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<title>Nautilus : slashdot selection</title>
<link>https://electriccafe.org/slashdot.php</link>
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<title><![CDATA[Valve Will Finally Let You Build Your Own Steam Machine With SteamOS For Desktop]]></title>
<guid isPermaLink="false">slashdot_26/06/22/1922207</guid>
<link>https://electriccafe.org/slashdot.php?id=slashdot_26/06/22/1922207</link>
<pubDate>2026-06-22</pubDate>
<description><![CDATA[				With the price of the new Steam Machine starting at $1,049, you might want to consider making your own Steam Machine instead. An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: Valve says that "starting with the SteamOS 3.8 release, you can put together your own Steam Machine using whatever PC parts you want." SteamOS 3.8.10 launched last week with a slew of updates, including "improved compatibility with recent Intel and AMD platforms." Alongside that improved compatibility, Valve is giving gamers the green light to install SteamOS on their own desktops. In an interview with The Verge, Valve's Pierre-Loup Griffais said Valve has been "rolling out improvements to [SteamOS] so it's more compatible with desktop hardware," including eventual support for Nvidia graphics. Griffais says Valve has "a growing team" working on Nvidia driver support for SteamOS, adding, "We're collaborating with Nvidia very closely." While he mentioned that Nvidia support might not come this year, Griffais emphasized that "it's certainly something that we're working on in the background."
 
It's technically been possible to run SteamOS on your own hardware for a while now, but compatibility has been mostly limited to AMD systems. So far installing it has also required using a Steam Deck recovery image, a process that, speaking from experience, is much less straightforward than the installation process for most other Linux distributions. Trying to run SteamOS on Intel or Nvidia hardware has not been easy so far. According to Griffais, Valve is working to change that, which could mean that down the line, you'll be able to run SteamOS on just about any gaming PC hardware you want, including Nvidia.
 
For the more immediate future, Griffais says SteamOS in its current state should offer a "good experience" on console-like PC setups: "If you have something that is similar to the use case of a Steam Machine, where you have a PC that's gonna be plugged into a TV, and has a single hard drive that you're not going to try and dual boot [] you can put SteamOS on there, and you'll have an experience that is very similar to a Steam Deck docked or a Steam Machine, with some caveats, of course," like a lack of HDMI-CEC support. But "the core bits of the experience are there. The SteamOS graphics driver, the shader precompilation [...] you can get at all of that with the SteamOS." Griffais says SteamOS does not yet offer an easy way to dual-boot alongside Windows or another operating system, but envisions "a time where it's a better experience to install on your desktop and have it coexist with a different operating system."
		
	
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<title><![CDATA[Commodore's Callback 8020 Is a $499 Flip Phone That Blocks Social Media and Browsers]]></title>
<guid isPermaLink="false">slashdot_26/06/16/201248</guid>
<link>https://electriccafe.org/slashdot.php?id=slashdot_26/06/16/201248</link>
<pubDate>2026-06-16</pubDate>
<description><![CDATA[				Commodore has unveiled the Callback 8020, a $499 Sailfish OS flip phone that runs most Android apps but deliberately blocks social media, browsers, email, and workplace apps to discourage doomscrolling. The "not dumb dumbphone" still supports messaging, music, maps, ridesharing, hotspots, a removable battery, and plenty of Commodore nostalgia. "The phone uses T9-style texting with predictive input, includes Commodore SID ringtones, ships with a selection of Commodore and Sailfish games, and even includes Snake," reports TechSpot. From the report:  Commodore says it has developed patent-pending technology that prevents browsers and social media apps from being sideloaded, while DNS-level blocking should stop them from working even if someone finds a way to install them. Users can still sideload nearly anything else if it's not available on the Commostore, but apps designed for doomscrolling remain off limits. That means useful services such as WhatsApp, SMS, Signal, Telegram, WeChat, Spotify, Uber, Lyft, maps, podcasts, QR scanning, voice notes, and hotspot support work, but the likes of Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, Gmail, and browsers do not.
 
The Callback 8020 has a 3.25-inch 480 x 640 internal display, a MediaTek Helio G81 chip, 4GB of RAM, 64GB of storage, a 48MP Sony rear camera, an autofocus front camera, dual SIM support, USB-C, a headphone jack, FM radio, and something many of us miss from flagships: a removable battery. There's no 5G as Commodore argues that 4G VoLTE and Wi-Fi better fit a device meant to discourage constant streaming and scrolling. [...] The main screen is touch-capable but disabled by default, while the outer display keeps things deliberately sparse, showing basics such as time, battery, signal, and notifications via dome LEDs.
 
