ARM Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set fire to him and he's warm for the rest of his life (Terry Pratchett, Jingo)

Interference With America's GPS System 'Has Grown Dramatically' (yahoo.com)

(Sunday January 04, 2026 @11:34AM (EditorDavid) from the taking-a-position dept.)

86 aircraft were affected by an incident in Denver ,and 256 more in Dallas-Fort Worth, America's Federal Aviation Admistration [1]told the Washington Post :

> The pilots flying into Denver International Airport could tell something was wrong. In urgent calls to air traffic controllers, they reported that the Global Positioning System was going haywire, forcing them to rely on backup navigation systems for more than a day. The Federal Aviation Administration issued a warning to air traffic in the area. Eight months later, in October 2022, it happened again — this time at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport, which shut down a runway as pilots and air traffic controllers scrambled over two days without GPS to guide them. Federal officials have not said who was responsible for interfering with the systems or why it took so long to get them back online, though they've said the Denver incident was unintentional. But the disruptions stoked fear about the security vulnerabilities of GPS, a satellite network relied on daily by 6 billion people, businesses and governments.

>

> Over the past two years, interference with the U.S. Global Positioning System has grown dramatically, threatening a network that is highly vulnerable to attack in a conflict. The danger could be posed by enemy or rogue nation-states — or even just hobbyists with commercially available equipment. Efforts by the Pentagon to upgrade GPS have been delayed by years and have cost billions, as adversaries are developing increasingly sophisticated ways to jam and trick the system with false signals that make it think it is somewhere it isn't. And it's not just civilian airline traffic at risk. The underpinnings of modern life and entire economies could be disrupted by a broad attack on the fragile satellite system — power grids, financial systems, cellphone networks — raising the prospect of catastrophe in an era of increasing electronic warfare...

>

> A [2]report last year by the OpsGroup, an organization of international airline operators, found that in January 2024, about 300 flights per day were affected by GPS interference. By late last year, that number had grown to 1,500 flights per day as conflicts in Eastern Europe and the Middle East continued. And in a one-month period, between July and August last year, some 41,000 flights were affected. "While GPS interference is not a new phenomenon, the scale and effects of the current wave of spoofing are unprecedented," the report found...

>

> The Pentagon has launched eight of its next-generation GPS III satellites, which broadcast the military-grade signal that is more resistant to jamming and spoofing. Lockheed Martin, the contractor building the satellites, is also developing a next-generation spacecraft, which would have the ability to emit an even stronger "spot beam" directly to areas used by U.S. forces, making it even more difficult to jam.



[1] https://uk.news.yahoo.com/gps-key-global-economy-surprisingly-143438430.html

[2] https://ops.group/dashboard/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/GPS-Spoofing-Final-Report-OPSGROUP-WG-OG24.pdf



Google's $250M Deal with California to Fund Newsrooms May Be Stalled (politico.com)

(Sunday January 04, 2026 @09:34PM (EditorDavid) from the I'm-feeling-unlucky dept.)

Remember how California's government negotiated [1]a 2024 deal where Google contributed millions to California's local newsrooms to offset advertisers moving to the search engine?

"A year after it was cemented — and billed as a model that could succeed where entire countries and continents had fallen short — the agreement is tangled in budget cuts, bureaucratic infighting and unresolved questions about who controls the money," [2]reports Politico , "leaving journalists empty-handed and casting doubt on whether the lofty experiment will ever live up to its promise."

> The program, initially framed as a nearly $250 million commitment over five years, has secured just $20 million in new money for journalists in its first year, with no guarantee the funding will continue. It's changed hands twice since the University of California, Berkeley withdrew its support [with school officials " [3]worried they wouldn't have enough of a say in how the money was distributed"]. Suggestions that other big tech players like ChatGPT-maker OpenAI could front more resources haven't materialized. A $62.5 million "AI accelerator" tied to the deal hasn't been set up yet.

>

> Not a single newsroom has seen a dollar of funding, and there's no definitive timeline spelling out when they will... [The article adds later that state officials "have yet to draft precise rules for how California will decide which newsrooms get cash..."] Conversations with at least 20 people involved in the deal's rollout reveal how California's budget shortfalls and intraparty spats among Democrats scrambled it... California's struggle to launch its program has dampened hopes of replicating its model in other states such as Oregon, Illinois and New York, where lawmakers have tried but failed to make Big Tech pay for news...

