geek

23 May 2026

Slashdot

Air France, Airbus Guilty of Corporate Manslaughter In 2009 Air France 447 Crash

Long-time Slashdot reader UnknowingFool shares this report from the BBC: Air France and Airbus have been found guilty of manslaughter over a 2009 plane crash which killed 228 people. The Paris Appeals Court found the airline and aircraft manufacturer "solely and entirely responsible" for the incident, in which flight AF447 from Rio de Janeiro to Paris crashed into the Atlantic Ocean. The passenger jet stalled during a storm and plunged into the water, killing all on board. A court had previously cleared the companies in April 2023, but they were found guilty on Thursday after an eight-week trial. Both have repeatedly denied the charges and say they will appeal... The companies have been asked to pay the maximum fine - €225,000 ($261,720; £194,500) each - but some victims' families have criticised the amount as a token penalty... In 2012, French investigators found a combination of technical failure involving ice in the plane's sensors and the pilots' inability to react to the aircraft stalling led to it plunging into the sea. The captain was on a break when the co-pilots became confused by faulty air-speed readings. They then mistakenly pointed the nose of the plane upwards when it stalled, instead of down. Investigators concluded the co-pilots did not have the training to deal with the situation. Pilot training has since been improved and the speed sensors replaced.

Free Software Foundation's Call for 'LibreLocals' Answered on Six Continents - With More Coming

The Free Software Foundation announced this week that "its global call for free software supporters to organize LibreLocals this May resulted in free software supporters organizing forty-six LibreLocal events on six continents thus far." (And new dates and locations are being added daily.) The FSF invited free software supporters to organize in-person community meetups in their area during May 2026, or LibreLocal month, to bring people together to swap ideas, learn from each other, and celebrate free software. People were encouraged to organize events grounded in freedom to help spread the free software philosophy.... "The success of these LibreLocals speaks to how many people globally are interested in free software and ready to build community, and it demonstrates the strength of our movement" [said FSF executive director Zoë Kooyman]. "People getting together like this also proves how computer freedom and digital rights are on people's minds. When we reject freedom-restricting software and promote software that respects user rights, it helps further so many other basic rights...." The FSF has financially supported some of the events, but notes organizers are going above and beyond to create noteworthy events by any measure, and is impressed with the global network taking shape. "The energy we feel from all organizers is extremely motivating and we look forward to seeing LibreLocal events spread even wider over the next years! We want to support these initiatives even more, so we'll be looking to build a network of sponsors for future iterations as we work towards May 2027," says Heshan de Silva-Weeramuni, FSF program manager... William Goodspeed, the organizer behind the Beijing LibreLocal, reported that their meetup was double the size of last year's, and a number of very rich collaborative projects have emerged among the attendees. Discussing the value of connecting people, de Silva-Weeramuni notes: "Free software supporters know that connecting with each other leads them to learn, experiment, and create great things that protect our individual and shared rights. The extraordinary contributions that free software has made to the world were born through such collaborations between like-minded people towards a freer society. This same global spirit of collectively building a better future is one of the inspiring things that we have once again seen unfold through this year's many LibreLocals."

Friday Google's AI-Powered Search Results Glitched on the Word 'Disregard'

On Friday TechCrunch reported they could no longer Google the word "disregard". Google's AI Overview responded "Understood. Let me know whenever you have a new prompt or question!" below an icon for hearing the word "disregard" pronounced - then displayed several inches of blank whitespace. "The Merriam-Webster link is still in there, but you have to scroll..." Earlier this week, Google rolled out a completely new Search experience, foregrounding AI summaries and kicking the traditional "10 blue links" far down the page. But the sheer scale of Google Search means there are lots of edge cases that the company doesn't seem to have considered... Google has been catching some flack on social media for this, and it's easy to see why... For most users, that single reply is the only thing you'll see. And crucially, the AI response serves no conceivable value to a user searching the word "disregard." It's just a broken tool. Google appears to have fixed the issue - sort of. Now Googling the word "disregard" brings up a list of news stories about how Google's AI Overviews misinterpreted the word disregard in search queries.

22 May 2026

Ars Technica

Four Russian satellites are now within striking distance of an ICEYE radarsat

"This capability is not common for satellites conducting typical missions."

22 May 2026 10:50pm GMT

Ebola outbreak now third largest recorded and "spreading rapidly"

Ebola outbreak risk level increased as deaths reach 177 with nearly 750 cases.

22 May 2026 10:24pm GMT

First-generation Chromecast users stressed by devices suddenly failing

Google tells Ars it fixed the first-gen Chromecast bug.

