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An anonymous reader shares a blog post: Version 140 of the Thunderbird mail client has been released. Notable features include "dark message mode" to adapt message content to dark mode, the ability to easily transfer desktop settings to the mobile Thunderbird client, experimental support for Microsoft Exchange, as well as global controls for message threading and sort order.Thunderbird 140 is an extended-support release (ESR) which will be supported for 12 months. However, the Thunderbird project is trying to encourage users to adopt the Release channel for monthly updates instead. The project is staggering upgrades to 140 for existing Thunderbird users in order to catch any significant bugs before they are widely deployed, but users can upgrade manually via the Help > About menu. See the release notes for a full list of changes. |
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The City of Lyon will replace Microsoft's office suite with free office software, including OnlyOffice for office work and Linux and PostgreSQL for systems and databases. The city aims to "no longer be dependent on American software solutions and acquire true digital sovereignty," according to an official statement.
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The James Webb Space Telescope has discovered its first new exoplanet, TWA 7b -- a young, low-mass planet about 100 times the mass of Earth, making it the lightest planet ever directly imaged beyond the solar system. Space.com reports: TWA 7b was discovered in the debris rings that surround the low-mass star CE Antilae, also known as TWA 7, located around 111 light-years from Earth. CE Antilae is a very young star, estimated to be around just a few million years old. If that seems ancient, consider the sun, a "middle-aged" star, is around 4.6 billion years old.
[...] The disk of CE Antilae is divided into three distinct rings, one of which is narrow and bounded by two empty "lanes" mostly devoid of matter. When imaging this ring, the JWST spotted an infrared-emitting source, which the team of astronomers determined is most likely a young exoplanet. They then used simulations that confirmed the formation of a thin ring and a "hole" exactly where this planet is positioned, corresponding to JWST observations. The research has been published in the journal Nature. |
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"The carbon cost of asking an artificial intelligence model a single text question can be measured in grams of CO2..." writes the Washington Post. And while an individual's impact may be low, what about the collective impact of all users? "A Google search takes about 10 times less energy than a ChatGPT query, according to a 2024 analysis from Goldman Sachs — although that may change as Google makes AI responses a bigger part of search." For now, a determined user can avoid prompting Google's default AI-generated summaries by switching over to the "web" search tab, which is one of the options alongside images and news. Adding "-ai" to the end of a search query also seems to work. Other search engines, including DuckDuckGo, give you the option to turn off AI summaries.... Using AI doesn't just mean going to a chatbot and typing in a question. You're also using AI every time an algorithm organizes your social media feed, recommends a song or filters your spam email... [T]here's not much you can do about it other than using the internet less. It's up to the companies that are integrating AI into every aspect of our digital lives to find ways to do it with less energy and damage to the planet. More points from the article:
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ScienceDaily reports:
Researchers from MIT and Scripps have unveiled a promising new HIV vaccine approach that generates a powerful immune response with just one dose. By combining two immune-boosting adjuvants alum and SMNP the vaccine lingers in lymph nodes for nearly a month, encouraging the body to produce a vast array of antibodies. This one-shot strategy could revolutionize how we fight not just HIV, but many infectious diseases. It mimics the natural infection process and opens the door to broadly neutralizing antibody responses, a holy grail in vaccine design. And best of all, it's built on components already known to medicine.
Thanks to Slashdot reader alternative_right for sharing the news. |
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KDE isn't the only organization reaching out to " as Microsoft prepares to end support for Windows 10. "Now, The Document Foundation, maker of LibreOffice, has also joined in to support the Endof10 initiative," reports the tech blog Neowin: The foundation writes: "You don't have to follow Microsoft's upgrade path. There is a better option that puts control back in the hands of users, institutions, and public bodies: Linux and LibreOffice. Together, these two programmes offer a powerful, privacy-friendly and future-proof alternative to the Windows + Microsoft 365 ecosystem." It further adds the "real costs" of upgrading to Windows 11 as it writes: "The move to Windows 11 isn't just about security updates. It increases dependence on Microsoft through aggressive cloud integration, forcing users to adopt Microsoft accounts and services. It also leads to higher costs due to subscription and licensing models, and reduces control over how your computer works and how your data is managed. Furthermore, new hardware requirements will render millions of perfectly good PCs obsolete.... The end of Windows 10 does not mark the end of choice, but the beginning of a new era. If you are tired of mandatory updates, invasive changes, and being bound by the commercial choices of a single supplier, it is time for a change. Linux and LibreOffice are ready — 2025 is the right year to choose digital freedom!" The first words on LibreOffice's announcement? "The countdown has begun...." |
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"Spaceballs 2" is officially in development nearly 40 years after the original parody hit theaters. The sequel, produced by Amazon MGM Studios and set for a 2027 release, will see Rick Moranis returning as Dark Helmet, Mel Brooks reprising his role as Yogurt, and Bill Pullman returning as Lone Starr. You can watch the teaser trailer on YouTube. IGN reports: A trailer for the sequel to the classic '80s sci-fi Star Wars parody arrived today. Although it mostly comes with a special message from Brooks himself and a familiar text crawl that pokes fun at the long, long list of sequels that have come to theaters in the last 38 years, this is the most official look at Spaceballs 2 we've seen yet.
