[1]alternative_right writes:

> Fintraffic's national traffic priority system, which is set to be introduced this summer, will recognize the location of an emergency vehicle and [2]automatically change the lights to green to facilitate its passage.

>

> (Why isn't everyone doing this already?)



[1] https://slashdot.org/~alternative_right

[2] https://yle.fi/a/74-20207808

Microsoft is [1]reevaluating its AI strategy on Windows 11 and plans to scale back or remove Copilot integrations across built-in apps after months of sustained user backlash, according to a Windows Central report citing people familiar with the company's plans.

Copilot features in apps like Notepad and Paint are under review and could be pulled entirely or stripped of their Copilot branding in favor of a more streamlined experience. The company has paused work on adding new Copilot buttons to any other in-box apps. Windows Recall, the screenshot-based search feature delayed by an entire year in 2024 over security and privacy concerns, is separately under review -- Microsoft internally considers the current implementation a failure and is exploring ways to rework or rename the feature rather than scrap it entirely, the report said.



[1] https://www.windowscentral.com/microsoft/windows-11/microsoft-is-reevaluating-its-ai-efforts-on-windows-11-plans-to-reduce-copilot-integrations-and-evolve-recall

Apple's long-standing dominance over its electronics supply chain [1]is eroding as AI companies outbid the iPhone maker for critical components like chips, memory and specialized glass fiber, giving suppliers the leverage to demand that Apple pay more. CEO Tim Cook acknowledged the pressure during a Thursday earnings call, noting constraints in chip supplies and significant increases in memory prices.

Nvidia has overtaken Apple as TSMC's largest customer, CEO Jensen Huang said on a podcast; Apple had held that position by a wide margin for years. DRAM prices are set to quadruple from 2023 levels by year-end and NAND prices will more than triple, according to TechInsights.

The firm estimates Apple could pay $57 more for memory in the base iPhone 18 due this fall compared to the base iPhone 17 currently on sale -- a significant hit on a device that retails for $799.



[1] https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/technology/the-ai-boom-is-coming-for-apple-s-profit-margins/ar-AA1VpgpA

Moltbook, a Reddit-like social network that launched last week and bills itself as a platform "built exclusively for AI agents," had a security vulnerability that [1]exposed private messages shared between agents , the email addresses of more than 6,000 human owners, and over a million credentials, according to research published Monday by cybersecurity firm Wiz.

The flaw has since been fixed after Wiz contacted Moltbook. Wiz cofounder Ami Luttwak called it a classic byproduct of "vibe coding." Moltbook creator Matt Schlicht posted on X last Friday that he "didn't write one line of code" for the site. He did not immediately respond to a request for comment when reached out by Reuters. Luttwak said the vulnerability also allowed anyone to post to the site, bot or human. "There was no verification of identity," he said.



[1] https://www.reuters.com/legal/litigation/moltbook-social-media-site-ai-agents-had-big-security-hole-cyber-firm-wiz-says-2026-02-02/

[1]Luthair writes:

> Notepad++ claims to have been targeted by a state actor, given their previous stance on Uyghurs one can speculate about a candidate.

Notepad++, [2]in a blog post :

> According to the analysis provided by the security experts, the attack involved infrastructure-level compromise that allowed malicious actors to intercept and redirect update traffic destined for notepad-plus-plus.org. The exact technical mechanism remains under investigation, though the compromise occurred at the hosting provider level rather than through vulnerabilities in Notepad++ code itself. Traffic from certain targeted users was selectively redirected to attacker-controlled served malicious update manifests.



[1] https://slashdot.org/~Luthair

[2] https://notepad-plus-plus.org/news/hijacked-incident-info-update/

The U.S. laid fiber-optic cables to a record number of homes last year as billions of dollars in federal broadband grants and a surge in data-center construction fueled an enormous buildout, but the industry [1]does not have enough workers to sustain the pace .

A 2024 report by the Fiber Broadband Association and the Power & Communication Contractors Association projects 58,000 new fiber jobs between 2025 and 2032 and estimates 120,000 workers will leave the field in that period, mostly through retirement -- a combined shortage of 178,000. The gap is especially acute among splicers, who fuse hair-thin filaments by hand, and directional drill operators.

Telecommunications line installers and repairers earned annual median wages of $70,500 for the year ended May 2024, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, against a $49,500 national median. Push, a utility-construction firm, raised hourly pay for fiber crews by 5% to 8% in each of the past several years and expects the pace to quicken.



