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Subaru owners are reporting full-screen SiriusXM pop-up ads appearing on their infotainment systems while driving -- sometimes even overriding Apple CarPlay. Subaru says the ads appear only twice a year, but frustrated drivers argue the practice is distracting, unsafe, and a sign of an industry trend that's likely to get worse. The Drive reports: At least one 2024 Crosstrek owner reported that the pop-up took over their screen even though they were using Apple CarPlay. To force-close an application that's in use, solely for the sake of in-car advertising, is especially egregious. [The following Subaru owner complaints to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reiterate that point...] The Drive reached out to Subaru for comment on the marketing tactics. A company spokesperson responded, "We will discuss those messages in an upcoming meeting and will always consider customer feedback. This is the first we've heard of any issue. Those messages occur only twice a year, around Memorial Day and Thanksgiving, to alert customers that all channels are available to them for about two weeks." Reddit posts dating back as far as 2023 show owners complaining about in-car notifications.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Reddit Strangers Built an Open Source Linux Handheld, And They Want Your Help  It's FOSS

Printk Improvement For Linux 6.19 Can Significantly Speed-Up Boot Times For Some Systems  Phoronix

Steam hardware survey shows how Linux is slowly eating into Windows market share  Club386

Apple's longtime human-interface chief Alan Dye is leaving to lead a new creative studio at Meta's Reality Labs, where he'll shape AI-driven design for devices like smart glasses and VR headsets. Dye will be replaced by Steve Lemay, who has had "a key role in the design of every major Apple interface since 1999," according to a statement Apple CEO Tim Cook gave Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. TechCrunch reports: Shortly after the news broke of Dye's departure, Zuckerberg announced a new creative studio within Reality Labs that would be led by Dye. There, he'll be joined by Billy Sorrentino, another former Apple designer who led interface design across Reality Labs; Joshua To, who led interface design across Reality Labs; Meta's industrial design team, led by Pete Bristol; and its metaverse design and art teams led by Jason Rubin. Zuckerberg said the studio would "bring together design, fashion, and technology to define the next generation of our products and experiences." "Our idea is to treat intelligence as a new design material and imagine what becomes possible when it is abundant, capable, and human-centered," the Meta CEO wrote on Threads. "We plan to elevate design within Meta, and pull together a talented group with a combination of craft, creative vision, systems thinking, and deep experience building iconic products that bridge hardware and software."

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Nvidia drops Maxwell and Pascal support with new Linux 590 branch drivers  KitGuru

A London Assembly report warns that surging demand from "energy-hungry" data centers is straining the electricity grid and delaying new housing developments. With data-center electricity use expected to rise up to 600% by 2050, officials fear London's housing crisis could worsen without coordinated action. The BBC reports: According to the report (PDF) from the London Assembly Planning and Regeneration Committee, some new housing developments in west London were temporarily delayed after the electricity grid reached full capacity. The committee's chair James Small-Edwards said energy capacity had become a "real constraint" on housing and economic growth in the city. In 2022, the General London Assembly (GLA) began to investigate delays to housing developments in the boroughs of Ealing, Hillingdon and Hounslow - after it received reports that completed projects were being told they would have to "wait until 2037" to get a connection to the electricity grid. There were fears the boroughs may have to "pause new housing altogether" until the issue was resolved. But the GLA found short-term fixes with the National Grid and energy regulator Ofgem to ensure the "worst-case scenario" did not happen -- though several projects were still set back. The strains on parts of London's housing highlighted the need for "longer term planning" around grid capacity in the future, said the report.

