Steam Survey issues prevented the survey results from being posted on the evening of the 1st as is traditionally done, but the results were just uploaded now to the Steam website. Steam on Linux usage dipped slightly but overall remains healthy with much excitement still around the Steam Deck and SteamOS efforts...

Following last month's release of Debian Installer Trixie RC1 as the installer for the upcoming Debian 13.0 release, a second release candidate was issued today for testing...

A politically motivated hacker breached Columbia University's IT systems, stealing vast amounts of sensitive student and employee data -- including admissions decisions and Social Security numbers. The Record reports: The hacker reportedly provided Bloomberg News with 1.6 gigabytes of data they claimed to have stolen from the university, including information from 2.5 million applications going back decades. The stolen data the outlet reviewed reportedly contains details on whether applicants were rejected or accepted, their citizenship status, their university ID numbers and which academic programs they sought admission to. While the hacker's claims have not been independently verified, Bloomberg said it compared data provided by the hacker to that belonging to eight Columbia applicants seeking admission between 2019 and 2024 and found it matched. The threat actor reportedly told Bloomberg he was seeking information that would indicate whether the university continues to use affirmative action in admissions despite a 2023 Supreme Court decision prohibiting the practice. The hacker told Bloomberg he obtained 460 gigabytes of data in total -- after spending two months targeting and penetrating increasingly privileged layers of the university's servers -- and said he harvested information about financial aid packages, employee pay and at least 1.8 million Social Security numbers belonging to employees, applicants, students and their family members.

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: Intel's new chief executive is exploring a big change to its contract manufacturing business to win major customers, two people familiar with the matter told Reuters, in a potentially expensive shift from his predecessor's plans. The new strategy for Intel's foundry business would mean offering outside customers a newer generation of technology, the people said. That next-generation chipmaking process, analysts believe, will be more competitive against Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co in trying to land major customers such as Apple or Nvidia. Since taking the company's helm in March, CEO Lip-Bu Tan has moved fast to cut costs and find a new path to revive the ailing U.S. chipmaker. By June, he started voicing that a manufacturing process known as 18A, in which prior CEO Pat Gelsinger had invested heavily, was losing its appeal to new customers, said the sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity. To put aside external sales of 18A and its variant 18A-P, manufacturing processes that have cost Intel billions of dollars to develop, the company would have to take a write-off, one of the people familiar with the matter said. Industry analysts contacted by Reuters said such a charge could amount to a loss of hundreds of millions, if not billions, of dollars. Intel declined to comment on such "hypothetical scenarios or market speculation." It said the lead customer for 18A has long been Intel itself, and it aims to ramp production of its "Panther Lake" laptop chips later in 2025, which it called the most advanced processors ever designed and manufactured in the United States. Persuading outside clients to use Intel's factories remains key to its future. As its 18A fabrication process faced delays, rival TSMC's N2 technology has been on track for production. Tan's preliminary answer to this challenge: focus more resources on 14A, a next-generation chipmaking process where Intel expects to have advantages over Taiwan's TSMC, the two sources said. The move is part of a play for big customers like Apple and Nvidia, which currently pay TSMC to manufacture their chips.

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Two accessory manufacturers have told The Verge that Nintendo has intentionally locked down the Switch 2's USB-C port using a new encryption scheme, preventing compatibility with third-party docks and accessories. "I haven't yet found proof of that encryption chip myself -- but when I analyzed the USB-C PD traffic with a Power-Z tester, I could clearly see the new Nintendo Switch not behaving like a good USB citizen should," writes The Verge's Sean Hollister. From the report: If you've been wondering why there are basically no portable Switch 2 docks on the market, this is the reason. Even Jsaux, the company that built its reputation by beating the Steam Deck dock to market, tells us it's paused its plans to build a Switch 2 dock because of Nintendo's actions. It's not simply because the Switch 2 now requires more voltage, as was previously reported; it's that Nintendo has made things even more difficult this generation.

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Grammarly has acquired the AI email client Superhuman to enhance its AI-driven productivity suite and expand AI capabilities within email communication. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed but Superhuman CEO Rahul Vohra and his team will be joining the AI writing company. TechCrunch reports: Superhuman was founded by Rahul Vohra, Vivek Sodera, and Conrad Irwin. The company raised more than $114 million in funding from backers including a16z, IVP, and Tiger Global, with its last valuation at $825 million, according to data from venture data analytics firm Traxcn. "With Superhuman, we can deliver that future to millions more professionals while giving our existing users another surface for agent collaboration that simply doesn't exist anywhere else. Email isn't just another app; it's where professionals spend significant portions of their day, and it's the perfect staging ground for orchestrating multiple AI agents simultaneously," Shishir Mehrotra, CEO of Grammarly, said in a statement. With this deal, CEO Vohra and other Superhuman employees are moving over to Grammarly. "Email is the main communication tool for billions of people worldwide and the number-one use case for Grammarly customers. By joining forces with Grammarly, we will invest even more in the core Superhuman experience, as well as create a new way of working where AI agents collaborate across the communication tools that we all use every day," Rahul Vohra, CEO of Superhuman, said in a statement.

