18 Jun 2026
Hacker News
Update on Ocean Observatories Initiative
18 Jun 2026 11:41pm GMT
Linuxiac
SparkyLinux 2026.06 Released with Linux Kernel 7.0

SparkyLinux 2026.06 updates its semi-rolling Tiamat ISOs with Debian Testing Forky packages, Linux kernel 7.0, and Calamares 3.4.2.
18 Jun 2026 11:16pm GMT
Hacker News
The AirPods Effect
18 Jun 2026 11:08pm GMT
Slashdot
Adobe Adds Its AI Assistant To Premiere, Illustrator and InDesign
Adobe is expanding its Firefly AI assistant into Premiere, Illustrator, InDesign, and Frame.io, where it can automate all sorts of tasks such as organizing clips, renaming assets, adding interview markers, rearranging layers, and finding missing fonts. It's available starting today as part of a public beta. TechCrunch reports: Adobe is slowly transforming Firefly to increasingly resemble Canva, at least when it comes to AI features, loading up the app with AI tools that can generate images, videos and storyboards. The company is now adding a new feature called Elements that can save AI-generated characters, objects and locations for later use. Firefly is also getting a Projects feature that can store existing assets in one place, and share context. This could be useful for teams creating a video series or brand campaigns. Both of these features are currently available in a private beta. The company said users can now describe a brand and its style, or upload existing collateral, in Firefly to have it generate a brand kit, complete with logos, brand identity and color palettes, or even generate product videos from photos. Users can also create storyboards to create videos.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
18 Jun 2026 11:00pm GMT
Ars Technica
FDA advisors unanimously vote to approve Moderna's mRNA after agency drama
In February, a Trump official refused to review the vaccine.
18 Jun 2026 10:08pm GMT
Slashdot
California 'Billionaire Tax' Makes Ballot Despite Opposition From Tech Moguls
California's proposed "billionaire tax" has gathered enough signatures to qualify for the November ballot, setting up a major fight between labor unions and some of Silicon Valley's richest figures. From the report: The California Billionaire Tax Act, colloquially known as the billionaire tax, would levy a one-time 5% tax on any California resident worth more than $1bn. The proposal is backed by the Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West as a means of funding California's strained healthcare and education programs. The proposal has become one of the state's biggest political flashpoints as it gained momentum throughout the year, with prominent billionaires, such as the Google co-founder Larry Page, making moves to cut ties with the state and Newsom vowing to block it from going to a vote. Although it has gained enough signatures for the ballot, the groups backing the measure have until June 25 to decide whether to move forward or potentially strike a deal with the state. While unions backing the group have framed the proposal as a way of getting the ultra-rich to pay their fair share, many of the state's tech elites have condemned the tax and spent millions attempting to crush it. The Google co-founder Sergey Brin has spent $82m alone on efforts to fight the tax, while joining other Silicon Valley billionaires in declaring he will leave California if it goes through. The Palantir co-founder Peter Thiel, crypto billionaire Chris Larsen and Ring founder James Siminoff are among the other tech moguls who have made huge political donations to groups opposing the tax. California has the most billionaires out of any state, many of whom have increased their wealth in recent years amid the AI boom.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
18 Jun 2026 10:00pm GMT
Hacker News
Zero-Touch OAuth for MCP
18 Jun 2026 9:54pm GMT
Linuxiac
Godot 4.7 Open-Source Game Engine Released with Linux Wayland HDR Support

Godot 4.7 adds HDR output on Linux Wayland, a new Asset Store, AreaLight3D, Android export improvements, shader previews, and more.
18 Jun 2026 9:43pm GMT
Ars Technica
As China looms, Taiwan makes more drones for defense and the US military
Taiwan's drone spending plans for defense could also boost business overseas.
18 Jun 2026 9:21pm GMT
Slashdot
Midjourney Pivots From AI Image Generation To Body Scanning Medical Spa
Midjourney is expanding beyond AI image generation with plans for a medical-imaging business built around a water-based, full-body ultrasound scanner that uses hundreds of thousands of sensors and AI to reconstruct MRI-like images. "As you descend into the water, hundreds of thousands of tiny elements take turns, sending out waves, listening together, compressing and then streaming data to a massive cluster where thousands of computers split the task," Midjourney explained in the announcement. "By looking at how the shapes of all the waves change, we reconstruct a detailed map or 'image' which basically lets us figure out what's in there." The company hopes to open a San Francisco scanning "spa" in late 2027, with 50,000 or more deployed around the world by 2031. The Register reports: It's not clear how fast the process is with the prototype unit, but Midjourney said its goal is for the whole thing to take around a minute. "We think it's completely possible that with enough early imaging in the future, the world could avoid 30% of all deaths and 50% of all healthcare costs," the company added. According to a "technical" video included in the announcement, there's a ring of 40 scanners included in the prototype unit the company has built. That ring of 40 elements contains 358,000 ultrasonic elements made up of tiny transducers that create ultrasound waves in water while listening for how they change when they slap the body of whoever is in Midjourney's dunk tank up to a thousand times a second. [...] Midjourney said that it's planning to open its first ultrasound scanner spa at the end of 2027, but it has another hurdle to jump: FDA approval. Beyond improving its tech so that the second-generation scanner is ready for its 2027 spa date, "regulation is the next limit," the company said. "Normally, for every diagnostic medical capability you need FDA approval," Midjourney explained. "We're starting by just giving you detailed body composition maps -- and we'll be submitting regular test results to the FDA for increased capabilities." Midjourney also fails to mention how it will store and secure those scans, whether it will use said scans to train its body composition-detection algorithms, and how it's ensuring those algorithms get things right that it usually take a human a few years of education and training to learn.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
18 Jun 2026 9:00pm GMT
Ars Technica
NASA asks Northrop Grumman to stop working on lunar HALO module
"We are reassigning most affected employees across existing opportunities and programs."
18 Jun 2026 8:49pm GMT
Linuxiac
Someone Wants Linux to Still Boot 1,000 Years From Now

Eternal is an open-source project that runs Linux on a tiny virtual machine designed for long-term software preservation.
18 Jun 2026 6:04pm GMT