VMware’s parent company eliminating perpetual licenses and bundling products into expensive packages. Notably, per its website, HPE recommends charging $600 per CPU socket per year for VM Essentials; Broadcom has controversially shifted vSphere licensing pricing to a per-core basis. “Customers are feeling quite a bit of pain in the change that some of the virtualization companies have put there, specifically Broadcom,” Jeremiah Jenson, VP of HPE’s North American channel and partner ecosystem, told CRN. The executive claimed that VM Essentials could bring up to 90 percent cost savings compared to VMware while also helping to “eliminate vendor lock-in and simplify hybrid IT.”

From March 1 to June 30, HPE has also been offering a free year of VM Essentials via rebate to customers who buy an AMD server and a one-year VM Essentials license. VM Essentials is only available through channel partners, a stark contrast from Broadcom’s VMware approach, where the chip giant has drastically reduced the number of resellers that can sell VMware products. HPE’s new promotion aims to entice customers to more deeply consider migrating off VMware. […] HPE also announced that it would give 600 reseller partners who earn the HPE partner program’s Private Cloud with Virtualization competency by the end of the year free VM Essentials software licenses for three years. Partners still have to pay support costs, though.
The benefit is “a step in the correct direction,” said Dean Colpitts, CTO of Canadian managed services provider (MSP) Members IT Group (MITG), which VMware cut from its reseller program after 19 years of partnership a year ago. However, limiting the promotion to 600 partners is “very shortsighted.” He believes that HPE should give all of its partners VM Essentials “to facilitate getting [VM Essentials] into customer sites and displacing the competitors.”
“They need to fling [VM Essentials] as far and as fast as they possibly [can] to immediately gain traction and draw ISVs to them, which will increase adoption even more,” he said.

Does it really matter?

By jenningsthecat • Score: 3 Thread

The benefit is “a step in the correct direction,” said Dean Colpitts, CTO of Canadian managed services provider (MSP) Members IT Group (MITG), which VMware cut from its reseller program after 19 years of partnership a year ago. However, limiting the promotion to 600 partners is “very shortsighted.” He believes that HPE should give all of its partners VM Essentials “to facilitate getting [VM Essentials] into customer sites and displacing the competitors.”

This strikes me as a rather temporary solution to Broadcom’s dickishness. HP has demonstrated time and time again their willingness to ass-rape customers, at least in the consumer / small business sector. If HP manages to capture the virtualization market, then they’ll repeat Broadcom’s bad behaviour. That’s just what corporations do.

why now?

By Anonymous Coward • Score: 3, Interesting Thread

It’s been three years since the Broadcom acquisition closed. Why was HPE not trying to capture those customers earlier? They bought Morpheus just a year after Broadcom bought VMware.

And why are any customers still on VMware? I know it takes a while to plan migrations but come on now. And Broadcom fired most of the VMware engineers years ago so it’s not like you’re sticking around for the cutting-edge R&D. VMware is in the same bucket as Solaris and has been for a few years now … if you HAVE to stay on the platform, fine, but most customers should have left already.

Anyway Morpheus VM Essentials is just Ubuntu with KVM, it’s nothing special. HPE bought Morpheus for Morpheus Enterprise. VM Essentials was just the toy in the Cracker Jack box. HPE should have either pushed this earlier or killed the product.

Re:why now?

By keltor • Score: 5, Interesting Thread
We tested their project, it’s really rough. No solid path off of VMware and onto Morpheus.

Depending on your situation, your options are basically Nutanix, Microsoft or maybe DIY (if you are big enough, this is what we’re doing.)

Re:Where did this come from?

By ls671 • Score: 5, Informative Thread

Yes we use proxmox qemu kvm with own own code for what doesn’t come out of the box. qemu kvm is just as good as anything out there. Proxmox comes with a lot already included and you can run it for free and get updates for free if you enable the dev repository for proxmox packages while the bare metal host is mostly debian running with an optimized proxmox kernel.

Longer trial ?

By petermp • Score: 4, Interesting Thread
So they extend trial from 60 days to 365 Days .....
Great news.......
ESXI - Free forever.
PVE - Free forever.
RedHat Kubernetes VM - Free for Partners.
Suse Virtualizaion - Free forever.
Ovirt - Free foreve.
HyperV 2019 - free for the next 3 years (until is end of support).
HPE - 1 year Trial....

