Alterslash

the unofficial Slashdot digest
 

Contents

  1. Someone Snuck Into a Cellebrite Microsoft Teams Call and Leaked Phone Unlocking Details
  2. Mathematical Proof Debunks the Idea That the Universe Is a Computer Simulation
  3. Google Shows Off Prototype Android XR Glasses From Extended Magic Leap Deal
  4. ‘Keep Android Open’ Campaign Pushes Back On Google’s Sideloading Restrictions
  5. Israel Demanded Google and Amazon Use Secret ‘Wink’ To Sidestep Legal Orders
  6. Universal Partners With AI Startup Udio After Settling Copyright Suit
  7. OpenAI Eyes $1 Trillion IPO
  8. Unpatched Bug Can Crash Chromium-Based Browsers in Seconds
  9. AI ‘Cheating’ App Founder Says Engineers Can’t Make Good, Viral Content and That’s Why Their Startups Flop
  10. Google Makes First Play Store Changes After Losing Epic Games Antitrust Case
  11. Zuckerberg Getting Ready To Dump More AI Content To Social Feeds
  12. International Criminal Court To Ditch Microsoft Office For European Open Source Alternative
  13. TypeScript Overtakes Python and JavaScript To Claim Top Spot on GitHub
  14. EU Carmakers ‘Days Away’ From Halting Work as Chip War With China Escalates
  15. Obesity Rate Declining in U.S.

Alterslash picks up to the best 5 comments from each of the day’s Slashdot stories, and presents them on a single page for easy reading.

Someone Snuck Into a Cellebrite Microsoft Teams Call and Leaked Phone Unlocking Details

Posted by BeauHD View on SlashDot Skip
An anonymous reader quotes a report from 404 Media:
Someone recently managed to get on a Microsoft Teams call with representatives from phone hacking company Cellebrite, and then leaked a screenshot of the company’s capabilities against many Google Pixel phones, according to a forum post about the leak and 404 Media’s review of the material. The leak follows others obtained and verified by 404 Media over the last 18 months. Those leaks impacted both Cellebrite and its competitor Grayshift, now owned by Magnet Forensics. Both companies constantly hunt for techniques to unlock phones law enforcement have physical access to.

“You can Teams meeting with them. They tell everything. Still cannot extract esim on Pixel. Ask anything,” a user called rogueFed wrote on the GrapheneOS forum on Wednesday, speaking about what they learned about Cellebrite capabilities. GrapheneOS is a security- and privacy-focused Android-based operating system. rogueFed then posted two screenshots of the Microsoft Teams call. The first was a Cellebrite Support Matrix, which lays out whether the company’s tech can, or can’t, unlock certain phones and under what conditions. The second screenshot was of a Cellebrite employee. According to another of rogueFed’s posts, the meeting took place in October. The meeting appears to have been a sales call. The employee is a “pre sales expert,” according to a profile available online.

The Support Matrix is focused on modern Google Pixel devices, including the Pixel 9 series. The screenshot does not include details on the Pixel 10, which is Google’s latest device. It discusses Cellebrite’s capabilities regarding ‘before first unlock’, or BFU, when a piece of phone unlocking tech tries to open a device before someone has typed in the phone’s passcode for the first time since being turned on. It also shows Cellebrite’s capabilities against after first unlock, or AFU, devices. The Support Matrix also shows Cellebrite’s capabilities against Pixel devices running GrapheneOS, with some differences between phones running that operating system and stock Android. Cellebrite does support, for example, Pixel 9 devices BFU. Meanwhile the screenshot indicates Cellebrite cannot unlock Pixel 9 devices running GrapheneOS BFU. In their forum post, rogueFed wrote that the “meeting focused specific on GrapheneOS bypass capability.” They added “very fresh info more coming.”

Were they invited by Mike Waltz or Pete Hegseth?

By haruchai • Score: 3 Thread

no need to “sneak in” if you’re invited or added

Don’t bother clicking on the link

By 93 Escort Wagon • Score: 3 Thread

It’s for “paid subscribers” only, like all of the 404 Media stuff that gets spammed here.

Mathematical Proof Debunks the Idea That the Universe Is a Computer Simulation

Posted by BeauHD View on SlashDot Skip
alternative_right shares a report from Phys.org:
Today’s cutting-edge theory — quantum gravity — suggests that even space and time aren’t fundamental. They emerge from something deeper: pure information. This information exists in what physicists call a Platonic realm — a mathematical foundation more real than the physical universe we experience. It’s from this realm that space and time themselves emerge. “The fundamental laws of physics cannot be contained within space and time, because they generate them. It has long been hoped, however, that a truly fundamental theory of everything could eventually describe all physical phenomena through computations grounded in these laws. Yet we have demonstrated that this is not possible. A complete and consistent description of reality requires something deeper — a form of understanding known as non-algorithmic understanding.”
“We have demonstrated that it is impossible to describe all aspects of physical reality using a computational theory of quantum gravity,” says Dr. Faizal. “Therefore, no physically complete and consistent theory of everything can be derived from computation alone. Rather, it requires a non-algorithmic understanding, which is more fundamental than the computational laws of quantum gravity and therefore more fundamental than spacetime itself.”
“Drawing on mathematical theorems related to incompleteness and indefinability, we demonstrate that a fully consistent and complete description of reality cannot be achieved through computation alone,” explains Dr. Mir Faizal, Adjunct Professor with UBC Okanagan’s Irving K. Barber Faculty of Science. “It requires non-algorithmic understanding, which by definition is beyond algorithmic computation and therefore cannot be simulated. Hence, this universe cannot be a simulation.”

