AmiMoJo writes: The Irish Government's basic income scheme for artists is set to become a permanent fixture from next year, with 2,000 new places to be made available under Budget 2026. Minister for Culture Patrick O'Donovan has secured agreement with other government departments to continue and expand the initiative, which had previously operated on a pilot basis. Participants in the scheme receive a weekly payment of $379.50. The pilot programme, launched in 2022, provided basic income support to 2,000 artists and creative arts workers across Ireland. It aimed to support the arts sector's recovery following the COVID-19 pandemic, during which many artists experienced significant income loss due to restrictions on live performances and events. The scheme provides unconditional, regular payments to eligible artists and creative workers, allowing them to focus on their practice without the pressure of commercial viability. It is not means-tested and operates independently of social welfare payments. An independent evaluation of the pilot, published earlier this year, found that recipients reported increased time spent on creative work, reduced financial stress, and improved well-being.

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Gov. Gavin Newsom has signed a law banning excessively loud advertisements on streaming platforms like Netflix, Hulu and Amazon Prime that could become a de facto national standard. From a report: The new California law is aimed at addressing what the Federal Communications Commission has called a "troubling jump" in TV ad noise complaints, fueled by streamers airing commercials louder than the shows and movies they accompany. It's modeled off a federal law passed in 2010 that caps ad volumes on cable and broadcast TV, but doesn't apply to streaming services. Given the Golden State's massive sway in the entertainment industry, the new law may strong-arm streamers into shushing commercials nationwide. "We heard Californians loud and clear, and what's clear is that they don't want commercials at a volume any louder than the level at which they were previously enjoying a program," Newsom said in a statement. "California is dialing down this inconvenience across streaming platforms."

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The New York Times: John Clarke, Michel H. Devoret and John M. Martinis were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics on Tuesday in Sweden for showing that two properties of quantum mechanics, the physical laws that rule the subatomic realm, could be observed on a system large enough to see with the naked eye. They will share a prize of 11 million Swedish kroner, or around $1.17 million. "There is no advanced technology today that does not rely on quantum mechanics," Olle Eriksson, chairman of the Nobel Committee for Physics, said during the announcement of the award. The laureates' discoveries, he added, paved the way for technologies like the cellphone, cameras and fiber optic cables. It also helped lay the groundwork for current attempts to build a quantum computer, a device that could compute and process information at speeds that would not be possible with classical computer. Martinis worked at Google from 2014 to 2020 to build a quantum computer and led the quantum supremacy experiment in 2019. Devoret is cited in Google's recent breakthrough where its Willow quantum chip solved a problem in five minutes that the world's most advanced supercomputer could never solve. The three laureates conducted experiments with electrical circuits that demonstrated quantum mechanical tunneling and quantized energy levels in systems large enough to hold in the hand. Clarke is a professor at the University of California, Berkeley. Devoret joined his research group in the 1980s and is now at Yale University and UC Santa Barbara. Martinis also joined the group in the 1980s and is currently at UC Santa Barbara and co-founded Qolab, a startup developing utility-scale superconducting quantum computers.

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India's electricity grid is struggling to accommodate the nation's economic expansion and isn't adequately equipped to handle future data center demand. Goldman Sachs estimates that power required from utilities needs roughly 7.2% annual growth between fiscal years 2025 and 2035, up from a prior 5.6%. India's data center base sits in the low single gigawatts today, but Bernstein forecasts reach 5 to 6 gigawatts by 2030. AI servers draw five to seven times the power of a legacy server rack, according to HSBC. Solar farms can be built in 12 to 24 months, but they flood the grid when daytime demand is comparatively low and then fade as households and commercial loads climb after 5 PM. On Goldman's full-year models, the system runs a 1 to 4% energy deficit by fiscal years 2034 through 2035. Assessments suggest India may need roughly 140 gigawatts of additional coal capacity by fiscal year 2035 versus 2023 levels. The government's current target is roughly 87 gigawatts by fiscal year 2032. Coal plants can run around the clock and can ramp up production during the evening hours to meet surging demand. Some of this coal is bridge capacity to stabilize a faster greening grid, but the scale required exceeds what policymakers have publicly acknowledged or what most analysts expected even two years ago.

