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A federal court in California has ruled that YouTube creators who use stream-ripping tools to download clips for reaction and commentary videos may face liability under the DMCA's anti-circumvention provisions -- a decision that could reshape how one of the platform's most popular content genres operates. U.S. Magistrate Judge Virginia K. DeMarchi of the Northern District of California denied a motion to dismiss in Cordova v. Huneault, a creator-versus-creator dispute, finding that YouTube's "rolling cipher" technology qualifies as an access control measure under section 1201(a) even though the underlying videos are freely viewable by the public. The distinction matters because it separates the act of watching a video from the act of downloading it. The defense had argued that no ripping tools were actually used and that screen recording could account for the copied footage. Judge DeMarchi allowed the claim to proceed to discovery regardless, noting that the plaintiff had adequately pled the circumvention allegation. The ruling opens a legal avenue beyond standard copyright infringement for creators who want to go after rivals. Reaction channels have long leaned on fair use as a blanket defense, but plaintiff's attorney Randall S. Newman told TorrentFreak that circumventing copy protections under section 1201 is a separate violation unaffected by any fair use finding.

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NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman has announced that astronauts on the upcoming Crew-12 and Artemis II missions will be allowed to carry iPhones and other modern smartphones into orbit and to the Moon -- a reversal of long-standing agency rules that had left crews relying on a 2016 Nikon DSLR and decade-old GoPros for the historic lunar flyby. Isaacman framed the move as part of a broader push to challenge what he called bloated qualification requirements, where hardware approvals get mired in radiation characterization, battery thermal tests, outgassing reviews and vibration testing. "That operational urgency will serve NASA well as we pursue the highest-value science and research in orbit and on the lunar surface," he wrote.

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Elon Musk told podcast host Dwarkesh Patel and Stripe co-founder John Collison that space will become the most economically compelling location for AI data centers in less than 36 months, a prediction rooted not in some exotic technical breakthrough but in the basic math of electricity supply: chip output is growing exponentially, and electrical output outside China is essentially flat. Solar panels in orbit generate roughly five times the power they do on the ground because there is no day-night cycle, no cloud cover, no atmospheric loss, and no atmosphere-related energy reduction. The system economics are even more favorable because space-based operations eliminate the need for batteries entirely, making the effective cost roughly 10 times cheaper than terrestrial solar, Musk said. The terrestrial bottleneck is already real. Musk said powering 330,000 Nvidia GB300 chips -- once you account for networking hardware, storage, peak cooling on the hottest day of the year, and reserve margin for generator servicing -- requires roughly a gigawatt at the generation level. Gas turbines are sold out through 2030, and the limiting factor is the casting of turbine vanes and blades, a process handled by just three companies worldwide. Five years from now, Musk predicted, SpaceX will launch and operate more AI compute annually than the cumulative total on Earth, expecting at least a few hundred gigawatts per year in space. Patel estimated that 100 gigawatts alone would require on the order of 10,000 Starship launches per year, a figure Musk affirmed. SpaceX is gearing up for 10,000 launches a year, Musk said, and possibly 20,000 to 30,000.

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New limited-time offers. Delta Airlines American Express cards offer various special perks like free checked bags, priority boarding, and the ability to earn Delta SkyMiles with card purchases. As you can only get the welcome offers once per specific card name per person per lifetime (a Gold and Platinum card are considered different), I recommend waiting until a limited-time offer to maximize your benefit. I recommend the Gold card as the first sweet spot for many casual travelers, as it currently offers a $900 potential first-year value with no annual fee the first year, along with a free checked bag benefit. Details:

Delta SkyMiles® Gold American Express Card

• Up to 90,000 Bonus Skymiles. 70,000 bonus miles after you spend $3,000 or more in purchases with your new Card within the first 6 months of Card Membership and an additional 20,000 bonus miles after you make an additional $2,000 in purchases within the first 6 months, starting from the date your account is opened. Offer Ends 4/1/2026.
• $200 Delta Flight Credit. Get a $200 Delta Flight credit to use toward future Delta travel after $10,000 in purchases on your card within a calendar year.
• $100 Delta Stays Credit. Get up to $100 back annually as a statement credit after using your Delta SkyMiles(R) Gold American Express Card to book prepaid hotels or vacation rentals through Delta Stays on delta.com.
• First checked bag free (worth $70 roundtrip, per person) on Delta flights. This perk is worth up to $280 per round trip for a family of four ($35 each way, per person).
• 15% off discount on Award Travel booked through delta.com and the Fly Delta app. Applies to Delta flights only, not applicable to partner-operated flights or taxes and fees.
• Zone 5 Priority Boarding.
• 2X miles at Delta purchases, at U.S. Supermarkets and at restaurants worldwide, including takeout and delivery in the U.S. Earn 1 miles per dollar spent on all other eligible purchases.
• Simplified Pay with Miles option. Take up to $50 off the cost of your flight for every 5,000 miles you redeem with Pay with Miles when you book on delta.com.
• 20% back on eligible Delta in-flight purchases with this card in the form of a statement credit .
• No Foreign Transaction Fees.
• $0 introductory Annual Fee for the first year, then $150.

