prisoninmate shares a report from 9to5Linux: Canonical released today Ubuntu 24.04 LTS (Noble Numbat) as the latest version of its popular Linux-based operating system featuring some of the latest GNU/Linux technologies and Open Source software. Powered by Linux kernel 6.8, Ubuntu 24.04 LTS features the latest GNOME 46 desktop environment, an all-new graphical firmware update tool called Firmware Updater, Netplan 1.0 for state-of-the-art network management, updated Ubuntu font, support for the deb822 format for software sources, increased vm.max_map_count for better gaming, and Mozilla Thunderbird as a Snap by default. It also comes with an updated Flutter-based graphical desktop installer that's now capable of updating itself and features a bunch of changes like support for accessibility features, guided (unencrypted) ZFS installations, a new option to import auto-install configurations for templated custom provisioning, as well as new default installation options, such as Default selection (previously Minimal) and Extended selection (previously Normal)."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Jeff Lawson, the cofounder of cloud computing company Twilio, appears to have purchased the satirical news website The Onion from G/O Media. Business Insider reports: A trust linked to Lawson is behind a San Francisco-based company called Global Tetrahedron, which shares the name of a fictional evil megacorporation in a long-running Onion gag, business records show. G/O Media CEO Jim Spanfeller confirmed the sale of The Onion to Global Tetrahedron in an email Thursday to staff, first reported by New York Times journalist Katie Robertson. "This company is made up of four digital media veterans with a profound love for The Onion and comedy based content," Spanfeller wrote. "The site's new owners have agreed to keep The Onion's entire staff intact and in Chicago, something we insisted be part of the deal." When asked about the purchase, Lawson replied: "What's The Onion?" Then, "What's a Tetrahedron?"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Fintech giant Stripe announced on Thursday that it would let customers accept cryptocurrency payments, starting with USDC stablecoins, initially only on Solana, Ethereum and Polygon. TechCrunch reports: This will be the first time that Stripe has taken crypto payments since 2018, when it dropped support for Bitcoin due to it being too unstable. Stripe in 2022 tried its first reentry into the crypto market when it announced payouts (but not payments) in USDC, with Twitter as its marquee customer for the service. Thursday's news has no customer names attached to it. On Wednesday the company unveiled a long list of other launches, the most significant update being that Stripe, for the very first time, would let customers integrate competing payment providers with Stripe's other financial services tooling. Thursday's nod to expanding crypto support is also part of that bigger strategy to open up its walled garden. A brief timeline of Stripe's dance with crypto underscores the tricky line that Stripe has walked over the years when it comes to cryptocurrency. True to its disruptive roots as a fintech, the company has wanted to be in the middle of the conversation around how blockchain-based technologies will affect financial services. But it runs the risk of subverting its bigger business and positioning as a stable and sensible financial powerhouse if it dabbles too deeply or for too long in periods of instability. The company processed $1 trillion in transactions last year, and it's still growing; it is currently worth $65 billion on paper.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

When you really have federation no one needs to hype it, people don't even realize it because things just work the way you expect them to. Every time I hear "Where ever you get your podcasts," I'm reminded of how well that worked.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the New York Times: The Federal Communications Commission voted on Thursday to restore regulations that expand government oversight of broadband providersand aim to protect consumer access to the internet, a move that will reignite a long-running battle over the open internet. Known as net neutrality, the regulations were first put in place nearly a decade ago under the Obama administration and are aimed at preventing internet service providers like Verizon or Comcast from blocking or degrading the delivery of services from competitors like Netflix and YouTube. The rules were repealed under President Donald J. Trump, and have proved to be a contentious partisan issue over the years while pitting tech giants against broadband providers. In a 3-to-2 vote along party lines, the five-member commission appointed by President Biden revived the rules that declare broadband a utility-like service regulated like phones and water. The rules also give the F.C.C. the ability to demand broadband providers report and respond to outages, as well as expand the agency's oversight of the providers' security issues. Broadband providers are expected to sue to try to overturn the reinstated rules. The core purpose of the regulations is to prevent internet service providers from controlling the quality of consumers' experience when they visit websites and use services online. When the rules were established, Google, Netflix and other online services warned that broadband providers had the incentive to slow down or block access to their services. Consumer and free speech groups supported this view. There have been few examples of blocking or slowing of sites, which proponents of net neutrality say is largely because of fear that the companies would invite scrutiny if they did so. And opponents say the rules could lead to more and unnecessary government oversight of the industry.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

