A lawsuit from 26 Meta employees alleges the company used AI-driven scoring and monitoring systems to select workers for layoffs, disproportionately targeting employees with disabilities or those who had taken protected medical, family, pregnancy, or parental leave. "Meta did not assemble the termination list through the considered judgment of managers who knew the work. Instead, Meta used a constellation of internal artificial-intelligence systems -- including a system referred to internally as 'Metamate,' employee-trained 'second-brain' agents, keystroke- and activity-monitoring data, AI-token-usage dashboards, and algorithmically assisted performance ranking and calibration -- to score, rank, and select employees for inclusion on the list," the lawsuit (PDF) said. Ars Technica reports: Employees were allegedly graded, among other things, on how much they used Meta's AI tools. "Meta's internal dashboards classified employees by their stage of adoption of its artificial-intelligence tools, using categories such as 'AI Native,' 'AI First,' and 'AI Enabled,'" the lawsuit said. The lawsuit is apparently "the first against a major U.S. company to challenge the alleged use of AI in conducting layoffs," according to Reuters. The complaint alleges that Meta's tools for monitoring employees did not account for differences caused by disabilities and protected leaves. "Those tools draw on inputs -- performance ratings, calibration scores, productivity and output metrics, 'AI-native' ratings, and AI-token consumption -- that, by design, cannot be accumulated by an employee who is on protected medical or family leave, or whose output is reduced by a disability," the lawsuit said.

The lawsuit alleged that Meta management did not take steps to adjust scores for employees who took leave or who requested reasonable accommodations for disabilities. "Meta did not neutralize those inputs for protected leave; did not exclude protected-leave-takers or accommodation-seekers from the selection cohort; and did not pause the system for the individualized, leave- and accommodation-neutral review that the law requires," the complaint alleged. "The result was that employees who took protected leaves were disproportionately selected for layoff, based on scoring that not only failed to account for their protected leaves, but in effect penalized the employees for exercising their legal rights to these leaves." The 26 plaintiffs requested leaves or disability accommodations in the 24 months before being selected for layoffs, the lawsuit said. The layoffs are not yet finalized, but employees are scheduled to start losing their jobs on July 22, the lawsuit said. "These claims lack merit and are not based on facts," said Meta in a statement. "Workforce management and organizational decisions were and are made by people, not AI."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Google DeepMind chief Demis Hassabis is calling for a U.S.-led AI standards body to review frontier models for national security risks such as cybersecurity and biological threats. His proposal would create a federally overseen public-private organization, initially voluntary and eventually mandatory for U.S. deployment. CNBC reports: Google DeepMind boss Demis Hassabis, a Nobel laureate, said in an article posted on X on Tuesday that "urgent action" was needed to address risks associated with artificial general intelligence (AGI) -- the point at which AI matches or surpasses human intelligence. "We've already seen the challenges frontier models pose for cybersecurity, and other threats including nuclear and bio risks may soon emerge as capabilities continue to advance," he said.

[...] Hassabis said the U.S. was well positioned to lead in developing an AI framework "given its economic and technical standing." "It could establish a new Standards Body modelled on a federally overseen public-private partnership or self-regulatory organisation, much like the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), with a board that includes independent leading technical experts and open-source representatives," he added. FINRA regulates brokerage firms and exchange markets in the U.S.

The proposed body would need "substantial" funding "in order to attract world-class technical talent and provide the necessary compute resources for large-scale testing," Hassabis said. Funding would "likely" come from industry, he added. Frontier labs would initially voluntarily share models with the body for review up to 30 days before release, before becoming mandatory for deployment in the U.S. market after being shown to be "effective." "Specific agentic AI tests could look for attempts to bypass safety guardrails or signs of deception, and ensure best practices, such as digitally watermarking AI-generated images and generating human-readable output tokens to understand model reasoning," Hassabis said. Further reading: Over 200 Economists Say 'We Must Act Now' On AI's Economic Impact

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Today, the Linux Foundation launched the x402 Foundation to standardize internet-native payments for AI agents, APIs, and applications, based on Coinbase's contributed x402 protocol. Backed by companies including AWS, American Express, Cloudflare, Google, Mastercard, Stripe, and Visa, the effort aims to make payments work directly over HTTP (assuming users are comfortable letting AI agents handle financial transactions).