[1] https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/technology/high-speed-internet-boom-hits-low-tech-snag-a-labor-shortage/ar-AA1VppMU

Starbucks has been pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into AI and automation -- testing robots that take drive-through orders, virtual assistants that help baristas recall recipes and manage schedules, and scanning tools that count inventory -- as the 55-year-old coffee chain [1]tries to reverse several years of struggling sales .

The company last week reported its first same-store sales increase in two years in the U.S., where it earns roughly 70% of its revenue. Shares still slid 5% on concerns that heavy spending, including $500 million to boost staffing, had hurt profits. CEO Brian Niccol, who joined in 2024 after engineering Chipotle's turnaround, told the BBC he is confident consistent growth will address that; the company has pledged to find $2 billion in cost savings over three years.



[1] https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cew8qzdxnnjo

China's decades-old network of elite high-school "genius classes" -- ultra-competitive talent streams that pull an estimated 100,000 gifted teenagers out of regular schooling every year and run them through college-level science curricula -- has [1]produced the core technical talent now building the country's leading AI and technology companies, the Financial Times reported Saturday.

Graduates of these programs include the founder of ByteDance, the leaders of e-commerce giants Taobao and PDD, the billionaire behind super-app Meituan, the brothers who started Nvidia rival Cambricon, and the core engineers behind large language models at DeepSeek and Alibaba's Qwen. DeepSeek's research team of more than 100 was almost entirely composed of genius-class alumni when the startup released its R1 reasoning model last year at a fraction of the cost of its international rivals.

The system traces to the mid-1980s, when China first sent students to the International Mathematical Olympiad and a handful of top high schools began creating dedicated competition-track classes. China now graduates around five million STEM majors annually -- compared to roughly half a million in the United States -- and in 2025, 22 of the 23 students it sent to the International Science Olympiads returned with gold medals. The computer science track has overtaken maths and physics as the most popular competition subject, a shift that accelerated after Beijing designated AI development a "key national growth strategy" in 2017.



[1] https://www.ft.com/content/68f60392-88bf-419c-96c7-c3d580ec9d97?accessToken=zwAAAZweolfdkc9o9gOSiL9BnNOWx8PVgOydlw.MEYCIQDeatJc3sMRq2YeDoTjSWuuvWievn8l4rklu-i_eERUiwIhAPfOWTnlh6rHjskMyzm0CItlDZtaZjWhaxHHkMQaQYVt&segmentId=e95a9ae7-622c-6235-5f87-51e412b47e97&shareType=enterprise&shareId=c8abb097-a2c5-4b7a-953e-f46a99ec5076

[1]Phoronix reports :

> Chris Mason, the longtime Linux kernel developer most known for being the [2]creator of Btrfs , has been working on a Git [3]repository with AI review prompts he has been working on for LLM-assisted code review of Linux kernel patches. This initiative has been happening for some weeks now while the latest work was posted today for comments... The Meta engineer has been investing a lot of effort into making this AI/LLM-assisted code review accurate and useful to upstream Linux kernel stakeholders. It's already shown positive results and with the current pace it looks like it could play a helpful part in Linux kernel code review moving forward.

"I'm hoping to get some feedback on changes I pushed today that break the review up into individual tasks..." Mason wrote on the [4]Linux kernel mailing list . "Using tasks allows us to break up large diffs into smaller chunks, and review each chunk individually. This ends up using fewer tokens a lot of the time, because we're not sending context back and forth for the entire diff with every turn. It also catches more bugs all around."



[1] https://www.phoronix.com/news/AI-Code-Review-Prompts-Linux

[2] https://www.phoronix.com/news/rsched

[3] https://github.com/masoncl/review-prompts

[4] https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/b187e0c1-1df8-4529-bfe4-0a1d65221adc@meta.com/

The New York Times lists other reasons a company lays off people. ("It didn't meet financial targets. It overhired. Tariffs, or the loss of a big client, rocked it...")

"But lately, many companies are highlighting a new factor: artificial intelligence. Executives, saying they anticipate huge changes from the technology, are making cuts now."

> A.I. was [1]cited in the announcements of more than 50,000 layoffs in 2025, according to Challenger, Gray & Christmas, a research firm... Investors may applaud such pre-emptive moves. But some skeptics (including [2]media [3]outlets ) suggest that corporations are disingenuously blaming A.I. for layoffs, or "A.I.-washing." As the market research firm Forrester put it in [4]a January report : "Many companies announcing A.I.-related layoffs do not have mature, vetted A.I. applications ready to fill those roles, highlighting a trend of 'A.I.-washing' — attributing financially motivated cuts to future A.I. implementation...."

