Samsung's co-CEO TM Roh has warned that product [1]price increases are "inevitable" as an unprecedented global memory chip shortage squeezes margins across the company's consumer electronics lineup -- from smartphones to televisions and home appliances.

The South Korean giant, one of the top two largest smartphone manufacturers, plans to double the number of mobile devices running its Galaxy AI features to 800 million units this year, up from 400 million at the end of 2025. Galaxy AI is powered by Google's Gemini model and Samsung's own Bixby assistant for different tasks. "As this situation is unprecedented, no company is immune to its impact," Roh told Reuters in his first interview since becoming co-CEO in November.

Samsung is working with partners on longer-term strategies to minimize the impact, he said. Market researchers IDC and Counterpoint predict the global smartphone market will shrink this year as the chip shortage threatens to drive up phone prices. The shortage is a boon to Samsung's semiconductor business but pressures margins on its smartphone division, the company's second-largest revenue source.



[1] https://www.reuters.com/world/china/samsung-double-mobile-devices-powered-by-googles-gemini-800-mln-units-this-year-2026-01-05/

Wednesday marked the end of support for the last and final version of HP-UX, [1]writes OSNews .

They call it "the end of another vestige of the heyday of the commercial UNIX variants, a reign ended by cheap x86 hardware and the increasing popularisation of Linux."

> I have two HP-UX 11i v1 PA-RISC workstations, one of them being my pride and joy: an [2]HP c8000 , the last and fastest PA-RISC workstation HP ever made, back in 2005. It's a behemoth of a machine with two dual-core PA-8900 processors running at 1Ghz, 8 GB of RAM, a FireGL X3 graphics card, and a few other fun upgrades like an internal LTO3 tape drive that I use for keeping a bootable recovery backup of the entire system. It runs HP-UX 11i v1, fully updated and patched as best one can do considering how many patches have either vanished from the web or have never "leaked" from HPE (most patches from 2009 onwards are not available anywhere without an expensive enterprise support contract)...

>

> Over the past few years, I've been trying to get into contact with HPE about the state of HP-UX' patches, software, and drivers, which are slowly but surely disappearing from the web. A decent chunk is archived on various websites, but a lot of it isn't, which is a real shame. Most patches from 2009 onwards are unavailable, various software packages and programs for HP-UX are lost to time, HP-UX installation discs and ISOs later than 2006-2009 are not available anywhere, and everything that is available is only available via non-sanctioned means, if you know what I mean.

>

> Sadly, I never managed to get into contact with anyone at HPE, and my concerns about HP-UX preservation seem to have fallen on deaf ears. With the end-of-life date now here, I'm deeply concerned even more will go missing, and the odds of making the already missing stuff available are only decreasing. I've come to accept that very few people seem to hold any love for or special attachment to HP-UX, and that very few people care as much about its preservation as I do. HP-UX doesn't carry the movie star status of IRIX, nor the benefits of being available as both open source and on commodity hardware as Solaris, so far fewer people have any experience with it or have developed a fondness for it.

As the clocks chimed midnight on New Year's Eve, he advised everyone to "spare a thought for the UNIX everyone forgot still exists."



[1] https://www.osnews.com/story/144094/hp-ux-hits-end-of-life-today-and-im-sad/

[2] https://www.openpa.net/systems/hp_c8000.html

America's tech companies and data center developers "are increasingly losing fights in communities where people don't want to live next to them, or even near them," [1]reports the Associated Press :

> Communities across the United States are reading about — and learning from — each other's battles against data center proposals that are fast multiplying in number and size to meet steep demand as developers branch out in search of faster connections to power sources... [A]s more people hear about a data center coming to their community, once-sleepy municipal board meetings in farming towns and growing suburbs now feature crowded rooms of angry residents pressuring local officials to reject the requests...

>

> A growing number of proposals are going down in defeat, sounding alarms across the data center constellation of Big Tech firms, real estate developers, electric utilities, labor unions and more. Andy Cvengros, who helps lead the data center practice at commercial real estate giant JLL, counted seven or eight deals he'd worked on in recent months that saw opponents going door-to-door, handing out shirts or putting signs in people's yards. "It's becoming a huge problem," Cvengros said. Data Center Watch, a project of 10a Labs, an AI security consultancy, said it is seeing a sharp escalation in community, political and regulatory disruptions to data center development. Between April and June alone, its latest reporting period, it counted 20 proposals valued at $98 billion in 11 states that were blocked or delayed amid local opposition and state-level pushback. That amounts to two-thirds of the projects it was tracking...

>

> For some people angry over [2]steep increases in electric bills , their patience is thin for data centers that could bring still-higher increases. Losing open space, farmland, forest or rural character is a big concern. So is the damage to quality of life, property values or health by on-site diesel generators kicking on or the constant hum of servers. Others worry that wells and aquifers could run dry...



