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Version 49 of the GNOME desktop environment has been released. Changes include new default video (Showtime) and PDF-viewing (Papers) applications, a number of calendar improvements, and updates to the Web, Maps, and Software applications.

Ian Jackson has published a blog post summarizing the tag2upload service's first month of handling uploads for the upcoming Debian 14 ("forky") release:

We announced tag2upload's open beta in mid-July. That was in the middle of the the freeze for trixie, so usage was fairly light until the forky floodgates opened.

Since then the service has successfully performed 637 uploads, of which 420 were in the last 32 days. That's an average of about 13 per day. For comparison, during the first half of September up to today there have been 2475 uploads to unstable. That's about 176/day.

So, tag2upload is already handling around 7.5% of uploads. This is very gratifying for a service which is advertised as still being in beta!

LWN covered tag2upload in July 2024.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Business Insider has told journalists they can use AI to create first drafts of stories and suggested it won't notify readers that AI was used, according to Status, a newsletter covering the media industry. The policy makes the outlet one of the first to formally allow such extensive use of the technology. The AI guidelines were reportedly circulated in an internal memo from editor-in-chief Jamie Heller on Thursday. The policy authorized journalists to deploy AI "like any other tool" for tasks like research and image editing, Status reported.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Version 2.15.0 of libxml2 has been released. Notable changes include the disabling of Python bindings by default, using Doxygen to generate API documentation, as well as bringing HTML serialization and handling of character encodings more in line with the HTML5 specification.

Nick Wellnhofer has also announced that he is stepping down as libxml2 maintainer, and Iván Chavero has volunteered to take over. LWN covered libxml2 in June.

Scripted TV production peaked in 2022 at 599 shows and has declined since, according to FX's research division tracking. New prestige series have dropped sharply while streaming platforms prioritize returning shows over new development. Netflix has shifted majority output to unscripted content including docuseries and reality programming since 2018. YouTube leads streaming viewership ahead of Netflix, Paramount+, and Hulu. Free ad-supported platforms YouTube, Tubi and Roku Channel continue gaining market share. Subscription prices across major streaming services have increased while scripted content volume decreased. Second season of Severance cost $200 million. Fourth season of Stranger Things reached $270 million in production expenses.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Typst is a program for document typesetting. It is especially well-suited to technical material incorporating elements such as mathematics, tables, and floating figures. It produces high-quality results, comparable to the gold standard, LaTeX, with a simpler markup system and easier customization, all while compiling documents more quickly. Typst is free software, Apache-2.0 licensed, and is written in Rust.

Anthropic has declined requests from federal law enforcement contractors to use its Claude AI models for surveillance activities, deepening tensions with the Trump administration, Semafor reported Wednesday, citing two senior officials. The company's usage policies prohibit domestic surveillance, limiting how agencies including the FBI, Secret Service, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement can deploy its technology. While Anthropic maintains a $1 contract with federal agencies through AWS GovCloud and works with the Department of Defense on non-weapons applications, administration officials said the restrictions amount to making moral judgments about law enforcement operations.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Anthropic has declined requests from federal law enforcement contractors to use its Claude AI models for surveillance activities, deepening tensions with the Trump administration, Semafor reported Wednesday, citing two senior officials. The company's usage policies prohibit domestic surveillance, limiting how agencies including the FBI, Secret Service, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement can deploy its technology. While Anthropic maintains a $1 contract with federal agencies through AWS GovCloud and works with the Department of Defense on non-weapons applications, administration officials said the restrictions amount to making moral judgments about law enforcement operations.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Systemd v258 has been released with a long list of new features and changes; slice units now have basic workload management features, quotas for tmpfs have been added, the "systemctl start" command now has a verbose (-v) option, and more. This release also, finally, completely removes support for control groups v1 support. LWN covered some of systemd v258's features and changes in August.