Commodore’s Callback 8020 Is a $499 Flip Phone That Blocks Social Media and Browsers

Posted by BeauHD View on SlashDot Skip
Commodore has unveiled the Callback 8020, a $499 Sailfish OS flip phone that runs most Android apps but deliberately blocks social media, browsers, email, and workplace apps to discourage doomscrolling. The “not dumb dumbphone” still supports messaging, music, maps, ridesharing, hotspots, a removable battery, and plenty of Commodore nostalgia. “The phone uses T9-style texting with predictive input, includes Commodore SID ringtones, ships with a selection of Commodore and Sailfish games, and even includes Snake,” reports TechSpot. From the report:
Commodore says it has developed patent-pending technology that prevents browsers and social media apps from being sideloaded, while DNS-level blocking should stop them from working even if someone finds a way to install them. Users can still sideload nearly anything else if it’s not available on the Commostore, but apps designed for doomscrolling remain off limits. That means useful services such as WhatsApp, SMS, Signal, Telegram, WeChat, Spotify, Uber, Lyft, maps, podcasts, QR scanning, voice notes, and hotspot support work, but the likes of Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, Gmail, and browsers do not.

The Callback 8020 has a 3.25-inch 480 x 640 internal display, a MediaTek Helio G81 chip, 4GB of RAM, 64GB of storage, a 48MP Sony rear camera, an autofocus front camera, dual SIM support, USB-C, a headphone jack, FM radio, and something many of us miss from flagships: a removable battery. There’s no 5G as Commodore argues that 4G VoLTE and Wi-Fi better fit a device meant to discourage constant streaming and scrolling. […] The main screen is touch-capable but disabled by default, while the outer display keeps things deliberately sparse, showing basics such as time, battery, signal, and notifications via dome LEDs.

The 8020 name is a nod to Commodore’s 8010 modem from 1980. The phone comes in ProtoPET White, SX Silver, BASIC Beige, a translucent Starlight Edition, and a gold Founders Edition with a 24-karat gold-plated Commodore button. Standard models start at $499, the Starlight version is $549.99, and the Founders Edition costs $640. Preorders open June 30, with shipping targeted for winter.
You can watch the launch ad on YouTube.

Brand necrophilia at its worst

By larwe • Score: 4, Interesting Thread

This is the retrocomputing equivalent of the Trump T1 phone, and I’m far from the only person saying this. Fundamentally, there are two groups of people in this world: People who think having a YouTube influencer buy a venerable brand to “reboot” it is a good idea, and people who recognize this for the quintessential grift it is. Oh, and then there are people who don’t have any emotional investment in Commodore - but based on a sampling of the people I communicate with regularly, there are very few of those. The kindest thing that can be said about Perifractic is that he started out running a reasonably interesting retrocomputing channel, but he slid through a one-way sphincter straight down the colon of SEO and YouTube monetization, never to return. (Pointlessly long intros and stretched content to maximize ad impressions and keep the “suspense” coming to meet minimum view time quotas, careful scrubbing of language, clickbait thumbnails and video titles - everything bad you can think of is there).

What is being done with the Commodore indicia now is a deplorable embarrassment to the community of Commodore collectors, historians and aficionados, on par with the ludicrous “PET phone” that was created by some bootleg company in Italy a few years ago.

You know it kind of bugs me

By rsilvergun • Score: 5, Insightful Thread
To see commodore or the husk that is commodore taking advantage of people who have mental issues when those people with the mental issues are looking for something like this because another company is taking advantage of them.

There’s just something uniquely fucked up about a clearly substandard product that exists specifically to cater to someone who can’t just uninstall Facebook and twitter, and again I am not blaming people for that Lord knows I have my own mental issues as my detractors will no doubt a test to. But there’s something really fucked up about selling what’s very obviously a $150 device, I mean for fuck sakes it’s a cheap Media tech phone with a cheap display, and charging a premium because the phone blocks apps that the person buying it knows they can be tricked into installing even though those apps make their lives objectively worse.

It’s also possible that this is going to get marketed to kids but again you have a bunch of people doing a fucked up thing and another bunch of people selling a product to solve the problem caused by the first fucked up thing. How about we just don’t do the fucked up things in the first place?