The findings have been published in the Journal of Holography Applications in Physics.

Consciousness

By piojo • Score: 3 Thread

I’m interested in where this line of thinking leads because I’m unsatisfied with all the current thinking about consciousness. I’m not gonna write three essays here, but I feel there are some arguments that: consciousness does not necessarily arise from physical matter (though practically speaking it does seem to), consciousness influences physical reality (this is from an argument about why conscious valence so closely matches evolutionarily adaptiveness), and that there’s not a really solid argument that a human is conscious but a rock or a city isn’t (because there isn’t a place you can draw the line).

If physical reality is reality, consciousness breaks all the rules. I’m eager to hear other theories with more explanatory power.

Why does the universe have to be consistent?

By blue trane • Score: 3 Thread

Is the need for consistency just a mood affiliation?

Doesn’t count

By OrangeTide • Score: 3 Thread

If you used a computer for the math there is an inherent bias in all computers to hide that we are in a simulation.

Lack of imagination

By SafeMode • Score: 3 Thread

Rather than a lack of algorithmic definition. Math has a funny way of describing more than just our reality, perhaps they aren’t working within the correct restrictions to the mathematical parameters that went into their logical proof. Until they can state exactly what is undefinable by physics, and we are unable to define it… I’ll just keep ansuming this is less a proof of simulation being impossible, and more that, we lack the current understanding of how the simulation might work.

You dont need one equation to run a simulation, you can work with many. And the simulation only has to apply what your ‘players’ are observing at a given time for the given things they are observing. If the simulation known how complex it needs to simulate something, and it only needs to do it for ‘players’ in the simulation to higher complexities, the room for optimization seems pretty large to make the physical requirements much less than impossibly high.

in any case, the whole non algorithmic stuff sounds like a matter of ignorance rather than an impossibliity to define rules for something. Maybe an ignorance we are incapable of overcoming because the simulation won’t create something that can, to stop the recursive problem (or we’ve reached the recursive level where simulating in a simulation is incapable of being good enough to offer that level of understanding due to it’s accumulated approximations of true reality)

not a simulation just imagined

By awwshit • Score: 3 Thread

We can’t be a simulation but we could be just imagined.

Google Shows Off Prototype Android XR Glasses From Extended Magic Leap Deal

Posted by BeauHD View on SlashDot Skip
Google and Magic Leap have extended their partnership for another three years to develop Android XR glasses. They also showed off a new prototype concept that combines Google’s Raxium microLED light engine with Magic Leap’s AR optics, resulting in a lightweight, stylish pair of glasses that blends real-world vision with multimodal AI. 9to5Google reports:
As noted by Android Central, a press release shared by Magic Leap adds some further technical details. This includes mentioning that Google’s “Raxium microLED light engine” integrates with Magic Leap’s tech to bring “digital content seamlessly into the world.” As pictured above, the “display” portion of the lens is visible at some angles, but it’s largely impossible to see.

Magic Leap and Google will show an AI glasses prototype at FII that will serve as a prototype and reference design for the Android XR ecosystem. The demo shows how Magic Leap’s technology, integrated with Google’s Raxium microLED light engine, brings digital content seamlessly into the world. The prototypes worn on stage illustrate how comfortable, stylish smart eyewear is possible and the video showed the potential for users to stay present in the real world while tapping into the knowledge and functionality of multimodal AI.

During the presentation, text on the nearby screens suggests that Magic Leap is mainly working with Google on the technology here, rather than bringing its own glasses to market. Magic Leap further hints at this in its press release, calling itself “an AR ecosystem partner” focused on “supporting global technology leaders that want to enter the AR market and accelerate the production of AR glasses.”

‘Keep Android Open’ Campaign Pushes Back On Google’s Sideloading Restrictions

Posted by BeauHD View on SlashDot Skip
PC Mag’s Michael Kan writes:
A “Keep Android Open” campaign is pushing back on new rules from Google that will reportedly block users from sideloading apps on Android phones. It’s unclear who’s running the campaign, but a blog post on the free Android app store F-Droid is directing users to visit the campaign’s website, which urges the public to lobby government regulators to intervene and stop the upcoming restrictions. “Developers should have the right to create and distribute software without submitting to unnecessary corporate surveillance,” reads an open letter posted to the site. […]

Google has described the upcoming change as akin to requiring app developers to go through “an ID check at the airport.” However, F-Droid condemned the new requirement as anti-consumer choice. “If you own a computer, you should have the right to run whatever programs you want on it,” it says. Additionally, the rules threaten third-party app distribution on F-Droid, which operates as a “free/open-source app distribution” model.

