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DuckDB 1.4.0 LTS

Announcing DuckDB 1.4.0 The DuckDB team · 7 min TL;DR: We're releasing DuckDB version 1.4.0, codenamed “Andium”. This is an LTS release with one year of community support, and it packs several new features including database encryption, the MERGE statement and Iceberg writes. We are proud to release DuckDB v1.4.0, named “Andium” after the Andean teal (Anas andium), which lives in the Andean highlands of Colombia, Venezuela and Ecuador. In this blog post, we cover the most important updates f

What do people actually use ChatGPT for? OpenAI provides some numbers.

As someone who writes about the AI industry relatively frequently for this site, there is one question that I find myself constantly asking and being asked in turn, in some form or another: What do you actually use large language models for? Today, OpenAI's Economic Research Team went a long way toward answering that question, on a population level, releasing a first-of-its-kind National Bureau of Economic Research working paper (in association with Harvard economist David Denning) detailing ho

Pgstream: Postgres streaming logical replication with DDL changes

pgstream - Postgres replication with DDL changes pgstream is an open source CDC command-line tool and library that offers Postgres replication support with DDL changes to any provided target. Features Schema change tracking and replication of DDL changes Support for multiple out of the box targets Elasticsearch/OpenSearch Webhooks PostgreSQL Initial and on demand PostgreSQL snapshots (for when you don't need continuous replication) Column value transformations (anonymise your data on the g

Show HN: Semlib – Semantic Data Processing

Semlib Semlib is a Python library for building data processing and data analysis pipelines that leverage the power of large language models (LLMs). Semlib provides, as building blocks, familiar functional programming primitives like map , reduce , sort , and filter , but with a twist: Semlib's implementation of these operations are programmed with natural language descriptions rather than code. Under the hood, Semlib handles complexities such as prompting, parsing, concurrency control, caching,

I built a business plan with ChatGPT and it turned into a cautionary tale

Andrii Yalanskyi/iStock/Getty Images Plus Follow ZDNET: Add us as a preferred source on Google. ZDNET's key takeaways ChatGPT makes errors in long-form chats with many variables. Personal productivity isn't as high as it could be because of this. Unless you have massive infrastructure, check AI's work. By now, everyone knows that generative AI can be flaky. If you're using it to edit your novel or to create an image, the AI might add elements that are inconsistent with your narrative or lo

The Download: computing’s bright young minds, and cleaning up satellite streaks

I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology. 1 China has accused Nvidia of violating anti-monopoly laws As US and Chinese officials head into a second day of tariff negotiations. (Bloomberg $) + The investigation dug into Nvidia’s 2020 acquisition of computing firm Mellanox. (CNBC) + But China's antitrust regulator hasn’t confirmed if it will punish it. (WSJ $) 2 The US is getting closer to making a TikTok deal But it’s still p

You’re a slow thinker. Now what?

I'm not a quick witted person. In fact, I’ve always been worried about my brain’s slow processing time. But recently, I've realised that slow processing time is not as much of an issue as I thought it was. And even if I was wrong about that, I still think I’d do better for myself by leaning into it, instead of spending energy trying to fight it. In this essay, I want to talk about some ways I've been able to skirt around my lack of quick wittedness! To get what I mean by slow processing time,

The PC was never a true 'IBMer'

The IBM Personal Computer was launched on 12 August 1981. Designed by an IBM team in Boca Raton, Florida led by Philip Don Estridge and William C. Lowe. That first PC, given the less than charismatic designation as the ‘Model 5150’, and its successors quickly set the standard for personal computing, first in business and then in homes. So much so that they became known as just ‘PCs’. But the PC was never an true ‘IBMer’, the colloquial term used for IBM employees. Wait a moment! The IBM PC. D

California lawmakers pass SB 79, housing bill that brings dense housing

This is read by an automated voice. Please report any issues or inconsistencies here . California lawmakers just paved the way for a whole lot more housing in the Golden State. In the waning hours of the 2025 legislative session, the state Senate voted 21 to 8 to approve Senate Bill 79 , a landmark housing bill that overrides local zoning laws to expand high-density housing near transit hubs. The controversial bill received a final concurrence vote from the Senate on Friday, a day after passin

Modder injects AI dialogue into 2002’s Animal Crossing using memory hack

When software engineer Joshua Fonseca recently connected the GameCube simulation classic Animal Crossing to a modern AI language model like the kind that powers ChatGPT, he decided to shake things up. By programming the AI to roleplay as villagers growing aware of their debt situation, and giving them a shared memory to track conversations, Fonseca orchestrated a scenario where the residents began to organize against their raccoon landlord. In Animal Crossing, Tom Nook runs the town shop and pr

