The Free Software Foundation describes how "After months of preparation and excitement, we finally came together on November 21 for a global online hackathon to support free software projects and "put a spotlight on the difficult and often thankless work that free software hackers carry out..." Based on how many of you dropped in over the weekend and were incredibly engaged in the important work that is improving free software, either as a spectator or as a participant, this goal was accomplished. And it's all thanks to you! Friday started a little rocky with a datacenter outage affecting most FSF services. Participants spread out to work on six different free software projects over forty-eight hours as our tech team worked to restore all FSF sites with the help and support of the community. Over three hundred folks were tuned in at a time, some to participate in the hackathon and others to follow the progress being made. As a community, we got a lot done over the weekend... It was amazing to see so many of you take a little (or a lot of!) time out of your busy schedules to improve free software, and we're incredibly grateful for each and every one of you. It really energizes us and shows us how much we can accomplish when we work together over even just a couple days. Not only was this a fantastic sight to see because of the work we got done, but it was also a very fitting way to conclude our fortieth anniversary celebration events. Free software has been and always will be a community effort, one that continues to get better and better because of the dedicated developers, contributors, and users who ensure its existence. Thank you for celebrating forty years of the FSF and fighting for a freer future for us all.

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Almost two-thirds of registered U.S. voters "say that a four-year college degree isn't worth the cost," according to a new NBC News poll: Just 33% agree a four-year college degree is "worth the cost because people have a better chance to get a good job and earn more money over their lifetime," while 63% agree more with the concept that it's "not worth the cost because people often graduate without specific job skills and with a large amount of debt to pay off." In 2017, U.S. adults surveyed were virtually split on the question — 49% said a degree was worth the cost and 47% said it wasn't. When CNBC asked the same question in 2013 as part of its All American Economic Survey, 53% said a degree was worth it and 40% said it was not. The eye-popping shift over the last 12 years comes against the backdrop of several major trends shaping the job market and the education world, from exploding college tuition prices to rapid changes in the modern economy — which seems once again poised for radical transformation alongside advances in AI... Remarkably, less than half of voters with college degrees see those degrees as worth the cost: 46% now, down from 63% in 2013... The upshot is that interest in technical, vocational and two-year degree programs has soared. "The 20-point decline over the last 12 years among those who say a degree is worth it — from 53% in 2013 to 33% now — is reflected across virtually every demographic group."

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"A year after launching a commercial robotaxi service in Abu Dhabi, Chinese autonomous vehicle technology company WeRide and partner Uber can finally call that service driverless," reports TechCrunch. A company official hailed it as "a historic transportation milestone, as the first driverless AV deployment outside of the U.S. or China." But TechCrunch notes that's just the beginning: Uber has spent the past two years locking up partnerships with 20 autonomous vehicle technology companies in various countries, including the United States, Europe, and the Middle East. Those partnerships have expanded beyond the realm of robotaxis as well. Uber's deals span the full range of self-driving applications, including delivery and trucking. This year alone, it announced partnerships withAnn Arbor, Michigan-basedMay MobilityandVolkswagen, Chinese self-driving firms Momenta,Pony.ai, and Baidu, as well as a recent deal to create a premium robotaxi service using Lucid Gravity SUVs equipped with a self-driving system from San Francisco-based startup Nuro. These deals are finally beginning to materialize into commercial services. For instance, Uber and Waymo launched a robotaxi service earlier this year in Austin. Now, Uber has expanded to the Middle East with WeRide in Abu Dhabi — with even more cities to come, including Dubai. Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi forecast in the company's third-quarter earnings report that there would be autonomous vehicle deployments on the Uber network in at least 10 cities by the end of 2026. Uber and WeRide have previously shared plans to expand to 15 cities throughout the Middle East and Europe, eventually scaling to thousands of robotaxis. That would represent a massive leap for WeRide, which today has more than 150 robotaxis in the region.

