SlashdotNews for nerds, stuff that matters
Jul 12th 2026, 15:34 by EditorDavid
"While KDE and GNOME dominate the landscape, a relative newcomer is starting to make waves with features other desktops still don't fully support," argues XDA Developers: Linux 7.0 was the first release of the kernel to officially support Rust, but COSMIC has been all-in on Rust since the very beginning, and COSMIC 1.1 finally stripped all the leftovers of C language from the desktop. It no longer has any traces of Nautilus (the GNOME file manager), and then there's now a COSMIC-native system monitor to replace the GNOME System Monitor, so you have even fewer chances of being afflicted by C-related problems. [The article calls COSMIC's system monitor "much better at showing detailed information about everything from processes to network and disk usage compared to the GNOME and KDE alternatives."] Stacking Windows As someone who used to love following Windows news, one of the most disheartening announcements was when Microsoft gave up on Sets, a feature that essentially turned every app window into a tab you could combine with other apps in the same window. I never thought I'd see that feature again, until COSMIC came along. Simply called "stacking", COSMIC has a feature that is exactly what Sets was supposed to be, though this time, you have more control. By default, apps still open in their proper, typical windows, with a title bar as you'd expect. But if you do want to combine multiple apps into one, you can right-click the title bar (or press Super + S) to enable stacking for that window. Then, simply drag another window over that one to start stacking them as tabs. This essentially gives you a whole new way to create "workspaces", as you can have a single window with all the tools you need, so you don't need to jump between different windows all the time, and you can keep a given window focused on a specific workload, but have multiple apps within it. It's a great reminder of what Microsoft took from us, too. Tiling, But On Demand Tiling windows is one of those features some power users simply love, and yes, there are ways to make it happen on KDE and GNOME with third-party apps or extensions, but those aren't ideal. It's an extra step to set them up, and very often they don't play nice with all the features those desktops offer, especially as new updates come out and those tools may have a hard time keeping up with the development of the desktops themselves. COSMIC is fantastic because not only does it have built-in window tiling, it's entirely controllable by the user. You can set any workspace to use tiling or floating windows depending on your preference, all completely independent of each other, and you can also choose the new default behavior for new workspaces so things are always tuned to your preferences. You can turn tiling on or off for a given workspace easily, and of course, even while tiling is on, you can allow certain apps to ignore it and still float above others. Not all these capabilities are exclusive to COSMIC, but to have this kind of feature built in with this level of control is still leagues better than anything KDE or GNOME offer in this regard. The article argues COSMIC also makes customization extremely simple without stifling your options (like tweaking color options for your desktop). "This desktop environment just keeps getting better, and it's quickly establishing itself as a major competitor to long-standing alternatives."
 
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Jul 12th 2026, 14:34 by EditorDavid
Microsoft released its 2026 Environmental Sustainability Report showing that last year it matched its entire electricity consumption with renewable energy, reports The Register. "The bad news is it also increased greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 25%" — mostly due to datacenter construction and a decision to stop purchasing some renewable energy certificates: In 2020, Microsoft set itself the goal of becoming "carbon-negative" by 2030. Its own figures show emissions heading only upwards, from 13 million tons of CO2 equivalent in 2020, to 20 million tons in 2025. However, Microsoft estimates that without the carbon reduction initiatives it has already put in place, emissions would now stand at 34 million tons... For the first time, Microsoft claims to have replenished more [water] than it withdrew during 2025, returning 14,278 million liters (3,771 million gallons). Elsewhere, the corporation says its Circular Centers program reused 92% of decommissioned servers and their components.
