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According to the latest data from StatCounter, Linux's market share has reached 4.03% -- surging by an additional 1% in the last eight months. What's the reason behind this recent growth? "That's a good question," writes ZDNet's Steven Vaughan-Nichols. "While Windows is the king of the hill with 72.13% and MacOS comes in a distant second at 15.46%, it's clear that Linux is making progress." An anonymous Slashdot reader shares the five reasons why Vaughan-Nichols thinks it's growing: 1. Microsoft isn't that interested in Windows If you think Microsoft is all about the desktop and Windows, think again. Microsoft's profits these days come from its Azure cloud and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), Microsoft 365 in particular. Microsoft doesn't want you to buy Windows; the Redmond powerhouse wants you to subscribe to Windows 365 Cloud PC. And, by the way, you can run Windows 365 Cloud PC on Macs, Chromebooks, Android tablets, iPads, and, oh yes, Linux desktops. 2. Linux gaming, thanks to Steam, is also growing Gaming has never been a strong suit for Linux, but Linux gamers are also a slowly growing group. I suspect that's because Steam, the most popular Linux gaming platform, also has the lion's share of the gaming distribution market 3. Users are finally figuring out that some Linux distros are easy to use Even now, you'll find people who insist that Linux is hard to master. True, if you want to be a Linux power user, Linux will challenge you. But, if all you want to do is work and play, many Linux distributions are suitable for beginners. For example, Linux Mint is simple to use, and it's a great end-user operating system for everyone and anyone. 4. Finding and installing Linux desktop software is easier than ever While some Linux purists dislike containerized application installation programs such as Flatpak, Snap, and AppImage, developers love them. Why? They make it simple to write applications for Linux that don't need to be tuned just right for all the numerous Linux distributions. For users, that means they get more programs to choose from, and they don't need to worry about finicky installation details. 5. The Linux desktop is growing in popularity in India India is now the world's fifth-largest economy, and it's still growing. Do you know what else is growing in India? Desktop Linux. In India, Windows is still the number one operating system with 70.37%, but number two is Linux, with 15.23%. MacOS is way back in fourth place with 3.11%. I suspect this is the case because India's economy is largely based on technology. Where you find serious programmers, you find Linux users.

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Richard Speed reports via The Register: Copilot in Windows is set to get even more assertive after Microsoft added a function that makes the AI assistant's window pop up after a user's cursor hovers over the icon in the task bar. [...] Windows Insiders on the Beta Channel â" with the option to get the latest updates turned on â" will soon find themselves on the receiving end of what Microsoft calls "a new hover experience for Copilot in Windows" from build 22635.3276. If your mouse cursor happens to drift over to the Copilot icon on the taskbar, the Copilot pane will open to make users aware of the delights on offer. The result, we suspect, will be to educate users in the art of switching off the function. Much like Widgets, which will also make its unwanted presence felt should a user move a mouse over its icon. A swift hop into taskbar settings is all it takes to make the icons disappear, for now at least. The new feature is being piloted but considering the proximity of the Beta Channel to Release Preview, there is every chance the pop-up will, er, pop up in a release version of Windows before long.

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Jess Weatherbed reports via The Verge: Apple's iOS 17.4 update is now available, introducing new emoji and a cryptographic security protocol for iMessage, alongside some major changes to the App Store and contactless payments for the iPhone platform in Europe. Apple is making several of these changes to comply with the EU's Digital Markets Act (DMA), a law that aims to make the digital economy fairer by removing unfair advantages that tech giants hold over businesses and end users. iOS 17.4 will allow third-party developers to offer alternative app marketplaces and app downloads to EU users from outside the iOS App Store. Developers wanting to take advantage of this will be required to go through Apple's approval process and pay Apple a "Core Technology Fee" that charges 50 euro cents per install once an app reaches 1 million downloads annually. iPhone owners in the EU will see different update notes that specifically mention new options available for app stores, web browsers, and payment options. The approval process may take some time, but we know that at least one enterprise-focused app marketplace from Mobivention will be available on March 7th. Epic is also working on releasing the Epic Game Store on iOS in 2024, and software company MacPaw is planning to officially launch its Setapp store in April. iOS 17.4 allows people in the EU to download alternative browser engines that aren't based on Apple's WebKit, such as Chrome and Firefox, with a new choice screen in iOS Safari that will prompt users to select a default browser when opened for the first time. While no browser alternatives have been officially announced, both Google and Mozilla are currently experimenting with new iOS browsers that could eventually be released to the public. Apple is also introducing new APIs that allow third-party developers to utilize the iPhone's NFC payment chip for contactless payment services besides Apple Pay and Apple Wallet in the European Economic Area. No alternative contactless providers have been confirmed yet, but users will find a list of apps that have requested the feature under Settings > Privacy & Security > Contactless & NFC. While Apple previously revealed it was planning to drop support for progressive web apps (PWAs) in the EU to avoid building "an entirely new integration architecture" around DMA compliance, the company now says it will "continue to offer the existing Home Screen web apps capability" for EU users. However, these homescreen apps will still run using WebKit technology, with no option to be powered by third-party browser engines.

