An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: More than two years after Broadcom took over VMware, the virtualization company's customers are still grappling with higher prices, uncertainty, and the challenges of reducing vendor lock-in. Today, CloudBolt Software released a report, "The Mass Exodus That Never Was: The Squeeze Is Just Beginning," that provides insight into those struggles. CloudBolt is a hybrid cloud management platform provider that aims to identify VMware customers' pain points so it can sell them relevant solutions. In the report, CloudBolt said it surveyed 302 IT decision-makers (director-level or higher) at North American companies with at least 1,000 employees in January. The survey is far from comprehensive, but it offers a look at the obstacles these users face.

Broadcom closed its VMware acquisition in November 2023, and last month, 88 percent of survey respondents still described the change as "disruptive." Per the survey, the most cited drivers of disruption were price increases (named by 89 percent of respondents), followed by uncertainty about Broadcom's plans (85 percent), support quality concerns (78 percent), Broadcom shifting VMware from perpetual licenses to subscriptions (72 percent), changes to VMware's partner program (68 percent), and the forced bundling of products (65 percent).

When Broadcom bought VMware, some customers shared horror stories about receiving quotes that showed prices increasing by as much as 1,000 percent. CloudBolt's survey paints a more modest picture. Fourteen percent of respondents said their VMware costs have at least doubled, while 12 percent reported increases of 50-99 percent, 33 percent reported increases of 24-49 percent, and 31 percent reported increases of less than 25 percent. Despite survey participants suggesting smaller price hikes than originally anticipated under Broadcom, companies are still struggling with the pricing changes. Eighty-five percent are concerned that VMware will become even more expensive, according to CloudBolt's survey. [...]

CloudBolt's survey also examined how respondents are migrating workloads off of VMware. Currently, 36 percent of participants said they migrated 1-24 percent of their environment off of VMware. Another 32 percent said that they have migrated 25-49 percent; 10 percent said that they've migrated 50-74 percent of workloads; and 2 percent have migrated 75 percent or more of workloads. Five percent of respondents said that they have not migrated from VMware at all. Among migrated workloads, 72 percent moved to public cloud infrastructure as a service, followed by Microsoft's Hyper-V/Azure stack (43 percent of respondents). Overall, 86 percent of respondents "are actively reducing their VMware footprint," CloudBolt's report said.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Longtime Slashdot reader jrepin writes: KDE Plasma is a popular desktop (and mobile too) environment for GNU/Linux and other UNIX-like operating systems. Among other things, it also powers the desktop mode of the Steam Deck gaming handheld. The KDE community today announced the latest release: Plasma 6.6.

In this new major release, Spectacle can recognize texts from screenshots, a new on-screen keyboard and new login manager are available for testing, and a first-time wizard Plasma Setup was added. Your current theme can be saved as a new global theme, which can also be used for the day and night theme-switching feature. Emoji selector got a new easier way to select skin tone. If your computer has a camera available, you can now connect to a Wi-Fi network by scanning a QR code. Application sound volume can now be changed by scrolling over an application taskbar button via mouse wheel. When screencasting and sharing your desktop, you can now filter windows so they are not shared. A setting was added to enable having virtual desktops only on the primary screen. If your device has an ambient light sensor, you can enable automatic screen brightness adjustment. Game controllers can now be used as regular input devices.

For complete list of new features and changes, check out the KDE Plasma 6.6 release announcement and the complete changelog.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Residents of Potters Bar, a small town just north of London, are trying to block what would be one of Europe's largest data centers from being built on 85 acres of rolling farmland that separates their community from the neighboring village of South Mimms. Multinational operator Equinix acquired the land last October after the local council granted planning permission in January 2025, and the company intends to break ground this year on a development it estimates will cost more than $5 billion.

The UK government's decision to classify data centers as "critical national infrastructure" and a new "gray belt" land designation that loosens building restrictions on underperforming greenbelt parcels helped clear the path for approval -- even though objections from locals outweighed signatures of support by nearly two-to-one during the public consultation. A protest group of more than 1,000 residents has since appealed to a third-party ombudsman and the UK's Office of Environmental Protection, but has so far failed to overturn the decision.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A US law firm has accused Lenovo of violating Justice Department strictures about the bulk transfer of data to foreign adversaries, namely China. From a report: The case filed by Almeida Law Group on behalf of San Francisco-based "Spencer Christy, individually and on behalf of all others similarly situated" centers on the Data Security Program regulations implemented by the DOJ last year. According to the suit, these were "implemented to prevent adversarial countries from acquiring large quantities of behavioral data which could be used to surveil, analyze, or exploit American citizens' behavior."