90,000 Skymiles is worth at least $900 in Delta airfare. Delta offers a minimum value out of your Skymiles via the “Pay with Miles” option. For example, that means 50,000 Skymiles can reduce the price of your Delta ticket(s) by $500 at the very least. (5,000 mile = $50 minimum redemption.) You can still search and book traditional award tickets and possibly get better value.

Delta SkyMiles® Platinum American Express Card

• Limited-time offer: Up to 100,000 Bonus Miles 80,000 bonus miles after you spend $4,000 or more in purchases with your new Card within the first 6 months of Card Membership and an additional 20,000 bonus miles after you make an additional $2,000 in purchases within the first 6 months, starting from the date your account is opened. Offer Ends 4/1/2026.
• $2,500 Medallion(R) Qualification Dollars with MQD Headstart each Medallion Qualification Year and earn $1 MQD for each $20 in purchases on your Delta SkyMiles(R) Platinum American Express Card with MQD Boost to get closer to Status next Medallion Year.
• $150 Delta Stays Credit. Get up to $150 back annually on eligible prepaid hotels or vacation rentals through Delta Stays on delta.com.
• $120 Resy Credit. Get up to $10 in statement credits each month after you pay with your enrolled Delta SkyMiles(R) Platinum American Express Card to dine at U.S. Resy restaurants or make other eligible Resy purchases. Enrollment required.
• $120 Rideshare Credit. Up to $10 back in statement credits each month on U.S. rideshare purchases with select providers using your Delta SkyMiles(R) Platinum American Express Card. Enrollment is required.
• 15% off discount on Award Travel booked through delta.com and the Fly Delta app. Applies to Delta flights only, not applicable to partner-operated flights or taxes and fees.
• Up to $120 Global Entry Fee Credit. You can get either a $120 statement credit every 4 years for a Global Entry application fee or a statement credit up to $85 every 4.5 years for a TSA PreCheck(R) (through a TSA official enrollment provider) application fee, when charged to your Delta SkyMiles(R) Platinum American Express Card. Card Members approved for Global Entry will also receive access to TSA PreCheck at no additional cost.
• Companion Certificate benefit. Enjoy a Companion Certificate on a Delta Main round-trip flight within the U.S. and to Mexico, the Caribbean, or Central America each year after renewal of your Card. The Companion Certificate requires payment of government-imposed taxes and fees of between $22 and $250 (for itineraries with up to four flight segments). Baggage charges and other restrictions apply. Delta Basic experiences are not eligible for this benefit.
• First checked bag free (worth $70 roundtrip, per person) on Delta flights. This perk is worth up to $280 per round trip for a family of four ($35 each way, per person).
• Receive Zone 5 Priority Boarding on Delta flights; board early, stow your carry-on bag and settle in sooner.
• 3X Miles on Delta purchases and purchases made directly with hotels.
• 2X Miles at restaurants worldwide including takeout and delivery in the U.S., and at U.S. supermarkets.
• 1X Miles on all other eligible purchases.
• No Foreign Transaction Fees.
• $350 annual fee.

The Platinum version can be a worthy upgrade from the Gold version if you can take advantage of the added perks including Resy/Rideshare credits and especially the annual Main Cabin Companion Certificate (i.e. you plan to book two tickets together on Delta at least once a year). I’ve used it several times in the past and it is easy to use while booking tickets online at Delta.com. My savings from using the Companion Certificate for Delta Main has exceeded $500.

100,000 Skymiles is worth at least $1,000 in Delta airfare. Delta offers a minimum value out of your Skymiles via the “Pay with Miles” option. For example, that means 50,000 Skymiles can reduce the price of your Delta ticket(s) by $500 at the very least. (5,000 mile = $50 minimum redemption.) You can still search and book traditional award tickets and possibly get better value.

