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The U.S. Senate unanimously passed the Disrupt Explicit Forged Images and Non-Consensual Edits Act (DEFIANCE Act), giving victims of sexually explicit AI deepfakes the right to sue the individuals who created them. The Verge reports: The bill passed with unanimous consent -- meaning there was no roll-call vote, and no Senator objected to its passage on the floor Tuesday. It's meant to build on the work of the Take It Down Act, a law that criminalizes the distribution of nonconsensual intimate images (NCII) and requires social media platforms to promptly remove them. [...] Now the ball is again in the House leadership's court; if they decide to bring the bill to the floor, it will have to pass in order to reach the president's desk.

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from Network World: The global technology sector eliminated some 244,851 jobs in 2025, according to a report from RationalFX. The U.K.-based financial services company says the worldwide downsizing reflects how companies in 2025 restructured their operations to focus on efficiency, profitability, and AI-driven productivity. The RationalFX analysis, which examined layoffs reported by TrueUp, TechCrunch, and multiple state WARN databases, points to economic uncertainty, elevated interest rates, and accelerating AI and automation adoption as reasons that 2025 marked "another year of sustained downsizing following the post-pandemic correction that began in 2022." Companies indicated that AI and automation were among the most frequently cited drivers for layoffs in 2025. Some companies retrained employees when faced with the technology; many replaced roles entirely, RationalFX reports. "Tech sector layoffs in 2025 displaced hundreds of thousands of workers worldwide as companies accelerated structural resets rather than short-term cost corrections," said Alan Cohen, analyst at RationalFX, in a statement. "While macroeconomic pressures such as high interest rates, trade restrictions, and geopolitical uncertainty continued to weigh on business confidence, the dominant force behind last year's job cuts was the rapid adoption of automation and artificial intelligence." The analysis also uncovered that U.S.-headquartered technology companies were responsible for the majority of job losses, accounting for approximately 69.7% of all global tech layoffs. This resulted in more than 170,000 employees being cut across both domestic and offshore operations from U.S. tech companies. California spearheaded layoffs in the U.S. tech sector this year, with 73,499 job cuts accounting for roughly 43.08% of all tech layoffs in the country, according to the RationalFX report. The report also points out that Washington has seen 42,221 tech jobs cut since the start of the year, accounting for 24.74% of all U.S. tech layoffs. Intel contributed the single largest number of layoffs last year, reducing its headcount from 109,000 people at the end of 2024 to around 75,000 by the end of 2025. Other major U.S. tech companies with large-scale layoffs last year include Amazon (more than 20,000 jobs cut), Microsoft (approximately 19,215 layoffs), Verizon (15,000 employees), Accenture (11,000 employees), IBM (9,000 job cuts), and HP (6,000 roles).

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BrianFagioli writes: Wine 11.0 has officially landed, wrapping up a year of development with more than 6,000 code changes and a broad set of upgrades that touch gaming, desktop behavior, and long-standing architectural work. The biggest milestone is the completion of the new WoW64 model, which is now considered fully supported and allows 32-bit and even 16-bit applications to run in a cleaner way inside 64-bit prefixes. Wine also gains support for the NTSYNC kernel module now bundled in Linux 6.14, which cuts overhead from thread synchronization and should deliver observable performance benefits in games and multi-threaded applications. A single unified wine binary now replaces the old wine64 launcher, and several system behaviors align more closely with modern Windows, including syscall numbering and NT reparse points. Graphics and desktop integration received more polish, including deeper Vulkan support (up to API 1.4.335), hardware-accelerated H.264 decoding through Direct3D, and further improvements to Wine's Wayland driver, which now supports clipboard operations, IMEs, and shaped windows. X11 users gain better window activation and fullscreen handling, and legacy DirectX features continue to expand under Wine's Vulkan renderer. Device support also moves forward, with better joystick handling, improved Bluetooth visibility and pairing, and working TWAIN scanning on 64-bit apps. Broad multimedia updates, DirectMusic refinements, .NET/XNA improvements, and developer-facing tools round out a release that appears focused on smoothing sharp edges rather than introducing flashy experiments. As always, source is live now and distro packages are rolling out.

