Toll Roads Are Spreading in America
December 27, 2025 at 04:02PM
December 27, 2025 at 04:02PM
tech.slashdot.org
Toll Roads Are Spreading in America
Toll roads are expanding across the U.S. as the traditional gas tax funding model for highways collapses. Indiana became the first state to authorize tolls on all of its existing interstate highways when Governor Mike Braun signed legislation in June. The…
Taiwan's iPass Releases Floppy Disk Pre-Paid Cash Card
December 27, 2025 at 06:01PM
December 27, 2025 at 06:01PM
it.slashdot.org
Taiwan's iPass Releases Floppy Disk Pre-Paid Cash Card
Taiwan's iPass has released a limited-edition prepaid payment card shaped exactly like a 3.5-inch floppy disk. The company, perhaps rightly so, felt the need to include a warning on the product listing: "This product only has a card function and does not…
Video Call Glitches Evoke Uncanniness, Damage Consequential Life Outcomes
December 27, 2025 at 08:00PM
December 27, 2025 at 08:00PM
slashdot.org
Video Call Glitches Evoke Uncanniness, Damage Consequential Life Outcomes
Those brief freezes and audio hiccups that plague video calls are not the benign nuisances that most people assume them to be, according to a new study published in Nature that found glitches during virtual interactions can meaningfully damage hiring prospects…
Free Software Foundation Receives 'Historic' Donations Worth Nearly $900K - in Monero
December 27, 2025 at 11:34PM
December 27, 2025 at 11:34PM
news.slashdot.org
Free Software Foundation Receives 'Historic' Donations Worth Nearly $900K - in Monero
On Wednesday (Christmas Eve), the Free Software Foundation announced it had received two major contributions totaling around $900,000 USD — in the cryptocurrency Monero. The two donations "are among some of the largest private gifts ever made to the…
Should Physicists Study the Question: What is Life?
December 28, 2025 at 12:34AM
December 28, 2025 at 12:34AM
science.slashdot.org
Should Physicists Study the Question: What is Life?
An astrophysicist at the University of Rochester writes that "many" of his colleagues in physics "have come to believe that a mystery is unfolding in every microbe, animal, and human." And it's a mystery that: - "Challenges basic assumptions physicists have…
Japan Votes to Restart Fukushima Nuclear Plant 15 Years After Its Meltdown
December 28, 2025 at 01:34AM
December 28, 2025 at 01:34AM
hardware.slashdot.org
Japan Votes to Restart Fukushima Nuclear Plant 15 Years After Its Meltdown
The 2011 meltdown at Fukushima's nuclear plant "was the world's worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl in 1986," CNN remembers. But this week Japanese authorities "have approved a decision to restart the world's biggest nuclear power plant," reports CNN,…
Open Source Initiative Estimates the 'Top Open Source Licenses in 2025'
December 28, 2025 at 02:34AM
December 28, 2025 at 02:34AM
news.slashdot.org
Open Source Initiative Estimates the 'Top Open Source Licenses in 2025'
The nonprofit Open Source Initiative offers "enriched" license pages with "relevant metadata to provide deeper insights and better support". So which pages got the most pageviews in 2025? The MIT license, Apache 2.0 license, BSD licenses (3-clause and 2-clause)…
Japan Votes to Restart World's Biggest Nuclear Plant 15 Years After Fukushima Meltdown
December 28, 2025 at 01:34AM
December 28, 2025 at 01:34AM
hardware.slashdot.org
Japan Votes to Restart World's Biggest Nuclear Plant 15 Years After Fukushima Meltdown
The 2011 meltdown at Fukushima's nuclear plant "was the world's worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl in 1986," CNN remembers. But this week Japanese authorities "have approved a decision to restart the world's biggest nuclear power plant," reports CNN,…
Waymo Updates Vehicles to Better Handle Power Outages - But Still Faces Criticism
December 28, 2025 at 03:34AM
December 28, 2025 at 03:34AM
tech.slashdot.org
Waymo Updates Vehicles to Better Handle Power Outages - But Still Faces Criticism
Waymo explained this week that its self-driving car technology is already "designed to handle dark traffic signals," and successfully handled over 7,000 last Saturday during San Francisco's long power outage, properly treating those intersections as four…
NVIDIA Drops Pascal Support On Linux, Causing Chaos On Arch Linux
December 28, 2025 at 04:34AM
December 28, 2025 at 04:34AM
linux.slashdot.org
NVIDIA Drops Pascal Support On Linux, Causing Chaos On Arch Linux
NVIDIA has been "gradually dropping support for older videocards," notes Hackaday, "with the Pascal (GTX 10xx) GPUs most recently getting axed." "What's more surprising is the terrible way that this is being handled by certain Linux distributions, with Arch…
Is Russia Developing an Anti-Satellite Weapon to Target Starlink?
