An anonymous reader quotes a report from Broadband TV News: The National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) has filed a petition with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) urging the agency to establish a clear, industry-wide transition plan for the full deployment of Next Gen TV (ATSC 3.0). The proposal outlines a two-phased transition while modernizing regulatory requirements to support consumer access and innovation. [...] Under the plan, stations in the top 55 markets, covering 70% of the US population, would transition by February 2028, with all remaining full-power and Class A stations following in or before February 2030. The petition also calls for updates to FCC rules to ensure television reception devices support Next Gen TV, maintain existing MVPD carriage obligations and eliminate regulatory hurdles that could slow adoption. To clarify, ATSC 1.0 is the current standard for free over-the-air (OTA) TV. While ATSC 3.0 (also called NextGen TV) is its intended replacement, it's not backward-compatible, meaning consumers need new equipment to receive it. NAB's petition is to allow a complete shutdown of ATSC 1.0 to accelerate the transition to ATSC 3.0, meaning older TV setups relying on free OTA signals would stop working unless consumers upgrade their equipment. Their argument is that ATSC 3.0 adoption has been slow, and networks would benefit more from shifting away from OTA broadcasting entirely.

Reddit user bshensky argues that shutting down OTA TV would benefit large media corporations and harm independent stations. It's also worth noting that OTA TV operates on valuable spectrum, which could be repurposed for mobile broadband (this has happened before), benefiting cellular providers.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://entertainment.slashdot.org/story/25/03/15/0515234/nab-calls-for-end-of-atsc-10?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Выявлена подстановка вредоносного изменения в репозиторий проекта changed-files, развивающего обработчик к системе GitHub Actions, позволяющей автоматически запускать сценарии сборки и тестирования кодовых баз при срабатывании определённых событий, таких как поступление push-запроса, создание релизов, открытие/закрытие issue и открытие/закрытие pull-запросов. Обработчик changed-files использовался в 23 тысячах репозиториях, применяющих GitHub Actions в инфраструктуре непрерывной интеграции, для отслеживания изменения файлов и каталогов.

https://www.opennet.ru/opennews/art.shtml?num=62892

Astronomers using the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope have discovered 128 new moons around Saturn, bringing its total to 274 -- more than all the other planets combined. CBC News reports: Jupiter and Saturn have been locked in a battle for the most moons for years -- with Saturn stealing the crown from Jupiter only two years ago when the same group of researchers found 64 additional moons orbiting it. But scientists say this discovery likely settles the score once and for all. [...] He and the other scientists working on the project made the discovery using the Canada France Hawaii Telescope, a 3.6-meter optical telescope on the summit of the dormant volcano Mauna Kea on the Big Island of Hawaii.

Scientists have been capturing pictures of the moons using the telescope since 2019. The researchers aligned and layered 44 of those images on top of one another in order to enhance the appearance of the moons and determine what they were. These moons are nothing like Earth's very own, however. Sara Mazrouei, a planetary scientist and educational developer at Humber Polytechnic, says that while we tend to think of a spherical shape when we hear the word moon, anything that orbits a planet, or another body in space that is not a sun, is considered a moon. Mazrouei says many of the moons surrounding other planets in our solar system -- including the ones observed here -- are in fact only a few kilometers across in size and oddly shaped, like an asteroid.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://science.slashdot.org/story/25/03/15/0457249/saturn-solidifies-its-title-as-moon-king-with-discovery-of-128-new-moons?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Нейт Грэм (Nate Graham), разработчик, занимающийся контролем качества в проекте KDE, опубликовал очередной отчёт о разработке KDE. Среди изменений, добавленных в ветку, на основе которых формируется релиз KDE Plasma 6.4.0.

https://www.opennet.ru/opennews/art.shtml?num=62890

После шести месяцев разработки опубликован релиз многоплатформенного тулкита для создания графического интерфейса пользователя - GTK 4.18. GTK 4 развивается в рамках процесса разработки, который пытается предоставить разработчикам приложений стабильный и поддерживаемый в течение нескольких лет API, который можно использовать не опасаясь, что каждые полгода придётся переделывать приложения из-за изменения API в очередной ветке GTK.

https://www.opennet.ru/opennews/art.shtml?num=62889

From a Space.com article: Athena, the second lunar lander from Houston company Intuitive Machines, tipped over during its touchdown on March 6, ending up on its side within a small crater near the moon's south pole. This orientation prevented the lander's solar panels from capturing enough sunlight, and Intuitive Machines declared Athena dead on March 7. (The company's first moon lander, named Odysseus, also tipped over during its historic February 2024 touchdown but was able to operate for longer on the lunar surface.)

Athena beamed home a few shots of its surroundings before giving up the ghost. And we now have views of the lander and its crater grave from on high, courtesy of NASA's sharp-eyed Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO). On March 7, LRO captured a gorgeous oblique photo of Athena and its landing site -- the Mons Mouton region, about 100 miles (160 kilometers) from the lunar south pole. Then, three days later, the probe snapped another pic, which provided a closer look at Athena on the shadowed floor of a 65-foot-wide (20 meters) crater.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://science.slashdot.org/story/25/03/15/0447257/dead-athena-moon-lander-seen-inside-its-crater-grave-from-lunar-orbit?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

TOP10 VISITORS:

[1] 45.135.180.x point=225 web=0 up=18.6MB (36%) <--- yesterlink (9/hr)
[2] 37.252.14.x point=144 web=0 up=17.7MB (34%) <--- ake (6/hr)
[3] 80.87.199.x point=65 web=0 up=6.3MB (12%) <--- tgi (3/hr)
[4] Facebook point=0 web=398 up=4.0MB (7%)
[5] 24.130.121.x point=22 web=5 up=1.8MB (3%) <--- spnet (1/hr)
[6] 217.114.158.x point=25 web=0 up=0.9MB (1%) <--- fox (1/hr)
[7] Google point=4 web=106 up=0.5MB (<1%) <--- Google
[8] TikTok point=0 web=108 up=0.3MB (<1%)
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TOTAL TRAFFIC: 50MB

GitHub без предупреждения перевёл репозитории проекта Organic Maps в архивный режим, допускающий доступ только для чтения. Официальных разъяснений на текущий момент не поступало, однако разработчики предполагают, что причиной блокировки стало неверное определение местоположения кого-то из разработчиков, позволившая ассоциировать его с регионом, находящимся под санкциями.

https://www.opennet.ru/opennews/art.shtml?num=62887

An anonymous reader quotes a report from 404 Media: Something very strange is happening inside Super Nintendo (SNES) consoles as they age: a component you've probably never heard of is running ever so slightly faster as we get further and further away from the time the consoles first hit the market in the early '90s. The discovery started a mild panic in the speedrunning community in late February since one theoretical consequence of a faster-running console is that it could impact how fast games are running and therefore how long they take to complete. This could potentially wreak havoc on decades of speedrunning leaderboards and make tracking the fastest times in the speedrunning scene much more difficult, but that outcome now seems very unlikely. However, the obscure discovery does highlight the fact that old consoles' performance is not frozen at the time of their release date, and that they are made of sensitive components that can age and degrade, or even 'upgrade', over time. The idea that SNESs are running faster in a way that could impact speedrunning started with a Bluesky post from Alan Cecil, known online as dwangoAC and the administrator of TASBot (short for tool-assisted speedrun robot), a robot that's programmed to play games faster and better than a human ever could.