It really is peak capitalism though I’ll give them that. One group of capitalists Selling me a substandard solution to a problem created by another group of capitalists.

Re: You know it kind of bugs me

By Powercntrl • Score: 4, Informative Thread

Phones that run stock Android are usually pretty good at letting you uninstall/disable anything you don’t want. On the iOS side, Apple is also pretty good about letting you get rid of the preloaded apps (which are all first party - Apple doesn’t allow preloaded 3rd party bloatware) you have no interest in using.

Re:Whitelisting? That trick never works

By votsalo • Score: 4, Insightful Thread

Anti-freedom ?

If you create your own website, the phone won’t be able to display it. That’s why it is anti-freedom. A browser is an operating system on its own that runs on many devices, including iphones and most Android phones (except this one). Blocking browsers means that the phone can run only Android apps, not web apps.

If you don’t like it, don’t buy it there are a ton of alternative

If you like it, buy it. But make an informed choice.

Be a great phone to give kids though, you know that parental responsibility thing where they can keep kids away from the BS.

Assuming you don’t want your kid to access any websites, including their school website, your family website (if you have one) a weather station website, government websites, or their own websites, if you kids have learned to build one.

blocking social

By gary s • Score: 3 Thread
People, you do know that if you dont install the social media apps you will block them. Not sure I need a special phone to do that.

Binance Set To Lose Permission To Operate In EU

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Binance is expected to lose permission to serve EU customers in July after Greek regulators reportedly decided to reject its MiCA license application. Reuters reports:
Under new EU rules, called MiCA, crypto firms have until the end of June to obtain a licence to allow them to keep servicing clients across the bloc. Binance’s application, made to Greece’s market regulator, is set to be turned down, the people said. European regulators have been attempting to rein in crypto exchanges, which allow people to trade cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin around the globe.

Under MiCA, crypto companies have to apply for licenses from regulators in individual EU countries, which they can use as a “passport” to operate throughout the 27-nation bloc. At stake is oversight of the multi-trillion-dollar crypto industry, which regulators have long warned could destabilize markets and harm investors if not properly supervised. The Greek rejection would mean Binance will not be given the green light to operate in the EU, leaving the fate of Binance’s customers based in the bloc uncertain.

Binance posted on X after the Reuters report was published that it intends to “support an orderly process and minimise disruption to our users”, without giving further details. A spokesperson for Binance, which has 300 million customers worldwide, earlier said it has been pursuing a MiCA licenze and had worked with regulators for 18 months. Binance believes it has met the requirements to be MiCA authorized, the spokesperson said. It understood that Greece’s Hellenic Capital Market Commission had completed its review of the application and it was considered compliant. “HCMC has given no formal indication of the contrary,” the spokesperson told Reuters.

Re:Why Greece?

By arglebargle_xiv • Score: 5, Insightful Thread

I assume they’d already jurisdiction-shopped and were expecting it to be rubber-stamped in a country that’s somewhat more dysfunctional (try setting up a business in Greece some time) than other EU countries which would have given them a harder time over it.

If only those pesky Europeans were like the US, put Kushner on your board of directors, make a donation to the ballroom, and all of your regulatory problems just… go away.

France To Stop Certifying Products Without Quantum-Safe Encryption

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Starting in 2027, France’s cybersecurity agency ANSSI will stop certifying security products that lack quantum-resistant encryption, effectively forcing government agencies and critical infrastructure operators to phase out older cryptographic systems. Reuters reports:
Samih Souissi, ANSSI’s chief of staff, said at the France Quantum conference that the agency would halt such certifications from 2027, and that businesses should be buying only quantum-safe products by 2030. ANSSI approval is required for use in French government agencies and critical infrastructure, making the policy a de facto phase-out of older encryption.

“It’s not only a technical issue,” Souissi said. “It’s a matter of governance, industrial planning, regulation, and sovereignty.” The move reflects concern that attackers may store encrypted data now and unlock it later when quantum computers become strong enough to crack today’s protections, a risk known as “harvest now, decrypt later.”

OpenSSH

By jmccue • Score: 3 Thread

I wonder if OpenSSH will be acceptable. Or does this certification only apply to commercial products ? AFAIK OpenSSH would be acceptable.

https://www.openssh.org/pq.html

Really?