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Oregon has joined the small but growing list of states that have passed right-to-repair legislation. Oregon's bill stands out for a provision that would prevent companies from requiring that official parts be unlocked with encrypted software checks before they will fully function. Bill SB 1596 passed Oregon's House by a 42 to 13 margin. Gov. Tina Kotek has five days to sign the bill into law. Consumer groups and right-to-repair advocates praised the bill as "the best bill yet," while the bill's chief sponsor, state Sen. Janeen Sollman (D), pointed to potential waste reductions and an improved second-hand market for closing a digital divide. "Oregon improves on Right to Repair laws in California, Minnesota and New York by making sure that consumers have the choice of buying new parts, used parts, or third-party parts for the gadgets and gizmos," said Gay Gordon-Byrne, executive director of Repair.org, in a statement. Like bills passed in New York, California, and Minnesota, Oregon's bill requires companies to offer the same parts, tools, and documentation to individual and independent repair shops that are already offered to authorized repair technicians. Unlike other states' bills, however, Oregon's bill doesn't demand a set number of years after device manufacture for such repair implements to be produced. That suggests companies could effectively close their repair channels entirely rather than comply with the new requirements. California's bill mandated seven years of availability. If signed, the law's requirements for parts, tools, and documentation would apply to devices sold after 2015, except for phones, which are covered after July 2021. The prohibition against parts pairing only covers devices sold in 2025 and later. Like other repair bills, a number of device categories are exempted, including video game consoles, HVAC and medical gear, solar systems, vehicles, and, very specifically, "Electric toothbrushes."

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The loss of Arctic sea ice has long been a graphic measure of human-caused climate change, with wrenching images of suffering polar bears illustrating a worsening planetary crisis. Now, new research has found that Arctic Ocean sea ice is shrinking even faster than previously thought -- and that the Arctic may start to see its first "ice-free" days within the current decade. From a report: That troubling milestone could occur before the end of the decade or sometime in the 2030s -- as many as 10 years earlier than previous projections, according to a study published Tuesday in the journal Nature Reviews Earth and Environment. The study defines "ice-free" as when the Arctic Ocean has less than 1 million square kilometers, or 386,000 square miles, of ice. By midcentury -- 2035 to 2067 -- the Arctic could see consistent ice-free conditions in September, the month when sea ice concentrations are typically at their minimum, the study found. The precise timing of such losses depends on how soon humanity is able to reduce fossil fuel emissions that are contributing to global warming. Under a high-emission scenario in which fossil fuel use continues unabated, the Arctic would be ice-free between the months of May and January by 2100, the study says. Even under a low-emission scenario, the Arctic would still be ice-free between August and October by that same year.

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The SAT, a college admissions exam that for nearly a century was completed using paper and pencil, is now officially all-digital. From a report: This week, students in the U.S. will begin taking the new SAT on their own devices -- including a tablet or a laptop -- or on school devices. The test is also one hour shorter (down from three hours), has shorter reading passages and uses digital tools, like a highlighter, a graphing calculator and a bookmark to go back to skipped questions. The revamped test, which ditches the paper and pencil, aims to make cheating harder and grading easier. Students will still take the exam at a test center or at a high school. "Today's students, they do a lot of their living digitally, they do a lot of their learning digitally and they do a lot of their test taking digitally," says Priscilla Rodriguez, who oversees the SAT for the College Board, the organization behind the test. Throughout March and April, the College Board expects more than 1 million students to take the new digital SAT. Students can take the exam on Saturday test dates or during SAT School Days, where participating high schools offer the test to upperclassmen free of charge during the school day.

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Amazon's cloud services division is halting fees it has long charged customers that switch to a rival provider -- following in the steps of Google, which recently announced it was ending the practice. From a report: Amazon Web Services will no longer charge customers who want to extract all of their data from the company's servers and move them to another service, AWS Vice President Robert Kennedy said in a blog post on Tuesday. "Beginning today, customers globally are now entitled to free data transfers out to the internet if they want to move to another IT provider," Kennedy said.