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Last week, OpenAI raised objections in court, hoping to overturn a court order requiring the AI company to retain all ChatGPT logs "indefinitely," including deleted and temporary chats. But Sidney Stein, the US district judge reviewing OpenAI's request, immediately denied OpenAI's objections. He was seemingly unmoved by the company's claims that the order forced OpenAI to abandon "long-standing privacy norms" and weaken privacy protections that users expect based on ChatGPT's terms of service. Rather, Stein suggested that OpenAI's user agreement specified that their data could be retained as part of a legal process, which Stein said is exactly what is happening now. The order was issued by magistrate judge Ona Wang just days after news organizations, led by The New York Times, requested it. The news plaintiffs claimed the order was urgently needed to preserve potential evidence in their copyright case, alleging that ChatGPT users are likely to delete chats where they attempted to use the chatbot to skirt paywalls to access news content. A spokesperson told Ars that OpenAI plans to "keep fighting" the order, but the ChatGPT maker seems to have few options left. They could possibly petition the Second Circuit Court of Appeals for a rarely granted emergency order that could intervene to block Wang's order, but the appeals court would have to consider Wang's order an extraordinary abuse of discretion for OpenAI to win that fight. In the meantime, OpenAI is negotiating a process that will allow news plaintiffs to search through the retained data. Perhaps the sooner that process begins, the sooner the data will be deleted. And that possibility puts OpenAI in the difficult position of having to choose between either caving to some data collection to stop retaining data as soon as possible or prolonging the fight over the order and potentially putting more users' private conversations at risk of exposure through litigation or, worse, a data breach. [...] Both sides are negotiating the exact process for searching through the chat logs, with both parties seemingly hoping to minimize the amount of time the chat logs will be preserved. For OpenAI, sharing the logs risks revealing instances of infringing outputs that could further spike damages in the case. The logs could also expose how often outputs attribute misinformation to news plaintiffs. But for news plaintiffs, accessing the logs is not considered key to their case -- perhaps providing additional examples of copying -- but could help news organizations argue that ChatGPT dilutes the market for their content. That could weigh against the fair use argument, as a judge opined in a recent ruling that evidence of market dilution could tip an AI copyright case in favor of plaintiffs.

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A California jury has ordered Google to pay $314.6 million to Android smartphone users in the state after finding the company liable for collecting data from idle devices without permission. The San Jose jury ruled Tuesday that Google sent and received information from phones while idle, creating "mandatory and unavoidable burdens shouldered by Android device users for Google's benefit." The 2019 class action represented an estimated 14 million Californians who argued Google consumed their cellular data for targeted advertising purposes.

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The ZLUDA open-source effort that started off a half-decade ago as a drop-in CUDA implementation for Intel GPUs and then for several years was funded by AMD as a CUDA implementation for Radeon GPUs atop ROCm and then open-sourced but then reverted has been continuing to push along a new path since last year. The current take on ZLUDA is a multi-vendor CUDA implementation for non-NVIDIA GPUs for AI workloads and more. More progress was made during Q2 on this effort...

Amazon plans to shut down its standalone Freevee app in August, according to an in-app notice to users. From a report: The free, ad-supported streaming service is directing viewers to continue watching Freevee content on Prime Video. "Prime Video is the new exclusive home for Freevee Tv show, movies, and Live TV," the notice to readers states. "The Freevee app will be accessible until August 2025. Continue watching your favorite Free Originals and our library of hit movies, shows, and live TV on Prime Video for free, no subscription needed. Download Prime Video to get started and sign-in with your Amazon account."

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China will launch digital IDs for internet use on July 15th, transferring online verification from private companies to government control. Users obtain digital IDs by submitting personal information including facial scans to police via an app. A pilot program launched one year ago enrolled 6 million people. The system currently remains voluntary, though officials and state media are pushing citizens to register for "information security." Companies will see only anonymized character strings when users log in, while police retain exclusive access to personal details. The program replaces China's existing system requiring citizens to register with companies using real names before posting comments, gaming, or making purchases. Police say they punished 47,000 people last year for spreading "rumours" online. The digital ID serves a broader government strategy to centralize data control. State planners classify data as a production factor alongside labor and capital, aiming to extract information from private companies for trading through government-operated data exchanges.

