Ukrainian hacker group BO Team, with help from the Ukrainian Cyber Alliance and possibly Ukraine's military, claims to have wiped out one of Russia's largest military drone manufacturers, destroying 47TB of production data and even disabling the doors in the facility. "Or, as described by the hacking collective (per Google translate), they 'deeply penetrated' the drone manufacturer 'to the very tonsils of demilitarization and denazification,'" reports The Register. From the report: BO Team (also known as Black Owl) announced the breach on its Telegram channel, and claimed to have carried out the operation alongside fellow hackers the Ukrainian Cyber Alliance "and one very well-known organization, the mention of which makes Vanya's bottle receivers explode," according to a Google translation of the Russian text. While the "very well-known organization" isn't named, BO Team included a link to Ukraine's Ministry of Defence.

The military intelligence agency, working alongside the attackers, "carried out large-scale work to capture the entire network and server infrastructure of Gaskar Group, collect valuable information about the UAVs being produced and prospective, and then destroy the information and disable this infrastructure," the Telegram post continued. This reportedly included 47TB of technical information about the production of Russian drones, and BO Team claims to have destroyed all of the information on Gaskar's servers, including 10TB of backup files. "By the way, from the information we received, China is providing assistance in the production and training of specialists of Gaskar Group," the hackers added via Telegram. BO Team also posted what they claim to be confidential employee questionnaires [PDF].

On their own Telegram channel, the Ukrainian Cyber Alliance said they also stole "all the source code" before destroying everything. "The network went down so thoroughly that the doors in the building were blocked," the pro-Ukraine crew wrote, per Google translate. "To open them, the administration had to turn on the fire alarm. Most likely, the defense order is on the verge of failure, and thousands of drones will not get to the front in the near future."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Android Authority: Italian YouTuber Once Were Nerd covers a variety of retro gaming topics, but his reviews of ANBERNIC devices appear to be the straw that broke the camel's back. According to the video [here], customs enforcement officers from the Guardia di Finanza showed up at his home and office on April 15 with a search warrant to investigate promotion of pirated copyrighted materials. They seized a variety of ANBERNIC, Powkiddy, and TrimUI gaming handhelds from his collection. In total, more than 30 consoles were taken. The creator, assuming he didn't do anything wrong, complied with demands, providing full transcripts of his conversations and chats with gaming handheld manufacturers. The officers also took his phone, promising to return it in a few days. It was returned two months later, on June 15.

According to the video, officials are not required to disclose what exactly the charges are or who has brought them until the initial investigation is complete under Italian law. At that point, the case is either dismissed or goes to trial. The complaint specifically mentions reproduction of copyrighted material from Nintendo and Sony, but the case may originate from the agency itself. However, in the meantime officials have the option to shut down his channel, even before proving any wrongdoing. This is a scary prospect for any creator who has spent years building a channel, and unlike YouTube copyright strikes, there's likely no remedy.

Currently, officials contest that his reviews of ANBERNIC devices like the RG Slide, which often, but not always, ship with microSD cards filled with copyrighted ROMs, are punishable under Article 171 ter of the Italian Copyright Law. This law, which was originally written in 1941, allows for a maximum punishment of 15,000 euros (or 30 million Italian Lira, since the law pre-dates the Euro) and three years of jail time.

VMware has notified partners that its current channel program will end, replacing it with an invitation-only system that significantly reduces the number of authorized partners. Partners not invited to the new VMware Cloud Service Provider program would have received non-renewal notices on July 15, 2025, and can continue transactions only until October 31, 2025, after which they may service existing contracts through their current terms.

The company is also ending its White Label program on October 31, 2025. The changes mark the second major partner program overhaul in 18 months, following Broadcom's January 2024 decision to terminate partners operating VMware-powered clouds with fewer than 3,500 processor cores.

