Brax Technologies just announced “a privacy-focused alternative to locked-down tablets” called open_slate that can double as a consumer tablet and a Linux-capable workstation on ARM. Earlier Brax Technologies built the privacy-focused smartphone BraX3, which co-founder Plamen Todorov says proved “a privacy-focused mobile device could be designed, crowdfunded, manufactured, and delivered outside...

KDE’s “Plasma Login Manager” is apparently dropping support for FreeBSD, the Unix-like operating system, reports the blog It’s FOSS. They cite a recently-accepted merge request from a KDE engineer to drop the code supporting FreeBSD, since the login manager relies on systemd/logind:systemd and logind look like hard dependencies of the login manager, which means the software is built to work...

Adafruit managing director Phillip Torrone (also long-time Slashdot reader ptorrone ) writes: Washington State lawmakers are proposing bills (HB 2320 and HB 2321) that would require 3D printers and CNC machines to block certain designs using software-based “firearms blueprint detection algorithms.” In practice, this means scanning every print file, comparing it against a government-maintained...

An anonymous reader shared this report from The Verge:In early December, I brought you the news that Google has begun replacing Verge headlines, and those of our competitors, with AI clickbait nonsense in its content feed [which appears on the leftmost homescreen page of many Android phones and the Google app’s homepage]. Google appeared to be backing away from the experiment, but now tells The...

Can Aircela’s machine “create gasoline using little more than electricity and the air that we breathe”? Jalopnik reports…The Aircela machine works through a three-step process. It captures carbon dioxide directly from the air… The machine also traps water vapor, and uses electrolysis to break water down into hydrogen and oxygen… The oxygen is released, leaving hydrogen and carbon dioxide, the...

Richard Stallman spoke Friday at Atlanta’s Georgia Institute of Technology, continuing his activism for free software while also addressing today’s new technologies. Speaking about AI, Stallman warned that “nowadays, people often use the term artificial intelligence for things that aren’t intelligent at all…” He makes a point of calling large language models “generators” because “They generate...

Newsweek reports on how the U.S. Congress is debating “kill switch” technology for vehicles, “which would be able to monitor diver behavior, detect impairment such as intoxication and intervene…” “While the technology is not yet a legal requirement in cars, Congress passed a law with the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act in 2021 that requires the Department of Transportation to create the...

The “NexDock” (from Nex Computer) already turns your phone into a laptop workstation. Purism chose it as the docking station for their Librem 5 phones. But now Nex is offering its own smartphone “that runs Android 16, launches Debian, and dual-boots into Windows 11,” according to the blog It’s FOSS:Fourteen years after the first concept video was teased, the NexPhone is here, powered by a...

Small modular nuclear reactors (or SMRs) are touted as “cheaper, safer, faster to build and easier to finance” than conventional nuclear reactors, reports CNN. Amazon has invested in X-Energy, and earlier this month, Meta announced a deal with Oklo, and in Michigan last month, Holtec began the long formal licensing process for two SMRs with America’s Nuclear Regulatory Commission next to a...

This month saw results from a yearlong global study of “potential negative risks that generative AI poses to student”. The study (by the Brookings Institution’s Center for Universal Education) also suggests how to prevent risks and maximize benefits:After interviews, focus groups, and consultations with over 500 students, teachers, parents, education leaders, and technologists across 50...