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Chinese tech giants Hygon and Sugon call off merger, say they're still besties

Blame changed market conditions and attitudes, not the return of Nvidia's H200 to China

Chinese tech giants Hygon and Sugon have called off their planned merger.…

Oracle raises AI spending estimate, spooks investors

But if you assume cloud IOUs will be fulfilled, business is booming

Oracle expects its FY 2026 capital expenditures will be $15 billion higher that previously predicted, as the cloudy database biz invests to accommodate AI workloads.…

Nvidia's unreleased infrastructure management service isn't for tracking GPUs, but it can

If you opt in to the paid service that is

Nvidia is developing a new inventory management service that could be used by customers to verify the location of their existing GPU stockpiles.…

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QC Rerun Time 2025 #44

It's hard to believe the first Cubetown visit was like 800 friggin' comics ago, holy crap. Time does weird things when you draw a comic every day for 20-odd years. As I recall, at this point I was still trying to figure out if QC would switch solely to focus on Marten and Claire's Cubetown adventures, or if I'd split the focus between Cubetown and Northampton. I ended up doing the latter, which I think was the right choice. Too many fun characters to just leave behind like that! And of course then I immediately added like four new ones, and then Anh basically took over the comic for a year. Is Sam still going through her goth phase? IS it just a phase? ONLY ONE WAY TO FIND OUT (I will do whatever seems funniest at the time)

Behance Featured Projects

The latest projects featured on the Behance

Year of the Horse


Sea Spray

Stueyman has added a photo to the pool:

Sea Spray

Point Peron, looking down to Mushroom Rock

Flow

Stueyman has added a photo to the pool:

Flow

Collie River, WA

14456 20251209_111125 An elf hazard in Armidale

iain.davidson100 has added a photo to the pool:

14456 20251209_111125 An elf hazard in Armidale

14455 20251209_050533 Mural on the end of Edmonstone Rd Brisbane

iain.davidson100 has added a photo to the pool:

14455 20251209_050533 Mural on the end of Edmonstone Rd Brisbane

14454 20251208_122813 Pelicans at QAG

iain.davidson100 has added a photo to the pool:

14454 20251208_122813 Pelicans at QAG

Slashdot

News for nerds, stuff that matters

Ubuntu Will Have Native AMD ROCm AI/ML and HPC Libraries In Next LTS Release

Longtime Slashdot reader MadCow42 writes: Canonical just announced that they're packaging AMD's ROCm libraries (for AIML and HPC with both data-center GPUs as well as desktop/laptop GPUs), directly into the Ubuntu Universe archive. You can run ROCm on Ubuntu today but you have to install it via a script from AMD and manually remove and reinstall for any upgrades or bug fixes. Having it in Ubuntu as a normal Debian package will make it much easier to install and also to maintain in the long run via normal apt tooling ('apt upgrade'). This also means that ROCm can be an automatically-installed dependency for other packages, which doesn't happen today.

And, interestingly, Canonical has committed to providing long-term-support for ROCm in Ubuntu -- which is particularly exciting for edge and IoT devices that may have a long life in the field and need regular security patches and updates.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Qualcomm Acquires RISC-V Chip Designer Ventana Micro Systems

Qualcomm has acquired RISC-V startup Ventana to strengthen its CPU ambitions beyond mobile, "reinforcing its commitment and leadership in the development of the RISC-V standard and ecosystem," the company said in a press release. CRN Magazine reports: The San Diego-based company said Ventana's expertise in RISC-V, a free and open alternative to the Arm and x86 instruction set architectures, will enhance its CPU engineering capabilities and complement "existing efforts to develop custom Oryon CPU technology." Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Qualcomm, which has already been using RISC-V for some products outside the PC and server markets, said Ventana's contributions will boost its "technology leadership in the AI era across all businesses," indicating the broad impact expected by this acquisition. "We believe the RISC-V instruction set architecture has the potential to advance the frontier on CPU technology, enabling innovation across products," Durga Malladi, executive vice president and general manager of technology planning, edge solutions and data center for Qualcomm, said in a statement. "The acquisition of Ventana Micro Systems marks a pivotal step in our journey to deliver industry-leading RISC-V-based CPU technology across products."