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Jul 12th 2026, 11:34 by EditorDavid
"I have been trying to find something meaningful to say about the Id Software layoffs," John Carmack posted Thursday to his 2.8 million followers on X.com: My "Microsoft will probably be a good steward of the brand" statement isn't aging well, and this is certainly going to dampen the mood of the founder reunion at QuakeCon next month. I'm saddened, but I can't muster anger or outrage over it. I don't have access to the books, but I suspect that Id Software was a marginal business from Microsoft's perspective. I believe the reports that Minecraft revenues have been carrying several other studios. To continue being produced long term, games need to succeed, not just be beloved. Games are competing with every other option for spending your leisure time and money, and the competition is brutal. You can't rule out the possibility that executives are idiots, but that shouldn't be your default belief. I don't think there is any obvious path that would have doubled the revenue from Id games. Could they have gotten more with a different pricing strategy? Could they have created more things for fans to buy? Could they have cost effectively marketed in a way that reached more players that would have loved and bought the games? Could they have changed the game designs and broadened the appeal to more players without alienating existing ones? Could they have produced the games at a lower cost, faster or cheaper? I really don't know. The game isn't over yet, and I hope the studio rallies through. Id Software co-founder John Romero also shared his thoughts on X.com: I'm so sorry for everyone at id Software affected by these layoffs. I know what it feels like to leave id while id goes on. It's a strange and painful thing to step away from a place that holds so much of your work, friendships and history. The people at id have done a great job moving that legacy forward. DOOM, Quake, and Wolfenstein are not easy names to carry on, especially in today's industry. The last few games showed real care, skill and respect for what those worlds mean to people. Romero also expressed his hope for "digital preservation" of Id's ongoing history (including code and assets). "I'm thinking of everyone at id today, and everyone else affected by yesterday's layoffs. Romero Games was there a year ago. I know how devastating it is, and my heart's with all of you. "Four Xbox studios are already out the door," noted IGN, but shared some thoughts about the future: Some have expressed concern that id Software would be unable to lead development on any new games in its current state, and that it might be relegated to support studio status. But in a new statement [posted to id Software's page on X.com] id Software said it was now at the staffing level it was back when it made the much-loved 2016 Doom reboot — and insisted it was still capable of making "great games." "While our studio was impacted, those changes were spread across teams. We still have the crew we need to build the games and tech we're known for... We're going to keep building the great games and tech that have defined us for the past 35 years, and we're looking forward to seeing you at QuakeCon this August."
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Jul 12th 2026, 07:52 by EditorDavid
Facial recognition technology in U.K. shops "will soon alert police in real time to the presence of serious offenders," reports The Guardian, "with civil liberties groups warning of a 'dangerous escalation' towards surveillance and criminalisation in the retail sector." Facewatch, a facial recognition system used by more than 100 businesses including Sainsbury's, B&M and Spar to monitor thieves, said it was launching a UK-first feature to "alert police instantly when the most serious offenders trigger a live facial recognition match". Facewatch's chief executive, Nick Fisher, said the "unique technical development" would be launched in autumn and would warn police in an average of four seconds when the "worst offenders" were flagged on its network... Charlie Whelton, the policy and campaigns officer at [civil liberties nonprofit] Liberty, said it was concerned about this "untested, opaque development" and the way facial recognition technology had been allowed to "proliferate without anything to govern it". "It's not against the law to walk into a shop even if you've committed crimes in the past," he said. "The idea of calling the police on somebody who hasn't committed a crime, but there's a concern they might, is really upending the way we do things. And of course, it's not infallible. These systems do make mistakes, and it's very hard to argue with that when it happens to you." A number of people have been forced to leave shops after being falsely identified by Facewatch technology as a shoplifter, with some describing it as "Orwellian" and saying they felt as though they were "guilty until proven innocent"... The use of the Facewatch technology looks set to quickly expand, with Sainsbury's recently announcing plans to increase its use from 55 stores to more than 200 by the end of the year. Facewatch said it alerted retailers almost 300,000 times that a "known repeat offender" had entered a store during the first six months of 2026, and that its system allowed staff to intervene "before theft, abuse or violence could occur or escalate"... [E]xperts argue the use of facial recognition technology in shops to catch shoplifters is disproportionate. Nuala Polo, the UK public policy lead at the Ada Lovelace Institute, which studies the impact of AI on society, said: "There are other, much less intrusive means that you can use to catch shoplifters where you don't need to be scanning millions of faces every day, virtually without consent...." The campaign group Big Brother Watch has criticised police for "inserting themselves into this cowboy operation" and said people would be matched against "a secret blacklist compiled by unaccountable businesses and private security guards".
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