computers

21 May 2026

Slashdot

US To Award $2 Billion To Quantum Companies, Take Equity Stakes

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Quantum Insider: The Trump administration is preparing a new round of industrial policy aimed at quantum computing, with roughly $2 billion in grants expected to go to nine companies developing quantum hardware and related technologies. According to Reuters, citing a Wall Street Journal report, the U.S. Department of Commerce plans to distribute the funding through deals that also give the federal government equity stakes in the companies receiving the awards. The approach would expand Washington's increasingly direct involvement in sectors viewed as strategically important to national security, advanced manufacturing and competition with China. Reuters reported that IBM is expected to receive the largest share of the package at about $1 billion. Semiconductor manufacturer GlobalFoundries is slated to receive approximately $375 million, according to the report. Other recipients are expected to include D-Wave Quantum, Rigetti Computing, Quantinuum and Infleqtion, with each company potentially receiving around $100 million, Reuters reported. Australian quantum startup Diraq could receive about $38 million, according to the Wall Street Journal report cited by Reuters. Fast Company notes in its reporting that IBM will invest the funds it receives into a new IBM company called Anderon. It will also match the grant with another $1 billion in cash. "Anderon will operate as a state-of-the-art 300-millimeter quantum wafer foundry," IBM stated in an announcement. "It will help the nation solidify its leadership at the center of a thriving new quantum industry that is estimated to generate up to $850 billion in economic value by 2040 and spur American economic growth while also bolstering national security." Quantum computing stocks soared after the news. As of publication, IBM is up about 9.7%, D-Wave is up about 28.1%, and Rigetti is up about 26.7%. Meanwhile, Global Foundries rose about 13.8% and Infleqtion jumped about 30.9%.

OSnews

Firefox, Vivaldi unveil their UI overhauls

Two popular web browser are overhauling their user interface, and the first to actually ship its new version is Vivaldi. Version 8.0 of this Chromium-based browser completely overhauls its UI, but retains its extensive customisation options, including the option to go back to the old look and feel if the new one doesn't float your boat. I wonder if this update addresses some of my long-standing issues with Vivaldi where it just seemed impossible to integrate the browser properly with KDE or GNOME, since it opted for its own fonts and had a ton of very custom UI that made it stand out moreso than even other browser. Before publishing this post, I did a quick install and check, and no, it seems not much has changed in that department. Not everyone will care - in fact, I think most people don't - but I do, and I do whatever it takes to make my browser look properly native. Any Chromium-based browser is a hard sell in that area, and that applies doubly so for Vivaldi and its long list of custom UI elements. The other popular web browser overhauling its UI is Firefox, which is bringing its new UI to testing now, with an actual release later this year. You can clearly see that both Vivaldi and Firefox seem to be following a similar trend, even if I'm not entirely sure if it has a name yet. The new Firefox design also overhauls the settings page, integrates Mozilla services like its VPN, and brings back the compact mode (which has been hidden behind an about:config flag for years now). My biggest worry is how this will affect Librewolf and the KDE and GNOME themes I use, but it seems we're going to have more than enough time to figure that out.

21 May 2026 6:10pm GMT

Slashdot

Spotify Will Start Reserving Concert Tickets For Fans

Spotify is launching "Reserved," a new feature that will set aside concert tickets for Premium subscribers it identifies as an artist's most dedicated fans based on streams, shares, and other activity. "Getting concert tickets today can feel like a race you're set up to lose," Spotify wrote in a post on Thursday. "You show up at the right time, refresh endlessly, and still miss out. Too often, the experience is stressful, unpredictable, and disconnected from what should matter most: whether real fans actually get tickets. We think there's a better way." From the Hollywood Reporter: Spotify said that starting in the U.S. this summer, select artists will be able to use Reserved to set aside tickets for fans on the platform. The platform has partnered with Live Nation on the program as part of a multiyear agreement. The platform will use streams, shares and other types of activity to "identify an artist's most dedicated fans and hold two tour tickets for them." Fans selected through Reserved will get up to two tickets, and they'll have a day-long window to make a ticket purchase if selected. Spotify didn't give any details on what artists will work with the streaming service for the new feature, or how many tickets artists would set aside with Reserved, though the service acknowledged "there will be significantly more superfans than there are seats available on a tour, so not every fan will receive an offer."