>

> When [California governor] Newsom unveiled his final state budget plan in May 2025 after a [4]$12 billion deficit suddenly scrambled the state's finances, California's first-year commitment was reduced from $30 million to $10 million. Google followed suit within days and cut its first-year contribution from $15 million to $10 million... Whether the program even continues past 2026 is also unclear. Newsom's office declined to confirm whether the state will provide its $10 million commitment to the fund in the coming 2026-27 state budget. Newsom will also be termed out in 2027, and there's no requirement for his successor to honor the state's agreement with Google.



[1] https://www.politico.com/news/2024/08/21/google-california-newsroom-ai-00174817

[2] https://www.politico.com/news/2026/01/01/california-google-deal-dolly-parton-politics-00708332?cid=apn

[3] https://www.politico.com/news/2025/01/16/california-google-journalism-uc-berkeley-00198605

[4] https://www.politico.com/news/2025/05/14/newsom-unveils-plan-close-billion-budget-hole-00349006



Jobs Vulnerable to AI Replacement Actually 'Thriving, Not Dying Out', Report Suggests (fortune.com)

(Sunday January 04, 2026 @11:34AM (EditorDavid) from the suspended-jobs dept.)

AI startups now outnumber all publicly traded U.S. companies, according to a [1]year-end note to investors from economists at Vanguard .

And yet that report also suggest the jobs most susceptible to replacement by AI " [2]are actually thriving, not dying out ," writes Forbes :

> "The approximately 100 occupations most exposed to AI automation are actually outperforming the rest of the labor market in terms of job growth and real wage increases," the Vanguard report revealed. "This suggests that current AI systems are generally enhancing worker productivity and shifting workers' tasks toward higher-value activities..."

>

> The job growth rate of occupations with high AI exposure — including office clerks, HR assistants, and data scientists — increased from 1% in pre-COVID-19 years (2015 through 2019) to 1.7% in 2023 and beyond, according to Vanguard's research. Meanwhile, the growth rate of all other jobs declined from 1.1% to 0.8% over the same period. Workers in AI-prone roles are getting pay bumps, too; the wage growth of jobs with high AI exposure shot up from 0.1% pre-COVID to 3.8% post-pandemic (and post-ChatGPT). For all other jobs, compensation only marginally increased from 0.5% to 0.7%... As technology improves production and reallocates employee time to higher-value tasks, a smaller workforce is needed to deliver services. It's a process that has "distinct labor market implications," Vanguard writes, just like the many tech revolutions that predate AI...

>

> "Entry-level employment challenges reflect the disproportionate burden that a labor market with a low hiring rate can have on younger workers," the Vanguard note said. "This dynamic is observed across all occupations, even those largely unaffected by AI..." While many people see these labor disruptions and point their fingers at AI, experts told Fortune these layoffs could stem from a whole host of issues: navigating economic uncertainty, resolving pandemic-era overhiring, and bracing for tariffs. Vanguard isn't convinced that an AI is the reason for Gen Z's career obstacles.

>

> "While statistics abound about large language models beating humans in computer programming and other aptitude tests, these models still struggle with real-world scenarios that require nuanced decision-making," the Vanguard report continued. "Significant progress is needed before we see wider and measurable disruption in labor markets."



[1] https://corporate.vanguard.com/content/dam/corp/research/pdf/isg_vemo_2026.pdf

[2] https://fortune.com/2025/12/27/occupations-most-exposed-to-ai-automation-outperform-vanguard/



Economic Inequality Does Not Equate To Poor Well-Being or Mental Health, Massive Meta-Analysis Finds (nature.com)

(Sunday January 04, 2026 @03:34AM (msmash) from the correlation-isn't-causation dept.)

A [1]new sweeping meta-analysis has found no reliable link between economic inequality and well-being or mental health, challenging a long-held assumption that has shaped public health policy discussions for decades. The study, led by Nicolas Sommet at the University of Lausanne and Annahita Ehsan at the University of British Columbia, synthesized 168 studies involving more than 11 million participants across most world regions. The researchers screened thousands of scientific papers and contacted hundreds of researchers to compile the dataset, extracting more than 100 study features from each paper and linking them to more than 500 World Bank indicators.

