Disney's channels, including ESPN, ABC, FX, and NatGeo, have gone dark on YouTube TV after Google and Disney failed to renew their carriage agreement before the October 30 deadline, with each side blaming the other for using unfair negotiating tactics and price hikes. YouTube TV says it will issue a $20 credit to subscribers if the blackout continues while negotiations proceed. Engadget reports: "Last week Disney used the threat of a blackout on YouTube TV as a negotiating tactic to force deal terms that would raise prices on our customers," YouTube said in an announcement on its blog. "They're now following through on that threat, suspending their content on YouTube TV." YouTube added that Disney's decision harms its subscribers while benefiting its own live TV products, such as Hulu+Live TV and Fubo.

In a statement sent to the Los Angeles Times, however, Disney accused Google's YouTube TV of choosing to deny "subscribers the content they value most by refusing to pay fair rates for [its] channels, including ESPN and ABC." Disney also accused Google of using its market dominance to "eliminate competition and undercut the industry-standard terms" that other pay-TV distributors have agreed to pay for its content.

Amazon will begin blocking sideloaded piracy apps on Fire TV devices by cross-checking them against a blacklist maintained by the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment. The company will, however, continue to allow legitimate sideloading for developers. Heise reports: In response to an inquiry, Amazon explained that it has always worked to ban piracy from its app store. As part of an expanded program led by the ACE, it is now blocking apps that demonstrably provide access to pirated content, including those downloaded outside the app store. This builds on Amazon's ongoing efforts to support creators and protect customers, as piracy can also expose users to malware, viruses, and fraud.

[...] The sideloading option will remain available on Fire TV devices running Amazon's new operating system, Vega OS. However, it is generally limited to developers here. In this context, the company emphasized that, contrary to rumors, there are no plans to upgrade existing Fire TV devices with Fire OS as the operating system to Vega OS.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Record: Denmark's justice minister on Thursday said he will no longer push for an EU law requiring the mandatory scanning of electronic messages, including on end-to-end encrypted platforms. Earlier in its European Council presidency, Denmark had brought back a draft law which would have required the scanning, sparking an intense backlash. Known as Chat Control, the measure was intended to crack down on the trafficking of child sex abuse materials (CSAM). After days of silence, the German government on October 8 announced it would not support the proposal, tanking the Danish effort.

Danish Justice Minister Peter Hummelgaard told reporters on Thursday that his office will support voluntary CSAM detections. "This will mean that the search warrant will not be part of the EU presidency's new compromise proposal, and that it will continue to be voluntary for the tech giants to search for child sexual abuse material," Hummelgaard said, according to local news reports. The current model allowing for voluntary scanning expires in April, Hummelgaard said. "Right now we are in a situation where we risk completely losing a central tool in the fight against sexual abuse of children," he said. "That's why we have to act no matter what. We owe it to all the children who are subjected to monstrous abuse."

Google and Magic Leap have extended their partnership for another three years to develop Android XR glasses. They also showed off a new prototype concept that combines Google's Raxium microLED light engine with Magic Leap's AR optics, resulting in a lightweight, stylish pair of glasses that blends real-world vision with multimodal AI. 9to5Google reports: As noted by Android Central, a press release shared by Magic Leap adds some further technical details. This includes mentioning that Google's "Raxium microLED light engine" integrates with Magic Leap's tech to bring "digital content seamlessly into the world." As pictured above, the "display" portion of the lens is visible at some angles, but it's largely impossible to see.

Magic Leap and Google will show an AI glasses prototype at FII that will serve as a prototype and reference design for the Android XR ecosystem. The demo shows how Magic Leap's technology, integrated with Google's Raxium microLED light engine, brings digital content seamlessly into the world. The prototypes worn on stage illustrate how comfortable, stylish smart eyewear is possible and the video showed the potential for users to stay present in the real world while tapping into the knowledge and functionality of multimodal AI.

During the presentation, text on the nearby screens suggests that Magic Leap is mainly working with Google on the technology here, rather than bringing its own glasses to market. Magic Leap further hints at this in its press release, calling itself "an AR ecosystem partner" focused on "supporting global technology leaders that want to enter the AR market and accelerate the production of AR glasses."

Universal Music Group has settled its copyright lawsuit with AI music startup Udio and struck a licensing deal to launch a new AI-powered music platform next year. The Verge reports: The deal includes some form of compensation and "will provide further revenue opportunities for UMG artists and songwriters," Universal says. Udio, the company behind "BBL Drizzy," will launch the platform as a subscription service next year. Universal, alongside other industry giants Sony and Warner, sued Udio and another startup Suno for "en masse" copyright infringement last year.

