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TechRadar lists the best free text-to-speech software, to make it simple and easy to choose a text reader with the features you need. This is not simply useful for personal users, but has also become an important issue in business, where the need for effective communication tools has led to a surge in the popularity […]

Chicago95 is an XFCE / Xubuntu Windows 95 total conversion. grassmunk on GitHub writes: I was unhappy with the various XFCE/GTK2/GTK3 Windows 95 based themes and decided to make one that was more consistent across the board for theming. Included in this theme: Icons to complete the icon theme started with Classic95 GTK2 and GTK3 […]

A new Linux local privilege escalation flaw called Fragnesia has been disclosed as a Dirty Frag-like vulnerability, allowing arbitrary byte writes into the kernel page cache of read-only files through a separate ESP/XFRM logic bug. Phoronix reports: Proof of concept code for Fragnesia is already out there. There is a two-line patch for addressing the issue within the Linux kernel's skbuff.c code. That patch hasn't yet been mainlined or picked up by any mainline kernel releases but presumably will be in short order for addressing this local privilege escalation issue. More details can be found here.

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The longest caves in the world all sit in areas where soluble rock dissolves under flowing groundwater. The highest concentrations show up in southern Kentucky, the Black Hills of South Dakota, and Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula. The list keeps growing as exploration teams add new passages. Mammoth Cave alone has gone from 144 miles when the system was first connected in 1972 […]

the Ollee circuit board upgrade, RGB back light, and start up of Ollee greeting with hello, images via Cam Shand on YouTube     There is a growing push against the barrage of “tech” shoved on us daily. This informal movement is less anti-technology and more anti-thoughtless technology. We are seeing it with wired headphones and […]

JP’s Product Pick of the Week 5/12/26 is our MAX44009 Wide-range Lux Light Sensor. Want more JP’s Product Pick of the Week?! Tune in every Tuesday at 4pm ET and 1pm PT on Youtube LIVE, Twitch, Periscope (Twitter) and Facebook. LIVE TEXT CHAT IS HERE in the Adafruit Discord chat! Catch previous editions on YouTube […]

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: LinkedIn planned to inform staff of layoffs on Wednesday, two people familiar with the matter told Reuters, in a widening of technology sector cuts this year. The Microsoft-owned social network plans to cut about 5% of its headcount as it reorganizes teams and focuses personnel on areas where its business is growing [...]. LinkedIn employs more than 17,500 full-time workers globally, its website says. Reuters was unable to determine the teams affected. The cuts come as revenue at LinkedIn, which sells recruiting tools and subscriptions, rose 12% in the just-ended quarter from a year prior, in an acceleration of growth in 2026, according to Microsoft's securities filings. The layoff rationale was not for artificial intelligence to replace jobs at LinkedIn, one of the people told Reuters. The specter of AI-fueled disruption has nonetheless hung over software incumbents and workers generally.

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NEW PRODUCT – 128×64 RGB LED Matrix Panel – 2mm Pitch Wintertime can be rough in the city. The sky is gray. The weather is unpredictable. So slough off those seasonal blues with some Times Square razzle dazzle from this sweet, ultra-high-density 128×64 RGB LED Matrix. These panels are typically used to make video walls. Here in New […]

The German Sovereign Tech Fund has invested 1.2 million euros ($1.4 million USD) in KDE Plasma technologies to help strengthen the structural reliability and security of the desktop environment's core infrastructure, including Plasma, KDE Linux, and the frameworks underlying its communication services. Longtime Slashdot reader jrepin shares an excerpt from the announcement: For 30 years, KDE has been providing the free and open-source software essential for digital sovereignty in personal, corporate, and public infrastructures: operating systems, desktop environments, document viewers, image and video editors, software development libraries, and much more. KDE's software is competitive, publicly auditable, and freely available. It can be maintained, adapted, and improved in-house or by local software companies. And modifications (along with their source code) can be freely distributed to all users and departments within an organization. KDE will use Sovereign Tech Fund's investment to push its essential software products to the next level, providing every individual, business, and public administration with the opportunity to regain their privacy, security, and control over their digital sovereignty. Slashdot reader Elektroschock also shared a statement from Fiona Krakenburger, Technical Director at the Sovereign Tech Agency. "We have long invested in desktop technologies for a reason: they are the primary way people access and use digital services in everyday life," says Krakenburger. "The desktop holds personal data and mediates nearly every service we depend on, from booking the next medical appointment, to education, to the way we work. We are investing in KDE because it is one of the two major desktop environments used across Linux and plays a key role in how millions of people experience open technology. Strengthening KDE's testing infrastructure, security architecture, and communication frameworks is how we invest in the resilience and reliability of the core digital infrastructure that modern society depends on."