"The whole idea is to give agents access to money and, through that financial independence, improve their set of capabilities to pretty much anything on the internet," Lincoln Murr, Coinbase's AI product lead, told CNBC last month when the company announced the protocol. "In the 2010s, every internet company dealt with the transition from desktop and web into a mobile environment. And now in the late 2020s, we're seeing the exact same thing happen where agents are going to be the new primary economic actors on the internet."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

OnePlus will reportedly announce this week that it is shutting down its brand in the U.S. and Europe, following months of signs that parent company Oppo was winding down the brand's global presence. India and China are reportedly unaffected, but it's unclear whether Oppo will replace the brand directly in those markets. The move also raises questions about future support for existing OnePlus users. 9to5Google reports: WinFuture reports that OnePlus is gearing up for an official withdrawal from the U.S. and European markets, with the announcement due in the "coming days" this week. Closed-door press conferences have apparently happened, with no details shared on the exact reason OnePlus as a brand is shutting down in these markets. India and China are, as far as this report claims, not affected. The report, citing "well-informed sources," notes that this OnePlus announcement will come amid "fundamental changes" to Oppo's strategy, but the big point here is the global death of OnePlus.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

IBM shares plunged after the company warned that Q2 revenue and earnings would miss expectations, blaming customers' sudden shift in spending toward AI hardware instead of software services. However, CEO Arvind Krishna did not place all the blame on IBM's customers. The CEO also said it "faltered" by failing to "anticipate the magnitude of the capex reprioritization."

"These conditions require our teams to execute perfectly, and this quarter we faltered. We did not adapt and move quickly enough, and numerous large deals failed to close on the timelines we expected, driving the majority of our shortfall." Fast Company reports: In the preliminary report, IBM said that for its second quarter of fiscal 2026, it expects revenue of $17.2 billion, which is up 1%. It also said it expects a Non-GAAP Diluted Earnings Per Share (EPS) of $2.93, up 5%. However, as noted by CNBC, these preliminary results are below what analysts were expecting, which was $17.86 billion in revenue, and an EPS of $3.01, according to FactSet data.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Spanje heeft zich geplaatst voor de finale van het WK voetbal. De Spanjaarden waren in Arlington te sterk voor Frankrijk, die werden gezien als topfavoriet om het toernooi te…

De Nederlandse acteur werd bij het grote publiek bekend door zijn titelrol in de film Simon. Geel, die later ook als stemacteur en voice-over werkte, overleed aan de gevolgen van een hartstilstand.

A technicolour account of the sabotage suggests how fast the world has changed.

Thomas Hawk posted a photo:

Thomas Hawk posted a photo:

Mr Mikage (ミスター御影） posted a photo:

James Webb Space Telescope posted a photo:

On July 12, 2026, we celebrated four years of Webb science! And what a time it has been! We've learned so much about our universe and ourselves.

Here are some of our favorite images and most interesting science results in the form of a little retrospective in six parts, by year, which we will link in all the captions below. Each collage highlights science from the main science themes: Early Universe, Other Worlds, Galaxies, and Star Lifecycles.

This image:

2022: Clockwise ->

Cartwheel Galaxy in the mid-infrared. Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI.

Tarantula Nebula, a star-forming region. Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Webb ERO Production Team.

WASP-39 spectrum, showing the first clear evidence of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere of an exoplanet. Credit: Illustration: NASA, ESA, CSA, and L. Hustak (STScI) Science: The JWST Transiting Exoplanet Community Early Release Science Team.

Galaxy cluster MACS0647. Within the image there are three views (orange smudges) of the same distant galaxy, which have been magnified, distorted, and repeated due to the gravitational lensing effect of the galaxy cluster. Credit: Science: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, and Tiger Hsiao (Johns Hopkins University) Image Processing: Alyssa Pagan (STScI).

Wolf-Rayet 140. The bright dot is actually two stars meeting, their orbits bringing them together every eight years. The stellar pair are surrounded by 17 rings of gas and dust that appear orangish pink, like the rings of a tree trunk. Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, JPL-Caltech.

