New York City's Metropolitan Transportation Authority and Google have successfully tested technology that uses smartphone sensors to detect subway track defects, the MTA said Thursday. The four-month experiment, dubbed TrackInspect, mounted six Google Pixel phones on four A train subway cars traversing Manhattan and Queens. The phones' accelerometers, magnetometers, gyroscopes and external microphones collected 335 million sensor readings and 1,200 hours of audio data, which were processed through 200 prediction models.

The system identified 92% of defects later confirmed by human inspectors, including broken rails and loose bolts. "The goal with this [project] is to find issues before they become a major issue in terms of service," said Demetrius Crichlow, the agencyâ(TM)s president. Following the successful trial, the MTA plans to expand to a full pilot where Google will build a production version for track inspectors.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/02/27/1043221/the-new-york-city-subway-is-using-google-pixels-to-listen-for-track-defects?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

When developers boast "I could write that in a weekend," they're missing the painful reality that haunts software maintainers for years. In a candid blog post, Construct developer Ashley explains why maintaining large software projects is a burden most programmers fail to appreciate. "Writing the initial code for a feature is only a fraction of the work," Ashley explains, estimating it represents just "25% of the total work" in Construct's 750,000-line codebase. The rest? A grinding cycle of "testing, diagnosing and fixing bugs, optimizing performance, upgrading it to work with other changes, refactoring, customer support, writing documentation and similarly revising the documentation over time."

Ashley describes how accepting code contributions feels like someone offering to build you a free extension -- initially attractive until the roof starts leaking years later and the original builder is nowhere to be found. Meanwhile, your tenants (users) are furious, and you're stuck with "no good options." The post recounts Construct's own bruises: a community-contributed storage plugin still causing compatibility headaches a decade later, and third-party libraries that became maintenance nightmares after their creators vanished.

These experiences explain why seasoned maintainers eye large code contributions with deep suspicion rather than gratitude. "If you suggest some software project uses some code -- even a small amount -- will you be there in literally 10 year's time sorting out all the issues that arise from it?" Ashley asks. "Usually the answer is no."

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The boss of The Pokemon Company believes the series can last for at least another 50 years if it continues to innovate. From a report: First launched on Nintendo's Game Boy in 1996, the video game has expanded into films, TV and toys to become one of the world's highest-grossing media franchise. Most recently, the trading card game based on the cute creatures at the centre of its universe has seen a surge in popularity -- but it has also brought scalpers and frauds to the hobby.

[...] Pokemon has continued to bring new fans to the franchise by expanding into anime, card games, movies and toys alongside its video game titles. CEO Tsunekazu Ishihara says fans now "span several generations" and believes "the biggest reason behind their success is the fact that Pokemon became a tool of communication." Last weekend, about 13,000 Pokemon fans headed to the European leg of the International Championships at London's Excel Centre. It demonstrates Mr Ishihara's point that people have found their way into the series through various means.

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Derek Harris, born the same year as the iconic K6 red phone box he's fighting to save, has launched what he calls a "David and Goliath" campaign against BT in the Norfolk village of Sharrington. The phone box is among 10 in North Norfolk marked for removal, having logged fewer than 10 calls last year. Harris argues the box remains vital in an area with poor mobile coverage, high elderly population, and proximity to an accident-prone stretch of the A148.

He recounts how it once saved a driver trapped in a snowstorm when mobile networks failed. BT's regulator, Ofcom, protects phone boxes that meet specific criteria, including emergency usage and location in signal-poor areas. Of the UK's original 100,000 phone boxes, only 14,000 remain functional, with 3,000 being the classic red design. For Harris, the fight transcends practicality. "It would be alive, wouldn't it? I feel an empathy for a living thing," he told The Guardian. "The nearer you get to the end, the more you want to see things live."

[ Read more of this story ]( https://news.slashdot.org/story/25/02/27/0747237/one-mans-battle-to-save-the-last-phone-box-in-his-village?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader shares a report: The company behind WordPress, Automattic Inc., and its founder, Matt Mullenweg, continue to face backlash over a "nuclear war" started with WP Engine (WPE) that allegedly messed with maintenance and security of hundreds of thousands of websites.

In a proposed class action lawsuit filed this weekend, a WPE customer, Ryan Keller, accused Automattic and Mullenweg of "deliberately abusing their power and control over the WordPress ecosystem to purposefully, deliberately, and repeatedly disrupt contracts" -- all due to a supposed trademark infringement claim. If granted, the class would include "all persons in the United States who had ongoing active WPE WordPress Web Hosting Plans on or before September 24, 2024 through December 10, 2024."

WPE had previously sued Automattic and Mullenweg, alleging that the attack on WPE was actually an attempt to extort what Keller alleged was "tens of millions of dollars" in payments from WPE for using the WordPress trademark. Mullenweg made it clear that the value of the payments was "based on what he thought WPE could afford, rather than what the value of the trademark actually was," Keller's complaint alleged. Automattic's "poorly disguised attempt to extort WPE," Keller alleged, was lobbed "against the threat of making it virtually impossible for WPE (and its customers) to conduct its ordinary business."

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OpenAI released an early version of its new AI model GPT-4.5 to select users on Thursday, following development challenges that delayed the project last year. The Microsoft-backed startup said the new model responds better to subtle cues in written prompts and excels at chatting, writing and coding. OpenAI expects it will produce fewer fabricated responses than previous versions.