Waymo Pauses Atlanta Service As Its Robotaxis Keep Driving Into Floods

Waymo has paused service in Atlanta after one of its driverless cars entered a flooded street and got stuck. It follows a similar pause in San Antonio that prompted a recent software recall (PDF) over flood avoidance. TechCrunch reports: Waymo admitted that it hadn't finished developing a "final remedy" for avoiding flooded areas when it issued its software recall last week. Instead, the company said that it shipped an update to its fleet that placed "restrictions at times and in locations where there is an elevated risk of encountering a flooded, higher-speed roadway," according to documents released by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). But even those precautions apparently were not enough to stop the Waymo robotaxi from entering the flooded intersection in Atlanta. Waymo told TechCrunch on Thursday that the storm in Atlanta produced so much rainfall that flooding was happening before the National Weather Service had issued a flash flood warning, watch, or advisory. The company said its fleet those alerts are part of a larger set of signals it relies on to prepare the vehicles for poor weather.

20 May 2026

OSnews

Get your passwords out of BitWarden while you still can

I was a long-time Bitwarden user, until a year or so ago when I started migrating my passwords first to Firefox/LibreWolf, and recently from there to a KeePass database I can transfer and use with whatever password manager application is compatible with KeePass' file format. It seems I was accidentally on time, as it's come out over the last few days that Bitwarden is probably going down the drain soon. In February, the company got a new CEO, and in March, it doubled its Premium price, announcing the hike deep in a feature announcement. The new CEO seems to be a bellwether for what's to come for Bitwarden. He's a merger and acquisitions guy, with a history of gutting companies and selling them for parts, and changes to Bitwarden's website also indicate where it's headed. The phrase "Always free" disappeared from the personal password manager page in mid-April. It used to sit prominently under the plan selector. The free plan still exists - for now - but the commitment language is gone. And then there's the values rewrite. Bitwarden used to define its culture with the acronym GRIT: Gratitude, Responsibility, Inclusion, and Transparency. After May 4th, that changed. GRIT now stands for Gratitude, Responsibility, Innovation, and Trust. Inclusion and Transparency are out. Innovation and Trust are in. ↫ Patrick Boyd The "Always free" motto quietly reappeared on the site after its removal was uncovered and went viral on Fedi. The change in CEO, the changes in values, and the removal (and reappearance) of Bitwarden's well-known and oft-repeated commitment to its free plan have all been quiet. No announcements, no blog posts, no posts on social media - but they did change a four-year old blog post by Bitwarden's former CEO to change that GRIT acronym. You don't need to be an honors student to figure out where this is going, and what the new CEO's plans are for Bitwarden. Do as I did, and get your passwords out of BitWarden. I strongly suggest using an open format that can be used by any compatible password manager, with KeePass' formats being the obvious choice. This way your passwords are truly yours, and not dependent on someone's continued commitment to free plans or proprietary services that can unexpectedly change hands. Bitwarden is licensed under the Apache 2.0 license, but with all of the above, one has to wonder how long that's going to remain a thing.

20 May 2026 11:21pm GMT

Ars Technica

Famously secret about its finances, SpaceX opens its books for the first time

"We believe we have identified the largest TAM in human history."

20 May 2026 11:02pm GMT

Trump admin didn't want Ebola-exposed Americans, sent them to Berlin, Prague

Officials denied refusing entry, but dodged questions on why Americans didn't return.

20 May 2026 9:58pm GMT

NASA's Psyche spacecraft returns unfamiliar views of a familiar world

"As a bonus, it captured Mars images from a rare perspective."

20 May 2026 9:26pm GMT

OSnews

Printing with CUPS on OpenBSD

Printing on Linux, macOS, and even on Windows seems to be pretty much a solved problem, but what about printing on OpenBSD? Anyway, to do so I would need to set up my HP OfficeJet printer, connected wirelessly to the network, on OpenBSD. I chose to do this using HPLIP and CUPS as they are both in ports, I am familiar with how they work, and my printer is old enough that its PPD (driver) file is included in the slightly older version of HPLIP that is ported to OpenBSD. However, after installing both packages, starting the relevant services via rcctl including Avahi, and launching CUPS and finding the printer, I could not get it to install properly. Either it would error out at the end saying the printer couldn't be added and advise me to check the CUPS error log, or it would seemingly successfully add the printer but I couldn't print anything and couldn't adjust the printer settings. ↫ Morgan at his blog Only very tangentially related, but my personal crowning achievement in computing is somehow making it possible for my PA-RISC c8000 workstation running HP-UX 11i v1 to print to my modern all-in-one HP printer thing, some random HP consumer junker we bought on a whim because it was a returned item and cheap. It took some messing around, but ever since I've been able to just print stuff right from any application on HP-UX over the network, wirelessly. Note that the c8000 and HP-UX 11i v1 are almost two decades out of date compared to the printer, but by trying out promising device files included in HP-UX I managed to get it all to work. I never need it, but I am fairly sure I'm one of the very few people in the world who can reliably print from an HP-UX 11i v1 workstation to a modern throwaway HP junker over Wi-Fi. Put that on my tombstone.

20 May 2026 7:57pm GMT