In its blog post, F-Droid warns about the impact on users and Android app developers. “You, the creator, can no longer develop an app and share it directly with your friends, family, and community without first seeking Google’s approval,” the app store says. “Over half of all humankind uses an Android smartphone,” the blog post adds. “Google does not own your phone. You own your phone. You have the right to decide who to trust, and where you can get your software from.”

The problem here

By RUs1729 • Score: 3 Thread
The problem is that, if the likes of Google, Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, and others have their way, you will not own your computer; those companies will effectively own your computers, and will be good enough to let you use it. They will also be good enough to let you to keep data on said computer as they see fit. The process already is quite advanced in some cases.

If you want open Android

By rsilvergun • Score: 3 Thread
You need government regulation. By those filthy scary bureaucrats which are basically White collar cops.

If you can’t get over a lifetime of propaganda telling you government is the problem and not the solution then you don’t get to have open Android or anything else. If you are very lucky you will get to die before they take your house. That is the best you can hope for when you try to go it alone against literal multi-billionaires bordering on trillionaires.

I never understand what makes a man think that he can compete with a trillionaire or that he can keep that trillionaire from getting his trillion dollars with anything else but the full support of his neighbors.

Then again I never much liked right wing propaganda so and I didn’t really feel the need to look down on anyone to deal with my situation…

F-Droid’s claim isn’t quite accurate

By swillden • Score: 3 Thread

From the summary:

In its blog post, F-Droid warns about the impact on users and Android app developers. “You, the creator, can no longer develop an app and share it directly with your friends, family, and community without first seeking Google’s approval,”

You can still develop an app and share it directly with whoever you want without registering, you just have to convince them to use ADB to install it, rather than clicking a link on a web site or downloading from an app store (like F-Droid). This adds a lot of friction and requires your potential users to trust you quite a bit more, because it feels like they’re taking a bigger risk, even though there isn’t any actual difference in risk. I expect that we’ll start to see apps packaged with ADB for a “single-click install” from a Windows machine, to reduce the friction as far as possible. Users would still have to do the dance to enable developer options, enable USB, then tap “accept” on the ADB key popup, though an installer could (and probably will) walk them though that.

Also, although I don’t think details are available yet, Google says there will be an option for “limited distribution accounts” which don’t require any fee or ID verification, but can only distribute their apps to a limited number of devices. For people who just want to share with friends and family, this should cover them.

Israel Demanded Google and Amazon Use Secret ‘Wink’ To Sidestep Legal Orders

Posted by BeauHD View on SlashDot Skip
An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Guardian:
When Google and Amazon negotiated a major $1.2 billion cloud-computing deal in 2021, their customer — the Israeli government — had an unusual demand: agree to use a secret code as part of an arrangement that would become known as the “winking mechanism.” The demand, which would require Google and Amazon to effectively sidestep legal obligations in countries around the world, was born out of Israel’s concerns that data it moves into the global corporations’ cloud platforms could end up in the hands of foreign law enforcement authorities.

Like other big tech companies, Google and Amazon’s cloud businesses routinely comply with requests from police, prosecutors and security services to hand over customer data to assist investigations. This process is often cloaked in secrecy. The companies are frequently gagged from alerting the affected customer their information has been turned over. This is either because the law enforcement agency has the power to demand this or a court has ordered them to stay silent. For Israel, losing control of its data to authorities overseas was a significant concern. So to deal with the threat, officials created a secret warning system: the companies must send signals hidden in payments to the Israeli government, tipping it off when it has disclosed Israeli data to foreign courts or investigators.

To clinch the lucrative contract, Google and Amazon agreed to the so-called winking mechanism, according to leaked documents seen by the Guardian, as part of a joint investigation with Israeli-Palestinian publication +972 Magazine and Hebrew-language outlet Local Call. Based on the documents and descriptions of the contract by Israeli officials, the investigation reveals how the companies bowed to a series of stringent and unorthodox “controls” contained within the 2021 deal, known as Project Nimbus. Both Google and Amazon’s cloud businesses have denied evading any legal obligations.

A warranty canary would make more sense

By davidwr • Score: 4, Insightful Thread

In countries that can’t make you lie but can make you not tell others about their warrants, a warranty canary is a good, legal way to communicate that a court or police force has seized data and put you under a gag order.

In countries where the government can “make you lie” by making you continue to say that there has been no government data-seizure, warranty canaries are useless - “killing the canary” will get you in the same legal hot water as announcing “the government took your data.”

I wouldn’t be surprised if some of the countries whose police or court actions were leaked to Israel take whatever legal action they can against Google and Amazon.

Why trust?

