Submission + - What Features Matter for PABX Installation Dubai Systems? (vrstech.com)

Submitted by vrstechdubai1
vrstechdubai1 writes: Choosing the right PABX Installation Dubai system involves checking call routing, extension management, voicemail, IVR, and scalability. VRS Technologies LLC provides PABX installation services tailored to business communication needs. Contact +971-55-2093531 to discuss the right phone system for your office.

Submission + - From Garden Beds to Outdoor Lounges: What Should You Protect Before Australia's (medium.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Summer in Australia usually means more time outside. Backyard lunches, evenings on the deck and weekends in the garden become part of the routine. But the same season can also bring intense sunlight, hot winds, sudden storms and long dry periods.

A few weeks of harsh weather can be surprisingly tough on the things you leave outdoors. Garden beds dry out faster, outdoor furniture sits under strong UV exposure and equipment that seemed fine in spring can deteriorate when left uncovered.

Preparing the backyard before summer arrives does not have to become a major project. Start with the areas you use most and work out what needs shade, covering, cleaning or a little extra protection.

https://medium.com/@markandres...

#3SeaterSofaCovers #3SeaterSofaCover #Weedcontroltarps #Weedcontroltarp #ARKTarps

Submission + - SpaceX in talks for 80,000 cell sites to build nationwide wireless network (yahoo.com)

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: Space Exploration Technologies Corp is in discussions to secure access to at least 80,000 cell sites across the United States, according to Bloomberg, signaling a concrete step toward establishing a fourth nationwide wireless carrier. The satellite giant is negotiating with major tower operators, including Crown Castle International Corp, as it gathers the physical infrastructure required to complement its orbital network.

The potential leasing agreements are expected to reach into the billions of dollars, reflecting the vast scale of the physical network required. Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk has positioned the initiative as a direct challenge to incumbent carriers, supported by recent regulatory milestones and strategic spectrum acquisitions.

The Federal Communications Commission granted SpaceX approval to launch 15,000 specialized satellites engineered to stream mobile connectivity directly to standard smartphones. Integrating tens of thousands of ground sites will allow the company to manage signal density and deliver reliable broadband across dense suburban and urban corridors.

Submission + - Getty Images files for US bankruptcy, advances restructuring plan (reuters.com)

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: Last week, Getty announced plans to file for bankruptcy, marking a major reset after its planned merger with rival Shutterstock collapsed under the weight of heavy debt and growing competition from AI-generated imagery.

Getty said the affiliates of the Getty family and Koch Equity Development, which committed to provide up to $533 million in new equity, will own 100% of the company after the restructuring

It's hard to compete against things like the DALL-E image generator.

Submission + - Comcast Loses More Customers, Claims Other ISPs' Cheap Prices Are 'Irrational' (arstechnica.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Comcast reportedly plans significant job cuts in its cable division as the firm continues to lose residential broadband and TV customers. Comcast lost 144,000 residential broadband customers in Q3 2026, up from a 91,000-customer loss in the same quarter a year ago, the company said in its earnings report today. Comcast historically capitalized on a lack of competition for high-speed wired broadband. But now it faces stronger competition from fixed wireless providers and from fiber providers in parts of its cable territory. “Fixed wireless remains aggressive and continues to take share, while fiber construction remains elevated, with pockets of irrational pricing and promotional activity,” Comcast co-CEO Mike Cavanagh said today in an earnings call.

Comcast CFO Jason Armstrong said “irrational pricing” from fiber operators includes $30 to $40 monthly broadband offers “in specific markets in the third quarter.” He said $30 to $40 pricing is irrational because deploying fiber costs $1,500 or more per home, and is “getting more expensive with construction costs up as you get into more suburban and rural areas.” “As we look at the return profile of that, to us, that is irrational competition,” Armstrong said. While he didn’t name any specific competitors, Verizon has been pitching FiOS fiber plans that start at $30 a month. Comcast’s network is a mix of fiber and cable, and it offers fiber-to-the-home in only small portions of its cable territory.