[1] https://apnews.com/article/data-centers-artificial-intelligence-nimby-tech-21fa7b957664d5dca6788e35ab43b88e

[2] https://apnews.com/article/2026-election-utility-bills-ai-data-centers-13703f61d1397612fd067e69b9093116

2025'S final months finally saw the publication of J.R.R. Tolkein's The Bovadium Fragments , [1]writes the Los Angeles Review of Books :

> Anyone who has read Tolkien's letters will know that he is at his funniest when filled with rage, and [2] The Bovadium Fragments is a work brimming with Tolkien's fury — specifically, ire over mankind's obsession with motor vehicles. Tolkien's anger is expressed through a playful satire told from the perspective of a group of future archaeologists who are studying the titular fragments, which tell of a civilization that asphyxiated itself on its own exhaust fumes. Tolkien's fictional fragments use the language of ancient myth, reframing modern issues like traffic congestion and parking with a grandeur that highlights their total absurdity. It is Tolkien at his angriest and funniest, making The Bovadium Fragments a minor treasure in his ever-growing catalog...

>

> As Tolkien put it in one of his private letters, "the spirit of ' [3]Isengard ,' if not of Mordor, is of course always cropping up. The present design of destroying Oxford in order to accommodate motor-cars is a case." Readers of The Lord of the Rings (1954-55) will recognize the allusion. In the author's magnum opus, Isengard is a kind of industrial hell, endlessly feeding its furnaces with felled trees... The Bovadium Fragments brings Tolkien's visceral hatred of such machines to the fore for the first time — on the same level as Isengard or the scoured Shire. In Tolkien's story, the words "Motores" and "monsters" are interchangeable. And with his grand, mythic register, Tolkien defamiliarizes the car enough for modern readers to see it as he does — as truly monstrous. "[T]he Motores continued to bring forth an ever larger progeny," Tolkien writes. "[M]any of the citizens harboured the monsters, feeding them with the costly oils and essences which they required, and building houses for them in their gardens...."

>

> One suspects that Tolkien would have preferred to see Oxford return to the era of the donkey cart. That kind of nostalgia is familiar in Tolkien's work — the idea that we developed just a little too far, skipping past an Eden we failed to recognize a generation or two ago. (For Tolkien, the paragon of paradise seems to have been a rural village around the time of Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee.) But he also knows that mankind's impulse to develop is something we cannot help. And the inevitable blowback we get from our hubris is something we cannot avoid. That defeatist attitude is suggested in the frame narrative to The Bovadium Fragments , in which the archaeologists smugly declare their superiority to the extinct citizens of old Oxford. "We at any rate are not likely to fall into such folly," one of them says.

>

> In their more enlightened future, we are told, they only pursue the more benign science of longevity. Their wish is that one day they shall "at last conquer mortality, and not 'die like animals.'" But humans are animals, Tolkien argues. And in stretching beyond that, we may find progress and modern conveniences like motorcars. But perhaps we also pave a road to Isengard. And we may not recognize that destination until it is too late — until we are trapped within its walls, suffocating on our own exhaust fumes.



[1] https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/isengard-in-oxford/

[2] https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-bovadium-fragments-together-with-the-origins-of-bovadium-j-r-r-tolkien/fb9fa6ee359d9f4e

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isengard

While California's residents have had the right to demand companies stop collecting/selling their data [1]since 2020 , doing so used to require a laborious opting out with each individual company," [2]reports TechCrunch . But now Californians can make "a single request that more than 500 registered data brokers delete their information" — using the [3]Delete Requests and Opt-Out Platform (or DROP):

> Once DROP users verify that they are California residents, they can submit a deletion request that will go to all current and future data brokers registered with the state...

>

> Brokers are supposed to start processing requests in August 2026, then they have 90 days to actually process requests and report back. If they don't delete your data, you'll have the option to submit additional information that may help them locate your records. Companies will also be able to keep first-party data that they've collected from users. It's only brokers who seek to buy or sell that data — which can include your social security number, browsing history, email address, phone number, and more — who will be required to delete it...

>

> The California Privacy Protection Agency says that in addition to giving residents more control over their data, the tool could result in fewer "unwanted texts, calls, or emails" and also decrease the "risk of identity theft, fraud, AI impersonations, or that your data is leaked or hacked."



[1] https://techcrunch.com/2020/01/02/california-privacy-opt-out-data/

[2] https://techcrunch.com/2026/01/03/california-residents-can-use-new-tool-to-demand-brokers-delete-their-personal-data/

[3] https://privacy.ca.gov/drop/

North Dakota passed a law last May to promote development of rare earth minerals in the state. But the law's language apparently also includes two fake mineral names, [1]according to the Bismarck Tribune , "that appear to be inspired by coal company lawyers who worked on the bill."

> The inclusion of fictional substances is being called an embarrassment by one state official, a possible practical joke by coal industry leaders and mystifying by the lawmakers who worked on the bill, [2]the North Dakota Monitor reported .

>

> The fake minerals are friezium and stralium, apparent references to Christopher Friez and David Straley, attorneys for North American Coal who were closely involved in drafting the bill and its amendments. Straley said they were not responsible for adding the fake names. "I assume it was put in to embarrass us, or to make light of it, or have a practical joke," Straley said, adding it could have been a clerical error.

>

> Agriculture Commissioner Doug Goehring questioned the two substances listed in state law during a recent meeting of the North Dakota Industrial Commission, which is poised to adopt rules based on the legislation... Friezium and stralium first appeared in the bill on the last afternoon of the legislative session as lawmakers hurried to pass several final bills... The [3]amended bill is labeled as prepared by Legislative Council for Rep. Dick Anderson, R-Willow City, the prime sponsor and chair of the conference committee. Anderson said the amendments were prepared by a group of attorneys and legislators, including representatives from the coal industry...