"After 40 years, we asked, 'What do the fans want?' Brooks says in the Spaceballs 2 trailer. "But instead, we're making this movie." He added one final send-off: "May the Schwartz be with you." |
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An anonymous reader quotes a report from ZDNet: Denmark's Minister of Digitalization, Caroline Stage, has announced that the Danish government will start moving away from Microsoft Office to LibreOffice. Why? It's not because open-source is better, although I would argue that it is, but because Denmark wants to claim "digital sovereignty." In the States, you probably haven't heard that phrase, but in the European Union, digital sovereignty is a big deal and getting bigger.
A combination of security, economic, political, and societal imperatives is driving the EU's digital sovereignty moves. EU leaders are seeking to reduce Europe's dependence on foreign technology providers, primarily those from the United States, and to assert greater control over its digital infrastructure, data, and technological future. Why? Because they're concerned about who controls European data, who sets the rules, and who can potentially cut off access to essential services in times of geopolitical tension. "Money issues have also played a decisive role," writes ZDNet's Steven Vaughan-Nichols. "Copenhagen's Microsoft software bill has soared from 313 million kroner in 2018 to 538 million kroner -- about $53 million in 2023, a 72% increase in just five years. David Heinemeier Hansson (DHH), a Dane, inventor of Ruby on Rails, and co-owner of the software developer company 37Signals, has said: "Denmark is one of the most highly digitalized countries in the world. It's also one of the most Microsoft-dependent. In fact, Microsoft is by far and away the single biggest dependency, so it makes perfect sense to start the quest for digital sovereignty there." |
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The James Webb Space Telescope has discovered the most distant galaxy ever observed, named MoM z14. NASA estimates it existed just 280 million years after the Big Bang. Space.com reports: Prior to the discovery of MoM z14, the galaxy holding the title of earliest and distant was JADES-GS-z14-0, which existed just 300 million years after the Big Bang, or around 13.5 billion years ago. This previous record galaxy has a redshift of z =14.32, while MoM z14 has a redshift of z = 14.44. There is a wider context to the observation of MoM z14 than the fact that it has broken the record for earliest known galaxy by 20 million years, though, as [explained team member and Yale University professor of Astronomy and Physics Pieter van Dokkum].
The researchers were able to determine that MoM z14 is around 50 times smaller than the Milky Way. The team also measured emission lines from the galaxy, indicating the presence of elements like nitrogen and carbon. "The emission lines are unusual; it indicates that the galaxy is very young, with a rapidly increasing rate of forming new stars," van Dokkum said. "There are also indications that there is not much neutral hydrogen gas surrounding the galaxy, which would be surprising: the very early universe is expected to be filled with neutral hydrogen. "That needs even better spectra and more galaxies, to investigate more fully." The presence of carbon and nitrogen in MoM z14 indicates that there are earlier galaxies to be discovered than this 13.52 billion-year-old example. That is because the very earliest galaxies in the universe and their stars were filled with the simplest elements in the cosmos, hydrogen and helium. Later galaxies would be populated by these heavier elements, which astronomers somewhat confusingly call "metal," as their stars forged them and then dispersed them in supernova explosions. The research has been published on arXiv. |
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A new study reveals that about 3.8 million years after the solar system's first solids formed, Jupiter was twice its current size with a magnetic field 50 times stronger, profoundly influencing the structure of the early solar system. Phys.Org reports: [Konstantin Batygin, professor of planetary science at Caltech] and [Fred C. Adams, professor of physics and astronomy at the University of Michigan] approached this question by studying Jupiter's tiny moons Amalthea and Thebe, which orbit even closer to Jupiter than Io, the smallest and nearest of the planet's four large Galilean moons. Because Amalthea and Thebe have slightly tilted orbits, Batygin and Adams analyzed these small orbital discrepancies to calculate Jupiter's original size: approximately twice its current radius, with a predicted volume that is the equivalent of over 2,000 Earths. The researchers also determined that Jupiter's magnetic field at that time was approximately 50 times stronger than it is today.
Adams highlights the remarkable imprint the past has left on today's solar system: "It's astonishing that even after 4.5 billion years, enough clues remain to let us reconstruct Jupiter's physical state at the dawn of its existence." Importantly, these insights were achieved through independent constraints that bypass traditional uncertainties in planetary formation models -- which often rely on assumptions about gas opacity, accretion rate, or the mass of the heavy element core. Instead, the team focused on the orbital dynamics of Jupiter's moons and the conservation of the planet's angular momentum -- quantities that are directly measurable. Their analysis establishes a clear snapshot of Jupiter at the moment the surrounding solar nebula evaporated, a pivotal transition point when the building materials for planet formation disappeared and the primordial architecture of the solar system was locked in. The results add crucial details to existing planet formation theories, which suggest that Jupiter and other giant planets around other stars formed via core accretion, a process by which a rocky and icy core rapidly gathers gas. The findings have been published in the journal Nature Astronomy. |