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Digital Trends reports: A wave of shortages now threatens to ripple across RAM, SSDs, and even hard drives, affecting not only performance-hungry rigs but also everyday systems. — CyberPowerPC has publicly confirmed it will raise prices on all systems starting December 7th due to RAM costs spiking by 500% and SSD prices doubling since October. — Memory suppliers warn of a global DRAM and SSD shortage running into late 2026 or even 2027, driven heavily by AI server demand. — As reported by Bloomberg, Lenovo has already stockpiled memory to ride out the crunch and maintain steadier PC pricing. — Among other OEMs, HP, in its recent earnings call, flagged possible price increases or lower-spec models on the back of rising component costs. But Apple "may also be in a good position to weather the shortage," reports Ars Technica, since "analysts at Morgan Stanley and Bernstein Research believe that Apple has already laid claim to the RAM that it needs and that its healthy profit margins will allow it to absorb the increases better than most." Ars Technica also shows how much RAM and storage prices have jumped — sometimes as much as 2x or even 3x in just three months. "In short, there's no escaping these price increases, which affect SSDs and both DDR4 and DDR5 RAM kits of all capacities (though higher-capacity RAM kits do seem to be hit a little harder)." Memory and storage shortages can be particularly difficult to get through. As with all chips, it can take years to ramp up capacity and/or build new manufacturing facilities... And memory makers in particular may be slow to ramp up manufacturing capacity in response to shortages. If they decide to start manufacturing more chips now, what happens if memory demand drops off a cliff in six months or a year (if, say, an AI bubble deflates or pops altogether)? It means an oversupply of memory chips — consumers benefit from rock-bottom prices for components, but it becomes harder for manufacturers to cover their costs... The upshot is: Not only are memory prices getting bad now, but it's exceptionally difficult to predict when shortage-fueled price hikes might end... Tom's Hardware reports that AMD has told its partners that it expects to raise GPU prices by about 10 percent starting next year and that Nvidia may have canceled a planned RTX 50-series Super launch entirely because of shortages and price increases.

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Hyperloop One ceased operations in December 2023, notes CNN. "Yet nearly two years on, in other parts of the world, hyperloop projects are ongoing." For example, Rotterdam-based Hardt Hyperloop has a cool web site — and the company's managing director tells CNN that hyperloops are the only "actionable, sustainable solution to replace short-haul air travel" over distances greater than 300 miles. "It's 90% more efficient than air travel, operational expenses and maintenance costs are much lower than conventional high-speed railways and, as an enclosed, autonomous system, it's not affected by external factors such as bad weather or strikes." Rail-friendly Europe appears to be the new hyperloop hub, with four companies dedicated to it... Europe's Hyperloop Development Program (HDP) is a public-private partnership backed by EU funding and the private sector. HDP's vision is to have the first set of commercially viable hyperloop lines open by 2035-40, followed by a route network by 2050. It estimates that a 15,000-mile network linking 130 of Europe's major cities could shift 66% of short-haul flight passengers to hyperloop by 2050, saving between 113 million and 242 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions. Core network hubs would be scattered across the continent from London to Berlin, Madrid to Belgrade, and Sofia to Athens, while loops would serve the Iberian Peninsula, the Baltic States and Scandinavia, the Balkans and Central and Eastern Europe. The cost? A cool 981 billion euros, or $1.1 trillion, according to HDP estimates... [T]hose behind the EU-backed HDP project are hoping to have a full-scale test track of up to 3 miles operational by the end of 2029, followed by a 20-30 mile twin-tube "Living Lab" which would replicate all aspects of day-to-day operation and public service, slated to be up and running by 2034. Elsewhere, Hyperloop Italia is investing in a demonstration line between Venice and Padua costing up to €800 million ($929 million) which could be ready by 2029, while Germany, Spain, India and China are also investigating trial routes to establish the viability of the technology. And meanwhile China and Japan are also building "maglev" (magnetic levitation) train lines, the article points out — though it also includes this quote from rail expert and author Christian Wolmar. "Hyperloop is unworkable. The infrastructure it needs would be amazingly expensive to build and it can't deliver the capacity to compete with high-speed railways or airlines. "It doesn't integrate with existing transport modes, the infrastructure required to reach city centers would cause intolerable noise and disruption. And there are doubts over energy costs, capacity and passenger safety if something goes wrong at such high speeds.... "[T]he economics of it just don't work."

