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The Federal Data Center Enhancement Act (FDCEA) is set to expire in September without an apparent replacement, potentially ending requirements for federal agencies to report on data-center efficiency, resilience, energy and water use, and contractor sustainability. Wired reports: Despite the public backlash, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), the government agency that sets guidance for how agencies implement policies in line with the president's agenda, is not providing any plans for h…

alternative_right shares a report from The Hill: The FBI released an urgent security warning to the public about a fast-acting scam targeting Microsoft 365 users on Teams, Outlook and OneDrive. The agency warned that the hacking platform Kali365 seeks out OAuth device codes, allowing scammers to sneak past multi-factor authentication codes, and without the need for a password, to access Microsoft accounts. Scammers will send a phishing email impersonating a trusted document-sharing service with…

Google is removing Chrome's last remaining workarounds for Manifest V2 extensions, effectively ending support for legacy ad blockers such as the original uBlock Origin. 9to5Google reports: CyberNews points out a Chromium commit that removes support for the "kExtensionManifestV2Disabled" flag, which is referred to as "dead code" seeing as Chrome no longer supports Manifest V2 extensions. This removal acts as the final stop for many Manifest V2-based ad blocker extensions that were still in use t…

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: A decade ago, AMD added a protection to its high-end CPUs to protect them against cold boot attacks and other types of physical exploits that siphon sensitive data out of the connected memory chips. Short for Transparent Secure Memory Encryption, TSME encrypts the entire contents stored in memory, making the data useless to physical attackers. Over time, AMD added TSME to lower-end processors, including the consumer version of its Ryzen chi…

Longtime Slashdot reader necro81 writes: The heavily promoted, $499 T1 "Trump Phone" was originally said to be "Made in the USA" and ship in September 2025. Later, that was downgraded to "Assembled in the USA." Given the Trump Organization's lack of engineering or supply chain expertise, many assumed the "T1" would just be a private-label phone made by someone else. After a number of delays, the first phones are finally shipping. iFixit has performed a teardown and concluded that the T1 is a ju…

Longtime Slashdot reader schwit1 shares a report from NBC News: British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has announced a sweeping ban on social media use for those under 16, joining other countries around the world seeking to protect children online. "It's a big step for our country," Starmer said in a recorded video message released Monday. "Social media is making our children unhappy and unsafe, and as a parent, as much as a Prime Minister, I just can't let that go on anymore," he added. The ban w…

Fox is buying Roku for $22 billion, combining Fox's sports, news, entertainment, Tubi, and Fox One offerings with a streaming platform that reaches about 100 million people. The companies say the merger would create the "third-largest player in US television by share of viewing," while Fox insists Roku will remain open to competing apps after the deal closes. CNN reports: Fox has dabbled in streaming over the past few years -- finally launching its Fox One competitor last August -- but has lack…

BrianFagioli writes: Google CEO Sundar Pichai delivered Stanford University's 2026 commencement address, but despite leading one of the companies at the center of the AI boom, he spent very little time discussing artificial intelligence. Instead, the speech focused on optimism, working on hard things, and following your interests. The omission is notable given how many graduates are entering a job market being reshaped by AI. While Pichai briefly referenced a "rewiring of technology," he largel…

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: Voters in Switzerland have rejected an unprecedented far-right proposal to cap the country's population at 10 million in a divisive referendum dubbed "the Swiss Brexit." Some 54.79% of voters were against the proposal by the Swiss People's party (SVP) and 45.21% were in favor. Turnout was 58.86%. A different outcome would have obliged the Swiss government to limit the population, currently 9.1 million, to 10 million by 2050, enacting tough …

Futurism reports: in a new essay for The Chronicle Higher Education, university-level literature and writing instructor Tyler Jagt recalls how not a single one of his students could get through an assigned 20-page article, something that he had read "without complaint" as an undergraduate a decade ago. One student confessed that the reason they didn't finish was that they kept losing track of what the paper was about. And there's no doubt that they're not alone. Jagt cites the 2024 National Ass…

"Battered by years of mass layoffs, California tech workers were hoping the job market would rebound this year," reports the Los Angeles Times. "But things are getting worse." The class divide is widening in Silicon Valley as a tiny group of employees is landing unprecedented packages for AI skills, while many others struggle to find work. The have-nots are doing everything that used to guarantee great jobs — refreshing resumes, optimizing LinkedIn profiles and doing interviews — but companies …

"Asian stocks rallied Monday while oil prices tumbled," reports CNBC, "after the U.S. and Iran agreed to a peace deal aimed at ending nearly four months of conflict..." The strongest reaction was seen in energy markets. U.S. crude oil futures for July delivery were down 4.77% to $80.83 per barrel by 8:27 p.m. ET. Brent futures, the international benchmark, for August delivery traded about 4% lower to $83.77 per barrel. Asian equities surged. South Korea's Kospi jumped 5.1%, Japan's Nikkei 225 c…

"As the use of artificial intelligence spreads across companies worldwide, it is relieving workers of tedious old chores but creating new ones," reports the Los Angeles Times. "Most people don't realize the amount of time that they're spending working on the tools to get the time savings that they're professing," said Paul Leonardi, Duca Family professor of technology management at UC Santa Barbara." Leonardi is one of the co-authors of the new study published by the Work AI Institute, whose co…

Microsoft dropped "massive" updates for six stock Windows apps, reports the "Microsoft enthusiast" site Neowin. Here's some of their more interesting highlights for Clock, Media Player, Calculator, Voice Recorder, Photos, and Paint: The Photos app (version 2026.11060.2004.0): AI watermarking — "AI-generated or edited images can now carry a visible Copilot watermark. You choose Never, Always, or Ask Every Time in Settings, with a confirmation when saving. The watermarking is off by default in se…

UK's Members of Parliament (MP) were "looking for proof that smartphones and social media are rotting children's brains," writes The Register — but they got "a less satisfying answer from neuroscientists on Wednesday: nobody can really prove it." Appearing before the Science, Innovation and Technology Committee this week, three researchers spent much of the session explaining that concern and evidence are not quite the same thing. Asked what evidence exists on the impact of digital devices on i…