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Perplexity Will Show Live US Election Results Despite AI Accuracy Warnings
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2024-11-05 02:23:01


An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: On Friday, Perplexity launched an election information hub that relies on data from The Associated Press and Democracy Works to provide live updates and information about the 2024 US general election, which takes place on Tuesday, November 5. "Starting Tuesday, we'll be offering live updates on elections using data from The Associated Press so you can stay informed on presidential, senate, and house races at both a state and national level," Perplexity wrote in a blog post. The site will pull data from special data sources (called APIs) hosted by the two organizations. As of Monday, Perplexity's hub currently provides interactive information on voting requirements, poll times, and summaries about ballot measures, candidates, policy positions, and endorsements. Users can ask questions about the information similar to using a chatbot like ChatGPT.... [ Read it >> ]

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Windows 11 Continues To Creep Up Behind Windows 10
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2024-11-05 02:23:01


An anonymous reader shares a report: With Windows 11 still failing to set the world alight, campaigners are warning that millions of perfectly good PCs could become landfill fodder when support for Windows 10 runs out in eleven and a bit months.
Figures compiled by StatCounter show that Windows 11 commanded a 35.55 percent share of the desktop Windows market in October. In comparison, the share of Windows 10 dropped to 60.97 percent, continuing a downward trend that began earlier this year -- it was still at 69.9 percent in April. Unless there is some marked acceleration, Windows 11 is unlikely to dominate the market by the time Microsoft pulls the plug on free updates for most of the Windows 10 world on October 14, 2025.... [ Read it >> ]

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Singapore To Increase Road Capacity By Tracking All Vehicles With GPS
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2024-11-05 01:23:02


Singapore plans to boost road capacity by 20,000 vehicles through a new satellite-based road pricing system, the Land Transport Authority (LTA) announced last week. The city-state will replace its current gantry-based Electronic Road Pricing (ERP) system with GPS tracking technology, enabling more precise congestion management without physical toll stations. The Register adds: "ERP 2.0 will provide more comprehensive aggregated traffic information and will be able to operate without physical gantries. We will be able to introduce new 'virtual gantries,' which allow for more flexible and responsive congestion management," explained the LTA. ... [ Read it >> ]

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Lawsuit Accuses PowerSchool of Selling Student Data To 3rd Parties
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2024-11-05 00:23:01


A former teacher has filed a federal lawsuit against PowerSchool, alleging the education technology giant illegally sells student data to third parties without proper consent. Emily Cherkin, lead plaintiff in the class action suit filed in San Francisco, claims PowerSchool has amassed 345 terabytes of data from 440 school districts, including sensitive information about students' health, behavior, and academic records. The company provides software services to more than 60 million students across 90 of the largest U.S. school districts. ... [ Read it >> ]

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Netflix Bullish on Gen AI for Games After Laying Off Human Game Developers
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2024-11-05 00:23:01


Netflix's gaming division is shifting focus to generative AI weeks after shuttering its premium game studio and laying off 35 developers, the company's newly appointed VP of GenAI for Games has announced. Mike Verdu, previously Vice President of Games, called the move a "once in a generation inflection point" that will "accelerate development" and create novel gaming experiences. The pivot follows the closure of Blue, Netflix's internal studio that had recruited veterans from major franchises including Call of Duty and God of War. "Pay no mind to uninformed speculation," Verdu wrote on LinkedIn, describing recent changes as a "planned transition."... [ Read it >> ]

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Newest Device To Run Doom: Nintendo's Alarm Clock
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2024-11-04 23:23:01


A hardware hacker has successfully modified Nintendo's $100 Alarmo device to run the classic video game Doom, marking another milestone in the gaming community's tradition of porting the 1993 shooter to unconventional devices.
YouTuber GaryOderNichts demonstrated the 2.8-inch circular alarm clock running Chocolate Doom natively, using the device's wheel for movement and side buttons for weapons. The hack requires no hardware modifications and works on the current 2.0 software version. The hack came after researchers discovered vulnerabilities in the Alarmo's STM32H7 microcontroller, enabling custom firmware installation through its USB-C port. The trick omits audio due to memory restrictions, GaryOderNichts notes, but it allows for custom animations and displays.... [ Read it >> ]