Ardour 9.0 Audio Workstation Released With Multi-Touch GUI, Many New Features  Phoronix

How to make your Linux laptop more secure in 7 steps  How-To Geek

Automattic and the Internet Archive have released a free, open-source WordPress plugin that automatically detects broken outbound links on a site and redirects visitors to archived Wayback Machine copies instead of serving them a 404 error. The Internet Archive Wayback Machine Link Fixer, which launched last fall and is available on WordPress.org, runs in the background scanning posts for dead links, checking for existing archived versions, and requesting new snapshots when none exist. It also archives a site's own posts whenever they are updated. If the original link comes back online, the plugin stops redirecting. Pew Research has found that 38% of the web has disappeared over the past decade, and WordPress powers more than 40% of websites online.

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ShadowHS: Fileless Linux Framework for Post-Exploitation  SOC Prime

Intel Xe Linux Driver Will No Longer Block D3cold For All Battlemage GPUs  Phoronix

Anthropic on Thursday released Claude Opus 4.6, its most capable model yet, at a moment when the company's AI tools have already spooked markets over fears that they are disrupting traditional software development and other sectors. The new model improves on Opus 4.5's coding abilities, the company said -- it plans more carefully, sustains longer agentic tasks, handles larger codebases more reliably, and catches its own mistakes through better debugging. It is also the first Opus-class model to feature a 1M token context window, currently in beta. On GDPval-AA, an independent benchmark measuring performance on knowledge-work tasks in finance, legal and other domains, Opus 4.6 outperformed OpenAI's GPT-5.2 by roughly 144 Elo points. Anthropic also introduced agent teams in Claude Code, allowing multiple agents to work in parallel on tasks like codebase reviews. Pricing remains at $5/$25 per million input/output tokens.

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Ubuntu on RISC-V might actually be good thanks to this chip  How-To Geek

Learn how Google's NAI framework uses AI to make technology more adaptive, inclusive and helpful for everyone.Learn how Google's NAI framework uses AI to make technology more adaptive, inclusive and helpful for everyone.

Western Digital this week laid out a roadmap that stretches its 3.5-inch hard drive platform to 14 platters and pairs it with a new vertical-emitting laser for heat-assisted magnetic recording, a combination the company says will push individual drive capacities beyond 140 TB in the 2030s. The vertical laser, developed over six years and already working in WD's labs, emits light straight down onto the disk rather than from the edge, delivering more thermal energy while occupying less vertical space -- enabling areal densities up to 10 TB per platter, up from today's 4 TB, and room for additional platters in the same enclosure. WD's first commercial HAMR drives arrive in late 2026 at 40-44 TB on an 11-platter design, ramping into volume production in 2027. A 12-platter platform follows in 2028 at 60 TB, and WD expects to hit 100 TB by around 2030.

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Amazon plans to use AI to speed up the process for making movies and TV shows even as Hollywood fears that AI will cut jobs and permanently reshape the industry. From a report: At the Amazon MGM Studio, veteran entertainment executive Albert Cheng is leading a team charged with developing new AI tools that he said will cut costs and streamline the creative process. Amazon plans to launch a closed beta program in March, inviting industry partners to test its AI tools. The company expects to have results to share by May. [...] Amazon is leaning on its cloud computing division, Amazon Web Services, for help and plans to work with multiple large language model providers to give creators a wider array of options for pre- and post-production filmmaking.

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Google Cloud built an industry-first AI tool to help U.S. Ski and Snowboard athletes.Google Cloud built an industry-first AI tool to help U.S. Ski and Snowboard athletes.

GNU/Linux or Just Linux? Between Purism and Everyday Usage  Linuxiac

I added these 3 applets to Linux Mint, and now its a productive workstation  How-To Geek

4 reasons Windows 11 is still a better choice than Linux for most people  Windows Central

Spotify is planning to let premium subscribers in the U.S. and U.K. buy hardcovers and paperbacks directly through its app starting this spring, partnering with Bookshop.org to handle pricing, inventory and fulfillment. The Swedish streaming company, which entered the audiobook market in 2022, will also introduce a feature called Page Match that lets users scan a page from a physical book or e-reader and jump to the exact spot in the audiobook edition. Spotify will earn an undisclosed affiliate fee on each purchase.

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Intel Arc B390 Graphics Performance On Linux With Panther Lake Review  Phoronix