They also replicated their findings using Gallup World Poll data spanning 2005 to 2021, which surveyed more than two million respondents from more than 150 countries. People living in more economically unequal places did not, on average, report lower life satisfaction or happiness than those in more equal places. The average effect across studies was not statistically significant and was practically equivalent to zero. Studies that did find links between inequality and poorer mental health turned out to reflect publication bias, where small, noisy studies reporting larger effects were over-represented in the literature. The study adds:

> Further analyses showed that the near-zero averages conceal more-complex patterns. Greater income inequality was associated with lower well-being in high-inflation contexts and, surprisingly, higher well-being in low-inflation contexts. Greater inequality was also associated with poorer mental health in studies in which the average income was lower. We conclude that inequality is a catalyst that amplifies other determinants of well-being and mental health (such as inflation and poverty) but on its own is not a root cause of negative effects on well-being and mental health.



[1] https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-03833-8



NYC Phone Ban Reveals Some Students Can't Read Clocks (gothamist.com)

(Sunday January 04, 2026 @03:34AM (msmash) from the not-the-onion dept.)

New York City's statewide smartphone ban that went into effect this fall has been largely successful at getting students to focus in class and socialize at lunch, but teachers across the city have discovered an unexpected side effect: [1]many teenagers cannot read analog clocks . "The constant refrain is 'Miss, what time is it?'" said Madi Mornhinweg, a high school English teacher in Manhattan, who eventually started responding by asking students to identify the big hand and little hand themselves.

Tiana Millen, an assistant principal at Cardozo High School in Queens, said the ban has helped move foot traffic more swiftly through hallways and gotten more students to class on time -- they just don't know it because they can't read the wall clocks. The city's education department says students learn clock-reading in first and second grade. A 2017 Oklahoma study found only one in five children ages 6-12 could read analog clocks, and England began replacing classroom analog clocks with digital ones in 2018.



[1] https://gothamist.com/news/nyc-phone-ban-reveals-some-students-cant-read-clocks



After Half a Decade, the Russian Space Station Segment Stopped Leaking (arstechnica.com)

(Sunday January 04, 2026 @11:34AM (msmash) from the ticket-closed dept.)

A small section of the International Space Station that has experienced persistent leaks for years [1]appears to have stopped venting atmosphere into space . ArsTechnica:

> The leaks were caused by microscopic structural cracks inside the small PrK module on the Russian segment of the space station, which lies between a Progress spacecraft airlock and the Zvezda module. The problem has been a long-running worry for Russian and US operators of the station, especially after the rate of leakage doubled in 2024. This prompted NASA officials to label the leak as a "high likelihood" and "high consequence" risk. However, recently two sources indicated that the leaks have stopped. And NASA has now confirmed this.

>

> "Following additional inspections and sealing activities, the pressure in the transfer tunnel attached to the Zvezda Service Module of the International Space Station, known as the PrK, is holding steady in a stable configuration," a space agency spokesman, Josh Finch, told Ars. "NASA and Roscosmos continue to monitor and investigate the previously observed cracks for any future changes that may occur."

>

> For the better part of half a decade, Russian cosmonauts have been searching for the small leaks like a proverbial needle in a haystack. They would periodically close the hatch leading to the PrK module and then, upon re-opening it, look for tiny accumulations of dust to indicate the leak sites. Then the Russian cosmonauts would apply a sealant known as Germetall-1 (which has now been patented) to the cracks. They would close the hatch again, monitor the pressure inside the PrK module, and begin the search anew for additional leaks. This process went on for years.



[1] https://arstechnica.com/space/2026/01/finally-some-good-news-for-russia-the-space-station-is-no-longer-leaking/



Dell's XPS Brand May Return Just a Year After Being Retired, Report Claims (videocardz.com)

(Sunday January 04, 2026 @03:34AM (msmash) from the branding-whiplash dept.)

Dell is planning to bring back its XPS laptop branding, according to a news report, just one year after the company [1]retired the storied name in favor of a simplified naming scheme that organized its consumer and professional lineup into Dell, Dell Pro and Dell Pro Max tiers. VideoCardz reported this week that Dell has [2]presented an updated XPS lineup during prebriefings ahead of CES 2026, though the company has not officially confirmed the badge's return.