The 8020 name is a nod to Commodore's 8010 modem from 1980. The phone comes in ProtoPET White, SX Silver, BASIC Beige, a translucent Starlight Edition, and a gold Founders Edition with a 24-karat gold-plated Commodore button. Standard models start at $499, the Starlight version is $549.99, and the Founders Edition costs $640. Preorders open June 30, with shipping targeted for winter. You can watch the launch ad on YouTube.
		
	
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<title><![CDATA[Vim Classic 8.3 Launched as an AI-Free Vim Fork]]></title>
<guid isPermaLink="false">slashdot_26/06/13/0524209</guid>
<link>https://electriccafe.org/slashdot.php?id=slashdot_26/06/13/0524209</link>
<pubDate>2026-06-13</pubDate>
<description><![CDATA[				This month saw the release of Vim Classic 8.3, the first stable version of a new long-term support fork of Vim maintained without generative AI tools.     Linuxiac reports:
The release is based on Vim 8.2.0148 and includes selected bug fixes and patches backported from later upstream Vim releases. Vim Classic was first announced by [SourceHut's CEO/founder] Drew DeVault in March 2026 after he objected to LLM-assisted development in Vim and Neovim. In his announcement, DeVault said he no longer wanted to use software developed with LLM assistance and introduced Vim Classic as a fork for users who want to continue using Vim without that involvement... Vim Classic follows Vim's charityware model and continues to direct users toward Bram Moolenaar's long-running support for children in Uganda. The release is distributed as a signed source tarball from SourceHut, while future important announcements are expected through the project's mailing list.  
"Vim is important to me..." DeVault wrote in March. (DeVault even tattooed "hjkl" on his right arm.)  "[A]lmost every word I have ever committed to posterity, through this blog, in my code, all of the docs I've written, emails I've sent, and more, almost all of it has passed through Vim." 
But DeVault wrote that he also cares about AI's impact on air pollution, fresh water supplies, global supply chains, and the working conditions of miners in African companies:
And at a moment when the climate demands immediate action to reduce our footprint on this planet, the AI boom is driving data centers to consume a full 1.5% of the world's total energy production in order to eliminate jobs and replace them with a robot that lies... All this to enrich the few, centralize power, reduce competition, and underwrite an enormous bubble that, once it bursts, will ruin the lives of millions of the world's poor and marginalized classes.   
I don't think it's cute that someone vibe coded "battleship" in VimScript. I think it's more important that we stop collectively pretending that we don't understand how awful all of this is. I don't want to use software which has slop in it. I do what I can to avoid it, and sadly even Vim now comes under scrutiny in that effort as both Vim and NeoVim are relying on LLMs to develop the software...  To keep my conscience clear, and continue to enjoy the relationship I have with this amazing piece of software, I have forked Vim... 
Since forking from this base, I have backported a handful of patches, most of which address CVEs discovered after this release, but others which address minor bug fixes. I also penned a handful of original patches which bring the codebase from this time up to snuff for building it on newer toolchains... 
I invite you to use Vim Classic, if you feel the same way as me, and to maintain it with me, contributing the patches you need to support your own use cases.  
		
	
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<title><![CDATA[DuckDuckGo Installs Up 30% After Google Announced AI Search]]></title>
<guid isPermaLink="false">slashdot_26/05/30/0511236</guid>
<link>https://electriccafe.org/slashdot.php?id=slashdot_26/05/30/0511236</link>
<pubDate>2026-05-30</pubDate>
<description><![CDATA[				After Google announced AI-emphasizing changes to its search results, many web surfers began defecting to DuckDuckGo, reports TechCrunch.  (They describe DuckDuckGo as "a privacy-focused alternative" that accounts for around 2% of the U.S. search market...)
DuckDuckGo said U.S. app installs went up 18.1% week-over-week on average during the May 20 to May 25 period, compared to May 13 to May 18. The company said that growth was sustained for six consecutive days and peaked at 30.5% on May 25. On iOS, the rate of install is even higher, with week-over-week growth hitting a 33% average, peaking at 69.9%... DuckDuckGo said the trend is stronger in the U.S, and that DuckDuckGo continued to gain users over the Memorial Day weekend, when it usually sees a dip in traffic.   Some of that data is backed up by third parties. App analytics company Apptopia found a 29% increase in average daily downloads in the U.S. and a 12% increase globally over the same period.  
DuckDuckGo also said visits to its AI-free search page, noai.duckduckgo.com averaged 22.7% week-over-week growth, peaking at 27.7% on May 24, according to the article.  ("DuckDuckGo also offers an AI Image Filter that filters out AI-created images from search results.") 
TechCrunch delves into the reason why:
I overheard a woman on the phone saying she was switching to DuckDuckGo because you can "opt out of using AI... Google just isn't Google anymore," she said. It seems that others had the same idea... Some have argued it will kill the open web, while others shared concerns that AI overviews surface inaccurate responses and take away control from users who might not want to use AI. It also overcomplicates simple things. 
A Google spokesperson pointed out that AI Mode isn't the default in their search results.  (And CNET notes Google include an AI-free "Web" choice in its results if you just want a page of ftraditional blue links.) 
TechCrunch adds that DuckDuckGo also offers a separate free tool called Duck.ai offering access to models including Claude, Meta's Llama and OpenAI's GPT-5 mini.  "All chats are private because DuckDuckGo strips the user's IP address before requests reach model providers, deletes conversations within 30 days, and prevents chats from being used for training."
		