Universal -- whose roster includes some of the world's biggest performers like Taylor Swift, Bad Bunny, and Ariana Grande -- says the new tool will "transform the user engagement experience" and let creators customize, stream, and share music. There's no indication of how much it will cost yet. Udio's existing music maker, which lets you create new songs with a few words, will remain available during the transition, though content will be held "within a walled garden" and security measures like fingerprinting will be added.

OpenAI is reportedly preparing for a massive IPO that could value the company at up to $1 trillion. It follows a recent corporate restructuring that loosened its dependence on Microsoft and aligned its nonprofit foundation with financial success. Reuters reports: OpenAI is considering filing with securities regulators as soon as the second half of 2026, some of the people said. In preliminary discussions, the company has looked at raising $60 billion at the low end and likely more, the people said. They cautioned that talks are early and plans -- including the figures and timing - could change depending on business growth and market conditions. Chief Financial Officer Sarah Friar has told some associates the company is aiming for a 2027 listing, the people said. But some advisers predict it could come even sooner, around late 2026.

[...] An IPO would open the door to more efficient capital raising and enable larger acquisitions using public stock, helping to finance CEO Sam Altman's plans to pour trillions of dollars into AI infrastructure, according to people familiar with the company's thinking. With an annualized revenue run rate expected to reach about $20 billion by year-end, losses are also mounting inside the $500 billion company, the people said. During a livestream on Tuesday, Altman addressed the possibility of going public. "I think it's fair to say it is the most likely path for us, given the capital needs that we'll have," he said.

A critical security flaw in Chromium's Blink rendering engine can crash billions of browsers within seconds. Security researcher Jose Pino discovered the vulnerability and created a proof-of-concept exploit called Brash to demonstrate the bug affecting Chrome, Edge, OpenAI's ChatGPT Atlas, Brave, Vivaldi, Arc, Dia, Opera and Perplexity Comet.

The flaw, reports The Register, exploits the absence of rate limiting on document.title API updates in Chromium versions 143.0.7483.0 and later. The attack injects millions of DOM mutations per second and saturates the main thread. When The Register tested the code on Edge, the browser crashed and the Windows machine locked up after about 30 seconds while consuming 18GB of RAM in one tab. Pino disclosed the bug to the Chromium security team on August 28 and followed up on August 30 but received no response. Google said it is looking into the issue.

More than a half dozen federal departments and agencies have backed a proposal to ban future sales of the most popular home routers in the United States on the grounds that the vendor's ties to mainland China make them a national security risk, Washington Post reported Thursday, citing people briefed on the matter. From the report: The proposal, which arose from a months-long risk assessment, calls for blocking sales of networking devices from TP-Link Systems of Irvine, California, which was spun off from a China-based company, TP-Link Technologies, but owns some of that company's former assets in China.

The ban was proposed by the Commerce Department and supported this summer by an interagency process that includes the Departments of Homeland Security, Justice and Defense, the people said. "TP-Link vigorously disputes any allegation that its products present national security risks to the United States," Ricca Silverio, a spokeswoman for TP-Link Systems, said in a statement. "TP-Link is a U.S. company committed to supplying high-quality and secure products to the U.S. market and beyond."

If imposed, the ban would be among the largest in consumer history and a possible sign that the East-West divide over tech independence is still deepening amid reports of accelerated Chinese government-supported hacking. Only the legislated ban of Chinese-owned TikTok, which President Donald Trump has averted with executive orders and a pending sale, would impact more U.S. consumers.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from 9to5Mac: A mother with court-ordered custody of her children has described how Apple's Family Sharing feature can be weaponized by a former partner. Apple support staff were unable to assist her when she reported her former partner using the service in controlling and coercive ways... [...] Namely, Family Sharing gives all the control to one parent, not to both equally. The parent not identified as the organizer is unable to withdraw their children from this control, even when they have a court order granting them custody. As one woman's story shows, this can allow the feature which allows it to be weaponized by an abusive former partner.

Wired reports: "The lack of dual-organizer roles, leaving other parents effectively as subordinate admins with more limited power, can prove limiting and frustrating in blended and shared households. And in darker scenarios, a single-organizer setup isn't merely inconvenient -- it can be dangerous. Kate (name changed to protect her privacy and safety) knows this firsthand. When her marriage collapsed, she says, her now ex-husband, the designated organizer, essentially weaponized Family Sharing. He tracked their children's locations, counted their screen minutes and demanded they account for them, and imposed draconian limits during Kate's custody days while lifting them on his own [...] After they separated, Kate's ex refused to disband the family group. But without his consent, the children couldn't be transferred to a new one. "I wrongly assumed being the custodial parent with a court order meant I'd be able to have Apple move my children to a new family group, with me as the organizer," says Kate. But Apple couldn't help. Support staff sympathized but said their hands were tied because the organizer holds the power." Although users can "abandon the accounts and start again with new Apple IDs," the report notes that doing so means losing all purchased apps, along with potentially years' worth of photos and videos.