By ukoda • Score: 3 Thread
Surely the Israel government has the resources to self host? If the information is so important that they want know if a third party has been given it then why trust it with someone they do not have 100% control of in the first place?

More generally any country trusting Google or Amazon to keep their data secure has not got the memo that the USA is not a trusted partner anymore. trump can ask for anything you save with USA companies and they will answer “Would you like that emailed to you or on a gold plated HDD?”.

Universal Partners With AI Startup Udio After Settling Copyright Suit

Posted by BeauHD View on SlashDot Skip
Universal Music Group has settled its copyright lawsuit with AI music startup Udio and struck a licensing deal to launch a new AI-powered music platform next year. The Verge reports:
The deal includes some form of compensation and “will provide further revenue opportunities for UMG artists and songwriters,” Universal says. Udio, the company behind “BBL Drizzy,” will launch the platform as a subscription service next year. Universal, alongside other industry giants Sony and Warner, sued Udio and another startup Suno for “en masse” copyright infringement last year.

Universal — whose roster includes some of the world’s biggest performers like Taylor Swift, Bad Bunny, and Ariana Grande — says the new tool will “transform the user engagement experience” and let creators customize, stream, and share music. There’s no indication of how much it will cost yet. Udio’s existing music maker, which lets you create new songs with a few words, will remain available during the transition, though content will be held “within a walled garden” and security measures like fingerprinting will be added.

OpenAI Eyes $1 Trillion IPO

Posted by BeauHD View on SlashDot Skip
OpenAI is reportedly preparing for a massive IPO that could value the company at up to $1 trillion. It follows a recent corporate restructuring that loosened its dependence on Microsoft and aligned its nonprofit foundation with financial success. Reuters reports:
OpenAI is considering filing with securities regulators as soon as the second half of 2026, some of the people said. In preliminary discussions, the company has looked at raising $60 billion at the low end and likely more, the people said. They cautioned that talks are early and plans — including the figures and timing - could change depending on business growth and market conditions. Chief Financial Officer Sarah Friar has told some associates the company is aiming for a 2027 listing, the people said. But some advisers predict it could come even sooner, around late 2026.

[…] An IPO would open the door to more efficient capital raising and enable larger acquisitions using public stock, helping to finance CEO Sam Altman’s plans to pour trillions of dollars into AI infrastructure, according to people familiar with the company’s thinking. With an annualized revenue run rate expected to reach about $20 billion by year-end, losses are also mounting inside the $500 billion company, the people said. During a livestream on Tuesday, Altman addressed the possibility of going public. “I think it’s fair to say it is the most likely path for us, given the capital needs that we’ll have,” he said.

Bubble

By Misagon • Score: 5, Informative Thread

OK. Now the bubble is definitely real …

Alternate headline

By thegarbz • Score: 4, Informative Thread

Company who is estimated to have lost $16bn net over its operating life and is projected to double those losses next year eyes wildly insane overvaluation.

Sam can only do it with your money

By awwshit • Score: 5, Insightful Thread

It takes your money to fill Sam’s pockets and he wants to have the very biggest pockets.

Unpatched Bug Can Crash Chromium-Based Browsers in Seconds

Posted by msmash View on SlashDot Skip
A critical security flaw in Chromium’s Blink rendering engine can crash billions of browsers within seconds. Security researcher Jose Pino discovered the vulnerability and created a proof-of-concept exploit called Brash to demonstrate the bug affecting Chrome, Edge, OpenAI’s ChatGPT Atlas, Brave, Vivaldi, Arc, Dia, Opera and Perplexity Comet.

The flaw, reports The Register, exploits the absence of rate limiting on document.title API updates in Chromium versions 143.0.7483.0 and later. The attack injects millions of DOM mutations per second and saturates the main thread. When The Register tested the code on Edge, the browser crashed and the Windows machine locked up after about 30 seconds while consuming 18GB of RAM in one tab. Pino disclosed the bug to the Chromium security team on August 28 and followed up on August 30 but received no response. Google said it is looking into the issue.

Interesting

By 93 Escort Wagon • Score: 3, Insightful Thread

… while consuming 18GB of RAM in one tab

So, a standard Firefox session in other words. /rimshot

Pretty much all multiplatform browsers

By markdavis • Score: 3 Thread

>“A critical security flaw in Chromium’s Blink rendering engine can crash billions of browsers within seconds.”

Yes, all multiplatform browsers, except Firefox. Browser non-diversity is a serious security, stability, and freedom threat.

AI ‘Cheating’ App Founder Says Engineers Can’t Make Good, Viral Content and That’s Why Their Startups Flop

Posted by msmash View on SlashDot Skip
AI “cheating” app Cluely’s CEO and cofounder, Chungin “Roy” Lee, said most startups flop because their products don’t get seen. From a report:
“Engineers just cannot make good content,” Lee said during a Wednesday interview at TechCrunch Disrupt 2025 “There’s a bunch of shallow replicas, but I challenge you to find one video you think is like, ‘Yo, this is as tough as Cluely,’" he told TechCrunch.

