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The $200 billion video game industry is caught between studios eager to cut ballooning development costs through AI and a player base that has grown openly hostile to the technology after a string of visible blunders. As Bloomberg News reports, Arc Raiders, a surprise hit from Stockholm-based Embark Studios that sold 12 million copies in three months, was briefly vilified online for its robotic-sounding auto-generated voices -- even as CEO Patrick Soderlund insists AI was only used for non-essential elements. EA's Battlefield 6 and Activision's Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 both drew gamer anger this winter over thematically mismatched or poorly generated graphics, and Valve's Steam has added labels to flag games made using AI. Some 47% of developers polled by research house Omdia said they expect generative AI to reduce game quality, and PC gamers -- now facing inflated hardware prices from AI-driven demand for graphics chips -- have turned reflexively antagonistic.

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A new California law says all operating systems, including Linux, need to have some form of age verification at account setup  [H]ard|Forum

A new California law says all operating systems, including Linux, need to have some form of age verification at account setup  [H]ard|Forum

CVE Severity Distribution For Linux Statistics 2026  commandlinux.com

An anonymous reader shares a report: Worldwide smartphone shipments are forecast to decline 12.9% year-on-year (YoY) in 2026 to 1.1 billion units, according to the International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker. This decline will bring the smartphone market to its lowest annual shipment volume in more than a decade. The current forecast represents a sharp decline from our November forecast amid the intensifying memory shortage crisis.

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Bilt recently revamped their credit cards, leaving Wells Fargo and switching to Cardless. The good news is that they now give rewards on mortgage payments in addition to rent. The bad news is that they require a lot of non-housing spend for you to “unlock” those rewards. Overall, the program is much more complicated than before, requiring you to carefully juggle housing and non-housing spending amounts on your card to make it barely possible to gain value above a simple 2% cash back card.

Importantly, separate from their original Bilt points, which are great and convert 1:1 to Hyatt points in addition to possible monthly transfer bonuses to other airline programs, they added a new thing confusingly called “Bilt Cash” which is nothing like cash at all.

I decided to convert to the new no-annual-fee Bilt “Blue” credit card as they offered me a “$100 sign-up bonus”, but this bonus turned out to be in Bilt Cash, which I haven’t been able to redeem for anything of value to me.

On March 1st only, Bilt is offering a Rent Day transfer bonus of between 25% to 100% to Japan Airlines. If you pay them $135 in Bilt Cash, they will let you bump up to an increased bonus percentage. So if you are on the base tier like me and only get a 25% transfer bonus to JAL, I could pay them $135 in Bilt Cash and make it a 50% transfer bonus. Possibly a good use of Bilt Cash and a way to use up your points, but again only on March 1st.

I wish I could explain the new program here simply, but I can’t. Personally, I have gone ahead and converted nearly all of my Bilt points to Hyatt, and will wait and see if things get better.

Nasa announced on Friday radical changes to its delayed Artemis III mission to land humans back on the moon, as the US space agency grapples with technical glitches and criticism that it is trying to do too much too soon. From a report: The abrupt shift in strategy was laid out by the space agency's recently confirmed administrator, Jared Isaacman. Announcing the changes on Friday, he said that Nasa would introduce at least one new moon flight before attempting to put humans back on the lunar surface for the first time in more than half a century, in 2028. The new, more incremental approach would give the Nasa team a chance to test flight and refine its technology. As part of the changes, the Artemis II mission to fly humans around the moon this year, without landing, would also be pushed back from its latest scheduled launch on 6 March to 1 April at the earliest. "Everybody agrees this is the only way forward," Isaacman told reporters at a news conference. "I know this is how Nasa changed the world, and this is how Nasa is going to do it again."

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A sprawling Chinese influence operation -- accidentally revealed by a Chinese law enforcement official's use of ChatGPT -- focused on intimidating Chinese dissidents abroad, including by impersonating US immigration officials, according to a new report from ChatGPT-maker OpenAI. From a report: The Chinese law enforcement official used ChatGPT like a diary to document the alleged covert campaign of suppression, OpenAI said. In one instance, Chinese operators allegedly disguised themselves as US immigration officials to warn a US-based Chinese dissident that their public statements had supposedly broken the law, according to the ChatGPT user. In another case, they describe an effort to use forged documents from a US county court to try to get a Chinese dissident's social media account taken down. The report offers one of the most vivid examples yet of how authoritarian regimes can use AI tools to document their censorship efforts. The influence operation appeared to involve hundreds of Chinese operators and thousands of fake online accounts on various social media platforms, according to OpenAI.

