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COSMIC Epoch 1.0.8 Released With More Desktop Refinements  Phoronix

Updated with new limited-time offers. Hilton Hotels and American Express have co-branded credit cards with special perks for Hilton customers. Each person can typically only get one welcome offer, per card in your entire lifetime, so it’s best to apply during a temporary bump-up and/or limited-time offer. Hat tip to DoC and DDG, which has found some personal links without the once-per-lifetime language (“NLL” or “no-lifetime-language”). The business links below still include the NLL. Here’s what the “lifetime-language” looks like, and there should be a pop-up indicating that you are indeed not eligible for the bonus based on their records.

You may not be eligible to receive a welcome offer if you have or have had this Card or previous versions of this Card. You also may not be eligible to receive a welcome offer based on various factors, such as your history with credit card balance transfers, your history as an American Express Card Member, the number of credit cards that you have opened and closed and other factors. If you are not eligible for a welcome offer, we will notify you prior to processing your application so you have the option to withdraw your application.

Hilton Honors American Express Card (No Annual Fee)

• Limited Time Offer: Earn 70,000 Bonus Points and one Free Night Reward after you spend $2,000 in purchases on the Card within your first 6 months of Card Membership. Offer Ends 4/15/26.
• 7X Hilton Honors Bonus Points for each dollar of eligible purchases charged on your Card directly with hotels and resorts within the Hilton portfolio.
• 5X Hilton Honors Bonus Points per dollar on purchases at US restaurants, US supermarkets, and US gas stations.
• 3X Hilton Honors Bonus Points for all other eligible purchases.
• Hilton Honors(TM) Silver Status comes with this card. Spend $20,000 on eligible purchases on this card within a calendar year and upgrade this benefit to Hilton Honors(TM) Gold Status through the end of the next calendar year.
• No foreign transaction fees.
• No annual fee.

Hilton Honors American Express Surpass Card ($150 Annual Fee)

• Limited Time Offer: Earn 130,000 Bonus Points and one Free Night Reward after you spend $3,000 in purchases on the Card within your first 6 months of Card Membership. Offer Ends 4/15/26.
• 12X Hilton Honors Bonus Points for each dollar of eligible purchases charged on your Card directly with hotels and resorts within the Hilton portfolio.
• 6X Hilton Honors Bonus Points per dollar on purchases at US restaurants, US supermarkets, and US gas stations.
• 4X Hilton Honors Bonus Points for each dollar on U.S Online Retail Purchases.
• 3X Hilton Honors Bonus Points for all other eligible purchases.
• Hilton Honors(TM) Gold Status comes with this card. Spend $40,000 on eligible purchases on this card within a calendar year and upgrade this benefit to Hilton Honors(TM) Diamond Status through the end of the next calendar year.
• Up to $200 in Hilton Credits annually. Get up to $50 in statement credits each quarter for purchases made directly with a property in the Hilton portfolio on your Hilton Honors American Express Surpass® Card. That’s up to $200 in statement credits annually.
• No foreign transaction fees.
• Earn an additional Free Night Reward from Hilton Honors after you spend $15,000 on eligible purchases on your Card in a calendar year.
• $150 annual fee.

Hilton Honors American Express Aspire Card ($550 Annual Fee)