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Microsoft is ending support for its Android subsystem in Windows 11 next year. From a report: The software giant first announced it was bringing Android apps to Windows 11 with Amazon's Appstore nearly three years ago, but this Windows Subsystem for Android will now be deprecated starting March 5th, 2025. "Microsoft is ending support for the Windows Subsystem for Android (WSA)," reads a new support document from Microsoft. "As a result, the Amazon Appstore on Windows and all applications and games dependent on WSA will no longer be supported beginning March 5, 2025." If you currently use Android apps from the Amazon Appstore, then you'll continue to have access to these past the support cutoff date, but you won't be able to download any new ones once Microsoft makes its Android subsystem end of life next year. On March 6th (tomorrow), Windows 11 users will no longer be able to search for Amazon Appstore or associated Android apps from the Microsoft Store.

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Google announced updates to its search ranking systems aimed at promoting high-quality content and demoting manipulative or low-effort material, including content generated by AI solely to summarize other sources. The company also stated it is improving its ability to detect and combat tactics used to deceive its ranking algorithms.

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Microsoft has filed a motion seeking to dismiss key parts of a lawsuit The New York Times filed against the company and Open AI, accusing them of copyright infringement. From a report: If you'll recall, The Times sued both companies for using its published articles to train their GPT large language models (LLMs) without permission and compensation. In its filing, the company has accused The Times of pushing "doomsday futurology" by claiming that AI technologies pose a threat to independent journalism. It follows OpenAI's court filing from late February that's also seeking to dismiss some important elements on the case. Like OpenAI before it, Microsoft accused The Times of crafting "unrealistic prompts" in an effort to "coax the GPT-based tools" to spit out responses matching its content. It also compared the media organization's lawsuit to Hollywood studios' efforts to " stop a groundbreaking new technology:" The VCR. Instead of destroying Hollywood, Microsoft explained, the VCR helped the entertainment industry flourish by opening up revenue streams. LLMs are a breakthrough in artificial intelligence, it continued, and Microsoft collaborated with OpenAI to "help bring their extraordinary power to the public" because it "firmly believes in LLMs' capacity to improve the way people live and work."

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The U.S. government announced Tuesday sanctions against the founder of the notorious spyware company Intellexa and one of his business partners. From a report: This is the first time the U.S. government has targeted specific people, in addition to companies, with sanctions related to the misuse of commercial spyware. And it signifies an escalation of the White House and U.S. government's efforts to curb the spyware industry. "Today's actions represent a tangible step forward in discouraging the misuse of commercial surveillance tools, which increasingly present a security risk to the United States and our citizens," said Brian E. Nelson, U.S Treasury's under secretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, was quoted as saying in a press release. "The United States remains focused on establishing clear guardrails for the responsible development and use of these technologies while also ensuring the protection of human rights and civil liberties of individuals around the world." The U.S. Treasury imposed sanctions on Tal Dilian, the founder of Intellexa and a veteran of the spyware industry; and Sara Aleksandra Fayssal Hamou, who is not as well-known as Dilian. Hamou, according to the Treasury, has a leadership role in Intellexa, is an expert in off-shoring, and provided the company managerial services, such as renting office space in Greece.

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Facebook, Instagram, and Threads are all experiencing issues. From a report: The three Meta-owned platforms aren't working for many users, with the widespread outage seeming to start around 10AM ET. Some users are experiencing issues logging in to their Meta Quest headsets, too. Facebook is logging users out of their accounts, leaving them unable to get back in. Meanwhile, over on Instagram, some users, including several of us at The Verge, can't refresh their feeds. YouTube is down, too.

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Bitcoin surged to a record as demand from new US exchange-traded funds and a looming reduction in the token's supply growth fuel a breathtaking rebound in the original cryptocurrency. From a report: The largest digital asset rose as much as 2.5% to $69,191.95 as of 10:10 a.m. Tuesday in New York. Bitcoin has climbed about 62% so far in 2024, outperforming global stocks and spreading optimism across the digital-asset market. In an ironic twist, Bitcoin owes much of its resurgence to a regulator long-viewed as hostile to crypto: the US Securities and Exchange Commission. The SEC approved spot-Bitcoin exchange-traded funds in early January after suffering a legal defeat last year in its attempt to reject them. The move has widened the mass-market accessibility of Bitcoin, helping the crypto sector to turn the page following a bear market in 2022 and a string of subsequent bankruptcies, including the implosion of Sam Bankman-Fried's FTX exchange.