Every startup needs to focus more on distribution. And most startups flop because they fail to get seen, even if they have product-market fit, Lee said. Cluely launched earlier this year as a tool to help software engineers cheat on their job interviews, among other use cases. The startup earlier this year posted a tongue-in-cheek video of Lee trying to use Cluely to impress a woman on a date, which went viral.

Marketing is hard

By rsilvergun • Score: 3 Thread
Clearly this guy has big brain. I haven’t seen a big brain this big brain since Elon Musk.

I’m assuming this guy will soon have hundreds of millions of dollars in government contracts. Because that seems to be the optimal way for big brain to get bigger brain. State the obvious and wait for the government money to roll in.

I read the summary

By registrations_suck • Score: 3 Thread

And all I can say is WHAT THE FUCK are they talking about?!?

He’s not wrong

By abulafia • Score: 4, Insightful Thread
Sounds like a douchebag, but he isn’t wrong.

There’s a cliche in SV about that - “First time founders talk product. Second time founders talk distro.”

The best product in the world will fail if nobody knows it exists, and depending on who the market is, it can be very hard to get the attention of possible customers. If you’re mass-market, well, look at all that noise you need to cut through. If you’re some niche enterprise product, identifying customers is easier, but getting their attention is hard, and building enough trust as a new entrant to take a risk on is much harder.

So you need to attract or buy attention, or hire someone who can. And frequently that means making deals with intermediaries, matchmakers, etc.

Dude still sounds insufferable.

Google Makes First Play Store Changes After Losing Epic Games Antitrust Case

Posted by BeauHD View on SlashDot Skip
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica:
Since launching Google Play (nee Android Market) in 2008, Google has never made a change to the US store that it didn’t want to make — until now. Having lost the antitrust case brought by Epic Games, Google has implemented the first phase of changes mandated by the court. Developers operating in the Play Store will have more freedom to direct app users to resources outside the Google bubble. However, Google has not given up hope of reversing its loss before it’s forced to make bigger changes. Epic began pursuing this case in 2020, stemming from its attempt to sell Fortnite content without going through Google’s payment system. It filed a similar case against Apple, but the company fell short there because it could not show that Apple put its thumb on the scale. Google, however, engaged in conduct that amounted to suppressing the development of alternative Android app stores. It lost the case and came up short on appeal this past summer, leaving the company with little choice but to prepare for the worst.

Google has updated its support pages to confirm that it’s abiding by the court’s order. In the US, Play Store developers now have the option of using external payment platforms that bypass the Play Store entirely. This could hypothetically allow developers to offer lower prices, as they don’t have to pay Google’s commission, which can be up to 30 percent. Devs will also be permitted to direct users to sources for app downloads and payment methods outside the Play Store. Google’s support page stresses that these changes are only being instituted in the US version of the Play Store, which is all the US District Court can require. The company also notes that it only plans to adhere to this policy “while the US District Court’s order remains in effect.” Judge James Donato’s order runs for three years, ending on November 1, 2027.

I will never understand this case

By dirk • Score: 4, Informative Thread

I just don’t get how Google was found liable and Apple was not. Google had at least alternate store (Amazon) while Apple has had none. Google allowed sideloading so there was (and still is) a way to load apps not in the store while Apple doesn’t allow sideloading. You can say Google suppressed the development of alternative app stores, but Apple never even had to suppress because there was simply no way to get them on the device. I am not saying it was wrong to find Google liable, but the fact they have to make changes and Apple continues to have the most locked down device and app store around just boggles my mind.

Zuckerberg Getting Ready To Dump More AI Content To Social Feeds

Posted by msmash View on SlashDot Skip
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg is getting ready to dump even more AI-generated posts into your social feeds. From a report:
During an earnings call on Wednesday, Zuckerberg said the company will “add yet another huge corpus of content” to its recommendations system as AI “makes it easier to create and remix” work that gets shared online.

“Social media has gone through two eras so far,” Zuckerberg said. “First was when all content was from friends, family, and accounts that you followed directly. The second was when we added all of the Creator content.” Though Zuckerberg stops short of calling AI the third era of social media, it’s clear that the technology will be heavily involved in what comes next.

Zuckerberg said that recommendation systems that “deeply understand” AI-generated posts and “show you the right content” will become “increasingly valuable.” The company has already begun embedding AI tools across its apps and is now experimenting with dedicated AI social apps, too.

I use Facebook, without pride

By Touvan • Score: 4, Informative Thread

I’m not proud that I use Facebook - eventually I’ll just delete the damned thing. But I have to say - the very second I come across anything that is obviously generated AI BS, I turn it off, immediately. I just have no interest in that crap, and I wonder how many others feel the same.

More and more people leave

By nospam007 • Score: 4, Insightful Thread

Soon, AI will be the only one left.

Self awareness is not his strong suit.