• Limited Time Offer: Earn 175,000 Bonus Points after you spend $6,000 in purchases on the Card within your first 6 months of Card Membership. Offer ends 4/15/26.
• 14X Hilton Honors Bonus Points for each dollar of eligible purchases charged on your Card directly with hotels and resorts within the Hilton portfolio.
• 7X Bonus Points for eligible purchases: on flights booked directly with airlines or amextravel.com; on car rentals booked directly from select car rental companies; & at U.S. restaurants.
• 3X Hilton Honors Bonus Points for all other eligible purchases.
• Hilton Honors(TM) Diamond Status comes with this card.
• $400 Hilton Resort Credit. Get up to $200 in statement credits semi-annually for eligible purchases made directly with participating Hilton Resorts on your Hilton Honors Aspire Card. That’s up to $400 back annually.
• $200 Flight Credit. Get up to $50 in statement credits each quarter, for a total of up to $200 back each year, on flight purchases made directly with an airline or through amextravel.com using your Hilton Honors American Express Aspire Card.
• $209 CLEAR+ Credit. CLEAR+ helps get you to your gate faster by using your face to verify you are you at 55+ airports nationwide. Receive up to $209 per calendar year in statement credits, when you pay for a CLEAR+ Membership (subject to auto-renewal) with the Hilton Honors American Express Aspire Card.
• No foreign transaction fees.
• Multiple Free Night Reward Opportunities. Enjoy an Annual Free Night Reward from Hilton Honors in your first year of Card Membership and every year upon Card renewal. Earn another Free Night Reward from Hilton after you spend $30,000 in purchases on your Card in a calendar year. Plus, you can earn an additional Free Night Reward from Hilton after you spend a total of $60,000 in purchases on the Card within the same calendar year.
• $550 annual fee.

Hilton Honors American Express Business Card ($195 Annual Fee)

• Limited Time Offer: Earn 175,000 Bonus Points and one Free Night Reward after you spend $8,000 in purchases on the Card within your first 6 months of Card Membership. Offer Ends 4/15/26.
• 12X Hilton Honors Bonus Points on eligible purchases made directly with hotels and resorts within the Hilton portfolio.
• 5X Hilton Honors Bonus Points on other purchases made using the Hilton Honors Business Card on the first $100,000 in purchases each calendar year, 3X Points thereafter.
• Up to $240 in Hilton credits annually (Up to $60 per quarter). Get up to $60 in statement credits each quarter for purchases made with this card directly with a Hilton portfolio property.
• Complimentary Hilton Honors(TM) Gold Status (free breakfast, room upgrades based on availability, 5th standard reward night free).
• Upgrade this benefit to Hilton Honors(TM) Diamond Status through the end of the calendar year if the total eligible purchases that you spend on your Card Account during a calendar year reach $40,000 or more.
• $195 annual fee.

What are Hilton Honor points worth? The best value is from booking free hotel nights or using their “Points & Money” option where you pay with a combination of Hilton points and cash. Hilton has some really nice properties, but the value varies from hotel to hotel. I just ran a search and for the same 60,000 Hilton points, I could book rooms that cost $320 or $532 cash. I’ve seen some valuations around 0.6 cents per point, which I think is fair on average, but I would be more conservative at 0.5 cents a point. That would make 150,000 points = $750 value and 100,000 points = $500 value towards Hilton hotel stays.

The good part of Hilton points is that they have so many different hotel brands, from business-class DoubleTree to luxury Waldorf Astoria. Hilton also lets you transfer and pool points with other with other family or household members. As long as you are able to keep them active (once every 12 months), I do like to keep some around. These credit cards are handy for creating activity.

Free Night Award details. When it is offered (not all the time), the Free Night Award is valid for a one-night standard room at eligible Hilton properties, and also covers resort fees and taxes. There are many great and valuable options to redeem, but importantly read about the property exclusions here. Here are the full terms. To redeem the Free Night Reward, you must call 1-800-446-6677 (1-800-HHONORS). It’s quite easy and I’ve found the agents to be very helpful if you want to combine multiple certificates, combine a paid stay and a Free Night Award, etc. Free Night Rewards will expire 12 months from date of issuance.

I’ve used this Free Night Award at the Grand Wailea in Maui, and that standard room would have cost 110,000 Hilton Points otherwise. Other fancy possibilities include Conrad New York, Conrad London, Waldorf Astoria Park City, and Waldorf Astoria Beverly Hills.

Bottom line. Hilton American Express cards offer regular Hilton customers a good opportunity to earn additional points towards free Hilton hotel stays as well as additional perks like status upgrades. The best time to apply for a Hilton co-branded American Express card is during a limited-time increase to their welcome offers. This is because American Express has changed their standard policy to only allow each person to get a welcome offer once per card.

Also see: Top 10 Best Credit Card Bonus Offers and Top 10 Best Business Card Offers.

