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Submission + - French blood banks hacked in latest cyber-attack on Europe (theguardian.com)

Submitted by AmiMoJo
AmiMoJo writes: France’s national blood service has said hackers accessed control systems and boosted temperatures at three cold stores stocking vital blood products, in an apparent escalation of recent cyber-attacks on fridges and freezers across Europe.

The French blood service (EFS) said temperature and defrosting thresholds had been raised to “very high levels” in the attack, adding that its alarm systems had allowed technicians to intervene before the products were compromised.

The EFS is France’s public blood transfusion operator, collecting, testing, preparing and distributing products such as blood, plasma and platelets to more than 1,900 hospitals around the country. It supports more than a million patients a year.

Submission + - Observe NASA's Swift Observatory Is Swiftly Falling to Earth. (wired.com)

Submitted by joshuark
joshuark writes: Wired reports that After 22 years in orbit and a failed rescue mission this summer, it is highly likely that the Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory will crash into Earth sometime next week. It is not known where on the planet the spacecraft—which is roughly as big as a large elevator—will fall. Despite its size, experts say the risk to the public is relatively low.

The observatory was designed to operate for a few years in low Earth orbit, but it far exceeded its expected lifespan, helping to make many important discoveries about the evolution of the cosmos, including the study of supernovas and the destruction of stars by black holes. However, in 2024, increased solar activity heated and expanded the upper layers of Earth’s atmosphere, increasing the drag on the satellite and accelerating its descent. Without a propulsion system capable of correcting its orbit, its days were numbered.

n July 2026, NASA launched a special $30 million mission to rescue Swift. A robotic spacecraft called LINK was supposed to drag Swift away from Earth by 150 miles, giving it a higher orbit and thus extending its operational life. Unfortunately, LINK failed. In August, NASA administrator Jared Isaacman explained that the difficulties that led to the mission’s cancellation were due to problems with the spacecraft’s control system, which made it impossible to keep it properly oriented and stable in space.

The US Space Force estimates Swift is likely to crash on or around Friday, November 6—or at least whatever remains of the satellite will. Most of the space observatory is expected to disintegrate as it reenters the atmosphere. However, some pieces made of tungsten and parts of the mirrors could survive that chaotic process, Brad Cenko, NASA’s chief scientist for the mission, told the Associated Press.

“The most likely survivors are its six heavy reaction wheels, the spinning flywheels it used to aim itself, along with tougher telescope parts such as lenses and mirrors,” Dean Sladen, a quality manager and aerospace engineer at Accu Components, said to Space.com. “Only a handful of small, scorched fragments are expected to make it down—nothing recognizable as a telescope.”

Where exactly will that debris fall? Large areas of Africa, Australia, India, Southeast Asia, and Central and South America fall within the reentry zone monitored by the Space Force. If there is a more precise calculation, that information has not been made public, but it’s most likely that all Swift’s remaining pieces will end up in the ocean.

“NASA's own orbital debris requirements state that the risk of human casualty from surviving debris shall not exceed one in 10,000, so it is highly likely this work has been completed but not published,” Sladen said regarding the risk assessment. “Personally, I believe it should be published, as NASA has done with previous satellites. The risk is almost certainly very small, but it would give people a clear, factual picture rather than guesswork.”

Submission + - Hackers Again Target European Grocery Fridges (theguardian.com)

Submitted by Greymane
Greymane writes: Supermarket fridges and freezers in seven European countries have malfunctioned, their thermostats remotely cranked up in some cases to 50C (122F).

The EU has condemned what it said was “a deliberate attempt to disrupt our food supply chain and undermine consumers’ confidence in it”.

Which supermarkets were affected and what does it mean?
The attack hit fridges in Belgian branches of Carrefour, Intermarché and Ikea, Coop and ICA in Sweden, Delhaize in Luxembourg, Kesko in Finland, SuperValu in Ireland and shops in Estonia.

It appeared to be a reprise of attacks three weeks ago when French retailers had to ditch huge amounts of food when their fridges suddenly overheated as a result of anonymous hackers seizing control of their internet-exposed appliance management software.

Something similar may have happened in the US in early August when a series of mysterious fridge malfunctions hit commissaries at at least six military bases. The Pentagon is investigating a suspected hack.

Submission + - One Drive Takes on New Meaning Microsoft Removes PC-to-PC Migration From Windows (ghacks.net)

Submitted by joshuark
joshuark writes: Arthur Kay reports that Microsoft has removed the PC-to-PC Migration feature from Windows 11, according to an updated Microsoft support page that now states the tool is no longer available.

The removal started with the September optional update (KB5124010) and reached regular users through the October 13, 2026 Patch Tuesday update, KB5127648.

PC-to-PC Migration arrived in 2025 as a modern replacement for Easy Transfer from the Windows 7 era. The feature moved files and settings directly between two PCs over Wi-Fi or Ethernet. Users paired the old and new computer with a one-time code, picked the folders to copy, and Windows handled the rest.

