An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: MediaTek is launching a mobile processor more capable of handling agentic AI tasks on devices, positioning to better compete with Qualcomm. The new Dimensity 9500 will provide users with better summaries of calls and meetings, improved output from AI models and superior 4K photos, the Taiwanese company said in a statement. The chip is made using an advanced 3-nanometer process by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., according to MediaTek, and handsets carrying the new chip will become available in the fourth quarter.

Xiaomi is set to launch its latest handset range powered by Qualcomm's newest Snapdragon processor later this week, and the Chinese smartphone maker is aiming to benchmark its upcoming devices against Apple Inc.'s iPhone 17. MediaTek's processor, meanwhile, is expected to give Xiaomi's rivals including Vivo a boost in the premium segment. [...] Separately, the Taiwanese company is preparing to place chip orders for automotive and more sensitive applications with TSMC's Arizona plant as some US customers have security concerns, according to the executives.

The U.S. General Services Administration has approved Meta's AI system Llama for use by federal agencies, declaring that it meets government security and legal standards. Reuters reports: "It's not about currying favor," [said Josh Gruenbaum, the GSA's procurement lead, when asked whether tech executives are giving the government discounts to get President Donald Trump's approval]. "It's about that recognition of how do we all lock in arms and make this country the best country it could possibly be." Federal agencies will be able to deploy the tool to speed up contract review or more quickly solve information technology hiccups, among other tasks, he said.

Microsoft is adding the free Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat and agents to Office apps for all Microsoft 365 business users today. From a report: Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and OneNote are all being updated with a Copilot Chat sidebar that will help draft documents, analyze spreadsheets, and more without needing an additional Microsoft 365 Copilot license.

"Copilot Chat is secure AI chat grounded in the web -- and now, it's available in the Microsoft 365 apps," explains Seth Patton, general Manager of Microsoft 365 Copilot product marketing. "It's content aware, meaning it quickly understands what you're working on, tailoring answers to the file you have open. And it's included at no additional cost for Microsoft 365 users."

While this free version of Copilot will rewrite documents, provide summaries, and help create slides in PowerPoint, the $30 per month, per user Microsoft 365 Copilot license will still have the best integration in Office apps. The Microsoft 365 Copilot license is also not limited to a single document, and can reason over entire work data.

"There has never been a successful, widespread malware attack against iPhone," notes Apple's security blog, pointing out that "The only system-level iOS attacks we observe in the wild come from mercenary spyware... historically associated with state actors and [using] exploit chains that cost millions of dollars..."

But they're doing something about it — this week announcing a new always-on memory-safety protection in the iPhone 17 lineup and iPhone Air (including the kernel and over 70 userland processes)... Known mercenary spyware chains used against iOS share a common denominator with those targeting Windows and Android: they exploit memory safety vulnerabilities, which are interchangeable, powerful, and exist throughout the industry... For Apple, improving memory safety is a broad effort that includes developing with safe languages and deploying mitigations at scale...

Our analysis found that, when employed as a real-time defensive measure, the original Arm Memory Tagging Extension (MTE) release exhibited weaknesses that were unacceptable to us, and we worked with Arm to address these shortcomings in the new Enhanced Memory Tagging Extension (EMTE) specification, released in 2022. More importantly, our analysis showed that while EMTE had great potential as specified, a rigorous implementation with deep hardware and operating system support could be a breakthrough that produces an extraordinary new security mechanism.... Ultimately, we determined that to deliver truly best-in-class memory safety, we would carry out a massive engineering effort spanning all of Apple — including updates to Apple silicon, our operating systems, and our software frameworks. This effort, together with our highly successful secure memory allocator work, would transform MTE from a helpful debugging tool into a groundbreaking new security feature.

Today we're introducing the culmination of this effort: Memory Integrity Enforcement (MIE), our comprehensive memory safety defense for Apple platforms. Memory Integrity Enforcement is built on the robust foundation provided by our secure memory allocators, coupled with Enhanced Memory Tagging Extension (EMTE) in synchronous mode, and supported by extensive Tag Confidentiality Enforcement policies. MIE is built right into Apple hardware and software in all models of iPhone 17 and iPhone Air and offers unparalleled, always-on memory safety protection for our key attack surfaces including the kernel, while maintaining the power and performance that users expect. In addition, we're making EMTE available to all Apple developers in Xcode as part of the new Enhanced Security feature that we released earlier this year during WWDC...