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Inside the Massive Crime Industry That's Hacking Billion-Dollar Companies
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2024-11-04 22:23:01


Cybercriminals have breached dozens of major companies including AT&T, Ticketmaster and Hot Topic by exploiting "infostealer" malware that harvests login credentials from infected computers, an investigation has found. The malware, spread through pirated software and social media, has infected 250,000 new devices daily, according to cybersecurity firm Recorded Future. Russian developers create the malware while contractors distribute it globally, deliberately avoiding former Soviet states. Hot Topic suffered potentially the largest retail hack ever in October when attackers accessed 350 million customer records using stolen developer credentials. Google and Microsoft are racing to patch vulnerabilities, but malware makers quickly adapt to new security measures.... [ Read it >> ]

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Google, Apple Drive 'Black Box' IP Policing with App Store Rules
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2024-11-04 22:23:01


App developers Musi and Sarafan Mobile have sued Apple and Google in California federal court over app removals they claim were unjustified, highlighting tensions over the tech giants' intellectual property enforcement policies. Musi's music-streaming app was removed after YouTube complained about interface infringement, while Sarafan's "Reely" app was taken down following Instagram's claims about logo similarity. ... [ Read it >> ]

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Apple Approved Another Illegal Streaming App
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2024-11-04 21:23:02


An anonymous reader shares a report: Another illegal streaming app has made its way to the App Store -- but it only surfaces pirated films for people in certain regions outside the US, including France, Canada, and the Netherlands. As shown in a post on Threads, the App Store listing for "Univer Note" presents itself as a productivity platform that can "easily help you record every day's events and plan your time." However, if you're a user in certain countries, like France or Canada, opening the app shows a collection of pirated movies, such as Venom: The Last Dance, Joker: Folie a Deux, and Terrifier 3.... [ Read it >> ]

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'The Law Must Respond When Science Changes'
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2024-11-04 20:23:01


The clash between law's need for finality and science's evolving nature is creating serious justice problems, an opinion piece on Scientific American argued on Monday. Two recent cases highlight this: Robert Roberson faces execution based on now-discredited shaken baby syndrome science, while the Menendez brothers' life sentences are being questioned due to improved understanding of childhood trauma's effects on violence. ... [ Read it >> ]

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Governments Stress Links Between Climate and Nature Collapse
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2024-11-04 20:23:01


An anonymous reader shares a report: As world leaders gathered in Colombia this week, they also watched for news from home, where many of the headlines carried the catastrophic consequences of ecological breakdown. Across the Amazon rainforest and Brazil's enormous wetlands, relentless fires had burned more than 22m hectares (55m acres). In Spain, the death toll in communities devastated by flooding passed 200. In the boreal forests that span Siberia, Scandinavia, Alaska and Canada, countries were recording alarming signs that their carbon sinks were collapsing under a combined weight of drought, tree death and logging. As Canada's wildfire season crept to a close, scientists calculated it was the second worst in two decades -- behind only last year's burn, which released more carbon than some of the world's largest emitting countries. ... [ Read it >> ]

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Apple Delays Cut-price Vision Headset Until 2027, Analyst Ming-Chi Kuo Says
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2024-11-04 19:23:01


Apple has scrapped plans for a budget mixed-reality headset initially slated for 2025, pushing the launch to 2027, according to supply chain analyst Ming-Chi Kuo. The company will instead focus on releasing an upgraded Vision Pro next year featuring its M5 chip and enhanced AI capabilities, he said. The canceled lower-cost model would have stripped features like EyeSight and used cheaper components to target mainstream consumers.... [ Read it >> ]

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Meta's Plan For Nuclear-Powered AI Data Centre Thwarted By Rare Bees
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2024-11-04 18:23:01


An anonymous reader shares a report: Plans by Mark Zuckerberg's Meta to build an AI data centre in the US that runs on nuclear power were thwarted in part because a rare species of bee was discovered on land earmarked for the project, according to people familiar with the matter. ... [ Read it >> ]

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L.A. County Sues Pepsi and Coca-Cola Over Their Role in the Plastic Pollution Crisis
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2024-11-04 17:23:01


