feat(route): add slashdot

[TonyRL]

Involved Issue / 该 PR 相关 Issue

Close #14817

Example for the Proposed Route(s) / 路由地址示例

/slashdot
/slashdot/yro

New RSS Route Checklist / 新 RSS 路由检查表

• New Route / 新的路由
  • Follows Script Standard / 跟随 路由规范
• Anti-bot or rate limit / 反爬/频率限制
  • If yes, do your code reflect this sign? / 如果有, 是否有对应的措施?
• Date and time / 日期和时间
  • Parsed / 可以解析
  • Correct time zone / 时区正确
• New package added / 添加了新的包
• Puppeteer

Note / 说明

[Copilot]

Pull request overview

This PR adds a new route for Slashdot, a technology news website, enabling users to get RSS feeds with better formatting compared to Slashdot's native RSS feed.

Changes:

• Adds namespace definition for Slashdot with basic metadata
• Implements main route handler supporting the main page and section-based subdomains (e.g., yro, science, devices)
• Includes radar configuration for automatic route detection from various Slashdot subdomains

Reviewed changes

Copilot reviewed 2 out of 2 changed files in this pull request and generated 2 comments.

File	Description
lib/routes/slashdot/namespace.ts	Defines namespace metadata for Slashdot including name, URL, and language
lib/routes/slashdot/index.ts	Implements the main route handler with section parameter support, HTML parsing, and date extraction

---

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[github-actions]

Successfully generated as following:

http://localhost:1200/slashdot - Success ✔️

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<rss xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom" version="2.0">
  <channel>
    <title>Slashdot: News for nerds, stuff that matters, &amp; software</title>
    <link>https://slashdot.org</link>
    <atom:link href="http://localhost:1200/slashdot" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml"></atom:link>
    <description>Slashdot: News for nerds, stuff that matters. Timely news source for technology related news and B2B software reviews &amp; comparisons. - Powered by RSSHub</description>
    <generator>RSSHub</generator>
    <webMaster>contact@rsshub.app (RSSHub)</webMaster>
    <language>en</language>
    <lastBuildDate>Wed, 21 Jan 2026 21:28:51 GMT</lastBuildDate>
    <ttl>5</ttl>
    <item>
      <title>Ozempic is Reshaping the Fast Food Industry</title>
      <description>&lt;div id=&quot;text-180634076&quot; class=&quot;p&quot;&gt;
        New research from Cornell University has tracked how households change their spending after someone starts taking GLP-1 medications like Ozempic and Wegovy, and the numbers are material enough to explain why food industry earnings calls &lt;a href=&quot;https://philippdubach.com/posts/ozempic-is-reshaping-the-fast-food-industry/&quot;&gt;keep blaming everything except the obvious culprit&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        The study analyzed transaction data from 150,000 households linked to survey responses on medication adoption. Households cut grocery spending by 5.3% within six months of a member starting GLP-1s; high-income households cut by 8.2%. Fast food spending fell 8.0%. Savory snacks took the biggest hit at 10.1%, followed by sweets and baked goods. Yogurt was the only category to see a statistically significant increase.&lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        As of July 2024, 16.3% of U.S. households had at least one GLP-1 user. Nearly half of adopters reported taking the medication specifically for weight loss rather than diabetes management. About 34% of users discontinue within the sample period, and when they stop, candy and chocolate purchases rise 11.4% above pre-adoption levels.&lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        &lt;b&gt;Further reading&lt;/b&gt;: &lt;a href=&quot;https://indiadispatch.com/p/weighing-the-cost-of-smaller-appetites&quot;&gt;Weighing the Cost of Smaller Appetites&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;br&gt;
        &lt;/div&gt;
      </description>
      <link>https://science.slashdot.org/story/26/01/21/191222/ozempic-is-reshaping-the-fast-food-industry</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://science.slashdot.org/story/26/01/21/191222/ozempic-is-reshaping-the-fast-food-industry</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 21 Jan 2026 08:22:00 GMT</pubDate>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Half of World&#39;s CO2 Emissions Come From Just 32 Fossil Fuel Firms, Study Shows</title>
      <description>&lt;div id=&quot;text-180634144&quot; class=&quot;p&quot;&gt;
        Just 32 fossil fuel companies were &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/jan/21/carbon-dioxide-co2-emissions-fossil-fuel-firms-study&quot;&gt;responsible for half the global carbon dioxide emissions&lt;/a&gt; driving the climate crisis in 2024, down from 36 a year earlier, a report has revealed. The Guardian:&lt;i&gt; Saudi Aramco was the biggest state-controlled polluter and ExxonMobil was the largest investor-owned polluter. Critics accused the leading fossil fuel companies of &quot;sabotaging climate action&quot; and &quot;being on the wrong side of history&quot; but said the emissions data was increasingly being used to hold the companies accountable.&lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        State-owned fossil fuel producers made up 17 of the top 20 emitters in the Carbon Majors report, which the authors said underscored the political barriers to tackling global heating. All 17 are controlled by countries that opposed a proposed fossil fuel phaseout at the Cop30 UN climate summit in December, including Saudi Arabia, Russia, China, Iran, the United Arab Emirates and India. More than 80 other nations had backed the phaseout plan.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;br&gt;
        &lt;/div&gt;
      </description>
      <link>https://news.slashdot.org/story/26/01/21/1913218/half-of-worlds-co2-emissions-come-from-just-32-fossil-fuel-firms-study-shows</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.slashdot.org/story/26/01/21/1913218/half-of-worlds-co2-emissions-come-from-just-32-fossil-fuel-firms-study-shows</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 21 Jan 2026 07:45:00 GMT</pubDate>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Adobe Acrobat Now Lets You Edit Files Using Prompts, Generate Podcast Summaries</title>
      <description>&lt;div id=&quot;text-180634120&quot; class=&quot;p&quot;&gt;
        Adobe has added a suite of AI-powered features to Acrobat that enable users to &lt;a href=&quot;https://techcrunch.com/2026/01/21/adobe-acrobat-now-lets-you-edit-files-using-prompts-generate-podcast-summaries/&quot;&gt;edit documents through natural language prompts&lt;/a&gt;, generate podcast-style audio summaries of their files, and create presentations by pulling content from multiple documents stored in a single workspace.&lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        The prompt-based editing supports 12 distinct actions: removing pages, text, comments, and images; finding and replacing words and phrases; and adding e-signatures and passwords. The presentation feature builds on Adobe Spaces, a collaborative file and notes collection the company launched last year. Users can point Acrobat&#39;s AI assistant at files in a Space and have it generate an editable pitch deck, then style it using Adobe Express themes and stock imagery.&lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        Shared files in Spaces now include AI-generated summaries that cite specific locations in the source document. Users can also choose from preset AI assistant personas -- &quot;analyst,&quot; &quot;entertainer,&quot; or &quot;instructor&quot; -- or create custom assistants using their own prompts.&lt;br&gt;
        &lt;/div&gt;
      </description>
      <link>https://slashdot.org/story/26/01/21/198252/adobe-acrobat-now-lets-you-edit-files-using-prompts-generate-podcast-summaries</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://slashdot.org/story/26/01/21/198252/adobe-acrobat-now-lets-you-edit-files-using-prompts-generate-podcast-summaries</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 21 Jan 2026 07:01:00 GMT</pubDate>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>The Gold Plating of American Water</title>
      <description>&lt;div id=&quot;text-180634170&quot; class=&quot;p&quot;&gt;
        The price of water and sewer services for American households has more than doubled since the early 1980s after adjusting for inflation, even though per-capita water use has actually decreased over that period. Households in large cities now spend about $1,300 a year on water and sewer charges, &lt;a href=&quot;https://worksinprogress.co/issue/the-gold-plating-of-american-water/&quot;&gt;approaching the roughly $1,600 they spend on electricity&lt;/a&gt;. The main driver is federal regulation.&lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        Since the Clean Water Act of 1972 and the Safe Drinking Water Act of 1974, the U.S. has spent approximately $5 trillion in contemporary dollars fighting water pollution -- about 0.8% of annual GDP across that period. The EPA itself admits that surface water regulations are the one category of environmental rules where estimated costs exceed estimated benefits.&lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        New York City was required to build a filtration plant to address two minor parasites in water from its Croton aqueduct. The project took a decade longer than expected and cost $3.2 billion, more than double the original estimate. After the plant opened in 2015, the city&#39;s Commissioner of Environmental Protection noted that the water would basically be &quot;the same&quot; to the public. Jefferson County, Alabama, meanwhile, descended into what was then the largest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history in 2011 after EPA-mandated sewer upgrades pushed its debt from $300 million to over $3 billion.&lt;br&gt;
        &lt;/div&gt;
      </description>
      <link>https://news.slashdot.org/story/26/01/21/1922232/the-gold-plating-of-american-water</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.slashdot.org/story/26/01/21/1922232/the-gold-plating-of-american-water</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 21 Jan 2026 06:22:00 GMT</pubDate>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>AI Company Eightfold Sued For Helping Companies Secretly Score Job Seekers</title>
      <description>&lt;div id=&quot;text-180634016&quot; class=&quot;p&quot;&gt;
        Eightfold AI, a venture capital-backed AI hiring platform used by Microsoft, PayPal and many other Fortune 500 companies, is being sued in California for allegedly &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/boards-policy-regulation/ai-company-eightfold-sued-helping-companies-secretly-score-job-seekers-2026-01-21/&quot;&gt;compiling reports used to screen job applicants without their knowledge&lt;/a&gt;. From a report:&lt;i&gt; The lawsuit, filed on Tuesday accusing Eightfold of violating the Fair Credit Reporting Act shows how consumer advocates are seeking to apply existing law to AI systems capable of drawing inferences about individuals based on vast amounts of data.&lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        Santa Clara, California-based Eightfold provides tools that promise to speed up the hiring process by assessing job applicants and predicting whether they would be a good fit for a job using massive amounts of data from online resumes and job listings. But candidates who apply for jobs at companies that use those tools are not given notice and a chance to dispute errors, job applicants Erin Kistler and Sruti Bhaumik allege in their proposed class action. Because of that, they claim Eightfold violated the FCRA and a California law that gives consumers the right to view and challenge credit reports used in lending and hiring.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;br&gt;
        &lt;/div&gt;
      </description>
      <link>https://yro.slashdot.org/story/26/01/21/1841214/ai-company-eightfold-sued-for-helping-companies-secretly-score-job-seekers</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://yro.slashdot.org/story/26/01/21/1841214/ai-company-eightfold-sued-for-helping-companies-secretly-score-job-seekers</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 21 Jan 2026 05:44:00 GMT</pubDate>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Ubisoft Cancels Six Games, Slashes Guidance in Restructuring</title>
      <description>&lt;div id=&quot;text-180633870&quot; class=&quot;p&quot;&gt;
        Ubisoft is &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/other/ubisoft-cancels-six-games-slashes-guidance-in-restructuring/ar-AA1UFMvS&quot;&gt;canceling game projects, shutting down studios&lt;/a&gt; and cutting its guidance as the Assassin&#39;s Creed maker restructures its business into five units. From a report:&lt;i&gt; The French gaming firm expects earnings before interest and tax to be a loss of $1.2 billion the fiscal year 2025-2026 as a result of the restructuring, driven by a one-off writedown of about $761 million, the company said in a statement on Wednesday.&lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        Ubisoft also expects net bookings of around $1.76 billion for the year, with a $386 million gross margin reduction compared to previous guidance, it said. Six games, including a remake of Prince of Persia The Sands of Time, have been discontinued and seven other unidentified games are delayed, the company said. The measures are part of a broader plan to streamline operations, including closing studios in Stockholm and Halifax, Canada. Ubisoft said it will have cut at least $117 million in fixed costs compared to the latest financial year by March, a year ahead of target, and has set a goal to slash an additional $234 million over the next two years.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;br&gt;
        &lt;/div&gt;
      </description>
      <link>https://games.slashdot.org/story/26/01/21/184240/ubisoft-cancels-six-games-slashes-guidance-in-restructuring</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://games.slashdot.org/story/26/01/21/184240/ubisoft-cancels-six-games-slashes-guidance-in-restructuring</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 21 Jan 2026 05:04:00 GMT</pubDate>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Ireland Wants To Give Its Cops Spyware, Ability To Crack Encrypted Messages</title>
      <description>&lt;div id=&quot;text-180633396&quot; class=&quot;p&quot;&gt;
        The Irish government is planning to &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.theregister.com/2026/01/21/ireland_wants_to_give_police/&quot;&gt;bolster its police&#39;s ability to intercept communications&lt;/a&gt;, including encrypted messages, and provide a legal basis for spyware use. From a report:&lt;i&gt; The Communications (Interception and Lawful Access) Bill is being framed as a replacement for the current legislation that governs digital communication interception. The Department of Justice, Home Affairs, and Migration said in an announcement this week the existing Postal Packets and Telecommunications Messages (Regulation) Act 1993 &quot;predates the telecoms revolution of the last 20 years.&quot;&lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        As well as updating laws passed more than two decades ago, the government was keen to emphasize that a key ambition for the bill is to empower law enforcement to intercept of all forms of communications. The Bill will bring communications from IoT devices, email services, and electronic messaging platforms into scope, &quot;whether encrypted or not.&quot;&lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        In a similar way to how certain other governments want to compel encrypted messaging services to unscramble packets of interest, Ireland&#39;s announcement also failed to explain exactly how it plans to do this. However, it promised to implement a robust legal framework, alongside all necessary privacy and security safeguards, if these proposals do ultimately become law. It also vowed to establish structures to ensure &quot;the maximum possible degree of technical cooperation between state agencies and communication service providers.&quot;/i&lt;/i&gt;&lt;br&gt;
        &lt;/div&gt;
      </description>
      <link>https://it.slashdot.org/story/26/01/21/1639200/ireland-wants-to-give-its-cops-spyware-ability-to-crack-encrypted-messages</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://it.slashdot.org/story/26/01/21/1639200/ireland-wants-to-give-its-cops-spyware-ability-to-crack-encrypted-messages</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 21 Jan 2026 04:25:00 GMT</pubDate>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Google Temporarily Disabled YouTube&#39;s Advanced Captions Without Warning</title>
      <description>&lt;div id=&quot;text-180633320&quot; class=&quot;p&quot;&gt;
        Google has temporarily &lt;a href=&quot;https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/01/google-temporarily-disabled-youtubes-advanced-captions-without-warning/&quot;&gt;disabled YouTube&#39;s advanced SRV3 caption format&lt;/a&gt; after discovering the feature was causing playback errors for some users, according to a statement the company posted. SRV3, also known as YouTube Timed Text, is a custom subtitle system Google introduced around 2018 that allows creators to use custom colors, transparency, animations, and precise text positioning. Creators cannot upload new SRV3 captions while the feature remains disabled, and existing videos that use the format may not display any captions until Google restores it. The company has provided no timeline for when SRV3 will return, and its forum post notes that changes should be temporary for &quot;almost&quot; all videos.&lt;br&gt;
        &lt;/div&gt;
      </description>
      <link>https://tech.slashdot.org/story/26/01/21/1622227/google-temporarily-disabled-youtubes-advanced-captions-without-warning</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://tech.slashdot.org/story/26/01/21/1622227/google-temporarily-disabled-youtubes-advanced-captions-without-warning</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 21 Jan 2026 03:45:00 GMT</pubDate>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Japan Restarts World&#39;s Largest Nuclear Plant as Fukushima Memories Loom Large</title>
      <description>&lt;div id=&quot;text-180633110&quot; class=&quot;p&quot;&gt;
        New submitter &lt;a href=&quot;https://slashdot.org/~BeaverCleaver&quot;&gt;BeaverCleaver&lt;/a&gt; shares a report: &lt;i&gt; Japan has restarted operations at the world&#39;s largest nuclear power plant for the first time since the 2011 Fukushima disaster forced the country to shut all of its reactors. The decision to restart reactor number 6 at Kashiwazaki-Kariwa north-west of Tokyo was taken despite local residents&#39; safety concerns. It was delayed by a day because of an alarm malfunction and is due to begin operating commercially next month.&lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        Japan, which had always heavily relied on energy imports, was an early adopter of nuclear power. But in 2011 all 54 of its reactors had to be shut after a massive earthquake and tsunami triggered a meltdown at Fukushima, causing one of the worst nuclear disasters in history. This is the latest installment in Japan&#39;s nuclear power reboot, which still has a long way to go. The seventh reactor at Kashiwazaki-Kariwa is not expected to be brought back on until 2030, and the other five could be decommissioned. That leaves the plant with far less capacity than it once had when all seven reactors were operational: 8.2 gigawatts.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;br&gt;
        &lt;/div&gt;
      </description>
      <link>https://slashdot.org/story/26/01/21/1532240/japan-restarts-worlds-largest-nuclear-plant-as-fukushima-memories-loom-large</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://slashdot.org/story/26/01/21/1532240/japan-restarts-worlds-largest-nuclear-plant-as-fukushima-memories-loom-large</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 21 Jan 2026 03:05:00 GMT</pubDate>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Comic-Con Bans AI Art After Artist Pushback</title>
      <description>&lt;div id=&quot;text-180633074&quot; class=&quot;p&quot;&gt;
        San Diego Comic-Con &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.404media.co/comic-con-bans-ai-art-after-artist-pushback/&quot;&gt;changed an AI art friendly policy&lt;/a&gt; following an artist-led backlash last week. From a report:&lt;i&gt; It was a small victory for working artists in an industry where jobs are slipping away as movie and video game studios adopt generative AI tools to save time and money. Every year, tens of thousands of people descend on San Diego for Comic-Con, the world&#39;s premier comic book convention that over the years has also become a major pan-media event where every major media company announces new movies, TV shows, and video games. For the past few years, Comic-Con has allowed some forms of AI-generated art at this art show at the convention.&lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        According to archived rules for the show, artists could display AI-generated material so long as it wasn&#39;t for sale, was marked as AI-produced, and credited the original artist whose style was used. &quot;Material produced by Artificial Intelligence (AI) may be placed in the show, but only as Not-for-Sale (NFS). It must be clearly marked as AI-produced, not simply listed as a print. If one of the parameters in its creation was something similar to &#39;Done in the style of,&#39; that information must be added to the description. If there are questions, the Art Show Coordinator will be the sole judge of acceptability,&quot; Comic-Con&#39;s art show rules said until recently.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;br&gt;
        &lt;/div&gt;
      </description>
      <link>https://slashdot.org/story/26/01/21/1528206/comic-con-bans-ai-art-after-artist-pushback</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://slashdot.org/story/26/01/21/1528206/comic-con-bans-ai-art-after-artist-pushback</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 21 Jan 2026 02:27:00 GMT</pubDate>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>YouTube CEO Acknowledges &#39;AI Slop&#39; Problem, Says Platform Will Curb Low-Quality AI Content</title>
      <description>&lt;div id=&quot;text-180632814&quot; class=&quot;p&quot;&gt;
        YouTube CEO Neal Mohan used his annual letter to creators, published Wednesday, to outline an ambitious 2026 vision that embraces AI-powered creative tools while simultaneously pledging to &lt;a href=&quot;https://blog.youtube/inside-youtube/the-future-of-youtube-2026/&quot;&gt;crack down on the low-quality AI content&lt;/a&gt; that has come to be known as &quot;slop.&quot;&lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        Mohan identified four AI-related areas that YouTube &quot;must get right in 2026.&quot; The platform is working on tools that will let creators use AI to generate Shorts featuring their own likenesses and to experiment with music. &quot;Just as the synthesizer, Photoshop and CGI revolutionized sound and visuals, AI will be a boon to the creatives who are ready to lean in,&quot; he wrote. Features like autodubbing, he says, will &quot;transform the viewer experience.&quot;&lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        But &quot;the rise of AI has raised concerns about low-quality content, aka &#39;AI slop,&#39;&quot; he wrote. YouTube is building on its existing spam and clickbait detection systems to reduce the spread of such content. He also flagged deepfakes as a particular concern: &quot;It&#39;s becoming harder to detect what&#39;s real and what&#39;s AI-generated.&quot; The platform plans to double down on AI labels and introduce tools that let creators protect their likenesses.&lt;br&gt;
        &lt;/div&gt;
      </description>
      <link>https://news.slashdot.org/story/26/01/21/1422227/youtube-ceo-acknowledges-ai-slop-problem-says-platform-will-curb-low-quality-ai-content</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.slashdot.org/story/26/01/21/1422227/youtube-ceo-acknowledges-ai-slop-problem-says-platform-will-curb-low-quality-ai-content</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 21 Jan 2026 01:40:00 GMT</pubDate>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>CEOs Say AI is Making Work More Efficient. Employees Tell a Different Story.</title>
      <description>&lt;div id=&quot;text-180632744&quot; class=&quot;p&quot;&gt;
        Companies are spending vast sums on AI expecting the technology to boost efficiency, but a new survey from AI consulting firm Section found that two-thirds of non-management workers among 5,000 white-collar respondents say they &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/ceos-say-ai-is-making-work-more-efficient-employees-tell-a-different-story/ar-AA1UE3Tq&quot;&gt;save less than two hours a week or no time at all&lt;/a&gt;, while more than 40% of executives report the technology saves them upward of eight hours weekly.&lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        Workers were far more likely to describe themselves as anxious or overwhelmed about AI than excited -- the opposite of C-suite respondents -- and 40% of all surveyed said they would be fine never using AI again. A separate Workday report of roughly 1,600 employees found that though 85% reported time savings of one to seven hours weekly, much of it was offset by correcting errors and reworking AI-generated content -- what the company called an &quot;AI tax&quot; on productivity.&lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        At the World Economic Forum in Davos this week, a PricewaterhouseCoopers survey of nearly 4,500 CEOs found more than half have seen &lt;a href=&quot;https://slashdot.org/story/26/01/20/1924238/56-of-companies-have-seen-zero-financial-return-from-ai-investments-pwc-survey-says&quot;&gt;no significant financial benefit from AI so far&lt;/a&gt;, and only 12% said the technology has delivered both cost and revenue gains.&lt;br&gt;
        &lt;/div&gt;
      </description>
      <link>https://slashdot.org/story/26/01/21/141239/ceos-say-ai-is-making-work-more-efficient-employees-tell-a-different-story</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://slashdot.org/story/26/01/21/141239/ceos-say-ai-is-making-work-more-efficient-employees-tell-a-different-story</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 21 Jan 2026 01:01:00 GMT</pubDate>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Verizon Wastes No Time Switching Device Unlock Policy To 365 Days</title>
      <description>&lt;div id=&quot;text-180630910&quot; class=&quot;p&quot;&gt;
        An anonymous reader quotes a report from DroidLife: &lt;i&gt;When the FCC &lt;a href=&quot;https://slashdot.org/story/26/01/13/1845204/verizon-to-stop-automatic-unlocking-of-phones-as-fcc-ends-60-day-unlock-rule&quot;&gt;cleared&lt;/a&gt; Verizon of its 60-day device unlock policy a week ago, we talked about how the government agency, which is as anti-consumer as it has ever been at the moment, was giving Verizon the power to basically create whatever unlock policy it wanted. We also expected Verizon to make a change to its policies in a hurry and they did not disappoint. Again, the FCC provided them a waiver 7 days ago and they are already starting to update policies.
        &lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        As of this morning, Verizon has &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.droid-life.com/2026/01/20/verizon-device-unlock-policy-365-days/&quot;&gt;implemented a new device unlock policy across its various prepaid brands&lt;/a&gt; and I&#39;d imagine their postpaid policy change is right around the corner. Brands like Visible, Total Wireless, Tracfone, and StraightTalk, all have an updated device unlock policy today that extends to 365 days of paid and active service before they&#39;ll free your phone from the Verizon network. Starting January 20, Verizon &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.tfwunlockpolicy.com/wps/portal/home/&quot;&gt;says&lt;/a&gt; that devices purchased from their prepaid brands will only be unlocked upon request after 365 days and if you meet several requirements [...].
        &lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        What exactly is changing here? Well, if you purchased a device from Verizon&#39;s value brands previously, they would automatically unlock them after 60 days. Now, you have to wait 365 days, request the unlock because it doesn&#39;t happen automatically, and also have active service. [...] The FCC mentioned in their waiver that by allowing Verizon to create whatever unlock policy they wanted that this would &quot;benefit consumers.&quot; How does any of this benefit consumers?&lt;/i&gt;&lt;br&gt;
        &lt;/div&gt;
      </description>
      <link>https://mobile.slashdot.org/story/26/01/21/0458212/verizon-wastes-no-time-switching-device-unlock-policy-to-365-days</link>
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      <pubDate>Wed, 21 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Snap Settles Social media Addiction Lawsuit Ahead of Landmark Trial</title>
      <description>&lt;div id=&quot;text-180630878&quot; class=&quot;p&quot;&gt;
        Snap has &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c62ndl2ydzxo&quot;&gt;settled a social media addiction lawsuit&lt;/a&gt; just days before trial, while Meta, TikTok, and Alphabet remain defendants and are headed to court. &quot;Terms of the deal were not announced as it was revealed by lawyers at a California Superior Court hearing, after which Snap told the BBC the parties were &#39;pleased to have been able to resolve this matter in an amicable manner.&#39;&quot; From the report: &lt;i&gt; The plaintiff, a 19-year old woman identified by the initials K.G.M., alleged that the algorithmic design of the platforms left her addicted and affected her mental health. In the absence of a settlement with the other parties, the trial is scheduled to go forward against the remaining three defendants, with jury selection due to begin on January 27. Meta boss Mark Zuckerberg is expected to testify, and until Tuesday&#39;s settlement, Snap CEO Evan Spiegel was also set to take the stand.
        &lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        Snap is still a defendant in other social media addiction cases that have been consolidated in the court. The closely watched cases could challenge a legal theory that social media companies have used to shield themselves. They have long argued that Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996 protects them from liability for what third parties post on their platforms. But plaintiffs argue that the platforms are designed in a way that leaves users addicted through choices that affect their algorithms and notifications. The social media companies have said the plaintiffs&#39; evidence falls short of proving that they are responsible for alleged harms such as depression and eating disorders.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;br&gt;
        &lt;/div&gt;
      </description>
      <link>https://yro.slashdot.org/story/26/01/21/0449250/snap-settles-social-media-addiction-lawsuit-ahead-of-landmark-trial</link>
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      <pubDate>Tue, 20 Jan 2026 21:00:00 GMT</pubDate>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Aurora Watch In Effect As Severe Solar Storm Slams Into Earth</title>
      <description>&lt;div id=&quot;text-180630856&quot; class=&quot;p&quot;&gt;
        &lt;a href=&quot;https://news.slashdot.org/~alternative_right&quot;&gt;alternative_right&lt;/a&gt; shares a report from ScienceAlert: &lt;i&gt;Thanks to a giant eruption on the Sun and a large opening in its atmosphere, we&#39;re &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.sciencealert.com/aurora-watch-in-effect-as-severe-solar-storm-slams-into-earth&quot;&gt;currently experiencing G4 conditions&lt;/a&gt; -- a severe geomagnetic storm strong enough to disrupt power grids as energy from space weather disturbances drives electric currents through Earth&#39;s magnetic field and the ground. Experts say the storm could even reach &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/noaa-scales-explanation&quot;&gt;G5 levels&lt;/a&gt;, the extreme category responsible for the spectacular auroral activity seen &lt;a href=&quot;https://tech.slashdot.org/story/24/07/19/2256202/may-solar-superstorm-caused-largest-mass-migration-of-satellites-in-history&quot;&gt;in May 2024&lt;/a&gt;. In fact, space weather bureaus around the world are forecasting powerful aurora conditions, with some suggesting aurora could be visible at unusually low latitudes, potentially rivaling the reach of 2024&#39;s historic superstorm. &lt;/i&gt; A livestream of the Northern Lights is &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0i1Kg6fROg&quot;&gt;available on YouTube&lt;/a&gt;. The Aurora forecast is available &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/products/aurora-viewline-tonight-and-tomorrow-night-experimental&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;br&gt;
        &lt;/div&gt;
      </description>
      <link>https://news.slashdot.org/story/26/01/21/0442254/aurora-watch-in-effect-as-severe-solar-storm-slams-into-earth</link>
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      <pubDate>Tue, 20 Jan 2026 18:00:00 GMT</pubDate>
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[github-actions]

