Electric vehicles dominated Norway's new car sales in 2024, capturing 88.9% market share versus 82.4% in 2023, the Norwegian Road Federation said. Tesla led sales, followed by Volkswagen and Toyota, as the Nordic nation approaches its 2025 goal of selling only zero-emission vehicles.

SvarDOS, a compact open-source operating system derived from DR-DOS, has switched to using the EDRDOS kernel, marking a shift from its FreeDOS distribution roots. The change allows the operating system to fit on a single 1.4MB floppy disk while offering a network-capable package manager that can fetch from a repository of over 400 packages.

Unlike its rival FreeDOS, SvarDOS can run Microsoft Windows 3.1 natively, though the capability currently requires additional configuration. The system maintains compatibility with legacy DOS applications while providing modern features like FAT32 support and network connectivity.

Tom's Hardware reports that NATO is developing an advanced system to address the growing number of undersea cable disruptions observed in recent years. Known as HEIST (Hybrid Space-Submarine Architecture Ensuring Infosec of Telecommunications), the project is designed to significantly enhance the resilience of undersea communication networks. HEIST will enable damage detection with an accuracy of one meter, facilitate rapid data rerouting through satellite networks when disruptions occur, and establish open-source protocols to foster global collaboration. From the report: Satellites are the primary backups to undersea cables, but their bandwidth is far behind physical connections. For example, Google's latest fiber-optic lines can hit 340 terabits per second. In contrast, the frequency used by most satellites -- 12 to 18GHz -- can only handle about 5 gigabits per second or about 0.0015% of the maximum throughput of Google's fiber connection.

Work is underway to upgrade satellites from radio transmissions to lasers, increasing the speed by about 40 times to 200 Gbps. Starlink already uses this technology to communicate between its satellites, while Amazon is also developing it for its own Project Kuiper. However, it still faces challenges, like poor visibility and targeting precision between the satellite and ground station.

Because this is a major NATO project, the alliance plans to open-source part of the process. Making it public would allow anyone interested to find holes and make many iterations. Gregory Falco, the NATO Country Director for HEIST, believes that this is the fastest way for the project to achieve its goals and help prevent any catastrophic loss of data transmission in case of deliberate attacks against these underwater infrastructures in international waters.

Venezuela's Supreme Court on Monday fined TikTok $10 million for failing to prevent viral challenges allegedly linked to the deaths of three children. It also ordered the platform to establish a local office to oversee content compliance with national laws. The Associated Press reports: Judge Tania D'Amelio said TikTok had acted in a negligent manner and gave it eight days to pay the fine [...]. The judge did not explain how Venezuela would force TikTok, whose parent company is based in China, to pay the fine. Venezuela has blocked dozens of websites in previous years for not complying with regulations set by its telecommunications commission.

In November, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro blamed TikTok for the death of a 12-year-old girl who allegedly died after participating in a TikTok challenge that involved taking tranquilizer pills and not falling asleep. Venezuela's Education Minister Hector Rodriguez also said last month that a 14-year-old died after taking part in a TikTok challenge that involved sniffing substances. And on Nov. 21, Venezuela's attorney general blamed video challenges on TikTok for the death of a third child.

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority has announced plans to retire its iconic R46 subway cars, triggering nostalgia among New Yorkers who cherished their distinctive seating arrangement. The fleet -- which has served A, C, N, R, Q, and W lines for five decades -- will be replaced by R211 cars expected for delivery in 2027.

The R46's perpendicular seating configuration, designed for comfort during long trips to destinations like Coney Island, encouraged social interaction among passengers, according to New York Transit Museum director Concetta Bencivenga. The new R211 cars will feature longitudinal seating to improve passenger flow and reduce platform waiting times. Currently, 696 of the original 754 R46 cars remain in service. The replacement R211 cars will include security cameras, wider seats, improved signage, and better lighting.