An anonymous reader shared this report from the Los Angeles Times:
Los Angeles County has filed suit against the world's largest beverage companies — Coca-Cola and Pepsi — claiming the soda and drink makers lied to the public about the effectiveness of plastic recycling and, as a result, left county residents and ecosystems choking in discarded plastic... The Los Angeles County suit alleges — in a vein similar to that of [California attorney general] Bonta's suit against Exxon Mobil — that the global beverage companies misrepresented the environmental impact of their plastic bottles, "despite knowing that plastics cannot be readily disposed of without associated environmental impacts." ... [ Read it >> ]

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What Happened After Remote Workers Were Offered $10,000 to Move to Tulsa?
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2024-11-04 13:23:01


Five years ago remote workers were offered $10,0000 to move to Tulsa, Oklahoma for at least a year. Since then roughly 3,300 have accepted the offer, according to the New York TImes. [Alternate URL here.] But more importantly, now researchers are looking at the results:
Their research, released this month, surveyed 1,248 people — including 411 who had participated in Tulsa Remote and others who were accepted but didn't move or weren't accepted but had applied to the program — and found that remote workers who moved to Tulsa saved an average of $25,000 more on annual housing costs than the group that was chosen but didn't move... Nearly three-quarters of participants who have completed the program are still living in Tulsa. The program brings them together for farm-to-table dinners, movie nights and local celebrity lectures to help build community, given that none have offices to commute to. ... [ Read it >> ]

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Python Overtakes JavaScript on GitHub, Annual Survey Finds
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2024-11-04 10:23:01


GitHub released its annual "State of the Octoverse" report this week. And while "Systems programming languages, like Rust, are also on the rise... Python, JavaScript, TypeScript, and Java remain the most widely used languages on GitHub."
In fact, "In 2024, Python overtook JavaScript as the most popular language on GitHub." They also report usage of Jupyter Notebooks "skyrocketed" with a 92% jump in usage, which along with Python's rise seems to underscore "the surge in data science and machine learning on GitHub..."... [ Read it >> ]

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Will Charging Cables Ever Have a Single Standardzed Port?
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2024-11-04 07:23:01


The Atlantic complains that our chaos of different plug types "was supposed to end, with USB-C as our savior."
But part of the problem is what they call "the second circle of our cable hell: My USB-C may not be the same as yours. And the USB-C you bought two years ago may not be the same as the one you got today. And that means it might not do what you now assume it can."... [ Read it >> ]

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Researchers Develop New Method That Tricks Cancer Cells Into Killing Themselves
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2024-11-04 05:23:01


Our bodies divest themselves of 60 billion cells every day through a natural process called "apoptosis". So Stanford medicine researchers are developing a new approach to cancer therapy that could "trick cancer cells into disposing of themselves," according to announcement from Stanford's medical school:... [ Read it >> ]

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How a Slice of Cheese Almost Derailed Europe's Most Important Rocket Test
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2024-11-04 04:23:01


Long-time Slashdot reader schwit1 shared this report from the blog Interesting Engineering: A team of students made history this month by performing Europe's first rocket hop test. Those who have followed SpaceX's trajectory will know hop tests are a vital stepping stone for a reusable rocket program, as they allow engineers to test their rocket's landing capabilities. Impressively, no private company or space agency in Europe had ever performed a rocket hop test before. Essentially, a group of students performed one of the most important rocket tests in the history of European rocketry. However, the remarkable nature of this story doesn't end there. Amazingly, the whole thing was almost derailed by a piece of cheese. A slice of Gruyère the team strapped to their rocket's landing legs almost caused the rocket to spin out of control.... [ Read it >> ]

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Leaked Training Shows Doctors In New York's Biggest Hospital System Using AI
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2024-11-04 03:23:01


