An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: How many Google AI researchers does it take to screw in a lightbulb? A recent research paper detailing the technical core behind Google's Gemini AI assistant may suggest an answer, listing an eye-popping 3,295 authors. It's a number that recently caught the attention of machine learning researcher David Ha (known as "hardmaru" online), who revealed on X that the first 43 names also contain a hidden message. "There's a secret code if you observe the authors' first initials in the order of authorship," Ha wrote, relaying the Easter egg: "GEMINI MODELS CAN THINK AND GET BACK TO YOU IN A FLASH."

The paper, titled "Gemini 2.5: Pushing the Frontier with Advanced Reasoning, Multimodality, Long Context, and Next Generation Agentic Capabilities," describes Google's Gemini 2.5 Pro and Gemini 2.5 Flash AI models, which were released in March. These large language models, which power Google's chatbot AI assistant, feature simulated reasoning capabilities that produce a string of "thinking out loud" text before generating responses in an attempt to help them solve more difficult problems. That explains "think" and "flash" in the hidden text. But clever Easter egg aside, the sheer scale of authorship tells its own story about modern AI development. Just seeing the massive list made us wonder: Is 3,295 authors unprecedented? Why so many? Ars' Benj Edwards notes that this collaborative effort within Google doesn't quite break the record for academic authorship.

"According to Guinness World Records, a 2021 paper by the COVIDSurg and GlobalSurg Collaboratives holds that distinction, with 15,025 authors from 116 countries. In physics, a 2015 paper from CERN's Large Hadron Collider teams featured 5,154 authors across 33 pages -- with 24 pages devoted solely to listing names and institutions."

"The Luxembourg-based satellite company SES has now completed its acquisition of the European-based satellite company Intelsat, giving the combined company 120 active satellites in a variety of low and high Earth orbits," writes longtime Slashdot reader schwit1. "Both companies are long established, with Intelsat initially founded in the mid-1960s as a consortium of 23 nations aimed at launching the first geosynchronous communications satellites over the Atlantic and Pacific serving most of the Old World and linked to the New. The merger is an attempt by both companies to compete with the new low-orbit constellations of SpaceX, Amazon, and from China." From a press release: With a world-class network including approximately 90 geostationary (GEO), nearly 30 medium earth orbit (MEO) satellites, strategic access to low earth orbit (LEO) satellites, and an extensive ground network, SES can now deliver connectivity solutions utilizing complementary spectrum bands including C-, Ku-, Ka-, Military Ka-, X-band, and Ultra High Frequency. The expanded capabilities of the combined company will enable it to deliver premium-quality services and tailored solutions to its customers. The company's assets and networks, once fully integrated, will put SES in a strong competitive position to better serve the evolving needs of its customers including governments, aviation, maritime, and media across the globe. "Our focus is clear: to grow, to lead in high-potential markets, and to shape the future of our industry," said SES CEO Adel Al-Saleh in a statement. "This is a long-term play, and we are building with the future in mind -- growing year after year, expanding our capabilities, and creating lasting value for our customers and shareholders alike."

Fierce Network notes that the FCC is preparing to auction upper C-band spectrum (3.98-4.2 GHz), previously cleared in part by SES and Intelsat and now eyed for 5G expansion by Verizon and AT&T. With new legislative backing and industry pressure, including from CTIA and FCC Chairman Brendan Carr, the agency is being urged to act quickly to auction and open this spectrum for full-power wireless use.

Ukrainian hacker group BO Team, with help from the Ukrainian Cyber Alliance and possibly Ukraine's military, claims to have wiped out one of Russia's largest military drone manufacturers, destroying 47TB of production data and even disabling the doors in the facility. "Or, as described by the hacking collective (per Google translate), they 'deeply penetrated' the drone manufacturer 'to the very tonsils of demilitarization and denazification,'" reports The Register. From the report: BO Team (also known as Black Owl) announced the breach on its Telegram channel, and claimed to have carried out the operation alongside fellow hackers the Ukrainian Cyber Alliance "and one very well-known organization, the mention of which makes Vanya's bottle receivers explode," according to a Google translation of the Russian text. While the "very well-known organization" isn't named, BO Team included a link to Ukraine's Ministry of Defence.

The military intelligence agency, working alongside the attackers, "carried out large-scale work to capture the entire network and server infrastructure of Gaskar Group, collect valuable information about the UAVs being produced and prospective, and then destroy the information and disable this infrastructure," the Telegram post continued. This reportedly included 47TB of technical information about the production of Russian drones, and BO Team claims to have destroyed all of the information on Gaskar's servers, including 10TB of backup files. "By the way, from the information we received, China is providing assistance in the production and training of specialists of Gaskar Group," the hackers added via Telegram. BO Team also posted what they claim to be confidential employee questionnaires [PDF].

