Posted by EditorDavid from Slashdot
From the ready-to-Switch department: TweakTown writes that the Switch 2 "has reportedly beaten the record for the most-sold console within 24 hours and is on track to shatter the two-month record," selling over 3 million units and tripling the PlayStation 4's previous launch day sales.
So Nintendo's first console in 8 years becomes "one of the most successful hardware releases of all time," writes Barron's, raising hopes for the future:

[2017's original Switch] ultimately sold more than 152 million units... Switch 2's big advantage is its backward compatibility, allowing it to play current-generation Switch games and giving gamers solace that their large investments in software are intact... Many older Switch games also play better on the Switch 2, taking advantage of the extra horsepower.

Bloomberg writes that its bigger screen and faster chip "live up to the hype:

Despite the hype and a $150 increase over the launch price for the original, the second-generation system manages to impress with faster performance, improved graphics, more comfortable ergonomics and enough tweaks throughout to make this feel like a distinctly new machine... This time, it's capable of outputting 4K resolution and more impactful HDR video to your TV screen... It's a bigger, faster, more polished version of a wildly successful gadget.
The "buzzy launch drew long lines" at retailers like Walmart, Target, Best Buy, and Gamestop, according to the article. (See the photos from AOL.com and USA Today.) "The era of spending hours waiting in line for the latest iPhone is long gone, but the debut of a new video game console is still a rare enough event that Nintendo fans didn't think twice about driving to retailers in the middle of the night to secure a Switch 2."

The Verge also opines that "the Switch 2's eShop is much better," calling it "way faster... with much less lag browsing through sections and loading up game pages."

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Posted by EditorDavid from Slashdot
From the yup department: Mike Judge always seemed to have secret geek sympathies. He co-created the HBO series Silicon Valley, as well as the movie Office Space (reviewed in 1999 by Slashdot contributor Jon Katz).

Now comes the word that besides rebooting Buffy the Vampire Slayer — and an animated scifi/action/horror film called Predator: Killer of Killers — Hulu is also relaunching Judge's animated series King of the Hill on August 4th. And Cinemablend notes they took great pains to ensure the inclusion of internet-loving neighbor Dale Gribble despite the death of voice actor Johnny Hardwick:

Co-creators Mike Judge and Greg Daniels joined the cast of returning voice actors for a revealing Q&A at ATX Fest while also revealing longtime cast member Toby Huss took over the role of Dale Gribble... Hardwick passed away in August 2023 at 64, with fans and co-stars paying tribute soon after. It was revealed at the time that he'd recorded some audio for the new season, but it was clear that another actor would be needed to fill those intimidating and conspiracy-obsessed shoes. Among other characters, Huss provided the voice of Cotton Hill and Kahn Sr. in the O.G. run, and feels to me like a natural fit to take over as Dale. And he sounds humbled to have been given the task, telling the ATX Fest crowd:
"Johnny was one-of-a-kind and a wonderful fellow. I'm not trying to copy Johnny...I guess I'm trying to be Johnny. He laid down a really wonderful goofball character...he had a lot of weird heart to him and that's a credit to Johnny. So all I'm trying to do is hold on to his Dale-ness. We love our guy Johnny and it's so sad that he's not here...."

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Posted by EditorDavid from Slashdot
From the you-answer-quite-slowly department: LSD "is used to treat conditions like depression, post-traumatic stress disorder and addiction," notes Science Daily. And now a microbiology student "has found a long sought-after fungus that produces effects similar to the semisynthetic drug..."

Morning glory plants live in symbiosis with fungi that produce the same ergot alkaloids the Swiss chemist Albert Hofmann modified when he invented LSD in the late 1930s. Hofmann hypothesized that a fungus in morning glories produced alkaloids similar to those in LSD, but the species remained a mystery...

The researchers dubbed the fungus "Periglandula clandestina" for its ability to have eluded investigators for decades.

Posted by EditorDavid from Slashdot
From the qwertyuiop department: Once upon a time, long-time Slashdot reader tgibson learned how to type on a manual typewriter, back in an 8th grade classroom.
And to this day, they write, "my bias is to nod approvingly at touch typists and roll my eyes at those who need to stare at the keyboard while typing..." But how true is that for computer professionals today?

