Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror

Submission + - Firefox 152 Adds JPEG XL Support, Redesigned Settings (linuxiac.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Mozilla has released Firefox 152, the latest update to its popular open-source web browser, with updated settings, improved media controls, experimental JPEG XL support, and various platform-specific fixes for desktop and Android. A key update is the redesigned Firefox Settings page, which now features clearer groupings, improved navigation, and a more streamlined structure for easier customization. The release also expands built-in spellchecker support, adding dictionaries for Croatian, English (UK), Georgian, Persian, Slovenian, Tajik, Tamil, Tibetan, Turkish, Welsh, and Xhosa. [...] Importantly, Firefox now offers experimental support for JPEG XL, an image format with improved compression over WebP, JPEG, PNG, and GIF. Users can enable JPEG XL in the Firefox Labs panel within Settings.

Submission + - Humans prefer to walk anticlockwise (theguardian.com)

Submitted by fjo3
fjo3 writes: Tests reveal that when people are ambling about, they have a natural tendency to turn to the left and walk in an anticlockwise direction.

“If you simply ask someone to start walking, whether they are wandering around a museum, a supermarket, or even an empty room, it is surprisingly likely that they will drift counterclockwise,” said Dr Iñaki Echeverría Huarte at University of Navarra in Spain.

Submission + - R.I.P. Code.org (2013–2026)

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: This week saw tech-backed K-12 CS education nonprofit Code.org rebrand itself as CodeAI (press release), solidifying its shift to AI education more than a decade after it launched in 2013 with the belief "that every student should learn the basics of computer programming." Of the AI rebranding, Code.org Founder and Chairman of The Board Hadi Partovi explained, "We have a responsibility to prepare the next generation for the biggest change In society since the invention of public education."

Following the announcement, members of the Code.org Advocacy Coalition were informed in a conference call that the nine-year-old coalition was being sunsetted immediately. Members will be asked to decide if they want to join a new CodeAI Advocacy Coalition, which will be "bringing in new AI focused entities that will help us advance this mission", or if they are "not in line with the direction that CodeAI is heading" and are "not going to be part of the new advocacy coalition." Much like their tech giant donors, the message sent was it's the AI way or the highway.

Interestingly, the pivot from CS education to AI literacy comes amid reports that blamed increased reliance on AI for causing more than 35% of UC Berkeley students to fail an entry-level CS course described as "a gentle but thorough introduction to computer science," when previously the failing rate was typically 7%.

Submission + - Astronauts return to ISS after sheltering during air leak repair attempt (bbc.com)

Submitted by fjo3
fjo3 writes: Astronauts on the International Space Station (ISS) were ordered to shelter in an attached spacecraft after the structure suddenly started leaking more air.

Five of the seven crew were directed to go into the docked SpaceX shuttle Dragon "Freedom" on Friday afternoon and were braced for a potential evacuation.

Meanwhile, two remaining personnel — a pair of Russian cosmonauts — attempted to repair a part of the Russian segment of the ISS, where the leaks had started increasing on Monday.

The repairs were paused and the crew ordered back onto the ISS by Nasa on Friday afternoon.

Submission + - NASA admits mismanagement and human errors caused 2025 Goldstone antenna damage (behindtheblack.com)

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: NASA today released its completed investigation into the November 2025 incident that severely damaged its Goldstone antenna in California when workers allowed the antenna to "over rotate" beyond its acceptable limits, putting it out of commission.

You can read that report here [pdf], but be warned that large sections are redacted, apparently in an effort to protect the identities of those responsible.

Nonetheless, it is very clear that the management and work situation at Goldstone was a mess, and that the mishap was caused not by faulty engineering but by faulty work practices and bad management. Unfortunately, nowhere in the report is it said that there will be any management changes. This fact might have been redacted, but I suspect not. It is typical of government agencies like NASA after incidents like this to whitewash the investigation, concluding simply that "we should have done better and we now we will!"