Armstrong said more Comcast customers are leaving when they face “pricing transitions,” apparently referring to the price hikes customers get when promotional offers expire. “We’ve been refining our offers and retention strategies to better manage these transitions and strengthen customer retention,” he said. Cavanagh said that “satellite is not yet a material factor” in the competition Comcast faces, but that Comcast is focused on “anticipating emerging forms of competition and positioning our business to respond as the market evolves.”

Submission + - Office2021

Submitted by silent254
silent254 writes: I had MS Office 2021 installed on my Mac. Microsoft Autoupdate updates without notification to Office 365. Now they want me to pay for it!!!

No wonder people *hate* this organization.

Submission + - Unvetted AI Agents Are Accessing US Bank Accounts (axios.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Major U.S. banks are detecting unauthorized third-party AI agents operating inside customer accounts, with some agents attempting to take actions that appear to be independent of user instructions, sources tell Axios. The difficulty in distinguishing between a human and an unauthorized bot is forcing banks to block the technology and rapidly rewrite their terms of service. [...] This presents significant security risks: banking executives fear the steps agents with login access might take, especially if a user has granted purchase authority or the ability to shift funds. In other instances, some banks have tracked activity when agents — programmed to fulfill requests or complete tasks on a user's behalf — contact call centers or appear to take actions independent of user instructions, the people said.

Bank executives described the situation as horrifying, with one official saying the industry has grave concerns about agents gaining access to customer accounts and taking steps that could impact user finances. The concerns are at the root of the decision by several banks to restrict third-party AI agent access, the people said. Morgan Stanley has begun blocking third-party agents from accessing its platforms, sources familiar with the decision said. JPMorgan, Bank of America and Citi are also restricting agents. [...] Many banks are broadly not able to parse whether agent account activity is user-directed, sources said.

[...] On one hand, banks are best positioned to respond to the threats and opportunities of AI given their cash on hand and experience as critical infrastructure. But money isn't necessarily enough to solve this problem, one source said, because of how quickly the technology is developing and revealing new weaknesses in real time. Banks are investing in preventing worst-case scenarios, but they are also preparing for when those could happen, including with "day after" scenario planning that would allow them to quickly secure or restore customer access, sources said.

Submission + - Ask /. : For devs having AI write most their code, do bots know your domain?

Submitted by Tablizer
Tablizer writes: A recent Slashdot poll showed roughly 15% said bots write most their code. I generally find bots don't and can't understand very specific domains in my experience, the rules often come from institutional habits and/or arbitrary-seeming gov't polices & regulations. So what are the bots doing for you exactly? If there are regular patterns they are milking, why can't those patterns be factored into modules & functions rather than repeated so that you are mostly passing simple parameters. I'm skeptical of "AI writes most". Something smells off. Thank You!

Submission + - The Pentagon is quietly building an elite new tech sabotage agency (yahoo.com) 1

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: The Pentagon has spent months quietly building an elite new tech agency to help covertly disrupt and sabotage foreign technology programs considered threats to American military superiority.

Neither Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth nor any other senior Pentagon official has publicly mentioned the agency since it was established this April — a conspicuous omission for a department that has reveled in announcing other major changes aimed at modernizing the military or adopting hard-nosed new policies against foreign adversaries.

Information on the Technology Support Office, or TSO as it is called internally, is nearly impossible to find on Pentagon websites, and the agency is mentioned by name only in several previously unreported Defense Department historical records and memoranda.

Special Operations Command and U.S. Cyber Command both objected to creating the new agency, fearing it would cut into their budgets, according to the two former intelligence officials and one former senior U.S. national security official.

But by creating an agency dedicated to expanding that work, the Defense Department is signaling its intent to ramp up a range of aggressive covert activities abroad — potentially including cyberattacks, supply chain disruptions and disinformation operations.

Many of the people who spoke argued that the aggressive new initiative is needed to help the Pentagon counter foreign adversaries they say are harnessing artificial intelligence and advanced commercial technologies, such as drones, in creative ways that could erode America's military advantage.

