Feed aggregator

Here are Google’s latest AI updates from December 2025Here are Google’s latest AI updates from December 2025

Gaming on Linux? I found a distro that makes it pain-free  ZDNET

AI-generated video tools like OpenAI's Sora will make individual content creators "far, far, far less valuable" as social media platforms shift toward algorithmically generated content tailored to each viewer, according to Michael Mignano, a partner at venture capital firm Lightspeed and who cofounded the podcasting platform Anchor before Spotify acquired it. Speaking on a podcast, Mignano described a future where content is generated instantaneously and artificially to suit the viewer. The TikTok algorithm is powerful, he said, but it still requires human beings to make content -- and there's a cost to that. AI could drive those costs down significantly. Mignano called this shift the "death of the creator" in a post, acknowledging it was "devastating" but arguing it marked a "whole new chapter for the internet." In an email to Business Insider, Mignano wrote that quality will win out. "Platforms will no longer reward humans posting the same old, tried and true formats and memes," he wrote. "True uniqueness of image, likeness, and creativity will be the only viable path for human-created content."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A group of researchers is calling on universities to treat consulting work as a strategic priority, arguing that bureaucratic obstacles and inconsistent policies have left a massive revenue stream largely untapped even as higher education institutions face mounting financial pressures. (Consulting work refers to academics offering their advice and expertise to outside organizations -- industry, government, civil society -- for a fee. It's one of the most direct and scalable ways academics can shape the world beyond campus, and the projects are typically shorter in duration and easier to set up than alternatives like spin-out companies.) Writing in Nature, the authors found that fewer than 10% of academic staff at nine UK universities engaged in consulting work, and the number of academic consulting contracts across the country fell 38% over the past decade -- from around 99,000 in 2014-15 to fewer than 62,000 in 2023-24. Academic consulting in the UK is currently worth roughly $675-810 million annually, a figure that represents just 0.6% of the country's $124 billion management consulting market. The authors examined policies at 30 universities and surveyed 76 fellows from a UK Research and Innovation programme. Two-thirds of the surveyed institutions had publicly available consulting policies, and two outright prohibit private consulting. Permitted consulting time ranged from unlimited to 30 days or fewer per year, institutional charges varied from 10-40% of fees, and contract approval timelines stretched from 24 hours to several months. Private consultancy firms are moving into this space, capturing opportunities that universities neglect. Small-scale projects under $6,750 are commonly sidelined by university contract offices because they represent too small an income for strained institutional resources. The authors propose standardized policies across institutions, shared consulting income with departments, and faster approval processes -- reforms similar to those already implemented for university spin-out companies.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

I repurposed my old Chromebook as a Linux server, here's how it went  How-To Geek

How to install ExpressVPN on Linux: Add end-to-end encryption to your PC  GB News

Google's Pixel 10 series arrived this year as the company's first eSIM-only lineup in the United States, forcing users who wanted to review or buy the new phones to abandon their physical SIM cards entirely. Ryan Whitwam, a senior technology reporter at Ars Technica, made the switch and now regrets it, he says. "In the three months since Google forced me to give up my physical SIM card, I've only needed to move my eSIM occasionally," Whitwam wrote. "Still, my phone number has ended up stuck in limbo on two occasions." The core problem is how carriers handle verification. When an eSIM transfer fails and you need support, carriers authenticate via SMS -- a message you cannot receive because your SIM is broken. "What should have been 30 seconds of fiddling with a piece of plastic turned into an hour standing around a retail storefront," Whitwam noted. Apple started this trend by dropping the SIM slot on iPhone 14 in 2022. The space savings are modest: the international iPhone 17 has a smaller battery than its eSIM-only counterpart by only about 8%. Google's US Pixel 10 models offer no such trade-off -- they lack the SIM slot but "unfortunately don't have more of anything compared to the international versions." He concludes: "A physical SIM is essentially foolproof, and eSIM is not."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