We’re launching a new agent step in Opal, available for all users today.We’re launching a new agent step in Opal, available for all users today.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth gave Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei until Friday evening to give the military unfettered access to its AI model or face harsh penalties, Axios has learned. Hegseth told Amodei in a tense meeting on Tuesday that the Pentagon will either cut ties and declare Anthropic a "supply chain risk," or invoke the Defense Production Act to force the company to tailor its model to the military's needs. The Pentagon wants to punish Anthropic as the feud over AI safeguards grows increasingly nasty, but officials are also worried about the consequences of losing access to its industry-leading model, Claude. "The only reason we're still talking to these people is we need them and we need them now. The problem for these guys is they are that good," a Defense official told Axios ahead of the meeting. Anthropic has said it is willing to adapt its usage policies for the Pentagon, but not to allow its model to be used for the mass surveillance of Americans or the development of weapons that fire without human involvement.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

5 Clever Uses For Your Old Gaming Consoles  bgr.com

Some Thoughts About Alternative (Computing) Lifestyles ⭐  Thurrott.com

Linux Boot Time Statistic (2026)  commandlinux.com

NVIDIA Hiring Engineers to Optimize Proton and Vulkan API Performance on Linux  TechPowerUp

NVIDIA Hiring Engineers to Optimize Proton and Vulkan API Performance on Linux  TechPowerUp

More than two decades after Maine became the first state to hand laptops to middle schoolers -- distributing 17,000 Apple machines across 243 schools in 2002 -- neuroscientist Jared Cooney Horvath told a U.S. Senate committee earlier this year that Gen Z is the first generation in modern history to score lower on standardized tests than the one before it. The U.S. spent more than $30 billion in 2024 alone putting laptops and tablets in classrooms, and Horvath cited PISA data from 15-year-olds worldwide showing a stark correlation between time on school computers and worse scores. A 2014 study of 3,000 university students found they were off-task on their machines nearly two-thirds of the time. Fortune reported back in 2017 that Maine's own test scores hadn't budged in the 15 years since the program launched, and then-governor Paul LePage called it a "massive failure." Horvath framed the generation's eroding capabilities not as a personal failure but a policy one, calling them victims of a failed pedagogical experiment.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Clonezilla Live 3.3.1 Released with Linux 6.18 LTS, Improved BitLocker Support  9to5Linux

D7VK 1.4 Released With More Improvements For Old Direct3D On Vulkan Under Linux  Phoronix

'We have a new major number purely because I'm easily confused and not good with big numbers' says Linus Torvalds about Linux 7.0 rc1  PC Gamer

'We have a new major number purely because I'm easily confused and not good with big numbers' says Linus Torvalds about Linux 7.0 rc1  PC Gamer

An anonymous reader shares a report: Microsoft Azure CTO Mark Russinovich and VP of Developer Community Scott Hanselman have written a paper arguing that senior software engineers must mentor junior developers to prevent AI coding agents from hollowing out the profession's future skills base. The paper, Redefining the Engineering Profession for AI, is based on several assumptions, the first of which is that agentic coding assistants "give senior engineers an AI boost... while imposing an AI drag on early-in-career (EiC) developers to steer, verify and integrate AI output." In an earlier podcast on the subject, Russinovich said this basic premise -- that AI is increasing productivity only for senior developers while reducing it for juniors -- is a "hot topic in all our customer engagements... they all say they see it at their companies." [...] The logical outcome is that "if organizations focus only on short-term efficiency -- hiring those who can already direct AI -- they risk hollowing out the next generation of technical leaders," Russinovich and Hanselman state in the paper.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Linux Foundation Announces the Formation of the React Foundation  PR Newswire

Google Renews Platinum Membership with the Linux Foundation, Continuing its Ongoing Support for the Open Source Community  PR Newswire

New Linux Foundation Report Shows Active Open Source Contribution Delivers 2-5x ROI, While Passive Consumption Increases Costly Technical Debt  PR Newswire

Linux Foundation Announces the Election of Panasonic Automotive Systems' Shojiro Nakao and Toshiba Corporation's Yoshitake Kobayashi to the Board of Directors  PR Newswire

Linux Foundation Announces the Formation of the React Foundation  Yahoo Finance