	
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<title><![CDATA['Virtual OS Museum' Lets You Try 570 Extinct Operating Systems]]></title>
<guid isPermaLink="false">slashdot_26/05/30/2323231</guid>
<link>https://electriccafe.org/slashdot.php?id=slashdot_26/05/30/2323231</link>
<pubDate>2026-05-30</pubDate>
<description><![CDATA[				You can try 570 extinct operating systems at a new "virtual museum," according to a new article by ZDNet.  Their reporter downloaded the ancient OS NeXTStep, and was "shocked" by how easy it was to run it, "and by the sheer number of operating systems to choose from."

Essentially, what you do is download a zipped file, unzip it, change into the newly created directory, and run the executable. VirtualBox then opens to a Debian Linux instance, where you can select from a very long list of operating systems to run...   You can run operating systems like Amiga, Apple I/II/III, Atari, Avigo, Commodore 64, Cray, DEC Alpha, Einstein, Game Boy Advance, GE 200, HP 3000, IBM 1130, iPod touch, Jupiter Ace, Lisa, Macintosh, MIPS-based SBCs, Neo, Newton, NeXT, NORC, Palm, and so many more.   You can test the earliest mainframes, later mainframes and minicomputers, workstations and Unix variants, home computers, personal computer operating systems, mobile and embedded adOSes, and research-based and obscure systems.  As far as Linux is concerned, you can run early Debian and its derivatives, Red Hat and its derivatives, early Slackware, and more...   
There are two editions of the Virtual OS Museum: full and lite. The full edition is currently 174GB and includes everything you need to run these old-school operating systems. The full version does not require a network connection to run. The Lite version is only 14GB and requires an internet connection because it downloads the full OS image you want to use.  
Gizmodo notes "this project is all the more remarkable for being the work of one man: Andrew Wartenkin, who has been collecting OS images for over two decades."

Of course, Wartenkin didn't write all the emulation software himself, and he maintains a list of credits to give credit where it's due...  The Museum itself runs in a virtual machine, which seems kinda fitting &mdash; it opens in a virtualized Linux installation and presents you with the full list of available operating systems. 
Did you know someone has written a GUI for the Commodore 64? Neither did I!  There are simulations of ancient mainframes, like the IBM 1130 (yours for the low, low price of $32,280 &mdash; or $41,230 with a disk drive &mdash; back in 1965).
 
There's also a YouTube channel. 
Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader Z00L00Kfor sharing the news.
		
	
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<title><![CDATA[Last.fm Goes Independent After Breaking Up With Paramount Skydance]]></title>
<guid isPermaLink="false">slashdot_26/05/28/0552205</guid>
<link>https://electriccafe.org/slashdot.php?id=slashdot_26/05/28/0552205</link>
<pubDate>2026-05-28</pubDate>
<description><![CDATA[				Last.fm announced that it is independent again after separating from Paramount Skydance, nearly two decades after CBS acquired the music-tracking service in 2007. The company says accounts, scrobbles, privacy settings, Pro subscriptions, and billing information will remain intact. Additional details are forthcoming. Engadget reports:  "Today, Last.fm begins a new chapter as an independent company," the announcement reads. "Ownership has changed, but the product you use every day has not." It also said that it will keep its current team. Last.fm is a music website that can track what you listen to across platforms, apps and streaming services, including Spotify, YouTube and Apple Music.&#194;
 
[...] Last.fm started as an internet radio station in 2002, and it didn't get scrobbling until a few years later when it merged with the original team that created the tracking process. It operated as an independent company until it was acquired by CBS Interactive, which is now part of the merged Paramount Skydance Corporation, for $280 million in 2007. In 2014, it killed off its $3-a-month subscription radio service to focus on tracking your listening habits on other providers. The company promised to share more about what you can expect from the transition in the coming weeks, but everything will work on Last.fm "exactly as it did yesterday" for now. 
		