TikTok owner ByteDance would prefer shutting down its loss-making app rather than sell it if the Chinese company exhausts all legal options to fight legislation to ban the platform from app stores in the U.S., Reuters reported Thursday, citing sources. From the report: The algorithms TikTok relies on for its operations are deemed core to ByteDance overall operations, which would make a sale of the app with algorithms highly unlikely, said the sources close to the parent. TikTok accounts for a small share of ByteDance's total revenues and daily active users, so the parent would rather have the app shut down in the U.S. in a worst case scenario than sell it to a potential American buyer, they said. A shut-down would have limited impact on ByteDance's business while the company would not have to give up its core algorithm, said the sources, who declined to be named as they were not authorised to speak to the media. It said late on Thursday in a statement posted on Toutiao, a media platform it owns, that it had no plan to sell TikTok, in response to an article by The Information saying ByteDance is exploring scenarios for selling TikTok's U.S. business without the algorithm that recommends videos to TikTok users.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Coal-fired power plants would be forced to capture smokestack emissions or shut down under a rule issued on Thursday by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). From a report: New limits on greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuel-fired electric plants are the Biden administration's most ambitious effort yet to roll back planet-warming pollution from the power sector, the nation's second-largest contributor to the climate crisis. The rules are a key part of Joe Biden's pledge to eliminate carbon pollution from the electricity sector by 2035 and economy-wide by 2050. The rule was among four separate measures targeting coal and natural gas plants that the EPA said would provide "regular certainty" to the power industry and encourage them to make investments to transition "to a clean energy economy." They also include requirements to reduce toxic wastewater pollutants from coal-fired plants and to safely manage so-called coal ash in unlined storage ponds. The new rules "reduce pollution from fossil fuel-fired power plants, protect communities from pollution and improve public health -- all while supporting the long-term, reliable supply of the electricity needed to power America forward," the EPA administrator, Michael Regan, told reporters at a White House briefing.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Consumer Intelligence Research Partners is out with a report on how iPhone activations compare to Android in the US. The latest data shows a notable drop over the last year bringing Apple's US smartphone market share of new activations back in time six years. CIRP shared its new iPhone report on its Substack this morning. The firm notes that while it believes Apple's installed smartphone base is higher than the recent share of US smartphone activations, the latter has taken a dive. As shown below, the metric peaked at 40% for Q1 and Q2 in 2023 with Apple seeing a decline to 33% of new smartphone activations in the US as of Q1 2024, says CIRP. That means 2 out of 3 new smartphone activations in the US are Android devices. Per CIRP's data, Apple hasn't seen numbers that low since 2017.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The Federal Communications Commission is set to vote to restore net neutrality on Thursday in the latest volley of a yearslong game of political ping-pong. From a report: The commission is expected to reclassify internet service providers (ISPs) -- e.g., broadband companies like AT&T and Comcast -- as common carriers under Title II of the Communications Act. That classification would open ISPs up to greater oversight by the FCC. The vote is widely expected to go in favor of reinstating net neutrality since FCC Chair Jessica Rosenworcel, a Democrat, controls the agency's agenda. Rosenworcel moved forward with the measure after a fifth commissioner was sworn in, restoring a Democratic majority on the panel. Net neutrality proponents say that oversight can help ensure fair access to an open internet by upholding principles like no blocking or throttling of internet traffic. Opponents, including industry players, fear it could halt innovation and subject ISPs to onerous price regulations.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A backgrounder on how the web is used for conversation, the pros and cons of each variant, and what role RSS can play in it, thanks to ChatGPT.

I don't think conversation on the web has been the big benefit some people think. Do you remember when you first realized that people weren't talking to you in a response to your post, they were talking over your shoulder to the people who read your post. I guess it depends on who you are, but I don't see any value in providing a surface for spam. These days I block people without much thought if I think that's what they're doing. So, why should you design a protocol, and pay the cost of supporting, something that is a vector for spam and abuse? That's the argument in favor of using RSS to glue things together. You can comment on my post, in your space, but my followers don't have to see it. That's up to me. I think it would change the nature of discourse, for the better.