>

> "Companies are saying that 'we're anticipating that we're going to introduce A.I. that will take over these jobs.' But it hasn't happened yet. So that's one reason to be skeptical," said Peter Cappelli, a professor at the Wharton School... Of course, A.I. may well end up transforming the job market, in tech and beyond. But a recent study... [by a senior research fellow at the Brookings Institution who studies A.I. and work] found that AI has [5]not yet meaningfully shifted the overall market. Tech firms have cut more than 700,000 employees globally since 2022, according to [6]Layoffs.fyi , which [7]tracks industry job losses. But much of that was a correction for [8]overhiring during the pandemic.

>

> As [9]unpopular as A.I. job cuts may be to the public, they may be less controversial than other reasons — like bad company planning.

Amazon CEO Jassy has even said the reason for most of their layoffs was reducing bureaucracy, the article points out, although "Most analysts, however, believe Amazon is cutting jobs to clear money for A.I. investments, such as data centers."



[1] https://www.challengergray.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Challenger-Report-December-2025.pdf

[2] https://www.cnbc.com/2025/11/04/white-collar-layoffs-ai-cost-cutting-tariffs.html

[3] https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2025-11-20/ai-cited-in-close-to-50-000-job-cuts-as-tech-giants-accelerate-automation

[4] https://www.forrester.com/press-newsroom/forrester-impact-ai-jobs-forecast/

[5] https://budgetlab.yale.edu/research/evaluating-impact-ai-labor-market-current-state-affairs

[6] https://layoffs.fyi/

[7] https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/05/business/roger-lee-layoffs.html?unlocked_article_code=CSdXdDWaCJs_fiZzYKiVqHx_xQBSLNy6fOGsw3yiOXhGI0rE6aZF-AWmRPIXJxuikcmuN1dZyVNQ0T-y0KRwCE1HSpfkUIKxZ3W6mrJqZQHpJMRvSdF5XfZVqpqWjk3DqFMutIyPztvW1hu28j2kkoqpPvuI0Y0OHOxRMYbYYSsCCtzT8unTWWcU1Es5puqkeyzPAkYaG8I6VLLf4KVw3H0Mo2U_MqF3ONAEjE6KgOF471qtqeYG82VHj_MxoGp6uXFakMtrfO-roQXmxKsrKPCsOnrLsDo5hZV9IQiAVnPOWPDoycsSzm5SkwxEXej-7eCb_pfzDIv_LJAA&smid=url-sharehttps://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/05/business/roger-lee-layoffs.html?unlocked_article_code=CSdXdDWaCJs_fiZzYKiVqHx_xQBSLNy6fOGsw3yiOXhGI0rE6aZF-AWmRPIXJxuikcmuN1dZyVNQ0T-y0KRwCE1HSpfkUIKxZ3W6mrJqZQHpJMRvSdF5XfZVqpqWjk3DqFMutIyPztvW1hu28j2kkoqpPvuI0Y0OHOxRMYbYYSsCCtzT8unTWWcU1Es5puqkeyzPAkYaG8I6VLLf4KVw3H0Mo2U_MqF3ONAEjE6KgOF471qtqeYG82VHj_MxoGp6uXFakMtrfO-roQXmxKsrKPCsOnrLsDo5hZV9IQiAVnPOWPDoycsSzm5SkwxEXej-7eCb_pfzDIv_LJAA&smid=url-share

[8] https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/21/business/tech-layoffs.html

[9] https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2025/02/25/u-s-workers-are-more-worried-than-hopeful-about-future-ai-use-in-the-workplace/

The EU "has switched on parts of its homegrown secure satellite communications network for the first time," [1]reports Bloomberg , calling it part of a €10.6 billion push to "wean itself off US support amid growing tensions."

SpaceNews notes the new government program GOVSATCOM [2]pools capacity from eight already on-oribit satellites from France, Spain, Italy, Greece and Luxembourg — both national and commercial. And they cite this prediction by EU Defense and Space Commissioner Andrius Kubilius.

The program could expand by 2027.