The repairs will cost NASA about $4.6 million, and will likely not be completed until 2028.

Submission + - Palantir wins £9M contract to run UK firearms licensing (theregister.com)

Submitted by Shakes Fist
Shakes Fist writes: "The US spy-tech biz will also handle Home Office licensing for explosives, explosive precursors, and poisons. The contract covers a replacement for the National Firearms Licensing Management System (NFLMS), which has been in use since the mid-2000s."

Palantir crawls further under the skin of the UK State.

Submission + - Alarm Bells Sound, Will Bitcoin Prices Plunge? (tradingkey.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Google's comments elevate the quantum computing threat to encryption from a long-term risk to an immediate market pricing consideration for Bitcoin. The focus on digital signatures, Bitcoin's core security, suggests a potential systemic risk to ownership verification. While not an immediate collapse, this erodes Bitcoin's "absolute security" narrative, shifting focus to the feasibility and timing of Post-Quantum Cryptography upgrades. This transforms a technical issue into a governance challenge for a decentralized system, prompting investors to re-evaluate asset risk structures to include long-term technical migration concerns. The market will increasingly assess Bitcoin's ability to upgrade before quantum threats materialize.

Submission + - Reducing Europe's Nuclear Energy Sector Was 'Strategic Mistake', EU Chief Says (reuters.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Reducing Europe's nuclear energy sector was a "strategic mistake," European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen said on Tuesday, as governments grapple with an energy crunch from the Iran war. Europe produced around a third of electricity from nuclear power in 1990 but that has fallen to 15%, she told an event in Paris, leaving it reliant on oil and gas imports whose prices have surged in recent days. Being "completely dependent on expensive and volatile imports" of fossil fuels puts Europe at a disadvantage to other regions, von der Leyen said in a speech. "This reduction in the share of nuclear was a choice. I believe that it was a strategic mistake for Europe to turn its back on a reliable, affordable source of low-emissions power."

[...] The EU budget does not directly fund nuclear energy projects because they are not unanimously supported by its 27 member governments. In a sign of the EU's increasing acceptance of the technology, von der Leyen said the executive Commission would offer a 200-million-euro guarantee for private investments in innovative nuclear technologies. She said the money would come from the EU's carbon market. Some EU countries which previously opposed nuclear, such as Denmark and the Netherlands, have recently softened their stance, as they hunt for ways to secure large amounts of stable, low-carbon electricity for heavy industry. Others, including Austria and Luxembourg, remain opposed.

Submission + - Does Apple's M5 Max Really "Destroy" a 96-Core Threadripper? (tomshardware.com)

Submitted by Ecuador
Ecuador writes: Tom's Hardware currently has a front-page article making some wild claims about the 18-core Apple M5 Max versus a 96-core Ryzen Threadripper.

Reading the article, the comparison is based largely on Geekbench 6 multi-core scores. The author briefly mentions that Geekbench doesn't scale well, but doesn't really make clear just how bad the scaling actually is.

From my own experience doing cloud benchmarking for work, unlike previous versions, Geekbench 6 multi-core is essentially useless for large CPUs. Some of the suite's tests (including workloads that are normally very parallelizable) stop scaling beyond 4-8 cores, and the overall score can actually start dropping as you add more and more cores.

I wrote a more detailed breakdown of the issue last year.

Is this a new low for a major tech site, running sensational headlines based on such inappropriate benchmarking, or is this just the new normal?

Comment Re:As long as I can keep using the old look (Score 1) 99

by Asteconn (#66027296) Attached to: Mozilla Is Working On a Big Firefox Redesign

I had earlier today been thinking about how much unneeded whitespace there is in FF's address and tabs bars today; this link not only tightens everything up well enough that I can actually see the URL of a site when the window is 60rem wide (half a 1080p monitor width), but I can also enjoy the nostalgia of the UI when the Internet itself was just... better

Slashdot Top Deals

All life evolves by the differential survival of replicating entities. -- Dawkins

Close