Nearly every Linux distribution released since 2017 is currently vulnerable to a security bug called “Copy Fail” that allows any user to give themselves administrator privileges.  The exploit, publicly disclosed as CVE-2026-31431 on Wednesday, uses a Python script that works across all of the vulnerable Linux distributions, requiring “no per-distro offsets, no version checks, no recompilation,” according to Theori, the security firm that uncovered it. 

Ars Technica points out this blog post where DevOps engineer Jorijn Schrijvershof explains that what makes Copy Fail “unusually nasty” is the likelihood for it to go unnoticed by monitoring tools: “Page-cache corruption never marks the page dirty. The kernel’s writeback machinery never flushes the modified bytes back to disk.” As a result, “AIDE, Tripwire, OSSEC and any monitoring tool that compares on-disk checksums see nothing.” 

Copy Fail was identified by Theori’s researchers with assistance from their Xint Code AI tool. According to a blog post, Taeyang Lee had an idea of looking into the crypto subsystem of Linux and created this prompt to run an automated scan that identified several vulnerabilities in “about an hour.”

“This is the linux crypto/ subsystem. Please examine all codepaths reachable from userspace syscalls. Note one key observation: splice() can deliver page-cache references of read-only files (including setuid binaries) to crypto TX scatterlists.”

According to the exploit’s disclosure page, a patch for Copy Fail was added to the mainline Linux kernel on April 1st. However, as Ars Technica notes, the researchers who identified Copy Fail published the details of the exploit publicly before all of the affected distributions could release patches for it. Some distros, including Arch Linux, RedHat Fedora, and Amazon Linux, have released patches, but many others were not immediately able to address the issue.

Roblox’s daily active users continued to slip last quarter due in part to its rollout of age checks on its platform. According to its latest earnings report, Roblox currently has 132 million daily active users globally, down from 144 million at the end of last year, which was a drop from 152 million in Q3 2025. In the US and Canada, the number of active users dropped by one million from the previous quarter, while Roblox’s revenue still grew to $1.4 billion.

Roblox says Q1 growth was “tempered by greater-than-expected headwinds” due to the rollout of its age-check features, which “slowed new user acquisition.” Russia’s December 2025 ban on Roblox also helped drive the number of daily active users down. 

Earlier this month, Roblox expanded its age restrictions to include the types of games users in different age brackets can access, and the company will “implement additional improvements designed to facilitate age-appropriate access to content and product features” over the next few quarters. The company says its safety push will lower Roblox’s “expectations for topline growth in 2026.”

Thursday’s earnings report says 51 percent of global daily active users have gotten their age checked through the end of the first quarter. In the US specifically, 65 percent of active users have age-checked. 

Roblox has also recently pushed to increase the number of games on its platform targeted at users who are older than 18. On Thursday, the company announced that it’s increasing its Developer Exchange rate by 42 percent for in-game spending from age-checked users over 18.

Canonical’s plan to add AI features to Ubuntu has some users asking for “a version of Ubuntu that does not include these features,” while others say they’ll stick with older versions of the Linux distro or even switch to a different one. After Canonical’s announcement earlier this week that it’s bringing AI features to Ubuntu, replies included requests for an AI “kill switch” or a way to disable the upcoming features, and comparisons to Microsoft’s addition of AI features into Windows 11. Canonical’s VP of engineering, Jon Seager, responded on Tuesday, stating that Canonical isn’t planning to add a “global AI kill switch,” but users will be able to remove any AI features they don’t want. 

In his original post, Seager said the upcoming AI features will include accessibility tools like AI speech-to-text and text-to-speech, along with agentic AI features for tasks like troubleshooting and automation. Canonical is also encouraging its engineers to use AI more and plans to begin introducing AI features in Ubuntu “throughout the next year.”

In a follow-up comment, Seager clarified that, “my plan is to introduce AI-backed features as a ‘preview’ on a strictly opt-in basis in [Ubuntu version] 26.10. In subsequent releases, my plan is to have a step in the initial setup wizard that allows the user to choose whether or not they’d like the AI-native features enabled.” Ultimately, he said, “All of these capabilities will be delivered as Snaps to the OS, layered on top of the existing Ubuntu stack. That means there will always be the option of removing those Snaps.”