Alphabet reported its first-ever $100 billion quarter, fueled by a 34% surge in Google Cloud revenue and booming AI demand. The tech giant also announced an increase in expected capital expenditures for the fiscal year of 2025. CNBC reports: "With the growth across our business and demand from Cloud customers, we now expect 2025 capital expenditures to be in a range of $91 billion to $93 billion," the company said in its earnings report (PDF) Wednesday. "Looking out to 2026, we expect a significant increase in CapEx and will provide more detail on our fourth quarter earnings call," said finance chief Anat Ashkenazi on the earnings call with investors Wednesday.

Earlier this year, the company increased its capital expenditure expectation from $75 billion to $85 billion. Most of that goes toward technical infrastructure such as data centers. The latest earnings show the company is seeing rising demand for its AI services, which largely sit in its cloud unit. It also shows the company is continuing to spend more to try and build out more infrastructure to accomodate the backlog of customer requests. "We continue to drive strong growth in new businesses. Google Cloud accelerated, ending the quarter with $155 billion in backlog," CEO Sundar Pichai said in the earnings release.

Nvidia is taking a $1 billion stake in Nokia, sending the Finnish telecom giant's shares up 22%. The two companies also struck a partnership to co-develop next-generation 6G and AI-driven networking technology. CNBC reports: The two companies also struck a strategic partnership to work together to develop next-generation 6G cellular technology. Nokia said that it would adapt its 5G and 6G software to run on Nvidia's chips, and will collaborate on networking technology for AI. Nokia said Nvidia would consider incorporating its technology into its future AI infrastructure plans. Nokia, a Finnish company, is best known for its early cellphones, but in recent years, it has primarily been a supplier of 5G cellular equipment to telecom providers.

Microsoft shipped its first Xbox handheld nearly two weeks ago. The $600 white Xbox Ally cannot reliably sleep, wake, or hold a charge while asleep. Neither Microsoft nor Asus would admit there's a problem or offer a timeline to fix it after repeated requests by The Verge. Asus said it needs more time to test.

Installing Bazzite, a Linux-based operating system, solves the problems, the publication reports. The same hardware runs games up to 30% faster than Windows and beats the Steam Deck in all but one benchmark. Steam runs more responsively without Windows bloat. The device can be used like a Nintendo Switch, pausing games with the power button and resuming hours or days later. Bazzite initially had sleep issues but fixed them two days after programmer Antheas Kapenekakis obtained the hardware and consulted with two AMD contacts. The black Xbox Ally X, which doesn't have as many sleep issues, gets a similar speed boost with Bazzite.

Two Xbox Ally units tested on Windows repeatedly woke themselves at random intervals. One lost 10% battery after 12 hours of supposed sleep, the other 23%. After another 12 hours, both had only 30% battery remaining. One tried to apply a Windows Update while asleep. Both units refused to wake from sleep at times and required hard resets. Many users have reported similar issues on Reddit with both Xbox Ally versions.

Further reading: Microsoft's Next Xbox Will Run Full Windows and Eliminate Multiplayer Paywall, Report Says.

Longtime Slashdot reader zuki writes: According to a recent report over at Tom's Hardware, a number of those among early buyers who have been able to put the highly-coveted $4,000.00 DGX Spark mini-AI workstation through its paces are reporting throttling at 100W (rather than the advertised 240W capacity), spontaneous reboots, and thermal issues under sustained load. The workstation came under fire after John Carmack, the former CTO of Oculus VR, began raising questions about its real-world performance and power draw. "His comments were enough to draw tech support from Framework and even AMD, with the offer of an AMD-driven Strix Halo-powered alternative," reports Tom's Hardware.

"What's causing this suboptimal performance, such as a firmware-level cap or thermal throttling, is not clear," the report adds. "Nvidia hasn't commented publicly on Carmack's post or user-reported instability. Meanwhile, several threads on Nvidia's developer forums now include reports of GPU crashes and unexpected shutdowns under sustained load."