Submission + - Microsoft says October updates didn't actually fix VPN issues (bleepingcomputer.com)

Submitted by joshuark
joshuark writes: Microsoft says it mistakenly flagged a bug causing Always On VPN connection issues as fixed in the October 2026 Windows 11 cumulative updates.
Always On VPN replaced the legacy DirectAccess technology and supports domain-joined, non-domain-joined, and Microsoft Entra ID–joined devices running Windows 10, Windows 11, and Windows Server.

It runs in the background and establishes secure tunnels back to the user's corporate network whenever their device connects to the internet.

Microsoft first acknowledged the issue in a service alert sent to IT administrators in late September, saying it was triggered on systems running Windows 11 24H2 and later after installing the September 2026 security updates when the initial Always On VPN connection failed (e.g., when using automatic protocol selection with IKEv2 and SSTP).

"When automatic protocol selection or protocol fallback was configured, affected VPN connections could remain stuck in a Connecting state or fail to connect after an initial connection attempt failed," it said. "In some cases, subsequent connection attempts could display the error, 'The specified port is already in use.'"

After releasing the October 2026 Patch Tuesday Windows 11 cumulative updates, Microsoft marked the bug as resolved, but in a Tuesday update it said the issues weren't actually addressed and that a fix would ship later.

"This disclosure was mistakenly updated to Resolved status on October 13, 2026. We have returned its status to Mitigated," it said in a service alert sent to IT admins. "A resolution for this issue is planned to be included in an update to be released in the coming weeks. We apologize for any inconvenience or confusion."

While Microsoft continues working on a permanent solution, it shared a temporary fix that requires affected customers to choose one of two VPN tunneling protocols to work around the issue.

Submission + - There isn't an easy exploit for this PHP vulnerability (eliastaylor.com)

Submitted by alternative_right
alternative_right writes: If you take a look at github right now, there are thousands, literally thousands, of "PoC" exploits for this vulnerability. One thing you'll notice about all of them though, is that they do not work against a vanilla PHP instance.

Go ahead, stand up a php server you think is vulnerable in Docker and then run the PoC yourself. Don't get your LLM to do it. No. Run the script, yourself. The exploits don't work.

It's been 10 hours since this vulnerability has been posted, and half the software world is looking at it, and lord knows 100,000 people have got their "superintelligence" on the case. Nevertheless, there's no working exploit. The ones doing the rounds are fake, or only work in a lab, because...

Submission + - Nuclear Power Now Has Bipartisan Support (reason.com)

Submitted by fjo3
fjo3 writes: Nuclear power has historically been a divisive issue: During the Cold War, an entire generation feared annihilation at the hands of the same basic technology that some want to use to power their homes.

That's unfortunate, because nuclear energy has considerable benefits—a reliable source of power with very few greenhouse gas emissions—with increasingly lower risks.

Thankfully, it seems that message is catching on with people from both major political parties.

"About six-in-ten U.S. adults now say they favor more nuclear power plants to generate electricity," Pew Research reported in October 2025. "That's up from 43% in 2020, driven by increasing support among both Republicans and Democrats." The authors noted that "Republicans are more likely than Democrats" to favor the policy, with "roughly seven-in-ten Republicans and Republican-leaning independents" expressing support, but it still included 52 percent of Democrats and independents who lean in that direction.

Submission + - Google Staff Resign In Backlash Over Its AI Contracts With Military (bbc.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Google is facing a backlash from some staff members over the company's deployment of its AI technology for military use. The BBC has spoken to several tech workers who have either recently resigned from Google's AI company, Google DeepMind, or are in the process of leaving, over concerns with the tech firm's military contracts. Sofia Liguori, a London-based research engineer, is one of them. She resigned from Google DeepMind this week and spoke about her concerns exclusively with the BBC, despite her contract restricting her from doing so.

