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An anonymous reader shares a report: The IRS accessed a database of hundreds of millions of travel records, which show when and where a specific person flew and the credit card they used, without obtaining a warrant, according to a letter signed by a bipartisan group of lawmakers and shared with 404 Media. The country's major airlines, including Delta, United Airlines, American Airlines, and Southwest, funnel customer records to a data broker they co-own called the Airlines Reporting Corporation (ARC), which then sells access to peoples' travel data to government agencies. The IRS case in the letter is the clearest example yet of how agencies are searching the massive trove of travel data without a search warrant, court order, or similar legal mechanism. Instead, because the data is being sold commercially, agencies are able to simply buy access. In the letter addressed to nine major airlines, the lawmakers urge them to shut down the data selling program. Update: after this piece was published, ARC said it already planned to shut down the program. "Disclosures made by the IRS to Senator Wyden confirm that it did not follow federal law and its own policies in purchasing airline data from ARC," the letter reads. The letter says the IRS "confirmed that it did not conduct a legal review to determine if the purchase of Americans' travel data requires a warrant."

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A federal judge ruled Tuesday that Meta did not illegally stifle competition when it acquired Instagram and WhatsApp. The decision marks Big Tech's first major victory against antitrust enforcement that began during President Donald Trump's first term. The U.S. Federal Trade Commission had sought to force Meta to sell or restructure the platforms to restore competition among social media networks. Meta argued it faced competitive pressure from TikTok, YouTube, and Apple's messaging app.

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Today, we are introducing Google Scholar Labs, a new feature that explores how generative AI can transform the process of answering detailed scholarly research questions…

We're just a few years away from Windows being considered a Linux distro  XDA

Deal is back again through 11/22. Get a $10 Target GiftCard with $100 Apple Gift Card purchase. A simple deal if you plan to buy any Apple products/services in the future (and have a free Target Circle membership). While supplies last. Stack with the 5% back via Target REDCard, or your usual rewards credit card.

This time, the gift card deal also includes other options like Disney, Roblox, Starbucks, Google Play, Doordash, Razer, Nintendo, Uber, and Xbox.

Apple gift cards are now good for everything from iPhones to Apple Watches to music to iCloud storage subscriptions. The code just adds to the balance in your Apple account. I accumulate them over time like an old-fashioned layaway plan and I feel that getting 10% to 15% off a new iPhone or Apple Watch even when you buy on release day is pretty good.

Best Buy is not matching this deal right now, but they have some other promo where you get a EA SPORTS FC bonus with Apple gift card purchase. Gift cards at Best Buy.

A majority of global fund managers think companies are overinvesting, as market anxiety grows about the sustainability of the AI spending boom. From a report: A net 20 per cent of fund managers surveyed this month by Bank of America said companies were spending too much on their investments -- the first time this has been a majority view in data running back to 2005. "This jump is driven by concerns over the magnitude and financing of the AI capex boom," said BofA analysts. The surge in investment to develop AI infrastructure has been a dominant theme in the record rally in US tech stocks this year -- with chipmaker Nvidia becoming the world's first $5tn company last month -- but growing concerns about the sustainability of this spending has caused a pullback on Wall Street in recent weeks.

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Google released Gemini 3 on Tuesday, launching its latest AI model with a breakthrough score of 1501 Elo on the LMArena Leaderboard alongside state-of-the-art performance across multiple benchmarks including 91.9% on GPQA Diamond for PhD-level reasoning and 37.5% on Humanity's Last Exam without tool usage. The model is available starting today in the Gemini app, AI Mode in Search for Google AI Pro, Google AI Studio, Vertex AI and the newly launched Google Antigravity agentic development platform. Third-party platforms including Cursor, GitHub, JetBrains, Manus, and Replit are also gaining access. Separately, Google said AI Overviews now have 2 billion users every month. Gemini app has topped 650 million users per month.

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Fedora vs. Ubuntu: How to choose your next Linux distro (and which one I use)  ZDNET

Blender 5.0 Released With Better Vulkan Support, HDR On Wayland  Phoronix

Microsoft has rolled out a new preview build for Windows 11 Insiders in the Dev and Beta Channel this week that introduces a new toggle called 'experimental agentic features' that can be enabled or disabled in the Windows Settings app. From a report: According to Microsoft, this new toggle is designed to "allow agents to use new Windows agentic features." The company says the feature will work with AI-powered apps, which "help you automate everyday tasks -- like organizing files, scheduling meetings, or sending emails -- so you can spend less time on busy work and more time on what matters most. One powerful way apps are implementing AI today is by interacting with your apps and your files, using vision and advanced reasoning to click, type and scroll like a human would." The setting in the Windows Setting says "When this setting is on, agents can use Windows agentic features." Features such as the recently announced Copilot Actions for Windows feature are going to take advantage of this new experimental agentic feature capability.

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Playnite may get a Linux version during 2026 as the creator plans a move to Linux  GamingOnLinux

Playnite may get a Linux version during 2026 as the creator plans a move to Linux  GamingOnLinux

Gemini 3 is introducing advanced agentic coding capabilities, plus Google Antigravity, a new agentic development platform.Gemini 3 is introducing advanced agentic coding capabilities, plus Google Antigravity, a new agentic development platform.

Learn more about Gemini 3 and how it’s upgrading Google Search and AI Mode.Learn more about Gemini 3 and how it’s upgrading Google Search and AI Mode.

Today we’re releasing Gemini 3 – our most intelligent model that helps you bring any idea to life.Today we’re releasing Gemini 3 – our most intelligent model that helps you bring any idea to life.

Today we’re unveiling a major update for the Gemini app, and it all starts with Gemini 3.Today we’re unveiling a major update for the Gemini app, and it all starts with Gemini 3.

Gemini 3, our most intelligent model, combines all of Gemini’s capabilities together so you can bring any idea to life.

Gemini 3, our most intelligent model, combines all of Gemini’s capabilities together so you can bring any idea to life.

These 5 Gnome extensions instantly improved my Linux workflow  XDA

Debian Libre Live Images Released for Software Freedom Lovers  9to5Linux

Microsoft, Nvidia and OpenAI-rival Anthropic announced strategic partnerships today that will scale Claude on Microsoft Azure and bring up to $15 billion in new investment to the AI startup. Anthropic committed to purchase $30 billion of Azure compute capacity and contract additional capacity up to one gigawatt. Nvidia and Microsoft -- the largest investor in OpenAI -- committed to invest up to $10 billion and up to $5 billion respectively in Anthropic.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.