Windows has always had a bloatware problem (even if Samsung has recently claimed the crown in that department). Bloatware is an umbrella term for apps, services, and programs you don’t need, and never asked for, and Windows comes preinstalled with a boatload of them. Removing bloatware helps you in two ways: You’ll recover some storage space and speed up your computer. If you’re using a low-end machine or an older PC, or if you just like the idea of running a lighter OS, this guide can help you take care of the problem with one command. See https://lifehacker.com/you-can-get-rid-of-windows-bloatware-with-one-command-1848707156 #technology #windows #bloatware #microsoft

https://archive.ph/Jvmnn

https://web.archive.org/web/20251106084318/https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3331031/china-unveils-power-thorium-reactor-worlds-largest-cargo-ship

The Internet faces an existential crisis as nearly 50% of all traffic is now non-human, with AI-generated content and bots threatening to overwhelm authentic human interaction[^1]. According to recent studies, this includes automated programs responsible for 49.6% of web traffic in 2023, a trend accelerated by AI models scraping content[^1]. The problems are stark: - Search engines flooded with AI-generated content optimized for algorithms rather than humans - Social media platforms filled with AI "slop" and automated responses - Genuine human content being drowned out by machine-generated noise - Erosion of trusted information sources and shared truth However, concrete solutions exist: 1. Technical Defenses: - Open-source spam filtering tools like [mosparo](https://mosparo.io/) for protecting website forms - AI scraper blocking through systems like [Anubis](https://xeiaso.net/blog/2025/anubis/) - Content authenticity verification via the CAI SDK[^1] 2. Community Building: - Supporting decentralized social networks (Mastodon, Lemmy) - Using open-source forum platforms that emphasize human moderation - Participating in curated communities with active fact-checking[^1] 3. Individual Actions: - Using privacy-focused browsers and search engines - Supporting trusted news sources and independent creators - Being conscious of data sharing and digital footprint[^1] "While exposure to AI-generated misinformation does make people more worried about the quality of information available online, it can also increase the value they attach to outlets with reputations for credibility," notes a 2025 study by Campante[^1]. [^1]: [It's FOSS - The Internet is Dying. We Can Still Stop It](https://news.itsfoss.com/internet-is-dying/)

This paper comes up with a really clever architectural solution to LLM hallucinations, especially for complex, technical topics. The core idea is that all our knowledge, from textbooks to wikis, is "radically compressed". It gives you the conclusions but hides all the step-by-step reasoning that justifies them. They call it a vast, unrecorded network of derivations the "intellectual dark matter" of knowledge. LLMs being trained on this compressed, conclusion-oriented data is one reason why they fail so often. When you ask them to explain something deeply, they just confidently hallucinate plausible-sounding "dark matter". The solution the paper demonstrates is to use a massive pipeline to "decompress" all of the steps and make the answer verifiable. It starts with a "Socrates agent" that uses a curriculum of about 200 university courses to automatically generate around 3 million first-principles questions. Then comes the clever part, which is basically a CI/CD pipeline for knowledge. To stop hallucinations, they run every single question through multiple different LLMs. If these models don't independently arrive at the exact same verifiable endpoint, like a final number or formula, the entire question-and-answer pair is thrown in the trash. This rigorous cross-model consensus filters out the junk and leaves them with a clean and verified dataset of Long Chains-of-Thought (LCoTs). The first benefit of having such a clean knowledge base is a "Brainstorm Search Engine" that performs "inverse knowledge search". Instead of just searching for a definition, you input a concept and the engine retrieves all the diverse, verified derivational chains that lead to that concept. This allows you to explore a concept's origins and see all the non-trivial, cross-disciplinary connections that are normally hidden. The second and biggest benefit is the "Plato" synthesizer, which is how they solve hallucinations. Instead of just generating an article from scratch, it first queries the Brainstorm engine to retrieve all the relevant, pre-verified LCoT "reasoning scaffolds". Its only job is then to narrate and synthesize those verified chains into a coherent article. The results are pretty impressive. The articles generated this way have significantly higher knowledge-point density and, most importantly, substantially lower factual error rates, reducing hallucinations by about 50% compared to a baseline LLM. They used this framework to automatically generate "SciencePedia," an encyclopedia with an initial 200,000 entries, solving the "cold start" problem that plagues human-curated wikis. The whole "verify-then-synthesize" architecture feels like it could pave the way for AI systems that are able to produce verifiable results and are therefore trustworthy.

 https://youtu.be/Ugew7tXiU38 https://www.voxelmatters.com/filament2-unveils-first-silicone-filament-at-formnext/

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.zip/post/52221052 > >Steam on Linux use has hit an all-time high! With the Steam Survey results for October 2025 coming out this evening, Steam on Linux has finally cracked the 3% threshold! A few months back Steam on Linux was close to 3% before stumbling a bit but now it's above that elusive threshold. The only time Steam on Linux use was close to the 3% mark was when Steam on Linux initially debuted a decade ago and at that time the overall Steam user-base was much smaller than it is today. Long story short, thanks to the ongoing success of Valve's Steam Deck and other handhelds plus Steam Play (Proton) working out so well, these October numbers are the best yet.

