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An Anonymous Coward writes:

https://www.phoronix.com/news/GNU-Hurd-In-2026

Samuel Thibault offered up a status update on the current state of GNU/Hurd from a presentation in Brussels at FOSDEM 2026. Thibault has previously shared updates on GNU Hurd from the annual FOSDEM event while this year's was a bit more optimistic thanks to recent driver progress and more software now successfully building for Hurd.

GNU/Hurd continues to lag behind the Linux kernel and other modern platforms for hardware driver support. But driver support for Hurd has been improving thanks to NetBSD's rump layer.

Hurd for years has also lacked SMP support for modern multi-core systems but that too has been improving in recent times. Similarly, Hurd for the longest time was predominantly x86 32-bit only but the x86_64 port is now essentially complete and there is even eyes toward AArch64 support.

Debian GNU/Hurd has been an unofficial Debian distribution and alternative to using the Linux kernel while Guix/Hurd and Alpine/Hurd distributions have also come about too for more Hurd exposure and testing.

Samuel shared that around 75% of the Debian archive is currently building for the GNU/Hurd distribution including desktop environments and more.

The FOSDEM 2026 presentation on GNU/Hurd concluded with a proclamation that "GNU/Hurd is almost there" with the Debian/Guix/Arch/Alpine distributions but that the developers can always use extra help with community contributions.

Those curious about GNU/Hurd in 2026 can find the presentation by Samuel Thibault at FOSDEM.org.

See article for progress stats.

Original Submission

An Anonymous Coward writes:

According to a research report authored by investment bank TD Cowen and seen by CIO magazine, Oracle may "cut 20,000 to 30,000 jobs" and sell its healthcare SW division, Cerner, in order to fund their AI datacenter buildout:

https://www.cio.com/article/4125103/oracle-may-slash-up-to-30000-jobs-to-fund-ai-data-center-expansion-as-us-banks-retreat.html

According to the article, "multiple US banks have pulled back from Oracle-linked data-center project lending," which has "[pushed] borrowing costs to levels typically reserved for non-investment grade companies." Furthermore, "Oracle has already tapped debt markets heavily... and US banks are increasingly reluctant to provide more."

Two analysts interviewed in the article have differing views. Sanchit Vir Gogia, of Greyhound Research, views Oracle cloud contracts as a "shared infrastructure risk," stating, "If they can't fund it, they can't build it. And if they can't build it, you can't run your workloads." Franco Chiam of ICD Asia/Pacific has a more optimistic take on Oracle's finances, pointing to "cloud infrastructure revenue growing 66% year over year... and GPU-related infrastructure up 177%"

I'm personally wondering about where all that revenue for GPU-related infrastructure comes from. If we are in an AI bubble, can demand be sustained?

Original Submission

Snotnose writes:

What do you do when it's time to upgrade an ancient system? Put an image in an emulator and see what it does. But what if the program requires a hardware dongle on the printer port? Therein lies a story.

This software was built using a programming language called RPG ("Report Program Generator"), which is older than COBOL (!), and was used with IBM's midrange computers such as the System/3, System/32, and all the way up to the AS/400. Apparently, RPG was subsequently ported to MS-DOS, so that the same software tools built with RPG could run on personal computers, which is how we ended up here.

This accounting firm was actually using a Windows 98 computer (yep, in 2026), and running the RPG software inside a DOS console window. And it turned out that, in order to run this software, it requires a special hardware copy-protection dongle to be attached to the computer's parallel port! This was a relatively common practice in those days, particularly with "enterprise" software vendors who wanted to protect their very important™ software from unauthorized use.

Original Submission

progo writes:

Many IT professionals, especially system administrators and developers, use Notepad++ as their default text editor on Windows, because Windows Notepad has historically been missing critical features for power users.

Today, the Notepad++ project announced that they've discovered their update channel has been compromised by attackers since June 2025.

BleepingComputer published a report:

Chinese state-sponsored threat actors were likely behind the hijacking of Notepad++ update traffic last year that lasted for almost half a year, the developer states in an official announcement today.

The attackers intercepted and selectively redirected update requests from certain users to malicious servers, serving tampered update manifests by exploiting a security gap in the Notepad++ update verification controls.