Based on our evaluations pitting Memory Integrity Enforcement against exceptionally sophisticated mercenary spyware attacks from the last three years, we believe MIE will make exploit chains significantly more expensive and difficult to develop and maintain, disrupt many of the most effective exploitation techniques from the last 25 years, and completely redefine the landscape of memory safety for Apple products. Because of how dramatically it reduces an attacker's ability to exploit memory corruption vulnerabilities on our devices, we believe Memory Integrity Enforcement represents the most significant upgrade to memory safety in the history of consumer operating systems.

TIOBE attempts to calculate programming language popularity using the number of skilled engineers, courses, and third-party vendors.

And the eight most popular languages in September's rankings haven't changed since last month:

1. Python
2. C++
3. C
4. Java
5. C#
6. JavaScript
7. Visual Basic
8. Go

But by TIOBE's ranking, Perl is still the #10 most-popular programming in September (dropping from #9 in August). "One year ago Perl was at position 27 and now it suddenly pops up at position 10 again," marvels TIOBE CEO Paul Jansen. The technical reason why Perl is rated this high is because of its huge number of books on Amazon. It has 4 times more books listed than for instance PHP, or 7 times more books than Rust. The underlying "real" reason for Perl's increase of popularity is unknown to me. The only possibility I can think of is that Perl 5 is now gradually considered to become the real Perl... Perl 6/Raku is at position 129 of the TIOBE index, thus playing no role at all in the programming world. Perl 5 on the other hand is releasing more often recently, thus gaining attention.
An article at the i-Programmer blog thinks Perl's resurgence could be from its text processing capabilities: Even in this era of AI, everything is still governed by text formats; text is still the King. XML, JSON calling APIs, YAML, Markdown, Log files..That means that there's still need to process it, transform it, clean it, extract from it. Perl with its first-class-citizen regular expressions, the wealth of text manipulation libraries up on CPAN and its full Unicode support of all the latest standards, was and is still the best. Simply there's no other that can match Perl's text processing capabilities.
They also cite Perl's backing by the open source community, and its "getting a 'proper' OOP model in the last couple of years... People just don't know what Perl is capable of and instead prefer to be victims of FOMO ephemeral trends, chasing behind the new and shiny."

Perl creator Larry Wall answered questions from Slashdot's readers in 2016. So I'd be curious from Slashdot's readers about Perl today. (Share your experiences in the comments if you're still using Perl -- or Raku...)

Perl's drop to #9 means Delphi/Object Pascal rises up one rank, growing from 1.82% in August to 2.26% in September to claim September's #9 spot. "At number 11 and 1.86%, SQL is quite close to entering the top 10 again," notes TechRepublic. (SQL fell to #12 in June, which the site speculated was due to "the increased use of NoSQL databases for AI applications.")

But TechRepublic adds that the #1 most popular programming language (according to TIOBE) is still Python: Perl sits at 2.03% in TIOBE's proprietary ranking system in September, up from 0.64% in January. Last year, Perl held the 27th position... Python's unstoppable rise dipped slightly from 26.14% in August to 25.98% in September. Python is still well ahead of every other language on the index.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Intercept: The company behind the Proton Mail email service, Proton, describes itself as a "neutral and safe haven for your personal data, committed to defending your freedom." But last month, Proton disabled email accounts belonging to journalists reporting on security breaches of various South Korean government computer systems following a complaint by an unspecified cybersecurity agency. After a public outcry, and multiple weeks, the journalists' accounts were eventually reinstated -- but the reporters and editors involved still want answers on how and why Proton decided to shut down the accounts in the first place.

