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AMD Is Bringing FSR 4.1 to Xbox Consoles and Handhelds

AMD is expanding its FSR 4.1 upscaling technology beyond Radeon RX 9000-series GPUs to Xbox Series X/S consoles, Xbox Ally handhelds, laptops, and Radeon RX 6000-series graphics cards. The Verge reports: AMD launched its FSR 4.1 update for Radeon RX 9000-series graphics cards in March, and promised to bring the technology to older GPUs and handhelds this year. FSR 4.1 can improve performance in more than 300 supported games, including Cyberpunk 2077, Battlefield 6, and Assassin's Creed Shadows.

[...] While owners of Radeon RX 6000-series GPUs and Gorgon Halo- or Strix Halo-powered devices will get FSR 4.1 today with the latest Adrenalin Edition 26.10.1 drivers, Xbox console owners will have to wait a little longer. "We've worked very closely with AMD to optimize this technology, giving developers another powerful tool for great performance and visual quality for players," says Xbox CTO Scott Van Vilet.

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Google Support Pages Start Defaulting to AI Chatbots

Google is beginning to replace traditional support articles with "Ask Google Help," a Gemini-powered interface that summarizes documentation and lets users troubleshoot through a chatbot. 9to5Google reports: "Ask Google Help" will display a condensed version of the support article with direct troubleshooting steps, with the user then able to type in queries to have Gemini help figure out the next step forward. A "View Sources" button at the bottom of the AI response allows users to still access the original article, but direct links to any of these articles now defaults to the AI experience.

An example can be seen below on the "Secure a hacked or compromised Google account" page that Google's own support account directed users to within the past few days. It can also be seen on the "Fix common issues with 2-Step Verification" page and, as far as we can tell, any support pages on the Google Account Help forum.

Google, as of right now, appears to only be testing this on select support topics. The Google Pixel Help section, for instance, still defaults to articles, whereas the Google Chrome topic has also moved to the new experience. Beyond support pages alone, this new design also impacts the central hub, with links to topics no longer showing by default in exchange for an AI chatbot that helps you find the relevant page.

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DHS Lied About Why It Wanted To Search Activist's GrapheneOS Phone

New court records reportedly show that DHS targeted Stop Cop City activist Samuel Tunick at an Atlanta airport because he was under investigation for suspected "terrorist activities." However, the CBP officers told him instead that they wanted to search his phone for child sexual abuse material (CSAM). Tunick, who is not accused of terrorism or any other crime beyond allegedly wiping his GrapheneOS phone during the encounter, faces up to five years in prison. 404 Media reports: Instead of saying he was being targeted for suspected terrorism -- although this search happened just at the start of the second Trump administration, it has dramatically broadened what organizations or people may be considered such -- they said they needed his phone to look for "kiddie p*rn." "Good afternoon," an email sent from a Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) official, part of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), to CBP and other officials reads. "The following subject is scheduled to arrive in ATL [Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport] today via DL 1778 @ 1930 Hours. TUNICK is under investigation by HSI/JTTF for suspected terrorist activities." The email includes a photo of Tunick, and asks the officials to direct him to secondary inspection, retain all of his electronics, and collect their passcodes.

As 404 Media first revealed in December, Tunick was charged because he allegedly "did knowingly destroy, damage, waste, dispose of, and otherwise take any action to delete the digital contents of a Google Pixel cellular phone, for the purpose of preventing and impairing the Government's lawful authority to take said property into its custody and control." Matthew Dodge, one of Tunick's lawyers, previously told 404 Media he only found one other case using the same obscure law, a drug trafficking case. "This is extraordinarily rare," Dodge said.

Tunick was part of the Stop Cop City movement in Atlanta, which broadly protested the building of a large police training center, and which authorities investigated for arson, vandalism, and doxing. Tunick is not suspected of any crime beyond the alleged wiping of the phone, and has previously put his current prosecution in the context of the wide spanning cases against other Stop Cop City protesters. The newly filed court record, in which Tunick's lawyers argue that evidence should be thrown out, include new photos and descriptions of the airport encounter. The CBP officials asked Tunick if they were going to find "kiddie p*rn" on his phone, which Tunick immediately denied. "As the evidentiary hearing made clear, these unfounded accusations were nothing more than pretext for a fishing expedition into the depths of Mr. Tunick's devices," the lawyers wrote. They added, "Officer Findley acknowledged that officers had no reason whatsoever to believe Mr. Tunick possessed child p*rnography," referring to one of the officials.

