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Google's Agent2Agent Protocol Enters the Linux Foundation  infoq.com

Cloudflare today announced a "Pay Per Crawl" program that allows website owners to charge AI companies for accessing their content, a potential revenue stream for publishers whose work is increasingly being scraped to train AI models. The system uses HTTP response code 402 to enable content creators to set per-request prices across their sites. Publishers can choose to allow free access, require payment at a configured rate, or block crawlers entirely. When an AI crawler requests paid content, it either presents payment intent via request headers for successful access or receives a "402 Payment Required" response with pricing information. Cloudflare acts as the merchant of record and handles the underlying technical infrastructure. The company aggregates billing events, charges crawlers, and distributes earnings to publishers. Alongside Pay Per Crawl, Cloudflare has switched to blocking AI crawlers by default for its customers, becoming the first major internet infrastructure provider to require explicit permission for AI access. The company handles traffic for 20% of the web and more than one million customers have already activated its AI-blocking tools since their September 2024 launch, it wrote in a blog post.

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Tech companies are paying AI engineers unprecedented salaries as competition for talent intensifies, with some top engineers earning more than $10 million annually and typical packages ranging from $3 million to $7 million. OpenAI told staff this week it is seeking "creative ways to recognize and reward top talent" after losing key employees to rivals, despite offering salaries near the top of the market. The move followed OpenAI CEO Sam Altman's claim that Meta had promised $100 million sign-on bonuses to the company's most high-profile AI engineers. Mark Chen, OpenAI's chief research officer, sent an internal memo saying he felt "as if someone has broken into our home and stolen something" after recent departures. AI engineer salaries have risen approximately 50% since 2022, with mid-to-senior level research scientists now earning $500,000 to $2 million at major tech companies, compared to $180,000 to $220,000 for senior software engineers without AI experience.

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An anonymous reader shares a report: Summer started barely a week ago, and already the United States has been smothered in a record-breaking "heat dome." Alaska saw its first-ever heat advisory this month. And all of this comes on the heels of 2024, the hottest calendar year in recorded history. The world is getting hotter, faster. A report published last week found that human-caused global warming is now increasing by 0.27 degrees Celsius per decade. That rate was recorded at 0.2 degrees in the 1970s, and has been growing since. "Each additional fractional degree of warming brings about a relatively larger increase in atmospheric extremes, like extreme downpours and severe droughts and wildfires," said Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at the University of California. While this aligns with scientific predictions of how climate change can intensify such events, the increase in severity may feel sudden to people who experience them. "Back when we had lesser levels of warming, that relationship was a little bit less dramatic," Dr. Swain said. "There is growing evidence that the most extreme extremes probably will increase faster and to a greater extent than we used to think was the case," he added. Take rainfall, for example. Generally, extreme rainfall is intensifying at a rate of 7 percent with each degree Celsius of atmospheric warming. But recent studies indicate that so-called record-shattering events are increasing at double that rate, Dr. Swain said.

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The FCC will suspend enforcement of rules that would lower prison phone and video call prices until April 1st, 2027. Trump-appointed FCC Chair Brendan Carr said that prisons won't have to comply with the pricing regulations [PDF], reversing plans to implement the caps this year. The rules would have dropped the price of a 15-minute phone call to 90 cents in larger prisons. Current fees can reach as high as $11.35 for a 15-minute call, which the FCC described in 2024 as "exorbitant." Four states -- Connecticut, California, Minnesota, and Massachusetts -- have made prison calls free. Former President Joe Biden signed the Martha Wright-Reed law in 2023, allowing the FCC to regulate prison call rates. The agency voted to adopt the new rates last year, with rules set to take effect on a staggered basis starting January 1st, 2025. Carr said the regulations are "leading to negative, unintended consequences" and would make caps "too low" to cover "required safety measures." FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez criticized the delay, stating the Commission "is now stalling, shielding a broken system that inflates costs and rewards kickbacks to correctional facilities."

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Google Play's Indie Games Fund in Latin America is returning for its fourth year. We're committing $2 million for another 10 indie game studios, bringing our total inves…

Encrypted communications provider Proton has joined an antitrust lawsuit against Apple, filing a legal complaint that claims the company's App Store practices harm developers, consumers, and privacy. The Switzerland-based firm joined a group of Korean developers who sued Apple in May rather than filing a separate case. Proton asked the US District Court for Northern California to require Apple to allow alternative app stores, expose those stores through its own App Store, permit developers to disable Apple's in-app payment system, and provide full access to Apple APIs. The company added a privacy-focused argument to typical antitrust complaints, contending that Apple's pricing model particularly penalizes companies that refuse to harvest user data. Developers of free apps typically sell user data to cover costs, while privacy-focused companies like Proton must charge subscriptions for revenue, making Apple's commission cuts more burdensome.

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Fedora 43 won't drop 32-bit app support – or adopt Xlibre  theregister.com

Gemini's command line tool is a hidden productivity game changer - and it's free  ZDNET

4 Linux distros that can't be upgraded on autopilot - and why they're still worth trying  ZDNET

Starting today, researchers funded by the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) will be required to make their scientific papers available to read for free as soon as they are published in a peer-reviewed journal. That's according to the agency's latest public-access policy, aimed at making federally funded research accessible to taxpayers. From a report: Established under former US president Joe Biden, the policy was originally set to take effect on 31 December for all US agencies, but the administration of Biden's successor, Donald Trump, has accelerated its implementation for the NIH, a move that has surprised some scholars. That's because, although the Trump team has declared itself a defender of taxpayer dollars, it has also targeted programmes and research projects focused on equity and inclusion for elimination. And one of the policy's main goals is to ensure equitable access to federally funded research. The move means that universities will have less time to advise their researchers on how to comply with the policy, says Peter Suber, director of the Harvard Open Access Project in Cambridge, Massachusetts. There is usually "some confusion or even some non-compliance after a new policy takes effect, but I think universities will eventually get on top of that," he says.

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4 Linux distros that need your attention when upgrading - and why  ZDNet

Performance & Power Of The Low-Cost EPYC 4005 "Grado" vs. Original EPYC 7601 Zen 1 Flagship CPU  Phoronix

India's automakers are opposing the government's proposal to cut car emissions by 33% from 2027, calling the target "too aggressive" in a formal submission to the power ministry. The Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers warned the plan risks billions of rupees in penalties and threatens future investments in the $137-billion auto sector. The proposal represents more than twice the pace of India's previous emission reduction target and forms part of the third phase of Corporate Average Fuel Efficiency norms first introduced in 2017. The industry body wants a more gradual 15% reduction target and opposes different standards for small versus heavy vehicles.

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The secret to Linux's remarkable journey from one dev's hobby to 40 million lines of code  ZDNet

Linux 6.16-rc4 Released With Fixes for Filesystem, Driver & Hardware Support  CyberSecurityNews

Linux Kernel 6.16‑rc4 Arrives with Key Filesystem, Driver & Hardware Fixes  Cyber Press

Linux Kernel 6.16‑rc4 Arrives with Key Filesystem, Driver & Hardware Fixes  Cyber Press

In Moving Archives, we’re bringing the iconic Harley-Davidson Museum archives to life with the help of Veo and Gemini.In Moving Archives, we’re bringing the iconic Harley-Davidson Museum archives to life with the help of Veo and Gemini.

I installed Bazzite on the Steam Deck, and I regret it  XDA