Microsoft is testing a new adaptive energy saver mode in Windows 11 that automatically turns energy saver on or off based on system workload instead of battery percentage, aiming to extend laptop battery life without dimming screen brightness. The feature is currently available to Windows Insider testers and expected to roll out later this year. The Verge reports: The energy saver mode in Windows 11 typically dims a display brightness by 30 percent, disables transparency effects, and stop apps running in the background. Non-critical Windows update downloads are also paused, and certain apps like OneDrive, OneNote, and Phone Link may not sync fully while energy saver is enabled. This new adaptive energy saver mode, which will only be available on devices with a battery, will automatically enable or disable without affecting screen brightness. That will make it less noticeable on devices like laptops, tablets, and handhelds.

"Adaptive energy saver is an opt-in feature that automatically enables and disables energy saver, without changing screen brightness, based on the power state of the device and the current system load," explains Microsoft's Windows Insider team.

BrianFagioli shares a report from NERDS.xyz: Android is changing how it gives developers access to early features. The company is replacing its old Developer Preview model with a new Canary channel that provides rolling updates all year long. This new approach is meant to give developers earlier and more consistent access to experimental tools and APIs.

Previously, Developer Previews had to be manually flashed onto devices. They only ran during the earliest stages of each release cycle and stopped once Android entered the beta phase. That meant promising features that were not quite ready for beta had nowhere to go and no way to collect feedback. The Canary channel solves that by running in parallel with the existing beta program and delivering over the air updates automatically.

AMD is warning users of a newly discovered form of side-channel attack affecting a broad range of its chips that could lead to information disclosure. Register: Akin to Meltdown and Spectre, the Transient Scheduler Attack (TSA) comprises four vulnerabilities that AMD said it discovered while looking into a Microsoft report about microarchitectural leaks.

The four bugs do not appear too venomous at face value -- two have medium-severity ratings while the other two are rated "low." However, the low-level nature of the exploit's impact has nonetheless led Trend Micro and CrowdStrike to assess the threat as "critical."

The reasons for the low severity scores are the high degree of complexity involved in a successful attack -- AMD said it could only be carried out by an attacker able to run arbitrary code on a target machine. It affects AMD processors (desktop, mobile and datacenter models), including 3rd gen and 4th gen EPYC chips -- the full list is here.

An anonymous reader shares a blog post: Version 140 of the Thunderbird mail client has been released. Notable features include "dark message mode" to adapt message content to dark mode, the ability to easily transfer desktop settings to the mobile Thunderbird client, experimental support for Microsoft Exchange, as well as global controls for message threading and sort order.

Thunderbird 140 is an extended-support release (ESR) which will be supported for 12 months. However, the Thunderbird project is trying to encourage users to adopt the Release channel for monthly updates instead. The project is staggering upgrades to 140 for existing Thunderbird users in order to catch any significant bugs before they are widely deployed, but users can upgrade manually via the Help > About menu. See the release notes for a full list of changes.

Just four weeks after an early June flight to the edge of space, Blue Origin has again carried six more passengers there and back again, reports CBS News, noting that the 10-minute ride was Blue Origin's 13th flight "out of the discernible atmosphere." The New Shepard capsule's stubby single-stage booster roared to life just after 9:38 a.m. EDT, throttled up to full thrust and smoothly climbed away from Blue Origin's launch site near Van Horn, Texas. The hydrogen-fueled BE-3 engine powering the New Shepard fired for about two-and-a-half minutes, accelerating the spacecraft to just under three times the speed of sound.

The capsule then separated from the booster and continued coasting upward along its up-and-down trajectory. At that point, the passengers — Allie and Carl Kuehner, Leland Larson, Freddie Rescigno Jr., Jim Sitkin and Owolabi Salis, the first Nigerian to fly in space — began enjoying about three minutes of weightlessness. Free to unstrap and float about the cabin, the passengers were able to take in the view through the largest windows in any operational spacecraft as the ship climbed to an altitude of just above 65 miles. That's about three miles higher than the internationally recognized boundary between the discernible atmosphere and space.

The capsule then began falling back to Earth and the passengers returned to their seats for the descent to touchdown. The reusable booster, meanwhile, made its own return to the launch site, dropping tail first to a rocket-powered touchdown... The company has now launched 74 passengers, including Bezos' wife Lauren Sánchez, and four who have flown twice.
By April nearly 120 civilians had already travelled to the edge of space, CBS News reported earlier — while Virgin Galactic is expected to resume flights next year.

