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Apple Shrinks Mac Mini, Adds M4 Power Boost in Major Redesign
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2024-10-29 21:23:01


Apple launched a dramatically smaller Mac Mini desktop computer on Tuesday, powered by its new M4 processor and featuring ray tracing capabilities for the first time. The redesigned Mini measures just 5 inches square, roughly half the size of its predecessor, while delivering up to 1.8 times faster CPU performance compared to the M1 model. ... [ Read it >> ]

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YouTube Tests New Homepage That Hides Video Upload Date, View Count
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2024-10-29 20:23:01


An anonymous reader shares a report: YouTube is reportedly testing a new website layout that removes the date when a video was uploaded and the amount of views it has. [...] On Monday, October 28, VidIQ reported in a post on X that YouTube is testing a new homepage layout that removes view counts and dates.... [ Read it >> ]

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Linus Torvalds Dismisses AI Industry as '90% Marketing'
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2024-10-29 20:23:01


Linux creator Linus Torvalds has blasted the AI industry as "90% marketing and 10% reality" even as he acknowledged AI's transformative potential. Speaking to TFiR, Torvalds said he would "basically ignore" AI until the hype subsides, predicting meaningful applications would emerge in five years. ... [ Read it >> ]

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Bezos: 'Presidential Endorsements Do Nothing'
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2024-10-29 19:23:01


theodp writes: "Presidential endorsements do nothing to tip the scales of an election," argues Jeff Bezos in The Hard Truth: Americans Don't Trust the News Media, a WaPo op-ed defense of his decision as owner of The Washington Post to end the newspaper's tradition of endorsing candidates for president. ... [ Read it >> ]

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Planet-Heating Pollutants in Atmosphere Hit Record Levels in 2023
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2024-10-29 18:23:01


The concentration of planet-heating pollutants clogging the atmosphere hit record levels in 2023, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) has said. From a report: It found carbon dioxide is accumulating faster than at any time in human history, with concentrations having risen by more than 10% in just two decades. "Another year, another record," said Celeste Saulo, secretary-general of the WMO. "This should set alarm bells ringing among decision makers." The increase was driven by humanity's "stubbornly high" burning of fossil fuels, the WMO found, and made worse by big wildfires and a possible drop in the ability of trees to absorb carbon. The concentration of CO2 reached 420 parts per million (ppm) in 2023, the scientists observed. The level of pollution is 51% greater than before the Industrial Revolution, when people began to burn large amounts of coal, oil and fossil gas.... [ Read it >> ]

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Researchers Say AI Transcription Tool Used In Hospitals Invents Things
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2024-10-29 17:23:01


Longtime Slashdot reader AmiMoJo shares a report from the Associated Press: Tech behemoth OpenAI has touted its artificial intelligence-powered transcription tool Whisper as having near "human level robustness and accuracy." But Whisper has a major flaw: It is prone to making up chunks of text or even entire sentences, according to interviews with more than a dozen software engineers, developers and academic researchers. Those experts said some of the invented text -- known in the industry as hallucinations -- can include racial commentary, violent rhetoric and even imagined medical treatments. Experts said that such fabrications are problematic because Whisper is being used in a slew of industries worldwide to translate and transcribe interviews, generate text in popular consumer technologies and create subtitles for videos.... [ Read it >> ]

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NASA Generated $76 Billion For US Economy In 2023
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2024-10-29 14:23:02


NASA's economic impact report highlights that in fiscal year 2023, the agency's initiatives contributed $75.6 billion to the U.S. economy, created over 300,000 jobs, and drove advancements in areas like space exploration, climate research, and technology innovation. The agency's budget for that year was $25.4 billion. Space.com reports: The Moon to Mars program alone created $23.8 billion in economic output and 96,479 jobs, while investments in climate research and technology contributed $7.9 billion and 32,900 jobs. The report also drills down into impacts in each state, with 45 states seeing over $10 million in impact and eight states surpassing the $1 billion mark. [...]... [ Read it >> ]