Martin Shelton, deputy director of digital security at the Freedom of the Press Foundation, highlighted that numerous newsrooms use Proton's services as alternatives to something like Gmail "specifically to avoid situations like this," pointing out that "While it's good to see that Proton is reconsidering account suspensions, journalists are among the users who need these and similar tools most." Newsrooms like The Intercept, the Boston Globe, and the Tampa Bay Times all rely on Proton Mail for emailed tip submissions. Shelton noted that perhaps Proton should "prioritize responding to journalists about account suspensions privately, rather than when they go viral." On Reddit, Proton's official account stated that "Proton did not knowingly block journalists' email accounts" and that the "situation has unfortunately been blown out of proportion."

The two journalists whose accounts were disabled were working on an article published in the August issue of the long-running hacker zine Phrack. The story described how a sophisticated hacking operation -- what's known in cybersecurity parlance as an APT, or advanced persistent threat -- had wormed its way into a number of South Korean computer networks, including those of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the military Defense Counterintelligence Command, or DCC. The journalists, who published their story under the names Saber and cyb0rg, describe the hack as being consistent with the work of Kimsuky, a notorious North Korean state-backed APT sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury Department in 2023. As they pieced the story together, emails viewed by The Intercept show that the authors followed cybersecurity best practices and conducted what's known as responsible disclosure: notifying affected parties that a vulnerability has been discovered in their systems prior to publicizing the incident. Phrack said the account suspensions created a "real impact to the author. The author was unable to answer media requests about the article." Phrack noted that the co-authors were already working with affected South Korean organizations on responsible disclosure and system fixes. "All this was denied and ruined by Proton," Phrack stated.

Phrack editors said that the incident leaves them "concerned what this means to other whistleblowers or journalists. The community needs assurance that Proton does not disable accounts unless Proton has a court order or the crime (or ToS violation) is apparent."

Amid yesterday's news of Oracle's soaring stock, which propelled founder Larry Ellison to the top of the world's richest list, the Wall Street Journal reported that the cloud giant and OpenAI have struck one of the largest cloud contracts ever signed. Under the deal, OpenAI will purchase $300 billion worth of compute power from Oracle over roughly five years, with purchases beginning in 2027.

"This move away from Microsoft was timed with OpenAI's involvement with the Stargate Project, in which OpenAI, SoftBank, and Oracle have committed to invest $500 billion into domestic data center projects over the next four years," notes TechCrunch.

OpenAI also recently signed a cloud deal with Google. "The deal ... underscores the fact that the two are willing to overlook heavy competition between them to meet the massive computing demands," wrote analyst in Reuter's report.

Oracle shares had their best day since 1992, skyrocketing 36% and adding $244 billion in market value as surging AI-driven cloud demand pushed the company toward a $1 trillion valuation. The surge boosted founder Larry Ellison's fortune by $100 billion, making him the new world's wealthiest person. CNBC reports: The company said Tuesday after the bell that it has $455 billion in remaining performance obligations, up 359% from a year earlier. "This is a very historic kind of print right here from Oracle with this backlog," Ben Reitzes, technology research head at Melius Research, told CNBC's "Closing Bell: Overtime" on Tuesday. "The Street was looking for about $180 billion in RPO and they're talking about a number that is a multiple of that. That is astounding."

Oracle now sees $18 billion in cloud infrastructure revenue in fiscal 2026, with the company calling for the annual sum to reach $32 billion, $73 billion, $114 billion and $144 billion over the subsequent four years. Other analysts were left "blown away" and "in shock." D.A. Davidson's Gil Luria called it "absolutely staggering on CNBC's "Fast Money." Wells Fargo analysts said it was a "momentous confirmation" of the AI trade.

Oracle's cloud revenue projections overshadowed an otherwise lackluster fiscal first-quarter report in which the company missed expectations on the top and bottom lines. The company had earnings of an adjusted $1.47 per share for the quarter, just below the $1.48 per share expected by analysts polled by LSEG. Revenue for the first quarter came in at $14.93 billion, missing the $15.04 billion expected.

NASA: After a year's worth of scientific scrutiny, the 'Sapphire Canyon' rock sample remains the mission's best candidate for containing signs of ancient microbial life processes. A sample collected by NASA's Perseverance Mars rover from an ancient dry riverbed in Jezero Crater could preserve evidence of ancient microbial life. Taken from a rock named "Cheyava Falls" last year, the sample, called "Sapphire Canyon," contains potential biosignatures, according to a paper published Wednesday in the journal Nature.