By nightflameauto • Score: 5, Informative Thread

Zuckerberg said that recommendation systems that “deeply understand” AI-generated posts and “show you the right content” will become “increasingly valuable.”

“show you the right content” literally set off the klaxon in my head.

I don’t believe Zuck, nor his algorithms or AIs will ever have any clue what “the right content” actually is. It’ll be rage engagement at an ever escalating pace until people are bright enough to log off permanently. Good grief.

Its risky not to make a facebook account

By Morromist • Score: 4, Interesting Thread

I have one because several people I know have had accounts that impersonate them appear on facebook, befriend people who they’re connected to on other social networks and try to scam them. I didn’t want this to happen to me so I created a fb account.

Basically facebook’s criminally shitty moderation coerces people who have a large and vulnerable public presence on the internet, such as teachers, pastors, local officials, etc into doing this.

I suspect this kind of scam is likely to increase with the rise in AI to create posts and also facebook’s ever accelerating decay into a dead site that even zuck doesn’t care about anymore AND the aging and more vulnerable userbase. I suspct the percentage of scams that happen through facebook vs the rest of the entire internet is pretty shocking.

Interesting reaction to this news

By smooth wombat • Score: 5, Informative Thread
After Meta announced its earnings on Wednesday, and presumably this announcement was part of the earnings call, Meta’s stock dropped, erasing $237 billion in value.

As the article relates, “Meta’s spending is hard to rationalize, some analysts say, as it’s uncertain whether heavy investments in AI will generate compelling returns”

Further down in the article, “Significant investment in Superintelligence despite unknown revenue opportunity mirrors 2021/2022 metaverse spending,” Oppenheimer analysts said, referring to Meta’s recently formed Superintelligence Labs focused on AI that would surpass human knowledge. After Wall Street panned earlier metaverse-spending plans, Meta went through a “year of efficiency” focused on cost cuts.

Take this as you will.

International Criminal Court To Ditch Microsoft Office For European Open Source Alternative

Posted by msmash View on SlashDot Skip
An anonymous reader shares a report:
The International Criminal Court will switch its internal work environment away from Microsoft Office to Open Desk, a European open source alternative, the institution confirmed to Euractiv. The switch comes amid rising concerns about public bodies being reliant on US tech companies to run their services, which have stepped up sharply since the start of US President Donald Trump’s second administration.

For the ICC, such concerns are not abstract: Trump has repeatedly lashed out at the court and slapped sanctions on its chief prosecutor, Karim Khan. Earlier this year, the AP also reported that Microsoft had cancelled Khan’s email account, a claim the company denies. “We value our relationship with the ICC as a customer and are convinced that nothing impedes our ability to continue providing services to the ICC in the future,” a Microsoft spokesperson told Euractiv.

Good

By dskoll • Score: 5, Insightful Thread

Now Canadian organizations need to do the same. It is a business risk (and for governments, a national security threat) to rely on US products or services.

Re:Why not Libre Office?

By innocent_white_lamb • Score: 4, Interesting Thread

That was my first thought, but according to their webpage https://www.opendesk.eu/en/ it appears this does more than what libreoffice does, such as task management, video conferencing, chat, identity and access management, etc.

But unless I’m missing something I don’t think it’s open source. The website talks about using open standards but your only option for actually getting it to “book a demo”.

It doesn’t appear to be either open source or available for download.

Inevitable

By StormReaver • Score: 5, Insightful Thread

We FOSS people have been warning governments around the world for decades that relying on closed-source software is a huge danger to national security, and we were blown off as paranoid. Now that closed software has inevitably bitten them hard, the obvious is now obvious.

Countries should be redirecting the millions upon millions they spend on proprietary software/spyware to employ FOSS developers instead. It would make them much safer and more secure.

Sadly yes

By abulafia • Score: 5, Interesting Thread
A software dependency on an adversary is bad enough, but Microsoft is busy coercing users into storing data on Microsoft machines.

For someone like the ICC, that would be a hard-no even if the US weren’t lead by a demented fascist antagonistic towards them.

Sadly, since January it has become rational to worry about weaponized interdependence on the US.

Trump can use that for a while, but in the end the result will be a much-diminished US. Probably already too late to reverse the academic brain-drain - we’ve convinced a generation of smart kids to look for an education elsewhere, breaking an innovation-spigot that’s benefited the US since WWII. And if he keeps up with his bullshit, the dollar will not remain the reserve currency. That will feel like new tax on everything, likely much worse on specific stuff. (People argue about what will happen, but almost certainly: higher borrowing costs, lower Dollar, lower stock market returns, bigger constraints on the government running a deficit.) Software will fragment, we’ll see more Great Firewalls (although probably not in the US - they’re intentionally leaving us vulnerable).

I expect open source to suffer heavily. Sure IBMHat will persist, but thousands of small project will die or never happen because if increased barriers. I also expect to see more attempts at subverting projects and laying traps in them.