China is accelerating its biotech ambitions by pushing the limits of animal testing and gene editing (source paywalled; alternative source) while Western countries tighten ethical restrictions. "Editing the genes of large animals such as pigs, monkeys and dogs faces scant regulation in China," reports Bloomberg. "Meanwhile, regulators in the US and Europe demand layers of ethical reviews, rendering similar research involving large animals almost impossible." From the report: Backing the work of China's scientists is not only permissiveness but state money. In 2023 alone, the Chinese government funneled an estimated $3 billion into biotech. Its sales of cell and gene therapies are projected to reach $2 billion by 2033 from $300 million last year. On the Chinese researchers' side are government-supported breeding and research centers for gene-edited animals and a public largely in approval of pushing the boundaries of animal testing.

The country should become "a global scientific and technology power," Xi said, declaring biotechnology and gene editing a strategic priority. For decades, the country's pharmaceutical companies specialized in generics, reproducing drugs already pioneered elsewhere. Delving head first into gene editing research may be key to China's plan to develop innovative drugs as well as reduce its dependence on foreign pharmaceutical companies.

The result is a country that now dominates headlines with stories of large, genetically modified animals being produced for science -- and the catalog is startling. Its scientists have created monkeys with schizophrenia, autism and sleep disorders. They were the first to clone primates. They've engineered dogs with metabolic and neurological diseases, and even cloned a gene-edited beagle with a blood-clotting disorder.

At TechCrunch Disrupt 2025, Waymo co-CEO Tekedra Mawakana said society will ultimately accept a fatal robotaxi crash as part of the broader tradeoff for safer roads overall. TechCrunch reports: The topic of a fatal robotaxi crash came up during Mawakana's interview with Kristen Korosec, TechCrunch's transportation editor, during the first day of the outlet's annual Disrupt conference in San Francisco. Korosec asked Mawakana about Waymo's ambitions and got answer after answer about the company's all-consuming focus on safety. The most interesting part of the interview arrived when Korosec brought on a thought experiment. What if self-driving vehicles like Waymo and others reduce the number of traffic fatalities in the United States, but a self-driving vehicle does eventually cause a fatal crash, Korosec pondered. Or as she put it to the executive: "Will society accept that? Will society accept a death potentially caused by a robot?"

"I think that society will," Mawakana answered, slowly, before positioning the question as an industrywide issue. "I think the challenge for us is making sure that society has a high enough bar on safety that companies are held to." She said that companies should be transparent about their records by publishing data about how many crashes they're involved in, and she pointed to the "hub" of safety information on Waymo's website. Self-driving cars will dramatically reduce crashes, Mawakana said, but not by 100%: "We have to be in this open and honest dialogue about the fact that we know it's not perfection."

Circling back to the idea of a fatal crash, she said, "We really worry as a company about those days. You know, we don't say 'whether.' We say 'when.' And we plan for them." Korosec followed up, asking if there had been safety issues that prompted Waymo to "pump the breaks" on its expansion plans throughout the years. The co-CEO said the company pulls back and retests "all the time," pointing to challenges with blocking emergency vehicles as an example. "We need to make sure that the performance is backing what we're saying we're doing," she said. [...] "If you are not being transparent, then it is my view that you are not doing what is necessary in order to actually earn the right to make the roads safer," Mawakana said.

NVIDIA has introduced NVQLink, an open system architecture that directly connects quantum processors with GPU-based supercomputers. The Quantum Insider reports: The new platform connects the high-speed, high-throughput performance of NVIDIA's GPU computing with quantum processing units (QPUs), allowing researchers to manage the intricate control and error-correction workloads required by quantum devices. According to a NVIDIA statement, the system was developed with guidance from researchers at major U.S. national laboratories including Brookhaven, Fermi, Lawrence Berkeley, Los Alamos, MIT Lincoln, Oak Ridge, Pacific Northwest, and Sandia.

Qubits, the basic units of quantum information, are extremely sensitive to noise and decoherence, making them prone to errors. Correcting and stabilizing these systems requires near-instantaneous feedback and coordination with classical processors. NVQLink is meant to meet that demand by providing an open, low-latency interconnect between quantum processors, control systems, and supercomputers -- effectively creating a unified environment for hybrid quantum applications.

The architecture offers a standardized, open approach to quantum integration, aligning with the company's CUDA-Q software platform to enable researchers to develop, test, and scale hybrid algorithms that draw simultaneously on CPUs, GPUs, and QPUs. The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) -- which oversees several of the participating laboratories -- framed NVQLink as part of a broader national effort to sustain leadership in high-performance computing, according to NVIDIA.

darwinmac writes: Ubuntu Unity is staring at a possible shutdown. A community moderator has gone public pleading for help, admitting the project is "broken and needs to be fixed." Neowin reports the distro is suffering from critical bugs so severe that upgrades from 25.04 to 25.10 are failing and even fresh installs are hit. The moderator admits they lack the technical skill or time to perform a full rescue and is asking the broader community, including devs, testers, and UI designers, to step in so Ubuntu Unity can reach 26.04 LTS. If no one steps in soon, this community flavor might quietly fade away once more.