Free OneDrive accounts include only 5GB of storage, and Microsoft's own promotional screenshot for Windows Backup shows 4.5GB of that allowance already in use. Years of photos, documents and downloads can exceed the free tier quickly.

Microsoft has not said whether a local migration option will return to Windows 11, and the support page offers no alternative beyond Windows Backup. There can be only one.

Submission + - GarageJam 8.0.1 released -- Norwegians writes GNOME Music Recording Software (garagejam.org)

Submitted by ole
ole writes: GarageJam is the Free, Norwegian open-source music recording studio for GNOME, allowing musicians to compose, record, and share original music seamlessly on the Internet, while GarageJam Studio is a commercial music and audio recording app for the World Wide Web written by Aamot Innovation from Norway.

The latest release, GarageJam 8.0.1, is available in C and Python. It records audio immediately to Ogg Vorbis (.ogg) files in the current working directory and lets you edit metadata in .gjxml XML files from a GTK/GNOME wizard — all built on the Gingerblue Recording Studio API.

The latest IETF GarageJam XML draft is available at https://www.garagejam.org/rfc/... and the latest C and Python implementation is available from https://www.garagejam.org/src/... (C) and https://www.garagejam.org/src/... (Python).

Source available from https://github.uio.no/olekaa/g... at University of Oslo, Norway.

Submission + - GNOME Media 0.1.0 released (gnomeradio.org)

Submitted by ole
ole writes: GNOME Media puts internet radio and your photographs on one OpenStreetMap. It’s built from GNOME Radio 85.0.1 (https://www.gnomeradio.org/src/gnome-radio-85.0.1.tar.xz) and gPhoto 3.0.1 (https://www.gnomephoto.org/src/gphoto-3.0.1.tar.xz).

Click a station on the map to listen. Cities with several stations show a count and a menu.

Open a folder of pictures or import from a camera. Photos with a GPS position in their EXIF data appear on the map. Double-click a thumbnail to open it.

The search box filters the station list and the map together.

Download: https://www.gnomeradio.org/src...
SHA-256: 54a5e455b5aef3a7834673808630100de4520f00099c8f1d69000f5255f459bc

Requires GTK+ 3, libchamplain 0.12, clutter-gtk, GStreamer 1.14 and libgphoto2 2.5. Build with meson setup build && meson compile -C build.

First release: the core library (EXIF reader, station parser, place grouping) is unit-tested. The GTK window, the audio player and the Meson build have not been compiled yet, so expect fixes on the first real build. Bug reports are welcome.

Submission + - Skolelinux 13.6.0 released (aamot.io)

Submitted by ole
ole writes: Skolelinux 13.6.0 is now available. Built on Debian 13 “trixie”, Skolelinux (Debian Edu) is a complete, ready-to-use Free Software operating system for schools, classrooms and home computers.

With Skolelinux you can install and run Free Software on your computer: an office suite, web browser, educational programs and network services for an entire school, all set up out of the box.

What’s in this release

Based on the latest Debian 13 “trixie” point release
Updated packages with the latest security and bug fixes
Refreshed installation images

Get it

Website: https://www.aamot.io/software/...
Download (Debian “trixie” ISO): https://www.aamot.io/software/...
Source tree: https://www.aamot.io/software/...

Skolelinux is Free Software. Feedback, bug reports and contributions are welcome.

Submission + - GNU Photo 3.0.1 released, supports 2,500+ camera models via libgphoto2 2.5.34 (sourceforge.net)

Submitted by ole
ole writes: After 25 years, libgphoto2 2.5.34 now supports more than 2,500 camera models, and GPhoto 3.0.1 is built on it.

GPhoto 3.0.1 is now available for download:

    http://www.gnomephoto.org/src/...

SHA256: f76d347cd013062ee1fdfcc86f9dee4890e89854d95e975ac92a883bba2ca449

This is a stable release for the 3.0 series.

Changes since 3.0.0:

    * Fix segmentation fault

Note for testers: on GNOME desktops, gvfs may claim the camera before
GPhoto can access it. If GPhoto cannot open your camera, stop the gvfs
processes first:

    pkill gvfs

This matches gvfsd, gvfsd-fuse, gvfs-gphoto2-volume-monitor and the
other gvfs daemons. To stop only the main daemon:

    pkill -x gvfsd

To stop only the gphoto2 backend:

    pkill -f gvfs-gphoto2-volume-monitor
    pkill -f gvfsd-gphoto2

If a process does not exit, force it with:

    pkill -9 gvfs

The gvfs daemons are D-Bus activated and will respawn when another
application (e.g. Nautilus) needs them, so re-run the command if the
camera is claimed again. If a stale mount remains afterwards, unmount it
with:

    fusermount -u /run/user/$UID/gvfs

Please give it a try and report any problems on this list or on the bug tracker.

Thanks to everyone who contributed patches, testing and translations.

Downloads

        libgphoto2 2.5.34: https://sourceforge.net/projec...
        GPhoto 3.0.1: https://www.gnomephoto.org/gph...