In October, consumer versions of Windows 10 will stop receiving security updates. Many users who would ordinarily move to the next version are blocked by Windows 11's hardware requirements unless they are willing to buy a newer PC. The "End of 10" campaign is an effort to convince those users to switch to Linux rather than sticking with an end-of-life operating system or buying a new Windows system. At Akademy 2025, Dr. Joseph De Veaugh-Geiss, Bettina Louis, Carolina Silva Rodé, and Nicole Teale discussed their work on the campaign, its progress so far, and what's next.

Security updates have been issued by AlmaLinux (container-tools:rhel8, kernel, and podman), Debian (node-sha.js), Fedora (firefox, kea, and perl-JSON-XS), Mageia (java-1.8.0-openjdk, java-11-openjdk, java-17-openjdk, java-latest-openjdk), Oracle (kernel, libarchive, podman, and python-cryptography), Red Hat (multiple packages, mysql:8.4, and python3.11), SUSE (expat, java-1_8_0-ibm, krb5, libavif, net-tools, nginx, nvidia-open-driver-G06-signed, onefetch, pcp, rabbitmq-server313, raptor, and vim), and Ubuntu (libyang2, linux, linux-aws, linux-aws-5.4, linux-bluefield, linux-gcp, linux-gcp-5.4, linux-hwe-5.4, linux-ibm, linux-ibm-5.4, linux-iot, linux-kvm, linux-raspi, linux-raspi-5.4, linux-xilinx-zynqmp, linux-aws-fips, linux-fips, linux-gcp-fips, and python-xmltodict).

The home appliance industry would like you to believe that gas-burning stoves are not a risk to your health -- and several companies that make the devices are scrambling to erase their prior acknowledgements that they are. From a report: That claim is at the heart of a lawsuit the Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers has filed against the state of Colorado to stop it from requiring natural gas stoves, which burn methane, to carry health labels not unlike those on every pack of cigarettes. "Understand the air quality implications of having an indoor gas stove," the warning would read. The law was to take effect August 5 but is now on hold, and state officials did not respond to a request for comment. In its federal lawsuit, the Association -- whose board includes representatives of LG Electronics, BSH Home Appliance Corp. (which makes Bosch appliances), Whirlpool, and Samsung Electronics -- asserts that the labeling requirement is "unconstitutional compelled speech" and illegal under the First Amendment. It calls the legislation a climate law disguised as a health law and, most strikingly, it claims there is "no association between gas stoves and adverse health outcomes."

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A new Stanford-led study finds that switching permanently to standard time could prevent 300,000 strokes and reduce obesity in 2.6 million Americans by better aligning circadian rhythms with natural light. Researchers argue that the twice-yearly clock changes are the worst option for public health, while permanent daylight saving time would offer two-thirds of the benefits. From a report: "We found that staying in standard time or staying in daylight saving time is definitely better than switching twice a year," senior researcher Jamie Zeitzer said in a news release. He's a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Stanford University in California. For the study, researchers estimated how different national time policies might affect American's circadian rhythms -- the body's innate clock that regulates many physiological processes. The human circadian cycle isn't exactly 24 hours, researchers noted. It's about 12 minutes longer for most people, and it can be changed based on a person's exposure to light. "When you get light in the morning, it speeds up the circadian cycle. When you get light in the evening, it slows things down," Zeitzer said. "You generally need more morning light and less evening light to keep well synchronized to a 24-hour day." An out-of-sync circadian cycle has been linked with many different poor health outcomes, researchers said. "The more light exposure you get at the wrong times, the weaker the circadian clock," Zeitzer said. "All of these things that are downstream -- for example, your immune system, your energy -- don't match up quite as well." Most people would experience the least circadian burden under permanent standard time, which prioritizes morning light, researchers found. The research team then linked its analysis of circadian rhythms to county-level data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to see how each time policy might affect people's health. Their models showed that permanent standard time would reduce obesity nationwide by 0.78% and stroke by 0.09%. Those seemingly small percentage changes, when played out across the national population, would mean 2.6 million fewer people with obesity and 300,000 fewer cases of stroke. Permanent daylight savings time would result in a 0.51% drop in obesity -- around 1.7 million people -- and a 0.04% reduction in strokes, or 220,000 cases. Either move would help American health. "You have people who are passionate on both sides of this, and they have very different arguments," Zeitzer said. The findings have been published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

