Open source software is the foundation of everything digital, but being free makes organizations treat it as worthless. New data shows staggering download growth paired with rampant malware and neglected vulnerabilities, creating a massive supply chain crisis.
The UK government has named North Lanarkshire, Scotland, as its latest AI Growth Zone. The move is meant to catalyze £8.2 billion in private investment for up to 500MW of data center capacity and 1GW of renewable energy projects. Operator DataVita is leading the charge, but questions about timelines
Block, the company behind Cash App and Square, has opened a new European hub in Dublin. The office is positioned as a base for collaboration, seller engagement, and talent development in what the firm calls “Europe’s fintech epicentre.”
Google is turning Chrome into an AI agent that can shop for you and plan vacations. The new “auto browse” feature is rolling out now, but major retailers are already suing to block similar AI tools.
The real battle in healthcare AI isn’t for the best chatbot interface. According to Forbes, the $110 billion opportunity is in the complex operational systems that run hospitals and care delivery. Winning means building the connective tissue or the integrated platforms.
OpenAI is seeking a colossal new funding round to fuel its AI expansion, with talks reportedly underway for up to $60 billion. The company could lose $14 billion this year, highlighting the immense financial pressure behind cutting-edge AI development.
Physicists have a radical new idea for building quantum computers: use the defects in crystals, not avoid them. Theoretical work suggests dislocations in diamond can act as natural scaffolds for qubits, improving their performance. This could finally provide a path to scalable quantum interconnects.
Vivaldi has released version 7.8 of its desktop browser, packed with advanced tab multitasking features. The company is explicitly positioning this as an alternative to what it calls the AI babysitters being built by competitors.
Security researchers discovered two malicious AI extensions in the official VSCode Marketplace. The tools, with over 1.5 million installs, secretly exfiltrated entire files and user data to servers in China. Microsoft is investigating, but the extensions were still available for download.
Intel has released Thermal Daemon 2.5.11, bringing support for upcoming Wildcat Lake processors. More interestingly, a one-line kernel patch yields a massive 5x reduction in wakeup latency for modern Xeon CPUs. This is a huge win for Linux server performance.
