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In October Zorin OS claimed it had 100,000 downloads in a little over two days in the days following Microsoft's end of support for Windows 10. And one month later, Zorin OS developers now claim that 780,000 people downloaded it from a Windows computer in the space of a month, according to the tech news site XDA Developers. In a post on the Zorin blog, the developers of the operating system Zorin OS 18 announced that they've managed to accrue one million downloads of the operating system in a single month [since its launch on October 14]. While this is plenty impressive by itself, the developers go on to reveal that, out of that million, 78% of the downloads came from a Windows machine. That means that at least 780,000 people on Windows gave Zorin OS 18 a download... [I]t's easy to see why: the developers put a heavy emphasis on making their system the perfect home for ex-Windows users.

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ScienceDaily reports: Electrons can freeze into strange geometric crystals and then melt back into liquid-like motion under the right quantum conditions. Researchers identified how to tune these transitions and even discovered a bizarre "pinball" state where some electrons stay locked in place while others dart around freely. Their simulations help explain how these phases form and how they might be harnessed for advanced quantum technologies... When electrons settle into these rigid arrangements, the material undergoes a shift in its state of matter and stops conducting electricity. Instead of acting like a metal, it behaves as an insulator. This unusual behavior provides scientists with valuable insight into how electrons interact and has opened the door to advances in quantum computing, high-performance superconductors used in energy and medical imaging, innovative lighting systems, and extremely precise atomic clocks... [Florida State University assistant professor Cyprian Lewandowski said] "Here, it turns out there are other quantum knobs we can play with to manipulate states of matter, which can lead to impressive advances in experimental research."

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I built a Linux "recovery drive" that doubles as a persistent portable workstation  XDA

Snapdragon X1 Elite Linux laptop cancelled due to performance concerns — Linux PC maker says Qualcomm CPU is ‘less suitable for Linux than expected’  Tom's Hardware

Snapdragon X1 Elite Linux laptop cancelled due to performance concerns — Linux PC maker says Qualcomm CPU is ‘less suitable for Linux than expected’  Tom's Hardware

Snapdragon X1 Elite Linux laptop cancelled due to performance concerns — Linux PC maker says Qualcomm CPU is ‘less suitable for Linux than expected’  Tom's Hardware

Snapdragon X1 Elite Linux laptop cancelled due to performance concerns — Linux PC maker says Qualcomm CPU is ‘less suitable for Linux than expected’  Tom's Hardware

Snapdragon X1 Elite Linux laptop cancelled due to performance concerns — Linux PC maker says Qualcomm CPU is ‘less suitable for Linux than expected’  Tom's Hardware

Snapdragon X1 Elite Linux laptop cancelled due to performance concerns — Linux PC maker says Qualcomm CPU is ‘less suitable for Linux than expected’  Tom's Hardware

Snapdragon X1 Elite Linux laptop cancelled due to performance concerns — Linux PC maker says Qualcomm CPU is ‘less suitable for Linux than expected’  Tom's Hardware

Snapdragon X1 Elite Linux laptop cancelled due to performance concerns — Linux PC maker says Qualcomm CPU is ‘less suitable for Linux than expected’  Tom's Hardware

Snapdragon X1 Elite Linux laptop cancelled due to performance concerns — Linux PC maker says Qualcomm CPU is ‘less suitable for Linux than expected’  Tom's Hardware

Snapdragon X1 Elite Linux laptop cancelled due to performance concerns — Linux PC maker says Qualcomm CPU is ‘less suitable for Linux than expected’  Tom's Hardware

The Washington Post reports: Scientists in Switzerland have created a robot the size of a grain of sand that is controlled by magnets and can deliver drugs to a precise location in the human body, a breakthrough aimed at reducing the severe side effects that stop many medicines from advancing in clinical trials... "I think surgeons are going to look at this," [said Bradley J. Nelson, an author of the paper in Science describing the discovery and a professor of robotics and intelligent systems at ETH Zurich]. I'm sure they're going to have a lot of ideas on how to use" the microrobot. The capsule, which is steered by magnets, might also be useful in treating aneurysms, very aggressive brain cancers, and abnormal connections between arteries and veins known as arteriovenous malformations, Nelson said. The capsules have been tested successfully in pigs, which have similar vasculature to humans, and in silicone models of the blood vessels in humans and animals... Nelson said drug-ferrying microrobots of this kind may be three to five years from being tested in clinical trials. The problem faced by many drugs under development is that they spread throughout the body instead of going only to the area in need... A major cause of side effects in patients is medications traveling to parts of the body that don't need them. The capsules developed in Switzerland, however, can be maneuvered into precise locations by a surgeon using a tool not that different from a PlayStation controller. The navigation system involves six electromagnetic coils positioned around the patient, each about 8 to 10 inches in diameter... The capsules are made of materials that have been found safe for people in other medical tools... When the capsule reaches its destination in the body, "we can trigger the capsule to dissolve," Nelson said.

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Developer says you can “unlock” AirPods to use them on Android and Linux devices  Cybernews

Linux-Inspired File Managers Outpace Windows Explorer in Speed and Features  WebProNews

Here's how I fixed Windows not showing up in my dual boot menu  How-To Geek

Steam Runtime’s Debian 13 Leap: Linux Gaming’s Quiet Revolution  WebProNews

A California judge has shut down a decade-long surveillance program in which Sacramento's utility provider shared granular smart-meter data on 650,000 residents with police to hunt for cannabis grows. The EFF reports: The Sacramento County Superior Court ruled that the surveillance program run by the Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD) and police violated a state privacy statute, which bars the disclosure of residents' electrical usage data with narrow exceptions. For more than a decade, SMUD coordinated with the Sacramento Police Department and other law enforcement agencies to sift through the granular smart meter data of residents without suspicion to find evidence of cannabis growing. EFF and its co-counsel represent three petitioners in the case: the Asian American Liberation Network, Khurshid Khoja, and Alfonso Nguyen. They argued that the program created a host of privacy harms -- including criminalizing innocent people, creating menacing encounters with law enforcement, and disproportionately harming the Asian community. The court ruled that the challenged surveillance program was not part of any traditional law enforcement investigation. Investigations happen when police try to solve particular crimes and identify particular suspects. The dragnet that turned all 650,000 SMUD customers into suspects was not an investigation. "[T]he process of making regular requests for all customer information in numerous city zip codes, in the hopes of identifying evidence that could possibly be evidence of illegal activity, without any report or other evidence to suggest that such a crime may have occurred, is not an ongoing investigation," the court ruled, finding that SMUD violated its "obligations of confidentiality" under a data privacy statute. [...] In creating and running the dragnet surveillance program, according to the court, SMUD and police "developed a relationship beyond that of utility provider and law enforcement." Multiple times a year, the police asked SMUD to search its entire database of 650,000 customers to identify people who used a large amount of monthly electricity and to analyze granular 1-hour electrical usage data to identify residents with certain electricity "consumption patterns." SMUD passed on more than 33,000 tips about supposedly "high" usage households to police. [...] Going forward, public utilities throughout California should understand that they cannot disclose customers' electricity data to law enforcement without any "evidence to support a suspicion" that a particular crime occurred.

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Linux 6.19 Unlocks Realtek’s RTL8125K: The Next Frontier in 2.5G Ethernet  WebProNews