http://localhost:1200/slashdot/yro - Success ✔️

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      <title>AI Company Eightfold Sued For Helping Companies Secretly Score Job Seekers</title>
      <description>&lt;div id=&quot;text-180634016&quot; class=&quot;p&quot;&gt;
        Eightfold AI, a venture capital-backed AI hiring platform used by Microsoft, PayPal and many other Fortune 500 companies, is being sued in California for allegedly &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/boards-policy-regulation/ai-company-eightfold-sued-helping-companies-secretly-score-job-seekers-2026-01-21/&quot;&gt;compiling reports used to screen job applicants without their knowledge&lt;/a&gt;. From a report:&lt;i&gt; The lawsuit, filed on Tuesday accusing Eightfold of violating the Fair Credit Reporting Act shows how consumer advocates are seeking to apply existing law to AI systems capable of drawing inferences about individuals based on vast amounts of data.&lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        Santa Clara, California-based Eightfold provides tools that promise to speed up the hiring process by assessing job applicants and predicting whether they would be a good fit for a job using massive amounts of data from online resumes and job listings. But candidates who apply for jobs at companies that use those tools are not given notice and a chance to dispute errors, job applicants Erin Kistler and Sruti Bhaumik allege in their proposed class action. Because of that, they claim Eightfold violated the FCRA and a California law that gives consumers the right to view and challenge credit reports used in lending and hiring.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;br&gt;
        &lt;/div&gt;
      </description>
      <link>https://yro.slashdot.org/story/26/01/21/1841214/ai-company-eightfold-sued-for-helping-companies-secretly-score-job-seekers</link>
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      <pubDate>Wed, 21 Jan 2026 05:44:00 GMT</pubDate>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Ireland Wants To Give Its Cops Spyware, Ability To Crack Encrypted Messages</title>
      <description>&lt;div id=&quot;text-180633396&quot; class=&quot;p&quot;&gt;
        The Irish government is planning to &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.theregister.com/2026/01/21/ireland_wants_to_give_police/&quot;&gt;bolster its police&#39;s ability to intercept communications&lt;/a&gt;, including encrypted messages, and provide a legal basis for spyware use. From a report:&lt;i&gt; The Communications (Interception and Lawful Access) Bill is being framed as a replacement for the current legislation that governs digital communication interception. The Department of Justice, Home Affairs, and Migration said in an announcement this week the existing Postal Packets and Telecommunications Messages (Regulation) Act 1993 &quot;predates the telecoms revolution of the last 20 years.&quot;&lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        As well as updating laws passed more than two decades ago, the government was keen to emphasize that a key ambition for the bill is to empower law enforcement to intercept of all forms of communications. The Bill will bring communications from IoT devices, email services, and electronic messaging platforms into scope, &quot;whether encrypted or not.&quot;&lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        In a similar way to how certain other governments want to compel encrypted messaging services to unscramble packets of interest, Ireland&#39;s announcement also failed to explain exactly how it plans to do this. However, it promised to implement a robust legal framework, alongside all necessary privacy and security safeguards, if these proposals do ultimately become law. It also vowed to establish structures to ensure &quot;the maximum possible degree of technical cooperation between state agencies and communication service providers.&quot;/i&lt;/i&gt;&lt;br&gt;
        &lt;/div&gt;
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      <link>https://it.slashdot.org/story/26/01/21/1639200/ireland-wants-to-give-its-cops-spyware-ability-to-crack-encrypted-messages</link>
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      <pubDate>Wed, 21 Jan 2026 04:25:00 GMT</pubDate>
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      <title>Snap Settles Social media Addiction Lawsuit Ahead of Landmark Trial</title>
      <description>&lt;div id=&quot;text-180630878&quot; class=&quot;p&quot;&gt;
        Snap has &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c62ndl2ydzxo&quot;&gt;settled a social media addiction lawsuit&lt;/a&gt; just days before trial, while Meta, TikTok, and Alphabet remain defendants and are headed to court. &quot;Terms of the deal were not announced as it was revealed by lawyers at a California Superior Court hearing, after which Snap told the BBC the parties were &#39;pleased to have been able to resolve this matter in an amicable manner.&#39;&quot; From the report: &lt;i&gt; The plaintiff, a 19-year old woman identified by the initials K.G.M., alleged that the algorithmic design of the platforms left her addicted and affected her mental health. In the absence of a settlement with the other parties, the trial is scheduled to go forward against the remaining three defendants, with jury selection due to begin on January 27. Meta boss Mark Zuckerberg is expected to testify, and until Tuesday&#39;s settlement, Snap CEO Evan Spiegel was also set to take the stand.
        &lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        Snap is still a defendant in other social media addiction cases that have been consolidated in the court. The closely watched cases could challenge a legal theory that social media companies have used to shield themselves. They have long argued that Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996 protects them from liability for what third parties post on their platforms. But plaintiffs argue that the platforms are designed in a way that leaves users addicted through choices that affect their algorithms and notifications. The social media companies have said the plaintiffs&#39; evidence falls short of proving that they are responsible for alleged harms such as depression and eating disorders.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;br&gt;
        &lt;/div&gt;
      </description>
      <link>https://yro.slashdot.org/story/26/01/21/0449250/snap-settles-social-media-addiction-lawsuit-ahead-of-landmark-trial</link>
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      <pubDate>Tue, 20 Jan 2026 21:00:00 GMT</pubDate>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>HHS Announces New Study of Cellphone Radiation and Health</title>
      <description>&lt;div id=&quot;text-180627536&quot; class=&quot;p&quot;&gt;
        An anonymous reader quotes a report from U.S. News &amp;amp; World Report: &lt;i&gt;U.S. health officials plan a new study &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.usnews.com/news/health-news/articles/2026-01-20/hhs-announces-new-study-of-cellphone-radiation-and-health&quot;&gt;investigating whether radiation from cellphones may affect human health&lt;/a&gt;. A spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) said the research will examine electromagnetic radiation and possible gaps in current science. The initiative stems from numerous concerns raised by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has linked cellphone use to neurological damage and cancer.
        &lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        &quot;The [U.S. Food and Drug Administration] removed webpages with old conclusions about cell phone radiation while HHS undertakes a study on electromagnetic radiation and health research to identify gaps in knowledge, including on new technologies, to ensure safety and efficacy,&quot; HHS spokesman Andrew Nixon said. He added that the study was directed in a strategy report from the president&#39;s Make America Healthy Again Commission.
        &lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        Some webpages from the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fda.gov/radiation-emitting-products/home-business-and-entertainment-products/cell-phones&quot;&gt;FDA&lt;/a&gt; and the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.cdc.gov/radiation-health/data-research/facts-stats/cell-phones.html&quot;&gt;U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention&lt;/a&gt; say current research does not show clear harm from cellphone radiation. The National Cancer Institute, which is part of the National Institutes of Health, &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/causes-prevention/risk/radiation/cell-phones-fact-sheet&quot;&gt;says&lt;/a&gt; that &quot;evidence to date suggests that cellphone use does not cause brain or other kinds of cancer in humans.&quot;&lt;/i&gt;.&lt;br&gt;
        &lt;/div&gt;
      </description>
      <link>https://mobile.slashdot.org/story/26/01/20/2215254/hhs-announces-new-study-of-cellphone-radiation-and-health</link>
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      <pubDate>Tue, 20 Jan 2026 11:02:00 GMT</pubDate>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Bank of England &#39;Must Plan For a Financial Crisis Triggered By Aliens&#39;</title>
      <description>&lt;div id=&quot;text-180617364&quot; class=&quot;p&quot;&gt;
        A former Bank of England analyst has &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/bank-of-england-must-plan-for-a-financial-crisis-triggered-by-aliens/ar-AA1Us7B7&quot;&gt;urged contingency planning for a potential financial shock&lt;/a&gt; if the U.S. government were to confirm the existence of extraterrestrial intelligence. The argument is that &quot;ontological shock&quot; alone could destabilize confidence and trigger crisis dynamics. The Independent reports: &lt;i&gt; [Helen McCaw, who served as a senior analyst in financial security at the UK&#39;s central bank and worked for the Bank of England for 10 years until 2012] said politicians and bankers can no longer afford to dismiss talk of alien life, and warned a declaration of this nature could trigger bank collapses. She reportedly said: &quot;The United States government appears to be partway through a multi-year process to declassify and disclose information on the existence of a technologically advanced non-human intelligence responsible for Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAPs).&quot;
        &lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        &quot;If the UAP proves to be of non-human origin, we may have to acknowledge the existence of a power or intelligence greater than any government and with potentially unknown intentions.&quot; Her warning comes as senior American officials have recently indicated their belief in the possibility of alien life. [...] Ms McCaw said: &quot;UAP disclosure is likely to induce ontological shock and provoke psychological responses with material consequences ... There might be extreme price volatility in financial markets due to catastrophising or euphoria, and a collapse in confidence if market participants feel uncertain on how to price assets using any of the familiar methods.&quot;
        &lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        The former Bank of England worker explained there might be a rush towards assets such as gold or other precious metals, and government bonds, which are perceived as &quot;safe.&quot; Alternatively, she said precious metals might lose their status as perceived safe assets if people speculate that new space-faring technologies will soon increase the supply of precious metals. &lt;/i&gt; The article cites a recent UFO documentary, &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Age_of_Disclosure&quot;&gt;The Age of Disclosure&lt;/a&gt;, where 34 U.S. government insiders, including those from the military and intelligence community officials, share insights about the governments work with UAP. Per the film&#39;s description, the documentary &quot;reveals an 80-year global cover-up of non-human intelligent life and a secret war among major nations to reverse-engineer advanced technology of non-human origin.&quot;&lt;br&gt;
        &lt;/div&gt;
      </description>
      <link>https://entertainment.slashdot.org/story/26/01/20/0045220/bank-of-england-must-plan-for-a-financial-crisis-triggered-by-aliens</link>
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      <pubDate>Mon, 19 Jan 2026 18:00:00 GMT</pubDate>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Nvidia Contacted Anna&#39;s Archive To Secure Access To Millions of Pirated Books</title>
      <description>&lt;div id=&quot;text-180616952&quot; class=&quot;p&quot;&gt;
        An anonymous reader quotes a report from TorrentFreak: &lt;i&gt;NVIDIA executives allegedly authorized the use of millions of pirated books from Anna&#39;s Archive to fuel its AI training. In an &lt;a href=&quot;https://yro.slashdot.org/story/24/05/28/2157242/nvidia-denies-pirate-e-book-sites-are-shadow-libraries-to-shut-down-lawsuit&quot;&gt;expanded class-action lawsuit&lt;/a&gt; that cites internal NVIDIA documents, several book authors &lt;a href=&quot;https://torrentfreak.com/images/naznvid-amend.pdf&quot;&gt;claim&lt;/a&gt; (PDF) that the trillion-dollar company directly reached out to Anna&#39;s Archive, &lt;a href=&quot;https://torrentfreak.com/nvidia-contacted-annas-archive-to-secure-access-to-millions-of-pirated-books/&quot;&gt;seeking high-speed access to the shadow library data&lt;/a&gt;. [...] Last Friday, the authors filed an amended complaint that significantly expands the scope of the lawsuit. In addition to adding more books, authors, and AI models, it also includes broader &quot;shadow library&quot; claims and allegations. The authors, including Abdi Nazemian, now cite various internal Nvidia emails and documents, suggesting that the company willingly downloaded millions of copyrighted books. The new complaint alleges that &quot;competitive pressures drove NVIDIA to piracy,&quot; which allegedly included collaborating with the controversial Anna&#39;s Archive library.
        &lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        According to the amended complaint, a member of Nvidia&#39;s data strategy team reached out to Anna&#39;s Archive to find out what the pirate library could offer the trillion-dollar company &quot;Desperate for books, NVIDIA contacted Anna&#39;s Archive -- the largest and most brazen of the remaining shadow libraries -- about acquiring its millions of pirated materials and &#39;including Anna&#39;s Archive in pre-training data for our LLMs,&#39;&quot; the complaint notes. &quot;Because Anna&#39;s Archive charged tens of thousands of dollars for &#39;high-speed access&#39; to its pirated collections [] NVIDIA sought to find out what &quot;high-speed access&quot; to the data would look like.&quot;
        &lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        According to the complaint, Anna&#39;s Archive then warned Nvidia that its library was illegally acquired and maintained. Because the site previously wasted time on other AI companies, the pirate library asked NVIDIA executives if they had internal permission to move forward. This permission was allegedly granted within a week, after which Anna&#39;s Archive provided the chip giant with access to its pirated books. &quot;Within a week of contacting Anna&#39;s Archive, and days after being warned by Anna&#39;s Archive of the illegal nature of their collections, NVIDIA management gave &#39;the green light&#39; to proceed with the piracy. Anna&#39;s Archive offered NVIDIA millions of pirated copyrighted books.&quot; The complaint states that Anna&#39;s Archive promised to provide NVIDIA with access to roughly 500 terabytes of data. This included millions of books that are usually only accessible through Internet Archive&#39;s digital lending system, which itself has been targeted in court. The complaint does not explicitly mention whether NVIDIA ended up paying Anna&#39;s Archive for access to the data.
        &lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        Additionally, it&#39;s worth mentioning that NVIDIA also stands accused of using other pirated sources. In addition to the previously included Books3 database, the new complaint also alleges that the company downloaded books from LibGen, Sci-Hub, and Z-Library. In addition to downloading and using pirated books for its own AI training, the authors allege NVIDIA distributed scripts and tools that allowed its corporate customers to automatically download &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pile_(dataset)&quot;&gt;The Pile&lt;/a&gt;&quot;, which contains the Books3 pirated dataset.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;br&gt;
        &lt;/div&gt;
      </description>
      <link>https://yro.slashdot.org/story/26/01/19/2257241/nvidia-contacted-annas-archive-to-secure-access-to-millions-of-pirated-books</link>
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      <pubDate>Mon, 19 Jan 2026 11:30:00 GMT</pubDate>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Congress Wants To Hand Your Parenting To Big Tech</title>
      <description>&lt;div id=&quot;text-180616670&quot; class=&quot;p&quot;&gt;
        An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF): &lt;i&gt;Lawmakers in Washington are once again focusing on kids, screens, and mental health. But according to Congress, Big Tech is somehow &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2026/01/congress-wants-hand-your-parenting-big-tech&quot;&gt;both the problem and the solution&lt;/a&gt;. The Senate Commerce Committee held a &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.commerce.senate.gov/2026/1/chairman-cruz-announces-kids-screen-time-hearing_2&quot;&gt;hearing&lt;/a&gt; [Friday] on &quot;examining the effect of technology on America&#39;s youth.&quot; Witnesses warned about &quot;addictive&quot; online content, mental health, and kids spending too much time buried in screen. At the center of the debate is a bill from Sens. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Brian Schatz (D-HI) called the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/senate-bill/278&quot;&gt;Kids Off Social Media Act&lt;/a&gt; (KOSMA), which they say will protect children and &quot;empower parents.&quot;
        &lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        That&#39;s a reasonable goal, especially at a time when many parents feel overwhelmed and nervous about how much time their kids spend on screens. But while the bill&#39;s press release contains soothing language, KOSMA doesn&#39;t actually give parents more control. Instead of respecting how most parents guide their kids towards healthy and educational content, KOSMA hands the control panel to Big Tech. That&#39;s right -- this bill would take power away from parents, and hand it over to the companies that lawmakers say are the problem. [...] This bill doesn&#39;t just set an age rule. It creates a legal duty for platforms to police families. Section 103(b) of &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/senate-bill/278/text#toc-id6c00eb1f556f47aabc8e4f75f2f3e2c8&quot;&gt;the bill&lt;/a&gt; is blunt: if a platform knows a user is under 13, it &quot;shall terminate any existing account or profile&quot; belonging to that user. And &quot;knows&quot; doesn&#39;t just mean someone admits their age. The bill defines knowledge to include what is &quot;fairly implied on the basis of objective circumstances&quot; -- in other words, what a reasonable person would conclude from how the account is being used. The reality of how services would comply with KOSMA is clear: rather than risk liability for how they should have known a user was under 13, they will require all users to prove their age to ensure that they block anyone under 13.
        &lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        KOSMA contains no exceptions for parental consent, for family accounts, or for educational or supervised use. The vast majority of people policed by this bill won&#39;t be kids sneaking around -- it will be minors who are following their parents&#39; guidance, and the parents themselves. Imagine a child using their parent&#39;s YouTube account to watch science videos about how a volcano works. If they were to leave a comment saying, &quot;Cool video -- I&#39;ll show this to my 6th grade teacher!&quot; and YouTube becomes aware of the comment, the platform now has clear signals that a child is using that account. It doesn&#39;t matter whether the parent gave permission. Under KOSMA, the company is legally required to act. To avoid violating KOSMA, it would likely lock, suspend, or terminate the account, or demand proof it belongs to an adult. That proof would likely mean asking for a scan of a government ID, biometric data, or some other form of intrusive verification, all to keep what is essentially a &quot;family&quot; account from being shut down.
        &lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        Violations of KOSMA are enforced by the FTC and state attorneys general. That&#39;s more than enough legal risk to make platforms err on the side of cutting people off. Platforms have no way to remove &quot;just the kid&quot; from a shared account. Their tools are blunt: freeze it, verify it, or delete it. Which means that even when a parent has explicitly approved and supervised their child&#39;s use, KOSMA forces Big Tech to override that family decision. [...] These companies don&#39;t know your family or your rules. They only know what their algorithms infer. Under KOSMA, those inferences carry the force of law. Rather than parents or teachers, decisions about who can be online, and for what purpose, will be made by corporate compliance teams and automated detection systems.&lt;/i&gt;
        &lt;/div&gt;
      </description>
      <link>https://yro.slashdot.org/story/26/01/19/2221237/congress-wants-to-hand-your-parenting-to-big-tech</link>
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      <pubDate>Mon, 19 Jan 2026 09:22:00 GMT</pubDate>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>WhatsApp Texts Are Not Contracts, Judge Rules in $2M Divorce Row</title>
      <description>&lt;div id=&quot;text-180615940&quot; class=&quot;p&quot;&gt;
        A British painter who argued that her ex-husband had signed over their $2 million north London home through WhatsApp messages has lost her High Court appeal after the judge ruled that the sender&#39;s name appearing in a chat header &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.thetimes.com/article/418cd0ad-6215-470e-944e-87a434f1684e&quot;&gt;does not constitute a legal signature&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        Hsiao-mei Lin, 54, presented messages from her former husband Audun Mar Gudmundsson, a financier, in which he stated he would transfer his share of their Tufnell Park property to her. Lin&#39;s lawyers argued that because Gudmundsson&#39;s name appeared in the message header on her phone, the messages should be considered signed.&lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        Mr Justice Cawson disagreed, finding that the header identifying a sender is analogous to an email address added by a service provider -- a mechanism for identification rather than part of the message itself. The judge also found the content of the messages did not actually amount to Gudmundsson relinquishing his share.&lt;br&gt;
        &lt;/div&gt;
      </description>
      <link>https://yro.slashdot.org/story/26/01/19/1919236/whatsapp-texts-are-not-contracts-judge-rules-in-2m-divorce-row</link>
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      <pubDate>Mon, 19 Jan 2026 06:25:00 GMT</pubDate>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>More US States are Putting Bitcoin on Public Balance Sheets</title>
      <description>&lt;div id=&quot;text-180613178&quot; class=&quot;p&quot;&gt;
        An anonymous reader shared &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.cnbc.com/2026/01/17/texas-us-states-budgets-bitcoin-crypto-strategic-reserve.html&quot;&gt;this report from CNBC&lt;/a&gt;:
        &lt;i&gt;
        Led by Texas and New Hampshire, U.S. states across the national map, both red and blue in political stripes, are developing bitcoin strategic reserves and bringing cryptocurrencies onto their books through additional state finance and budgeting measures. Texas recently became the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.texastribune.org/2025/12/08/texas-crypto-currency-investment/&quot;&gt;first state to purchase bitcoin&lt;/a&gt; after a legislative effort that began in 2024, but numerous states have joined the &lt;a href=&quot;https://bitcoinlaws.io/reserve-race&quot;&gt;&quot;Reserve Race&quot;&lt;/a&gt; to pass legislation that will allow them to ultimately buy cryptocurrencies. &lt;a href=&quot;https://bitcoinlaws.io/nh/HB302&quot;&gt;New
        Hampshire&lt;/a&gt; passed its crypto strategic reserve law last May, even before Texas, giving the state treasurer the authority to invest up to 5% of the state funds in crypto ETFs, though precious metals such as gold are also authorized for purchase. &lt;a href=&quot;https://bitcoinlaws.io/az/HB2749&quot;&gt;Arizona&lt;/a&gt;
        passed similar legislation, while &lt;a href=&quot;https://bitcoinlaws.io/ma/S1967&quot;&gt;Massachusetts&lt;/a&gt;,
        &lt;a href=&quot;https://bitcoinlaws.io/oh/HB18&quot;&gt;Ohio&lt;/a&gt;,
        and &lt;a href=&quot;https://bitcoinlaws.io/sd/HB1202&quot;&gt;South
        Dakota&lt;/a&gt; have legislation at various stages of committee review...&lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        Similarities in the actions taken across states to date include
        include authorizing the state treasurer or other investment official
        to allow the investment of a limited amount of public funds in crypto
        and building out the governance structure needed to invest in
        crypto... [New Hampshire] became the first state to approve the
        issuance of &lt;a href=&quot;https://nhbfa.com/news/nh-bfa-approves-worlds-first-bitcoin-backed-municipal-bond/&quot;&gt;a bitcoin-backed municipal bond&lt;/a&gt; last November, a $100 million issuance that would mark the first time cryptocurrency is used as collateral in the U.S. municipal bond market. The deal has not taken place yet, though plans are for the issuance to occur this year... &quot;What&#39;s different here is it&#39;s bitcoin rather than taxpayer dollars as the collateral,&quot; [said University of Chicago public policy professor Justin Marlowe]. In numerous states, including, &lt;a href=&quot;https://tax.colorado.gov/cryptocurrency&quot;&gt;Colorada&lt;/a&gt;,
        &lt;a href=&quot;https://tax.utah.gov/billing/payment-fees/&quot;&gt;Utah&lt;/a&gt;, and &lt;a href=&quot;https://d304f3ae-0382-4da9-9c19-eae51ef96fa3.filesusr.com/ugd/92c97e_ee5334e5115b4bada9445f8c345665ed.pdf&quot;&gt;Louisiana&lt;/a&gt;,crypto is now accepted as payment for taxes and other state
        business... &lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        &quot;For many in the state/local investing industry, crypto-backed assets are still far too speculative and volatile for public money,&quot; Marlowe said. &quot;But others, and I think there&#39;s a sort of generational shift in the works, see it as a reasonable store of value that is actually stronger on many other public sector values like transparency and asset integrity,&quot; he added.