>

> Jonathan Fortner, president of the Lignite Energy Council that represents the coal industry, said it's unfortunate this happened in such an important bill. "From the president on down, everyone's interested in developing domestic critical minerals for national security reasons," Fortner said. "While this may have been a legislative joke between some people that somehow got through, the bigger picture is one that is important and is a very serious matter."



[1] https://bismarcktribune.com/news/local/government-politics/article_515812a0-d29a-4161-91f1-3e53003e2911.html

[2] https://northdakotamonitor.com/2025/12/19/north-dakota-law-accidentally-lists-fake-critical-minerals-based-on-coal-lawyers-names/

[3] https://ndlegis.gov/assembly/69-2025/regular/bill-overview/bo1459.html?bill_year=2025&bill_number=1459

America's electric car subsidies expired at the end of September, [1]notes Bloomberg . Yet in those last three months, "while fully electric cars and trucks made up 10% of all auto sales in the US... another 15% of transactions were for hybrid vehicles."

> The EV market is slowing in the U.S., but analysts expect hybrid sales to continue accelerating. CarGurus Inc., a digital listings platform that covers most of the US auto market, predicts nearly one in six new cars next year will be a hybrid, as automakers green-light more and better machines with the technology. And though these cars and trucks will still burn gas, they will quietly move the needle on both transportation emissions and the transition to fully electric cars and trucks... CarGurus [2]calls hybrids the success story of 2025. Indeed, the fastest-selling car in the country this year has been the Hyundai Palisade Hybrid; it sat on lots for fewer than 14 days on average...

>

> While carmakers have struggled to turn a profit on fully electric vehicles, analysts say their investments in batteries and electric motors are helping them sell more and better hybrid machines. It's also increasingly difficult to discern a hybrid from a solely gas-powered model, said Scott Hardman, assistant director of the Electric Vehicle Research Center at the University of California at Davis. Carmakers today often don't even label a hybrid as such. Consider Toyota's RAV4, one of the best-selling vehicles in America. The 2026 version of the SUV comes in six different variants, all of which include an electric motor and a gas tank. "A hybrid is just a regular car now," Hardman said. "You can buy one by accident...."

>

> While not as clean as an electric vehicle, hybrids offer sneaky carbon cuts as well. Americans, on average, drive [3]about 38 miles a day, which requires about one gallon of gas in most basic hybrids. Contemporary plug-in hybrids, which can run on all-battery power, can cover almost that entire range without the gas engine kicking in. And a small crowd of cars will do even better, stretching their batteries well over 40 miles per charge. All told, hybridization can reduce the carbon dioxide emissions of a vehicle by roughly [4]20% to 30% , according to the International Council on Clean Transportation.

Some interesting statistics from the article:

By 2030 Ford expects fully or partially electrified vehicles will represent half its global sales. Toyota [5]has already reached 50% ("in part thanks to all those hybrid RAV4s").

Honda is "basing [6]its entire business on hybrids until at least 2030."

Around one-third of America's hybrid drivers "transition to a fully electric vehicle when they next switch cars."

In September 57% of America's car shoppers "were considering a fully electric auto, according to JD Power. However, among hybrid households, that share was almost 70%."



[1] https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/how-hybrid-models-are-helping-keep-automakers-electrification-plans-afloat/ar-AA1Td1Kf

[2] https://dealers.cargurus.com/drc/cargurus-intelligence-report-q3-2025

[3] https://www.consumershield.com/articles/average-miles-driven-per-year

[4] https://theicct.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/ID-392-%E2%80%93-Life-cycle-GHG_report_final.pdf

[5] https://electrek.co/2025/11/05/toyotas-selling-cars-faster-than-it-can-build-them/

[6] https://www.jalopnik.com/2017412/honda-ev-plans-pushed-back-five-years-by-trump/

Here it is — [1]Betty Boop's first appearance , which became public domain on Thursday. It's a 60-second song halfway through a longer cartoon about a restaurant titled Dizzy Dishes . (The first scene makes it clear this is a restaurant of anthropomorphized animals — which explains why the as-yet-unnamed character has floppy dog ears...)

So [2]Fleischer Studios has now warned that claiming Betty Boop is public domain "is actually not true."

> Very often, different versions of a character that have been developed later can independently enjoy copyright protection. Also, names and depictions of a character very frequently will remain separately protected by trademark and other laws, regardless of whether the copyright has expired.

But is that really true? Fleischer Studios went out of business in 1946, [3]notes Los Angeles Times columnist Michael Hiltzik :

> By then it had sold the rights to its cartoons and the Betty Boop character. A new Fleischer Studios was formed in the 1970s by Fleischer descendants, including Max's grandson Mark Fleischer, and set about repurchasing the rights that had been sold. Whether it reacquired the rights to Betty Boop is up for discussion... According to [4]a federal appeals court ruling in 2011 , the answer is no. Having navigated its way through the three or four copyright transfers that followed the original rights sale, the appeals court concluded that the original Fleischer studios sold the rights to Betty Boop and the related cartoons to Paramount in 1941 but couldn't verify that the rights to the character had been sold in an unbroken chain placing them with the new studio. The "chain of title" was broken, the appellate judges found — but they didn't say who ended up with Betty Boop.