The reported reversal would come after Dell launched the Dell 14 Premium and Dell 16 Premium in mid-2025 as flagship consumer models meant to carry the XPS legacy forward. Those machines replaced the XPS 14 and XPS 16 in Dell's lineup.



[1] https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/25/01/06/2135241/dell-will-no-longer-make-xps-computers

[2] https://videocardz.com/newz/exclusive-dell-set-to-revive-xps-laptops-at-ces-2026



Microsoft CEO: Time To Move 'Beyond the Arguments of Slop vs Sophistication' (snscratchpad.com)

(Saturday January 03, 2026 @09:34PM (msmash) from the spectacle-vs-substance dept.)

The tech industry needs to move "beyond the arguments of slop vs sophistication" and develop a new "theory of the mind" that accounts for humans now equipped with "cognitive amplifier tools," Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella [1]wrote in a year-end reflection blog . The post frames 2026 as yet another "pivotal year for AI" -- but one that "feels different in a few notable ways." Nadella claims the industry has moved past the initial discovery phase and is now "beginning to distinguish between 'spectacle' and 'substance.'" He argues for evolving beyond Steve Jobs' famous "bicycles for the mind" framing, positioning AI instead as "scaffolding" for human potential rather than a substitute.

"We will evolve from models to systems when it comes to deploying AI for real world impact," Nadella writes, adding that these systems must consider their societal impact on people and the planet. "For AI to have societal permission it must have real world eval impact."



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



MTV's Music-Only Channels Go Off the Air (rollingstone.com)

(Saturday January 03, 2026 @09:34PM (msmash) from the end-of-an-era dept.)

An anonymous reader shares a report:

> MTV [1]shut down many of its last dedicated 24-hour music channels Dec. 31. The move, announced back in October, affected channels around the world, with the U.K. seeing five different MTV stations going dark. These include MTV Music, MTV 80s, MTV 90s, Club MTV, and MTV Live. As Consequence notes, MTV Music -- which launched in 2011 -- notably ended its run by airing the Buggles' "Video Killed the Radio Star," the first visual to air when MTV launched in the United States in 1981.

>

> MTV's parent company, Paramount Skydance, is also expected to shutter music-only channels in Australia, Poland, France, and Brazil. Despite axing much of its dedicated music programming, MTV's flagship channels are still expected to keep broadcasting in the U.K. and elsewhere. Like in the U.S., these channels primarily air massively popular reality programs, as opposed to music videos.



[1] https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/mtv-music-only-channels-off-air-1235492854/



Google AI Overviews Put People at Risk of Harm With Misleading Health Advice (theguardian.com)

(Saturday January 03, 2026 @05:45PM (msmash) from the PSA dept.)

A Guardian investigation published Friday found that Google's AI Overviews -- the generative AI summaries that appear at the top of search results -- are [1]serving up inaccurate health information that experts say puts people at risk of harm. The investigation, which came after health groups, charities and professionals raised concerns, uncovered several cases of misleading medical advice despite Google's claims that the feature is "helpful" and "reliable."

In one case described by experts as "really dangerous," Google advised people with pancreatic cancer to avoid high-fat foods, which is the exact opposite of what should be recommended and could jeopardize a patient's chances of tolerating chemotherapy or surgery. A search for liver blood test normal ranges produced masses of numbers without accounting for nationality, sex, ethnicity or age of patients, potentially leaving people with serious liver disease thinking they are healthy. The company also incorrectly listed a pap test as a test for vaginal cancer.

The Eve Appeal cancer charity noted that the AI summaries changed when running the exact same search, pulling from different sources each time. Mental health charity Mind said some summaries for conditions such as psychosis and eating disorders offered "very dangerous advice."

Google said the vast majority of its AI Overviews were factual and that many examples shared were "incomplete screenshots," adding that the accuracy rate was on par with featured snippets.



[1] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/jan/02/google-ai-overviews-risk-harm-misleading-health-information



Trump Signs Defense Bill Prohibiting China-Based Engineers in Pentagon IT Work (propublica.org)

(Saturday January 03, 2026 @05:45PM (msmash) from the moving-forward dept.)

President Donald Trump signed into law this month a measure that prohibits anyone based in China and other adversarial countries [1]from accessing the Pentagon's cloud computing systems . From a report:

> The ban, which is tucked inside the $900 billion defense policy law, was enacted in response to a ProPublica investigation this year that exposed how Microsoft used China-based engineers to service the Defense Department's computer systems for nearly a decade -- a practice that left some of the country's most sensitive data vulnerable to hacking from its leading cyber adversary.

