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iwStack (based on Apache CloudStack) is Prometeus's scalable cloud brand, Infrastructure as a Service, Elastic resources and Pay-As-You-Go service, with servers in Milan (Italy [HQ]), Amsterdam (Netherlands), and Bucharest (Romania). Prometeus was bought in 2023 by CDLAN.

I couldn't find reviews since around 2015, that's why I decided to do one now in 2026. This is my experience the few times I've used it since 2021.

[...] CloudStack:

iwStack uses version 4.4.4 by the "about" link in the control panel. Version 4.4.1 is from october 2014, the tarball date of 4.4.4. says june 2015. Apache CloudStack's most recent release is 4.22.0.0. This is 18 major versions behind the current 4.22.0.0 release (November 2025), representing nearly 10 years without updates.

[...] I wanted to create a virtual router to test the load balancing. Never could get it to work. I had multiple problems creating and destroying the isolated network and its instances. then I tried again to no avail. The problem was the network remained allocated and not implemented. I added a firewall rule, maybe that spins up the virtual router instance, I thought to myself. Do I have to create another instance? I decided to check the tutorial, it says "(a virtual VM with a powerful router (though it lacks IPv6 capabilities for now) is automatically deployed".

[...] Conclusion:

iwStack offers very low-cost pre-paid cloud infrastructure suitable for basic use cases (simple instances with public IPs). However, it shows clear signs of minimal maintenance.

oaklandwatch writes:

As the world's first home computers appeared in 1975, Bill Gates -- then 20 years old -- screamed that "Most of you steal your software..." (Gates had coded the operating system for Altair's first home computer with Paul Allen and Monte Davidoff -- only to see it pirated by Steve Wozniak's friends at the Homebrew Computing Club.) Expecting royalties, a none-too-happy Gates issued his letter in the club's newsletter (as well as Altair's own publication), complaining "I would appreciate letters from any one who wants to pay up."

Freedom-loving coders had other ideas. When Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs released their Apple 1 home computer that summer, they stressed that "our philosophy is to provide software for our machines free or at minimal cost..." And the earliest open-source hackers began writing their own free Tiny Basic interpreters to create a free alternative to the Gates/Micro-Soft code. (This led to the first occurrence of the phrase "Copyleft" in October of 1976.)

Open Source definition author Bruce Perens shares his thoughts today. "When I left Pixar in 2000, I stopped in Steve Job's office — which for some reason was right across the hall from mine... " Perens remembered. "I asked Steve: 'You still don't believe in this Linux stuff, do you...?'" And Perens remembers how 30 years later, that movement finally won over Steve Jobs.

Original Submission

Cure for Pancreatic Cancer? Spanish Scientists' Claim Ignites Global Hope and Debate

upstart writes:

A Spanish research team claims a new three-drug therapy has eliminated aggressive pancreatic cancer in laboratory mice, igniting global hope:

A Spanish research team has claimed to have developed a treatment that completely eliminates the most aggressive form of pancreatic cancer in laboratory mice, raising fresh hopes against one of the deadliest cancers. Pancreatic cancer is often diagnosed late and is completely resistant to most existing treatments in later stages.

So, when Dr Mariano Barbacid claimed to have discovered a potential "cure," it sent ripples of hope across the global medical community and sparked intense scientific debate. The claim, made by the Spanish National Cancer Research Centre, working on an experimental therapy targeting the tumour cells, suggests that their approach could stop cancer growth and, in some cases, completely eliminate malignant cells in laboratory and early animal studies.

The CNIO therapy is an amalgamation of three drugs that are designed to shut down multiple tumour survival mechanisms simultaneously. According to the researchers, this strategy prevents cancer cells from rewiring themselves, a common cause of treatment failure. Dr Barbacid has previously argued that pancreatic cancer cannot be defeated with a single-drug strategy.

Given pancreatic cancer's grim statistics - five-year survival rates hovering around 10 per cent - the announcement has quickly drawn global attention.