The complaint states the DOJ rule "makes clear that sending American consumers' information to Chinese entities through automated advertising systems and associated databases with the requisite controls is prohibited." The case states the threshold for "covered personal identifiers" is 100,000 US persons or more and lists a range of potential identifiers, from government and financial account numbers to IMEIs, MAC, and SIM numbers, demographic data, and advertising IDs.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman expects "human-level performance on most, if not all professional tasks" from AI, and believes most work involving "sitting down at a computer" -- accounting, legal, marketing, project management -- will be fully automated within the next year or 18 months. He pointed to exponential growth in computational power and predicted that creating a new AI model will soon be as easy as "creating a podcast or writing a blog."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A New Winter is a project from Colombian-American photographer Sofia Jaramillo that seeks to

This project revisits the early depictions of skiing, which often portrayed Eurocentric ideals and a narrow vision of who belongs on the slopes. By reimagining the first images of skiing in the United States, A New Winter challenges the stereotypes and exclusive culture perpetuated by these initial depictions, inviting us to expand our understanding of winter sports and celebrate its evolving culture. It seeks to disrupt traditional narratives, challenge stereotypes and promote representation in winter sports by placing people of color at the center of these images.

Several of the images were featured in Outside magazine, where Jaramillo says, “I’m doing this for all the young Black and brown girls and boys out there who don’t see themselves when they walk into a ski resort.”

Tags: photography · remix · skiing · Sofia Jaramillo · sports

BertvB posted a photo:

Thomas Hawk posted a photo:

Thomas Hawk posted a photo:

Mr Mikage (ミスター御影） posted a photo:

It isn't insane, and Amazon will be fine when the music stops. Other players, maybe not so much

In their recent earnings call, Amazon kinda blew the doors off of industry analyst (motto: "we'll be wrong, then take it out on your stock") projections for their capex spend.…

After a selloff fueled by fears AI could upend the outsourcing model

Indian IT professionals worried about 72-hour workweeks might soon face the opposite concern, as Bengaluru-based outsourcing giant Infosys has partnered with Anthropic to bring agentic AI to telecommunications companies and other regulated industries.…

Vinícius Júnior and his teammates appeared ready to walk off and the game was put on hold for 10 minutes after the Brazilian told the referee that he had been subject to racist abuse after scoring the goal that gives Real Madrid a 1-0 first-leg lead in their Champions League playoff against Benfica. Vinícius had celebrated the strike dancing in the corner of the Estádio da Luz and in the confrontations that followed, Benfica’s Gianluca Prestianni said something to him while covering his mouth. Vinícius immediately ran to the referee, François Letexier, who stopped the match and crossed his arms to signal that he was doing so because of an accusation of racist abuse.

Both managers came on to the pitch and Vinícius spoke to José Mourinho to explain what had happened. Conversations and confrontations continued as Vinícius sat alone on the bench, but eventually they restarted with the Brazilian on the pitch. The noise that accompanied Benfica’s attempts to get back into it, and a red card for Mourinho as he protested a late foul on the edge of the Madrid area, were unable to eclipse the feeling that there was something empty, something sadder, about the occasion now, like this match no longer mattered. Its lasting legacy will not be about the football.

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Row between Sweden and Canada over accusation of double-touch continues to cast shadow over Winter Games

Well hell’s bells, who knew the ice could get so hot? The Olympic curling community is still all in a twist about everything that’s gone on in the sport since a row broke out between the Sweden and Canada sides on Friday. “The whole spirit of curling is dead,” Canada’s Marc Kennedy said on Monday night after his team’s 8-2 victory against Czech Republic, which felt like a bold take coming from the man who started this entire farrago by repeatedly telling his Swedish opponent Oskar Eriksson to “fuck off” after Eriksson accused him of making an illegal double‑touch.

On Tuesday, the Canadians were outplaying the British. They beat them handily, 9-5, which means Bruce Mouat’s team have to beat the USA team and hope other results go their way if they’re going to make the semi-finals.

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Move comes after Gordon Brown’s claim that files show sex offender used airport in Essex to ‘fly in girls’

Police are assessing information about private flights to and from Stansted airport following the publication of files relating to the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

It comes after the former prime minister Gordon Brown claimed the documents showed in “graphic detail” how Epstein was able to use the Essex-based hub to “fly in girls from Latvia, Lithuania and Russia”.

In an article for the New Statesman, Brown wrote that the Epstein files showed the financier’s jet making 90 flights to or from UK airports, including 15 after his 2008 conviction for soliciting prostitution from a child.

He said Epstein “boasted” about how cheap the airport charges were in Stansted compared with Paris.

Brown said Stansted airport was where “women were transferred from one Epstein plane to another”, adding that “women arriving on private planes into Britain would not need British visas”.

He said it seemed as though authorities “never knew what was happening”, referring to evidence uncovered by the BBC which showed “incomplete flight logs, with unnamed passengers simply labelled as ‘female’”.

