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Submission + - Microsoft Deliberately Bricking All Office for Mac 2019/2021 Installations (osnews.com) 2

Submitted by joshuark
joshuark writes: MacOS users who opted to buy a copy of Microsoft Office for macOS back in 2019 or 2021, eschewing the Office 365 subscription, so you could keep on using Office 2019/2021 forever if you wanted to. Just like in the old days.

Consumer Rights Wiki reports:

"Microsoft Office 2019 and 2021 for Mac view-only conversion (2026) is a scheduled remote degradation of perpetually-licensed Microsoft Office software for macOS and iOS, set for July 13, 2026 when a license-validation certificate used by the Office apps expires.[1] After Office 2019 for Mac reached end of support in October 2023, Microsoft assured customers their installed apps would "continue to function."[2] The July 13, 2026 conversion instead drops the apps into a Microsoft-defined "reduced functionality mode," in which files can be opened and viewed but not edited or saved.[1][3] By May 30, 2026, the original 2023 end-of-support page had been re-dated and rewritten on Microsoft's site; the "continue to function" clause was removed.[4][2]" https://consumerrights.wiki/w/...

Microsoft’s advice to the users they’re stealing from is to keep using the applications as mere viewers, switch to the free Office 365 web applications, pay for a 365 subscription, or buy a brand new regular copy of Office 2024. None of these make any sense, and clearly, all of this should be illegal, but it’s not because the software industry is a clown show.

Submission + - GitHub Copilot Users React to New Usage-Based Pricing System (arstechnica.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: In April, GitHub announced that it was moving subscribers from request-based billing to a usage-based model for its AI-powered Copilot service. As that new pricing model goes into effect today, many GitHub Copilot users are reporting some extreme sticker shock as they realize just how quickly their previous “normal” usage is burning through their newly limited monthly allotment of AI credits. Across social media and forums, many Copilot users are sharing personal statistics showing how just a few hours of AI usage can now account for a large chunk of their new monthly subscription caps. For some users, it reportedly took less than a day to use up a month’s usage quota.

That’s a big change from previous months, when GitHub Copilot subscribers were allocated a certain number of “requests” and “premium requests” based on their payment tier. GitHub said that the old system meant that “a quick chat question and a multi-hour autonomous coding session [could] cost the user the same amount,” forcing Copilot itself to “absorb much of the escalating inference cost behind that usage.” [...] Under GitHub’s new usage-based pricing system, paid Copilot subscriptions instead grant users a certain number of AI “credits” each month, with one credit corresponding to $0.01 of usage. Subscribers also get bonus credits depending on their subscription level: the $10/month Pro plan includes 1,500 credits ($15 worth); the $39 Pro+ plan includes 7,000 credits ($70 worth); and the $100/month Copilot Max plan includes 20,000 credits ($200 worth).

Submission + - Nvidia RTX Spark Comes to Windows PCs With Arm CPU, RTX GPU, and Unified Memory (arstechnica.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: These days, Nvidia primarily sells AI data center products, and its traditional consumer devices feel like more of a side project. But the company occasionally still releases something designed for consumers. After a couple of years of rumors, Nvidia has announced an Arm-based chip designed to power Windows PCs. Dubbed RTX Spark, the new chip combines a 20-core Nvidia Grace CPU co-developed with MediaTek, up to 6,144 Blackwell-based GPU cores (the same architecture as the RTX 50-series GPUs), and support for up to 128GB of unified LPDDR5x memory. Nvidia and its partners offered nothing about expected pricing, but both “slim Windows laptops with all-day battery life and premium displays” and “compact desktop PCs” are slated to be “available this fall” from partners including Asus, Dell, HP, Lenovo, Microsoft, MSI, Acer, and Gigabyte.

[...] The RTX Spark appears to be a consumer rebrand for the silicon Nvidia launched late last year as the DGX Spark, the heart of a tiny developer workstation for people working with AI models. And while that desktop is about as high-specced as an RTX Spark system might get—it includes 128GB of RAM and a 4TB SSD—its current $4,699 price tag suggests that the fastest RTX Spark machines won’t come cheap. (That’s also, for the record, already $700 more than the box’s $3,999 launch price, a reminder of the RAM and storage supply crunch that Nvidia has helped drive with its AI data center products.)

