17 Aug 2026

feedArs Technica

US vaccination rates fall again as exemptions continue to rise, CDC data shows

Again, the CDC did not publish a full report and instead simply put the data online.

17 Aug 2026 10:08pm GMT

feedSlashdot

Apple Wallet Driver's License Feature to Launch in Four More US States

Apple Wallet's driver's license and state ID feature is set to expand to North Carolina, Oklahoma, Utah, and Virginia, bringing the total to 18 states plus Puerto Rico. The digital IDs can be used at participating TSA checkpoints and businesses without handing over or unlocking an iPhone, though users are still generally advised to carry a physical ID because acceptance remains limited. MacRumors reports: A few days ago, North Carolina's DMV announced that it plans to launch a mobile ID program later this year. As reported by WRAL, North Carolina residents will be able to set up a digital ID through a new NC Wallet app starting in December, with Apple Wallet, Google Wallet, and Samsung Wallet support to follow in "early 2027." As mentioned, you do not need to unlock, show, or hand over your device to present an Apple Wallet ID in person, ensuring user privacy. Apple Wallet IDs are generally not accepted by law enforcement, so carrying a physical ID is still legally required for traffic stops. In addition, the number of businesses that accept Apple Wallet IDs is still quite small. At least for now, Apple Wallet IDs are designed to be a convenient alternative where they are accepted. "Your mobile ID is a valid form of identification in North Carolina," the DMV said, in a FAQ on its website. "However, as retailers, restaurants and other businesses transition to mobile IDs, some may not be set up to accept them right away. For now, carrying your physical card gives you a backup when needed." According to code seen by MacRumors, Apple Wallet IDs are also coming to Oklahoma, Utah, and Virginia, but there is no timeframe for availability.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

17 Aug 2026 10:00pm GMT

feedArs Technica

Former SpaceX engineers are building a robotic factory for making steel parts

"We're not necessarily building in a dogmatic fashion towards full autonomy."

17 Aug 2026 9:18pm GMT

feedSlashdot

Judge Sets Framework For Nine PBS to Retrieve 70 Years of Archival TV Data

District Court Judge Eric Elliff has ordered Iron Mountain to cooperate with Nine PBS in recovering roughly 50TB of archival material stored through now-defunct vendor OSS. "He found that the station is the rightful owner of the materials and entitled to recover them from OSS' storage systems," reports Current.org. Nine PBS must identify a third party to help retrieve the files, pay outstanding storage fees, and ensure that data belonging to other OSS customers isn't disturbed or accidentally recovered. From the report: Under his order, Nine PBS is to identify a third-party vendor, such as a former OSS employee, who can assist in accessing and retrieving the data from the infrastructure that's housed in Iron Mountain's center within 30 days. Elliff acknowledged the complexities of Iron Mountain's position as a vendor to OSS, which, according to Nine PBS' complaint, is in delinquency. Iron Mountain is the "custodian" of Nine PBS' data, but it isn't the vendor that contracted with the station to store and preserve its data. That obligation remains with OSS. Under the order, Nine PBS will pay Iron Mountain current and past-due fees for data storage, starting from when OSS stopped paying Iron Mountain for use of its data storage facility. During the hearing, Gregory Rich, an attorney representing Nine PBS, said the station seeks access to a physical cage where the data is housed within Iron Mountain's facility. The station is in contact with a former OSS employee who is willing to help obtain the data. The attorney noted that the data could potentially be stored in physical form, such as tapes that could be easily retrieved. But if the materials are on a server, Nine PBS could lose the materials forever if Iron Mountain shuts it down. William Cravens, the attorney representing Iron Mountain, told the judge his client doesn't know the format of Nine PBS' materials that were stored by OSS. He expressed concern about whether Nine PBS' archival material is lumped together with data from other OSS clients. Iron Mountain wants to avoid potentially corrupting the other data, Cravens added. Elliff ordered the immediate return of any physical devices that hold Nine PBS' data once access to OSS' storage system is granted. If data retrieval turns out to be more complicated -- if it is encrypted, for example -- he will schedule another hearing to determine how to proceed. Once Nine PBS retrieves its data, the station must work with a third party to ensure that no data from other OSS customers is among those materials.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

17 Aug 2026 9:00pm GMT

feedArs Technica

The Moon's shadow raced across the heart of Spain, and I was there to see it

Here's what it was like watching a total solar eclipse 90 minutes north of Madrid.