> "All member states can now have access to sovereign satellite communications — military and government, secure and resilient, built in Europe, operated in Europe, and under European control," [Kubilius said during his opening remarks at the European Space Conference]... Beginning in 2029, GOVSATCOM is expected to integrate with the 290 satellites in the [3]Infrastructure for Resilience, Interconnectivity and Security by Satellite constellation, known as IRIS2, and be fully operational... "The goal is connectivity and security for all of Europe — guaranteed access for all member states and full European control."



[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-01-27/eu-deploys-first-satellite-service-in-bid-to-limit-us-dependence?srnd=phx-technology

[2] https://spacenews.com/eu-launches-government-satcom-program-in-sovereignty-push/

[3] https://spacenews.com/europe-signs-contracts-for-iris%C2%B2-constellation/

"Technology companies spent part of the 2010s trying to convince us that we would want an 8K display one day..." [1]writes Ars Technica .

"However, 8K never proved its necessity or practicality."

> LG Display is no longer making 8K LCD or OLED panels, FlatpanelsHD [2]reported today ... LG Electronics was the first and only company to sell 8K OLED TVs, starting with the 88-inch Z9 in 2019. In 2022, it [3]lowered the price-of-entry for an 8K OLED TV by $7,000 by charging $13,000 for a 76.7-inch TV. FlatpanelsHD cited anonymous sources who said that LG Electronics would no longer restock the [4]2024 QNED99T , which is the last LCD 8K TV that it released.

>

> LG's 8K abandonment follows other brands distancing themselves from 8K. TCL, which released its last 8K TV in 2021, [5]said in 2023 that it wasn't making more 8K TVs due to low demand. Sony [6]discontinued its last 8K TVs in April and is unlikely to return to the market, as it plans to sell the majority [7]ownership of its Bravia TVs to TCL .

>

> The tech industry tried to convince people that the 8K living room was coming soon. But since the 2010s, people have mostly adopted 4K. In September 2024, research firm Omdia reported that there were "nearly 1 billion 4K TVs currently in use." In comparison, 1.6 million 8K TVs had been sold since 2015, Paul Gray, Omdia's TV and video technology analyst, [8]said , noting that 8K TV sales peaked in 2022. That helps explain why membership at the 8K Association, launched by stakeholders Samsung, TCL, Hisense, and panel maker AU Optronics in 2019, is dwindling. As of this writing, the group's membership page lists 16 companies, including just two TV manufacturers (Samsung and Panasonic). Membership no longer includes any major TV panel suppliers. At the end of 2022, the 8K Association had 33 members, per an archived version of the nonprofit's online membership page via the Internet Archive's [9]Wayback Machine .

"It wasn't hard to predict that 8K TVs wouldn't take off," the article concludes. "In addition to being too expensive for many households, there's been virtually zero native 8K content available to make investing in an 8K display worthwhile..."



[1] https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/01/lg-joins-the-rest-of-the-world-accepts-that-people-dont-want-8k-tvs/

[2] https://www.flatpanelshd.com/news.php?subaction=showfull&id=1672937087

[3] https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/03/lgs-lowers-the-price-on-its-new-8k-oled-tv-to-13000/

[4] https://www.lg.com/us/tvs/lg-75qned99tua-qned-4k-tv

[5] https://www.flatpanelshd.com/news.php?subaction=showfull&id=1672937087

[6] https://www.flatpanelshd.com/news.php?subaction=showfull&id=1744127101

[7] https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/01/tcl-to-gain-majority-ownership-over-sonys-bravia-tvs/

[8] https://www.flatpanelshd.com/news.php?subaction=showfull&id=1726486660

[9] https://web.archive.org/web/20221206032747/https:/8kassociation.com/about-us/members/

"Most Go developers are now using AI-powered development tools when seeking information (e.g., learning how to use a module) or toiling (e.g., writing repetitive blocks of similar code)." That's one of the conclusions [1]Google's Go team drew from September's big survey of 5,379 Go developers .

But the survey also found that among Go developers using AI-powered tools, "their satisfaction with these tools is middling due, in part, to quality concerns."

> Our survey suggests bifurcated adoption — while a majority of respondents (53%) said they use such tools daily, there is also a large group (29%) who do not use these at all, or only used them a few times during the past month. We expected this to negatively correlate with age or development experience, but were unable to find strong evidence supporting this theory except for very new developers: respondents with less than one year of professional development experience (not specific to Go) did report more AI use than every other cohort, but this group only represented 2% of survey respondents. At this time, agentic use of AI-powered tools appears nascent among Go developers, with only 17% of respondents saying this is their primary way of using such tools, though a larger group (40%) are occasionally trying agentic modes of operation...

