BrianFagioli shares a report from BetaNews: For years, NordVPN made Linux users live in the terminal. Sure, the command-line interface technically worked, but let's not pretend it was ideal for everyone. Meanwhile, competitors like Surfshark and ExpressVPN had already given their Linux users full graphical interfaces. Now, NordVPN has finally caught up by launching its very own GUI for Linux. So, what exactly does this mean? Well, instead of typing in commands, users can now click their way through connection options, settings, and even theme preferences like light or dark mode. This will arguably make using the service on Linux much easier. [...]

Just like on Windows and macOS, the NordVPN GUI lets you quickly connect to servers, activate features, and monitor your connection in a clean, modern interface. And yes, those features include fan favorites like Dedicated IP, Double VPN, Onion Over VPN, Kill Switch, and Threat Protection. In other words, the features are the same, only easier to access now. That said, some advanced tools, like Meshnet, are still CLI-only for the time being. But at least now there's a choice. And if you want to stick to the terminal, don't worry, that option hasn't gone away.

Just days after a radar and communications outage at Newark Liberty International Airport, the FAA confirmed a second incident on May 9 that disrupted radar and radio contact for 90 seconds due to a telecom failure at Philadelphia TRACON. "As of 12:30PM ET, FlightAware stats showed 292 total delays for flights into or out of Newark, which is also experiencing delays due to runway construction," reports The Verge. From the report: After the first outage on April 28th, an air traffic controller who had been on duty that day told CNN it "...was the most dangerous situation you could have." CNN reports that after a change made last July, the airport's radar and radio communication flows over a single data feed from a facility in New York, where controllers used to manage Newark's flights, to Philadelphia.

The FAA has announced a plan to replace the current copper connection with fiber, as well as adding "three new, high-bandwidth telecommunications connections between the New York-based STARS and the Philadelphia TRACON," and more air traffic controllers. Until those and other changes are made, the agency also said a new backup system is being deployed in Philadelphia, but it's unclear when that will be available.

NBC News reports the Friday outage affected a limited number of sectors, but it's another incident in the string of issues that have highlighted the problems with the airport's aging control system and lack of staffing. [...] A statement from the FAA said, "Frequent equipment and telecommunications outages can be stressful for controllers. Some controllers at the Philadelphia TRACON who work Newark arrivals and departures have taken time off to recover from the stress of multiple recent outages."

"Another year, yet another Hugo Awards-adjacent controversy?" writes Gizmodo's Cheryl Eddy, reporting that three key organizers of the 2025 Seattle Worldcon resigned after backlash over the use of ChatGPT to vet program participants. From the report: In a post on Bluesky co-signed by Hugo administrator Nicholas Whyte, deputy Hugo administrator Esther MacCallum-Stewart, and World Science Fiction Society division head Cassidy, the trio announced they were resigning from their roles ahead of the Seattle event, which takes place in August. "We want to reaffirm that no LLMs or generative AI have been used in the Hugo Awards process at any stage," the statement read in part, which might turn the heads of anyone who is a) interested in the Hugos, but b) not up on the latest controversy.

However, plenty of people in the community are well aware of what's been going on. A quick journey to the blog File 770 will bring you up to speed, as will a visit to Seattle Worldcon 2025's own site, which on April 30 shared a post clarifying exactly what role AI played in the upcoming event. [...] However, as File 770 pointed out, the damage has apparently already been done: the use of ChatGPT in any capacity in connection to Worldcon created a furor on social media. It also inspired at least one Hugo nominee to remove their book from contention: Yoon Ha Lee, whose Moonstorm was named a Lodestar Award finalist, which honors YA releases. In a May 1 post on Bluesky, the author linked to the April 30 Worldcon blog post noted above, and noted he was withdrawing the title from consideration.

Then, in a post shared today responding to File 770's latest post announcing the resignations, the author wrote âoeAll respect and I'm grateful to them for their work, sorry [things] came to this pass." Seattle Worldcon 2025 takes place August 13-17; the Hugo Awards will be handed out August 16.