	
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<title><![CDATA[KDE Receives $1.4 Million Investment From Sovereign Tech Fund]]></title>
<guid isPermaLink="false">slashdot_26/05/13/161242</guid>
<link>https://electriccafe.org/slashdot.php?id=slashdot_26/05/13/161242</link>
<pubDate>2026-05-13</pubDate>
<description><![CDATA[				The German Sovereign Tech Fund has invested 1.2 million euros ($1.4 million USD) in KDE Plasma technologies to help strengthen the structural reliability and security of the desktop environment's core infrastructure, including Plasma, KDE Linux, and the frameworks underlying its communication services. Longtime Slashdot reader jrepin shares an excerpt from the announcement:  For 30 years, KDE has been providing the free and open-source software essential for digital sovereignty in personal, corporate, and public infrastructures: operating systems, desktop environments, document viewers, image and video editors, software development libraries, and much more.
 
KDE's software is competitive, publicly auditable, and freely available. It can be maintained, adapted, and improved in-house or by local software companies. And modifications (along with their source code) can be freely distributed to all users and departments within an organization.
 
KDE will use Sovereign Tech Fund's investment to push its essential software products to the next level, providing every individual, business, and public administration with the opportunity to regain their privacy, security, and control over their digital sovereignty. Slashdot reader Elektroschock also shared a statement from Fiona Krakenburger, Technical Director at the Sovereign Tech Agency.
 
"We have long invested in desktop technologies for a reason: they are the primary way people access and use digital services in everyday life," says Krakenburger. "The desktop holds personal data and mediates nearly every service we depend on, from booking the next medical appointment, to education, to the way we work. We are investing in KDE because it is one of the two major desktop environments used across Linux and plays a key role in how millions of people experience open technology. Strengthening KDE's testing infrastructure, security architecture, and communication frameworks is how we invest in the resilience and reliability of the core digital infrastructure that modern society depends on."
		
	
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<title><![CDATA[Valve Releases Steam Controller CAD Files Under Creative Commons License]]></title>
<guid isPermaLink="false">slashdot_26/05/06/208231</guid>
<link>https://electriccafe.org/slashdot.php?id=slashdot_26/05/06/208231</link>
<pubDate>2026-05-06</pubDate>
<description><![CDATA[				Valve has released CAD files for the new Steam Controller and its Puck under a Creative Commons license. "The idea is to let enterprising modders create their own Steam Controller add-ons, like skins, charging stands, grip extenders or smartphone mounts," reports Digital Foundry. From the report:  The Valve release includes files for the external shell ("surface topology") of the Controller and Puck, with a .STP, .STL and engineering diagram of each device, with the latter showing areas that must remain uncovered to let the device maintain its signal strength and otherwise function as designed. Valve has previously released CAD files for its Steam Deck handheld, Valve Index VR suite and even the original Steam Controller a decade ago, so this release is welcomed but not unexpected.
 
The release is under a fairly restrictive Creative Commons license which allows for non-commercial use and requires attribution and sharing of designs back to the community. However, the license also suggests that commercial entities interested in making accessories for the Steam Controller or its Puck can contact Valve directly to discuss terms.  You can find the files here.
		
	
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<title><![CDATA[Linux Percentage of Steam Users Doubled in One Year]]></title>
<guid isPermaLink="false">slashdot_26/05/02/0625247</guid>
<link>https://electriccafe.org/slashdot.php?id=slashdot_26/05/02/0625247</link>
<pubDate>2026-05-02</pubDate>
<description><![CDATA[				Steam on Linux use in March "had skyrocketed to 5.33%..." reports Phoronix, "easily the highest level we've seen Steam on Linux at since its inception more than a decade ago." 
So what happened in April?
[April's results] point to Linux having a 4.52% marketshare on Steam, a drop of 0.81% compared to March.  Year-over-year it's roughly double with Steam on Linux in April 2025 being at 2.27%. Or two years ago for April 2024, Steam on Linux was at 1.9%.

