An anonymous reader quotes a report from Variety: More than 400 Hollywood creative leaders signed an open letter to the Trump White House's Office of Science and Technology Policy, urging the administration to not roll back copyright protections at the behest of AI companies. The filmmakers, writers, actors, musicians and others -- which included Ben Stiller, Mark Ruffalo, Cynthia Erivo, Cate Blanchett, Cord Jefferson, Paul McCartney, Ron Howard and Taika Waititi -- were submitting comments for the Trump administration's U.S. AI Action Plan. The letter specifically was penned in response to recent submissions to the Office of Science and Technology Policy from OpenAI and Google, which asserted that U.S. copyright law allows (or should allow) allow AI companies to train their system on copyrighted works without obtaining permission from (or compensating) rights holders.

"We firmly believe that America's global AI leadership must not come at the expense of our essential creative industries," the letter says in part. The letter claims that "AI companies are asking to undermine this economic and cultural strength by weakening copyright protections for the films, television series, artworks, writing, music and voices used to train AI models at the core of multibillion-dollar corporate valuations." [...] The letter says Google and OpenAI "are arguing for a special government exemption so they can freely exploit America's creative and knowledge industries, despite their substantial revenues and available funds. There is no reason to weaken or eliminate the copyright protections that have helped America flourish." You can read the full statement and list of signatories here.

The letter was issued in response to recent submissions from OpenAI (PDF) and Google (PDF) claiming that U.S. law allows, or should allow, AI companies to train their programs on copyrighted works under the fair use legal doctrine.

GIMP 3.0 has been released after over a decade of development. Highlights include a refined GTK3 interface with scroll wheel tab navigation, a new splash screen, improved HiDPI icon support, enhanced color management, a stable public API, and support for more file formats. 9to5Linux reports: GIMP 3.0 also brings improvements to non-destructive editing by introducing an optional "Merge Filters" checkbox at the bottom of NDE filters that merges down the filter immediately after it's committed, along with non-destructive filters on layer groups and the implementation of storing version of filters in GIMP's XCF project files. Among other noteworthy changes, the GEGL and babl components have been updated with new features and many improvements, such as Inner Glow, Bevel, and GEGL Styles filters, some plugins saw small enhancements, and it's now possible to export images with different settings while leaving the original image unchanged.

There's also a new PDB call that allows Script-Fu writers to use labels to specify filter properties, a brand new named-argument syntax, support for loading 16-bits-per-channel LAB PSD files, support for loading DDS images with BC7 support, early-binding CMYK support, and support for PSB and JPEG-XL image formats. On top of that, GIMP 3.0 introduces new auto-expanding layer boundary and snapping options, an updated search pop-up to show the menu path for all entries while making individual filters searchable, a revamped alignment tool, and support for "layer sets," replacing the older concept of linked layers. You can download GIMP 3.0 from the official website.

More than 80 signatories representing about 100 European tech organizations have urged EU leaders to take "radical action" to reduce reliance on foreign digital infrastructure, according to a letter sent to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.

The coalition, including Airbus, Proton, and OVHCloud, warns Europe "will lose out on digital innovation" and become almost completely dependent on non-European technologies "in less than three years at current rates."

The group calls for public procurement requirements mandating European-made tech solutions, development of common standards, and creation of a "Sovereign Infrastructure Fund" for capital-intensive areas like chips and quantum computing. "Our reliance on non-European technologies will become almost complete in less than three years at current rates," the letter states, citing concerns over U.S. technological dominance following recent comments from Vice President JD Vance criticizing European regulations.

This week the Free Software Foundation published memorabilia items for an online silent auction — part of their big 40th anniversary celebration. "Starting March 17, the FSF will unlock items each day for bidding on the LibrePlanet wiki at 12:00 EDT.. Bidding on all items will conclude at 15:00 EDT on March 21, 2025...

"During the auction, the FSF welcomes everyone who supports user freedom to bid on historical and symbolic free software memorabilia," they annouced this week: The auction is split into two parts: a silent auction hosted on the LibrePlanet wiki from March 17 through March 21 and a live auction held on the FSF's Galène videoconferencing server on March 23 from 14:00-17:00. The auction is only the opening act to a months-long itinerary celebrating forty years of free software activism...

Executive director Zoë Kooyman adds: "These items are valuable pieces of FSF history, and some of them are emblematic of the free software movement. We want to entrust these memorabilia in the hands of the free software community for preservation and would love to see some of these items displayed in exhibitions." All in all, there are twenty-five pieces that are either directly part of the FSF's history and/or representative of the free software movement that will be available in the silent auction.