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NASA Is Treating Orion's Heat Shield Problems As a Secret
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2024-10-29 11:23:01


Ars Technica's Stephen Clark reports: For those who follow NASA's human spaceflight program, a burning question for the last year-and-a-half has been what caused the Orion spacecraft's heat shield to crack and chip away during atmospheric reentry on the unpiloted Artemis I test flight in late 2022. Multiple NASA officials said Monday they now know the answer, but they're not telling. Instead, agency officials want to wait until more reviews are done to determine what this means for Artemis II, the Orion spacecraft's first crew mission around the Moon, officially scheduled for launch in September 2025.... [ Read it >> ]

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'Oregon Trail' Action-Comedy Movie In Development At Apple
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2024-10-29 08:23:01


An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Hollywood Reporter: Grab your wagons and oxen, and get ready to ford a river: A movie adaptation of the popular grade school computer game Oregon Trail is in development at Apple. The studio landed the film pitch, still in early development, that has Will Speck and Josh Gordon attached to direct and produce. EGOT winners Benj Pasek and Justin Paul will provide original music and produce via their Ampersand production banner. Sources tell The Hollywood Reporter that the movie will feature a couple of original musical numbers in the vein of Barbie.... [ Read it >> ]

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Fitness App Strava Gives Away Location of Foreign Leaders, Report Finds
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2024-10-29 06:23:01


French newspaper Le Monde found that the fitness app Strava can easily track confidential movements of foreign leaders, including U.S. President Joe Biden, and presidential rivals Donald Trump and Kamala Harris. The Independent reports: Le Monde found that some U.S. Secret Service agents use the Strava fitness app, including in recent weeks after two assassination attempts on Trump, in a video investigation released in French and in English. Strava is a fitness tracking app primarily used by runners and cyclists to record their activities and share their workouts with a community. Le Monde also found Strava users among the security staff for French President Emmanuel Macron and Russian President Vladimir Putin. In one example, Le Monde traced the Strava movements of Macron's bodyguards to determine that the French leader spent a weekend in the Normandy seaside resort of Honfleur in 2021. The trip was meant to be private and wasn't listed on the president's official agenda.... [ Read it >> ]

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JPMorgan Begins Suing Customers In 'Infinite Money Glitch'
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2024-10-29 06:23:01


JPMorgan Chase is suing customers who exploited an ATM glitch that allowed them to withdraw funds before a check bounced. CNBC reports: The bank on Monday filed lawsuits in at least three federal courts, taking aim at some of the people who withdrew the highest amounts in the so-called infinite money glitch that went viral on TikTok and other social media platforms in late August. [...] JPMorgan, the biggest U.S. bank by assets, is investigating thousands of possible cases related to the "infinite money glitch," though it hasn't disclosed the scope of associated losses. Despite the waning use of paper checks as digital forms of payment gain popularity, they're still a major avenue for fraud, resulting in $26.6 billion in losses globally last year, according to Nasdaq's Global Financial Crime Report.... [ Read it >> ]

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Raspberry Pi OS Now Using Wayland By Default
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2024-10-29 05:23:01


Phoronix's Michael Larabel reports: Over the past year we have seen Raspberry Pi working a lot on Wayland support for the Raspberry Pi OS desktop and using it on their latest Raspberry Pi models. With today's new Raspberry Pi OS update, Wayland is being used by default across all Raspberry Pi devices. The new Raspberry Pi OS update shipping today is using Wayland across all Raspberry Pi models. Labwc is also now the Wayland compositor of choice and those upgrading their existing Raspberry Pi OS installation will be prompted whether to switch to Labwc or keep using the prior Wayfire compositor. Raspberry Pi developers feel that the Labwc Wayland compositor offers the best experience on their single board computers. You can learn more about the update and download it via the RaspberryPi.com blog.... [ Read it >> ]

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The Fediverse Is Getting Its Own TikTok Competitor Called Loops
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2024-10-29 04:23:01