[...] So what's going on here? The SNES has an audio processing unit (APU) called the SPC700, a coprocessor made by Sony for Nintendo. Documentation given to game developers at the time the SNES was released says that the SPC700 should have a digital signal processing (DSP) rate of 32,000hz, which is set by a ceramic resonator that runs 24.576Mhz on that coprocessor. We're getting pretty technical here as you can see, but basically the composition of this ceramic component and how it resonates when connected to an electronic circuit generates the frequency for the audio processing unit, or how much data it processes in a second. It's well documented that these types of ceramic resonators are sensitive and can run at higher frequencies when subject to heat and other external conditions. For example, the chart [here], taken from an application manual for Murata ceramic resonators, shows changes in the resonators' oscillation under different physical conditions.

As Cecil told me, as early as 2007 people making SNES emulators noticed that, despite documentation by Nintendo that the SPC700 should run at 32,000Hz, some SNESs ran faster. Emulators generally now emulate at the slightly higher frequency of 32,040Hz in order to emulate games more faithfully. Digging through forum posts in the SNES homebrew and emulation communities, Cecil started to put a pattern together: the SPC700 ran faster whenever it was measured further away from the SNES's release. Data Cecil collected since his Bluesky post, which now includes more than 140 responses, also shows that the SPC700 is running faster. There is still a lot of variation, in theory depending on how much an SNES was used, but overall the trend is clear: SNESs are running faster as they age, and the fastest SPC700 ran at 32,182Hz. More research shared by another user in the TASBot Discord has even more detailed technical analysis which appears to support those findings. "We don't yet know how much of an impact it will have on a long speedrun," Cecil told 404 Media. "We only know it has at least some impact on how quickly data can be transferred between the CPU and the APU."

Cecil said minor differences in SNES hardware may not affect human speedrunners but could impact TASBot's frame-precise runs, where inputs need to be precise down to the frame, or "deterministic."

[ Read more of this story ]( https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/25/03/15/0147220/super-nintendo-hardware-is-running-faster-as-it-ages?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

With Microsoft ending free security updates for Windows 10 in October, millions of PCs that don't meet Windows 11's hardware requirements face an uncertain fate... Charities that refurbish and distribute computers to low-income individuals must choose between providing soon-to-be-insecure Windows 10 machines, transitioning to Linux -- despite usability challenges for non-tech-savvy users -- or recycling the hardware, contributing to ewaste. Tom's Hardware reports: So how bad will it really be to run an end-of-lifed Windows 10? Should people worry? [Chester Wisniewski, who serves as Director and Global Field CISO for Sophos, a major security services company] and other experts I talked to are unequivocal. You're at risk. "To put this in perspective, today [the day we talked] was Patch Tuesday," he said. "There were 57 vulnerabilities, 6 of which have already been abused by criminals before the fixes were available. There were also 57 in February and 159 in January. Windows 10 and Windows 11 largely have a shared codebase, meaning most, if not all, vulnerabilities each month are exploitable on both OSs. These will be actively turned into digital weapons by criminals and nation-states alike and Windows 10 users will be somewhat defenseless against them."

So, in short, even though Windows 10 has been around since 2015, there are still massive security holes being patched. Even within the past few weeks, dozens of vulnerabilities were fixed by Microsoft. So what's a charity to do when these updates are running out and clients will be left vulnerable? "What we decided to do is one year ahead of the cutoff, we discontinued Windows 10," said Casey Sorensen, CEO of PCs for People, one of the U.S.'s largest non-profit computer refurbishers. "We will distribute Linux laptops that are 6th or 7th gen. If we distribute a Windows laptop, it will be 8th gen or newer." Sorensen said that any PC that's fifth gen or older will be sent to an ewaste recycler.

[...] Sorensen, who founded the company in 1998, told us that he's comfortable giving clients computers that run Linux Mint, a free OS that's based on Ubuntu. The latest version of Mint, version 22.1, will be supported until 2029. "Ten years ago if we distributed Linux, they would be like what is it," he said. But today, he notes that many view their computers as windows to the Internet and, for that, a user-friendly version of Linux is acceptable. Further reading: Is 2025 the Year of the Linux Desktop?

[ Read more of this story ]( https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/03/15/016220/end-of-windows-10-leaves-pc-charities-with-tough-choice?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

A leaked Apple meeting reveals significant internal struggles with Siri's development, as AI-powered features announced last June have been delayed and may not make it into iOS 19. The Verge reports: Bloomberg (paywalled) has the full scoop on what happened at a Siri team meeting led by senior director Robby Walker, who oversees the division. He called the delay an "ugly" situation and sympathized with employees who might be feeling burned out or frustrated by Apple's decisions and Siri's still-lackluster reputation. He also said it's not a given that the missing Siri features will make it into iOS 19 this year; that's the company's current target, but "doesn't mean that we're shipping then," he told employees. "We have other commitments across Apple to other projects," Walker said, according to Bloomberg's report. "We want to keep our commitments to those, and we understand those are now potentially more timeline-urgent than the features that have been deferred."

The meeting also hinted at tension between Apple's Siri unit and the marketing division. Walker said the communications team wanted to highlight features like Siri understanding personal context and being able to take action based on what's currently on a user's screen -- even though they were nowhere near ready. Those WWDC teases and the resulting customer expectations only made matters worse, Walker acknowledged. Apple has since pulled an iPhone 16 ad that showcased the features and has added disclaimers to several areas of its website noting they've all been punted to a TBD date. They were held back in part due to quality issues "that resulted in them not working properly up to a third of the time," according to Mark Gurman.

[...] Walker told his staff that senior executives like software chief Craig Federighi and AI boss John Giannandrea are taking "intense personal accountability" for a predicament that's drawing fierce criticism as the months pass by with little to show for it beyond a prettier Siri animation. "Customers are not expecting only these new features but they also want a more fully rounded-out Siri," Walker said. "We're going to ship these features and more as soon as they are ready." He praised the team for its "incredibly impressive" work so far. "These are not quite ready to go to the general public, even though our competitors might have launched them in this state or worse," he said of the delayed features.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://apple.slashdot.org/story/25/03/15/0053233/leaked-apple-meeting-shows-how-dire-the-siri-situation-really-is?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launched a four-member crew to the International Space Station on Friday night, paving the way for NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams to return to Earth after being there for nine months due to issues with Boeing's Starliner capsule. Arrival is set for late Saturday night. The Associated Press reports: NASA wants overlap between the two crews so Wilmore and Williams can fill in the newcomers on happenings aboard the orbiting lab. That would put them on course for an undocking next week and a splashdown off the Florida coast, weather permitting. The duo will be escorted back by astronauts who flew up on a rescue mission on SpaceX last September alongside two empty seats reserved for Wilmore and Williams on the return leg.