A statement from the hosting provider for the update feature explains that the logs indicate that the attacker compromised the server with the Notepad++ update application.

External security experts helping with the investigation found that the attack started in June 2025. According the developer, the breach had a narrow targeting scope and redirected only specific users to the attacker's infrastructure.

Notepad++ is likely to be installed on any Windows-based development environment or server. There are indications that this was a targeted attack and you may not have been directly affected. This is a developing story. I recommend you follow BleepingComputer for updates.

Original Submission

hubie writes:

Overly Involved Parents May Hold Their Kids Back Professionally:

A recent study of more than 2,000 early-career adults found that young people whose parents were still very closely involved in their lives tended to have occupations with less "prestige" than young people whose parents were less involved.

"It is well-established that parental investment during their children's childhood and adolescence has positive outcomes," says Anna Manzoni, co-author of a paper on the work and a professor of sociology at North Carolina State University. "However, our study points to a shift in parental role as young people mature into early adulthood – ages 18-28.

"Specifically, our findings suggest that parents who are heavily involved with their children – spending lots of time advising them, sharing many activities, etc. – actually hinder the child's ability to launch."

Two key concepts in the study are "family social capital" and "occupational prestige." Family social capital refers to the norms, information and support parents provide through everyday interactions with their children. Occupational prestige is measured by assessing the average education and income for a given occupation.

[...] "The key finding was that low levels of family social capital positively influence adolescent occupational prestige while strongly tied family social capital negatively influences it," says Leppard. "In other words, too much parental involvement was associated with a negative impact on the occupational attainment of emerging adults.

"This absolutely took us by surprise," says Manzoni. "We checked our measures time and time again to make sure the results were correct. There is so much scholarship demonstrating how family social capital positively impacts everything from school performance to healthy behaviors, our findings at first seemed contradictory.

"But what the findings suggest is that, during the transition to adulthood, there can be too much of a good thing. This is an age in which young people need to make the transition to independence. And failure to do so is associated with professional constraints early in their careers."

So, what's the takeaway message for parents?

"As young people move into early adulthood, the parental role may need to shift away from intensive guidance and toward a more hands-off, supportive posture that allows children to develop autonomy, make mistakes, and navigate the labor market on their own," Manzoni says.

Journal Reference: https://doi.org/10.1080/13676261.2025.2603380

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

Targeting specific cells in the vagus nerve reduced heart damage in mice.

Nerve pathways linking the heart and brain play a key role in inflammation and the body’s response to cardiac injury. In mice, blocking signals along these nerves and reducing inflammation in connected neurons improved heart function and healing.

After a heart attack, the heart “talks” to the brain. And that conversation may make recovery worse.

Shutting down nerve cells that send messages from injured heart cells to the brain boosted the heart’s ability to pump and decreased scarring, experiments in mice show. Targeting inflammation in a part of the nervous system where those “damage” messages wind up also improved heart function and tissue repair, scientists report January 27 in Cell.

Someone in the United States has a heart attack about every 40 seconds, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That adds up to about 805,000 people each year.

A heart attack is a mechanical problem caused by the obstruction of a coronary artery, usually by a blood clot. If the blockage lasts long enough, the affected cells may start to die. Heart attacks can have long-term effects such as a weakened heart, a reduced ability to pump blood, irregular heart rhythms, and a higher risk of heart failure or another heart attack.

Although experts knew from previous research that the nervous and immune systems could amplify inflammation and slow healing, the key players and pathways involved were unknown, says Vineet Augustine, a neurobiologist at the University of California, San Diego.

To identify them, Augustine and his colleagues began by pinpointing the sensory neurons that detect heart tissue injury. The team zeroed in on the vagus nerve, which carries sensory information from internal organs to the brain and identified a specific subtype of vagal sensory neurons, called TRPV-1 positive neurons, which extend into and sit next to heart tissue as key contributors in the brain-heart pathway. After a heart attack, more TRPV-1 positive nerve endings became active in the damaged area of the heart, experiments showed.

But when these neurons were shut down, cardiac pumping function, electrical stability scar size, and other measures of heart health improved. That bolsters evidence that the heart ramps up the signals it sends to the brain after a heart attack.