>

> U.S.-based supervisors, known as "digital escorts," were supposed to serve as a check on these foreign employees, but we found they often lacked the expertise needed to effectively supervise engineers with far more advanced technical skills. In the wake of the reporting, leading members of Congress called on the Defense Department to strengthen its security requirements while blasting Microsoft for what some Republicans called "a national betrayal." Cybersecurity and intelligence experts have told ProPublica that the arrangement posed major risks to national security, given that laws in China grant the country's officials broad authority to collect data.



[1] https://www.propublica.org/article/trump-law-microsoft-digital-escort-ban-china



AMD Closes in on Intel in Latest Steam Hardware Survey (tomshardware.com)

(Saturday January 03, 2026 @11:34AM (msmash) from the moving-forward dept.)

AMD's share of processors among Steam users [1]climbed to 47.27% in December 2025 , a 4.66% jump in a single month that continues the company's steady encroachment on Intel's once-dominant position in the gaming CPU market. Intel held roughly 77% of the Steam Hardware Survey five years ago, and that lead has eroded considerably as AMD broke the 40% threshold in the third quarter of 2025 and kept climbing.

The gains came despite an ongoing memory shortage that has pushed DDR5 prices to record highs -- AMD's AM5 platform requires DDR5 exclusively, while Intel's Raptor Lake Refresh chips support both DDR4 and DDR5. Many gamers are turning to older AMD Zen 3 processors like the Ryzen 5 5800X, which topped Amazon's bestseller lists during the holiday period and work on DDR4-compatible platforms. Meanwhile, the proportion of Steam users running 32GB of RAM rose to 39.07%, nearly matching the 40.14% still on 16GB, as gamers likely rushed to upgrade before prices climbed further amid AI's demand for memory.



[1] https://www.tomshardware.com/video-games/pc-gaming/amd-closes-in-on-intel-in-latest-steam-hardware-survey-ram-capacity-continues-to-rise-despite-the-ongoing-memory-crunch



Reading is a Vice (msn.com)

(Saturday January 03, 2026 @11:34AM (msmash) from the closer-look dept.)

The International Publishers Association spent the past year promoting the slogan "Democracy depends on reading," but Atlantic senior editor Adam Kirsch argues that [1]this utilitarian pitch fundamentally misunderstands why people become readers in the first place.

The most recent Survey of Public Participation in the Arts found that less than half of Americans read a single book in 2022, and only 38% read a novel or short story. A University of Florida and University College London study found daily reading for pleasure fell 3% annually from 2003 to 2023. Among 13-year-olds, just 14% read for fun almost every day in 2023, down from 27% a decade earlier.

Kirsch says to stop treating reading as civic medicine. "It would be better to describe reading not as a public duty but as a private pleasure, sometimes even a vice," he writes. When literature was considered transgressive, moralists couldn't stop people from buying dangerous books. Now that books are deemed virtuous, nobody picks them up. He points to Don Quixote and Madame Bovary -- novels whose protagonists are ruined by their reading habits. Great writers, he notes, never idealized literature the way educators do. The pitch to young readers should emphasize staying up late reading under the covers by flashlight, hoping nobody finds out.



[1] https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/reading-is-a-vice/ar-AA1Tsp7w



A Decade of BBC Question Time Data Reveals Imbalance in Journalist Guests (sagepub.com)

(Saturday January 03, 2026 @11:34AM (msmash) from the how-about-that dept.)

A [1]new study [PDF] from Cardiff University analyzing a decade of the popular topical debate programme BBC Question Time found that the broadcaster's flagship political debate show relies disproportionately on journalists and pundits from right-wing media outlets, particularly those connected to The Spectator magazine.

Researcher Matt Walsh examined 391 editions and 1,885 panellist appearances between 2014 and 2024. Journalists from right-leaning publications accounted for 59.59% of media guest slots, compared to just 16.86% for left-leaning outlets. The Spectator, a conservative magazine with a circulation of roughly 65,000, had an outsized presence among the most frequently booked guests. The study's list of top non-politician appearances reads like a roster of right-wing media figures. Isabel Oakeshott appeared 14 times, Julia Hartley-Brewer 13, Kate Andrews (formerly of the Institute for Economic Affairs and now at The Spectator) 13, and Tim Stanley of The Telegraph and Spectator also 13.