"Realising my company is pushing more and more for AI systems in military operations makes me feel ashamed to work at Google," Liguori said, speaking in a personal capacity. [...] After working for the company for three years, Liguori said she decided to resign over Google's increasing work with the US and Israeli militaries. "I don't agree with this direction and this has led me to lose faith in my company being true to its stated ethical values," she said. Those values, according to Google's AI Principles, include implementing AI with "human oversight" and aligning the technology with "international law and human rights." But former and current staff at the company, and experts the BBC spoke to, said they were concerned about the level of human oversight at critical moments.

The tech workers said they are particularly worried about the AI military deals signed this year, because they greatly increase the scope of what the Pentagon can use the technology for. Andreas Kirsch, an AI researcher, also resigned from Google DeepMind earlier this month over his concerns. Kirsch told the BBC that he believes "Google's governance and oversight are not sufficient or meaningful enough to deploy AI safely and responsibly in military and classified settings" or "to develop artificial superintelligence safely in the future." "Google seems to have no right to control or veto how the Pentagon uses its AI and also seems to have limited visibility into how it's being deployed," he added.

[...] Employees at Google have told the BBC that staff are scared to speak out about AI safety and its uses in warfare because their employment contracts prohibit them from publicly criticising the company. "In principle I'm not allowed to criticise Google for the duration of my life," Sofia Liguori told the BBC. But she decided to do so "because I believe it's important for these things to be known and I also think that talking about facts is not criticising." Liguori added that at Google "people are scared of retaliation and putting their career at risk. You feel you are being watched, you can't speak."

A current employee at Google DeepMind, who declined to be named for fear of retaliation, told the BBC that "a lot of motivated employees who signed up for [the company's] original mission could leave – but there's also a pipeline of people at the start of the careers who could fill those positions. It could be a changing of the guard." Another Google DeepMind staff member, who also wished to remain anonymous, told the BBC: "A lot of people have left the company that feel strongly about this [how Google DeepMind has changed its ethics position]." "Some people are putting up a fight, others are thinking: 'it's a big company. What do you expect to change?'", the employee said.

Submission + - Startup Claims to Use AI-Created Viruses to Treat a Patient (nytimes.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: For the first time, scientists say they have used viruses designed by artificial intelligence to treat a human patient. Researchers announced on Tuesday that they had administered the virus, known as a phage, to a patient suffering from a deadly bacterial infection. Phages attack bacteria, and the hope is that this one will kill the microbes causing the infection. Radical Numerics, the start-up that created the viruses, posted a technical report about them on its website. But the company declined to provide information about the patient or the doctors running the trial, citing confidentiality requirements.

[...] In 2025, researchers at the Arc Institute in Palo Alto, Calif., created an A.I. model called Evo 2, which they trained on millions of DNA sequences, including phage genes. They prompted Evo 2 to make new genomes similar to those in a group of phage species. The A.I. generated 700,000 virus genomes. The team synthesized DNA molecules from 285 genomes and inserted them into bacteria. The researchers found that 16 of the genomes gave rise to viable viruses. Three members of the Evo team, including Dr. Nguyen, left to found Radical Numerics. In June, the company unveiled a new A.I. model, called Omnii, based on some of the same principles as Evo.

Omnii can be trained not just on DNA but also on other aspects of biology, such as the structures of proteins and molecules that keep genes turned on or off. The company is now using Omnii to tackle a range of challenges, including designing cancer vaccines and recognizing the risk that a virus may cause a pandemic. Among these efforts is the first trial of A.I.-designed phage therapy. The researchers created variations of a phage called T7. The virus, which only infects E. coli, looks like a microscopic Apollo lunar lander: a ball-shaped protein shell that holds its DNA atop six leglike protrusions. To infect a bacterium, T7 lands on its surface, using its legs to anchor in place. It then injects its DNA into the cell.

Omnii generated new viral genes altering the shapes of T7’s legs, according to Dr. Nguyen and his colleagues. While some of the new legs were significantly different from natural ones, Omnii’s phages could still infect bacteria. Once the researchers were confident their strategy had worked, they partnered with doctors treating a patient with a stubborn E. coli infection. The bacteria had resisted not just antibiotics but all the available phages. The researchers said they had trained Omnii with information about the resistant strain and told it to design T7 phages with legs that could grab onto the bacteria. Once the A.I. generated genomes for new viruses, the scientists said they produced the corresponding DNA molecules and inserted them in bacteria. The bacteria became infected and produced T7 phages that could successfully infect, and kill, other microbes. After running tests to make sure the phages were safe, Radical Numerics presented them to the doctors. The F.D.A. authorized a trial.

