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Submission + - £1.5bn legal action in UK against Apple over wallet's 'hidden fees' (theguardian.com)

Submitted by AmiMoJo
AmiMoJo writes: The financial campaigner James Daley has launched a £1.5bn class action lawsuit against Apple over its mobile phone wallet, claiming the US tech company blocked competition and charged hidden fees that ultimately harmed 50 million UK consumers.

The lawsuit takes aim at Apple Pay, which they say has been the only contactless payment service available for iPhone users in Britain over the past decade.

Daley, who is the founder of the advocacy group Fairer Finance, claims this situation amounted to anti-competitive behaviour and allowed Apple to charge hidden fees, ultimately pushing up costs for banks that passed charges on to consumers, regardless of whether they owned an iPhone.

Submission + - Cheap green tech allows faster path to electrification for the developing world (japantimes.co.jp)

Submitted by Mr. Dollar Ton
Mr. Dollar Ton writes: According to a new report from a think tank, "Ember", the availability of cheap green tech can have developing countries profit from earlier investment and skip steps in the transition from fossil to alternatives.

India is put forward as an example. While china’s rapid electrification has been hailed as a miracle, by some measures, India is moving ahead faster than China did when it was at similar levels of economic development. It’s an indication that clean electricity could be the most direct way to boost growth for other developing economies.

That’s mainly because India has access to solar panels and electric cars at a much lower price than China did about a decade ago. Chinese investments lowered the costs of what experts call "modular technologies” — the production of each solar panel, battery cell and electric car enables engineers to learn how to make it more efficiently.

India's per-capita consumption of oil for road transport is 60% lower than when China hit that milestone. As a result India’s peak road-oil consumption per person will likely never reach Chinese levels.

Submission + - Work-from-office mandate? Expect top talent turnover, culture rot (cio.com)

Submitted by snydeq
snydeq writes: Work-from-office mandates are accelerating but the push toward in-person work environments will make it more difficult for IT leaders to retain and recruit staff, some experts say. Over the past year, many companies, including IT giants Amazon and Microsoft, have required employees to work from the office. Advocates of in-person work expect increased productivity and improved collaboration, although several studies suggest that workers can be just as productive when working remotely, and employment experts say collaboration gains can be difficult to measure. Organizations requiring IT workers to commute to an office need to ground decisions in value creation, focus on data-driven results, and avoid badge-swipe metrics, employment experts say. “In addition to resistance, there would also be the risk of talent turnover,” Converge CTO Lawrence Wolfe says. “The truth is, both physical and virtual collaboration provide tremendous value.”

Submission + - Nvidia DLSS Gaming on ARM (interfacinglinux.com)

Submitted by VennStone
VennStone writes: Gaming on ARM with NVIDIA and DLSS is no longer theoretical. Using an Orange Pi 6 Plus, an NVMe M.2 to PCIe extender, and a desktop Nvidia GPU, it's now possible to run Windows games through Wine with DLSS enabled on Linux. Titles like Cyberpunk 2077 and The Witcher 3 achieve usable frame rates via FEX, despite running on an ARM SBC.

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Submission + - Why some people get bad colds and others don't (sciencedaily.com)

Submitted by alternative_right
alternative_right writes: Scientists found that nasal cells act as a first line of defense against the common cold, working together to block rhinovirus soon after infection. A fast antiviral response can stop the virus before symptoms appear. If that response is weakened or delayed, the virus spreads and causes inflammation and breathing problems. The study highlights why the body’s reaction matters more than the virus alone.

Submission + - North America's first lithium refinery built and completed in Texas (msn.com)

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: The first battery-grade lithium hydroxide refining facility in North America is now operational in Texas. In May 2023, Gov. Greg Abbott, Tesla founder Elon Musk and other officials broke ground at what would become Tesla North America’s new lithium refinery in Robstown. By January 2026, it was fully operational.

