Posted by from MMO Champion
WoW Classic 20th Anniversary Edition Phase 5 Launches July 10
Originally Posted by Blizzard
(
Blue Tracker /
Official Forums)
The War Effort begins July 10 at 3:00 pm PDT!
Aid your faction in opening the gates of Ahn'Qiraj—granting access to the Ruins of Ahn'Qiraj and Temple of Ahn'Qiraj raids for your server. Be the first to ring the Scarab Gong to get the coveted Black Qiraji Resonating Crystal mount.
Join the War Effort
On July 10 at 3:00 pm PDT, the War Effort will begin, and each faction can turn in an immense amount of resources that, once completed, require five days to be transported to Silithus. Due to the raid requirements in the questline leading up to the "Bang a Gong!" quest, the earliest that the ringing can occur in Silithus on highly-motivated realms could be just over a week later.
Get Out There and Gather
It's up to every champion of the Horde and Alliance to pitch in to ensure their faction completes The War Effort requirements by delivering a multitude of supplies and materials. Head to
this guide for a complete list of materials and supplies necessary, along with how much of everything you'll need.
What You Need and Where to Go
Visit Field Marshal Snowfall (Alliance) making the rounds through the Military Ward in Ironforge or Warlord Gorchuk (Horde) pacing the Valley of Spirits in Orgrimmar to turn in your Commendations! If you're curious about the overall progress of your faction, these War Effort Commanders also help keep a tally of the materials and supplies obtained and still needed.
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Posted by msmash from Slashdot
From the closer-look department: Researchers have built a breakthrough random number generator that solves a critical problem: for the first time, every step of creating random numbers can be independently verified and audited, with quantum physics guaranteeing the numbers were truly unpredictable.
Random numbers are essential for everything from online banking encryption to fair lottery drawings, but current systems have serious limitations. Computer-based generators follow predictable algorithms -- if someone discovers the starting conditions, they can predict all future outputs. Hardware generators that measure physical processes like electronic noise can't prove their randomness wasn't somehow predetermined or tampered with.
The new system, developed by teams at the University of Colorado Boulder and the National Institute of Standards and Technology, uses quantum entanglement -- Einstein's "spooky action at a distance" -- to guarantee unpredictability. The setup creates pairs of photons that share quantum properties, then sends them to measurement stations 110 meters apart. When researchers measure each photon's properties, quantum mechanics ensures the results are fundamentally random and cannot be influenced by any classical communication between the stations.
The team created a system called "Twine" that distributes the random number generation process across multiple independent parties, with each step recorded in tamper-proof digital ledgers called hash chains. This means no single organization controls the entire process, and anyone can verify that proper procedures were followed. During a 40-day demonstration, the system successfully generated random numbers in 7,434 of 7,454 attempts -- a 99.7% success rate. Each successful run produced 512 random bits with mathematical certainty of randomness bounded by an error rate of 2^-64, an extraordinarily high level of confidence.
Posted by msmash from Slashdot
From the up-next department: An anonymous reader shares a report: When Facebook bought WhatsApp for $19 billion in 2014, the messaging app had a clear focus. No ads, no games and no gimmicks. For years, that is what WhatsApp's two billion users -- many of them in Brazil, India and other countries around the world -- got. They chatted with friends and family unencumbered by advertising and other features found on social media. Now that is set to change.
On Monday, WhatsApp said it would start showing ads inside its app for the first time. The promotions will appear only in an area of the app called Updates, which is used by around 1.5 billion people a day. WhatsApp will collect some data on users to target the ads, such as location and the device's default language, but it will not touch the contents of messages or whom users speak with. The company added that it had no plans to place ads in chats and personal messages.
[...] In-app ads are a significant change from WhatsApp's original philosophy. Jan Koum and Brian Acton, who founded WhatsApp in 2009, were committed to building a simple and quick way for friends and family to communicate with end-to-end encryption, a method of keeping texts, photos, videos and phone calls inaccessible by third parties. Both left the company seven years ago. Since then, Mark Zuckerberg, the chief executive of Facebook, now Meta, has focused on WhatsApp's growth and user privacy while also melding the app into the company's other products, including Instagram and Messenger.