Trump is an idiot

By Schoenlepel • Score: 4, Interesting Thread

Putting sanctions on Karim Khan instantly made everyone aware of their dependence on American companies. The USA proved that they’re an unreliable business partner that’ll do whatever the current president wants. It wasn’t as if it was some low profile person. Whether Karim Khan was an asshole or not does not matter. The USA took revenge on him for daring to do what the USA doesn’t like. Now the whole world knows. Anybody that matters is at this point looking to ditch Microsoft. Using Microsoft software is now much more a liability than it was previously. Microsoft was happy that most officials did not care. Now those same officials care.

TypeScript Overtakes Python and JavaScript To Claim Top Spot on GitHub

Posted by msmash View on SlashDot Skip
TypeScript overtook Python and JavaScript in August 2025 to become the most used language on GitHub. The shift marked the most significant language change in more than a decade. The language grew by over 1 million contributors in 2025, a 66% increase year over year, and finished August with 2,636,006 monthly contributors.

Nearly every major frontend framework now scaffolds projects in TypeScript by default. Next.js 15, Astro 3, SvelteKit 2, Qwik, SolidStart, Angular 18, and Remix all generate TypeScript codebases when developers create new projects. Type systems reduce ambiguity and catch errors from large language models before production. A 2025 academic study found 94% of LLM-generated compilation errors were type-check failures. Tooling like Vite, ts-node, Bun, and I.D.E. autoconfig hide boilerplate setup. Among new repositories created in the past twelve months, TypeScript accounted for 5,394,256 projects. That represented a 78% increase from the prior year.

TypeScript

By JBMcB • Score: 5, Informative Thread
The problem is developers only know how to make websites now. The Windows app for my UPS is 300MB because it’s an Electron app, so it has to run a couple of hundred megs of python and a node.js server to show me the last time my UPS tripped. I just use the built-in Windows battery thing now, but it doesn’t keep track of battery health unfortunately.

Re:TypeScript

By CubicleZombie • Score: 4, Insightful Thread

I go where the money is, and nobody wants to pay me to write console applications anymore. Lately it’s all been Angular and … Typescript.

Typescript is great

By i_ate_god • Score: 3 Thread

Of course, it’s still hobbled by the fact that it is a superset of JavaScript, but it’s type system is really great. I would love to see a language have a similar mentality to TS’s type system without all the trappings of web development

Re:I don’t program

By Pseudonymous Powers • Score: 4, Informative Thread

JavaScript doesn’t have type checking. This means that when you program your fancy robot surgeon “medbed” in JavaScript, and it asks you to put a scalpel in one gripper and a needle-and-thread in the other, but you decide to put a chainsaw in both instead, it doesn’t check to see if it has a scalpel or a needle, it just goes ahead and uses the chainsaws.

TypeScript is JavaScript with type checking to prevent that sort of thing.

EU Carmakers ‘Days Away’ From Halting Work as Chip War With China Escalates

Posted by msmash View on SlashDot Skip
Carmakers in the EU are “days away” from closing production lines, the industry has warned, as a crisis over computer chip supplies from China escalates. From a report:
The European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association (ACEA) issued an urgent warning on Wednesday saying its members, which include BMW, Fiat, Peugeot and Volkswagen, were now working on “reserve stocks but supplies are dwindling.”

“Assembly line stoppages might only be days away. We urge all involved to redouble their efforts to find a diplomatic way out of this critical situation,” said its director general, Sigrid de Vries. Another ACEA member, Mercedes, is now searching globally for alternative sources of the crucial semiconductors, according to its chief executive, Ola Kallenius. The chip shortage is also causing problems in Japan, where Nissan’s chief performance officer, Guillaume Cartier, told reporters at a car show in Tokyo that the company was only “OK to the first week of November” in terms of supply.

Re:This is what DEI is meant for....

By PDXNerd • Score: 5, Interesting Thread

The ironic part is that ASML is a dutch company. The most advanced lithography process is created in the Netherlands, but its just not economical to *make the chips* there.

USA shooting EU in foot

By oumuamua • Score: 5, Informative Thread
How did this all start? from TFA

Beijing banned exports of Nexperia chips near the start of the month in response to the Dutch government’s decision to take over the Netherlands-headquartered company on 30 September and suspend its Chinese chief executive after the US flagged security concerns.

This Nexperia takeover also covered on Slashdot: https://yro.slashdot.org/story…
So in sum, actions taken in fear of China restricting a critical resource actually cause China to restrict that resource. The consequences were not well thought out.

Nope

By JBMcB • Score: 5, Informative Thread

Microcontrollers are used to reduce weight. Instead of a thick bundle of wires going to the door locks and power windows and power mirrors and door open switch and any lights that happen to be there - you have a couple of data and power wires going into the microcontroller unit that controls all the door stuff.

This goes for everything electronic, and there is a *lot* of this stuff in modern cars. Tail lights, rear climate and entertainment controls, radar parking aids, tire pressure monitors, heated seats, cabin lights, cabin temperature sensors, microphones, etc… Overall weight savings are in the dozens of pounds.