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Hill: A Senate report released (PDF) Monday says AI and automation could replace nearly 100 million jobs across various industries over the next decade. The report, conducted by Democratic staffers on the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee, led by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), outlines how AI and automation will impact the American economy and workforce. Sanders, the ranking member on the HELP Committee, has warned of the consequences widespread use of AI and automation can have for workers. As part of their investigation, staffers asked ChatGPT, OpenAI's chatbot, to predict the impact of AI and automation on certain industries. Of the 20 workforces ChatGPT said would be most affected by the technological rush, 15 will see more than half of their workforces replaced by AI and automation over the next decade. The workforce most impacted will be fast food and counter employees. According to the report, more than 3 million fast food and counter workers will be replaced over the next 10 years, accounting for 89 percent of the workforce. Other workforces that will be significantly affected include customer service representatives, laborers and freight, stock and material movers and secretaries and executive assistants -- not including legal, medical and executive positions. The report said that 83 percent, 81 percent and 80 percent of those workforces, respectively, will be replaced in the next decade. [...] Sanders, in a Fox News op-ed published Monday, doubled down on the report's findings, saying increased technological capacity risks "dehumanizing" individuals. "We do not simply need a more 'efficient' society," Sanders said. "We need a world where people live healthier, happier and more fulfilling lives."

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Microsoft is eliminating all known workarounds that let users install Windows 11 without an internet connection or Microsoft account, forcing everyone through the online setup process. The Verge reports: "We are removing known mechanisms for creating a local account in the Windows Setup experience (OOBE)," says Amanda Langowski, the lead for the Windows Insider Program. "While these mechanisms were often used to bypass Microsoft account setup, they also inadvertently skip critical setup screens, potentially causing users to exit OOBE with a device that is not fully configured for use." The changes mean Windows 11 users will need to complete the OOBE screens with an internet connection and Microsoft account in future versions of the OS. Microsoft already removed the "bypassnro" workaround earlier this year, and today's changes also disable the "start ms-cxh:localonly" command that Windows 11 users discovered after Microsoft's previous changes. Using this command now resets the OOBE process and it fails to bypass the Microsoft account requirement.

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alternative_right shares a report from ScienceDaily: Scientists may have finally uncovered the mystery behind ultra-high-energy cosmic rays -- the most powerful particles known in the universe. A team from NTNU suggests that colossal winds from supermassive black holes could be accelerating these particles to unimaginable speeds. These winds, moving at half the speed of light, might not only shape entire galaxies but also fling atomic nuclei across the cosmos with incredible energy. [...] But what on earth does that mean? The Milky Way is the neighborhood in the universe where you and I live. Our Sun and solar system are part of this galaxy, along with at least 100 billion other stars. "There is a black hole called Sagittarius-A* located right in the centre of the Milky Way. This black hole is currently in a quiet phase where it isn't consuming any stars, as there is not enough matter in the vicinity," [said postdoctoral fellow Enrico Peretti from the Universite Paris Cite]. This contrasts with growing, supermassive, active black holes that consume up to several times the mass of our own Sun each year. "A tiny portion of the material can be pushed away by the force of the black hole before it is pulled in. As a result, around half of these supermassive black holes create winds that move through the universe at up to half the speed of light," Peretti said. We have known about these gigantic winds for approximately ten years. The winds from these black holes can affect galaxies. By blowing away gases, they can prevent new stars from forming, for example. This is dramatic enough in itself, but Oikonomou and her colleagues looked at something else, much smaller, that these winds could be the cause of." It is possible that these powerful winds accelerate the particles that create the ultra-high-energy radiation," said [lead author Domenik Ehlert]. The findings have been published in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: The heads of UK physics departments say their subject is facing a national crisis as one in four warns that their university departments are in danger of closing because of funding pressures. In an anonymous survey of department heads by the Institute of Physics (IoP), 26% said they faced potential closure of their department within the next two years, while 60% said they expected courses to be reduced. Four out of five departments said they were making staff cuts, and many were considering mergers or consolidation in what senior physicists described as a severe threat to the UK's future success. [...] To avoid "irreversible damage", the IoP is asking for immediate government action including funding to support existing labs and research facilities, as well as setting up an "early warning system" to monitor departments at risk of closure, and reduce pressures affecting international student recruitment. In the longer term it is calling for radical reforms in higher education funding to allow universities to meet the full costs of teaching nationally important subjects such as physics. Sir Keith Burnett, the IoP's president and a former chair of physics at Oxford University, said: "While we understand the pressures on public finances, it would be negligent not to sound the alarm for a national capability fundamental to our wellbeing, competitiveness and the defense of the realm. "We are walking towards a cliff edge but there is still time to avert a crisis which would lead not just to lost potential but to many physics departments shutting down altogether. Physics researchers and talented physics students are our future but if action isn't taken now to stabilize, strengthen and sustain one of our greatest national assets, we risk leaving them high and dry." Thomas said the erosion in value of domestic tuition fees and falling numbers of international students were behind the financial pressures, with smaller physics departments the most at risk. "What that means is we will get more and more concentration of where physics is being taught and lose geographical distribution. That goes against aims of widening participation and means some disadvantaged groups will miss out on opportunities to study physics, and it's important that we recognize that," Thomas said.

