"Roku is celebrating a milestone that says a lot about where entertainment is heading," notes a new article at NERDS.xyz.

"For the third month in a row, people in the United States spent more time streaming on Roku-powered devices than they did watching traditional broadcast television." Nielsen's latest data shows Roku-powered devices accounted for 21.4 percent of all TV viewing in July. Broadcast came in at 18.4 percent. That gap may not seem huge, but it marks a steady trend from May and June where streaming also came out ahead. Roku says its share of TV viewing is up 14 percent year-over-year, which suggests people are not just trying streaming, they're sticking with it...

Roku powers streaming on smart TVs and devices in over half of internet-enabled U.S. households. By its own numbers, it sells more TV units than the next two operating systems combined. It's a reminder that Roku has positioned itself as more than just a box or an app. It clearly wants to be the place where television happens.
Thanks to Slashdot reader BrianFagioli for sharing the news.

BMW unveiled its new iX3 — with nearly 500 miles of rangeand ultra-fast charging. The EV news site Electrek reports: To maximize range, BMW gave it a clean, aerodynamic design with very few lines... The BMW iX3 offers an impressive WLTP range of up to nearly 500 miles (800 km). On the EPA scale, it's expected to deliver around 400 miles of range.

Based on an 800V architecture, the BMW iX3 can deliver charging speeds of up to 400 kW. According to BMW, that means it can add over 230 miles (370 km) in just 10 minutes.
It's also BMW's first EV with bidirectional charging, according to the article.

But MotorTrend calls it "BMW's Biggest Reinvention Since the '60s." The decision to move forward in every aspect — design, architecture, technology, software, and manufacturing — was made five years ago... The new Neue Klasse architecture will start out with EVs only, but aspects of this new vision will be adopted by 40 vehicles — SUVs, sedans, coupes, maybe even a supercar — with an assortment of powertrains by the end of 2027. In other words, Neue Klasse will touch and influence everything BMW does going forward... The design philosophy for the Neue Klasse vehicles is that they should look like they skipped an entire generation.
From BMW's announcement for the iX3: Physical controls are on hand, including for the windscreen wipers, turn signal indicators, exterior mirrors, volume control, gear selector, parking brake, hazard warning lights, rear window heating and defrost function. Other functions have been optimised for use by touch and voice command or via the multifunction steering wheel... [MotorTrends notes "you must use the screen to adjust the air vents."]

The BMW Panoramic Vision projects information across the full width of the windscreen, from A-pillar to A-pillar. The content in the centre and on the front passenger side can be adapted to personal tastes and requirements. Key driving information appears in the driver's field of vision. And above the BMW Panoramic Vision, the BMW 3D Head-Up Display (if specified) can now also show integrated navigation and automated driving displays on the road with spatial depth. The free-cut-design Central Display with matrix backlight technology is located in an ergonomically ideal position next to the steering wheel. On the driver's side, vertically arranged widgets enable fast and direct access to particularly frequently used functions using QuickSelect tech. The new multifunction steering wheel serves as the primary physical control point. Its button panels help the driver and vehicle to work together symbiotically using illuminations, a relief-like surface and haptic feedback.
Some details from MotorTrends: There's an avatar for the intelligent personal assistant, activated by saying, "Hey, BMW." The BMW roundel morphs into a blue circle with big, expressive eyes and eyebrows. It looks like an amiable alien that turns to face the person addressing it, and it's programmed to wink, blush, and more, as well as to not stare too long at anyone. The assistant is quick to respond, using Alexa tech and a male or female voice to provide directions, answer questions, and perform functions.
MotorTrends adds that the iX3 "is BMW's first software-defined vehicle, meaning it can use over-the-air updates to fix problems and add features and functions, keeping it fresh over its lifetime with software that BMW developed itself."

BMW's announcement also notes "the latest systems for automated driving optimise symbiotic human-vehicle interaction..." Whenever the driver wants to accelerate, brake or steer, their inputs merge seamlessly and intuitively with AI-enabled software... The functionality offered by the City Assistant includes traffic light detection, where the car automatically stops and then moves off again.