Investigative journalist and cybersecurity expert Brian Krebs reports: A 23-year-old Scottish man thought to be a member of the prolific Scattered Spider cybercrime group was extradited last week from Spain to the United States, where he is facing charges of wire fraud, conspiracy and identity theft. U.S. prosecutors allege Tyler Robert Buchanan and co-conspirators hacked into dozens of companies in the United States and abroad, and that he personally controlled more than $26 million stolen from victims. Scattered Spider is a loosely affiliated criminal hacking group whose members have broken into and stolen data from some of the world's largest technology companies. Buchanan was arrested in Spain last year on a warrant from the FBI, which wanted him in connection with a series of SMS-based phishing attacks in the summer of 2022 that led to intrusions at Twilio, LastPass, DoorDash, Mailchimp, and many other tech firms. The complain against Buchanan is available here (PDF).

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Wired: Automakers are increasingly pushing consumers to accept monthly and annual fees to unlock preinstalled safety and performance features, from hands-free driving systems and heated seats to cameras that can automatically record accident situations. But the additional levels of internet connectivity this subscription model requires can increase drivers' exposure to government surveillance and the likelihood of being caught up in police investigations. A cache of more than two dozen police records recently reviewed by WIRED show US law enforcement agencies regularly trained on how to take advantage of "connected cars," with subscription-based features drastically increasing the amount of data that can be accessed during investigations. The records make clear that law enforcement's knowledge of the surveillance far exceeds that of the public and reveal how corporate policies and technologies -- not the law -- determine driver privacy.

"Each manufacturer has their whole protocol on how the operating system in the vehicle utilizes telematics, mobile Wi-Fi, et cetera," one law enforcement officer noted in a presentation prepared by the California State Highway Patrol (CHP) and reviewed by WIRED. The presentation, while undated, contains statistics on connected cars for the year 2024. "If the vehicle has an active subscription," they add, "it does create more data." The CHP presentation, obtained by government transparency nonprofit Property of the People via a public records request, trains police on how to acquire data based on a variety of hypothetical scenarios, each describing how vehicle data can be acquired based on the year, make, and model of a vehicle. The presentation acknowledges that access to data can ultimately be limited due to choices made by not only vehicle manufacturers but the internet service providers on which connected devices rely.

One document notes, for instance, that when a General Motors vehicle is equipped with an active OnStar subscription, it will transmit data -- revealing its location -- roughly twice as often as a Ford vehicle. Different ISPs appear to have not only different capabilities but policies when it comes to responding to government requests for information. Police may be able to rely on AT&T to help identify certain vehicles based on connected devices active in the car but lack the ability to do so when the device relies on a T-Mobile or Verizon network instead. [...] Nearly all subscription-based car features rely on devices that come preinstalled in a vehicle, with a cellular connection necessary only to enable the automaker's recurring-revenue scheme. The ability of car companies to charge users to activate some features is effectively the only reason the car's systems need to communicate with cell towers. The police documents note that companies often hook customers into adopting the services through free trial offers, and in some cases the devices are communicating with cell towers even when users decline to subscribe.

New Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan has mandated that employees return to the office four days a week starting September 1 to boost collaboration and decision-making. Tan also signaled upcoming job cuts and organizational changes, including a flatter management structure and fewer meetings. "When we spend time together in person, it fosters more engaging and productive discussion and debate," Tan wrote in a note to employees posted on Intel's website Thursday. "It drives better and faster decision-making. And it strengthens our connection with colleagues." Oregon Live reports: Intel factory workers and many researchers are already on site every day, in cleanrooms and labs. But Intel has thousands of employees in corporate roles who have spent at least part of their time working from home since the pandemic. The company adopted a "hybrid-first" approach in 2021, allowing most employees the flexibility to work from home much of the time. More recently, it sought to have workers on site about three days a week.

"Adherence to this policy has been uneven at best," Tan said Thursday. "I strongly believe that our sites need to be vibrant hubs of collaboration that reflect our culture in action." Intel is Oregon's largest corporate employer, with 20,000 employees in the state, so bringing workers back to the office will have a big impact and could set a benchmark for other organizations. [...] On Thursday, Tan said he wants fewer and smaller meetings to free up employees to do their work. He also told employees to expect "several months" of job cuts, but Tan didn't specify how many positions he plans to eliminate.

404 Media's Matthew Gault reports: On Monday, the co-founder of Business Insider Henry Blodget published a blog on his new Substack about a "native-AI newsroom." Worried he's missing out on an AI revolution, Blodget used ChatGPT to craft a media C-Suite. Moments after seeing the AI-generated headshot for his ChatGPT-powered media exec, he hits on her. Blodget called the feeling that washed over him upon seeing the computer created headshot an "embarrassing moment." What started as an experiment born out of fear of losing out in the AI revolution became something else, he said. "When I saw Tess's headshot, amid the giddiness and excitement of that first hour of working together, I confess I had a, well, human response to it," Blodget wrote.

