180277049
submission
BrianFagioli writes:
Micron has announced that it will shut down its entire Crucial consumer business, ending nearly three decades of SSDs and RAM that many PC builders depended on. The company says soaring AI related demand in the data center is forcing it to redirect supply and engineering resources toward large enterprise customers. Crucial products will keep shipping only until February 2026, and while warranties will continue, the brand itself is effectively dead.
For consumers, the loss removes one of the few straightforward and trustworthy SSD options in a market already heavy with confusing controllers and marketing noise. Micron frames the move as a necessary shift toward enterprise growth, but longtime Linux users and home lab builders may see it as another casualty of the AI land grab.
180251077
submission
BrianFagioli writes:
OpenAI has partnered with NORAD for this yearâ(TM)s NORAD Tracks Santa event, introducing a set of ChatGPT-driven holiday tools. One of them, âoeElf Enrollment,â lets parents upload a photo to generate an âoeofficial Santaâ(TM)s helperâ image. While the feature is promoted as a lighthearted seasonal add-on, it immediately raises questions about data retention, face processing, and whether a holiday tradition should funnel families into an AI system that depends on user-submitted imagery. NORADâ(TM)s program historically centered on radar, satellites, and public outreach; this year, parents are being asked to hand over their childrenâ(TM)s faces for a digital keepsake.
The other two tools â" a coloring-page generator and a custom story creator â" donâ(TM)t require photos, and therefore avoid the privacy and surveillance concerns that Elf Enrollment introduces. Still, OpenAIâ(TM)s involvement in a long-standing government-adjacent tradition feels like a shift, especially as AI companies face ongoing scrutiny over training data and model inputs. Whether families embrace the new features or avoid them entirely will likely depend on their comfort level with an AI company operating in the middle of a holiday ritual that once felt much simpler.
180217631
submission
BrianFagioli writes:
CyberPowerPC is warning customers that system prices will jump on December seventh due to what it describes as a five-hundred-percent spike in RAM prices and a doubling of SSD costs since October. While those numbers sound extreme, they track with broader supply chain pressure driven by AI datacenter expansion. Hyperscalers are consuming enormous amounts of DRAM and NAND for training clusters, pushing manufacturers to prioritize enterprise production over consumer hardware. When supply gets tight, prebuilt system builders feel the squeeze first.
Thereâ(TM)s also a political component beneath the surface. Tariff uncertainty on electronics coming out of China continues to raise baseline costs for system builders that rely on imported cases, motherboards, PSUs, and cooling hardware. Combined with AI demand, it creates a pricing environment that is brutal for anyone trying to ship affordable gaming PCs heading into the holiday season. Whether the exact numbers CyberPowerPC cites are precise or rounded up for impact, the trend itself is real and unlikely to reverse quickly.
180217437
submission
BrianFagioli writes:
Neweggâ(TM)s new partnership with PayPal is another sign that mainstream e commerce is shifting control from users to AI driven intermediaries. Instead of shoppers visiting Newegg directly, PayPalâ(TM)s agentic commerce system pushes product discovery through AI platforms like Perplexity where recommendations, checkout, and fraud checks all happen inside someone elseâ(TM)s controlled environment. Newegg stays the merchant of record, but the real influence shifts to the platforms that decide which products their AI agents mention. That may sound convenient, but it also means discovery becomes guided by training data and commercial integrations rather than user intent.
Slashdot readers will likely notice the other issue. This setup puts PayPal deeper into the shopping pipeline at a time when many users already avoid the company over account freezes and dispute policies. An AI mediated shopping experience where PayPal becomes the silent gatekeeper by default is not going to sit well with everyone. And with AI agents shaping purchasing decisions based on behavior and context, the concept of intent driven shopping starts to look a lot like quiet nudging rather than empowerment. Newegg may see this as the future, but the community will probably ask whether users truly want AI systems and PayPal deciding how they shop.
180197367
submission
BrianFagioli writes:
President Trump has issued a sweeping executive order that creates the Genesis Mission, a national AI program he compares to a Manhattan Project level effort. It centralizes DOE supercomputers, national lab resources, massive scientific datasets, and new AI foundation models into a single platform meant to fast track research in areas like fusion, biotech, microelectronics, and advanced manufacturing. The order positions AI as both a scientific accelerator and a national security requirement, with heavy emphasis on data access, secure cloud environments, classification controls, and export restrictions.
