Friday, 15 May 2026
70 stories filed.
Cell phone users can't stop incriminating themselves
People confide almost everything to their phones.
Energy supplier abandons Lake Tahoe residents to serve data centers
Town’s 49,000 California residents compete with Nevada data centers for energy.
Over a year later, AMD is bringing improved FSR 4 upscaling to its older GPUs
FSR 4.1 running on RDNA3 or RDNA2 GPUs may take a bigger performance hit.
Judge probes whether Musk settlement with Trump admin is tainted by corruption
Trump admin wants to let Musk pay $1.5M fine to settle $150 million Twitter suit.
The AI Zombification of Universities
Article URL: https://www.thenewcritic.com/p/the-great-zombification Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48139355 Points: 119 # Comments: 80
Discussion: Hacker News thread →
Zero-day exploit completely defeats default Windows 11 BitLocker protections
It's not entirely clear how the exploit works. Microsoft says it's investigating.
AI is making me dumb
Article URL: https://jpain.io/god-damn-ai-is-making-me-dumb/ Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48139148 Points: 281 # Comments: 189
Discussion: Hacker News thread →
Plasma Big Screen Working Out Quite Well With Plasma 6.7 Beta
With today's KDE Plasma 6.7 beta release there has been a surprising amount of interest in the new revival of Plasma Big Screen as the TV-sized UI for Plasma. I've been trying it out today and it has worked out rather well, a very smooth experience, and in good shape for making its debut in next month's Plasma 6.7 release...
Grad-to-be turns graduation cap into Rust-powered light show
Eric Park tells us he doesn't plan to wear his modified cap to commencement, but his code's available for anyone with no such qualms and an upcoming ceremony
Your doctor’s AI notetaker may be making things up, Ontario audit finds
Made-up therapy referrals, incorrect prescriptions among the common mistakes.
New Nginx Exploit
Article URL: https://github.com/DepthFirstDisclosures/Nginx-Rift Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48138268 Points: 202 # Comments: 48
Discussion: Hacker News thread →
Removing the modem and GPS from my 2024 RAV4 hybrid
Article URL: https://arkadiyt.com/2026/05/13/removing-the-modem-and-gps-from-my-rav4/ Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48138136 Points: 377 # Comments: 186
Discussion: Hacker News thread →
Vaporware or not? Aptera assembles its first five validation models.
The three-wheel, two-seat EV has been in development since 2006.
Cisco announces record revenue and 4,000 layoffs in the same day
Layoffs are "not a savings-driven restructure," CFO says.
MSI Claw Configuration Driver For Linux Coming Together With The Assistance Of AI
One of the latest Linux gaming handheld drivers being worked on is the MSI Claw Configuration Driver for controller configuration...
RTX 5090 and M4 MacBook Air: Can It Game?
Article URL: https://scottjg.com/posts/2026-05-05-egpu-mac-gaming/ Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48137145 Points: 387 # Comments: 102
Discussion: Hacker News thread →
KDE bags €1.3M as Europe realizes it might need an OS of its own
Germany's Sovereign Tech Fund backs the desktop project while public sector interest in homegrown alternatives grows
Waymo recalls 3,800 robotaxis after one drove itself into a flood
Nothing like a partly submerged self-driving car to dampen public trust in autonomous vehicles
A message from President Kornbluth about funding and the talent pipeline
Article URL: https://president.mit.edu/writing-speeches/video-transcript-message-president-kornbluth-about-funding-and-talent-pipeline Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48136262 Points: 533 # Comments: 571
Discussion: Hacker News thread →
ROCm 7.0.0 vs. ROCm 7.2.3 Performance On The AMD Radeon AI PRO R9700
With the new System76 Thelio Major workstation review unit having arrived equipped with an AMD Radeon AI PRO R9700 graphics card, I took the opportunity of having the extra RDNA4 workstation GPU to satisfy a curiosity over whether there has been any meaningful performance gains from ROCm 7.0.0 released last year to now with the latest ROCm 7.2.3 stable release. Here are those benchmarks results…
UK begins antitrust inquiry into Microsoft's business software ecosystem
Brit regulator has 'heard' customers can't always 'effectively combine software from Microsoft with that of other providers'
AI to infest eight in ten premium phones within two years
And Counterpoint sees fad spreading from pricey handsets to smart rings and earbuds too... whether you asked for it or not
AMD Preps More AIE4 NPU Hardware Enablement For AMDXDNA Driver In Linux 7.2
Since March we have been seeing patches from AMD software engineers beginning to enable their next-generation "AIE4" NPU platform under Linux. We still don't know for sure when this AIE4 NPU will premiere for sure in new Ryzen AI products, but the Linux enablement continues coming along nicely for the AMDXDNA accelerator driver...
Dude… where’s my password? Claude reunites forgetful stoner with $400k Bitcoin stash
AI to the rescue as 11-year search for password turns up in old PC files
Forecasters predict wildfires, floods, severe heatwaves from incoming El Niño
Ocean heat plus human-caused global warming is a grim recipe for deadly climate extremes.