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Paramount has acquired The Free Press, Bari Weiss's Substack-born media outlet, for $150 million and appointed Weiss as editor-in-chief of CBS News. The move effectively places a conservative-leaning Substack writer at the helm of a legacy news network, following the FCC's approval of the Skydance-Paramount merger, which required CBS to feature a broader "diversity of viewpoints from across the political and ideological spectrum." The Verge reports: Before starting The Free Press, Weiss worked as an op-ed and book review editor at The Wall Street Journal from 2013 to 2017 and later became an op-ed editor and writer at The New York Times to expand the publication's stable of conservative columnists during Donald Trump's first term. She resigned from the NYT in 2020, citing an "illiberal environment." Weiss started a Substack newsletter in 2021, called Common Sense, which later evolved into The Free Press, touting itself as a media company "built on the ideals that were once the bedrock of great American journalism." As noted in the press release, The Free Press has grown its revenue 82 percent over the past year, while subscribers increased 86 percent to 1.5 million, 170,000 of which are paid subscriptions.

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AstraZeneca has licensed Algen Biotechnologies' AI-powered gene-editing platform, AlgenBrain, to develop immune-related therapies in a deal worth up to $555 million. Reuters reports: AstraZeneca will get exclusive rights to develop and sell approved therapies, if any, that target immune system-related disorders in exchange for upfront and milestone payments to Algen. AstraZeneca has been advancing its cell and gene therapy capabilities through acquisitions and partnerships as it works towards its target of $80 billion in sales by 2030. Globally too, drugmakers are increasingly turning to artificial intelligence for drug development. Monday's deal, however, does not include AstraZeneca buying a stake in the company, Algen CEO and co-founder Chun-Hao Huang told Reuters in an interview. "Together with AstraZeneca's deep expertise in translational science and clinical development, we aim to uncover new biological insights to accelerate the development of novel therapies," Huang said. Algen was spun out from the UC Berkeley lab where biochemist Jennifer Doudna pioneered the CRISPR technology that won her the Nobel Prize. The biotech firm's AI platform, AlgenBrain, can map genes to disease outcomes, helping the companies decide their development focus for targeted therapies.

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California biotech entrepreneur and former magician Serhat Gumrukcu has been found guilty of orchestrating the 2018 murder of his business rival Gregory Davis, who had threatened to expose Gumrukcu's fraudulent dealings. He faces sentencing in November. SFGATE reports: Seven years ago, Turkish national Serhat Gumrukcu, 42, of Los Angeles, was negotiating a multimillion-dollar biotech merger built off his work on a supposed HIV cure. The deal was put in jeopardy by a former business partner named Gregory Davis, 49, who had threatened to bring legal action against Gumrukcu for fraudulent activities relating to a previous failed oil commodities deal, the U.S. Attorney's Office said in a news release last week. Gumrukcu, a magician-turned-scientist who admitted to buying his medical degree from a Russian university, lived in a Hollywood mansion and partied with Oscar winners and movie producers, according to VTDigger. He stood to make millions from the merger of his biotech company Enochian BioSciences. [...] In 2017, upon learning that Davis, a father of six from Danville, Vermont, could potentially spoil his fortune-making deal, Gumrukcu set in motion a hit on the former business partner. The murder-for-hire plot involved four men in total, prosecutors said. Gumrukcu had a close friend from Las Vegas, Berk Eratay, approach a third man, Aron Ethridge to find a hit man to kill Davis. The shooter, 37-year-old Montana man Jerry Banks, arrived at Davis' home on Jan. 6, 2018, in a vehicle fitted with flashing red and blue lights and posed as a deputy U.S. marshal. After abducting Davis, Banks shot him dead in the vehicle and left the body partially buried in a snowbank nearby. Investigators soon narrowed in on Gumrukcu after discovering emails between him and Davis revealing tensions over the failed oil deal. Gumrukcu was interviewed twice by the FBI and made false statements on both occasions, federal prosecutors said. Further inspection of cellphone data, bank information and messages identified the four men involved in the kidnapping and killing of Davis.