QGIS is a free, open-source, cross platform geographical information system

QGIS is a full-featured, user-friendly, free-and-open-source (FOSS) geographical information system (GIS) that runs on Unix platforms, Windows, and MacOS. Features 1. Flexible and powerful spatial data management Support for raster, vector, mesh, and point cloud data in a range of industry-standard formats Raster formats include: GeoPackage, GeoTIFF, GRASS, ArcInfo binary and ASCII grids, ERDAS Imagine SDTS, WMS, WCS, PostgreSQL/PostGIS, and other GDAL supported formats. Vector formats includ

tvOS 26 adds a new icon to your Home Screen, but it’s not a new app

tvOS 26 launches to all users next week, and after updating you might notice a new app icon on your Home Screen: Sing. But don’t get too excited. Apple Music Sing gets its own app icon in tvOS 26, but it’s the same Music app Apple Music Sing has been available for years as a way to enjoy karaoke with the existing Apple Music library. You can use the feature across any supported Apple device, but Apple TV 4K makes for an especially ideal platform since large screens and karaoke parties go hand

Topics: 26 app apple music sing

Roku Wants to Improve Your TV Viewing Experience With a Monsoon of AI-Generated Ads

Advertising is already one of the most annoying parts of watching television and, if a high-level executive at Roku is to be believed, it’s about to get a whole lot worse. The Verge reports that the streamer envisions a near future where your TV is flooded with AI-generated advertisements. “No longer is it going to be about the top 200 advertisers,” Roku CFO and COO Dan Jedda told investors during a recent investor conference hosted by Citi. “It’s going to be about 100,000 advertisers.” Oh, dea

Larry Ellison briefly becomes world's richest person

Larry Ellison briefly becomes world's richest person 2 days ago Share Save Danielle Kaye Business reporter Share Save Getty Images Larry Ellison, pictured at an Oval Office meeting earlier this year, has overtaken Elon Musk in fortune Elon Musk briefly lost his title as the world's richest person to Larry Ellison, the co-founder of Oracle and an ally of US President Donald Trump. Ellison's wealth surged to $393bn (£290bn) on Wednesday morning, surpassing Musk's $385bn (£284bn), according to t

ApeRAG: Production-ready GraphRAG with multi-modal indexing and K8s deployment

ApeRAG 🚀 Try ApeRAG Live Demo - Experience the full platform capabilities with our hosted demo ApeRAG is a production-ready RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation) platform that combines Graph RAG, vector search, and full-text search with advanced AI agents. Build sophisticated AI applications with hybrid retrieval, multimodal document processing, intelligent agents, and enterprise-grade management features. ApeRAG is the best choice for building your own Knowledge Graph, Context Engineering, an

OpenAI's fix for hallucinations is simpler than you think

Hector Roqueta Rivero/Moment via Getty Images Follow ZDNET: Add us as a preferred source on Google. ZDNET's key takeaways OpenAI says AI hallucination stems from flawed evaluation methods. Models are trained to guess rather than admit ignorance. The company suggests revising how models are trained. Even the biggest and most advanced generative AI models occasionally hallucinate, or generate inaccurate information presented as fact. Now, OpenAI claims to understand why -- while offering a p

Tonverk is Elektron’s new polyphonic sample mangler and groovebox

Elektron has built a cult-like following over the years with its unique and, at times, esoteric take on electronic musical instruments. On paper, Tonverk is a seemingly over-powered sampler that continues that tradition. It’s the rare piece of hardware capable of creating multisampled instruments on its own. It turns a single sample track into a nesting doll of multiple samples. And it’s loaded with an absolutely absurd amount of routing and audio processing features. Tonverk is certainly capabl

KDE launches its own distribution

KDE launches its own distribution (again) [LWN subscriber-only content] Welcome to LWN.net The following subscription-only content has been made available to you by an LWN subscriber. Thousands of subscribers depend on LWN for the best news from the Linux and free software communities. If you enjoy this article, please consider subscribing to LWN. Thank you for visiting LWN.net! At Akademy 2025, the KDE Project released an alpha version of KDE Linux, a distribution built by the project to " in

Reddit, Yahoo, Medium and more are adopting a new licensing standard to get compensated for AI scraping

With web publishers in crisis, a new open standard lets them set the ground rules for AI scrapers. (Or, at least it will try.) The new Really Simple Licensing (RSL) standard creates terms that participants expect AI companies to abide by. Although enforcement is an open question, it can't hurt that some heavy hitters back it. Among others, the list includes Reddit, Yahoo (Engadget's parent company), Medium and People Inc. RSL adds licensing terms to the robots.txt protocol, the simple file that