Jupiter, striated with swirling horizontal stripes of neon turquoise, periwinkle, light pink, and cream. The stripes interact and mix at their edges like cream in coffee. Along both of the poles, the planet glows in turquoise. Bright orange auroras glow just above the planet’s surface at both poles. Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, Jupiter ERS Team; image processing by Judy Schmidt.

See our gallery of Webb's images and data from 2022:
www.flickr.com/photos/nasawebbtelescope/albums/7217772030...

First Images: www.flickr.com/photos/nasawebbtelescope/55393938950/

2022: www.flickr.com/photos/nasawebbtelescope/55393675403/

2023: www.flickr.com/photos/nasawebbtelescope/55393726239/

2024:h www.flickr.com/photos/nasawebbtelescope/55393541751/

2025: www.flickr.com/photos/nasawebbtelescope/55392607987/

2026...so far! www.flickr.com/photos/nasawebbtelescope/55393541756/

James Webb Space Telescope posted a photo:

On July 12, 2026, we celebrated four years of Webb science! And what a time it has been! We've learned so much about our universe and ourselves.

Here are some of our favorite images and most interesting science results in the form of a little retrospective in six parts, by year, which we will link in all the captions below. Each collage highlights science from the main science themes: Early Universe, Other Worlds, Galaxies, and Star Lifecycles.

This image:

2025: Clockwise ->

The Red Spider planetary nebula, the remnants of a Sun-like star that shed its layers leaving behind a white dwarf star. Credit: ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, J. H. Kastner (Rochester Institute of Technology).

Abell S1063, Webb’s deepest look back on a single target to date as of 2025. This field of galaxies is dominated by an enormous, bright-white elliptical galaxy that is the core of a massive galaxy cluster. Short, curved, glowing red lines are images of distant background galaxies magnified and warped by gravitational lensing. A couple of foreground stars appear large and bright with long spikes around them. Credit: ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, H. Atek, M. Zamani (ESA/Webb) Acknowledgement: R. Endsley.

Sagittarius B2 molecular cloud, an active star-forming region in our galaxy, seen in the mid-infrared, showing glowing cosmic dust heated by young stars. Credit: Image: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Adam Ginsburg (University of Florida), Nazar Budaiev (University of Florida), Taehwa Yoo (University of Florida); Image Processing: Alyssa Pagan (STScI).

Barred spiral Galaxy NGC 2283, seen close up and almost face on, filled with puffy, patchy clouds of hot gas and dust. Star clusters hide in the gas along the arms. Credit: ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, A. Leroy.

Exoplanet TRAPPIST-1 e spectrum. This system has many rocky planets, including some in its habitable zone. This data indicates the absence of a thick hydrogen-rich atmosphere for planet “e.”. Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Joseph Olmsted (STScI). Uranus and moons, including a new one discovered by Webb.

Uranus and its rings, and beyond are 14 moons appearing as points of light. Credits: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, M. El Moutamid (SwRI), M. Hedman (University of Idaho)

See our gallery of Webb's images and data from 2025:
www.flickr.com/photos/nasawebbtelescope/albums/7217772032...


First Images: www.flickr.com/photos/nasawebbtelescope/55393938950/

2022: www.flickr.com/photos/nasawebbtelescope/55393675403/

2023: www.flickr.com/photos/nasawebbtelescope/55393726239/

2024:h www.flickr.com/photos/nasawebbtelescope/55393541751/

2025: www.flickr.com/photos/nasawebbtelescope/55392607987/

2026...so far! www.flickr.com/photos/nasawebbtelescope/55393541756/

James Webb Space Telescope posted a photo:

On July 12, 2026, we celebrated four years of Webb science! And what a time it has been! We've learned so much about our universe and ourselves.

Here are some of our favorite images and most interesting science results in the form of a little retrospective in six parts, by year, which we will link in all the captions below. Each collage highlights science from the main science themes: Early Universe, Other Worlds, Galaxies, and Star Lifecycles.

This image:

2024: Clockwise ->

Spiderweb protocluster, a galaxy cluster in formation 10 billion light years away. Credit: ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, H. Dannerbauer.

Epsilon Indi Ab. A direct image of the coldest, most Jupiter-like exoplanet to be imaged so far. Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Elisabeth Matthews (MPIA).