		
	
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<title><![CDATA[Open Source Developer Brings Linux to Windows 95, Windows 98, and Windows ME]]></title>
<guid isPermaLink="false">slashdot_26/04/25/179232</guid>
<link>https://electriccafe.org/slashdot.php?id=slashdot_26/04/25/179232</link>
<pubDate>2026-04-25</pubDate>
<description><![CDATA[				Microsoft released the "Windows Subsystem for Linux" in 2016, adding an optional Linux environment into every operating system since Windows 10.  But now an open source developer has brought Linux to Windows 95, Windows 98, and Windows Me, reports the blog It's FOSS, "with Linux kernel 6.19 running alongside the Windows 9x kernel, letting both operate on the same machine at the same time."

A virtual device driver handles initialization, loads the kernel off disk and manages the event loop for page faults and syscalls. Since Win9x lacks the right interrupt table support for the standard Linux syscall interrupt, WSL9x reroutes those calls through the fault handler instead. Rounding it all out is wsl.com, a small 16-bit DOS program that pipes the terminal output from Linux back to whatever MS-DOS prompt window you ran it from. 
The end result is that WSL9x requires no hardware virtualization, and can run on hardware as old as the i486, the article points out.  On Mastodon the developer says they "really got this one in right under the wire, before they start removing 486 support from Linux." 
The source code for WSL9x is released under the GPL-3 license, and was "proudly written without AI."
		
	
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<title><![CDATA[Trump Administration Begins Refunding $166 Billion In Tariffs]]></title>
<guid isPermaLink="false">slashdot_26/04/20/1711231</guid>
<link>https://electriccafe.org/slashdot.php?id=slashdot_26/04/20/1711231</link>
<pubDate>2026-04-20</pubDate>
<description><![CDATA[				"After a Supreme Court of the United States ruling in Feb. 2026, many tariffs imposed by the Trump administration were declared illegal because the president overstepped his authority," writes Slashdot reader hcs_$reboot. "As a result, the U.S. government now has to refund a massive amount of money, around $160-170+ billion, paid mainly by importers." According to the New York Times, the administration has now begun accepting refund requests, "surrendering its prized source of revenue -- plus interest." From the report:  For some U.S. businesses, the highly anticipated refunds could be substantial, offering critical if belated financial relief. Tariffs are taxes on imports, so the president's trade policies have served as a great burden for companies that rely on foreign goods. Many have had to choose whether to absorb the duties, cut other costs or pass on the expenses to consumers. By Monday morning, those companies can begin to submit documentation to the government to recover what they paid in illegal tariffs.
 
In a sign of the demand, more than 3,000 businesses, including FedEx and Costco, have already sued the Trump administration in a bid to secure their refunds, with some cases filed even before the Supreme Court's ruling. But only the entities that officially paid the tariffs are eligible to recover that money. That means that the fuller universe of people affected by Mr. Trump's policies -- including millions of Americans who paid higher prices for the products they bought -- are not able to apply for direct relief.
 
The extent to which consumers realize any gain hinges on whether businesses share the proceeds, something that few have publicly committed to do. Some have started to band together in class-action lawsuits in the hopes of receiving a payout. Many business owners said they weren't sure how easy the tariff refund process would be, particularly given Mr. Trump's stated opposition to returning the money. The administration has suggested that it may be months before companies see any money. Adding to the uncertainty, the White House has declined to say if it might still try to return to court in a bid to halt some or all of the refunds.  The money will mostly go to importers and companies, since they were the ones that directly paid the tariffs. While individual refunds with interest could take around 60 to 90 days to process, the overall effort will probably move much more slowly because of how large and complicated it will be.
 
There are also legal questions around whether companies would have to pass any of that money on to consumers. Slashdot reader AmiMoJo commented: "This is perhaps the biggest transfer of wealth in American history. Most of those companies will just pocket the refund and not pass any of it on to the consumer. If prices go down at all, they won't be back to pre-tariff levels. You paid the tariffs, but you ain't getting the refund."
		