On their own Telegram channel, the Ukrainian Cyber Alliance said they also stole "all the source code" before destroying everything. "The network went down so thoroughly that the doors in the building were blocked," the pro-Ukraine crew wrote, per Google translate. "To open them, the administration had to turn on the fire alarm. Most likely, the defense order is on the verge of failure, and thousands of drones will not get to the front in the near future."

Dictionary.com abruptly deleted all user accounts and saved word lists from its premium apps without notice or refunds, leaving long-time logophiles "devastated." "The company deleted all accounts, as well as the only ways to use Dictionary.com without seeing ads -- even if you previously paid for an ad-free experience," reports Ars Technica. From the report: Dictionary.com offers a free dictionary through its website and free Android and iOS apps. It used to offer paid-for mobile apps, called Dictionary.com Pro, that let users set up accounts, use the app without ads, and enabled other features (like grammar tips and science and rhyming dictionaries) that are gone now. Dictionary.com's premium apps also let people download an offline dictionary (its free apps used to let you buy a downloadable dictionary as a one-time purchase), but offline the dictionaries aren't available anymore.

About a year ago, claims of Dictionary.com's apps being buggy surfaced online. We also found at least one person claiming that they were unable to buy an ad-free upgrade at that time. Reports of Dictionary.com accounts being deleted and the apps not working as expected, and with much of its content removed, started appearing online about two months ago. Users reported being unable to log in and access premium features, like saved words. Soon after, Dictionary.com's premium apps were removed from Google Play and Apple's App Store. The premium version was available for download for $6 as recently as March 23, per the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine.

Russian lawmakers passed sweeping new legislation allowing authorities to fine individuals simply for searching and accessing content labeled "extremist" via VPNs. The Washington Post reports: Russia defines "extremist materials" as content officially added by a court to a government-maintained registry, a running list of about 5,500 entries, or content produced by "extremist organizations" ranging from "the LGBT movement" to al-Qaeda. The new law also covers materials that promote alleged Nazi ideology or incite extremist actions. Until now, Russian law stopped short of punishing individuals for seeking information online; only creating or sharing such content is prohibited. The new amendments follow remarks by high-ranking officials that censorship is justified in wartime. Adoption of the measures would mark a significant tightening of Russia's already restrictive digital laws.

The fine for searching for banned content in Russia would be about a $65, while the penalty for advertising circumvention tools such as VPN services would be steeper -- $2,500 for individuals and up to $12,800 for companies. Previously, the most significant expansion of Russia's restrictions on internet use and freedom of speech occurred shortly after the February 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine, when sweeping laws criminalized the spread of "fake news" and "discrediting" the Russian military. The new amendment was introduced Tuesday and attached to a mundane bill on regulating freight companies, according to documents published by Russia's lower house of parliament, the State Duma.

The Verge's Emma Roth reports: The News/Media Alliance, a trade association behind major news publishers, announced that it has "successfully secured" the removal of 12ft.io, a website that helped users bypass paywalls online. The trade association says 12ft.io's webhost took down the site on July 14th "following the News/Media Alliance's efforts." 12ft.io -- or 12 Foot Ladder -- also allowed users to view webpages without ads, trackers, or pop-ups by disguising a user's browser as a web crawler, giving them unfettered access to a webpage's contents. Software engineer Thomas Millar says he created the site when he realized "8 of the top 10 links on Google were paywalled" when doing research during the pandemic. [...]

In its announcement, News/Media Alliance says 12ft.io "offered illegal circumvention technology" that allowed users to access copyrighted content without paying for it. The organization adds that it will take "similar actions" against other sites that let users get around paywalls. The News Media Alliance recently called Google's AI Mode "theft." (Like many chatbots, Google's AI Mode eliminates the need to visit a website, starving publishers of the pageviews they need to be compensated for their work.) "Publishers commit significant resources to creating the best and most informative content for consumers, and illegal tools like 12ft.io undermine their ability to financially support that work through subscriptions and ad revenue," News/Media Alliance president and CEO Danielle Coffey said in the press release. "Taking down paywall bypassers is an essential part of ensuring we have a healthy and sustainable information ecosystem."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from NBC News: Mark Zuckerberg and current and former directors and officers of Meta Platforms agreed on Thursday to settle claims seeking $8 billion for the damage they allegedly caused the company by allowing repeated violations of Facebook users' privacy, a lawyer for the shareholders told a Delaware judge on Thursday. The parties did not disclose details of the settlement and defense lawyers did not address the judge, Kathaleen McCormick of the Delaware Court of Chancery. McCormick adjourned the trial just as it was to enter its second day and she congratulated the parties. The plaintiffs' lawyer, Sam Closic, said the agreement just came together quickly.