        &lt;/i&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        Public policy professor Marlowe &quot;sees the state-level trend as largely one of signaling at present,&quot; according to the article. (Marlowe says &quot;If you&#39;re a governor and you want to broadcast that you are amenable to innovative business development in the digital economy, these are relatively low-cost, low-risk ways to send that signal.&quot;) But the bigger steps may reflect how crypto advocates have increasing political power in the states. The article notes that the cryptocurrency industry was &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.cnbc.com/2024/11/05/cryptos-245-million-campaign-finance-operation-funded-non-crypto-ads.html&quot;&gt;the largest corporate donor in a U.S. election cycle&lt;/a&gt; in 2024, &quot;with support given to candidates on both sides.&quot;&lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        &quot;It is already &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.cnbc.com/2025/01/30/crypto-pac-fairshake-has-116-million-on-hand-for-2026-elections.html&quot;&gt;amassing a war chest for the 2026 midterms&lt;/a&gt;.&quot;&lt;br&gt;
        &lt;/div&gt;
      </description>
      <link>https://yro.slashdot.org/story/26/01/19/076259/more-us-states-are-putting-bitcoin-on-public-balance-sheets</link>
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      <pubDate>Sun, 18 Jan 2026 20:02:00 GMT</pubDate>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Acer Sues Verizon, AT&amp;T, and T-Mobile, Alleging Infringment on Acer&#39;s Cellular Networking Patents</title>
      <description>&lt;div id=&quot;text-180608102&quot; class=&quot;p&quot;&gt;
        Slashdot reader &lt;a href=&quot;https://yro.slashdot.org/~BrianFagioli&quot;&gt;BrianFagioli&lt;/a&gt; writes: &lt;i&gt;Acer &lt;a href=&quot;https://nerds.xyz/2026/01/acer-sues-att-verizon-tmobile-over-patents/&quot;&gt;has filed three separate patent infringement lawsuits against AT&amp;amp;T, Verizon, and T-Mobile&lt;/a&gt;, taking the unusual step of hauling the nation&#39;s largest wireless carriers into federal court. The suits, filed in the Eastern District of Texas, claim the companies are using Acer-developed cellular networking technology without paying for the privilege. Acer says it tried to negotiate licenses for years but reached a dead end, arguing it was left with no option except litigation. The case centers on six U.S. patents Acer asserts are core to modern wireless networks, rather than anything tied to PCs or laptops.&lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt;The company describes itself as reluctant to pursue courtroom battles, but it has been quietly building a large global patent portfolio after pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into R&amp;amp;D. Acer also notes that some of its patents count as standard-essential, hinting the carriers may be required to license them. All three companies are expected to push back, and the dispute could become another long-running telecom patent saga. Consumers will not notice any immediate changes, but if Acer wins or settles, it may find a new revenue stream far beyond its traditional hardware business.&lt;/i&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        &lt;a href=&quot;https://hothardware.com/news/acer-slaps-att-t-mobile-verizon-lawsuit-wireless-patents&quot;&gt;Further coverage from &lt;em&gt;Hot Hardware&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;
        &lt;/div&gt;
      </description>
      <link>https://yro.slashdot.org/story/26/01/18/006222/acer-sues-verizon-att-and-t-mobile-alleging-infringment-on-acers-cellular-networking-patents</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://yro.slashdot.org/story/26/01/18/006222/acer-sues-verizon-att-and-t-mobile-alleging-infringment-on-acers-cellular-networking-patents</guid>
      <pubDate>Sun, 18 Jan 2026 03:34:00 GMT</pubDate>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Two More Offshore Wind Projects in the US Allowed to Continue Construction</title>
      <description>&lt;div id=&quot;text-180604196&quot; class=&quot;p&quot;&gt;
        Friday a federal judge &quot;cleared U.S. power company Dominion Energy to &lt;a&gt;resume work&lt;/a&gt; on its Virginia offshore wind project.&quot; But a U.S. federal judge also ruled Thursday that another major offshore wind farm is allowed to resume construction, &lt;a href=&quot;https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/5691088-wind-farm-trump-new-york/&quot;&gt;reports the Hill&lt;/a&gt;. &quot;The project, which would supply power to New York, was one of five that were &lt;a href=&quot;https://news.slashdot.org/story/25/12/22/2133214/us-blocks-all-offshore-wind-construction-says-reason-is-classified&quot;&gt;halted by the Trump administration in December&lt;/a&gt;....&quot; &lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        In fact, there were &lt;em&gt;three&lt;/em&gt; different court rulings this week each allowing construction to continue on a U.S. wind project:
        &lt;i&gt;Judge Carl Nichols, a Trump appointee, granted a preliminary injunction allowing Empire Wind to keep building... Another, Revolution Wind, was also &lt;a href=&quot;https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/5685507-revolution-wind-trump-rhode-island-connecticut/&quot;&gt;allowed to move forward in court this week&lt;/a&gt;... The project would provide enough power for up to 500,000 homes, according to its website. The court&#39;s decision allows construction to resume while the underlying case against the Trump order plays out. &lt;/i&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        Meanwhile, power company Orsted &quot;is also suing over the pause of its Sunrise Wind project for New York,&quot; &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jan/15/wind-project-trump-judge&quot;&gt;reports the Associated Press&lt;/a&gt;, &quot;with a hearing still to be set.&quot;
        &lt;i&gt;
        The fifth paused project is Vineyard Wind, under construction in Massachusetts. Vineyard Wind LLC, a joint venture between Avangrid and Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners, joined the rest of the developers in challenging the administration on Thursday.&lt;/i&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        CNN &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.cnn.com/2026/01/14/climate/trump-electricity-generation-offshore-wind-east-coast&quot;&gt;points out&lt;/a&gt; that the Vineyard Wind project &quot;has been allowed to send power to the grid even amid Trump&#39;s suspension, a spokesperson for regional grid operator ISO-New England told CNN in an email.&quot;
        &lt;i&gt;
        Residential customers in the mid-Atlantic region, including Virginia, desperately need more energy to service the skyrocketing demand from data centers â&quot; and many are seeing spiking energy bills while they wait for new power to be brought online.
        &lt;/i&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.cnn.com/2026/01/14/climate/trump-electricity-generation-offshore-wind-east-coast&quot;&gt;CNN notes&lt;/a&gt; that president Trump said last week &quot;My goal is to not let any windmill be built; they&#39;re losers.&quot;&lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        The Associated Press &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jan/15/wind-project-trump-judge&quot;&gt;adds&lt;/a&gt; that &quot;In contrast to the halted action in the US, the global offshore wind market is growing, with China leading the world in new installations. Nearly all of the new electricity added to the grid in 2024 was renewable. The British government said on Wednesday it had secured a record 8.4 gigawatts of offshore wind in Europe&#39;s largest offshore wind auction, enough clean electricity to power more than 12m homes.&quot;&lt;br&gt;
        &lt;/div&gt;
      </description>
      <link>https://news.slashdot.org/story/26/01/17/0444252/two-more-offshore-wind-projects-in-the-us-allowed-to-continue-construction</link>
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      <pubDate>Sat, 17 Jan 2026 07:41:00 GMT</pubDate>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>What Happened After Security Researchers Found 60 Flock Cameras Livestreaming to the Internet</title>
      <description>&lt;div id=&quot;text-180604682&quot; class=&quot;p&quot;&gt;
        A couple months ago, YouTuber Benn Jordan &quot;found vulnerabilities in some of Flock&#39;s license plate reader cameras,&quot; &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.404media.co/how-benn-jordan-discovered-flocks-cameras-were-left-streaming-to-the-internet/&quot;&gt;reports 404 Media&#39;s Jason Koebler&lt;/a&gt;. &quot;He reached out to me to tell me he had learned that some of Flock&#39;s Condor cameras were left live-streaming to the open internet.&quot;&lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        This led to a remarkable article where Koebler &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.404media.co/flock-exposed-its-ai-powered-cameras-to-the-internet-we-tracked-ourselves/&quot;&gt;confirmed the breach by visiting a Flock surveillance camera&lt;/a&gt; mounted on a California traffic signal. (&quot;On my phone, I am watching myself in real time as the camera records and livestreams me — without any password or login — to the open internet... Hundreds of miles away, my colleagues are remotely watching me too through the exposed feed.&quot;)
        &lt;i&gt;Flock left livestreams and administrator control panels for at least 60 of its AI-enabled Condor cameras around the country exposed to the open internet, where anyone could watch them, download 30 days worth of video archive, and change settings, see log files, and run diagnostics. Unlike many of Flock&#39;s cameras, which are designed to capture license plates as people drive by, Flock&#39;s Condor cameras are pan-tilt-zoom (PTZ) cameras designed to record and track people, not vehicles. Condor cameras can be set to automatically zoom in on people&#39;s faces... The exposure was initially discovered by YouTuber and technologist Benn Jordan and was shared with security researcher Jon &quot;GainSec&quot; Gaines, who &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uB0gr7Fh6lY&quot;&gt;recently found numerous vulnerabilities&lt;/a&gt; in several other models of Flock&#39;s automated license plate reader (ALPR) cameras.&lt;/i&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        Jordan appeared this week as a guest &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tSd0nXolnIs&quot;&gt;on Koebler&#39;s own YouTube channel&lt;/a&gt;, while Jordan released a video of his own about the experience. titled &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uB0gr7Fh6lY&quot;&gt;We Hacked Flock Safety Cameras in under 30 Seconds&lt;/a&gt;.&quot; (Thanks to Slashdot reader &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.slashdot.org/~beadon&quot;&gt;beadon&lt;/a&gt; for sharing the link.) But together Jordan and 404 Media also created another video three weeks ago titled &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vU1-uiUlHTo&quot;&gt;The Flock Camera Leak is Like Netflix for Stalkers&lt;/a&gt;&quot; which includes footage he says was &quot;completely accessible at the time Flock Safety was telling cities that the devices are secure after they&#39;re deployed.&quot; &lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        The video decries cities &quot;too lazy to conduct their own security audit or research the efficacy versus risk,&quot; but also calls weak security &quot;an industry-wide problem.&quot; Jordan explains in the video how he &quot;very easily found the administration interfaces for dozens of Flock safety cameras...&quot; — but also what happened next:
        &lt;i&gt;
        None of the data or video footage was encrypted. There was no username or password required. These were all completely public-facing, for the world to see.... Making any modification to the cameras is illegal, so I didn&#39;t do this. But I had the ability to delete any of the video footage or evidence by simply pressing a button. I could see the paths where all of the evidence files were located on the file system...&lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        During and after the process of
        conducting that research and making that
        video, I was visited by the police and
        had what I believed to be private
        investigators outside my home
        photographing me and my property and
        bothering my neighbors. John Gaines or
        &lt;a href=&quot;https://gainsec.com/whoami/&quot;&gt;GainSec&lt;/a&gt;, the brains behind most of this
        research, lost employment within 48
        hours of the video being released. And
        the sad reality is that I don&#39;t view
        these things as consequences or
        punishment for researching security
        vulnerabilities. I view these as
        consequences and punishment for doing it
        ethically and transparently.&lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        I&#39;ve been
        contacted by people on or communicating
        with civic councils who found my videos
        concerning, and they shared Flock
        Safety&#39;s response with me. The company
        claimed that the devices in my video did
        not reflect the security standards of
        the ones being publicly deployed. The
        CEO even posted on LinkedIn and boasted
        about Flock Safety&#39;s security policies.
        So, I formally and publicly offered to
        personally fund security research into
        Flock Safety&#39;s deployed ecosystem. But
        the law prevents me from touching their
        live devices. So, all I needed was their
        permission so I wouldn&#39;t get arrested.
        And I was even willing to let them
        supervise this research. &lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        I got no
        response.
        &lt;/i&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        So instead, he read Flock&#39;s official response to a security/surveillance industry research group — while standing in front of one of their security cameras, streaming his reading to the public internet. &lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        &quot;Might as well. It&#39;s my tax dollars that paid for it.&quot;&lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        &quot; &#39;Flock is committed to continuously improving security...&#39;&quot;&lt;br&gt;
        &lt;/div&gt;
      </description>
      <link>https://yro.slashdot.org/story/26/01/17/0718211/what-happened-after-security-researchers-found-60-flock-cameras-livestreaming-to-the-internet</link>
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      <pubDate>Sat, 17 Jan 2026 04:34:00 GMT</pubDate>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Supreme Court May Block Thousands of Lawsuits Over Monsanto&#39;s Weed Killer</title>
      <description>&lt;div id=&quot;text-180604130&quot; class=&quot;p&quot;&gt;
        The U.S. Supreme Court will hear Monsanto&#39;s argument that federal pesticide law &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2026-01-16/supreme-court-may-block-thousands-of-lawsuits-over-monsantos-weed-killer&quot;&gt;should shield it and parent company Bayer from tens of thousands of state lawsuits over Roundup&lt;/a&gt; since the Environmental Protection Agency has not required a cancer warning label. The case could determine whether federal rules preempt state failure-to-warn claims without deciding whether glyphosate causes cancer. The Los Angeles Times reports: &lt;i&gt; Some studies have &lt;a href=&quot;https://science.slashdot.org/story/19/03/20/1938211/jury-finds-bayers-roundup-weedkiller-caused-mans-cancer&quot;&gt;found&lt;/a&gt; it is a &lt;a href=&quot;https://science.slashdot.org/story/18/08/11/0141247/monsanto-ordered-to-pay-289-million-in-roundup-cancer-trial&quot;&gt;likely carcinogen&lt;/a&gt;, and others concluded it does not pose a true cancer risk for humans. However, the court may free Monsanto and Bayer, its parent company, from legal claims from more than 100,000 plaintiffs who sued over their cancer diagnosis. The legal dispute involves whether the federal regulatory laws shield the company from being sued under state law for failing to warn consumers.
        &lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        [...] &quot;EPA has repeatedly determined that glyphosate, the world&#39;s most widely used herbicide, does not cause cancer. EPA has consistently reached that conclusion after studying the extensive body of science on glyphosate for over five decades,&quot; the company told the court in its appeal. They said the EPA not only refused to add a cancer warning label to products with Roundup, but said it would be &quot;misbranded&quot; with such a warning.
        &lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        Nonetheless, the &quot;premise of this lawsuit, and the thousands like it, is that Missouri law requires Monsanto to include the precise warning that EPA rejects,&quot; they said. On Friday, the court said in a brief order that it would decide &quot;whether the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act preempts a label-based failure-to-warn claim where EPA has not required the warning.&quot; The court is likely to hear arguments in the case of Monsanto vs. Durnell in April and issue a ruling by late June. &lt;/i&gt;&lt;br&gt;
        &lt;/div&gt;
      </description>
      <link>https://yro.slashdot.org/story/26/01/17/0428238/supreme-court-may-block-thousands-of-lawsuits-over-monsantos-weed-killer</link>
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      <pubDate>Fri, 16 Jan 2026 21:00:00 GMT</pubDate>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Biggest Offshore Wind Project In US To Resume Construction</title>
      <description>&lt;div id=&quot;text-180604100&quot; class=&quot;p&quot;&gt;
        A federal judge has &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.cnbc.com/2026/01/16/biggest-offshore-wind-project-in-us-to-resume-construction-after-judge-lifts-trump-suspension.html&quot;&gt;temporarily lifted the Trump administration&#39;s suspension of the Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind&lt;/a&gt;, allowing construction on the largest offshore wind project in the U.S. to resume. CNBC reports: &lt;i&gt; Judge Jamar Walker of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia granted Dominion&#39;s request for a preliminary injunction Friday. Dominion called the Trump suspension &quot;arbitrary and illegal&quot; in its lawsuit. &quot;Our team will now focus on safely restarting work to ensure CVOW begins delivery of critical energy in just weeks,&quot; a Dominion spokesperson told CNBC in a statement Friday. &quot;While our legal challenge proceeds, we will continue seeking a durable resolution of this matter through cooperation with the federal government,&quot; the spokesperson said.
        &lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        Dominion said in December that &quot;stopping CVOW for any length of time will threaten grid reliability for some of the nation&#39;s most important war fighting, AI and civilian assets.&quot; Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind is a 176-turbine project that would provide enough power for more than 600,000 homes, according to Dominion. It is scheduled to start dispatching power by the end of the first quarter of 2026. &lt;/i&gt; In December, the Trump administration &lt;a href=&quot;https://news.slashdot.org/story/25/12/22/2133214/us-blocks-all-offshore-wind-construction-says-reason-is-classified&quot;&gt;paused the leases&lt;/a&gt; on all five offshore wind sites currently under construction in the U.S., blaming the decisions on a classified report from the Department of Defense.&lt;br&gt;
        &lt;/div&gt;
      </description>
      <link>https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/26/01/17/0417254/biggest-offshore-wind-project-in-us-to-resume-construction</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/26/01/17/0417254/biggest-offshore-wind-project-in-us-to-resume-construction</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 16 Jan 2026 18:00:00 GMT</pubDate>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Judge Orders Anna&#39;s Archive To Delete Scraped Data</title>
      <description>&lt;div id=&quot;text-180602800&quot; class=&quot;p&quot;&gt;
        Anna&#39;s Archive has been hit with a U.S. federal court default judgment and permanent injunction over its &lt;a href=&quot;https://torrentfreak.com/annas-archive-scraped-worldcat-to-help-preserve-all-books-in-the-world-231003/&quot;&gt;scraping and distribution&lt;/a&gt; of OCLC&#39;s WorldCat data, which occurred more than two years ago. According to the ruling, the shadow library &lt;a href=&quot;https://torrentfreak.com/u-s-court-order-against-annas-archive-spells-more-trouble-for-the-site/&quot;&gt;must delete all copies of its WorldCat data&lt;/a&gt; and stop scraping, using, storing, or distributing the data. &quot;It is expected that OCLC will use the injunction to motivate third-party intermediaries to take action against Anna&#39;s Archive,&quot; reports TorrentFreak. From the report: &lt;i&gt; Yesterday, a federal court in Ohio issued a default judgment and permanent injunction against the site&#39;s unidentified operator(s). This order was requested by OCLC, which owns the proprietary WorldCat database that was scraped and published by Anna&#39;s Archive more than two years ago. OCLC initially demanded millions of dollars in damages but eventually dropped this request, focusing on taking the site down through an injunction that would also apply to intermediaries. &quot;Anna&#39;s Archive&#39;s flagrantly illegal actions have damaged and continue to irreparably damage OCLC. As such, issuance of a permanent injunction is necessary to stop any further harm to OCLC,&quot; the request read.
        &lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        This pivot makes sense since Anna&#39;s Archive did not respond to the lawsuit and would likely ignore all payment demands too. However, with the right type of court order, third-party services such as hosting companies and domain registrars might come along. The permanent injunction, issued by U.S. District Court Judge Michael Watson yesterday, does not mention any third-party services by name. However, it is directed at all parties that are &quot;in active concert and participation with&quot; Anna&#39;s Archive. Specifically, the site&#39;s operator and these third parties are prohibited from scraping WorldCat data, storing or distributing the data on Anna&#39;s Archive websites, and encouraging others to store, use or share this data. Additionally, the site has to delete all WorldCat data, which also includes all torrents.
        &lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        Judge Watson denied the default judgment for &#39;unjust enrichment&#39; and &#39;tortious interference.&#39; However, he granted the order based on the &#39;trespass to chattels&#39; and &#39;breach of contract&#39; claims. The latter is particularly noteworthy, as the judge ruled that because Anna&#39;s Archive is a &#39;sophisticated party&#39; that scraped the site daily, it had constructive notice of the terms and entered into a &#39;browsewrap&#39; agreement simply by using the service. While these nuances are important for legal experts, the result for Anna&#39;s Archive is that it lost. And while there are no monetary damages, the permanent injunction can certainly have an impact. &lt;/i&gt; &lt;b&gt;Further reading:&lt;/b&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;https://entertainment.slashdot.org/story/25/12/22/1128259/spotify-says-anti-copyright-extremists-scraped-its-library&quot;&gt;Spotify Says &#39;Anti-Copyright Extremists&#39; Scraped Its Library&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;
        &lt;/div&gt;
      </description>
      <link>https://yro.slashdot.org/story/26/01/16/2155232/judge-orders-annas-archive-to-delete-scraped-data</link>
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      <pubDate>Fri, 16 Jan 2026 13:02:00 GMT</pubDate>
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    <item>
      <title>Nova Launcher Gets a New Owner and Ads</title>
      <description>&lt;div id=&quot;text-180634582&quot; class=&quot;p&quot;&gt;
        Nova Launcher has been acquired by Instabridge, which says it will keep the app maintained but is &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.androidauthority.com/nova-launcher-acquisition-ads-update-3633871/&quot;&gt;evaluating ad-supported options for the free version&lt;/a&gt;. Android Authority reports: &lt;i&gt; Today, Nova Launcher &lt;a href=&quot;https://novalauncher.com/nova-is-here-to-stay&quot;&gt;announced&lt;/a&gt; that the Swedish company Instabridge has acquired it from Branch Metrics. Instabridge claims it wants to be a responsible owner of Nova and does not want to reinvent the launcher overnight. However, the launcher still needs a sustainable business model to support ongoing development and maintenance. To this end, Instabridge is exploring different options, including paid tiers and ad-supported options for the free version. The new owners claim that if ads are introduced, Nova Prime will remain ad-free. However, this is misleading, as ads are already here for some users. &lt;/i&gt; Last year, the founder and original programmer of Nova Launcher &lt;a href=&quot;https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/09/08/2050202/nova-launchers-founder-and-sole-developer-has-left&quot;&gt;left the company&lt;/a&gt;, signaling its &quot;death&quot; as he had been the sole developer working on the launcher for the past year.&lt;br&gt;
        &lt;/div&gt;
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      <link>https://slashdot.org/story/26/01/21/2055248/nova-launcher-gets-a-new-owner-and-ads</link>
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      <pubDate>Wed, 21 Jan 2026 09:40:00 GMT</pubDate>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>HAM Radio Operators In Belarus Arrested, Face the Death Penalty</title>
      <description>&lt;div id=&quot;text-180634440&quot; class=&quot;p&quot;&gt;
        An anonymous reader quotes a report from 404 Media: &lt;i&gt;The Belarusian government is &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.404media.co/ham-radio-operators-in-belarus-arrested-face-the-death-penalty/&quot;&gt;threatening three HAM radio operators with the death penalty&lt;/a&gt;, detained at least seven people, and has accused them of &quot;intercepting state secrets,&quot; according to &lt;a href=&quot;https://nashaniva.com/385810?ref=404media.co&quot;&gt;Belarusian state media&lt;/a&gt;, independent media outside of Belarus, and the Belarusian human rights organization Viasna. The arrests are an extreme attack on what is most often a wholesome hobby that has a history of being vilified by authoritarian governments in part because the technology is quite censorship resistant.