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from BleepingComputer: The Redis security team has released patches for a maximum severity vulnerability that could allow attackers to gain remote code execution on thousands of vulnerable instances. Redis (short for Remote Dictionary Server) is an open-source data structure store used in approximately 75% of cloud environments, functioning like a database, cache, and message broker, and storing data in RAM for ultra-fast access. The security flaw (tracked as CVE-2025-49844) is caused by a 13-year-old use-after-free weakness found in the Redis source code and can be exploited by authenticated threat actors using a specially crafted Lua script (a feature enabled by default). Successful exploitation enables them to escape the Lua sandbox, trigger a use-after-free, establish a reverse shell for persistent access, and achieve remote code execution on the targeted Redis hosts. After compromising a Redis host, attackers can steal credentials, deploy malware or cryptocurrency mining tools, extract sensitive data from Redis, move laterally to other systems within the victim's network, or use stolen information to gain access to other cloud services. "This grants an attacker full access to the host system, enabling them to exfiltrate, wipe, or encrypt sensitive data, hijack resources, and facilitate lateral movement within cloud environments," said Wiz researchers, who reported the security issue at Pwn2Own Berlin in May 2025 and dubbed it RediShell. While successful exploitation requires attackers first to gain authenticated access to a Redis instance, Wiz found around 330,000 Redis instances exposed online, with at least 60,000 of them not requiring authentication. Redis and Wiz urged admins to patch their instances immediately by applying security updates released on Friday, "prioritizing those that are exposed to the internet." To further secure their Redis instances against remote attacks, admins can also enable authentication, disable Lua scripting and other unnecessary commands, launch Redis using a non-root user account, enable Redis logging and monitoring, limit access to authorized networks only, and implement network-level access controls using firewalls and Virtual Private Clouds (VPCs).

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Bloomberg reports (paywalled) that Apple's hardware chief John Ternus is the frontrunner to replace Tim Cook as CEO, as Cook nears retirement and prepares to transition into a board chairman role. The Economic Times reports: Cook is turning 65 next month. Chief operating officer John Williams -- once heir apparent -- has handed over the reins of day-to-day operations to Sabih Khan and is on his way out. Even as Cook steps down as CEO, he will stay involved in some capacity, likely as board chairman. [...] While Khan and Apple's retail chief Deirdre O'Brien can run daily operations, Ternus remains the leading contender for the corner office after Cook, Gurman said. Firstly, he is 50 years old -- the same as Cook when he became CEO -- giving him over a decade to hold the office, he noted. Secondly, Apple needs a technologist instead of a sales person at the helm, considering the company's ambitions, Gurman wrote in the newsletter. While the Cupertino tech giant has managed to expand its homegrown line of chipsets, and the recently launched iPhone 17 lineup is drawing in customers, the company has struggled to find success in categories such as mixed reality, generative artificial intelligence (AI), smart homes and autonomous driving. Ternus was in the spotlight during Apple's annual hardware event in September, which saw the launch of the iPhone 17 Air, the first major design overhaul for the smartphone family in a long time. Over the years, he has gained more responsibilities under Cook, taking calls on product roadmaps, features and strategies, overseeing matters beyond the traditional scope of a hardware engineering chief, Gurman said.

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Police arrested 33-year-old Joseph Mayuyo after a series of online threats forced TikTok to evacuate its Culver City headquarters. TechCrunch reports: A press release from the Culver City Police Department says that TikTok employees reported receiving multiple threats, across various social media platforms, from 33-year-old Hawthorne resident Joseph Mayuyo. After an additional message threatened TikTok's Culver City headquarters, police say company security evacuated the office "out of an abundance of caution." Police then investigated Mayuyo's home, according to the press release. During the investigation, he allegedly posted additional threatening statements, including one declaring that he would not be taken alive. Detectives obtained search and arrest warrants, and they negotiated with Mayuyo for 90 minutes before he voluntarily exited his home and was taken into custody, the police department says. Business Insider reports that one TikTok employee described the threats as "really scary," while another was concerned that they seemed to specifically target the e-commerce department. Mayuyo's X account has reportedly been suspended for violating the platform's hateful content policy. A Medium account under his name published a post in July criticizing TikTokShop USA as a "scam."