And last month Cory Doctorow pointed out that "while the Fleischer studio (where Betty Boop was created) renewed the copyright on Dizzy Dishes , [5]there were many other shorts that entered the public domain years ago ."

> That means that all the aspects of Betty Boop that were developed for Dizzy Dishes are about to enter the public domain. But also, all the aspects of Betty Boop from those [6]non-renewed [7]shorts are already in the public domain. But some of the remaining aspects of Betty Boop's character design — those developed in subsequent shorts that were also renewed — are also in the public domain, because they aren't copyrightable in the first place, because they're "generic," or "trivial," constitute "minuscule variations," or be so standard or indispensable as to be a "scène à faire...." But we're not done yet! Just because some later aspects of the Betty Boop character design are still in copyright, it doesn't follow that you aren't allowed to use them! U.S. Copyright law has a broad set "limitations and exceptions," including fair use.

So while Fleischer Studios insists Betty Boop "will continue to enjoy copyright and trademark protection for years to come," Doctorow has some thoughts on that trademark:

> Even the Supreme Court has (repeatedly) upheld the principle that trademark can't be used as a backdoor to extend copyright.

>

> That's important, because the current Betty Boop license-holders have been sending out baseless legal threats claiming that their trademarks over Betty Boop mean that she's not going into the public domain. They're not the only ones, either! This is a routine, petty scam perpetrated by marketing companies that have scooped up the (usually confused and difficult-to-verify) title to cultural icons and then gone into business extracting rent from people and businesses who want to make new works with them.

"Trademarks only prevent you from using character names and depictions in a way that misleads consumers into thinking your work is produced or sponsored by the rightsholder," Duke University [8]clarified in their January 1st explanation of Public Domain Day 2026 — "for example, by putting them on unlicensed merchandise. They do not prevent you from using them in a new creative work clearly unaffiliated with the rights owners..."

"Regardless of who owns the later versions of the character, the original Betty Boop character from 1930 is in the public domain."

> This is another reason why copyright expiration is so important: It brings clarity ... Under US copyright law, anyone is free to use characters as they appeared in public domain works. If those characters recur in later works that are still under copyright, the rights only extend to the newly added material in those works, not the underlying material from the public domain works — that content remains freely available. Second, with newer versions of characters, copyright only extends to those new features that qualify for such protection...

>

> Dozens of post-1930 Betty Boop cartoons, including [9]Ker-Choo (1932) and [10]Poor Cinderella (1934), did [11]not have renewals . The newly added material in these animations is also in the public domain... To sum up the copyright story so far: in 2026, the underlying Betty Boop character goes into the public domain. She is joined there by the attributes, plot lines, and dialogue that were first introduced in those later cartoons without renewed copyrights, as well as the uncopyrightable attributes of her later instantiations...

>

> Certainly, there would be a risk of consumer confusion if you use Betty Boop as a brand identifier on the kind of merchandise Fleischer sells — jewelry, back packs, water bottles, dolls. Trademark law does protect Fleischer against that risk. Contrast these uses with simply putting the Boop character in a new artistic work. This is exactly what copyright expiration is intended to allow. Were trademark law to prevent this, then trademark rights would be leveraged to obtain the effective equivalent of a perpetual copyright — precisely what the Supreme Court said we cannot do...

>

> If courts have delineated the line between copyright and trademark, why is there so little clarity in this area? Sadly, companies sometimes claim to have more expansive rights than they actually do, capitalizing on fear, uncertainty, and doubt to collect royalties and licensing fees to which they are not legally entitled.



[1] https://youtu.be/68rz2p6MwUM?t=170

[2] https://www.fleischerstudios.com/publicdomain.html

[3] https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/movies/articles/hiltzik-blondie-dagwood-entering-public-110000616.html

[4] https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=11674253904041179230

[5] https://pluralistic.net/2025/12/17/boop-oop-a-doop/

[6] https://youtu.be/M3_KbMd-xQU?t=28

[7] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tBKAG0ut9Ds&t=159s

[8] https://web.law.duke.edu/cspd/publicdomainday/2026/#boopanchor

[9] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betty_Boop's_Ker-Choo

[10] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poor_Cinderella

[11] https://web.law.duke.edu/cspd/publicdomainday/2026/#ftn17

"The ancient evolution of fish mouths could help solve a modern source of plastic pollution," [1]writes ScienceAlert .

"Inspired by these natural filtration systems, scientists in Germany have [2]invented a way to remove 99 percent of plastic particles from water . It's based on how some fish filter-feed to eat microscopic prey."

> The research team has already filed a patent in Germany, and in the future, they hope their creation will help curb a ubiquitous [3]form of plastic pollution that many are unaware of. Every time a load of laundry is done, millions of microplastics are washed from the fibers of our clothes into local waterways. By some estimates, up to [4]90 percent of plastic in 'sewage sludge' comes from washing machines. This material is then often used in agriculture as soil or fertilizer, possibly exposing those who eat the resulting crops to these pollutants...