Billionaire venture capitalist Marc Andreessen, who is a defendant in the trial and a Meta director, was scheduled to testify on Thursday. Shareholders of Meta sued Zuckerberg, Andreessen and other former company officials including former Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg in hopes of holding them liable for billions of dollars in fines and legal costs the company paid in recent years. The Federal Trade Commission fined Facebook $5 billion in 2019 after finding that it failed to comply with a 2012 agreement with the regulator to protect users' data. The shareholders wanted the 11 defendants to use their personal wealth to reimburse the company. The defendants denied the allegations, which they called "extreme claims." "This settlement may bring relief to the parties involved, but it's a missed opportunity for public accountability," said Jason Kint, the head of Digital Content Next, a trade group for content providers.

"Facebook has successfully remade the 'Cambridge Analytica' scandal about a few bad actors rather than an unraveling of its entire business model of surveillance capitalism and the reciprocal, unbridled sharing of personal data. That reckoning is now left unresolved."

Uber said Thursday it will partner with electric vehicle maker Lucid Group and autonomous driving startup Nuro to deploy robotaxis using Lucid Gravity SUVs equipped with Nuro Driver technology on its ride-sharing network. The companies plan to launch the first vehicles in late 2026 in an unidentified major US city and deploy at least 20,000 robotaxis over six years.

Uber will make multi-hundred-million dollar investments in both partners, including $300 million for Lucid to upgrade its assembly line for integrating Nuro hardware into Gravity vehicles.

VMware is overhauling its partner program again under Broadcom's direction, drastically reducing the number of authorized partners -- especially small and mid-size ones -- while ending the white label program by October 31, 2025. The Register reports: Australian IT service provider Interactive outlined the changes on Wednesday in a post that explained the changes with the following five points:

- Partner Reduction: The new program significantly reduces the number of authorized partners, being a by-invitation-only program. As a result on July 15, 2025 VCSP partners who are not invited to participate in the new Program for VCSP partners will be sent a notice of non-renewal.
- Transition Period Until 31 October, 2025: Non-invited partners can continue to transact until 31 October 2025. After that date, they may only service existing VCSP commitment contracts for the remainder of the current term. No new commitment contracts or renewals will be accepted for those partners.
- White Label Program Ending: Broadcom is also sunsetting the White Label model on 31 October 2025. The same transitional commercial conditions apply to White Label contracts as stated above.
- Immediate Impact: Departing partners are encouraged to work with authorized VCSP partners to ensure a smooth transition for customers who seek to renew a service at the end of their current term.
- Shift Toward Hyperscale Private Compute: Broadcom is reshaping its vision for private compute, whereby VMware Cloud Foundation 9 underpins a small number [of] hyperscale private cloud platforms in each region. A future where customers buy managed infrastructure from partners like Interactive to support their compute requirements.

Interactive also warned that customers whose partners are no longer part of the partner program could expect the change to effect:

- Your ability to renew licenses through your existing partner
- The support and service quality you've come to expect
- Potential delays or confusion during upcoming renewals or service requests
- Potential cost increases as partner consolidation may led additional costs for migration and re-onboarding, and reduced bundling options that previously allowed for greater cost efficiencies VMware also told The Register that "Non-renewing partners can continue to support their existing customers until the end of their current commit contract term including co-termed capacity orders. Non-renewing partners are encouraged to work with authorized VCSP partners to ensure a smooth transition for customers who seek to renew a service at the end of their current term."

Making matters worse: VMware on Tuesday divulged three critical flaws in eights of its products rated 9.3/10.

alternative_right shares a report from Phys.org: Monitoring changes in water temperature and pressure at the seafloor can improve understanding of ocean circulation, climate, and natural hazards such as tsunamis. In recent years, scientists have begun gathering submarine measurements via an existing infrastructure network that spans millions of kilometers around the planet: the undersea fiber-optic telecommunications cables that provide us with amenities like Internet and phone service. Without interfering with their original purpose, the cables can be used as sensors to measure small variations in the light signals that run through them so that scientists can learn more about the sea. Meichen Liu and colleagues recently developed a new instrument, consisting of a receiver and a microwave intensity modulator placed at a shore station, that facilitates the approach. Their work is published in Geophysical Research Letters.