The mission also sets strict timelines for identifying key national science challenges, integrating interagency datasets, enabling AI run experimentation, and creating public private research partnerships. Whether this becomes an effective scientific engine or another oversized federal program remains to be seen, but the administration is clearly pushing to frame Trump as the president who put AI at the center of U.S. research strategy.
180110911
submission
BrianFagioli writes:
Grok 4.1 is now rolling out across grok.com and the X apps, and xAI is calling it a major step for how its model handles creativity, emotional prompts, and everyday conversation. The timing is hard to ignore since GPT 5.1 just landed, and the back and forth between OpenAI and xAI is starting to feel like a real rivalry. Grok 4.1 now tops LMArenaâ(TM)s text leaderboard in its reasoning mode, with the fast version beating many competitors even when they are using full thinking. xAI also claims big improvements in empathy tests, creative writing scores, and reduced hallucinations when paired with search.
What makes this interesting for Slashdot readers is how quickly the model race is accelerating. Grok 4.1 represents xAI trying to close the gap with OpenAI while showing it can produce a model with personality rather than just raw output speed. With GPT 5.1 pushing in its own direction and Grok 4.1 arriving right behind it, both companies clearly want to shape the next phase of AI in very different ways. If the pace keeps up, users are going to be seeing upgrades faster than the ecosystem can fully adapt.
180089331
submission
BrianFagioli writes:
Apple is reportedly preparing to oust Tim Cook after the Vision Pro flop, the Siri stagnation, and the weak reception to the iPhone Air. Multiple reports claim the company is accelerating succession planning for as early as 2026, and the tone suggests this may be more than routine leadership rotation. While Apple has thrived financially under Cook, critics argue that core products have slipped. Siri has fallen years behind competitors, AirPods remain uncomfortable, Apple Watch still struggles with a screen too small to be useful, and Vision Pro has become a poster child for overpricing. Even Appleâ(TM)s AI-focused iPhone Air has been labeled a flop, raising questions about whether the board is losing confidence in Cookâ(TM)s direction.
John Ternus, Appleâ(TM)s hardware engineering chief, is reportedly the leading candidate to take over, signaling a potential shift back to stronger hardware-first leadership. With competitors racing ahead in AI and new form factors, Apple is facing pressure to prove it still has a clear product vision. The timing of these leaks suggests the board wants the public to know that change is coming, and fast. For a company that once defined entire categories, the next CEO may determine whether Apple regains its footing or keeps drifting toward overpriced experiments and fading relevance.
180076504
submission
BrianFagioli writes:
Logitech has confirmed a cybersecurity breach after an intruder exploited a zero-day in a third-party software platform and copied internal data. The company says the incident did not affect its products, manufacturing or business operations, and it does not believe sensitive personal information like national ID numbers or credit card data were stored in the impacted system. The attacker still managed to pull limited information tied to employees, consumers, customers and suppliers, raising fair questions about how long the zero-day existed before being patched.
Logitech brought in outside cybersecurity firms, notified regulators and says the incident will not materially affect its financial results. The company expects its cybersecurity insurance policy to cover investigation costs and any potential legal or regulatory issues. Still, with zero-day attacks increasing across the tech world, even established hardware brands are being forced to acknowledge uncomfortable weaknesses in their internal systems.
180064316
submission
BrianFagioli writes:
Proton is floating a plan on Reddit that should unsettle anyone who values privacy. The company is considering recycling abandoned email addresses that were originally created by bots a decade ago. These addresses were never used, yet many of them are extremely common names that have silently collected misdirected emails, password reset attempts, and even entries in breach datasets. Handing those addresses to new owners today would mean that sensitive messages intended for completely different people could start landing in a strangerâ(TM)s inbox overnight.
Proton says itâ(TM)s just gathering feedback, but the fact that this made it far enough to ask the community is troubling. Releasing these long-abandoned addresses would create confusion, risk exposure of personal data, and undermine the trust users place in a privacy focused provider. Itâ(TM)s hard to see how Proton could justify taking a gamble with other peopleâ(TM)s digital identities like this.
180048208
submission
BrianFagioli writes:
Mozilla has released Firefox 145.0, and the standout change in this version is the official end of support for 32-bit Linux systems. Users on 32-bit distributions will no longer receive updates and are being encouraged to switch to the 64-bit build to continue getting security patches and new features. While most major Linux distributions have already moved past 32-bit support, this shift will still impact older hardware users and lightweight community projects that have held on to 32-bit for the sake of performance or preservation.