You can replay the webcast of the mission on Blue Origin's YouTube channel.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: On Tuesday, software engineer Doug Brown published his discovery of how to trigger a long-known but previously inaccessible Easter egg in the Power Mac G3's ROM: a hidden photo of the development team that nobody could figure out how to display for 27 years. While Pierre Dandumont first documented the JPEG image itself in 2014, the method to view it on the computer remained a mystery until Brown's reverse engineering work revealed that users must format a RAM disk with the text "secret ROM image."

Brown stumbled upon the image while using a hex editor tool called Hex Fiend with Eric Harmon's Mac ROM template to explore the resources stored in the beige Power Mac G3's ROM. The ROM appeared in desktop, minitower, and all-in-one G3 models from 1997 through 1999. "While I was browsing through the ROM, two things caught my eye," Brown wrote. He found both the HPOE resource containing the JPEG image of team members and a suspicious set of Pascal strings in the PowerPC-native SCSI Manager 4.3 code that included ".Edisk," "secret ROM image," and "The Team."

The strings provided the crucial clue Brown needed. After extracting and disassembling the code using Ghidra, he discovered that the SCSI Manager was checking for a RAM disk volume named "secret ROM image." When found, the code would create a file called "The Team" containing the hidden JPEG data. Brown initially shared his findings on the #mac68k IRC channel, where a user named Alex quickly figured out the activation method. The trick requires users to enable the RAM Disk in the Memory control panel, restart, select the RAM Disk icon, choose "Erase Disk" from the Special menu, and type "secret ROM image" into the format dialog. "If you double-click the file, SimpleText will open it," Brown explains on his blog just before displaying the hidden team photo that emerges after following the steps.

Perched in Chile's Andes mountains, "A revolutionary new space telescope has just taken its first pictures of the cosmos," reports National Geographic — "and they're spectacular." Formerly known as the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope, it's expected to bring "unprecedented detail" to space photography: The observatory has a few key components: A giant telescope, called the Simonyi Survey Telescope, is connected to the world's largest and highest resolution digital camera. Rubin's 27-foot primary mirror, paired with a mind-boggling 3,200-megapixel camera, will repeatedly take 30-second exposure images of vast swaths of the sky with unrivaled speed and detail. Each image will cover an area of sky as big as 40 full moons. Every three nights for the next 10 years, Rubin will produce a new, ultra-high-definition map of the entire visible southern sky. With this much coverage, scientists hope to create an updated and detailed "movie" they can use to view how the cosmos changes over time....

For the next decade, Rubin will capture millions of astronomical objects each day — or more than 100 every second. Ultimately, it's expected to discover about 17 billion stars and 20 billion galaxies that we've never seen before... When the observatory begins science operations in earnest later in 2025, its instruments will yield a deluge of astronomical data that will be too overwhelming to process manually. (Each night, the observatory will generate around 20 terabytes of data.) Astronomers expect high-quality observations taken with the telescope will help map out the structure of the universe, find comets and potentially hazardous asteroids in our solar system, and detect exploding stars and black holes in distant galaxies.

The observatory will also examine the optical counterparts of gravitational wave events — ripples in the fabric of space caused by some of the most energetic processes in the cosmos. By studying these events, astronomers hope to uncover the secrets of the invisible forces that shape the universe like dark matter and dark energy.
"Already, in just over 10 hours of test observations, the observatory has discovered 2,104 never-before-seen-asteroids," reports NPR, "including seven near-Earth asteroids, none of which pose any danger..." The basic idea is that the data "should let astronomers catch transient phenomena that they otherwise wouldn't know to look for, such as exploding stars, asteroids, interstellar objects whizzing in from other solar systems, and maybe even the movement of a giant planet that some believe is lurking out in our own solar system, beyond Pluto."

The telescope is a joint project between the U.S. Energy Department and its National Science Foundation — and it will stream a special live broadcast of its first images today at 11 a.m. EDT (1500 GMT) on their official YouTube channel (also simulacast at Space.com).