On Tuesday, an Essex police spokesperson said: “We are assessing the information that has emerged in relation to private flights into and out of Stansted Airport following the publication of the US DoJ (Department of Justice) Epstein files.”

A Stansted airport spokesperson said: “All private aircraft at London Stansted operate through independent Fixed Base Operators, which handle all aspects of private and corporate aviation in line with regulatory requirements.

“All immigration and customs checks for passengers arriving on private aircraft are carried out directly by Border Force.

“They use entirely independent terminals not operated by London Stansted and no private jet passengers enter the main airport terminal.

“The airport does not manage or have any visibility of passenger arrangements on privately operated aircraft.”

In December, a BBC investigation found 87 flights linked to Epstein had arrived at or departed from UK airports between the early 1990s and 2018.

The statement from Essex police comes after the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) said a national group had been set up to support UK police forces that are “assessing allegations” following the publication of the Epstein files, which can be accessed via whenyouareready.co.uk

A spokesperson for the NPCC said: “A national coordination group has been set up to support a small number of forces assessing allegations that have emerged following the publication of the US DoJ Epstein files.

“We continue to work collaboratively to assess the details being made public to allow us to understand any potential impact arising from the millions of documents that have been published.

“We continue to support our partners and contribute in any way we can to help secure justice for victims and survivors, and urge anyone who needs support to visit whenyouareready.co.uk.”

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Three boats targeted in eastern Pacific and Caribbean as Trump continues pursuit of alleged ‘narco-terrorists’

US military officials have said American forces launched assaults on three alleged drug-smuggling boats, killing 11 in one of the deadliest days of the Trump administration’s months-long campaign against alleged traffickers.

The military action on Monday brought the number of fatalities caused by US strikes to 145 since September, when Donald Trump called on American armed forces to attack people deemed “narco-terrorists” on small vessels. There have been 42 known strikes in notorious drug-trafficking routes such as the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean, according to the Associated Press reported.

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As part of their 2026 Spring Festival Gala, the China Media Group showcased a synchronized martial arts demonstration featuring humanoid robots performing alongside young performers, with the robots showing off acrobatic moves. (SLYT)

London-based photographer Peter Li considers the cathedrals, basilicas, and historic spaces he captures to be “living vessels of light, symmetry, and time.” Soaring ceilings, gilded filigree, and saintly stained glass windows both reflect religious traditions and create a sanctuary for such practices. Whether in the luminous Gothic style or awe-inspiring Baroque, these spaces are also often architectural marvels, which Li documents through an almost portrait-like approach.

Many of his panoromas span 180 degrees and offer a symmetric, reflective view of the space through a meticulous stitching process. This perspective accentuates the dramatic, all-consuming effect of standing beneath ascendant rib vaults and majestic columns.

More recently, though, Li has begun to capture these spaces more directly, as if he’s just wandered in by chance. The two photos of York Minster reflect this shift and showcase a cathedral hazy with incense during Holy Week. Having wanted to capture this particular site for seven years, Li was able to secure early access and visit at 6 a.m., before any guests were allowed in. He adds:

The intention no longer centres on expanding what the eye can see, but on heightening the atmosphere of these interiors while remaining faithful to their original architecture. Alongside the expansive vertoramas, I’ve introduced compositions that sit closer to natural human vision. In these works, colour and light are pushed further, not to manipulate the structure, but to intensify its presence. The balance between realism and fantasy has become more deliberate and restrained.

Although Li has typically focused on sites in the U.K., recent years have brought him to Paris, Madrid, and Prague. He hopes to develop more long-term relationships that allow him to return and capture a space under various conditions.

Find prints in his shop, and explore more of his work on Instagram.

Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member today and support independent arts publishing for as little as $7 per month. The article Striking Photos by Peter Li Capture the Soaring Majesty of Sacred Spaces appeared first on Colossal.

José Jerí is de zesde president in tien jaar die in Peru vroegtijdig het veld moet ruimen. Hij struikelde na beschuldigingen van corruptie.

TEHERAN (ANP/AFP) - Iran heeft de Duitse ambassadeur in het land ontboden uit protest tegen recente "anti-Iraanse activiteiten", melden staatsmedia. In München werd zaterdag gedemonstreerd tegen het Iraanse regime. Daar deden volgens schatting van de politie zo'n 250.000 mensen aan mee.

De betogers werden toegesproken door Reza Pahlavi, de oudste zoon van de sjah die in 1979 tijdens de Islamitische Revolutie werd afgezet. Hij sprak opnieuw zijn wens uit om Iran naar een democratische toekomst met vrije verkiezingen te leiden. Afgelopen weekend vonden ook in andere landen demonstraties plaats.