The rest of the update introduces features such as built-in PDF comments, improved fingerprinting resistance for private browsing, tab group previews, password management in the sidebar, and minor UI refinements. Firefox also now compresses local translation models with Zstandard to reduce storage needs. But the end of 32-bit Linux support is the change that will leave the biggest mark, signaling another step toward a web ecosystem firmly centered on 64-bit computing.
180036462
submission
BrianFagioli writes:
Minisforum has introduced the MS-R1, a compact ARM-based workstation built around the 12-core CP8180 processor with UEFI boot support, ECC LPDDR5 memory, and room for up to 64GB. Unlike most ARM boards that rely on vendor-specific boot chains or experimental images, the MS-R1 behaves more like a standard PC. It supports Debian 12 and can run Proxmox, KVM, and container-based workloads without unusual setup steps. The system also includes dual 10GbE ports and Wi-Fi 6E, making it suitable for home lab, routing, and virtualization environments.
The MS-R1 offers a full-size PCIe x16 slot (wired x8) inside its 1.7L case, opening the door to GPUs, high-speed NICs, or U.2 storage expansion. Two M.2 NVMe slots provide flexible internal storage options as well. With a 28W TDP and cooling tuned to keep noise under 40dB, the system targets users who want to experiment with ARM on the desktop without giving up the expandability and networking typically found in x86 small-form-factor workstations. Pricing starts around $503.90 depending on configuration.
180028072
submission
BrianFagioli writes:
A new product called The New Milk is rolling out across Israel, produced through fermentation instead of farming. Remilk and Gad Dairies say it tastes and behaves exactly like traditional dairy, but contains no lactose, no cholesterol, and is certified kosher-pareve. Itâ(TM)s showing up first in cafés before heading to supermarkets in 2026. Supporters call it the future of dairy. Critics say itâ(TM)s science experiment milk.
180007710
submission
BrianFagioli writes:
Rocky Linux is now the first Linux distribution authorized to ship with the complete NVIDIA AI software stack out of the box, including CUDA Toolkit and DOCA OFED. CIQ, the company backing Rocky Linux, says this eliminates the usual configuration work needed to get GPU clusters running, allowing organizations to go from installation to inference far faster. The move is aimed directly at HPC and large-scale AI deployments where scaling from a few development nodes to thousands of production nodes is often held back by networking configuration and driver validation problems.
The partnership also strengthens Rocky Linuxâ(TM)s position as the post-CentOS enterprise platform for compute workloads. It suggests that NVIDIA wants AI infrastructure to function more like pre-validated appliances rather than DIY Linux stacks. Supporters say this will reduce deployment costs and headaches. Critics are already calling it another step toward deeper NVIDIA lock-in, as the distribution increasingly becomes tuned around proprietary GPU tooling.
179996494
submission
BrianFagioli writes:
Netflix and YouTube streaming produce far more COâ than asking ChatGPT a question, according to a new analysis of digital energy use. An hour of HD video streaming generates about 42 grams of COâ, while a chatbot prompt is around 0.1 grams. Even AI image generation (about 1 gram per image) comes in well below binge-watching. The study also found that Zoom calls and text-to-video AI generation sit in the middle, but streaming is still the standout energy hog because it requires continuous data transfer and processing.
Researchers say the bigger problem isnâ(TM)t individual behavior but the energy sources that power data centers. The tech sector produced an estimated 900 million tons of COâ last year, with only about 30 percent powered by renewables. If that shifted to 80 or 90 percent, emissions from all digital activities would drop significantly without people changing their habits at all.
179989534
submission
BrianFagioli writes:
Firefox has introduced Kit, a new mascot meant to give the browser a friendlier, more personal identity. Mozilla is framing Kit as a companion for a web thatâ(TM)s âoeprivate, open and actually yours.â Itâ(TM)s a branding refresh rather than a technical change, and it leans into warmth and approachability at a time when browsers are starting to feel interchangeable.
The move also quietly pushes aside the old âoeFirefox is a red pandaâ trivia angle, sticking with a fox-like character thatâ(TM)s easier to recognize. Whether this helps Firefox regain relevance in a Chrome-dominated world is unclear, but it does signal that Mozilla still wants Firefox to feel like a browser with a personality and values, not just another commodity UI.