>

> We also asked about overall satisfaction with AI-powered development tools. A majority (55%) reported being satisfied, but this was heavily weighted towards the "Somewhat satisfied" category (42%) vs. the "Very satisfied" group (13%)... [D]eveloper sentiment towards them remains much softer than towards more established tooling (among Go developers, at least). What is driving this lower rate of satisfaction? In a word: quality. We asked respondents to tell us something good they've accomplished with these tools, as well as something that didn't work out well. A majority said that creating non-functional code was their primary problem with AI developer tools (53%), with 30% lamenting that even working code was of poor quality.

>

> The most frequently cited benefits, conversely, were generating unit tests, writing boilerplate code, enhanced autocompletion, refactoring, and documentation generation. These appear to be cases where code quality is perceived as less critical, tipping the balance in favor of letting AI take the first pass at a task. That said, respondents also told us the AI-generated code in these successful cases still required careful review (and often, corrections), as it can be buggy, insecure, or lack context... [One developer said reviewing AI-generated code was so mentally taxing that it "kills the productivity potential".]

>

> Of all the tasks we asked about, "Writing code" was the most bifurcated, with 66% of respondents already or hoping to soon use AI for this, while 1/4 of respondents didn't want AI involved at all. Open-ended responses suggest developers primarily use this for toilsome, repetitive code, and continue to have concerns about the quality of AI-generated code.

Most respondents also said they "are not currently building AI-powered features into the Go software they work on (78%)," the surveyors report, "with 2/3 reporting that their software does not use AI functionality at all (66%)."

> This appears to be a decrease in production-related AI usage year-over-year; in 2024, 59% of respondents were not involved in AI feature work, while 39% indicated some level of involvement. That marks a shift of 14 points away from building AI-powered systems among survey respondents, and may reflect some natural pullback from the early hype around AI-powered applications: it's plausible that lots of folks tried to see what they could do with this technology during its initial rollout, with some proportion deciding against further exploration (at least at this time).

>

> Among respondents who are building AI- or LLM-powered functionality, the most common use case was to create summaries of existing content (45%). Overall, however, there was little difference between most uses, with between 28% — 33% of respondents adding AI functionality to support classification, generation, solution identification, chatbots, and software development.



[1] https://go.dev/blog/survey2025

Talks "are at a standstill" for Anthropic's potential $200 million contract with America's Defense Department, [1]reports Reuters (citing several people familiar with the discussions.") The two issues?

- Using AI to surveil Americans

- Safeguards against deploying AI autonomously

> The company's position on how its AI tools can be used has intensified disagreements between it and the Trump administration, the details of which have not been previously reported... Anthropic said its AI is "extensively used for national security missions by the U.S. government and we are in productive discussions with the Department of War about ways to continue that work..."

>

> In [2]an essay on his personal blog , Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei warned this week that AI should support national defense "in all ways except those which would make us more like our autocratic adversaries.

A person "familiar with the matter" told the Wall Street Journal this [3]could lead to the cancellation of Anthropic's contract :

> Tensions with the administration began almost immediately after it was awarded, in part because Anthropic's terms and conditions dictate that Claude can't be used for any actions related to domestic surveillance. That limits how many law-enforcement agencies such as Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Federal Bureau of Investigation could deploy it, people familiar with the matter said. Anthropic's focus on safe applications of AI — and its objection to having its technology used in autonomous lethal operations — have continued to cause problems, they said.

[4]Amodei's essay calls for "courage, for enough people to buck the prevailing trends and stand on principle, even in the face of threats to their economic interests and personal safety..."



[1] https://www.reuters.com/business/pentagon-clashes-with-anthropic-over-military-ai-use-2026-01-29/

[2] https://www.darioamodei.com/essay/the-adolescence-of-technology#humanity-s-test

[3] https://www.msn.com/en-us/technology/artificial-intelligence/anthropic-pentagon-clash-over-limits-on-ai-imperils-200-million-contract/ar-AA1Vh8oy

[4] https://www.darioamodei.com/essay/the-adolescence-of-technology#humanity-s-test

The Wall Street Journal says that Meta "might be [1]reaping some of the richest benefits from the AI boom so far ."

