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Why This Is the Worst Crypto Winter Ever

Slashdot.org - Fri, 02/06/2026 - 05:30
Bitcoin has fallen roughly 44% from its October peak, and while the drawdown isn't crypto's deepest ever on a percentage basis, Bloomberg's Odd Lots newsletter lays out a case that this is the industry's worst winter yet. The macro backdrop was supposed to favor Bitcoin: public confidence in the dollar is shaky, the Trump administration has been crypto-friendly, and fiat currencies are under perceived stress globally. Yet gold, not Bitcoin, has been the safe haven of choice. The "we're so early" narrative is dead -- crypto ETFs exist, barriers to entry are zero, and the online community that once rallied holders through downturns has largely hollowed out. Institutional adoption arrived but hasn't lifted existing tokens like ETH or SOL; Wall Street cares about stablecoins and tokenization, not the coins themselves. AI is pulling both talent and miners toward data centers. Quantum computing advances threaten Bitcoin's encryption. And MicroStrategy and other Bitcoin treasury companies, once steady buyers during the bull run, are now large holders who may eventually become forced sellers.

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CIA Has Killed Off The World Factbook After Six Decades

Slashdot.org - Fri, 02/06/2026 - 03:01
The CIA has shut down The World Factbook, one of its oldest and most recognizable public-facing intelligence publications, ending a run that began as a classified reference document in 1962 and evolved into a freely accessible digital resource that drew millions of views each year. The agency offered no explanation for the decision. Originally titled The National Basic Intelligence Factbook, the publication first went unclassified in 1971, was renamed a decade later, and moved online at CIA.gov in 1997. It served researchers, news organizations, teachers, students and international travelers. The site hosted more than 5,000 copyright-free photographs, some donated by CIA officers from their personal travel. Every page now redirects to a farewell announcement.

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Google Confirms AirDrop Sharing is Coming To Android Phones Beyond Pixels

Slashdot.org - Fri, 02/06/2026 - 00:01
Google's Quick Share-AirDrop interoperability, which has been exclusive to the Pixel 10 series since its surprise launch last year, is headed to a much broader set of Android devices in 2026. Eric Kay, Google's Vice President of Engineering for the Android platform, confirmed the expansion during a press briefing at the company's Taipei office, saying Google is "working with our partners to expand it into the rest of the ecosystem" and that announcements are coming "very soon." Nothing is the only OEM to have publicly confirmed it's working on support, though Qualcomm has also hinted at enabling the feature on Snapdragon-powered phones.

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The European Commission Is Testing an Open Source Alternative To Microsoft Teams

Slashdot.org - Thu, 02/05/2026 - 21:00
The European Commission is preparing to trial a communications platform built on Matrix, the open source messaging protocol already used by the French government, German healthcare providers and European armed forces, as a sovereign backup to Microsoft Teams. Signal currently serves as the backup tool but has proven too inflexible for an organization the Commission's size, it said. The Matrix-based solution could also eventually connect the Commission to other EU bodies like the Parliament.

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Court Rules That Ripping YouTube Clips Can Violate the DMCA

Slashdot.org - Thu, 02/05/2026 - 18:30
A federal court in California has ruled that YouTube creators who use stream-ripping tools to download clips for reaction and commentary videos may face liability under the DMCA's anti-circumvention provisions -- a decision that could reshape how one of the platform's most popular content genres operates. U.S. Magistrate Judge Virginia K. DeMarchi of the Northern District of California denied a motion to dismiss in Cordova v. Huneault, a creator-versus-creator dispute, finding that YouTube's "rolling cipher" technology qualifies as an access control measure under section 1201(a) even though the underlying videos are freely viewable by the public. The distinction matters because it separates the act of watching a video from the act of downloading it. The defense had argued that no ripping tools were actually used and that screen recording could account for the copied footage. Judge DeMarchi allowed the claim to proceed to discovery regardless, noting that the plaintiff had adequately pled the circumvention allegation. The ruling opens a legal avenue beyond standard copyright infringement for creators who want to go after rivals. Reaction channels have long leaned on fair use as a blanket defense, but plaintiff's attorney Randall S. Newman told TorrentFreak that circumventing copy protections under section 1201 is a separate violation unaffected by any fair use finding.

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NASA Will Finally Let Its Astronauts Bring iPhones To the Moon

Slashdot.org - Thu, 02/05/2026 - 16:30
NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman has announced that astronauts on the upcoming Crew-12 and Artemis II missions will be allowed to carry iPhones and other modern smartphones into orbit and to the Moon -- a reversal of long-standing agency rules that had left crews relying on a 2016 Nikon DSLR and decade-old GoPros for the historic lunar flyby. Isaacman framed the move as part of a broader push to challenge what he called bloated qualification requirements, where hardware approvals get mired in radiation characterization, battery thermal tests, outgassing reviews and vibration testing. "That operational urgency will serve NASA well as we pursue the highest-value science and research in orbit and on the lunar surface," he wrote.

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