"A U.S.-based nuclear fusion developer wants to deploy a reactor in Japan in the late 2030s or early 2040s," reports Bloomberg, "in line with the Asian country's broader plans to adopt the potent, low-carbon energy source." Commonwealth Fusion Systems, which last week announced it raised $863 million from investors including Nvidia, has been in dialogue with Japanese government officials on the use of its technology, CEO Bob Mumgaard said in an interview in Tokyo on Wednesday... Several countries are eyeing the technology for its climate and energy security benefits but only some, like China, the U.S., Russia and South Korea have managed to crack the basics. Japan revised its national strategy in June to support fusion deployment and build a demonstration plant in the 2030s.
The article notes that Commonwealth "does not currently have any reactors in operation" — but that Mitsubishi this week invested in the company, in collaboration with a consortium of 12 Japanese companies. From Mitsubishi's announcement: The Japanese Consortium will acquire technical and commercial expertise in policy, regulatory, and the development, construction, operation, and maintenance of ARC [power plant] from CFS's commercialization projects in the United States. In addition, each consortium company will bring together its know-how and expertise and aspire to expedite the commercialization and industrialization of fusion energy power generation in Japan.

ScienceAlert reports: It's no secret that excessive alcohol consumption damages the liver, but a new study reveals a previously unknown vicious cycle that makes that damage worse. Chronic alcohol use makes it easier for bacteria to leak out of the gut and migrate to the liver, causing further harm.

The new study, led by scientists at the University of California San Diego, examined human liver biopsies as well as mouse models of alcohol-associated liver disease. The team found that chronic alcohol use impaired the production of a cellular signaling protein called mAChR4 in the small intestine. Lower levels of this protein were found to interfere with the formation of what are called goblet cell-associated antigen passages (GAPs). These specialized structures play a key role in teaching the immune system to respond to microbes, particularly those that escape the gut into other parts of the body, where they don't belong...

The researchers found that if they restored the function of mAChR4, GAPs would form again, which in turn repaired the immune system's response to wayward gut bacteria, reducing liver damage. This could be done either by using drugs to directly activate mAChR4 or by targeting related pathways that end up having the same effect...

The research was published in the journal Nature.

Announced this week at RustConf 2025 in Seattle, the new Rust Innovation Lab will offer open source projects "the opportunity to receive fiscal sponsorship from the Rust Foundation, including governance, legal, networking, marketing, and administrative support."

And their first project will be the TLS library Rustls (for cryptographic security), which they say "demonstrates Rust's ability to deliver both security and performance in one of the most sensitive areas of modern software infrastructure." Choosing Rustls "underscores the lab's focus on infrastructure-critical tools, where reliability is paramount," argues explains WebProNews. But "Looking ahead, the foundation plans to expand the lab's portfolio, inviting applications from promising Rust initiatives. This could catalyze innovations in areas like embedded systems and blockchain, where Rust's efficiency shines."

Their article notes that the Rust Foundation "sees the lab as a way to accelerate innovation while mitigating the operational burdens that often hinder open-source development." [T]he Foundation aims to provide a stable, neutral environment for select Rust endeavors, complete with governance oversight, legal and administrative backing, and fiscal sponsorship... At its core, the Rust Innovation Lab addresses a growing need within the developer community for structured support amid Rust's rising adoption in sectors like systems programming and web infrastructure. By offering a "home" for projects that might otherwise struggle with sustainability, the lab ensures continuity and scalability. This comes at a time when Rust's memory safety features are drawing attention from major tech firms, including those in cloud computing and cybersecurity, as a counter to vulnerabilities plaguing languages like C++...