Slashdot reader samleecole shared this report from 404 Media:
Northwell Health, New York State's largest healthcare provider, recently launched a large language model tool that it is encouraging doctors and clinicians to use for translation, sensitive patient data, and has suggested it can be used for diagnostic purposes, 404 Media has learned. Northwell Health has more than 85,000 employees. An internal presentation and employee chats obtained by 404 Media shows how healthcare professionals are using LLMs and chatbots to edit writing, make hiring decisions, do administrative tasks, and handle patient data. In the presentation given in August, Rebecca Kaul, senior vice president and chief of digital innovation and transformation at Northwell, along with a senior engineer, discussed the launch of the tool, called AI Hub, and gave a demonstration of how clinicians and researchers—or anyone with a Northwell email address—can use it... AI Hub can be used for "clinical or clinical adjacent" tasks, as well as answering questions about hospital policies and billing, writing job descriptions and editing writing, and summarizing electronic medical record excerpts and inputting patients' personally identifying and protected health information. ... [ Read it >> ]

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New Study Suggests Oceans Absorb More CO2 Than Previously Thought
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2024-11-04 03:23:01


Long-time Slashdot reader schwit1 shared this story from SciTechDaily:
New research confirms that subtle temperature differences at the ocean surface, known as the "ocean skin," increase carbon dioxide absorption. This discovery, based on precise measurements, suggests global oceans absorb 7% more CO2 than previously thought, aiding climate understanding and carbon assessments...... [ Read it >> ]

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After Silence, NASA's Voyager Finally Phones Home - With a Device Unused Since 1981
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2024-11-04 01:23:01


Somewhere off in interstellar space, 15.4 billion miles away from Earth, NASA's 47-year-old Voyager "recently went quiet," reports Mashable.
The probe "shut off its main radio transmitter for communicating with mission control..."
Voyager's problem began on October 16, when flight controllers sent the robotic explorer a somewhat routine command to turn on a heater. Two days later, when NASA expected to receive a response from the spacecraft, the team learned something tripped Voyager's fault protection system, which turned off its X-band transmitter. By October 19, communication had altogether stopped. ... [ Read it >> ]

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Millions of U.S. Cellphones Could Be Vulnerable to Chinese Government Surveillance
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2024-11-04 00:23:01


Millions of U.S. cellphone users could be vulnerable to Chinese government surveillance, warns a Washington Post columnist, "on the networks of at least three major U.S. carriers."
They cite six current or former senior U.S. officials, all of whom were briefed about the attack by the U.S. intelligence community.... [ Read it >> ]

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New 'Open Source AI Definition' Criticized for Not Opening Training Data
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2024-11-03 22:23:01


Long-time Slashdot reader samj — also a long-time Debian developer — tells us there's some opposition to the newly-released Open Source AI definition. He calls it a "fork" that undermines the original Open Source definition (which was originally derived from Debian's Free Software Guidelines, written primarily by Bruce Perens), and points us to a new domain with a petition declaring that instead Open Source shall be defined "solely by the Open Source Definition version 1.9. Any amendments or new definitions shall only be recognized with clear community consensus via an open and transparent process." ... [ Read it >> ]

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Invisible, Super Stretchy Nanofibers Discovered In Natural Spider Silk
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2024-11-03 21:23:01


Long-time Slashdot reader yet-another-lobbyist writes: Phys.org has an article on the recent discovery of super stretchy nanofibers in natural spider silk! The thinnest natural spider silk nanofibrils ever seen are only a few molecular layers thin, about 5 nm. They are too thin to be seen even with a very powerful optical microscope. Researchers used atomic force microscopy (AFM) not only to visualize them, but also to probe their stretchiness and strength. ... [ Read it >> ]

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Can Heat Pumps Still Save the Planet from Climate Change?
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2024-11-03 20:23:01


"One technology critical to fighting climate change is lagging," reports the Washington Post, "thanks to a combination of high interest rates, rising costs, misinformation and the cycle of home construction. Adoption of heat pumps, one of the primary ways to cut emissions from buildings, has slowed in the United States and stalled in Europe, endangering the switch to clean energy. ... [ Read it >> ]

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AI Bug Bounty Program Finds 34 Flaws in Open-Source Tools
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2024-11-03 17:23:01


Slashdot reader spatwei shared this report from SC World:

Nearly three dozen flaws in open-source AI and machine learning (ML) tools were disclosed Tuesday as part of [AI-security platform] Protect AI's huntr bug bounty program.
The discoveries include three critical vulnerabilities: two in the Lunary AI developer toolkit [both with a CVSS score of 9.1] and one in a graphical user interface for ChatGPT called Chuanhu Chat. The October vulnerability report also includes 18 high-severity flaws ranging from denial-of-service to remote code execution... Protect AI's report also highlights vulnerabilities in LocalAI, a platform for running AI models locally on consumer-grade hardware, LoLLMs, a web UI for various AI systems, LangChain.js, a framework for developing language model applications, and more. ... [ Read it >> ]

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What's Worse Than Setting Clocks Back an Hour? Permanent Daylight Savings Time
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2024-11-03 12:23:02


"It's that time again," writes USA Today, noting that Sunday morning millions of Americans (along with millions more in Canada, Europe, parts of Australia, and Chile) "will set their clocks back an hour, and many will renew their twice-yearly calls to put an end to the practice altogether..."... [ Read it >> ]

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ASWF: the Open Source Foundation Run By the Folks Who Give Out Oscars
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2024-11-03 09:23:01


This week's Ubuntu Summit 2024 was attended by Lproven (Slashdot reader #6,030). He's also a FOSS correspondent for the Register, where he's filed this report:
One of the first full-length sessions was presented by David Morin, executive director of the Academy Software Foundation, introducing his organization in a talk about Open Source Software for Motion Pictures. Morin linked to the Visual Effects Society's VFX/Animation Studio Workstation Linux Report, highlighting the market share pie-chart, showing Rocky Linux 9 with at some 58 percent and the RHELatives in general at 90 percent of the market. Ubuntu 22 and 24 — the report's nomenclature, not this vulture's — got just 10.5 percent. We certainly didn't expect to see that at an Ubuntu event, with the latest two versions of Rocky Linux taking 80 percent of the studio workstation market... ... [ Read it >> ]

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The 'Passive Housing' Trend is Booming
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2024-11-03 06:23:02


The Washington Post reports that a former Etsy CEO remodeled their home into what's known as a passive house. It's "designed to be as energy efficient as possible, typically with top-notch insulation and a perfect seal that prevents outside air from penetrating the home; air flows in and out through filtration and exhaust systems only." ... [ Read it >> ]

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Don't Look Now, but GM's EV Sales Are on Fire
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2024-11-03 03:23:01


GM's president of global markets says their EV portfolio "is growing faster than the market," according to Investopedia, "because we have an all-electric vehicle for just about everybody, no matter what they like to drive."
The headline at Barrons? "Don't Look Now, but GM's EV Sales Are on Fire."... [ Read it >> ]

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Is AI-Driven 0-Day Detection Here?
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2024-11-03 02:23:01


"AI-driven 0-day detection is here," argues a new blog post from ZeroPath, makers of a GitHub app that "detects, verifies, and issues pull requests for security vulnerabilities in your code."
They write that AI-assisted security research "has been quietly advancing" since early 2023, when researchers at the DARPA and ARPA-H's Artificial Intelligence Cyber Challenge demonstrated the first practical applications of LLM-powered vulnerability detection — with new advances continuing. "Since July 2024, ZeroPath's tool has uncovered critical zero-day vulnerabilities — including remote code execution, authentication bypasses, and insecure direct object references — in popular AI platforms and open-source projects." And they ultimately identified security flaws in projects owned by Netflix, Salesforce, and Hulu by "taking a novel approach combining deep program analysis with adversarial AI agents for validation. Our methodology has uncovered numerous critical vulnerabilities in production systems, including several that traditional Static Application Security Testing tools were ill-equipped to find..."... [ Read it >> ]

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A Fourth FTX Executive Sentenced: Forfeits $11 Billion, But No Prison Time
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2024-11-03 01:23:01


Former FTX executive Nishad Singh was ordered to forfeit $11 billion, reports CNBC — and is subject to three years of supervised release, making him "the fourth ex-employee of the collapsed crypto exchange to be punished."
But while he'd faced a maximum sentence of 75 years, he'll serve no time, according to this report from the Associated Press:... [ Read it >> ]