A potential biosignature is a substance or structure that might have a biological origin but requires more data or further study before a conclusion can be reached about the absence or presence of life. "This finding by Perseverance, launched under President Trump in his first term, is the closest we have ever come to discovering life on Mars. The identification of a potential biosignature on the Red Planet is a groundbreaking discovery, and one that will advance our understanding of Mars," said acting NASA Administrator Sean Duffy. "NASA's commitment to conducting Gold Standard Science will continue as we pursue our goal of putting American boots on Mars' rocky soil."

Dozens of polar scientists have warned that geoengineering schemes to manipulate the Arctic and Antarctic are dangerous, impractical, and risk distracting from the urgent need to cut fossil fuel emissions. The BBC reports: These polar "geoengineering" techniques aim to cool the planet in unconventional ways, such as artificially thickening sea-ice or releasing tiny, reflective particles into the atmosphere. They have gained attention as potential future tools to combat global warming, alongside cutting carbon emissions. But more than 40 researchers say they could bring "severe environmental damage" and urged countries to simply focus on reaching net zero, the only established way to limit global warming.

The scientists behind the new assessment, published in the journal Frontiers in Science, reviewed the evidence for five of the most widely discussed polar geoengineering ideas. All fail to meet basic criteria for their feasibility and potential environmental risks, they say. One such suggestion is releasing tiny, reflective particles called aerosols high into the atmosphere to cool the planet. This often attracts attention among online conspiracy theorists, who falsely claim that condensation trails in the sky -- water vapour created from aircraft jet engines -- is evidence of sinister large-scale geoengineering today. But many scientists have more legitimate concerns, including disruption to weather patterns around the world.

With those potential knock-on effects, that also raises the question of who decides to use it -- especially in the Arctic and Antarctic, where governance is not straightforward. If a country were to deploy geoengineering against the wishes of others, it could "increase geopolitical tensions in polar regions," according to Dr Valerie Masson-Delmotte, senior scientist at the Universite Paris Saclay in France. Another fear is that while some of the ideas may be theoretically possible, the enormous costs and time to scale-up mean they are extremely unlikely to make a difference, according to the review. [...]

A more fundamental concern is that these types of projects could create the illusion of an alternative to cutting humanity's emissions of planet-warming gases. "If they are promoted... then they are a distraction because to some people they will be a solution to the climate crisis that doesn't require decarbonising," said Prof Siegert. "Of course that would not be true and that's why we think they can be potentially damaging." Even supporters of geoengineering research agree that it is, at best, a supplement to net zero, not a substitution.

The latest National Assessment of Educational Progress shows U.S. high school seniors' math and reading scores at their lowest in decades, with nearly half failing to reach basic proficiency in math and one-third below basic in reading. The Associated Press reports: A decade-long slide in high schoolers' reading and math performance persisted during the COVID-19 pandemic, with 12th graders' scores dropping to their lowest level in more than 20 years, according to results released Tuesday from an exam known as the nation's report card. Eighth-grade students also lost significant ground in science skills, according to the results from the National Assessment of Education Progress.

The assessments were the first since the pandemic for eighth graders in science and 12th graders in reading and math. They reflect a downward drift across grade levels and subject areas in previous releases from NAEP, which is considered one of the best gauges of the academic progress of U.S. schools. "Scores for our lowest-performing students are at historic lows," said Matthew Soldner, the acting commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics. "These results should galvanize all of us to take concerted and focused action to accelerate student learning." [...]