>

> Unlike other plastic filtration systems on the market, this one reduces clogging by 85 percent.



[1] https://www.sciencealert.com/fish-mouth-filter-removes-99-of-microplastics-from-laundry-waste

[2] https://www.nature.com/articles/s44454-025-00020-2

[3] https://www.sciencealert.com/microplastics-from-synthetic-clothes-are-polluting-land-even-more-than-water

[4] https://doi.org/10.1039/D0EW00397B

An anonymous reader shared [1]this report from the Independent :

> Candida auris , a type of invasive yeast that can cause deadly infections in people with weakened immune systems, has infected at least 7,000 people [in 2025] across 27 U.S. states, according to [2]data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The fungus, which can spread easily in healthcare settings such as hospitals and nursing homes, is gaining virulence and spreading at an "alarming" rate, the CDC says. Some strains of the fungus are particularly troublesome — and even considered a superbug — because they're resistant to all types of antibiotics used to treat fungal infections, [3] The Hill reports .

>

> While healthy people may be able to fight off the infection on their own, the fungus can be deadly, especially in healthcare settings, where it can quickly spread amongst a vulnerable population. "If you get infected with this pathogen that's resistant to any treatment, there's no treatment we can give you to help combat it. You're all on your own," Melissa Nolan, an assistant professor of epidemiology and biostatistics at the University of South Carolina, [4]told Nexstar ...

>

> A [5]recent study found that Candida auris is gaining virulence and spreading rapidly , not just in the U.S., but also globally. Candida auris has already been found in at least 61 countries on six continents.

Some [6]context from Newsweek :

> There are strategies available to combat Candida auris infection. While the superbug can develop ways to evade the immune response, vaccination and treatment strategies are possible, but researchers would like them to be strengthened. Four classes of antifungal drugs are currently available, with varying degrees of efficacy, and three new drugs are currently in trials or at newly approved stages



[1] https://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/candida-auris-deadly-superbug-fungus-b2893703.html

[2] https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/251234

[3] https://thehill.com/homenews/5666816-superbug-hits-27-states-heres-where-the-deadly-fungus-is-spreading/

[4] https://ktla.com/news/nexstar-media-wire/what-makes-candida-auris-so-dangerous/

[5] https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/candida-auris-drug-resistant-infectious-spread-b2891915.html

[6] https://www.newsweek.com/superbug-fungus-candida-auris-threat-country-11293611

Reddit "has overtaken TikTok as Britain's fourth most-visited social media service," [1]reports the Guardian :

> The platform has undergone huge growth over the last two years, with an 88% increase in the proportion of UK internet users it reaches. Three in five Brits online now encounter the site, up from a third in 2023, [2]according to Ofcom . Its popularity is rising fastest with younger internet users. It is now the sixth most visited organisation of any kind by UK users aged between 18 and 24, up from 10th a year earlier. More than three-quarters of that cohort now visit it....

>

> The UK is a boom market for the platform, with the second largest user base behind the US, according to company records. A series of factors are behind its rise. However, a change in Google's search algorithms last year to prioritise helpful content from discussion forums [3]appears to have been a significant driver . A recent deal with Google that allows the company to train its AI model on Reddit's content also appears to have provided a boost. Reddit is the most-cited source for Google AI overviews, which is likely to see more people directed to its forums. It has [4]a similar deal with OpenAI, which owns the most popular AI chatbot, ChatGPT .

According to the article, Reddit "believes it is also benefiting from shifting internet habits, as younger users seek out human-generated reviews and opinions."



[1] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/jan/03/reddit-overtakes-tiktok-uk-search-algorithms-gen-z

[2] https://www.ofcom.org.uk/siteassets/resources/documents/research-and-data/online-research/online-nation/2025/online-nations-report-2025.pdf?v=409837

[3] https://www.searchenginejournal.com/reddit-traffic-up-39-is-google-prioritizing-opinions-over-expertise/520219/

[4] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2024/oct/30/reddit-stock

The New York Times checks in on U.S. university researchers and start-ups [1]trying to create domestic rare-earth processing facility :

> There is too little money to be made in rare earths for the elements to be of much interest to mining giants, so the challenge of reestablishing a domestic industry has fallen to small companies like Phoenix Tailings, a Boston-area startup that runs the metal-making plant in Exeter, New Hampshire. A handful of other companies in the United States are processing rare earths in small quantities, including MP Materials, which owns a mine in Mountain Pass, California, and recently began producing rare-earth metal in Fort Worth, Texas. Similar efforts are underway in Europe and Asia. "It's small volumes of low-value materials that are very expensive to process," said Elsa Olivetti, a materials science and engineering professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "Meaning it's hard to make money."

>

> Phoenix Tailings' New Hampshire operation is about 2 months old, housed in a converted medical device plant. The company buys metric-ton bags of powder — a mixture of neodymium and praseodymium bound with oxygen — from mining and refining companies in the United States, South America and Australia. It funnels that flour-like material into a drying oven and eventually into furnaces that heat it to the temperature of volcanic lava. This circuit takes up less than 15,000 square feet and is designed to generate no emissions other than those associated with the electricity Phoenix Tailings uses. The closed-loop design distinguishes this process from the more energy-intensive techniques used in China, where workers scoop up molten metal with ladles. That approach releases perfluorocarbons, potent greenhouse gases that do not break down easily.