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US Government Considers Legal Action Over Meta's Use of Financial Data for Ads
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2024-11-03 00:23:01


The Washington Post reports that America's Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (or CFPB) "is considering legal action against Meta over allegations that it improperly used financial data obtained from third parties in its highly-lucrative advertising business..."
The article says a Meta securities filing Thursday revealed it had received a formal notification about the federal investigation last month.... [ Read it >> ]

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As Data Centers for AI Strain the Power Grid, Bills Rise for Everyday Customers
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2024-11-02 23:23:01


While Amazon, Google, and other companies build new data centers — sometimes for their AI projects — parts of America "are facing higher electric bills," reports the Washington Post:
The facilities' extraordinary demand for electricity to power and cool computers inside can drive up the price local utilities pay for energy and require significant improvements to electric grid transmission systems. As a result, costs have already begun going up for customers — or are about to in the near future, according to utility planning documents and energy industry analysts. Some regulators are concerned that the tech companies aren't paying their fair share, while leaving customers from homeowners to small businesses on the hook.... [ Read it >> ]

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NVIDIA Replaces Rival Chipmaker Intel on the Dow Jones Industrial Average
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2024-11-02 22:23:02


In 1896 the Dow Jones Industrial Average (or DJIA) was created as a kind of proxy indicator for the wider stock market. "A stock is typically added only if the company has an excellent reputation, demonstrates sustained growth and is of interest to a large number of investors," according to a source cited by Yahoo Finance. Its mix of stocks might be informally considered a sign of the times, since it's made up of 30 stocks that according to Wikipedia have been changed only 57 times over the last 128 years. ... [ Read it >> ]

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PimEyes 'Made a Public Rolodex of Our Faces'. Should You Opt Out?
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2024-11-02 21:23:01


The free face-image search engine PimEyes "scans through billions of images from the internet and finds matches of your photo that could have appeared in a church bulletin or a wedding photographer's website," -us/news/technology/they-made-a-public-rolodex-of-our-faces-here-s-how-i-tried-to-get-out/ar-AA1tlpPuwrites a Washington Post columnist. ... [ Read it >> ]

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How America's Export Controls Failed to Keep Cutting-Edge AI Chips from China's Huawei
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2024-11-02 20:23:01


An anonymous reader shared this report from the Washington Post:

A few weeks ago, analysts at a specialized technological lab put a microchip from China under a powerful microscope. Something didn't look right... The microscopic proof was there that a chunk of the electronic components from Chinese high-tech champion Huawei Technologies had been produced by the world's most advanced chipmaker, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company. ... [ Read it >> ]

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Threads Soars to 275 Million Monthly Users, Says Zuckerberg
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2024-11-02 19:23:02


An anonymous Slashdot reader shared this report from CNBC:

Threads now has nearly 275 million monthly users, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said Wednesday. "We continue to be on track towards this becoming our next major social app," Zuckerberg said on a call with analysts, adding that he was "quite pleased" with the trajectory of the app. ... [ Read it >> ]

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US Lawmakers On EPA To Ban Pesticide Linked To Parkinson's Disease
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2024-11-02 17:23:01


An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: More than 50 US lawmakers are calling on the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to join dozens of other countries in banning a widely used weedkiller linked to Parkinson's disease and other health dangers. In a October 31 letter (PDF) to the agency, seven US senators said that paraquat, a weedkiller commonly applied on US farms, was a "highly toxic pesticide whose continued use cannot be justified given its harms to farmworkers and rural communities". The call for a ban from the senators came after 47 members of the US House of Representatives sent a similar letter (PDF) to the EPA calling for a ban earlier in October.... [ Read it >> ]

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Starlink Enters National Radio Quiet Zone
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2024-11-02 14:23:01