An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Similar to how Mastodon offers an open source, distributed version of X, the fediverse is getting its own TikTok competitor. This week, an app called Loops began accepting signups on its new platform for sharing short, looping videos. Still in the early stages, Loops is not yet open sourced, nor has it completed its integration with ActivityPub, the protocol that powers Mastodon, Pixelfed, PeerTube, and other federated apps. However, both those efforts are in the works and when complete, will allow Loops to add another layer of social activity to the growing open social web known as the fediverse, which now has north of 11.6 million users and over 1 million monthly active users. (Mastodon accounts for roughly 65% of that activity.) Growth in this space has also encouraged other apps to adopt ActivityPub, like social magazine app Flipboard and Meta's Threads. The latter is not yet fully integrated but already has more than 200 million monthly active users.... [ Read it >> ]

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Russia Publishes New Crypto Law Expanding State Control Over Digital Assets
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2024-10-29 04:23:01


Russia has enacted a new law expanding control over cryptocurrency mining, granting multiple federal agencies access to digital currency identifier addresses, among other things. The country is also advancing its regulatory framework and experimenting with crypto in international trade. From a report: Taking effect on Nov. 1, the legislation includes several amendments designed to strengthen oversight and impose limitations on crypto mining activities based on regional needs. The law enables the Russian government to implement mining restrictions by location and define specific procedures and circumstances for banning mining operations. A notable provision in the law gives the government the power to stop digital currency mining pools from functioning in certain areas. Additionally, the government now has the authority to regulate infrastructure providers supporting mining operations.... [ Read it >> ]

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AT&T Announces $1 Billion Fiber Deal With Corning
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2024-10-29 03:23:02


AT&T has signed a $1 billion multi-year deal with Corning to acquire fiber and connectivity solutions. Reuters reports: With the U.S. wireless market facing a slowdown, telecom companies such as AT&T and rival Verizon have doubled down on their high-speed internet businesses, an area that has long been dominated by broadband companies such as Comcast. Demand has also been growing for AT&T's plans that allow customers to combine its high-speed fiber data with its wireless phone service for a discount. In the third quarter, AT&T reported 28.3 million fiber passings, or the number of potential customer locations a fiber network passes by. It remains on track to pass more than 30 million fiber passings by the end of 2025.... [ Read it >> ]

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Apple Intelligence Is Out Today
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2024-10-29 02:23:01


An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: Apple's AI features are finally starting to appear. Apple Intelligence is launching today on the iPhone, iPad, and Mac, offering features like generative AI-powered writing tools, notification summaries, and a cleanup tool to take distractions out of photos. It's Apple's first official step into the AI era, but it'll be far from its last. Apple Intelligence has been available in developer and public beta builds of Apple's operating systems for the past few months, but today marks the first time it'll be available in the full public OS releases. Even so, the features will still be marked as "beta," and Apple Intelligence will very much remain a work in progress. (You'll have to get on a waitlist to try Apple Intelligence, too.) Siri gets a new look, but its most consequential new features -- like the ability to take action in apps -- probably won't arrive until well into 2025.... [ Read it >> ]

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A Million People Play This Video Wargame. So Does the Pentagon.
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2024-10-29 02:23:01


A commercial military simulation software, originally inspired by Tom Clancy novels, has become an unexpected tool for military training across NATO forces and defense analysts worldwide. Command: Professional Edition, developed by Britain's Slitherine Software, has secured contracts with the U.S. Air Force and British Strategic Command, while Taiwanese analysts use it to war-game potential conflicts with China. ... [ Read it >> ]

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Britain To Axe Up To 1.5 Million Lampposts
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2024-10-29 01:23:01


An anonymous reader shares a report:Around 1.5 million of Britain's 7.2 million lampposts could be removed to save money and reduce carbon emissions and replaced with lighting that will make it safer for pedestrians.
Under existing rules, there is no requirement to light pavements for pedestrians. They are only lit because light spills over from lampposts, which were principally installed to make it safer for motorists. But today's cars have such effective headlights that lampposts, which are generally 10m tall on A-roads and 6m tall on residential roads, are not necessary in many parts of Britain. Lampposts will remain in place in many locations where they are necessary, such as in cities where CCTV cameras rely on good lighting.... [ Read it >> ]