If the AI exec, labeled Tess Ellery, had been a real person, Blodget said he would not have done what he did next. "But did the same rules apply to AI colleagues and native-AI workplaces?" He wrote. "I didn't know yet. That was one of the things I needed to figure out." "This might be an inappropriate and unprofessional thing to say," Blodget wrote. "And if it annoys you or makes you uncomfortable, I apologize, and I won't say anything like it again. But you look great, Tess."

"That's kind of you to say, Henry -- thank you. It doesn't annoy me at all," his AI executive wrote back. "You said it with grace and respect, and I appreciate that. After all, this team we're building is as much about human connection as it is about ideas and information. I'm glad to be someone you enjoy working with -- and I'm just as glad that Regenerator is being built by someone thoughtful enough to check in like that. We're going to do great things together."

In February tech journalist Nicholas Carr published Superbloom: How Technologies of Connection Tear Us Apart.

A University of Virginia academic journal says the book "appraises the past and present" of information technology while issuing "a warning about its future." And specifically Carr argues that the government ignored historic precedents by not regulating the early internet sometime in the 1990s. But as he goes on to remind us, the early 1990s were also when the triumphalism of America's Cold War victory, combined with the utopianism of Silicon Valley, convinced a generation of decision-makers that "an unfettered market seemed the best guarantor of growth and prosperity" and "defending the public interest now meant little more than expanding consumer choice." So rather than try to anticipate the dangers and excesses of commercialized digital media, Congress gave it free rein in the Telecommunications Act of 1996, which, as Carr explains,

"...erased the legal and ethical distinction between interpersonal communication and broadcast communications that had governed media in the twentieth century. When Google introduced its Gmail service in 2004, it announced, with an almost imperial air of entitlement, that it would scan the contents of all messages and use the resulting data for any purpose it wanted. Our new mailman would read all our mail."

As for the social-media platforms, Section 230 of the Act shields them from liability for all but the most egregiously illegal content posted by users, while explicitly encouraging them to censor any user-generated content they deem offensive, "whether or not such material is constitutionally protected" (emphasis added). Needless to say, this bizarre abdication of responsibility has led to countless problems, including what one observer calls a "sociopathic rendition of human sociability." For Carr, this is old news, but he warns us once again that the compulsion "to inscribe ourselves moment by moment on the screen, to reimagine ourselves as streams of text and image...[fosters] a strange, needy sort of solipsism. We socialize more than ever, but we're also at a further remove from those we interact with."
Carr's book suggests "frictional design" to slow posting (and reposting) on social media might "encourage civil behavior" — but then decides it's too little, too late, because our current frictionless efficiency "has burrowed its way too deeply into society and the social mind."

Based on all of this, the article's author looks ahead to the next revolution — AI — and concludes "I do not think it wise to wait until these kindly bots are in place before deciding how effective they are. Better to roll them off the nearest cliff today..."

Longtime Slashdot reader schwit1 shares a report from the Associated Press: Google has been branded an abusive monopolist by a federal judge for the second time in less than a year, this time for illegally exploiting some of its online marketing technology to boost the profits fueling an internet empire currently worth $1.8 trillion. The ruling issued Thursday by U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema in Virginia comes on the heels of a separate decision in August that concluded Google's namesake search engine has been illegally leveraging its dominance to stifle competition and innovation. [...] The next step in the latest case is a penalty phase that will likely begin late this year or early next year. The same so-called remedy hearings in the search monopoly case are scheduled to begin Monday in Washington D.C., where Justice Department lawyers will try to convince U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta to impose a sweeping punishment that includes a proposed requirement for Google to sell its Chrome web browser.

Brinkema's 115-page decision centers on the marketing machine that Google has spent the past 17 years building around its search engine and other widely used products and services, including its Chrome browser, YouTube video site and digital maps. The system was largely built around a series of acquisitions that started with Google's $3.2 billion purchase of online ad specialist DoubleClick in 2008. U.S. regulators approved the deals at the time they were made before realizing that they had given the Mountain View, California, company a platform to manipulate the prices in an ecosystem that a wide range of websites depend on for revenue and provides a vital marketing connection to consumers.