The facility is the first of its kind to ever be built in North America, The Center Square reported. The facility is part of Abbott’s goal for Texas to lead in reducing reliance on China for critical minerals and technology. Under Abbott, Texas is leading in semiconductor manufacturing and development, state-led Artificial Intelligence development and nuclear energy expansion to counter Chinese dominance and threats, The Center Square reported.

Australia, Chile and China account for 90% of lithium production; China overwhelmingly refines the majority of lithium, controlling global supply, according to International Energy Agency and other reports. China also sources materials used for lithium-ion batteries mined through forced child labor in the Congo and Nigeria, raising human rights concerns.

Submission + - HAM Radio Operators In Belarus Arrested, Face the Death Penalty (404media.co)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The Belarusian government is threatening three HAM radio operators with the death penalty, detained at least seven people, and has accused them of “intercepting state secrets,” according to Belarusian state media, independent media outside of Belarus, and the Belarusian human rights organization Viasna. The arrests are an extreme attack on what is most often a wholesome hobby that has a history of being vilified by authoritarian governments in part because the technology is quite censorship resistant.

The detentions were announced last week on Belarusian state TV, which claimed the men were part of a network of more than 50 people participating in the amateur radio hobby and have been accused of both “espionage” and “treason.” Authorities there said they seized more than 500 pieces of radio equipment. The men were accused on state TV of using radio to spy on the movement of government planes, though no actual evidence of this has been produced. State TV claimed they were associated with the Belarusian Federation of Radioamateurs and Radiosportsmen (BFRR), a long-running amateur radio club and nonprofit that holds amateur radio competitions, meetups, trainings, and forums.

Submission + - cURL removes bug bounties (etn.se)

Submitted by jantangring
jantangring writes: Open source code library cURL is removing the possibility to earn money by reporting bugs, hoping that this will reduce the volume of AI slop reports. Joshua Rogers – AI wielding bug hunter of fame – thinks it's a great idea.

cURL maintainer Daniel Stenberg famously reported on the flood AI-generated bad bug reports last year –

”Death by a thousand slops.”

Now cURL is removing the bounty payouts as of the end of January.

"We have to try to brake the flood in order not to drown”, says cURL maintainer Daniel Stenberg to Swedish electronics industry news site etn.se.

Despite being an AI wielding bug hunter himself, Joshua Rogers – slasher of a hundred bugs – thinks removing the bounty money is an excellent idea.

”I personally would have pulled the plug long ago,” he says to etn.se.

Submission + - The World's Longest-Running Lab Experiment Is Almost 100 Years Old (sciencealert.com) 1

Submitted by alternative_right
alternative_right writes: It all started in 1927, when physicist Thomas Parnell at the University of Queensland in Australia filled a closed funnel with the world's thickest known fluid: pitch, a derivative of tar that was once used to seal ships against the seas.

Three years later, in 1930, Parnell cut the funnel's stem, like a ribbon at an event, heralding the start of the Pitch Drop Experiment. From then on, the black substance began to flow.

At least, that is, in a manner of speaking. At room temperature pitch might look solid, but it is actually a fluid 100 billion times more viscous than water.

Comment Not every institution merits preservation. (Score 4, Interesting) 146

Compete or perish. Not every school is worth attending. Not every degree gets money, and without money there is no leisure to take programs purely for fun.

Incurring debt for fun is almost always a terrible idea but the US primary education system is trash so students don't know how to make wise choices. Not everyone SHOULD bother with conventional secondary education when there are so many ways to make money.

Submission + - Scientists "resurrect" ancient cannabis enzymes with medical promise (sciencedaily.com)

Submitted by alternative_right
alternative_right writes: Scientists have uncovered how cannabis evolved the ability to make its most famous compounds—THC, CBD, and CBC—by recreating ancient enzymes that existed millions of years ago. These early enzymes were multitaskers, capable of producing several cannabinoids at once, before evolution fine-tuned them into today’s highly specialized forms. By “resurrecting” these long-lost enzymes in the lab, researchers showed how cannabis chemistry became more precise over time—and discovered something unexpected: the ancient versions are often more robust and easier to work with.