An anonymous reader shared this report from Bloomberg: Amazon's hard-line stance on getting disabled employees to return to the office has sparked a backlash, with workers alleging the company is violating the Americans with Disabilities Act as well as their rights to collectively bargain. At least two Amazon employees have filed complaints with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and the National Labor Relations Board, federal agencies that regulate working conditions. One of the workers said they provided the EEOC with a list of 18 "similarly situated" employees to emphasize that their experience isn't isolated and to help federal regulators with a possible investigation.

Disabled workers frustrated with how Amazon is handling their requests for accommodations — including exemptions to a mandate that they report to the office five days a week — are also venting their displeasure on internal chat rooms and have encouraged colleagues to answer surveys about the policies. Amazon has been deleting such posts and warning that they violate rules governing internal communications. One employee said they were terminated and another said they were told to find a different position after advocating for disabled workers on employee message boards. Both filed complaints with the EEOC and NLRB.
Amazon has told employees with disabilities they must now submit to a "multilevel leader review," Bloomberg reported in October, "and could be required to return to the office for monthlong trials to determine if accommodations meet their needs." (They received calls from "accommodation consultants" who also reviewed medical documentation, after which "another Amazon manager must sign off. If they don't, the request goes to a third manager...")

Bloomberg's new article remembers how several employees told them in November. "that they believed the system was designed to deny work-from-home accommodations and prompt employees with disabilities to quit, which some have done. Amazon denied the system was designed to encourage people to resign." Since then, workers have mobilized against the policy. One employee repeatedly posted an online survey seeking colleagues' reactions, defying the company's demands to stop. The survey ultimately generated feedback from more than 200 workers even though Amazon kept deleting it, and the results reflected strong opposition to Amazon's treatment of disabled workers. More than 71% of disabled Amazon employees surveyed said the company had denied or failed to meet most of their accommodation requests, while half indicated they faced "hostile" work environments after disclosing their disabilities and requesting accommodations.

One respondent said they sought permission to work from home after suffering multiple strokes that prevented them from driving. Amazon suggested moving closer to the office and taking mass transit, the person said in the survey. Another respondent said they couldn't drive for longer than 15-minute intervals due to chronic pain. Amazon's recommendation was to pull over and stretch during their commute, which the employee said was unsafe since they drive on a busy freeway... Amazon didn't dispute the accounts and said it considered a range of solutions to disability accommodations, including changes to an employee's commute.
Amazon is also "using AI to parse accommodation requests, read doctors' notes and make recommendations based on keywords," according to the article — another policy that's also generated internal opposition (and formed a "key element" of the complaint to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission).

"The dispute could affect thousands of Amazon workers. An internal Slack channel for employees with disabilities has 13,000 members, one of the people said..."

Longtime Slashdot reader theodp writes: The old Code.org curriculum page for middle and high school students has been changed to include a new Python Lab in the tech-backed nonprofit's K-12 offerings. Elsewhere on the site, a Computer Science and AI Foundations curriculum is described that includes units on 'Foundations of AI Programming [in Python]' and 'Insights from Data and AI [aka Data Science].' A more-detailed AI Foundations Syllabus 25-26 document promises a second semester of material is coming soon: "This semester offers an innovative approach to teaching programming by integrating learning with and about artificial intelligence (AI). Using Python as the primary language, students build foundational programming skills while leveraging AI tools to enhance computational thinking and problem-solving. The curriculum also introduces students to the basics of creating AI-powered programs, exploring machine learning, and applying data science principles."

Newly-posted videos on Code.org's YouTube channel appear to be intended to support the new Python-based CS & AI course. "Python is extremely versatile," explains a Walmart data scientist to open the video for Data Science: Using Python. "So, first of all, Python is one of the very few languages that can handle numbers very, very well." A researcher at the Univ. of Washington's Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) adds, "Python is the gold standard and what people expect data scientists to know [...] Key to us being able to handle really big data sets is our use of Python and cluster computing." Adding to the Python love, an IHME data analyst explains, "Python is a great choice for large databases because there's a lot of support for Python libraries."