Reaching orbit from NASA's Kennedy Space Center, the newest crew includes NASA's Anne McClain and Nichole Ayers, both military pilots; and Japan's Takuya Onishi and Russia's Kirill Peskov, both former airline pilots. They will spend the next six months at the space station, considered the normal stint, after springing Wilmore and Williams free. "Spaceflight is tough, but humans are tougher," McClain said minutes into the flight. You can watch a recording of the launch here.

Wilmore and Williams aren't stranded on the International Space Station, and they weren't abandoned, the astronauts reminded CNN in a rare space-to-earth interview last month. "That's been the rhetoric. That's been the narrative from day one: stranded, abandoned, stuck -- and I get it. We both get it," [NASA astronaut Butch] Wilmore said. "But that is, again, not what our human spaceflight program is about. We don't feel abandoned, we don't feel stuck, we don't feel stranded." Wilmore added a request: "If you'll help us change the rhetoric, help us change the narrative. Let's change it to 'prepared and committed.' That's what we prefer..."

[ Read more of this story ]( https://science.slashdot.org/story/25/03/15/0033233/spacex-launches-nasas-crew-10-mission-to-iss?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Fortune: Younger Americans don't have enough saved to cover a single month of spending, showcasing their vulnerability should the economy head into a downturn. Members of the Gen Z generation -- people born after 1995 -- were spending twice the amount they had in savings on average in February, according to Bank of America Institute analysis of internal account and card data released Friday. The ratio has increased in the past two years, and is much higher than for other generations. In part that's because Gen Z consumers, many of whom still hold entry-level positions and make less than their older peers, tend to spend a bigger share of their incomes on necessities including rent and utilities. But they're also more likely to shell out on discretionary categories like travel and entertainment. Spending in non-essentials among that cohort is up more than 25% from a year ago -- substantially above the overall rate.

While the report noted that Gen Z workers are still garnering robust pay gains compared to older groups, it showcases a point of vulnerability as households' views of the economy dim. [...] The Bank of America report also pointed to a worsening labor market for younger Americans. The number of Gen Z households receiving unemployment benefits rose by nearly a third in the past year -- the most of any generation. It also noted that, with underemployment on the rise, that could have long-term career effects for that cohort.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://news.slashdot.org/story/25/03/14/2136247/gen-z-americans-dont-have-enough-saved-to-cover-a-single-month-of-spending?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

The IRS is pausing its technology modernization efforts to reassess its strategy in light of AI advancements. Reuters reports: The agency will review a number of technology modernization initiatives that have been taken in recent years, including a new direct free filing system for tax returns that was launched last year under the Biden administration, the official told reporters. The official said the IRS did not have a specific number of staff cuts in mind as a result of the technology pause, but said there would be an opportunity to "realign the workforce to those new ways of doing business."

[ Read more of this story ]( https://yro.slashdot.org/story/25/03/14/2128204/us-irs-to-re-evaluate-modernization-investments-in-light-of-ai-technology?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Google announced today that Gemini will replace Google Assistant on Android phones later in 2025. "[T]he classic Google Assistant will no longer be accessible on most mobile devices or available for new downloads on mobile app stores," says Google in a blog post. "Additionally, we'll be upgrading tablets, cars and devices that connect to your phone, such as headphones and watches, to Gemini. We're also bringing a new experience, powered by Gemini, to home devices like speakers, displays and TVs." 9to5Google reports: There will be an exception for phones running Android 9 or earlier and don't have at least 2 GB of RAM, with the existing Assistant experience remaining in place for those users. Google replacing Assistant follows new Android phones, including Pixel, Samsung, OnePlus, and Motorola, launched in the past year making Gemini the default experience. Meanwhile, the company says "millions of people have already made the switch."

Before Assistant's sunset, Google is "continuing to focus on improving the quality of the day-to-day Gemini experience, especially for those who have come to rely on Google Assistant." In winding down Google Assistant, the company notes how "natural language processing and voice recognition technology unlocked a more natural way to get help from Google" in 2016.
Further reading: Google's Gemini AI Can Now See Your Search History

[ Read more of this story ]( https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/03/14/2121205/google-is-officially-replacing-assistant-with-gemini?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: In an email sent to customers today, Amazon said that Echo users will no longer be able to set their devices to process Alexa requests locally and, therefore, avoid sending voice recordings to Amazon's cloud. Amazon apparently sent the email to users with "Do Not Send Voice Recordings" enabled on their Echo. Starting on March 28, recordings of everything spoken to the Alexa living in Echo speakers and smart displays will automatically be sent to Amazon and processed in the cloud.

Attempting to rationalize the change, Amazon's email said: "As we continue to expand Alexa's capabilities with generative AI features that rely on the processing power of Amazon's secure cloud, we have decided to no longer support this feature." One of the most marketed features of Alexa+ is its more advanced ability to recognize who is speaking to it, a feature known as Alexa Voice ID. To accommodate this feature, Amazon is eliminating a privacy-focused capability for all Echo users, even those who aren't interested in the subscription-based version of Alexa or want to use Alexa+ but not its ability to recognize different voices.
[...] Amazon said in its email today that by default, it will delete recordings of users' Alexa requests after processing. However, anyone with their Echo device set to "Don't save recordings" will see their already-purchased devices' Voice ID feature bricked. Voice ID enables Alexa to do things like share user-specified calendar events, reminders, music, and more. Previously, Amazon has said that "if you choose not to save any voice recordings, Voice ID may not work." As of March 28, broken Voice ID is a guarantee for people who don't let Amazon store their voice recordings. Amazon's email continues: "Alexa voice requests are always encrypted in transit to Amazon's secure cloud, which was designed with layers of security protections to keep customer information safe. Customers can continue to choose from a robust set of controls by visiting the Alexa Privacy dashboard online or navigating to More - Alexa Privacy in the Alexa app."

Further reading: Google's Gemini AI Can Now See Your Search History

[ Read more of this story ]( https://yro.slashdot.org/story/25/03/14/2113257/everything-you-say-to-your-echo-will-be-sent-to-amazon-starting-on-march-28?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Fitness tracking platform Strava has terminated user accounts for uploading running activities recorded in North Korea, citing U.S. sanctions that prohibit offering online services to the country. A doctoral student researching North Korea had her account deleted after uploading a run recorded during a visit to the country. Another user was banned for a virtual treadmill workout set in North Korea, though their account was later reinstated.