Starlink has launched home Internet service to 99.5% of residents in the National Radio Quiet Zone (NRQZ) after a multi-year collaboration with the National Radio Astronomy Observatory to minimize interference with radio telescopes. "The vast majority of people within the areas of Virginia and West Virginia collectively known as the National Radio Quiet Zone (NRQZ) can now receive high speed satellite Internet service," the National Radio Astronomy Observatory and Green Bank Observatory announced said. "The newly available service is the result of a nearly three-year collaborative engineering effort between the US National Science Foundation (NSF), SpaceX, and the NSF National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NSF NRAO), which operates the NSF Green Bank Observatory (NSF GBO) in West Virginia within the NRQZ." Ars Technica reports: There's a controversy over the 0.5 percent of residents who aren't included and are said to be newly blocked from using the Starlink Roam service. Starlink markets Roam as a service for people to use while traveling, not as a fixed home Internet service. The Pendleton County Office of Emergency Management last week issued a press release (PDF) saying that "customers with the RV/Roam packages had been using Starlink for approximately two years throughout 100% of the NRQZ. Now, the 0.5% have lost coverage after having it for two years. This means that a large section of southeastern Pendleton County and an even larger section of northern Pocahontas will NOT be able to utilize Starlink."... [ Read it >> ]

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Prosecutors Probe Hedge Fund Titan's Thriller For Clues in Argentina Hack Case
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2024-11-02 11:23:01


Jay Newman, who made billions for Elliott Management pursuing Argentina's defaulted debt, wrote a 2022 thriller about corrupt spies and hedge funds. Now federal prosecutors are examining parallels between his novel "Undermoney" and real-world events.
The investigation centers on Amit Forlit, an Israeli private investigator facing U.S. extradition charges for alleged email theft from Argentine officials during Elliott's sovereign debt battle. Prosecutors are probing whether Forlit's alleged $20 million hacking operation aided Elliott's eventual $2.2 billion settlement with Argentina. "There's not that much fiction in 'Undermoney,'" Newman told interviewers while promoting the book, which features Israeli operatives and hedge fund intrigue. Newman and Elliott deny any wrongdoing, with Newman calling suggestions of illegal activity "categorically false." ... [ Read it >> ]

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Inventory Counts Air Pollution Cost of Space Launches and Re-Entries
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2024-11-02 08:23:01


An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: A new global inventory has catalogued air pollution from space activities from 2020 to 2022. The inventory includes time, position and pollution from 446 launchers as they ascended and the tracks of re-entries as objects are heated to extreme temperatures and break up or burn up in the upper atmosphere. It catalogues the pollution from 63,000 tons of rocket propellants used in 2022 and from 3,622 objects, including rocket parts and satellites, that re-entered the atmosphere between 2020 and 2023, amounting to about 12,000 tons. [...]... [ Read it >> ]

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Okta Fixes Login Bypass Flaw Tied To Lengthy Usernames
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2024-11-02 06:23:01


Identity management firm Okta said Friday it has patched a critical authentication bypass vulnerability that affected customers using usernames longer than 52 characters in its AD/LDAP delegated authentication service.
The flaw, introduced on July 23 and fixed October 30, allowed attackers to authenticate using only a username if they had access to a previously cached key. The bug stemmed from Okta's use of the Bcrypt algorithm to generate cache keys from combined user credentials. The company switched to PBKDF2 to resolve the issue and urged affected customers to audit system logs.... [ Read it >> ]

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California Inks Sustainable Aviation Fuel Deal With Major Airlines
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2024-11-02 05:23:01


California signed an agreement with major airlines to increase the use of sustainable aviation fuels, aiming to reach 200 million gallons by 2035 or about 40% of the state's air travel demand. The Hill reports: The California Air Resources Board (CARB) and Airlines for America (A4A) -- an industry trade group representing almost a dozen airlines -- pledged to increase the availability of sustainable aviation fuels statewide. Sustainable aviation fuels -- lower-carbon alternatives to petroleum-based jet fuels -- are typically made from nonpetroleum feedstocks, such as biomass or waste. At a San Francisco International Airport ceremony Wednesday, the partners committed (PDF) to using 200 million gallons of such fuels by 2035 -- an amount estimated to meet about 40 percent of travel demand within the state at that point, according to CARB. That quantity also represents a more than tenfold increase from current usage levels of these fuels, the agency added.... [ Read it >> ]

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Waymo Explores Using Google's Gemini To Train Its Robotaxis
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2024-11-02 04:23:01