President-elect Donald Trump has asked the Supreme Court to delay the upcoming TikTok ban while he works on a "political resolution." In a legal brief (PDF) on Friday, his lawyer said Trump "opposes banning TikTok" and "seeks the ability to resolve the issues at hand through political means once he takes office." The BBC reports: Trump had met with TikTok's CEO, Shou Zi Chew, at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida last week. In his court filing on Friday, Trump said the case represents "an unprecedented, novel, and difficult tension between free-speech rights on one side, and foreign policy and national security concerns on the other." While the filing said that Trump "takes no position on the underlying merits of this dispute", it added that pushing back the 19 January deadline would grant Trump "the opportunity to pursue a political resolution" to the matter without having to resort to the court. [...]

Trump has publicly said he opposes the ban, despite supporting one in his first term as president. "I have a warm spot in my heart for TikTok, because I won youth by 34 points," he claimed at a press conference earlier in December, although a majority of young voters backed his opponent, Kamala Harris. "There are those that say that TikTok has something to do with that," he added. Earlier this month, TikTok asked the Supreme Court to block the ban, saying that the law violates both its First Amendment rights and those of its 170 million American users.

Traditional barcodes are set to be replaced by next-generation QR-style codes by 2027, offering enhanced functionality such as embedding sell-by dates, allergens, and recycling information. The Guardian reports: Tesco has started using them on some products, and other trials have suggested that waste of perishable food such as poultry can be cut by embedding sell-by dates in the new QR-style codes, allowing for more dynamic discounting. QR (quick response) codes will allow customers to instantly access more information about the product, including how to recycle batteries, clothes and building materials when tougher environmental regulations bite. But they will also put a greater demand on the world's cloud computing resources, where the extra data they contain will be stored -- meaning a potentially greater carbon footprint.

The first barcode was read in an Ohio supermarket in June 1974 when a packet of Juicy Fruit chewing gum was rung up. It was devised by Joe Woodland, an inventor who had been implored by a retailer frustrated at losing profits, to speed up checkout queues and stocktaking. Coca-Cola has used the new generation of codes in parts of Latin America for refillable bottles, with the QR code allowing the counting of refills so that a requirement of 25 before recycling can be enforced. The Australian supermarket chain Woolworths is said to have reduced food waste by up to 40% in some areas, as the codes allow stores to better spot products approaching expiry and discount more efficiently. "We've defined an ambition that by the end of 2027 all retailers in the world will be able to read those next-generation barcodes," said Renaud de Barbuat, the president and chief executive of GS1. "We think it's doable ... It represents some investment on the part of retailers to adapt their point-of-sale systems, but it's already well under way."

Anne Godfrey, the chief executive of GS1 UK, said: "This has been in the works for some time, but Covid really accelerated it. During the pandemic, everyone got used to pointing their phones at QR codes in pubs and restaurants to access the menu."

German electric air taxi company Volocopter has filed for bankruptcy protection, the latest in a string of similar startups to hit financial turbulence. From a report: Volocopter is one of the more well-funded electric air taxi startups, having raised hundreds of millions of dollars over nearly a decade with backing from major automakers like Germany's Mercedes-Benz and China's Geely.

Google CEO Sundar Pichai has warned employees the company faces critical challenges in 2025 as it races to catch up in AI amid rising competition and regulatory scrutiny. "The stakes are high," Pichai said at a strategy meeting, details of which were reported by CNBC. "I think it's really important we internalize the urgency of this moment, and need to move faster as a company. The stakes are high. These are disruptive moments. In 2025, we need to be relentlessly focused on unlocking the benefits of this technology and solve real user problems."

The meeting revealed employee concerns about ChatGPT "becoming synonymous to AI the same way Google is to search." In response, DeepMind co-founder Demis Hassabis outlined plans to "turbo charge" Google's Gemini app, which executives hope will become their next product to reach 500 million users. Pichai showed a chart positioning Gemini 1.5 ahead of OpenAI's GPT, though he expects "some back and forth" in 2025. The report adds: [Pichai] acknowledged that Google has had to play catchup. "In history, you don't always need to be first but you have to execute well and really be the best in class as a product," he said. "I think that's what 2025 is all about."

