VideoCardz reports that connecting certain LG monitors to Windows PCs can trigger Windows Update to automatically install the LG Monitor App Installer, which runs at startup and repeatedly displays McAfee trial promotions. From the report: Gamers Nexus reproduced the behavior with an LG UltraGear 34GX900A-B after receiving reports from monitor owners. Windows Update first installed LG extension and software component packages. Windows Reliability Monitor showed that LG Monitor App Installer appeared one minute later. The installation did not display a consent prompt or require the user to approve the download.

Gamers Nexus tested the application across 32 consecutive system boots. It displayed a McAfee promotion during 31 of them. On the remaining boot, it promoted one of LG's own monitor utilities. The McAfee popup offered a 30-day trial that would convert into a paid subscription. The behavior does not appear to be limited to newly purchased displays. Gamers Nexus also received the popup on an LG UltraFine 32UN880-B purchased three years earlier. User complaints about LG Monitor App Installer date back to at least 2024, although the recent increase in reports suggests that more models may now be receiving it.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A hacker reportedly wiped Romania's entire land registry database after a failed extortion attempt, halting property transactions across the country and preventing notaries from issuing land extracts, authenticating sales, or registering mortgages. "On the dark web, the hacker also boasted to have begun backup copies of stolen data in an attempt to prevent it from being restored," reports Cybernews. "However, Romanian officials have managed to at least restore the ANCPI's website and post a message saying they were rebuilding the agency's entire network from scratch. It appears that the agency has an offline copy of the wiped data." From the report: First, the hacker breached Romania's cadastre agency, the National Agency for Cadastre and Real Estate Advertising (ANCPI), posting on a hacking forum: "[RO] Thy arss shall be spanked, Romania! [ANCPI]." "In addition to the data of Romanian citizens, from various databases collected through ANCPI networks, there is also a copy of the GitLab servers containing the source code of all their systems, such as Eterra, RENNS, as well as a version of my little ransomware program," the announcement continued.

"The official government website announced a shutdown of IT systems due to 'technical problems,' but this is a bit of an understatement. An offer of assistance was made, but without insistence or pressure." Indeed, the ANCPI initially claimed technical issues but had to admit it was facing a cyberattack. Today, no one can really access the institution's systems. And since the extortion didn't work, the hacker -- who seems to have entered the database using valid credentials -- deleted all data they had stolen, including internal documents, employee credentials, and, of course, land registry data.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Researchers at Louisiana State University have created a room-temperature quantum material made from a thin gold film on glass, patterned with microscopic slits that act like artificial atoms. "We call this robust transport. These quantum states carry information," says physicist Omar Magana-Loaiza. "Our crystal can distinguish them and move them from one point to another in a robust way without requiring cryogenic cooling. That's what opens the door to practical quantum technologies." ScienceAlert reports: Crucial to the new material's room-temperature operation is the way it shifts the focus from electrons and atoms to photons (particles of light). This overcomes the usual atomic-level disruption that heat brings with it. The material is what's known as a plasmonic metacrystal: 'Plasmonic' because the light traveling over it makes ripples of electrons known as plasmons, and 'metacrystal' because it's an artificially created crystal. The tiny slit patterns etched into the material act as artificial atoms (meta-atoms), which dictate how different photon groups pass through (the quantum behavior).

"By engineering the distribution of meta-atoms in the plasmonic metacrystal, we can systematically dictate which quantum statistics are allowed to pass through the structure," says physicist Riley Dawkins. "So, our crystal essentially acts as a statistical filter on quantum states." That means as light enters the chip and travels across the gold surface, it's manipulated by the meta-atoms -- and by tweaking the size, shape, and spacing of the slits, different end results can be produced at the quantum level. In practice, this means that certain quantum states of light can be transported with less disruption. The findings have been published in the journal Nature.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Mooi nieuws. Mr. Pieter van Vollenhoven, bekend van internet, komt met een nieuw boek. Wie mr. Pieter van Vollenhoven zegt, zegt uiterst realistische dierenplaatjes, en het allermooiste is dus dat mr. Pieter van Vollenhoven een boek gaat uitbrengen VOL dierenplaatjes. Of, zoals de mr. het zelf noemt, "foto's van mijn ontmoetingen met het dierenrijk". Door de jaren heen heeft Pieter een hoop prachtige ontmoetingen beleefd. Omdat we zo van de goede man houden, na de breek alvast een paar prachtfoto's!