Code.org is currently recruiting teachers to attend its CS and AI Foundations Professional Learning program this summer, which is being taught by Code.org's national network of university and nonprofit regional partners (teachers who signup have a chance to win $250 in DonorsChoose credits for their classrooms). A flyer for a five-day Michigan Professional Development program to prepare teachers for a pilot of the Code.org CS & A course touts the new curriculum as "an alternative to the AP [Computer Science] pathway" (teachers are offered scholarships covering registration, lodging, meals, and workshop materials).

Interestingly, Code.org's embrace of Python and Data Science comes as the nonprofit changes its mission to 'make CS and AI a core part of K-12 education' and launches a new national campaign with tech leaders to make CS and AI a graduation requirement. Prior to AI changing the education conversation, Code.org in 2021 boasted that it had lined up a consortium of tech giants, politicians, and educators to push its new $15 million Amazon-bankrolled Java AP CS A curriculum into K-12 classrooms. Just three years later, however, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy was boasting to investors that Amazon had turned to AI to automatically do Java coding that he claimed would have otherwise taken human coders 4,500 developer-years to complete.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Register: Broadcom's VMware business unit has dropped the lowest tier of its channel program, a move one analyst told The Register will benefit its rivals. The virtualization pioneer currently operates a four-tier channel program spanning Pinnacle, Premier, Select, and Registered partners. On Sunday the business unit announced the retirement of the Registered tier. A blog post written by Brian Moats, Broadcom's Senior Vice President for Global Commercial Sales and Partners, states VMware made the decision because "the vast majority of customer impact and business momentum comes from partners operating within the top three tiers."

Laura Falko, Broadcom's Head of Global Partner Programs, Marketing & Experience, told The Register "The vast majority of these [Registered] partners are inactive and lack the capabilities to support customers through VMware's evolving private cloud journey. That's why the Registered tier is being retired to ensure every active partner meets a higher standard of technical, sales, and service readiness." Falko told us VMware will give Registered partners 60 days' notice before deauthorization and then "work proactively with affected customers to transition them to qualified partners in the new ecosystem, ensuring continuity and support throughout the change."

VMware has also introduced new requirements for partners in its remaining tiers. The virtualization giant will require Pinnacle and Premier partners to maintain dedicated sales and technical resources, and to "execute joint business plans with VMware to ensure alignment and delivery with mutual results." The Broadcom business unit is also "beginning the process of transitioning partners who no longer meet the minimum program requirements or have not demonstrated consistent engagement," suggesting even Pinnacle, Premier, and Select partners are not safe. The Register asked VMware to define "consistent engagement" and Falko told us it includes "regular deal activity," ongoing participation in joint sales activities, staying up to date with training, and "sustained, proactive commitment to a partner's VMware customer base." The changes will only apply in its Americas, and Asia-Pacific and Japan regions. Broadcom didn't explain why Europe was excluded.

The Register notes that trade associations in Europe have criticized Broadcom's changes at VMware and urged the European Commission to investigate the company.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Microsoft's changes in response to the Digital Markets Act already included allowing Windows machines in the regions it covers to uninstall Edge and remove Bing results from Windows search, but now the list is growing in some meaningful ways. New features announced Monday for Microsoft Windows users in the European Economic Area (the EU plus Iceland, Liechtenstein, and Norway) include the option to uninstall the Microsoft Store and avoid extra nags or prompts asking them to set Microsoft Edge as the default browser unless they choose to open it.

Additionally, setting a different browser, like Chrome, Firefox, Brave, or something else, will pin it to the taskbar unless the user chooses not to. While setting a different browser default already attaches it to a few link and file types like https and .html, now users in the EEA will see it apply to more types like "read," ftp, and .svg. The default browser changes are live for some users in the beta channel and are set to roll out widely on Windows 10 and Windows 11 in July.

Instagram now supports 3:4 aspect ratio photos, allowing users to upload images that "appear just exactly as you shot it." Instagram head Adam Mosseri announced the update in a Threads post, noting that "almost every phone camera defaults to" that format. The Verge reports: An image from Instagram's broadcast channel shows how the change makes a difference. You can already post images with a rectangular aspect ratio of 4:5, but with 3:4, your photo won't be cropped at the ends. 3:4 photos are supported with single-photo uploads and with carousels, according to the channel. If you want, you can still post photos with a square or 4:5 aspect ratio.