As 2023 draws to a close, the io9 staff has had to admit something about ourselves: we watch a lot of TV. From a starting list that was admittedly alarmingly long, we managed to winnow down our 20 favorites—including animation, sci-fi, horror, and fantasy, and titles both brand-new, some seasons in, and (in one case,…
Source: Gizmodo – 20 Best Sci-Fi, Fantasy, and Horror TV Shows of 2023
In case you still needed to do some last-minute Christmas shopping for the gamers in your life (or for yourself), Microsoft has temporarily slashed the price of its most powerful gaming console, knocking the cost down by $100.
Source: Kotaku – Xbox Series X Just Got A Massive Price Drop
The Rust for Linux (RFL) project may not have (yet) resulted in user-visible
changes to the Linux kernel, but it seems the wider world has taken notice.
Hongyu Li has announced
that the Rust for Linux code is now part of a satellite just launched
out of China. The satellite is running a system called RROS, which follows the old
RTLinux pattern of running a realtime kernel alongside Linux. The realtime
core is written in Rust, using the RFL groundwork.
Despite its imperfections, we still want to share RROS with the
community, showcasing our serious commitment to using RFL for
substantial projects and contributing to the community’s
growth. Our development journey with RROS has been greatly enriched
by the support and knowledge from the RFL community. We also have
received invaluable assistance from enthusiastic forks here,
especially when addressing issues related to safety abstraction
(Thanks to Dirk Behme).
Source: LWN.net – Rust for Linux — in space
An anonymous reader shares a report: If you bought a new smart TV during any of the holiday sales, there’s likely to be an uninvited guest watching along with you. The most popular smart TVs sold today use automatic content recognition (ACR), a kind of ad surveillance technology that collects data on everything you view and sends it to a proprietary database to identify what you’re watching and serve you highly targeted ads. The software is largely hidden from view, and it’s complicated to opt out. Many consumers aren’t aware of ACR, let alone that it’s active on their shiny new TVs. If that’s you, and you’d like to turn it off, we’re going to show you how.
First, a quick primer on the tech: ACR identifies what’s displayed on your television, including content served through a cable TV box, streaming service, or game console, by continuously grabbing screenshots and comparing them to a massive database of media and advertisements. Think of it as a Shazam-like service constantly running in the background while your TV is on.
These TVs can capture and identify 7,200 images per hour, or approximately two every second. The data is then used for content recommendations and ad targeting, which is a huge business; advertisers spent an estimated $18.6 billion on smart TV ads in 2022, according to market research firm eMarketer. For anyone who’d rather not have ACR looking over their shoulder while they watch, we’ve put together a guide to turning it off on three of the most popular smart TV software platforms in use last year. Depending on the platform, turning off ACR took us between 10 and 37 clicks.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot – Your Smart TV Knows What You’re Watching
Enlarge / Picture of attorney David Schwartz from his website. (credit: David Schwartz)
A lawyer representing Donald Trump’s former attorney Michael Cohen filed a court brief that cited three cases that do not exist, according to a federal judge. The incident is similar to a recent one in which lawyers submitted fake citations originally provided by ChatGPT, but it hasn’t yet been confirmed whether Cohen’s lawyer also used an AI tool.
“On November 29, 2023, David M. Schwartz, counsel of record for Defendant Michael Cohen, filed a motion for early termination of supervised release,” US District Judge Jesse Furman wrote in an order to show cause yesterday. “In the letter brief, Mr. Cohen asserts that, ‘[a]s recently as 2022, there have been District Court decisions, affirmed by the Second Circuit Court, granting early termination of supervised release.'”
Schwartz’s letter brief named “three such examples,” citing United States v. Figueroa-Florez, United States v. Ortiz, and United States v. Amato. The brief provided case numbers, summaries, and ruling dates, but Furman concluded that the cases are fake.
Read 19 remaining paragraphs | Comments
Source: Ars Technica – Michael Cohen’s lawyer cited three fake cases in possible AI-fueled screwup
OpenSUSE Tumbleweed Installer in expert mode creates disk layout with volumes group VG_SUSE. At first glance, has practically the same possibilities as demonstrates Anaconda (Blivet-GUI) and more over creates subfolders under “/” root as BTRFS subvolumes
Source: LXer – OpenSUSE Tumbleweed Installer vs Anaconda (Blivet-GUI)
Univention Corporate Server was originally designed to be a Linux distro with Microsoft Active Directory capabilities.
