The US's largest pension fund has classified more than $3 billion of holdings in oil drillers, coal miners, and other major greenhouse gas producers as climate-friendly investments, according to a new analysis of public records. From a report: Stakes in Saudi Aramco, Chevron Corp. and Chinese coal company Inner Mongolia Dian Tou Energy are among the holdings that California Public Employees' Retirement System labeled as "climate solutions." The findings are part of a report from California Common Good, a coalition of environmental advocates and public sector unions. The group, which has called for Calpers to divest from major oil and gas companies, is staging protests Tuesday at Chevron's San Francisco Bay Area refinery and in the burn zone of the Eaton fire near Los Angeles.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://news.slashdot.org/story/25/03/11/1436211/california-pension-fund-labels-chevron-and-saudi-aramco-as-climate-investments?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

A critical root certificate expiring on March 14, 2025 will disable extensions and potentially break DRM-dependent streaming services for Firefox users running outdated browsers. Users must update to at least Firefox 128 or ESR 115.13+ to maintain functionality across Windows, macOS, Linux, and Android platforms.

The expiration additionally compromises security infrastructure, including blocklists for malicious add-ons, SSL certificate revocation lists, and password breach notifications. Even those on legacy operating systems (Windows 7/8/8.1, macOS 10.12â"10.14) must update to minimum ESR 115.13+.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://news.slashdot.org/story/25/03/11/1446251/firefox-certificate-expiration-threatens-add-ons-streaming-on-march-14?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader shares a report: The average American workday now concludes at 4:39 p.m., a notable 36 minutes earlier than it did just two years ago when the clock-out time hovered around 5:21 p.m, according to the latest data from the workforce analytics and productivity software company ActivTrak.

The new report tracked the workplace behaviors of over 200,000 employees across 777 companies. Despite the shorter workday, the data suggests that overall productivity has increased by about 2%. Per ActivTrak, employees now engage in focused, 24-minute spurts of productivity.

"I hope to see these numbers remain consistent year-over-year when it comes to workday span and productivity," said Gabriela Mauch, the head of ActivTrak's Productivity Lab. "These are healthy numbers. We've adapted to a traditional workday on average, while offering flexibility and fluidity in a way that meets employees where they are." Seasonal fluctuations are another notable factor, the report found. Workers tend to put in longer hours during August and December. The August increase aligns with employees returning from vacation and starting to scramble to meet end-of-year goals, Mauch said. It may be that organizations also see the month of December as another chance to catch up, she added.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://slashdot.org/story/25/03/11/166203/half-past-four-is-the-new-five-oclock-in-more-efficient-workday?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Nearly every country on Earth has dirtier air than doctors recommend breathing, a report has found. From a report: Only seven countries met the World Health Organization's guidelines for tiny toxic particles known as PM2.5 last year, according to analysis from the Swiss air quality technology company IQAir. Australia, New Zealand and Estonia were among the handful of countries with a yearly average of no more than 5ug of PM2.5 per cubic metre, along with Iceland and some small island states.

The most polluted countries were Chad, Bangladesh, Pakistan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and India. PM2.5 levels in all five countries were at least 10 times higher than guideline limits in 2024, the report found, stretching as much as 18 times higher than recommended levels in Chad. Doctors say there are no safe levels of PM2.5, which is small enough to slip into the bloodstream and damage organs throughout the body, but have estimated millions of lives could be saved each year by following their guidelines. Dirty air is the second-biggest risk factor for dying after high blood pressure.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://news.slashdot.org/story/25/03/11/1648211/only-seven-countries-worldwide-meet-who-dirty-air-guidelines-study-shows?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Businesses, governments, and researchers continue to struggle with extracting usable data from PDF files, despite AI advances. These digital documents contain valuable information for everything from scientific research to government records, but their rigid formats make extraction difficult.

"PDFs are a creature of a time when print layout was a big influence on publishing software," Derek Willis, a lecturer in Data and Computational Journalism at the University of Maryland, told ArsTechnica. This print-oriented design means many PDFs are essentially "pictures of information" requiring optical character recognition (OCR) technology.

Traditional OCR systems have existed since the 1970s but struggle with complex layouts and poor-quality scans. New AI language models from companies like Google and Mistral now attempt to process documents more holistically, with varying success. "Right now, the clear leader is Google's Gemini 2.0 Flash Pro Experimental," Willis notes, while Mistral's recent OCR solution "performed poorly" in tests.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://it.slashdot.org/story/25/03/11/1726218/why-extracting-data-from-pdfs-remains-a-nightmare-for-data-experts?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Abstract of a paper published on Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Management:The adoption of digital menus accessed through quick response (QR) codes has witnessed a notable upsurge. Despite potential benefits for restaurant operators, the nuanced effects of QR code menus on customer behavior and experience remain relatively unknown. This research investigates the influence of menu presentation (QR code vs. traditional) on customer loyalty. In two studies, we find that QR code menus diminish customer loyalty (compared to traditional menus) due to perceived inconvenience. This effect is further moderated by customers' need for interaction. Our work is timely in highlighting the negative impact of perceptions of inconvenience on technology adoption.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://science.slashdot.org/story/25/03/11/1755217/the-surprising-impact-of-qr-code-menus-on-diminishing-customer-loyalty?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Southwest Airlines boasts that its passengers' "bags fly free" -- but not for long. From a report: Starting May 28 -- just in time for the busy summer travel season -- only Southwest's most elite Rapid Rewards A-List Preferred members and passengers who book their top-tier Business Select fares will receive two free checked bags. Frequent flyer A-List Members, Southwest-branded credit card holders and other select customers will be allowed one checked bag.

Everyone else will be charged for their first and second checked bags on flights booked on or after May 28, the carrier says. It's a break with Southwest's 54 year history -- one that could undermine customer loyalty to the carrier, according to experts. "This is how you destroy a brand. This is how you destroy customer preference. This is how you destroy loyalty. And this, I think, is going to send Southwest into a financial tailspin," airline industry analyst Henry Harteveldt, of Atmosphere Research Group, told CBS News senior transportation correspondent Kris Van Cleave. "Southwest, with these changes, becomes just another airline."