        &lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        The detentions were announced last week on Belarusian state TV, which claimed the men were part of a network of more than 50 people participating in the amateur radio hobby and have been accused of both &quot;espionage&quot; and &quot;treason.&quot; Authorities there said they seized more than 500 pieces of radio equipment. The men were accused on state TV of using radio to spy on the movement of government planes, though no actual evidence of this has been produced. State TV claimed they were associated with the Belarusian Federation of Radioamateurs and Radiosportsmen (BFRR), a long-running amateur radio club and nonprofit that holds amateur radio competitions, meetups, trainings, and forums.&lt;/i&gt; Siarhei Besarab, a Belarusian HAM radio operator, &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.reddit.com/r/amateurradio/comments/1qi1ic2/comment/o0phb13/?context=3&amp;amp;ref=404media.co&quot;&gt;posted a plea&lt;/a&gt; for support from others in the r/amateurradio subreddit. &quot;I am writing this because my local community is being systematically liquidated in what I can only describe as a targeted intellectual genocide,&quot; Besarab wrote. &quot;I beg you to amplify this signal and help us spread this information. Please show this to any journalist you know, send it to human rights organizations, and share it with your local radio associations.&quot;&lt;br&gt;
        &lt;/div&gt;
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      <link>https://tech.slashdot.org/story/26/01/21/2018229/ham-radio-operators-in-belarus-arrested-face-the-death-penalty</link>
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      <pubDate>Wed, 21 Jan 2026 09:02:00 GMT</pubDate>
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    <item>
      <title>Ozempic is Reshaping the Fast Food Industry</title>
      <description>&lt;div id=&quot;text-180634076&quot; class=&quot;p&quot;&gt;
        New research from Cornell University has tracked how households change their spending after someone starts taking GLP-1 medications like Ozempic and Wegovy, and the numbers are material enough to explain why food industry earnings calls &lt;a href=&quot;https://philippdubach.com/posts/ozempic-is-reshaping-the-fast-food-industry/&quot;&gt;keep blaming everything except the obvious culprit&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        The study analyzed transaction data from 150,000 households linked to survey responses on medication adoption. Households cut grocery spending by 5.3% within six months of a member starting GLP-1s; high-income households cut by 8.2%. Fast food spending fell 8.0%. Savory snacks took the biggest hit at 10.1%, followed by sweets and baked goods. Yogurt was the only category to see a statistically significant increase.&lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        As of July 2024, 16.3% of U.S. households had at least one GLP-1 user. Nearly half of adopters reported taking the medication specifically for weight loss rather than diabetes management. About 34% of users discontinue within the sample period, and when they stop, candy and chocolate purchases rise 11.4% above pre-adoption levels.&lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        &lt;b&gt;Further reading&lt;/b&gt;: &lt;a href=&quot;https://indiadispatch.com/p/weighing-the-cost-of-smaller-appetites&quot;&gt;Weighing the Cost of Smaller Appetites&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;br&gt;
        &lt;/div&gt;
      </description>
      <link>https://science.slashdot.org/story/26/01/21/191222/ozempic-is-reshaping-the-fast-food-industry</link>
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      <pubDate>Wed, 21 Jan 2026 08:22:00 GMT</pubDate>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Half of World&#39;s CO2 Emissions Come From Just 32 Fossil Fuel Firms, Study Shows</title>
      <description>&lt;div id=&quot;text-180634144&quot; class=&quot;p&quot;&gt;
        Just 32 fossil fuel companies were &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/jan/21/carbon-dioxide-co2-emissions-fossil-fuel-firms-study&quot;&gt;responsible for half the global carbon dioxide emissions&lt;/a&gt; driving the climate crisis in 2024, down from 36 a year earlier, a report has revealed. The Guardian:&lt;i&gt; Saudi Aramco was the biggest state-controlled polluter and ExxonMobil was the largest investor-owned polluter. Critics accused the leading fossil fuel companies of &quot;sabotaging climate action&quot; and &quot;being on the wrong side of history&quot; but said the emissions data was increasingly being used to hold the companies accountable.&lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        State-owned fossil fuel producers made up 17 of the top 20 emitters in the Carbon Majors report, which the authors said underscored the political barriers to tackling global heating. All 17 are controlled by countries that opposed a proposed fossil fuel phaseout at the Cop30 UN climate summit in December, including Saudi Arabia, Russia, China, Iran, the United Arab Emirates and India. More than 80 other nations had backed the phaseout plan.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;br&gt;
        &lt;/div&gt;
      </description>
      <link>https://news.slashdot.org/story/26/01/21/1913218/half-of-worlds-co2-emissions-come-from-just-32-fossil-fuel-firms-study-shows</link>
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      <pubDate>Wed, 21 Jan 2026 07:45:00 GMT</pubDate>
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    <item>
      <title>Adobe Acrobat Now Lets You Edit Files Using Prompts, Generate Podcast Summaries</title>
      <description>&lt;div id=&quot;text-180634120&quot; class=&quot;p&quot;&gt;
        Adobe has added a suite of AI-powered features to Acrobat that enable users to &lt;a href=&quot;https://techcrunch.com/2026/01/21/adobe-acrobat-now-lets-you-edit-files-using-prompts-generate-podcast-summaries/&quot;&gt;edit documents through natural language prompts&lt;/a&gt;, generate podcast-style audio summaries of their files, and create presentations by pulling content from multiple documents stored in a single workspace.&lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        The prompt-based editing supports 12 distinct actions: removing pages, text, comments, and images; finding and replacing words and phrases; and adding e-signatures and passwords. The presentation feature builds on Adobe Spaces, a collaborative file and notes collection the company launched last year. Users can point Acrobat&#39;s AI assistant at files in a Space and have it generate an editable pitch deck, then style it using Adobe Express themes and stock imagery.&lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        Shared files in Spaces now include AI-generated summaries that cite specific locations in the source document. Users can also choose from preset AI assistant personas -- &quot;analyst,&quot; &quot;entertainer,&quot; or &quot;instructor&quot; -- or create custom assistants using their own prompts.&lt;br&gt;
        &lt;/div&gt;
      </description>
      <link>https://slashdot.org/story/26/01/21/198252/adobe-acrobat-now-lets-you-edit-files-using-prompts-generate-podcast-summaries</link>
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      <pubDate>Wed, 21 Jan 2026 07:01:00 GMT</pubDate>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>The Gold Plating of American Water</title>
      <description>&lt;div id=&quot;text-180634170&quot; class=&quot;p&quot;&gt;
        The price of water and sewer services for American households has more than doubled since the early 1980s after adjusting for inflation, even though per-capita water use has actually decreased over that period. Households in large cities now spend about $1,300 a year on water and sewer charges, &lt;a href=&quot;https://worksinprogress.co/issue/the-gold-plating-of-american-water/&quot;&gt;approaching the roughly $1,600 they spend on electricity&lt;/a&gt;. The main driver is federal regulation.&lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        Since the Clean Water Act of 1972 and the Safe Drinking Water Act of 1974, the U.S. has spent approximately $5 trillion in contemporary dollars fighting water pollution -- about 0.8% of annual GDP across that period. The EPA itself admits that surface water regulations are the one category of environmental rules where estimated costs exceed estimated benefits.&lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        New York City was required to build a filtration plant to address two minor parasites in water from its Croton aqueduct. The project took a decade longer than expected and cost $3.2 billion, more than double the original estimate. After the plant opened in 2015, the city&#39;s Commissioner of Environmental Protection noted that the water would basically be &quot;the same&quot; to the public. Jefferson County, Alabama, meanwhile, descended into what was then the largest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history in 2011 after EPA-mandated sewer upgrades pushed its debt from $300 million to over $3 billion.&lt;br&gt;
        &lt;/div&gt;
      </description>
      <link>https://news.slashdot.org/story/26/01/21/1922232/the-gold-plating-of-american-water</link>
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      <pubDate>Wed, 21 Jan 2026 06:22:00 GMT</pubDate>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>AI Company Eightfold Sued For Helping Companies Secretly Score Job Seekers</title>
      <description>&lt;div id=&quot;text-180634016&quot; class=&quot;p&quot;&gt;
        Eightfold AI, a venture capital-backed AI hiring platform used by Microsoft, PayPal and many other Fortune 500 companies, is being sued in California for allegedly &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/boards-policy-regulation/ai-company-eightfold-sued-helping-companies-secretly-score-job-seekers-2026-01-21/&quot;&gt;compiling reports used to screen job applicants without their knowledge&lt;/a&gt;. From a report:&lt;i&gt; The lawsuit, filed on Tuesday accusing Eightfold of violating the Fair Credit Reporting Act shows how consumer advocates are seeking to apply existing law to AI systems capable of drawing inferences about individuals based on vast amounts of data.&lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        Santa Clara, California-based Eightfold provides tools that promise to speed up the hiring process by assessing job applicants and predicting whether they would be a good fit for a job using massive amounts of data from online resumes and job listings. But candidates who apply for jobs at companies that use those tools are not given notice and a chance to dispute errors, job applicants Erin Kistler and Sruti Bhaumik allege in their proposed class action. Because of that, they claim Eightfold violated the FCRA and a California law that gives consumers the right to view and challenge credit reports used in lending and hiring.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;br&gt;
        &lt;/div&gt;
      </description>
      <link>https://yro.slashdot.org/story/26/01/21/1841214/ai-company-eightfold-sued-for-helping-companies-secretly-score-job-seekers</link>
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      <pubDate>Wed, 21 Jan 2026 05:44:00 GMT</pubDate>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Ubisoft Cancels Six Games, Slashes Guidance in Restructuring</title>
      <description>&lt;div id=&quot;text-180633870&quot; class=&quot;p&quot;&gt;
        Ubisoft is &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/other/ubisoft-cancels-six-games-slashes-guidance-in-restructuring/ar-AA1UFMvS&quot;&gt;canceling game projects, shutting down studios&lt;/a&gt; and cutting its guidance as the Assassin&#39;s Creed maker restructures its business into five units. From a report:&lt;i&gt; The French gaming firm expects earnings before interest and tax to be a loss of $1.2 billion the fiscal year 2025-2026 as a result of the restructuring, driven by a one-off writedown of about $761 million, the company said in a statement on Wednesday.&lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        Ubisoft also expects net bookings of around $1.76 billion for the year, with a $386 million gross margin reduction compared to previous guidance, it said. Six games, including a remake of Prince of Persia The Sands of Time, have been discontinued and seven other unidentified games are delayed, the company said. The measures are part of a broader plan to streamline operations, including closing studios in Stockholm and Halifax, Canada. Ubisoft said it will have cut at least $117 million in fixed costs compared to the latest financial year by March, a year ahead of target, and has set a goal to slash an additional $234 million over the next two years.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;br&gt;
        &lt;/div&gt;
      </description>
      <link>https://games.slashdot.org/story/26/01/21/184240/ubisoft-cancels-six-games-slashes-guidance-in-restructuring</link>
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      <pubDate>Wed, 21 Jan 2026 05:04:00 GMT</pubDate>
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    <item>
      <title>Ireland Wants To Give Its Cops Spyware, Ability To Crack Encrypted Messages</title>
      <description>&lt;div id=&quot;text-180633396&quot; class=&quot;p&quot;&gt;
        The Irish government is planning to &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.theregister.com/2026/01/21/ireland_wants_to_give_police/&quot;&gt;bolster its police&#39;s ability to intercept communications&lt;/a&gt;, including encrypted messages, and provide a legal basis for spyware use. From a report:&lt;i&gt; The Communications (Interception and Lawful Access) Bill is being framed as a replacement for the current legislation that governs digital communication interception. The Department of Justice, Home Affairs, and Migration said in an announcement this week the existing Postal Packets and Telecommunications Messages (Regulation) Act 1993 &quot;predates the telecoms revolution of the last 20 years.&quot;&lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        As well as updating laws passed more than two decades ago, the government was keen to emphasize that a key ambition for the bill is to empower law enforcement to intercept of all forms of communications. The Bill will bring communications from IoT devices, email services, and electronic messaging platforms into scope, &quot;whether encrypted or not.&quot;&lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        In a similar way to how certain other governments want to compel encrypted messaging services to unscramble packets of interest, Ireland&#39;s announcement also failed to explain exactly how it plans to do this. However, it promised to implement a robust legal framework, alongside all necessary privacy and security safeguards, if these proposals do ultimately become law. It also vowed to establish structures to ensure &quot;the maximum possible degree of technical cooperation between state agencies and communication service providers.&quot;/i&lt;/i&gt;&lt;br&gt;
        &lt;/div&gt;
      </description>
      <link>https://it.slashdot.org/story/26/01/21/1639200/ireland-wants-to-give-its-cops-spyware-ability-to-crack-encrypted-messages</link>
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      <pubDate>Wed, 21 Jan 2026 04:25:00 GMT</pubDate>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Google Temporarily Disabled YouTube&#39;s Advanced Captions Without Warning</title>
      <description>&lt;div id=&quot;text-180633320&quot; class=&quot;p&quot;&gt;
        Google has temporarily &lt;a href=&quot;https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/01/google-temporarily-disabled-youtubes-advanced-captions-without-warning/&quot;&gt;disabled YouTube&#39;s advanced SRV3 caption format&lt;/a&gt; after discovering the feature was causing playback errors for some users, according to a statement the company posted. SRV3, also known as YouTube Timed Text, is a custom subtitle system Google introduced around 2018 that allows creators to use custom colors, transparency, animations, and precise text positioning. Creators cannot upload new SRV3 captions while the feature remains disabled, and existing videos that use the format may not display any captions until Google restores it. The company has provided no timeline for when SRV3 will return, and its forum post notes that changes should be temporary for &quot;almost&quot; all videos.&lt;br&gt;
        &lt;/div&gt;
      </description>
      <link>https://tech.slashdot.org/story/26/01/21/1622227/google-temporarily-disabled-youtubes-advanced-captions-without-warning</link>
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      <pubDate>Wed, 21 Jan 2026 03:45:00 GMT</pubDate>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Japan Restarts World&#39;s Largest Nuclear Plant as Fukushima Memories Loom Large</title>
      <description>&lt;div id=&quot;text-180633110&quot; class=&quot;p&quot;&gt;
        New submitter &lt;a href=&quot;https://slashdot.org/~BeaverCleaver&quot;&gt;BeaverCleaver&lt;/a&gt; shares a report: &lt;i&gt; Japan has restarted operations at the world&#39;s largest nuclear power plant for the first time since the 2011 Fukushima disaster forced the country to shut all of its reactors. The decision to restart reactor number 6 at Kashiwazaki-Kariwa north-west of Tokyo was taken despite local residents&#39; safety concerns. It was delayed by a day because of an alarm malfunction and is due to begin operating commercially next month.&lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        Japan, which had always heavily relied on energy imports, was an early adopter of nuclear power. But in 2011 all 54 of its reactors had to be shut after a massive earthquake and tsunami triggered a meltdown at Fukushima, causing one of the worst nuclear disasters in history. This is the latest installment in Japan&#39;s nuclear power reboot, which still has a long way to go. The seventh reactor at Kashiwazaki-Kariwa is not expected to be brought back on until 2030, and the other five could be decommissioned. That leaves the plant with far less capacity than it once had when all seven reactors were operational: 8.2 gigawatts.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;br&gt;
        &lt;/div&gt;
      </description>
      <link>https://slashdot.org/story/26/01/21/1532240/japan-restarts-worlds-largest-nuclear-plant-as-fukushima-memories-loom-large</link>
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      <pubDate>Wed, 21 Jan 2026 03:05:00 GMT</pubDate>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Comic-Con Bans AI Art After Artist Pushback</title>
      <description>&lt;div id=&quot;text-180633074&quot; class=&quot;p&quot;&gt;
        San Diego Comic-Con &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.404media.co/comic-con-bans-ai-art-after-artist-pushback/&quot;&gt;changed an AI art friendly policy&lt;/a&gt; following an artist-led backlash last week. From a report:&lt;i&gt; It was a small victory for working artists in an industry where jobs are slipping away as movie and video game studios adopt generative AI tools to save time and money. Every year, tens of thousands of people descend on San Diego for Comic-Con, the world&#39;s premier comic book convention that over the years has also become a major pan-media event where every major media company announces new movies, TV shows, and video games. For the past few years, Comic-Con has allowed some forms of AI-generated art at this art show at the convention.&lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        According to archived rules for the show, artists could display AI-generated material so long as it wasn&#39;t for sale, was marked as AI-produced, and credited the original artist whose style was used. &quot;Material produced by Artificial Intelligence (AI) may be placed in the show, but only as Not-for-Sale (NFS). It must be clearly marked as AI-produced, not simply listed as a print. If one of the parameters in its creation was something similar to &#39;Done in the style of,&#39; that information must be added to the description. If there are questions, the Art Show Coordinator will be the sole judge of acceptability,&quot; Comic-Con&#39;s art show rules said until recently.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;br&gt;
        &lt;/div&gt;
      </description>
      <link>https://slashdot.org/story/26/01/21/1528206/comic-con-bans-ai-art-after-artist-pushback</link>
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      <pubDate>Wed, 21 Jan 2026 02:27:00 GMT</pubDate>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>YouTube CEO Acknowledges &#39;AI Slop&#39; Problem, Says Platform Will Curb Low-Quality AI Content</title>
      <description>&lt;div id=&quot;text-180632814&quot; class=&quot;p&quot;&gt;
        YouTube CEO Neal Mohan used his annual letter to creators, published Wednesday, to outline an ambitious 2026 vision that embraces AI-powered creative tools while simultaneously pledging to &lt;a href=&quot;https://blog.youtube/inside-youtube/the-future-of-youtube-2026/&quot;&gt;crack down on the low-quality AI content&lt;/a&gt; that has come to be known as &quot;slop.&quot;&lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        Mohan identified four AI-related areas that YouTube &quot;must get right in 2026.&quot; The platform is working on tools that will let creators use AI to generate Shorts featuring their own likenesses and to experiment with music. &quot;Just as the synthesizer, Photoshop and CGI revolutionized sound and visuals, AI will be a boon to the creatives who are ready to lean in,&quot; he wrote. Features like autodubbing, he says, will &quot;transform the viewer experience.&quot;&lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        But &quot;the rise of AI has raised concerns about low-quality content, aka &#39;AI slop,&#39;&quot; he wrote. YouTube is building on its existing spam and clickbait detection systems to reduce the spread of such content. He also flagged deepfakes as a particular concern: &quot;It&#39;s becoming harder to detect what&#39;s real and what&#39;s AI-generated.&quot; The platform plans to double down on AI labels and introduce tools that let creators protect their likenesses.&lt;br&gt;
        &lt;/div&gt;
      </description>
      <link>https://news.slashdot.org/story/26/01/21/1422227/youtube-ceo-acknowledges-ai-slop-problem-says-platform-will-curb-low-quality-ai-content</link>
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      <pubDate>Wed, 21 Jan 2026 01:40:00 GMT</pubDate>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>CEOs Say AI is Making Work More Efficient. Employees Tell a Different Story.</title>
      <description>&lt;div id=&quot;text-180632744&quot; class=&quot;p&quot;&gt;
        Companies are spending vast sums on AI expecting the technology to boost efficiency, but a new survey from AI consulting firm Section found that two-thirds of non-management workers among 5,000 white-collar respondents say they &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/ceos-say-ai-is-making-work-more-efficient-employees-tell-a-different-story/ar-AA1UE3Tq&quot;&gt;save less than two hours a week or no time at all&lt;/a&gt;, while more than 40% of executives report the technology saves them upward of eight hours weekly.&lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        Workers were far more likely to describe themselves as anxious or overwhelmed about AI than excited -- the opposite of C-suite respondents -- and 40% of all surveyed said they would be fine never using AI again. A separate Workday report of roughly 1,600 employees found that though 85% reported time savings of one to seven hours weekly, much of it was offset by correcting errors and reworking AI-generated content -- what the company called an &quot;AI tax&quot; on productivity.&lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        At the World Economic Forum in Davos this week, a PricewaterhouseCoopers survey of nearly 4,500 CEOs found more than half have seen &lt;a href=&quot;https://slashdot.org/story/26/01/20/1924238/56-of-companies-have-seen-zero-financial-return-from-ai-investments-pwc-survey-says&quot;&gt;no significant financial benefit from AI so far&lt;/a&gt;, and only 12% said the technology has delivered both cost and revenue gains.&lt;br&gt;
        &lt;/div&gt;
      </description>
      <link>https://slashdot.org/story/26/01/21/141239/ceos-say-ai-is-making-work-more-efficient-employees-tell-a-different-story</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://slashdot.org/story/26/01/21/141239/ceos-say-ai-is-making-work-more-efficient-employees-tell-a-different-story</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 21 Jan 2026 01:01:00 GMT</pubDate>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Verizon Wastes No Time Switching Device Unlock Policy To 365 Days</title>
      <description>&lt;div id=&quot;text-180630910&quot; class=&quot;p&quot;&gt;
        An anonymous reader quotes a report from DroidLife: &lt;i&gt;When the FCC &lt;a href=&quot;https://slashdot.org/story/26/01/13/1845204/verizon-to-stop-automatic-unlocking-of-phones-as-fcc-ends-60-day-unlock-rule&quot;&gt;cleared&lt;/a&gt; Verizon of its 60-day device unlock policy a week ago, we talked about how the government agency, which is as anti-consumer as it has ever been at the moment, was giving Verizon the power to basically create whatever unlock policy it wanted. We also expected Verizon to make a change to its policies in a hurry and they did not disappoint. Again, the FCC provided them a waiver 7 days ago and they are already starting to update policies.
        &lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        As of this morning, Verizon has &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.droid-life.com/2026/01/20/verizon-device-unlock-policy-365-days/&quot;&gt;implemented a new device unlock policy across its various prepaid brands&lt;/a&gt; and I&#39;d imagine their postpaid policy change is right around the corner. Brands like Visible, Total Wireless, Tracfone, and StraightTalk, all have an updated device unlock policy today that extends to 365 days of paid and active service before they&#39;ll free your phone from the Verizon network. Starting January 20, Verizon &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.tfwunlockpolicy.com/wps/portal/home/&quot;&gt;says&lt;/a&gt; that devices purchased from their prepaid brands will only be unlocked upon request after 365 days and if you meet several requirements [...].
        &lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        What exactly is changing here? Well, if you purchased a device from Verizon&#39;s value brands previously, they would automatically unlock them after 60 days. Now, you have to wait 365 days, request the unlock because it doesn&#39;t happen automatically, and also have active service. [...] The FCC mentioned in their waiver that by allowing Verizon to create whatever unlock policy they wanted that this would &quot;benefit consumers.&quot; How does any of this benefit consumers?&lt;/i&gt;&lt;br&gt;
        &lt;/div&gt;
      </description>
      <link>https://mobile.slashdot.org/story/26/01/21/0458212/verizon-wastes-no-time-switching-device-unlock-policy-to-365-days</link>
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      <pubDate>Wed, 21 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate>
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[github-actions]