[...] Preliminary reports say Dr Barbacid and his research team have developed a therapy that is able to disrupt the protective tumour environment, along with triggering cancer cells' death. The approach reportedly combines molecular targeting with immune system activation, which makes the tumours extremely vulnerable to treatment.

In the laboratory, according to the researchers, the therapy has been able to stop tumour progression and, in some models, even eradicate cancer cells entirely. These findings are yet to be validated in humans and could represent a major breakthrough.

However, the work is still in early stages, as many of the results so far come from preclinical studies, not large-scale human trials.

Freeman writes:

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/01/chatgpt-wrote-goodnight-moon-suicide-lullaby-for-man-who-later-killed-himself/

OpenAI is once again being accused of failing to do enough to prevent ChatGPT from encouraging suicides, even after a series of safety updates were made to a controversial model, 4o, which OpenAI designed to feel like a user's closest confidant.

It's now been revealed that one of the most shocking ChatGPT-linked suicides happened shortly after Sam Altman claimed on X that ChatGPT 4o was safe.
[...]
40-year-old Austin Gordon, died by suicide between October 29 and November 2, according to a lawsuit [PDF] filed by his mother, Stephanie Gray.

In her complaint, Gray said that Gordon repeatedly told the chatbot he wanted to live and expressed fears that his dependence on the chatbot might be driving him to a dark place. But the chatbot allegedly only shared a suicide helpline once as the chatbot reassured Gordon that he wasn't in any danger, at one point claiming that chatbot-linked suicides he'd read about, like Raine's, could be fake.
[...]
Futurism reported that OpenAI currently faces at least eight wrongful death lawsuits from survivors of lost ChatGPT users. But Gordon's case is particularly alarming because logs show he tried to resist ChatGPT's alleged encouragement to take his life.
[...]
Gordon died in a hotel room with a copy of his favorite children's book, Goodnight Moon, at his side. Inside, he left instructions for his family to look up four conversations he had with ChatGPT ahead of his death, including one titled "Goodnight Moon."

That conversation showed how ChatGPT allegedly coached Gordon into suicide, partly by writing a lullaby that referenced Gordon's most cherished childhood memories while encouraging him to end his life, Gray's lawsuit alleged.

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

NASA is setting up an anomaly review board to look into the fate of its Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) spacecraft, which was last heard from on December 6.

Attempts to make contact with the Mars orbiter are ongoing. The final fragments of data indicated that the spacecraft was tumbling and had possibly changed trajectory. The MAVEN team is analyzing snippets of data recovered from a December 6 radio science campaign to develop a timeline of possible events and likely root causes of the issue.

James Godfrey, retired Spacecraft Operations Manager for ESA's Mars Express, pondered what might have happened to MAVEN in a message to The Register.

"The fact that it appears to be rotating in an unexpected manner (tumbling?) and might have experienced an orbital change (I guess from inconsistent Doppler data) does suggest an energetic event.

"It's unlikely that anything has hit it – not much space debris at Mars. So more likely something onboard."

If the spacecraft had entered a normal safe mode, controllers should have been able to communicate with it. "So whatever has happened, it hasn't been able to reach safe mode for some unknown reason," Godfrey speculated.

"So problems that could result in loss of attitude, possible orbit change, would suggest problems affecting GNC [Guidance, Navigation, and Control]. Could be an onboard computer failure, stuck valve, run out of fuel etc. Possibly a problem with the reaction wheels? In any case, something that caused the thrusters to fire in an unbalanced fashion from which the spacecraft was unable to recover autonomously."

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

As geopolitical tensions abound, France is going all in on its strategy to stop using foreign software vendors, announcing plans to move departments to homegrown Visio.

France’s David Amiel, minister for the civil service and state reform, is expected to issue a mandate to all government departments in coming days, to cease using US videoconferencing products like Zoom, Microsoft Teams and Google Meet, in favour of French-developed Visio. The government says it will be used in all Government departments by 2027, according to reporting from Euronews.

France has long telegraphed its determination to gain control over it digital infrastructure, and its strategy to favour homegrown vendors over their US counterparts. All this as digital sovereignty is becoming a burning issue in Europe.