[ Read more of this story ]( https://news.slashdot.org/story/25/03/11/1859238/southwest-airlines-to-end-free-checked-bags-policy-for-first-time-in-its-54-year-history?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Герамсим Троеглазов (3dEyes) собрал свежие версии браузера Firefox 136, а также основанный на данной ветке браузер LibreWolf 136 и почтовый клиент ThunderBird 136.

https://www.opennet.ru/opennews/art.shtml?num=62858

Компания Сollabora сообщила о принятии в кодовую базу проекта Mesa изменения, заменяющего OpenGL-драйвер, применяемый по умолчанию для GPU NVIDIA, начиная с микроархитектуры Turing. В следующем выпуске Mesa 25.1 вместо OpenGL-драйвера Nouveau (nvc0) для подобных GPU будет применяться разработанный в Сollabora OpenGL-драйвер Zink в связке с Vulkan-драйвером NVK. По сравнению с Nouveau драйвер Zink демонстрирует более высокую производительность во многих тестах и не подвержен проблемам, проявляющихся в Nouveau при работе на новых GPU NVIDIA.

https://www.opennet.ru/opennews/art.shtml?num=62860

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Register: Vodafone is warning staff in the UK to work onsite at least eight days a month or be subject to disciplinary action from April. Group UK employees were last week sent the "Hybrid Working at Vodafone" memo -- seen by The Register -- to highlight the policy and tell them to expect a year-end conversation with their line manager. "You will have read in Get Ready for Year-End Conversations and a Hybrid Working Reminder [documents] that your line manager may discuss hybrid working with you as part of your year-end conversation. "We therefore want to remind everyone of the Group UK Hybrid Working policy. It's essential that all employees adhere to the expectation of being in the office 2-3 times a week, or at least eight days a month," it states.

"Employees who are not fully compliant with our hybrid working policy by the end of Q1 may be subject to disciplinary action in line with policy. Continued non-compliance with attendance expectations could result in a final written warning, which would mean individuals are not meeting the minimum performance standards and therefore would not be eligible for a bonus in 2026 or in subsequent years in which a final warning is given." Line managers can ask team members to attend the office on a specific day if reasonable notice is given and are advised to set team days to "help teach members to form a pattern." Vodafone has operated a hybrid work policy since 2021 "following the pandemic." "Vodafone's hybrid working policy has been in place since 2021, with all employees expected to be in the office 2-3 times a week, or at least eight days a month," said the company in a statement. "This allows flexibility for staff, and for them to benefit from in-office collaboration."

[ Read more of this story ]( https://slashdot.org/story/25/03/11/1953254/vodafone-tells-employees-to-follow-rto-policy-or-lose-bonuses?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Spain's government has approved legislation imposing substantial fines of up to 35 million euros or 7% of global turnover on companies that fail to clearly label AI-generated content. Reuters reports: The bill adopts guidelines from the European Union's landmark AI Act imposing strict transparency obligations on AI systems deemed to be high-risk, Digital Transformation Minister Oscar Lopez told reporters. "AI is a very powerful tool that can be used to improve our lives ... or to spread misinformation and attack democracy," he said. Spain is among the first EU countries to implement the bloc's rules, considered more comprehensive than the United States' system that largely relies on voluntary compliance and a patchwork of state regulations. Lopez added that everyone was susceptible to "deepfake" attacks - a term for videos, photographs or audios that have been edited or generated through AI algorithms but are presented as real. [...]

The bill also bans other practices, such as the use of subliminal techniques - sounds and images that are imperceptible - to manipulate vulnerable groups. Lopez cited chatbots inciting people with addictions to gamble or toys encouraging children to perform dangerous challenges as examples. It would also prevent organizations from classifying people through their biometric data using AI, rating them based on their behavior or personal traits to grant them access to benefits or assess their risk of committing a crime. However, authorities would still be allowed to use real-time biometric surveillance in public spaces for national security reasons.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://news.slashdot.org/story/25/03/11/200242/spain-to-impose-massive-fines-for-not-labeling-ai-generated-content?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

The Ballista botnet is actively exploiting a high-severity remote code execution flaw (CVE-2023-1389) in TP-Link Archer AX-21 routers, infecting over 6,000 devices primarily in Brazil, Poland, the UK, Bulgaria, and Turkey. Tom's Hardware reports: According to a new report from the Cato CTRL team, the Ballista botnet exploits a remote code execution vulnerability that directly impacts the TP-Link Archer AX-21 router. The botnet can lead to command injection which then makes remote code execution (RCE) possible so that the malware can spread itself across the internet automatically. This high severity security flaw (tracked as CVE-2023-1389) has also been used to spread other malware families as far back as April 2023 when it was used in the Mirai botnet malware attacks. The flaw also linked to the Condi and AndroxGh0st malware attacks.

Ballista's most recent exploitation attempt was February 17, 2025 and Cato CTRL first detected it on January 10, 2025. Of the thousands of infected devices, the majority of them are concentrated in Brazil, Poland, the United Kingdom, Bulgaria and Turkey; with the botnet targeting manufacturing, medical/healthcare, services and technology organizations in the United States, Australia, China and Mexico.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://it.slashdot.org/story/25/03/11/207242/thousands-of-tp-link-routers-have-been-infected-by-a-botnet-to-spread-malware?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Washington Post: An Amazon-backed self-driving taxi failed to meet vehicle safety standardsbecause it lacks basics like a brake pedal and rearview mirrors, according to a report by federal inspectors that raises questions about the industry's plans to put a new generation of autonomous vehicles on U.S. roads. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration report was produced as part of a review last year of an unusual vehicle by Amazon subsidiary Zoox that, without a steering wheel or other human controls, has no way for a person to drive. Zoox has asserted that the vehicle's technology, backed by artificial intelligence, complies with the agency's standards. But the NHTSA report documents "apparent noncompliances" with eight safety rules.

The contents of the previously undisclosed review suggest that rules written when autonomous vehicles were the stuff of futuristic musings pose a legal impediment to the industry's ambitions, even as plans for self-driving vehicles accelerate. Zoox has a small pilot fleet on the roads in California and Nevada and says it has completed thousands of trips carrying employees and guests. It is finalizing plans to launch public service in Las Vegas this year. [...] By documenting the apparent noncompliances of the Zoox, NHTSA could be setting the table for a recall, under agency procedures. It is unclear whether the Trump administration will attempt a change in course. The agency said it remains in discussion with Zoox and was "considering all options."

Zoox could have sought an exemption from the safety rules, but NHTSA has never granted one to an autonomous passenger vehicle. Instead, the company self-certified that its vehicle complied with the rules as it raced to be the first company to put a purpose-built robotaxi on the road and claim a share of what could become a multi trillion-dollar market. Zoox's vehicle bears little resemblance to a normal car. The plan is for customers to summon a ride using an app, much like a regular ride-hailing vehicle, getting in through bus-like doors and sitting facing one another. The vehicle navigates itself, seeing the world through a set of cameras and laser-based sensors. It largely relies on its own abilities to drive, but the company says teams of remote operators can seize control to help handle unusual situations. Passengers can call for assistance via a touch screen and open the doors using an emergency release. "We will continue to support transportation technology innovation while maintaining the safety of America's roads," NHTSA said in a statement.