Pieter op een bijzonder avontuur nabij paleis Het Loo

Pieter in de jungle van Zuid-Amerika

Pieters grote avontuur in zee

Pieter op safari!

Benno was er ook!

Pieter verkent de jungle

Hee wat is dit nou??

Pieter ontmoet paard Volkert!

Het dodelijke ongeluk aan de Westdijk bij Dirksland heeft het hele dorp opgeschrikt. Bij het eenzijdig ongeval in de nacht van zondag op maandag kwamen twee mannen om het leven en raakte een derde ernstig gewond. Omwonenden spreken hun afschuw uit over het tragische ongeluk en trekken de veiligheid van de dijk in twijfel: “Het is hier schering en inslag”.

Na meer dan een maand aan non-stop voetbal werd het WK van 2026 afgelopen weekend afgesloten. Voor veel Rotterdammers was het er eentje voor in de geschiedenisboeken vanwege de deelname van meerdere landen met een grote gemeenschap in de Havenstad. Jorge en Lorenz besloten het Rotterdamse wk-tintje vast te leggen in een speciaal wk-shirt: “We zien Turkije, Kaapverdië, Curaçao, Marokko en Nederland!”

Thomas Hawk posted a photo:

Thomas Hawk posted a photo:

Thomas Hawk posted a photo:

Thomas Hawk posted a photo:

Thomas Hawk posted a photo:

57 years ago today, on July 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong & Buzz Aldrin landed on the Moon and went for a little walk. For the 18th year in a row, you can watch the original CBS News coverage of Walter Cronkite reporting on the Moon landing and the first Moon walk on a small B&W television, synced to the present-day time. Just open this page in your browser today, July 20th, and the coverage will start playing at the proper time. Here’s the schedule (all times EDT):

4:10:30 pm: Moon landing broadcast starts
4:17:40 pm: Lunar module lands on the Moon

4:20:15 pm - 10:51:26 pm: Break in coverage

10:51:27 pm: Moon walk broadcast starts
10:56:15 pm: First step on Moon
11:51:30 pm: Nixon speaks to the Eagle crew
12:00:30 am: Broadcast end (on July 21)

Set an alarm on your phone or calendar! Also, this works best on an actual computer but I think it functions ok on phones and tablets if necessary.

Back in 2018, I wrote a bit about what to look out for when you’re watching the landing:

The radio voices you hear are mostly Mission Control in Houston (specifically Apollo astronaut Charlie Duke, who acted as the spacecraft communicator for this mission) and Buzz Aldrin, whose job during the landing was to keep an eye on the LM’s altitude and speed — you can hear him calling it out, “3 1/2 down, 220 feet, 13 forward.” Armstrong doesn’t say a whole lot…he’s busy flying and furiously searching for a suitable landing site. But it’s Armstrong that says after they land, “Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed.”. Note the change in call sign from “Eagle” to “Tranquility Base”. :)

Two things to listen for on the broadcast: the 1201/1202 program alarms I mentioned above and two quick callouts by Charlie Duke about the remaining fuel towards the end: “60 seconds” and “30 seconds”. Armstrong is taking all this information in through his earpiece — the 1202s, the altitude and speed from Aldrin, and the remaining fuel — and using it to figure out where to land.

