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Chinese Reusable Booster Explodes During First Orbital Test

Slashdot.org - 8 hours 33 min ago
schwit1 shares a report from CNN: A private Chinese space firm successfully sent its Zhuque-3 rocket to orbit but failed in its historic attempt to re-land the rocket booster Wednesday -- the first such trial by a Chinese firm as the country's growing commercial space sector races to catch up with American rivals like SpaceX. The rocket entered orbit as planned, but its first stage did not successfully return to a landing site, instead crashing down, the company said in a statement. "An anomaly occurred after the first-stage engine ignited during the landing phase, preventing a soft landing on the designated recovery pad," the statement said. "The debris landed at the edge of the recovery area, resulting in a failed recovery test." The team would "conduct a comprehensive review" and continue to "advance the verification and application of reusable rocket technology in future missions," the statement added. You can watch a video of the launch and subsequent crash here.

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Zig Quits GitHub, Says Microsoft's AI Obsession Has Ruined the Service

Slashdot.org - 9 hours 34 min ago
The Zig Software Foundation has quit GitHub after years of unresolved GitHub Actions bugs -- including a "safe_sleep" script that could spin forever and cripple CI runners. Zig leadership puts the blame on Microsoft's growing AI-first priorities and declining engineering quality. Other open-source developers are voicing similar frustrations. The Register reports: The drama began in April 2025 when GitHub user AlekseiNikiforovIBM started a thread titled "safe_sleep.sh rarely hangs indefinitely." GitHub addressed the problem in August, but didn't reveal that in the thread, which remained open until Monday. That timing appears notable. Last week, Andrew Kelly, president and lead developer of the Zig Software Foundation, announced that the Zig project is moving to Codeberg, a non-profit git hosting service, because GitHub no longer demonstrates commitment to engineering excellence. One piece of evidence he offered for that assessment was the "safe_sleep.sh rarely hangs indefinitely" thread. "Most importantly, Actions has inexcusable bugs while being completely neglected," Kelly wrote. "After the CEO of GitHub said to 'embrace AI or get out', it seems the lackeys at Microsoft took the hint, because GitHub Actions started 'vibe-scheduling' -- choosing jobs to run seemingly at random. Combined with other bugs and inability to manually intervene, this causes our CI system to get so backed up that not even master branch commits get checked."

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Drive with “SpongeBob” on WazeDrive with “SpongeBob” on Waze

GoogleBlog - 9 hours 48 min ago
The world’s favorite sponge is jumping in as a navigator for an open-road adventure! To celebrate the upcoming release of ‘The SpongeBob Movie: Search for SquarePants’ i…
Categories: Technology

Japanese Devs Face Font Licensing Dilemma as Annual Costs Increase From $380 To $20K

Slashdot.org - 10 hours 35 min ago
An anonymous reader quotes a report from GamesIndustry.biz: Japanese game makers are struggling to locate affordable commercial fonts after one of the country's leading font licensing services raised the cost of its annual plan from around $380 to $20,500 (USD). As reported by Gamemakers and GameSpark and translated by Automaton, Fontworks LETS discontinued its game license plan at the end of November. The expensive replacement plan -- offered through Fontwork's parent company, Monotype -- doesn't even provide local pricing for Japanese developers, and comes with a 25,000 user-cap, which is likely not workable for Japan's bigger studios. The problem is further compounded by the difficulties and complexities of securing fonts that can accurately transcribe Kanji and Katakana characters. UI/UX designer Yamanaka stressed that this would be particularly problematic for live service games; even if studios moved quickly and switched to fonts available through an alternate licensee, they will have to re-test, re-validate, and re-QA check content already live and in active use. The crisis could even eventually force some Japanese studios to rebrand entirely if their corporate identity is tied to a commercial font they can no longer afford to license.

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How institutions worldwide used Google for Education tools in 2025How institutions worldwide used Google for Education tools in 2025VP, Google for Education

GoogleBlog - 11 hours 48 min ago
Here are the top ways that institutions around the world used new Google for Education features in 2025.Here are the top ways that institutions around the world used new Google for Education features in 2025.
Categories: Technology

We’re announcing new health AI funding, while a new report signals a turning point for health in Europe.We’re announcing new health AI funding, while a new report signals a turning point for health in Europe.Director Government Affairs and Public Policy,

GoogleBlog - 11 hours 48 min ago
At the European Health Summit in Brussels, Greg Corrado, Distinguished Scientist at Google, released a new report authored by Implement Consulting Group and commissioned…
Categories: Technology
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