"In accordance with mandatory U.S. sanctions and export controls, Strava does not allow users to post activities occurring there," the company told technology blogger Ray Maker in a statement. Unlike Strava, other major tech platforms including YouTube, Facebook and Apple do not appear to restrict content created in North Korea from being uploaded once users return home.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://slashdot.org/story/25/03/14/2034209/strava-bans-user-for-running-in-north-korea?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

way2trivial shares a report: Microsoft is testing AI-powered summaries in Notepad. In an update rolling out to Windows Insiders in the Canary and Dev channels, you'll be able to summarize information in Notepad by highlighting a chunk of text, right-clicking it, and selecting Summarize.

Notepad will then generate a summary of the text, as well as provide an option to change its length. You can also generate summaries by selecting text and using the Ctrl + M shortcut or choosing Summarize from the Copilot menu.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://slashdot.org/story/25/03/14/2027208/ai-summaries-are-coming-to-notepad?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Tens of thousands of JPMorgan Chase software engineers increased their productivity 10% to 20% by using a coding assistant tool developed by the bank, its global chief information officer Lori Beer said. From a report: The gains present "a great opportunity" for the lender to assign its engineers to other projects, Beer told Reuters ahead of DevUp, an internal conference hosted by JPMorgan, bringing together its top engineers in India this year. The largest lender in the U.S. had a technology budget of $17 billion for 2024. Its tech workforce of 63,000 employees, with a third of them based in India, represents about 21% of its global headcount. The efficiency gains from the coding assistant will also allow JPMorgan's engineers to devote more time to high-value projects focusing on artificial intelligence and data, Beer said.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://developers.slashdot.org/story/25/03/14/2020232/jpmorgan-engineers-efficiency-jumps-as-much-as-20-from-using-coding-assistant?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Компания Microsoft восстановила в каталоге Visual Studio Marketplace дополнения к редактору кода VSCode - "Material Theme" и "Material Theme Icons", насчитывающие 3.9 и 5.4 миллионов установок, а также сняла блокировку с учётной записи разработчика. Две недели назад данные дополнения были удалены из-за подозрений на наличие вредоносного кода. В итоге оказалось, что дополнения были удалены по ошибке, так как произошло ложное срабатывание инструментария и недосмотр сотрудников при проверке.

https://www.opennet.ru/opennews/art.shtml?num=62885

A controversial VAR (Video Assistant Referee) decision helped eliminate Atletico Madrid from the Champions League after Julian Alvarez's penalty was disallowed for a near-microscopic double touch. Despite referee Szymon Marciniak standing just feet away and missing the infraction, VAR officials intervened without the typically required "clear and obvious error" standard.

This incident has exemplified the paradox of video review technology in football: introduced to reduce controversies, VAR has instead multiplied them. Technical implementation varies significantly across competitions -- some MLS stadiums have fewer cameras available for review than others -- creating inconsistent application. The Premier League claims VAR increased correct decisions from 82% to 96%, yet the remaining errors dominate match-day discourse. The Guardian adds: VAR incidents are now so endemic that Norway's clubs were compelled to vote on whether use of the technology should be scrapped two weeks ago. Ultimately, they decided to stick with VAR, even though most of the country's professional clubs want rid of it.

In the Norwegian league, the use of VAR has become so unpopular that fans felt they had no choice but to pelt the field with fishcakes in protest, which may or may not be A Norwegian Thing. Ultimately, the decision on whether to keep or scrap VAR devolved into a power struggle of a sort between Norway's 32 top professional clubs and the federation. Whereas the vote to introduce VAR -- which Norway didn't adopt until 2023, years later than most European countries -- was conducted by those pro teams alone, the decision to scrap it was voted on by every club in the country.

Several amateur clubs told the Guardian they felt conflicted about being dragged into a fight about a technology not in use at their level. Had it been left up to the pros, VAR would have been scrapped, by a 19-13 margin. Instead, the federation orchestrated a vote among all the country's clubs to force the retention of VAR -- and avoid becoming the first nation to scrap it -- prevailing by 321 votes to 129.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/03/14/1746200/var-technology-faces-backlash-following-champions-league-controversy?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

China has introduced regulations requiring service providers to label AI-generated content, joining similar efforts by the European Union and United States to combat disinformation. The Cyberspace Administration of China and three other agencies announced Friday that AI-generated material must be labeled explicitly or via metadata, with implementation beginning September 1.

"The Labeling Law will help users identify disinformation and hold service suppliers responsible for labeling their content," the CAC said. App store operators must verify whether applications provide AI-generated content and review their labeling mechanisms. Platforms can still offer unlabeled AI content if they comply with relevant regulations and respond to user demand.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://slashdot.org/story/25/03/14/1732237/china-announces-generative-ai-labeling-to-cull-disinformation?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Major technology companies are heavily promoting AI agents as transformative tools for work, but industry insiders say no one can agree on what these systems actually are, according to TechCrunch. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said agents will "join the workforce" this year, while Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella predicted they will replace certain knowledge work. Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff declared his company's goal to become "the number one provider of digital labor in the world."

The definition problem has worsened recently. OpenAI published a blog post defining agents as "automated systems that can independently accomplish tasks," but its developer documentation described them as "LLMs equipped with instructions and tools." Microsoft distinguishes between agents and AI assistants, while Salesforce lists six different categories of agents.
"I think that our industry overuses the term 'agent' to the point where it is almost nonsensical," said Ryan Salva, senior director of product at Google, told TechCrunch. Andrew Ng, founder of DeepLearning.ai, blamed marketing: "The concepts of AI 'agents' and 'agentic' workflows used to have a technical meaning, but about a year ago, marketers and a few big companies got a hold of them." Analysts say this ambiguity threatens to create misaligned expectations as companies build product lineups around agents.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://slashdot.org/story/25/03/14/179218/no-one-knows-what-the-hell-an-ai-agent-is?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Apple is planning a new AirPods feature that allows the earbuds to live-translate an in-person conversation into another language, Bloomberg reports, citing people with knowledge of the matter. From the report: The capability will be offered as part of an AirPods software upgrade due later this year, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the effort is private. It will be tied to iOS 19, the upcoming update to Apple's mobile-device operating system.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://apple.slashdot.org/story/25/03/14/1519214/apple-plans-airpods-feature-that-can-live-translate-conversations?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

The US government's tariff announcements have become a "big headache" for technology companies such as iPhone maker Apple and cloud service provider Amazon, their manufacturing partner Foxconn said on Friday, in a rare public admission of the disruption caused by President Donald Trump's erratic trade policy. Financial Times: "The issue of tariffs is something that is giving the CEOs of our customers a big headache now," chief executive Young Liu told investors on an earnings call. "Judging by the attitude and the approach we see the US government taking towards tariffs, it is very, very hard to predict how things will develop over the next year. So we can only concentrate on doing well what we can control."