"Our recent discussions with NHTSA are about mirrors, windshield wipers, a defroster, and a foot-activated brake pedal -- equipment that makes sense for vehicles with human drivers, but not for the Zoox purpose-built robotaxi," Zoox said in a statement. "Our purpose-built design means that the robotaxi can never be operated by a human driver, and our AI driver doesn't rely on this equipment to view the world."

[ Read more of this story ]( https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/03/11/2015220/zoox-robotaxis-do-not-meet-federal-safety-standards-agency-says?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

A new chapter has begun for two of the world's most popular preprint platforms, bioRxiv and medRxiv, with the launch of a non-profit organization that will manage them, their co-founders announced today. From a report: The servers allow researchers to share manuscripts for free before peer review and have become an integral part of publishing biology and medical research. Until now, they had been managed by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) in New York. The new organization, named openRxiv, will have a board of directors and a scientific and medical advisory board. It is supported by a fresh US$16-million grant from the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI), the projects' main financial backer.

"It's just exciting to see this key piece of infrastructure really get the attention that it deserves as a dedicated initiative," says Katie Corker, executive director of ASAPbio, a scientist-driven non-profit organization, which is based in San Francisco, California. Preprints are "the backbone of the scientific publishing ecosystem, maybe especially at the current moment, when there's a lot of worries about who has control of information."

The launch of openRxiv "reflects a maturation of the projects," which started as an experiment at CSHL, says Richard Sever, a co-founder of both servers and chief science and strategy officer at openRxiv. It has "become so important that they should have their own organization running them, which is focused on the long-term sustainability of the servers, as opposed to being a side project within a big research institution," says Sever.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://science.slashdot.org/story/25/03/11/2031217/preprint-sites-biorxiv-and-medrxiv-launch-new-era-of-independence?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Microsoft is ending support of its Remote Desktop app for Windows on May 27th. From a report: If you use the Remote Desktop app to connect to Windows 365, Azure Virtual Desktop, or Microsoft Dev Box machines then you'll have to transition to the Windows app instead.

The new Windows app, which launched in September, includes multimonitor support, dynamic display resolutions, and easy access to cloud PCs and virtual desktops. Microsoft says "connections to Windows 365, Azure Virtual Desktop, and Microsoft Dev Box via the Remote Desktop app from the Microsoft Store will be blocked after May 27th, 2025."

[ Read more of this story ]( https://it.slashdot.org/story/25/03/11/2037221/microsoft-is-replacing-remote-desktop-with-its-new-windows-app?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

MojoKid writes: AMD just launched its latest flagship desktop processors, the Ryzen 9 9950X3D. Ryzen 9 9950X3D is a 16-core/32-thread, dual-CCD part with a base clock of 4.3GHz and a max boost clock of 5.7GHz. There's also 96MB of second-gen 3D V-Cache on board. Standard Ryzen 9000 series processors feature 32MB of L3 cache per compute die, but with the Ryzen 9 9950X3D, one compute die is outfitted with an additional 96MB of 3D V-Cache, bringing the total L3 up to 128MB (144MB total cache). The CCD outfitted with 3D V-Cache operates at more conservative voltages and frequencies, but the bare compute die is unencumbered.

The Ryzen 9 9950X3D turns out to be a high-performance, no-compromise desktop processor. Its complement of 3D V-Cache provides tangible benefits in gaming, and AMD's continued work on the platform's firmware and driver software ensures that even with the Ryzen 9 9950X3D's asymmetrical CCD configuration, performance is strong across the board. At $699, it's not cheap but its a great CPU for gaming and content creation, and one of the most powerful standard desktop CPUs money can buy currently.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/25/03/11/2126204/amd-ryzen-9-9950x3d-with-3d-v-cache-impresses-in-launch-day-testing?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Sphere Entertainment Co, the company behind the Las Vegas Sphere, said they are considering opening scaled-down versions of the immersive venue in other cities. AV Magazine reports: While this has been been feasible for its high-profile residencies such as U2, the Eagles, Dead & Company and Anyma, smaller venues could attract a broader range of artists who might not have the budget or demand to fill the flagship Las Vegas location. By scaling down the size while retaining the signature technology, Sphere Entertainment Co can offer a similar spectacle at a more sustainable cost for artists and spectators.

The possibility of mini-Spheres follows news that a full-scale venue will open in the UAE as a result of a partnership between Sphere Entertainment Co and the Department of Culture and Tourism -- Abu Dhabi. Beyond concerts, the Las Vegas Sphere has proven successful with immersive films such as V-U2: An Immersive Concert Film and the Sphere Expeience featuring Darren Aronofsky's Postcard from Earth, which In January passed 1,000 screenings. "As we enter a new fiscal year, we see significant opportunities to drive our Sphere business forward in Las Vegas and beyond," said Dolan. "We believe we are on a path toward realizing our vision for this next-generation medium and generating long-term shareholder value."

[ Read more of this story ]( https://entertainment.slashdot.org/story/25/03/11/2143232/team-behind-las-vegas-sphere-plans-5000-capacity-mini-spheres?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: There's a power crunch looming as AI and cloud providers ramp up data center construction. But a new report suggests that a solution lies beneath their foundations. Advanced geothermal power could supply nearly two-thirds of new data center demand by 2030, according to an analysis by the Rhodium Group. The additions would quadruple the amount of geothermal power capacity in the U.S. -- from 4 gigawatts to about 16 gigawatts -- while costing the same or less than what data center operators pay today. In the western U.S., where geothermal resources are more plentiful, the technology could provide 100% of new data center demand. Phoenix, for example, could add 3.8 gigawatts of data center capacity without building a single new conventional power plant.

Geothermal resources have enormous potential to provide consistent power. Historically, geothermal power plants have been limited to places where Earth's heat seeps close to the surface. But advanced geothermal techniques could unlock 90 gigawatts of clean power in the U.S. alone, according to the U.S. Department of Energy. [...] Because geothermal power has very low running costs, its price is competitive with data centers' energy costs today, the Rhodium report said. When data centers are sited similarly to how they are today, a process that typically takes into account proximity to fiber optics and major metro areas, geothermal power costs just over $75 per megawatt hour. But when developers account for geothermal potential in their siting, the costs drop significantly, down to around $50 per megawatt hour.

