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EditorDavid @ Slashdot · 04/13/2025 11:34 EDT

FreeDOS Celebrates More Than 30 Years of Command Prompts With New Release

When Microsoft announced it would stop developing MS-DOS after 1995, college student Jim Hall "packaged my own extended DOS utilities, as did others," according to the web site for the resulting "FreeDOS" project. Jim Hall is also Slashdot reader #2,985, and more than 30 years later he's "keeping the dream of the command prompt alive," writes Ars Technica. In a new article they note that last week the FreeDOS team... Read more ›

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Slashdot
EditorDavid @ Slashdot · 04/13/2025 09:28 EDT

FSF Urges US Government to Adopt Free-as-in-Freedom Tax Filing Software

"A modern free society has an obligation to offer electronic tax filing that respects user freedom," says a Free Software Foundation blog post, "and the United States is not excluded from this responsibility." "Governments, and/or the companies that they partner with, are responsible for providing free as in freedom software for necessary operations, and tax filing is no exception." For many years now, a large portion of [U.S.] taxpayers have... Read more ›

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Slashdot
EditorDavid @ Slashdot · 04/13/2025 07:34 EDT

New Supercomputing Record Set - Using AMD's Instinct GPUs

"AMD processors were instrumental in achieving a new world record," reports Tom's Hardware, "during a recent Ansys Fluent computational fluid dynamics simulation run on the Frontier supercomputer at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory." The article points out that Frontier was the fastest supercomputer in the world until it was beaten by Lawrence Livermore Lab's El Capitan — with both computers powered by AMD GPUs: According to a press release by... Read more ›

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Slashdot
EditorDavid @ Slashdot · 04/13/2025 03:44 EDT

Do Cognitive Abilities Predict Performance in Everyday Computer Tasks?

"Researchers say that a person's intelligence plays a bigger role in their computer proficiency than previously believed," writes SciTechDaily, "so much so that practice alone may not be enough to ensure ease of use." A new study has found that general cognitive abilities, such as perception, reasoning, and memory, are more important than previously believed in determining a person's ability to perform everyday tasks on a computer... "It is clear... Read more ›

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Slashdot
EditorDavid @ Slashdot · 04/12/2025 23:44 EDT

Torvalds Celebrates Git's 20th Anniversay.  Is It More Famous Than Linux?

Celebrating Git's 20th anniversary, GitHub hosted a Q&A with Linus Torvalds, writes Its FOSS News. Among the other revelations: He says his college-age daughter sent a texting saying he's better known at her CS lab for Git than for Linux, "because they actually use Git for everything there." Which he describes as "ridiculous" because he maintained it for just four months before handing it off to Junio Hamano who's been... Read more ›

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Slashdot
EditorDavid @ Slashdot · 04/12/2025 21:34 EDT

WSJ Says China 'Acknowledged Its Role in U.S. Infrastructure Hacks'

Here's an update from the Wall Street Journal about a "widespread series of alarming cyberattacks on U.S. infrastructure." China was behind it, "Chinese officials acknowledged in a secret December meeting... according to people familiar with the matter..." The Chinese delegation linked years of intrusions into computer networks at U.S. ports, water utilities, airports and other targets, to increasing U.S. policy support for Taiwan, the people, who declined to be named,... Read more ›

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Slashdot
EditorDavid @ Slashdot · 04/12/2025 18:41 EDT

Original 1977 'Star Wars' Cut Will Be Shown at a Theater for First Time in Decades

Long-time Slashdot reader sandbagger brings news that in June "a rare screening of the original 1977 Star Wars movie — complete with Han shooting first — will be shown at a theater in London..." Petapixel reports: Subsequent alterations made to the film are well-documented: Han Solo being shot at by the bounty hunter Greedo first, rather than the original in which anti-hero Han killed Greedo without being shot at. Then... Read more ›

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Slashdot
EditorDavid @ Slashdot · 04/12/2025 17:41 EDT

Chrome To Patch Decades-Old 'Browser History Sniffing' Flaw That Let Sites Peek At Your History

Slashdot reader king*jojo shared this article from The Register: A 23-year-old side-channel attack for spying on people's web browsing histories will get shut down in the forthcoming Chrome 136, released last Thursday to the Chrome beta channel. At least that's the hope. The privacy attack, referred to as browser history sniffing, involves reading the color values of web links on a page to see if the linked pages have been... Read more ›

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Slashdot
EditorDavid @ Slashdot · 04/12/2025 16:41 EDT

America's Justice Department Shuts Down Its Cryptocurrency Fraud Unit

America's Justice Department "has shut down its unit that investigates cryptocurrency fraud," reports USA Today. A Monday night memo from U.S. Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said the shut down was "effective immediately." Blanche directed the closure of the National Cryptocurrency Enforcement Team and ordered prosecutors to pivot to investigating transnational criminal organizations and terrorist groups that use crypto to engage in illicit transactions... In his four-page memo, Blanche said... Read more ›

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Slashdot
EditorDavid @ Slashdot · 04/12/2025 15:41 EDT

For the First Time Astronomers Watch a Black Hole 'Wake Up' in Real-Time

Black holes "often exhibit long periods of dormancy," writes Popular Science, adding that astronomers had never witnessed a black hole "wake up" in real time. "Until now..." In February of 2024 X-ray bursts were spotted coming out of a black hole named Ansky by Lorena Hernández-García at Chile's Valparaiso University, according to the article. And what astronomers have now seen "challenges prevailing theories about black hole lifecycles." Hernández-García and collaborators... Read more ›

