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Walmart Announces Drone Delivery, Integration with Google's AI Chatbot Gemini

January 11, 2026 at 9:42 PM

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Walmart Announces Drone Delivery, Integration with Google's AI Chatbot Gemini

https://tech.slashdot.org/story/26/01/11/1953234/walmart-announces-drone-delivery-integration-with-googles-ai-chatbot-gemini?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed

Alphabet-owned Wing "is expanding its drone delivery service to an additional 150 Walmart stores across the U.S.," reports Axios: [T]he future is already here if you live in Dallas — where some Walmart customers order delivery by Wing three times a week. By the end of 2026, some 40 million A...

Personal Info on 17.5 Million Users May Have Leaked to Dark Web After 2024 Instagram Breach

January 11, 2026 at 8:42 PM

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Personal Info on 17.5 Million Users May Have Leaked to Dark Web After 2024 Instagram Breach

https://tech.slashdot.org/story/26/01/10/2247226/personal-info-on-175-million-users-may-have-leaked-to-dark-web-after-2024-instagram-breach?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed

An anonymous reader shared this report from Engadget: If you received a bunch of password reset requests from Instagram recently, you're not alone. As reported by Malwarebytes, an antivirus software company, there was a data breach revealing the "sensitive information" of 17.5 million Instagram us...

China Tests a Supercritical CO2 Generator in Commercial Operation

January 11, 2026 at 5:42 PM

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China Tests a Supercritical CO2 Generator in Commercial Operation

https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/26/01/10/188208/china-tests-a-supercritical-co2-generator-in-commercial-operation?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed

"China recently placed a supercritical carbon dioxide power generator into commercial operation," writes CleanTechnica, "and the announcement was widely framed as a technological breakthrough." The system, referred to as Chaotan One, is installed at a steel plant in Guizhou province in mountainous ...

hardware.slashdot.org

January 11, 2026 at 4:42 PM

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That Bell Labs 'Unix' Tape from 1974: From a Closet to Computing History

https://tech.slashdot.org/story/26/01/11/0651219/that-bell-labs-unix-tape-from-1974-from-a-closet-to-computing-history?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed

That Bell Labs 'Unix' Tape from 1974: From a Closet to Computing History

Remember that re-discovered computer tape with one of the earliest versions of Unix from the early 1970s? This week several local news outlets in Utah reported on the find, with KSL creating a video report with shots of the tape arriving at Silicon Valley's Computer History Museum, the closet where...

Cory Doctorow: Legalising Reverse Engineering Could End 'Enshittification'

January 11, 2026 at 3:42 PM

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Cory Doctorow: Legalising Reverse Engineering Could End 'Enshittification'

https://news.slashdot.org/story/26/01/11/0223235/cory-doctorow-legalising-reverse-engineering-could-end-enshittification?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed

Scifi author/tech activist Cory Doctorow has decried the "enshittification" of our technologies to extract more profit. But Saturday he also described what could be "the beginning of the end for enshittification" in a new article for the Guardian — "our chance to make tech good again". There...

C# (and C) Grew in Popularity in 2025, Says TIOBE

January 11, 2026 at 12:42 PM

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C# (and C) Grew in Popularity in 2025, Says TIOBE

https://developers.slashdot.org/story/26/01/11/0532214/c-and-c-grew-in-popularity-in-2025-says-tiobe?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed

For a quarter century, the TIOBE Index has attempted to rank the popularity of programming languages by the number of search engine results they bring up — and this week they had an announcement. Over the last year the language showing the largest increase in its share of TIOBE's results was...

developers.slashdot.org

January 11, 2026 at 8:42 AM

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Elon Musk: X's New Algorithm Will Be Made Open Source in Seven Days

https://tech.slashdot.org/story/26/01/11/038252/elon-musk-xs-new-algorithm-will-be-made-open-source-in-seven-days?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed

Elon Musk: X's New Algorithm Will Be Made Open Source in Seven Days

"We will make the new ð algorithm...open source in 7 days," Elon Musk posted Saturday on X.com. Musk says this is "including all code used to determine what organic and advertising posts are recommended to users," and "This will be repeated every 4 weeks, with comprehensive developer notes, to...