The report assumes that new generating capacity would be "behind the meter," which is what experts call power plants that are hooked up directly to a customer, bypassing the grid. Wait times for new power plants to connect to the grid can stretch on for years. As a result, behind the meter arrangements have become more appealing for data center operators who are scrambling to build new capacity.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://news.slashdot.org/story/25/03/11/2149222/geothermal-could-power-nearly-all-new-data-centers-through-2030?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: On Tuesday, OpenAI unveiled a new "Responses API" designed to help software developers create AI agents that can perform tasks independently using the company's AI models. The Responses API will eventually replace the current Assistants API, which OpenAI plans to retire in the first half of 2026. With the new offering, users can develop custom AI agents that scan company files with a file search utility that rapidly checks company databases (with OpenAI promising not to train its models on these files) and navigate websites -- similar to functions available through OpenAI's Operator agent, whose underlying Computer-Using Agent (CUA) model developers can also access to enable automation of tasks like data entry and other operations.

However, OpenAI acknowledges that its CUA model is not yet reliable for automating tasks on operating systems and can make unintended mistakes. The company describes the new API as an early iteration that it will continue to improve over time. Developers using the Responses API can access the same models that power ChatGPT Search: GPT-4o search and GPT-4o mini search. These models can browse the web to answer questions and cite sources in their responses. That's notable because OpenAI says the added web search ability dramatically improves the factual accuracy of its AI models. On OpenAI's SimpleQA benchmark, which aims to measure confabulation rate, GPT-4o search scored 90 percent, while GPT-4o mini search achieved 88 percent -- both substantially outperforming the larger GPT-4.5 model without search, which scored 63 percent.

Despite these improvements, the technology still has significant limitations. Aside from issues with CUA properly navigating websites, the improved search capability doesn't completely solve the problem of AI confabulations, with GPT-4o search still making factual mistakes 10 percent of the time. Alongside the Responses API, OpenAI released the open source Agents SDK, providing developers free tools to integrate models with internal systems, implement safeguards, and monitor agent activities. This toolkit follows OpenAI's earlier release of Swarm, a framework for orchestrating multiple agents.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://developers.slashdot.org/story/25/03/11/2154229/openai-pushes-ai-agent-capabilities-with-new-developer-api?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Longtime Slashdot reader schwit1 shares a report from Behind The Black: According to information at this tweet from anonymous sources, parts of Starship will likely require a major redesign due to the spacecraft's break-up shortly after stage separation on its last two test flights. These are the key take-aways, most of which focus on the redesign of the first version of Starship (V1) to create the V2 that flew unsuccessfully on those flights:

- Hot separation also aggravates the situation in the compartment.
- Not related to the flames from the Super Heavy during the booster turn.
- This is a fundamental miscalculation in the design of the Starship V2 and the engine section.
- The fuel lines, wiring for the engines and the power unit will be urgently redone.
- The fate of S35 and S36 is still unclear. Either revision or scrap.
- For the next ships, some processes may be paused in production until a decision on the design is made.
- The team was rushed with fixes for S34, hence the nervous start. There was no need to rush.
- The fixes will take much longer than 4-6 weeks.
- Comprehensive ground testing with long-term fire tests is needed. [emphasis mine]

It must be emphasized that this information comes from leaks from anonymous sources, and could be significantly incorrect. It does however fit the circumstances, and suggests that the next test flight will not occur in April but will be delayed for an unknown period beyond.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://science.slashdot.org/story/25/03/11/2159228/anonymous-sources-starship-needs-a-major-rebuild-after-two-consecutive-failures?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Андерс Хейлсберг (Anders Hejlsberg), главный архитектор языка TypeScript, в своё время создавший языки C#, Delphi и Turbo Pascal, представил проект по созданию нового компилятора для TypeScript - typescript-go (tsgo), разрабатываемый на языке Go. Как и старый компилятор новый проект распространяется под лицензией Apache 2.0.

https://www.opennet.ru/opennews/art.shtml?num=62861

После года разработки компания CodeWeavers выпустила релиз пакета Crossover 25.0, основанного на коде Wine и предназначенного для выполнения программ и игр, написанных для платформы Windows. CodeWeavers входит в число ключевых участников проекта Wine, спонсирует его разработку и возвращает в проект все новшества, реализованные для своих коммерческих продуктов. Исходные тексты открытых компонентов CrossOver 25.0 можно загрузить на данной странице.

https://www.opennet.ru/opennews/art.shtml?num=62862

Доступен корректирующий выпуск Firefox 136.0.1, в котором устранена проблема с неверным ограничением размера Cookie (максимальный размер был задан в 1024 байт вместо 4096), приводившим к сбоям на сайтах, использующих API CookieStore для управления Cookie. Также устранена ошибка, из-за которой комбинация клавиш Ctrl+L не переводила фокус на адресную строку в новых окнах.

https://www.opennet.ru/opennews/art.shtml?num=62863

Компания Mozilla опубликовала возражение против рекомендаций, внесённых Министерство юстиции США в рамках антимонопольного разбирательства, в котором Google был признан монополистом на рынке поисковых систем. В рекомендации упомянут запрет на все платежи разработчикам браузеров за направление трафика в поисковую систему. По мнению Mozilla, если суд утвердит данное предложение, это нанесёт удар по независимым браузерам, существующим благодаря соглашениям с поисковыми системами. Вместо развития конкуренции в поиске, решение подорвёт конкуренцию среди браузеров и усложнит противостояние доминирующим корпорациям, таким как Google, Apple и Microsoft.

https://www.opennet.ru/opennews/art.shtml?num=62864

AmiMoJo shares a report from Electrek: The U.S. installed 50 gigawatts (GW) of new solar capacity in 2024, the largest single year of new capacity added to the grid by any energy technology in over two decades. That's enough to power 8.5 million households. According to the U.S. Solar Market Insight 2024 Year in Review report (PDF) released today by the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) and Wood Mackenzie, solar and storage account for 84% of all new electric generating capacity added to the grid last year.