The Python Software Foundation rejected a $1.5 million U.S. government grant because it required them to renounce all diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives. "The non-profit would've used the funding to help prevent supply chain attacks; create a new automated, proactive review process for new PyPI packages; and make the project's work easily transferable to other open-source package managers," reports The Register. From the report: The programming non-profit's deputy executive director Loren Crary said in a blog post today that the National Science Founation (NSF) had offered $1.5 million to address structural vulnerabilities in Python and the Python Package Index (PyPI), but the Foundation quickly became dispirited with the terms (PDF) of the grant it would have to follow. "These terms included affirming the statement that we 'do not, and will not during the term of this financial assistance award, operate any programs that advance or promote DEI [diversity, equity, and inclusion], or discriminatory equity ideology in violation of Federal anti-discrimination laws,'" Crary noted. "This restriction would apply not only to the security work directly funded by the grant, but to any and all activity of the PSF as a whole."

To make matters worse, the terms included a provision that if the PSF was found to have voilated that anti-DEI diktat, the NSF reserved the right to claw back any previously disbursed funds, Crary explained. "This would create a situation where money we'd already spent could be taken back, which would be an enormous, open-ended financial risk," the PSF director added. The PSF's mission statement enshrines a commitment to supporting and growing "a diverse and international community of Python programmers," and the Foundation ultimately decided it wasn't willing to compromise on that position, even for what would have been a solid financial boost for the organization. "The PSF is a relatively small organization, operating with an annual budget of around $5 million per year, with a staff of just 14," Crary added, noting that the $1.5 million would have been the largest grant the Foundation had ever received - but it wasn't worth it if the conditions were undermining the PSF's mission. The PSF board voted unanimously to withdraw its grant application.

For the first time, George Orwell's Animal Farm and 1984 have been translated into Welsh, with localized titles, character names, and even a Welsh version of Newspeak. The BBC reports: Animal Farm, a 1945 political allegory inspired by the Russian Revolution, is set in north-west Wales in the Welsh edition, Foel yr Anifeiliaid, with Orwell's classic characters given Welsh names to add authenticity. Mil Naw Wyth Deg Pedwar, or 1984, Orwell's vision of a bleak totalitarian future, published in 1949, contains a Welsh version of Newspeak, the novel's fictional language. Both books remain "seminal works with timeless relevance," said Welsh book publisher Melin Bapur, and feel "particularly relevant now in an age of 'alternative facts', AI, and misinformation."

A global shortage of jet engines is threatening the rapid expansion of AI data centers, as hyperscalers like OpenAI and Amazon scramble to secure aeroderivative turbines to power their energy-hungry AI clusters. With wait times stretching into the 2030s and emissions rising, the AI boom is literally running on jet fuel. Tom's Hardware reports: Interviews and market research indicate that manufacturers are quoting years-long lead times for turbine orders. Many of those placed today are being slotted for 2028-30, and customers are increasingly entering reservation agreements or putting down substantial deposits to hold future manufacturing capacity. "I would expect by the end of the summer, we will be largely sold out through the end of '28 with this equipment," said Scott Strazik, CEO of turbine maker GE Vernova, in an interview with Bloomberg back in March.

General Electric's LM6000 and LM2500 series -- both derived from the CF6 jet engine family -- have quickly become the default choice for AI developers looking to spin up serious power in a hurry. OpenAI's infrastructure partner, Crusoe Energy, recently ordered 29 LM2500XPRESS units to supply roughly one gigawatt of temporary generation for Stargate, effectively creating a mobile jet-fueled grid inside a West Texas field. Meanwhile, ProEnergy, which retrofits used CF6-80C2 engines into trailer-mounted 48-megawatt units, confirmed that it has delivered more than 1 gigawatt of its PE6000 systems to just two data center clients. These engines, which were once strapped to Boeing 767s, now spend their lives keeping inference moving.

Siemens Energy said this year that more than 60% of its US gas turbine orders are now linked to AI data centers. In some states, like Ohio and Georgia, regulators are approving multi-gigawatt gas buildouts tied directly to hyperscale footprints. That includes full pipeline builds and multi-phase interconnects designed around private-generation campuses. But the surge in orders has collided with the cold reality of turbine manufacturing timelines. GE Vernova is currently quoting 2028 or later for new industrial units, while Mitsubishi warns new turbine blocks ordered now may not ship until the 2030s. One developer reportedly paid $25 million just to reserve a future delivery slot.