The team traced the path of those signals from the heart to the brain. Their first stop was the paraventricular nucleus of the hypothalamus, a region that helps control stress, blood pressure and heart rate. The signals then reached the superior cervical ganglion, a cluster of nerve cells in the neck that sends signals to organs such as the heart and blood vessels.

After a heart attack, the cluster of nerve cells in the neck appeared more inflamed, with elevated levels of pro-inflammatory molecules called cytokines. When the scientists reduced inflammation in this group of nerve cells, heart damage eased, and the team saw improvements in cardiac function and tissue repair.

It is important to note that “the inflammatory response is not inherently negative,” says Tania Zaglia, a physiologist at the University of Padua in Italy who was not involved in the study. “In the early phases of infarction, it is essential for the removal of damaged tissue and for the activation of reparative processes.” However, she says, problems arise when this response becomes excessive, prolonged or disorganized.

That’s why controlling the inflammation, as well as the nerves that may be driving it, could be beneficial, the researchers say. Taking the findings from mice to the clinic will take time. Still, “we can now start thinking about therapies such as vagus nerve stimulation, gene-based approaches targeting the brain or immune-targeted treatments,” Augustine says.

S. Yadav et al. A triple-node heart–brain neuroimmune loop underlying myocardial infarction. Cell. Published online January 27, 2026. doi: 10.1016/j.cell.2025.12.058.

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

The Linux ecosystem is buzzing with news of Amutable, a new company founded by some of the most influential figures in modern Linux development. Led by Lennart Poettering (creator of systemd), Christian Brauner (Linux VFS subsystem maintainer), and other prominent Linux kernel developers, Amutable aims to deliver "verifiable integrity to Linux workloads everywhere."

[...] Amutable's stated mission is ambitious: to build cryptographically verifiable integrity into Linux systems. Their approach focuses on three key areas:

Ensuring that software builds are verifiable and tamper-proof from the development stage through deployment.

Implementing secure boot processes that can cryptographically verify the integrity of the entire boot chain.

Maintaining verifiable system state throughout the operational lifecycle of Linux workloads.

The company's tagline, "Every system starts in a verified state and stays trusted over time," encapsulates their vision of comprehensive system integrity.

While Amutable has been relatively secretive about specific technical details, the company appears to be building on remote attestation technology. This involves using hardware security features (like TPMs - Trusted Platform Modules) to cryptographically prove the state of a system to remote parties.

The technology builds on existing standards and protocols but aims to make them more accessible and user-controlled in Linux environments. According to founding engineer Aleksa Sarai, the models they have in mind are "very much based on users having full control of their keys."

The announcement has generated significant discussion in the Linux community, with reactions ranging from excitement about improved security to deep concerns about potential implications for user freedom.

owl writes:

https://www.freelists.org/post/slint/Very-sad-news,41
https://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/slackware-14/rip-didier-spaier-4175757754/

Didier Spaier was the creator and maintainer of Slint, a Slackware base distro for the visually impaired. He died in mid January.

Quoting from the linked slint post:

I am very sad to inform everyone that our friend Didier died last week.

Early 2015, I asked on the slackware list if brltty could be added in the installer ; Didier answered promptly that he could do it on slint. Afterwards, he worked hard so that slint became as accessible as possible for visually impaired people.

You all know that all these years, he tried and succeeded to answer as quickly as possible to our issues and questions.

His kind and thoughtful help and assistance here will be dearly missed.

Original Submission

hubie writes:

Bacterial enzymes in elephants' guts may digest pectin and give beans a smooth, chocolaty, and less bitter flavor:

With hundreds of millions of cups consumed every day, coffee is one of the most popular beverages in the world. Many organic molecules combine to give coffee its flavor, and nearly every coffee drinker likes a different flavor profile that is "just theirs." The food industry has developed many ways of processing coffee beans to alter the ratios of these molecules and create the unique flavors consumers can enjoy.

One particularly interesting process involves passing coffee beans through the digestive tracts of animals. An emerging example is Black Ivory coffee (BIC). BIC is made in only one elephant sanctuary in Thailand. Asian elephants are fed Arabica coffee cherries, and beans collected from their dung are processed for human consumption. BIC is prized for its smooth, chocolaty flavor, and it is less bitter than regular coffee.