Further reading: Qualcomm Is Buying Arduino, Releases New Raspberry Pi-Esque Arduino Board

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Cable Channel Subscribers Grew For the First Time In 8 Years Last Quarter

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: On Monday, research analyst MoffettNathanson released its "Cord-Cutting Monitor Q3 2025: Signs of Life?" report. It found that the pay TV operators, including cable companies, satellite companies, and virtual multichannel video programming distributors (vMVPDs) like YouTube TV and Fubo, added 303,000 net subscribers in Q3 2025. According to the report, "There are more linear video subscribers now than there were three months ago. That's the first time we've been able to say that since 2017."

In Q3 2017, MoffettNathanson reported that pay TV gained 318,000 net new subscribers. But since then, the industry's subscriber count has been declining, with 1,045,000 customers in Q2 2025, as depicted in the graph [here]. The world's largest vMVPD by subscriber count, YouTube TV, claimed 8 million subscribers in February 2024; some analysts estimate that number is now at 9.4 million. In its report, MoffettNathanson estimated that YouTube TV added 750,000 subscribers in Q3 2025, compared to 1 million in Q3 2024.

Traditional pay TV companies also contributed to the industry's unexpected growth by bundling its services with streaming subscriptions. Charter Communications offers bundles with nine streaming services, including Disney+, Hulu, and HBO Max. In Q3 2024, it saw net attrition of 294,000 customers, compared to about 70,000 in Q3 2025. Other cable companies have made similar moves. Comcast, for example, launched a streaming bundle with Netflix, Peacock, and Apple TV in May 2024. For Q3 2025, Comcast reported its best pay TV subscriber count in almost five years, which was a net loss of 257,000 customers. "Traditional pay TV -- i.e. cable and satellite -- still declined quarter over quarter in Q3, but again, by less," noted SteamTV Insider. "The [year-over-year] rate of attrition dropped from -12.4 percent to -10.2 percent over 12 months."

MoffettNathanson added: "Yes, Q3 saw a positive net add number for [pay TV for] the first time in eight years, but that positive result came in the year's seasonally strongest quarter. We're not yet close to seeing the category actually grow again..."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Adobe Integrates With ChatGPT

Adobe is integrating Photoshop, Express, and Acrobat directly into ChatGPT so users can edit photos, design graphics, and tweak PDFs through the chatbot. The Verge reports: The Adobe apps are free to use, and can be activated by typing the name of the app alongside an uploaded file and conversational instruction, such as "Adobe Photoshop, help me blur the background of this image." ChatGPT users won't have to specify the name of the app again during the same conversation to make additional changes. Depending on the instructions, Adobe's apps may offer a selection of results to choose from, or provide a UI element that the user can manually control -- such as Photoshop sliders for adjusting contrast and brightness.

The ChatGPT apps don't provide the full functionality of Adobe's desktop software. Adobe says the Photoshop app can edit specific sections of images, apply creative effects, and adjust image settings like brightness, contrast and exposure. Acrobat in ChatGPT can edit existing PDFs, compress and convert other documents into a PDF format, extract text or tables, and merge multiple files together.

The Adobe Express app allows ChatGPT users to both generate and edit designs, such as posters, invitations, and social media graphics. Everything in the design can be edited without leaving ChatGPT, from replacing text or images, to altering colors and animating specific sections. If ChatGPT users do want more granular control over a project they started in the chatbot, those photos, PDFs, and designs can be opened directly in Adobe's native apps to pick up where they left off.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Thank You For Showing Up

Thomas Hawk posted a photo:

Thank You For Showing Up

Outside My Window

Thomas Hawk posted a photo:

Outside My Window

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kottke.org

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New evidence suggests that Neanderthals were making fire in the UK 400,000...

New evidence suggests that Neanderthals were making fire in the UK 400,000 years ago. The previous earliest date of human fire-making was a mere 50,000 years ago.

💬 Join the discussion on kottke.org

Autumn Leaves #6 in 2025

bakuretu has added a photo to the pool:

Autumn Leaves #6 in 2025

At daitoin of Japanease temple