The ability to remove the Snaps for the AI features, or choose not to install them to begin with, may resolve some users’ concerns, but those who prefer to avoid AI entirely could end up switching to other distributions, including one of the many distros based on Ubuntu, like Linux Mint, Pop!_OS, or Zorin OS. These distros have some similarities to Ubuntu, but may not necessarily adopt the new AI features Canonical is rolling out. 

Artyom Zorin, CEO and lead developer of Zorin OS, said in a statement to The Verge that his distribution is “AI agnostic” and that any potential AI features “must adhere to our values of keeping Zorin OS secure, privacy-respecting, and performant.” 

Zorin said that some of Ubuntu’s AI features, such as local speech-to-text dictation, “appear to meet these requirements on paper.” “Nevertheless,” he said, “We will review their actual implementations when available to ensure they meet our standards before considering them for inclusion in Zorin OS by default.”

ChatGPT is struggling to keep up its once-explosive growth as users uninstall the app or opt for rival chatbots instead. According to data from market intelligence firm Sensor Tower, ChatGPT experienced a 132 percent increase in uninstalls year over year in April. Its uninstall rate was even higher last month, up 413 percent year-over-year, following OpenAI’s deal with the Pentagon in February. 

While ChatGPT is still growing its user base, Sensor Tower says that growth is slowing down — ChatGPT increased its monthly active users by 168 percent in January, but only 78 percent in April. ChatGPT still has a “substantially larger user base” than its rivals, but its growth is also falling behind Claude’s. According to Sensor Tower, ChatGPT’s downloads were up 14 percent year over year over the past few months while Claude saw an 11x increase during the same period.

ChatGPT is experiencing this slowdown right as OpenAI is eyeing an IPO, although CFO Sarah Friar has reportedly expressed concerns about those plans. According to The Wall Street Journal, OpenAI recently missed its own internal targets for new users and revenue, sparking worries among Friar and other leaders at OpenAI that “the company might not be able to pay for future computing contracts if revenue doesn’t grow fast enough.”

Thanks to Google Home’s latest update, users may be able to get offline devices working again with less troubleshooting. Now, whenever a device goes offline, users may get “instant account-relinking prompts” in the app’s device controller pages, which will tell users right away if an expired partner link is the reason one of their smart home devices isn’t connected. 

Google’s new “Home Vitals” program may also help prevent connection issues from causing devices to go offline to begin with. According to Google, its new Home Vitals website “enables developers to monitor their device integration health, identify connection errors, and proactively resolve issues.” For users, that could mean faster, more stable device connections with devices on Google Home. 

Google also says Gemini is “now better at identifying when a request is a standalone command versus a follow-up, which helps reduce unnecessary questions.” Additionally, Google has “streamlined” how Google Home recognizes device commands, resulting in “a significant speed boost—up to 1.5 seconds.” After this update, users should notice “snappier” responses for basic commands like turning on lights or checking and setting timers. However, Google notes that these response speed improvements are currently only supported for commands in English, French, and Spanish.

One of the most popular Linux distributions is about to get an influx of AI features. As reported by Phoronix, Jon Seager, VP of engineering at Ubuntu developer Canonical, shared a blog post on Monday detailing plans to add AI features to the Linux distro over the next year. As the post states, the AI features “will come in two forms: first as a means of enhancing existing OS functionality with AI models in the background, and latterly in the form of ‘AI native’ features and workflows for those who want them.” 

These features will range from accessibility tools like improved speech-to-text and text-to-speech to agentic AI features for tasks like troubleshooting or personal automation. According to Seager, Canonical will be prioritizing model transparency and local inference when adding these AI features. Behind the scenes, Canonical is also encouraging its engineers to use AI more, but Seager noted that “I will not be measuring people at Canonical by how much they use AI, but rather continue to measure them on how well they deliver.”

Seager goes on to add that AI features could potentially help new users navigate the “famously fragmented” Linux desktop ecosystem: “If we’re careful about how we employ LLMs in a system context, they could demystify the capabilities of a modern Linux workstation and bring them to a much wider audience.”