http://localhost:1200/slashdot/yro - Success ✔️

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      <title>HAM Radio Operators In Belarus Arrested, Face the Death Penalty</title>
      <description>&lt;div id=&quot;text-180634440&quot; class=&quot;p&quot;&gt;
        An anonymous reader quotes a report from 404 Media: &lt;i&gt;The Belarusian government is &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.404media.co/ham-radio-operators-in-belarus-arrested-face-the-death-penalty/&quot;&gt;threatening three HAM radio operators with the death penalty&lt;/a&gt;, detained at least seven people, and has accused them of &quot;intercepting state secrets,&quot; according to &lt;a href=&quot;https://nashaniva.com/385810?ref=404media.co&quot;&gt;Belarusian state media&lt;/a&gt;, independent media outside of Belarus, and the Belarusian human rights organization Viasna. The arrests are an extreme attack on what is most often a wholesome hobby that has a history of being vilified by authoritarian governments in part because the technology is quite censorship resistant.
        &lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        The detentions were announced last week on Belarusian state TV, which claimed the men were part of a network of more than 50 people participating in the amateur radio hobby and have been accused of both &quot;espionage&quot; and &quot;treason.&quot; Authorities there said they seized more than 500 pieces of radio equipment. The men were accused on state TV of using radio to spy on the movement of government planes, though no actual evidence of this has been produced. State TV claimed they were associated with the Belarusian Federation of Radioamateurs and Radiosportsmen (BFRR), a long-running amateur radio club and nonprofit that holds amateur radio competitions, meetups, trainings, and forums.&lt;/i&gt; Siarhei Besarab, a Belarusian HAM radio operator, &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.reddit.com/r/amateurradio/comments/1qi1ic2/comment/o0phb13/?context=3&amp;amp;ref=404media.co&quot;&gt;posted a plea&lt;/a&gt; for support from others in the r/amateurradio subreddit. &quot;I am writing this because my local community is being systematically liquidated in what I can only describe as a targeted intellectual genocide,&quot; Besarab wrote. &quot;I beg you to amplify this signal and help us spread this information. Please show this to any journalist you know, send it to human rights organizations, and share it with your local radio associations.&quot;&lt;br&gt;
        &lt;/div&gt;
      </description>
      <link>https://tech.slashdot.org/story/26/01/21/2018229/ham-radio-operators-in-belarus-arrested-face-the-death-penalty</link>
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      <pubDate>Wed, 21 Jan 2026 09:02:00 GMT</pubDate>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>AI Company Eightfold Sued For Helping Companies Secretly Score Job Seekers</title>
      <description>&lt;div id=&quot;text-180634016&quot; class=&quot;p&quot;&gt;
        Eightfold AI, a venture capital-backed AI hiring platform used by Microsoft, PayPal and many other Fortune 500 companies, is being sued in California for allegedly &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/boards-policy-regulation/ai-company-eightfold-sued-helping-companies-secretly-score-job-seekers-2026-01-21/&quot;&gt;compiling reports used to screen job applicants without their knowledge&lt;/a&gt;. From a report:&lt;i&gt; The lawsuit, filed on Tuesday accusing Eightfold of violating the Fair Credit Reporting Act shows how consumer advocates are seeking to apply existing law to AI systems capable of drawing inferences about individuals based on vast amounts of data.&lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        Santa Clara, California-based Eightfold provides tools that promise to speed up the hiring process by assessing job applicants and predicting whether they would be a good fit for a job using massive amounts of data from online resumes and job listings. But candidates who apply for jobs at companies that use those tools are not given notice and a chance to dispute errors, job applicants Erin Kistler and Sruti Bhaumik allege in their proposed class action. Because of that, they claim Eightfold violated the FCRA and a California law that gives consumers the right to view and challenge credit reports used in lending and hiring.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;br&gt;
        &lt;/div&gt;
      </description>
      <link>https://yro.slashdot.org/story/26/01/21/1841214/ai-company-eightfold-sued-for-helping-companies-secretly-score-job-seekers</link>
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      <pubDate>Wed, 21 Jan 2026 05:44:00 GMT</pubDate>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Ireland Wants To Give Its Cops Spyware, Ability To Crack Encrypted Messages</title>
      <description>&lt;div id=&quot;text-180633396&quot; class=&quot;p&quot;&gt;
        The Irish government is planning to &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.theregister.com/2026/01/21/ireland_wants_to_give_police/&quot;&gt;bolster its police&#39;s ability to intercept communications&lt;/a&gt;, including encrypted messages, and provide a legal basis for spyware use. From a report:&lt;i&gt; The Communications (Interception and Lawful Access) Bill is being framed as a replacement for the current legislation that governs digital communication interception. The Department of Justice, Home Affairs, and Migration said in an announcement this week the existing Postal Packets and Telecommunications Messages (Regulation) Act 1993 &quot;predates the telecoms revolution of the last 20 years.&quot;&lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        As well as updating laws passed more than two decades ago, the government was keen to emphasize that a key ambition for the bill is to empower law enforcement to intercept of all forms of communications. The Bill will bring communications from IoT devices, email services, and electronic messaging platforms into scope, &quot;whether encrypted or not.&quot;&lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        In a similar way to how certain other governments want to compel encrypted messaging services to unscramble packets of interest, Ireland&#39;s announcement also failed to explain exactly how it plans to do this. However, it promised to implement a robust legal framework, alongside all necessary privacy and security safeguards, if these proposals do ultimately become law. It also vowed to establish structures to ensure &quot;the maximum possible degree of technical cooperation between state agencies and communication service providers.&quot;/i&lt;/i&gt;&lt;br&gt;
        &lt;/div&gt;
      </description>
      <link>https://it.slashdot.org/story/26/01/21/1639200/ireland-wants-to-give-its-cops-spyware-ability-to-crack-encrypted-messages</link>
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      <pubDate>Wed, 21 Jan 2026 04:25:00 GMT</pubDate>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Snap Settles Social media Addiction Lawsuit Ahead of Landmark Trial</title>
      <description>&lt;div id=&quot;text-180630878&quot; class=&quot;p&quot;&gt;
        Snap has &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c62ndl2ydzxo&quot;&gt;settled a social media addiction lawsuit&lt;/a&gt; just days before trial, while Meta, TikTok, and Alphabet remain defendants and are headed to court. &quot;Terms of the deal were not announced as it was revealed by lawyers at a California Superior Court hearing, after which Snap told the BBC the parties were &#39;pleased to have been able to resolve this matter in an amicable manner.&#39;&quot; From the report: &lt;i&gt; The plaintiff, a 19-year old woman identified by the initials K.G.M., alleged that the algorithmic design of the platforms left her addicted and affected her mental health. In the absence of a settlement with the other parties, the trial is scheduled to go forward against the remaining three defendants, with jury selection due to begin on January 27. Meta boss Mark Zuckerberg is expected to testify, and until Tuesday&#39;s settlement, Snap CEO Evan Spiegel was also set to take the stand.
        &lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        Snap is still a defendant in other social media addiction cases that have been consolidated in the court. The closely watched cases could challenge a legal theory that social media companies have used to shield themselves. They have long argued that Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996 protects them from liability for what third parties post on their platforms. But plaintiffs argue that the platforms are designed in a way that leaves users addicted through choices that affect their algorithms and notifications. The social media companies have said the plaintiffs&#39; evidence falls short of proving that they are responsible for alleged harms such as depression and eating disorders.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;br&gt;
        &lt;/div&gt;
      </description>
      <link>https://yro.slashdot.org/story/26/01/21/0449250/snap-settles-social-media-addiction-lawsuit-ahead-of-landmark-trial</link>
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      <pubDate>Tue, 20 Jan 2026 21:00:00 GMT</pubDate>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>HHS Announces New Study of Cellphone Radiation and Health</title>
      <description>&lt;div id=&quot;text-180627536&quot; class=&quot;p&quot;&gt;
        An anonymous reader quotes a report from U.S. News &amp;amp; World Report: &lt;i&gt;U.S. health officials plan a new study &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.usnews.com/news/health-news/articles/2026-01-20/hhs-announces-new-study-of-cellphone-radiation-and-health&quot;&gt;investigating whether radiation from cellphones may affect human health&lt;/a&gt;. A spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) said the research will examine electromagnetic radiation and possible gaps in current science. The initiative stems from numerous concerns raised by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has linked cellphone use to neurological damage and cancer.
        &lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        &quot;The [U.S. Food and Drug Administration] removed webpages with old conclusions about cell phone radiation while HHS undertakes a study on electromagnetic radiation and health research to identify gaps in knowledge, including on new technologies, to ensure safety and efficacy,&quot; HHS spokesman Andrew Nixon said. He added that the study was directed in a strategy report from the president&#39;s Make America Healthy Again Commission.
        &lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        Some webpages from the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fda.gov/radiation-emitting-products/home-business-and-entertainment-products/cell-phones&quot;&gt;FDA&lt;/a&gt; and the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.cdc.gov/radiation-health/data-research/facts-stats/cell-phones.html&quot;&gt;U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention&lt;/a&gt; say current research does not show clear harm from cellphone radiation. The National Cancer Institute, which is part of the National Institutes of Health, &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/causes-prevention/risk/radiation/cell-phones-fact-sheet&quot;&gt;says&lt;/a&gt; that &quot;evidence to date suggests that cellphone use does not cause brain or other kinds of cancer in humans.&quot;&lt;/i&gt;.&lt;br&gt;
        &lt;/div&gt;
      </description>
      <link>https://mobile.slashdot.org/story/26/01/20/2215254/hhs-announces-new-study-of-cellphone-radiation-and-health</link>
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      <pubDate>Tue, 20 Jan 2026 11:02:00 GMT</pubDate>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Bank of England &#39;Must Plan For a Financial Crisis Triggered By Aliens&#39;</title>
      <description>&lt;div id=&quot;text-180617364&quot; class=&quot;p&quot;&gt;
        A former Bank of England analyst has &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/bank-of-england-must-plan-for-a-financial-crisis-triggered-by-aliens/ar-AA1Us7B7&quot;&gt;urged contingency planning for a potential financial shock&lt;/a&gt; if the U.S. government were to confirm the existence of extraterrestrial intelligence. The argument is that &quot;ontological shock&quot; alone could destabilize confidence and trigger crisis dynamics. The Independent reports: &lt;i&gt; [Helen McCaw, who served as a senior analyst in financial security at the UK&#39;s central bank and worked for the Bank of England for 10 years until 2012] said politicians and bankers can no longer afford to dismiss talk of alien life, and warned a declaration of this nature could trigger bank collapses. She reportedly said: &quot;The United States government appears to be partway through a multi-year process to declassify and disclose information on the existence of a technologically advanced non-human intelligence responsible for Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAPs).&quot;
        &lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        &quot;If the UAP proves to be of non-human origin, we may have to acknowledge the existence of a power or intelligence greater than any government and with potentially unknown intentions.&quot; Her warning comes as senior American officials have recently indicated their belief in the possibility of alien life. [...] Ms McCaw said: &quot;UAP disclosure is likely to induce ontological shock and provoke psychological responses with material consequences ... There might be extreme price volatility in financial markets due to catastrophising or euphoria, and a collapse in confidence if market participants feel uncertain on how to price assets using any of the familiar methods.&quot;
        &lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        The former Bank of England worker explained there might be a rush towards assets such as gold or other precious metals, and government bonds, which are perceived as &quot;safe.&quot; Alternatively, she said precious metals might lose their status as perceived safe assets if people speculate that new space-faring technologies will soon increase the supply of precious metals. &lt;/i&gt; The article cites a recent UFO documentary, &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Age_of_Disclosure&quot;&gt;The Age of Disclosure&lt;/a&gt;, where 34 U.S. government insiders, including those from the military and intelligence community officials, share insights about the governments work with UAP. Per the film&#39;s description, the documentary &quot;reveals an 80-year global cover-up of non-human intelligent life and a secret war among major nations to reverse-engineer advanced technology of non-human origin.&quot;&lt;br&gt;
        &lt;/div&gt;
      </description>
      <link>https://entertainment.slashdot.org/story/26/01/20/0045220/bank-of-england-must-plan-for-a-financial-crisis-triggered-by-aliens</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://entertainment.slashdot.org/story/26/01/20/0045220/bank-of-england-must-plan-for-a-financial-crisis-triggered-by-aliens</guid>
      <pubDate>Mon, 19 Jan 2026 18:00:00 GMT</pubDate>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Nvidia Contacted Anna&#39;s Archive To Secure Access To Millions of Pirated Books</title>
      <description>&lt;div id=&quot;text-180616952&quot; class=&quot;p&quot;&gt;
        An anonymous reader quotes a report from TorrentFreak: &lt;i&gt;NVIDIA executives allegedly authorized the use of millions of pirated books from Anna&#39;s Archive to fuel its AI training. In an &lt;a href=&quot;https://yro.slashdot.org/story/24/05/28/2157242/nvidia-denies-pirate-e-book-sites-are-shadow-libraries-to-shut-down-lawsuit&quot;&gt;expanded class-action lawsuit&lt;/a&gt; that cites internal NVIDIA documents, several book authors &lt;a href=&quot;https://torrentfreak.com/images/naznvid-amend.pdf&quot;&gt;claim&lt;/a&gt; (PDF) that the trillion-dollar company directly reached out to Anna&#39;s Archive, &lt;a href=&quot;https://torrentfreak.com/nvidia-contacted-annas-archive-to-secure-access-to-millions-of-pirated-books/&quot;&gt;seeking high-speed access to the shadow library data&lt;/a&gt;. [...] Last Friday, the authors filed an amended complaint that significantly expands the scope of the lawsuit. In addition to adding more books, authors, and AI models, it also includes broader &quot;shadow library&quot; claims and allegations. The authors, including Abdi Nazemian, now cite various internal Nvidia emails and documents, suggesting that the company willingly downloaded millions of copyrighted books. The new complaint alleges that &quot;competitive pressures drove NVIDIA to piracy,&quot; which allegedly included collaborating with the controversial Anna&#39;s Archive library.
        &lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        According to the amended complaint, a member of Nvidia&#39;s data strategy team reached out to Anna&#39;s Archive to find out what the pirate library could offer the trillion-dollar company &quot;Desperate for books, NVIDIA contacted Anna&#39;s Archive -- the largest and most brazen of the remaining shadow libraries -- about acquiring its millions of pirated materials and &#39;including Anna&#39;s Archive in pre-training data for our LLMs,&#39;&quot; the complaint notes. &quot;Because Anna&#39;s Archive charged tens of thousands of dollars for &#39;high-speed access&#39; to its pirated collections [] NVIDIA sought to find out what &quot;high-speed access&quot; to the data would look like.&quot;
        &lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        According to the complaint, Anna&#39;s Archive then warned Nvidia that its library was illegally acquired and maintained. Because the site previously wasted time on other AI companies, the pirate library asked NVIDIA executives if they had internal permission to move forward. This permission was allegedly granted within a week, after which Anna&#39;s Archive provided the chip giant with access to its pirated books. &quot;Within a week of contacting Anna&#39;s Archive, and days after being warned by Anna&#39;s Archive of the illegal nature of their collections, NVIDIA management gave &#39;the green light&#39; to proceed with the piracy. Anna&#39;s Archive offered NVIDIA millions of pirated copyrighted books.&quot; The complaint states that Anna&#39;s Archive promised to provide NVIDIA with access to roughly 500 terabytes of data. This included millions of books that are usually only accessible through Internet Archive&#39;s digital lending system, which itself has been targeted in court. The complaint does not explicitly mention whether NVIDIA ended up paying Anna&#39;s Archive for access to the data.
        &lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        Additionally, it&#39;s worth mentioning that NVIDIA also stands accused of using other pirated sources. In addition to the previously included Books3 database, the new complaint also alleges that the company downloaded books from LibGen, Sci-Hub, and Z-Library. In addition to downloading and using pirated books for its own AI training, the authors allege NVIDIA distributed scripts and tools that allowed its corporate customers to automatically download &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pile_(dataset)&quot;&gt;The Pile&lt;/a&gt;&quot;, which contains the Books3 pirated dataset.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;br&gt;
        &lt;/div&gt;
      </description>
      <link>https://yro.slashdot.org/story/26/01/19/2257241/nvidia-contacted-annas-archive-to-secure-access-to-millions-of-pirated-books</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://yro.slashdot.org/story/26/01/19/2257241/nvidia-contacted-annas-archive-to-secure-access-to-millions-of-pirated-books</guid>
      <pubDate>Mon, 19 Jan 2026 11:30:00 GMT</pubDate>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Congress Wants To Hand Your Parenting To Big Tech</title>
      <description>&lt;div id=&quot;text-180616670&quot; class=&quot;p&quot;&gt;
        An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF): &lt;i&gt;Lawmakers in Washington are once again focusing on kids, screens, and mental health. But according to Congress, Big Tech is somehow &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2026/01/congress-wants-hand-your-parenting-big-tech&quot;&gt;both the problem and the solution&lt;/a&gt;. The Senate Commerce Committee held a &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.commerce.senate.gov/2026/1/chairman-cruz-announces-kids-screen-time-hearing_2&quot;&gt;hearing&lt;/a&gt; [Friday] on &quot;examining the effect of technology on America&#39;s youth.&quot; Witnesses warned about &quot;addictive&quot; online content, mental health, and kids spending too much time buried in screen. At the center of the debate is a bill from Sens. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Brian Schatz (D-HI) called the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/senate-bill/278&quot;&gt;Kids Off Social Media Act&lt;/a&gt; (KOSMA), which they say will protect children and &quot;empower parents.&quot;
        &lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        That&#39;s a reasonable goal, especially at a time when many parents feel overwhelmed and nervous about how much time their kids spend on screens. But while the bill&#39;s press release contains soothing language, KOSMA doesn&#39;t actually give parents more control. Instead of respecting how most parents guide their kids towards healthy and educational content, KOSMA hands the control panel to Big Tech. That&#39;s right -- this bill would take power away from parents, and hand it over to the companies that lawmakers say are the problem. [...] This bill doesn&#39;t just set an age rule. It creates a legal duty for platforms to police families. Section 103(b) of &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/senate-bill/278/text#toc-id6c00eb1f556f47aabc8e4f75f2f3e2c8&quot;&gt;the bill&lt;/a&gt; is blunt: if a platform knows a user is under 13, it &quot;shall terminate any existing account or profile&quot; belonging to that user. And &quot;knows&quot; doesn&#39;t just mean someone admits their age. The bill defines knowledge to include what is &quot;fairly implied on the basis of objective circumstances&quot; -- in other words, what a reasonable person would conclude from how the account is being used. The reality of how services would comply with KOSMA is clear: rather than risk liability for how they should have known a user was under 13, they will require all users to prove their age to ensure that they block anyone under 13.
        &lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        KOSMA contains no exceptions for parental consent, for family accounts, or for educational or supervised use. The vast majority of people policed by this bill won&#39;t be kids sneaking around -- it will be minors who are following their parents&#39; guidance, and the parents themselves. Imagine a child using their parent&#39;s YouTube account to watch science videos about how a volcano works. If they were to leave a comment saying, &quot;Cool video -- I&#39;ll show this to my 6th grade teacher!&quot; and YouTube becomes aware of the comment, the platform now has clear signals that a child is using that account. It doesn&#39;t matter whether the parent gave permission. Under KOSMA, the company is legally required to act. To avoid violating KOSMA, it would likely lock, suspend, or terminate the account, or demand proof it belongs to an adult. That proof would likely mean asking for a scan of a government ID, biometric data, or some other form of intrusive verification, all to keep what is essentially a &quot;family&quot; account from being shut down.
        &lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        Violations of KOSMA are enforced by the FTC and state attorneys general. That&#39;s more than enough legal risk to make platforms err on the side of cutting people off. Platforms have no way to remove &quot;just the kid&quot; from a shared account. Their tools are blunt: freeze it, verify it, or delete it. Which means that even when a parent has explicitly approved and supervised their child&#39;s use, KOSMA forces Big Tech to override that family decision. [...] These companies don&#39;t know your family or your rules. They only know what their algorithms infer. Under KOSMA, those inferences carry the force of law. Rather than parents or teachers, decisions about who can be online, and for what purpose, will be made by corporate compliance teams and automated detection systems.&lt;/i&gt;
        &lt;/div&gt;
      </description>
      <link>https://yro.slashdot.org/story/26/01/19/2221237/congress-wants-to-hand-your-parenting-to-big-tech</link>
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      <pubDate>Mon, 19 Jan 2026 09:22:00 GMT</pubDate>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>WhatsApp Texts Are Not Contracts, Judge Rules in $2M Divorce Row</title>
      <description>&lt;div id=&quot;text-180615940&quot; class=&quot;p&quot;&gt;
        A British painter who argued that her ex-husband had signed over their $2 million north London home through WhatsApp messages has lost her High Court appeal after the judge ruled that the sender&#39;s name appearing in a chat header &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.thetimes.com/article/418cd0ad-6215-470e-944e-87a434f1684e&quot;&gt;does not constitute a legal signature&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        Hsiao-mei Lin, 54, presented messages from her former husband Audun Mar Gudmundsson, a financier, in which he stated he would transfer his share of their Tufnell Park property to her. Lin&#39;s lawyers argued that because Gudmundsson&#39;s name appeared in the message header on her phone, the messages should be considered signed.&lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        Mr Justice Cawson disagreed, finding that the header identifying a sender is analogous to an email address added by a service provider -- a mechanism for identification rather than part of the message itself. The judge also found the content of the messages did not actually amount to Gudmundsson relinquishing his share.&lt;br&gt;
        &lt;/div&gt;
      </description>
      <link>https://yro.slashdot.org/story/26/01/19/1919236/whatsapp-texts-are-not-contracts-judge-rules-in-2m-divorce-row</link>
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      <pubDate>Mon, 19 Jan 2026 06:25:00 GMT</pubDate>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>More US States are Putting Bitcoin on Public Balance Sheets</title>
      <description>&lt;div id=&quot;text-180613178&quot; class=&quot;p&quot;&gt;
        An anonymous reader shared &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.cnbc.com/2026/01/17/texas-us-states-budgets-bitcoin-crypto-strategic-reserve.html&quot;&gt;this report from CNBC&lt;/a&gt;:
        &lt;i&gt;
        Led by Texas and New Hampshire, U.S. states across the national map, both red and blue in political stripes, are developing bitcoin strategic reserves and bringing cryptocurrencies onto their books through additional state finance and budgeting measures. Texas recently became the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.texastribune.org/2025/12/08/texas-crypto-currency-investment/&quot;&gt;first state to purchase bitcoin&lt;/a&gt; after a legislative effort that began in 2024, but numerous states have joined the &lt;a href=&quot;https://bitcoinlaws.io/reserve-race&quot;&gt;&quot;Reserve Race&quot;&lt;/a&gt; to pass legislation that will allow them to ultimately buy cryptocurrencies. &lt;a href=&quot;https://bitcoinlaws.io/nh/HB302&quot;&gt;New
        Hampshire&lt;/a&gt; passed its crypto strategic reserve law last May, even before Texas, giving the state treasurer the authority to invest up to 5% of the state funds in crypto ETFs, though precious metals such as gold are also authorized for purchase. &lt;a href=&quot;https://bitcoinlaws.io/az/HB2749&quot;&gt;Arizona&lt;/a&gt;
        passed similar legislation, while &lt;a href=&quot;https://bitcoinlaws.io/ma/S1967&quot;&gt;Massachusetts&lt;/a&gt;,
        &lt;a href=&quot;https://bitcoinlaws.io/oh/HB18&quot;&gt;Ohio&lt;/a&gt;,
        and &lt;a href=&quot;https://bitcoinlaws.io/sd/HB1202&quot;&gt;South
        Dakota&lt;/a&gt; have legislation at various stages of committee review...&lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        Similarities in the actions taken across states to date include
        include authorizing the state treasurer or other investment official
        to allow the investment of a limited amount of public funds in crypto
        and building out the governance structure needed to invest in
        crypto... [New Hampshire] became the first state to approve the
        issuance of &lt;a href=&quot;https://nhbfa.com/news/nh-bfa-approves-worlds-first-bitcoin-backed-municipal-bond/&quot;&gt;a bitcoin-backed municipal bond&lt;/a&gt; last November, a $100 million issuance that would mark the first time cryptocurrency is used as collateral in the U.S. municipal bond market. The deal has not taken place yet, though plans are for the issuance to occur this year... &quot;What&#39;s different here is it&#39;s bitcoin rather than taxpayer dollars as the collateral,&quot; [said University of Chicago public policy professor Justin Marlowe]. In numerous states, including, &lt;a href=&quot;https://tax.colorado.gov/cryptocurrency&quot;&gt;Colorada&lt;/a&gt;,
        &lt;a href=&quot;https://tax.utah.gov/billing/payment-fees/&quot;&gt;Utah&lt;/a&gt;, and &lt;a href=&quot;https://d304f3ae-0382-4da9-9c19-eae51ef96fa3.filesusr.com/ugd/92c97e_ee5334e5115b4bada9445f8c345665ed.pdf&quot;&gt;Louisiana&lt;/a&gt;,crypto is now accepted as payment for taxes and other state
        business... &lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        &quot;For many in the state/local investing industry, crypto-backed assets are still far too speculative and volatile for public money,&quot; Marlowe said. &quot;But others, and I think there&#39;s a sort of generational shift in the works, see it as a reasonable store of value that is actually stronger on many other public sector values like transparency and asset integrity,&quot; he added.
        &lt;/i&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        Public policy professor Marlowe &quot;sees the state-level trend as largely one of signaling at present,&quot; according to the article. (Marlowe says &quot;If you&#39;re a governor and you want to broadcast that you are amenable to innovative business development in the digital economy, these are relatively low-cost, low-risk ways to send that signal.&quot;) But the bigger steps may reflect how crypto advocates have increasing political power in the states. The article notes that the cryptocurrency industry was &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.cnbc.com/2024/11/05/cryptos-245-million-campaign-finance-operation-funded-non-crypto-ads.html&quot;&gt;the largest corporate donor in a U.S. election cycle&lt;/a&gt; in 2024, &quot;with support given to candidates on both sides.&quot;&lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        &quot;It is already &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.cnbc.com/2025/01/30/crypto-pac-fairshake-has-116-million-on-hand-for-2026-elections.html&quot;&gt;amassing a war chest for the 2026 midterms&lt;/a&gt;.&quot;&lt;br&gt;
        &lt;/div&gt;
      </description>
      <link>https://yro.slashdot.org/story/26/01/19/076259/more-us-states-are-putting-bitcoin-on-public-balance-sheets</link>
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      <pubDate>Sun, 18 Jan 2026 20:02:00 GMT</pubDate>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Acer Sues Verizon, AT&amp;T, and T-Mobile, Alleging Infringment on Acer&#39;s Cellular Networking Patents</title>
      <description>&lt;div id=&quot;text-180608102&quot; class=&quot;p&quot;&gt;
        Slashdot reader &lt;a href=&quot;https://yro.slashdot.org/~BrianFagioli&quot;&gt;BrianFagioli&lt;/a&gt; writes: &lt;i&gt;Acer &lt;a href=&quot;https://nerds.xyz/2026/01/acer-sues-att-verizon-tmobile-over-patents/&quot;&gt;has filed three separate patent infringement lawsuits against AT&amp;amp;T, Verizon, and T-Mobile&lt;/a&gt;, taking the unusual step of hauling the nation&#39;s largest wireless carriers into federal court. The suits, filed in the Eastern District of Texas, claim the companies are using Acer-developed cellular networking technology without paying for the privilege. Acer says it tried to negotiate licenses for years but reached a dead end, arguing it was left with no option except litigation. The case centers on six U.S. patents Acer asserts are core to modern wireless networks, rather than anything tied to PCs or laptops.&lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt;The company describes itself as reluctant to pursue courtroom battles, but it has been quietly building a large global patent portfolio after pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into R&amp;amp;D. Acer also notes that some of its patents count as standard-essential, hinting the carriers may be required to license them. All three companies are expected to push back, and the dispute could become another long-running telecom patent saga. Consumers will not notice any immediate changes, but if Acer wins or settles, it may find a new revenue stream far beyond its traditional hardware business.&lt;/i&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        &lt;a href=&quot;https://hothardware.com/news/acer-slaps-att-t-mobile-verizon-lawsuit-wireless-patents&quot;&gt;Further coverage from &lt;em&gt;Hot Hardware&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;
        &lt;/div&gt;
      </description>
      <link>https://yro.slashdot.org/story/26/01/18/006222/acer-sues-verizon-att-and-t-mobile-alleging-infringment-on-acers-cellular-networking-patents</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://yro.slashdot.org/story/26/01/18/006222/acer-sues-verizon-att-and-t-mobile-alleging-infringment-on-acers-cellular-networking-patents</guid>
      <pubDate>Sun, 18 Jan 2026 03:34:00 GMT</pubDate>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Two More Offshore Wind Projects in the US Allowed to Continue Construction</title>
      <description>&lt;div id=&quot;text-180604196&quot; class=&quot;p&quot;&gt;
        Friday a federal judge &quot;cleared U.S. power company Dominion Energy to &lt;a&gt;resume work&lt;/a&gt; on its Virginia offshore wind project.&quot; But a U.S. federal judge also ruled Thursday that another major offshore wind farm is allowed to resume construction, &lt;a href=&quot;https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/5691088-wind-farm-trump-new-york/&quot;&gt;reports the Hill&lt;/a&gt;. &quot;The project, which would supply power to New York, was one of five that were &lt;a href=&quot;https://news.slashdot.org/story/25/12/22/2133214/us-blocks-all-offshore-wind-construction-says-reason-is-classified&quot;&gt;halted by the Trump administration in December&lt;/a&gt;....&quot; &lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        In fact, there were &lt;em&gt;three&lt;/em&gt; different court rulings this week each allowing construction to continue on a U.S. wind project:
        &lt;i&gt;Judge Carl Nichols, a Trump appointee, granted a preliminary injunction allowing Empire Wind to keep building... Another, Revolution Wind, was also &lt;a href=&quot;https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/5685507-revolution-wind-trump-rhode-island-connecticut/&quot;&gt;allowed to move forward in court this week&lt;/a&gt;... The project would provide enough power for up to 500,000 homes, according to its website. The court&#39;s decision allows construction to resume while the underlying case against the Trump order plays out. &lt;/i&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        Meanwhile, power company Orsted &quot;is also suing over the pause of its Sunrise Wind project for New York,&quot; &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jan/15/wind-project-trump-judge&quot;&gt;reports the Associated Press&lt;/a&gt;, &quot;with a hearing still to be set.&quot;
        &lt;i&gt;
        The fifth paused project is Vineyard Wind, under construction in Massachusetts. Vineyard Wind LLC, a joint venture between Avangrid and Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners, joined the rest of the developers in challenging the administration on Thursday.&lt;/i&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        CNN &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.cnn.com/2026/01/14/climate/trump-electricity-generation-offshore-wind-east-coast&quot;&gt;points out&lt;/a&gt; that the Vineyard Wind project &quot;has been allowed to send power to the grid even amid Trump&#39;s suspension, a spokesperson for regional grid operator ISO-New England told CNN in an email.&quot;
        &lt;i&gt;
        Residential customers in the mid-Atlantic region, including Virginia, desperately need more energy to service the skyrocketing demand from data centers â&quot; and many are seeing spiking energy bills while they wait for new power to be brought online.
        &lt;/i&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.cnn.com/2026/01/14/climate/trump-electricity-generation-offshore-wind-east-coast&quot;&gt;CNN notes&lt;/a&gt; that president Trump said last week &quot;My goal is to not let any windmill be built; they&#39;re losers.&quot;&lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        The Associated Press &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jan/15/wind-project-trump-judge&quot;&gt;adds&lt;/a&gt; that &quot;In contrast to the halted action in the US, the global offshore wind market is growing, with China leading the world in new installations. Nearly all of the new electricity added to the grid in 2024 was renewable. The British government said on Wednesday it had secured a record 8.4 gigawatts of offshore wind in Europe&#39;s largest offshore wind auction, enough clean electricity to power more than 12m homes.&quot;&lt;br&gt;
        &lt;/div&gt;
      </description>
      <link>https://news.slashdot.org/story/26/01/17/0444252/two-more-offshore-wind-projects-in-the-us-allowed-to-continue-construction</link>
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      <pubDate>Sat, 17 Jan 2026 07:41:00 GMT</pubDate>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>What Happened After Security Researchers Found 60 Flock Cameras Livestreaming to the Internet</title>
      <description>&lt;div id=&quot;text-180604682&quot; class=&quot;p&quot;&gt;
        A couple months ago, YouTuber Benn Jordan &quot;found vulnerabilities in some of Flock&#39;s license plate reader cameras,&quot; &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.404media.co/how-benn-jordan-discovered-flocks-cameras-were-left-streaming-to-the-internet/&quot;&gt;reports 404 Media&#39;s Jason Koebler&lt;/a&gt;. &quot;He reached out to me to tell me he had learned that some of Flock&#39;s Condor cameras were left live-streaming to the open internet.&quot;&lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        This led to a remarkable article where Koebler &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.404media.co/flock-exposed-its-ai-powered-cameras-to-the-internet-we-tracked-ourselves/&quot;&gt;confirmed the breach by visiting a Flock surveillance camera&lt;/a&gt; mounted on a California traffic signal. (&quot;On my phone, I am watching myself in real time as the camera records and livestreams me — without any password or login — to the open internet... Hundreds of miles away, my colleagues are remotely watching me too through the exposed feed.&quot;)