Liu said the company's customers were "one after another" hatching plans for co-operating with Foxconn on manufacturing in the US. He declined to give details as those plans were not yet finalised, but said there should be "more and more" manufacturing in the US.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://news.slashdot.org/story/25/03/14/146202/tariffs-are-proving-big-headache-for-tech-giants-says-foxconn?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Windows Defender has begun identifying WinRing0 -- a kernel-level driver used by numerous hardware monitoring applications -- as malicious software, causing widespread functionality issues for affected tools. The driver, which provides low-level hardware access necessary for reading fan speeds, controlling RGB lighting, and monitoring system components, is being quarantined due to potential security vulnerabilities that could be exploited by malware.

WinRing0 gained popularity among developers because it's one of only two freely available Windows drivers capable of accessing the SMBus registers needed for hardware monitoring functions. The affected applications include Fan Control, OpenRGB, MSI Afterburner, LibreHardwareMonitor, and multiple others that rely on this driver to communicate with system hardware.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://it.slashdot.org/story/25/03/14/1351225/windows-defender-now-flags-winring0-driver-as-security-threat-breaking-multiple-pc-monitoring-tools?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

After raising rates last June for customers on some of its older plans, T-Mobile is pushing up costs again -- but it's not entirely clear how many people are affected. From a report: According to a memo obtained by CNET and sent to T-Mobile employees early this morning, some people will see a $5 per-line increase beginning with their April or May bills.

The memo by Jon Freier, president of T-Mobile's consumer group, states that customers affected by the price hike should be notified by the end of today, March 13. Only those who receive a notice will see the rate increase.

Freier cites the "rising costs over the past several years" as the impetus behind the price push. Other carriers are facing the same headwinds, such as Verizon last December and this January, and AT&T last January and June.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/03/14/1320221/t-mobile-raising-rates-for-more-legacy-customers?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

[ MPD ]( https://www.musicpd.org/ ) (Music Player Daemon) — это гибкое, мощное, серверное приложение для воспроизведения музыки. С помощью плагинов и библиотек он может воспроизводить различные звуковые файлы, при этом управляясь по своему сетевому протоколу.

По словам разработчика [ Макса Келлерманна ]( https://github.com/MaxKellermann/ ) , это заняло более трёх лет (извините за долгую задержку), и за эти годы накопилось множество новых возможностей: улучшенная поддержка многоканальности, улучшенные разделы, множество новых протокольных возможностей, поддержка NFS4, …

( [ читать дальше... ]( https://www.linux.org.ru/news/multimedia/17912041#cut ) )

Также обновлён консольный клиент [ ncmpc ]( https://raw.githubusercontent.com/MusicPlayerDaemon/ncmpc/v0.52/NEWS ) до версии 0.52.

Компания "РОСА" представила мобильную операционную систему РОСА Мобайл 2.0 (ROSA Mobile), адаптированную для российского смартфона Р-ФОН. Окружение РОСА Мобайл основано на открытой платформы Plasma Mobile, развиваемой проектом KDE. РОСА Мобайл отличается переработкой интерфейса, своим набором пиктограмм и поставкой дополнительных приложений.

https://www.opennet.ru/opennews/art.shtml?num=62883

The GSM Association has released new specifications for RCS messaging incorporating end-to-end encryption (E2EE) based on the Messaging Layer Security protocol, six months after iOS 18 introduced RCS compatibility.

The specifications ensure messages remain secure between Android and iOS devices, making RCS "the first large-scale messaging service to support interoperable E2EE between client implementations from different providers," said GSMA Technical Director Tom Van Pelt.

The system combines E2EE with SIM-based authentication to strengthen protection against scams and fraud. Apple confirmed it "helped lead a cross industry effort" on the standard and will implement support in future software updates without specifying a timeline. Google's RCS implementation has featured default E2EE since early 2024.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://it.slashdot.org/story/25/03/14/130255/rcs-messaging-adds-end-to-end-encryption-between-android-and-ios?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Представлен выпуск новой стабильной ветки WebKitGTK 2.48.0, порта браузерного движка WebKit для платформы GTK. WebKitGTK позволяет использовать все возможности WebKit через GNOME-ориентированный программный интерфейс на основе GObject и может применяться для интеграции средств обработки web-контента в любые приложения, от использования в специализированных HTML/CSS-парсерах, до создания полнофункциональных web-браузеров. Из известных проектов, использующих WebKitGTK, можно отметить штатный браузер GNOME (Epiphany). Ранее WebKitGTK применялся в браузере Midori, но после перехода проекта в руки Astian Foundation старый вариант Midori на WebKitGTK был заброшен и создан принципиально другой продукт с тем же названием Midori.

https://www.opennet.ru/opennews/art.shtml?num=62882

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: On Saturday, a developer using Cursor AI for a racing game project hit an unexpected roadblock when the programming assistant abruptly refused to continue generating code, instead offering some unsolicited career advice. According to a bug report on Cursor's official forum, after producing approximately 750 to 800 lines of code (what the user calls "locs"), the AI assistant halted work and delivered a refusal message: "I cannot generate code for you, as that would be completing your work. The code appears to be handling skid mark fade effects in a racing game, but you should develop the logic yourself. This ensures you understand the system and can maintain it properly."

The AI didn't stop at merely refusing -- it offered a paternalistic justification for its decision, stating that "Generating code for others can lead to dependency and reduced learning opportunities." [...] The developer who encountered this refusal, posting under the username "janswist," expressed frustration at hitting this limitation after "just 1h of vibe coding" with the Pro Trial version. "Not sure if LLMs know what they are for (lol), but doesn't matter as much as a fact that I can't go through 800 locs," the developer wrote. "Anyone had similar issue? It's really limiting at this point and I got here after just 1h of vibe coding." One forum member replied, "never saw something like that, i have 3 files with 1500+ loc in my codebase (still waiting for a refactoring) and never experienced such thing."

Cursor AI's abrupt refusal represents an ironic twist in the rise of "vibe coding" -- a term coined by Andrej Karpathy that describes when developers use AI tools to generate code based on natural language descriptions without fully understanding how it works. While vibe coding prioritizes speed and experimentation by having users simply describe what they want and accept AI suggestions, Cursor's philosophical pushback seems to directly challenge the effortless "vibes-based" workflow its users have come to expect from modern AI coding assistants.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://developers.slashdot.org/story/25/03/13/2349245/ai-coding-assistant-refuses-to-write-code-tells-user-to-learn-programming-instead?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Доступен выпуск прослойки DXVK 2.6, предоставляющей реализацию DXGI (DirectX Graphics Infrastructure), Direct3D 8, 9, 10 и 11, работающую через трансляцию вызовов в API Vulkan. Для использования DXVK требуется наличие драйверов с поддержкой API Vulkan 1.3, таких как Mesa RADV 24.0, NVIDIA 535.183.01, Intel ANV 24.0, AMDVLK 2024.Q1.3, AMDGPU-PRO и NVK 24.1. DXVK может применяться для запуска 3D-приложений и игр в Linux при помощи Wine, выступая в качестве более высокопроизводительной альтернативы встроенных в Wine реализаций Direct3D, работающих поверх OpenGL.

https://www.opennet.ru/opennews/art.shtml?num=62881

Breakthrough Energy, the climate group founded by Bill Gates, has laid off dozens of employees in the U.S. and Europe, eliminating its public policy and partnerships teams as it shifts away from advocacy work. Its investment and grantmaking divisions will remain unaffected. The Detroit News reports: Breakthrough Energy is an umbrella organization founded by Gates that houses various initiatives aimed at accelerating the clean energy transition. It also encompasses Breakthrough Energy Ventures, one of the biggest investors in early-stage climate technologies with stakes in more than 120 companies, as well as a grantmaking program for early-seed stage company founders and Breakthrough Catalyst, a funding platform focused on emergent climate technologies. None of those divisions of the group were impacted by cuts, which were reported earlier by the New York Times.

