"Can you believe that we've been demanding user freedom since 1985?" asks a new blog post at FSF.org: Today, we're celebrating our thirty-ninth anniversary, the "lace year," which represents the intertwined nature and strength of our relationship with the free software community. We wouldn't be here without you, and we are so grateful for everyone...

Audio Overview, a new AI podcasting tool by Google, can generate realistic podcasts with human-like voices using content uploaded by users through NotebookLM. MIT Technology Review reports: NotebookLM, which is powered by Google's Gemini 1.5 model, allows people to upload content such as links, videos, PDFs, and text. They can then ask the system questions...

Waymo has entered a "multi-year, strategic partnership" with Hyundai to integrate the company's autonomous driving system into the American-made Hyundai Ioniq 5. It's expected to join the Waymo One fleet after road tests starting in late 2025. Carscoops reports: Waymo and Geely joined forces in 2021 to introduce a mobility-focused Zeekr EV. The model...

On Wednesday, the SEC filed (PDF) to appeal a 2023 court ruling that determined XRP is not considered a security when sold to retail investors on exchanges. The announcement sent the price of XRP tumbling more than 8%. "XRP, which was created by the founders of Ripple, is the native token of the open source XRP Ledger, which Ripple uses in its cross-border...

Google is testing a new verification feature in search, in a move aimed at helping users avoid fake or fraudulent websites. The Verge's Jess Weatherbed reports: My colleague Jay Peters spotted checkmarks next to official site links for Microsoft, Meta, Epic Games, Apple, Amazon, and HP, but these were no longer displayed once he logged into a different...

An anonymous reader shares a report: The arrival of energy-assisted magnetic recording (EAMR) technologies like Seagate's HAMR will play a crucial role in accelerating HDD capacity growth in the coming years. According to the new IEEE International Roadmap for Devices and Systems Mass Data Storage, we will see 60 TB hard disk drives in 2028. If the...