        &lt;i&gt;Flock left livestreams and administrator control panels for at least 60 of its AI-enabled Condor cameras around the country exposed to the open internet, where anyone could watch them, download 30 days worth of video archive, and change settings, see log files, and run diagnostics. Unlike many of Flock&#39;s cameras, which are designed to capture license plates as people drive by, Flock&#39;s Condor cameras are pan-tilt-zoom (PTZ) cameras designed to record and track people, not vehicles. Condor cameras can be set to automatically zoom in on people&#39;s faces... The exposure was initially discovered by YouTuber and technologist Benn Jordan and was shared with security researcher Jon &quot;GainSec&quot; Gaines, who &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uB0gr7Fh6lY&quot;&gt;recently found numerous vulnerabilities&lt;/a&gt; in several other models of Flock&#39;s automated license plate reader (ALPR) cameras.&lt;/i&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        Jordan appeared this week as a guest &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tSd0nXolnIs&quot;&gt;on Koebler&#39;s own YouTube channel&lt;/a&gt;, while Jordan released a video of his own about the experience. titled &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uB0gr7Fh6lY&quot;&gt;We Hacked Flock Safety Cameras in under 30 Seconds&lt;/a&gt;.&quot; (Thanks to Slashdot reader &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.slashdot.org/~beadon&quot;&gt;beadon&lt;/a&gt; for sharing the link.) But together Jordan and 404 Media also created another video three weeks ago titled &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vU1-uiUlHTo&quot;&gt;The Flock Camera Leak is Like Netflix for Stalkers&lt;/a&gt;&quot; which includes footage he says was &quot;completely accessible at the time Flock Safety was telling cities that the devices are secure after they&#39;re deployed.&quot; &lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        The video decries cities &quot;too lazy to conduct their own security audit or research the efficacy versus risk,&quot; but also calls weak security &quot;an industry-wide problem.&quot; Jordan explains in the video how he &quot;very easily found the administration interfaces for dozens of Flock safety cameras...&quot; — but also what happened next:
        &lt;i&gt;
        None of the data or video footage was encrypted. There was no username or password required. These were all completely public-facing, for the world to see.... Making any modification to the cameras is illegal, so I didn&#39;t do this. But I had the ability to delete any of the video footage or evidence by simply pressing a button. I could see the paths where all of the evidence files were located on the file system...&lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        During and after the process of
        conducting that research and making that
        video, I was visited by the police and
        had what I believed to be private
        investigators outside my home
        photographing me and my property and
        bothering my neighbors. John Gaines or
        &lt;a href=&quot;https://gainsec.com/whoami/&quot;&gt;GainSec&lt;/a&gt;, the brains behind most of this
        research, lost employment within 48
        hours of the video being released. And
        the sad reality is that I don&#39;t view
        these things as consequences or
        punishment for researching security
        vulnerabilities. I view these as
        consequences and punishment for doing it
        ethically and transparently.&lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        I&#39;ve been
        contacted by people on or communicating
        with civic councils who found my videos
        concerning, and they shared Flock
        Safety&#39;s response with me. The company
        claimed that the devices in my video did
        not reflect the security standards of
        the ones being publicly deployed. The
        CEO even posted on LinkedIn and boasted
        about Flock Safety&#39;s security policies.
        So, I formally and publicly offered to
        personally fund security research into
        Flock Safety&#39;s deployed ecosystem. But
        the law prevents me from touching their
        live devices. So, all I needed was their
        permission so I wouldn&#39;t get arrested.
        And I was even willing to let them
        supervise this research. &lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        I got no
        response.
        &lt;/i&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        So instead, he read Flock&#39;s official response to a security/surveillance industry research group — while standing in front of one of their security cameras, streaming his reading to the public internet. &lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        &quot;Might as well. It&#39;s my tax dollars that paid for it.&quot;&lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        &quot; &#39;Flock is committed to continuously improving security...&#39;&quot;&lt;br&gt;
        &lt;/div&gt;
      </description>
      <link>https://yro.slashdot.org/story/26/01/17/0718211/what-happened-after-security-researchers-found-60-flock-cameras-livestreaming-to-the-internet</link>
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      <pubDate>Sat, 17 Jan 2026 04:34:00 GMT</pubDate>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Supreme Court May Block Thousands of Lawsuits Over Monsanto&#39;s Weed Killer</title>
      <description>&lt;div id=&quot;text-180604130&quot; class=&quot;p&quot;&gt;
        The U.S. Supreme Court will hear Monsanto&#39;s argument that federal pesticide law &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2026-01-16/supreme-court-may-block-thousands-of-lawsuits-over-monsantos-weed-killer&quot;&gt;should shield it and parent company Bayer from tens of thousands of state lawsuits over Roundup&lt;/a&gt; since the Environmental Protection Agency has not required a cancer warning label. The case could determine whether federal rules preempt state failure-to-warn claims without deciding whether glyphosate causes cancer. The Los Angeles Times reports: &lt;i&gt; Some studies have &lt;a href=&quot;https://science.slashdot.org/story/19/03/20/1938211/jury-finds-bayers-roundup-weedkiller-caused-mans-cancer&quot;&gt;found&lt;/a&gt; it is a &lt;a href=&quot;https://science.slashdot.org/story/18/08/11/0141247/monsanto-ordered-to-pay-289-million-in-roundup-cancer-trial&quot;&gt;likely carcinogen&lt;/a&gt;, and others concluded it does not pose a true cancer risk for humans. However, the court may free Monsanto and Bayer, its parent company, from legal claims from more than 100,000 plaintiffs who sued over their cancer diagnosis. The legal dispute involves whether the federal regulatory laws shield the company from being sued under state law for failing to warn consumers.
        &lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        [...] &quot;EPA has repeatedly determined that glyphosate, the world&#39;s most widely used herbicide, does not cause cancer. EPA has consistently reached that conclusion after studying the extensive body of science on glyphosate for over five decades,&quot; the company told the court in its appeal. They said the EPA not only refused to add a cancer warning label to products with Roundup, but said it would be &quot;misbranded&quot; with such a warning.
        &lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        Nonetheless, the &quot;premise of this lawsuit, and the thousands like it, is that Missouri law requires Monsanto to include the precise warning that EPA rejects,&quot; they said. On Friday, the court said in a brief order that it would decide &quot;whether the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act preempts a label-based failure-to-warn claim where EPA has not required the warning.&quot; The court is likely to hear arguments in the case of Monsanto vs. Durnell in April and issue a ruling by late June. &lt;/i&gt;&lt;br&gt;
        &lt;/div&gt;
      </description>
      <link>https://yro.slashdot.org/story/26/01/17/0428238/supreme-court-may-block-thousands-of-lawsuits-over-monsantos-weed-killer</link>
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      <pubDate>Fri, 16 Jan 2026 21:00:00 GMT</pubDate>
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    <item>
      <title>Biggest Offshore Wind Project In US To Resume Construction</title>
      <description>&lt;div id=&quot;text-180604100&quot; class=&quot;p&quot;&gt;
        A federal judge has &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.cnbc.com/2026/01/16/biggest-offshore-wind-project-in-us-to-resume-construction-after-judge-lifts-trump-suspension.html&quot;&gt;temporarily lifted the Trump administration&#39;s suspension of the Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind&lt;/a&gt;, allowing construction on the largest offshore wind project in the U.S. to resume. CNBC reports: &lt;i&gt; Judge Jamar Walker of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia granted Dominion&#39;s request for a preliminary injunction Friday. Dominion called the Trump suspension &quot;arbitrary and illegal&quot; in its lawsuit. &quot;Our team will now focus on safely restarting work to ensure CVOW begins delivery of critical energy in just weeks,&quot; a Dominion spokesperson told CNBC in a statement Friday. &quot;While our legal challenge proceeds, we will continue seeking a durable resolution of this matter through cooperation with the federal government,&quot; the spokesperson said.
        &lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        Dominion said in December that &quot;stopping CVOW for any length of time will threaten grid reliability for some of the nation&#39;s most important war fighting, AI and civilian assets.&quot; Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind is a 176-turbine project that would provide enough power for more than 600,000 homes, according to Dominion. It is scheduled to start dispatching power by the end of the first quarter of 2026. &lt;/i&gt; In December, the Trump administration &lt;a href=&quot;https://news.slashdot.org/story/25/12/22/2133214/us-blocks-all-offshore-wind-construction-says-reason-is-classified&quot;&gt;paused the leases&lt;/a&gt; on all five offshore wind sites currently under construction in the U.S., blaming the decisions on a classified report from the Department of Defense.&lt;br&gt;
        &lt;/div&gt;
      </description>
      <link>https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/26/01/17/0417254/biggest-offshore-wind-project-in-us-to-resume-construction</link>
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      <pubDate>Fri, 16 Jan 2026 18:00:00 GMT</pubDate>
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    <item>
      <title>Nova Launcher Gets a New Owner and Ads</title>
      <description>&lt;div id=&quot;text-180634582&quot; class=&quot;p&quot;&gt;
        Nova Launcher has been acquired by Instabridge, which says it will keep the app maintained but is &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.androidauthority.com/nova-launcher-acquisition-ads-update-3633871/&quot;&gt;evaluating ad-supported options for the free version&lt;/a&gt;. Android Authority reports: &lt;i&gt; Today, Nova Launcher &lt;a href=&quot;https://novalauncher.com/nova-is-here-to-stay&quot;&gt;announced&lt;/a&gt; that the Swedish company Instabridge has acquired it from Branch Metrics. Instabridge claims it wants to be a responsible owner of Nova and does not want to reinvent the launcher overnight. However, the launcher still needs a sustainable business model to support ongoing development and maintenance. To this end, Instabridge is exploring different options, including paid tiers and ad-supported options for the free version. The new owners claim that if ads are introduced, Nova Prime will remain ad-free. However, this is misleading, as ads are already here for some users. &lt;/i&gt; Last year, the founder and original programmer of Nova Launcher &lt;a href=&quot;https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/09/08/2050202/nova-launchers-founder-and-sole-developer-has-left&quot;&gt;left the company&lt;/a&gt;, signaling its &quot;death&quot; as he had been the sole developer working on the launcher for the past year.&lt;br&gt;
        &lt;/div&gt;
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      <link>https://slashdot.org/story/26/01/21/2055248/nova-launcher-gets-a-new-owner-and-ads</link>
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      <pubDate>Wed, 21 Jan 2026 09:40:00 GMT</pubDate>
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    <item>
      <title>HAM Radio Operators In Belarus Arrested, Face the Death Penalty</title>
      <description>&lt;div id=&quot;text-180634440&quot; class=&quot;p&quot;&gt;
        An anonymous reader quotes a report from 404 Media: &lt;i&gt;The Belarusian government is &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.404media.co/ham-radio-operators-in-belarus-arrested-face-the-death-penalty/&quot;&gt;threatening three HAM radio operators with the death penalty&lt;/a&gt;, detained at least seven people, and has accused them of &quot;intercepting state secrets,&quot; according to &lt;a href=&quot;https://nashaniva.com/385810?ref=404media.co&quot;&gt;Belarusian state media&lt;/a&gt;, independent media outside of Belarus, and the Belarusian human rights organization Viasna. The arrests are an extreme attack on what is most often a wholesome hobby that has a history of being vilified by authoritarian governments in part because the technology is quite censorship resistant.
        &lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        The detentions were announced last week on Belarusian state TV, which claimed the men were part of a network of more than 50 people participating in the amateur radio hobby and have been accused of both &quot;espionage&quot; and &quot;treason.&quot; Authorities there said they seized more than 500 pieces of radio equipment. The men were accused on state TV of using radio to spy on the movement of government planes, though no actual evidence of this has been produced. State TV claimed they were associated with the Belarusian Federation of Radioamateurs and Radiosportsmen (BFRR), a long-running amateur radio club and nonprofit that holds amateur radio competitions, meetups, trainings, and forums.&lt;/i&gt; Siarhei Besarab, a Belarusian HAM radio operator, &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.reddit.com/r/amateurradio/comments/1qi1ic2/comment/o0phb13/?context=3&amp;amp;ref=404media.co&quot;&gt;posted a plea&lt;/a&gt; for support from others in the r/amateurradio subreddit. &quot;I am writing this because my local community is being systematically liquidated in what I can only describe as a targeted intellectual genocide,&quot; Besarab wrote. &quot;I beg you to amplify this signal and help us spread this information. Please show this to any journalist you know, send it to human rights organizations, and share it with your local radio associations.&quot;&lt;br&gt;
        &lt;/div&gt;
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      <link>https://tech.slashdot.org/story/26/01/21/2018229/ham-radio-operators-in-belarus-arrested-face-the-death-penalty</link>
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      <pubDate>Wed, 21 Jan 2026 09:02:00 GMT</pubDate>
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    <item>
      <title>Ozempic is Reshaping the Fast Food Industry</title>
      <description>&lt;div id=&quot;text-180634076&quot; class=&quot;p&quot;&gt;
        New research from Cornell University has tracked how households change their spending after someone starts taking GLP-1 medications like Ozempic and Wegovy, and the numbers are material enough to explain why food industry earnings calls &lt;a href=&quot;https://philippdubach.com/posts/ozempic-is-reshaping-the-fast-food-industry/&quot;&gt;keep blaming everything except the obvious culprit&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        The study analyzed transaction data from 150,000 households linked to survey responses on medication adoption. Households cut grocery spending by 5.3% within six months of a member starting GLP-1s; high-income households cut by 8.2%. Fast food spending fell 8.0%. Savory snacks took the biggest hit at 10.1%, followed by sweets and baked goods. Yogurt was the only category to see a statistically significant increase.&lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        As of July 2024, 16.3% of U.S. households had at least one GLP-1 user. Nearly half of adopters reported taking the medication specifically for weight loss rather than diabetes management. About 34% of users discontinue within the sample period, and when they stop, candy and chocolate purchases rise 11.4% above pre-adoption levels.&lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        &lt;b&gt;Further reading&lt;/b&gt;: &lt;a href=&quot;https://indiadispatch.com/p/weighing-the-cost-of-smaller-appetites&quot;&gt;Weighing the Cost of Smaller Appetites&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;br&gt;
        &lt;/div&gt;
      </description>
      <link>https://science.slashdot.org/story/26/01/21/191222/ozempic-is-reshaping-the-fast-food-industry</link>
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      <pubDate>Wed, 21 Jan 2026 08:22:00 GMT</pubDate>
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    <item>
      <title>Half of World&#39;s CO2 Emissions Come From Just 32 Fossil Fuel Firms, Study Shows</title>
      <description>&lt;div id=&quot;text-180634144&quot; class=&quot;p&quot;&gt;
        Just 32 fossil fuel companies were &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/jan/21/carbon-dioxide-co2-emissions-fossil-fuel-firms-study&quot;&gt;responsible for half the global carbon dioxide emissions&lt;/a&gt; driving the climate crisis in 2024, down from 36 a year earlier, a report has revealed. The Guardian:&lt;i&gt; Saudi Aramco was the biggest state-controlled polluter and ExxonMobil was the largest investor-owned polluter. Critics accused the leading fossil fuel companies of &quot;sabotaging climate action&quot; and &quot;being on the wrong side of history&quot; but said the emissions data was increasingly being used to hold the companies accountable.&lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        State-owned fossil fuel producers made up 17 of the top 20 emitters in the Carbon Majors report, which the authors said underscored the political barriers to tackling global heating. All 17 are controlled by countries that opposed a proposed fossil fuel phaseout at the Cop30 UN climate summit in December, including Saudi Arabia, Russia, China, Iran, the United Arab Emirates and India. More than 80 other nations had backed the phaseout plan.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;br&gt;
        &lt;/div&gt;
      </description>
      <link>https://news.slashdot.org/story/26/01/21/1913218/half-of-worlds-co2-emissions-come-from-just-32-fossil-fuel-firms-study-shows</link>
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      <pubDate>Wed, 21 Jan 2026 07:45:00 GMT</pubDate>
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    <item>
      <title>Adobe Acrobat Now Lets You Edit Files Using Prompts, Generate Podcast Summaries</title>
      <description>&lt;div id=&quot;text-180634120&quot; class=&quot;p&quot;&gt;
        Adobe has added a suite of AI-powered features to Acrobat that enable users to &lt;a href=&quot;https://techcrunch.com/2026/01/21/adobe-acrobat-now-lets-you-edit-files-using-prompts-generate-podcast-summaries/&quot;&gt;edit documents through natural language prompts&lt;/a&gt;, generate podcast-style audio summaries of their files, and create presentations by pulling content from multiple documents stored in a single workspace.&lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        The prompt-based editing supports 12 distinct actions: removing pages, text, comments, and images; finding and replacing words and phrases; and adding e-signatures and passwords. The presentation feature builds on Adobe Spaces, a collaborative file and notes collection the company launched last year. Users can point Acrobat&#39;s AI assistant at files in a Space and have it generate an editable pitch deck, then style it using Adobe Express themes and stock imagery.&lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        Shared files in Spaces now include AI-generated summaries that cite specific locations in the source document. Users can also choose from preset AI assistant personas -- &quot;analyst,&quot; &quot;entertainer,&quot; or &quot;instructor&quot; -- or create custom assistants using their own prompts.&lt;br&gt;
        &lt;/div&gt;
      </description>
      <link>https://slashdot.org/story/26/01/21/198252/adobe-acrobat-now-lets-you-edit-files-using-prompts-generate-podcast-summaries</link>
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      <pubDate>Wed, 21 Jan 2026 07:01:00 GMT</pubDate>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>The Gold Plating of American Water</title>
      <description>&lt;div id=&quot;text-180634170&quot; class=&quot;p&quot;&gt;
        The price of water and sewer services for American households has more than doubled since the early 1980s after adjusting for inflation, even though per-capita water use has actually decreased over that period. Households in large cities now spend about $1,300 a year on water and sewer charges, &lt;a href=&quot;https://worksinprogress.co/issue/the-gold-plating-of-american-water/&quot;&gt;approaching the roughly $1,600 they spend on electricity&lt;/a&gt;. The main driver is federal regulation.&lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        Since the Clean Water Act of 1972 and the Safe Drinking Water Act of 1974, the U.S. has spent approximately $5 trillion in contemporary dollars fighting water pollution -- about 0.8% of annual GDP across that period. The EPA itself admits that surface water regulations are the one category of environmental rules where estimated costs exceed estimated benefits.&lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        New York City was required to build a filtration plant to address two minor parasites in water from its Croton aqueduct. The project took a decade longer than expected and cost $3.2 billion, more than double the original estimate. After the plant opened in 2015, the city&#39;s Commissioner of Environmental Protection noted that the water would basically be &quot;the same&quot; to the public. Jefferson County, Alabama, meanwhile, descended into what was then the largest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history in 2011 after EPA-mandated sewer upgrades pushed its debt from $300 million to over $3 billion.&lt;br&gt;
        &lt;/div&gt;
      </description>
      <link>https://news.slashdot.org/story/26/01/21/1922232/the-gold-plating-of-american-water</link>
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      <pubDate>Wed, 21 Jan 2026 06:22:00 GMT</pubDate>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>AI Company Eightfold Sued For Helping Companies Secretly Score Job Seekers</title>
      <description>&lt;div id=&quot;text-180634016&quot; class=&quot;p&quot;&gt;
        Eightfold AI, a venture capital-backed AI hiring platform used by Microsoft, PayPal and many other Fortune 500 companies, is being sued in California for allegedly &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/boards-policy-regulation/ai-company-eightfold-sued-helping-companies-secretly-score-job-seekers-2026-01-21/&quot;&gt;compiling reports used to screen job applicants without their knowledge&lt;/a&gt;. From a report:&lt;i&gt; The lawsuit, filed on Tuesday accusing Eightfold of violating the Fair Credit Reporting Act shows how consumer advocates are seeking to apply existing law to AI systems capable of drawing inferences about individuals based on vast amounts of data.&lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        Santa Clara, California-based Eightfold provides tools that promise to speed up the hiring process by assessing job applicants and predicting whether they would be a good fit for a job using massive amounts of data from online resumes and job listings. But candidates who apply for jobs at companies that use those tools are not given notice and a chance to dispute errors, job applicants Erin Kistler and Sruti Bhaumik allege in their proposed class action. Because of that, they claim Eightfold violated the FCRA and a California law that gives consumers the right to view and challenge credit reports used in lending and hiring.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;br&gt;
        &lt;/div&gt;
      </description>
      <link>https://yro.slashdot.org/story/26/01/21/1841214/ai-company-eightfold-sued-for-helping-companies-secretly-score-job-seekers</link>
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      <pubDate>Wed, 21 Jan 2026 05:44:00 GMT</pubDate>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Ubisoft Cancels Six Games, Slashes Guidance in Restructuring</title>
      <description>&lt;div id=&quot;text-180633870&quot; class=&quot;p&quot;&gt;
        Ubisoft is &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/other/ubisoft-cancels-six-games-slashes-guidance-in-restructuring/ar-AA1UFMvS&quot;&gt;canceling game projects, shutting down studios&lt;/a&gt; and cutting its guidance as the Assassin&#39;s Creed maker restructures its business into five units. From a report:&lt;i&gt; The French gaming firm expects earnings before interest and tax to be a loss of $1.2 billion the fiscal year 2025-2026 as a result of the restructuring, driven by a one-off writedown of about $761 million, the company said in a statement on Wednesday.&lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        Ubisoft also expects net bookings of around $1.76 billion for the year, with a $386 million gross margin reduction compared to previous guidance, it said. Six games, including a remake of Prince of Persia The Sands of Time, have been discontinued and seven other unidentified games are delayed, the company said. The measures are part of a broader plan to streamline operations, including closing studios in Stockholm and Halifax, Canada. Ubisoft said it will have cut at least $117 million in fixed costs compared to the latest financial year by March, a year ahead of target, and has set a goal to slash an additional $234 million over the next two years.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;br&gt;
        &lt;/div&gt;
      </description>
      <link>https://games.slashdot.org/story/26/01/21/184240/ubisoft-cancels-six-games-slashes-guidance-in-restructuring</link>
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      <pubDate>Wed, 21 Jan 2026 05:04:00 GMT</pubDate>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Ireland Wants To Give Its Cops Spyware, Ability To Crack Encrypted Messages</title>
      <description>&lt;div id=&quot;text-180633396&quot; class=&quot;p&quot;&gt;
        The Irish government is planning to &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.theregister.com/2026/01/21/ireland_wants_to_give_police/&quot;&gt;bolster its police&#39;s ability to intercept communications&lt;/a&gt;, including encrypted messages, and provide a legal basis for spyware use. From a report:&lt;i&gt; The Communications (Interception and Lawful Access) Bill is being framed as a replacement for the current legislation that governs digital communication interception. The Department of Justice, Home Affairs, and Migration said in an announcement this week the existing Postal Packets and Telecommunications Messages (Regulation) Act 1993 &quot;predates the telecoms revolution of the last 20 years.&quot;&lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        As well as updating laws passed more than two decades ago, the government was keen to emphasize that a key ambition for the bill is to empower law enforcement to intercept of all forms of communications. The Bill will bring communications from IoT devices, email services, and electronic messaging platforms into scope, &quot;whether encrypted or not.&quot;&lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        In a similar way to how certain other governments want to compel encrypted messaging services to unscramble packets of interest, Ireland&#39;s announcement also failed to explain exactly how it plans to do this. However, it promised to implement a robust legal framework, alongside all necessary privacy and security safeguards, if these proposals do ultimately become law. It also vowed to establish structures to ensure &quot;the maximum possible degree of technical cooperation between state agencies and communication service providers.&quot;/i&lt;/i&gt;&lt;br&gt;
        &lt;/div&gt;
      </description>
      <link>https://it.slashdot.org/story/26/01/21/1639200/ireland-wants-to-give-its-cops-spyware-ability-to-crack-encrypted-messages</link>
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      <pubDate>Wed, 21 Jan 2026 04:25:00 GMT</pubDate>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Google Temporarily Disabled YouTube&#39;s Advanced Captions Without Warning</title>
      <description>&lt;div id=&quot;text-180633320&quot; class=&quot;p&quot;&gt;
        Google has temporarily &lt;a href=&quot;https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/01/google-temporarily-disabled-youtubes-advanced-captions-without-warning/&quot;&gt;disabled YouTube&#39;s advanced SRV3 caption format&lt;/a&gt; after discovering the feature was causing playback errors for some users, according to a statement the company posted. SRV3, also known as YouTube Timed Text, is a custom subtitle system Google introduced around 2018 that allows creators to use custom colors, transparency, animations, and precise text positioning. Creators cannot upload new SRV3 captions while the feature remains disabled, and existing videos that use the format may not display any captions until Google restores it. The company has provided no timeline for when SRV3 will return, and its forum post notes that changes should be temporary for &quot;almost&quot; all videos.&lt;br&gt;
        &lt;/div&gt;
      </description>
      <link>https://tech.slashdot.org/story/26/01/21/1622227/google-temporarily-disabled-youtubes-advanced-captions-without-warning</link>
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      <pubDate>Wed, 21 Jan 2026 03:45:00 GMT</pubDate>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Japan Restarts World&#39;s Largest Nuclear Plant as Fukushima Memories Loom Large</title>
      <description>&lt;div id=&quot;text-180633110&quot; class=&quot;p&quot;&gt;
        New submitter &lt;a href=&quot;https://slashdot.org/~BeaverCleaver&quot;&gt;BeaverCleaver&lt;/a&gt; shares a report: &lt;i&gt; Japan has restarted operations at the world&#39;s largest nuclear power plant for the first time since the 2011 Fukushima disaster forced the country to shut all of its reactors. The decision to restart reactor number 6 at Kashiwazaki-Kariwa north-west of Tokyo was taken despite local residents&#39; safety concerns. It was delayed by a day because of an alarm malfunction and is due to begin operating commercially next month.&lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        Japan, which had always heavily relied on energy imports, was an early adopter of nuclear power. But in 2011 all 54 of its reactors had to be shut after a massive earthquake and tsunami triggered a meltdown at Fukushima, causing one of the worst nuclear disasters in history. This is the latest installment in Japan&#39;s nuclear power reboot, which still has a long way to go. The seventh reactor at Kashiwazaki-Kariwa is not expected to be brought back on until 2030, and the other five could be decommissioned. That leaves the plant with far less capacity than it once had when all seven reactors were operational: 8.2 gigawatts.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;br&gt;
        &lt;/div&gt;
      </description>
      <link>https://slashdot.org/story/26/01/21/1532240/japan-restarts-worlds-largest-nuclear-plant-as-fukushima-memories-loom-large</link>
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      <pubDate>Wed, 21 Jan 2026 03:05:00 GMT</pubDate>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Comic-Con Bans AI Art After Artist Pushback</title>
      <description>&lt;div id=&quot;text-180633074&quot; class=&quot;p&quot;&gt;
        San Diego Comic-Con &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.404media.co/comic-con-bans-ai-art-after-artist-pushback/&quot;&gt;changed an AI art friendly policy&lt;/a&gt; following an artist-led backlash last week. From a report:&lt;i&gt; It was a small victory for working artists in an industry where jobs are slipping away as movie and video game studios adopt generative AI tools to save time and money. Every year, tens of thousands of people descend on San Diego for Comic-Con, the world&#39;s premier comic book convention that over the years has also become a major pan-media event where every major media company announces new movies, TV shows, and video games. For the past few years, Comic-Con has allowed some forms of AI-generated art at this art show at the convention.&lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        According to archived rules for the show, artists could display AI-generated material so long as it wasn&#39;t for sale, was marked as AI-produced, and credited the original artist whose style was used. &quot;Material produced by Artificial Intelligence (AI) may be placed in the show, but only as Not-for-Sale (NFS). It must be clearly marked as AI-produced, not simply listed as a print. If one of the parameters in its creation was something similar to &#39;Done in the style of,&#39; that information must be added to the description. If there are questions, the Art Show Coordinator will be the sole judge of acceptability,&quot; Comic-Con&#39;s art show rules said until recently.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;br&gt;
        &lt;/div&gt;
      </description>
      <link>https://slashdot.org/story/26/01/21/1528206/comic-con-bans-ai-art-after-artist-pushback</link>
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      <pubDate>Wed, 21 Jan 2026 02:27:00 GMT</pubDate>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>YouTube CEO Acknowledges &#39;AI Slop&#39; Problem, Says Platform Will Curb Low-Quality AI Content</title>
      <description>&lt;div id=&quot;text-180632814&quot; class=&quot;p&quot;&gt;
        YouTube CEO Neal Mohan used his annual letter to creators, published Wednesday, to outline an ambitious 2026 vision that embraces AI-powered creative tools while simultaneously pledging to &lt;a href=&quot;https://blog.youtube/inside-youtube/the-future-of-youtube-2026/&quot;&gt;crack down on the low-quality AI content&lt;/a&gt; that has come to be known as &quot;slop.&quot;&lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        Mohan identified four AI-related areas that YouTube &quot;must get right in 2026.&quot; The platform is working on tools that will let creators use AI to generate Shorts featuring their own likenesses and to experiment with music. &quot;Just as the synthesizer, Photoshop and CGI revolutionized sound and visuals, AI will be a boon to the creatives who are ready to lean in,&quot; he wrote. Features like autodubbing, he says, will &quot;transform the viewer experience.&quot;&lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        But &quot;the rise of AI has raised concerns about low-quality content, aka &#39;AI slop,&#39;&quot; he wrote. YouTube is building on its existing spam and clickbait detection systems to reduce the spread of such content. He also flagged deepfakes as a particular concern: &quot;It&#39;s becoming harder to detect what&#39;s real and what&#39;s AI-generated.&quot; The platform plans to double down on AI labels and introduce tools that let creators protect their likenesses.&lt;br&gt;
        &lt;/div&gt;
      </description>
      <link>https://news.slashdot.org/story/26/01/21/1422227/youtube-ceo-acknowledges-ai-slop-problem-says-platform-will-curb-low-quality-ai-content</link>
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      <pubDate>Wed, 21 Jan 2026 01:40:00 GMT</pubDate>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>CEOs Say AI is Making Work More Efficient. Employees Tell a Different Story.</title>
      <description>&lt;div id=&quot;text-180632744&quot; class=&quot;p&quot;&gt;
        Companies are spending vast sums on AI expecting the technology to boost efficiency, but a new survey from AI consulting firm Section found that two-thirds of non-management workers among 5,000 white-collar respondents say they &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/ceos-say-ai-is-making-work-more-efficient-employees-tell-a-different-story/ar-AA1UE3Tq&quot;&gt;save less than two hours a week or no time at all&lt;/a&gt;, while more than 40% of executives report the technology saves them upward of eight hours weekly.&lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        Workers were far more likely to describe themselves as anxious or overwhelmed about AI than excited -- the opposite of C-suite respondents -- and 40% of all surveyed said they would be fine never using AI again. A separate Workday report of roughly 1,600 employees found that though 85% reported time savings of one to seven hours weekly, much of it was offset by correcting errors and reworking AI-generated content -- what the company called an &quot;AI tax&quot; on productivity.&lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        At the World Economic Forum in Davos this week, a PricewaterhouseCoopers survey of nearly 4,500 CEOs found more than half have seen &lt;a href=&quot;https://slashdot.org/story/26/01/20/1924238/56-of-companies-have-seen-zero-financial-return-from-ai-investments-pwc-survey-says&quot;&gt;no significant financial benefit from AI so far&lt;/a&gt;, and only 12% said the technology has delivered both cost and revenue gains.&lt;br&gt;
        &lt;/div&gt;
      </description>
      <link>https://slashdot.org/story/26/01/21/141239/ceos-say-ai-is-making-work-more-efficient-employees-tell-a-different-story</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://slashdot.org/story/26/01/21/141239/ceos-say-ai-is-making-work-more-efficient-employees-tell-a-different-story</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 21 Jan 2026 01:01:00 GMT</pubDate>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Verizon Wastes No Time Switching Device Unlock Policy To 365 Days</title>
      <description>&lt;div id=&quot;text-180630910&quot; class=&quot;p&quot;&gt;
        An anonymous reader quotes a report from DroidLife: &lt;i&gt;When the FCC &lt;a href=&quot;https://slashdot.org/story/26/01/13/1845204/verizon-to-stop-automatic-unlocking-of-phones-as-fcc-ends-60-day-unlock-rule&quot;&gt;cleared&lt;/a&gt; Verizon of its 60-day device unlock policy a week ago, we talked about how the government agency, which is as anti-consumer as it has ever been at the moment, was giving Verizon the power to basically create whatever unlock policy it wanted. We also expected Verizon to make a change to its policies in a hurry and they did not disappoint. Again, the FCC provided them a waiver 7 days ago and they are already starting to update policies.
        &lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        As of this morning, Verizon has &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.droid-life.com/2026/01/20/verizon-device-unlock-policy-365-days/&quot;&gt;implemented a new device unlock policy across its various prepaid brands&lt;/a&gt; and I&#39;d imagine their postpaid policy change is right around the corner. Brands like Visible, Total Wireless, Tracfone, and StraightTalk, all have an updated device unlock policy today that extends to 365 days of paid and active service before they&#39;ll free your phone from the Verizon network. Starting January 20, Verizon &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.tfwunlockpolicy.com/wps/portal/home/&quot;&gt;says&lt;/a&gt; that devices purchased from their prepaid brands will only be unlocked upon request after 365 days and if you meet several requirements [...].
        &lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        What exactly is changing here? Well, if you purchased a device from Verizon&#39;s value brands previously, they would automatically unlock them after 60 days. Now, you have to wait 365 days, request the unlock because it doesn&#39;t happen automatically, and also have active service. [...] The FCC mentioned in their waiver that by allowing Verizon to create whatever unlock policy they wanted that this would &quot;benefit consumers.&quot; How does any of this benefit consumers?&lt;/i&gt;&lt;br&gt;
        &lt;/div&gt;
      </description>
      <link>https://mobile.slashdot.org/story/26/01/21/0458212/verizon-wastes-no-time-switching-device-unlock-policy-to-365-days</link>
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      <pubDate>Wed, 21 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate>
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[github-actions]

