Submission + - The document foundation descends into chaos as biggest contributor to is ejected

Submitted by paulatz
paulatz writes: After a controversial vote in January, the board of the Document Foundation (TDF) changed its statute to substantially widen its definition of "affiliation". The entire staff of Collabora has now been expel from membership and from the board itself, including the board members that opposed the initial change. Collabora is an UK-based firm and the single largest contributor to the LibreOffice codebase, they continued the development of a rebranded version of LibreOffice Online when it was dropped by TDF in 2022. However, in 2026, TDF has revived the development of their web-based suite while Collabora is bringing its web-based suite to the desktop with a completely redesigned GUI.

After the fork from OpenOffice in 2010, it looks like the most popular open-source office suite is headed into a new period of strife.

Submission + - Study links falling for corporate buzzwords with poor decision-making (npr.org)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The study combed through shareholder reports and interviews with Fortune 500 business executives, and found examples of the nonsensical ways that Executives state things and phrase things in their messaging and public communications. Then used an algorithm that would create new sentences based on these structures that sounded like real speech. On about 1,000 different workers, the study tested to see whether or not they could tell the difference between real language and these absurd nonsensical statements. People that struggle with that the most tend to also struggle with decision-making in the workplace.

Submission + - Group Pushing Age Verification Requirements for AI Sneakily Backed By OpenAI (gizmodo.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: OpenAI hasn’t been shy about spending money lobbying for favorable laws and regulations. But when it comes to its involvement with child safety advocacy groups, the company has apparently decided it’s best to stay in the shadows—even if it means hiding from the people actually pushing for policy changes. According to a report from the San Francisco Standard, a number of people involved in the California-based Parents and Kids Safe AI Coalition were blindsided to learn their efforts were secretly being funded by OpenAI.

Per the Standard, the Parents and Kids Safe AI Coalition was a group formed to push the Parents and Kids Safe AI Act, a piece of California legislation proposed earlier this year that would require AI firms to implement age verification and additional safeguards for users under the age of 18. That bill was backed by OpenAI in partnership with Common Sense Media, which proposed the legislation as a compromise after the two groups had pushed dueling ballot initiatives last year.

But when the coalition started to reach out to child safety groups and other advocacy organizations to try to get them to lend support to the bill, OpenAI was apparently conveniently left off the messaging. The AI giant was also left out of the marketing on the coalition’s website, according to the Standard. That reportedly led to a number of groups and individuals lending their support to the Parents and Kids Safe AI Coalition without realizing that they were aligning themselves with OpenAI. As it turns out, OpenAI isn’t just one of the members of the coalition; it is the group’s biggest funder. In fact, the Standard characterized the Parents and Kids Safe AI Coalition as being “entirely funded” by OpenAI. While it’s not clear exactly how much the company has funneled to this particular group, a Wall Street Journal report from January said OpenAI pledged $10 million to push the Parents and Kids Safe AI Act.

Submission + - Google tells Wear OS developers to go 64-bit or get blocked from the Play Store (nerds.xyz)

Submitted by BrianFagioli
BrianFagioli writes: Google is pushing the smartwatch ecosystem further toward 64-bit. Starting September 15, 2026, Wear OS apps that include native code will need to ship both 32-bit and 64-bit versions or updates will be blocked from the Play Console. Existing 32-bit watches will still get compatible apps, so this mostly affects developers submitting new builds. For many apps written in Kotlin or Java the change may not require code updates, but developers still need to check their APKs since third party SDKs can quietly introduce native libraries. In other words, if you build for Wear OS, it is time to double check those binaries before the deadline hits.

Submission + - Cloudflare says WordPress is outdated and insecure, introduces EmDash CMS (nerds.xyz)

Submitted by BrianFagioli
BrianFagioli writes: Cloudflare has introduced a new open source CMS called EmDash and is not being shy about its motivation. The company argues that WordPress, which still powers more than 40 percent of the web, is showing its age. In particular, Cloudflare says the WordPress plugin model creates a massive security surface because plugins run with broad access to a siteâ(TM)s database and filesystem. EmDash attempts to fix that by running plugins in isolated sandboxes with explicit permissions, so administrators can see exactly what a plugin is allowed to do before installing it.

The project is written entirely in TypeScript, built around serverless infrastructure, and uses Astro for frontend theming. Cloudflare also packed in features aimed at AI driven development, including a CLI and tools designed for AI agents to manage content and build plugins programmatically. EmDash is still very early software at version 0.1.0 preview, but the message is clear: Cloudflare believes the webâ(TM)s most popular CMS was designed for a very different era of hosting and development.

Submission + - Washington Post Announces Transition to 'Modern' All-GenAI Content Format 1

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: Inspired in part by Amazon's success in using LLMs to eliminate the cost of Java programmers, Amazon founder and Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos on Wednesday announced that the Post is pivoting to a 'modern' all-GenAI content format. "Our HR AI agents are notifying our remaining journalists that their services are no longer needed and thanking them for creating past content that powers the AI models that are replacing them," added Matt Murray, the Post’s executive editor.