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An EDM song by the British group Haven ran into trouble in October after it shared clips of upcoming song "I Run" on TikTok. The song "was an overnight viral sensation online," writes Digital Music News — racking up millions of plays "even before it hit streaming services." (Although the Washington Post notes that "Record labels and TikTok users began questioning whether 'I Run' used an AI deepfake, modeled off British R&B singer Jorja Smith, for the vocals.") Digital Music News picks up the story: The artist says he used his own voice to record the vocals, and then ran it through layers of processing and filtering to turn it into the female-sounding voice heard in the track. However, that filtering also included the use of the controversial genAI platform Suno — and that's what complicates things... [The article says later that Suno "is currently in the middle of a blockbuster lawsuit with the Big Three major labels over allegations of widespread copyright infringement of sound recordings used during the AI model training process."] Meanwhile, the song was rapidly amassing listenership. It soared to #11 on the U.S. Spotify chart and #25 on Spotify globally. Videos using the song continued going viral on TikTok and Instagram, including one in which rapper Offset had apparently played the song during a Boiler Room set, which later turned out to be falsified. And then, as quickly as it appeared, "I Run" was taken down from streaming services, including Spotify and Apple Music. That was due, in part, to numerous takedown notices from The Orchard, the label to which Jorja Smith is signed, as well as the RIAA and IFPI. The takedown notices alleged various issues with the track, including the "misrepresentation" of another artist, as well as copyright infringement. As a result, the song has also been withheld from the Billboard charts, including the Hot 100, on which it had been predicted to debut this week before the controversy. Billboard points out that it "reserves the right to withhold or remove titles from appearing on the charts that are known to be involved in active legal disputes related to copyright infringement that may extend to the deletion of such content on digital service providers." The song itself has now been re-released with an all-human vocal track. But going forward will the music industry ever work with AI platforms? The Washington Post reports: "I Run" has taken off as record labels remain unsure of the extent to which they should welcome generative AI programs such as Suno or Udio into the industry. After the two AI music companies began growing in popularity, the three major labels — Sony Music, Warner Music Group and Universal Music Group — filed lawsuits against Suno and Udio, claiming that the AI companies have used the labels' sound recordings to train their model. Since then, UMG and Warnerhave reached agreementsto work with Udio, ending their litigation... It comes shortly after all three major labels licensed their catalogue to Klay, a music streaming start-up that allows users to adjust songs using artificial intelligence. Major licensing organizations such as ASCAP and BMI shared that they would register songs that were partially AI-generated — but not fully generated ones. Haven appears to present an uncomfortable edge case. While some AI-generated songs that sound broadly like other artists have been allowed to remain on streaming platforms, the voice in "I Run" appears to have been deemed too duplicative for comfort.

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OpenAI's data centre partners are on course to amass almost $100 billion in borrowing tied to the lossmaking start-up, as the ChatGPT maker benefits from a debt-fuelled spending spree without taking on financial risks itself. Financial Times: SoftBank, Oracle and CoreWeave have borrowed at least $30 billion to invest in the start-up or help build its data centres, according to FT analysis. Investment group Blue Owl Capital and computing infrastructure companies such as Crusoe also rely on deals with OpenAI to service about $28 billion in loans. A group of banks is in talks to lend another $38 billion for Oracle and data centre builder Vantage to fund further sites for OpenAI, according to people familiar with the matter. The deal is expected to be finalised in the coming weeks. OpenAI executives have said they plan to raise substantial debt to help pay for these contracts, but so far the financial burden has fallen to its counterparties and their lenders. "That's been kind of the strategy," said a senior OpenAI executive. "How does [OpenAI] leverage other people's balance sheets?"