The post ‘Patch Level’ Univention Corporate Server 5.0-6 Released appeared first on FOSS Force.
Source: FOSS Force – ‘Patch Level’ Univention Corporate Server 5.0-6 Released
Angie 1.4.0 debuts with enhanced HTTP/3 support, MQTT handling, and refined server recovery, plus all Nginx 1.25.3 features.
The post Angie 1.4.0 Web Server Aligns With Nginx 1.25.3 Functionalities appeared first on Linux Today.
Source: Linux Today – Angie 1.4.0 Web Server Aligns With Nginx 1.25.3 Functionalities
God of War Ragnarök’s new, free DLC Valhalla is out now, and it’s a pretty great combat showcase that has the added benefit of giving Kratos some much-needed therapy. But if you’re unfamiliar with the punishing, repetitious nature of the roguelike genre or just haven’t booted up Ragnarök lately, it can knock you on…
Source: Kotaku – 12 Things To Know Before Playing God Of War Ragnarök: Valhalla
Meta is adding new features to Facebook Messenger—and never mind that are arguably years too late in coming. The service recently implemented end-to-end encryption as the default for one-to-one chats, and with the same update, there’s finally an option to disable read receipts. (No more will you need to turn on Airplane mode every time you want to sneak a peek at a message.) Plus, you can finally edit your messages too.
Let’s talk about the big one first: The ability to disable read receipts is a huge win for your privacy. You can now finally use the Messenger app to talk to people without the added pressure of them knowing you’ve seen their message, which can be an inconvenience or, in the case of online abuse, a real problem.
You can now disable read receipts for individual chats, or all your contacts at once. This means the other person won’t know when you’ve opened or read their message. On the downside, when you disable the feature on your account, you won’t know when they’ve read a message you’ve sent either. I think most of us can stomach that sacrifice to finally disable read receipts, though.
To disable read receipts for all contacts, go to Settings > Privacy & Safety > Read Receipts and turn off Show Read Receipts. To disable receipts only for a particular conversation, tap on the contacts name from the top of the thread, go to Read Receipts, and disable Show Read Receipts.
Messenger has also taken a page straight out of the iPhone Messages app and WhatsApp; you can now edit any message for up to 15 minutes after you’ve sent it. You’re free to edit the message as many times as you want in that 15-minute window, and there’s no visible edit history, so no one will be able to see what you changed.
This works both on the app and on the web. To edit on the app, tap and hold the message and choose the Edit button. On the web version, click the three dots next to he message you want to update and choose edit.
After you make your changes, the message will display an “Edited” tag, but the other person won’t have a way to see what it said before. And note that Meta will keep a copy of the message on its servers, so if someone uses this as a form of abuse, you’ll still have the tools to properly report them.
Source: LifeHacker – You Can Finally Disable Read Receipts on Facebook Messenger
Enlarge / The Tesla Optimus Gen 2 robot. (credit: Tesla | Benj Edwards)
On Tuesday, Tesla released a demo video showing the latest version of its prototype humanoid robot, Optimus Gen 2. Over one year after Tesla’s first public Optimus robot demonstration, which showcased shaky robots that waved and slumped over, things have apparently progressed quite a bit, assuming that the video accurately reflects the technology.
“Everything in this video is real, no CGI. All real time, nothing sped up. Incredible hardware improvements from the team,” wrote Tesla Senior Staff Software Engineer Julian Ibarz on X.
After a recent episode where Google fudged an AI demonstration for the sake of marketing hype, it’s best to take Tesla’s claims with a grain of salt until they are independently verified in practical, real-world demonstrations. With that dose of skepticism in mind, let’s take a look at what Tesla is promising in this non-production prototype robot.