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OpenBSD 8.0 Released

OpenBSD 8.0 has been released with major virtualization and hardware upgrades, including support for up to 64 vCPUs per VM, Intel Arc graphics, ARM64 hibernation, and expanded RISC-V support. Linuxiac points out that it marks the "61st release of the security-focused Unix-like operating system." From the report: Several fixes improve compatibility with 32-bit Linux guests, while changes to virtual machine ownership management and interrupt emulation make the virtualization infrastructure more capable. Graphics support has also been upgraded, with DRM drivers updated to those from Linux kernel 6.18.53. Notably, OpenBSD 8.0 adds support for Intel Arc A-Series (Alchemist) graphics cards through the inteldrm driver.

Another important change increases the amd64 kernel's virtual address space from 4 GB to 512 GB, allowing the system to map over 4 GB of video memory. The release also addresses GPU timeout issues affecting some Intel Alder Lake systems. [...] For security, OpenBSD 8.0 adds checks and fixes across the kernel and system utilities, including improvements to pledge and unveil, tighter validation of executable files, and protections against memory corruption and information disclosure. A full list of changes can be found here.

Further reading: Wine Ported to OpenBSD

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VK: Voorpagina

Volkskrant.nl biedt het laatste nieuws, opinie en achtergronden

Gehavend Paris Saint-Germain trekt prachtige prestigestrijd met FC Barcelona in slotfase naar zich toe: 4-2

Sterk PSV verslaat Porto (0-1) en boekt eerste zege in Champions League

kottke.org

Jason Kottke's weblog, home of fine hypertext products

I remember this 90s TV commercial for 93.7 The Edge, a...

I remember this 90s TV commercial for 93.7 The Edge, a Minnesota alternative radio station, very well. It features very non-alternative old people reciting lyrics like “bow down before the one you serve” and “Winona’s got herself a big brown beaver”.

Why Do Some Places Just Feel Right?

Gregory Wieber does these engaging, info-rich videos on tech history — I posted his HyperCard Changed Everything video back in the spring. For one of his latest videos, Wieber goes through a short history of Christopher Alexander’s landmark book, A Pattern Language (Bookshop), which anyone interested in building anything should at least have paged through once in their life,1 and how his work inspired not only object oriented programming and the invention of wikis, but also SimCity and The Sims.

  1. The Timeless Way of Building is shorter, less dense, and perhaps a better introduction to Alexander’s ideas about patterns. ↩

Tags: Gregory Wieber · simcity · The Sims · video games · Will Wright

The Guardian

Latest news, sport, business, comment, analysis and reviews from the Guardian, the world's leading liberal voice

You Can See Everything mania lifts viewership for The Dropout by 186%

The hit Elizabeth Holmes documentary led to increased interest in the award-winning narrative series on Hulu as well as Bad Blood, a 2018 book on the scandal

Interest in Elizabeth Holmes and the Theranos fraud scandal has surged amid buzz for You Can See Everything, the record-breaking documentary on the disgraced former CEO.

Viewership for The Dropout, the 2022 Hulu series starring Amanda Seyfried as Holmes, surged by 186% in September compared with the month prior, according to Variety, after the announcement on 6 September of the previously secret film’s first teaser.

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Doué and Vitinha burn bright as brittle Barcelona come unstuck against PSG

Fire, noise, fury, a sense of empty energy. And across town, a football match too.

Do any of these randomly pitched autumnal Champions League fixtures mean anything? Probably not when you’re Paris Saint-Germain and Barcelona, and the only game in town is risk-free TV income and a semi-guaranteed place in the knockout stuff.

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Mac Allister double sparks Liverpool’s thrilling comeback win over Villarreal

Andoni Iraola and Iñigo Pérez parked their long and close friendship in the buildup to the Champions League duel between two old Athletic Bilbao teammates. They will have a humdinger of a contest to dissect when communications are restored. Liverpool, driven by Alexis Mac Allister and ignited by Rio Ngumoha, recovered from two goals down against Villarreal to maintain their 100% record in the competition in emphatic style.

Mac Allister struck twice as Liverpool fought back from a tepid start to record a third successive win in all competitions. They were given a scare when Tani Oluwaseyi volleyed in a late third for Villarreal but were well deserving of their latest impressive result.

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Foden hat-trick helps Manchester City cut through noise and crush AEK Athens

Phil Foden shouted the loudest on a quiet night at the Etihad Stadium, announcing his personal return to form with an instinctive hat-trick as Manchester City dispatched AEK Athens with little fuss. Enzo Maresca had called for City to make their own noise amid the cacophony around the club but a businesslike victory in front of 20,000 fewer than watched the weekend’s win over Ipswich was required to get their Champions League back on track after suffering at the hands of Paris Saint-Germain.