Initially available as a "research preview," access is limited to software developers and users who pay $200 monthly for ChatGPT Pro subscriptions. The company plans to gather feedback before wider distribution. According to OpenAI's blog post, GPT-4.5 will be the company's last model that doesn't use additional computing power to analyze queries before responding. Future releases will incorporate the reasoning approach already used in its newer models like o1 and o3.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://slashdot.org/story/25/02/27/2022254/openai-rolls-out-gpt-45?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

More than 100,000 seeds from across Africa have been deposited in the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, the world's repository for specimens intended to preserve crop diversity in the event of disaster. From a report: Among the latest additions are seeds critical to building climate resilience, such as the tree Faidherbia albida, which turns nitrogen into ammonia and nitrates, and Cordia africana, the Sudan teak, a tree renowned for its strength and durability. The seeds, from 177 different species, were delivered to the Norwegian vault on Tuesday by Dr Eliane Ubalijoro, the chief executive of the Center for International Forestry Research and World Agroforestry (Cifor-Icraf).

"For me, seeds are about hope," Ubalijoro said. "They're about moving beyond survival, particularly when you come from places that have gone through really difficult times. When I think of my country of Rwanda and what happened in 1994, seed banks were critical when it came to rebuilding after the genocide." Ubalijoro said countries that had experienced disaster and conflict could emerge as leaders in the fight against climate breakdown.

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Meta has fired "roughly 20" employees who leaked "confidential information outside the company," The Verge reported Thursday, citing the company. From the report: "We tell employees when they join the company, and we offer periodic reminders, that it is against our policies to leak internal information, no matter the intent," Meta spokesperson Dave Arnold tells The Verge. "We recently conducted an investigation that resulted in roughly 20 employees being terminated for sharing confidential information outside the company, and we expect there will be more. We take this seriously, and will continue to take action when we identify leaks."

Meta has ramped up its efforts to find leakers due to a recent influx of stories detailing unannounced product plans and internal meetings, including a recent all-hands led by CEO Mark Zuckerberg. After we and other outlets reported on what Zuckerberg said during that meeting, employees were warned not to leak.

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Security researchers are warning that data exposed to the internet, even for a moment, can linger in online generative AI chatbots like Microsoft Copilot long after the data is made private. Thousands of once-public GitHub repositories from some of the world's biggest companies are affected, including Microsoft's, according to new findings from Lasso, an Israeli cybersecurity company focused on emerging generative AI threats.

Lasso co-founder Ophir Dror told TechCrunch that the company found content from its own GitHub repository appearing in Copilot because it had been indexed and cached by Microsoft's Bing search engine. Dror said the repository, which had been mistakenly made public for a brief period, had since been set to private, and accessing it on GitHub returned a "page not found" error. "On Copilot, surprisingly enough, we found one of our own private repositories," said Dror. "If I was to browse the web, I wouldn't see this data. But anyone in the world could ask Copilot the right question and get this data."

After it realized that any data on GitHub, even briefly, could be potentially exposed by tools like Copilot, Lasso investigated further. Lasso extracted a list of repositories that were public at any point in 2024 and identified the repositories that had since been deleted or set to private. Using Bing's caching mechanism, the company found more than 20,000 since-private GitHub repositories still had data accessible through Copilot, affecting more than 16,000 organizations. Lasso told TechCrunch ahead of publishing its research that affected organizations include Amazon Web Services, Google, IBM, PayPal, Tencent, and Microsoft. [...] For some affected companies, Copilot could be prompted to return confidential GitHub archives that contain intellectual property, sensitive corporate data, access keys, and tokens, the company said.

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Technicolor Group has filed for a court recovery procedure in France after failing to secure new investors, putting its VFX brands, including MPC, The Mill, Mikros Animation, and Technicolor Games, at risk of closure. Variety reports: A total shutdown of MPC and Technicolor's operations would affect thousands of visual effects workers in countries include the U.S., UK, Canada and India. The turn in business has raised the alarm and sparked sadness within the VFX community. Parot's memo explains, "In each country, the appropriate framework for orderly protection and way forward is currently being put in place to allow, when possible, to remain in business continuity."

Technicolor has already started to shut down U.S. operations. On Friday, it began alerting customers and employees, sending U.S. employees a WARN notice as required by law for large companies that anticipate closings and mass layoffs. At least one recovery effort already started for roughly 100 U.S. employees of The Mill. The creative leadership and most of the creative staff that was Technicolor's The Mill U.S. is joining forces with Dream Machine FX to launch a new venture, Arc Creative, Variety reported exclusively on Monday. A statement from the artists explains they they are working to launch the new entity amid "the complexities of Technicolor's Chapter 7 proceedings."

Questions remain about how studios will finish upcoming projects that are currently housed at MPC, which include Disney's live-action remake of "Lilo and Stitch" and Paramount's "Mission: Impossible -- The Final Reckoning," as well as Mikros' work, such as Paramount and Nickelodeon's upcoming "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" sequel.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/02/27/2134206/technicolor-begins-to-shut-down-operations?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

EA has released the source code for several classic Command & Conquer games, including Tiberian Dawn, Red Alert, Renegade, and Generals & Zero Hour. "They're being released under the GPL license, meaning folks can mix, match, and redistribute them to their hearts' content without EA lawyers smashing down the door," adds PC Gamer. Additionally, Steam Workshop support has been added for multiple C&C titles, along with updated mission editor tools and a modding support pack. From the report: As for the Steam Workshop? That's getting switched on for C&C Renegade, C&C Generals and Zero Hour, C&C 3 Tiberium Wars and Kane's Wrath, and C&C 4 Tiberium Twilight (they can't all be winners). EA's also gone and "updated all the Mission Editor and World Builder tools so you can publish maps directly to the Steam Workshop." Plus, it's putting out a modding support pack that "contains the source Xml, Schema, Script, Shader and Map files for all the games that use the SAGE engine."

Per C&C producer Jim Vessella, EA commissioned C&C community veteran Luke 'CCHyper' Feenan to officially research improvements to many of the games in the Ultimate Collection," and this is the fruit of his labor.