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Slashdot
EditorDavid @ Slashdot · 04/12/2025 14:41 EDT

Germany's 'Universal Basic Income' Experiment Proves It Doesn't Encourage Unmployment

People "are likely to continue working full-time even if they receive no-strings-attached universal basic income payments," reports CNN, citing results from a recent experiment in Germany (discussed on Slashdot in 2020): Mein Grundeinkommen (My Basic Income), the Berlin-based non-profit that ran the German study, followed 122 people for three years. From June 2021 to May 2024, this group received an unconditional sum of €1,200 ($1,365) per month. The study focused... Read more ›

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Slashdot
EditorDavid @ Slashdot · 04/12/2025 13:41 EDT

AI Industry Tells US Congress:  'We Need Energy'

The Washington Post reports: The United States urgently needs more energy to fuel an artificial intelligence race with China that the country can't afford to lose, industry leaders told lawmakers at a House hearing on Wednesday. "We need energy in all forms," said Eric Schmidt, former CEO of Google, who now leads the Special Competitive Studies Project, a think tank focused on technology and security. "Renewable, nonrenewable, whatever. It needs... Read more ›

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Slashdot
EditorDavid @ Slashdot · 04/12/2025 12:41 EDT

Microsoft is Killing Skype - and Refusing Refunds for Prepaid International Calls

Skype is shutting down after two decades on May 5th, notes the Washington Post. But the bigger problem for retired attorney Karen Griffin is that Microsoft won't refund the money they paid into a Skype account for cheap international phone calls: "They're no longer offering this service that I prepaid for, and now they're not giving me my money back," Griffin said. "There's a lot of people out there who... Read more ›

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Slashdot
EditorDavid @ Slashdot · 04/12/2025 12:34 EDT

FSF Urges US Government to Adopt Free-as-in-Freedom Tax Filing Software

"A modern free society has an obligation to offer electronic tax filing that respects user freedom," says a Free Software Foundation blog post, "and the United States is not excluded from this responsibility." "Governments, and/or the companies that they partner with, are responsible for providing free as in freedom software for necessary operations, and tax filing is no exception." For many years now, a large portion of [U.S.] taxpayers have... Read more ›

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Slashdot
EditorDavid @ Slashdot · 04/12/2025 11:41 EDT

Trump Tariffs Add Exemptions Friday Night for Smartphones and Other Electronics

Smartphones, computer monitors, semiconductors, and various other electronics will be exempt from U.S. President Trump's tariffs, reports CNN, "according to a US Customs and Border Protection notice posted late Friday." And several other products also received an exemption which "applies to products entering the United States or removed from warehouses as early as April 5, according to the notice." Roughly 90% of Apple's iPhone production and assembly is based in... Read more ›

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Slashdot
EditorDavid @ Slashdot · 04/12/2025 10:34 EDT

Facebook Whistleblower Alleges Meta's AI Model Llama Was Used to Help DeepSeek

A former Facebook employee/whistleblower alleges Meta's AI model Lllama was used to help DeepSeek. The whistleblower — former Facebook director of global policy Sarah Wynn-Williams — testified before U.S. Senators on Wednesday. CBS News found this earlier response from Meta: In a statement last year on Llama, Meta spokesperson Andy Stone wrote, "The alleged role of a single and outdated version of an American open-source model is irrelevant when we... Read more ›

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Slashdot
msmash @ Slashdot · 04/12/2025 08:05 EDT

Leaving Money on the Table

Abstract of a paper on NBER: There is much disagreement about the extent to which financial incentives motivate study participants. We elicit preferences for being paid for completing a survey, including a one-in-twenty chance of winning a $100 electronic gift card, a guaranteed electronic gift card with the same expected value, and an option to refuse payment. More than twice as many participants chose the lottery as chose the guaranteed... Read more ›

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Slashdot
msmash @ Slashdot · 04/12/2025 03:20 EDT

Facebook Is Just Craigslist Now

Facebook Marketplace has emerged as the dominant feature within the social media platform, amassing 1.2 billion monthly active buyers by 2023 and overtaking eBay as a peer-to-peer selling platform. According to recent data, approximately 16 percent of Facebook's monthly active users now access the site exclusively to participate in Marketplace. The feature's growth accelerated following the pandemic's supply chain disruptions and subsequent inflation, which increased demand for used goods. Facebook... Read more ›

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Slashdot
msmash @ Slashdot · 04/12/2025 00:30 EDT

Adobe Retreats from Bluesky After Massive User Backlash

Adobe has deleted all its posts on Twitter-alternative Bluesky after a disastrous April 8 debut that drew over 1,600 angry comments from digital creators. The software giant's innocuous first post asking "What's fueling your creativity right now?" triggered immediate criticism targeting Adobe's controversial subscription model, continual price increases, and AI implementation. "Y'all keep raising your prices for a product that keeps getting worse," wrote one user, while another referenced Adobe's... Read more ›

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Slashdot
msmash @ Slashdot · 04/11/2025 22:00 EDT

European Tourism To US Plunges

An anonymous reader shares a report: The number of European travellers visiting the US has fallen sharply as political and economic tension and fears of a hostile border under President Donald Trump threaten the world's most lucrative air routes. Visitors from western Europe who stayed at least one night in the US fell by 17 per cent in March from a year ago, according to the International Trade Administration. Travel... Read more ›

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