Transcontinental fiber-optic cables are divided into subsections by repeaters, instruments positioned every 50 to 100 kilometers that boost information-carrying light signals so that they remain strong on the journey to their destination. At each repeater, an instrument called a fiber Bragg grating reflects a small amount of light back to the previous repeater to monitor the integrity of the cable. By observing and timing these reflections, the new instrument measures the changes in the time it takes for the light to travel between repeaters. These changes convey information about how the surrounding water changes the shape of the cable, and the researchers used that information to infer properties such as daily and weekly water temperature and tide patterns.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: For some years now, detractors of battery electric vehicles have held up hydrogen as a clean fuel panacea. That sometimes refers to hydrogen combustion engines, but more often, it's hydrogen fuel cell electric vehicles, or FCEVs. Both promise motoring with only water emitted from the vehicles' exhausts. It's just that hydrogen actually kinda sucks as a fuel, and automaker Stellantis announced today that it is ending the development of its light-, medium- and heavy-duty FCEVs, which were meant to go into production later this year.

Hydrogen's main selling point is that it's faster to fill a tank with the stuff than it is to recharge a lithium-ion battery. So it's a seductive alternative that suggests a driver can keep all the convenience of their gasoline engine with none of the climate change-causing side effects. But in reality, that's pretty far from true. [...] Between the high development costs and the fact that FCEVs only sell with strong incentives, the decision was made to cancel the production of hydrogen vans in France and Poland. Stellantis says there will be no job losses at its factories and that R&D staff will be put to work on other projects. "In a context where the Company is mobilizing to respond to demanding CO2 regulations in Europe, Stellantis has decided to discontinue its hydrogen fuel cell technology development program," said Jean-Philippe Imparato, chief operating officer for Enlarged Europe. "The hydrogen market remains a niche segment, with no prospects of mid-term economic sustainability. We must make clear and responsible choices to ensure our competitiveness and meet the expectations of our customers with our electric and hybrid passenger and light commercial vehicles offensive."

Longtime Slashdot reader bobdevine shares a report from OSTechNix: For the first time, Linux has officially broken the 5% desktop market share barrier in the United States of America! It's a huge milestone for open-source and our fantastic Linux community. While many might think of Linux as a niche choice, this new data shows a significant shift is happening.

According to the latest StatCounter Global Stats for June 2025, Linux now holds 5.03% of the desktop operating system market share in the United United States of America. This is fantastic news! [...] One truly satisfying detail for me? Linux has finally surpassed the "Unknown" category in the USA! It shows that our growth is clear and recognized. "It took eight years to go from 1% to 2% (by April 2021), then just 2.2 years to reach 3% (June 2023), and a mere 0.7 years to hit 4% (February 2024)," notes the report. "Now, here we are, at over 5% in the USA! This exponential growth suggests that we're on a promising upward trend."

OpenAI has added Google Cloud as a provider for ChatGPT and its API, expanding beyond Microsoft to address growing demand for computing power. CNBC reports: OpenAI has added Google to a list of suppliers, specifying that ChatGPT and its application programming interface will use the Google Cloud Platform, as well as Microsoft, CoreWeave and Oracle. The announcement amounts to a win for Google, whose cloud unit is younger and smaller than Amazon's and Microsoft's. Google also has cloud business with Anthropic, which was established by former OpenAI executives. The Google infrastructure will run in the U.S., Japan, the Netherlands, Norway and the United Kingdom.

BrianFagioli writes: Meta has partnered with Amrize and the University of Illinois to develop an "AI-optimized" concrete mix that cuts carbon by 35% for its new data center.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Google will now let everyone in the US call local businesses using AI. The feature, which is now available in Search, allows you to use AI for pricing or availability information without having to talk on the phone.

Google first started testing this feature in January, and it's still only available for certain kinds of businesses, like pet groomers, dry cleaners, and auto shops. When you search for one of these services, like a pet groomer, Google will display a new "have AI check pricing" prompt beneath the business listing.

Digital tokens designed to track popular stocks have suffered extreme price deviations since launching two weeks ago, with an Amazon-tracking token briefly spiking to more than 100 times the underlying stock's closing price. The token AMZNX hit $23,781.22 on crypto trading platform Jupiter on July 3, while Amazon shares had closed the previous day around $200.

A similar Apple-tracking token jumped to $236.72 on July 3, representing a 12% premium to the actual stock price. Companies including Robinhood, Kraken, Gemini and Bybit launched these blockchain-based versions of U.S. stocks in late June for non-U.S. customers. Robinhood is facing scrutiny from Lithuania's central bank after launching tokens tied to OpenAI and SpaceX without permission from either company, prompting OpenAI to disavow the tokens on social media.