More information

        GPhoto: http://www.gnomephoto.org/
        gPhoto: http://gphoto.org/

Best regards,
Ole Kristian Aamot
https://www.aamot.org/ole/ole....

Submission + - SGI IRIX Indigo Magic Desktop recreation with AI: Cyanotype Blueprint Desktop (niten.irix.expert)

Submitted by MIPSPro
MIPSPro writes: Someone has re-created the Indigo Magic Desktop for the SGI IRIX operating system as a rather large scale undertaking with dozens of applications and preferences straight out of 2006. It's a BSD licensed affair with an actual IRIX port and several other platforms including Solaris SPARC and x86_64 BSD and Linux systems. It's based on man custom extensions to MOTIF much like SGI's SGM libraries for notebook widgets and non-MOTIF goodies. It runs on many x11 platforms including Xorg and X11Libre as well as forthcoming ports to Tru64 Alpha, and AIX 6.1 on POWER4 or better, and HP-UX 11iv3 Integrity and PA-RISC HP-UX 11.31. There is also a Citrix clone "CyThrough" and a CalDAV desktop calendar, Sunbeam.

Submission + - Candy Corn Is Made of Bug Secretions (archive.is)

Submitted by know-nothing cunt
know-nothing cunt writes: The Atlantic reports:

Here's a tip if you ever want to ruin a Halloween party. Seek out the most squeamish-seeming adult or child you can find in the act of consuming candy corn. Then tell them they just filled their mouth with bug secretions. If this fact alarms you — or if you’re an inveterate hater of candy corn and thus think that you have been spared — I regret to inform you that by eating many classic Halloween candies, you are, to some extent, eating bugs. More precisely, you are eating a bug by-product that is in many cases listed on the package as "confectioner’s glaze." This glaze is used on jelly beans, Milk Duds, Junior Mints, Whoppers, Lemonheads, and Sugar Babies, to name a few.

Submission + - Pope Leo XIV Calls for Autonomous Weapons Ban and Warns Against AI Personhood (nerds.xyz)

Submitted by BrianFagioli
BrianFagioli writes: Pope Leo XIV is calling for concrete steps toward banning lethal autonomous weapons and warning that granting AI systems legal personhood could obscure human responsibility. In a thread on X, he says decisions affecting human life, freedom, and the use of force must remain under effective, informed human oversight. NERDS.xyz examines his demands for shared standards, independent oversight, and remedies for people harmed by AI.

The pope describes machines as tools rather than people, warning that AI personhood could leave victims confronting a faceless entity. He argues that a reliable system serving people is more valuable than an exceptionally powerful one whose consequences cannot be adequately predicted or controlled. The accountability question extends beyond weapons: when an AI system causes harm, how do we ensure the people behind it remain answerable?

Submission + - Meta Staff Notes Discussed a 'Whisper Strategy' Against Jonathan Haidt

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Meta Staff Notes Discussed a ‘Whisper Strategy’ Against Jonathan Haidt

“Notes from Meta meetings in March 2023 show staff discussing how to “turn academics against Haidt”, meaning Jonathan Haidt, the social psychologist who blames social media for rising anxiety and depression among teenagers.”

‘The notes, headed “Well-being Meeting Sound-check Notes”, were filed in public on 23 October as Exhibit E in the large US federal case over social media and young people’s mental health. ’
--

"How do we get the academic community to disavow Haidt?"

"Can't co-opt them, so how do we enrage them... So the media finds him not credible."

"Whisper strategy – turn academics against Haidt."

Submission + - OpenVeils Releases Uncensored, Analytical LLM Designed To Escape Consensus (openveils.com) 1

Submitted by alternative_right
alternative_right writes: Today's top search and AI engines ask, "What do the most authoritative and widely accepted sources currently support?" rather than "What conclusion emerges if we examine the full body of available evidence — including controversial, obscure, or dissenting sources — and weigh each on its merits?"

That distinction matters. Systems optimized around authority, consensus, popularity, and established-source credibility can systematically deprioritize evidence that sits outside the mainstream — even when individual sources may be credible, documented, or independently verifiable.

The result can become a self-reinforcing information loop: mainstream sources rank highest because they are considered authoritative, AI relies disproportionately on those sources, and their conclusions are then repeated and amplified as the prevailing consensus.

Submission + - Bank of America kindly asks that you don't share your password with your AI asst (techcrunch.com)

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: In an email blast to customers titled “Protecting your finances in the Al World,” Bank of America urged customers to never share their username and password with another person or an outside service, “including an Al-enabled tool or agent that offers to act on your behalf.”

You can practically sense the frustration in the person sending the email. Still, customers are increasingly handing over their log-ins as personal AI assistants grow more popular. Sharing your banking username and password with an AI assistant runs the risk that it could do something with your finances without your knowledge, or that your bank thinks someone’s raiding your account and locks you out of it. Worse, a security flaw in the AI assistant could result in it leaking your banking credentials elsewhere, giving financially motivated hackers a way into your bank account.

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