Industry observers note that such fiscal sponsorship could prove transformative, enabling projects to secure funding from diverse sources while maintaining independence. The Rust Foundation's involvement ensures compliance with best practices, potentially attracting more corporate backers wary of fragmented open-source efforts... By providing a neutral venue, the foundation aims to prevent the pitfalls seen in other ecosystems, such as project abandonment due to maintainer burnout or legal entanglements... For industry insiders, the Rust Innovation Lab represents a strategic evolution, potentially accelerating Rust's integration into mission-critical systems.

"A federal jury has ordered Google to pay $425.7 million for improperly snooping on people's smartphones during a nearly decade-long period of intrusions," reports the Associated Press: The lawyers who filed the case had argued Google had used the data they collected off smartphones without users' permission to help sell ads tailored to users' individual interests — a strategy that resulted in the company reaping billions in additional revenue. The lawyers framed those ad sales as illegal profiteering that merited damages of more than $30 billion. Even though the jury came up with a far lower calculation for the damages, one of the lawyers who brought the case against Google hailed the outcome as a victory for privacy protection. "We hope this result sends a message to the tech industry that Americans will not sit idly by as their information is collected and monetized against their will," said attorney John Yanchunis of law firm Morgan & Morgan.
David Boies, the man who led the U.S. government's 2001 antitrust prosecution of Microsoft, was the plaintiffs' attorney. More details from Bloomberg Law: The lawsuit alleged that since 2016 Google told its users that when they turned off a privacy setting known as Web & App Activity, the company would cease collecting their data from third-party apps that use Google's back end data analytics services. Google continued that collection despite its promise to users that they had control, the plaintiffs alleged. Judge Richard Seeborg certified a class of 98 million Google users who has switched the Web & App Activity setting off...

Boies told the jury during closing statements that the case was about Google breaking its promise to users that they had control over their data. He pointed to Congressional testimony from Google CEO Sundar Pichai in 2018 who said users could clearly see what information the company had, all while internal communications and surveys said users were being misled about their privacy... During closing statements, Google attorney Benedict Hur of Cooley LLP said that as soon as a user click the tracking switch off, they were presented with an "Are You Sure?" screen that stated that users can "learn about the data Google continues to collect and why" by clicking an additional link.
A spokesperson for Google said they would appeal the verdict.

An investigation has identified more than 1,500 research articles produced by a network of Ukrainian companies that could be one of Europe's largest paper mills -- businesses that produce fake or low-quality research papers and sell authorships. Nature: Anna Abalkina, a research-integrity sleuth and social scientist at the Free University of Berlin, discovered the paper mill in 2022 after spotting papers with author e-mail addresses that had domains that did not match the geographical locations of academic affiliations. She dubbed the paper mill 'Tanu.pro' after the most frequently used of these unusual domains.

Abalkina later teamed up with Svetlana Kleiner, a research integrity officer at the publisher Springer Nature, who is based in Leiden, the Netherlands. Together, they traced more than 60 suspicious e-mail domains that were linked to Tanu.pro and appeared among the author e-mails of 1,517 papers published between 2017 and 2025, listing more than 4,500 researchers affiliated with around 460 universities across 46 countries. The majority of authors were in Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Russia.

According to the Financial Times (paywalled), OpenAI is preparing to launch its first in-house AI chip in 2026 through a partnership with Broadcom. From a report: OpenAI plans to put the chip to use internally rather than make it available to external customers [...]. Last year, Reuters reported that OpenAI was working with Broadcom and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co to develop its first in-house chip to power its artificial intelligence systems, while also incorporating AMD chips alongside Nvidia chips to meet the surge in infrastructure demands. At the time, OpenAI had examined a range of options to diversify chip supply and reduce costs.

Broadcom CEO Hock Tan said on Thursday that the company expects artificial intelligence revenue growth for fiscal 2026 to "improve significantly," after securing more than $10 billion in AI infrastructure orders from new customer, without naming it. A new prospect placed a firm order last quarter, making it into a qualified customer, Tan said on an earnings call.