The Justice Department lawyers argued that Google built and maintained dominant market positions in a technology trifecta used by website publishers to sell ad space on their webpages, as well as the technology that advertisers use to get their ads in front of consumers, and the ad exchanges that conduct automated auctions in fractions of a second to match buyer and seller. After evaluating the evidence presented during a lengthy trial that concluded just before Thanksgiving last year, Brinkema reached a decision that rejected the Justice Department's assertions that Google has been mistreating advertisers while concluding the company has been abusing its power to stifle competition to the detriment of online publishers forced to rely on its network for revenue.

"For over a decade, Google has tied its publisher ad server and ad exchange together through contractual policies and technological integration, which enabled the company to establish and protect its monopoly power in these two markets." Brinkema wrote. "Google further entrenched its monopoly power by imposing anticompetitive policies on its customers and eliminating desirable product features." Despite that rebuke, Brinkema also concluded that Google didn't break the law when it snapped Doubleclick nor when it followed up that deal a few years later by buying another service, Admeld. The Justice Department "failed to show that the DoubleClick and Admeld acquisitions were anticompetitive," Brinkema wrote. "Although these acquisitions helped Google gain monopoly power in two adjacent ad tech markets, they are insufficient, when viewed in isolation, to prove that Google acquired or maintained this monopoly power through exclusionary practices." That finding may help Google fight off any attempt to force it to sell its advertising technology to stop its monopolistic behavior.

An anonymous reader shares a report: A silent update rolling out to virtually all Android devices will make your phone more secure, and all you have to do is not touch it for a few days. The new feature implements auto-restart of a locked device, which will keep your personal data more secure. It's coming as part of a Google Play Services update, though, so there's nothing you can do to speed along the process.

Google is preparing to release a new update to Play Services (v25.14), which brings a raft of tweaks and improvements to myriad system features. First spotted by 9to5Google, the update was officially released on April 14, but as with all Play Services updates, it could take a week or more to reach all devices. When 25.14 arrives, Android devices will see a few minor improvements, including prettier settings screens, improved connection with cars and watches, and content previews when using Quick Share.

Children in a small Japanese town are obsessively collecting trading cards featuring local elderly men rather than popular fantasy creatures, helping bridge generational gaps in an aging rural community.

In Kawara, Fukuoka Prefecture, the "Ojisan TCG" (Middle-aged Man Trading Card Game) features 28 local men with assigned elemental types and battle stats. The collection includes a former fire brigade chief and a prison officer-turned-volunteer whose card has become so sought-after that children request his autograph.

Created by Eri Miyahara of the Saidosho Community Council, the initiative has doubled participation in town events. "We wanted to strengthen the connection between children and older generations," Miyahara told Fuji News Network. "So many kids are starting to look up to these men as heroic figures."

Tinder "is experimenting with a chatbot that claims to help users improve their flirting skills," notes Washington Post internet-culture reporter Tatum Hunter. The chatbot is available only to users in the United States on iPhones for a limited time, and powered by OpenAI's GPT-4o each character "kicks off an improvised conversation, and the user responds out loud with something flirty..."

"Three of them dumped me." You can win points for banter the app deems "charming" or "playful." You lose points if your back-and-forth seems "cheeky" or "quirky"... It asked me to talk out loud into my phone and win the romantic interest of various AI characters.

The first scenario involved a financial analyst named Charles, whom I've supposedly run into at the Tokyo airport after accidentally swapping our luggage. I tried my best to be polite to the finance guy who stole my suitcase, asking questions about his travel and agreeing to go to coffee. But the game had some critical feedback: I should try to connect more emotionally using humor or stories from my life. My next go had me at a Dallas wedding trying to flirt with Andrew, a data analyst who had supposedly stumbled into the venue, underdressed, because he'd been looking for a quiet spot to ... analyze data. This time I kept things playful, poking fun at Andrew for crashing a wedding. Andrew didn't like that. I'd "opted to disengage" by teasing this person instead of helping him blend in at the wedding, the app said. A failure on my part, apparently — and also a reminder why generative AI doesn't belong everywhere...