By CEC-P • Score: 3 Thread
They called it ANSSI? I’m sure that’s not confused. Well off-brand, counterfeit, Temu ANSI here is right. If you’re going to put in a product right now in 2026 with a useable life of even 5 years, it may legitimately be hackable by a quantum computer in that time. There’s really no reason not to use the more modern, advanced methods. They don’t even require special hardware.

Re:Really?

By test321 • Score: 5, Informative Thread

They called it ANSSI?

1) It was actually DCSSI (Direction Centrale de Securite des Systemes d’information) as a branch of the Ministry of Defence until 2009 when it was elevated to the rank of an Agency.
2) Agencies in France are prefixed with AN for Agence Nationale. For example in France ANSES (environment safery), ANSP (public health), ANR (Research), ANPE (employment agency), therefore renaming it AN + SSI.
3) ANSI is unrelated (the French equivalent of ANSI is AFNOR) and therefore not ambiguous.

Re:They know something

By CommunityMember • Score: 4, Informative Thread

but they aren’t telling.

A number of larger organizations have conjectured based on current progress that Q-Day (when quantum computers will be sufficiently capable of breaking classic encryption) may be as close as 2029. Due to the “harvest now, decrypt later” issue, stopping certification of new products that do not have PQC capability a few years earlier (given the time frames for acquisition, testing, and deployments) makes some sense. It is possible that the engineering challenge of building a sufficiently capable quantum computer will not be overcome, but it is just an engineering challenge, and the engineering tends to only get better over time.

Mobileye Is Entering the US Robotaxi Market With Standalone Service

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica:
The driving technology company Mobileye plans to launch a robotaxi service in an as-yet-unnamed US city in 2027, it said earlier today. The service will be vertically integrated, using Mobileye’s Moovit mobility platform to interact with customers booking rides, coordinate drivers, and so on. The Israeli company, which was bought by Intel in 2017 before going public again in 2022, says it will start with around 100 robotaxis early next year. The company first rose to prominence in the mid-2010s, when Tesla began using Mobileye’s advanced driving assistance systems (ADAS) as part of Autopilot. That relationship lasted until 2016, when Mobileye dropped Tesla as a customer after being alarmed that a driver assistance system was being sold to end users as driverless technology. Since then, Mobileye has continued to work with other partners on ADAS and autonomous vehicles.

It has developed a new “SuperVision” ADAS that combines cameras and radar sensors, used by Porsche and Polestar, among others. On the robotaxi front, it has partnered with Volkswagen Group’s MOIA to develop a commercially available robotaxi based on the VW ID. Buzz minivan, and last year, Mobileye revealed plans to work with Lyft to deploy robotaxis in Dallas, “as soon as” this year. […] If Mobileye’s experience with the initial 100 robotaxis goes well, it says it will scale up to around 17,000 robotaxis within the following five years. “The robotaxi revolution has only just begun, and its potential for transforming how we travel around the world continues to increase,” Shashua said.
“This initiative is not a replacement for our existing partnerships; it is an extension of them,” said Amnon Shashua, founder and CEO of Mobileye. “We remain deeply committed to enabling automakers and mobility providers with Mobileye Drive. At the same time, operating our own service allows us to accelerate adoption, gain direct operational experience, and showcase the full potential of autonomous mobility.”

Snap’s First Consumer AI Glasses Are Coming This Fall For $2,195

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Snap is launching its first consumer augmented-reality glasses this fall for $2,195. “You can preorder a pair of Specs now at specs.com with a $200 refundable deposit, and Snap says they’re expected to ship ‘this fall’ in the US, UK, and France,” reports The Verge. From the report:
This is a big moment for Snap: The company made a big entry into smart glasses with its original Spectacles in 2016, and the company has been toiling away on nonpublic AR versions of Spectacles over the past few years. CEO Evan Spiegel promised the company would launch consumer AR glasses in 2026 and even turned its smart glasses team into a separate business. The company says that Specs are “fully standalone, with no puck and no tether.” (Which is perhaps a jab at Apple’s Vision Pro, which is tethered to a separate battery pack.) They’ll be offered in two sizes, a 47mm model weighing 132g and a 52mm model weighing 136g, and will have removable inserts that Snap says will support “a wide range of prescriptions.”