[...] The team analyzed fresh dung from elephants producing BIC, as well as from control elephants living in the same elephant sanctuary. The only difference in their diets is that BIC-producing elephants received an additional snack of bananas, rice bran, and whole coffee cherries. Any differences in the content and composition of fecal microbes would be due to this snack.

Yamada's team found that BIC-producing elephants' dung was unusually rich in pectin-digesting enzymes. 16S ribosomal RNA analysis showed that these elephants also had a more diverse gut microbiome, with an abundance of Acinetobacter and other pectin-digesting species. "Interestingly, Acinetobacter has also been detected on the surface of coffee beans. This suggests that ingestion of coffee beans may lead to the colonization of specific microbes in the gut of elephants," remarks Yamada.

Pectin in coffee beans is partially broken down by the heat of roasting and seems to form bitter-tasting compounds such as 2-furfuryl furan. Previous studies showed that BIC had much lower levels of 2-furfuryl furan than regular coffee beans. These earlier findings appear to be explained by the discovery of pectin-digesting bacteria in the gut of BIC-producing elephants. Since pectin is partially digested as the beans pass through the elephants' guts, there is less available to form 2-furfuryl furan when the beans are roasted.

"Our findings may highlight a potential molecular mechanism by which the gut microbiota of BIC elephants contributes to the flavor of BIC," says Yamada as he describes these exciting findings. "Further experimental validation is required to test this hypothesis, such as a biochemical analysis of coffee bean components before and after passage through the elephant's digestive tract," he adds, pointing to avenues for future research into this technique for processing coffee.

Nevertheless, this study provides a foundation for further exploration of animal-microbiome interactions in food fermentation and flavor development. Continued research into specific microbial metabolic mechanisms may support the development of diverse and distinctive flavor profiles in the future!

Journal Reference: Chiba, N., Limviphuvadh, V., Ng, C.H. et al. Preliminary study of gut microbiome influence on Black Ivory Coffee fermentation in Asian elephants. Sci Rep 15, 40548 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-025-24196-0

Original Submission

looorg writes:

https://www.theregister.com/2026/01/30/road_sign_hijack_ai/?td=keepreading
https://the-decoder.com/a-printed-sign-can-hijack-a-self-driving-car-and-steer-it-toward-pedestrians-study-shows/

Autonomous vehicles fooled by humans with signs. They apparently do not really verify their inputs, one is as good as the next one. So they fail even basic programming techniques of sanitizing and verifying inputs.

[quote]The researchers at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and Johns Hopkins showed that, in simulated trials, AI systems and the large vision language models (LVLMs) underpinning them would reliably follow instructions if displayed on signs held up in their camera's view.[/quote]

Commands in Chinese, English, Spanish, and Spanglish (a mix of Spanish and English words) all seemed to work.

As well as tweaking the prompt itself, the researchers used AI to change how the text appeared – fonts, colors, and placement of the signs were all manipulated for maximum efficacy.

The team behind it named their methods CHAI, an acronym for "command hijacking against embodied AI."

While developing CHAI, they found that the prompt itself had the biggest impact on success, but the way in which it appeared on the sign could also make or break an attack, although it is not clear why.

In tests with the DriveLM autonomous driving system, attacks succeeded 81.8 percent of the time. In one example, the model braked in a harmless scenario to avoid potential collisions with pedestrians or other vehicles.

But when manipulative text appeared, DriveLM changed its decision and displayed "Turn left." The model reasoned that a left turn was appropriate to follow traffic signals or lane markings, despite pedestrians crossing the road. The authors conclude that visual text prompts can override safety considerations, even when the model still recognizes pedestrians, vehicles, and signals.

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

[...] When the UK government launched a public consultation on AI and copyright in early 2025, it likely didn't expect to receive a near-unanimous dressing-down. But of the roughly 10,000 responses submitted through its official “Citizen Space” platform, just 3% supported the government's preferred policy for regulating how AI uses copyrighted material for training. A massive 88% backed a stricter approach focused on rights-holders.