Those in attendance, officially 40,042 but that felt optimistic, saw Foden shine on the right wing and as a central striker, showing there is life without Erling Haaland, who watched from the bench. Admittedly, the opposition were not a match for the Premier League side, whose other goals came from Elliot Anderson and Rayan Cherki. Stavros Pilios’s consolation was more a reward for the boisterous fans in yellow and black, who created the atmosphere, than for the overall efforts of the visitors.

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SpaceX’s revenue jumps in second-ever earnings report amid Starlink turmoil

Elon Musk’s company reports a 161% growth in revenue year over year driven by its Starlink and AI segments

SpaceX released its second-ever public earnings report on Tuesday, revealing a far better quarter than Wall Street projected. Elon Musk’s company, which encompasses rockets, artificial intelligence and satellite communications, reported a 161% growth in revenue year over year, driven by its Starlink and AI segments.

The company declared $14.58bn in revenue against analysts’ projected $12.72bn. SpaceX reported earnings per share of 35 cents and a net income of $4.4bn. The company’s stock, which started the day down around 8% for the year, shot up 2% in after hours trading immediately after the results.

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Schools in England must recognise antisemitism as distinct category of harm, report says

Government expected to accept recommendations of review, which found three in five Jewish students had experienced prejudice

Schools and colleges in England will be expected to take a tougher stance against antisemitism after a report found that three out of five Jewish students said they had been affected.

Sir David Bell, the former chief inspector of Ofsted who was commissioned by the government to lead the independent review, said he found many cases of antisemitism going unreported or unchallenged by students and teachers.

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Fairy Tale Lantern: Fly Agaric

BertvB posted a photo:

Fairy Tale Lantern: Fly Agaric

A magical, low-angle macro portrait of a classic Fly Agaric mushroom (Amanita muscaria) perching among fallen beech leaves and moss-covered tree roots at the historic Elswout Estate in Overveen. The vivid red cap dotted with white warty spots catches the ambient woodland light beautifully, creating a enchanting, storybook atmosphere against a dark bokeh background.

Found Slide -- The Buckley Collection

Thomas Hawk posted a photo:

Found Slide -- The Buckley Collection

Wel.nl

Minder lezen, Meer weten.

Nederlandse turners zevende in WK-finale, goud Japan

ROTTERDAM (ANP) - De Nederlandse turners zijn zevende geworden in de landenfinale bij de WK in Rotterdam. Casimir Schmidt, Elijah Faverus, Amine Abaidi, Loran de Munck en Jermain Grünberg kwamen uit op een score van 241,294 punten.

Olympisch teamkampioen Japan pakte het goud en prolongeerde de wereldtitel. Met olympisch kampioenen Daiki Hashimoto en Oka Shinnosuke in de ploeg turnden zij 251,928 punten bij elkaar.

De Russische ploeg pakte het zilver (250,329), gevolgd door China (249,193). De medaillewinnaars verzekerden zich bovendien ook van een olympisch teamticket voor de Olympische Spelen van 2028. De overige negen teamtickets worden bij de WK van volgend jaar verdeeld.

Het was pas de tweede keer in de geschiedenis dat een Nederlandse mannenploeg de WK-teamfinale haalde. Eerder lukte dat in 2018 in Doha, Qatar. Destijds werd Oranje achtste en laatste.


Junta Burkina Faso voert doodstraf weer in

OUAGADOUGOU (ANP/AFP) - De militaire junta in Burkina Faso heeft de doodstraf weer ingevoerd. De onverkozen regering stemde unaniem voor de maatregel, die juist in 2018 was afgeschaft.

Volgens het regime moet het herinvoeren van de doodstraf zorgen voor meer veiligheid op straat en de "fundamentele waarden van het land verstevigen". Juntaleider Ibrahim Traoré kondigde vorig jaar al aan dat hij de invoering van deze straf door wilde zetten. De junta regeert sinds 2022, toen het leger met een coup de macht greep.

Misdadigers kunnen de doodstraf krijgen voor onder meer "terrorisme, spionage, verraad, vadermoord en het importeren van verboden of bedorven goederen waardoor mensen komen te overlijden".

De laatst bekende executie in Burkina Faso vond volgens Amnesty International plaats in 2018.


Thuisbezorgd en Uber Eats geven je een voucher: maar pas op: dit geef je op als je accepteert

Miljoenen klanten van Thuisbezorgd en Uber Eats krijgen de komende maanden een mail met een of meer vouchers. Die zijn €5 tot €30 waard. Het is een compensatie voor kosten die je pas tijdens of aan het eind van je bestelling te zien kreeg.