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Linux Kernel 6.18 LTS: 16x Faster exFAT, Enhanced Security Until 2027  WebProNews

Fedora 44 Replaces fbcon with KMSCON for Enhanced Security and Modularity  WebProNews

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Earlier this year, home goods maker Kohler launched a smart camera called the Dekoda that attaches to your toilet bowl, takes pictures of it, and analyzes the images to advise you on your gut health. Anticipating privacy fears, Kohler said on its website that the Dekoda's sensors only see down into the toilet, and claimed that all data is secured with "end-to-end encryption." The company's use of the expression "end-to-end encryption" is, however, wrong, as security researcher Simon Fondrie-Teitler pointed out in a blog post on Tuesday. By reading Kohler's privacy policy, it's clear that the company is referring to the type of encryption that secures data as it travels over the internet, known as TLS encryption -- the same that powers HTTPS websites. [...] The security researcher also pointed out that given Kohler can access customers' data on its servers, it's possible Kohler is using customers' bowl pictures to train AI. Citing another response from the company representative, the researcher was told that Kohler's "algorithms are trained on de-identified data only." A "privacy contact" from Kohler said that user data is "encrypted at rest, when it's stored on the user's mobile phone, toilet attachment, and on our systems." The company also said that, "data in transit is also encrypted end-to-end, as it travels between the user's devices and our systems, where it is decrypted and processed to provide our service."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Intel Arc B580 GPU Hits 50% Performance Boost via Linux Optimizations in 2025  WebProNews

Alpine Linux 3.23 Released: Linux 6.18 Kernel, APK 3.0, GNOME 49  WebProNews

Linux 6.19 Upgrades sched_ext with eBPF Fault Recovery and 15% Latency Boost  WebProNews

Steam’s November survey highlights Windows 11 and GPU shifts  Windows Central

Linux Kernel 6.19 Adds Microsoft C Extensions for Cleaner Code  WebProNews

Linux Mint vs. Zorin OS: I've tested both Windows alternatives, and here's my choice  ZDNET

November Steam Hardware Survey: Linux OS at all-time high, RTX 5070 overtakes RTX 4070  VideoCardz.com

Nature has retracted a headline-grabbing climate-economics study after critics found flawed data that massively inflated its predicted global economic collapse. The New York Times reports: The decision came after a team of economists noticed problems with the data for one country, Uzbekistan, that significantly skewed the results. If Uzbekistan were excluded, they found, the damages would look similar to earlier research (PDF). Instead of a 62 percent decline in economic output by 2100 in a world where carbon emissions continue unabated, global output would be reduced by 23 percent. Of course, erasing more than 20 percent of the world's economic activity would still be a devastating blow to human welfare. The paper's detractors emphasize that climate change is a major threat, as recent meta analyses have found, and that more should be done to address it -- but, they say, unusual results should be treated skeptically. "Most people for the last decade have thought that a 20 percent reduction in 2100 was an insanely large number," said Solomon Hsiang, a professor of global environmental policy at Stanford University who co-wrote the critique published in August. "So the fact that this paper is coming out saying 60 percent is off the chart."

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Chime, one of the largest fintech banking apps, just send out an e-mail confirming that they are again offering “100% Free” tax filing software for both Federal and State returns, including e-file. Available for all new and existing Chime users, this is done in partnership with Column Tax and April, both companies that offer white-label “generic” tax software.

To allay fears of sub-par tax software, they include:

• 100% Accuracy Guarantee: If a user pays an IRS penalty because of a calculation error made by Chime’s tax filing partners april or Column Tax, they will reimburse up to $10,000.
• Max Refund Guarantee: If a member finds they’re eligible for a higher return elsewhere, they will be reimbursed the difference.

One drawback is that you have to do it in-app, which might be cumbersome if you a lot of manual entries. However, they do allow you to scan your last years’ tax return in order to import your data from last year. Chime does not require you to deposit your refund into your Chime Account to qualify for free tax filing.

According to Chime.com/taxes, they support everything up to W-2 income, self-employed, 1099 freelance, gig work income, unemployment income, crypto and/or stock sales, and itemized deductions. I’d say the sweet spot for this app is if your tax situation isn’t overly complex, but maybe you do have some stock transactions or 1099 income so you’d be nudged to upgrade to a higher TurboTax version that costs extra.

If you are thinking of joining as a new customer, you should first open via a $100 referral link which currently offers a $100 bonus after a $200+ direct deposit within 45 days of opening. That’s mine, thanks if you use it. Chime has no minimum balance and no monthly fees.

Learn more about Google’s Year in Search, which explores search trends from 2025.Learn more about Google’s Year in Search, which explores search trends from 2025.