In addition to historic deployment, surging U.S. solar manufacturing emerged as a landmark economic story in 2024. Domestic solar module production tripled last year, and at full capacity, U.S. factories can now produce enough to meet nearly all demand for solar panels in the U.S. Solar cell manufacturing also resumed in 2024, strengthening the U.S. energy supply chain. [...] Total US solar capacity is expected to reach 739 GW by 2035, but the report forecasts include scenarios showing how policy changes could impact the solar market. [...] The low case forecast shows a 130 GW decline in solar deployment over the next decade compared to the base case, representing nearly $250 billion of lost investment.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/25/03/11/2133237/solar-adds-more-new-capacity-to-the-us-grid-in-2024-than-any-energy-source-in-20-years?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

После года разработки представлен релиз GStreamer 1.26, кроссплатформенного набора компонентов для создания широкого спектра мультимедиа приложений, от медиаплееров и конвертеров аудио/видео файлов, до VoIP-приложений и систем потокового вещания. Код GStreamer распространяется под лицензией LGPLv2.1. Отдельно развиваются обновления плагинов gst-plugins-base, gst-plugins-good, gst-plugins-bad, gst-plugins-ugly, а также обвязка gst-libav и сервер потокового вещания gst-rtsp-server. На уровне API и ABI новый выпуск обратно совместим с веткой 1.0. Бинарные сборки в скором времени будут подготовлены для Android, iOS, macOS и Windows (в Linux рекомендуется использовать пакеты из дистрибутива).

https://www.opennet.ru/opennews/art.shtml?num=62865

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Register: New York State has sued Allstate Insurance for operating websites so badly designed they would deliver personal information in plain-text to anyone that went looking for it. The data was lifted from Allstate's National General business unit, which ran a website for consumers who wanted to get a quote for a policy. That task required users to input a name and address, and once that info was entered, the site searched a LexisNexis Risk Solutions database for data on anyone who lived at the address provided. The results of that search would then appear on a screen that included the driver's license number (DLN) for the given name and address, plus "names of any other drivers identified as potentially living at that consumer's address, and the entire DLNs of those other drivers."

Naturally, miscreants used the system to mine for people's personal information for fraud. "National General intentionally built these tools to automatically populate consumers' entire DLNs in plain text -- in other words, fully exposed on the face of the quoting websites -- during the quoting process," the court documents [PDF] state. "Not surprisingly, attackers identified this vulnerability and targeted these quoting tools as an easy way to access the DLNs of many New Yorkers," according to the lawsuit. The digital thieves then used this information to "submit fraudulent claims for pandemic and unemployment benefits," we're told. ... [B]y the time the insurer resolved the mess, crooks had built bots that harvested at least 12,000 individuals' driver's license numbers from the quote-generating site.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://yro.slashdot.org/story/25/03/11/225252/allstate-insurance-sued-for-delivering-personal-info-in-plaintext?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Amazon, Alphabet's Google and Meta Platforms on Wednesday said they support efforts to at least triple nuclear energy worldwide by 2050. From a report: The tech companies signed a pledge first adopted in December 2023 by more than 20 countries, including the U.S., at the U.N. Climate Change Conference. Financial institutions including Bank of America, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley backed the pledge last year.

The pledge is nonbinding, but highlights the growing support for expanding nuclear power among leading industries, finance and governments. Amazon, Google and Meta are increasingly important drivers of energy demand in the U.S. as they build out AI centers. The tech sector is turning to nuclear power after concluding that renewables alone won't provide enough reliable power for their energy needs. Microsoft and Apple did not sign the statement.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/25/03/12/1350256/amazon-google-and-meta-support-tripling-nuclear-power-by-2050?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Morgan Stanley has reduced its iPhone shipment forecasts after Apple confirmed the delay of a more advanced Siri personal assistant, dampening prospects for accelerating phone upgrades. The investment bank now predicts 230 million iPhone shipments in 2025 (flat year-over-year) and 243 million in 2026 (up 6%), down from previous estimates.

An upgraded Siri was the most sought-after Apple Intelligence feature among prospective buyers, according to the bank's survey data. "Access to Advanced AI Features" appeared as a top-five driver of smartphone upgrades for the first time, with about 50% of iPhone owners who didn't upgrade to iPhone 16 citing the delayed Apple Intelligence rollout as affecting their decision. The firm also incorporated headwinds from China tariffs in its assessment, noting Apple is unlikely to fully offset these costs without broader exemptions.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://apple.slashdot.org/story/25/03/12/1416206/morgan-stanley-cuts-iphone-shipment-forecast-on-siri-upgrade-delay-china-tariffs?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Roomba maker iRobot has warned it may cease operations within 12 months unless it can refinance debt or find a buyer, just one day after launching a new vacuum cleaner line. In its March 12 quarterly report, the company disclosed it had spent $3.6 million to amend terms on a $200 million Carlyle Group loan from 2023, as U.S. revenue plunged 47% in the fourth quarter.

"Given these uncertainties and the implication they may have on the Company's financials, there is substantial doubt about the Company's ability to continue as a going concern for a period of at least 12 months from the date of the issuance of its consolidated 2024 financial statements," the company wrote.

The robot vacuum pioneer has initiated a formal strategic review after a failed Amazon acquisition, the departure of founder Colin Angle, and layoffs affecting over half its workforce. iRobot cited mounting competition from Chinese manufacturers and expects continued losses for "the foreseeable future."

[ Read more of this story ]( https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/25/03/12/1437241/roomba-maker-irobot-warns-of-possible-shutdown-within-12-months?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

IBM CEO Arvind Krishna has publicly disagreed with Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei's prediction that AI will write 90% of code within 3-6 months, estimating instead that only "20-30% of code could get written by AI."

"Are there some really simple use cases? Yes, but there's an equally complicated number of ones where it's going to be zero," Krishna said during an onstage interview at SXSW. He argued AI will boost programmer productivity rather than eliminate jobs. "If you can do 30% more code with the same number of people, are you going to get more code written or less?" he asked. "History has shown that the most productive company gains market share, and then you can produce more products."

[ Read more of this story ]( https://developers.slashdot.org/story/25/03/12/1448242/ibm-ceo-doesnt-think-ai-will-replace-programmers-anytime-soon?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Schools across the United States are increasingly using artificial intelligence to monitor students' online activities, raising significant privacy concerns after Vancouver Public Schools inadvertently released nearly 3,500 unredacted, sensitive student documents to reporters.

The surveillance software, developed by companies like Gaggle Safety Management, scans school-issued devices 24/7 for signs of bullying, self-harm, or violence, alerting staff when potential issues are detected. Approximately 1,500 school districts nationwide use Gaggle's technology to track six million students, with Vancouver schools paying $328,036 for three years of service.