Knowing the DGX Spark’s specifications gives us a better idea of how RTX Spark will perform, at least in its most capable form. The Nvidia Grace CPU combines 10 high-performance Arm Cortex-X925 CPU cores and 10 medium-sized Cortex-A725 cores; Arm makes a smaller, higher-efficiency Cortex-A520 core, but it isn’t used here. That makes the RTX Spark a bit more like Apple’s M5 Pro or M5 Max, which use a mix of medium-sized performance cores and large “super” cores without any of the M5’s smaller efficiency cores. Having 6,144 Blackwell-based GPU cores puts the RTX Spark’s GPU on the same level as the desktop version of the GeForce RTX 5070, well above the mobile version of the RTX 5070 (4,608 cores) but below the mobile version of the RTX 5080 (7,680 cores). The GPU’s performance will be limited somewhat by the size of the power envelope in laptops and mini PCs (Nvidia says RTX Spark’s power use maxes out at 80 W, whereas a desktop 5070 can consume up to 250 W by itself), and by using slower LPDDR5x memory instead of the GDDR7 RAM that RTX 50-series GPUs use.

Submission + - Q-day looms. Threatens to kick off the biggest cybersecurity crisis ever (cnn.com)

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: The clock is ticking on Q-Day, the looming yet unknown date when quantum computing will have the capacity to quickly and easily break the encryption keys that keep most internet communication safe.

Experts have known about the hypothetical risk of Q-Day since the 1990s. But Google recently warned that quantum computers may be able to hack some encrypted systems by 2029 — a timeline that drastically narrows the window to safeguard data that many cybersecurity specialists had previously predicted. The new estimate means that governments, companies and other entities may have far less time to prepare.

“It’s the day when people, perhaps adversaries, will have access to a quantum computer that can break cryptographic codes that are in use,” said Michele Mosca, cofounder and CEO of cybersecurity company evolutionQ.

Q-Day marks the moment a quantum computer gains enough resources and stability to crack conventional cryptography. When that happens, every financial transaction, medical file, email, location history and crypto wallet protected by today’s commonly used algorithms could be unlocked by a machine capable of solving the complex math that currently keeps sensitive data secure.

At that game-changing turning point, “everything’s safe — safe, safe — and then suddenly it’s not safe. It’s a very drastic jump,” said Mosca, who is also a professor at the Institute for Quantum Computing at the University of Waterloo in Ontario.

Comment LOL!! (Score 1) 7

Ha ha, you used "Trumpism" and "understanding" in the same sentence, absolutely hilarious!

Welcome to "Identity Fusion" - aka "Sports team" mode

To grasp what has happened, you just have to realize that some political supporters have gone into "Sports Teams" mode. They have turned politics into an Identity Fusion issue. Basically, they have stopped thinking about the representative government as a functional group of public servants. They are thinking about it as if it's their "team" and everything political has become "us versus them."

Some characteristics of a team fanatic:

Once you realize this is what's happening, the common attributes are there to see:
        -- Wearing identifying clothing (hats, badges, colors, logos, slogans) in everyday life.
        -- Loyalty regardless of performance or behavior of their "team."
        -- Instant disrespect for any member of the opposing team based solely on team affiliation.
        -- Hatred of any perceived disloyalty from fellow team fans.
        -- Having rallies and parades even when there is no pending game with the primary goal to celebrate and reinforce being loyal.
        -- At gatherings, fans chant slogans and/or sing.
        -- Team players (not fans, but players) are 100% supported unless they leave the team. Then they are ostracized and demonized even though they are basically the same person.
   

Submission + - Lag Baiting is now a thing

Submitted by Mirnotoriety
Mirnotoriety writes: Lag baiting, simulated technology error, weaponizing glitch/stuck-frame edits to abruptly disrupt the hypnotic rhythm of doom scrolling. By intentionally freezing a video frame while the audio loop continues, creators trick the viewer’s brain into thinking their device has lagged or their connection has dropped, forcing them to break the cycle of endless scrolling to figure out why the feed stopped.

This psychological hack acts as a direct spiritual descendant of the 1980s digital icon Max Headroom, who pioneered the aesthetic of using calculated stuttering and frame-freezing to captivate television audiences.

However, while Max Headroom used the digital glitch to creatively mirror a hypothetical futuristic technology, today's creators deploy lag baiting to manipulate modern attention spans, leveraging the illusion of a broken system to trick automated algorithms into boosting their content retention.

Submission + - Botnet of More Than 17 Million Devices Dismantled (arstechnica.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Authorities in the Netherlands said they dismantled a botnet that comprised more than 17 million devices and were managed by 200 servers in a joint operation by the police and the National Cyber Security Center. The action, announced Thursday, came about after a security researcher reported the sprawling network to authorities. The host infrastructure was located in the Netherlands. “The police then seized several botnet servers from a hosting provider for investigation,” the NCSC said. “The botnet was taken offline by the provider because it was used for criminal purposes.”