Europe on Friday inaugurated Jupiter, its first exascale supercomputer and the most powerful AI machine on the continent. Built in Germany with 24,000 Nvidia chips, the 500-million-euro system aims to close the AI gap with the US and China while also advancing climate modeling, neuroscience, and renewable energy research. France 24 reports: Based at Juelich Supercomputing Centre in western Germany, it is Europe's first "exascale" supercomputer -- meaning it will be able to perform at least one quintillion (or one billion billion) calculations per second. The United States already has three such computers, all operated by the Department of Energy. Jupiter is housed in a centre covering some 3,600 meters (38,000 square feet) -- about half the size of a football pitch -- containing racks of processors, and packed with about 24,000 Nvidia chips, which are favored by the AI industry.

Half the 500 million euros ($580 million) to develop and run the system over the next few years comes from the European Union and the rest from Germany. Its vast computing power can be accessed by researchers across numerous fields as well as companies for purposes such as training AI models. "Jupiter is a leap forward in the performance of computing in Europe," Thomas Lippert, head of the Juelich centre, told AFP, adding that it was 20 times more powerful than any other computer in Germany. [...]

Yes, Jupiter will require on average around 11 megawatts of power, according to estimates -- equivalent to the energy used to power thousands of homes or a small industrial plant. But its operators insist that Jupiter is the most energy-efficient among the fastest computer systems in the world. It uses the latest, most energy-efficient hardware, has water-cooling systems and the waste heat that it generates will be used to heat nearby buildings, according to the Juelich centre.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Associated Press: LSD reduced symptoms of anxiety in a midstage study published Thursday, paving the way for additional testing and possible medical approval of a psychedelic drug that has been banned in the U.S. for more than a half century. The results from drugmaker Mindmed tested several doses of LSD in patients with moderate-to-severe generalized anxiety disorder, with the benefits lasting as long as three months. The company plans to conduct follow-up studies to confirm the results and then apply for Food and Drug Administration approval. [...]

For the study, researchers measured anxiety symptoms in nearly 200 patients who randomly received one of four doses of LSD or a placebo. The main aim was to find the optimal dose of the drug, which can cause intense visual hallucinations and occasionally feelings of panic or paranoia. At four weeks, patients receiving the two highest doses had significantly lower anxiety scores than those who received placebo or lower doses. After 12 weeks, 65% of patients taking the most effective LSD dose -- 100 micrograms -- continued to show benefits and nearly 50% were deemed to be in remission. The most common side effects included hallucinations, nausea and headaches.

Patients who got dummy pills also improved -- a common phenomenon in psychedelic and psychiatric studies -- but their changes were less than half the size those getting the real drug. The research was not immune to problems seen in similar studies. Most patients were able to correctly guess whether they'd received LSD or a dummy pill, undercutting the "blinded" approach that's considered critical to objectively establishing the benefits of a new medicine. In addition, a significant portion of patients in both the placebo and treatment groups dropped out early, narrowing the final data set. It also wasn't clear how long patients might continue to benefit. If the two trials are successful, Mindmed will submit them for FDA approval.

"It's possible that some people may need retreatment," said Dr. Maurizio Fava of Mass General Brigham Hospital, the study's lead author and an adviser to Mindmed. "How many retreatments, we don't know yet, but the long-lasting effect is quite significant."

The study has been published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Apple's $3,500 Vision Pro is finding real traction in niche enterprise use, like CAE's pilot training, Lowe's kitchen design visualization, and Dassault's engineering workflows. "Over the last few weeks, I had an opportunity to try out some of those applications, and they are game-changers, albeit within their specific domains," writes Steven Rosenbush via the Wall Street Journal. "Companies should pay attention now to what's going on in these niche markets. Based on what I saw, these systems are having an impact on the way users integrate content development and engineering, which has implications for the way companies approach roles, teams and workflow." From the report: Home-improvement retailer Lowe's has deployed the Vision Pro at five locations in the San Francisco Bay Area and five locations in the Austin, Texas area. Customers use them to visualize how design ideas will look in their actual kitchen. The company plans to scale the effort to 100 of approximately 1,700 stores by the end of the year, eventually ramping up to 400 locations in markets with sufficient scale to justify the investment, Chief Digital and Information Officer Seemantini Godbole told me. [...]