You probably won’t mistake Specs, with their wide, bold frames, for any of Meta’s smart glasses — Snap clearly picked a design that it wants to stand out. (They’re not my style — I don’t think I can pull off the “snow goggles, but fashionable” look — though maybe Jony Ive might like them.) They have visible light and infrared cameras, and while the Specs are recording, a little LED bar will glow in the middle of the glasses. Both of the lenses will be able to show you content, and Snap says that its display system is powered by a “proprietary liquid crystal on silicon technology” that offers a 51-degree field of view and can show 16 million colors. The lenses can also go from clear to tinted in 10 seconds, Snap says.

The Specs have two Snapdragon processors onboard, and while Snap isn’t specifying exactly which ones they are, the company says that one is focused on “computer vision” while the other is focused on running AR Lenses. “Together, they enable fast hand tracking, low latency, and responsive interactions that help digital content feel anchored in the real world,” Snap says. You can also expect up to four hours of battery life on a charge, which Snap says accounts for things like “audio and video playback, AI assistance, Bluetooth notifications, and more.” The Specs come with a charging case that Snap says will offer four more charges for a total of 20 hours of battery.

Radar O’Reilly radioed in…

By Archfeld • Score: 3 Thread

Radar O’Reilly radioed in…He wants his Korean era military issue glasses back. He left them on your mom’s nightstand.

SpaceX To Acquire AI Coding Startup Cursor For $60 Billion

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SpaceX has agreed to acquire Cursor for $60 billion in stock, adding the popular AI coding assistant to Elon Musk’s newly public aerospace-and-AI conglomerate. CNBC reports:
Cursor built a popular AI coding tool that helps software developers generate, edit and review code, and the company has experienced explosive growth since its founding in 2022. In November, Cursor said it crossed $1 billion in annualized revenue, according to a release at the time. Cursor was also ranked at No. 37 on the annual CNBC Disruptor 50 list in 2026.

[…] Musk merged SpaceX with his AI startup, xAI, earlier this year, and the Cursor deal looks set to help revitalize the company’s efforts to compete with rivals like Anthropic and OpenAI, which also offer popular coding tools. SpaceX expects the merger to close during the third quarter of this year, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The transaction is subject to “requisite regulatory approvals,” the filing said.

For what?

By OverlordQ • Score: 5, Interesting Thread

It’s just a reskinned VSCode, 99% of users probably dont even use Cursor’s model.

Re:The SpaceX Valuation is Insane

By quantaman • Score: 5, Insightful Thread

SpaceX is worth more than Microsoft or Amazon at this point. It boggles the mind how much people are betting on the future just because Musk is a genius. If he gets sick the stocks craters 80% easily and this $60B is more like $12B.

He’s not a genius, I sincerely think he’s average to slightly below average intelligence for a software dev. Just look how clueless he really is when he pretends to be a technical guru in front of actual experts.

That doesn’t mean he doesn’t have some exceptional skills, but IQ isn’t one of them.

First, he’s hard working, at least in spurts (during critical deadlines), and he’s willing to make and implement big decisions quickly. Just look at DOGE, Republicans have been trying to lay waste to the US government for decades, but Musk is the only one to actually do it. It was a complete disaster, but it wasn’t ethics or common sense that stopped the previous attempts, that’s a legit talent for Musk.

Second, CEOs aren’t allowed to lie, but Musk has figured out that you can get around that by building a cult of personality and then making ridiculously optimistic predictions and then sell minor advancements as progress. The result is he has a core group of retail investors that buy his stocks based on vibes and refuse to sell once in. Since these retail investors prevent the stock from going down too much institutional investors also jump in on the ride. It’s basically tulip bulbs.

Re:The SpaceX Valuation is Insane

By NewtonsLaw • Score: 5, Funny Thread

Of course Musk is a genius… those who say otherwise are idiots.

After all, how else would I be enjoying my FSD Roadster 2 that charges from my solar roof-tiles before the drive through a Boring Company tunnel to the Hyperloop terminal where I’m whisked off to the SpaceX launch-pad in anticipation of a Starship flight to join some of the others who set up that initial Mars base back in 2024.

Those who say that Musk is a snake-oil merchant who doesn’t deliver on his promises are just deniers who simply choose not to see the reality of the world as it is today.

Or I could be wrong :-)

Re:The SpaceX Valuation is Insane

By MachineShedFred • Score: 5, Insightful Thread

You sound like a simping cuck.