In reading, the average score in 2024 was the lowest score in the history of the assessment, which began in 1992. Thirty-two percent of high school seniors scored below "basic," meaning they were not able to find details in a text to help them understand its meaning. In math, the average score in 2024 was the lowest since 2005, when the assessment framework changed significantly. On the test, 45% of high school seniors scored below "basic" achievement, the highest percentage since 2005. Only 33% of high school seniors were considered academically prepared for college-level math courses, a decline from 37% in 2019.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Tom's Hardware: Intel has removed its chief executive officer of products, Michelle Johnston Holthaus, as part of a major shake-up of the executive branch of the embattled chip firm, according to Reuters. This is part of new CEO Lip-Bu Tan's plan to reshape the company under his leadership, flattening the leadership structure so he makes more of the important decisions about day-to-day operation. [...] Holthaus is the latest high-profile figure at Intel to get the axe, ending a 30-year career at Intel, but a mere 10 months in her CEO of products role, and a temporary position as co-CEO after the previous CEO, Pat Gelsinger, suddenly left in 2024. "Throughout her incredible career, Michelle has transformed major businesses, built high-performing teams and worked to delight our customers," Tan said in a statement. "She has made a lasting impact on our company and inspired so many of us with her leadership. We are grateful for all Michelle has given Intel and wish her the best."

Intel has said Holthaus will remain with the company in an advisory role, but her position will not be filled by anyone else. What Intel is doing, though, is bringing in executives from elsewhere, including one who worked at Tan's previous endeavour, Cadence. Srinivasan Iyengar joined the company in June and will take on the role of head of a new central engineering division. This group will focus on developing a new custom silicon business for external customers. Although Intel's fabrication business has been one of its worst-performing in recent years, and there are still talks of it selling large portions of it, it's found a new lease of life following U.S. government investment and Bu Tan's leadership. With Iyengar's new role, though, it's possible we'll see Intel designing chips for customers, rather than merely producing them. That could see it compete against the likes of Broadcom and Marvell. With Tan pushing for a faster, leaner business overall, Iyengar will report directly to him in his new role. Intel also announced that it had acquired the services of former executive vice president of solutions engineering at Arm, Kevork Kechichian. He'll begin heading Intel's datacenter group, and brings years of experience at ARM, NXP Semiconductor, and Qualcomm.

Apple has unveiled the AirPods Pro 3 with heart-rate sensing, improved noise cancellation, a more compact case, and upcoming live translation features powered by Apple Intelligence. They'll be available for preorder today at a price of $249. TechCrunch reports: One of the standout features of the AirPods Pro 3 is its heart-rate sensing capability, a first for the AirPods line. This addition will operate similarly to the Powerbeats Pro 2, using LED sensors to provide precise measurements. The collected data will sync with Apple's Fitness app. The active noise cancellation, which reduces external noise, has been significantly improved. Apple says it removes twice the noise compared to Pro 2.

A noteworthy upcoming feature is a live translation capability, thanks to Apple's iOS 26 software update. This lets you have conversations in different languages, using your iPhone to translate while the phone plays one language and the AirPods handle the other. Other notable updates include smaller, more comfortable earbuds. Apple now offers foam ear tips in five different sizes, and the company claims it's "the best-fitting AirPods."

BrianFagioli shares a report from NERDS.xyz: Plex has alerted its customers about a security incident that may have affected user accounts. In an email sent to subscribers, the popular media server company confirmed that an unauthorized third party gained access to one of its databases. The breach exposed emails, usernames, and hashed passwords. Plex emphasized that passwords were encrypted following best practices, so attackers cannot simply read them. The company also reassured users that no credit card data was compromised, since Plex does not store that information on its servers. Still, out of caution, it is requiring all account holders to reset their credentials.

Users are being directed to reset their passwords at plex.tv/reset. During the process, Plex recommends enabling the option to sign out all connected devices. This measure logs out every device associated with the account, including Plex Media Servers, forcing a fresh login with the updated password. The company says it has already fixed the method used by the intruder to gain entry and is conducting additional security reviews. Plex is also urging subscribers to enable two-factor authentication if they have not already done so.

Somewhere in Houston, four research volunteers "will soon participate in NASA's year-long simulation of a Mars mission," NASA announced this week, saying it will provide "foundational data to inform human exploration of the Moon, Mars, and beyond."