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The investigation into the June 12 Air India crash that killed 260 people has been marked by tension, suspicion and poor communication between American and Indian officials, including an episode where NTSB chairwoman Jennifer Homendy instructed her black-box specialists not to board a late-night Indian military flight to a remote facility, WSJ reports. When two American recorder experts landed in New Delhi in late June, they received urgent messages from colleagues telling them not to go with the Indians; Homendy had grown concerned about sending U.S. personnel and equipment to an aerospace lab in the remote town of Korwa amid State Department security warnings about terrorism in the region. She made calls to Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy and the CEOs of Boeing and GE Aerospace, and the State Department sent embassy officials to intercept the NTSB specialists at the airport. Homendy eventually delivered an ultimatum: if Indian authorities didn't choose between their Delhi facility and the NTSB's Washington lab within 48 hours, she would withdraw American support from the probe. Indian officials relented. The downloaded data showed someone in the cockpit moved switches that cut off the engines' fuel supply, and India's preliminary report stated one pilot asked the other why he moved the switches while that pilot denied doing so. American government and industry officials now privately believe the captain likely moved the switches deliberately.

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Black fungus found growing inside Chernobyl's destroyed reactor may be feeding on radiation, and researchers have tested samples of the same species aboard the International Space Station to explore whether it could eventually shield astronauts from cosmic rays. Ukrainian scientist Nelli Zhdanova first discovered the melanin-rich mould colonizing the walls and ceilings of the exploded reactor building during a May 1997 survey. Her research indicated that the fungal hyphae were actually growing toward sources of ionizing radiation rather than merely tolerating it. In 2007, nuclear scientist Ekaterina Dadachova at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine found that melanised fungi grew 10% faster when exposed to radioactive caesium compared to control samples, leading her to propose "radiosynthesis" -- a process where organisms convert radiation into metabolic energy. The same strain, Cladosporium sphaerospermum, traveled to the ISS in December 2018 and grew an average of 1.21 times faster over 26 days compared to Earth-based controls. Nils Averesch, a biochemist at the University of Florida and co-author of that study, remains cautious about attributing the growth boost to radiation harvesting since zero gravity could also be responsible.

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Europe's Airbus said on Friday it was ordering immediate repairs to 6,000 of its widely used A320 family of jets in a sweeping recall affecting more than half the global fleet, threatening upheaval during the busiest travel weekend of the year in the United States and disruption worldwide. From a report: The setback appears to be among the largest recalls affecting Airbus in its 55-year history and comes weeks after the A320 overtook the Boeing 737 as the most-delivered model. At the time Airbus issued its bulletin to the plane's more than 350 operators, some 3,000 A320-family jets were in the air. The fix mainly involves reverting to earlier software and is relatively simple, but must be carried out before the planes can fly again, other than repositioning to repair centres, according to the bulletin to airlines seen by Reuters. Airlines from the United States to South America, Europe, India and New Zealand warned the repairs could potentially cause flight delays or cancellations.

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EU antitrust regulators will examine whether Apple's Apple Ads and Apple Maps should be subject to the onerous requirements of the bloc's digital rules after both services hit key criteria, with the U.S. tech giant saying they should be exempted. From a report: Apple's App Store, iOS operating system and Safari web browser were designated core platform services under the Digital Markets Act two years ago aimed at reining in the power of Big Tech and opening up the field to rivals so consumers can have more choice. The European Commission said that Apple has notified it that Apple Ads and Apple Maps met the Act's two thresholds to be considered "gatekeepers." The DMA designates companies with services with more than 45 million monthly active users and $79 billion in market capitalisation as gatekeepers subject to a list of dos and don'ts.