After 15 years I left industry and became a post-secondary computer science educator. Occasionally I rant to my students about the importance of touch-typing as a skill to have as a software engineer.

But I've been out of the game for some time now. Those of you hiring or working with freshly-minted software engineers, what's your take?

One anonymous Slashdot reader responded:

Oh, you mean the kid in the next cubicle that has said "Hey Siri" 297 times this morning? I'll let you know when he starts typing. A minor suggestion to office managers... please purchase a very quiet keyboard. Fellow cube-mates who are accomplished typists would consider that struggling audibly to be akin to nails on a blackboard...
Share your own thoughts in the comments.

How important is it for programmers to learn touch typing?

Posted by from MMO Champion
Dastardly Duos Creator Clash: Echo vs Liquid

The Dastardly Duos Creator Clash is now live! In this one day World of Warcraft event, Echo and Liquid face off in an epic showdown against some of Azeroth's most villainous bosses.

Posted by EditorDavid from Slashdot
From the big-Oh department: MIT comp-sci professor Ryan Williams suspected that a small amount of memory "would be as helpful as a lot of time in all conceivable computations..." writes Quanta magazine.

"In February, he finally posted his proof online, to widespread acclaim..."

Every algorithm takes some time to run, and requires some space to store data while it's running. Until now, the only known algorithms for accomplishing certain tasks required an amount of space roughly proportional to their runtime, and researchers had long assumed there's no way to do better. Williams' proof established a mathematical procedure for transforming any algorithm — no matter what it does — into a form that uses much less space.
What's more, this result — a statement about what you can compute given a certain amount of space — also implies a second result, about what you cannot compute in a certain amount of time. This second result isn't surprising in itself: Researchers expected it to be true, but they had no idea how to prove it. Williams' solution, based on his sweeping first result, feels almost cartoonishly excessive, akin to proving a suspected murderer guilty by establishing an ironclad alibi for everyone else on the planet. It could also offer a new way to attack one of the oldest open problems in computer science.

"It's a pretty stunning result, and a massive advance," said Paul Beame, a computer scientist at the University of Washington.

Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader mspohr for sharing the article.

Posted by EditorDavid from Slashdot
From the getting-off-trackers department: Meta's Facebook and Instagram apps "were siphoning people's data through a digital back door for months," writes a Washington Post tech columnist, citing researchers who found no privacy setting could've stopped what Meta and Yandex were doing, since those two companies "circumvented privacy and security protections that Google set up for Android devices.

"But their tactics underscored some privacy vulnerabilities in web browsers or apps. These steps can reduce your risks."

Stop using the Chrome browser. Mozilla's Firefox, the Brave browser and DuckDuckGo's browser block many common methods of tracking you from site to site. Chrome, the most popular web browser, does not... For iPhone and Mac folks, Safari also has strong privacy protections. It's not perfect, though. No browser protections are foolproof. The researchers said Firefox on Android devices was partly susceptible to the data harvesting tactics they identified, in addition to Chrome. (DuckDuckGo and Brave largely did block the tactics, the researchers said....)

Delete Meta and Yandex apps on your phone, if you have them. The tactics described by the European researchers showed that Meta and Yandex are unworthy of your trust. (Yandex is not popular in the United States.) It might be wise to delete their apps, which give the companies more latitude to collect information that websites generally cannot easily obtain, including your approximate location, your phone's battery level and what other devices, like an Xbox, are connected to your home WiFi.

Know, too, that even if you don't have Meta apps on your phone, and even if you don't use Facebook or Instagram at all, Meta might still harvest information on your activity across the web.

Posted by EditorDavid from Slashdot
From the Daisy-Daisy department: "Everyone has a blog these days, even Claude," Anthropic wrote this week on a page titled "Claude Explains."

"Welcome to the small corner of the Anthropic universe where Claude is writing on every topic under the sun".