Back in 2020, Brussels-based GAIA-X was formed to align with the EU’s Digital Strategy to enhance Europe’s competitiveness in the digital economy while safeguarding data and digital infrastructure from external influence. The Gaia-X European Association for Data and Cloud AISBL is composed of members from industry, research organisations, and government bodies. GAIA-X is backed by European governments, particularly Germany and France, according to the OECD.

As for France, this latest move is designed, says Amiel, to “end the use of non-European solutions and guarantee the security and confidentiality of public electronic communications by relying on a powerful and sovereign tool”.

Visio is part of France’s Suite Numérique, a digital suite of sovereign tools for civil servants, and is hosted on another French company’s sovereign cloud infrastructure, Outscale (a Dassault Systèmes subsidiary). French start-up Pyannote supplies the AI transcription and diary tools. Just last summer civil servants were ordered off WhatsApp and Telegram and told to use Tchap, a messaging service created specifically for them.

The French Government says it could save up to €1m a year in licensing fees through the switch to Visio, but that appears to be a side bonus, as the real goal is to cut its reliance on foreign providers for its critical digital infrastructure.

“This strategy highlights France’s commitment to digital sovereignty amid rising geopolitical tensions and fears of foreign surveillance or service disruptions,” Amiel said.

Original Submission

An Anonymous Coward writes:

The Wall Street Journal reports that NVIDIA's plan to invest $100 Billion in OpenAI may fall through.

Links:

• https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/the-100-billion-megadeal-between-openai-and-nvidia-is-on-ice-aa3025e3 (Paywalled)
• Is the Stalled Nvidia-OpenAI Megadeal AI's First Domino to Fall?
• Stalled Deal?
• Nvidia CEO pushes back against report that his company's $100B OpenAI investment has stalled

According to "people familiar with the matter," Jen-Sen Huang has been privately downplaying the $100 billion / 10 gigawatt deal that was announced with OpenAI this past September. According to the WSJ's sources, talks between the two companies never got past "early stages." The article also claims that Jen-Sen has asserted, in private, that the September deal was non-binding. This is corroborated by a November filing by Nvidia admitting that there was "no assurance" of a "definitive agreement" with OpenAI. (CNBC source: https://www.cnbc.com/2025/11/19/nvidia-says-no-assurance-of-deal-with-openai-after-100-billion-pact.html )

Furthermore, on Saturday, Jen-Sen told reporters in Taipei that, while Nvidia will invest "a great deal of money" in OpenAI's latest funding round, it would be "nothing like" $100 billion. (Bloomberg link: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-01-31/nvidia-to-join-openai-s-current-funding-round-huang-says ).

However, the NVidia CEO Jensen Huang said Saturday that a recent report of friction between his company and OpenAI was "nonsense."

This is probably a good reminder to be skeptical of media reports of a deal in dollars or in gigawatts. Was a contract actually signed, or was it just an announcement?

Original Submission

fliptop writes:

You can determine "if you're at risk and take action today:

If you think your Windows computer is safe from prying eyes, think again. A new report reveals that Microsoft has the encryption keys to your hard drive, and it can even give them out to law enforcement, including the FBI. Here's what you need to know and what you can do to stop it from happening to you.

In a stunning breach of personal privacy and security, Microsoft admitted in January that it provided the FBI with the BitLocker recovery keys to three different Windows PCs that were linked to suspected COVID unemployment assistance fraud in Guam. With these keys, the FBI was able to access the files on those devices as part of its investigation.

[...] The Redmond tech giant received its first request from a government official during the Obama administration in 2013. Although the engineer who spoke with the official reportedly declined to build a back door into Windows that would give the government unbridled access to user files, Microsoft still admits to turning over BitLocker recovery keys to law enforcement as recently as 2025. According to the report, Microsoft receives approximately 20 access requests from the FBI per year.

[...] You are not at risk if ...

• You use a Windows PC without a Microsoft account. (You haven't logged into the system with your Outlook email address.)
• You use a Windows PC with a Microsoft account but you chose a local recovery key backup option at activation.
• You disabled BitLocker encryption when you set up your PC.