While school officials maintain the technology has helped counselors intervene with at-risk students, documents revealed LGBTQ+ students were potentially outed to administrators through the monitoring.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://news.slashdot.org/story/25/03/12/1654217/us-schools-deploy-ai-surveillance-amid-security-lapses-privacy-concerns?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

The Federal Trade Commission asked a judge in Seattle to delay the start of its trial accusing Amazon of duping consumers into signing up for its Prime program, citing resource constraints. CNBC: Attorneys for the FTC made the request during a status hearing on Wednesday before Judge John Chun in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington. Chun had set a Sept. 22 start date for the trial. Jonathan Cohen, an attorney for the FTC, asked Chun for a two-month continuance on the case due to staffing and budgetary shortfalls.

The FTC's request to delay due to staffing constraints comes amid a push by the Trump administration's Department of Government Efficiency to reduce spending. DOGE, which is led by tech baron Elon Musk, has slashed the federal government's workforce by more than 62,000 workers in February alone. "We have lost employees in the agency, in our division and on our case team," Cohen said.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/03/12/176223/ftc-asks-to-delay-amazon-prime-deceptive-practices-case-citing-staffing-shortfalls?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Global sales of smartwatches have fallen for the first time, new figures indicate, in large part due to a sharp decline in the popularity of market leader, Apple. From a report: Market research firm Counterpoint says 7% fewer of the devices were shipped in 2024 compared to the year before. Shipments of Apple Watches fell by 19% in that period, Counterpoint says. It blames the slump on a lack of new features in Apple's latest devices, and the fact a rumoured high-end Ultra 3 model never materialised.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/03/12/1710248/global-smartwatch-sales-fall-for-first-time?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Разработчики композитного оконного менеджера kwin объявили о выносе из основной кодовой базы проекта компонентов, связанных с поддержкой протокола X11. Редакция kwin_x11 теперь будет сопровождаться в отдельном репозитории kwin-x11, а в основном репозитории kwin останется только редакция kwin_wayland, обеспечивающая поддержку Wayland. Обе редакции не конфликтуют между собой и могут быть установлены одновременно.

https://www.opennet.ru/opennews/art.shtml?num=62868

Several Asian airlines have tightened restrictions on portable battery chargers amid growing concerns about fire risks, following a January blaze that destroyed an Air Busan aircraft in South Korea. South Korean airlines now require passengers to keep portable chargers within arm's reach rather than in overhead bins, a rule implemented March 1 to ease public anxiety, according to the Transportation Ministry. Taiwan's EVA Air and China Airlines have banned using or charging power banks on flights but still allow them in overhead compartments.

Thai Airways announced a similar ban last Friday, citing "incidents of in-flight fires on international airlines." Battery-related incidents on U.S. airlines have increased from 32 in 2016 to 84 last year, with portable chargers identified as the most common culprit, according to Federal Aviation Administration data. The International Civil Aviation Organization has banned lithium-ion batteries from cargo holds since 2016, though no industry standard exists for regulating power banks.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://it.slashdot.org/story/25/03/12/1717207/rules-for-portable-batteries-on-planes-are-changing?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Организация Open Source Initiative (OSI), занимающаяся проверкой лицензий на предмет соответствия критериям Open Source, официально одобрила принципы Open Source, предложенные Организацией Объединённых Наций (ООН) для стимулирования сотрудничества и повсеместного внедрения открытого исходного кода в подразделениях ООН и повсеместно. Принципы выработаны сообществом Open Source United, организованном Исполнительным советом ООН в рамках программы "Сеть цифровых технологий", и определяют основу для использования, разработки и распространения открытого исходного кода во всей организации.

https://www.opennet.ru/opennews/art.shtml?num=62870

D-Wave researchers have published findings in Science demonstrating what they call "quantum supremacy" by showing their quantum annealers can solve problems beyond the reach of classical computers. The team, led by Andrew D. King, demonstrated area-law scaling of entanglement in model quench dynamics of two-, three- and infinite-dimensional spin glasses.

The research shows quantum annealers rapidly generating samples that closely match solutions to the Schrodinger equation, supporting observed stretched-exponential scaling in matrix-product-state approaches. According to the paper, D-Wave's processors completed these magnetic materials simulations in under 20 minutes, while the same calculations would require nearly a million years on Oak Ridge National Laboratory's supercomputers.

The claim hasn't gone unchallenged. Miles Stoudenmire from the Flatiron Institute's Center for Computational Quantum Physics argues that classical computers can achieve comparable results using methods developed since D-Wave's initial findings. "We're just saying, 'Look, this one problem at this one time didn't beat classical computers. Try again,'" Stoudenmire noted. The quantum computing community has increasingly shifted terminology from "supremacy" to "advantage" or "utility," focusing on solving practical business or scientific problems faster, more accurately, or more economically than classical alternatives.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/03/12/1835207/d-wave-claims-quantum-supremacy-beating-traditional-computers?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

The abstract of a paper published on National Bureau of Economic Research: We document that, after remaining almost constant for almost 30 years, real labor productivity at U.S. restaurants surged over 15% during the COVID pandemic. This surge has persisted even as many conditions have returned to pre-pandemic levels. Using mobile phone data tracking visits and spending at more than 100,000 individual limited service restaurants across the country, we explore the potential sources of the surge.

It cannot be explained by economies of scale, expanding market power, or a direct result of COVID-sourced demand fluctuations. The restaurants' productivity growth rates are strongly correlated, however, with reductions in the amount of time their customers spend in the establishments, particularly with a rising share of customers spending 10 minutes or less. The frequency of such 'take-out' customers rose considerably during COVID, even at fast food restaurants, and never went back down. The magnitude of the restaurant-level relationship between productivity and customer dwell time, if applied to the aggregate decrease in dwell time, can explain almost all of the aggregate productivity increase in our sample.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://slashdot.org/story/25/03/12/1839244/the-curious-surge-of-productivity-in-us-restaurants?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: On Wednesday, Google DeepMind announced two new AI models designed to control robots: Gemini Robotics and Gemini Robotics-ER. The company claims these models will help robots of many shapes and sizes understand and interact with the physical world more effectively and delicately than previous systems, paving the way for applications such as humanoid robot assistants. [...] Google's new models build upon its Gemini 2.0 large language model foundation, adding capabilities specifically for robotic applications. Gemini Robotics includes what Google calls "vision-language-action" (VLA) abilities, allowing it to process visual information, understand language commands, and generate physical movements. By contrast, Gemini Robotics-ER focuses on "embodied reasoning" with enhanced spatial understanding, letting roboticists connect it to their existing robot control systems. For example, with Gemini Robotics, you can ask a robot to "pick up the banana and put it in the basket," and it will use a camera view of the scene to recognize the banana, guiding a robotic arm to perform the action successfully. Or you might say, "fold an origami fox," and it will use its knowledge of origami and how to fold paper carefully to perform the task.