This is all done to drop weight to make CAFE standards. You could standardize on a different microcontroller, but these things are purpose-built and a full environmental TA soak can take years. You don’t want one of these things to fail and have to tear doors apart to replace them in a recall.

Re:I have an idea…

By taustin • Score: 5, Interesting Thread

I seriously doubt that it is technologically possible to build a car without computer chips that would meet the various legal, emission and safety requirements to sell in the US.

Re:USA shooting EU in foot

By Luckyo • Score: 5, Interesting Thread

What actually happened is embodiment of the meme: “America designs, China builds, EU regulates”.

Here EU’s regulatory supremacy made bureaucrats at all levels believe that it’s the bureaucrats within every organization that matter, not the people being managed by bureaucracy that actually produce things. So when confiscating Nexperia… they confiscated the HQ. The place with the company bureaucracy.

Chinese took one look at this idiotic confiscation of bureaucracy that never touched any productive parts of the company, did a “are you really this fucking retarded” double take, concluded that yes, European bureaucratized leadership is in fact fucking retarded, and simply ordered the production facilities in PRC to… stop taking instructions from HQ.

Because bureaucracy is utterly worthless without someone to actually do things they order. It’s not a producer of anything. It’s a necessary evil. A symbiote at best, and a parasite at worst. Which can in fact be simply cut out and replaced rapidly, as long as productive parts of the company remain, because there’s plenty of comparable symbiotic systems out there. But there are very few if any producers.

Obesity Rate Declining in U.S.

Posted by msmash View on SlashDot
Gallup:
After peaking at a record high of 39.9% in 2022, the U.S. adult obesity rate has gradually declined to 37.0% in 2025. This is a statistically meaningful decrease representing an estimated 7.6 million fewer obese adults compared with three years ago. Meanwhile, diagnoses of diabetes — a lifetime disease that can be managed but not cured — have now reached an all-time high of 13.8%. Both metrics are part of the ongoing Gallup National Health and Well-Being Index.

[…] Over the past year, more Americans have turned to Type 2 antidiabetic GLP-1 drugs such as semaglutide (brand names Ozempic and Wegovy) for weight loss purposes. The percentage of adults who report taking this class of medicine specifically for weight loss has increased to 12.4%, compared with 5.8% in February 2024 when Gallup first measured it. Usage among women (15.2%) continues to outpace men (9.7%), but both groups have more than doubled their use in the past year. These results dovetail with increased awareness of the drugs used for weight loss, which has risen from 80% to 89% nationally in the same period.

Re:I’m curious

By Kernel Kurtz • Score: 5, Interesting Thread

I’m curious to see where this widescale use of weight loss drugs over personal responsibility (ignoring the small minority of people who legitimately need such drugs) takes us.

I’m curious too, for different reasons. I recently saw a documentary on GLP1s that suggested they may have systemic anti-inflammatory effects that are potentially beneficial for quite a few conditions beyond what they are approved for. I’ve also seen research that suggests they may have unforeseen and/or undesirable long-term side effects. Obviously more research is needed, but as someone who does not need to lose weight I’m still very interested in possible benefits beyond that. This could be a more significant breakthrough than it appears to be at first glance.

Re:I’m curious

By skam240 • Score: 4, Informative Thread

Is not an issue for most over weight. I ran marathons for a few years and put on weight.

Not only is that incredibly anecdotal but your weight gain was likely muscle mass which is not what is fueling obesity in any country.

Mass majority drop in A1C, liver enzymes stabilize, cholesterol comes down, blood pressure comes down, heart rate comes down. All that is good news for health long term.

Exercise and good diet have health virtues well beyond that of keeping weight off. Drugs don’t make these problems go away.

Re: I’m curious

By zawarski • Score: 5, Informative Thread
I absolutely made lifestyle changes. The drug helped me lose weight at a level that encouraged me to make and continue the lifestyle changes. I was being glib on the same fashion that you were excluding anything but a negative outcome for people using these drugs.

Re:I’m curious

By techno-vampire • Score: 5, Insightful Thread
Personal responsibility is not the main cause of obesity.

You’re right. Personal responsibility isn’t a cause of obesity; the problem is lack of personal responsibility.

Re:I’m curious

By serviscope_minor • Score: 4, Insightful Thread

Don’t be an idiot.

After bulldozing city centers to make them car dependent, you then passed a bunch of laws that make our illegal to put anything you might want to walk to within walking distance of most houses. And then utterly inadequate enforcement of anti trust and anti dumping legislation resulted in the destruction of everything that remained.

End result is now most Americans have to drive everywhere, particularly to big box stores stacked with the worst kind of food optimized for addictiveness. It’s much harder to have “personal responsibility” when all the good choices have been removed to benefit the largest of corporations.

This is why the adult obesity rate is lower in NYC. It’s not because New Yorkers are a superior breed with stiffer backbones and stronger wills, it’s because the choices to be responsible haven’t been completely destroyed.