Not any more. After blog posts titled "Improve code maintainability with Claude" and "Rapidly develop web applications with Claude" — Anthropic suddenly removed the whole page sometime after Wednesday. But TechCrunch explains the whole thing was always less than it seemed, and "One might be easily misled into thinking that Claude is responsible for the blog's copy end-to-end."
According to a spokesperson, the blog is overseen by Anthropic's "subject matter experts and editorial teams," who "enhance" Claude's drafts with "insights, practical examples, and [...] contextual knowledge."
"This isn't just vanilla Claude output — the editorial process requires human expertise and goes through iterations," the spokesperson said. "From a technical perspective, Claude Explains shows a collaborative approach where Claude [creates] educational content, and our team reviews, refines, and enhances it...." Anthropic says it sees Claude Explains as a "demonstration of how human expertise and AI capabilities can work together," starting with educational resources. "Claude Explains is an early example of how teams can use AI to augment their work and provide greater value to their users," the spokesperson said. "Rather than replacing human expertise, we're showing how AI can amplify what subject matter experts can accomplish [...] We plan to cover topics ranging from creative writing to data analysis to business strategy...."

The Anthropic spokesperson noted that the company is still hiring across marketing, content, and editorial, and "many other fields that involve writing," despite the company's dip into AI-powered blog drafting. Take that for what you will.

Posted by msmash from Slashdot
From the sophisticated-attacks department: Cybercriminals have been increasingly turning to "residential proxy" services over the past two to three years to disguise malicious web traffic as everyday online activity, according to research presented at the Sleuthcon cybercrime conference. The shift represents a response to law enforcement's growing success in targeting traditional "bulletproof" hosting services, which previously allowed criminals to maintain anonymous web infrastructure.

Residential proxies route traffic through decentralized networks running on consumer devices like old Android phones and low-end laptops, providing real IP addresses assigned to homes and offices. This approach makes malicious activity extremely difficult to detect because it appears to originate from trusted consumer locations rather than suspicious server farms. The technology creates particular challenges when attackers appear to come from the same residential IP ranges as employees of target organizations.

Posted by msmash from Slashdot
From the can't-resist department: Britain is moving toward major nuclear power commitments after years of delays, as government officials acknowledge they can no longer postpone critical energy infrastructure decisions. The U.K. Treasury has exhausted options for delaying nuclear power choices, Politico reported this week, citing sources within Whitehall and the nuclear industry.

The urgency stems from Britain's aging nuclear infrastructure, where five power plants currently supply 15% of the country's total energy needs but face shutdown by 2030. This timeline has created significant pressure on policymakers to secure replacement capacity or risk substantial gaps in the nation's electricity supply.

Posted by BeauHD from Slashdot
From the promising-step-forward department: Startup Nord Quantique has demonstrated that a single piece of hardware can host an error-detecting logical qubit by using two quantum frequencies within one resonator. The breakthrough has the potential to slash the hardware demands for quantum error correction and deliver more compact and efficient quantum computing architectures. Ars Technica reports: The company did two experiments with this new hardware. First, it ran multiple rounds of error detection on data stored in the logical qubit, essentially testing its ability to act like a quantum memory and retain the information stored there. Without correcting errors, the system rapidly decayed, with an error probability in each round of measurement of about 12 percent. By the time the system reached the 25th measurement, almost every instance had already encountered an error. The second time through, the company repeated the process, discarding any instances in which an error occurred. In almost every instance, that meant the results were discarded long before they got through two dozen rounds of measurement. But at these later stages, none of the remaining instances were in an erroneous state. That indicates that a successful correction of the errors -- something the team didn't try -- would be able to fix all the detected problems.

Several other companies have already performed experiments in which errors were detected -- and corrected. In a few instances, companies have even performed operations with logical qubits, although these were not sophisticated calculations. Nord Quantique, in contrast, is only showing the operation of a single logical qubit, so it's not even possible to test a two-qubit gate operation using the hardware it has described so far. So simply being able to identify the occurrence of errors is not on the cutting edge. Why is this notable?

