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US President Calls for 10% Credit Card Interest Cap, Banks Push Back
President Donald Trump revived a campaign pledge Friday night by calling for a one-year, 10% cap on credit card interest rates, a proposal that banking groups immediately opposed despite the industry's heavy donations to his 2024 campaign and support for his second-term agenda.
Trump posted on Truth Social that he hoped the cap would be in place by January 20, one year after he took office, though he did not specify whether it would come through executive action or legislation.
Americans currently pay between 19.65% and 21.5% interest on credit cards on average and carry roughly $1.23 trillion in credit card debt, according to the New York Federal Reserve. Researchers found that a 10% cap would save Americans roughly $100 billion in interest annually. The American Bankers Association warned that such a cap "would only drive consumers toward less regulated, more costly alternatives."
Further reading: How Trump's proposed cap on credit card rates could reshape consumer lending.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Cloudflare Threatens Italy Exit After $16.3M Fine For Refusing Piracy Blocks
Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince has threatened to withdraw free cybersecurity services from Italy's Milano-Cortina Winter Olympics and potentially exit the country after Italy's telecommunications regulator fined the company approximately 14 million euros for failing to comply with anti-piracy blocking orders. The penalty equals 1% of Cloudflare's global annual revenue but exceeds twice what the company earned from Italy in 2024.
Prince called Italy's Autorita per le Garanzie nelle Comunicazioni a "quasi-judicial body" administering a "scheme to censor the Internet" on behalf of "a shadowy cabal of European media elites." The fine stems from Cloudflare's refusal to comply with Italy's Piracy Shield law, which requires internet service providers and DNS operators to block sites within 30 minutes of receiving blocking requests from copyright holders. Prince said Cloudflare may discontinue free services for Italian users, remove servers from Italian cities and cancel plans to build an Italian office.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Firefox 147 Now Available With XDG Base Directory Specification Support - Phoronix
Categories: Linux
Streamer Spend To Top $100B For First Time In 2026
Streamer spend on content is set to top the $100 billion mark for the first time this year, according to an Ampere Analysis report. From a report: The landmark figure will be met as global streamers "remain the primary driver of growth in content investment," according to Ampere. Spend by the likes of Netflix, Disney+, Prime Video, HBO Max, Paramount+ and Apple TV will shoot up 6% this year, helping lead to a 2% increase in overall global content spend, Ampere forecast. The $101 billion figure, the first time streamer spend has crossed that major $100 Billion landmark, will represent around two-fifths of the overall figure.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Nova Lake & Crescent Island Support Lands In The Intel Graphics Compiler - Phoronix
Categories: Linux
2026 Shift: Professionals Ditch Windows 11 for Linux’s Speed and Savings - WebProNews
Categories: Linux
Linux Hit a New All-Time High for Steam Market Share in December
A year ago the Steam Survey showed a 2.29% marketshare for Linux. Last May it reached 2.69%, its highest level since 2018. November saw another all-time high of 3.2%.
But December brought a surprise, reports Phoronix:
Back on the 1st Valve published the Steam Survey results for December 2025 and they put the Linux gaming marketshare at 3.19%, a 0.01% dip from November. But now the December results have been revised... [and] put the Linux marketshare at 3.58%, a 0.38% increase over November. Valve didn't publish any explanation for the revision but occasionally they do put out monthly revised data. This is easily an all-time high... both in percentage terms and surely in absolute terms too.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Categories: Linux
Linux Hit a New All-Time High for Steam Market Share in December
A year ago the Steam Survey showed a 2.29% marketshare for Linux. Last May it reached 2.69%, its highest level since 2018. November saw another all-time high of 3.2%.
But December brought a surprise, reports Phoronix:
Back on the 1st Valve published the Steam Survey results for December 2025 and they put the Linux gaming marketshare at 3.19%, a 0.01% dip from November. But now the December results have been revised... [and] put the Linux marketshare at 3.58%, a 0.38% increase over November. Valve didn't publish any explanation for the revision but occasionally they do put out monthly revised data. This is easily an all-time high... both in percentage terms and surely in absolute terms too.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Joint statement from Google and AppleJoint statement from Google and Apple
Apple and Google have entered into a multi-year collaboration under which the next generation of Apple Foundation Models will be based on Google's Gemini models and clou…
Categories: Technology
Auto-CPUFreq 3.0 Released To Help You Extend Laptop Battery Life On Linux - Phoronix
Categories: Linux
I tried the new Linux Mint 22.3 - it's a masterclass in polish and quality-of-life fixes - ZDNET
Categories: Linux
Over 1,500,000 Windows users downloaded this Linux distro in under three months - XDA
Categories: Linux
Ubisoft Closes Game Studio Where Workers Voted to Unionize Two Weeks Ago
Ubisoft announced Wednesday it will close its studio in Halifax, Nova Scotia — two weeks after 74% of its staff voted to unionize.
This means laying off the 71 people at the studio, reports the gaming news site Aftermath:
[Communications Workers of America's Canadian affiliate, CWA Canada] said in a statement to Aftermath the union will "pursue every legal recourse to ensure that the rights of these workers are respected and not infringed in any way." The union said in a news release that it's illegal in Canada for companies to close businesses because of unionization. That's not necessarily what happened here, according to the news release, but the union is "demanding information from Ubisoft about the reason for the sudden decision to close."
"We will be looking for Ubisoft to show us that this had nothing to do with the employees joining a union," former Ubisoft Halifax programmer and bargaining committee member Jon Huffman said in a statement. "The workers, their families, the people of Nova Scotia, and all of us who love video games made in Canada, deserve nothing less...."
Before joining Ubisoft, the studio was best known for its work on the Rocksmith franchise; under Ubisoft, it focused squarely on mobile games.
Ubisoft Halifax was quickly removed from the Ubisoft website on Wednesday...
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