Dassault Systemes, the French industrial software company, has long created virtual worlds for commercial use. Scientists, manufacturing experts, product managers and others use its platforms to design and engineer molecules for drug development, as well as data centers, factories, aircraft and electric cars. The 3DExperience platform was launched more than a decade ago, pulling together a range of Dassault brands including 3DExcite on the premise that "everything is going to become an experience," 3DExcite Chief Executive Tom Acland said. In February, Dassault Systemes and Apple announced a collaboration to produce the 3DLive App, which went live February 7. Users include Hyundai, Virgin Galactic and Deutsche Aircraft, he said.

[...] Canadian aircraft training company CAE is using Vision Pro to provide pilot training that complements full-motion flight simulator experience required for certification and recurrent checks, according to Chief Technology and Product Officer Emmanuel Levitte. The company has employed mixed reality and immersive training for at least 10 years. The Vision Pro has unlocked new capabilities, he said. The display is as sharp and readable as the controls in a real cockpit, which Levitte found not to be the case with other devices. The haptic feedback and audio quality also contribute to a more realistic training experience, he said. Remote crew members will also be able to be co-located virtually, enabling training that was previously only possible when individuals were physically in the same cockpit, according to Levitte.

Grady Martin writes: Natron Energy has announced the immediate cessation of all operations, including its manufacturing plant in Holland, Michigan, and plans to build a $1.4 billion "gigafactory" in North Carolina. A company representative cited "efforts to raise sufficient new funding [being] unsuccessful" as the rationale for the decision.

When previously covered by Slashdot, comments on the merits of sodium-ion included the ability to use aluminum in lieu of heavier, more expensive copper anodes; a charge rate ten times that of lithium-ion; and Earth's abundance of sodium -- though at least one anonymous coward predicted the cancellation of the project.

Longtime Slashdot reader sinij shares a report from CBC News: Prime Minister Mark Carney is delaying a plan to force automakers to hit minimum sales levels for electric vehicles. The move is part of a series of measures the government announced Friday to help the sectors most affected by U.S. President Donald Trump's tariffs. The EV mandate will be paused as the government conducts a 60-day review of the policy, and will be waived for 2026 models. Sources told CBC News that the review will look at the entire mandate and next steps.

"We have an auto sector which, because of the massive change in U.S. policy, is under extreme pressure. We recognize that," Carney said at a news conference in Mississauga, Ont. "They've got enough on their plate right now. So we're taking that off." The government is using the review as part of broader look at all the government's climate measures, he added. [...]

Brian Kingston, president of the Canadian Vehicle Manufacturers' Association, called it "an important first step." "The EV mandate imposes unsustainable costs on auto manufacturers, putting at risk Canadian jobs and investment in this critical sector of the economy," he said in a statement. "A full repeal of the regulation is the most effective way to provide immediate relief to the industry and keep it competitive."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: President Donald Trump said on Thursday his administration would impose tariffs on semiconductor imports from companies not shifting production to the U.S., speaking ahead of a dinner with major technology company CEOs. "Yeah, I have discussed it with the people here. Chips and semiconductors -- we will be putting tariffs on companies that aren't coming in. We will be putting a tariff very shortly," Trump said without giving an exact time or rate.

"We will be putting a very substantial tariff, not that high, but fairly substantial tariff with the understanding that if they come into the country, if they are coming in, building, planning to come in, there will not be a tariff," Trump told reporters. "If they are not coming in, there is a tariff," Trump said in his comments on semiconductors. "Like, I would say (Apple CEO) Tim Cook would be in pretty good shape," he added, as Cook sat across the table. Further reading: Trump Basks in Tech Leaders' Spending Vows at White House Dinner

Mozilla announced today that they will end 32-bit Linux support for Firefox in 2026, with version 144 being the last release and ESR 140 as the fallback option. Phoronix reports: Firefox has continued providing 32-bit Linux binaries even with most other web browsers and operating systems going all-in on x86_64 support. But given that 32-bit Linux support is waning by distributions and the vast majority of distributions aren't even shipping i686 install images anymore, they will be removing 32-bit Linux builds in 2026.