In 2023, we covered Google's RT-2, which represented a notable step toward more generalized robotic capabilities by using Internet data to help robots understand language commands and adapt to new scenarios, then doubling performance on unseen tasks compared to its predecessor. Two years later, Gemini Robotics appears to have made another substantial leap forward, not just in understanding what to do but in executing complex physical manipulations that RT-2 explicitly couldn't handle. While RT-2 was limited to repurposing physical movements it had already practiced, Gemini Robotics reportedly demonstrates significantly enhanced dexterity that enables previously impossible tasks like origami folding and packing snacks into Zip-loc bags. This shift from robots that just understand commands to robots that can perform delicate physical tasks suggests DeepMind may have started solving one of robotics' biggest challenges: getting robots to turn their "knowledge" into careful, precise movements in the real world. DeepMind claims Gemini Robotics "more than doubles performance on a comprehensive generalization benchmark compared to other state-of-the-art vision-language-action models."

Google is advancing this effort through a partnership with Apptronik to develop next-generation humanoid robots powered by Gemini 2.0. Availability timelines or specific commercial applications for the new AI models were not made available.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/25/03/12/2018222/googles-new-robot-ai-can-fold-delicate-origami-close-zipper-bags?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Intel has appointed Lip-Bu Tan as its new CEO in an effort to turn around the struggling chipmaker, following the resignation of Pat Gelsinger. CNBC reports: Tan was previously CEO of Cadence Design Systems, which makes software used by all the major chip designers, including Intel. He was an Intel board member but departed last year, citing other commitments. Tan replaces interim co-CEOs David Zinsner and MJ Holthaus, who took over in December when former Intel CEO Patrick Gelsinger was ousted. Tan is also rejoining Intel's board. [...] Intel shares rose over 12% in extended trading on Wednesday.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://slashdot.org/story/25/03/12/2118219/intel-appoints-lip-bu-tan-as-ceo?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

New submitter CInder123 shares a report from TechSpot: Apple is undertaking one of the most significant software overhauls in its history, aiming to revamp the user interface across iPhone, iPad, and Mac devices. This ambitious update, set for release later this year, will fundamentally transform the look and feel of Apple's operating systems, enhancing consistency and the user experience.

The updates are part of iOS 19 and iPadOS 19, codenamed "Luck," and macOS 16, dubbed "Cheer," according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. He cited sources who requested anonymity since the project has yet to be officially announced. These major upgrades will introduce a new design language while simplifying navigation and controls. Apple's push for consistency across platforms aims to create a seamless user experience when switching between devices. Currently, applications, icons, and window styles vary significantly across macOS, iOS, and visionOS, leading to a disjointed experience.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/03/12/2026229/apple-set-to-unveil-boldest-software-redesign-in-years-across-entire-ecosystem?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the EFF: EFF is deeply saddened to learn of the passing of Mark Klein, a bona fide hero who risked civil liability and criminal prosecution to help expose a massive spying program that violated the rights of millions of Americans. Mark didn't set out to change the world. For 22 years, he was a telecommunications technician for AT&T, most of that in San Francisco. But he always had a strong sense of right and wrong and a commitment to privacy. When the New York Times reported in late 2005 that the NSA was engaging in spying inside the U.S., Mark realized that he had witnessed how it was happening. He also realized that the President was not telling Americans the truth about the program. And, though newly retired, he knew that he had to do something. He showed up at EFF's front door in early 2006 with a simple question: "Do you folks care about privacy?"

We did. And what Mark told us changed everything. Through his work, Mark had learned that the National Security Agency (NSA) had installed a secret, secure room at AT&T's central office in San Francisco, called Room 641A. Mark was assigned to connect circuits carrying Internet data to optical "splitters" that sat just outside of the secret NSA room but were hardwired into it. Those splitters -- as well as similar ones in cities around the U.S. -- made a copy of all data going through those circuits and delivered it into the secret room. Mark not only saw how it works, he had the documents to prove it. He brought us over a hundred pages of authenticated AT&T schematic diagrams and tables. Mark also shared this information with major media outlets, numerous Congressional staffers, and at least two senators personally. One, Senator Chris Dodd, took the floor of the Senate to acknowledge Mark as the great American hero he was.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://news.slashdot.org/story/25/03/12/2127218/mark-klein-att-whistleblower-who-revealed-nsa-mass-spying-has-died?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

According to The Verge, Sonos has abandoned its plans to release a streaming video player this year. From the report: The news was announced by the company's leadership during an all-hands call today. That product, codenamed Pinewood, was set to be Sonos' next major hardware launch. It was already deep into development and has spent months in beta testing. But now the team behind it will be reassigned to other projects as interim CEO Tom Conrad reprioritizes the company's future roadmap and continues what he hopes will be a turnaround from a bruising 2024. He told employees that a push into video from Sonos is off the table "for now." [...]

Pinewood was designed to offer many of the same streaming video apps as other devices on the market along with deep universal search and content aggregation. But as I reported last month, Sonos also intended for it to double as an HDMI switcher and support passthrough functionality for gaming consoles, 4K Blu-ray players, and more. The box was also set to allow new configurations of surround sound systems using Sonos' many speakers.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://news.slashdot.org/story/25/03/12/2344201/sonos-cancels-its-streaming-video-player?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund (PIF) is acquiring Nianticâ(TM)s gaming division for $3.5 billion through its subsidiary Savvy Games Group. Niantic's titles include the hit mobile game Pokemon Go, Monster Hunter Now and Pikmin Bloom. "Despite launching almost a decade ago, Pokemon Go is still amongst the highest-grossing mobile games in the world, with 30 million monthly players," notes the BBC. From the report: Scopely is one of the biggest names in mobile gaming, with its most successful title, Monopoly Go, being downloaded more than 50 million times and generating more than $3 billion in revenue. Pokemon itself is jointly owned by Nintendo, Game Freak and Creatures, which licensed the brand to Niantic so it could develop the game.

Ed Wu, who leads the Pokemon Go team at Niantic, said in a blog post he believed the move was "a positive step" for the game's future. "Pokemon Go is more than just a game to me, it's my life's work," he said. "I won't say that Pokemon Go will remain the same, because it has always been a work in progress. But how we create and evolve it will remain unchanged, and I hope that we can make the experience even better."