December 28, 2025 at 05:34AM
December 28, 2025 at 05:34AM
science.slashdot.org
Is Russia Developing an Anti-Satellite Weapon to Target Starlink?
An anonymous reader shared this report from the Associated Press: Two NATO-nation intelligence services suspect Russia is developing a new anti-satellite weapon to target Elon Musk's Starlink constellation with destructive orbiting clouds of shrapnel, with…
New Runtime Standby ABI Proposed for Linux Like Microsoft Windows' 'Modern Standby'
December 28, 2025 at 06:34AM
December 28, 2025 at 06:34AM
linux.slashdot.org
New Runtime Standby ABI Proposed for Linux Like Microsoft Windows' 'Modern Standby'
Phoronix reports on "an exciting post-Christmas patch series out on the Linux kernel mailing list" proposing "a new runtime standby ABI that is similar in nature to the 'Modern Standby' functionality found with Microsoft Windows..." Modern Standby is a low…
Researchers Show Some Robots Can Be Hijacked Just Through Spoken Commands
December 28, 2025 at 07:44AM
December 28, 2025 at 07:44AM
hardware.slashdot.org
Researchers Show Some Robots Can Be Hijacked Just Through Spoken Commands
An anonymous Slashdot reader shared this story from Interesting Engineering: Cybersecurity specialists from the research group DARKNAVY have demonstrated how modern humanoid robots can be compromised and weaponised through weaknesses in their AI-driven control…
OpenAI is Hiring a New 'Head of Preparedness' to Predict/Mitigate AI's Harms
December 28, 2025 at 09:34AM
December 28, 2025 at 09:34AM
slashdot.org
OpenAI is Hiring a New 'Head of Preparedness' to Predict/Mitigate AI's Harms
An anonymous reader shared this report from Engadget: OpenAI is looking for a new Head of Preparedness who can help it anticipate the potential harms of its models and how they can be abused, in order to guide the company's safety strategy. It comes at the…
在两年等待之后 FFmpeg 向瑞芯发出 DMCA 下架通知
在 FFmpeg 开发者发出 DMCA 通知后，GitHub 下架了瑞芯（Rockchip）的开源媒体处理库 Media Process Platform。FFmpeg 是在 2024 年 2 月首次指控瑞芯违反了该开源项目使用的 LGPL 许可证。瑞芯拷贝了 FFmpeg 的源代码库，删除了原始作者声明，宣称自己拥有这些代码库的所有权，然后使用了不兼容于 LGPL 的 Apache许可证重新发布代码。FFmpeg 项目等待了差不多两年时间，但瑞芯的最后回应显示它无意解决问题。DMCA 通知要求删除侵权文件，或恢复正确的署名以及使用与 LGPL 兼容的许可证。 via Solidot
在 FFmpeg 开发者发出 DMCA 通知后，GitHub 下架了瑞芯（Rockchip）的开源媒体处理库 Media Process Platform。FFmpeg 是在 2024 年 2 月首次指控瑞芯违反了该开源项目使用的 LGPL 许可证。瑞芯拷贝了 FFmpeg 的源代码库，删除了原始作者声明，宣称自己拥有这些代码库的所有权，然后使用了不兼容于 LGPL 的 Apache许可证重新发布代码。FFmpeg 项目等待了差不多两年时间，但瑞芯的最后回应显示它无意解决问题。DMCA 通知要求删除侵权文件，或恢复正确的署名以及使用与 LGPL 兼容的许可证。 via Solidot
Calibre 引入 AI “讨论”功能
Calibre 本月初释出了受争议的更新，引入 AI“讨论”功能。该功能由 Amir Tehrani 于今年 8 月提出，Calibre 作者兼维护者 Kovid Goyal 欣然接受，首个包含 AI 功能的版本于 12 月初释出。他承诺 Calibre 绝对不会未经用户明确同意选择加入的情况下使用第三方 AI 服务。对于用户的反对，他强调不会移除。在更新之后用户会在“视图”菜单下看到 AI 功能“Discuss selected books with AI”。如果没有配置 GitHub AI 的访问令牌或 Google AI 的 API 密钥，或者通过 LM Studio 或 Ollama 本地运行模型，该功能实际上没什么用。对大多数用户而言，它就是几个没什么用的菜单项。对于用户对 AI 的强烈反对，Goyal 也提供了选择，他放出了 Calibre 的所有版本提供下载，用户可以从 0.6.x-8.x 选择任意一个版本使用。目前开源社区还不存在功能上能替代 Calibre 的电子书管理软件。Calibre 加入 AI 凸显出无论用户是否想要，AI 都在缓慢的渗透到我们的生活之中。 via Solidot