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A new study published in Communications Earth & Environment has reconstructed the climate conditions of the ancient Indus River Valley civilization between 3000 and 1000 B.C., finding that four intense droughts -- each lasting more than 85 years -- likely drove the gradual decline of one of the world's earliest advanced societies. The research team, led by Hiren Solanki at the Indian Institute of Technology, Gandhinagar, combined paleoclimate data from cave formations and lake records with computer models to determine that the region shifted from wetter-than-present monsoon conditions to prolonged dry spells as the tropical Pacific Ocean warmed. The third drought, peaking around 1733 B.C., proved the most severe: it lasted 164 years, reduced annual rainfall by 13%, and affected nearly the entire region. Overall temperatures rose by 0.5 degrees Celsius and rainfall dropped between 10 and 20%. These changes shrank lakes and rivers, dried soils, and made agriculture increasingly difficult in areas away from major waterways. Harappan settlements progressively relocated eastward toward the Indus River over roughly 2,000 years. The civilization's long survival under repeated climate stress -- through crop switching, trade diversification, and settlement relocation -- offers lessons for modern communities facing environmental pressures, the researchers said.

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The bitter standoff between Dutch chipmaker Nexperia -- which supplies basic chips crucial to 49% of European automakers, over 85% of medical device companies, and the entire defense industry -- and its Chinese parent company Wingtech escalated on Friday when both Wingtech and Nexperia's Chinese unit accused the Dutch business of secretly building a supply chain that would cut China out entirely. The accusations came one day after Nexperia's Dutch headquarters published an open letter claiming it had repeatedly tried and failed to contact its Chinese unit. Nexperia China demanded the Dutch side halt its overseas expansion plans, specifically a $300 million investment in a Malaysian plant, and alleged an internal company target to source 90% of production outside China by mid-2026. The Chinese unit also accused its European counterparts of deleting employee email accounts and cutting off access to IT systems. The dispute traces back to September when the Dutch government invoked a Cold War-era law to seize control of Nexperia on economic security grounds. An Amsterdam court subsequently stripped Wingtech of its ownership rights. Beijing retaliated by halting exports of finished Nexperia chips on October 4, triggering warnings of production shutdowns from automakers including Nissan and Bosch. Export curbs were relaxed in early November, and the Dutch government suspended its intervention last week following talks, but the court ruling remains in force. Wingtech warned that supply disruptions could return if the control issue remains unresolved.

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Australia warned it's in danger of missing its 2035 climate targets without deeper pollution cuts, which in turn threatens the nation's ambitions to reach net zero by mid-century. From a report: Emissions are set to fall 48% by 2035 from 2005 levels based on current projections [non-paywalled source], the government said in a report on Thursday. That's short of an official pledge to cut greenhouse gases between 62% and 70%. The forecast doesn't take into account new action planned under the nation's Net Zero Plan. Still, the targets remain achievable and officials plan to take additional measures to meet them, Minister for Climate Change and Energy Chris Bowen said in a speech to parliament.

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Singapore has claimed the top spot in the 2025 Global Talent Competitiveness Index for the first time, displacing Switzerland from a position the European nation had held since the ranking's inception in 2013. The index, produced by business school INSEAD and the Portulans Institute, measured 135 economies across 77 indicators spanning soft skills, AI talent concentration, and formal education systems. The city-state ranked first globally in formal education and what the report calls "Generalist Adaptive Skills," a category covering soft skills, digital literacy, and innovation-oriented thinking. A key factor in Singapore's rise was a seven-place jump in talent retention, moving from 38th to 31st. The United States fell from third place in 2023 to ninth this year, its weakest showing in 12 years, due to declines in openness and lifelong learning metrics. High-income European countries continue to dominate the top ten, holding seven positions.

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European leaders have spent years warning that the continent risked falling behind the U.S., China and Russia in the global contest for economic, technological and military dominance, and officials now believe they have reached that point. The mood darkened over the summer when Europe found itself on the sidelines as Washington and Beijing negotiated a reset of global trade rules, and turned bleak this month when the White House presented a Ukraine cease-fire plan without consulting European capitals. In July, the EU accepted a trade deal allowing the U.S. to impose 15% tariffs without retaliation. President Trump ignored European calls to pressure Moscow before meeting Vladimir Putin in Alaska in August, telling reporters "this is not to do with Europe, Europe's not telling me what to do." Germany has eased its debt brake to pour $580 billion into a decade-long rearmament program, and the EU has set a 2030 rearmament goal -- defense spending across the region is set to exceed $560 billion this year, double what it was a decade ago. "Battle lines for a new world order, based on power, are being drawn right now," European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said in September. "A new Europe must emerge."