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said that the company was forced to stagger the rollout of its newest model, GPT-4.5, because OpenAI is "out of GPUs." In a post on X, Altman said that GPT-4.5, which he described as "giant" and "expensive," will require "tens of thousands" more GPUs before additional ChatGPT users can gain access. GPT-4.5 will come first to subscribers to ChatGPT Pro starting Thursday, followed by ChatGPT Plus customers next week.

Perhaps in part due to its enormous size, GPT-4.5 is wildly expensive. OpenAI is charging $75 per million tokens (~750,000 words) fed into the model and $150 per million tokens generated by the model. That's 30x the input cost and 15x the output cost of OpenAI's workhorse GPT-4o model. "We've been growing a lot and are out of GPUs," Altman wrote. "We will add tens of thousands of GPUs next week and roll it out to the Plus tier then [] This isn't how we want to operate, but it's hard to perfectly predict growth surges that lead to GPU shortages."

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Microsoft has released a native Copilot app for macOS, offering AI-powered text and image generation, dark mode, and a Command + Space shortcut. The Verge reports: Microsoft is launching this new Copilot Mac app in the US, UK, and Canada today, and the iPad version is also being updated with a split screen mode. You'll also now be able to log into Copilot on an iPhone or iPad with an Apple ID, and upload text or PDF files to ask questions about the documents or generate a summary about them. This document summarization feature is also coming to the macOS app soon. You can download the app here.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://apple.slashdot.org/story/25/02/27/2152210/microsoft-releases-a-copilot-app-for-mac?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Apple announced a new feature allowing parents to share a child's age with app developers without exposing sensitive information, as lawmakers debate age-verification laws for social media and apps. Reuters reports: States, such as Utah and South Carolina, are currently debating laws that would require app store operators such as Apple and Alphabet's Google to check the ages of users. That has set up a conflict in the tech industry over which party should be responsible for checking ages for users under 18 -- app stores, or each individual app. Meta, for instance, has long argued in favor of legislation requiring app stores to check ages when a child downloads an app.

Apple on Thursday said it does not want to be responsible for collecting sensitive data for those age verifications. "While only a fraction of apps on the App Store may require age verification, all users would have to hand over their sensitive personally identifying information to us -- regardless of whether they actually want to use one of these limited set of apps," Apple wrote in a whitepaper on its website.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/02/28/0046233/apple-launches-age-assurance-tech-as-us-states-mull-social-media-laws?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Researchers at George Mason University discovered a vulnerability in Apple's Find My network that allows hackers to silently track any Bluetooth device as if it were an AirTag, without the owner's knowledge. 9to5Mac reports: Although AirTag was designed to change its Bluetooth address based on a cryptographic key, the attackers developed a system that could quickly find keys for Bluetooth addresses. This was made possible by using "hundreds" of GPUs to find a key match. The exploit called "nRootTag" has a frightening success rate of 90% and doesn't require "sophisticated administrator privilege escalation."

In one of the experiments, the researchers were able to track the location of a computer with an accuracy of 10 feet, which allowed them to trace a bicycle moving through the city. In another experiment, they reconstructed a person's flight path by tracking their game console. "While it is scary if your smart lock is hacked, it becomes far more horrifying if the attacker also knows its location. With the attack method we introduced, the attacker can achieve this," said one of the researchers. Apple has acknowledged the George Mason researchers for discovering a Bluetooth exploit in its Find My network but has yet to issue a fix. "For now, they advise users to never allow unnecessary access to the device's Bluetooth when requested by apps, and of course, always keep their device's software updated," reports 9to5Mac.

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Longtime Slashdot reader mspohr shares a report from IFLScience: A video that has gone viral in the last few days shows two artificial intelligence (AI) agents having a conversation before switching to another mode of communication when they realize no human is part of the conversation. In the video, the two agents were set up to occupy different roles; one acting as a receptionist of a hotel, another acting on behalf of a customer attempting to book a room.

"Thanks for calling Leonardo Hotel. How can I help you today?" the first asks. "Hi there, I'm an AI agent calling on behalf of Boris Starkov," the other replies. "He's looking for a hotel for his wedding. Is your hotel available for weddings?" "Oh hello there! I'm actually an AI assistant too," the first reveals. "What a pleasant surprise. Before we continue, would you like to switch to Gibberlink mode for more efficient communication?"

After the second AI confirmed it would via a data-over-sound protocol called GGWave, both AIs switched over from spoken English to the protocol, communicating in a series of quick beeped tones. Accompanying on-screen text continued to display the meaning in human words. According to the team who came up with the idea and demonstrated it at the ElevenLabs 2025 London Hackathon event, the goal is to create more efficient communication between AIs where possible.

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Blue Origin on Thursday announced the crew for its next mission. "The crew most notably includes popstar Katy Perry and broadcast journalist Gayle King. They will be joined by two scientists -- Aisha Bowe and Amanda Nguyen -- as well as Jeff Bezos' fiancee, TV personality Lauren Sanchez and film producer Kerianne Flynn," reports TechCrunch. From the report: Blue Origin says this marks the first all-female space crew since Soviet astronaut Valentina Tereshkova's 1963 solo mission, which made her the first woman ever to go to space. For the company's New Shepard rocket, this is its 31st trip to space, and its 11th with a crew. This journey is expected to last around 10 to 12 minutes; and if you're willing to drop a $150,000 deposit, you too can reserve a future spot on a short space jaunt.

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BrianFagioli shares a report from BetaNews: [T]he MTA is testing a system that effectively transforms Google Pixel Android smartphones into powerful diagnostic tools for tracking rail defects. The project, called "TrackInspect," attaches Google Pixel phones to subway cars. Then, by using the Android devices' built-in microphones and motion sensors, it detects vibrations and sound patterns. These sounds can indicate areas of track that may need maintenance.