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State of Linux Mobile 2026: PostmarketOS & F-Droid Updates  SitePoint

An anonymous reader shares a report: While some see AI as a tool to be used, its specific use and how it is deployed responsibly is being heavily debated online across a wide range of industries. In terms of journalistic content, and in this particular instance, reviews, review aggregator Metacritic has taken a firm stance on content published and submitted to their platform, that have been generated by artificial intelligence in some way. In a statement by co-founder Marc Doyle, sent to Gamereactor, he says this: "Metacritic has been a reputable review source for a quarter century and has maintained a rigorous vetting process when adding new publications to our slate of critics. However, in certain instances such as a publication being sold or a writing staff having turned over, problems can arise such as plagiarism, theft, or other forms of fraud including AI-generated reviews. Metacritic's policy is to never include an AI-generated critic review on Metacritic and if we discover that one has been posted, we'll remove it immediately and sever ties with that publication indefinitely pending a thorough investigation." So, what is this about specifically? Well, it's probably a sound guess, that this pertains to Videogamer's review of Resident Evil 9: Requiem, which was removed from the platform after a barrage of comments accusing the review of being AI-written, and for the author of being made up.

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Yokogawa strengthens Linux‑based offshore automation systems through OIN 2.0  Offshore Magazine

Gemini Drops is our regular monthly update on how to get the most out of the Gemini app.

An anonymous reader shares a report: OpenAI CEO Sam Altman wrote in a memo to staff that he will draw the same red lines that sparked a high-stakes fight between rival Anthropic and the Pentagon: no AI for mass surveillance or autonomous lethal weapons. If other leading firms like Google follow suit, this could massively complicate the Pentagon's efforts to replace Anthropic's Claude, which was the first model integrated into the military's most sensitive work. It would also be the first time the nation's top AI leaders have taken a collective stand about how the U.S. government can and can't use their technology. Altman made clear he still wants to strike a deal with the Pentagon that would allow ChatGPT to be used for sensitive military contexts. Despite the show of solidarity, such a deal could see OpenAI replace Anthropic if the Pentagon follows through with its plan to declare the latter a "supply chain risk."

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RISC-V Linux will be ready for wide adoption in 2026, says Canonical  How-To Geek

Netflix is walking away from a deal to buy Warner Bros. Discovery's studio and streaming assets after the WBD board on Thursday deemed a revised bid by Paramount Skydance to be a superior offer. From a report: Earlier this week, Paramount raised its bid to buy the entirety of WBD to $31 per share, up from $30 per share, all cash. It was the latest amendment to Paramount's multiple offers in recent months -- and since moving forward with a hostile bid to buy the company -- and it's now unseated a deal between WBD and Netflix to sell the legacy media company's studio and streaming businesses for $27.75 per share. Last week, Netflix granted WBD a seven-day waiver to reengage with Paramount, resulting in the higher bid. Paramount's offer is for the entirety of WBD, including its pay-TV networks, such as CNN, TBS and TNT. Netflix had four business days to make changes to its own proposal in light of Paramount's superior bid, the WBD board said in a statement Thursday. Instead, the decision by the streaming giant to walk away puts a pin in a drawn-out saga that saw amended offers from both bidders.

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Arch-based Bluestar Linux 6.18.9 drops with a new kernel, Firefox 148, LibreOffice 26.2.1, and more  Notebookcheck

Arch-based Bluestar Linux 6.18.9 drops with a new kernel, Firefox 148, LibreOffice 26.2.1, and more  Notebookcheck

The OrangePi Neo gaming handheld with Manjaro Linux is now "on ice" due to component prices  GamingOnLinux

The OrangePi Neo gaming handheld with Manjaro Linux is now "on ice" due to component prices  GamingOnLinux

The OrangePi Neo gaming handheld with Manjaro Linux is now "on ice" due to component prices  GamingOnLinux