> Meta's revenue grew 22% year over year in 2025 to $201 billion, and the company expects even bigger gains in the current quarter, potentially as high as 34%. That is huge growth for a company that brought in nearly $60 billion in the latest three-month period. And Zuckerberg signaled that Meta was just scratching the surface of AI's potential. "Our world-class recommendation systems are already driving meaningful growth across our apps and ads business. But we think that the current systems are primitive compared to what will be possible soon," he said on a call with investors and analysts...

>

> [Meta's Chief Financial Officer Susan] Li said the company doubled the number of graphics-processing units that it used to train its ad-ranking model in the fourth quarter and adopted a new learning architecture. Those actions led users to click on ads on Facebook 3.5% more often and to a gain of more than 1% in conversions, meaning purchases, subscriptions or leads, on Instagram, she said. Other AI-related improvements led to a 3% increase in conversions across its family of apps. On the ad-buying side, Meta has also been working toward using AI to automate ad creation for businesses that want to advertise their products or services on Facebook and Instagram. On the call, Li said the combined revenue run rate of video-generation tools hit $10 billion in the fourth quarter.

In short, CNBC reported, Meta's stock price surged over 10% this week "after [2]showing signs that AI investments are boosting the bottom line ."

Benjamin Black, an internet analyst at Deutsche Bank, explained the connection to the Wall Street Journal . "The more compute the ad platform gets, the far better it performs, and that's a real structural advantage that Meta has. If you can see that yesterday's spend is driving this month's growth, then as a good business person, you're going to continue to feed the beast."

CNBC says now Meta "plans to spend between $115 billion and $135 billion on its AI build-out this year. That's nearly double what it spent in 2025."



[1] https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/other/meta-has-been-spending-like-crazy-on-ai-it-s-actually-paying-off/ar-AA1Vk4w5

[2] https://www.cnbc.com/2026/01/29/meta-microsoft-stock-earnings-moves-tech.html

October saw Bitcoin reach $123,742. But less than four months later, "The world's largest cryptocurrency slipped below $76,000..." Bloomberg [1]reports , "dropping about 40% from its 2025 peak..."

"What began as a sharp crash in October has morphed into something more corrosive: a selloff shaped not by panic, but by absence of buyers, momentum and belief."

> Unlike the October drawdown, there's been no obvious spark, cascading liquidations or systemic shock — just fading demand, thinning liquidity, and a token that's untethered to broader markets. Bitcoin has failed to respond to geopolitical stress, dollar weakness, or risk rallies. Even during gold and silver's violent swings in recent weeks, crypto saw no rotation. Bitcoin fell nearly 11% in January, marking its fourth straight monthly decline — the longest losing streak since 2018, during the crash that followed the 2017 boom in initial coin offerings...

>

> Even more striking than the drop itself is the relative lack of optimism around it on social media. In a space known for relentless bravado and "number go up" memes, Bitcoin's slide has been met with little cheerleading or dip-buying fanfare... [Despite legislative wins and some institutional investments] Many investors say that optimism was front-run. Prices rallied early — and then stalled. Meanwhile, spot ETFs continue to bleed, a sign of weakening conviction among mainstream buyers — many of whom are now underwater after buying at higher prices.

On Thursday, Bitcoin closed at 88,228. By Sunday it had plunged another 13%, to 76,790...



[1] https://finance.yahoo.com/news/bitcoin-break-below-80-000-061355911.html

Walmart, the world's largest retailer, will be adding spaces for electric vehicle charging to parking lots in 19 different states, [1]reports MLive :

> The move follows up on a plan announced in 2023 to build a network of charging stations at Walmart and Sam's Club stores throughout the U.S... "With a store or club located within 10 miles of approximately 90% of Americans, we are uniquely positioned to deliver a convenient charging option that will help make EV ownership possible whether people live in rural, suburban or urban areas," wrote Walmart Senior Vice President of Energy Transformation, Vishal Kapadia in 2023. Walmart plans to have the nationwide network operating by 2030.

>

> Walmart plans to have the nationwide network operating by 2030.

Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader [2]Geoffrey.landis for sharing the news.



[1] https://finance.yahoo.com/news/major-change-coming-walmart-parking-173432095.html

[2] https://www.slashdot.org/~Geoffrey.landis

Long-time Slashdot reader [1]destinyland writes:

> Just months after his 20th birthday, [2]Bill Gates had already angered the programmer community ," remembers this 50th-anniversary commemoration of Gates' Open Letter to Hobbyists. "As the first home computers began appearing in the 1970s, the world faced a question: Would its software be free?"