http://localhost:1200/slashdot/yro - Success ✔️

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      <title>HAM Radio Operators In Belarus Arrested, Face the Death Penalty</title>
      <description>&lt;div id=&quot;text-180634440&quot; class=&quot;p&quot;&gt;
        An anonymous reader quotes a report from 404 Media: &lt;i&gt;The Belarusian government is &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.404media.co/ham-radio-operators-in-belarus-arrested-face-the-death-penalty/&quot;&gt;threatening three HAM radio operators with the death penalty&lt;/a&gt;, detained at least seven people, and has accused them of &quot;intercepting state secrets,&quot; according to &lt;a href=&quot;https://nashaniva.com/385810?ref=404media.co&quot;&gt;Belarusian state media&lt;/a&gt;, independent media outside of Belarus, and the Belarusian human rights organization Viasna. The arrests are an extreme attack on what is most often a wholesome hobby that has a history of being vilified by authoritarian governments in part because the technology is quite censorship resistant.
        &lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        The detentions were announced last week on Belarusian state TV, which claimed the men were part of a network of more than 50 people participating in the amateur radio hobby and have been accused of both &quot;espionage&quot; and &quot;treason.&quot; Authorities there said they seized more than 500 pieces of radio equipment. The men were accused on state TV of using radio to spy on the movement of government planes, though no actual evidence of this has been produced. State TV claimed they were associated with the Belarusian Federation of Radioamateurs and Radiosportsmen (BFRR), a long-running amateur radio club and nonprofit that holds amateur radio competitions, meetups, trainings, and forums.&lt;/i&gt; Siarhei Besarab, a Belarusian HAM radio operator, &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.reddit.com/r/amateurradio/comments/1qi1ic2/comment/o0phb13/?context=3&amp;amp;ref=404media.co&quot;&gt;posted a plea&lt;/a&gt; for support from others in the r/amateurradio subreddit. &quot;I am writing this because my local community is being systematically liquidated in what I can only describe as a targeted intellectual genocide,&quot; Besarab wrote. &quot;I beg you to amplify this signal and help us spread this information. Please show this to any journalist you know, send it to human rights organizations, and share it with your local radio associations.&quot;&lt;br&gt;
        &lt;/div&gt;
      </description>
      <link>https://tech.slashdot.org/story/26/01/21/2018229/ham-radio-operators-in-belarus-arrested-face-the-death-penalty</link>
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      <pubDate>Wed, 21 Jan 2026 09:02:00 GMT</pubDate>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>AI Company Eightfold Sued For Helping Companies Secretly Score Job Seekers</title>
      <description>&lt;div id=&quot;text-180634016&quot; class=&quot;p&quot;&gt;
        Eightfold AI, a venture capital-backed AI hiring platform used by Microsoft, PayPal and many other Fortune 500 companies, is being sued in California for allegedly &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/boards-policy-regulation/ai-company-eightfold-sued-helping-companies-secretly-score-job-seekers-2026-01-21/&quot;&gt;compiling reports used to screen job applicants without their knowledge&lt;/a&gt;. From a report:&lt;i&gt; The lawsuit, filed on Tuesday accusing Eightfold of violating the Fair Credit Reporting Act shows how consumer advocates are seeking to apply existing law to AI systems capable of drawing inferences about individuals based on vast amounts of data.&lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        Santa Clara, California-based Eightfold provides tools that promise to speed up the hiring process by assessing job applicants and predicting whether they would be a good fit for a job using massive amounts of data from online resumes and job listings. But candidates who apply for jobs at companies that use those tools are not given notice and a chance to dispute errors, job applicants Erin Kistler and Sruti Bhaumik allege in their proposed class action. Because of that, they claim Eightfold violated the FCRA and a California law that gives consumers the right to view and challenge credit reports used in lending and hiring.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;br&gt;
        &lt;/div&gt;
      </description>
      <link>https://yro.slashdot.org/story/26/01/21/1841214/ai-company-eightfold-sued-for-helping-companies-secretly-score-job-seekers</link>
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      <pubDate>Wed, 21 Jan 2026 05:44:00 GMT</pubDate>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Ireland Wants To Give Its Cops Spyware, Ability To Crack Encrypted Messages</title>
      <description>&lt;div id=&quot;text-180633396&quot; class=&quot;p&quot;&gt;
        The Irish government is planning to &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.theregister.com/2026/01/21/ireland_wants_to_give_police/&quot;&gt;bolster its police&#39;s ability to intercept communications&lt;/a&gt;, including encrypted messages, and provide a legal basis for spyware use. From a report:&lt;i&gt; The Communications (Interception and Lawful Access) Bill is being framed as a replacement for the current legislation that governs digital communication interception. The Department of Justice, Home Affairs, and Migration said in an announcement this week the existing Postal Packets and Telecommunications Messages (Regulation) Act 1993 &quot;predates the telecoms revolution of the last 20 years.&quot;&lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        As well as updating laws passed more than two decades ago, the government was keen to emphasize that a key ambition for the bill is to empower law enforcement to intercept of all forms of communications. The Bill will bring communications from IoT devices, email services, and electronic messaging platforms into scope, &quot;whether encrypted or not.&quot;&lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        In a similar way to how certain other governments want to compel encrypted messaging services to unscramble packets of interest, Ireland&#39;s announcement also failed to explain exactly how it plans to do this. However, it promised to implement a robust legal framework, alongside all necessary privacy and security safeguards, if these proposals do ultimately become law. It also vowed to establish structures to ensure &quot;the maximum possible degree of technical cooperation between state agencies and communication service providers.&quot;/i&lt;/i&gt;&lt;br&gt;
        &lt;/div&gt;
      </description>
      <link>https://it.slashdot.org/story/26/01/21/1639200/ireland-wants-to-give-its-cops-spyware-ability-to-crack-encrypted-messages</link>
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      <pubDate>Wed, 21 Jan 2026 04:25:00 GMT</pubDate>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Snap Settles Social media Addiction Lawsuit Ahead of Landmark Trial</title>
      <description>&lt;div id=&quot;text-180630878&quot; class=&quot;p&quot;&gt;
        Snap has &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c62ndl2ydzxo&quot;&gt;settled a social media addiction lawsuit&lt;/a&gt; just days before trial, while Meta, TikTok, and Alphabet remain defendants and are headed to court. &quot;Terms of the deal were not announced as it was revealed by lawyers at a California Superior Court hearing, after which Snap told the BBC the parties were &#39;pleased to have been able to resolve this matter in an amicable manner.&#39;&quot; From the report: &lt;i&gt; The plaintiff, a 19-year old woman identified by the initials K.G.M., alleged that the algorithmic design of the platforms left her addicted and affected her mental health. In the absence of a settlement with the other parties, the trial is scheduled to go forward against the remaining three defendants, with jury selection due to begin on January 27. Meta boss Mark Zuckerberg is expected to testify, and until Tuesday&#39;s settlement, Snap CEO Evan Spiegel was also set to take the stand.
        &lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        Snap is still a defendant in other social media addiction cases that have been consolidated in the court. The closely watched cases could challenge a legal theory that social media companies have used to shield themselves. They have long argued that Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996 protects them from liability for what third parties post on their platforms. But plaintiffs argue that the platforms are designed in a way that leaves users addicted through choices that affect their algorithms and notifications. The social media companies have said the plaintiffs&#39; evidence falls short of proving that they are responsible for alleged harms such as depression and eating disorders.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;br&gt;
        &lt;/div&gt;
      </description>
      <link>https://yro.slashdot.org/story/26/01/21/0449250/snap-settles-social-media-addiction-lawsuit-ahead-of-landmark-trial</link>
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      <pubDate>Tue, 20 Jan 2026 21:00:00 GMT</pubDate>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>HHS Announces New Study of Cellphone Radiation and Health</title>
      <description>&lt;div id=&quot;text-180627536&quot; class=&quot;p&quot;&gt;
        An anonymous reader quotes a report from U.S. News &amp;amp; World Report: &lt;i&gt;U.S. health officials plan a new study &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.usnews.com/news/health-news/articles/2026-01-20/hhs-announces-new-study-of-cellphone-radiation-and-health&quot;&gt;investigating whether radiation from cellphones may affect human health&lt;/a&gt;. A spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) said the research will examine electromagnetic radiation and possible gaps in current science. The initiative stems from numerous concerns raised by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has linked cellphone use to neurological damage and cancer.
        &lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        &quot;The [U.S. Food and Drug Administration] removed webpages with old conclusions about cell phone radiation while HHS undertakes a study on electromagnetic radiation and health research to identify gaps in knowledge, including on new technologies, to ensure safety and efficacy,&quot; HHS spokesman Andrew Nixon said. He added that the study was directed in a strategy report from the president&#39;s Make America Healthy Again Commission.
        &lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        Some webpages from the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fda.gov/radiation-emitting-products/home-business-and-entertainment-products/cell-phones&quot;&gt;FDA&lt;/a&gt; and the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.cdc.gov/radiation-health/data-research/facts-stats/cell-phones.html&quot;&gt;U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention&lt;/a&gt; say current research does not show clear harm from cellphone radiation. The National Cancer Institute, which is part of the National Institutes of Health, &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/causes-prevention/risk/radiation/cell-phones-fact-sheet&quot;&gt;says&lt;/a&gt; that &quot;evidence to date suggests that cellphone use does not cause brain or other kinds of cancer in humans.&quot;&lt;/i&gt;.&lt;br&gt;
        &lt;/div&gt;
      </description>
      <link>https://mobile.slashdot.org/story/26/01/20/2215254/hhs-announces-new-study-of-cellphone-radiation-and-health</link>
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      <pubDate>Tue, 20 Jan 2026 11:02:00 GMT</pubDate>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Bank of England &#39;Must Plan For a Financial Crisis Triggered By Aliens&#39;</title>
      <description>&lt;div id=&quot;text-180617364&quot; class=&quot;p&quot;&gt;
        A former Bank of England analyst has &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/bank-of-england-must-plan-for-a-financial-crisis-triggered-by-aliens/ar-AA1Us7B7&quot;&gt;urged contingency planning for a potential financial shock&lt;/a&gt; if the U.S. government were to confirm the existence of extraterrestrial intelligence. The argument is that &quot;ontological shock&quot; alone could destabilize confidence and trigger crisis dynamics. The Independent reports: &lt;i&gt; [Helen McCaw, who served as a senior analyst in financial security at the UK&#39;s central bank and worked for the Bank of England for 10 years until 2012] said politicians and bankers can no longer afford to dismiss talk of alien life, and warned a declaration of this nature could trigger bank collapses. She reportedly said: &quot;The United States government appears to be partway through a multi-year process to declassify and disclose information on the existence of a technologically advanced non-human intelligence responsible for Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAPs).&quot;
        &lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        &quot;If the UAP proves to be of non-human origin, we may have to acknowledge the existence of a power or intelligence greater than any government and with potentially unknown intentions.&quot; Her warning comes as senior American officials have recently indicated their belief in the possibility of alien life. [...] Ms McCaw said: &quot;UAP disclosure is likely to induce ontological shock and provoke psychological responses with material consequences ... There might be extreme price volatility in financial markets due to catastrophising or euphoria, and a collapse in confidence if market participants feel uncertain on how to price assets using any of the familiar methods.&quot;
        &lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        The former Bank of England worker explained there might be a rush towards assets such as gold or other precious metals, and government bonds, which are perceived as &quot;safe.&quot; Alternatively, she said precious metals might lose their status as perceived safe assets if people speculate that new space-faring technologies will soon increase the supply of precious metals. &lt;/i&gt; The article cites a recent UFO documentary, &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Age_of_Disclosure&quot;&gt;The Age of Disclosure&lt;/a&gt;, where 34 U.S. government insiders, including those from the military and intelligence community officials, share insights about the governments work with UAP. Per the film&#39;s description, the documentary &quot;reveals an 80-year global cover-up of non-human intelligent life and a secret war among major nations to reverse-engineer advanced technology of non-human origin.&quot;&lt;br&gt;
        &lt;/div&gt;
      </description>
      <link>https://entertainment.slashdot.org/story/26/01/20/0045220/bank-of-england-must-plan-for-a-financial-crisis-triggered-by-aliens</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://entertainment.slashdot.org/story/26/01/20/0045220/bank-of-england-must-plan-for-a-financial-crisis-triggered-by-aliens</guid>
      <pubDate>Mon, 19 Jan 2026 18:00:00 GMT</pubDate>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Nvidia Contacted Anna&#39;s Archive To Secure Access To Millions of Pirated Books</title>
      <description>&lt;div id=&quot;text-180616952&quot; class=&quot;p&quot;&gt;
        An anonymous reader quotes a report from TorrentFreak: &lt;i&gt;NVIDIA executives allegedly authorized the use of millions of pirated books from Anna&#39;s Archive to fuel its AI training. In an &lt;a href=&quot;https://yro.slashdot.org/story/24/05/28/2157242/nvidia-denies-pirate-e-book-sites-are-shadow-libraries-to-shut-down-lawsuit&quot;&gt;expanded class-action lawsuit&lt;/a&gt; that cites internal NVIDIA documents, several book authors &lt;a href=&quot;https://torrentfreak.com/images/naznvid-amend.pdf&quot;&gt;claim&lt;/a&gt; (PDF) that the trillion-dollar company directly reached out to Anna&#39;s Archive, &lt;a href=&quot;https://torrentfreak.com/nvidia-contacted-annas-archive-to-secure-access-to-millions-of-pirated-books/&quot;&gt;seeking high-speed access to the shadow library data&lt;/a&gt;. [...] Last Friday, the authors filed an amended complaint that significantly expands the scope of the lawsuit. In addition to adding more books, authors, and AI models, it also includes broader &quot;shadow library&quot; claims and allegations. The authors, including Abdi Nazemian, now cite various internal Nvidia emails and documents, suggesting that the company willingly downloaded millions of copyrighted books. The new complaint alleges that &quot;competitive pressures drove NVIDIA to piracy,&quot; which allegedly included collaborating with the controversial Anna&#39;s Archive library.
        &lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        According to the amended complaint, a member of Nvidia&#39;s data strategy team reached out to Anna&#39;s Archive to find out what the pirate library could offer the trillion-dollar company &quot;Desperate for books, NVIDIA contacted Anna&#39;s Archive -- the largest and most brazen of the remaining shadow libraries -- about acquiring its millions of pirated materials and &#39;including Anna&#39;s Archive in pre-training data for our LLMs,&#39;&quot; the complaint notes. &quot;Because Anna&#39;s Archive charged tens of thousands of dollars for &#39;high-speed access&#39; to its pirated collections [] NVIDIA sought to find out what &quot;high-speed access&quot; to the data would look like.&quot;
        &lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        According to the complaint, Anna&#39;s Archive then warned Nvidia that its library was illegally acquired and maintained. Because the site previously wasted time on other AI companies, the pirate library asked NVIDIA executives if they had internal permission to move forward. This permission was allegedly granted within a week, after which Anna&#39;s Archive provided the chip giant with access to its pirated books. &quot;Within a week of contacting Anna&#39;s Archive, and days after being warned by Anna&#39;s Archive of the illegal nature of their collections, NVIDIA management gave &#39;the green light&#39; to proceed with the piracy. Anna&#39;s Archive offered NVIDIA millions of pirated copyrighted books.&quot; The complaint states that Anna&#39;s Archive promised to provide NVIDIA with access to roughly 500 terabytes of data. This included millions of books that are usually only accessible through Internet Archive&#39;s digital lending system, which itself has been targeted in court. The complaint does not explicitly mention whether NVIDIA ended up paying Anna&#39;s Archive for access to the data.
        &lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        Additionally, it&#39;s worth mentioning that NVIDIA also stands accused of using other pirated sources. In addition to the previously included Books3 database, the new complaint also alleges that the company downloaded books from LibGen, Sci-Hub, and Z-Library. In addition to downloading and using pirated books for its own AI training, the authors allege NVIDIA distributed scripts and tools that allowed its corporate customers to automatically download &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pile_(dataset)&quot;&gt;The Pile&lt;/a&gt;&quot;, which contains the Books3 pirated dataset.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;br&gt;
        &lt;/div&gt;
      </description>
      <link>https://yro.slashdot.org/story/26/01/19/2257241/nvidia-contacted-annas-archive-to-secure-access-to-millions-of-pirated-books</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://yro.slashdot.org/story/26/01/19/2257241/nvidia-contacted-annas-archive-to-secure-access-to-millions-of-pirated-books</guid>
      <pubDate>Mon, 19 Jan 2026 11:30:00 GMT</pubDate>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Congress Wants To Hand Your Parenting To Big Tech</title>
      <description>&lt;div id=&quot;text-180616670&quot; class=&quot;p&quot;&gt;
        An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF): &lt;i&gt;Lawmakers in Washington are once again focusing on kids, screens, and mental health. But according to Congress, Big Tech is somehow &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2026/01/congress-wants-hand-your-parenting-big-tech&quot;&gt;both the problem and the solution&lt;/a&gt;. The Senate Commerce Committee held a &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.commerce.senate.gov/2026/1/chairman-cruz-announces-kids-screen-time-hearing_2&quot;&gt;hearing&lt;/a&gt; [Friday] on &quot;examining the effect of technology on America&#39;s youth.&quot; Witnesses warned about &quot;addictive&quot; online content, mental health, and kids spending too much time buried in screen. At the center of the debate is a bill from Sens. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Brian Schatz (D-HI) called the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/senate-bill/278&quot;&gt;Kids Off Social Media Act&lt;/a&gt; (KOSMA), which they say will protect children and &quot;empower parents.&quot;
        &lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        That&#39;s a reasonable goal, especially at a time when many parents feel overwhelmed and nervous about how much time their kids spend on screens. But while the bill&#39;s press release contains soothing language, KOSMA doesn&#39;t actually give parents more control. Instead of respecting how most parents guide their kids towards healthy and educational content, KOSMA hands the control panel to Big Tech. That&#39;s right -- this bill would take power away from parents, and hand it over to the companies that lawmakers say are the problem. [...] This bill doesn&#39;t just set an age rule. It creates a legal duty for platforms to police families. Section 103(b) of &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/senate-bill/278/text#toc-id6c00eb1f556f47aabc8e4f75f2f3e2c8&quot;&gt;the bill&lt;/a&gt; is blunt: if a platform knows a user is under 13, it &quot;shall terminate any existing account or profile&quot; belonging to that user. And &quot;knows&quot; doesn&#39;t just mean someone admits their age. The bill defines knowledge to include what is &quot;fairly implied on the basis of objective circumstances&quot; -- in other words, what a reasonable person would conclude from how the account is being used. The reality of how services would comply with KOSMA is clear: rather than risk liability for how they should have known a user was under 13, they will require all users to prove their age to ensure that they block anyone under 13.
        &lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        KOSMA contains no exceptions for parental consent, for family accounts, or for educational or supervised use. The vast majority of people policed by this bill won&#39;t be kids sneaking around -- it will be minors who are following their parents&#39; guidance, and the parents themselves. Imagine a child using their parent&#39;s YouTube account to watch science videos about how a volcano works. If they were to leave a comment saying, &quot;Cool video -- I&#39;ll show this to my 6th grade teacher!&quot; and YouTube becomes aware of the comment, the platform now has clear signals that a child is using that account. It doesn&#39;t matter whether the parent gave permission. Under KOSMA, the company is legally required to act. To avoid violating KOSMA, it would likely lock, suspend, or terminate the account, or demand proof it belongs to an adult. That proof would likely mean asking for a scan of a government ID, biometric data, or some other form of intrusive verification, all to keep what is essentially a &quot;family&quot; account from being shut down.
        &lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        Violations of KOSMA are enforced by the FTC and state attorneys general. That&#39;s more than enough legal risk to make platforms err on the side of cutting people off. Platforms have no way to remove &quot;just the kid&quot; from a shared account. Their tools are blunt: freeze it, verify it, or delete it. Which means that even when a parent has explicitly approved and supervised their child&#39;s use, KOSMA forces Big Tech to override that family decision. [...] These companies don&#39;t know your family or your rules. They only know what their algorithms infer. Under KOSMA, those inferences carry the force of law. Rather than parents or teachers, decisions about who can be online, and for what purpose, will be made by corporate compliance teams and automated detection systems.&lt;/i&gt;
        &lt;/div&gt;
      </description>
      <link>https://yro.slashdot.org/story/26/01/19/2221237/congress-wants-to-hand-your-parenting-to-big-tech</link>
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      <pubDate>Mon, 19 Jan 2026 09:22:00 GMT</pubDate>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>WhatsApp Texts Are Not Contracts, Judge Rules in $2M Divorce Row</title>
      <description>&lt;div id=&quot;text-180615940&quot; class=&quot;p&quot;&gt;