Klinkt als gratis eten. Maar wie op accepteren klikt, legt zich ook ergens bij neer.

Waar de voucher voor is

Bij beide platforms dook een deel van de verplichte kosten pas laat in het bestelproces op. Denk aan servicekosten, toeslagen voor verpakkingen en draagtassen en bij Uber Eats een toeslag voor kleine bestellingen. Bij Thuisbezorgd ging het vaak om €2 tot €4 per bestelling.

Thuisbezorgd heeft ruim 6 miljoen gebruikers in Nederland. Bij elkaar liepen de verborgen kosten daar naar schatting in de honderden miljoenen euro's.

Daarnaast klopten bij Thuisbezorgd sommige kortingen niet. Indiase hapjes kostten eerst €3,75. Daarna stonden ze 'in de aanbieding' van €7,50 voor €6. Een korting die in werkelijkheid een prijsverhoging was.

Beide platforms tonen nu vooraf een overzicht van alle bijkomende kosten. Thuisbezorgd heeft ook de kortingen aangepast.

Zo werkt de voucherregeling

  • Je krijgt de voucher vanzelf per mail. Je hoeft er niets voor te doen.
  • Het versturen gebeurt tussen oktober 2026 en ergens in 2027. Het kan dus even duren.
  • De klantenservice kan je voucher niet eerder geven.
  • Klant bij allebei? Dan krijg je van allebei bericht, want het zijn twee aparte regelingen.
  • De regeling geldt voor leden en niet-leden van de Consumentenbond.

Dit zet je met één klik opzij

In de mail kies je zelf of je de voucher accepteert. Doe je dat, dan geldt de voucher als regeling voor de eerder onduidelijke kosten. Je kunt daarna niet meer zelf geld terugvragen voor die kosten. Een rechtszaak hierover beginnen kan dan ook niet meer.

Voor wie af en toe een pizza bestelt, is accepteren meestal de eenvoudigste keuze. Zelf achter een paar euro per bestelling aan gaan kost veel moeite. Bestelde je jarenlang heel vaak en vind je dat je recht hebt op meer? Klik dan niet meteen.

Let op nepmails

Nieuws over gratis tegoed is een makkelijke haak voor oplichters. Kijk daarom goed van wie de mail komt. Vraagt een mail om je bankgegevens of om een betaling? Dan is argwaan op zijn plaats, want een compensatievoucher hoort je niets te kosten.

Voortaan beter bestellen

De verplichte kosten staan nu vooraf in beeld. Kijk daarom voordat je bestelt naar het totaalbedrag, en niet alleen naar de prijs van het gerecht.

Zie je een doorgestreepte prijs? Die van-prijs hoort de laagste prijs te zijn die in de 30 dagen ervoor gold. Heb je het gerecht nooit duurder zien staan, dan is de korting misschien minder mooi dan hij lijkt.

Meer weten?

  • Consumentenbond: Vouchers van Thuisbezorgd en Uber Eats
  • Consumentenbond: Verborgen kosten en nepkortingen bij Thuisbezorgd
  • Reformatorisch Dagblad: Thuisbezorgd en Uber Eats stoppen met verborgen kosten

SpaceX voert omzet flink op dankzij AI-tak en groei bij Starlink

STARBASE (ANP) - SpaceX heeft de omzet het afgelopen kwartaal ruim verdubbeld, dankzij flink toegenomen opbrengsten uit zijn activiteiten rond kunstmatige intelligentie (AI) en een aanhoudende groei van satellietinternetdienst Starlink. Ook werd een miljardenwinst in de boeken gezet, tegen ruim 1 miljard dollar verlies in dezelfde periode een jaar eerder.

De omzet van het ruimtevaart-, AI- en satellietbedrijf van Elon Musk steeg in vergelijking met een jaar eerder in juli, augustus en september met 161 procent naar 14,6 miljard dollar. De meeste omzet werd behaald in de AI-divisie, waar de opbrengsten stegen tot bijna 7,6 miljard dollar, van 813 miljoen dollar in het derde kwartaal van 2025. Dat is een groei op jaarbasis van 830 procent.

SpaceX profiteerde naar eigen zeggen met name van nieuwe clouddienst-overeenkomsten, de overname van AI-start-up Cursor en het toegenomen gebruik van chatbot Grok onder zakelijke klanten en consumenten. Het aantal Starlink-abonnees steeg verder naar 13,6 miljoen.