Waymo is advancing autonomous driving with a new training model for its robotaxis built on Google's multimodal large language model (MLLM) Gemini. The Verge reports: Waymo released a new research paper today that introduces an "End-to-End Multimodal Model for Autonomous Driving," also known as EMMA. This new end-to-end training model processes sensor data to generate "future trajectories for autonomous vehicles," helping Waymo's driverless vehicles make decisions about where to go and how to avoid obstacles. But more importantly, this is one of the first indications that the leader in autonomous driving has designs to use MLLMs in its operations. And it's a sign that these LLMs could break free of their current use as chatbots, email organizers, and image generators and find application in an entirely new environment on the road. In its research paper, Waymo is proposing "to develop an autonomous driving system in which the MLLM is a first class citizen."... [ Read it >> ]

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US Indicts 26-Year-Old Gotbit Founder For Market Manipulation
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2024-11-02 04:23:01


The feds have indicted Aleksei Andriunin, a 26-year-old Russian national and founder of Gotbit, on charges of wire fraud and conspiracy to commit market manipulation. Crypto News reports: According to the U.S. Attorney's Office, the indictment alleges that Andriunin and his firm participated in a long-running scheme to artificially boost trading volumes for various cryptocurrency companies, including some based in the United States, to make them appear more popular and increase their trading value. Andriunin allegedly led these activities between 2018 and 2024 as Gotbit's CEO. He could face up to 20 years in prison, additional fines, and asset forfeiture if convicted, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office. Prosecutors say the scheme involved "wash trading," where the firm used its software to make fake trades that inflated a cryptocurrency's trading volume. This practice, called market manipulation, can mislead investors by giving the impression that demand for a particular cryptocurrency is higher than it actually is. Wash trades are illegal in traditional finance and are considered fraudulent because they deceive investors and manipulate market behavior.... [ Read it >> ]

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Royal Navy Successfully Tests Quantum-Sensing Technology
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2024-11-02 03:23:02


An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Royal Navy: The Royal Navy has successfully demonstrated the capabilities of ground-breaking cold atom technology. P2000 vessel HMS Pursuer hosted the trial, which unlocks new possibilities in areas such as covert monitoring, which require precise signals for accurate positioning, navigation and timing. The Office of the Chief of Technology Officer (OCTO) for the RN worked with UK quantum technology company Aquark Technologies. The trial involved the company's miniature cold atom systems, founded on Aquark's unique laser-cooling method, known as supemolasses.... [ Read it >> ]

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Disney Forms Dedicated AI, XR Group To Coordinate Company-Wide Adoption
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2024-11-02 02:23:01


Disney's recently formed Office of Technology Enablement will coordinate the company's exploration, adoption and use of artificial intelligence, AR and VR tech. Engadget reports: It has tapped Jamie Voris, previously the CTO of its Studios Technology division, to oversee the effort. Before joining Disney in 2010, Voris was the chief technology officer at the National Football League. More recently, he led the development of the company's Apple Vision Pro app. Voris will report to Alan Bergman, the co-chairman of Disney Entertainment. Reuters reports the company eventually plans to grow the group to about 100 employees.... [ Read it >> ]

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US Plans $825 Million Investment For New York Semiconductor R&D Facility
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2024-11-02 02:23:01


The Biden administration is investing $825 million in a new semiconductor research and development facility in Albany, New York. Reuters reports: The New York facility will be expected to drive innovation in EUV technology, a complex process necessary to make semiconductors, the U.S. Department of Commerce and Natcast, operator of the National Semiconductor Technology Center (NTSC) said. The launch of the facility "represents a key milestone in ensuring the United States remains a global leader in innovation and semiconductor research and development," Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said. From the U.S. Department of Commerce press release: EUV Lithography is essential for manufacturing smaller, faster, and more efficient microchips. As the semiconductor industry pushes the limits of Moore's Law, EUV lithography has emerged as a critical technology to enable the high-volume production of transistors beyond 7nm, previously unattainable. As the NSTC develops capabilities and programs, access to EUV lithography R&D is essential to meet its three primary goals 1) extend U.S. technology leadership, 2) reduce the time and cost to prototype, and 3) build and sustain a semiconductor workforce ecosystem.... [ Read it >> ]

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