Ford's electric vehicle unit reported that losses soared in the first quarter to $1.3 billion, or $132,000 for each of the 10,000 vehicles it sold in the first three months of the year, helping to drag down earnings for the company overall. From a report: Ford, like most automakers, has announced plans to shift from traditional gas-powered vehicles to EVs in coming years. But it is the only traditional automaker to break out results of its retail EV sales. And the results it reported Wednesday show another sign of the profit pressures on the EV business at Ford and other automakers. The EV unit, which Ford calls Model e, sold 10,000 vehicles in the quarter, down 20% from the number it sold a year earlier. And its revenue plunged 84% to about $100 million, which Ford attributed mostly to price cuts for EVs across the industry. That resulted in the $1.3 billion loss before interest and taxes (EBIT), and the massive per-vehicle loss in the Model e unit. A price war among EVs for about a year and a half has made profitability very difficult said Ford CFO John Lawler. He said while Ford has removed about $5,000 in cost on each Mustang Mach-E, "revenue is dropping faster than we can take out the cost." In 2023, Ford Model e reported a full-year EBIT loss of $4.7 billion on sales of 116,000 EVs, or an average of $40,525 per vehicle, just more than a third of the first quarter loss.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Apple has rejected Spotify's new version of its iOS app with in-app pricing information for users in the European Union, the audio streaming firm said on Thursday. Reuters: The Swedish company submitted a new version of its app to Apple with basic pricing and website information, which is a minimum requirement under the European Commission's ruling in its music streaming case, it said in a post on X on Wednesday. Spotify said the Cupertino, California based-Apple rejected its update in a response directly sent to the company. "Apple has once again defied the European Commission's decision, rejecting our update for attempting to communicate with customers about our prices unless we pay Apple a new tax. Their disregard for consumers and developers is matched only by their disdain for the law," a spokesperson for Spotify said in a statement. In March, Brussels fined Apple with 1.84 billion euros ($1.97 billion) for thwarting competition from music streaming rivals via restrictions on its App Store, marking its first ever EU antitrust penalty, following a 2019 complaint from Spotify.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The head of Indian IT company Tata Consultancy Services has said AI will result in "minimal" need for call centres in as soon as a year, with AI's rapid advances set to upend a vast industry across Asia and beyond. From a report: K Krithivasan, TCS chief executive, told the Financial Times that while "we have not seen any job reduction" so far, wider adoption of generative AI among multinational clients would overhaul the kind of customer help centres that have created mass employment in countries such as India and the Philippines. "In an ideal phase, if you ask me, there should be very minimal incoming call centres having incoming calls at all," he said. "We are in a situation where the technology should be able to predict a call coming and then proactively address the customer's pain point." He said chatbots would soon be able to analyse a customer's transaction history and do much of the work done by call centre agents. "That's where we are going...I don't think we are there today -- maybe a year or so down the line," he said.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNN: The fertility rate in the United States has been trending down for decades, and a new report shows that another drop in births in 2023 brought the rate down to the lowest it's been in more than century. There were about 3.6 million babies born in 2023, or 54.4 live births for every 1,000 females ages 15 to 44, according to provisional data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Center for Health Statistics. After a steep plunge in the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic, the fertility rate has fluctuated. But the 3% drop between 2022 and 2023 brought the rate just below the previous low from 2020, which was 56 births for every 1,000 women of reproductive age. The birth rate fell among most age groups between 2022 and 2023, the new report shows. The teen birth rate reached another record low of 13.2 births per 1,000 females ages 15 to 19, which is 79% lower than it was at the most recent peak from 1991. However, the rate of decline was slower than it's been for the past decade and a half. Meanwhile, births continued to shift to older mothers. Older age groups saw smaller decreases in birth rates, and the birth rate was highest among women ages 30 to 34 -- with about 95 births for every 1,000 women in this group in 2023. Women 40 and older were the only group to see an increase in birth rate, although -- at less than 13 births for every 1,000 women -- it remained lower than any other age group.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.