[...] "In the United States especially, the conversation about climate has been sidetracked by politics," Gates wrote in the introduction to his 2021 book. "Some days, it can seem as if we have little hope of getting anything done." The climate pullback is happening at the same time as the US cuts foreign aid, a field where Gates is also a major donor. His nonprofit, the Gates Foundation, operates with a budget of billions and has a strong focus on overseas development. "Bill Gates remains as committed as ever to advancing the clean energy innovations needed to address climate change," a Breakthrough Energy spokesperson said in an emailed statement. "His work in this area will continue and is focused on helping drive reliable affordable, clean energy solutions that will enable people everywhere to thrive."

On Wednesday, the EPA announced the agency will "undertake 31 historic actions in the greatest and most consequential day of deregulation in U.S. history..."

[ Read more of this story ]( https://news.slashdot.org/story/25/03/13/2342216/bill-gates-climate-group-lays-off-us-europe-policy-teams?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

11 марта состоялся первый значительный выпуск 1.0.0 библиотеки двухмерной векторной графики [ PlutoVG ]( https://github.com/sammycage/plutovg ) , написанной на языке C и распространяемой по лицензии MIT. У библиотеки нет сторонних зависимостей.

Возможности библиотеки:

• стили рисования линий;

• сплошное, градиентное и текстурное закрашивание;

• шрифты и текст;

• обрезка и композиция;

• трансформации;

• изображения.

( [ читать дальше... ]( https://www.linux.org.ru/news/development/17911913#cut ) )

Участники технического комитета организации CNCF (Cloud Native Computing Foundation), входящей в состав Linux Foundation, утвердили принятие проекта Cozystack, развивающий платформу для построения приватных облаков и PaaS. Cozystack получил статус sandbox-проекта CNCF. Разработчиками Cozystack начат процесс интеграции с инфраструктурой CNCF.

https://www.opennet.ru/opennews/art.shtml?num=62877

Представлен выпуск интегрированной среды разработки Qt Creator 16, предназначенной для создания кроссплатформенных приложений с использованием библиотеки Qt. Поддерживается как разработка классических программ на языке C++, так и использование языка QML, в котором для определения сценариев используется JavaScript, а структура и параметры элементов интерфейса задаются CSS-подобными блоками. Готовые сборки сформированы для Linux, Windows и maсOS.

https://www.opennet.ru/opennews/art.shtml?num=62880

A new study published in the Journal of Geophysical Research Planets reveals that atmospheric gravity waves play a crucial role in driving latitudinal air currents on Mars, particularly at high altitudes. Phys.Org reports: The study applied methods developed to explore Earth's atmosphere to quantitatively estimate the influence of gravity waves on Mars' planetary circulation. [...] "On Earth, large-scale atmospheric waves caused by the planet's rotation, known as Rossby waves, are the primary influence on the way air circulates in the stratosphere, or the lower part of the middle atmosphere. But our study shows that on Mars, gravity waves (GWs) have a dominant effect at the mid and high latitudes of the middle atmosphere," said Professor Kaoru Sato from the Department of Earth and Planetary Science. "Rossby waves are large-scale atmospheric waves, or resolved waves, whereas GWs are unresolved waves, meaning they are too fine to be directly measured or modeled and must be estimated by more indirect means."

Not to be confused with gravitational waves from massive stellar bodies, GWs are an atmospheric phenomenon when a packet of air rises and falls due to variations in buoyancy. That oscillating motion is what gives rise to GWs. Due to the small-scale nature of them and the limitations of observational data, researchers have previously found it challenging to quantify their significance in the Martian atmosphere. So Sato and her team turned to the Ensemble Mars Atmosphere Reanalysis System (EMARS) dataset, produced by a range of space-based observations over many years, to analyze seasonal variations up there.

"We found something interesting, that GWs facilitate the rapid vertical transfer of angular momentum, significantly influencing the meridional, or north-south, in the middle atmosphere circulations on Mars," said graduate student Anzu Asumi. "It's interesting because it more closely resembles the behavior seen in Earth's mesosphere rather than in our stratosphere. This suggests existing Martian atmospheric circulation models may need to be refined to better incorporate these wave effects, potentially improving future climate and weather simulations."

[ Read more of this story ]( https://science.slashdot.org/story/25/03/13/2334233/mars-middle-atmosphere-appears-driven-by-gravity-waves?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

TOP10 VISITORS:

[1] 45.135.180.x point=221 web=0 up=18.3MB (35%) <--- yesterlink (9/hr)
[2] 37.252.14.x point=144 web=0 up=17.7MB (34%) <--- ake (6/hr)
[3] 80.87.199.x point=70 web=0 up=6.8MB (13%) <--- tgi (3/hr)
[4] Facebook point=0 web=404 up=4.4MB (8%)
[5] 24.130.121.x point=26 web=6 up=1.9MB (3%) <--- spnet (1/hr)
[6] 217.114.158.x point=25 web=0 up=0.9MB (1%) <--- fox (1/hr)
[7] ChatGPT point=3 web=4 up=0.4MB (<1%) <--- ChatGPT
[8] TikTok point=0 web=107 up=0.3MB (<1%)
[9] Amazon point=2 web=11 up=0.3MB (<1%) <--- Amazon
[10] Google point=4 web=53 up=0.3MB (<1%) <--- Google

TOTAL TRAFFIC: 51MB

An anonymous reader quotes a report from 404 Media: Last week, Aix Marseille University, France's largest university, invited American scientists who believe their work is at risk of being censored by Donald Trump administration's anti-science policies to continue their research in France. Today, the university announced that it is already seeing great interest from scientists at NASA, Yale, Stanford, and other American schools and government agencies, and that it wants to expand the program to other schools and European countries to absorb all the researchers who want to leave the United States. "We are witnessing a new brain drain," Eric Berton, Aix Marseille University's president, said in a press release. "We will do everything in our power to help as many scientists as possible continue their research. However, we cannot meet all demands on our own. The Ministry of Education and Research is fully supporting and assisting us in this effort, which is intended to expand at both national and European levels."