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BrianFagioli writes: Wine 11.0 has officially landed, wrapping up a year of development with more than 6,000 code changes and a broad set of upgrades that touch gaming, desktop behavior, and long-standing architectural work. The biggest milestone is the completion of the new WoW64 model, which is now considered fully supported and allows 32-bit and even 16-bit applications to run in a cleaner way inside 64-bit prefixes. Wine also gains support for the NTSYNC kernel module now bundled in Linux 6.14, which cuts overhead from thread synchronization and should deliver observable performance benefits in games and multi-threaded applications. A single unified wine binary now replaces the old wine64 launcher, and several system behaviors align more closely with modern Windows, including syscall numbering and NT reparse points. Graphics and desktop integration received more polish, including deeper Vulkan support (up to API 1.4.335), hardware-accelerated H.264 decoding through Direct3D, and further improvements to Wine's Wayland driver, which now supports clipboard operations, IMEs, and shaped windows. X11 users gain better window activation and fullscreen handling, and legacy DirectX features continue to expand under Wine's Vulkan renderer. Device support also moves forward, with better joystick handling, improved Bluetooth visibility and pairing, and working TWAIN scanning on 64-bit apps. Broad multimedia updates, DirectMusic refinements, .NET/XNA improvements, and developer-facing tools round out a release that appears focused on smoothing sharp edges rather than introducing flashy experiments. As always, source is live now and distro packages are rolling out.

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After widespread backlash over its 2022 decision to remove JPEG-XL support, Google has quietly restored the image format in the latest Chrome/Chromium codebase. Phoronix reports: Back in December they merged jxl-rs as a pure Rust-based JPEG-XL image decoder from the official libjxl organization. At the end of December they did more JPEG-XL plumbing with the enums and build flags for the support. Now as of yesterday they wired up the JXL decoder! The jxl-rs-powered JPEG-XL image decoding is gated by the enable_jxl_decoder build flag but it's enabled by default.

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New VoidLink malware framework targets Linux cloud servers  BleepingComputer

New VoidLink malware framework targets Linux cloud servers  BleepingComputer

Linux Mint 22.3 is built for users who value stability over surprises  BetaNews

Never-before-seen Linux malware is “far more advanced than typical”  Ars Technica

An anonymous reader quotes a report from MacRumors: Apple today introduced a new Apple Creator Studio bundle that offers access to six creative apps, as well as exclusive AI features and content, as part of a single subscription. In the U.S., pricing is set at $12.99 per month or $129 per year. Here are the six apps included with an Apple Creator Studio subscription: Final Cut Pro on the Mac and iPad; Logic Pro on the Mac and iPad; Pixelmator Pro on the Mac and iPad; Motion on the Mac; Compressor on the Mac; and MainStage on the Mac. Pixelmator Pro was previously only available on the Mac, but it is coming to the iPad. Apple Creator Studio subscribers will also receive access to exclusive AI features and premium content across not only the Final Cut Pro and Pixelmator Pro apps, but also the iWork apps Numbers, Pages, and Keynote, and the Freeform app later this year. So if you want the best, fully-featured versions of all of these apps going forward, you will need to subscribe to the bundle. Apple says there will be separate Creator Studio and one-time purchase "versions" of each app. If you have both versions installed on your Mac, the Creator Studio versions will have "unique icons" so that they stand out, according to Apple. Apple Creator Studio will be available through the App Store starting Wednesday, January 28. All new subscribers will be able to receive a one-month free trial, and customers who purchase a new Mac or a qualifying iPad model with an A16, A17 Pro, or M-series chip or later will be eligible for an extended three-month free trial. "If you are not interested in subscribing to the new Apple Creator Studio bundle introduced today, you will officially start to miss out on some new features," adds MacRumors in a separate article. If you bought the apps via a one-time purchase, or plan to do so in the future, "you will no longer have access to all new features," though they will continue to receive updates. "There are some exceptions, as Apple says Logic Pro and MainStage will have all the same features whether they are subscription or one-time-purchase versions," notes MacRumors. "It looks like most if not all of the new features that will be limited to Creator Studio subscribers will be powered by AI, as Apple repeatedly describes them as 'intelligent' features. The apps are continuing to receive other new features that do not require a subscription over time, so one-time purchasers are not completely left out."