Anyone can miss deadlines. A lot of people do, sometimes very publicly.

This guy is the one of the few humans that seem to be completely above accountability, with an army of volunteers following him around explaining “what he really meant” or explaining why it’s actually ok for him to repeatedly lie.

Please stop being in a one-way dependent relationship with such a terrible person. He will never acknowledge your existence, so he will never thank you for trying to clean up his mess no matter how hard you try.

Re:The SpaceX Valuation is Insane

By MachineShedFred • Score: 5, Insightful Thread

Oh look, a guy that can’t actually refute what is being said, so he makes a move-the-goalpost false-equivalency argument equating accumulated wealth to intelligence.

People who think that accumulated wealth is a stand-in for intelligence measurement are people who don’t have any money, nor intelligence.

The US Government’s Anthropic Models Ban Was Never About an AI Jailbreak

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TechCrunch’s Zack Whittaker argues that the U.S. government’s abrupt export-control order forcing Anthropic to pull its Fable 5 and Mythos 5 models offline was “never about an AI jailbreak” threat. Instead, it was driven more by "personality differences" between the AI company and Trump administration. Security experts say the reported guardrail bypass did not justify the order and warn that the move sets a troubling precedent: the government can unilaterally disrupt American software products without court approval, potentially undermining trust in U.S. AI providers. From the report:
Katie Moussouris, a cybersecurity veteran and researcher who founded Luta Security, said in a blog post that Anthropic recently shared with her a private copy of a paper written by security researchers describing an alleged guardrail bypass in Fable 5. (The Wall Street Journal reports that the paper’s authors are security researchers at Amazon.) Moussouris said that Anthropic reached out to ask for her take on the paper. Moussouris’ blog post described how the researchers triggered the guardrail bypass, but said that the bypass itself “should never have triggered an export control.” The difference is largely between asking an AI model to “review code for security issues” versus asking it to “fix this code.”

The end result is largely the same, even if the questions are posed slightly differently. “The behavior described in the paper cannot meaningfully be fixed, and any attempt would only weaken the model for defense,” said Moussouris, who criticized the export control directive as hasty, heavy-handed, and misguided. Moussouris and dozens of other top security researchers and experts have since called on the Trump administration to revoke the export control order, calling the move to pull advanced cybersecurity capabilities from network defenders in the U.S. as “dangerous.”

Past administrations have made sweeping decisions on knowledge gaps. For instance, language used by the U.S. government during the 2010s to fix export law covering cybersecurity tools that could also be used for cyberattacks was so broad that inadvertently, it nearly outlawed legitimate security and vulnerability research. However, the Trump administration’s directive appears retaliatory. Justin Hendrix, the editor of Tech Policy Press, said the Trump administration’s move is “likely to raise alarms in foreign capitals about the reliability of American AI for critical applications.” The message is that AI companies in the United States can’t be trusted to operate without interference from the U.S. government.

The Trump administration hasn’t confirmed why it invoked its export control directive. Did the officials misread the report and freak out? Did Amazon CEO Andy Jassy say something to senior government officials that prompted the reaction, out of caution or spite? Was something lost in translation, or was this a way to pressure Anthropic, with whom the administration already has a fractious relationship? It’s possible that the White House was unaware of the far-reaching consequences of the letter’s demand and officials are scrambling to undo the damage of their own making. To quote Hendrix, “the climate is one of a cloud of suspicion that senior officials are picking favorites based on personal and political factors.” The aftermath is that the government has set a dangerous precedent about how much control it intends to wield over the release of American-made software. This time the government took issue with Anthropic; tomorrow it could be with anyone else.

it’s so tiring…

By firewrought • Score: 5, Insightful Thread

Once again, America’s economic interests and foreign relations have suffered because we elected an emotionally fragile boy-king who can only think of himself. What’s it going to be next month?

Left or right… At this point I’d just be happy for some adult leadership in the room.

Re:it’s so tiring…

By 93 Escort Wagon • Score: 5, Insightful Thread

Problem is, the damage is done - he’s shown the world how unreliable the US can be, and they’re not gonna forget. People loved to complain about America, but up until now they could typically count on America being willing (even eager) to lead… even if it was in a heavy-handed or tone-deaf manner.

“Make America Great Again” has, ironically, accelerated the country’s decline towards irrelevance in the eyes of the rest of the world.