Nature-Inspired Computers Are Shockingly Good At Math

January 11, 2026 at 5:42 AM

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Nature-Inspired Computers Are Shockingly Good At Math

https://science.slashdot.org/story/26/01/10/0628251/nature-inspired-computers-are-shockingly-good-at-math?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed

An R&D lab under America's Energy Department annnounced this week that "Neuromorphic computers, inspired by the architecture of the human brain, are proving surprisingly adept at solving complex mathematical problems that underpin scientific and engineering challenges." Phys.org publishes th...

More US States Are Preparing Age-Verification Laws for App Stores

January 11, 2026 at 2:42 AM

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More US States Are Preparing Age-Verification Laws for App Stores

https://yro.slashdot.org/story/26/01/10/054252/more-us-states-are-preparing-age-verification-laws-for-app-stores?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed

Yes, a federal judge blocked an attempt by Texas at an app store age-verification law. But this year Silicon Valley giants including Google and Apple "are expected to fight hard against similar legislation," reports Politico, "because of the vast legal liability it imposes on app stores and develop...

yro.slashdot.org

January 10, 2026 at 3:42 PM

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How the Free Software Foundation Kept a Videoconferencing Software Free

https://news.slashdot.org/story/26/01/10/0539228/how-the-free-software-foundation-kept-a-videoconferencing-software-free?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed

How the Free Software Foundation Kept a Videoconferencing Software Free

The Free Software Foundation's president Ian Kelling is also their senior systems administrator. This week he shared an example of how "the work we put in to making sure a program is free for us also makes it free for the rest of the world." During the COVID-19 pandemic, like everyone everywhere...

French-UK Starlink Rival Pitches Canada On 'Sovereign' Satellite Service

January 10, 2026 at 2:42 PM

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French-UK Starlink Rival Pitches Canada On 'Sovereign' Satellite Service

https://tech.slashdot.org/story/26/01/09/2349211/french-uk-starlink-rival-pitches-canada-on-sovereign-satellite-service?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed

An anonymous reader quotes a report from CBC.ca: A company largely owned by the French and U.K. governments is pitching Canada on a roughly $250-million plan to provide the military with secure satellite broadband coverage in the Arctic, CBC News has learned. Eutelsat, a rival to tech billionaire El...

Scientists Tried To Break Einstein's Speed of Light Rule

January 10, 2026 at 1:12 PM

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Scientists Tried To Break Einstein's Speed of Light Rule

https://science.slashdot.org/story/26/01/09/2343237/scientists-tried-to-break-einsteins-speed-of-light-rule?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed

Scientists are putting Einstein's claim that the speed of light is constant to the test. While researchers found no evidence that light's speed changes with energy, this null result dramatically tightens the constraints on quantum-gravity theories that predict even the tiniest violations. ScienceDai...

Meta Signs Deals With Three Nuclear Companies For 6+ GW of Power

January 10, 2026 at 10:12 AM

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Meta Signs Deals With Three Nuclear Companies For 6+ GW of Power

https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/26/01/09/2329256/meta-signs-deals-with-three-nuclear-companies-for-6-gw-of-power?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed

Meta has signed long-term nuclear power deals totaling more than 6 gigawatts to fuel its data centers: "one from a startup, one from a smaller energy company, and one from a larger company that already operates several nuclear reactors in the U.S," reports TechCrunch. From the report: Oklo and Terr...

hardware.slashdot.org

January 10, 2026 at 7:12 AM

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AI Models Are Starting To Learn By Asking Themselves Questions

https://news.slashdot.org/story/26/01/09/2246235/ai-models-are-starting-to-learn-by-asking-themselves-questions?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed

AI Models Are Starting To Learn By Asking Themselves Questions

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Wired: [P]erhaps AI can, in fact, learn in a more human way -- by figuring out interesting questions to ask itself and attempting to find the right answer. A project from Tsinghua University, the Beijing Institute for General Artificial Intelligence (BIGAI), ...

AI Is Intensifying a 'Collapse' of Trust Online, Experts Say

January 10, 2026 at 3:42 AM

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AI Is Intensifying a 'Collapse' of Trust Online, Experts Say

https://news.slashdot.org/story/26/01/09/2237231/ai-is-intensifying-a-collapse-of-trust-online-experts-say?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed

Experts interviewed by NBC News warn that the rapid spread of AI-generated images and videos is accelerating an online trust breakdown, especially during fast-moving news events where context is scarce. From the report: President Donald Trump's Venezuela operation almost immediately spurred the spr...