America's aerospace industry is overseen by the Federal Aviation Administration (or FAA) — which also handles safety warnings from the industry's whistleblowers. But the Seattle Times says an analysis of reports to Congress found "an overwhelmed system delivering underwhelming results for whistleblowers... More than 90% of safety complaints from 2020 through 2023 ended with no violation found by the FAA, while whistleblowers reported them at great personal and professional risk." Aside from the FAA's in-house program, employees of Boeing, Spirit and the FAA can report safety hazards to the Office of Special Counsel, which has no FAA ties, or through internal employer complaint programs, such as Boeing's Speak Up and Spirit's Quality 360, to trigger company reviews... In the aftermath of the door-plug blowout over Portland, Boeing specifically asked its employees to use the Speak Up program or the FAA's internal process to report any concerns, according to Boeing spokesperson Jessica Kowal. Both have done a poor job protecting whistleblowers from retaliation, according to a congressionally appointed expert panel... While both were designed to guard against retaliation, critics say they have instead become enablers of it...

A panel of aviation safety experts in February rebuked Boeing's Speak Up program in a report to Congress. Whistleblower advocates criticized Speak Up for commonly outing whistleblowers to the supervisors they're complaining about, exposing them to retaliation. Managers sometimes investigated complaints against themselves. Employees mistrusted the program's promise of anonymity. Collectively, the befuddling maze of whistleblower options sowed "confusion about reporting systems that may discourage employees from submitting safety concerns," according to the expert panel's report....

[Boeing quality inspector Sam Mohawk, who alleged the 737 MAX line in Renton was losing track of subpar aircraft parts], continues to pursue his FAA claim, originally submitted through Boeing's Speak Up program. Months passed before Boeing addressed Mohawk's complaint. When it did, Mohawk's report was passed to the managers he was complaining about, according to Brian Knowles, Mohawk's South Carolina-based lawyer. "If you do Speak Up, just know that your report is going to go straight to the guys you're accusing of wrongdoing. They aren't going to say, 'Thanks for speaking up against us,'" Knowles said.
The article includes this quote about the FAA's in-house whistleblower program from Tom Devine, a whistleblower attorney with nearly a half-century of experience across a spectrum of federal agencies, and legal director of the nonprofit Government Accountability Project, which helps whistleblowers navigate the federal system. "It's been a disaster from the beginning. We tell everyone to avoid it because it's a trap... We've warned whistleblowers not to entrust their rights there."

"I still can't quite believe that I'm using an Arm-powered Windows laptop every day," writes a senior editor at the Verge: After more than a decade of trying to make Windows on Arm a reality, Microsoft and Qualcomm finally nailed it this year with Copilot Plus PCs. These new laptops have excellent battery life and great performance — and the app compatibility issues that have plagued Windows on Arm are mostly a thing of the past (as long as you're not a gamer). Microsoft wanted 2024 to be "the year of the AI PC," but I think it was very much the year of Windows on Arm...

The key to Windows on Arm's revival this year was Qualcomm's Snapdragon X Elite processors, which were announced in April. They've provided the type of performance and power efficiency only previously available with Apple's MacBooks and challenged Intel and AMD to do better in the x86 space. After much debate over Microsoft's MacBook Air-beating benchmarks, the reviews rolled in and showed that Windows on Arm was indeed capable of matching and beating Apple's MacBook Air. Qualcomm even hired the "I'm a Mac" guy to promote Windows on Arm PCs, showing how confident it was in challenging Apple's laptop dominance.