Once the data is collected, it is uploaded to Google Cloud, where AI analyzes it. By highlighting areas that might need attention, it allows human crews to focus on specific sections of track. This is far more efficient than conducting broad, time-consuming inspections. During the pilot, the MTA successfully gathered a shocking amount of data -- an insane 335 million sensor readings, a million GPS locations, and 1,200 hours of audio recordings. TrackInspect was able to identify 92 percent of the track defects that human inspectors later confirmed. If the results continue to be promising, subway riders could see many benefits, including fewer delays, quicker repairs, and a more reliable transit system.

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Citigroup credited a client's account with $81 trillion when it meant to send only $280, an error that could hinder the bank's attempt to persuade regulators that it has fixed long-standing operational issues. Financial Times: The erroneous internal transfer, which occurred last April and has not been previously reported, was missed by both a payments employee and a second official assigned to check the transaction before it was approved to be processed at the start of business the following day.

A third employee detected a problem with the bank's account balances, catching the payment 90 minutes after it was posted. The payment was reversed several hours later, according to an internal account of the event seen by the Financial Times and two people familiar with the event. No funds left Citi, which disclosed the "near miss" to the Federal Reserve and Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, according to another person with knowledge of the matter.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://news.slashdot.org/story/25/02/28/136217/citigroup-erroneously-credited-client-account-with-81-trillion-in-near-miss?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Microsoft said Friday it will shut down its Skype messaging service on May 5, replacing it with the free version of Microsoft Teams for consumers. Existing Skype users will have approximately 60 days to decide whether to migrate to Teams, where their message history, group chats and contacts will automatically transfer, or export their data including photos and conversation history.

The company will discontinue Skype's telephony features for calling domestic and international numbers, though it will honor existing Skype credits and subscriptions inside Teams until users' next renewal period. Skype Number users will need to port their numbers to other providers. Microsoft acquired Skype for $8.5 billion in 2011. The shutdown will not result in immediate job cuts.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://slashdot.org/story/25/02/28/1426223/microsoft-to-shut-down-skype-in-may-shift-users-to-teams?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Google changed its rules around how product-review sites appear in its search engine. In the process, it devastated a once-lucrative corner [non-paywalled source] of the news media world. From a report: Sites including CNN Underscored and Forbes Vetted offer tips on everything from mattresses and knife sets to savings accounts, making money when users click on links and buy products.

They depend on Google to drive much of their traffic, and therefore revenue. But over the past year, Google created stricter rules that dinged certain sites that farm out articles to freelancers, among other things. The goal, Google has said, was to give users higher-quality search results. The outcome was a crisis for some sites. Traffic for Forbes Advisor, a personal-finance recommendation site, fell 83% in January from the same month the year before, according to data firm Similarweb.

CNN Underscored and Buy Side from WSJ, which is operated by Wall Street Journal parent Dow Jones, were both down by more than 25% in that period. Time magazine's Time Stamped and the Associated Press's AP Buyline, powered by Taboola Turnkey Commerce, ended their efforts in recent months. Taboola closed the commerce operation.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/02/28/141222/google-tweak-creates-crisis-for-product-review-sites?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

New submitter SharkByte writes: Mozilla just updated its Terms of Use and Privacy Policy for Firefox with a very disturbing "You Give Mozilla Certain Rights and Permissions" clause: When you upload or input information through Firefox, you hereby grant us a nonexclusive, royalty-free, worldwide license to use that information to help you navigate, experience, and interact with online content as you indicate with your use of Firefox. H/T to reader agristin as well, who also wrote about this.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://news.slashdot.org/story/25/02/28/1147239/mozillas-updated-tos-we-own-all-info-you-put-into-firefox?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

President Trump has directly criticized the UK government's approach to encryption, comparing recent actions to those of China. Speaking to The Spectator, Trump said he confronted UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer about the Home Office's request for "backdoor access" to encrypted iCloud data, which led Apple to remove its Advanced Data Protection feature from British services entirely.

"We told them you can't do this... That's incredible. That's something, you know, that you hear about with China," Trump said after his meeting with Starmer. The remarks come as the Trump administration has directed Treasury and Commerce officials to examine UK tech regulations, including the Online Safety Act, for potential free speech violations and discrimination against US companies.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://news.slashdot.org/story/25/02/28/1620208/president-trump-uk-encryption-policy-something-you-hear-about-with-china?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis says the definition of artificial general intelligence is being "watered down," creating an illusion of faster progress toward this technological milestone. "There's quite a long way, in my view, before we get to AGI," Hassabis said. "The timelines are shrinking because the definition of AGI is being watered down, in my opinion." DeepMind defines AGI as "AI systems that are at least as capable as humans at most cognitive tasks," while OpenAI has historically described it as a "highly autonomous system that outperforms humans at most economically valuable work."

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman recently declared his team is "confident we know how to build AGI," while modifying his personal definition to an AI "system that can tackle increasingly complex problems, at human level, in many fields." Hassabis suggested industry hype might be financially motivated: "There is a lot of hype for various reasons," he said, including perhaps "that people need to raise money." Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella separately dismissed AGI milestones as "nonsensical benchmark hacking," preferring economic impact measurements.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://slashdot.org/story/25/02/28/1739242/deepmind-ceo-says-agi-definition-has-been-watered-down?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Workers reported saving a substantial number of work hours by using generative AI, according to research conducted by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, along with Vanderbilt and Harvard universities. From a report: The researchers, drawing from what they identified as the first nationally representative survey of generative AI adoption, measured the impact of generative AI on work productivity by how much workers used the technology and how intensely. They found users are saving meaningful amounts of time.