Re:Why Didn’t Anthropic Sue?

By Local ID10T • Score: 5, Informative Thread

This is one of those things where the courts give deference to the administration. It is an emergency action. You can litigate it later, but due to the claim of imminent harm the courts will not block the government’s action.

Think about when Trump activated the National Guard and ordered them into action in California. The courts ruled against him after the fact, but the courts refused to block the action because the governments claim was imminent harm could occur.

The court MUST give deference to the government in emergencies. Just as you MUST give way for an ambulance with lights and siren going -they get the benefit of the doubt, even if it later turns out they were just sick of sitting in traffic.

Re:it’s so tiring…

By MachineShedFred • Score: 4, Insightful Thread

We tried for adult, but she had a funny laugh and was a “she” so no dice. Some number of millions of Americans were either convinced that this guy was the better choice somehow, or are just plain morons that vote against their own interests because the guy on the TV said to.

Re: TFA is shit.

By Bodrius • Score: 4, Interesting Thread

TFA from Techcrunch is basically “creative editorializing” the original reporting of other sources (axios mainly) to justify the clickbait headline. But it you click through to the original sources the story is more nuanced and more interesting.

The surface dynamic is anthropic is in a delicate position and struggling to manage a “temperamental” regulatory power *and* strategic customer shortly before their IPO.

The background dynamic is multiple sources close enough to the matter in the exec branch felt so strongly this was an unnecessary escalation and that anthropic was the party who could and had to fix it, that they’re talking to axios reporters the next day.

  In an administration that is proudly punitive of leaks, don’t assume multiple people are spilling the tea to reporters this quickly out of civic interest or a strong belief in the role of free press.

Russian Spam and Profanities Are Now Plaguing the Arch Linux AUR

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The Arch Linux User Repository “AUR” is facing another issue just days after more than 1,500 packages were found carrying malware. According to Phoronix, over 70 AUR packages have reportedly been modified to insert Russian spam and profane messages into users’ shell configuration files. From the report:
Nicolas Boichat with his AI/LLM detection bot detected some questionable messages appearing in AUR content. Russian messages were being added post-install to the bashrc / zshrc / Fish configuration, etc containing offensive messaging. Those commits happened on the 14th, after the recent malware fiasco. And then over the past day reporting on dozens of AUR packages having similar Russian messages containing offensive language.

The latest update on that thread indicates more than 70 AUR packages having this Russian spam / offensive messaging. Among those various Python packages, Ruby packages, Llama.cpp, and others. At least the AI/LLM bots are proving helpful here in proactively picking up on some of the AUR abuses until the fundamental situation can be better handled.

This is validating my decision to stay on Debian

By reiscw • Score: 5, Interesting Thread

I run Linux as a desktop and have done so since around 2008. I started with Ubuntu, and after a while (probably around 5-10 years) I moved to Debian. Every once in a while, I’ll read about one of the new Arch-based distros (Manjaro, Calyx OS) and decide to give it a try. After about a few hours, I realize that some of the programs I use on a regular basis are not available (easily) outside of the AUR. When you read about the AUR as an intermediate user, you understand how dangerous it can be, but you feel like it’s necessary to use Linux as your main computing device. There are applications that are packaged as DEB/RPM but not for Arch, and are not available as Flatpaks (or AppImages or Snaps). Some of these are proprietary.

One in particular which comes to mind is Insync, which I use to synchronize Google shared folders to my home directory. It is much easier to use than rclone and the latency is a lot lower. If I move to an Arch-based system, I have to get that from the AUR. Now, I do feel like I have the experience to read the PKGBUILD and audit it for weird stuff going on, but I’m also not arrogant enough to believe that someone could not sneak something by me.

I use Debian Stable, and all of my software is available. Some of the software is dated, obviously; I’m running KDE 6.3.6 and kernel 6.12. But in general, I don’t have huge issues with that, and if there was an application I needed to update, I probably could do it either with Flatpaks or compiling from source. Honestly though, I cannot remember the last time I needed to do that. Maybe it helps that I’m not a professional software developer and I don’t need access to the latest versions of everything. I also know that some Debian users address those issues by running testing or unstable.

