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Ghana Tries To Regulate Online Prophecies
Ghana has decided to deal with the viral spread of prophetic content on social media by setting up an official reporting mechanism for sensitive predictions, a move triggered by the August 2025 helicopter crash that killed the country's defence and environment ministers along with six others.
After the accident, TikTok clips circulated showing pastors who claimed to have foreseen the disaster before it happened. Elvis Ankrah, the presidential envoy for inter-faith and ecumenical relations, now asks prophets to submit their predictions for review.
Charismatic preacher-prophets have been a fixture of Ghanaian public life since Pentecostalism arrived in the 1980s, but social media has amplified their reach and made their claims increasingly outlandish. Police have threatened to arrest prophets who cannot prove their predictions eventually came true. Some two-thirds of Ghanaians favor giving divine intervention a role in politics. Ankrah recently declared that most prophecies submitted to him are "total bunk."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Native Linux support for Hytale will be launched as "experimental" - GamingOnLinux
Categories: Linux
Bazzite Linux gets a spring cleaning update to end 2025 - GamingOnLinux
Bazzite Linux gets a spring cleaning update to end 2025 GamingOnLinux
Categories: Linux
3 legitimately useful Linux apps to try this weekend (January 2 - 4) - How-To Geek
Categories: Linux
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution Prints Final Newspaper, Shifts To All-Digital Format
CBS News: The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has printed its final newspaper, marking the end of a 157-year chapter in Georgia history and officially transitioning the longtime publication into a fully digital news outlet.
The front-page story of the final print edition asks a fitting question: "What is the future of local media in Atlanta?" The historic last issue is also being sold for $8, a significant increase from the typical $2.00 price.
Wednesday, Dec. 31, marks the last day The AJC will be delivered to driveways across metro Atlanta. Starting Jan. 1, 2026, the newspaper will exist exclusively online, a move its leadership says reflects how readers now consume news and ensures the organization's future.
AJC President and Publisher Andrew Morse said the decision was not made lightly, especially given how deeply the paper is woven into daily life for generations of readers. The move makes Atlanta the only major U.S. city without a daily printed newspaper.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Steam Hardware Survey highlights Windows 11 surge - Windows Central
Steam Hardware Survey highlights Windows 11 surge Windows Central
Categories: Linux
How Nokia Went From iPhone Victim To $1 Billion Nvidia Deal
Nokia, the Finnish company whose iconic ringtone was played an estimated 1.8 billion times daily at the height of its mobile phone dominance and whose 3310 "brick" sold 126 million units, has reinvented itself again -- this time as a key piece of AI infrastructure. In October, Nvidia announced a $1 billion investment in Nokia and a strategic partnership to incorporate AI into telecommunications networks.
The company that was once worth $335 billion and controlled more than a quarter of the global handset market seemed destined for irrelevance after the iPhone's 2007 arrival. A last-ditch bet on Microsoft's Windows phone system in 2011 failed, and Nokia sold its devices division to Microsoft for $6.34 billion in 2014. Revenues had fallen from $44.27 billion in 2007 to $12.56 billion. Nokia rebuilt around its $2 billion acquisition of Siemens' networks stake in 2013, then added French network provider Alcatel-Lucent for $18.32 billion in 2015.
Current CEO Justin Hotard, who took over in April, has pushed the company further into cloud services, data centers and optical networks. Nokia acquired optical specialist Infinera for $2.3 billion in February. The company's optical technology enables information to pass between data centers, and it produces routers for cloud-based services.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
ASUS Announces Price Hikes Starting January 5
ASUS has informed its partners that prices on certain products will increase starting January 5, just days before the company is expected to unveil new hardware at CES. In a letter dated December 30 and obtained by Digitimes, the Taiwanese manufacturer pointed to rising costs for memory and storage components as the primary driver behind the adjustment.
The company specifically called out DRAM, NAND, and SSD pricing pressure stemming from what it described as "structural volatility" in the global supply chain tied to AI-driven demand. ASUS also cited shifts in capacity allocation by upstream suppliers and higher investment costs for advanced manufacturing processes.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Australia's Biggest Pension Fund To Cut Global Stocks Allocation on AI Concerns
Australia's largest pension fund is planning to reduce its allocation to global equities this year, amid signs that the AI boom in the US stock market could be running out of steam. Financial Times: John Normand, head of investment strategy at the A$400bn (US$264bn) AustralianSuper, told the Financial Times that not only did valuations of big US tech companies look high relative to history, but the leverage being used to fund AI investment was increasing "very rapidly," as was the pace of fundraising through mergers, venture capital and public listings.