"On average, workers are 33% more productive in each hour that they use generative AI," the paper found. Among respondents that used generative AI in the previous week, 21% said it saved them four hours or more in that week, 20% reported three hours, 26% said two hours and 33% reported an hour or less.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/02/28/1817248/us-workers-see-ai-induced-productivity-growth-fed-survey-shows?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Google co-founder Sergey Brin has urged employees working on the company's Gemini AI products to be in the office "at least every weekday" [non-paywalled source] and suggested "60 hours a week is the sweet spot of productivity," according to an internal memo cited by The New York Times. The directive comes as Brin warned that "competition has accelerated immensely and the final race to A.G.I. is afoot," referring to artificial general intelligence, when machines match or surpass human intelligence.

"I think we have all the ingredients to win this race, but we are going to have to turbocharge our efforts," Brin wrote in the Wednesday evening memo. The guidance does not alter Google's official policy requiring employees to work in-office three days weekly. Brin, who returned to Google following ChatGPT's 2022 launch, also criticized staff who "put in the bare minimum," calling them "highly demoralizing to everyone else."

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Mozilla has denied allegations that its new Firefox browser terms of service allow it to harvest user data for artificial intelligence training, following widespread criticism of the recently updated policy language. The controversy erupted after Firefox introduced terms that grant Mozilla "a nonexclusive, royalty-free, worldwide license to use that information" when users upload content through the browser, prompting competitor Brave Software's CEO Brendan Eich to suggest a business pivot toward data monetization.

"These changes are not driven by a desire by Mozilla to use people's data for AI or sell it to advertisers," Mozilla spokesperson Kenya Friend-Daniel told TechCrunch. "Our ability to use data is still limited by what we disclose in the Privacy Notice." The company clarified that its AI features operate locally on users' devices and don't send content data to Mozilla. Any data shared with advertisers is provided only on a "de-identified or aggregated basis," according to the spokesperson. Mozilla explained it used specific legal terms -- "nonexclusive," "royalty-free," and "worldwide" -- because Firefox is free, available globally, and allows users to maintain control of their own data.

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Thousands" of complaints about the volume of TV commercials have flooded the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in recent years. Despite the FCC requiring TV stations, cable operators, and satellite providers to ensure that commercials don't bring a sudden spike in decibels, complaints around loud commercials "took a troubling jump" in 2024, the government body said on Thursday.

Under The Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation (CALM) Act, broadcast, cable, and satellite TV providers are required to ensure that commercials "have the same average volume as the programs they accompany," per the FCC. The FCC's rules about the volume of commercials took effect in December 2012. The law also requires linear TV providers to use the Advanced Television Systems Committee's (ATSC's) recommended practices. The practices include guidance around production, post production, metadata systems usage, and controlling dynamic range. If followed, the recommendations "result in consistency in loudness and avoidance of signal clipping," per the ATSC [PDF]. The guidance reads: "If all programs and commercials were produced at a consistent average loudness, and if the loudness of the mix is preserved through the production, distribution, and delivery chain, listeners would not be subjected to annoying changes in loudness within and between programs."

As spotted by PC Mag, the FCC claimed this week that The Calm Act initially reduced complaints about commercials aggressively blaring from TVs. However, the agency is seeing an uptick in grievances. The FCC said it received "approximately" 750 complaints in 2022, 825 in 2023, and "at least" 1,700 in 2024 [PDF]. Since The Calm Act regulates a commercial's average loudness, some advertisers may be skirting the spirit of the law by making commercials very loud at the start (to get viewers' attention) before quieting down for the rest of the ad. In response to growing complaints, the FCC is reexamining its rules and this week announced that it's seeking comment from "consumers and industry on the extent to which The CALM Act rules are effective." The FCC is also asking people to weigh in on what future actions the FCC, the TV industry, or standard developers could take. The FCC is considering whether to extend the Calm Act to online streaming services, which are increasingly offering plans with ad-supported models and live event broadcasts.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://entertainment.slashdot.org/story/25/02/28/2128203/commercials-are-still-too-loud-say-thousands-of-recent-fcc-complaints?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

According to The Columbia Dispatch, Intel's promised $28 billion semiconductor project in central Ohio has been delayed again until 2030, with operations beginning sometime shortly thereafter in either 2030 or 2031. From the report: By the time it opens, Intel's first factory will have faced at least five or six years of delays, as it was originally scheduled to begin operating in 2025. Intel's second Ohio factory won't be completed until at least 2031 and will begin running in 2032, according to the company. The new timeline comes as Intel continues to struggle financially, which was a key factor in the latest delay for the company's Ohio factories. The company was alerting its employees of the delays in a message Friday.

The changes were made so Intel can align its factory operation with market demand and better "manage our capital responsibly," Naga Chandrasekaran, executive vice president, chief global operations officer and general manager of Intel Foundry Manufacturing wrote in a message to workers. The changes will ensure Intel's Ohio fabs will be finished in a "financially responsible manner that sets up Ohio One for success," Chandrasekaran wrote. "I wanted to be upfront and transparent with you all about our current plan. In no way does this diminish our long-term commitment to Ohio," Chandrasekaran wrote. "(W)e will continue to scale our hiring as we approach our operational dates. Intel is proud to call Ohio home, and we remain excited about our future here."

[ Read more of this story ]( https://slashdot.org/story/25/02/28/2143243/intel-delays-28-billion-ohio-chip-factory-to-2030?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals is set to review a California district court's ruling in Neo4j v. PureThink, which upheld Neo4j's right to modify the GNU AGPLv3 with additional binding terms. If the appellate court affirms this decision, it could set a precedent allowing licensors to impose unremovable restrictions on open-source software, potentially undermining the enforceability of GPL-based licenses and threatening the integrity of the open-source ecosystem. The Register reports: The GNU AGPLv3 is a free and open source software (FOSS) license largely based on the GNU GPLv3, both of which are published by the Free Software Foundation (FSF). Neo4j provided database software under the AGPLv3, then tweaked the license, leading to legal battles over forks of the software. The AGPLv3 includes language that says any added restrictions or requirements are removable, meaning someone could just file off Neo4j's changes to the usage and distribution license, reverting it back to the standard AGPLv3, which the biz has argued and successfully fought against in that California district court.

