Shameless Plug

John Deere Agrees To 10-Year Right-To-Repair Deal In FTC Antitrust Lawsuit Published on 2026-07-08T22:00:00Z John Deere has agreed to a 10-year FTC-supervised right-to-repair settlement requiring it to provide farmers and independent repair shops with the same repair resources available to authorized dealers. The deal resolves antitrust claims from the FTC and five states alleging Deere monopolized equipment repair services, contributing to higher costs and delays for farmers. Wired reports: The full statement (PDF) lays out obligations for John Deere's repair services, requiring the company to give farmers and third-party repair shops access to the same equipment and repair resources it provides to official John Deere dealers. This includes software capabilities, such as reading and resetting codes and pairing with other software, which customers have long had limited access to, creating delays when diagnosing equipment problems. Delayed fixes can mean delayed harvests, which ma...

Meta's Glasses Will Turn Off the Camera If You Tamper With the Privacy Light Published on 2026-07-08T21:00:00Z Meta is rolling out an update that will disable the camera on its smart glasses if the device detects that someone has tampered with or destroyed the privacy LED. "The update is meant to address modders who have taken actions such as physically drilling into the LED light," reports The Verge. "Meta has previously tried to discourage tampering with the LED light. For example, starting with its second generation glasses, blocking the light with tape or other objects will trigger a prompt asking users to uncover the recording light. However, many modders have found various workarounds for that particular measure." Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Apple Says It Will Spend $30 Billion To Design US-Made Broadcom Chips Published on 2026-07-08T20:00:00Z Apple says it will spend $30 billion to design US-made Broadcom wireless connectivity chips, part of its broader push to diversify its supply chain and support domestic chip production. CNN reports: The agreement with Broadcom will lead to the production of 15 million chips in United States and allow Broadcom to invest $1.5 billion to expand and modernize its manufacturing facilities in Fort Collins, Colorado. It is part of Apple's commitment in August to invest $600 billion as part of its "American Manufacturing Program" which it said is dedicated to bringing even more of the company's supply chain and advanced manufacturing back to the US. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Windows Drops Under 60% in Global Desktop OS Share Published on 2026-07-08T19:00:00Z StatCounter's June 2026 data shows Windows made up 56.55% of global desktop OS usage, dropping Microsoft's share below 60% for the first time in years. Linux, meanwhile, reached 4.39%, "one of its strongest recent showings in the company's desktop OS statistics," reports Linuxiac. From the report: Apple's desktop platforms also remain a major part of the picture. StatCounter lists OS X at 11.89% and macOS at 4.48% for June 2026, meaning Apple's combined desktop presence remains comfortably ahead of Linux in the global chart. Chrome OS follows with 1.21%. Of course, StatCounter's numbers should be read for what they are: web usage statistics, not a direct count of installed operating systems. The company calculates its Global Stats from page views across websites using its tracking code, analyzing details such as browser, operating system, and screen resolution. In ...

Microsoft Flips Windows Backup On By Default Outside the EU Published on 2026-07-07T22:00:00Z Microsoft will turn on Windows settings backup and restore by default for eligible Windows 11 business devices outside the EU, starting with Windows 11 26H2. The Register reports: Now dubbed "Windows settings backup and restore," the service backs up a device's settings and a list of installed Microsoft Store apps, which can then be restored to a new device. Microsoft gave a use case for the technology: "Imagine a lost laptop, a hardware refresh, or an unexpected reset. These are some of the moments when your users need backup most. And that's rarely when anyone wants to discover that backup was never turned on." However, some organizations might not want it on. Perhaps those with strict privacy or data sovereignty requirements, or those regulated by the EU Digital Markets Act (DMA), for whom the default-on behavior won't apply. Windows 11 25H2 and earlier ...

FCC To End Biden-Era Rule That Forces ISPs To List All Their Fees Published on 2026-07-07T20:00:00Z The FCC plans to roll back broadband label rules that require ISPs to itemize all passthrough fees. Under the proposal, providers could instead list a single "up to" amount for location-based charges. It would also allow ISPs to link to pricing labels rather than display them prominently, while eliminating machine-readable pricing files. Ars Technica reports: ISPs routinely advertise prices much lower than those actually charged to consumers on their monthly bills. One method of raising monthly bill prices above advertised rates is to tack on fees that, ISPs claim, are used to offset charges imposed by local governments. ISPs would be well within their rights to advertise accurate monthly prices and charge those exact prices on monthly bills. But because ISPs rarely do that, the FCC has required them to make specific price disclosures to consumers for the past decade. The Bid...

Samsung Passes Nvidia To Become Most Profitable Company In the World Published on 2026-07-07T19:23:00Z Samsungâ(TM)s chip division is projected to earn more in 2026 than it made across its previous 40 years in semiconductors, driven by soaring AI-fueled demand for memory and storage. The companyâ(TM)s latest quarterly operating profit reportedly topped Nvidiaâ(TM)s, making Samsung the worldâ(TM)s most profitable tech company for the period. Tom's Hardware reports: Brokerage consensus puts Samsung's full-year 2026 operating profit near 300 trillion won ($196 billion), and its second-quarter figure at about 84.6 trillion won ($55.1 billion). Samsung easily beat the consensus with $58.5 billion when it posted preliminary results on July 7, overtaking Nvidia's most recent quarterly operating profit of $53.54 billion and becoming the most profitable technology company in the world for the period, on the back of AI-driven memory demand. Samsung's DS division booked 53....