Posted by EditorDavid from Slashdot
From the droning-on department: "Walmart is bringing drone deliveries to three more states," reports CNBC:
On Thursday, the big-box retailer said it plans to launch the speedier delivery option at 100 stores in Atlanta, Charlotte, Houston, Orlando and Tampa within the coming year. With the expansion, Walmart's drone deliveries will be available in a total of five states: [parts of northwest] Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina and [the Dallas-Fort Worth area of] Texas... The drone operator will have an up to a six-mile range from stores.
Walmart tells CNBC the most frequently delivered items include ice cream, fresh fruit, and pet food, as well as "urgent items, such as hamburger buns for a cookout, eggs to make brownies or Tylenol or cold medicine needed when sick." It's all part of Walmart's effort to compete with Amazon:
With more than 4,600 Walmart stores across the U.S., the retailer has used its large footprint to get online orders to customers faster. It has an Express Delivery service that drops purchases at customers' doors in as fast as 30 minutes, along with InHome, a subscription-based service, that puts items directly into people's fridges. The company began same-day prescription deliveries last fall and has expanded the service across the country.... Walmart stores have an assortment of over 150,000 items in a location. Over 50% of those can be delivered by drone, said Greg Cathey [Walmart's senior VP for U.S. transformation and innovation]... Walmart's drone delivery count so far is modest. The company did not share the specific count, but said it has racked up a total of more than 150,000 drone deliveries since 2021.
Posted by EditorDavid from Slashdot
From the where-do-you-want-to-go-today department: KDE isn't the only organization reaching out to " as Microsoft prepares to end support for Windows 10.
"Now, The Document Foundation, maker of LibreOffice, has also joined in to support the Endof10 initiative," reports the tech blog Neowin:
The foundation writes: "You don't have to follow Microsoft's upgrade path. There is a better option that puts control back in the hands of users, institutions, and public bodies: Linux and LibreOffice. Together, these two programmes offer a powerful, privacy-friendly and future-proof alternative to the Windows + Microsoft 365 ecosystem."
It further adds the "real costs" of upgrading to Windows 11 as it writes:
"The move to Windows 11 isn't just about security updates. It increases dependence on Microsoft through aggressive cloud integration, forcing users to adopt Microsoft accounts and services. It also leads to higher costs due to subscription and licensing models, and reduces control over how your computer works and how your data is managed. Furthermore, new hardware requirements will render millions of perfectly good PCs obsolete.... The end of Windows 10 does not mark the end of choice, but the beginning of a new era. If you are tired of mandatory updates, invasive changes, and being bound by the commercial choices of a single supplier, it is time for a change. Linux and LibreOffice are ready — 2025 is the right year to choose digital freedom!"
The first words on LibreOffice's announcement? "The countdown has begun...."
Posted by EditorDavid from Slashdot
From the stop-children-what's-that-sound department: Spain's newspaper El Pais found an entire fake album on YouTube titled Rumba Congo (1973). And they cite a study from France's International Confederation of Societies of Authors and Composers that estimated revenue from AI-generated music will rise to $4 billion in 2028, generating 20% of all streaming platforms' revenue:
One of the major problems with this trend is the lack of transparency. María Teresa Llano, an associate professor at the University of Sussex who studies the intersection of creativity, art and AI, emphasizes this aspect: "There's no way for people to know if something is AI or not...." On Spotify Community — a forum for the service's users — a petition is circulating that calls for clear labeling of AI-generated music, as well as an option for users to block these types of songs from appearing on their feeds. In some of these forums, the rejection of AI-generated music is palpable.
Llano mentions the feelings of deception or betrayal that listeners may experience, but asserts that this is a personal matter. There will be those who feel this way, as well as those who admire what the technology is capable of... One of the keys to tackling the problem is to include a warning on AI-generated songs. YouTube states that content creators must "disclose to viewers when realistic content [...] is made with altered or synthetic media, including generative AI." Users will see this if they glance at the description. But this is only when using the app, because on a computer, they will have to scroll down to the very end of the description to get the warning....
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Sure, this exoplanet we discovered may seem hostile to life, but our calculations suggest it's actually in the accretion disc's habitable zone. 
A comic about a crawlspace under a house.