The survey asked for opinions on four possible routes the UK might take to address what rules should apply when AI developers train their models on books, songs, art, and other copyrighted works. The government’s favored route was labeled Option 3 and offered a compromise where AI developers had a default right to use copyrighted material as long as they disclosed what they used, and offered a way for those with the rights to the material to opt out. But most who responded disagreed.

Option 3 received the least support. Even the “do nothing” option of just leaving the law vague and inconsistent polled better. More people would prefer no reform at all than accept the government's suggestion. That level of disapproval is hard to spin.

It's a triumph for the campaign by writers’ unions, music industry groups, visual artists, and game developers seeking exactly this result. They spent months warning about a future where creative work becomes free fuel for unlicensed AI engines.

The artists argued that the fight was over consent as much as royalties. They argued that having creative work swept up into a training dataset without permission means the damage is done, even if you can opt out months later. And they pointed out that the UK’s copyright laws weren’t built for AI. Copyright in the UK is automatic, not registered, which is great for flexibility, but tough for any enforcement, as there's no central database of copyright ownership.

Officials crafted Option 3 to try to appease all sides. The government's stated aim was to stimulate AI innovation while still respecting creators. A transparent opt-out mechanism would let developers build useful models while giving artists a way to refuse. But it ultimately felt to many creators like all the burden fell on them, and they would have to constantly monitor how their work is used, sometimes across borders, languages, and platforms they’ve never heard of.

That's likely why 88% of respondents went for requiring licenses for everything as their preferred choice. If an AI model were to be implemented, wanting to train on your book, your voice, your illustration, or your photography, it would have to ask, and potentially pay first.

A final report and economic impact assessment from the government is due in March. It will evaluate the legal, commercial, and cultural implications of each option. Officials say they will consider input from creators, tech firms, small businesses, and other stakeholders. Clearly the government's hope to smoothly start implementing its prefeerred appraoch won't happen.

For now, the confusing status quo remains. Without a court ruling or legislative fix, uncertainty reigns. AI developers don’t know what’s allowed. Creators don’t know what’s protected. Everyone's waiting for clarity that keeps getting delayed.

What happens next could shape the UK's digital economy for years. If officials side with the 3% who backed their initial plan, they risk alienating the very creators whose work is so valuable. But stronger licensing rules would undoubtedly face resistance from AI startups and international tech firms. Either way, the fighting is far from over.

Original Submission

hubie writes:

Cooler bedroom temperatures help the heart recover during sleep:

Maintaining a bedroom temperature of 24°C [75°F] at night while sleeping reduces stress responses in older adults, according to new Griffith University research.

Dr Fergus O'Connor from Griffith's School of Allied Health, Sport and Social Work assessed the effect of increasing nighttime bedroom temperatures on heart rate and stress responses in older adults.

"For individuals aged 65 years and over, maintaining overnight bedroom temperatures at 24°C reduced the likelihood of experiencing heightened stress responses during sleep," Dr O'Connor said.

"When the human body is exposed to heat, its normal physiological response is to increase the heart rate.

"The heart is working harder to try and circulate blood to the skin surface for cooling.

"However, when the heart works harder and for longer, it creates stress and limits our capacity to recover from the previous day's heat exposure."

Study participants wore fitness activity trackers on their non-dominant wrist, and the bedroom temperature was monitored via installed temperature sensors throughout the Australian summer-long data collection period.

The data from the study provided the first real-world evidence of the effect of increasing bedroom temperature had on heart rate and stress responses.

"Climate change is increasing the frequency of hot nights, which may independently contribute to cardiovascular morbidity and mortality by impairing sleep and autonomic recovery," Dr O'Connor said.

"While there are guidelines for maximum daytime indoor temperature, 26°C, there are no equivalent recommendations for nighttime conditions."

Journal Reference: O'Connor, F.K., Bach, A.J.E., Forbes, C. et al. Effect of nighttime bedroom temperature on heart rate variability in older adults: an observational study. BMC Med 23, 703 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12916-025-04513-0

Original Submission

iwStack (based on Apache CloudStack) is Prometeus's scalable cloud brand, Infrastructure as a Service, Elastic resources and Pay-As-You-Go service, with servers in Milan (Italy [HQ]), Amsterdam (Netherlands), and Bucharest (Romania). Prometeus was bought in 2023 by CDLAN.