cross-posted from: https://lemdro.id/post/31224403 >**Title:** Long-time iOS user considering switch to Android - Need advice on $1000 flagships > > **Body:** > > Hey everyone, I'm looking at phones around the $1000 price point and would love some input. I've been an iOS user for years but I'm seriously considering making the jump to Android this time. > > Here's what I'm looking at: > > **iPhone 17 Pro** - The safe choice since I'm already in the ecosystem > > **Samsung Galaxy S25** - Hearing good things about this generation > > **Pixel 10 Pro** - Probably crossing this one off the list due to the stability issues I've been reading about (the 911 call failures, overheating problems, etc.) > > **Nothing Phone** - The design looks really cool, but I'm not sure if they have anything in this price range > > For those who've made the switch from iOS to Android (or vice versa), what would you recommend? Any major gotchas I should know about? And is the Nothing Phone even worth considering as a daily driver at this price point? > > Thanks in advance!

The International Criminal Court (ICC) will switch its internal work environment away from Microsoft Office to Open Desk, a European open source alternative, the institution confirmed to Euractiv. German newspaper Handelsblatt first reported on the plans. The switch comes amid rising concerns about public bodies being reliant on US tech companies to run their services, which have stepped up sharply since the start of US President Donald Trump’s second administration. For the ICC, such concerns are not abstract: Trump has repeatedly lashed out at the court and slapped sanctions on its chief prosecutor, Karim Khan.

Microsoft is facing mounting criticism over its controversial complicity in "Israel’s" genocide in Gaza, with charges that its technologies have enabled surveillance, targeted assassinations, and repression of Palestinians. Critics say the company has played a central role in what some are calling the world’s first AI-driven genocide.

> Human rights groups warned on Friday that it effectively forces member states to create a broad electronic surveillance dragnet that would include crimes that have nothing to do with technology.  > Many expressed concern that the convention will be abused by dictatorships and rogue governments who will deploy it against critics or protesters — even those outside of a regime’s jurisdiction.  Oh how unfortunate, im sure that was not part of the plan from the beginning... /s

In a major leap for the global semiconductor industry, a joint Chinese research team has developed a method that can slash defects in lithography – a critical step in chipmaking – by up to 99 per cent. The researchers achieved unprecedented clarity by using cryo-electron tomography (cryo-ET) to pinpoint, for the first time, the minute sources of common manufacturing flaws. The findings, published in the journal Nature Communications on September 30, by Professor Peng Hailin from Peking University in collaboration with researchers from Tsinghua University and the University of Hong Kong, were hailed by reviewers as a “fancy tool” that “would benefit peer researchers and industrial users quite a lot”. “The team has proposed a solution compatible with existing semiconductor production lines,” Peng said in an interview with Beijing-based Science and Technology Daily published on Monday. “It can reduce lithography defects on 12-inch (30cm) wafers by 99 per cent,” he added, indicating substantial cost benefits to the market. Lithography is one of the most critical steps in chip manufacturing. “It can be understood as ‘printing circuits’ onto semiconductor wafers such as silicon,” Peng said. “Essentially, an ultra-precise ‘projector’ shrinks and transfers pre-designed circuit patterns onto a special film coating the wafer, which is then developed and fixed.”

When Google and Amazon negotiated a major $1.2bn cloud-computing deal in 2021, their customer – the Israeli government – had an unusual demand: agree to use a secret code as part of an arrangement that would become known as the “winking mechanism”. The demand, which would require Google and Amazon to effectively sidestep legal obligations in countries around the world, was born out of Israel’s concerns that data it moves into the global corporations’ cloud platforms could end up in the hands of foreign law enforcement authorities. For Israel, losing control of its data to authorities overseas was a significant concern. So to deal with the threat, officials created a secret warning system: the companies must send signals hidden in payments to the Israeli government, tipping it off when it has disclosed Israeli data to foreign courts or investigators. To clinch the lucrative contract, Google and Amazon agreed to the so-called winking mechanism. The strict controls include measures that prohibit the US companies from restricting how an array of Israeli government agencies, security services and military units use their cloud services. **According to the deal’s terms, the companies cannot suspend or withdraw Israel’s access to its technology, even if it’s found to have violated their terms of service.**

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/38267171 > RISC-V is an industry standard, like USB or Wi-Fi. The specifications are publicly available under the Creative Commons license and every engineer, wherever they are in the world, can use them to design their products locally, while engaging with the global RISC-V ecosystem. > > This standard is defined by RISC-V International and its members. Decisions are voted upon collectively, ensuring every member is heard. It’s a model that has worked for us for many years, ensuring any updates to the RISC-V ISA happen transparently, without breaking existing designs, and always in service of the broader ecosystem. > > The RISC-V ISA is already an industry standard and the next step is impartial recognition from a trusted international organization. > > Today, I’m excited to announce that we have taken that first step. RISC-V International has been approved as a recognized PAS (that’s publicly available specification) Submitter by the ISO/IEC Joint Technical Committee (JTC 1). > > This means we’re able to submit draft international papers, starting with the The RISC-V Instruction Set Manual, for consideration as true, international standards.