Intel Is 'Going Big Time Into 14A,' Says CEO Lip-Bu Tan

January 10, 2026 at 2:12 AM

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Intel Is 'Going Big Time Into 14A,' Says CEO Lip-Bu Tan

https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/26/01/09/2231201/intel-is-going-big-time-into-14a-says-ceo-lip-bu-tan?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed

Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan says the company is "going big time" into its 14A (1.4nm-class) process, signaling confidence in yields and hinting at at least one external foundry customer. Tom's Hardware reports: Intel's 14A is expected to be production-ready in 2027, with early versions of process design k...

hardware.slashdot.org

January 10, 2026 at 1:42 AM

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Microsoft May Soon Allow IT Admins To Uninstall Copilot

https://it.slashdot.org/story/26/01/09/2219256/microsoft-may-soon-allow-it-admins-to-uninstall-copilot?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed

Microsoft May Soon Allow IT Admins To Uninstall Copilot

Microsoft is testing a new Windows policy that lets IT administrators uninstall Microsoft Copilot from managed devices. The change rolls out via Windows Insider builds and works through standard management tools like Intune and SCCM. BleepingComputer reports: The new policy will apply to devices wh...

it.slashdot.org

January 10, 2026 at 12:57 AM

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Google: Don't Make 'Bite-Sized' Content For LLMs If You Care About Search Rank

https://tech.slashdot.org/story/26/01/09/2117206/google-dont-make-bite-sized-content-for-llms-if-you-care-about-search-rank?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed

Google: Don't Make 'Bite-Sized' Content For LLMs If You Care About Search Rank

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Search engine optimization, or SEO, is a big business. While some SEO practices are useful, much of the day-to-day SEO wisdom you see online amounts to superstition. An increasingly popular approach geared toward LLMs called "content chunking" m...

Send To Kindle from Microsoft Word is Discontinued

January 10, 2026 at 12:12 AM

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Send To Kindle from Microsoft Word is Discontinued

https://it.slashdot.org/story/26/01/09/1516254/send-to-kindle-from-microsoft-word-is-discontinued?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed

Microsoft is discontinuing its Send to Kindle integration in Word, ending a feature that allowed Microsoft 365 subscribers to send documents directly to their Kindle e-readers and preserve complex formatting through fixed layouts. The company updated its documentation to announce that beginning Fe...

it.slashdot.org

January 9, 2026 at 3:42 PM

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Why Care About Debt-to-GDP?

https://slashdot.org/story/26/01/09/1459249/why-care-about-debt-to-gdp?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed

Why Care About Debt-to-GDP?

Abstract of a paper on NBER: We construct an international panel data set comprising three distinct yet plausible measures of government indebtedness: the debt-to-GDP, the interest-to-GDP, and the debt-to-equity ratios. Our analysis reveals that these measures yield differing conclusions about recen...

slashdot.org

January 9, 2026 at 3:12 PM

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Record Ocean Heat is Intensifying Climate Disasters, Data Shows

https://news.slashdot.org/story/26/01/09/148202/record-ocean-heat-is-intensifying-climate-disasters-data-shows?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed

Record Ocean Heat is Intensifying Climate Disasters, Data Shows

The world's oceans absorbed yet another record-breaking amount of heat in 2025, continuing an almost unbroken streak of annual records since the start of the millennium and fueling increasingly extreme weather events around the globe. More than 90% of the heat trapped by humanity's carbon emissions ...

Fusion Physicists Found a Way Around a Long-Standing Density Limit

January 9, 2026 at 2:27 PM

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Fusion Physicists Found a Way Around a Long-Standing Density Limit

https://science.slashdot.org/story/26/01/09/0319216/fusion-physicists-found-a-way-around-a-long-standing-density-limit?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed

alternative_right shares a report from ScienceAlert: At the Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST), physicists successfully exceeded what is known as the Greenwald limit, a practical density boundary beyond which plasmas tend to violently destabilize, often damaging reactor components...