Calibre 本月初释出了受争议的更新，引入 AI“讨论”功能。该功能由 Amir Tehrani 于今年 8 月提出，Calibre 作者兼维护者 Kovid Goyal 欣然接受，首个包含 AI 功能的版本于 12 月初释出。他承诺 Calibre 绝对不会未经用户明确同意选择加入的情况下使用第三方 AI 服务。对于用户的反对，他强调不会移除。在更新之后用户会在“视图”菜单下看到 AI 功能“Discuss selected books with AI”。如果没有配置 GitHub AI 的访问令牌或 Google AI 的 API 密钥，或者通过 LM Studio 或 Ollama 本地运行模型，该功能实际上没什么用。对大多数用户而言，它就是几个没什么用的菜单项。对于用户对 AI 的强烈反对，Goyal 也提供了选择，他放出了 Calibre 的所有版本提供下载，用户可以从 0.6.x-8.x 选择任意一个版本使用。目前开源社区还不存在功能上能替代 Calibre 的电子书管理软件。Calibre 加入 AI 凸显出无论用户是否想要，AI 都在缓慢的渗透到我们的生活之中。 via Solidot
Military Planners Dread the Arctic, 'Where Drones Drop Dead and GPS Goes Haywire'
December 28, 2025 at 12:44PM
December 28, 2025 at 12:44PM
tech.slashdot.org
Military Planners Dread the Arctic, 'Where Drones Drop Dead and GPS Goes Haywire'
An anonymous reader shared this report from the Wall Street Journal: Sending drones and robots into battle, rather than humans, has become a tenet of modern warfare. Nowhere does that make more sense than in the frozen expanses of the Arctic. But the closer…
Sal Khan: Companies Should Give 1% of Profits To Retrain Workers Displaced By AI
December 28, 2025 at 04:37PM
December 28, 2025 at 04:37PM
it.slashdot.org
Sal Khan: Companies Should Give 1% of Profits To Retrain Workers Displaced By AI
"I believe artificial intelligence will displace workers at a scale many people don't yet realize," says Sal Kahn (founder/CEO of the nonprofit Khan Academy). But in an op-ed in the New York Times he also proposes a solution that "could change the trajectory…
Is Dark Energy Weakening?
December 28, 2025 at 08:34PM
December 28, 2025 at 08:34PM
science.slashdot.org
Is Dark Energy Weakening?
An anonymous reader shared this report from the BBC: There is growing controversy over recent evidence suggesting that a mysterious force known as dark energy might be changing in a way that challenges our current understanding of time and space. An analysis…
Challenges Face European Governments Pursuing 'Digital Sovereignty'
December 28, 2025 at 11:34PM
December 28, 2025 at 11:34PM
yro.slashdot.org
Challenges Face European Governments Pursuing 'Digital Sovereignty'
The Register reports on challenges facing Europe's pursuit of "digital sovereignty": The US CLOUD Act of 2018 allows American authorities to compel US-based technology companies to provide requested data, regardless of where that data is stored globally.…
How Will Rising RAM Prices Affect Laptop Companies?
December 29, 2025 at 12:34AM
December 29, 2025 at 12:34AM
hardware.slashdot.org
How Will Rising RAM Prices Affect Laptop Companies?
Laptop makers are facing record-setting memory prices next year. The site Notebookcheck catalogs how different companies are responding: Sources told [Korean business newspaper] Chosun Biz that some manufacturers have signed preliminary contracts with Samsung…