[ Read more of this story ]( https://games.slashdot.org/story/25/03/13/000254/saudi-investment-fund-pays-35-billion-to-capture-pokemon-go?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Google says its new open-source AI model, Gemma 3, achieves nearly the same performance as DeepSeek AI's R1 while using just one Nvidia H100 GPU, compared to an estimated 32 for R1. ZDNet reports: Using "Elo" scores, a common measurement system used to rank chess and athletes, Google claims Gemma 3 comes within 98% of the score of DeepSeek's R1, 1338 versus 1363 for R1. That means R1 is superior to Gemma 3. However, based on Google's estimate, the search giant claims that it would take 32 of Nvidia's mainstream "H100" GPU chips to achieve R1's score, whereas Gemma 3 uses only one H100 GPU.

Google's balance of compute and Elo score is a "sweet spot," the company claims. In a blog post, Google bills the new program as "the most capable model you can run on a single GPU or TPU," referring to the company's custom AI chip, the "tensor processing unit." "Gemma 3 delivers state-of-the-art performance for its size, outperforming Llama-405B, DeepSeek-V3, and o3-mini in preliminary human preference evaluations on LMArena's leaderboard," the blog post relates, referring to the Elo scores. "This helps you to create engaging user experiences that can fit on a single GPU or TPU host."

Google's model also tops Meta's Llama 3's Elo score, which it estimates would require 16 GPUs. (Note that the numbers of H100 chips used by the competition are Google's estimate; DeepSeek AI has only disclosed an example of using 1,814 of Nvidia's less-powerful H800 GPUs to server answers with R1.) More detailed information is provided in a developer blog post on HuggingFace, where the Gemma 3 repository is offered.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://news.slashdot.org/story/25/03/13/0010231/google-claims-gemma-3-reaches-98-of-deepseeks-accuracy-using-only-one-gpu?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Netflix has deployed AI upscaling on the 1987-1993 sitcom "A Different World," resulting in significant visual artifacts documented by technology commentator Scott Hanselman. The AI processing, intended to enhance the original 360p footage for modern displays, has generated distortions resembling "lava lamp effects" on actors' bodies, improperly rendered mouths, and misshapen background objects including posters and tennis rackets. This marks Netflix's second controversial AI implementation in recent months, following December's AI-powered dubbing and mouth morphing on "La Palma."

[ Read more of this story ]( https://entertainment.slashdot.org/story/25/03/13/0218204/netflix-used-ai-to-upscale-a-different-world-and-its-a-melted-nightmare?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Researchers at Harvard University led the study, and it included nearly 58,000 adults in Japan who were followed for up to a year using a database of medical records from routine checkups. Researchers found that when people switched from being nondrinkers to drinkers during the study, they saw a drop in their "bad" cholesterol -- aka low-density lipoprotein cholesterol or LDL. Meanwhile, their "good" cholesterol -- aka high-density lipoprotein cholesterol or HDL -- went up when they began imbibing. HDL levels went up so much, that it actually beat out improvements typically seen with medications, the researchers noted.

On the other hand, drinkers who stopped drinking during the study saw the opposite effect: Upon giving up booze, their bad cholesterol went up and their good cholesterol went down. The cholesterol changes scaled with the changes in drinking. That is, for people who started drinking, the more they started drinking, the lower their LDL fell and higher their HDL rose. In the newly abstaining group, those who drank the most before quitting saw the biggest changes in their lipid levels.

Specifically, people who went from drinking zero drinks to 1.5 drinks per day or less saw their bad LDL cholesterol fall 0.85 mg/dL and their good HDL cholesterol go up 0.58 mg/dL compared to nondrinkers who never started drinking. For those that went from zero to 1.5 to three drinks per day, their bad LDL dropped 4.4 mg/dL and their good HDL rose 2.49 mg/dL. For people who started drinking three or more drinks per day, their LDL fell 7.44 mg/dL and HDL rose 6.12 mg/dL. For people who quit after drinking 1.5 drinks per day or less, their LDL rose 1.10 mg/dL and their HDL fell by 1.25 mg/dL. Quitting after drinking 1.5 to three drinks per day, led to a rise in LDL of 3.71 mg/dL and a drop in HDL of 3.35. Giving up three or more drinks per day led to an LDL increase of 6.53 mg/dL and a drop in HDL of 5.65. The study has been published in JAMA Network Open.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://science.slashdot.org/story/25/03/13/0016206/large-study-shows-drinking-alcohol-is-good-for-your-cholesterol-levels?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Using the Summit supercomputer at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory, researchers have modeled a key component of nucleotide excision repair (NER) called the pre-incision complex (PInC), which plays a crucial role in DNA damage repair. Their study, published in Nature Communications, provides new insights into how the PInC machinery orchestrates precise DNA excision, potentially leading to advancements in treating genetic disorders, preventing premature aging, and understanding conditions like xeroderma pigmentosum and Cockayne syndrome. Phys.Org reports: "Computationally, once you assemble the PInC, molecular dynamics simulations of the complex become relatively straightforward, especially on large supercomputers like Summit," [said lead investigator Ivaylo Ivanov, a chemistry professor at Georgia State University]. Nanoscale Molecular Dynamics, or NAMD, is a molecular dynamics code specifically designed for supercomputers and is used to simulate the movements and interactions of large biomolecular systems that contain millions of atoms. Using NAMD, the research team ran extensive simulations. The number-crunching power of the 200-petaflop Summit supercomputer -- capable of performing 200,000 trillion calculations per second -- was essential in unraveling the functional dynamics of the PInC complex on a timescale of microseconds. "The simulations showed us a lot about the complex nature of the PInC machinery. It showed us how these different components move together as modules and the subdivision of this complex into dynamic communities, which form the moving parts of this machine," Ivanov said.

The findings are significant in that mutations in XPF and XPG can lead to severe human genetic disorders. They include xeroderma pigmentosum, which is a condition that makes people more susceptible to skin cancer, and Cockayne syndrome, which can affect human growth and development, lead to impaired hearing and vision, and speed up the aging process. "Simulations allow us to zero in on these important regions because mutations that interfere with the function of the NER complex often occur at community interfaces, which are the most dynamic regions of the machine," Ivanov said. "Now we have a much better understanding of how and from where these disorders manifest."

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Джон Сигер (Jon Seager), вице-президент компании Canonical по инжинирингу и технический лидер проекта Ubuntu, представил инициативу по замене в Ubuntu системных утилит на аналоги, написанные на языке Rust. Первой целью инициативы заявлен перевод Ubuntu 25.10 на использование по умолчанию инструментария uutils вместо набора утилит GNU Coreutils. Если эксперимент будет признан удачным, то uutils также будут задействованы по умолчанию в LTS-ветке Ubuntu 26.04.

https://www.opennet.ru/opennews/art.shtml?num=62872