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Microsoft Calls Out Google For Running 'Shadow Campaigns' in Europe To Influence Regulators
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2024-10-29 00:23:01


Microsoft took the unusual step on Monday of publicly criticizing longtime rival Google for running "shadow campaigns" in Europe designed to discredit the software giant with regulators. CNBC: Microsoft lawyer Rima Alaily wrote in a blog post that Google hired a firm to recruit European cloud companies to represent the search company's case. "This week an astroturf group organized by Google is launching," Microsoft lawyer Rima Alaily wrote in a blog post. "It is designed to discredit Microsoft with competition authorities, and policymakers and mislead the public. Google has gone through great lengths to obfuscate its involvement, funding, and control, most notably by recruiting a handful of European cloud providers, to serve as the public face of the new organization." ... [ Read it >> ]

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Apple's New Mouse Retains Flawed Charging Design
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2024-10-29 00:23:01


Apple has maintained the controversial bottom-charging design in its new $79-$99 USB-C Magic Mouse, released alongside the new iMac Tuesday, despite years of customer criticism. The port location, unchanged since 2015, renders the mouse unusable while charging.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://apple.slashdot.org/story/24/10/28/1919238/apples-new-mouse-retains-flawed-charging-design?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.... [ Read it >> ]

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Private Equity Hipsters Are Coming for Your Favorite Apps
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2024-10-28 23:23:01


Italian technology firm Bending Spoons has emerged as an unconventional private equity player, acquiring struggling tech companies and dramatically restructuring them for profitability, most notably with its purchase of note-taking app Evernote.
The Milan-based company, valued at $2.6 billion, has acquired six companies since 2022, including WeTransfer and Meetup's assets. CEO Luca Ferrari has told investors the company could deploy up to $2 billion for future acquisitions. Bending Spoons typically targets subscription-based software companies with steady cash flow, implementing steep price hikes and significant staff reductions post-acquisition. ... [ Read it >> ]

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We Finally Have an 'Official' Definition For Open Source AI
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2024-10-28 22:23:01


There's finally an "official" definition of open source AI. The Open Source Initiative (OSI), a long-running institution aiming to define and "steward" all things open source, today released version 1.0 of its Open Source AI Definition (OSAID). TechCrunch: The product of several years of collaboration with academia and industry, the OSAID is intended to offer a standard by which anyone can determine whether AI is open source -- or not. You might be wondering why consensus matters for a definition of open source AI. Well, a big motivation is getting policymakers and AI developers on the same page, said OSI EVP Stefano Maffulli. ... [ Read it >> ]

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Birth Rate in England and Wales Plunges To Lowest Level Since 1938
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2024-10-28 22:23:01


England and Wales have recorded their lowest birth rate since records began in 1938, with women having an average of 1.44 children in 2023, official data showed on Monday. The figure falls well below the 2.1 children per woman needed to maintain a stable population without migration in developed nations, the Office for National Statistics reported. ... [ Read it >> ]

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Meta Develops AI Search Engine To Lessen Reliance on Google, Microsoft
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2024-10-28 21:23:02


An anonymous reader shares a report: As Meta tries to keep up with OpenAI in developing AI, the Facebook owner is working on a search engine [non-paywalled link] that crawls the web to provide conversational answers about current events to people using its Meta AI chatbot.
In doing so, Meta hopes to lower its reliance on Google Search and Microsoft's Bing, which currently provide information about news, sports and stocks to people using Meta AI, according to a person who has spoken with the search engine team. It could also give Meta a backup option if Google or Microsoft withdrew from these arrangements, according to a person who has been involved with the strategy.... [ Read it >> ]

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Apple Updates the iMac With M4 Chip
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2024-10-28 20:23:01