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Apple's Podcasts app on both iOS and Mac has been exhibiting strange behavior for months, spontaneously launching and presenting users with obscure religion, spirituality and education podcasts they never subscribed to -- and at least one of these podcasts contains a link attempting a cross-site scripting attack, 404 Media reports. Joseph Cox, a journalist at the outlet, documented the issue after repeatedly finding his Mac had launched the Podcasts app on its own, presenting bizarre podcasts with titles containing garbled code, external URLs to Spotify and Google Play, and in one case, what appears to be XSS attack code embedded directly in the podcast title itself. Patrick Wardle, a macOS security expert and creator of Objective-See, confirmed he could replicate similar behavior: simply visiting a website can trigger the Podcasts app to open and load an attacker-chosen podcast without any user prompt or approval. Wardle said this creates "a very effective delivery mechanism" if a vulnerability exists in the Podcasts app, and the level of probing suggests adversaries are actively evaluating it as a potential target. The XSS-attempting podcast dates from around 2019. A recent review in the app asked "How does Apple allow this attempted XSS attack?" Asked for comment five times by 404 Media, Apple did not respond.

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Australia's streaming quotas have become law. Legislation requiring the likes of Netflix, Disney+ and HBO Max to spend a portion of their local earnings on original Australian content has been passed in parliament, and now comes into effect. From a report: The quotas were announced earlier this month. This will see global streamers with more than one million Australian subscribers made to spend 10% of their total Australian expenditure -- or 7.5% of their revenues -- on local originals, whether they are dramas, children's shows, docs, or arts and educational programs. Failing to comply with the rules will see streamers fined up to ten times their annual revenues in Australia. This is more than what broadcasters are liable for if they breach their quota rules laws. Streamers will be given three years to get their production operations in line. Streamers have long opposed government-set quotas and content levies, arguing they already meaningfully invest in the production sectors of the countries in which they operate. Producers, in general, have welcomed the systems, but remain wary that they could push streaming services out of their countries.

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China installed 295,000 industrial robots last year -- nearly nine times as many as the United States and more than the rest of the world combined -- as the country races to automate its manufacturing base amid rising labor costs at home and tariff threats from abroad. The nation's stock of operational robots surpassed 2 million in 2024, according to the International Federation of Robotics. Of 131 factories globally recognized by the World Economic Forum for boosting productivity through cutting-edge technologies like AI, 45 are in mainland China compared to three in the US. At Midea's washing machine factory in Jingzhou, an AI "factory brain" manages 14 virtual agents that coordinate robots and machines on the floor. The home-appliance giant reports that its revenue per employee grew nearly 40% between 2015 and 2024, and processes that once took 15 minutes now take 30 seconds. Down jacket maker Bosideng has cut sample production time from 100 days to 27 days using AI design tools, reducing development costs by 60%. At the port of Tianjin, scheduling that previously required 24 hours now takes 10 minutes, and 88% of large container equipment is automated. The port's operator says it requires 60% fewer workers than traditional facilities.

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Researchers at the Pacific Institute documented 420 water-related conflicts globally in 2024, a record that far surpasses the 355 incidents logged in 2023 and continues a trend that has seen such violence more than quadruple over the past five years. The Oakland-based water think tank's database tracks disputes where water triggered violence, where water systems were targeted, and where infrastructure became collateral damage in broader conflicts. The Middle East reported the most incidents at 138, including 66 tied to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The Israeli military destroyed more than 30 wells in Rafah and Khan Yunis, and there were numerous reports of settlers destroying pipelines and tanks in the West Bank. The Russia-Ukraine war accounted for 51 incidents, including strikes that disrupted water service in Ukrainian cities.

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