Submission + - Microsoft Reportedly Projects $1,200 to $1,800 Price For Next-Gen Xbox (arstechnica.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: We haven’t heard many details about Microsoft’s upcoming “Project Helix” gaming hardware since the company announced it in March as a device that will “play your Xbox and PC games.” In a new wide-ranging profile of Xbox CEO Asha Sharma, though, Fortune alludes to a dual release strategy for upcoming Microsoft gaming hardware, with “a next-generation handheld device” planned by the end of next year and a 2028 holiday season console release that could cost between $1,200 and $1,800.

That future console price range is based on what has “internally been projected” at the company, according to Fortune. But the price for consumers could come down if “Microsoft decides to subsidize the cost,” the outlet says, as many console makers have done in the past. While a $1,200 starting price would be historically high for the game console market, even accounting for inflation, it also reflects a new normal: The slowdown in Moore’s Law and AI-driven component shortages means cutting-edge gaming hardware just isn’t as cheap as it used to be. This year, the Steam Machine broke the $1,000 starting price, while the 2-year-old technology in the PlayStation 5 Pro is now going for $900, and the 6-year-old Xbox Series X now starts at $750.

Submission + - EA Shutting Down Bioware (bloomberg.com)

Submitted by atari_kid
atari_kid writes: According to a recent report by Bloomberg's Jason Schreier, EA has reportedly decided to shut down BioWare. While the closure has yet to be officially announced, it appears the studio's future may already have been decided.

Submission + - Physicists Trapped a Particle of Antimatter And Kept It Caged For Months (sciencealert.com)

Submitted by alternative_right
alternative_right writes: Theoretically, the birth of the Universe should have produced equal quantities of particles and antiparticles.

Why the current Universe is so heavily skewed in particles' favor is an enduring mystery – one whose solution remains all the harder to find because of antiparticles' tendency to go and collide with particles.

But an extraordinary effort may have finally tamed one of the biggest tricksters of the antiparticle milieu – the positron, the antimatter counterpart to the ubiquitous electron.

In a cryogenic, superconducting vacuum trap, physicists at Northwestern University in the US successfully kept a single positron for months – a breakthrough that, they say, paves the way to the most rigorous probes yet of particle physics.

Submission + - More than 1.5 million Canadian Crime Stoppers tips leaked (www.cbc.ca)

Submitted by doconnor
doconnor writes: Crime Stoppers data was stolen last March by hacktivist collective Internet Yiff Machine. In a manifesto, the group said it wanted to disprove the claim by P3 Global Intel — the company hired by Crime Stoppers to manage its tips — that the platform was "anonymous" and "secure."

A copy of the hacked data was made available to researchers and journalists, including CBC, by Distributed Denial of Secrets, a U.S. non-profit that archives and publishes hacked and leaked documents it deems to be in the public interest.

Submission + - Government web sites go dark after severe PHP vulnerabilities disclosed (reuters.com)

Submitted by smooth wombat
smooth wombat writes: PHP disclosed two critical vulnerabilities in their programming language and urged web site operators to immediately apply the fix. As a result, government web sites in Europe and elsewhere temporarily went dark on Wednesday as operators worked to protect their systems.

Dane Knecht, the chief technology officer of Web and cloud security firm Cloudflare (NET.N), opens new tab, said that attacks were emerging and Cloudflare was updating its firewall rules as a stopgap measure.

"We are seeing early attacks emerging and are updating mitigations as new vectors show up. This is a STOPGAP only. Patch as soon as PHP releases the update," he said on X.

Officials have said that all PHP versions from PHP 5 onward could be affected, although PHP has not yet disclosed which versions are vulnerable.

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