Apple has updated the iMac lineup with an M4 chip. The new iMac, announced this morning, includes an M4 chip with an 8-core CPU and up to a 10-core GPU. The entry-level model costs $1,299 with two Thunderbolt USB-C 4 ports, while the higher-end models start at $1,499 and have four ports. The Verge: It's also bundled with accessories that now use USB-C charging ports instead of Lightning. Like the prior model, the new iMac has a 24-inch, 4.5K display. However, Apple is offering a new "nano-texture glass option" for $200 extra, which is supposed to help reduce reflections and glare. ... [ Read it >> ]

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Researchers Say AI Tool Used in Hospitals Invents Things No One Ever Said
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2024-10-28 20:23:01


AmiMoJo shares a report: Tech behemoth OpenAI has touted its artificial intelligence-powered transcription tool Whisper as having near "human level robustness and accuracy." But Whisper has a major flaw: It is prone to making up chunks of text or even entire sentences, according to interviews with more than a dozen software engineers, developers and academic researchers. ... [ Read it >> ]

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Banks and Regulators Warn of Rise in 'Quishing' QR Code Scams
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2024-10-28 19:23:01


Banks and regulators are warning that QR code phishing scams -- also known as "quishing" -- are slipping through corporate cyber defences and increasingly tricking customers into giving up their financial details. From a report: Lenders including Santander, HSBC, and TSB have joined the UK National Cyber Security Centre and US Federal Trade Commission among others to raise concerns about a rise in fraudulent QR codes being deployed for sophisticated fraud campaigns. ... [ Read it >> ]

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Apple Banned From Selling iPhone 16 in Indonesia
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2024-10-28 18:23:02


Indonesia has banned sales of Apple's iPhone 16, citing the tech giant's failure to meet local investment requirements, the country's Ministry of Industry said. The ministry said Apple's local unit has not fulfilled the mandatory 40% local content threshold for smartphones, making imported iPhone 16 units illegal for sale in Southeast Asia's largest economy. ... [ Read it >> ]

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Raspberry Pi Launches Its Own Branded SD Cards and SSDs - Plus SSD Kits
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2024-10-28 16:23:01


An anonymous reader shared this report from the blog OMG Ubuntu:
Having recently announced is own range of Raspberry Pi-branded SD cards (with support for command queuing on the Pi 5 and reliable read/write speeds) the company is now offering its own range of branded Raspberry Pi SSDs... And for those who don't have an M.2 expansion board? Well, that's where the new Raspberry Pi SSD Kit comes in. It bundles the official M.2 HAT+ with an SSD for an all-in-one, ready-to-roll solution. ... [ Read it >> ]

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SpaceX's Competitors Scramble to Try to Build Reusable Rockets
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2024-10-28 12:23:01


When SpaceX developed reusable boosters for its Falcon rockets, it helped cut costs of launches.
Now the Wall Street Journal reports that last week's first-time catch of "its huge Starship booster" could "extend SpaceX's cost advantages, especially in launches to low-Earth orbit, where SpaceX and others operate satellites."... [ Read it >> ]

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Instagram (and Meta) Throttle Video Quality as Views Go Down
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2024-10-28 09:23:01


An anonymous reader shared this report from the Verge:
Ever wondered why some of your Instagram videos tend to look blurry, while others are crisp and sharp? It's because, on Instagram, the quality of your video apparently depends on how many views it's getting.
Here's part of Mosseri's explanation, from the video, which was reposted by a Threads user today. "In general, we want to show the highest-quality video we can ... But if something isn't watched for a long time — because the vast majority of views are in the beginning — we will move to a lower quality video. And then if it's watched again a lot then we'll re-render the higher quality video...." ... [ Read it >> ]

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The Search for Room-Temperature Superconductivity is Continuing
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2024-10-28 06:23:01


Communications of the ACM checks in on the quest for room-temperature superconductivity. "Time and time again, physicists have announced breakthroughs that were later found to be irreproducible, in error, or even fraudulent."
But "The issue is once again simmering..."