Submission + - Wine 11 brings huge WoW64 overhaul, NTSYNC boost, and better gaming on Linux (nerds.xyz)

Submitted by BrianFagioli
BrianFagioli writes: Wine 11.0 has officially landed, wrapping up a year of development with more than 6,000 code changes and a broad set of upgrades that touch gaming, desktop behavior, and long-standing architectural work. The biggest milestone is the completion of the new WoW64 model, which is now considered fully supported and allows 32-bit and even 16-bit applications to run in a cleaner way inside 64-bit prefixes. Wine also gains support for the NTSYNC kernel module now bundled in Linux 6.14, which cuts overhead from thread synchronization and should deliver observable performance benefits in games and multi-threaded applications. A single unified wine binary now replaces the old wine64 launcher, and several system behaviors align more closely with modern Windows, including syscall numbering and NT reparse points.

Graphics and desktop integration received more polish, including deeper Vulkan support (up to API 1.4.335), hardware-accelerated H.264 decoding through Direct3D, and further improvements to Wineâ(TM)s Wayland driver, which now supports clipboard operations, IMEs, and shaped windows. X11 users gain better window activation and fullscreen handling, and legacy DirectX features continue to expand under Wineâ(TM)s Vulkan renderer. Device support also moves forward, with better joystick handling, improved Bluetooth visibility and pairing, and working TWAIN scanning on 64-bit apps. Broad multimedia updates, DirectMusic refinements, .NET/XNA improvements, and developer-facing tools round out a release that appears focused on smoothing sharp edges rather than introducing flashy experiments. As always, source is live now and distro packages are rolling out.

Submission + - LEGO Education Announces CS+AI K-8 Classroom Packs Priced at $2,049-$3,179

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: Offering a new report as evidence that K-8 teachers see benefits of hands-on computer science and AI education but lack the right tools to engage students, LEGO Education on Monday announced its Hands-on Computer Science & AI Learning Solution for children in grades K-8.

From the press release: "Today, LEGO® Education announced a new hands-on solution and curriculum for computer science and artificial intelligence (AI) for K-8 classrooms that fosters collaboration, creativity, and learning outcomes. Shipping from April 2026, LEGO® Education Computer Science & AI enables schools and districts to expand critically needed access to computer science and AI education." The offerings include Computer Science & AI Kits for 24 students priced at $2,049 for grades K-2, $2,579 for grades 3-5, and $3,179 for grades 6-8.

Not to be outdone, Amazon on Monday announced it's bringing PartyRock — its no-code approach to AI creation — into the classroom to promote AI literacy in support of the White House’s AI education initiatives. "Rather than focusing on the mechanics of AI programming," Amazon explains, "PartyRock emphasizes creative problem-solving and conceptual understanding. Students articulate their ideas through natural language descriptions, and the playground transforms these descriptions into functional applications. This approach shifts the educational focus from syntax and coding structures to the more fundamental questions of what AI can do and how it can be directed to solve problems."

Submission + - Havana Syndrome device may have been found (newsweek.com)

Submitted by smooth wombat
smooth wombat writes: Since the United States reopened its embassy in Cuba in 2015, a number of personnel have reported a series of debilitating medical ailments which include dizziness, fatigue, problems with memory, and impaired vision. For ten years these sudden and unexplained onsets have been studied with no conclusive evidence one way or the other. Now comes word a device, purchased by the Pentagon, has been tested which may be linked to what is known as Havana Syndrome.

Two unnamed sources said officials in the previous administration, under former President Joe Biden, had purchased the device for an eight-figure sum. The funding was provided by the Department of Defense, according to the report.

Speculation had swirled some form of directed-energy weapon could have been behind the baffling illness, and that Russian technology could be behind the symptoms. Moscow has denied any involvement.

The device acquired by Homeland Security Investigations—part of DHS—produces pulsed radio waves, one source told CNN. It contains Russian components but is not entirely Russian-made, they added.

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