	
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<title><![CDATA[Brave Browser Introduces 'Origin', a Pay-Once 'Minimalist' Browser]]></title>
<guid isPermaLink="false">slashdot_26/04/20/0423212</guid>
<link>https://electriccafe.org/slashdot.php?id=slashdot_26/04/20/0423212</link>
<pubDate>2026-04-20</pubDate>
<description><![CDATA[				The Brave browser "has introduced Brave Origin, a stripped-down version of its browser that removes built-in monetization features like Rewards and other extras tied to its business model," writes Slashdot reader BrianFagioli"
The stripped-down browser is available either as a separate browser download or as an upgrade to the existing Brave install, unlocked through a one-time purchase that can be activated across multiple devices. The idea is simple on paper: pay once, and you get a cleaner, more minimal browsing experience without the add-ons that fund Brave's ecosystem.  What makes the move unusual is the pricing model itself. While paying to support a browser is not controversial, charging users specifically to remove features raises questions about whether those additions are seen as value or clutter.  
The situation gets even stranger on Linux, where Brave Origin is reportedly available at no cost, creating an uneven experience across platforms and leaving some users wondering why they are being asked to pay for something others get for free.
		
	
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<title><![CDATA[Blue Origin Rocket Launches, Successfully Reuses Booster - But Loses Satellite]]></title>
<guid isPermaLink="false">slashdot_26/04/20/0248201</guid>
<link>https://electriccafe.org/slashdot.php?id=slashdot_26/04/20/0248201</link>
<pubDate>2026-04-20</pubDate>
<description><![CDATA[				 SpaceNews reports:
Blue Origin's New Glenn suffered a malfunction of its second stage on the rocket's third flight April 19, stranding its payload in an unrecoverable "off-nominal" orbit and dealing the company a setback as it seeks to increase its flight rate...  AST SpaceMobile had planned to launch 45 to 60 satellites this year for its D2D constellation, but BlueBird 7 is the first to launch since BlueBird 6 launched on an Indian LVM3 rocket in December.
 
AST SpaceMobile still expects to have 45 satellites in orbit by the end of the year, the article notes.  (In an earnings call in March, AST SpaceMobile's CEO had promised they'd soon start "stacking" satellites, "batched in groups of either three, four, six or eight in a single launch.")  He'd added that "To support our launch cadence during 2026, we expect the New Glenn booster to be reused every 30 days or less..." 
There's some good news there, SpaceNews points out, since today saw the first successful reflight of a New Glenn first stage rocket:
The booster, called "Never Tell Me The Odds" by Blue Origin, touched down on the company's landing platform, Jacklyn, in the Atlantic Ocean nearly nine and a half minutes after liftoff. The booster launched NASA's ESCAPADE Mars mission on the NG-2 flight in November.   However, the booster reuse on NG-3 was only partial since the stage's biggest component, its BE-4 engines, was new. "With our first refurbished booster we elected to replace all seven engines and test out a few upgrades including a thermal protection system on one of the engine nozzles," Dave Limp, chief executive of Blue Origin, said in an April 13 social media post. "We plan to use the engines we flew for NG-2 on future flights."
 
The satellite will now be "de-orbited", AST SpaceMobile said in a statement.  (They added that "The cost of the satellite is expected to be recovered under the company's insurance policy.") 
Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader schwit1 for sharing the news.
		
	
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<title><![CDATA[Voyager 1 is Running Out of Power.  NASA Just Switched Part of It Off]]></title>
<guid isPermaLink="false">slashdot_26/04/19/2346255</guid>
<link>https://electriccafe.org/slashdot.php?id=slashdot_26/04/19/2346255</link>
<pubDate>2026-04-19</pubDate>
<description><![CDATA[				After 49  years of space travel, Voyager 1 "is running out of power," reports NPR:
The spacecraft runs on a radioisotope thermoelectric generator &mdash; a device that converts heat from decaying plutonium into electricity. It carries no solar panels, no rechargeable batteries. Just the slow, steady release of nuclear warmth, which diminishes by about 4 watts each year. After nearly five decades, that decline has become critical. 
During a routine maneuver in late February, Voyager 1's power levels fell unexpectedly, bringing the probe dangerously close to triggering an automatic fault-protection shutdown &mdash; a self-preservation response that would have forced engineers into a lengthy and risky recovery process. The team needed to act first.   On April 17, mission engineers sent a sequence of commands to deactivate the Low-energy Charged Particles experiment, known as the LECP, which is one of Voyager 1's remaining science instruments. The LECP has measured ions, electrons, and cosmic rays originating from both our solar system and the galaxy beyond it, helping scientists map the structure of interstellar space in a way no other instrument could...  
Voyager 1 now carries two operational science instruments: one that listens for plasma waves, and one that measures magnetic fields. Engineers believe the latest shutdown could buy the mission roughly another year of breathing room.   The team is also developing a more sweeping power conservation plan they informally call "the Big Bang" &mdash; a coordinated swap of several powered components all at once, trading older systems for lower-power alternatives. If testing on Voyager 2, planned for May and June 2026, goes well, the same procedure will be attempted on Voyager 1 no sooner than July. If it works, there is even a slim chance the LECP could once more continue to work. 
The engineers say they hope to keep at least one instrument operating on each spacecraft into the 2030s. It would leave both still reporting from places no machine has ever gone before.111 
Voyager 1 is now 15 billion miles from Earth, the article points out.  (Radio signals take 23 hours to arrive...) 
Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader fahrbot-bot for sharing the article.

