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An anonymous reader shares a report: Getting cash from an ATM is growing increasingly expensive as fees reach record highs. Americans are now paying an average of $4.86 for out-of-network ATM withdrawals, up 1.9% from $4.77 last year, according to a new survey from Bankrate.com. That's the highest on record, according to the personal finance website, which starting tracking ATM fees 27 years ago. "ATM fees are just one of those avenues that the bank can very freely continue to charge fees," Bankrate financial analyst Stephen Kates told CBS MoneyWatch. Those costs include charges from both ATM owners and banks. According to the survey, the average fee from cash machine providers is $3.22. Banks charge $1.64 on average, up 3.8% from 2024 -- the highest since 2018. As a result, Americans in certain metro areas could see average combined fees of more than $5.

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DISA STIG for Amazon Linux 2023 is now available  Amazon Web Services

Don't switch to these 5 Linux distros when you finally leave Windows 10  makeuseof.com

US Senator Ron Wyden says glaring cybersecurity flaws by Microsoft enabled a ransomware attack on a US hospital system and has called on the Federal Trade Commission to investigate. Bloomberg: In a letter sent Wednesday to FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson, the Oregon Democrat accused Microsoft of "gross cybersecurity negligence," which he said had resulted in ransomware attacks against US critical infrastructure. The senator cited the case of the 2024 breach at Ascension, one of the nation's largest nonprofit health systems. The intrusion shut down computers at many of Ascension's hospitals, leading to suspended surgeries and the theft of sensitive data on more than 5 million patients. Wyden said an investigation by his office found that the Ascension hack began after a contractor carried out a search using Microsoft's Bing search engine and was served a malicious link, which led to the contractor inadvertently downloading malware. That allowed hackers access to Ascension's computer networks. According to Wyden, the attackers then gained access to privileged accounts by exploiting an insecure encryption technology called RC4, which is supported by default on Windows computers. The hacking method is called Kerberoasting, which the company described as a type of cyberattack in which intruders aim to gather passwords by targeting an authentication protocol called Kerberos.

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Apple's newly launched iPhone Air will ship globally without physical SIM card slots. The move follows the company previously eliminating SIM trays in US models starting in 2022. Global consultancy firm Roland Berger forecasts eSIM connections will reach 75% of smartphone connections by 2030, rising from 10% in 2023. CCS Insight predicts eSIM-capable handsets will increase from 1.3 billion to 3 billion by 2030. Google offers eSIM-only Pixel 10 models in the US.

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The Federal Aviation Administration has issued a safety alert [PDF], warning airlines about lithium battery fire risks in passenger compartments after recording 50 incidents involving smoke, fire, or extreme heat from the devices this year. The FAA recommended airlines implement risk mitigation strategies including clear passenger messaging and updated firefighting procedures and training.

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Linux Foundation Energy Announces New Members  insidehpc.com

Bending Spoons has entered a definitive agreement with Vimeo to purchase the video platform for $1.38 billion. From a report: Per the agreement, Bending Spoons will acquire Vimeo in an all-cash transaction and take Vimeo (VMEO), a public company, private. Vimeo shareholders will receive $7.85 per share in cash when the transaction closes. [...] Vimeo, once a significant player in the streaming video space, has lost massive ground to other platforms, including YouTube, in recent years. Rather than fight a losing battle in the creator space, Vimeo has catered more toward business and enterprise users lately.

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FLOSS Weekly Episode 846: Mastering Embedded Linux Programming  Hackaday

Analyst Ben Thompson, commenting on Apple's outlook following the launch of the iPhone 17 lineup: Apple, to be fair, isn't selling the same sugar water year-after-year in a zero sum war with other sugar water companies. Their sugar water is getting better, and I think this year's seasonal concoction is particularly tasty. What is inescapable, however, is that while the company does still make new products -- I definitely plan on getting new AirPod Pro 3s! -- the company has, in the pursuit of easy profits, constrained the space in which it innovates. That didn't matter for a long time: smartphones were the center of innovation, and Apple was consequently the center of the tech universe. Now, however, Apple is increasingly on the periphery, and I think that, more than anything, is what bums people out: no, Apple may not be a sugar water purveyor, but they are farther than they have been in years from changing the world.

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The narrative podcast industry that exploded after Serial's 2014 debut has largely collapsed. Pineapple Street Studios shut down in June after producing hits like Missing Richard Simmons. Amazon dismantled Wondery in August, laying off 110 employees less than five years after acquiring the studio for $300 million. Spotify terminated Gimlet in 2023 despite paying $230 million for the company in 2019. Major outlets including Pushkin Industries and This American Life have conducted layoffs. Talk shows and celebrity podcasts continue growing while investigative audio series struggle to find funding. Edison Research reports 55% of Americans consumed podcasts last month, but advertising dollars are flowing to cheaper chat formats rather than resource-intensive narrative productions.

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Microsoft's Upcoming Windows 11 25H2 Battles Linux In Benchmark Showdown  HotHardware

Fwupd 2.0.15 Adds Support for NVIDIA ConnectX-6, ConnectX-7 and ConnectX-8 NICs  9to5Linux

NASA: After a year's worth of scientific scrutiny, the 'Sapphire Canyon' rock sample remains the mission's best candidate for containing signs of ancient microbial life processes. A sample collected by NASA's Perseverance Mars rover from an ancient dry riverbed in Jezero Crater could preserve evidence of ancient microbial life. Taken from a rock named "Cheyava Falls" last year, the sample, called "Sapphire Canyon," contains potential biosignatures, according to a paper published Wednesday in the journal Nature. A potential biosignature is a substance or structure that might have a biological origin but requires more data or further study before a conclusion can be reached about the absence or presence of life. "This finding by Perseverance, launched under President Trump in his first term, is the closest we have ever come to discovering life on Mars. The identification of a potential biosignature on the Red Planet is a groundbreaking discovery, and one that will advance our understanding of Mars," said acting NASA Administrator Sean Duffy. "NASA's commitment to conducting Gold Standard Science will continue as we pursue our goal of putting American boots on Mars' rocky soil."

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CIQ to Accelerate AI and HPC Workloads with NVIDIA CUDA  insidehpc.com

SpecFive Launches the Strike, a Meshtastic-Ready Raspberry Pi CM4 "Handheld Linux Workstation"  Hackster.io

SpecFive Launches the Strike, a Meshtastic-Ready Raspberry Pi CM4 "Handheld Linux Workstation"  Hackster.io

SpecFive Launches the Strike, a Meshtastic-Ready Raspberry Pi CM4 "Handheld Linux Workstation"  Hackster.io

Here are Google’s latest AI updates from August 2025Here are Google’s latest AI updates from August 2025

An anonymous reader shares a report: South Africa's energy regulator apologized for a 54 billion-rand ($3.1 billion) error in calculating electricity tariffs, a mistake that will be passed on to consumers. The National Energy Regulator of South Africa, which determines what state power utility Eskom Holdings SOC Ltd. can charge for electricity, announced the miscalculation last month, without providing further details. On Wednesday, it put the blunder down to a "data input error" that was picked up by Eskom, according to a presentation to lawmakers. While the mistake had been identified before the tariff determination was made in January, it wasn't rectified as indicated at the time, and only discovered five months later, the regulator said. "The error is regrettable; it should not have happened," it said. The incident brought into the spotlight South Africa's surging electricity prices and will result in them increasing by 8.76% in the next financial year, instead of the 5.36% originally agreed, and by 8.83% the year after, compared with 6.19%.

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