"I can see some forces lining up that we are looking for less public equity allocation at some point next year. It's the basic intersection of the maturing AI cycle with a shift towards Fed[eral Reserve] tightening in 2027," Normand said in an interview.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Free Credit Monitoring Alerts From All 3 Major Credit Bureaus
Updated. Happy New Year! 🎉 🥳 In terms of keeping my finances in order, what I’ve been finding most useful recently are credit monitoring alerts. The last time I applied for a credit card, I received multiple e-mails within minutes alerting me that someone had checked my credit report. I’m also told if a new account is added. This makes me feel more comfortable knowing that I’ll be alerted quickly if someone does try to steal my identity. The following third-party services listed below provide you a free credit score (of various algorithms) and/or free continuous credit monitoring from select credit bureaus.
- Free credit score (VantageScore 3.0) from both Transunion and Equifax.
- Free credit monitoring from both Transunion and Equifax. Via e-mail alerts or app notification. Will let you know about things like a new credit check or a new account added.
- Limited identity theft monitoring. Credit Karma uses your email address to search and notify you if they are listed in public data breaches.
- Free credit score (VantageScore 3.0) from Transunion. Daily credit score updates and weekly credit report profile updates.
- Free credit monitoring from Transunion. Via e-mail alert. Will let you know about things like a new credit check or a new account added.
- Free credit score (FICO 8) from Experian. Daily credit score updates and daily credit report profile, refreshed upon login.
- Free credit monitoring from Experian. Free e-mail alerts.
- Warning that Experian will regularly try to upsell you to a paid membership tier. Simply click “No, keep my membership” to stay on the free tier. I’ve been on it for years.
- Improve your credit score by adding utility payments. Experian Boost is a free option that can potentially improve your Experian-based credit score by adding on-time utility and phone bill payments.
- Free credit score (VantageScore 3.0) from Transunion. Daily credit score updates and free daily full credit reports.
- Free credit monitoring from Transunion. Via e-mail alert. Will let you know about things like a new credit check or a new account added.
- Free credit score (FICO 8) from Transunion. You do not need to be a Capital One customer to sign up.
- Free credit monitoring from both Transunion and Experian.
None of the services above require a trial or credit card number to sign up for their free tiers. They may ask for the last 4 digits of your SSN for verification. These are all ad-supported (they will pitch you stuff) and usually have a paid upgrade option (but you can stay on the free tier forever).
The government requires the credit bureaus to provide you a free credit report at least once every 12 months (now actually weekly since the pandemic). However, the site will not provide you credit scores or pro-active alerts if anything changes on those reports.
Note that some of the scores above are not FICO scores because Fair Isaac might charge more money in licensing fees. If you really want a FICO number, nearly every major credit card issuer now includes a monthly FICO score with their cards: Chase, Citi, Bank of America, Discover, Barclaycard, and American Express.
Bottom line. Used in combination, I use the services above to keep track of changes to my credit reports across all three credit bureaus for free. None of them require my credit card number, and they quickly alert me to things like new accounts, new credit check inquiries, and high credit line usage. I just ignore the generic ads and upsells.
Categories: Finance
Disney Should Have a Developer Program
The Walt Disney Company should start a third-party software developer program. There are plenty of hobbyists and small developers that would like to have official access to some of the data available for the theme parks, Disney Plus, and other data available from the company.
If done with an approval process, and perhaps even incentives, it could be an effective way for Disney to improve guest experiences by effectively letting others innovate on the guests’ behalf. Instead of Disney having a development bottleneck of their own development teams, it would allow others to create tools that compete with each other for the best experiences.
There’s already some of this using unofficial data sources. By bringing it under an official Developer Program they could enforce things they’d like to have available but don’t have time to develop themselves.
API’s that I’d like to see and could see immediate use for:
- Theme Park Basics Get a list of Resorts, Parks, Attractions, operating hours, and ticket prices
- Ride Wait Times Current wait times that are posted in-app. This would make possible a new way of planning apps instead of using unofficial sources
- Dining Availability See when restaurants have availability and ideally be able to make a reservation on behalf of a user
- Disney Plus Media Be able to view what’s currently available for viewing on Disney+. Maybe even a users’s watch history, wishlist, etc
- Disney Photopass Photos Be able to retrieve a users photos
What other Disney API’s would you like to see offered?
The post Disney Should Have a Developer Program appeared first on Brandon Checketts.
Categories: Web