It's the latest cost-cutting move at WaPo, which laid off more than 300 journalists in February as it closed its sports and books sections and fired all staff photographers, blaming the layoffs in part on "the rise of generative A.I." The move, Bezos explained, will also enable the Post to use GenAI-produced images to accompany its GenAI-produced news stories, eliminating the need to pay freelance photographers.

At the end of 2024, Mr. Bezos described the Post's struggles to cut costs and boost readership in an interview at a conference hosted by The New York Times: “We saved The Washington Post once, and we’re going to save it a second time,” he said at the time. "And now, thanks to the magic of Amazon Bedrock," Bezos said Wednesday in a zoom call from his $500 million yacht Koru (his home away from homes), "we're going to save it again."

Submission + - UFC-Que Choisir Takes Ubisoft to French Court Over The Crew Shutdown (reuters.com)

Submitted by Elektroschock
Elektroschock writes: When Ubisoft pulled the plug on The Crew’s servers without warning, players were left with a worthless game they’d already paid for. Now, consumer watchdog UFC-Que Choisir is fighting back, demanding gamers’ right to play regardless of publisher whims. Supported by the “Stop Killing Games” movement, this landmark case challenges unfair terms before the Créteil Judicial Court (Val-de-Marne near Paris), and aims to protect players from disappearing games.

Submission + - AI can clone open-source software in minutes (techspot.com)

Submitted by ZipNada
ZipNada writes: Two software researchers recently demonstrated how modern AI tools can reproduce entire open-source projects, creating proprietary versions that appear both functional and legally distinct. The partly-satirical demonstration shows how quickly artificial intelligence can blur long-standing boundaries between coding innovation, copyright law, and the open-source principles that underpin much of the modern internet.

In their presentation, Dylan Ayrey, founder of Truffle Security, and Mike Nolan, a software architect with the UN Development Programme, introduced a tool they call malus.sh. For a small fee, the service can "recreate any open-source project," generating what its website describes as "legally distinct code with corporate-friendly licensing. No attribution. No copyleft. No problems."

Submission + - AMD says it will buy Intel (techspot.com)

Submitted by ZipNada
ZipNada writes: In a move that feels less like a corporate transaction and more like the final punchline to a 40-year industry rivalry, AMD announced Wednesday that it has agreed to acquire Intel, the company it has spent decades chasing, imitating, undercutting, suing, licensing from, and lately outperforming.

The all-stock transaction, which AMD described as a "once-in-a-generation opportunity to unify x86 innovation," would combine the two companies under a single umbrella just a few years after such an outcome would have sounded ridiculous.

For most of modern computing history, Intel was the empire and AMD the scrappy survivor, the perpetual second source that somehow kept finding ways to stay alive. Now, after a bruising run of manufacturing delays, product stumbles, strategic resets, and a historic reversal in investor confidence, Intel is poised to be absorbed by the smaller company it long treated as a footnote.

Submission + - OnlyOffice kills Nextcloud partnership for forking its project without approval (neowin.net)

Submitted by darwinmac
darwinmac writes: OnlyOffice has suspended its partnership with Nextcloud after the latter forked its editors into a new project called "Euro-Office," according to a report from Neowin. The move comes just days after Nextcloud and partners like IONOS announced the fork as part of a broader push for European digital sovereignty.

In a statement, the company accused the project of violating its licensing terms and international intellectual property law, claiming that Euro-Office uses its technology without proper compliance. OnlyOffice also pointed to missing attribution requirements and branding obligations tied to its AGPL-based licensing model.

As a result, its 8-year-old partnership, which allowed "Nextcloud users to edit and collaborate on office documents right inside their own instance," has been suspended. OnlyOffice also accused Nextcloud of not behaving in a manner expected of a partner, alleging attempts to poach its employees and influence customers against the company.

Nextcloud said it forked the OnlyOffice repository instead of collaborating with the company because the project is notoriously difficult to contribute to. It also pointed out that OnlyOffice is a Russian company with Russian employees who leave code comments in Russian. In addition to that, some users may feel uncomfortable using software that could be linked to the Russian government.

Submission + - COMMAND.COM is back!

Submitted by kevin lyda
kevin lyda writes: Microsoft's best try at an operating system, COMMAND.COM from MS-DOS 3.3, is now a native shell for Unix-like systems.

The project recreates the DOS command-line experience while running on a modern Unix environment. It supports a small, historically inspired command set, .BAT-style scripting, and even maps DOS concepts like drive letters onto the Unix filesystem. You can even experience the joy of editing a CONFIG.SYS file (this time as an INI style file).

Unlike a simple emulator, it’s designed to work as a real shell: it can be used as a login shell or as an interpreter for batch files (within reason, given the differences between DOS and Unix semantics). The result is an unusual hybrid of DOS-style command parsing layered on top of Unix processes.

It’s implemented in Go for maximum portability and aims to balance authenticity with just enough practicality to be usable.

Source and release on codeberg.

Submission + - Robotaxi Outage in China Leaves Passengers Stranded on Highways (wired.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: An unknown technical problem caused a number of robotaxis owned by the Chinese tech giant Baidu to freeze on Tuesday in the middle of traffic, trapping some passengers in the vehicles for more than an hour. In Wuhan, a city in central China where Baidu has deployed hundreds of its Apollo Go self-driving taxis, people on Chinese social media reported witnessing the cars suddenly malfunction and stop operating. Photos and videos shared online show the Baidu cars halted on busy highways, often in the fast lane.

