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13 Dec 2025 11:39pm GMT

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13 Dec 2025 11:25pm GMT

"The entire java.applet package has been removed from JDK 26, which will release in March 2026," notes Inside Java. But long-time Slashdot reader AirHog links to this blog post reminding us that "Applets Are Officially Gone, But Java In The Browser Is Better Than Ever." This brings to an official end the era of applets, which began in 1996. However, for years it has been possible to build modern, interactive web pages in Java without needing applets or plugins. TeaVM provides fast, performant, and lightweight tooling to transpile Java to run natively in the browser... TeaVM, at its heart, transpiles Java code into JavaScript (or, these days, WASM). However, in order for Java code to be useful for web apps, much more is required, and TeaVM delivers. It includes a minifier, to shrink the generated code and obfuscate the intent, to complicate reverse-engineering. It has a tree-shaker to eliminate unused methods and classes, keeping your app download compact. It packages your code into a single file for easy distribution and inclusion in your HTML page. It also includes wrappers for all popular browser APIs, so you can invoke them from your Java code easily, with full IDE assistance and auto-correct. The blog post also touts Flavour, an open-source framework "for coding, packaging, and optimizing single-page apps implemented in Java... a full front-end toolkit with templates, routing, components, and more" to "build your modern single-page app using 100% Java."

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13 Dec 2025 11:19pm GMT

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13 Dec 2025 11:04pm GMT

A Utah-based startup announced last week it used AI to locate a 250-degree Fahrenheit geothermal reservoir, reports CNN. It'll start producing electricity in three to five years, the company estimates - and at least one geologist believes AI could be an exciting "gamechanger" for the geothermal industry. [Startup Zanskar Geothermal & Minerals] named it "Big Blind," because this kind of site - which has no visual indication of its existence, no hot springs or geysers above ground, and no history of geothermal exploration - is known as a "blind" system. It's the first industry-discovered blind site in more than three decades, said Carl Hoiland, co-founder and CEO of Zanskar. "The idea that geothermal is tapped out has been the narrative for decades," but that's far from the case, he told CNN. He believes there are many more hidden sites across the Western U.S. Geothermal energy is a potential gamechanger. It offers the tantalizing prospect of a huge source of clean energy to meet burgeoning demand. It's near limitless, produces scarcely any climate pollution, and is constantly available, unlike wind and solar, which are cheap but rely on the sun shining and the wind blowing. The problem, however, has been how to find and scale it. It requires a specific geology: underground reservoirs of hot water or steam, along with porous rocks that allow the water to move through them, heat up, and be brought to the surface where it can power turbines... The AI models Zanskar uses are fed information on where blind systems already exist. This data is plentiful as, over the last century and more, humans have accidentally stumbled on many around the world while drilling for other resources such as oil and gas. The models then scour huge amounts of data - everything from rock composition to magnetic fields - to find patterns that point to the existence of geothermal reserves. AI models have "gotten really good over the last 10 years at being able to pull those types of signals out of noise," Hoiland said... Zanskar's discovery "is very significant," said James Faulds, a professor of geosciences at Nevada Bureau of Mines and Geology.... Estimates suggest over three-quarters of US geothermal resources are blind, Faulds told CNN. "Refining methods to find such systems has the potential to unleash many tens and perhaps hundreds of gigawatts in the western US alone," he said... Big Blind is the company's first blind site discovery, but it's the third site it has drilled and hit commercial resources. "We expect dozens, to eventually hundreds, of new sites to be coming to market," Hoiland said.... Hoiland says Zanskar's work shows conventional geothermal still has huge untapped potential. Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader schwit1 for sharing the article.

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13 Dec 2025 10:17pm GMT

GNOME is tightening its extension review process after a surge in AI-generated submissions filled with unnecessary code and bad practices.

13 Dec 2025 10:12pm GMT

Choosing your browser "is one of the most important digital decisions you can make, shaping how you experience the web, protect your data, and express yourself online," says the Firefox blog. They've urged readers to "take a stand for independence and control in your digital life." But they also recently polled 8,000 adults in France, Germany, the UK and the U.S. on "how they navigate choice and control both online and offline" (attending in-person events in Chicago, Berlin, LA, and Munich, San Diego, Stuttgart): The survey, conducted by research agency YouGov, showcases a tension between people's desire to have control over their data and digital privacy, and the reality of the internet today - a reality defined by Big Tech platforms that make it difficult for people to exercise meaningful choice online: - Only 16% feel in control of their privacy choices (highest in Germany at 21%) - 24% feel it's "too late" because Big Tech already has too much control or knows too much about them. And 36% said the feeling of Big Tech companies knowing too much about them is frustrating - highest among respondents in the U.S. (43%) and the UK (40%) - Practices respondents said frustrated them were Big Tech using their data to train AI without their permission (38%) and tracking their data without asking (47%; highest in U.S. - 55% and lowest in France - 39%) And from our existing research on browser choice, we know more about how defaults that are hard to change and confusing settings can bury alternatives, limiting people's ability to choose for themselves - the real problem that fuels these dynamics. Taken together our new and existing insights could also explain why, when asked which actions feel like the strongest expressions of their independence online, choosing not to share their data (44%) was among the top three responses in each country (46% in the UK; 45% in the U.S.; 44% in France; 39% in Germany)... We also see a powerful signal in how people think about choosing the communities and platforms they join - for 29% of respondents, this was one of their top three expressions of independence online. "For Firefox, community has always been at the heart of what we do," says their VP of Global Marketing, "and we'll keep fighting to put real choice and control back in people's hands so the web once again feels like it belongs to the communities that shape it." At TwitchCon in San Diego Firefox even launched a satirical new online card game with a privacy theme called Data War.

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13 Dec 2025 9:17pm GMT

Gov'ts agree to ban or restrict international trade in shark meat, fins, and other products.

13 Dec 2025 12:00pm GMT

The upcoming Plasma 6.6 release will add custom screen modes and much stronger screen mirroring support for Wayland sessions.

13 Dec 2025 8:18am GMT

"The vast majority of Codex is built by Codex," OpenAI told us about its new AI coding agent.

12 Dec 2025 10:16pm GMT

Help raise a charity haul that's already past $11,000 in just a couple of days.

12 Dec 2025 9:35pm GMT

NetworkManager 1.54.3 improves security by verifying user access to 802.1X certificates and keys used in private network connections.

12 Dec 2025 4:32pm GMT