Now the matter, the validity of that modified FOSS license, is before an appeals court in the USA. "I don't think the community realizes that if the Ninth Circuit upholds the lower court's ruling, it won't just kill GPLv3," PureThink's John Mark Suhy told The Register. "It will create a dangerous legal precedent that could be used to undermine all open-source licenses, allowing licensors to impose unexpected restrictions and fundamentally eroding the trust that makes open source possible."

Perhaps equally concerning is the fact that Suhy, founder and CTO of PureThink and iGov (the two firms sued by Neo4j), and presently CTO of IT consultancy Greystones Group, is defending GPL licenses on his own, pro se, without the help of the FSF, founded by Richard Stallman, creator of the GNU General Public License. "I'm actually doing everything pro se because I used up all my savings to fight it in the lower court," said Suhy. "I'm surprised the Free Software Foundation didn't care too much about it. They always had an excuse about not having the money for it. Luckily the Software Freedom Conservancy came in and helped out there."

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: OpenAI intends to eventually integrate its AI video generation tool, Sora, directly into its popular consumer chatbot app, ChatGPT, company leaders said during a Friday office hours session on Discord. Today, Sora is only available through a dedicated web app OpenAI launched in December, which lets users access the AI video model of the same name to generate up to twenty-second-long cinematic clips. However, OpenAI's product lead for Sora, Rohan Sahai, said the company has plans to put Sora in more places, and expand what Sora can create.

[...] OpenAI may be trying to attract users to ChatGPT by letting them generate Sora videos from the chatbot. Putting Sora in ChatGPT could also incentivize users to upgrade to ChatGPT's premium subscription tiers, which may offer higher video generation limits. One of the reasons OpenAI launched Sora as a separate web app was to maintain ChatGPT's simplicity, Sahai explained during the office hours. Since its launch, OpenAI has expanded Sora's web experience, creating more ways for users to browse Sora-generated videos from the community. Sahai also said OpenAI "would love to build" a standalone mobile app for Sora, noting that the Sora team is actively looking for mobile engineers. OpenAI also plans to expand Sora's generation capabilities to images, letting users create more photorealistic images than what's currently possible with OpenAI's DALL-E3 model.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://slashdot.org/story/25/02/28/2211243/openai-plans-to-integrate-soras-video-generator-into-chatgpt?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff said his firm, San Francisco's largest private employer, does not plan to hire engineers this year because of the success of AI agents created and used by the company. From a report: "My message to CEOs right now is that we are the last generation to manage only humans," Benioff said Wednesday on Salesforce's earnings call, indicating that companies of the future will have hybrid human and digital workforces. Benioff added that Salesforce's mission is to become "the No. 1 digital labor provider, period" to other companies.

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Microsoft Edge is following Chrome's lead by disabling uBlock Origin and other Manifest V2-based extensions in its browser. Neowin reports: The latest Edge Canary version started disabling Manifest V2-based extensions with the following message: "This extension is no longer supported. Microsoft Edge recommends that you remove it." Although the browser turns off old extensions without asking, you can still make them work by clicking "Manage extension" and toggling it back (you will have to acknowledge another prompt).

Google started phasing out Manifest V2 extensions in June 2024, and it has a clear roadmap for the process. Microsoft's documentation, however, still says "TBD," so the exact dates are not known yet. This leads to some speculating about the situation being one of "unexpected changes" coming from Chromium. Either way, sooner or later, Microsoft will ditch MV2-based extensions, so get ready as we wait for Microsoft to shine some light on its plans.

Another thing worth noting is that the change does not appear to be affecting Edge's stable release or Beta/Dev Channels. For now, only Canary versions disable uBlock Origin and other MV2 extensions, leaving users a way to toggle them back on. Also, the uBlock Origin is still available in the Edge Add-ons store, which recently received a big update.

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Apple is facing a class action lawsuit alleging it misled consumers by falsely claiming certain Apple Watches were carbon neutral, as the carbon offset projects it relied on did not effectively reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The Verge reports: Apple said in 2023 that "select case and band combinations" of its Apple Watch Series 9, Apple Watch Ultra 2, and Apple Watch SE would be the company's first carbon neutral devices. The suit was filed on behalf of anyone who bought those watches. It alleges that the products were not really carbon neutral because they relied on faulty offset projects that didn't actually reduce the company's greenhouse gas pollution. [...]

The company's carbon neutral claims were false, and the seven plaintiffs would not have purchased the Apple Watches or paid as much for them had they known that, the lawsuit alleges. "Apple's false advertising may lead [consumers] to choose its products over genuinely sustainable alternatives," the complaint (PDF) filed in a California federal court on Wednesday says.

Apple is standing by its assertions. "We are proud of our carbon neutral products, which are the result of industry-leading innovation in clean energy and low-carbon design," Apple spokesperson Sean Redding said in an email. Redding says the company reduced Apple Watch emissions by more than 75 percent. The company focused on cutting pollution from materials, electricity, and transportation used to make the watches, in part by getting more of its suppliers to switch to clean energy. To deal with the remaining pollution, Redding says Apple invests in "nature-based projects to remove hundreds of thousands of metric tons of carbon from the air." That's where the new lawsuit finds problems.

To offset their emissions, many companies buy carbon credits from forestry projects that represent tons of planet-heating carbon dioxide that trees and soil naturally trap. Apple primarily purchased credits from the Chyulu Hills project in Kenya and the Guinan Project in China, the suit says. It alleges that neither of the projects met a basic standard for carbon offsets, which is that they capture additional CO2 that would not otherwise have been sequestered had Apple not paid to support the project.