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: OpenAI is introducing a way to work with apps right inside ChatGPT. The idea is that, from within a conversation with the chatbot, you can essentially tag in apps to help you complete a task while ChatGPT offers context and advice. [...] Apps available inside ChatGPT starting today will include Booking.com, Canva, Coursera, Expedia, Figma, Spotify, and Zillow. In the "weeks ahead," OpenAI will add more apps, such as DoorDash, OpenTable, Target, and Uber. [...] Developers can access the SDK for making apps in preview starting today. Later this year, developers will be able to submit apps for review and publication, and OpenAI also plans to offer a directory for users to browse apps, according to OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. The company will share guidance about monetization "soon," Altman says. Last week, ChatGPT unveiled a new feature called "Instant Checkout" that lets users buy stuff directly through its chatbot -- "part of its overall push to integrate it with the rest of the web," reports The Verge.

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Porsche's wireless charging system will not be available on the Macan Electric and Taycan because the inductive charging plate cannot physically fit between the front suspension on those models. Dr. Maximilian Muller, Porsche's high voltage engineering lead, told The Drive during a visit to the company's Leipzig facility that the Cayenne Electric's larger dimensions create the necessary space for the charging hardware beneath the front motor. The Cayenne Electric is wider than both the Taycan and Macan Electric. The larger vehicle forced Porsche to design different suspension geometry even though it shares the PPE platform with the Macan Electric. The changes create additional packaging constraints that prevent retrofitting the wireless charging system into existing electric models.

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An anonymous reader shares a report: Pay-advance apps are marketed as a way to help workers living paycheck to paycheck pay for unexpected expenses, but workers are often using the apps to manage basic expenses like groceries, rent and other needs, a new report found. The tools, consumer advocates say, can carry costs akin to those of traditional payday loans. An analysis of anonymous data found worrisome behavior among users of the apps, including quick increases in the number of advances, advances from multiple apps at the same time and more frequent bank overdraft fees. "These findings reveal persistent patterns of financial strain that raise serious concerns about the long-term effects of these loans," said the report from the Center for Responsible Lending, a nonprofit consumer advocacy group. The group analyzed data from SaverLife, a nonprofit that promotes saving and sound financial practices among people with low or moderate incomes. The analysis found that heavy users of the apps paid $421, on average, in total loan and overdraft fees over a year, or almost triple the average paid by moderate users.

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BrianFagioli writes: Canonical has revealed the codename for Ubuntu 26.04 LTS: Resolute Raccoon. The announcement came today on X through the official @ubuntu account, continuing the tradition of pairing an adjective with an animal for each release. As an LTS version, it will be supported for five years and serve as the foundation for servers, desktops, and cloud deployments when it launches in April 2026. While the name itself is now public, the features of Ubuntu 26.04 remain under wraps. The community will be watching closely to see which kernel it ships with, how GNOME evolves, and what improvements land for enterprise and container use. For now, fans simply have a raccoon mascot to rally around as the countdown to April begins.

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Microsoft said in a statement Monday it remains committed to developing first-party Xbox consoles. The reassurance came after rumors circulated suggesting the gaming division might abandon hardware manufacturing. The speculation gained traction following a 50% price increase for Xbox Game Pass Ultimate and retailers including Costco removing Xbox products from their shelves. Microsoft said it is "actively investing in our future first-party consoles and devices designed, engineered and built by Xbox." The company's multi-year partnership with AMD for next-generation hardware also continues. Devices in development include the Xbox Ally range under codenames Omni and Horseman, according to Windows Central. Xbox Series X and Series S production has also not stopped, the report added.

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An anonymous reader shares a report: OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said Monday that ChatGPT has reached 800 million weekly active users, marking an increase of adoption among consumers, developers, enterprises, and governments. ChatGPT's impressive growth comes as OpenAI is on a race to secure as many AI chips and build as much AI infrastructure as possible. In August, OpenAI said it was on the cusp of reaching 700 million weekly active users, already an increase from 500 million weekly active users at the end of March. "Today, 4 million developers have built with OpenAI," Altman said. "More than 800 people use ChatGPT every week, and we process over 6 billion tokens per minute on the API. Thanks to all of you, AI has gone from something people build play with to something people build with every day." Altman made the announcement during the keynote presentation for OpenAI's Dev Day, which also included announcement for new tools for building apps inside of ChatGPT, as well as constructing more complex agentic systems. "This will enable a new generation of apps that are interactive, adaptive, and personalized, that you can chat with," Altman said.

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