Daily Tech News 19 March 2025

• Google has signed a $32 billion deal to buy security firm Wiz (who?) even while it is in the midst of a life-or-death struggle with the DOJ to avoid being divided into the first seven letters of the alphabet. (Ars Technica)
  
  It's a bold strategy.

• SpaceX carried out a picture-perfect rescue mission to return the stranded Butch and Sundance from the ISS and Ars Technica is incandescent with rage. (Ars Technica)
  
  The space coverage was one of the few (only?) areas of the site that hadn't succumbed to the mindless liberal fascism that has overtaken the site in recent years, but now they too have lost their minds.
  
  The coverage of the mission at The Verge in comparison is straightforward, factual, and almost celebratory.
  
  And The Verge is insane.
  
  
  
• Nvidia showed off some new things that will be available at some point and will cost some amount of money. (Liliputing)
  
  They were not more specific.
  
  
  
• The new HP ZBook 8 has (up to) a 2560x1600 120Hz display, a twelve-core Ryzen 370 CPU, 64GB of user-upgradeable RAM, and very nearly the Four Essential Keys. (Notebook Check)
  
  The Home key doubles up as the F12, but I only use that for opening Chrome Dev Tools and I don't do that all that often, so close enough.
  
  The RAM is almost certainly upgradeable to 128GB with the new kits from Micron/Crucial, since they've already been shown to work with the Ryzen 370.
  
  And two Thunderbolt 4 / USB4 ports (same thing, really), HDMI, wired Ethernet of an unspecified speed, a regular USB port, and an audio jack.
  
  It ticks all the boxes I want for a new laptop... Only right now I don't want a new laptop.
  
  
  
• The DC Circuit Court of Appeals ruled unanimously - and for once, correctly - that AI generated art cannot be copyrighted. (Yahoo)
  
  This upholds the district court's decision and the opinion of the Copyright Office, and reflects previous rulings that art produced by animals cannot be copyrighted either.
  
  
  
• In an unexpected gift, the March Windows updates have been mistakenly removing Copilot from some systems. (Bleeping Computer)
  
  Sadly, Microsoft plans to fix this.

posted by Pixy Misa at 04:00 AM

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