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Arty Bishop’s Look4Sat is a radio satellite tracker and pass predictor for Android, inspired by Gpredict. Thanks to Celestrak and SatNOGS you have access to over 9000 active satellites. You can search the entire database by NORAD Catalog Number or the satellite’s name. Orbital positions and passes are calculated relative to your location. To get reliable data make […]

Matt Robenolt’s appify turns TUI apps into real macOS applications. On Linux, terminal apps are just… apps. They get their own windows, their own Alt+Tab entries, their own launcher icons. On macOS, they’re second-class citizens—buried in terminal tabs, invisible to Cmd+Tab, forgotten by Spotlight. appify fixes that. Generate native .app bundles from any TUI. Your btop becomes a proper System […]

If you’re looking for an easy, fun, and glowing Halloween costume this year (its never too early to start getting started), read on to learn how to make an animal mask with EL wire on a bike helmet. Plain wire supports the glowing design and because the helmet straps securely to your head, you have […]

Harvard faculty are voting on a proposal (PDF) to curb grade inflation by limiting solid A grades to 20% of students in a class, plus four additional A's per course. Axios reports: Grade inflation is at a tipping point at Harvard. A move to make A grades harder to come by at one of the world's leading universities could influence grading debates at peer institutions. Solid A's account for nearly two-thirds of all undergraduate letter grades. That's up from roughly a quarter 20 years ago. More than 50 members of last year's class graduated with perfect GPAs. [...] Faculty are voting on three separate provisions. Each requires a simple majority to pass. A cap to limit solid-A grades to 20% of enrolled students in a class, plus four additional A's per course. Changes to how internal honors are calculated, moving from traditional grade point average scoring to an average percentile rank. Allowing courses to use new "satisfactory" or "unsatisfactory" marks with a "satisfactory-plus" distinction. A pre-vote faculty poll showed around 60% of the 205 respondents favored the 20-plus-four formula over an alternative. Supporters of the cap argue it's intentionally modest as it places no restrictions on A-minuses. The four-grade buffer is designed to protect small seminars where a higher proportion of students may succeed. [...] If passed, changes would take effect in fall 2027, followed by a mandatory three-year review.

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Researchers have uncovered an unusual new form of aluminium that challenges long-held assumptions about how this common metal behaves. Researchers at King’s College London have identified an unusual new form of aluminum, one of the most abundant metals in Earth’s crust. The discovery points to a much less expensive and more sustainable substitute for rare […]

Kati writes about making a Linux cyberdeck computer using a children’s toy, a VTech Lern und Musik Laptop, as a computer case. Every time I saw someone with one of those unnecessarily cute mini-laptops, I got extremely jealous. But most of them are a bit too expensive for something I’d only use to flex. I […]

This project is for all of the vintage audio fans out there. Check it out, from South African maker JGJ Matt: I have an obsession with vintage audio and unfortunately with my newest acquisition, a cabinet style Edison gramophone I’ve come to a realization that they take up a LOT of space for something that […]

Although there are a bunch of ways to run Linux applications on a Windows PC, WSL (Windows Subsystem for Linux) is by far the more efficient option – both from the convenience and performance standpoints. Ayush Pande has been using it instead of dual-booting or running GUI-heavy virtual machines on my everyday systems and dev […]

3D Hangouts – BLE NeoPixels, Prop Game and Cooler Can https://youtube.com/live/L0tEFVg-mwA?feature=share This week @adafruit we’re showcasing Pedro’s BLE NeoPixel projects using CLUE. Noe is working on a new handheld game design using PropMaker Feather. This week’s timelapse features a cooler can holder. Learn Guide https://learn.adafruit.com/ble-beacon-neopixels YouTube Video https://youtu.be/OveiOuSnRPM Adafruit CLUE: https://www.adafruit.com/product/4500 QT Py ESP32-S3 https://www.adafruit.com/product/5426 […]

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: Meta employees distributed flyers at multiple U.S. offices on Tuesday to protest the company's recent installation of mouse-tracking software on their computers, according to photos of the pamphlets seen by Reuters. The flyers, which appeared in meeting rooms, on vending machines and atop toilet paper dispensers at the Facebook owner's offices, encouraged staffers to sign an online petition against the move. "Don't want to work at the Employee Data Extraction Factory?" they asked, according to the photos seen by Reuters. [...] The pamphlets and the petition both cite the U.S. National Labor Relations Act, saying "workers are legally protected when they choose to organize for the improvement of working conditions." In the UK, a group of Meta employees has started organizing a drive for unionization with United Tech and Allied Workers (UTAW), a branch of the Communication Workers Union. The employees set up a website to recruit members using the URL "Leanin.uk," a reference to former Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg's best-selling book encouraging women to seek equal footing in the workplace. "Meta's workers are paying the price for management's reckless and expensive bets. While executives chase speculative AI strategies, staff are facing devastating job cuts, draconian surveillance, and the cruel reality of being forced to train the inefficient systems being positioned to replace them," said Eleanor Payne, an organizer with UTAW. "If we're building agents to help people complete everyday tasks using computers, our models need real examples of how people actually use them -- things like mouse movements, clicking buttons, and navigating dropdown menus," said a statement Meta issued earlier.

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ice458 on GitHub has made an extremely useful tool for folks using PIO on Raspberry Pi RP2040/RP2350 microcontrollers. This tool is a simulator that allows you to execute and verify the programmable I/O (PIO) assembly code for the RP2040 ( found in the Raspberry Pi Pico) and the RP2350 (found in the Raspberry Pi Pico 2) directly in a […]