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I don’t pay for storage upgrades—this is what I do when Linux is running out of space  MakeUseOf

Prosecutors in Taiwan issued an arrest warrant [non-paywalled source] for the chief executive officer of the Chinese smartphone company OnePlus, stepping up the island's efforts to block China's tech players from recruiting Taiwanese talent. From a report: The Shilin district prosecutors office issued the warrant for CEO and co-founder Pete Lau and indicted two Taiwanese citizens who worked for him, according to an indictment by the office. OnePlus, a niche player whose phones run on a customized version of Android, is suspected of illegally recruiting more than 70 engineers in Taiwan. The autonomous territory has stepped up its efforts to stop Chinese companies from raiding workers, who are often coveted because of their technical knowledge and experience. The Taiwanese officials put such limitations in place because they say recruiting from the semiconductor sector and other tech operations could jeopardize national security.

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An absolute madman has recreated the Windows 8 UI—for Linux  PC Gamer

Electric vehicles are more likely to be fixed at the roadside than petrol or diesel cars despite public fears to the contrary, according to new breakdown data from the AA. From a report: New research from Autotrader and the AA, carried out in December among more than 2,000 consumers, found 44% of respondents are concerned about the risk of breakdowns or roadside repairs when considering switching to an EV. Concern was highest among drivers aged 75 and over, with 56% saying they were worried. The North East recorded the highest level of concern at 52%, while women were slightly more likely to express reservations than men - 46% versus 41%. Even so, AA call-out data indicates EVs are more likely to be successfully repaired at the roadside than a 12-volt battery in a petrol or diesel car. Separately, industry data continues to indicate growing readiness to service electric cars. A recent Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) survey of aftermarket businesses found 81.2% of UK workshops are already equipped to work on EVs, according to the campaign partners.

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Panther Robotics and WICS host Intro to Linux workshop for FIU students  PantherNOW

Analyst Ben Thompson, sharing the experience of watching an NBA game on the Vision Pro: When I started the broadcast [on Apple Vision Pro's immersive view of the Bucks vs. Lakers NBA game] I had, surprise surprise, a studio show, specially tailored for the Apple Vision Pro. In other words, there was a dedicated camera, a dedicated presenter, a dedicated graphics team, etc. There was even a dedicated announcing team! This all sounds expensive and special, and I think it was a total waste. Here's the thing that you don't seem to get, Apple: the entire reason why the Vision Pro is compelling is because it is not a 2D screen in my living room; it's an immersive experience I wear on my head. That means that all of the lessons of TV sports production are immaterial. In fact, it's worse than that: insisting on all of the trappings of a traditional sports broadcast has two big problems: first, because it is costly, it means that less content is available than might be otherwise. And second, it makes the experience significantly worse. [...] I have, as I noted, had the good fortune of sitting courtside at an NBA game, and this very much captured the experience. The biggest sensation you get by being close to the players is just how tall and fast and powerful they are, and you got that sensation with the Vision Pro; it was amazing. The problem, however, is that you would be sitting there watching Giannis or LeBron or Luka glide down the court, and suddenly you would be ripped out of the experience because the entirely unnecessary producer decided you should be looking through one of these baseline cameras under the hoop [...]

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GYSEME: New Minimalist GNOME Fork Targets Lean, Customizable Linux Desktops  WebProNews

Linux 6.19 Kernel Adds Spectre Mitigations for RISC-V CPUs  WebProNews

Linutronix Pivots to Product Focus on Real-Time Linux After Intel Buy  WebProNews

Windows XP home users should upgrade to Linux -- not Windows 8.1  BetaNews