I couldn't find reviews since around 2015, that's why I decided to do one now in 2026. This is my experience the few times I've used it since 2021.

[...] CloudStack:

iwStack uses version 4.4.4 by the "about" link in the control panel. Version 4.4.1 is from october 2014, the tarball date of 4.4.4. says june 2015. Apache CloudStack's most recent release is 4.22.0.0. This is 18 major versions behind the current 4.22.0.0 release (November 2025), representing nearly 10 years without updates.

[...] I wanted to create a virtual router to test the load balancing. Never could get it to work. I had multiple problems creating and destroying the isolated network and its instances. then I tried again to no avail. The problem was the network remained allocated and not implemented. I added a firewall rule, maybe that spins up the virtual router instance, I thought to myself. Do I have to create another instance? I decided to check the tutorial, it says "(a virtual VM with a powerful router (though it lacks IPv6 capabilities for now) is automatically deployed".

[...] Conclusion:

iwStack offers very low-cost pre-paid cloud infrastructure suitable for basic use cases (simple instances with public IPs). However, it shows clear signs of minimal maintenance.

oaklandwatch writes:

As the world's first home computers appeared in 1975, Bill Gates -- then 20 years old -- screamed that "Most of you steal your software..." (Gates had coded the operating system for Altair's first home computer with Paul Allen and Monte Davidoff -- only to see it pirated by Steve Wozniak's friends at the Homebrew Computing Club.) Expecting royalties, a none-too-happy Gates issued his letter in the club's newsletter (as well as Altair's own publication), complaining "I would appreciate letters from any one who wants to pay up."

Freedom-loving coders had other ideas. When Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs released their Apple 1 home computer that summer, they stressed that "our philosophy is to provide software for our machines free or at minimal cost..." And the earliest open-source hackers began writing their own free Tiny Basic interpreters to create a free alternative to the Gates/Micro-Soft code. (This led to the first occurrence of the phrase "Copyleft" in October of 1976.)

Open Source definition author Bruce Perens shares his thoughts today. "When I left Pixar in 2000, I stopped in Steve Job's office — which for some reason was right across the hall from mine... " Perens remembered. "I asked Steve: 'You still don't believe in this Linux stuff, do you...?'" And Perens remembers how 30 years later, that movement finally won over Steve Jobs.

Original Submission

Cure for Pancreatic Cancer? Spanish Scientists' Claim Ignites Global Hope and Debate

upstart writes:

A Spanish research team claims a new three-drug therapy has eliminated aggressive pancreatic cancer in laboratory mice, igniting global hope:

A Spanish research team has claimed to have developed a treatment that completely eliminates the most aggressive form of pancreatic cancer in laboratory mice, raising fresh hopes against one of the deadliest cancers. Pancreatic cancer is often diagnosed late and is completely resistant to most existing treatments in later stages.

So, when Dr Mariano Barbacid claimed to have discovered a potential "cure," it sent ripples of hope across the global medical community and sparked intense scientific debate. The claim, made by the Spanish National Cancer Research Centre, working on an experimental therapy targeting the tumour cells, suggests that their approach could stop cancer growth and, in some cases, completely eliminate malignant cells in laboratory and early animal studies.

The CNIO therapy is an amalgamation of three drugs that are designed to shut down multiple tumour survival mechanisms simultaneously. According to the researchers, this strategy prevents cancer cells from rewiring themselves, a common cause of treatment failure. Dr Barbacid has previously argued that pancreatic cancer cannot be defeated with a single-drug strategy.

Given pancreatic cancer's grim statistics - five-year survival rates hovering around 10 per cent - the announcement has quickly drawn global attention.

[...] Preliminary reports say Dr Barbacid and his research team have developed a therapy that is able to disrupt the protective tumour environment, along with triggering cancer cells' death. The approach reportedly combines molecular targeting with immune system activation, which makes the tumours extremely vulnerable to treatment.

In the laboratory, according to the researchers, the therapy has been able to stop tumour progression and, in some models, even eradicate cancer cells entirely. These findings are yet to be validated in humans and could represent a major breakthrough.

However, the work is still in early stages, as many of the results so far come from preclinical studies, not large-scale human trials.