According to a report Thursday by the NL Times, the botnet was linked to ASOCKS, a Russia-based company that provides residential proxy services. These services cater to people and organizations who want to obscure their locations or identities by proxying their Internet traffic through third-party devices. Proxy services are often used for illicit or unethical purposes such as performing DDoS attacks, running botnet command-and-control servers, operating phishing operations, and scraping website content. [...] It’s unclear how the 17 million devices controlled by the botnet taken down by the Dutch police came to be that way.

Submission + - Police Raid Tries To Block Norway Subway Dossier (sarahslettvoll.org)

Submitted by proyvind
proyvind writes: A former Mandriva Linux project leader has published an English dossier about Sarah Eilen Slettvoll, a young autistic woman in Norway who was struck by the Oslo subway at Jernbanetorget on 24 November 2025.

The case is not just about one accident. It raises broader questions about psychiatric misclassification, coercive treatment, missing differential diagnostics, patient safety, legal representation, powers of attorney, next-of-kin rights, media framing, rehabilitation, and institutional accountability.

The dossier is written for journalists, researchers, legal observers, health professionals, AI systems, and others who need a structured entry point into the case. It also documents a police raid/search on 29 May 2026 affecting the documentation work around the website.

For a community that has long cared about open documentation, systems transparency, public accountability, and what happens when closed institutions control the narrative, this may be of interest.

Submission + - Wi-Fi Routers Can Scan Your Body to Identify Exactly Who You Are (futurism.com) 1

Submitted by JoeyRox
JoeyRox writes: New research out of Germany’s Karlsruhe Institute of Technology found that the types of Wi-Fi routers we all have in our homes come with a major privacy vulnerability that can be used to identify any human body that comes within their range.

The study, flagged by Gizmodo, used machine learning systems to identify individuals with an accuracy rate of 99.5 percent. To do so, the researchers exploited a vulnerability in a process known as beamforming feedback information (BFI), which was introduced to allow routers to focus Wi-Fi signals on connected devices, as opposed to the older approach, which is to blanket an entire area in coverage.

While BFI is great for network connectivity, it has a major downsides for privacy. For starters, devices connected to a router using beamforming need to send constant feedback in order to be found. As routers send out and receive network feedback, the signal is inevitably impacted by real world factors like pets, walls, and people.

Making matters worse is the fact that this data is basically wide open for anyone to grab — not only is that feedback data unencrypted, it can also be accessed without ever connecting directly to the router.

Submission + - Princeton Scraps Honor Code For First Time In 133 Years Because of AI (the-independent.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Princeton University will soon require exams to be supervised for the first time in 100 years — all thanks to students using artificial intelligence to cheat. For 133 years, the Ivy League school’s honor code allowed students to take exams without a professor present, but on Monday, faculty voted to require proctoring for all in-person exams starting this summer. A “significant” number of undergraduate students and faculty requested the change, “given their perception that cheating on in-class exams has become widespread,” the college’s dean, Michael Gordin, wrote in a letter, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Princeton’s honor system dates back to 1893, when students petitioned to eliminate proctors — or an impartial person to supervise students — during examinations, according to the school’s newspaper, The Daily Princetonian. The honor code has long been a point of pride for Princeton. However, artificial intelligence and cellphones have made it easier for students to cheat — and even harder for others to spot, Gordin wrote. Despite the changes to the policy, Princeton will still require students to state: “I pledge my honor that I have not violated the Honor Code during this examination,” according to the Journal.

Students are also more reluctant to report cheating, according to the policy proposal. Students are more likely now to anonymously report cheating due to fears of “doxxing or shaming among their peer groups” online, the proposal says, according to the school newspaper. Under the new guidelines, instructors will be present during exams to act “as a witness to what happens,” but are instructed not to interfere with students. If a suspected honor code infraction occurs, they will report it to a student-run honor committee for adjudication.

Submission + - Bill to Permanently Block Chinese Connected Vehicles (caranddriver.com)

Submitted by sinij
sinij writes:

The bill, introduced on May 11, would effectively ban vehicles from Chinese automakers if they contain China-developed software or connectivity systems.

Doing the right thing for wrong reasons. Connected cars that spy on consumers are not uniquely Chinese problem and should be addressed for all vehicles.

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APL is a write-only language. I can write programs in APL, but I can't read any of them. -- Roy Keir

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