[...] Local police in Wuhan issued a statement around midnight in China that said the situation was “likely caused by a system malfunction,” but the incident is still under investigation. No one was injured, and all passengers have exited the vehicles, the police added. It’s unclear how many of Baidu’s robotaxis may have been impacted. [...] There were at least two other collisions on the same day, according to photos and videos posted on Chinese social media. A RedNote user in Wuhan confirmed to WIRED that she drove past a white minivan that had gotten into a rear-end collision with a parked robotaxi. The back of the Baidu car was badly damaged, but the two people standing beside the scene looked unharmed, she says. She added that she estimates she also saw at least a dozen more parked robotaxies.

Submission + - AI is looking like the Sub Prime Crisis. The math ain't mathing. (wheresyoured.at)

Submitted by sandbagger
sandbagger writes: At some point, the incredible, toxic burn rate of generative AI is going to catch up. The data centers aren't being built. The power generation facilities aren't being built. The cost of AI is being given away well below cost. AI is a negative-margin business by any calculus. It's a question of when economic reality collides with empty VC pockets and purses.

Submission + - ExpressVPN launches ExpressAI, promising private AI chats that even it cannot re (nerds.xyz) 1

Submitted by BrianFagioli
BrianFagioli writes: VPN provider ExpressVPN has launched ExpressAI, a new AI platform the company claims keeps user prompts and files completely private. Instead of processing data on traditional servers, the system runs conversations inside confidential computing enclaves where messages are decrypted only within an isolated environment that infrastructure operators cannot access. ExpressVPN says the platform follows a zero access model, meaning prompts are end to end encrypted, conversations are not stored in readable form, and user data is not fed into training pipelines. The platform was independently audited by Cure53, which performed penetration testing and reviewed the systemâ(TM)s cryptography and infrastructure.

ExpressAI launches with several selectable models including GPT OSS 120B, DeepSeek R1 Distill 32B, Qwen2.5 VL 32B, Qwen3.5 35B A3B, and Nemotron 12B from NVIDIA. Users can run the same prompt across multiple models at once to compare answers side by side. The platform also includes features like ghost mode to automatically delete conversations and an encrypted vault that requires a user created password to decrypt stored chat history. ExpressAI is rolling out first to ExpressVPN Pro subscribers as part of the companyâ(TM)s broader push to expand beyond VPN services into a wider privacy focused software ecosystem.

Submission + - OnlyOffice CEO objects Euro-Office license changes (onlyoffice.com)

Submitted by Elektroschock
Elektroschock writes: Lev Bannov of OnlyOffice is concerned about the Euro-Office inclusion of Onlyoffice with trade marks removed: "We liked the AGPL v3 license because its 7th clause allows us to ensure that our code retains its original attributes, so that users are able to clearly identify the developers and the brand behind the program.". Euro-Office is a more comprehensive office productivity package of IONOS which aims to challenge Microsoft Office 365 and Google Workspaces offerings in Europe.

Submission + - Claude Code Source Leaked

Submitted by Grady Martin
Grady Martin writes: A security researcher has leaked a complete repository of source code for Anthropic's flagship command-line tool. The file listing was exposed via a Node Package Manager (npm) mapping, with every target publicly accessible on a Cloudflare R2 storage bucket.

$ du -hs .
35M .
$ find -type f | sed 's/^.*\.//' | sort | uniq -c | sort -bVr
1332 ts
552 tsx
18 js

Submission + - US Paves Way For Private Assets To Be Included In 401(k) Retirement Plans (reuters.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The Trump administration on Monday issued a long-awaited proposed rule to open up retirement plans to alternative assets, paving the way for private equity and cryptocurrencies to be added to 401(k) accounts. The measure, announced by the U.S. Department of Labor, is intended to ease longstanding barriers to incorporating these less liquid and less transparent assets into American retirement plans. It follows an executive order from President Donald Trump last summer and could clear the way for alternative asset management firms to tap a large new source of capital.

Industry groups have argued private market investments can enhance long-term returns and diversification for retirement savers, while skeptics warn higher fees, complexity and limited liquidity could limit those gains and pose risks for retail investors. Some private market funds that are already available to wealthier individual investors have shown signs of strain in recent months. Private credit funds known as business development companies have seen a wave of withdrawals. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the proposed rule was "an initial step" and aimed to be "mindful of the importance of protecting retirement assets."

The guidance lays out how plan trustees, who have a legal fiduciary duty to act in the best interest of members, can incorporate these assets. They would have to "objectively, thoroughly, and analytically consider, and make determinations on factors including performance, fees, liquidity, valuation, performance benchmarks, and complexity," the DOL said. Trustees who abide by them will be granted safe harbor that protects them from lawsuits, it added. The Supreme Court agreed earlier this year to hear one such case filed in 2019 by a former Intel employee claiming trustees made "imprudent" decisions by investing in hedge funds and private equity funds.

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