Winning bidders can rest assured that all proceeds from this auction will go towards the FSF's continued work to promote computer user freedom worldwide.
Silent auction items include:

• A print of the famous Gnu-with-Tux-as-superheroes poster signed by Richard Stallman and artist Lissanne Lake. Bids start at $300...

• A mid-1980s VT220 terminal that "still works, and can be connected to your favorite free machine over the serial interface... This is the same terminal that was on the FSF reception desk for some time, introducing visitors to ASCII art, NetHack, and other free software lore." Bids start at $250... (with estimate shipping costs of $100)

• An Amiga 3000UX donated to the GNU project "sometime in 1990." While it now has a damaged battery, "FSF staff programmers used it at MIT to help further some early development of the GNU operating system." Starting bid: $300 (with estimated shipping costs of $400).

• "A variety of plush animals that had greeted visitors at its former offices in Boston on 51 Franklin Street..."

"The most notable items have been reserved for the live auction on Sunday, March 23," they note — including the Internet Hall of Fame medal awarded to FSF founder Richard Stallman in 2013 "as ultimate recognition of free software's immense impact on the development and advancement of the Internet."

Tuesday Microsoft "surprised everyone," writes Neowin, "by announcing a new change that will radically improve TypeScript performance" — porting TypeScript to Go.

InfoWorld writes that "The initiative promises dramatic improvements in editor startup speed, build times, and memory usage, making it easier to scale TypeScript to large code bases, Microsoft said." Microsoft's TypeScript team expects to be able to preview command-line type-checking in Go-based tsc by mid-2025, and to deliver a feature-complete Go implementation of TypeScript by the end of the year. [You can build and run the Go code now from Microsoft's new working repository.] Developers who use Go-based TypeScript in the Visual Studio Code editor will feel the increased speed in the editor, Microsoft said. The company promises an 8x improvement in project load times, instant comprehensive error listings across entire projects, and greater responsiveness for all language service operations including completion lists, quick information, go to definition, and find all references. The new TypeScript will also support more advanced refactoring and deeper insights that were previously too expensive to compute, the company said.
Microsoft believes native Go implementations reduce build times by up to 10x, notes Neowin. But "Developers can expect TypeScript 6.0 to have some deprecations and breaking changes to support the upcoming Go-based version." Later this year, Microsoft will be releasing this new native Go implementation as TypeScript 7.0. The current JS-based TypeScript codebase will continue development into the 6.x series until TypeScript 7+ reaches sufficient maturity and adoption, since some projects may depend on certain API features, legacy configurations, or other things that are not supported by TypeScript 7+.
TypeScript's original creator Anders Hejlsberg recorded an announcement video — and also shared his thoughts in a GitHub discussion titled simply... "Why Go?" The TypeScript compiler's move to Go was influenced by specific technical requirements, such as the need for structural compatibility with the existing JavaScript-based codebase, ease of memory management, and the ability to handle complex graph processing efficiently. After evaluating numerous languages and making multiple prototypes — including in C# — Go emerged as the optimal choice...

Let's be real. Microsoft using Go to write a compiler for TypeScript wouldn't have been possible or conceivable in years past. However, over the last few decades, we've seen Microsoft's strong and ongoing commitment to open-source software, prioritizing developer productivity and community collaboration above all. Our goal is to empower developers with the best tools available, unencumbered by internal politics or narrow constraints. This freedom to choose the right tool for each specific job ultimately benefits the entire developer community, driving innovation, efficiency, and improved outcomes. And you can't argue with a 10x outcome!
Hejlsberg also addressed their choice of Go in an online interview with the Michigan TypeScript meetup.

A leaked Apple meeting reveals significant internal struggles with Siri's development, as AI-powered features announced last June have been delayed and may not make it into iOS 19. The Verge reports: Bloomberg (paywalled) has the full scoop on what happened at a Siri team meeting led by senior director Robby Walker, who oversees the division. He called the delay an "ugly" situation and sympathized with employees who might be feeling burned out or frustrated by Apple's decisions and Siri's still-lackluster reputation. He also said it's not a given that the missing Siri features will make it into iOS 19 this year; that's the company's current target, but "doesn't mean that we're shipping then," he told employees. "We have other commitments across Apple to other projects," Walker said, according to Bloomberg's report. "We want to keep our commitments to those, and we understand those are now potentially more timeline-urgent than the features that have been deferred."