Anthropic’s Bun Rust rewrite merged at speed of AI
Version 1.3.14 of JavaScript toolkit released as last Zig version; a million lines of Rust code merged in gargantuan commit
Motorola Razr Fold review: Fits neatly in your pocket but not your budget
The Razr Fold has a lot going for it, but like all foldables, it's wildly expensive.
Computer Hobby Movement in Canada
Article URL: https://museum.eecs.yorku.ca/exhibits/show/hobby_canada/hobby_canada Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48134743 Points: 161 # Comments: 51
Discussion: Hacker News thread →
Americans would rather have a nuclear plant in their backyard than a datacenter
AI and the bit barns that power it have developed a serious PR problem
Intel's Cache Aware Scheduling Inches Closer To Being Merged For Linux
I have been writing about the Cache Aware Scheduling work led by Intel engineers on the Linux kernel for more than a year. I've also tested out Cache Aware Scheduling on both Intel and AMD CPUs with the patched Linux kernel to great success. And thus very happy to see the Cache Aware Scheduling patches inching closer to the mainline Linux kernel...
ZTE and Telkom Indonesia sign strategic MoU to accelerate digital solutions and infrastructure development
Strengthening Indonesia’s digital ecosystem through AI, cloud computing, and next-gen connectivity
NASA fleshes out Artemis III, the Moon mission that won't go to the Moon
SpaceX and Blue Origin may yet get a role in low Earth orbit rehearsal, readiness permitting
KDE Plasma 6.7 Beta Released With Plasma Big Screen, Union Modules
In working toward the stable Plasma 6.7 desktop release in mid-June, out today is the first beta of KDE Plasma 6.7...
Cops arrest man suspected of being Dream Market kingpin
Owe Martin Andresen faces charges in both US and Germany connected with money laundering, claims he sent gold bars directly to his doorstep
UK government prescribes Single Patient Record for NHS data chaos
Doctors welcome joined-up care plan, but warn patient trust depends on safeguards, access controls, and knowing where Palantir fits in
Desperate Trump taps "Tim Apple," Jensen Huang, Elon Musk to attend Xi summit
Xi meeting may force Trump to pivot on chip restrictions and Taiwan.
Show HN: Running the second public ODoH relay
Every privacy-focused DNS service requires an account: NextDNS, Cloudflare for Families, Apple's iCloud Private Relay (paid, iOS-only). The protocol that doesn’t require one - ODoH - had basically one well-known public relay operator (Frank Denis on Fastly Compute, default in dnscrypt-proxy). I built a second one and the client to talk to it.
Discussion: Hacker News thread →
New AMDGPU Driver Pull Request For Linux 7.2 Preps For HDMI 2.1 FRL
Sent out on Wednesday was the latest AMDGPU/AMDKFD driver pull request of new feature code ready for DRM-Next as the staging area ahead of the upcoming Linux 7.2 kernel. This doesn't yet land the HDMI 2.1 enablement work that's finally been taking place but it is preparing for that with the FRL register headers now in place as part of this merge...
Linux's KVM With CET Virtualization Is Causing Some Hosts To Hang
Introduced to the Linux kernel last year was Control-flow Enforcement Technology "CET" virtualization for modern AMD and Intel CPUs. This complements CET that has existed in Linux for quite some time but it's new now to the KVM virtualization world, but some yet to be diagnosed problems are causing some hosts to hang when making use of this virtualization security feature...
Dirty Frag gets a sequel as Fragnesia hands Linux attackers root-level access
Fresh kernel flaw comes with public exploit code and continues ugly run of highly reliable privilege escalation bugs tied to memory and page-cache handling
Calling the cops just got extra AI as police seek to add tech to contact systems
AI already listening in to call handlers in real time, conducting live database searches
Bedrock and a hard place: Claude adventure leaves AWS user staring down $30K invoice
CAD: Cost Anomaly Detection or Create Astounding Debt?
Rewrite Bun in Rust has been merged
Article URL: https://github.com/oven-sh/bun/pull/30412 Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48132488 Points: 376 # Comments: 432
Discussion: Hacker News thread →
To gain root access at this company, all an intruder had to do was ask nicely
Human IT managers thought they were being nice to the boss, but were assisting a threat actor
AI models are getting better at replacing cybersecurity pros on certain tasks
UK researchers find LLMs are learning to finish jobs faster and improving all the time
Tencent admits GPUs only pay for themselves when powering personalized ads
Chinese web giant says accelerator shortage is over as local hardware arrives in volume
Cisco to fire 4,000 staff and generously give them free training – on Cisco
Reducing memory requirements to control costs in a new wave of kit
Older AMD GPUs Score Another Open-Source Driver Win From Valve: DRM Format Modifiers
Timur Kristóf of Valve's Linux open-source graphics driver team isn't done driving new improvements to aging AMD GCN 1.0/1.1 era graphics cards on Linux. Beyond enhancing display support for older APUs, transitioning GCN 1.0/1 GPUs from the legacy Radeon driver to modern AMDGPU driver, and a host of other fixes and optimizations for these old GPUs going back to the Radeon HD 7000 series, he has…
Arm Mali G1 Pro Now Working With Open-Source PanVK & Panfrost Drivers
The PanVK Vulkan driver and Panfrost Gallium3D driver for Arm Mali graphics hardware is now supporting the latest "v14" hardware GPU hardware with the Arm Mali G1-Pro now being advertised as supported...