No equivalent frequency existed for left-wing journalists; Novara Media's Ash Sarkar and podcaster Alastair Campbell each appeared six times. Walsh said that the programme's need to be entertaining may explain some of these choices, as columnists unconstrained by party talking points tend to generate livelier debate. The BBC maintains that Question Time aims to present a "breadth of viewpoints," but the data suggests the programme's construction of impartiality tilts notably in one direction.



[1] https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/14648849251413467



'Results Were Fudged': Departing Meta AI Chief Confirms Llama 4 Benchmark Manipulation (ft.com)

(Saturday January 03, 2026 @11:34AM (msmash) from the move-fast-and-fudge-things dept.)

Yann LeCun, Meta's outgoing chief AI scientist and one of the pioneers credited with laying the groundwork for modern AI, has acknowledged that the company's Llama 4 language model had its benchmark results manipulated before its April 2025 release. In [1]an interview with the Financial Times , LeCun said the "results were fudged a little bit" and that the team "used different models for different benchmarks to give better results."

Llama 4 was widely criticized as a flop at launch, and the company faced accusations of gaming benchmarks to make the model appear more capable than it was. LeCun said CEO Mark Zuckerberg was "really upset and basically lost confidence in everyone who was involved" in the release.

Zuckerberg subsequently "sidelined the entire GenAI organisation," according to LeCun. "A lot of people have left, a lot of people who haven't yet left will leave." LeCun himself is departing Meta after more than a decade to start a new AI research venture called Advanced Machine Intelligence Labs. He described the new hires brought in for Meta's superintelligence efforts as "completely LLM-pilled" -- a technology LeCun has repeatedly called "a dead end when it comes to superintelligence."



[1] https://www.ft.com/content/e3c4c2f6-4ea7-4adf-b945-e58495f836c2



Ghana Tries To Regulate Online Prophecies (economist.com)

(Saturday January 03, 2026 @11:34AM (msmash) from the stranger-things dept.)

Ghana has decided to deal with the viral spread of prophetic content on social media by [1]setting up an official reporting mechanism for sensitive predictions , a move triggered by the August 2025 helicopter crash that killed the country's defence and environment ministers along with six others.

After the accident, TikTok clips circulated showing pastors who claimed to have foreseen the disaster before it happened. Elvis Ankrah, the presidential envoy for inter-faith and ecumenical relations, now asks prophets to submit their predictions for review.

Charismatic preacher-prophets have been a fixture of Ghanaian public life since Pentecostalism arrived in the 1980s, but social media has amplified their reach and made their claims increasingly outlandish. Police have threatened to arrest prophets who cannot prove their predictions eventually came true. Some two-thirds of Ghanaians favor giving divine intervention a role in politics. Ankrah recently declared that most prophecies submitted to him are "total bunk."



[1] https://www.economist.com/middle-east-and-africa/2025/12/30/ghana-tries-to-regulate-online-prophecies



The Atlanta Journal-Constitution Prints Final Newspaper, Shifts To All-Digital Format (cbsnews.com)

(Saturday January 03, 2026 @04:30AM (msmash) from the end-of-an-era dept.)

CBS News:

> The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has [1]printed its final newspaper , marking the end of a 157-year chapter in Georgia history and officially transitioning the longtime publication into a fully digital news outlet.

>

> The front-page story of the final print edition asks a fitting question: "What is the future of local media in Atlanta?" The historic last issue is also being sold for $8, a significant increase from the typical $2.00 price.

>

> Wednesday, Dec. 31, marks the last day The AJC will be delivered to driveways across metro Atlanta. Starting Jan. 1, 2026, the newspaper will exist exclusively online, a move its leadership says reflects how readers now consume news and ensures the organization's future.

>

> AJC President and Publisher Andrew Morse said the decision was not made lightly, especially given how deeply the paper is woven into daily life for generations of readers.

The move makes Atlanta the only major U.S. city without a daily printed newspaper.



[1] https://www.cbsnews.com/atlanta/news/atlanta-journal-constitution-prints-final-edition-shifts-to-all-digital-format/



How Nokia Went From iPhone Victim To $1 Billion Nvidia Deal (ft.com)

(Saturday January 03, 2026 @04:30AM (msmash) from the never-back-down dept.)