22 May 2026 9:42pm GMT

OSnews

Migrating from Ubuntu 16.04 to FreeBSD

Bruno Croci's blog had been running on Ubuntu 16.04 for a long time, well past the Linux distribution's expiration date. As such, it was time to upgrade, but instead of opting for something standard like another Ubuntu release, he opted for FreeBSD instead. This blog has been running on a Digital Ocean VPS for over ten years. A machine hosted in New York City, running Ubuntu 16.04 LTS. An LTS that hasn't been in support for at least 5 years. It was about time to change it. After some considerations, I migrated to a Hetzner virtual machine that is way better than my old Ubuntu one, less than half the price of what I used to pay, and just across the country from me. Not only that, but I took the challenge to move my stack to FreeBSD. It's a long text, but stay for a cool introduction of FreeBSD Jails with Bastille and some interesting site load benchmarks. ↫ Bruno Croci I absolutely adore the recent surge in people (re)discovering the BSDs as a valid alternative to Linux in both the server and desktop space. In this particular case, it was FreeBSD's Jails and ZFS support that won Corci over, and it's easy to see why. While there are countless alternatives to Jails in the Linux world, ZFS is harder to come by as it can't be part of the kernel due to licensing issues. With how powerful and capable ZFS is, it makes sense to want to use it on your server, and in that case, FreeBSD is probably a better choice than most Linux distributions. There are countless reasons to choose one of the BSDs over a Linux distribution, and I'm glad we're seeing an uptick.

22 May 2026 7:00pm GMT

Secure boot and Microsoft CA rollover: a heads-up for distributions

We've already talked about the secure boot certificates from Microsoft that are about to become invalid, but Debian EFI team member and longtime Debian contributor Steve McIntyre published a blog post with more information for users and distribution developers alike. Why are Microsoft's secure boot certificates relevant for the Linux world? Well, Linux distributions use shim to provide secure boot functionality, and this shim is signed with Microsoft's certificates, because they are included in just about every single computer or motherboard ever shipped. The expiration of these oldest certificates should most likely not be a problem, as existing signed binaries should keep working. This is because the UEFI specification does not look at the expiration dates; it only cares that the signature is valid. Unless you have buggy firmware, your machine will continue to boot Linux just fine. Microsoft is already handing out new certificates, but they started the rollout of these way too late, so that's why it's an actual issue today. New machines and updated older machines will most likely have all of these new CAs installed. New machines are already shipping that only include the new CAs; they will not trust older software and this has already started causing problems for some users. If you already have an old shim signed by Microsoft for your distribution from before October 2025, then it will only be signed using the older CA that expires soon. On newer machines, your users will already not be able to boot your distro with Secure Boot enabled. If you want your users to be able to use Secure Boot in future, you will need to get a new shim build submitted, reviewed and signed using the new CA. However, that signed build will not work on older machines unless they have had the new CAs installed. This is also likely to cause problems for some users. You should encourage your users to update their systems NOW before things break for them. ↫ Steve McIntyre I think the Linux world will be able to handle this just fine, but the fact that Microsoft started this process of replacement so late is a real shame. I'm by no means an expert in this field, but I wonder if there isn't some better solution than relying on Microsoft. I understand their certificates will effectively always be installed on every motherboard, but shouldn't we be able to move that responsibility to a more independent entity?

22 May 2026 5:41pm GMT

21 May 2026

OSnews

Google’s plan for ads in its new “AI” chatbot search engine is to let “AI” generate the ads

After Google killed its search engine a few days ago, one question remained: how exactly does advertising fit into all of this? Google is obviously not going to move to chatbot search without somehow adding ads to your conversation with the pachinko machine, so everybody was wondering how that was going to work, exactly. Well, we have the answer, and it's an obvious one. When researching a topic, consumers want to know exactly how a product suits their unique situation. In fact, 75% of people report making faster, more confident decisions using AI Mode in Search. 1 That's why we're testing two new types of ads, built with Gemini, that offer relevant product details along with helpful guidance. To help people evaluate their choices, both of these new formats will feature an independent AI explainer as part of the ad. Our Gemini model evaluates and synthesizes information about a product or service, and displays that context alongside the advertiser's creative. This coherent, independent response ensures transparency and builds trust. These formats will also continue to be clearly labeled as "Sponsored." ↫ Google's Ads & Commerce Blog Of course they're going to just generate the ads with "AI", too. Google will offer two types of "AI"-generated ads in their new chatbot search tool, the first of which will simply be an "AI"-generated answer to a user's question. If you ask the Google chatbot "how can I clean my bed sheets of unintended nightly slop discharge?", Google will generate an ad based on the features of a slopcleaner washing machine detergent product and show that to you. The second type comes in when a user asks something like "what is the best way to kill a search engine?" Google's chatbot will then show a number of ways to kill a search engine, and one of the items in that list might be an ad generated by Google, alongside the customary unrelated information, wrong information, and made-up nonsense. Google claims both of these types of ads will be labeled as such, but I doubt that small label will be noticed by many, and of course, there's no way to know any of the other answers the chatbot generates aren't paid-for either. Here, too, though, we must ask the question what the end game is. This new chatbot search engine is clearly trying to keep you on Google's website, but in doing so, it'll deprive large numbers of websites of the traffic they need to survive. If they can't survive, they're die. If they're dead, they can't produce the content Google "AI" needs to slobber up to spit back out in Google's chatbot search. Chatbot search is also an agent of its own destruction, because you can't generate improved slop with nothing but slop. Because, and I can't repeat this often enough, nobody has ever used "AI" to produce anything of value.

21 May 2026 10:04pm GMT