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An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Guardian: Tech companies are conflating traditional artificial intelligence with generative AI when claiming the energy-hungry technology could help avert climate breakdown, according to a report. Most claims that AI can help avert climate breakdown refer to machine learning and not the energy-hungry chatbots and image generation tools driving the sector's explosive growth of gas-guzzling datacenters, the analysis of 154 statements found. The research, commissioned by nonprofits including Beyond Fossil Fuels and Climate Action Against Disinformation, did not find a single example where popular tools such as Google's Gemini or Microsoft's Copilot were leading to a "material, verifiable, and substantial" reduction in planet-heating emissions. Ketan Joshi, an energy analyst and author of the report, said the industry's tactics were "diversionary" and relied on tried and tested methods that amount to "greenwashing." He likened it to fossil fuel companies advertising their modest investments in solar panels and overstating the potential of carbon capture. "These technologies only avoid a minuscule fraction of emissions relative to the massive emissions of their core business," said Joshi. "Big tech took that approach and upgraded and expanded it." [...] Joshi said the discourse around AI's climate benefits needed to be "brought back to reality." "The false coupling of a big problem and a small solution serves as a distraction from the very preventable harms being done through unrestricted datacenter expansion," he said.

Researchers Uncover New SysUpdate Malware Variant Targeting Linux Systems - Cyber Press

Linux News - Thu, 02/19/2026 - 04:13

Researchers Uncover New SysUpdate Malware Variant Targeting Linux Systems Cyber Press

Categories: Linux

Linux 7.0 is preparing fixes for a Wi-Fi driver...from 2017 - XDA

Linux News - Thu, 02/19/2026 - 02:48

Linux 7.0 is preparing fixes for a Wi-Fi driver...from 2017 XDA

Categories: Linux

Trump Has Prepared Speech On Extraterrestrial Life

Slashdot.org - Thu, 02/19/2026 - 02:00

According to Lara Trump, Donald Trump has prepared but not yet delivered a speech about extraterrestrial life, though the White House says such a speech would be "news to me." White House Spokesperson Karoline Leavitt continued: "I'll have to check in with our speech writing team. Uh, and that would be of great interest to me personally, and I'm sure all of you in this room and apparently former President Obama, too." The Hill reports: Lara Trump, speaking on the Pod Force One podcast, said the president has played coy when she and her husband Eric have asked about the existence of UFO's and aliens. "We've kind of asked my father-in-law about this... we all want to know about the UFOs... and he played a little coy with us," Lara Trump said. "I've heard kind of around, I think my father-in-law has actually said it, that there is some speech that he has, that I guess at the right time, I don't know when the right time is, he's going to break out and talk about and it has to do with maybe some sort of extraterrestrial life." Obama has clarified in recent days that he has seen no evidence that aliens are real, after comments he made on a podcast with Brian Tyler Cohen seeming to confirm his knowledge of extraterrestrial life went viral. "They're real but I haven't seen them," Obama said on the podcast. "And they're not being kept in... what is it? Area 51. There's no underground facility unless there's this enormous conspiracy and they hid it from the president of the United States." Later, in a post on Instagram, Obama clarified that he was trying to answer in the light-hearted spirit of a speed round of questions and that, "Statistically, the universe is so vast that the odds are good there's life out there." "But the distances between solar systems are so great that the chances we've been visited by aliens is low, and I saw no evidence during my presidency that extraterrestrials have made contact with us. Really!"

Bank of America Rewards: Higher Balance Requirements for Credit Card Boosts + New Monthly Credits (Effective May 2026)

MyMoneyBlog.com - Wed, 02/18/2026 - 14:35

Bank of America has a press release that their “Preferred Rewards” program is changing to “BofA Rewards” on May 27, 2026 (hat tip Bogleheads). Notable changes include the tier names, their required balances, and higher requirements for credit card rewards boosts. Here is a comparison of the old and new tiers.

Preferred Rewards Tiers (OLD; Current)

Gold – $20,000 to < $50,000 combined balance
Platinum – $50,000 to < $100,000 combined balance
Platinum Honors – $100,000 to < $1,000,000 combined balance
Diamond – $1,000,000 or more combined balance

BofA Rewards Tiers (NEW; Effective May 2026)

Member – Less than $30,000 combined balance
Preferred Plus – $30,000 to < $100,000 combined balance
Preferred Honors – $100,000 to < $1,000,000 combined balance
Premier – $1,000,000 or more combined balance

Combined balances refers to the three-month average account balance across qualifying Bank of America and Merrill accounts. Qualifying accounts include:

Bank of America deposit accounts: Bank of America Advantage Banking, savings, money market savings, CD and IRA accounts
Merrill® investment accounts, such as the Cash Management Account (CMA) and IRA accounts
529 plans appearing on your Merrill statement
Revocable grantor trust accounts

The big negative change is that you now need the Premier ($1,000,000+) tier to get the maximum 75% boost in credit card rewards. That’s a huge 10X increase in the balance required.

New BofA Rewards Tiers x Credit Card Rewards Boosts

Member – Credit card rewards boost: 10%
Preferred Plus ($30k+) – Credit card rewards boost: 25%
Preferred Honors ($100k+) – Credit card rewards boost: 50%
Premier ($1M+) – Credit card rewards boost: 75%

Many people have moved over stock holdings to a self-directed brokerage account at Merrill Edge in order to qualify for some of these rewards. Going from a 75% boost to 50% boost may mean going from 2.6% cash back on everything to 2.25% cash back, unless your combined balances meet the $1 million mark. A disappointing change.

A possible positive offset are new monthly credits on the higher tiers if you make certain purchases on your BofA debit card linked to your BofA checking account.

New BofA Rewards Tiers x Monthly Debit Card Credits

Member – No subscription credits
Preferred Plus ($30k+) – No subscription credits
Preferred Honors ($100k+) – Up to $8 per month in statement credits for “several pre-determined subscription services” (up to $96/year).
Premier ($1M+) – Up to $15 per month in statement credits for “several pre-determined subscription services” (up to $180/year).

BofA has not announced the eligible subscriptions yet, but hopefully it is a flexible category. This will be an important detail, and it could offset a big part of lost cashback rewards for those with lower credit card spending.

Current Preferred Rewards members will be automatically enrolled in BofA Rewards. The terms state that current Gold and Platinum tier members will initially be changed to the Preferred Plus tier, even with the new balance mismatches.

Categories: Finance