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China's internet regulator has told the country's biggest technology companies to stop buying all of Nvidia's artificial intelligence chips and terminate their existing orders, as Beijing steps up efforts to boost its homegrown semiconductor industry and compete with the US. From a report: The Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) informed companies including ByteDance and Alibaba this week to terminate their testing and orders of the RTX Pro 6000D, Nvidia's tailor-made product for the country introduced two months ago, according to three people with knowledge of the matter. Several companies had indicated they would order tens of thousands of the RTX Pro 6000D, and had started testing and verification work with Nvidia's server suppliers before telling them to stop the work after receiving the CAC order, said the people.

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"Phys.org is reporting on a study published in Nature Physics involving ICN2 at the UAB campus, Xi'an Jiaotong University (Xi'an) and Stony Brook University (New York), showing for the first time that ordinary ice is a flexoelectric material -- meaning it can generate electricity when subjected to mechanical deformation," writes longtime Slashdot reader fahrbot-bot. From the report: "We discovered that ice generates electric charge in response to mechanical stress at all temperatures. In addition, we identified a thin 'ferroelectric' layer at the surface at temperatures below -113C (160K)," explains Dr. Xin Wen, a member of the ICN2 Oxide Nanophysics Group and one of the study's lead researchers. "This means that the ice surface can develop a natural electric polarization, which can be reversed when an external electric field is applied -- similar to how the poles of a magnet can be flipped. The surface ferroelectricity is a cool discovery in its own right, as it means that ice may have not just one way to generate electricity, but two: ferroelectricity at very low temperatures, and flexoelectricity at higher temperatures all the way to 0 C." This property places ice on a par with electroceramic materials such as titanium dioxide, which are currently used in advanced technologies like sensors and capacitors.

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: As Jonathan Roll neared completion of a master's degree in science and technology policy at Arizona State University three years ago, he did some research into recent developments by China's ascendant space program. He came away impressed by the country's growing ambitions. Now a full-time research analyst at the university, Roll was recently asked to take a deeper dive into Chinese space plans. "I thought I had a pretty good read on this when I was finishing grad school," Roll told Ars. "That almost everything needed to be updated, or had changed three years later, was pretty scary. On all these fronts, they've made pretty significant progress. They are taking all of the cues from our Western system about what's really galvanized innovation, and they are off to the races with it." Roll is the co-author of a new report, titled "Redshift," on the acceleration of China's commercial and civil space activities and the threat these pose to similar efforts in the United States. Published on Tuesday, the report was sponsored by the US-based Commercial Space Federation, which advocates for the country's commercial space industry. It is a sobering read and comes as China not only projects to land humans on the lunar surface before the US can return, but also is advancing across several spaceflight fronts to challenge America. "The trend line is unmistakable," the report states. "China is not only racing to catch up -- it is setting pace, deregulating, and, at times, redefining what leadership looks like on and above Earth. This new space race will not be won with a single breakthrough or headline achievement, but with sustained commitment, clear-eyed vigilance, and a willingness to adapt over decades." "The key takeaway here is that there is an acceleration," said Dave Cavossa, president of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation. "The United States is still ahead today in a lot of areas in space. But the Chinese are advancing very quickly and poised to overtake us in the next five to 10 years if we don't do something." "There's other things along the lines of budget battles," Cavossa said. "We don't want to see the US government scaling back its reliance on commercial satellite communications. We don't want to see them scaling back commercial remote sensing data buys, which is what they've been doing, or at least threatening to do. We want to make sure that there's a seamless transition from the ISS to commercial LEO destinations, and then a transition away from old programs of record to commercial transportation alternatives. That's what the US government can do and Congress can do here in the next couple of years to make sure that we stay ahead."