How to Control Hidden Background Apps in Linux  Make Tech Easier

The AI industry, for all the anxiety about mass unemployment, is quietly minting entirely new job categories that require distinctly human skills -- empathy, judgment, and the ability to calm down a passenger trapped inside a broken-down robotaxi. Data annotators are no longer just low-paid gig workers tagging images. Experts in finance, law, and medicine now train advanced AI models, earning $90 an hour on average through platforms like Mercor, a startup recently valued at $10 billion, according to CEO Brendan Foody. Forward-deployed engineers, a role pioneered by Palantir, customize AI tools on-site for clients; YCombinator's portfolio companies now have 63 job postings for such roles, up from four last year. The AI Workforce Consortium, a research group led by Cisco that examined 50 IT jobs across wealthy countries, found AI risk-and-governance specialists to be the fastest-growing category -- outpacing even AI programmers.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

From pet figurines to isometric images, here are some of our favorite Nano Banana trends of the year.From pet figurines to isometric images, here are some of our favorite Nano Banana trends of the year.

Fedora Linux 2025: Key Features in Versions 42 and 43  WebProNews

Intel Xe Driver Surpasses i915 on Arc Alchemist GPUs in Linux 6.19 Tests  WebProNews

D7VK 1.1 Adds Experimental Direct3D 6 Support for Vulkan on Linux  WebProNews

X11 is going away on Linux. Here's how to prepare for Wayland  How-To Geek

The world's largest hotel chains are aggressively pushing customers toward direct bookings as they brace for a future where AI "agents" could reshape how travelers find and reserve rooms. Marriott, Hilton, Hyatt and Wyndham have all expanded their loyalty programs and perks in recent months, aiming to reduce their reliance on online travel agents like Expedia and Booking.com that typically charge commissions of 15 to 25%. Marriott's Bonvoy program reached almost 260 million members by the end of September, an 18% jump from the prior year. Hilton has lowered the barriers to elite status and struck partnerships that let members spend points outside its hotel portfolio. AI-powered booking tools could route customers away from brand-conscious decisions, but they could also offer hotels a cheaper distribution channel than traditional OTAs. Marriott CFO Leeny Oberg said at a conference this month that AI bookings "could potentially be cheaper than the OTAs." Wyndham CEO Geoff Ballotti called tools like ChatGPT and Gemini "a unique opportunity" to reduce OTA dependency.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Linus Torvalds Releases Linux 6.19-rc3 with ARM64 Fixes and GPU Boosts  WebProNews

The Performance Of Arch Linux Powered CachyOS On AMD EPYC Servers  Phoronix

LG has announced a new premium gaming monitor brand called UltraGear, and the lineup's headline feature is what the company claims is the world's first 5K AI upscaling technology -- an on-device solution that analyzes and enhances content in real time before it reaches the panel, theoretically letting gamers enjoy 5K-class clarity without needing to upgrade their GPUs. The initial UltraGear evo roster includes three monitors. The 39-inch GX9 is a 5K2K OLED ultrawide that can run at 165Hz at full resolution or 330Hz at WFHD, and features a 0.03ms response time. The 27-inch GM9 is a 5K MiniLED display that LG says dramatically reduces the blooming artifacts common to MiniLED panels through 2,304 local dimming zones and "Zero Optical Distance" engineering. The 52-inch G9 is billed as the world's largest 5K2K gaming monitor and runs at 240Hz. The AI upscaling, scene optimization, and AI sound features are available only on the 39-inch OLED and 27-inch MiniLED models. All three will be showcased at CES 2026. No word on pricing or when the sets will hit the market.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The world's largest accounting body is to stop students being allowed to take exams remotely to crack down on a rise in cheating on tests that underpin professional qualifications. From a report: The Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA), which has almost 260,000 members, has said that from March it will stop allowing students to take online exams in all but exceptional circumstances. "We're seeing the sophistication of [cheating] systems outpacing what can be put in, [in] terms of safeguards," Helen Brand, the chief executive of the ACCA, said in an interview with the Financial Times. Remote testing was introduced during the Covid pandemic to allow students to continue to be able to qualify at a time when lockdowns prevented in-person exam assessment. In 2022, the Financial Reporting Council (FRC), the UK's accounting and auditing industry regulator, said that cheating in professional exams was a "live" issue at Britain's biggest companies. A number of multimillion-dollar fines have been issued to large auditing and accounting companies around the world over cheating scandals in tests.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Linux will be unstoppable in 2026 - but one open-source legend may not survive  ZDNET