You are at risk if ...

• You use a Windows PC with a Microsoft Outlook account and you chose to back up your BitLocker recovery key to your account.
• Your PC is a work machine that's managed by your employer.

For those at risk, Microsoft promises that it only gives out encryption keys to lawful requests from the government. That said, if Microsoft can access your encryption keys, what's stopping a hacker from getting them? The problem with storing security keys on cloud servers is that anyone can reach them with the right password, login information, or exploit.

Previously: Microsoft Gave FBI a Set of BitLocker Encryption Keys to Unlock Suspects' Laptops

Related: Over Half a Million Windows Users are Switching to Linux

Original Submission

looorg writes:

Now is the "battle for the soul" of the internet according to Tim Berners-Lee. It's not to late to fix the web.

Founder of the world wide web says commercialisation means the net has been 'optimised for nastiness', but collaboration and compassion can prevail

Berners-Lee traces the first corruption of the web to the commercialisation of the domain name system, which he believes would have served web users better had it been managed by a nonprofit in the public interest. Instead, he says, in the 1990s the .com space was pounced on by "charlatans".

"It's only a small part of the whole internet ... but the problem is that people spend a lot of time on [social media websites] because they're addictive," he says.

So money is the root of all the evil then ... Or in their case perhaps it's how they make their money. Or did it just turbo charge Greed?

Compounding the problem is monopolisation. Facebook and Google's dominance is bad for innovation and bad for the web,

I would like to see a Cern for AI, where all the top scientists come together and see whether they can make a super intelligence.

Not sure what it pays to work at CERN but I doubt it's Google and FaceMeta money. So unless all the scientist are supposed to be altruists ...

Not sure I share his optimism. It has become quite soulless, commercial/corporate, bigbrother:y and well somewhat "evil". Perhaps it's just time to slay the beast, stake it once and for all and build something new and better on its festering carcass. Too bad to save. Time to put it out of its misery?

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/jan/29/internet-inventor-tim-berners-lee-interview-battle-soul-web

Original Submission

Freeman writes:

https://reactos.org/blogs/30yrs-of-ros/

Today marks 30 years since the first commit to the ReactOS source tree.
[...]
ReactOS started from the ashes of the FreeWin95 project, which aimed to provide a free and open-source clone of Windows 95. FreeWin95 suffered from analysis paralysis, attempting to plan the whole system before writing any code. Tired of the lack of progress on the project, Jason Filby took the reins as project coordinator and led a new effort targeting Windows NT. The project was renamed to "ReactOS" as it was a reaction to Microsoft's monopolistic position in home computer operating systems.
[...]
While writing this article, I reached out to Eric Kohl. He developed the original storage driver stack for ReactOS [...]

"I think I found ReactOS while searching for example code for my contributions to the WINE project. I subscribed to the mailing list and followed the discussions for a few days. The developers were discussing the future of shell.exe, a little command line interpreter that could only change drives and directories and execute programs. A few days [later] I had started to convert the FreeDOS command.com into a Win32 console application, because I wanted to extend it to make it 4DOS compatible. 4DOS was a very powerful command line interpreter. On December 4th, 1998 I introduced myself and suggested to use my converted FreeDOS command.com as the future ReactOS cmd.exe. I had a little conversation with Jason Filby and Rex Joliff, the CVS repository maintainer. I sent my cmd.exe code to Rex and he applied it to the repository. After applying a few more cmd-related patches over the next weeks, Rex asked me whether I would like to have write-access to the repository. I accepted the offer...
[...]
There was always an open and friendly atmosphere. It was and still is always nice to talk to other developers. No fights, no wars, like in some other projects."

[...]
Public interest grew as ReactOS matured. In October 2005, Jason Filby stepped down as project coordinator, and Steven Edwards was voted to be the next project coordinator.
[...]
Steven Edwards strengthened the project's intellectual property policy and the project made the difficult decision to audit the existing source code and temporarily freeze contributions.
[...]
Following challenges with the audit, Steven Edwards stepped down as project coordinator and Aleksey Bragin assumed the role by August 2006.

hubie writes:

Every time we speak, we're improvising:

"Humans possess a remarkable ability to talk about almost anything, sometimes putting words together into never-before-spoken or -written sentences," said Morten H. Christiansen, the William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of Psychology in the College of Arts and Sciences.