Airbus's Silicon Valley innovation center Acubed and Google spinout SandboxAQ have successfully tested a quantum-sensing navigation device as an alternative to GPS during 150 hours of flights across the continental United States. The toaster-sized MagNav device uses quantum physics to measure unique magnetic signatures in Earth's crust [non-paywalled, syndicated link], with an AI algorithm matching those signatures to exact locations.

The technology achieved Federal Aviation Administration requirements by pinpointing aircraft location within two nautical miles 100% of the time and within 550 meters 64% of the time. SandboxAQ CEO Jack Hidary called it "the first novel absolute navigation system to our knowledge in the last 50 years." The analog system cannot be jammed or spoofed like GPS, which faces increasing tampering in the Middle East and around Ukraine and Russia.

Reddit has begun verifying users' ages in the UK to restrict access to "certain mature content" for minors, complying with the UK's Online Safety Act. The BBC reports: Reddit, known for its online communities and discussions, said that while it does not want to know who its audience is: "It would be helpful for our safety efforts to be able to confirm whether you are a child or an adult." Ofcom, the UK regulator, said: "We expect other companies to follow suit, or face enforcement if they fail to act." Reddit said that from 14 July, an outside firm called Persona will perform age verification for the social media platform either through an uploaded selfie or "a photo of your government ID," such as a passport. It said Reddit will not have access to the photo and will only retain a user's verification status and date of birth so people do not have to re-enter it each time they try to access restricted content. Reddit added that Persona "promises not to retain the picture for longer than seven days" and will not have access to a user's data on the site. The new rules in the UK come into force on 25 July. [...]

Companies that fail to meet the rules face fines of up to 18 million pounds or 10% of worldwide revenue, "whichever is greater." [Ofcom] added that in the most serious cases, it can seek a court order for "business disruption measures," such as requiring payment providers or advertisers to withdraw their services from a platform, or requiring Internet Service Providers to block access to a site in the UK."

Plasma Bigscreen, KDE's TV-focused interface, is being revived after years of inactivity thanks to contributor Devin, who overhauled the UI, redesigned the Settings app, improved app launching, and updated key modules. While still in progress -- with features like HDMI-CEC remote support and a virtual keyboard pending -- the project aims to rejoin KDE's official Plasma release schedule, potentially in version 6.5. Neowin reports: If you have not heard of it, Plasma Bigscreen is a Plasma shell for televisions, with original support for the now-defunct Mycroft AI assistant. It used to provide a simple launcher for apps and custom "Mycroft Skills" before development stalled, causing most distributions to drop it. The project was left behind during the big transition to Plasma 6 last year because no one had ported it in time for the megarelease. After a friend of his started poking at the code, Devin stepped in to tackle the much-needed work. [...]

For anyone who wants to test this out, you can do as Devin did by installing Plasma Bigscreen on a Raspberry Pi using postmarketOS, though you would have to compile it yourself or pull from the nightly repos to get the latest changes. Applications like Kodi and VacuumTube (smart TV version of YouTube) work well with remote navigation, and some games like SuperTuxKart are playable. Controller support exists, but getting TV remotes to work over HDMI CEC is still untested. The project is far from finished; it still needs an arrow-navigable virtual keyboard and a clearer long-term direction now that Mycroft is gone. Still, the goal is to get it back into the official Plasma release schedule, possibly for version 6.5.

BrianFagioli shares a report from NERDS.xyz: Blender 4.5 has arrived and it's a long-term support release. That means users get two full years of updates and bug fixes, making it a smart choice for anyone looking for stability in serious projects. Whether you're a solo artist or part of a studio pipeline, this version is built to last. Here's a list of key features and changes in this release:

- Vulkan backend replaces OpenGL (faster, smoother UI)
- Adaptive subdivision up to 14x faster with multithreading
- New Geometry Nodes: Camera Info, Instance Bounds
- GPU-accelerated compositor nodes with standardized inputs
- New Boolean solver: Manifold (cleaner, faster mesh operations)
- UV maps visible in Object Mode + improved selection behavior
- Grease Pencil render pass and Geometry Nodes integration
- Improved file import support: PLY, OBJ, STL, CSV, VDB
- Deprecations: Collada, Big Endian, legacy .blend, Intel Mac support
- Cycles OptiX now requires NVIDIA driver v535+
- New shader variants for add-on developers (POLYLINES_*, POINT_*)
~500 bug fixes across all major systems