The press release from the university claims that researchers from Stanford, Yale, NASA, the National Institute of Health, George Washington University, "and about 15 other prestigious institutions," are now considering "scientific exile." More than 40 American scientists have expressed interest in the program, it said. Their key research areas are "health (LGBT+ medicine, epidemiology, infectious diseases, inequalities, immunology, etc.), environment and climate change (natural disaster management, greenhouse gases, social impact, artificial intelligence), humanities and social sciences (communication, psychology, history, cultural heritage), astrophysics."

"The current Executive Orders have led to a termination of one of my research grants. While it was not a lot of money, it was a high profile, large national study," one researcher who has reached out to Aix Marseille University in order to take advantage of the program told me. 404 Media granted the researcher anonymity because speaking about the program might jeopardize their current position at a leading American university. "While I have not had to lay off staff as a result of that particular cancellation, I will have to lay off staff if additional projects are terminated. Everything I focus on is now a banned word." The program, called "Safe Place for Science," initially will fund 15 researchers with 15 million Euros. Aix Marseille University says that it is already working closely with the regional government and France's Chamber of Commerce and Industry "to facilitate the arrival of these scientists and their families in the region, offering support with employment, housing, school access, transportation, and visas." "We are doing what is necessary to provide them with the best living environment. We are ready to welcome them and will make them true children of the country!" Renaud Muselier, President of the Regional Council of Provence-Alpes-Cote d'Azur, said in a statement.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://science.slashdot.org/story/25/03/13/2324251/nasa-yale-and-stanford-scientists-consider-scientific-exile?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

In late 2023, the FBI alerted the Littleton Electric Light and Water Departments (LELWD) that it had been breached by a Chinese-state-sponsored hacking group for over 300 days. With the help of cybersecurity firm Dragos and Department of Energy-funded sensors, LELWD confirmed the intrusion, identified the hackers' movements, and ultimately restructured its network to remove them. PCMag reports: At the time, LELWD had been installing sensors from cybersecurity firm Dragos with the help of Department of Energy grants awarded by the American Public Power Association (APPA). "The sensors helped LELWD confirm the extent of the malicious activity on the system and pinpoint when and where the attackers were going on the utility's networks," the APPA said last year. Today, Dragos released a case study (PDF) about the hack, which it blamed on Voltzite, a "sophisticated threat group...that overlaps with Volt Typhoon."

The call from the FBI forced Dragos "to deploy quickly and bypass the planned onboarding timeline" for the LELWD, it says. It discovered that Volt Typhoon "had persistent access to LELWD's network." Hackers were looking for specific data related to [operational technology] operating procedures and spatial layout data relating to energy grid operations," Dragos tells SecurityWeek. In the end, Dragos confirmed the compromised systems did not contain "customer-sensitive data," and LEWLD changed their network architecture to kick Volt Typhoon out, the case study says. Groups like Volt Typhoon, "don't always go for high-profile targets first," said Ensar Seker, Chief Security Officer at SOCRadar. "Small, underfunded utilities can serve as low-hanging fruit, allowing adversaries to test tactics, develop footholds, and pivot toward larger targets."

[ Read more of this story ]( https://it.slashdot.org/story/25/03/13/229240/chinese-hackers-sat-undetected-in-small-massachusetts-power-utility-for-months?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Yale University has suspended a law scholar and pro-Palestinian activist after an AI-generated article from Jewish Onliner falsely linked her to a terrorist group. Gizmodo reports: Helyeh Doutaghi, the scholar at Yale Law School, told the New York Times that she is a "loud and proud" supporter of Palestinian rights. "I am not a member of any organization that would constitute a violation of U.S. law." The article that led to her suspension was published in Jewish Onliner, a Substack that says it is "empowered by A.I. capabilities." The website does not publish the names of its authors out of fear of harassment. Ironically, Doutaghi and Yale were reportedly the subject of intense harassment after Jewish Onliner published the article linking Doutaghi to terrorism by citing appearances she made at events sponsored by Samidoun, a pro-Palestinian group. [...]

Jewish Onliner is vague about how it uses AI to produce its articles, but the technology is known for making lots of mistakes and hallucinating information that is not true. It is quite possible that Jewish Onliner relied on AI to source information it used to write the article. That could open it up to liability if it did not perform fact-checking and due diligence on its writing. Besides the fact that Doutaghi says she is not a member of Samidoun, she attended events it sponsored that support Palestinian causes, Yale Law School said the allegations against her reflect "potential unlawful conduct."

[ Read more of this story ]( https://news.slashdot.org/story/25/03/13/2156226/yale-suspends-palestine-activist-after-ai-article-linked-her-to-terrorism?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

On March 9, older Chromecast and Chromecast Audio devices stopped working due to an expired device authentication certificate authority that made them untrusted by Google's apps. While unofficial apps like VLC continue to function, Google's fix will require either updating client apps to bypass the issue or replacing the expired certificates, a process that could take weeks; however, Google has since announced it is beginning a gradual rollout of a fix. The Register reports: Tom Hebb, a former Meta software engineer and Chromecast hacker, has published a detailed analysis of the issue and suggests a fix could take more than a month to prepare. He's also provided workarounds here for folks to try in the meantime. We spoke to Hebb, and he says the problem is this expired device authentication certificate authority. [...] The fix is not simple. It's either going to involve a bit of a hack with updated client apps to accept or workaround the situation, or somehow someone will need to replace all the key pairs shipped with the devices with ones that use a new valid certificate authority. And getting the new keys onto devices will be a pain as, for instance, some have been factory reset and can't be initialized by a Google application because the bundled cert is untrusted, meaning the client software needs to be updated anyway.

Given that the product family has been discontinued, teams will need to be pulled together to address this blunder. And it does appear to be a blunder rather than planned or remotely triggered obsolescence; earlier Chromecasts have a longer certificate validity, of 20 years rather than 10. "Google will either need to put in over a month of effort to build and test a new Chromecast update to renew the expired certificates, or they will have to coordinate internally between what's left of the Chromecast team, the Android team, the Chrome team, the Google Home team, and iOS app developers to push out new releases, which almost always take several days to build and test," Hebb explained. "I expect them to do the latter. A server-side fix is not possible."

So either a week or so to rush out app-side updates to tackle the problem, or much longer to fix the problem with replaced certs. Polish security researcher Maciej Mensfeld also believes the outage is most likely due to an expired device authentication certificate authority. He's proposed a workaround that has helped some users, at least. Hebb, meanwhile, warns more certificate authority expiry pain is looming, with the Chromecast Ultra and Google Home running out in March next year, and the Google Home Mini in January 2027.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/03/13/2149238/as-chromecast-outage-drags-on-fix-could-be-days-to-weeks-away?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Meta plans to test out X's algorithm for Community Notes to crowdsource fact-checks that will appear across Facebook, Instagram, and Threads. In a blog, Meta said the testing in the U.S. would begin March 18, with about 200,000 potential contributors already signed up. Anyone over 18 with a Meta account more than six months old can also join a waitlist of users who will "gradually" and "randomly" be admitted to write and rate cross-platform notes during initial beta testing.