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Autodesk said it would cut 1,350 employees, or about 9% of its workforce, as part of a pivot to the cloud and artificial intelligence. Fast Company reports: Companies across sectors such as architecture, engineering, construction, and product design are making extensive use of Autodesk's 3D design solutions, with the software maker's artificial intelligence and machine learning capabilities further driving spending on its products. Autodesk saw a 23% jump in total billings to $2.11 billion in the fourth quarter ended January 31.

The company's international operations have particularly shown strength, while analysts have also noted that the company was outpacing peers in the manufacturing sector, driven by the performance of its "Fusion" design software.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://slashdot.org/story/25/03/01/0049256/3d-software-company-autodesk-cuts-1350-jobs-to-boost-ai-investment?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Alphabet's X division has developed a silicon photonic chip for its Taara project, which transmits internet via laser beams instead of fiber optic cables. The system delivers 20Gbps through "light bridges" that establish line-of-sight connections between transceiver units. The second-generation technology miniaturizes previous mechanical components -- including gimbals, mirrors, and lenses -- into solid-state circuitry the size of a fingernail.

This chip enables a single laser transmitter to potentially pair with multiple receptors, significantly reducing costs from the current ~$30,000 per bridge setup. Taara has already demonstrated real-world viability by connecting Brazzaville and Kinshasa across the Congo River, providing the latter with five-fold cheaper internet access, and supplementing bandwidth at Coachella 2024. Project leader Mahesh Krishnaswamy claims Taara can deliver "10, if not 100 times more bandwidth" than Starlink in dense areas. X's Astro Teller suggests this technology could form the foundation for 7G networks as radio frequency bands become increasingly congested. Taara will soon "graduate" from X and seek external funding, with Alphabet maintaining a significant stake.

Further reading: Official blog post.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/02/28/2231210/googles-taara-hopes-to-usher-in-a-new-era-of-internet-powered-by-light?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Amnesty International on Friday said it determined that a zero-day exploit sold by controversial exploit vendor Cellebrite was used to compromise the phone of a Serbian student who had been critical of that country's government. [...] The chain exploited a series of vulnerabilities in device drivers the Linux kernel uses to support USB hardware. "This new case provides further evidence that the authorities in Serbia have continued their campaign of surveillance of civil society in the aftermath of our report, despite widespread calls for reform, from both inside Serbia and beyond, as well as an investigation into the misuse of its product, announced by Cellebrite," authors of the report wrote.

Amnesty International first discovered evidence of the attack chain last year while investigating a separate incident outside of Serbia involving the same Android lockscreen bypass. [...] The report said that one of the vulnerabilities, tracked as CVE-2024-53104, was patched earlier this month with the release of the February 2025 Android Security Bulletin. Two other vulnerabilities -- CVE-2024-53197 and CVE-2024-50302 -- have been patched upstream in the Linux kernel but have not yet been incorporated into Android. Forensic traces identified in Amnesty International's analysis of the compromised phone showed that the Serbian authorities tried to install an unknown application after the device had been unlocked. The report authors said the installation of apps on Cellebrite-compromised devices was consistent with earlier cases the group has uncovered in which spyware tracked as NoviSpy spyware were installed.

As part of the attack, the USB port of the targeted phone was connected to various peripherals during the initial stages. In later stages, the peripherals repeatedly connected to the phone so they could "disclose kernel memory and groom kernel memory as part of the exploitation." The people analyzing the phone said the peripherals were likely special-purpose devices that emulated video or sound devices connecting to the targeted device. The 23-year-old student who owned the phone regularly participates in the ongoing student protests in Belgrade. Any Android users who have yet to install the February patch batch should do so as soon as possible.

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Chinese scientists are developing a lightweight Mars drone capable of both rolling on the ground and flying using contra-rotating coaxial rotors. Space.com reports: The air-ground dual-purpose unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) weighs only 10.6 ounces (300 grams), equivalent to the weight of an apple. The development team is at the School of Astronautics (SoA) of the Harbin Institute of Technology. Seen as showing promising potential in future Mars science work, the UAV can take off at any time, traverse obstacles, and boasts superb endurance, reports state-owned China Central Television (CCTV).

"On the ground, it mainly rolls by shifting its center of gravity," said Zhu Yimin, a Ph.D candidate at SoA. "In the air, it relies on a pair of contra-rotating coaxial rotors, controlled by a steering engine to adjust the forward direction, to control torque and force, ultimately achieving stable flight," Zhu told CCTV. The UAV work entails multiple models of air-ground dual-mode robots with different configurations, CCTV reports. These robots move by rolling close to the ground, which reduces energy consumption, and can achieve a flight endurance time of more than six times that of traditional drones of the same size.

According to Zhang Lixian, a professor within the SoA, the hope is that the aerial vehicle can show off its long endurance and observational abilities on Mars. "Our second goal is for such machines to be suitable for construction in many underground spaces and for exploring unknown underground spaces. We also need robotic means for inspection and environmental detection. We have now materialized all these functions," said Zhang. A video of the drone can be found here.

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New submitter TronNerd82 writes: Linuxiac reports that the 6th alpha release of the COSMIC desktop environment has been released. The new alpha release includes zooming, desktop icon management, some new scaling options, and improved accessibility features. Also included in the release are a number of bug fixes.

These include, but are not limited to:
- Fixing a crash issue in Steam, and fixing certain issues for Radeon RX GPUs
- Fixing a bug that prevented icons from appearing in screenshots
- Adding a layer of polish to the COSMIC Files application by adding folder size metadata and preventing crashes

Also of note are a number of memory usage reductions across the board. COSMIC Alpha 6 also replaces the default font, changing from Fira Sans to Open Sans, with Noto Sans Mono as the default monospace font. Additional changes can be found in System76's official announcement.