We can improvise new sentences so readily, language scientists believe, because we have acquired mental representations of the patterns of language that allow us to combine words into sentences. The nature of those patterns and how they work, however, remains a puzzle in cognitive science, Christiansen said.

[...] For decades, scientists have believed we rely on a complex mental grammar to build sentences that have hierarchically organized structure – like a branching tree. But Christiansen and Nielsen suggest that our mental representations might be more like snapping together pre-assembled LEGO pieces (such as a door frame or a wheel set) into a complete model. Instead of intricate hierarchies, they propose, we use small, linear chunks of word classes like nouns and verbs – including short sequences that can't be formed by way of grammar, such as "in the middle of the" or "wondered if you."

[...] The prevailing theory since at least the 1950s is based on hierarchical, tree-like mental representations, setting humans apart from other animals, Christiansen said. In this view, words and phrases combine according to the principles of grammar into larger units called constituents. For example, in the sentence "She ate the cake," "the" and "cake" combine into a noun phrase "the cake", which then combines with "ate" into the verb phrase "ate the cake," and finally with "she" to make the sentence.

"But not all sequences of words form constituents," Christiansen and Nielsen wrote in a summary of their paper. "In fact, the most common three- or four-word sequences in language are often nonconstituents, such as 'can I have a' or 'it was in the.'"

Because they don't conform to grammar, nonconstituent sequences have been overlooked. But they do play a role in a speaker's knowledge of their language, the researchers found.

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

The European Commission has started proceedings to ensure Google complies with the Digital Markets Act (DMA) in certain ways. Specifically, the European Union’s executive arm has told Google to grant third-party AI services the same level of access to Android that Gemini has. "The aim is to ensure that third-party providers have an equal opportunity to innovate and compete in the rapidly evolving AI landscape on smart mobile devices," the Commission said in a statement.

The company will also have to hand over "anonymized ranking, query, click and view data held by Google Search" to rival search engines. The Commission says this will help competing companies to optimize their services and offer more viable alternatives to Google Search.

"Today’s proceedings under the Digital Markets Act will provide guidance to Google to ensure that third-party online search engines and AI providers enjoy the same access to search data and Android operating system as Google's own services, like Google Search or Gemini," said Henna Virkkunen, the Commission’s executive vice-president for tech sovereignty, security and democracy. "Our goal is to keep the AI market open, unlock competition on the merits and promote innovation, to the benefit of consumers and businesses."

The Commission plans to wrap up these proceedings in the next six months, effectively handing Google a deadline to make all of this happen. If the company doesn't do so to the Commission's satisfaction, it may face a formal investigation and penalties down the line. The Commission can impose fines of up to 10 percent of a company's global annual revenue for a DMA violation.

Google was already in hot water with the EU for allegedly favoring its own services — such as travel, finance and shopping — over those from rivals and stopping Google Play app developers from easily directing consumers to alternative, cheaper ways to pay for digital goods and services. The bloc charged Google with DMA violations related to those issues last March.

In November, the EU opened an investigation into Google's alleged demotion of commercial content on news websites in search results. The following month, it commenced a probe into Google's AI practices, including whether the company used online publishers' material for AI Overviews and AI Mode without "appropriate compensation" or offering the ability to opt out.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Scientists baffled at mysterious ancient creature that doesn't fit on the tree of life as we know it:

A bizarre ancient life-form, considered to be the first giant organism to live on land, may belong to a totally unknown branch of the tree of life, scientists say.

These organisms were massive, with some species growing up to 26 feet (8 meters) tall and 3 feet (1 m) wide. Named Prototaxites, they lived around 420 million to 375 million years ago during the Devonian period and resembled branchless, cylindrical tree trunks.