		
	
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<title><![CDATA[Fructose Isn't Just Sugar. It Acts More Like a Hormone]]></title>
<guid isPermaLink="false">slashdot_26/04/18/0444250</guid>
<link>https://electriccafe.org/slashdot.php?id=slashdot_26/04/18/0444250</link>
<pubDate>2026-04-18</pubDate>
<description><![CDATA[				Slashdot reader smazsyr writes: A new review says we've had fructose wrong for decades. The nine authors, led by Richard Johnson at the University of Colorado Anschutz, argue that fructose "is not just another calorie." It is a signal. It tells the liver to make fat and brace for a famine that never comes. That made sense for a bear fattening up on autumn berries. It makes less sense for a person drinking soda in March. 
The review reframes the WHO's sugar guideline, argues ScienceBlog.com, as "less a recommendation about calories and more a warning about a signalling molecule we have been dosing ourselves with, several times a day, for most of a century."
		
	
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<title><![CDATA[Artemis II Astronauts Splash Down Off California's Coast]]></title>
<guid isPermaLink="false">slashdot_26/04/11/0052229</guid>
<link>https://electriccafe.org/slashdot.php?id=slashdot_26/04/11/0052229</link>
<pubDate>2026-04-11</pubDate>
<description><![CDATA[				NASA's Artemis II crew safely splashed down off the California coast after completing a 10-day trip around the moon and back. "This is not just an accomplishment for NASA," sad NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman. "This is an accomplishment for humanity, again, a historic mission to the moon and back." From a report:  Isaacman is aboard the USS John. P Murtha Navy recovery vessel, where the astronauts will be brought once they've been retrieved from the Orion capsule, and he shared "there is a lot to celebrate right now on on a mission well accomplished for Artemis II."
 
Isaacman also complimented the crew as "absolutely professional astronauts, wonderful communicators and almost poets" "" as well as "ambassadors from humanity to the stars." "I can't imagine a better crew than the Artemis II crew that just completed a perfect mission right now. We are back in the business of sending astronauts to the moon and bringing them back safely.
 
This is just the beginning. We are going to get back into doing this with frequency, sending missions to the moon until we land on it in 2028 and start building our base." Isaacman also said it's time to start preparing for Artemis III, expected to launch in 2027.  You can watch the moment of the splashdown here.
		
	
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<title><![CDATA[France's Government Is Ditching Windows For Linux]]></title>
<guid isPermaLink="false">slashdot_26/04/10/1545234</guid>
<link>https://electriccafe.org/slashdot.php?id=slashdot_26/04/10/1545234</link>
<pubDate>2026-04-10</pubDate>
<description><![CDATA[				France says it plans to move some government computers from Windows to Linux as part of a broader push for digital sovereignty and reduced dependence on U.S. technology. TechCrunch reports:  In a statement, French minister David Amiel said (translated) that the effort was to "regain control of our digital destiny" by relying less on U.S. tech companies. Amiel said that the French government can no longer accept that it doesn't have control over its data and digital infrastructure. The French government did not provide a specific timeline for the switchover, or which distributions it was considering. Microsoft did not immediately comment on the news.
 
[...] France's decision to ditch Windows comes months after the government announced it would stop using Microsoft Teams for video conferencing in favor of French-made Visio, a tool based on the open source end-to-end encrypted video meeting tool Jitsi. The French government said it also plans to migrate its health data platform to a new trusted platform by the end of the year.
		
	
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<title><![CDATA[EFF Is Leaving X]]></title>
<guid isPermaLink="false">slashdot_26/04/09/1656219</guid>
<link>https://electriccafe.org/slashdot.php?id=slashdot_26/04/09/1656219</link>
<pubDate>2026-04-09</pubDate>
<description><![CDATA[				After nearly 20 years on the platform, The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) says it is leaving X. "This isn't a decision we made lightly, but it might be overdue," the digital rights group said. "The math hasn't worked out for a while now." From the report:  We posted to Twitter (now known as X) five to ten times a day in 2018. Those tweets garnered somewhere between 50 and 100 million impressions per month. By 2024, our 2,500 X posts generated around 2 million impressions each month. Last year, our 1,500 posts earned roughly 13 million impressions for the entire year. To put it bluntly, an X post today receives less than 3% of the views a single tweet delivered seven years ago. [...]
 