Read 3 remaining paragraphs | Comments
Source: Ars Technica – Tesla unveils its latest humanoid robot, Optimus Gen 2, in demo video
Canonical has decided for Ubuntu 24.04 LTS that they will now enable frame pointers by default when building packages. There will still selectively be some packages where they decide to disable frame pointers due to the performance overhead, but the focus on this change is to improve the out-of-the-box debugging and profiling support on the Linux distribution…
Source: Phoronix – Ubuntu 24.04 LTS To Enable Frame Pointers By Default For Better Profiling/Debugging
Christopher Eccleston has had a long road of private and publicly processing his time on Doctor Who—for many years, the actor simply refused to talk about why, having helped turn the series into a sensation when it returned in 2005, he left and never looked back. But, while still largely reserved, Eccleston is now…
Source: Gizmodo – Christopher Eccleston Still Has a Strong Ask For Returning to Doctor Who
Apple is set to be hit by a ban on its App Store rules that govern music-streaming rivals and a potential hefty fine in the European Union’s latest attempt to limit the power of Big Tech. From a report: EU regulators are putting the finishing touches to a decision that would prohibit Apple’s practice of blocking music services from pushing their users away from the App Store to alternative subscription options, according to people familiar with the investigation. The decision is slated for early next year, they added. As part of the upcoming decision, Apple runs the risk of a potential fine of as much as 10% of its annual sales — although EU penalties seldom reach that level and orders for companies to change their business models can be more hard-hitting.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot – Apple Set to Be Hit by EU Antitrust Order in App Store Fight With Spotify
Running the gaming division at the second-most valuable company in the world sounds like a very demanding job. Tons of decisions to make, lots of details to stress over, and accountability to thousands of employees and millions of customers for every little misstep. Not much time to play video games, probably. Unless…
Source: Kotaku – Phil Spencer Spent Nearly 23 Work Weeks Playing Xbox This Year
It should go without saying but do not lick your Nintendo Switch cartridges, blow vape smoke into your Xbox consoles, or generally follow any internet trend. This is especially true for any trend that necessitates a company putting out a formal warning if and when it goes viral, even if there is no real scientific backing, as it would seem
Source: Hot Hardware – It Shouldn’t Need Saying But Huffing Your Steam Deck’s Exhaust Fumes Is Not Recommended
Enlarge / The 2023 Cadillac Lyriq had an extremely good CarPlay implementation. But that’s gone from GM EVs for MY2024 onward. (credit: Jonathan Gitlin)
Few things have improved the state of in-car infotainment more than the advent of the phone casting interfaces from Apple and Google. Apple CarPlay and Android Auto let you run navigation or audio apps on your phone and interact with them via the car’s native infotainment screen, avoiding the need to handle your phone while driving.
That’s why General Motors’ decision to ditch CarPlay and Android Auto from new EVs from model year 2024 onward has been greeted with such dismay.
GM has rolled out a new infotainment platform across its new electric vehicles called Unifi. Built on the Android Automotive OS—not to be confused with the Android Auto phone casting system—a build we used in a model year 2023 Cadillac Lyriq featured the most complete implementation of CarPlay we’ve yet experienced, making GM’s decision to ditch the systems even more frustrating.
Read 5 remaining paragraphs | Comments
Source: Ars Technica – GM justifies decision to ditch Apple CarPlay due to stability issues
A new book called OpenPGP for application
developers has been released under the Creative Commons BY-SA license.
This document is not intended for end-users or implementers of
OpenPGP libraries (or other software that directly handles internal
OpenPGP data structures).Instead, this document is focused on the second group, application
developers, who use OpenPGP functionality in their software
projects. It describes the properties of the OpenPGP system and its
uses. It presupposes solid knowledge of software development
concepts and of general cryptographic concepts. Thus, this text
describes OpenPGP at the “library-level,” teaching concepts that
will help software developers get started as a user of any
implementation (e.g., OpenPGP.js, Sequoia-PGP).
Source: LWN.net – OpenPGP for application developers
Yeah, so that Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III campaign wasn’t great. The multiplayer though? That’s a different story. And if you’re at all curious about some shooty fun between friends across some classic maps, good news: You can play the game for free from December 14 to 18.
Source: Kotaku – Check Out Call Of Duty’s New Map For Free This Weekend