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Hackers backed by the North Korean government gained a major win when Microsoft left a Windows zero-day unpatched for six months after learning it was under active exploitation. From a report: Even after Microsoft patched the vulnerability last month, the company made no mention that the North Korean threat group Lazarus had been using the vulnerability since at least August to install a stealthy rootkit on vulnerable computers. The vulnerability provided an easy and stealthy means for malware that had already gained administrative system rights to interact with the Windows kernel. Lazarus used the vulnerability for just that. Even so, Microsoft has long said that such admin-to-kernel elevations don't represent the crossing of a security boundary, a possible explanation for the time Microsoft took to fix the vulnerability. "When it comes to Windows security, there is a thin line between admin and kernel," Jan Vojtesek, a researcher with security firm Avast, explained last week. "Microsoft's security servicing criteria have long asserted that '[a]dministrator-to-kernel is not a security boundary,' meaning that Microsoft reserves the right to patch admin-to-kernel vulnerabilities at its own discretion. As a result, the Windows security model does not guarantee that it will prevent an admin-level attacker from directly accessing the kernel." The Microsoft policy proved to be a boon to Lazarus in installing "FudModule," a custom rootkit that Avast said was exceptionally stealthy and advanced. Rootkits are pieces of malware that have the ability to hide their files, processes, and other inner workings from the operating system itself and at the same time control the deepest levels of the operating system. To work, they must first gain administrative privileges -- a major accomplishment for any malware infecting a modern OS. Then, they must clear yet another hurdle: directly interacting with the kernel, the innermost recess of an OS reserved for the most sensitive functions.

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The Federal Communications Commission is considering a proposal to bar landlords from charging tenants in bulk for cable, internet, and satellite services, offering them more choice in the kinds of services they need. From a report: The agency is circulating a proposed rule to ban the practice of "bulk billing," the White House announced in a press release ahead of President Joe Biden's meeting with his Competition Council on Tuesday. It's part of a broader effort to promote policies that will lower costs for Americans, as Biden is trying to appeal to voters focused on the economy as he seeks reelection later this year. That theme of lowering costs will resurface in Biden's State of the Union address on Thursday, National Economic Advisor Lael Brainard told reporters on a call Monday. Bulk billing restricts consumers' choices by limiting the prices and levels of cable and internet service available to them, the White House said in the press release. The new proposal will also target other "exclusive arrangements" between landlords and service providers like exclusive wiring and marketing arrangements or revenue sharing agreements, the White House said.

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from Hagerty: Euro NCAP, the automotive safety industry body for Europe, is introducing new guidance for 2026 which means that five important tasks in every car will have to be performed by actual buttons instead of by accessing a screen. Indicators, hazard warning lights, windscreen wipers, horn, and SOS features will have to be controlled by proper switches in order for cars to be granted Euro NCAP's coveted five star safety rating. "The overuse of touchscreens is an industry-wide problem, with almost every vehicle-maker moving key controls onto central touchscreens, obliging drivers to take their eyes off the road and raising the risk of distraction crashes," explained Matthew Avery, director of strategic development at Euro NCAP. "New Euro NCAP tests due in 2026 will encourage manufacturers to use separate, physical controls for basic functions in an intuitive manner, limiting eyes-off-road time and therefore promoting safer driving." Although it won't be mandatory to comply with Euro NCAP's new rules, car makers that don't will lose valuable points in their safety ratings.

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The kernel's memory-management subsystem is built on the concept of "zones", which were initially added to describe the physical characteristics of the memory pages contained within them. Over time, zones have taken on more of a policy-related role as well. With a patch set called THP allocator optimizations, Yu Zhao has set out to better define the role of policy-related zones on the path toward adding two more of them, with the ultimate purpose of improving the kernel's support for transparent huge pages (THPs).

Security updates have been issued by Debian (yard), Oracle (buildah and kernel), Red Hat (389-ds:1.4, edk2, frr, gnutls, haproxy, libfastjson, libX11, postgresql:12, sqlite, squid, squid:4, tcpdump, and tomcat), SUSE (apache2-mod_auth_openidc and glibc), and Ubuntu (linux-gke, python-cryptography, and python-django).