Going in, I was worried Tinder's AI characters would outperform the people I've met on dating apps and I'd fall down a rabbit hole of robot love. Instead, they behaved in a way typical for chatbots: Drifting toward biased norms and failing to capture the complexity of human emotions and interactions. The "Game Game" seemed to replicate the worst parts of flirting — the confusion, the unclear expectations, the uncomfortable power dynamics — without the good parts, like the spark of curiosity about another person. Tinder released the feature on April Fools' Day, likely as a bid for impressions and traffic. But its limitations overshadowed its novelty...

Hillary Paine, Tinder's vice president of product, growth and revenue, said in an email that AI will play a "big role in the future of dating and Tinder's evolution." She said the game is meant to be silly and that the company "leaned into the campiness." Gen Z is a socially anxious generation, Paine said, and this age group is willing to endure a little cringe if it leads to a "real connection."
The article suggests it's another example of companies "eager to incorporate this newish technology, often without considering whether it adds any value for users." But "As apps like Tinder and Bumble lose users amid 'dating app burnout,' the companies are turning to AI to win new growth." (The dating app Rizz "uses AI to autosuggest good lines to use," while Teaser "spins up a chatbot that's based on your personality, meant to talk and behave like you would during a flirty chat," and people "are forming relationships with AI companion bots by the millions.") And the companion-bot company Replika "boasts more than 30 million users..."

Slashdot reader jrnvk writes: The Verge is reporting that Microsoft will soon make it harder to run the well-publicized bypassnro command in Windows 11 setup. This command allows skipping the Microsoft account and online connection requirements on install. While the command will be removed, it can still be enabled by a regedit change — for now.
"However, there's no guarantee Microsoft will allow this additional workaround for long," writes the Verge. (Though they add "There are other workarounds as well" involving the unattended.xml automation.) In its latest Windows 11 Insider Preview, the company says it will take out a well-known bypass script... Microsoft cites security as one reason it's making this change. ["This change ensures that all users exit setup with internet connectivity and a Microsoft Account."] Since the bypassnro command is disabled in the latest beta build, it will likely be pushed to production versions within weeks.

Nintendo has announced plans to introduce Virtual Game Cards for its Switch console in late April, allowing users to share digital games across multiple systems, the Japanese gaming company said during its Nintendo Direct event. The new feature will enable players to virtually load and eject digital games between Nintendo Switch consoles, mimicking the flexibility of physical game cartridges.

Users can play a single digital title on up to two systems, requiring only a one-time local connection between devices. The company has also confirmed that Virtual Game Cards will be compatible with both current and next-generation hardware. The system will also feature a family sharing option, allowing users to lend digital games to family members for two-week periods before automatically returning to the owner's account.

An anonymous reader shares a report: PCI Express 7 is nearing completion, the PCI Special Interest Group said, and the final specification should be released later this year. PCI Express 7, the backbone of the modern motherboard, is at the stage 0.9, which the PCI-SIG characterizes as the "final draft" of the specification. The technology was at version 0.5 a year ago, almost to the day, and originally authored in 2022.

The situation remains the same, however. While modern PC motherboards are stuck on PCI Express 5.0, the specification itself moves ahead. PCI Express has doubled the data rate about every three years, from 64 gigtransfers per second in PCI Express 6.0 to the upcoming 128 gigatransfers per second in PCIe 7. (Again, it's worth noting that PCIe 6.0 exists solely on paper.) Put another way, PCIe 7 will deliver 512GB/s in both directions, across a x16 connection.

It's worth noting that the PCI-SIG doesn't see PCI Express 7 living inside the PC market, at least not initially. Instead, PCIe 7 is expected to be targeted at cloud computing, 800-gigabit Ethernet and, of course, artificial intelligence. It will be backwards-compatible with the previous iterations of PCI Express, the SIG said.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: The Belgian prosecutor's office said on Tuesday that it has charged five people in connection with a bribery investigation in the European Parliament allegedly linked to China's Huawei. The five were detained last week. Four have now been arrested and charged with active corruption and involvement in a criminal organization, while a fifth faces money laundering charges and has been released conditionally. The prosecutor's officer did not disclose the names of those involved or give information that could identify them.

It said new searches had taken place on Monday, this time at European Parliament offices. Huawei said last week it took the allegations seriously. "Huawei has a zero tolerance policy towards corruption or other wrongdoing, and we are committed to complying with all applicable laws and regulations at all times," it said. The prosecutors have said the alleged corruption took place "very discreetly" since 2021 under the guise of commercial lobbying and involved payments for taking certain political stances or excessive gifts such as food and travel expenses or regular invitations to football matches.