< This article continues on their website >

Posted by BeauHD from Slashdot
From the are-you-sure-about-that department: Apple has urged Australia not to follow the European Union in mandating iPhone app sideloading, warning that such policies pose serious privacy and security risks. "This communication comes as the Australian federal government considers new rules that could force Apple to open up its iOS ecosystem, much like what happened in Europe with recent legislation," notes Neowin. Apple claims that allowing alternative app stores has led to increased exposure to malware, scams, and harmful content. From the report: Apple, in its response to this Australian paper (PDF), stated that Australia should not use the EU's Digital Markets Act "as a blueprint". The company's core argument is that the changes mandated by the EU's DMA, which came into full effect in March 2024, introduce serious security and privacy risks for users. Apple claims that allowing sideloading and alternative app stores effectively opens the door for malware, fraud, scams, and other harmful content. The tech company also highlighted specific concerns from its European experience, alleging that its compliance there has led to users being able to install pornography apps and apps that facilitate copyright infringement, things its curated App Store aims to prevent. Apple maintains that its current review process is vital for user protection, and that its often criticized 30% commission applies mainly to the highest earning apps, with most developers paying a lower 15% rate or nothing.

Posted by from MMO Champion
WoW Hotfixes - June 6, 2025

Originally Posted by Blizzard
(Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Dastardly Duos

Rewards have been moved to Wodin the Troll Servant. Each reward listed with Wodin will show the quest that’s required to obtain it and which week it will become available.

Dastardly Prize Purses now contain 250 Resonance Crystals.

The bug causing Dastardly Duo match player's Play Nice, Play Fair aura to force very low item level has been fixed.

Horrific Visions Revisited

Constructs of Soridormi will no longer try to join a full group if she was summoned previously.

Posted by BeauHD from Slashdot
From the spatial-analysis department: An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: In 2019, we told you about a new interactive digital "murder map" of London compiled by University of Cambridge criminologist Manuel Eisner. Drawing on data catalogued in the city coroners' rolls, the map showed the approximate location of 142 homicide cases in late medieval London. The Medieval Murder Maps project has since expanded to include maps of York and Oxford homicides, as well as podcast episodes focusing on individual cases. It's easy to lose oneself down the rabbit hole of medieval murder for hours, filtering the killings by year, choice of weapon, and location. Think of it as a kind of 14th-century version of Clue: It was the noblewoman's hired assassins armed with daggers in the streets of Cheapside near St. Paul's Cathedral. And that's just the juiciest of the various cases described in a new paper published in the journal Criminal Law Forum.

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Posted by Randall Munroe from XKCD
The installation of the pipes on the inside of the insulation can be challenging, especially when the neighbor could come home at any minute.

Posted by msmash from Slashdot
From the helpful-to-humanity department: Physicists at Loughborough University have created what they believe is the world's smallest violin, measuring just 35 microns long and 13 microns wide -- smaller than the width of a human hair, which typically ranges from 17 to 180 microns in diameter. The microscopic instrument, created using the university's new nanolithography system, serves as a demonstration of precision manufacturing capabilities that researchers will apply to studies of computing efficiency and energy harvesting methods.

The team used a NanoFrazor machine employing thermal scanning probe lithography, where a heated needle-like tip etches highly precise patterns at the nanoscale onto a chip coated with gel-like resist material. While the individual violin takes roughly three hours to produce, the research team spent several months refining their techniques to achieve the final result, which exists as a microscopic image rather than a playable instrument.

Posted by BeauHD from Slashdot
From the hold-on-it's-updating department: Longtime Slashdot reader sinij shares a report from Car and Driver: [Volvo] is debuting a new version of the three-point seatbelt that it believes is a major improvement over the original. The new design will be a smart belt that adapts to each occupant's body and adjusts the belt load accordingly. It uses data from interior and exterior sensors to customize protection based on the road conditions and the specific occupants. The technology will debut on the upcoming EX60 crossover.

According to Volvo, the onboard sensors can accurately detect a passenger's height, weight, body shape, and seating position. Based on real-time data, the belts optimize protection -- increasing belt load for larger passengers or lowering it for smaller passengers. While the technology for customizing protection isn't new -- Volvo's current belts already use three load-limiting profiles- the new belts increase that number to 11. The belts should also get safer over time, too, as they are equipped to receive over-the-air updates. sinij adds: "Downloading patches for your seat belts from China. What could possibly go wrong?"