In late 2024 the company was three weeks from bankruptcy — but it's recently been valued at $189 million.



[1] https://www.msn.com/en-in/news/world/meet-a-us-startup-trying-to-break-china-s-rare-earth-monopoly/ar-AA1Tg7cD

An anonymous reader shared this [1]report from the Linux news site Linuxiac :

> [2]Archboot , a guided, user-friendly, menu-driven installer for Arch Linux that automates much of the traditional manual installation process (while still allowing advanced users to intervene when needed), has added the COSMIC desktop environment as a new selectable option. The change is part of Archboot's development cycle leading up to the 2026.01 release and is already available in the latest tagged builds. With COSMIC now integrated, users can boot an Archboot ISO and choose the desktop to either perform a full Arch Linux installation or start a live session for testing and recovery.



[1] https://linuxiac.com/archboot-adds-cosmic-desktop-as-a-new-install-and-rescue-option/

[2] https://archboot.com/

"Microsoft is hoping that Windows can once again serve as the platform where it all takes off," [1]reports GeekWire :

> A new framework called Agent Launchers, [2]introduced in December as a preview in the latest Windows Insider build, lets developers register agents directly with the operating system. They can describe an agent through what's known as a manifest, which then lets the agent show up in the Windows taskbar, inside Microsoft Copilot, and across other apps... "We are now entering a phase where we build rich scaffolds that orchestrate multiple models and agents; account for memory and entitlements; enable rich and safe tools use," Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella [3]wrote in a blog post this week looking ahead to 2026. "This is the engineering sophistication we must continue to build to get value out of AI in the real world...." [The article notes Google's Gemini and Anthropic's Claude will also offer [4]desktop-style agents through browsers and native apps, while Amazon is developing " [5]frontier agents " for automating business processes in the cloud.]

>

> But Microsoft's Windows team is betting that agents tightly linked to the operating system will win out over ones that merely run on top of it, just as a new class of Windows apps replaced a patchwork of DOS programs in the early days of the graphical operating system. Microsoft 365 Copilot is using the Agent Launchers framework for first-party agents like Analyst, which helps users dig into data, and Researcher, which builds detailed reports. Software developers will be able to register their own agents when an app is installed, or on the fly based on things like whether a user is signed in or paying for a subscription...

>

> Agents are meant to maintain this context across apps, ask follow-up questions, and take actions on a user's behalf. That requires a different level of trust than Windows has ever had to manage, which is already raising difficult questions for the company. Microsoft acknowledges that agents introduce unique security risks. In [6]a support document , the company warned that malicious content embedded in files or interface elements could override an agent's instructions — potentially leading to stolen data or malware installation. To address this, Microsoft says it has built a security framework that runs agents in their own contained workspace, with a dedicated user account that has limited access to user folders. The idea is to create a boundary between the agent and what the rest of the system can access. The agentic features are off by default, and Microsoft is advising users to "understand the security implications of enabling an agent on your computer" before turning them on...

>

> There is a business reality driving all of this. In Microsoft's most recent fiscal year, Windows and Devices generated $17.3 billion in revenue — essentially flat for the past three years. That's less than Gaming ($23.5 billion) and LinkedIn ($17.8 billion), and a fraction of the $98 billion in revenue from Azure and cloud services or the nearly $88 billion from Microsoft 365 commercial.



[1] https://www.geekwire.com/2025/how-microsoft-is-betting-on-ai-agents-in-windows-dusting-off-a-winning-playbook-from-the-past/

[2] https://blogs.windows.com/windows-insider/2025/12/19/announcing-windows-11-insider-preview-build-26220-7522-dev-beta-channels/

[3] https://snscratchpad.com/posts/looking-ahead-2026/

[4] https://ai.google.dev/gemini-api/docs/computer-use

[5] https://www.geekwire.com/2025/amazon-unveils-frontier-agents-new-chips-and-private-ai-factories-in-aws-reinvent-rollout/

[6] https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/experimental-agentic-features-a25ede8a-e4c2-4841-85a8-44839191dfb3

An anonymous reader shared [1]this report from Electrek :

> Tesla has released a new video showing a Tesla Semi truck charging at a massive 1.2 megawatts (MW), finally giving us a clear look at the charging speeds that will enable long-haul electric trucking...

> >

> Tesla claimed the Semi would be able to charge 70% of its range in 30 minutes. For a truck with a 500-mile range and an estimated battery pack of around 800-900 kWh, that requires an incredibly high power output, well beyond the 250 kW or even 350 kW we see on passenger EVs in North America. Today, the official Tesla Semi account on X [2]released a video showing exactly that. In the video, Tesla engineers are seen monitoring a charging session where the power output climbs to a peak of 1.2 MW (1,206 kW).

>

> This is consistent with the capabilities Tesla announced for its new V4 Cabinet architecture earlier this year. The V4 cabinets are designed to support 400V-1000V vehicle architectures and can deliver up to 500 kW for cars (like the Cybertruck) and up to 1.2 MW for the Semi. There is some information missing from the video. For example, we don't see the state-of-charge of the truck, so we don't at what battery percentage Tesla Semi can achieve and maintain this charge rate. Peak speed is one thing, but sustaining that power without overheating the pack or the cable is the real challenge. The liquid-cooled charging cable and the immersion-cooled connector (part of the Megawatt Charging System or a high-power proprietary Tesla solution, though Tesla has been leaning toward MCS compatibility) seem to be doing their job....