Microsoft and Qualcomm also worked closely with developers to make key apps compatible, and it's now very rare to run into an app compatibility issue that can't be solved by a native Arm64 version or Microsoft's improved emulator. Even Google, which previously shunned Windows Phone, has created Arm64 versions of Chrome and Google Drive to support Microsoft's efforts. With developers continually providing native versions of their apps, it makes it a lot easier to switch to a Windows on Arm laptop. The only big exception is gaming, where x86 still reigns supreme for compatibility and performance...

It's hard not to see 2025 as the year that Windows on Arm continues to eat into the laptop space. A Dell leak revealed Qualcomm is preparing new chips for 2025, and the chip maker has also been rolling out cheaper Arm-based chips to bring laptop prices down.
The article acknowledges that both AMD and Intel "have the key advantage of game compatibility that Windows on Arm is definitely not ready for..." But "Given the Windows on Arm gaming situation, a new generation of Nvidia's GPUs could help generate fresh excitement around x86 laptops throughout 2025." And "Nvidia might also be planning to help the Windows on Arm effort. The chip maker has long been rumored to be planning to launch Arm PC chips as soon as 2025... Whatever happens to laptops in 2025, you can guarantee that there's going to be fierce competition between Intel, AMD, and Qualcomm."

But the author still complains about the dedicated Copilot key on his new WIndows-on-Arm laptop. "While the Copilot experience on Windows has gone through several confusing revisions, it's still a key I accidentally press and then get frustrated when a Copilot window appears."

Reuters reports: Finnish police said on Sunday they had found tracks that drag on for dozens of kilometres along the bottom of the Baltic Sea where a tanker carrying Russian oil is suspected of breaking a power line and four telecoms cables with its anchor... A break in the 658 megawatt (MW) Estlink 2 power cable between Finland and Estonia occurred at midday on Wednesday, leaving only the 358 MW Estlink 1 linking the two countries, grid operators said. They said Estlink 2 might not be back in service before August.
In an interesting twist, the New York Times reports that the ship "bears all the hallmarks of vessels belonging to Russia's shadow fleet, officials said, and had embarked from a Russian port shortly before the cables were cut." If confirmed, it would be the first known instance of a shadow fleet vessel being used to intentionally sabotage critical infrastructure in Europe — and, officials and experts said, a clear escalation by Russia in its conflict with the West... NATO's general secretary, Mark Rutte, responding to requests from the leaders of Finland and Estonia, both member nations, said the Atlantic alliance would "enhance" its military presence in the Baltic Sea...

Since Russia began assembling its fleet, the number of shadow vessels traversing the oceans has grown by hundreds and now makes up 17 percent of the total global oil tanker fleet... Nearly 70 percent of Russia's oil is being transported by shadow tankers, according to an analysis published in October by the Kyiv School of Economics Institute, a research organization based in Ukraine... The authorities in Finland are still investigating whether the "Eagle S" engaged in a criminal act. But the sheer size of the shadow fleet might have made using some of these vessels for sabotage irresistible to Russia, [said Elisabeth Braw, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council who has researched and written about shadow fleets]...

While it's still not certain that this week's cable cutting was done intentionally, the Baltic Sea, for a number of reasons, is an ideal arena to carry out sabotage operations. It is relatively shallow and is crisscrossed with essential undersea cables and pipelines that provide energy, as well as internet and phone services, to a number of European countries that are NATO members. Russia has relatively unfettered access to the sea from several ports, and its commercial vessels, protected by international maritime law, can move around international waters largely unmolested... The suspicions that Russia was using shadow vessels for more than just escaping sanctions existed before this week's cable cutting. Last April, the head of Sweden's Navy told a local news outlet that there was evidence such ships were being used to conduct signals intelligence on behalf of Russia and that some fishing vessels had been spotted with antennas and masts not normally seen on commercial vessels. Since the war began, there has also been an uptick in suspicious episodes resulting in damage to critical undersea infrastructure...