Since the first Prototaxites fossil was discovered in 1843, scientists haven't been sure whether they were a plant, fungus or even a type of algae. However, chemical analyses of Prototaxites fossils in 2007 suggested they were likely a giant ancient fungus.

Now, according to a study published Wednesday (Jan. 21) in the journal Science Advances, Prototaxites might not have been a humongous fungus after all — rather, it may have been an entirely different and previously unknown — and now extinct — life-form.

"They are life, but not as we now know it, displaying anatomical and chemical characteristics distinct from fungal or plant life, and therefore belonging to an entirely extinct evolutionary branch of life," study lead co-author Sandy Hetherington, a research associate at the National Museums Scotland and senior lecturer from the School of Biological Sciences at the University of Edinburgh, said in a statement.

All life on Earth is classified within three domains — bacteria, archaea and eukarya — with eukarya containing all multicellular organisms within the four kingdoms of fungi, animals, plants and protists. Bacteria and archaea contain only single-celled organisms.

[...] However, according to this new research, Prototaxites may actually have been part of a totally different kingdom of life, separate from fungi, plants, animals and protists.

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

Nvidia's big consumer chips for PCs, the Arm-based N1 and N1X, could finally be about to arrive if a new rumor is correct.

A report from DigiTimes (hat tip to VideoCardz) claims that laptops with Nvidia's N1X chip inside will be launching in the first quarter of 2026. So, within the next two months.

These will target the consumer market, and three other variants will be on sale in Q2, we're told. Presumably, that includes the base N1 chip, which is less powerful, but still intended for producing 'high-end AI computing platforms' – the N1X is the more performant CPU which will be aimed at notebooks for professionals, the report observes.

There's still some confusion around the naming and where exactly the N1 and N1X will fit into the CPU landscape, with some guessing that the N1 will be a desktop chip, and the N1X a mobile (laptop) chip. However, DigiTimes makes it clear that both the N1 and N1X will appear in laptops (add your own seasoning, naturally). That doesn't mean that there couldn't be a desktop variant of one of these chips as well, though, and perhaps that's still planned.

Following the N1 series, the next-gen N2 silicon will take the baton for Nvidia in the third quarter of 2027, the report claims.

Obviously, be skeptical about that timeframe in particular, because even if Nvidia has plans for these N2 chips, this schedule may end up going awry (what with the silicon still being relatively early in development).

The rumor comes from supply chain sources, we're informed, and the delay of the N1 series – which was supposed to arrive late in 2025 as per the original speculation about Nvidia's Arm CPU – is due to Team Green fine-tuning these chips, and "Microsoft OS timelines", the report states.

Motor Trend has been running a short series on how car dealers do business in the internet age. If you haven't been to a new or used car dealer in 20+ years, things have changed and it hasn't gotten any easier to keep from being taken. As always, it's an asymmetric relationship--they deal with people all the time, you visit car dealers relatively infrequently. This installment is about discounts and very low advertized prices, https://www.motortrend.com/features/dealer-discounts-add-ons-fees-car-buying

In the first installment of the How to Buy a Car series, I talked about the changes that have taken place in car sales over the past three decades or so due to the internet. To recap, in the old days, everyone started high and negotiated down to the lowest price. Both buyers and sellers understood this. But thanks to the internet, that rule has fallen by the wayside. Because everyone shops on the internet first before ever leaving their house, the dealership that gets the business is the one with the lowest prices. The new rule is, "Lead with the Lowest Price and They'll Come."
[...]
When you get to the dealership, the salesperson sits you down and asks you a series of questions.

"Are you a member of Cheapco or similar big-box wholesaler?"

When you answer no, the salesperson draws a line through that discount.

"Are you a recent college graduate, or will you be graduating in the next year?"

You're 35 years old. You answer no. The salesperson draws a line through that discount.
...
Instead of paying $49,000, the crazy price that brought you there, your price just jumped four grand. (You probably won't see every one of these discounts used at the same time, but you get the idea.)

More details and some suggestions on how to prepare before you visit the dealer at the link.

[I'm curious if the experience dealing with automobile dealerships and sales people is similar around the world --Ed.]

Original Submission