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AI-powered note-taking apps are increasingly attending workplace meetings in place of human participants, creating situations where automated transcription bots outnumber actual attendees. Major platforms including Zoom, Microsoft Teams and Google Meet now offer built-in note-taking features that record, transcribe and summarize meetings for invited participants who don't attend. The technology operates under varying legal frameworks, with most states requiring only single-party consent for recording while California, Florida, and Pennsylvania mandate all-party approval.

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An anonymous reader shares a report: Law enforcement officials are investigating a former employee of a company that negotiates with hackers and facilitates cryptocurrency payments during ransomware attacks, according to a statement from the firm, DigitalMint. DigitalMint President Marc Jason Grens this week told organizations it works with that the US Justice Department is examining allegations that the then-employee struck deals with hackers to profit from extortion payments, according to a person familiar with the matter. Grens did not identify the employee by name and characterized their actions as isolated, said the person, who spoke on condition that they not be identified describing private conversations. DigitalMint is cooperating with a criminal investigation into "alleged unauthorized conduct by the employee while employed here," Grens said in an email to Bloomberg News. The Chicago-based company is not the target of the investigation and the employee "was immediately terminated," Grens said, adding that he can't provide more information because the probe is ongoing.

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Les votes pour les Cowcotland Reader Awards 2025 débutent ce jour, il est temps de nous dire quelles sont vos marques favorites, mais aussi vos produits préférés ? Cerise sur le gâteau, en répondant à ces questions, vous aurez peut-être la chance de gagner la carte graphique de votre choix d'une valeur de 1000 euros !!! Pour voter, c'est simple, cela se passe ici même : Votez pour vos marques et produits préférés. Les lecteurs de Cowcotland auront ainsi la possibilité de voter pour leurs marques préférées, et cela, dans 57 catégories distinctes. Vous pouvez voter jusqu'au 20 juillet prochain. Qui remportera les Cowcotland Reader Awards cette année ? Les gagnants des Cowcotland Reader Awards seront rendus publics en ligne le 19 août prochain. […]

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An anonymous reader shares a report: From Somalia to mainland Europe, the past two years have seen some of the most ravaging droughts in recorded history, made worse by climate change, according to a UN-backed report. Describing drought as a "silent killer" which "creeps in, drains resources, and devastates lives in slow motion" the report said it had exacerbated issues like poverty and ecosystem collapse. The report highlighted impacts in Africa, the Mediterranean, Latin America and Southeast Asia, including an estimated 4.4 million people in Somalia facing crisis-level food insecurity at the beginning of this year. It recommends governments prepare for a "new normal" with measures including stronger early warning systems.

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An anonymous reader shares a report: Lorde [a popular New Zealand singer and songwriter] fans are clearly struggling to play the CD version of her new album. Customers who purchased the special edition of Virgin released on a transparent plastic disc are reporting on Reddit and TikTok that many CD players, car stereos, and other sound systems they've tried are unable to play it.

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Not to be confused with the AMDXDNA accelerator driver for the Ryzen AI NPUs, AMD software engineers today posted patches for review on the "amd-ai-engine" accelerator driver. This new AMD AI Engine driver is for supporting the IP found on their Versal adaptive SoCs...

Air pollution has been linked to a swathe of lung cancer-driving DNA mutations, in a study of people diagnosed with the disease despite never having smoked tobacco. From a report: The findings from an investigation into cancer patients around the world helps explain why those who have never smoked make up a rising proportion of people developing the cancer, a trend the researchers called an "urgent and growing global problem." Prof Ludmil Alexandrov, a senior author on the study at the University of California in San Diego, said researchers had observed the "problematic trend" but had not understood the cause. "Our research shows that air pollution is strongly associated with the same types of DNA mutations we typically associate with smoking," he said. The scientists analyzed the entire genetic code of lung tumors removed from 871 never-smokers in Europe, North America, Africa and Asia as part of the Sherlock-Lung study. They found that the higher the levels of air pollution in a region, the more cancer-driving and cancer-promoting mutations were present in residents' tumors. Fine-particulate air pollution was in particular linked to mutations in the TP53 gene. These have previously been associated with tobacco smoking.

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Oubliez la feuille de route qui court jusqu'en 2028 : Intel envisagerait un énième revirement stratégique concernant son activité de fonderie, selon Reuters. Lip-Bu Tan, arrivé à la tête de l’entreprise en mars dernier, souhaiterait renoncer à la commercialisation de la technologie de gravure 18A auprès de clients tiers, au profit d’une offre recentrée sur le procédé 14A... [Tout lire]