In January 2024, a group of researchers from Europe and South America announced they had achieved a milestone in room-temperature ambient-pressure superconductivity. Using Scotch-taped cleaved pyrolytic graphite with surface wrinkles, which formed line defects, they observed a room-temperature superconducting state. Their paper, published in the journal Advanced Quantum Technologies, has gained considerable attention in the scientific world... Although many in the scientific community remain incredulous, if valid, this development could help solve a key piece of the puzzle: how defects and wrinkles in a material such as scotch-taped cleaved pyrolytic graphite (HOPG) affect electrical properties and behavior within superconductive systems... ... [ Read it >> ]

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Can the EU Hold Software Makers Liable For Negligence?
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2024-10-28 04:23:01


When it comes to introducing liability for software products, "the EU and U.S. are taking very different approaches," according to Lawfare's cybersecurity newsletter. "While the U.S. kicks the can down the road, the EU is rolling a hand grenade down it to see what happens."
Under the status quo, the software industry is extensively protected from liability for defects or issues, and this results in systemic underinvestment in product security. Authorities believe that by making software companies liable for damages when they peddle crapware, those companies will be motivated to improve product security... [T]he EU has chosen to set very stringent standards for product liability, apply them to people rather than companies, and let lawyers sort it all out. ... [ Read it >> ]

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There's a Big Problem with Return-to-Office Mandates: Enforcing Them
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2024-10-28 04:23:01


"Friction between bosses and their employees over the terms of their return shows no signs of abating," reports the Los Angeles Times.
But there's one big loophole...
About 80% of organizations have put in place return-to-office policies, but in a sign that many managers are reluctant to clamp down on the flexibility employees have become accustomed to, only 17% of those organizations actively enforce their policies, according to recent research by real estate brokerage CBRE. "Some organizations out there have 'mandated' something, but if most of your organization is not following that mandate, then there is not too much you can do to enforce it," said Julie Whelan, head of research into workplace trends for CBRE... ... [ Read it >> ]

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Email from Boeing to Ethiopian Airlines Sheds Light on a Tragic Crash
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2024-10-28 02:23:01


Boeing received an email from the chief pilot at Ethiopian Airlines on December 1, 2018 with several questions, reports the New York Times (alternate URL here). "in essence the pilot was asking for direction. If we see a series of warnings on the new 737 Max, he posed, what do we do?"... [ Read it >> ]

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Has Online Shopping Left Warehouse Workers WIthout Political Power?
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2024-10-28 01:23:01


A writer for the New York Times editorial board argues we don't yet fully understand the impact of warehouses. "Thanks to the rise of online shopping and the proximity to so many American doorsteps, warehouses have become a major source of blue-collar employment," both in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania and beyond. "In Pennsylvania's Lehigh Valley, more than 19,000 people work in the warehouses that prepare our packages. Thousands more drive the trucks that deliver them." ... [ Read it >> ]

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Europe's Crooks Keep Blowing up ATMs
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2024-10-27 23:23:02


"In the early hours of Thursday, March 23, 2023, residents in the German town of Kronberg were woken from their sleep by several explosions," reports CNN .
"Criminals had blown up an ATM located below a block of flats in the town center..."
According to local media reports, witnesses saw people dressed in dark clothing fleeing in a black car towards a nearby highway. During the heist, thieves stole 130,000 euros in cash. They also caused an estimated half a million euros worth of collateral damage, according to a report by Germany's Federal Criminal Police Office, BKA. ... [ Read it >> ]

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Iceland's Plan to Drill Into a Volcano to Test 'Limitless' Supercharged Geothermal Energy
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2024-10-27 22:23:02


In Iceland, "a volcanic system has awoken after an 800-year slumber," according to a multimedia CNN Special Report. "But in another part of Iceland, scientists and engineers are hoping to harness magma's immense power to solve the planet's biggest problem..."
It all started in 2009 when Bjarni Pálsson, an engineer with Iceland's national power company, accidentally drilled into a magma chamber. "Armed with new technology and know-how, he is going back in..."... [ Read it >> ]