Nokia, the Finnish company whose iconic ringtone was played an estimated 1.8 billion times daily at the height of its mobile phone dominance and whose 3310 "brick" sold 126 million units, has [1]reinvented itself again -- this time as a key piece of AI infrastructure. In October, Nvidia announced [2]a $1 billion investment in Nokia and a strategic partnership to incorporate AI into telecommunications networks.

The company that was once worth $335 billion and controlled more than a quarter of the global handset market seemed destined for irrelevance after the iPhone's 2007 arrival. A last-ditch bet on Microsoft's Windows phone system in 2011 failed, and Nokia [3]sold its devices division to Microsoft for $6.34 billion in 2014 . Revenues had fallen from $44.27 billion in 2007 to $12.56 billion. Nokia rebuilt around its $2 billion acquisition of Siemens' networks stake in 2013, then added French network provider Alcatel-Lucent for $18.32 billion in 2015.

Current CEO Justin Hotard, who took over in April, has pushed the company further into cloud services, data centers and optical networks. Nokia acquired optical specialist Infinera for $2.3 billion in February. The company's optical technology enables information to pass between data centers, and it produces routers for cloud-based services.



[1] https://www.ft.com/content/0a07cbc3-dac4-4b89-9f26-038deb833060

[2] https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/25/10/29/2114253/nvidia-takes-1-billion-stake-in-nokia

[3] https://slashdot.org/story/13/09/03/0526231/official-microsoft-to-acquire-nokia-devices-and-services-business



ASUS Announces Price Hikes Starting January 5 (videocardz.com)

(Saturday January 03, 2026 @04:30AM (msmash) from the no-exceptions dept.)

ASUS has informed its partners that prices on certain products [1]will increase starting January 5 , just days before the company is expected to unveil new hardware at CES. In a letter dated December 30 and obtained by Digitimes, the Taiwanese manufacturer pointed to rising costs for memory and storage components as the primary driver behind the adjustment.

The company specifically called out DRAM, NAND, and SSD pricing pressure stemming from what it described as "structural volatility" in the global supply chain tied to AI-driven demand. ASUS also cited shifts in capacity allocation by upstream suppliers and higher investment costs for advanced manufacturing processes.



[1] https://videocardz.com/newz/asus-officially-announces-price-hikes-from-january-5-right-before-ces-2026



'IPv6 Just Turned 30 and Still Hasn't Taken Over the World, But Don't Call It a Failure' (theregister.com)

(Friday January 02, 2026 @11:00AM (msmash) from the mis-design-by-committee dept.)

Three decades after RFC 1883 promised to future-proof the internet by expanding the available pool of IP addresses from around 4.3 billion to over 340 undecillion, IPv6 has [1]yet to achieve the dominance its creators envisioned . Data from Google, APNIC and Cloudflare analyzed by The Register shows less than half of all internet users rely on IPv6 today.

"IPv6 was an extremely conservative protocol that changed as little as possible," APNIC chief scientist Geoff Huston told The Register. "It was a classic case of mis-design by committee." The protocol's lack of backward compatibility with IPv4 meant users had to choose one or run both in parallel. Network address translation, which allows thousands of devices to share a single public IPv4 address, gave operators an easier path forward. Huston adds:

> "These days the Domain Name Service (DNS) is the service selector, not the IP address," Huston told The Register. "The entire security framework of today's Internet is name based and the world of authentication and channel encryption is based on service names, not IP addresses."

>

> "So folk use IPv6 these days based on cost: If the cost of obtaining more IPv4 addresses to fuel bigger NATs is too high, then they deploy IPv6. Not because it's better, but if they are confident that they can work around IPv6's weaknesses then in a largely name based world there is no real issue in using one addressing protocol or another as the transport underlay."

But calling IPv6 a failure misses the point. "IPv4's continued viability is largely because IPv6 absorbed that growth pressure elsewhere -- particularly in mobile, broadband, and cloud environments," said John Curran, president and CEO of the American Registry for Internet Numbers. "In that sense, IPv6 succeeded where it was needed most." Huawei has sought 2.56 decillion IPv6 addresses and Starlink appears to have acquired 150 sextillion.



[1] https://www.theregister.com/2025/12/31/ipv6_at_30/



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