The 378-day simulation will take place inside a 3D-printed, 1,700-square-foot habitat at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston — starting on October 19th and continuing until Halloween of 2026: Through a series of Earth-based missions called CHAPEA (Crew Health and Performance Exploration Analog), NASA aims to evaluate certain human health and performance factors ahead of future Mars missions. The crew will undergo realistic resource limitations, equipment failures, communication delays, isolation and confinement, and other stressors, along with simulated high-tempo extravehicular activities. These scenarios allow NASA to make informed trades between risks and interventions for long-duration exploration missions.

"As NASA gears up for crewed Artemis missions, CHAPEA and other ground analogs are helping to determine which capabilities could best support future crews in overcoming the human health and performance challenges of living and operating beyond Earth's resources — all before we send humans to Mars," said Sara Whiting, project scientist with NASA's Human Research Program at NASA Johnson. Crew members will carry out scientific research and operational tasks, including simulated Mars walks, growing a vegetable garden, robotic operations, and more. Technologies specifically designed for Mars and deep space exploration will also be tested, including a potable water dispenser and diagnostic medical equipment...

This mission, facilitated by NASA's Human Research Program, is the second one-year Mars surface simulation conducted through CHAPEA. The first mission concluded on July 6, 2024.

This week Finland inaugurated the world's largest sand battery, according to the Independent, "capable of storing vast amounts of energy generated from renewable sources like solar and wind."

The battery "will enable residents to eliminate oil from their district heating network, thereby cutting emissions by nearly 70%," notes EuroNews: Euronews Green previously spoke to the young Finnish founders, Tommi Eronen and Markku Ylönen, who engineered the technology... Lithium batteries work well for specific applications, explains Markku, but aside from their environmental issues and expense, they cannot take in a huge amount of energy. Grains of sand, it turns out, are surprisingly roomy when it comes to energy storage... The sand can store heat at around 500C for several days to even months, providing a valuable store of cheaper energy during the winter... The battery's thermal energy storage capacity equates to almost one month's heat demand in summer and a one-week demand in winter in Pornainen, Polar Night Energy says...

Polar Night Energy has big ambitions to take its technology worldwide, and is currently in "active discussions" with both Finnish and international partners.
This project (in the Finnish city of Pornainen) "is really important for us because now we can show that this really works," a spokesperson for Polar Night told Clean Technica: The profitability of the sand battery is based on charging it according to electricity prices and Fingrid's reserve markets. Its large storage capacity enables balancing the electricity grid and optimizing consumption over several days or even weeks... "The Pornainen plant can be adjusted quickly and precisely," explained Jukka-Pekka Salmenkaita, vice president of AI and special projects at Elisa Industriq, "and it also has a remarkably long energy buffer, making it well suited for reserve market optimization. Our AI solution automatically identifies the best times to charge and discharge the Sand Battery and allocates flexibility capacity to the reserve products that need it most. Continuous optimization makes it a genuinely profitable investment."
Thanks to Slashdot reader AleRunner for sharing the news.

Announced this week at RustConf 2025 in Seattle, the new Rust Innovation Lab will offer open source projects "the opportunity to receive fiscal sponsorship from the Rust Foundation, including governance, legal, networking, marketing, and administrative support."

And their first project will be the TLS library Rustls (for cryptographic security), which they say "demonstrates Rust's ability to deliver both security and performance in one of the most sensitive areas of modern software infrastructure." Choosing Rustls "underscores the lab's focus on infrastructure-critical tools, where reliability is paramount," argues explains WebProNews. But "Looking ahead, the foundation plans to expand the lab's portfolio, inviting applications from promising Rust initiatives. This could catalyze innovations in areas like embedded systems and blockchain, where Rust's efficiency shines."

Their article notes that the Rust Foundation "sees the lab as a way to accelerate innovation while mitigating the operational burdens that often hinder open-source development." [T]he Foundation aims to provide a stable, neutral environment for select Rust endeavors, complete with governance oversight, legal and administrative backing, and fiscal sponsorship... At its core, the Rust Innovation Lab addresses a growing need within the developer community for structured support amid Rust's rising adoption in sectors like systems programming and web infrastructure. By offering a "home" for projects that might otherwise struggle with sustainability, the lab ensures continuity and scalability. This comes at a time when Rust's memory safety features are drawing attention from major tech firms, including those in cloud computing and cybersecurity, as a counter to vulnerabilities plaguing languages like C++...