The meeting also hinted at tension between Apple's Siri unit and the marketing division. Walker said the communications team wanted to highlight features like Siri understanding personal context and being able to take action based on what's currently on a user's screen -- even though they were nowhere near ready. Those WWDC teases and the resulting customer expectations only made matters worse, Walker acknowledged. Apple has since pulled an iPhone 16 ad that showcased the features and has added disclaimers to several areas of its website noting they've all been punted to a TBD date. They were held back in part due to quality issues "that resulted in them not working properly up to a third of the time," according to Mark Gurman.

[...] Walker told his staff that senior executives like software chief Craig Federighi and AI boss John Giannandrea are taking "intense personal accountability" for a predicament that's drawing fierce criticism as the months pass by with little to show for it beyond a prettier Siri animation. "Customers are not expecting only these new features but they also want a more fully rounded-out Siri," Walker said. "We're going to ship these features and more as soon as they are ready." He praised the team for its "incredibly impressive" work so far. "These are not quite ready to go to the general public, even though our competitors might have launched them in this state or worse," he said of the delayed features.

Breakthrough Energy, the climate group founded by Bill Gates, has laid off dozens of employees in the U.S. and Europe, eliminating its public policy and partnerships teams as it shifts away from advocacy work. Its investment and grantmaking divisions will remain unaffected. The Detroit News reports: Breakthrough Energy is an umbrella organization founded by Gates that houses various initiatives aimed at accelerating the clean energy transition. It also encompasses Breakthrough Energy Ventures, one of the biggest investors in early-stage climate technologies with stakes in more than 120 companies, as well as a grantmaking program for early-seed stage company founders and Breakthrough Catalyst, a funding platform focused on emergent climate technologies. None of those divisions of the group were impacted by cuts, which were reported earlier by the New York Times.

[...] "In the United States especially, the conversation about climate has been sidetracked by politics," Gates wrote in the introduction to his 2021 book. "Some days, it can seem as if we have little hope of getting anything done." The climate pullback is happening at the same time as the US cuts foreign aid, a field where Gates is also a major donor. His nonprofit, the Gates Foundation, operates with a budget of billions and has a strong focus on overseas development. "Bill Gates remains as committed as ever to advancing the clean energy innovations needed to address climate change," a Breakthrough Energy spokesperson said in an emailed statement. "His work in this area will continue and is focused on helping drive reliable affordable, clean energy solutions that will enable people everywhere to thrive."

On Wednesday, the EPA announced the agency will "undertake 31 historic actions in the greatest and most consequential day of deregulation in U.S. history..."

OpenAI has warned the U.S. government that restricting AI models from learning from copyrighted material would threaten America's technological leadership against China, according to a proposal submitted [PDF] to the Office of Science and Technology Policy for the AI Action Plan.

In its March 13 document, OpenAI argues its AI training aligns with fair use doctrine, saying its models don't replicate works but extract "patterns, linguistic structures, and contextual insights" without harming commercial value of original content. "If the PRC's developers have unfettered access to data and American companies are left without fair use access, the race for AI is effectively over. America loses, as does the success of democratic AI," OpenAI stated.

The Microsoft-backed startup criticized European and UK approaches that allow copyright holders to opt out of AI training, claiming these restrictions hinder innovation, particularly for smaller companies with limited resources. The proposal comes as China-based DeepSeek recently released an AI model with capabilities comparable to American systems despite development at a fraction of the cost.

Mozilla has warned that the U.S. Department of Justice's proposed remedies in its antitrust case against Google would harm independent browsers and reduce competition in the browser market. The DOJ and several state attorneys general last week filed revised proposed remedies in the U.S. v. Google search case that would prohibit all search payments to browser developers, a move Mozilla says would disproportionately impact smaller players.

"These proposed remedies prohibiting search payments to small and independent browsers miss the bigger picture -- and the people who will suffer most are everyday internet users," said Mark Surman, President of Mozilla. Unlike Apple and Microsoft, which generate revenue from hardware and operating systems, Mozilla relies primarily on search revenue to fund browser development. Mozilla argues that cutting these payments would not solve search dominance but would instead strengthen the position of tech giants.

Mozilla also warned that the proposal threatens its ability to maintain Gecko, one of only three major browser engines alongside Google's Chromium and Apple's WebKit. "If we lose our ability to maintain Gecko, it's game over for an open, independent web," Surman said, noting that even Microsoft abandoned its browser engine in 2019. "If Mozilla is unable to sustain our browser engine, it would severely impact browser engine competition and mean the death of the open web as we know it -- essentially, creating a web where dominant players like Google and Apple, have even more control, not less."