There’s a part of me that wonders if these attacks are related to the surge in popularity of Calyx OS. I teach high school, and I noticed last year that one of my ninth graders was running KDE on his laptop. I asked him what distro he was running, and he said Calyx OS. I was surprised by that - most of the time when I run into a high school kid they’re running something in the Debian family (including Ubuntu and its derivatives).

Snowden

By Big Bipper • Score: 3 Thread
Don’t forget what Snowden revealed. The NSA routinely covers its tracks by salting its code with comments in foreign languages. This might actually be evidence of your tax dollars at work, or not. We’ll probably never know for sure unfortunately. That, and AI Slop, are the sad part. We don’t know what to believe, only that most of what we see online, or on the mainstream media, is fake.

Re:This is validating my decision to stay on Debia

By Anonymous Cward • Score: 5, Informative Thread
The difference between the AUR and Debian repositories is that there’s a natural level of checking built into the process. For simplicity, I’m going to completely ignore Debian Stable and talk about Unstable, which ultimately gets far less scrutiny due to less security team involvement.

Each category (or group) of packages generally has a team of people who work together to commit changes to Unstable, aided by senior developers who have non-maintainer upload rights to dip in and help out if packages end up lacking named maintainers. There’s no concept of a random person with no history of contributing immediately taking over orphaned packages, and while a package maintainer owns the responsibility of making sure changes work, folks definitely aren’t alone when it comes to QA/QC.

Debian also splits out everything so that any potentially reusable dynamic libraries can be re-used by as many other packages as possible. If there’s a new dependent library being introduced which no other package already makes use of, it needs to be added to the Debian archive as a brand new package, where the process is ultimately overseen by a separate team of people. Even if all that scrutiny doesn’t pick up on something, Canonical engineers also use Debian’s packages as the basis for Universe/Multiverse in Ubuntu and have to perform their own checks before syncing over new packages in from Debian Unstable when MOTU (“Masters Of The Universe” aka. community contributors mentored by Canonical) put in a request as part of maintaining the packages they look after.

The end result is potentially even better scrutinised than the packaging approach typical macOS and Windows apps receive, due to the number of separate individual maintainers taking responsibility for dependent libraries, as opposed to an independent or small team of developers taking responsibility for everything. However, it does also mean if one common library gets subverted in some way, especially by a compromise of the upstream project (as people saw with the xz backdoor attempt) then the net impact could be far wider than with vendored libraries (how packages work with macOS/Windows) where developers can choose to stick with older versions for their application for longer. Of course, that’s somewhat mitigated by that thing I’m ignoring called Debian Stable… =]

Note: I’m not a Debian Developer (just someone who ends up reading way too much) so it’s possible some of what I’m saying isn’t as accurate as it could be, but I hope this gives you a general gist of the differences.

Sad Days For Arch

By SlashbotAgent • Score: 3 Thread

This will severely damage Arch, possibly beyond repair.

It will be sad to see Arch go. I’ve personally never used it. But, I have and do use their documentation. Arch docs are fantastic, no matter what distro you use.

Firefox 152 Adds JPEG XL Support, Redesigned Settings

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from Linuxiac:
Mozilla has released Firefox 152, the latest update to its popular open-source web browser, with updated settings, improved media controls, experimental JPEG XL support, and various platform-specific fixes for desktop and Android. A key update is the redesigned Firefox Settings page, which now features clearer groupings, improved navigation, and a more streamlined structure for easier customization. The release also expands built-in spellchecker support, adding dictionaries for Croatian, English (UK), Georgian, Persian, Slovenian, Tajik, Tamil, Tibetan, Turkish, Welsh, and Xhosa. […] Importantly, Firefox now offers experimental support for JPEG XL, an image format with improved compression over WebP, JPEG, PNG, and GIF. Users can enable JPEG XL in the Firefox Labs panel within Settings.

Re:Fix the crash bugs

By Valgrus Thunderaxe • Score: 4, Interesting Thread
Yeah. I’ve used mobile FF on Android for years. I have no problems like you’re experiencing.

Re: Fix the crash bugs

By drinkypoo • Score: 4, Funny Thread

I am using only UBO.

I have done clean installs.

Are you using Faceboot with Firefox? That’s what causes me the most crashes.

Question

By smooth wombat • Score: 3 Thread

Have they removed the incessent harassment notifying you there is an update?

There used to be a time when you checked a box, you were never harassed. Clear, simple, and useful.

I guess that’s no longer possible.