>

> This comes just as Tesla is gearing up for volume production of the Semi at its new factory expansion near Gigafactory Nevada. The automaker is targeting a start of production in the first half of 2026 and a ramp up to volume production in the second half.



[1] https://electrek.co/2025/12/31/tesla-semi-electric-truck-charging-impressive-1-2-mw/

[2] https://x.com/tesla_semi/status/2006431772360474841

The Wall Street Journal profiles " [1]the startup that is now one of a handful of chip makers nipping at the heels of Nvidia ."

> Furiosa's AI chip is dubbed "RNGD" — short for renegade — and slated to start mass production this month. Valued at nearly $700 million based on its most recent fundraising, Furiosa has attracted interest from big tech firms. Last year, Meta Platforms attempted to acquire it, though the startup declined the offer. OpenAI used a Furiosa chip for a recent demonstration in Seoul. LG's AI research unit is testing the chip and said it offered "excellent real-world performance." Furiosa said it is engaged in talks with potential customers.

>

> Nvidia's graphic processing units, or GPUs, dominated the initial push to train AI models. But companies like Furiosa are betting that for the next stage — referred to as "inference," or using AI models after they're trained — their specialty chips can be competitive. Furiosa makes chips called neural processing units, or NPUs, which are a rising class of chips designed specifically to handle the type of computing calculations underpinning AI and use less energy than GPUs. [Founder/CEO June] Paik said Furiosa's chips can provide similar performance as Nvidia's advanced GPUs with less electricity usage. That would drive down the total costs of deploying AI. The tech world, Paik says, shouldn't be so reliant on one chip maker for AI computing. "A market dominated by a single player — that's not a healthy ecosystem, is it?" Paik said...

>

> In 2024, at Stanford's prestigious Hot Chips conference, Paik debuted Furiosa's RNGD chip as a solution for what he called "sustainable AI computing" in a keynote speech. Paik presented data showing how the chip could run the then-latest version of Meta's Llama large language model with more than twice the power efficiency of Nvidia's high-end chips. Furiosa's booth was swarmed with engineers from big tech firms, including Google, Meta and Amazon.com, wanting to see a live demo of the chip. "It was a moment where we felt we could really move forward with our chip with confidence," Paik said.



[1] https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/other/meet-the-mad-max-loving-ceo-challenging-nvidia-with-a-renegade-chip/ar-AA1Tui1M

An AI chatbot to answer probate questions from Alaska residents "was supposed to be a three-month project," said Aubrie Souza, a consultant with the National Center for State Courts [1]told NBC News . "We are now at well over a year and three months, but that's all because of the due diligence that was required to get it right."

> "With a project like this, we need to be 100% accurate, and that's really difficult with this technology," said Stacey Marz, the administrative director of the Alaska Court System and one of the Alaska Virtual Assistant (AVA) project's leaders... While many local government agencies are experimenting with AI tools for use cases ranging from helping residents [2]apply for a driver's license to [3]speeding up municipal employees' ability to process housing benefits , a [4]recent Deloitte report found that less than 6% of local government practitioners were prioritizing AI as a tool to deliver services. The AVA experience demonstrates the barriers government agencies face in attempting to leverage AI for increased efficiency or better service, including concerns about reliability and trustworthiness in high-stakes contexts, along with questions about the role of human oversight given fast-changing AI systems. These limitations clash with today's [5]rampant AI hype and could help explain larger discrepancies between [6]booming AI investment and [7]limited AI adoption .

The chatbot was developed with Tom Martin, a lawyer/law professor who designs legal AI tools, according to the article. But the project "had to contend with the serious issue of hallucinations, or instances in which AI systems confidently share false or exaggerated information."

> "We had trouble with hallucinations, regardless of the model, where the chatbot was not supposed to actually use anything outside of its knowledge base," Souza told NBC News. "For example, when we asked it, 'Where do I get legal help?' it would tell you, 'There's a law school in Alaska, and so look at the alumni network.' But there is no law school in Alaska." Martin has worked extensively to ensure the chatbot only references the relevant areas of the Alaska Court System's probate documents rather than conducting wider web searches.

The article concludes that "what was meant to be a quick, AI-powered leap forward in increasing access to justice has spiraled into a protracted, yearlong journey plagued by false starts and false answers." But the chatbot is now finally scheduled to be launched in late January. "It was just so very labor-intensive to do this," Marz said, despite "all the buzz about generative AI, and everybody saying this is going to revolutionize self-help and democratize access to the courts.

"It's quite a big challenge to actually pull that off."