Posted by BeauHD from Slashdot
From the no-more-power-plays department: The Register's Thomas Claburn reports: The Linux Foundation on Friday introduced a new method to distribute WordPress updates and plugins that's not controlled by any one party, in a bid to "stabilize the WordPress ecosystem" after months of infighting. The FAIR Package Manager project is a response to the legal brawl that erupted last year, pitting WordPress co-creator Matthew Mullenweg, his for-profit hosting firm Automattic, and the WordPress Foundation that he controls, against WP Engine, a rival commercial WordPress hosting firm. [...]

The Linux Foundation says the FAIR Package Manager, a mechanism for distributing open-source WordPress plugins, "eliminates reliance on any single source for core updates, plugins, themes, and more, unites a fragmented ecosystem by bringing together plugins from any source, and builds security into the supply chain." In other words, it can't be weaponized against the WordPress community because it won't be controlled by any one entity. "The FAIR Package Manager project paves the way for the stability and growth of open source content management, giving contributors and businesses additional options governed by a neutral community," said Jim Zemlin, Executive Director of the Linux Foundation, in a canned press statement. "We look forward to the growth in community and contributions this important project attracts."

< This article continues on their website >

Posted by BeauHD from Slashdot
From the new-and-shiny department: Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference 25 (WWDC) kicks off next week, June 9th, showcasing the company's latest software and new technologies. That includes the next version of iOS, which is rumored to have the most significant design overhaul since the introduction of iOS 7. Here's an overview of what to expect:
Major Software Redesigns
Apple plans to shift its operating system naming to reflect the release year, moving from sequential numbers to year-based identifiers. Consequently, the upcoming releases will be labeled as iOS 26, macOS 26, watchOS 26, etc., streamlining the versioning across platforms.

iOS 26 is anticipated to feature a glossy, glass-like interface inspired by visionOS, incorporating translucent elements and rounded buttons. This design language is expected to extend across iPadOS, macOS, watchOS, and tvOS, promoting a cohesive user experience across devices. Core applications like Phone, Safari, and Camera are slated for significant redesigns, too. For instance, Safari may introduce a translucent, "glassy" address bar, aligning with the new visual aesthetics.

While AI is not expected to be the main focus due to Siri's current readiness, some AI-related updates are rumored. The Shortcuts app may gain "Apple Intelligence," enabling users to create shortcuts using natural language. It's also possible that Gemini will be offered as an option for AI functionalities on the iPhone, similar to ChatGPT.

Other App and Feature Updates
< This article continues on their website >

Posted by BeauHD from Slashdot
From the only-time-will-tell department: An anonymous reader quotes a report from OregonLive: Together, the four founders of Beaverton startup AheadComputing spent nearly a century at Intel. They were among Intel's top chip architects, working years in advance to develop new generations of microprocessors to power the computers of the future. Now they're on their own, flying without a net, building a new class of microprocessor on an entirely different architecture from Intel's. Founded a year ago, AheadComputing is trying to prove there's a better way to design computer chips.

"AheadComputing is doing the biggest, baddest CPU in the world," said Debbie Marr, the company's CEO. [...] AheadComputing is betting on an open architecture called RISC-V -- RISC stands for "reduced instruction set computer." The idea is to craft a streamlined microprocessor that works more efficiently by doing fewer things, and doing them better than conventional processors. For AheadComputing's founders and 80 employees, many of them also Intel alumni, it's a major break from the kind of work they've been doing all their careers. They've left a company with more than 100,000 workers to start a business with fewer than 100.

"Every person in this room," Marr said, looking across a conference table at her colleagues, "we could have stayed at Intel. We could have continued to do very exciting things at Intel." They decided they had a better chance at leading a revolution in semiconductor technology at a startup than at a big, established company like Intel. And AheadComputing could be at the forefront of renewal in Oregon's semiconductor ecosystem. "We see this opportunity, this light," Marr said. "We took our chances." It'll be years before AheadComputing's designs are on the market, but the company "envisions its chips will someday power PCs, laptops and data centers," reports OregonLive. "Possible clients could include Google, Amazon, Samsung or other large computing companies."