Meta claimed that borrowing X's approach would result in "less biased" fact-checking than relying on experts alone. But the social media company will delay publicly posting any notes until it's confident that the system is working. For users of Meta platforms, notes could help flag misleading content overlooked by prior fact-checking efforts. However, Meta confirmed that users will not be allowed to add notes correcting misleading advertisements, which means notes won't help reduce scam ads that The Guardian reported last August have been spreading on Facebook for years. Meta confirmed that the company plans to tweak X's algorithm over time to develop its own version of community notes, which "may explore different or adjusted algorithms to support how Community Notes are ranked and rated."

[ Read more of this story ]( https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/03/13/2056224/meta-plans-to-test-and-tinker-with-xs-community-notes-algorithm?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Mozilla is urging Firefox users to update their browsers to version 128 or later (or ESR 115.13 for extended support users) before March 14, 2025, to avoid security risks and add-on disruptions caused by the expiration of a key root certificate. "On 14 March a root certificate (the resource used to prove an add-on was approved by Mozilla) will expire, meaning Firefox users on versions older than 128 (or ESR 115) will not be able to use their add-ons," warns a Mozilla blog post. "We want developers to be aware of this in case some of your users are on older versions of Firefox that may be impacted." BleepingComputer reports: A Mozilla support document explains that failing to update Firefox could expose users to significant security risks and practical issues, which, according to Mozilla, include:

- Malicious add-ons can compromise user data or privacy by bypassing security protections.
- Untrusted certificates may allow users to visit fraudulent or insecure websites without warning.
- Compromised password alerts may stop working, leaving users unaware of potential account breaches.

It is noted that the problem impacts Firefox on all platforms, including Windows, Android, Linux, and macOS, except for iOS, where there's an independent root certificate management system. Mozilla says that users relying on older versions of Firefox may continue using their browsers after the expiration of the certificate if they accept the security risks, but the software's performance and functionality may be severely impacted.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://news.slashdot.org/story/25/03/13/2052239/mozilla-warns-users-to-update-firefox-before-certificate-expires?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Ancient Slashdot reader Alain Williams shares a report from the BBC: Meta has won an emergency ruling in the US to temporarily stop a former director of Facebook from promoting or further distributing copies of her memoir. The book, Careless People by Sarah Wynn-Williams, who used to be the company's global public policy director, includes a series of critical claims about what she witnessed during her seven years working at Facebook.

Facebook's parent company, Meta, says the ruling -- which orders her to stop promotions "to the extent within her control" -- affirms that "the false and defamatory book should never have been published." The UK publisher Macmillan says it is "committed to upholding freedom of speech" and Ms Wynn-Williams' "right to tell her story." [You can also hear Ms Wynn-Williams interviewed in the BBC Radio 4 Media Show on March 12.]

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei raised a few eyebrows on Monday after suggesting that advanced AI models might someday be provided with the ability to push a "button" to quit tasks they might find unpleasant. Amodei made the provocative remarks during an interview at the Council on Foreign Relations, acknowledging that the idea "sounds crazy."

"So this is -- this is another one of those topics that's going to make me sound completely insane," Amodei said during the interview. "I think we should at least consider the question of, if we are building these systems and they do all kinds of things like humans as well as humans, and seem to have a lot of the same cognitive capacities, if it quacks like a duck and it walks like a duck, maybe it's a duck."

Amodei's comments came in response to an audience question from data scientist Carmem Domingues about Anthropic's late-2024 hiring of AI welfare researcher Kyle Fish "to look at, you know, sentience or lack of thereof of future AI models, and whether they might deserve moral consideration and protections in the future." Fish currently investigates the highly contentious topic of whether AI models could possess sentience or otherwise merit moral consideration. "So, something we're thinking about starting to deploy is, you know, when we deploy our models in their deployment environments, just giving the model a button that says, 'I quit this job,' that the model can press, right?" Amodei said. "It's just some kind of very basic, you know, preference framework, where you say if, hypothesizing the model did have experience and that it hated the job enough, giving it the ability to press the button, 'I quit this job.' If you find the models pressing this button a lot for things that are really unpleasant, you know, maybe you should -- it doesn't mean you're convinced -- but maybe you should pay some attention to it."

Amodei's comments drew immediate skepticism on X and Reddit.

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An anonymous reader shares a report: Citigroup plans to dramatically reduce its reliance on IT contractors and hire thousands of employees for IT as the lender grapples with regulatory punishments over data governance and deficient controls. Citigroup's head of technology Tim Ryan told staff in recent weeks that the bank aims to cut back external contractors to 20% of those working in IT from the current 50%, according to an internal presentation to employees seen by Reuters.

The briefing did not give a precise time horizon for the changes. As part of the overhaul, Citi will replenish the ranks by hiring more staff, and aims to have 50,000 employees in technology, up from 48,000 in 2024, the presentation showed. "Citi is growing our internal technology capabilities to support our strategy to improve safety and soundness, enable revenue growth and drive efficiencies," Citi said in a statement to Reuters.

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Google is continuing its quest to get more people to use Gemini, and it's doing that by giving away even more AI computing. From a report: Today, Google is releasing a raft of improvements for the Gemini 2.0 models, and as part of that upgrade, some of the AI's most advanced features are now available to free users. You'll be able to use the improved Deep Research to get in-depth information on a topic, and Google's newest reasoning model can peruse your search history to improve its understanding of you as a person.

[...] With the aim of making Gemini more personal to you, Google is also plugging Flash Thinking Experimental into a new source of data: your search history. Google stresses that you have to opt in to this feature, and it can be disabled at any time. Gemini will even display a banner to remind you it's connected to your search history so you don't forget.

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OpenAI has warned the U.S. government that restricting AI models from learning from copyrighted material would threaten America's technological leadership against China, according to a proposal submitted [PDF] to the Office of Science and Technology Policy for the AI Action Plan.

In its March 13 document, OpenAI argues its AI training aligns with fair use doctrine, saying its models don't replicate works but extract "patterns, linguistic structures, and contextual insights" without harming commercial value of original content. "If the PRC's developers have unfettered access to data and American companies are left without fair use access, the race for AI is effectively over. America loses, as does the success of democratic AI," OpenAI stated.

The Microsoft-backed startup criticized European and UK approaches that allow copyright holders to opt out of AI training, claiming these restrictions hinder innovation, particularly for smaller companies with limited resources. The proposal comes as China-based DeepSeek recently released an AI model with capabilities comparable to American systems despite development at a fraction of the cost.

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