Industry observers note that such fiscal sponsorship could prove transformative, enabling projects to secure funding from diverse sources while maintaining independence. The Rust Foundation's involvement ensures compliance with best practices, potentially attracting more corporate backers wary of fragmented open-source efforts... By providing a neutral venue, the foundation aims to prevent the pitfalls seen in other ecosystems, such as project abandonment due to maintainer burnout or legal entanglements... For industry insiders, the Rust Innovation Lab represents a strategic evolution, potentially accelerating Rust's integration into mission-critical systems.

After 26 years and over 1,000 episodes, Melvyn Bragg is stepping down as presenter of BBC Radio 4's In Our Time, leaving behind a legacy of intellectual curiosity and broadcasting excellence. While he will no longer host the series, he will remain involved with the BBC and is set to launch a new project in 2026. The BBC reports: Over the last quarter of a century, Melvyn has skilfully led conversations about everything from the age of the Universe to 'Zenobia', Queen of the Palmyrene Empire. He has welcomed the company of the brightest and best academics in their fields, sharing their passion and knowledge with a fascinated audience right around the globe. While he will be much missed on In Our Time, Melvyn will continue to be a friend of Radio 4 with more to come to celebrate his extraordinary career, and a new series in 2026 (details to be announced soon).

Melvyn Bragg says: "For a program with a wholly misleading title which started from scratch with a six-month contract, it's been quite a ride! I have worked with many extremely talented and helpful people inside the BBC as well as some of the greatest academics around the world. It's been a great privilege and pleasure. I much look forward to continuing to work for the BBC on Radio 4. Thank you for listening." [...] In Our Time will be back on Radio 4 with a new presenter who will be announced in due course.

In 2017 Rick Beato streamed "Rick's Rant Episode 2" — and just received a copyright claim this month. And days after jazz pianist Chick Corea died in 2021, Beato livestreamed a half-hour video which was mostly commentary, but with several excerpts from Corea's albums (at least one more than three minutes long). He also received a copyright claim for that one this August — just minutes after the claim on his 2017 video.

These videos "are all fair use," Beato argues in a new video, noting it's also affected other popular YouTube channels like The Professor of Rock: Rick Beato: Universal Music Group [UMG] has continued to send emails about copyright content ID claims — and now copyright strikes — on my channel. As a matter of fact, I have three shorts — these are under a minute long — that if they go through in the next four days, I'll have three strikes on my channel! Now if you don't fight these things, those three strikes would actually remove my channel from YouTube.
Five months ago Rick Beato had posted a clip from his interview with singer-songwriter Adam Duritz (founder of The Counting Crows) on YouTube. After 250,000 views, he'd earned a whopping $36.52 — and then Universal Music Group also claimed that video violated their copyright. (In the background the video played Duritz's song as he described how he wrote it.) "So they're gonna take my channel down over less than a hundred bucks — for using a small segment from an interview with him, on a song he sang on," Beato complained on YouTube. "That video is 55 seconds long!"

"You need to play people's music to talk about it," Beato argues. "That is the definition of fair use. These are interviews with the people about their careers." (And the interviews actually help promote the artists for the record labels...) Rick Beato: The next one has me in it — it's an Olivia Rodrigo song — that I played maybe 10 seconds of the song on, and the short is 42 seconds long. Who did it? UMG. The third copyright strike is from a Hans Zimmer short. It's also UMG — it's from the Crimson Tide soundtrack.

Now, what do these things say...? "Your video is scheduled to be removed in four days and your channel will get a copyright strike due to a removal request from a claimant. If you delete your video before then, your channel won't get a copyright strike." [And there's also emails like "After reviewing your dispute, UMG has decided that their copyright claim is still valid..."] I've had probably 4,000 claims, over the last 9 years — from things that are fair use. [When he interviewed producer Rick Rubin, that video got 13 separate copyright claims.]

