NVIDIA retires its classic Control Panel application for Windows
In the release notes for the latest NVIDIA driver version for Windows, the "AI" company who happens to spare a few GPUs for regular users every now and then has announced that the curtain has fallen for the classic NVIDIA Control Panel.
After 20 years of dedicated service, the classic NVIDIA Control Panel is
Windows 9x Subsystem for Linux
You can find beauty in the oddest of places.
WSL9x runs a modern Linux kernel (6.19 at time of writing) cooperatively inside the Windows 9x kernel, enabling users to take advantage of the full suite of capabilities of both operating systems at the same time, including paging, memory protection, and pre-emptive scheduling. Run all your favourite applications side by side -
https://www.osnews.com/story/144819/windows-9x-subsystem-for-linux/
What an unprocessed photo looks like
I knew digital cameras and phones had to do a lot of processing and other types of magic to output anything human eyes can work with, but I had no idea just how much. This is wild.
https://www.osnews.com/story/144087/what-an-unprocessed-photo-looks-like/
Package managers keep using git as a database, it never works out
If you’re building a package manager and git-as-index seems appealing, look at Cargo, Homebrew, CocoaPods, vcpkg, Go. They all had to build workarounds as they grew, causing pain for users and maintainers. The pull request workflow is nice. The version history is nice. You will hit the same walls
One of the projects I will work on in the coming period is to share Blender history info, also to create a 'source of truth' for all variations of Blender facts that go around.
Here is the official 1998 announcement that went out for the first public Blender (V1.21) release ever.
Dark patterns killed my wife’s Windows 11 installation
Last night, my wife looks up from her computer, troubled. She tells me she can't log into her computer running Windows 11, as every time she enters the PIN code to her account, the login screen throws up a cryptic error: "Your credentials could not be verified". She's using the correct PIN code, so that surely isn't it. We opt
https://www.osnews.com/story/143376/dark-patterns-killed-my-wifes-windows-11-installation/
“UTF-8 is a brilliant design”
The first time I learned about UTF-8 encoding, I was fascinated by how well-thought and brilliantly it was designed to represent millions of characters from different languages and scripts, and still be backward compatible with ASCII.
[...]
Designing a system that scales to millions of characters and still be compatible with the old systems that use just 128 characters
https://www.osnews.com/story/143326/utf-8-is-a-brilliant-design/
SkiftOS: a hobby operating system with its own kernel, UI, browser engine, and more
Who doesn't love a desktop-oriented hobby operating system to start off the weekend?
SkiftOS is a hobbyist operating system built from the ground up with a focus on modularity, simplicity, and modern design principles. Driven by a dissatisfaction with the fragmented user
A gentle introduction to CP/M
For an operating system that was once incredibly popular and expected to become a standard for a long time to come, it's remarkable how little experience most people have with CP/M. In fact, many conventions and historical limitations you might be aware of - like the 8.3 filename convention of DOS - come straight from CP/M, as it influenced DOS considerably. It's quite
https://www.osnews.com/story/143248/a-gentle-introduction-to-cp-m/
Anubis, tool to stop “AI” crawler abuse, gains non-JavaScript option
In recent weeks and months, you may have noticed that when accessing some websites, you see a little progress bar and a character, performing some sort of check. You've most likely encountered Anubis, a tool to distinguish real human browser users from "AI" content crawlers that are causing real dam
Something stunning is cooking here in the studio. Andy's new short: Singularity. https://studio.blender.org/blog/announcing-singularity/ #b3d
Today in the Purmer polder.
Gen AI only excels at mediocrity.
Check this stunning Star Wars fan-film - made using Blender - and interview with producer Maurine Fauvert. https://adapt.one/editorial/article/15/Star+Wars+The+212th+%7C+A+Star+Wars+Fan+Film/ #b3d
Google threatened tech influencers unless they ‘preferred’ the Pixel
The tech review world has been full of murky deals between companies and influencers for years, but it appears Google finally crossed a line with the Pixel 9. The company’s invite-only Team Pixel program — which seeds Pixel products to influencers before public availability — stipulated that partici
Heads-up for the #PeerTube community, it appears Google has been blocking many tools/IP ranges that try to synchronize with YouTube. At least for the creators on #tilvids this is a massive challenge, because they can no longer sync THEIR content on multiple platforms, requiring them to manually upload to both TILvids AND #youtube We appreciate our creators going the extra mile, and please remember this is why it's so important to support alternative platforms.
I told you so: Mozilla working with Facebook to weaken Firefox’ privacy and anti-tracking features
I've long been warning about the dangers of relying on just one browser as the bullwark against the onslaught of Chrome, Chrome skins, and Safari. With Firefox' user numbers rapidly declining, now stuck at a mere 2% or so - and even les
program: Windows 3’s Program Manager for X11
progman is a simple X11 window manager modeled after Program Manager from the Windows 3 era.
↫ progman's GitHub page
If that description doesn't pique your interest, nothing will. What more do you people want from me?
https://www.osnews.com/story/138585/program-windows-3s-program-manager-for-x11/
Stop using Opera Browser and Opera GX
Hindenburg alleged that when the Opera browser continued losing users (due to competition from Google and Apple), the company shifted gears to building mobile apps that provided predatory short-term loans. The interest rates on those loans ranged from 365-876% per year, and loan terms from 7-29 days. Opera also falsely advertised longer loan terms and lower inter
https://www.osnews.com/story/138455/stop-using-opera-browser-and-opera-gx/
Google gets its way, bakes a user-tracking ad platform directly into Chrome
Don't let Chrome's big redesign distract you from the fact that Chrome's invasive new ad platform, ridiculously branded the "Privacy Sandbox," is also getting a widespread rollout in Chrome today. If you haven't been following this, this feature will track the web pages you visit and gene