        A British painter who argued that her ex-husband had signed over their $2 million north London home through WhatsApp messages has lost her High Court appeal after the judge ruled that the sender&#39;s name appearing in a chat header &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.thetimes.com/article/418cd0ad-6215-470e-944e-87a434f1684e&quot;&gt;does not constitute a legal signature&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        Hsiao-mei Lin, 54, presented messages from her former husband Audun Mar Gudmundsson, a financier, in which he stated he would transfer his share of their Tufnell Park property to her. Lin&#39;s lawyers argued that because Gudmundsson&#39;s name appeared in the message header on her phone, the messages should be considered signed.&lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        Mr Justice Cawson disagreed, finding that the header identifying a sender is analogous to an email address added by a service provider -- a mechanism for identification rather than part of the message itself. The judge also found the content of the messages did not actually amount to Gudmundsson relinquishing his share.&lt;br&gt;
        &lt;/div&gt;
      </description>
      <link>https://yro.slashdot.org/story/26/01/19/1919236/whatsapp-texts-are-not-contracts-judge-rules-in-2m-divorce-row</link>
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      <pubDate>Mon, 19 Jan 2026 06:25:00 GMT</pubDate>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>More US States are Putting Bitcoin on Public Balance Sheets</title>
      <description>&lt;div id=&quot;text-180613178&quot; class=&quot;p&quot;&gt;
        An anonymous reader shared &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.cnbc.com/2026/01/17/texas-us-states-budgets-bitcoin-crypto-strategic-reserve.html&quot;&gt;this report from CNBC&lt;/a&gt;:
        &lt;i&gt;
        Led by Texas and New Hampshire, U.S. states across the national map, both red and blue in political stripes, are developing bitcoin strategic reserves and bringing cryptocurrencies onto their books through additional state finance and budgeting measures. Texas recently became the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.texastribune.org/2025/12/08/texas-crypto-currency-investment/&quot;&gt;first state to purchase bitcoin&lt;/a&gt; after a legislative effort that began in 2024, but numerous states have joined the &lt;a href=&quot;https://bitcoinlaws.io/reserve-race&quot;&gt;&quot;Reserve Race&quot;&lt;/a&gt; to pass legislation that will allow them to ultimately buy cryptocurrencies. &lt;a href=&quot;https://bitcoinlaws.io/nh/HB302&quot;&gt;New
        Hampshire&lt;/a&gt; passed its crypto strategic reserve law last May, even before Texas, giving the state treasurer the authority to invest up to 5% of the state funds in crypto ETFs, though precious metals such as gold are also authorized for purchase. &lt;a href=&quot;https://bitcoinlaws.io/az/HB2749&quot;&gt;Arizona&lt;/a&gt;
        passed similar legislation, while &lt;a href=&quot;https://bitcoinlaws.io/ma/S1967&quot;&gt;Massachusetts&lt;/a&gt;,
        &lt;a href=&quot;https://bitcoinlaws.io/oh/HB18&quot;&gt;Ohio&lt;/a&gt;,
        and &lt;a href=&quot;https://bitcoinlaws.io/sd/HB1202&quot;&gt;South
        Dakota&lt;/a&gt; have legislation at various stages of committee review...&lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        Similarities in the actions taken across states to date include
        include authorizing the state treasurer or other investment official
        to allow the investment of a limited amount of public funds in crypto
        and building out the governance structure needed to invest in
        crypto... [New Hampshire] became the first state to approve the
        issuance of &lt;a href=&quot;https://nhbfa.com/news/nh-bfa-approves-worlds-first-bitcoin-backed-municipal-bond/&quot;&gt;a bitcoin-backed municipal bond&lt;/a&gt; last November, a $100 million issuance that would mark the first time cryptocurrency is used as collateral in the U.S. municipal bond market. The deal has not taken place yet, though plans are for the issuance to occur this year... &quot;What&#39;s different here is it&#39;s bitcoin rather than taxpayer dollars as the collateral,&quot; [said University of Chicago public policy professor Justin Marlowe]. In numerous states, including, &lt;a href=&quot;https://tax.colorado.gov/cryptocurrency&quot;&gt;Colorada&lt;/a&gt;,
        &lt;a href=&quot;https://tax.utah.gov/billing/payment-fees/&quot;&gt;Utah&lt;/a&gt;, and &lt;a href=&quot;https://d304f3ae-0382-4da9-9c19-eae51ef96fa3.filesusr.com/ugd/92c97e_ee5334e5115b4bada9445f8c345665ed.pdf&quot;&gt;Louisiana&lt;/a&gt;,crypto is now accepted as payment for taxes and other state
        business... &lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        &quot;For many in the state/local investing industry, crypto-backed assets are still far too speculative and volatile for public money,&quot; Marlowe said. &quot;But others, and I think there&#39;s a sort of generational shift in the works, see it as a reasonable store of value that is actually stronger on many other public sector values like transparency and asset integrity,&quot; he added.
        &lt;/i&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        Public policy professor Marlowe &quot;sees the state-level trend as largely one of signaling at present,&quot; according to the article. (Marlowe says &quot;If you&#39;re a governor and you want to broadcast that you are amenable to innovative business development in the digital economy, these are relatively low-cost, low-risk ways to send that signal.&quot;) But the bigger steps may reflect how crypto advocates have increasing political power in the states. The article notes that the cryptocurrency industry was &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.cnbc.com/2024/11/05/cryptos-245-million-campaign-finance-operation-funded-non-crypto-ads.html&quot;&gt;the largest corporate donor in a U.S. election cycle&lt;/a&gt; in 2024, &quot;with support given to candidates on both sides.&quot;&lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        &quot;It is already &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.cnbc.com/2025/01/30/crypto-pac-fairshake-has-116-million-on-hand-for-2026-elections.html&quot;&gt;amassing a war chest for the 2026 midterms&lt;/a&gt;.&quot;&lt;br&gt;
        &lt;/div&gt;
      </description>
      <link>https://yro.slashdot.org/story/26/01/19/076259/more-us-states-are-putting-bitcoin-on-public-balance-sheets</link>
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      <pubDate>Sun, 18 Jan 2026 20:02:00 GMT</pubDate>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Acer Sues Verizon, AT&amp;T, and T-Mobile, Alleging Infringment on Acer&#39;s Cellular Networking Patents</title>
      <description>&lt;div id=&quot;text-180608102&quot; class=&quot;p&quot;&gt;
        Slashdot reader &lt;a href=&quot;https://yro.slashdot.org/~BrianFagioli&quot;&gt;BrianFagioli&lt;/a&gt; writes: &lt;i&gt;Acer &lt;a href=&quot;https://nerds.xyz/2026/01/acer-sues-att-verizon-tmobile-over-patents/&quot;&gt;has filed three separate patent infringement lawsuits against AT&amp;amp;T, Verizon, and T-Mobile&lt;/a&gt;, taking the unusual step of hauling the nation&#39;s largest wireless carriers into federal court. The suits, filed in the Eastern District of Texas, claim the companies are using Acer-developed cellular networking technology without paying for the privilege. Acer says it tried to negotiate licenses for years but reached a dead end, arguing it was left with no option except litigation. The case centers on six U.S. patents Acer asserts are core to modern wireless networks, rather than anything tied to PCs or laptops.&lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt;The company describes itself as reluctant to pursue courtroom battles, but it has been quietly building a large global patent portfolio after pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into R&amp;amp;D. Acer also notes that some of its patents count as standard-essential, hinting the carriers may be required to license them. All three companies are expected to push back, and the dispute could become another long-running telecom patent saga. Consumers will not notice any immediate changes, but if Acer wins or settles, it may find a new revenue stream far beyond its traditional hardware business.&lt;/i&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        &lt;a href=&quot;https://hothardware.com/news/acer-slaps-att-t-mobile-verizon-lawsuit-wireless-patents&quot;&gt;Further coverage from &lt;em&gt;Hot Hardware&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;
        &lt;/div&gt;
      </description>
      <link>https://yro.slashdot.org/story/26/01/18/006222/acer-sues-verizon-att-and-t-mobile-alleging-infringment-on-acers-cellular-networking-patents</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://yro.slashdot.org/story/26/01/18/006222/acer-sues-verizon-att-and-t-mobile-alleging-infringment-on-acers-cellular-networking-patents</guid>
      <pubDate>Sun, 18 Jan 2026 03:34:00 GMT</pubDate>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Two More Offshore Wind Projects in the US Allowed to Continue Construction</title>
      <description>&lt;div id=&quot;text-180604196&quot; class=&quot;p&quot;&gt;
        Friday a federal judge &quot;cleared U.S. power company Dominion Energy to &lt;a&gt;resume work&lt;/a&gt; on its Virginia offshore wind project.&quot; But a U.S. federal judge also ruled Thursday that another major offshore wind farm is allowed to resume construction, &lt;a href=&quot;https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/5691088-wind-farm-trump-new-york/&quot;&gt;reports the Hill&lt;/a&gt;. &quot;The project, which would supply power to New York, was one of five that were &lt;a href=&quot;https://news.slashdot.org/story/25/12/22/2133214/us-blocks-all-offshore-wind-construction-says-reason-is-classified&quot;&gt;halted by the Trump administration in December&lt;/a&gt;....&quot; &lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        In fact, there were &lt;em&gt;three&lt;/em&gt; different court rulings this week each allowing construction to continue on a U.S. wind project:
        &lt;i&gt;Judge Carl Nichols, a Trump appointee, granted a preliminary injunction allowing Empire Wind to keep building... Another, Revolution Wind, was also &lt;a href=&quot;https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/5685507-revolution-wind-trump-rhode-island-connecticut/&quot;&gt;allowed to move forward in court this week&lt;/a&gt;... The project would provide enough power for up to 500,000 homes, according to its website. The court&#39;s decision allows construction to resume while the underlying case against the Trump order plays out. &lt;/i&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        Meanwhile, power company Orsted &quot;is also suing over the pause of its Sunrise Wind project for New York,&quot; &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jan/15/wind-project-trump-judge&quot;&gt;reports the Associated Press&lt;/a&gt;, &quot;with a hearing still to be set.&quot;
        &lt;i&gt;
        The fifth paused project is Vineyard Wind, under construction in Massachusetts. Vineyard Wind LLC, a joint venture between Avangrid and Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners, joined the rest of the developers in challenging the administration on Thursday.&lt;/i&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        CNN &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.cnn.com/2026/01/14/climate/trump-electricity-generation-offshore-wind-east-coast&quot;&gt;points out&lt;/a&gt; that the Vineyard Wind project &quot;has been allowed to send power to the grid even amid Trump&#39;s suspension, a spokesperson for regional grid operator ISO-New England told CNN in an email.&quot;
        &lt;i&gt;
        Residential customers in the mid-Atlantic region, including Virginia, desperately need more energy to service the skyrocketing demand from data centers â&quot; and many are seeing spiking energy bills while they wait for new power to be brought online.
        &lt;/i&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.cnn.com/2026/01/14/climate/trump-electricity-generation-offshore-wind-east-coast&quot;&gt;CNN notes&lt;/a&gt; that president Trump said last week &quot;My goal is to not let any windmill be built; they&#39;re losers.&quot;&lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        The Associated Press &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jan/15/wind-project-trump-judge&quot;&gt;adds&lt;/a&gt; that &quot;In contrast to the halted action in the US, the global offshore wind market is growing, with China leading the world in new installations. Nearly all of the new electricity added to the grid in 2024 was renewable. The British government said on Wednesday it had secured a record 8.4 gigawatts of offshore wind in Europe&#39;s largest offshore wind auction, enough clean electricity to power more than 12m homes.&quot;&lt;br&gt;
        &lt;/div&gt;
      </description>
      <link>https://news.slashdot.org/story/26/01/17/0444252/two-more-offshore-wind-projects-in-the-us-allowed-to-continue-construction</link>
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      <pubDate>Sat, 17 Jan 2026 07:41:00 GMT</pubDate>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>What Happened After Security Researchers Found 60 Flock Cameras Livestreaming to the Internet</title>
      <description>&lt;div id=&quot;text-180604682&quot; class=&quot;p&quot;&gt;
        A couple months ago, YouTuber Benn Jordan &quot;found vulnerabilities in some of Flock&#39;s license plate reader cameras,&quot; &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.404media.co/how-benn-jordan-discovered-flocks-cameras-were-left-streaming-to-the-internet/&quot;&gt;reports 404 Media&#39;s Jason Koebler&lt;/a&gt;. &quot;He reached out to me to tell me he had learned that some of Flock&#39;s Condor cameras were left live-streaming to the open internet.&quot;&lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        This led to a remarkable article where Koebler &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.404media.co/flock-exposed-its-ai-powered-cameras-to-the-internet-we-tracked-ourselves/&quot;&gt;confirmed the breach by visiting a Flock surveillance camera&lt;/a&gt; mounted on a California traffic signal. (&quot;On my phone, I am watching myself in real time as the camera records and livestreams me — without any password or login — to the open internet... Hundreds of miles away, my colleagues are remotely watching me too through the exposed feed.&quot;)
        &lt;i&gt;Flock left livestreams and administrator control panels for at least 60 of its AI-enabled Condor cameras around the country exposed to the open internet, where anyone could watch them, download 30 days worth of video archive, and change settings, see log files, and run diagnostics. Unlike many of Flock&#39;s cameras, which are designed to capture license plates as people drive by, Flock&#39;s Condor cameras are pan-tilt-zoom (PTZ) cameras designed to record and track people, not vehicles. Condor cameras can be set to automatically zoom in on people&#39;s faces... The exposure was initially discovered by YouTuber and technologist Benn Jordan and was shared with security researcher Jon &quot;GainSec&quot; Gaines, who &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uB0gr7Fh6lY&quot;&gt;recently found numerous vulnerabilities&lt;/a&gt; in several other models of Flock&#39;s automated license plate reader (ALPR) cameras.&lt;/i&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        Jordan appeared this week as a guest &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tSd0nXolnIs&quot;&gt;on Koebler&#39;s own YouTube channel&lt;/a&gt;, while Jordan released a video of his own about the experience. titled &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uB0gr7Fh6lY&quot;&gt;We Hacked Flock Safety Cameras in under 30 Seconds&lt;/a&gt;.&quot; (Thanks to Slashdot reader &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.slashdot.org/~beadon&quot;&gt;beadon&lt;/a&gt; for sharing the link.) But together Jordan and 404 Media also created another video three weeks ago titled &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vU1-uiUlHTo&quot;&gt;The Flock Camera Leak is Like Netflix for Stalkers&lt;/a&gt;&quot; which includes footage he says was &quot;completely accessible at the time Flock Safety was telling cities that the devices are secure after they&#39;re deployed.&quot; &lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        The video decries cities &quot;too lazy to conduct their own security audit or research the efficacy versus risk,&quot; but also calls weak security &quot;an industry-wide problem.&quot; Jordan explains in the video how he &quot;very easily found the administration interfaces for dozens of Flock safety cameras...&quot; — but also what happened next:
        &lt;i&gt;
        None of the data or video footage was encrypted. There was no username or password required. These were all completely public-facing, for the world to see.... Making any modification to the cameras is illegal, so I didn&#39;t do this. But I had the ability to delete any of the video footage or evidence by simply pressing a button. I could see the paths where all of the evidence files were located on the file system...&lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        During and after the process of
        conducting that research and making that
        video, I was visited by the police and
        had what I believed to be private
        investigators outside my home
        photographing me and my property and
        bothering my neighbors. John Gaines or
        &lt;a href=&quot;https://gainsec.com/whoami/&quot;&gt;GainSec&lt;/a&gt;, the brains behind most of this
        research, lost employment within 48
        hours of the video being released. And
        the sad reality is that I don&#39;t view
        these things as consequences or
        punishment for researching security
        vulnerabilities. I view these as
        consequences and punishment for doing it
        ethically and transparently.&lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        I&#39;ve been
        contacted by people on or communicating
        with civic councils who found my videos
        concerning, and they shared Flock
        Safety&#39;s response with me. The company
        claimed that the devices in my video did
        not reflect the security standards of
        the ones being publicly deployed. The
        CEO even posted on LinkedIn and boasted
        about Flock Safety&#39;s security policies.
        So, I formally and publicly offered to
        personally fund security research into
        Flock Safety&#39;s deployed ecosystem. But
        the law prevents me from touching their
        live devices. So, all I needed was their
        permission so I wouldn&#39;t get arrested.
        And I was even willing to let them
        supervise this research. &lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        I got no
        response.
        &lt;/i&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        So instead, he read Flock&#39;s official response to a security/surveillance industry research group — while standing in front of one of their security cameras, streaming his reading to the public internet. &lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        &quot;Might as well. It&#39;s my tax dollars that paid for it.&quot;&lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        &quot; &#39;Flock is committed to continuously improving security...&#39;&quot;&lt;br&gt;
        &lt;/div&gt;
      </description>
      <link>https://yro.slashdot.org/story/26/01/17/0718211/what-happened-after-security-researchers-found-60-flock-cameras-livestreaming-to-the-internet</link>
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      <pubDate>Sat, 17 Jan 2026 04:34:00 GMT</pubDate>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Supreme Court May Block Thousands of Lawsuits Over Monsanto&#39;s Weed Killer</title>
      <description>&lt;div id=&quot;text-180604130&quot; class=&quot;p&quot;&gt;
        The U.S. Supreme Court will hear Monsanto&#39;s argument that federal pesticide law &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2026-01-16/supreme-court-may-block-thousands-of-lawsuits-over-monsantos-weed-killer&quot;&gt;should shield it and parent company Bayer from tens of thousands of state lawsuits over Roundup&lt;/a&gt; since the Environmental Protection Agency has not required a cancer warning label. The case could determine whether federal rules preempt state failure-to-warn claims without deciding whether glyphosate causes cancer. The Los Angeles Times reports: &lt;i&gt; Some studies have &lt;a href=&quot;https://science.slashdot.org/story/19/03/20/1938211/jury-finds-bayers-roundup-weedkiller-caused-mans-cancer&quot;&gt;found&lt;/a&gt; it is a &lt;a href=&quot;https://science.slashdot.org/story/18/08/11/0141247/monsanto-ordered-to-pay-289-million-in-roundup-cancer-trial&quot;&gt;likely carcinogen&lt;/a&gt;, and others concluded it does not pose a true cancer risk for humans. However, the court may free Monsanto and Bayer, its parent company, from legal claims from more than 100,000 plaintiffs who sued over their cancer diagnosis. The legal dispute involves whether the federal regulatory laws shield the company from being sued under state law for failing to warn consumers.
        &lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        [...] &quot;EPA has repeatedly determined that glyphosate, the world&#39;s most widely used herbicide, does not cause cancer. EPA has consistently reached that conclusion after studying the extensive body of science on glyphosate for over five decades,&quot; the company told the court in its appeal. They said the EPA not only refused to add a cancer warning label to products with Roundup, but said it would be &quot;misbranded&quot; with such a warning.
        &lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        Nonetheless, the &quot;premise of this lawsuit, and the thousands like it, is that Missouri law requires Monsanto to include the precise warning that EPA rejects,&quot; they said. On Friday, the court said in a brief order that it would decide &quot;whether the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act preempts a label-based failure-to-warn claim where EPA has not required the warning.&quot; The court is likely to hear arguments in the case of Monsanto vs. Durnell in April and issue a ruling by late June. &lt;/i&gt;&lt;br&gt;
        &lt;/div&gt;
      </description>
      <link>https://yro.slashdot.org/story/26/01/17/0428238/supreme-court-may-block-thousands-of-lawsuits-over-monsantos-weed-killer</link>
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      <pubDate>Fri, 16 Jan 2026 21:00:00 GMT</pubDate>
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    <item>
      <title>Biggest Offshore Wind Project In US To Resume Construction</title>
      <description>&lt;div id=&quot;text-180604100&quot; class=&quot;p&quot;&gt;
        A federal judge has &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.cnbc.com/2026/01/16/biggest-offshore-wind-project-in-us-to-resume-construction-after-judge-lifts-trump-suspension.html&quot;&gt;temporarily lifted the Trump administration&#39;s suspension of the Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind&lt;/a&gt;, allowing construction on the largest offshore wind project in the U.S. to resume. CNBC reports: &lt;i&gt; Judge Jamar Walker of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia granted Dominion&#39;s request for a preliminary injunction Friday. Dominion called the Trump suspension &quot;arbitrary and illegal&quot; in its lawsuit. &quot;Our team will now focus on safely restarting work to ensure CVOW begins delivery of critical energy in just weeks,&quot; a Dominion spokesperson told CNBC in a statement Friday. &quot;While our legal challenge proceeds, we will continue seeking a durable resolution of this matter through cooperation with the federal government,&quot; the spokesperson said.
        &lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt;
        Dominion said in December that &quot;stopping CVOW for any length of time will threaten grid reliability for some of the nation&#39;s most important war fighting, AI and civilian assets.&quot; Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind is a 176-turbine project that would provide enough power for more than 600,000 homes, according to Dominion. It is scheduled to start dispatching power by the end of the first quarter of 2026. &lt;/i&gt; In December, the Trump administration &lt;a href=&quot;https://news.slashdot.org/story/25/12/22/2133214/us-blocks-all-offshore-wind-construction-says-reason-is-classified&quot;&gt;paused the leases&lt;/a&gt; on all five offshore wind sites currently under construction in the U.S., blaming the decisions on a classified report from the Department of Defense.&lt;br&gt;
        &lt;/div&gt;
      </description>
      <link>https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/26/01/17/0417254/biggest-offshore-wind-project-in-us-to-resume-construction</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/26/01/17/0417254/biggest-offshore-wind-project-in-us-to-resume-construction</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 16 Jan 2026 18:00:00 GMT</pubDate>
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