17 Aug 2026 8:23pm GMT

feedSlashdot

Meta Faces $1.4 Trillion Reckoning In Latest Trial Over Social Media Addiction

Meta is heading to trial in a case brought by dozens of states accusing it of deliberately designing addictive features, misleading users about safety, and illegally collecting data from children under 13. Meta says the states are seeking penalties as high as $1.4 trillion, though the judge has already called that figure "unreasonable." The case could, however, influence thousands of similar lawsuits against the company. Engadget reports: The trial kicks off Tuesday in federal court in Oakland, California, after Meta lost a last-ditch attempt to get the case dismissed last week. It could see testimony from top officials at Meta, including Mark Zuckerberg, and could result in record-breaking penalties for the company. The case stems from a 2023 lawsuit brought against Meta from dozens of states, which accused Meta of intentionally creating addictive features and violating consumer protection laws. The action came after a multi-state investigation into the company's safety practices that officials said revealed serious harms to children and teens. During the trial, federal Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers will hear claims from California, Colorado, Kentucky and New Jersey that Meta violated state consumer protection laws by intentionally misleading the public about the safety of its apps. Those four states and 25 others are also suing Meta over alleged violations of the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). The states allege Meta broke the law because it knew Instagram and Facebook had users under the age of 13 and collected data about them without permission. [...] For Meta, the stakes are especially high because the company is currently facing thousands of other lawsuits that accuse it of harming users. Juries in Los Angeles and New Mexico have already ruled against Meta in high-profile trials that deal with similar issues. (Meta has said it will appeal in both cases.) Another loss could not only be a financial blow, it could give other lawsuits an easier path forward. And while Meta isn't exactly hurting for money, its legal costs are adding up. The company said it spent $2.4 billion on legal costs in the second quarter of 2026 alone. The jury in the case has already been selected and opening arguments are set to begin Tuesday, August 18. The trial is expected to last about six weeks. Unlike in a standard jury trial, the eight-member jury will serve in an "advisory" role, as Law360 explains. The judge will have full power over the final verdict and penalties. Along the way, the trial could also see testimony from some of Meta's most visible executives, including CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Instagram chief Adam Mosseri. Both men are likely to testify, according to Reuters. [...] Audio from the trial will be live streamed on the court's YouTube channel. A spokesperson for Meta issued the following statement: "The State AGs may call this a landmark case, but their limited claims are unsubstantiated and their financial demands are vastly disproportionate. The AGs offer no proof anyone in their states was misled, claim benign features like having an additional Instagram account somehow harmed their residents, and attempt to penalize Meta for industry-wide challenges like age verification," the spokesperson continued. "Rather than sticking to the facts or the law, the states have instead decided to chase an outlandish payout. We stand by our record of creating strong protections for teens, and look forward to making our case in court."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

17 Aug 2026 8:00pm GMT

feedOSnews

Linux 7.2 released

Version 7.2 of the Linux kernel has been released. Significant features in this release include common attributes support in the bpf()vsystem call, cache-aware load balancing for the CPU scheduler, large-folio support in the Btrfs filesystem, further swap subsystem improvements, improvements to the Landlock security module, support for block devices with inline encryption hardware via the dm-inlinecrypt device-mapper target, and much more. ↫ corbet at LWN.net If you run Linux, you'll get it sooner or later.

17 Aug 2026 1:11pm GMT

Pascal for small machines

We talked about the latest release of Delphi a few days ago, and that brought me to Hans Otten's website. This site is about my experience with the Wirth school of languages, based on the ideas and implementations of Prof Niklaus Wirth, Kenneth Bowles, Per Brinch Hansen, colleagues, and their students. And my experience with the various variants, from the P2 and P4 compilers originating in Zürich ETH, via UCSD Pascal P-System to the Borland compilers and Modula and Oberon systems. All applicable to small computers and device control. On this website you will find information on Pascal for small machines, like Wirth compilers, the UCSD Pascal system, many scanned books and other files on UCSD Pascal, Pascal on MSX and CP/M, Delphi programming on PC, Freepascal and Lazarus on Windows and Raspberry Pi, Oberon systems. Many sources of early Pascal compilers! And last but not least my Pascal-M system! ↫ Hans Otten If you're into Pascal and its related languages and technologies, this is a treasure trove of information.

17 Aug 2026 1:05pm GMT

Super Mario derivations

One of the most surprising aspects of the Nix language is that it is lazy, especially if you have never used a lazy language before. This laziness is what makes much of Nixpkgs possible, and its complexity. I decided to take that idea and make the attribute path a sequence of button presses in Super Mario Bros. 3. Each node in the tree is a frame of the game, and each child is a button press that produces a new frame. Game states are recursive by nature. ↫ Farid Zakaria This has zero practical applications, and yet, it's absolutely genius. I love this.

17 Aug 2026 12:52pm GMT

09 Aug 2026

feedPlanet Arch Linux

On scripts and hooks

Over the last few weeks, we have been doing research on the integration of our official distribution packages when installed on a target system. In this context we have been looking at the current uses of alpm-install-scriptlet(5) files and alpm-hooks(5) in around 120 package source repositories (alpm-source-repo(7)) to better understand the underlying functionality and use-cases these two integrations offer and target. In this article we are going to look at how these two systems work, how Arch Linux is currently using them and attempt to provide suggestions for when to use which. Learning about alpm-hooks(5) and alpm-install-scriptlet(5) files …

09 Aug 2026 12:00am GMT

01 Aug 2026

feedPlanet Arch Linux

Resigning from Arch Linux

This is just a short note on my blog that I have resigned from Arch Linux a package maintainer, developer and security team. I've spent around 10 years as an AUR maintainer, security team, Package Maintainer and then Developer. I implemented support for debug packages, did the initial POC work that would become the git migration and even somehow managed to pull of an online conference during The Plague with the help of others.

01 Aug 2026 12:00am GMT

01 Jun 2026

feedPlanet Arch Linux

Today is my first day at JetBrains

Good morning from JetBrains Berlin office!

01 Jun 2026 12:00am GMT