That's when I hired a lawyer to fight these. [Full-time, Beato says later.] And what he's done is he fought every single claim... We have successfully fought thousands of these now. But it literally costs me so much money to do this. Since we've been fighting these things — and never lost one — they still keep coming in... They're all Universal Music Group. So they obviously have hired some third party company, that are dredging up things, they're looking for things that haven't been claimed in the past — they're taking videos from seven or eight years ago!
Slashdot reader MrBrklyn (Slashdot reader #4,775) writes on the "New York's Linux Scene" site that video bloggers like Beato "have been hounded by copyright pirates like UMG," arguing that new videos of support are a "rebellion gaining traction". (Beato's video drew 1,369,859 views — and attracted 24,605 Comments — along with videos of support from professional musicians like drummer Anthony Edwards, guitarist Justin Hawkins, and bassist Scot Lade, as well as two different professional music attorneys.)

"Since there's rarely humans making any of these decisions and it's automated by bots, they don't understand these claims are against Universal Music's best interests," argues the long-running blog Saving Country Music (first appearing on MySpace in 2008). On YouTube videos, creators can freely filch copyrighted photos and other people's videos virtually free of ramifications. You can take an entire 2 1/2 hour film, impose it over a background, and upload it to YouTube, and usually avoid any problems. But feature a barely audible 8 1/2-second clip of music underneath audio dialogue, and you could have your entire podcast career evaporate overnight... People continue to ask, "Why doesn't Saving Country Music has a podcast?" Because what's the point of having a music podcast when you can't feature music? In fact, after over a decade of refusing to start one, I finally did, music free. What happened? About a dozen episodes in, someone took out a claim, and not only were all the episodes deleted, so was the entire account, even though no music even appeared on any of the episodes. I was given absolutely no recourse to fight whatever false claim had been made...

The music industry continues to so colossal fail the artists and catalogs they represent, and the fans they're supposed to serve with this current system of how podcasts are handled. If everything changes today thanks to the Rick Beato rant, it would still be 15 years too late. But at least it would happen.
Instead, they write, "Music labels have been leaving major opportunities to promote their catalogs and performers on the table with their punitive copyright claims that make it impossible to feature music on music podcasts and other platforms...

"You aren't screwing podcasters. You're screwing artists who could be using podcasts to help promote their music. "

Longtime Slashdot reader cristiroma shares a report from New Atlas: Wouldn't it be great if the plants in your home could do more than just sit there looking pretty? Researchers at South China Agricultural University in the city of Guangzhou have found a way to upgrade them into soft glowing night lights in a range of hues, with the use of nanoparticles. The team developed a light-emitting phosphor compound that enabled succulents with fleshy leaves to charge in sunlight or indoor LED light in just a couple of minutes, and then emit a soft uniform glow that lasts up to two hours. The afterglow phosphor compound -- which is similar to those found in glow-in-the-dark toys -- is inexpensive, biocompatible, and negates the need for more complex methods of infusing bioluminescence in plants, like genetic modification. It simply gets injected into the leaves.

[...] Beyond modifying a commercial compound for this project, the team also had to figure out the right size for the phosphor particles so they'd work as intended inside plants. Shuting Liu, first author on the study that appeared in Matter this week, noted, "Smaller, nano-sized particles move easily within the plant but are dimmer. Larger particles glowed brighter but couldn't travel far inside the plant." Through extensive testing, the researchers arrived at an optimal size of around 7 micrometers, about the width of a red blood cell. They also determined through experimentation that the particles worked best in succulents, rather than plants with thinner leaves like bok choy.

Once they'd landed on the right particle size, loading concentration, and plant type, the team found that the phosphor material diffused into succulent leaves almost instantly, and uniformly lit up entire leaves -- enough to illuminate nearby objects. The scientists were also able to create modified phosphors that glowed in colors like green, red, and blue. That could make for novel indoor or garden decor, as well as pathway lighting. These luminous plants also don't cost much -- according to Liu, "Each plant takes about 10 minutes to prepare and costs a little over 10 yuan (about $1.4), not including labor." Over the course of 10 days, the injected plants didn't show any signs of damage, yellowing, structural integrity, or even reduced levels of chlorophyll.