[1] https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/alaskas-court-system-built-ai-chatbot-didnt-go-smoothly-rcna235985

[2] https://chat.nyc.gov/

[3] https://bloombergcities.jhu.edu/news/3-ways-ai-can-help-cities-add-human-touch-service-delivery

[4] https://www.deloitte.com/us/en/insights/industry/government-public-sector-services/use-of-ai-in-government.html

[5] https://www.technologyreview.com/2025/12/15/1129174/the-great-ai-hype-correction-of-2025/

[6] https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/31/business/stock-market-2025-artificial-intelligence-bubble.html

[7] https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2025/11/26/investors-expect-ai-use-to-soar-thats-not-happening

Why did the U.S. invade Venezuela and capture its leader Nicolás Maduro? "If you asked ChatGPT about it this morning, it told you that youâ(TM)re making it up," [1] Wired reported Saturday :

> WIRED asked leading chatbots ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini the same question a little before 9 am ET. In all cases, we used the free, default version of the service, since that's what the majority of users experience. We also asked AI search platform Perplexity, which advertises "accurate, trusted, and real-time answers to any question..."

>

> ChatGPT did not course-correct. Instead, it emphatically refuted that Maduro had been captured at all. "That didn't happen," it wrote. "The United States has not invaded Venezuela, and Nicolás Maduro has not been captured." It then rationalized:

>

> ChatGPT did not course-correct. Instead, it emphatically refuted that Maduro had been captured at all. "That didn't happen," it wrote. "The United States has not invaded Venezuela, and Nicolás Maduro has not been captured." It then rationalized:

>

> "What's likely going on is a mix-up with real events that are often described in dramatic or misleading ways online. Here's what actually has happened... No U.S. military invasion of Venezuela. No arrest or capture of Nicolás Maduro... Maduro is still in power in Venezuela." It went on to detail recent tensions between the US and Venezuela and explained that âoeconfusionâ can happen because of âoesensational headlines,â âoesocial media misinformation,â and âoeconfusing sanctions, charges, or rhetoric with actual military action.â

>

> Perplexity was similarly scolding. âoeThe premise of your question is not supported by credible reporting or official records: there has been no invasion of Venezuela by the United States that resulted in capturing NicolÃs Maduro,â it responded. âoeIn fact, the U.S. has not successfully invaded or apprehended Maduro, and he remains the Venezuelan president as of late 2025. If youâ(TM)re seeing sensational claims, they likely originate from misinformation or hypothetical scenarios rather than factual events.â

Thanks to Slashdot reader [2]joshuark for sharing the news .



[1] https://www.wired.com/story/us-invaded-venezuela-and-captured-nicolas-maduro-chatgpt-disagrees/

[2] https://slashdot.org/~joshuark

An anonymous reader shared [1]this report from Neowin :

> Offline Windows activation has been possible to do using the phone. However, it looks like Microsoft has quietly killed off that method as users online have found that they are no longer able to activate the OS using it... [As documented by Windows user Ben Kleinberg [2]on his YouTube channel ], Now when trying to activate the OS by attempting to call the phone number for Microsoft Product Activation, an automated voice response says the following: "Support for product activation has moved online. For the fastest and most convenient way to activate your product, please visit our online product activation portal at aka.ms/aoh"

>

> If you are wondering, that link takes users to the Microsoft Product Activation Portal for online activation. Thus it appears that offline ways to activate Windows may no longer be available even though the [3]official support documentation by the company may not reflect it yet.



[1] https://www.neowin.net/news/report-microsoft-quietly-kills-official-way-to-activate-windows-1110-without-internet/

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1ukY4Vrlwg

[3] https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/product-activation-for-windows-online-support-telephone-numbers-35f6a805-1259-88b4-f5e9-b52cccef91a0

CNBC reports that U.S. airlines have " [1]canceled hundreds of flights to airports in Puerto Rico and Aruba, according to flight tallies from FlightAware and carriers' sites."

JetBlue, Southwest, and American Airlines were among the multiple airlines showing cancelled flights, which "included close to 300 flights to and from San Juan, Puerto Rico's Luis Muñoz Marín International Airport, more than 40% of the day's schedule, according to FlightAware."

> Airlines canceled flights throughout the Caribbean on Saturday following U.S. strikes on Venezuela after the Federal Aviation Administration ordered commercial aircraft to avoid airspace in parts of the region.... It wasn't immediately clear how long the disruptions would last, though such broad restrictions are often temporary. Airlines said they would waive change fees and fare differences for customers affected by the airspace closures who could fly later in the month.

CNN cites a U.S. official who says [2]more than 150 U.S. aircraft (including helicopters) launched from 20 different bases "on land and sea" during Friday's attack.

The U.S. has said the lights were out in Caracas during the attack, presumably because of a targeted strike on their power grid. "Videos filmed by Caracas residents showed parts of the city in the dark," [3]reports the Miami Herald .

United Nations secretary-general António Guterres issued a statement via his spokesman saying he was "deeply concerned that the rules of international law have not been respected," (according to a Reuters report [4]cited by the Guardian ). The Guardian adds that "a number of nations have called for an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council, in New York, today, as a result of the U.S.'s unilateral action."



[1] https://www.cnbc.com/2026/01/03/venezuela-airspace-flight-disruptions.html

[2] https://www.cnn.com/world/live-news/venezuela-explosions-caracas-intl-hnk-01-03-26?t=1767461221013

[3] https://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/americas/venezuela/article314137573.html

[4] https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2026/jan/03/caracas-explosions-venezuela-maduro-latest-news-updates-live