Hours after Finland's energy grid operator alerted the police that an undersea power cable was damaged on Wednesday, Finnish officers descended by helicopter to the ship's deck and took over the bridge, preventing the vessel from sailing farther. By Friday, it remained at anchor in the Gulf of Finland, guarded by a Finnish Defense Forces missile boat and a Border Guard patrol vessel.
The cable incident happened just weeks after the EU issued new sanctions targetting Russia's shadow fleet, Euronews reports. "A handful of Chinese companies suspected of enabling Russia's production of drones are also blacklisted as part of the agreement, a diplomat told Euronews." The "shadow fleet" has been accused of deceptive practices, including transmitting falsified data and turning off their transporters to become invisible to satellite systems, and conducting multiple ship-to-ship transfers to conceal the origin of the oil barrels...

An anonymous reader shared this report from the Washington Post: Archer is aiming to launch its first commercially operated [and electrically-powered] flights with a pilot and passengers within a year in Abu Dhabi. A competitor, Joby Aviation, says it is aiming to launch passenger service in Dubai as soon as late 2025. Advancements in batteries and other technologies required for the futuristic tilt-rotor craft are moving so fast that they could soon move beyond the novelty stage and into broader commercial use in a matter of years. Both companies are laying plans to operate at the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles...

Scaling the industry from a novelty ride for the wealthy to a broadly available commuter option will take billions more in start-up money, executives said, including building out a network of takeoff and landing areas (called vertiports) and charging stations. Some high-profile ventures have already faltered. A plan for air taxis to transport spectators around the Paris Olympics fizzled... Still, investors, including big names like Stellantis and Toyota, have poured money into Silicon Valley companies like Archer and Joby. Boeing and Airbus are developing their own versions. All are betting that quieter, greener and battery-powered aircraft can revolutionize the way people travel. Major U.S. airlines including American, Delta, Southwest and United also are building relationships and planting seeds for deals with air taxi companies.
Two interesting quotes from the article:

• "It feels like the modern-day American Dream, where you can invent a technology and actually bring it to market even [if it's] as crazy as what some people call flying cars."
  
  — Adam Goldstein, CEO of Archer Aviation.

• "They have created these amazing new aircraft that really 10 or 15 years ago would've been unimaginable. I think there's something innately attractive about being able to leapfrog all of your terrestrial obstacles. Who hasn't wished that if you live in the suburbs that, you know, something could drop into your cul-de-sac and 15 minutes later you're at the office."
  
  — Roger Connor, curator of the vertical flight collection at the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum.

It had a 4.8-inch display. Introduced in 1991, Hewlett-Packard's (DOS-based) HP 95LX Palmtop PC — a collaboration with Lotus — was finally discontinued back in 2003.

But one found its way to long-time Slashdot reader Shayde (who in November repaired a 48-year-old handheld videogame console from Mattel). "I really wanted to get this HP95LX talking to the internet at large," they told Slashdot, " but network stacks for DOS in 1991 were pretty limited, and this machine didn't even have the hardware for a network connection.

"It did have a serial port though — a flat 4-pin custom interface. I did a bunch of research and learned how to custom-build an RS-232 hookup for this port, and using an external Wifi module, got it online — and talking to the retrocomputing BBS!"

There's a video documenting the whole experience. (Along the way he uses 20-gauge hook-up wire from Amazon, a zip tie, solder cups, and an internet modem (the WiFi232 Hayes modem emulator). The whole thing is powered by two AA batteries — it has 512K of memory, and about half a meg of storage. My favorite technical detail?

"Conveniently, the HP 95 [Palmtop PC] uses the exact same pinout as the HP 48GX handheld graphing calculator. So looking up on the Internet, we can determine what pins we need to map from the HP unit over to what would be a DB25 serial port..."

