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Marcel Bucher, a professor of plant sciences at the University of Cologne in Germany, lost two years of carefully structured academic work in an instant when he temporarily disabled ChatGPT's "data consent" option in August to test whether the AI tool's functions would still work without providing OpenAI his data. All his chats were permanently deleted and his project folders emptied without any warning or undo option, he wrote in a post on Nature. Bucher, a ChatGPT Plus subscriber paying $20 per month, had used the platform daily to draft grant applications, prepare teaching materials, revise publication drafts and create exams. He contacted OpenAI support, first receiving responses from an AI agent before a human employee confirmed the data was permanently lost and unrecoverable. OpenAI cited "privacy by design" as the reason, telling Nature it does provide a confirmation prompt before users permanently delete a chat but maintains no backups. Bucher said he had saved partial copies of some materials, but the underlying prompts, iterations, and project folders -- what he describes as the intellectual scaffolding behind his finished work -- are gone forever.

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Anthropic has a problem that most companies would envy: its AI model keeps getting so good, the company wrote in a blog post, that it passes the company's own hiring test for performance engineers. The test, designed in late 2023 by optimization lead Tristan Hume, asks candidates to speed up code running on a simulated computer chip. Over 1,000 people have taken it, and dozens now work at Anthropic. But Claude Opus 4 outperformed most human applicants. Hume redesigned the test, making it harder. Then Claude Opus 4.5 matched even the best human scores within the two-hour time limit. For his third attempt, Hume abandoned realistic problems entirely and switched to abstract puzzles using a strange, minimal programming language -- something weird enough that Claude struggles with it. Anthropic is now releasing the original test as an open challenge. Beat Claude's best score and ... they want to hear from you.

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Apple has accused the European Commission of using "political delay tactics" to postpone new app marketplace policies and create grounds for investigating and fining the iPhone maker, a preemptive response to reports that the commission plans to blame Apple for the announced closure of third-party app store Setapp. MacPaw, the developer behind Setapp, said it would shut down the marketplace next month because of "still-evolving and complex business terms that don't fit Setapp's current business model." The EC is preparing to say that Apple has not rolled out changes to address key issues concerning its business terms and their complexity, according to remarks seen by Bloomberg. Apple said it disputes this finding. The company said it submitted a formal compliance plan in October proposing to replace its $0.59 per-install fee structure with a 5% revenue share, but the commission has not responded. "The European Commission has refused to let us implement the very changes that they requested," Apple said. The company also claimed there is no demand in the EU for alternative app stores and disputed that Setapp is closing because of its actions.

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GPD claim the WIN 5 is getting an official Bazzite Linux adaptation but the Bazzite team say otherwise  GamingOnLinux

Vulkan 1.4.340 released with new extension to improve DirectX performance on Linux  GamingOnLinux

Vulkan 1.4.340 released with new extension to improve DirectX performance on Linux  GamingOnLinux

Vimeo is laying off employees around the world just months after Italian software company Bending Spoons completed its $1.38 billion acquisition of the video hosting platform. Dave Brown, Vimeo's former brand VP, described the cuts on LinkedIn as affecting "a large portion of the company." One video engineer claimed "almost everyone" was laid off, "including the entire video team," and another software engineer said he lost his job alongside "a gigantic amount of the company." This marks Vimeo's second round of layoffs in less than six months. The company cut 10% of its workforce in September, just one week before Bending Spoons announced its acquisition plans. Bending Spoons has a history of post-acquisition layoffs at companies including WeTransfer, Filmic, and Evernote.

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Linux users targeted as crypto-stealing malware hits Snap packages - here's how to stay safe  TechRadar

Linux users targeted as crypto-stealing malware hits Snap packages - here's how to stay safe  TechRadar

Linux users targeted as crypto-stealing malware hits Snap packages - here's how to stay safe  TechRadar

Nexus Mods say they are committed to supporting Vortex on SteamOS Linux  GamingOnLinux

AMD Ryzen AI Software 1.7 Released For Improved Performance On NPUs, New Model Support  phoronix.com

Highguard requires Secure Boot to play, which might not be a popular move  PC Gamer

Highguard requires Secure Boot to play, which might not be a popular move  PC Gamer

Highguard requires Secure Boot to play, which might not be a popular move  pcgamer.com

Poly Effects Hugo: a Linux-based pedal powerhouse with Bitwig Studio and VSTs?  synth anatomy

3 cool Linux apps to try this weekend (January 23 - 25)  Yahoo! Tech

3 cool Linux apps to try this weekend (January 23 - 25)  How-To Geek

The United States formally withdrew from the World Health Organization on Thursday, making good on an executive order that President Trump issued on his first day in office pledging to leave the international organization that coordinates global responses to public health threats. The New York Times: While the United States is walking away from the organization, a senior official with the Department of Health and Human Services told reporters on Thursday that the Trump administration was considering some type of narrow, limited engagement with W.H.O. global networks that track infectious diseases, including influenza. As a W.H.O. member, the United States long sent scientists from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to participate in international decision-making about which strains to include in the flu vaccine. A W.H.O. meeting on next year's vaccine is scheduled for February. The official said the Trump administration would soon disclose how or whether it will participate. On Thursday, the administration said that all U.S. government funding to the organization had been terminated, and that all assigned federal employees and contractors had been recalled from its Geneva headquarters and its offices worldwide.

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GNU Guix 1.5 Released With RISC-V Support, Experimental x86_64 GNU Hurd Kernel  phoronix.com