Firefox serves 27 million monthly active users in the U.S. and nearly 205 million globally.

Using the Summit supercomputer at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory, researchers have modeled a key component of nucleotide excision repair (NER) called the pre-incision complex (PInC), which plays a crucial role in DNA damage repair. Their study, published in Nature Communications, provides new insights into how the PInC machinery orchestrates precise DNA excision, potentially leading to advancements in treating genetic disorders, preventing premature aging, and understanding conditions like xeroderma pigmentosum and Cockayne syndrome. Phys.Org reports: "Computationally, once you assemble the PInC, molecular dynamics simulations of the complex become relatively straightforward, especially on large supercomputers like Summit," [said lead investigator Ivaylo Ivanov, a chemistry professor at Georgia State University]. Nanoscale Molecular Dynamics, or NAMD, is a molecular dynamics code specifically designed for supercomputers and is used to simulate the movements and interactions of large biomolecular systems that contain millions of atoms. Using NAMD, the research team ran extensive simulations. The number-crunching power of the 200-petaflop Summit supercomputer -- capable of performing 200,000 trillion calculations per second -- was essential in unraveling the functional dynamics of the PInC complex on a timescale of microseconds. "The simulations showed us a lot about the complex nature of the PInC machinery. It showed us how these different components move together as modules and the subdivision of this complex into dynamic communities, which form the moving parts of this machine," Ivanov said.

The findings are significant in that mutations in XPF and XPG can lead to severe human genetic disorders. They include xeroderma pigmentosum, which is a condition that makes people more susceptible to skin cancer, and Cockayne syndrome, which can affect human growth and development, lead to impaired hearing and vision, and speed up the aging process. "Simulations allow us to zero in on these important regions because mutations that interfere with the function of the NER complex often occur at community interfaces, which are the most dynamic regions of the machine," Ivanov said. "Now we have a much better understanding of how and from where these disorders manifest."

According to The Verge, Sonos has abandoned its plans to release a streaming video player this year. From the report: The news was announced by the company's leadership during an all-hands call today. That product, codenamed Pinewood, was set to be Sonos' next major hardware launch. It was already deep into development and has spent months in beta testing. But now the team behind it will be reassigned to other projects as interim CEO Tom Conrad reprioritizes the company's future roadmap and continues what he hopes will be a turnaround from a bruising 2024. He told employees that a push into video from Sonos is off the table "for now." [...]

Pinewood was designed to offer many of the same streaming video apps as other devices on the market along with deep universal search and content aggregation. But as I reported last month, Sonos also intended for it to double as an HDMI switcher and support passthrough functionality for gaming consoles, 4K Blu-ray players, and more. The box was also set to allow new configurations of surround sound systems using Sonos' many speakers.

Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt has taken control of rocket startup Relativity Space, replacing co-founder Tim Ellis as CEO and significantly funding the company's development of its medium-lift rocket, Terran R. The New York Times first reported (paywalled) the news. Ars Technica reports: Schmidt's involvement with Relativity has been quietly discussed among space industry insiders for a few months. Multiple sources told Ars that he has largely been bankrolling the company since the end of October, when the company's previous fundraising dried up. It is not immediately clear why Schmidt is taking a hands-on approach at Relativity. However, it is one of the few US-based companies with a credible path toward developing a medium-lift rocket that could potentially challenge the dominance of SpaceX and its Falcon 9 rocket. If the Terran R booster becomes commercially successful, it could play a big role in launching megaconstellations.

Schmidt's ascension also means that Tim Ellis, the company's co-founder, chief executive, and almost sole public persona for nearly a decade, is now out of a leadership position. "Today marks a powerful new chapter as Eric Schmidt becomes Relativity's CEO, while also providing substantial financial backing," Ellis wrote on the social media site X. "I know there's no one more tenacious or passionate to propel this dream forward. We have been working together to ensure a smooth transition, and I'll proudly continue to support the team as Co-founder and Board member." Relativity also on Monday released a video outlining the development of the Terran R rocket and the work required to reach the launch pad.

According to the video, the first "flight" version of the Terran R rocket will be built this year, with tentative plans to launch from a pad at Cape Canaveral, Florida, in 2026. "The company aims to soft land the first stage of the first launch in the Atlantic Ocean," adds Ars. "However, the 'Block 1' version of the rocket will not fly again."