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OpenAI is rolling out stricter safety measures for ChatGPT after lawsuits linked the chatbot to multiple suicides. "ChatGPT will now attempt to guess a user's age, and in some cases might require users to share an ID in order to verify that they are at least 18 years old," reports 404 Media. "We know this is a privacy compromise for adults but believe it is a worthy tradeoff," the company said in its announcement. "I don't expect that everyone will agree with these tradeoffs, but given the conflict it is important to explain our decisionmaking," OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said on X. From the report: OpenAI introduced parental controls to ChatGPT earlier in September, but has now introduced new, more strict and invasive security measures. In addition to attempting to guess or verify a user's age, ChatGPT will now also apply different rules to teens who are using the chatbot. "For example, ChatGPT will be trained not to do the above-mentioned flirtatious talk if asked, or engage in discussions about suicide of self-harm even in a creative writing setting," the announcement said. "And, if an under-18 user is having suicidal ideation, we will attempt to contact the users' parents and if unable, will contact the authorities in case of imminent harm." OpenAI's post explains that it is struggling to manage an inherent problem with large language models that 404 Media has tracked for several years. ChatGPT used to be a far more restricted chatbot that would refuse to engage users on a wide variety of issues the company deemed dangerous or inappropriate. Competition from other models, especially locally hosted and so-called "uncensored" models, and a political shift to the right which sees many forms of content moderation as censorship, has caused OpenAI to loosen those restrictions. "We want users to be able to use our tools in the way that they want, within very broad bounds of safety," Open AI said in its announcement. The position it seemed to have landed on given these recent stories about teen suicide, is that it wants to "'Treat our adult users like adults' is how we talk about this internally, extending freedom as far as possible without causing harm or undermining anyone else's freedom."

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Microsoft will invest $30 billion in the U.K. through 2028 to expand AI infrastructure and operations, including building the country's largest supercomputer with 23,000 GPUs in partnership with Nscale. CNBC reports: On a call with reporters on Tuesday, Microsoft President Brad Smith said his stance on the U.K. has warmed over the years. He previously criticized the country over its attempt in 2023 to block the tech giant's $69 billion acquisition of video game developer Activision-Blizzard. The deal was cleared by the U.K.s competition regulator later that year. "I haven't always been optimistic every single day about the business climate in the U.K.," Smith said. However, he added, "I am very encouraged by the steps that the government has taken over the last few years." "Just a few years ago, this kind of investment would have been inconceivable because of the regulatory climate then and because there just wasn't the need or demand for this kind of large AI investment," Smith said. Microsoft's announcement comes as President Donald Trump embarks on a state visit to Britain where he's expected to sign a new deal with U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer "to unlock investment and collaboration in AI, Quantum, and Nuclear technologies," the government said in a statement late Tuesday.

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BrianFagioli shares a report from NERDS.xyz: The Fedora Project has announced Fedora Linux 43 Beta, giving users and developers the opportunity to test the distribution ahead of its final release. This beta introduces improvements across installation, system tools, and programming languages while continuing Fedora's pattern of cleaning out older components. The beta can be downloaded in Workstation, KDE Plasma, Server, IoT, and Cloud editions. Spins and Labs are also available, though Mate and i3 are not provided in some builds. Existing systems can be upgraded with DNF system-upgrade. Fedora CoreOS will follow one week later through its "next" stream. The beta brings enhancements to its Anaconda WebUI, moves to Python 3.14, and supports Wayland-only GNOME, among many other changes. A full list of improvements and system enhancements can be found here. The official release should be available in late October or early November.

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Associated Press: The Taliban leader banned fibre optic internet in an Afghan province to "prevent immorality," a spokesman for the administration said Tuesday. It's the first time a ban of this kind has been imposed since the Taliban seized power in August 2021, and leaves government offices, the private sector, public institutions, and homes in northern Balkh province without Wi-Fi internet. Mobile internet remains functional, however. Haji Attaullah Zaid, a provincial government spokesman, said there was no longer cable internet access in Balkh by order of a "complete ban" from the leader Hibatullah Akhundzada. "This measure was taken to prevent immorality, and an alternative will be built within the country for necessities," Zaid told The Associated Press. He gave no further information, including why Balkh was chosen for the ban or if the shutdown would spread to other provinces.

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