Long-time Slashdot reader theodp writes: Back in January, Rice University professor and former CACM Editor-in-Chief Moshe Y. Vardi wrote of the unintended consequences of social media and mobile computing in "Computing, You Have Blood on Your Hands!" To close out the year, Vardi addresses the role tech workers play in enabling dubious Big Tech business models — including now-powered-by-AI Big Tech Surveillance Capitalism — in an opinion piece titled "I Was Wrong about the Ethics Crisis."

Vardi writes: "The belief in the magical power of the free market always to serve the public good has no theoretical basis. In fact, our current climate crisis is a demonstrated market failure. To take an extreme example, Big Tobacco surely does not support the public good, and most of us would agree that it is unethical to work for Big Tobacco. The question, thus, is whether Big Tech is supporting the public good, and if not, what should Big Tech workers do about it. Of course, there is no simple answer to such a question, and the only reasonable answer to the question of whether it is ethical to work for Big Tech is, 'It depends.' [...] It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it, said the writer and political activist Upton Sinclair. By and large, Big Tech workers do not seem to be asking themselves hard questions, I believe, hence my conclusion that we do indeed suffer from an ethics crisis."

Accidental missile attacks on commercial airliners have become the leading cause of aviation fatalities in recent years (Warning: source paywalled; alternative source), driven by rising global conflicts and the proliferation of advanced antiaircraft weaponry. Despite improvements in aviation safety overall, inconsistent risk assessments, political complexities, and rapid military escalations make protecting civilian flights in conflict zones increasingly difficult. The Wall Street Journal reports: The crash Wednesday of an Azerbaijan Airlines jetliner in Kazakhstan, if officially confirmed as a midair attack, would be the third major fatal downing of a passenger jet linked to armed conflict since 2014, according to the Flight Safety Foundation's Aviation Safety Network, a global database of accidents and incidents. The tally would bring to more than 500 the number of deaths from such attacks during that period. Preliminary results of Azerbaijan's investigation into the crash indicate the plane was hit by a Russian antiaircraft missile, or shrapnel from it, said people briefed on the probe.

"It adds to the worrying catalog of shootdowns now," said Andy Blackwell, an aviation risk adviser at security specialist ISARR and former head of security at Virgin Atlantic. "You've got the conventional threats, from terrorists and terrorist groups, but now you've got this accidental risk as well." No other cause of aviation fatalities on commercial airliners comes close to shootdowns over those years, according to ASN data. The deadliness of such attacks is a dramatic shift: In the preceding 10 years, there were no fatal shootdowns of scheduled commercial passenger flights, ASN data show. The trend highlights the difficulty -- if not impossibility -- of protecting civilian aviation in war zones, even for rigorous aviation regulators, because of the politics of war. Early last century similar woes plagued sea travel, when belligerents targeted ocean transport.

Increasing civilian aviation deaths from war also reflect both a growing number of armed conflicts internationally and the increasing prevalence of powerful antiaircraft weaponry. If a missile was indeed the cause of this week's disaster, it would mean that the three deadliest shootdowns of the past decade all involved apparently unintended targetings of passenger planes flying near conflict zones, by forces that had been primed to hit enemy military aircraft. Two of those incidents were linked to Russia: Wednesday's crash of an Embraer E190 with 67 people aboard, of whom 38 died, and the midair destruction in 2014 of a Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 flying over a battle zone in Ukraine, on which all 298 people aboard died. The other major downing was the mistaken shooting in 2020 by Iranian forces of a Ukraine International Airlines Boeing 737 departing Tehran, killing all 176 people onboard. Iran's missile defense systems had been on alert for a potential U.S. strike at the time.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Independent: The two professions associated with the lowest levels of death due to Alzheimer's disease may be surprising. Taxi and ambulance drivers were found to have the lowest proportion of deaths of more than 440 occupations that were considered in a new observation-based study from Massachusetts physicians. Alzheimer's disease is a type of dementia that affects memory, thinking, and behavior. It impacts millions of Americans and is one of the top 10 causes of death in the US.