Tags: Apollo · Apollo 11 · Buzz Aldrin · Moon · Neil Armstrong · space · TV · Walter Cronkite

Outside Downing Street, Britain’s new prime minister struck the right notes. Now he and his cabinet need to be brave

A 1970s adage attributed to the former Tory chancellor Reginald Maudling maintained that Britain was essentially a Conservative country that sometimes voted Labour. That was always a questionable assertion, given the defining postwar role of Labour in shaping a fairer social settlement. But the trauma of successive election victories by Margaret Thatcher from 1979 onwards meant that senior figures on the centre left began to think along similar lines; a sometimes debilitating caution crept into the leadership of a party founded to serve those outside the gilded circles of money, power and influence.

Outside Downing Street on his first day as prime minister, Andy Burnham in effect argued that only through being braver and truer to its original vocation can Labour restore faith in politics and renew a disillusioned nation. Mr Burnham’s striking pledge to end rough sleeping may be something of a hostage to fortune. As mayor of Greater Manchester he could only partially deliver on the same commitment. But on the day he entered No 10, it vividly conveyed what was meant when he talked about “the right values and the right standards”.

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Literature, the arts and social sciences must not be sacrificed as higher education funding is squeezed

“I ask nothing more from you than to do what you have been doing. Go out into the fray and keep reading,” was Percival Everett’s advice when he addressed graduating students at Wesleyan university in Connecticut last summer. Fitting words from a prize-winning novelist, at a time when gambling has become a more common leisure activity in the US than reading a book. In the UK, too, concerns are growing about the decline of reading, partly due to ubiquitous screen-based entertainment. Last week, parliament’s education committee called for the National Year of Reading to be extended to a decade, to inculcate the habit in children and young people.

All academic disciplines use books to convey information, but for literature and the humanities more widely, they are an indispensable currency. As the 2026 graduation season draws to a close, and robes and mortarboards are put away for another year, there is growing anger that these subjects are under attack from university administrations looking for ways to save money – while ministers look away.

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Computer-controlled energy deployment now dictates races – it turns out drivers don’t like Skynet controlling their cars

Another race down another classic circuit, in this case Spa-Francorchamps, left neutered for drivers and so their slow, dissonant discontent rumbles ever onward. In the wake of the Belgian Grand Prix, there was an overwhelming sense they wished to simply escape. Not so much from Spa but away from the numbers.

George Russell was at the centre of attention in Belgium, the Mercedes driver’s championship hopes taking a severe blow as, inexplicably to him and his team, his engine did not recover energy through turn one and he was left with no electrical power to deploy. He was swallowed up by the Ferraris and vying with Lewis Hamilton, who clipped him through Les Combes, was pitched out of the race.

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LONDEN (ANP/AFP) - Een 28-jarige Britse man is aangeklaagd voor de moord op de Britse oud-politicus Ann Widdecombe. Zij werd twee weken geleden in haar huis gedood. Twee dagen later werd er een verdachte opgepakt.

Volgens het OM is er genoeg bewijs om de zaak voor de rechter te brengen. Er wordt wel nog onderzoek gedaan naar het motief van de verdachte, zoals een mogelijke politieke of terroristische connectie.

Widdecombe werd in 1987 voor het eerst verkozen tot parlementslid voor de Conservatieve Partij. Ze was later ook woordvoerder voor Reform UK.

De Britse Crown Prosecution Service meldt dat de verdachte dinsdag voor de rechter verschijnt.

LONDEN (ANP/RTR) - De nieuwe Britse premier Andy Burnham heeft maandag de eerste ministers van zijn kabinet benoemd. De voormalige minister van Defensie John Healey wordt minister van Financiën en Ed Miliband wordt minister van Buitenlandse Zaken, maakte de regering bekend.

Miliband was eerder partijleider van Labour en minister van Energie. Shabana Mahmood gaat door met haar functie als minister van Binnenlandse Zaken. Zij hoorden bij de eerste groep partijprominenten die de vorige premier Keir Starmer vroegen om op te stappen.

De nieuwe minister van Financiën Healey stapte vorige maand op omdat hij vond dat Starmer, die toen nog premier was, niet genoeg investeerde in defensie. Dit zou een van de aanleidingen zijn geweest voor Starmers vertrek.