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SpaceX's Starship Super Heavy Booster Came Within 1 Second of Aborting Its First 'Catch' Landing
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2024-10-27 21:23:02


SpaceNews reports:
SpaceX's Super Heavy booster came within a second of aborting a "catch" landing attempt on the latest Starship test flight, according to audio posted online, apparently inadvertently, by Elon Musk... In the audio, one person, not identified, described an issue with the Super Heavy landing burn where a "misconfigured" parameter meant that spin pressure, presuming in the Raptor engines in the booster, did not increase as expected. "We were one second away from that tripping and telling the rocket to abort and try to crash into the ground next to the tower," that person said. That scenario would "erroneously tell a healthy rocket to not try that catch...." ... [ Read it >> ]

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Google is Developing AI that Can Take Over Chrome to Help You Buy Things, Do Research
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2024-10-27 20:23:01


This week Google-backed Anthropic announced its upgraded AI model Claude 3.5 Sonnet could "perform tasks like navigating web browsers, filling forms, and manipulating data."
Now Google plans something similar for Chrome, reports 9to5Linux.com:

According to The Information, Google is "developing artificial intelligence that takes over a person's web browser to complete tasks such as gathering research, purchasing a product or booking a flight." ... [ Read it >> ]

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UK Nuclear Site's Clean-Up Costs Rise To £136 Billion
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2024-10-27 19:23:01


The cost of cleaning up the U.K.'s largest nuclear site, "is expected to spiral to £136 billion" (about $176 billion), according to the Guardian, creating tension with the country's public-spending watchdog.
Projects to fix the state-owned buildings with hazardous and radioactive material "are running years late and over budget," the Guardian notes, with the National Audit Office suggesting spending at the Sellafield site has risen to more than £2.7 billion a year ($3.49 billion).... [ Read it >> ]

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The Tech Secrets Behind Disneyland's 'Enchanted Tiki Room'
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2024-10-27 16:23:01


SFGate spills the secrets of Disneyland's "Enchanted Tiki Room" and its lifelike animatronic singing birds — Jose, Fritz, Michael and Pierre — "whose movements were perfectly synced with the audio track."
"Beneath the room, the heartbeat of the attraction is a $1 million installation of electronics equipment, operated by a roll of 14-channel magnetic tape," the Orange County Register wrote upon its opening. "It is the same system which programs the U.S. military's polaris missile." That system also ran very hot. To keep guests from overheating, air conditioning was installed throughout the building, making the Tiki Room Disneyland's first attraction to be fully air conditioned... ... [ Read it >> ]

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Researchers Discover Flaws In Five End-to-End Encrypted Cloud Services
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2024-10-27 13:23:02


SC World reports:
Several major end-to-end encrypted cloud storage services contain cryptographic flaws that could lead to loss of confidentiality, file tampering, file injection and more, researchers from ETH Zurich said in a paper published this month.
The five cloud services studied offer end-to-end encryption (E2EE), intended to ensure files can not be read or edited by anyone other than the uploader, meaning not even the cloud storage provider can access the files. However, ETH Zurich researchers Jonas Hofmann and Kien Tuong Truong, who presented their findings at the ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security (CCS) last week, found serious flaws in four out of the five services that could effectively bypass the security benefits provided by E2EE by enabling an attacker who managed to compromise a cloud server to access, tamper with or inject files. ... [ Read it >> ]

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'We Took on Google and They Were Forced to Pay Billions'
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2024-10-27 12:23:01


"Google essentially disappeared us from the internet," says the couple who created price-comparison site Foundem in 2006. Google's search results for "price comparison" and "comparison shopping" buried their site — for more than three years.
Today the BBC looks at their 15-year legal battle, which culminated with a then record €2.4 billion fine (£2 billion or $2.6 billion) for Google, which was deemed to have abused its market dominance.... [ Read it >> ]