When you go online, your rights should go with you. X is no longer where the fight is happening. The platform Musk took over was imperfect but impactful. What exists today is something else: diminished, and increasingly de minimis.
 
EFF takes on big fights, and we win. We do that by putting our time, skills, and our members' support where they will effect the most change. Right now, that means Bluesky, Mastodon, LinkedIn, Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, YouTube, and eff.org. We hope you follow us there and keep supporting the work we do. Our work protecting digital rights is needed more than ever before, and we're here to help you take back control. 
		
	
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<title><![CDATA[NASA Launches Artemis II Astronauts Around the Moon]]></title>
<guid isPermaLink="false">slashdot_26/04/01/2250202</guid>
<link>https://electriccafe.org/slashdot.php?id=slashdot_26/04/01/2250202</link>
<pubDate>2026-04-01</pubDate>
<description><![CDATA[				NASA's Artemis II mission has launched four astronauts around the moon and back, marking humanity's first crewed lunar voyage in 53 years and the first test flight of NASA's Orion capsule and Space Launch System (SLS) with people on board. Five minutes into the flight, Commander Reid Wiseman saw the team's target: "We have a beautiful moonrise, we're headed right at it," he said from the capsule. The Associated Press reports:  Artemis II set sail from the same Florida launch site that sent Apollo's explorers to the moon so long ago. The handful still alive cheered this next generation's grand adventure as the Space Launch System rocket thundered into the early evening sky, a nearly full moon beckoning some 248,000 miles (400,000 kilometers) away.
 
Artemis II commander Reid Wiseman led the charge into space with "Let's go to the moon!" accompanied by pilot Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Canada's Jeremy Hansen. It was the most diverse lunar crew ever with the first woman, person of color and non-U.S. citizen riding in NASA's new Orion capsule.
 
Carrying three Americans and one Canadian, the 32-story rocket rose from NASA's Kennedy Space Center where tens of thousands gathered to witness the dawn of this new era. Crowds also jammed the surrounding roads and beaches, reminiscent of the Apollo moonshots in the 1960s and '70s. It is NASA's biggest step yet toward establishing a permanent lunar presence.  Visit NASA's Artemis II Launch Day blog for the latest updates.
 
 Developing... 
		
	
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<title><![CDATA[AI Data Centers Can Warm Surrounding Areas By Up To 9.1C]]></title>
<guid isPermaLink="false">slashdot_26/03/30/2337240</guid>
<link>https://electriccafe.org/slashdot.php?id=slashdot_26/03/30/2337240</link>
<pubDate>2026-03-30</pubDate>
<description><![CDATA[				An anonymous reader quotes a report from New Scientist: Andrea Marinoni at the University of Cambridge, UK, and his colleagues saw that the amount of energy needed to run a data centre had been steadily increasing of late and was likely to "explode" in the coming years, so wanted to quantify the impact. The researchers took satellite measurements of land surface temperatures over the past 20 years and cross-referenced them against the geographical coordinates of more than 8400 AI data centers. Recognizing that surface temperature could be affected by other factors, the researchers chose to focus their investigation on data centers located away from densely populated areas.
 
They discovered that land surface temperatures increased by an average of 2C (3.6F) in the months after an AI data center started operations. In the most extreme cases, the increase in temperature was 9.1C (16.4F). The effect wasn't limited to the immediate surroundings of the data centers: the team found increased temperatures up to 10 kilometers away. Seven kilometers away, there was only a 30 percent reduction in the intensity. "The results we had were quite surprising," says Marinoni. "This could become a huge problem."
 
Using population data, the researchers estimate that more than 340 million people live within 10 kilometers of data centers, so live in a place that is warmer than it would be if the data centre hadn't been built there. Marinoni says that areas including the Bajio region in Mexico and the Aragon province in Spain saw a 2C (3.6F) temperature increase in the 20 years between 2004 and 2024 that couldn't otherwise be explained. University of Bristol researcher Chris Preist said the findings may be more complicated than they look. "It would be worth doing follow-up research to understand to what extent it's the heat generated from computation versus the heat generated from the building itself," he says. For example, the building being heated by sunlight may be part of the effect.
 
The findings of the study, which has not yet been peer-reviewed, can be found on arXiv.
		
	
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