While the study's findings cannot confirm a direct link between the professions and reduced risk, its researchers said they raise the possibility that memory-intensive driving occupations could be associated with some protection. "We view these findings not as conclusive, but as hypothesis-generating," they said, noting that no resolute conclusions can be drawn about cause and effect. The jobs require frequent spatial and navigational processing: the ability to sense and incorporate information about the location of objects around them. Although, the trend was not seen in other related jobs, like driving a bus or piloting an aircraft. It was also not seen in other forms of dementia, which suggests changes in the hippocampus region of the brain -- which is used for spatial memory and navigation -- may account for the reduction.

The hippocampus, located deep within the brain, has been shown to be enhanced in London taxi drivers compared to the general population. The region is also one of the parts of the brain involved in the development of Alzheimer's disease. [...] The authors acknowledged that there were limitations, including that individuals who are at higher risk of developing Alzheimer's disease may be less likely to enter driving occupations. However, they said this is unlikely because disease symptoms typically develop after working age. "Further research is necessary to definitively conclude whether the spatial cognitive work required for these occupations affects the risk of death from Alzheimer's disease and whether any cognitive activities can be potentially preventive," they said. The research has been published in the journal The BMJ.

The implementation of the Corporate Transparency Act -- a law aimed at getting shell companies to disclose their true ownership -- was paused again just days before a reporting deadline was set to take effect, as a federal appeals court handed the case to a panel for further consideration. From a report: In a court filing late Thursday, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals vacated a stay on a national injunction the court had issued Monday that reinstated the Jan. 1 reporting deadline for millions of companies. The lifting of the stay means the January filing deadline will be postponed once again and bars the government and the Treasury Department from enforcing the law, pending oral arguments before the court's so-called merits panel, a group of judges tasked with considering appeals.

The Corporate Transparency Act, a bipartisan law passed in 2021 to curtail the use of anonymous shell companies and help track flows of illicit money, would require companies to file beneficial ownership information with the Treasury's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network or face the possibility of penalties such as fines and jail time. The law could cover more than 32 million small businesses nationwide.

On Christmas Day, the social media app Bluesky added a list of Trending topics to its mobile app, allowing users to see which subjects are popular among its community. The Verge reports: The new feature can be found by selecting the search icon (the magnifying glass), which appears at the bottom of the screen on the mobile app and on the left sidebar on the web. Lists of Trending and Recommended subjects now appear below the search bar. Tap on any topic, and you will be able to access the associated posts. [...] According to the announcement, the new feature is "V1" (it is marked as a Beta on the app) and "we will be iterating with your feedback."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: Despite having an endless amount of music to pair with their short, scrollable videos, TikTok users have been raiding the back catalogues of artists from yesteryear including Bronski Beat and Sade to soundtrack their posts. This year set a new high for use of old tracks on British TikTok posts, with tunes more than five years old accounting for 19 out of its 50 top tracks this year. It is the highest proportion since TikTok started monitoring the trend in 2021, when just 8 out of the 50 tracks were from back catalogues. The trend is also global, with 20 out of the top 50 tracks worldwide coming from back catalogues, led by 80s hit Forever Young by German synth-pop band Alphaville. Here are the top back catalogue tracks (must be more than five years old) on TikTok this year:

1. Blood Orange - Champagne Coast [2011]: 1.1m posts
2. Alphaville - Forever Young [1984]: 458,000 posts
3. Redbone - Come and Get Your Love [1974]: 386,000 posts
4. Tom Odell - Another Love [2012]: 238,000 posts
5. Pavement - Harness Your Hopes [1999]: 219,000 posts
6. Natasha Bedingfield - Unwritten [2004]: 207,000 posts
7. Christina Aguilera - Genie in a Bottle [1999]: 207,000 posts
8. Sade - Kiss of Life [1993]: 194,000 posts
9. Sophie Ellis Bextor - Murder on the Dancefloor [2001]: 191,000 posts
10. The Fray - Look After You [2005]: 188,000 posts