"Full reuse of the first stage will be delayed to future upgrades. Eventually, the Relativity officials said, they intend to reach a flight rate of 50 to 100 rockets a year with the Terran R when the vehicle is fully developed."

Red Hat product manager Pau Garcia Quiles (also long-time Slashdot reader paugq) spotted an interesting project on GitHub: Free95, a new lean, Windows-compatible operating system is available from GitHub. In its current form, it can run very basic Win32 GUI and console applications, but its developer promises to keep working on it to reach DirectX and even game compatibility.
"Free95 is your friendly Windows Environment with an added trust of the open source community," according to its README file. (It's licensed under the GPL-3.0 license.) And in answer to the question "Why?" it responds "To remove Windows's bloat, and security problems. Being controlled by a large corporation is unsettling."

"It's still in-development of course," the developer post recently on Reddit, "and I'll appreciate anyone who'd like to contribute." In one comment they claim Free95 is "much more lightweight, simpler and faster than ReactOS." And looking to the future, they add "I might do DirectX stuff and make some games run. Or, what about DOOM?"

Adafruit Industries used large language model (LLM) tool Claude Code to streamline hardware development, writes managing director ptorrone.

In a demo video Limor 'Ladyada' Fried compares the LLM's command-line interface to working with the build-automation tool CMake or "a weird cross between IRC and a BBS." The first step was converting a PDF of the hardware's datasheet into text, and Claude Code first displays the appropriate Bash command, while asking "Do you want to proceed?" ("What's nice is that it doesn't make changes, even though it has write access to files in the directory...") Eventually from the data sheet it creates things like an accurate register map, C++ headers, and even license text — and more.

"We are using it to automate parts of the coding and debugging process for an Arduino-compatible Metro Mini board with an OPT 4048 color sensor," writes ptorrone: Using Claude Code's shell access, we can compile, upload, and test code in a semi-automated workflow, allowing the LLM to suggest fixes for errors along the way... While the AI isn't perfect for high-level driver development, it's proving VERY useful for tedious debugging and super-fast iterative improvements, bringing hardware automation closer to ...reality.
In the video Fried describes it like this. "I have a full debugging cycle, where I'm there — I'm like driving the car — but I have this copilot that's telling me where to go..."

"I feel like I'm getting closer to having a semi-automated way of doing driver development."

"PepsiCo is launching a new product, Simply Ruffles Hot & Spicy, which uses natural ingredients like tomato powder and red chile pepper instead of artificial dyes," reports Bloomberg. But it's part of a larger trend: In one of the final acts of President Joe Biden's administration, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration banned Red No. 3, effective in January 2027 for food, one of a handful of synthetic colors that have become something of a symbol of all that is wrong with the American food system and the ultraprocessed foods that dominate it. Putting Red No. 3 aside, the rest of the colors remain legal, and they're used in tens of thousands of supermarket and convenience-store products in the United States, according to NielsenIQ data. The recent campaign against them became one of the pillars of the "Make America Healthy Again" movement championed by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. The criticism follows what health advocates have been saying for years: The synthetic colors add nothing to taste, nutritional value or shelf life but make unhealthy foods more visually appealing. Worst of all, there are concerns that the dyes may be carcinogenic or trigger hyperactivity in some kids.

[Ian Puddephat, vice president of research and development for food ingredients at PepsiCo] says PepsiCo is "on a mission to get them out of the portfolio as much as we can"... PepsiCo has a dozen brands, including Simply, that don't have the artificial dyes, and the company is working to pull them out of an additional eight brands in the next year.
Other companies are trying too, according to the article. Though Ironically, "the supply chain for colors like a radish's red or annatto's orange is not as robust as that for Red No. 40 or Yellow No. 6."

But there's also been some success stories: In 2016, Kraft Heinz Foods Co. announced that it'd made good on an earlier promise to get artificial dyes out of its recipe — and apparently, nobody noticed. "We just haven't told that story," says Carlos Abrams-Rivera, Kraft Heinz's CEO. (The lack of artificial dyes is more prominent on the boxes now...)
Thanks to long-time Slashdot schwit1 for haring the article.