Welcome to the vulnpocalypse, as vendors use AI to find bugs and patches multiply like rabbits
Palo Alto Networks found and fixed 75 flaws this month, up from its usual five
Solar drone with jumbo jet wingspan broke a flight record—then it crashed
The final flight and complex legacy of a pioneering solar-powered aircraft.
FCC angers small carriers by helping AT&T and Starlink buy EchoStar spectrum
Approval is no surprise after FCC chair pressured EchoStar to sell licenses.
Protein in Homo erectus teeth suggests Denisovans gave us some of their DNA
Distinct form of tooth protein in Homo erectus shows up in Denisovans—and us.
Foiled plot tried to sneak 49 lbs of cocaine into Australia via Xerox printers
The drugs had an estimated worth of over $9 million USD.
AI invades Princeton, where 30% of students cheat—but peers won't snitch
Old "honor code" systems are under strain.
The physics of how Olympic weightlifters exploit barbell's "whip"
The type of bar matters when it comes to how it bends and recoils, but why is still a mystery.
NASA provides some details about Artemis III, but hard decisions remain
"NASA also is defining the concept of operations for the mission."
A new US military wargame series began by simulating a nuclear weapon in orbit
US officials have said a nuclear detonation would render portions of low-Earth orbit useless for up to a year.
Neanderthals drilled cavities to treat a toothache 59,000 years ago
“Every time I go to the dentist, I think about that guy,” researcher says.
Linux Driver Posted For Intel Silicon Security Engine Interface "ISSEI"
Since Intel Meteor Lake has been the Intel Silicon Security Engine to serve as a silicon root-of-trust for secure firmware loading, boot measurements, and similar functionality. This Intel Silicon Security Engine has been built on with Lunar Lake and Panther Lake as well as set to take on more importance with future Intel hardware platforms. We are now seeing a Linux driver come for this silicon…
Fragnesia Made Public As Latest Linux Local Privilege Escalation Vulnerability
Following last week's disclosure of the Dirty Frag vulnerability for the Linux kernel, which only finished being patched up in mainline on Monday, Fragnesia is now public as a similar local privilege escalation (LPE) vulnerability...
GCC 16 Produces Faster Binaries Than GCC 15, Competitive Race With LLVM Clang 22
GCC 16.1 released at the end of April as the latest major, annual feature release to the GNU Compiler Collection. Early benchmarks showed some nice leads for GCC 16 over GCC 15. Continued testing of the new GCC 16 compiler has continued to show overall better performance of the resulting binaries than using GCC 15 on the same hardware and same compiler flags.
Intel Compute Runtime 26.18.38308.1 Brings More Xe3P Enableement, Nova Lake P Support
Intel on Tuesday released a new version of their open-source Compute Runtime for OpenCL and Level Zero support across their integrated and discrete graphics hardware...
Discord Touts "Year Of The Linux Desktop" With Linux Client Improvements
Discord, the popular instant messaging and VoIP communication platform, announced some significant improvements being made to their Linux client...
NetBSD 11.0-RC4 Comes As Hopefully The Last Release Candidate
In addition to FreeBSD 15.1 releasing in the coming weeks, NetBSD 11.0 is also just around the corner as another prominent and major BSD update. NetBSD 11.0-RC4 is now available for last minute testing with this hoping to be the final release candidate...
KDE Receiving Over 1.2 Million EUR Investment From Sovereign Tech Fund
KDE today announced a significant investment into the project by Germany's Sovereign Tech Fund. KDE will be receiving €1,285,200 EUR (or roughly 1.5 million USD) over the years 2026 and 2027 to make some significant improvements into their software stack...
Arm Preparing The Linux Kernel For 128-bit Page Table Entries "FEAT_D128"
A new core infrastructure improvement for the Linux kernel on ARM being worked on is enabling 128-bit page table entries (PTEs) with FEAT_D128 as a new optional feature of Armv9.3 and later...
Wine Wayland Driver Merges Pointer Warp Support
Wine's Wayland native driver has taken another step forward with now supporting the pointer warp "wp_pointer_warp_v1" protocol...
OpenZFS 2.4.2 Released With Linux 7.0 Kernel Support, Many Bug Fixes
For those making use of OpenZFS on Linux or FreeBSD, OpenZFS 2.4.2 is out today as the newest stable release of this ZFS file-system implementation...
Leaving the Physical World
Article URL: https://www.eff.org/pages/leaving-physical-world Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48084012 Points: 180 # Comments: 80
Discussion: Hacker News thread →