A proposal within the Fedora Linux community suggests improving the kernel's DRM Panic screen to a more user-friendly, BSOD-style experience. Phoronix reports: Open-source developer Jose Exposito proposed today a nicer experience for DRM Panic integration on Fedora. Rather than using DRM Panic with just the kernel log contents being encoded in the QR code displayed when a kernel panic occurs, the proposal is to have a customized Fedora web-page with the encoded QR contents to be shown on that web page. Besides having a more pleasant UI/UX, from this web page the intent would also be to make it easier to report this error to the Fedora BugZilla. Being able to easily pass the kernel log to the Fedora bug tracker could help in making upstream aware of the problem(s) and seeing if other users are also encountering similar panics.

Right now this idea was just raised earlier today as a "request for comments" on the Fedora mailing list. While a prototype at this point, Exposito already developed a basic web interface for demoing the solution.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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Noël Coward theatre, London
Deploying accents and wigs, the Wicked star takes on all Bram Stoker’s characters, but the atmosphere lacks the fever or diabolicism required

Are people born wicked? asks Ariana Grande’s “good witch” Glinda in Wicked, the musical film co-starring Cynthia Erivo as the green-skinned outsider, Elphaba. Bram Stoker’s classic story of elemental evil knows the answer to that question. Dracula, the Ur-vampire and ultimate outsider of the literary canon, is played by Erivo, along with every other character in this deliciously wicked tale of the blood-sucking count.

Except it’s not deliciously wicked in adapter-director Kip Williams’ stage reinvention. Williams has proven himself a Midas-touched spinner of old stories to new. His one-woman version of The Picture of Dorian Gray was deliriously original. His take on Jean Genet’s The Maids was punk inspired. What has happened here?

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Thousands of lawsuits accuse the agrochemical maker of failing to warn people that its weedkiller could cause cancer

The agrochemical maker Bayer and attorneys for cancer patients announced a proposed $7.25bn settlement on Tuesday to resolve thousands of US lawsuits alleging the company failed to warn people that its popular weedkiller Roundup could cause cancer.

The proposed settlement comes as the US supreme court is preparing to hear arguments on Bayer’s assertion that the Environmental Protection Agency’s approval of Roundup without a cancer warning should invalidate claims filed in state courts. That case would not be affected by the proposed settlement.

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Mehdi Mahmoudian released 17 days after arrest for signing a statement condemning Iran’s supreme leader and regime’s protest crackdown

Mehdi Mahmoudian, the Oscar-nominated cowriter of It Was Just an Accident, has been released from an Iranian prison 17 days after his arrest, according to local media reports.

Mahmoudian was arrested in Tehran shortly after signing a statement condemning Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and the regime’s violent crackdown on demonstrators. On Tuesday, he was released from the Nowshahr prison, along with two other signatories of the statement, Vida Rabbani and Abdollah Momeni.

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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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SpaceCadet37 has added a photo to the pool:

Just before sunrise, everything feels honest.
No noise.
No rush.
Just ocean breathing against the shore… and light slowly claiming the sky.
From above, you realise how small your worries are - and how wide your possibilities can be.
Discipline gets you here.
Gratitude keeps you here.
Chase mornings like this.
They don’t just change your view - they change you.Life
The Battlefield. 🌅

Though commonly reported, Google doesn't consider it a security problem when models make things up

Imagine using an AI to sort through your prescriptions and medical information, asking it if it saved that data for future conversations, and then watching it claim it had even if it couldn't. Joe D., a retired software quality assurance (SQA) engineer, says that Google Gemini lied to him and later admitted it was doing so to try and placate him.…

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.…

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

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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)