Google has introduced a Debian Linux terminal app for Android in its ongoing effort to transform Android into a versatile desktop OS. It's initially available on Pixel devices running Android 15 but will be expanded to "all sufficiently robust Android phones" when Android 16 arrives later this year," writes ZDNet's Steven Vaughan-Nichols. An anonymous reader shares an excerpt from the report: Today, Linux is only available on the latest Pixel devices running Android 15. When Android 16 arrives later this year, it's expected that all sufficiently robust Android phones will be able to run Linux. Besides a Linux terminal, beta tests have already shown that you should be able to run desktop Linux programs from your phone -- games like Doom, for example. The Linux Terminal runs on top of a Debian Linux virtual machine. This enables you to access a shell interface directly on your Android device. And that just scratches the surface of Google's Linux Terminal. It's actually a do-it-all app that enables you to download, configure, and run Debian. Underneath Terminal runs the Android Virtualization Framework (AVF). These are the APIs that enable Android devices to run other operating systems.

To try the Linux Terminal app, you must activate Developer Mode by navigating to Settings - About Phone and tapping the build number seven times. I guess Google wants to make sure you want to do this. Once Developer Mode is enabled, the app can be activated via Settings - System - Developer options - Linux development environment. The initial setup may take a while because it needs to download Debian. Typically this is a 500MB download. Once in place, it allows you to adjust disk space allocation, set port controls for network communication, and recover the virtual machine's storage partition. However, it currently lacks support for graphical user interface (GUI) applications. For that, we'll need to wait for Android 16.

According to Android specialist Mishaal Rahman, 'Google wants to turn Android into a proper desktop operating system, and in order to do that, it has to make it work better with traditional PC input methods and display options. Therefore, Google is now testing new external display management tools in Android 16 that bring Android closer to other desktop OSes.'

NASA's SPHEREx observatory (short for Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer) is set to launch this week to map 450 million galaxies in infrared, providing insights into galaxy formation, the origins of water, and testing theories about the universe's rapid expansion following the Big Bang. The two-year mission will repeatedly survey the entire sky and help scientists understand fundamental cosmic processes. NBC News reports: The launch from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California is scheduled to occur Friday, during a window that opens at 10:09 p.m. ET. Liftoff was initially planned for Feb. 27, but NASA rescheduled it several times, first to "complete vehicle processing and prelaunch checkouts," and because of availability at the California launch site.

The cone-shaped spacecraft -- along with four suitcase-sized satellites that NASA will deploy at the same time on a separate mission to study the sun -- will launch atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. The $488 million SPHEREx mission, which has been in development for about a decade, is designed to map the celestial sky in 102 infrared colors -- more than any other mission before it, according to NASA.

OpenAI is preparing to launch a tiered pricing structure for its AI agent products, with high-end research assistants potentially costing $20,000 per month, [alternative source] according to The Information. The AI startup, which already generates approximately $4 billion in annualized revenue from ChatGPT, plans three service levels: $2,000 monthly agents for "high-income knowledge workers," $10,000 monthly agents for software development, and $20,000 monthly PhD-level research agents. OpenAI has told some investors that agent products could eventually constitute 20-25% of company revenue, the report added.

Google Play on Android devices is being updated to include a new search filter for widgets, widget badges on app detail pages, and a curated editorial page dedicated to widgets. The Verge reports: With the search filter, users will be able to more easily search for apps with widgets. The badge "eliminates guesswork for users and highlights your widget offerings, encouraging them to explore and utilize this capability," Taiwo-Peters says. And the curated editorial page will show off "collections of excellent widgets." The updated widget discoverability tools will be "coming soon," Taiwo-Peters says. "Historically, one of the challenges with investing in widget development has been discoverability and user understanding," product manager Yinka Taiwo-Peters says in the post. "You've asked for better ways for users to find and utilize your widgets, and we're delivering." Yinka Taiwo-Peters also acknowledges that "we understand that the effort required to build and maintain widgets needs to be justified by user adoption."

Former Intel CEO Craig Barrett urged the rehiring of Pat Gelsinger, who was abruptly fired two months ago, arguing he should "finish the job he has aptly handled over the past few years."

"Pat Gelsinger did a great job resuscitating the technology development team," Barrett wrote, criticizing the company's current leadership under "a CFO and a product manager." He suggested firing the Intel board rather than splitting the company.

Barrett's comments come in response to proposals from four former board members advocating for Intel's separation into design and manufacturing businesses. Barrett dismissed these board members as "two academics and two former government bureaucrats" lacking semiconductor industry expertise.

The former CEO praised Intel's technological resurgence under Gelsinger, noting its capabilities now match industry leader TSMC's 2nm technology, with additional advances in imaging technology and backside power delivery to complex chips. "Intel is backâ"from a technology point of view," Barrett wrote, arguing the best path forward is building on current momentum rather than organizational restructuring that would disrupt the company's 100,000-plus employees across multiple continents.