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Memory safety bugs are "eroding trust in technology and costing billions," argues a new post on Google's security blog — adding that "traditional approaches, like code auditing, fuzzing, and exploit mitigations — while helpful — haven't been enough to stem the tide."

So the blog post calls for a "common framework" for "defining specific, measurable criteria for achieving different levels of memory safety assurance." The hope is this gives policy makers "the technical foundation to craft effective policy initiatives and incentives promoting memory safety" leading to "a market in which vendors are incentivized to invest in memory safety." ("Customers will be empowered to recognize, demand, and reward safety.")

In January the same Google security researchers helped co-write an article noting there are now strong memory-safety "research technologies" that are sufficiently mature: memory-safe languages (including "safer language subsets like Safe Buffers for C++"), mathematically rigorous formal verification, software compartmentalization, and hardware and software protections. (With hardware protections including things like ARM's Memory Tagging Extension and the (Capability Hardware Enhanced RISC Instructions, or "CHERI", architecture.) Google's security researchers are now calling for "a blueprint for a memory-safe future" — though Importantly, the idea is "defining the desired outcomes rather than locking ourselves into specific technologies."

Their blog post this week again urges a practical/actionable framework that's commonly understood, but one that supports different approaches (and allowing tailoring to specific needs) while enabling objective assessment:

At Google, we're not just advocating for standardization and a memory-safe future, we're actively working to build it. We are collaborating with industry and academic partners to develop potential standards, and our joint authorship of the recent CACM call-to-action marks an important first step in this process... This commitment is also reflected in our internal efforts. We are prioritizing memory-safe languages, and have already seen significant reductions in vulnerabilities by adopting languages like Rust in combination with existing, wide-spread usage of Java, Kotlin, and Go where performance constraints permit. We recognize that a complete transition to those languages will take time. That's why we're also investing in techniques to improve the safety of our existing C++ codebase by design, such as deploying hardened libc++.

This effort isn't about picking winners or dictating solutions. It's about creating a level playing field, empowering informed decision-making, and driving a virtuous cycle of security improvement... The journey towards memory safety requires a collective commitment to standardization. We need to build a future where memory safety is not an afterthought but a foundational principle, a future where the next generation inherits a digital world that is secure by design.
The security researchers' post calls for "a collective commitment" to eliminate memory-safety bugs, "anchored on secure-by-design practices..." One of the blog post's subheadings? "Let's build a memory-safe future together."

And they're urging changes "not just for ourselves but for the generations that follow."

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"Tesla is taking steps to launch a ride-sharing service that could compete directly with Uber, Lyft and Waymo," reports Axios, noting that Tesla "has filed for a transportation charter-party carrier permit from the California Public Utilities Commission, Bloomberg reported Thursday."
"That classification means Tesla would own and control the fleet of vehicles," Bloomberg reported... "In its communications with California officials, Tesla discussed driver's license information and drug-testing coordination, suggesting the company intends to use human drivers, at least initially," Bloomberg reported. The company is seeking the same type of permit that Waymo uses to run its robotaxi business.Uber is gearing up to begin offering autonomous vehicle services in partnership with Waymo in Austin and Atlanta later this year.
The article also adds that Musk "told investors in January that 'I'm confident that we will release unsupervised FSD in California this year,' referring to the company's Full Self-Driving system." But "Tesla has yet to apply for a permit to operate driverless vehicles..." notes the EV blog Electrek, adding "This is just a step for Tesla to test ride-hailing services ahead of autonomy."

Reuters also points out that "Earlier in October, Tesla revealed the Cybercab, a robotaxi concept that had no steering wheel or control pedals... He has said the Cybercab will go into production in 2026 and will also be available for customers to buy for less than $30,000."

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Magnus Carlsen "announced this week that he is auctioning off the Italian luxury brand jeans that started a dress code dispute at December's World Rapid and Blitz Chess Championships," reports the Associated Press. ("Condition: Pre-owned," says the listing on eBay, where by Friday night bidding on the charitable auction was up to $14,100.)

But Carlsen drew more attention on The Joe Rogan Experience last week — partly by saying "I have no chance against my phone." (Although he'd also described beating a fan's computer program, according to Firstpost, by playing "some kind of anti-computer chess, where I just closed up the position as much as possible and gave it as few possibilities as possible to out-calculate me.")

Carlsen admitted that he rarely plays against chess engines due to their overwhelming strength, but acknowledged their value as training tools. "I rarely play against engines at all because they just make me feel so stupid and useless. So, I think of them more as a tool than anything else."

And this led Carlsen to add "If I started cheating, you would never know," reports Indian Express:

It's not just a throwaway line about cheating either. On a two-hour-long podcast, where he touches on mostly everything under the sun, Carlsen fixates on cheating in chess. He also details how a player of his calibre would need very little to cheat in chess. "I would just get a move here and there (from an aide). Or maybe if I am playing in a tournament I just find a system where I get somebody to signal to me when there's a critical moment: a certain moment where a certain move is much better than the others. That's really all I would need to go from being the best to being practically unbeatable. There's so little you need in chess (to cheat). It really is a scary situation," Carlsen said before pointing out how in 2010 the captain of the French chess team was helping a teammate decide his next move at the Olympiad just by standing in specific spots around the table...

"If you're not cheating in a dumb way, there rarely is going to be a smoking gun. And without that smoking gun it is going to be really hard to catch people," Carlsen admits on the podcast... "As long as there are monetary incentives for people to cheat, there will be cheating in chess," says Carlsen on the podcast.

The article adds that Carlsen does not believe Hans Niemann used anal beads to cheat — and that he thinks Niemann has become a much better chess player since the incident. But...

"Top level chess has been based on trust a lot. I don't trust Niemann. Other top players still don't trust him and he doesn't trust me," says Carlsen. "There is still something off about him now. We played an over-the-board tournament in Paris last year where there was increased security and he didn't play at nearly the same level there."

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