Westerlund 1, one of the closest super star clusters, with 50,000 to 100,000 times the mass of the Sun, contained in a region less than six light years across. Credit: ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, M. Zamani (ESA/Webb), M. G. Guarcello (INAF-OAPA) and the EWOCS team.

The Crab Nebula shown in a Webb and Chandra X-ray Observatory composite of these remnants of a supernova explosion, first documented in the year 1054. The central super-dense neutron star causes energetic winds to collide with the gas surrounding it, resulting in X-ray emission. Credit: X-ray, Chandra: NASA/CXC/SAO; Infrared, Webb: NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI; Image Processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/J. Major.

Spiral galaxies IC 2163 and NGC 2207 in the mid-infrared. Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI.

Jupiter’s Great Red Spot observed by Webb’s Integral Field Unit on the NIRSpec. The IFU is able to match spectroscopy data with spatial data to help paint a picture of the motion of gas, in this case hydrogen molecules in Jupiter’s ionosphere. The redder colors are higher altitudes and the blue from lower, including the cloud-tops in the atmosphere. Credit: ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, Jupiter ERS Team, J. Schmidt, H. Melin, M. Zamani (ESA/Webb).

See our gallery of Webb's images and data from 2024: www.flickr.com/photos/nasawebbtelescope/albums/7217772031...


First Images: www.flickr.com/photos/nasawebbtelescope/55393938950/

2022: www.flickr.com/photos/nasawebbtelescope/55393675403/

2023: www.flickr.com/photos/nasawebbtelescope/55393726239/

2024:h www.flickr.com/photos/nasawebbtelescope/55393541751/

2025: www.flickr.com/photos/nasawebbtelescope/55392607987/

2026...so far! www.flickr.com/photos/nasawebbtelescope/55393541756/

James Webb Space Telescope posted a photo:

On July 12, 2026, we celebrated four years of Webb science! And what a time it has been! We've learned so much about our universe and ourselves.

Here are some of our favorite images and most interesting science results in the form of a little retrospective in six parts, by year, which we will link in all the captions below. Each collage highlights science from the main science themes: Early Universe, Other Worlds, Galaxies, and Star Lifecycles.

This image:

2023: Clockwise ->

Uranus, surrounded by rings. Several bright blue point are the planet’s moons. Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI.

Star cluster IC 348, containing three free-floating brown dwarfs that are less than eight times the mass of Jupiter. The wispy curtains filling the image are interstellar material reflecting the light from the cluster’s stars. Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Kevin Luhman (PSU), Catarina Alves de Oliveira (ESA).

Sagittarius C (Sgr C). A 50 light-years-wide portion of the Milky Way’s dense center, with an estimated 500,000 stars shine in this image of the region, along with some as-yet unidentified features. Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Samuel Crowe (UVA).

Galaxy cluster SDSS J1226+2152 in the constellation Coma Berenices has such immense mass that it distorts and magnifies the light from more distant galaxies behind it — giving these galaxies their stretched out shape. The effect is known as gravitational lensing, and it allows astronomers to study some of the most distant galaxies in the universe. Credit: ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, J. Rigby and the JWST TEMPLATES team.

LHS 475b spectrum, the first use of Webb to confirm an exoplanet. The graphic shows the transmission spectrum of the rocky exoplanet, showing a lack of a detectable quantity of any element or molecule, potentially indicating no atmosphere. Credit: Illustration: NASA, ESA, CSA, Leah Hustak (STScI); Science: Kevin Stevenson (APL), Jacob Lustig-Yaeger (APL), Erin May (APL), Guangwei Fu (JHU), Sarah Moran (University of Arizona).

Supernova remnant Cass A in the near infrared. Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, D. Milisavljevic (Purdue), T. Temim (Princeton), I. De Looze (Ghent University), with image processing by J. DePasquale (STScI)

See our gallery of Webb's images and data from 2023:
www.flickr.com/photos/nasawebbtelescope/albums/7217772030...