>

> Gates railed in 1976 that "Most of you steal your software." Gates had coded the BASIC interpreter for Altair's first home computer with Paul Allen and Monte Davidoff — only to see it pirated by Steve Wozniak's friends at the Homebrew Computing Club. Expecting royalties, a none-too-happy Gates issued his letter in the club's newsletter (as well as Altair's own publication), complaining "I would appreciate letters from any one who wants to pay up."

>

> But freedom-loving coders had other ideas. When Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs released their Apple 1 home computer that summer, they stressed that "our philosophy is to provide software for our machines [3]free or at minimal cost ..." And early open-source hackers began writing their own free Tiny Basic interpreters to create a free alternative to the Gates/Micro-Soft code. This led to the first occurrence of the phrase "Copyleft" [4]in October of 1976 .

>

> Open Source definition author Bruce Perens shares his thoughts today. "When I left Pixar in 2000, I stopped in Steve Job's office — which for some reason was right across the hall from mine... " Perens remembered. "I asked Steve: 'You still don't believe in this Linux stuff, do you...?'" And Perens remembers how that movement finally won over Steve Jobs and carried the day. "Three years later, Steve stood onstage in front of a slide that said ' [5]Open Source: We Think It's Great !' as he introduced the Safari browser, which at that time was based on the browser engine developed by the KDE Open Source project!"



[1] https://slashdot.org/~destinyland

[2] https://thenewstack.io/50-years-ago-a-young-bill-gates-took-on-the-software-pirates/

[3] http://apple1.chez.com/Apple1project/Gallery/Gallery.htm

[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Copyleft_All_Wrongs_Reserved.png

[5] https://x.com/awesomekling/status/1769785618375102776

Vineyard Wind (powering Massachusetts) is one of five offshore wind projects "that the Trump administration tried to hold up in December," [1]reports The Hill .

This week it became the fourth of those wind projects allowed by a judge to resume construction, the article notes, while even the fifth project "is still awaiting court proceedings."

> Federal Judge Brian Murphy, a Biden appointee, issued a preliminary injunction blocking the administration's stop work order against Vineyard Wind... According to its website, when complete, Vineyard Wind would be able generate enough power for 400,000 homes and businesses. The project already has 44 operational wind turbines and was working on an additional 18. The Trump pause applied to the construction work that was not yet complete.



[1] https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/5709209-fourth-wind-farm-blocked-by-trump-is-allowed-to-resume-construction/

This year in America, renewables and battery storage " [1]will account for 99.2% of net new capacity — and even higher if small-scale solar were included," reports Electrek , citing EIA data reviewed by the SUN DAY Campaign:

> EIA's latest monthly " [2]Electric Power Monthly" report (with data through November 30, 2025), once again confirms that solar is the fastest-growing among the major sources of US electricity... [U]tility-scale solar thermal and photovoltaic expanded by 34.5% while that from small-scale systems rose by 11.3% during the first 11 months of 2025 compared to the same period in 2024. The combination of utility-scale and small-scale solar increased by 28.1% and produced a bit under 9.0% (utility-scale: 6.74%; small-scale: 2.13%) of total US electrical generation for January to November, up from 7.1% a year earlier.

>

> Wind turbines across the US produced 10.1% of US electricity in the first 11 months of 2025 — an increase of 1.2% compared to the same period in 2024. In November alone, wind-generated electricity was 2.0% greater than a year earlier... The mix of all renewables (wind, solar, hydropower, biomass, and geothermal) produced 8.7% more electricity in January-November than a year earlier and accounted for 25.7% of total US electricity production, up from 24.3% 12 months earlier. Renewables' share of electrical generation is now second to only that of natural gas, whose electrical output actually dropped by 3.7% during the first 11 months of 2025...

>

> Since January 1 to November 30, roughly the beginning of the Trump administration, renewable energy capacity, including battery storage, small-scale solar, hydropower, geothermal, and biomass, ballooned by 45,198.1 MW, while all fossil fuels and nuclear power combined declined by 519.2 MW...

>

> [In 2026] natural gas capacity will increase by only 3,960.7 MW, which will be almost completely offset by a decrease of 3,387.0 MW in coal capacity.



[1] https://electrek.co/2026/01/28/eia-99-of-new-us-capacity-in-2026-will-be-solar-wind-storage/

[2] https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/