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Nvidia Passes Apple to Become the World's Most Valuable Company - Powered by Demand for AI Chips
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2024-10-27 09:23:01


"Nvidia dethroned Apple as the world's most valuable company on Friday..." reports Reuters, "powered by insatiable demand for its specialized artificial intelligence chips."
Nvidia's stock market value briefly touched $3.53 trillion, slightly above Apple's $3.52 trillion, LSEG data showed... In June, Nvidia briefly became the world's most valuable company before it was overtaken by Microsoft and Apple. The tech trio's market capitalizations have been neck-and-neck for several months. [Friday] Microsoft's market value stood at $3.18 trillion, with its stock up 0.8%... ... [ Read it >> ]

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Did Capturing Carbon from the Air Just Get Easier?
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2024-10-27 06:23:01


"We passed Berkeley air — just outdoor air — into the material to see how it would perform," says U.C. Berkeley chemistry professor Omar Yaghi, "and it was beautiful.
"It cleaned the air entirely of CO2," Yaghi says in an announcement from the university. "Everything."
SFGate calls it "a discovery that could help potentially mitigate the effects of climate change..."... [ Read it >> ]

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One Argument Why Data Caps Are Not a Problem
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2024-10-27 03:23:01


NoWayNoShapeNoForm writes: OpenVault believes that data caps on broadband are not a problem because most people do not exceed their existing data caps. OpenVault contends that people that do exceed their broadband data caps are simply being forgetful — leaving a streaming device on 24x7, or deploying unsecure WiFi access points, or reselling their service within an apartment building. Yes, there may be some ISPs that have older networks that they have not upgraded. Or maybe they are unable to increase network capacity in "the middle mile" of their networks, but the Covid pandemic certainly encouraged many ISPs to upgrade their networks and capacity while many ISPs that had broadband data caps ended that feature. Perhaps the biggest problem, according to OpenVault, is that most broadband users do not really have any idea how much bandwidth they "consume" every month. If Internet access is a service that people want to treat as a "utility", then you have to ask, Would they keep the water running after finishing their shower? ... [ Read it >> ]

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Singapore Approves 2,600-Mile Undersea Cable to Import Solar Energy from Australia
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2024-10-27 02:23:01


"The world's largest renewable energy and transmission project has received key approval from government officials," reports New Atlas.
Solar power from Australia will be carried 2,672 miles (4,300 kilometers) to Singapore over undersea cables in what's being called "the Australia-Asia Power Link project." Reuters reports that SunCable "aims to produce 6 gigawatts of electricity at a vast solar farm in Northern Australia and ship about a third of that to Singapore via undersea cable." ... [ Read it >> ]

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Researchers Discover Flaws In 5 End-to-End Encrypted Cloud Services
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2024-10-27 01:23:01


SC World reports:
Several major end-to-end encrypted cloud storage services contain cryptographic flaws that could lead to loss of confidentiality, file tampering, file injection and more, researchers from ETH Zurich said in a paper published this month.
The five cloud services studied offer end-to-end encryption (E2EE), intended to ensure files can not be read or edited by anyone other than the uploader, meaning not even the cloud storage provider can access the files. However, ETH Zurich researchers Jonas Hofmann and Kien Tuong Truong, who presented their findings at the ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security (CCS) last week, found serious flaws in four out of the five services that could effectively bypass the security benefits provided by E2EE by enabling an attacker who managed to compromise a cloud server to access, tamper with or inject files. ... [ Read it >> ]

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NASA Astronaut in Good Health After Experiencing 'Medical Issue' After SpaceX Splashdown
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2024-10-27 00:23:01


"After safely splashing down on Earth as part of NASA's SpaceX Crew-8 mission Friday, a NASA astronaut experienced a medical issue," NASA reported Friday.
But today there's an update:
After an overnight stay at Ascension Sacred Heart Pensacola in Florida, the NASA astronaut was released and returned to NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston Saturday. The crew member is in good health and will resume normal post-flight reconditioning with other crew members. ... [ Read it >> ]

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