First Images: www.flickr.com/photos/nasawebbtelescope/55393938950/

2022: www.flickr.com/photos/nasawebbtelescope/55393675403/

2023: www.flickr.com/photos/nasawebbtelescope/55393726239/

2024:h www.flickr.com/photos/nasawebbtelescope/55393541751/

2025: www.flickr.com/photos/nasawebbtelescope/55392607987/

2026...so far! www.flickr.com/photos/nasawebbtelescope/55393541756/

James Webb Space Telescope posted a photo:

On July 12, 2026, we celebrated four years of Webb science! And what a time it has been! We've learned so much about our universe and ourselves.

Here are some of our favorite images and most interesting science results in the form of a little retrospective in six parts, by year, which we will link in all the captions below. Each collage highlights science from the main science themes: Early Universe, Other Worlds, Galaxies, and Star Lifecycles.

-----

This image:

July 12, 2022, Webb’s first images. Clockwise ->

The “Cosmic Cliffs” of the Carina Nebula, a star-forming region.

The Southern Ring Nebula in mid-infrared, now known to have two stars at its center, a dying star and a partner, both shaping the nebula’s intricate rings.

WASP 96-b spectrum, showing this planet to be large and hot with a “puffy” atmosphere, orbiting very close to its Sun-like star.

Stefan’s Quintet of galaxies in the near-infrared. Four of these five galaxies are colliding, stretching and pulling on each other: two in the middle, one toward the top, and one toward the bottom. The one to the upper left is actually much closer to us.

Galaxy Cluster SMACS 0723, the first image released by Webb, and the deepest and sharpest image of the early universe ever taken as of its release. Thousands of galaxies appear all across the view with varying colors and shapes. Long orange arcs appear at left and right toward the center; these are distant galaxies being warped by the extreme gravity of the galaxy cluster in front of it.

The Southern Ring Nebula but in the near-infrared.

Credits for all images: NASA, ESA, CSA, and STScI

See all of Webb's first images in this gallery: www.flickr.com/photos/nasawebbtelescope/albums/7217772030...

First Images: www.flickr.com/photos/nasawebbtelescope/55393938950/

2022: www.flickr.com/photos/nasawebbtelescope/55393675403/

2023: www.flickr.com/photos/nasawebbtelescope/55393726239/

2024:h www.flickr.com/photos/nasawebbtelescope/55393541751/

2025: www.flickr.com/photos/nasawebbtelescope/55392607987/

2026...so far! www.flickr.com/photos/nasawebbtelescope/55393541756/

Een van de vele initiatieven uit de hoge hoed van Herman Lamers is Galerie Lecq in het oude brugwachterhuisje bij de sluis op Westzeedijk 375. En zoals wel vaker bij Lamers is er online niet [Meer...]

Cat-Scan.com is one of the strangest sites I've seen in some time. I have no idea how these people got their cats wedged into their scanners, or why.

In a world that never stops moving, street photography can remind us to to look closer at the moments in between the rush. Waiting rooms, bus stops, doorways, pauses, any moment when street photographers focus on those moments when time seems to stop. This edition of In Frame with Flickr, our street photography series, is dedicated to those quiet transitional moments. Join us for some candid contemplation.

Untitled by Alek S.

outside by Michael Teuber

on reading by Alexandre Dulaunoy

Pure Happiness by Dimitar L. Panayotov

Untitled by Alex DMT

Ladies by schoene.pixel

Sidebench-ers by Thomas Cizauskas

sunk by Michael Teuber

Island of calm byPer Gosche

Enjoying the view by Robert Clinton

Mo peace by Ian Sane

Sun bath by Shawn Harquail

Wave Rider by Chris

If you enjoyed the break in the middle of your day to slow things down a bit, find some more inspiring street and documentary photography in last month’s Explore Takeover. See you next time!

In raspi-config on Debian 13.6, when I enable the overlay file system it... does not. I found some breadcrumbs here but installing the linked eeprom did not fix it, and anyway that was a year ago and I have rpi-eeprom 28.28-1.

How make go?

/run/initramfs/overlayroot.log: builtin set cfgdisk='disabled' Unable to find driver/module. searched: overlay overlayfs [failure]: Unable to find a driver. searched: overlay overlayfs

Adding "initramfs initramfs8 followkernel" to the end of config.txt did nothing.

Previously, previously, previously.