Piracy was traditionally seen as something that predominantly young males were interested in. This is a largely outdated representation of reality, as girls and women began to catch up a long time ago. In some countries, including Indonesia, more women pirate music, movies, and TV-shows than their male counterparts. TorrentFreak reports: [N]ew findings published by researchers from Northumbria University Newcastle, which include gender, are worth highlighting. The survey data, looking at piracy trends in Thailand and Indonesia, was released by Marketing professor Dr. Xuemei Bian and Ms. Humaira Farid. The results were presented to WIPO's Advisory Committee on Enforcement recently and the associated presentation (PDF) was published online. Through an online survey and in-person interviews, the research aims to map consumer attitudes and behaviors in Indonesia and Thailand, particularly in connection with online copyright infringement. One of the overall conclusions is that piracy remains a common activity in both Asian countries. Pirates are present in all age groups but and music, movies en TV-shows tend to be in highest demand and younger people. Those under 40, are more likely to pirate than their older counterparts. These findings are not out of the ordinary and the same trends are visible in other countries too. Interestingly, however, some notable differences between the two countries appear when gender is added to the mix. The tables below show that women are more likely to pirate than men in Indonesia. This is true for all content categories, except for software, where men are slightly in the lead. In Thailand, however, men are more likely to pirate across all categories. The researchers do not attempt to explain these differences. However, they show once again that 'dated' gender stereotypes don't always match with reality. And when they have little explanatory value, one can question whether gender is even relevant in a piracy context. Looking at other differences between Thai and Indonesian consumers there are some other notable findings. For example, in Indonesia, 64% of the respondents say they're aware of the availability of pirated movies and TV-shows on YouTube, compared to 'just' 32% in Thailand. Indonesian consumers are also more familiar with music piracy sites and pirate much more frequently than Thai consumers, as the table below shows. Finally, the researchers also looked at various attitudes toward piracy. This shows that Thai pirates would be most likely to stop if legal services were more convenient, while Indonesian pirates see cheaper legal services as the largest discouraging factor.

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In an update on CBS' "60 Minutes" on Sunday, Blue Origin said it was aiming to send an uncrewed lander to the surface of the moon in the next 12 to 16 months. A crewed version is expected to follow. GeekWire reports: "We're expecting to land on the moon between 12 and 16 months from today," [said John Couluris, senior vice president for lunar permanence at Blue Origin]. "I understand I'm saying that publicly, but that's what our team is aiming towards." Couluris was referring to a pathfinder version of Blue Origin's nearly three-story-tall Blue Moon Mark 1 cargo lander, which is taking shape at Blue Origin's production facility in Huntsville, Ala. The Pathfinder Mission would demonstrate the MK1's capabilities -- including its hydrogen-fueled BE-7 engine, its precision landing system and its ability to deliver up to 3 tons of payload anywhere on the moon. Blue Origin envisions building multiple cargo landers, as well as a crewed version of the Blue Moon lander that could transport NASA astronauts to and from the lunar surface. The MK1 cargo lander is designed for a single launch and delivery, but the crewed lander would be reusable. "We'll launch them to lunar orbit, and we'll leave them there," Couluris explained. "And we'll refuel them in orbit, so that multiple astronauts can use the same vehicle back and forth." The Pathfinder Mission would be funded by Blue Origin, but NASA is providing support for other Blue Moon missions. Blue Origin's $3.4 billion contract with NASA calls for the crewed lander to be available for the Artemis 5 moon mission by 2029, with an uncrewed test flight as part of the buildup. The in-space refueling operation would make use of a cislunar transporter, built by Lockheed Martin, that could travel between low Earth orbit and lunar orbit with supplies. "We are now building with NASA the infrastructure to ensure lunar permanency," Couluris said. NASA is providing funding for the Blue Moon landing system as an alternative to SpaceX's Starship system, which is under development at SpaceX's Starbase in South Texas. The crewed Starship lunar lander is scheduled to come into play for Artemis 3, a milestone landing mission that's currently scheduled for 2026. [...] Blue Origin plans to send the MK1 lander to the moon on its reusable New Glenn rocket, which is also under development. A couple of weeks ago, a pathfinder version of that rocket was raised on a Florida launch pad for the first time, and it's currently going through a series of cryogenic tanking tests. Blue Origin CEO Dave Limp, who was brought over to the company from Amazon last year to accelerate work on New Glenn, said in a LinkedIn post that he's "looking forward to bringing this heavy-lift capacity to our customers later this year." One of the early launches is tasked with sending a pair of NASA probes to Mars.

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