5 business leaders on how to balance innovation with risk - and turn your ideas into action

Richard Drury/DigitalVision/Getty Images Follow ZDNET: Add us as a preferred source on Google. ZDNET's key takeaways Bridging the gap between aspiration and achievement isn't easy. Smart business leaders focus on projects that deliver top-line growth. They support staff, work with peers, and encourage experimentation. For business leaders who want to embrace technological innovation, there are many potential risks, from wasting money on failed projects to falling behind faster-moving rival

Kerberoasting

I learn about cryptographic vulnerabilities all the time, and they generally fill me with some combination of jealousy (“oh, why didn’t I think of that”) or else they impress me with the brilliance of their inventors. But there’s also another class of vulnerabilities: these are the ones that can’t possibly exist in important production software, because there’s no way anyone could still do that in 2025. Today I want to talk about one of those ridiculous ones, something Microsoft calls “low tech

The web has a new system for making AI companies pay up

is a news writer who covers the streaming wars, consumer tech, crypto, social media, and much more. Previously, she was a writer and editor at MUO. A new licensing standard aims to let web publishers set the terms of how AI system developers use their work. On Wednesday, major brands like Reddit, Yahoo, Medium, Quora, and People Inc. announced support for Really Simple Licensing (RSL), an open content licensing standard that enables publishers to outline how bots should pay to scrape their site

RSS co-creator launches new protocol for AI data licensing

In the wake of Anthropic’s $1.5 billion copyright settlement, the AI industry is coming to terms with its training data problem. There are as many as 40 other pending cases that seek damages for unlicensed data — including one that takes Midjourney to court for creating images of Superman. Without some kind of licensing system, AI companies could face an avalanche of copyright lawsuits that some worry will set the industry back permanently. Now, a group of technologists and web publishers has

Use singular nouns for database table names

Use singular nouns for database table names A common debate in relational database circles is whether the names of tables should be singular or plural. If you have a table that stores users, should the table be called user or users ? The arguments for plural are straightforward: The table is storing more than one user. It reads well in the FROM clause: SELECT id , name FROM users ; The arguments for singular are more subtle: Strictly speaking, we’re not naming a table, we’re naming a relati

Adtech company PubMatic sues Google over monopoly violations

In Brief Advertising exchange PubMatic has filed a lawsuit against Google, accusing the tech giant of illegally monopolizing the ad technology market. PubMatic is seeking billions of dollars in damages, according a report from Bloomberg. The lawsuit marks the second time that an advertising exchange has sued Google since a federal judge ruled in April that the search giant had illegally monopolized ad exchanges and ad servers. The judge has set another trial for this month to determine whether

The influencer in this Vodafone ad isn’t real

Posts from this author will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. I opened TikTok while visiting Germany last week and stumbled across a Vodafone ad being presented by a woman who probably doesn’t exist. The ad includes several “tells” that suggest the presenter was artificially created using generative AI — the unnatural style and movement of her hair, the way her moles disappear, and the uncanny valley vibe of her facial expressions — and Vodafone confirmed my suspicions

Here’s How Much More AI-Skilled Workers Make

Employers are increasingly offering pay boosts for workers with artificial intelligence skills, even in roles beyond tech. How much more? We looked at three different studies to see just how much more artificial intelligence skills will pay. According to CNBC, roles specifying AI competencies are trending across job postings, with employers adding salary incentives for candidates who bring the right mix of AI know-how—even in traditionally non-technical roles. The emerging trend reflects the g

Hitting Peak File IO Performance with Zig

Intro This post goes through how to maximize file IO performance on linux using zig with io_uring. All code related to this post can be found in this repo. a) Benchmark We are comparing fio and the zig code which can be found here. test system We are using a machine with: ubuntu 24.04 (6.14 kernel, HWE). kernel parameter nvme.poll_queues=16 . . "datacenter" NVMe SSD without any RAID. 756 GB of RAM. This amount of RAM should be irrelevant for this test. Since we are using direct_io henc

Google fined €2.95bn by EU for abusing advertising dominance

Google fined €2.95bn by EU for abusing advertising dominance 6 minutes ago Share Save Liv McMahon Technology reporter Share Save Reuters Google has been fined €2.95bn (£2.5bn) by the EU for allegedly abusing its power in the ad tech sector - the technology which determines which adverts should be placed online and where. The European Commission said on Friday the tech giant had breached competition laws by favouring its own products for displaying online ads, to the detriment of rivals. It co