Researchers from Nanjing University and the University of Sydney developed an AI-powered bug-hunting agent that mimics human vulnerability discovery, validating flaws with proof-of-concept exploits. The Register reports: Ziyue Wang (Nanjing) and Liyi Zhou (Sydney) have expanded upon prior work dubbed A1, an AI agent that can develop exploits for cryptocurrency smart contracts, with A2, an AI agent capable of vulnerability discovery and validation in Android apps. They describe A2 in a preprint paper titled "Agentic Discovery and Validation of Android App Vulnerabilities."

The authors claim that the A2 system achieves 78.3 percent coverage on the Ghera benchmark, surpassing static analyzers like APKHunt (30.0 percent). And they say that, when they used A2 on 169 production APKs, they found "104 true-positive zero-day vulnerabilities," 57 of which were self-validated via automatically generated proof-of-concept (PoC) exploits. One of these included a medium-severity flaw in an Android app with over 10 million installs.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Deadline: Anthropic has agreed to pay at least $1.5 billion into a class action fund as part of a settlement of litigation brought by a group of book authors. The sum, disclosed in a court filing on Friday, "will be the largest publicly reported copyright recovery in history, larger than any other copyright class action settlement or any individual copyright case litigated to final judgment," the attorneys for the authors wrote.

The settlement also includes a provision that releases Anthropic only for its conduct up the August 25, meaning that new claims could be filed over future conduct, according to the filing. Anthropic also has agreed to destroy the datasets used in its models. The settlement figure amounts to about $3,000 per class work, according to the filing. You can read the terms of Anthropic's copyright settlement here (PDF). A hearing in the case is scheduled for Sept. 8.

A first-of-its-kind global research expedition has extracted freshwater samples from beneath the Atlantic Ocean floor off Cape Cod, documenting a massive aquifer stretching from New Jersey to Maine. The three-month Expedition 501, funded at $25 million by the National Science Foundation and European Consortium for Ocean Research Drilling, drilled up to 1,289 feet into the seabed at sites 20-30 miles offshore.

Samples registered salinity as low as 1 part per thousand -- meeting U.S. freshwater standards -- with some readings even lower. Scientists collected nearly 50,000 liters for laboratory analysis to determine whether the water originates from ancient glacial melt or current terrestrial groundwater systems. The UN projects global freshwater demand will exceed supply by 40% within five years.

Microsoft is giving away Microsoft 365 Personal subscriptions to all US college students. From a report: This subscription gives students free access to Microsoft's Office apps and the Copilot AI assistant integration for a year, after which the students are eligible for a 50 percent discount to continue the subscription.

While most students have access to education versions of Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace, Microsoft's offer is for student's own personal Microsoft accounts, and is available to claim until October 31st. Microsoft 365 Personal is usually $99.99 a year, or $9.99 a month, and includes 1TB of OneDrive cloud storage.

Networks of pipes and heat exchangers can transfer excess heat from buildings into nearby bodies of water -- but as the world warms, the cooling potential of some water courses is now diminishing, Wired reports. Paris's district cooling network, which pipes Seine river water to cool 800 buildings including the Louvre Museum, faces diminishing returns as climate change warms water temperatures. The system achieves coefficients of performance between 4 and 15 -- significantly higher than conventional air conditioning -- by transferring building heat through heat exchangers to the river. The Seine briefly exceeded 27C this summer, approaching the 30C regulatory limit for returned water.

The network currently spans 100 kilometers of pipes and will expand to 245 kilometers by 2042 to serve 3,000 buildings. Similar installations operate in Toronto using lake water from 83-meter depths and at Cornell University drawing 4C water from Lake Cayuga at 76 meters. Rotterdam and other cities are developing comparable systems as cooling demand rises.